Ten Things I Hate About You

We're coming up on the 30-day mark to the release of Star Trek. And things are looking good. A friend of mine - basically hates the franchise. She thinks the whole damn thing is too goofy. I don't blame her; each new incarnation of the Star Trek universe appealed less and less to the general public and more to the ravenous, froth-faced fanboys who need to scale back their geektardedness and set their phasers to "Social Life".
But there is hope. For this person in question, my friend, saw a TV commercial for the film, not realising it was a Star Trek movie, and commented that she wanted to see it. Then she ate humble pie when the title card appeared. So I think Paramount might be smarter than they banked on.

But, there are things about the franchise that need to die. Things which were added to Star Trek after the original series went off the air.

10: Long, drawn out special effects shots.
This is basically true of all movies. Special effects are supposed to enhance what is already pretty good. The moment the magic takes over the material, the interest, especially in the moviegoers of the twenty-first century, dwindles. Space battles and transporters and wide shots of alien planets; okay. Gear up, and let's CGI that shit. But dousing a film in FX, like Star Trek: The Motion Picture, plods and drags the story behind it like a dying horse.

9: Opening credits that waste my time.
Overlay the credits with the beginning of the movie. Something other than a starfield or a swirly thing. Like, oh, I don't know, a sequence of the elder Spock gearing up his magical time machine. ANYTHING.

8: Treknobabble.
Fans eat this stuff for breakfast, but it's time that ODN relays and Pattern buffers be ignored. Wrapping up a plotline by clicking a laser light built into a superfuturistic doodad onto a sheet of plexiglass with a pattern printed on it is shameful at best. Closing anomalies and defeating ominous clouds don't count as quality storytelling either.

7: The fans.
This film should be wired directly to the non-Star Trek audience. I hope to GOD this picture is geared specifically toward normal people. It would be nice to see a normal people Star Trek again. Like the Original Series. It wasn't a fan-based show, since there were no fans yet.

6: Less space, more drama.
The TV show was a drama series set in space. The new shows were space shows with some drama in them. Know the difference.

5: Spock's scanner.
I hope he doesn't look into that awkward glowing bar. Whatever happened to having screens? There are screens all over the set!

4: Need for canon.
Canon is a term created by fanatics and obsessive-compulsives. If the sequel contains a contradictng fact, or if something about this Enterprise or this movie in general doesn't obey the established Star Trek canon, BOO FUCKING HOO. Let's loosen up a little. For Christ's sake, it's a TV show, not the Bible.

3: 47.
This was a running gag on the TV shows since the early 90s. The writers would throw in 47s wherever they could feasibly chuck them. Let's just put that to rest now. It wasn't funny, so it's not a gag.

2: Warp 10.
I don't know why, but I just hate that The Next Generation established that Warp 10 was "Infinite Velocity". Seems like a retarded concept, and it leaves a lot of people tossing untold number of 9s into the Warp 9 factor to make their stories ships go faster.

1: Fanfictions.
Delete them all. Burn them. Poo on them. It was probably well written with a strong arc and convincing dialogue. But it just proves how little you respect the concept of going outside and remembering what natural sunlight is all about.

This message is endorsed by Starfleet, and your mom, who wants you out of her basement now.