Star Trek: Rest in Peace, Old Friend

Personally I thought Star Trek The Motion Picture was the best of the TOS movies. I realize that's not a terribly popular opinion, but the whole franchise went downhill from there. What made Trek unique was that it was thoughtful and intelligent. Trek was "smart" science fiction (although Gene Roddenberry, Trek's creator, preferred the term "Space Opera" since there wasn't a lot of scientific basis for Treknology).

I'm the first to admit that thoughtful and intelligent doesn't sell. Roddenberry wasn't an idiot. He knew that, too, but that didn't stop him from fighting tooth and nail to make Trek what it was... Smart.

Hell, NBC threatened to kill the project entirely if Rodenberry didn't make the First Officer a man! Truth be told they wanted him to get all the women off the ship.

Unfortunately Gene's dead now, and the franchise is now corporately controlled.

There are a lot more stupid people than smart ones, so if you want to sell something you market to stupid. Paramount doesn't care about Star Trek. Paramount is a corporation. It's their job to make as much money as they can for their stockholders, so that's what they're doing. There's no money in asking people to think. "Whiz-bang" sells movies; gun fights and gasoline explosions; and that's pretty much what Star Trek delivers now.

Star trek is no longer smart Sci-Fi. Smart Sci-Fi is pretty much dead in mass media now. I think Firefly was pretty much it's last gasp. Thank God for SyFy. Without it we would never have seen the Battlestar Galactica redux, Dr. Who, Caprica...

So how do I respond to NuTrek?

Easy. I don't.

A lot of younger trekkies tell me that I'm just old and afraid of change. Maybe, but it seems to me they're the ones that are afraid of change.

The ultimate change awaiting all of us is the passage from life to death. All things die. The people who rail on about my fear of change seem to be the ones least likely to accept this.

Star Trek is no longer Star Trek.

The reaper has come and Star trek is dead. The franchise died with The Great Bird of the Galaxy. The franchise is now completely controlled by the same people that told Gene Roddenberry to "Get rid of the guy with the ears" after screening the pilot.

What Paramount's trotting out now and calling "Star Trek" is a painted lady. She's hot, sure, but Star Trek is just her street name. She's really just a sad little whore being pimped out by her corporate daddies.