Making Things Your Own and the Problem With Sequels

A while back I watched Star Trek: Enterprise for the first time, and was pleasantly surprised. I gave the series a complete pass when it was on the air. Partly because I didn't have UPN, but mostly because I'd heard such terrible things about it. Watching it now I think that the criticism was overly harsh, but I started to wonder why was it overly harsh?

There are some legitimate criticisms to be leveled at the show, but that's not what I think caused the reaction that this show got. I think the real reason is that people tend to make things their own. I did it with Star Wars, and it's one reason that I can't get into either the Expanded Universe or the prequel movies. I absorbed the originals and made them my own. I decided what the important parts of the Star Wars universe were to me, and when the work of others didn't match up with my own opinions of what made Star Wars great, then I dismissed those works.

The same is true of Star Trek. Fans of previous versions of Star Trek have decided what it was about the show that was important to them, and when Enterprise didn't focus on those elements, then they became disenchanted with it.

For example, a big criticism I've seen is the T&A elements in the show. The first episode has the busty Jolene Blalock stripped down to her underwear, and that theme is repeated in other episodes, even including a scene where Linda Park loses her top as part of a slapstick gag. There's also a fair share of beefcake. I can recall seeing comments that this kind of thing wasn't Trek. Apparently those people never watched the original series, because Trek has always had more than its fair share of T&A (and beefcake too).

Given the change in standards of broadcast media between the time of the original series and the years that Enterprise was broadcast, Enterprise is actually kind of tame when compared to the original series. Many of the costumes used in the original Star Trek revealed far more skin than those in Enterprise. The standard female uniform revealed almost as much skin as the underwear in Enterprise! Yet, Enterprise got a bad rap for it, whereas it was simply accepted as part of the show with the original series. Why?

I think it's because Trek fans have made Trek their own, and many of them considered the T&A aspect to be one of the more unimportant aspects of the original series. Finding it in Enterprise was jarring to them because they didn't consider T&A to be part of their Trek, even though it was obviously always a part of Trek in general. It was less of a factor in Next Generation, but even that part of the franchise had its risque moments, and Enterprise should have more in common with the original series than with the Next Generation, if only due to being closer to it in the fictional timeline.

Another criticism was leveled at the apparent continuity problems. Again, going back to the original series, there were huge chunks of continuity that were largely ignored by later shows. Many of the more powerful beings encountered were lucky to get even a passing mention in later shows. The fact that the first appearance of the Romulans established that their ships were incapable of faster-than-light travel was largely ignored in later stories. Probably the most well known continuity issue, the visible differences between Klingons in the original series and their later appearances, wasn't dealt with until Enterprise.

Singling out Enterprise for apparent continuity errors ignores the long history of such errors that run throughout Star Trek (and which are largely unavoidable in such a vast body of work sharing the same fictional setting).

The point of all this is that these kinds of things are true of all things where fans have an emotional investment, and make up one of the biggest problems with doing sequels of popular properties.

It's one of the reasons that I prefer to see more re-imaginings ala Battlestar Galactica and fewer sequels. Re-imaginings get to borrow the important themes and characters from a popular property without dragging all the baggage of continuity along with them.

It's something that's been done for years in Japan, and that I'd like to see done more often in American entertainment.

Geeking out on Star Trek

It's fairly common knowledge that Star Trek has sucked for some time. Just when it began sucking is a matter of debate. Some argue that it was when Voyager started. Some say it was when DS9 started. Some say it was when Next Generation started. Some say that it was after the second season of the original series. Some say it always sucked.

Well, if you're among that last group then you probably won't like this, but otherwise you just might want to check out www.startreknewvoyages.com. It's the site for one of several fan based productions of new Star Trek material. This one is a bit different for several reasons. First, rather than create new characters in the Star Trek universe it goes back and recasts the original roles with new actors. Their reasoning is that Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the others are enduring characters on their own regardless of who is playing them. Much like famous characters in plays, or certain long running series in film. I didn't like this choice at first, but after a while I got used to the idea. Second, as a setting they elected to start in the fourth year of the Enterprise's first five year mission under Captain Kirk. This sets it immediately after the end of the original third season and ties it in more closely with the canon as established by the original series and the movies. Third, they use a mix of talented fans and professionals volunteering their time, not just a bunch of fans with a video camera. Fourth, those volunteers will soon include both Walter Koenig and George Takei in special one episode guest appearances. Not just as cameos either, but apparently as the central actor for the episode they will appear in.

The costumes and sets are faithful recreations of those used on the original series, with some updates of computer screens and the like, but still keeping the feel of the original series. The acting is passable, and has improved dramatically between their "pilot" episode and their first "regular" episode. I first encountered the New Voyages a year or so ago when the "pilot" was all they had done, and I was not overly impressed. I just finished watching their first "regular" episode, In Harms Way, and found it to be far better.

One of the highlights is to see what even a small budget production like this can do with modern special effects that were impossible for the older series. Starbases are elaborate affairs busy with ship traffic. Space combats feature wide panning shots filled with movement and action. Using modern computer graphics, the special effects in this regard are arguably better than those found in Next Generation, let alone the original series.

If you want to check it out for yourself, but don't want to download all the parts of In Harms Way, then I suggest using one of the mirrors on the site to download the Center Seat vignette. It features a good sampling of the special effects along with the level of acting that you can expect. If you're still interested, then download In Harms Way. Just be aware that Center Seat includes a minor spoiler of In Harms Way.

Whatever you do, don't watch the pilot episode first. It's worth watching if you really like In Harms Way and can't wait for them to finish the next episode, but there's a reason why they decided to reclassify it as a pilot instead of leaving it as the first episode (several of the mirrors don't even have it anymore). Also, I suggest this mirror site for everything except the pilot. I had some issues with some of the parts for In Harms Way when I downloaded them off a couple of the other mirrors.