Star Trek, New and Old

Posted by Luke Arnott May 16, 2009

Today's new feature article is on John Byrne's recent Star Trek comics. I just saw the new Star Trek movie the other day, and had been reading Star Trek: Crew around the same time, so I thought it was pretty appropriate.

(Spoiler Alert!)

As for the film itself, I'm split: it's great to have a re-booted Trek after Enterprise got canceled, the new cast was better than I had hoped, and I can live with an "alternate universe" Star Trek. And Christopher Pike still ends up in a wheelchair.

(Those nerds out there with the Collector's Edition First Contact DVD can listen to the commentary track where Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore – who need no introduction if you're a Trekkie – essentially say that Star Trek had run out of steam by 2005, and needed some down time before someone else took a fresh crack at the franchise.)

There are some "buts" coming, though: I was disappointed that the philosophizing and moral dilemmas were scaled way back in the movie. (As a friend told me, "It was fun, but I'm not sure it was Star Trek") The villain was pretty lame – didn't we have renegade Romulans in the last mediocre film? When will they get the Romulans right? And (here's the biggest beef of all) with a big budget movie, why couldn't they hire some of the scientific advisors they used to have on the show? A supernova that destroys the galaxy, flying through a black hole – from the point of view of scientific plausibility, even a high school physics student can tell you that stuff is ridiculous, especially for a (once) well-researched series like Star Trek.

Anyway, getting back to Trek comics, you can read about IDW's prequel series to the movie, Star Trek: Countdown, on Suite101 starting here. I haven't read the comic yet myself, so I'm hoping it explains some details a little better....