Trekking

There's been some discontent about the Star Trek reboot, which honestly never made much sense to me. Yeah, it didn't have as much of a social message as other Treks, but was the "save the whales!" subplot in Star Trek 4 really all that? Hell, Star Trek: Generations had a much stronger message about dying and such, but no one likes that.

Anyway, I think the deal is that Star Trek has always been hard sci-fi (comparatively speaking; Isaac Asimov was not consulted) while Star Wars was soft sci-fi. The reboot took Star Trek a lot closer to the 'sci-fantasy' subgenre than before. In Star Trek 2, there's a world-destroying McGuffin, but they throw some technobabble in to justify it. In the reboot, there's also a world-destroying McGuffin, but they just go "hey, it's a world-destroying McGuffin" with the tacit acknowledgment that, c'mon, it doesn't really matter if it's plasma-injected narcelle polarity autowarp something-or-other? (Abrams did the same thing in Mission: Impossible 3, never actually saying what the McGuffin was. Again, we don't need to go into detail on just how a terrorist could use it to kill BILLIONS, but I can see how it would come off as cloying meta to just throw up your hands and go "Anti-god!")

And the ending really compounded this, maybe sending some Trekkers off with a sour taste in their mouth. Now, I've never gotten the criticism of prequels that show off an entire secret origin in their runtime, like X-Men: First Class, which shows you exactly how the Magneto/Xavier feud starts. That's, like, the entire point of the prequel. Don't we always complain when a movie is just holding back the good stuff, going through an origin story so it can get to the really interesting tale, like Green Lantern (oh, yeah, we really care about Parallax)? So it makes sense that in a Star Trek origin movie, they'd get straight to the point and end the movie with the bridge crew in place.

It works from a storytelling standpoint--Kirk's gone through his whole character arc, he's "earned" the command chair in the eyes of the audience. But in terms of hard sci-fi, you're wondering why the equivalent of a college graduate is getting his own battleship to run. It's a common thing for fantasy; witness Aragorn becoming king at the end of Lord of the Rings (imagine that in our world; the guy who killed Osama bin Laden suddenly announces he's running for President. "Did I mention I'm the great-great-grandson of Abraham Lincoln?") or every Star Wars character becoming a general by the end of Return of the Jedi? But in hard sci-fi, I think a lot of fans would've preferred the team just sharing a drink and then going their separate ways, knowing that Kirk would eventually become captain and get them back together. But that's not really such a triumphant note to end on. You don't see Star Wars ending with Leia clapping Luke on the back and saying "Nice one. Maybe they'll give you a medal someday."

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Okay, here’s (one of many) problem with comics. Joe Q. Comicwriter is looking to create a new character and he notices that every character is a grimdark stoic. So he decides to make a character who’s lighthearted and funny. Yay! Comic readers, especially fangirls, enjoy this new character and his or her adventures. Because their life isn’t an endless parade of misery, their comic is entertaining!

Then editorial notices that this character has become a solid C-lister. They decide that with a little “improvement,” this character could be the next Wolverine! But everyone knows that fanboys like serious, dark storytelling! So they get rid of the character’s fun dialogue, lovable supporting cast, and personality in general. Now this character broods and has angst and kicks ass! Editorial waits for all of comics fandom to appreciate this newly badass character and give them all the money!

Comics fandom sees this degraded, pathetic remnant of a character they once loved and freaks the fuck out. Theylikedwhen the character was goofy, and fun-loving, and had a personality. The fans that like ‘dark, mature storytelling’ stick with Batman and the Punisher—why would they be interested in Batman Lite? The fans thatalreadyliked the character sometimes stick with the character in the hopes that he’ll go back to being the slightest bit lovable, but more often abandon the stupidity. In the next big crisis, editorial sees that the character doesn’t have many fans and kills him off for drama. Fans still don’t care, but now it’s a pissed-off kind of don’t care.

Dear comic book editors, STOP DOING THIS SHIT.