When I wrote about the first of these J.J.
Abrams movies, I never thought I would be watching the second one – but there it
was on TV, during the Oscars, and I kept going back and forth between the two
channels. I was absolutely dumbstruck.
Earth
looks just like Coruscant. Kronos looks just like Zion in the Matrix
trilogy. The gunfight on Kronos looks like a game of Lasertag. The evil Admiral
who wants to start a war with the Klingons – that’s rather old. The secret
prototype starship with cutting-edge technology – been there, done that.
It all made me realize something major. We’re
not going to have movies anymore; from now on, we’re only going to have
copy-pasted rehashes of the classics we know and love. Yes. A hundred years
from now there’s gonna be so many versions of Star Trek, so many Batman
origin stories, so many Darth Vaders, so many Aragorns and James Bonds... Just
like it is with the Arthurian mythos. Really, why do you think we got so many
confusing iterations of that thing? Simply because those characters were
“popular” back then, and various authors kept retelling the same story over and
over again, with slight differences every time.
The book of Saint Kentigern stipulates that
Merlin died in the Tweed river, pierced by a spike. But Thomas Mallory says
Merlin was forever entombed in a magic cave. Which is it?
Cicero wrote that the goddess Aphrodite was a
daughter of Uranus and Hemera. But Hesiod has said that Aphrodite appeared when
Cronus cut off his father’s testicles and threw them into the sea. Again, which
is it?
Matthew wrote that Jesus on the cross said,
“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” But Luke wrote that Jesus on the
cross said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” What did he
really say, boys?
Tim Burton introduced a Joker who’d become
what he is after an accident at a chemical plant. But the Gotham TV show
now gives us a street performer / orphan Joker who died and was resurrected in
Arkham...
With Roddenberry, Spock dies after replacing
the warp core by hand. With Abrams, Kirk dies after having kicked that
damn warp core back on...
Redux and remake – with no clear end in
sight. Beloved characters don’t have a choice anymore: they’ll live forever,
and they are doomed to transform endlessly.