STAR TREK: The Beginning of the Future

Don May 15th, 2009

Highly illogical.

All the things I was afraid of turned out not to be problems. The young cast does a good job of pretending to be my old friends from Classic Star Trek, and they have all kinds of fun with the shtick that comes along with that. The movie is fun to watch, for that and other reasons.

But . . .

You knew there was going to be a “but.” This is supposed to be the story of how the original crew came together. But it can’t be. Checkov didn’t join the bridge crew until the second year of their original five-year mission. Pike was captain of the Enterprise for much more than just one day–no time has been left for his trip to Talos 4. In every episode of every canonical series (Classic, TNG, DS9, Voyager–but not the clearly apocryphal Enterprise), the planet Vulcan exists; in many of them, Miranda is alive. (“Tell my mother I feel fine”–last line of Star Trek IV). So what is going on here?

There are three logical possibilities. 1. The new movie is apocryphal. 2. The future supernova and black hole, by sending Nero and Spock back in time, have created an alternative time line, a parallel universe. 3 The future supernova and black hole, by sending Nero and Spock back in time, have altered the Trek universe timeline so that its whole history is going to be different.

In one way, the plot is a brilliant solution. Reboot the series in such a way that you don’t have to worry about nasty little inconveniences like an elaborate previously established timeline, and you can therefore do anything you want in the sequels. In another, it’s highly problematic. Which of the three options above is being actualized here? The evidence of the movie itself is inconclusive; it contains lines that could be taken as suppporting either 2 or 3. But the mere possibility of possibility 3 is deeply troubling to anyone already invested in the Trek universe. The entire history that we know has just been erased in order to make new movies? There are lots of things to like about this one, but if that is the case, well, the price is just too high.

I devoutly hope the sequel will clear this little problem up. Until then, in the immortal words of Miles O’Brien:

“I HATE temporal dynamics!”

From the bridge,

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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