JJ Abrams has a vision for his new Star Trek film. It’s a vision of a movie that isn’t just for the Star Trek nerds. As you know by now, Abrams, the creator of Alias and Lost and the director of the tepid Mission: Impossible III, has been brought on board by Paramount as a producer to revive the moribund franchise that had been driven into the ground by bad sequels and worse spin-off shows. Nobody knows what direction Abrams is taking the film – is it a reboot? A prequel? Something else? – and he’s not talking. He will say that a first draft of a script is done, and that revisions are coming next.
One thing that he will reveal is that the new film, which would technically be the 11th in the series, will be made with non-fans in mind. ‘‘On the one hand, for people who love Star Trek, the fix that they will get will be really satisfying,” he says. ”For people who’ve never seen it or know it vaguely, I think they will enjoy it equally, because the movie does not require you to know anything about Star Trek. I would actually prefer [that] people don’t know the series, because I feel like they will come to it with an open mind.”
That’s interesting – it sounds like Abrams is saying that he’ll be straying from the series in some way, whether it be in tone or continuity. I find myself weirdly excited about the prospects of the film anyway – I was a fan of the original series and really enjoyed most of the first six films, but I have not been all that nerdy about Star Trek since I was a pre-teen. Recent viewings of the original series on G4 have rekindled my love of the campy aspects of Gene Roddenberry’s original, goofy vision.
Even with Abrams’ feature film record being zero for one, I think that a radical new approach is what’s needed to breathe life into a four decade old concept. Plus, I like when fanbases get all freaked out, and the Trekkie fanbase seems to have been sleeping like a once deadly volcano for many years. I think they’re about due to erupt again and show the Browncoats who are the real kings of geekery and delusion.