The Pleasure and Secret Pleasure of Watching "Star Trek: Into Darkness"

I finally got the chance to watch this movie last night.  In what is a move indicating that the MPAA should never be allowed to bitch about "piracy" again, they chose to delay the release of this latest Star Trek film in much of latin america (and, I would presume, other parts of the "third world"), so long in fact that the DVD came out before the movie screened here.  Meaning of course that by the time the movie does come out, every latinamerican on earth will have watched this movie downloaded from the DVD on fileshare networks.  Then these asshole movie execs will have the gall to bitch about the "evils of piracy" on the one hand and how there's "no market" for sci-fi films in south america on the other.  Gang of stupid parasitic fucks.

But anyways, my point today was not to express indignation, but joy! Joy at what a great Star Trek film that really was, as proven on the one hand by how almost everyone loved it, and other other by how Star Trek Hardcore Fandom hated it.

You know, the same Star Trek Hardcore Fandom that ran Star Trek into the ground until the franchise effectively ceased to exist; at least until such time as its now-glorious revival? A revival that was managed by: A) ignoring everything the Star-trek drooling-fanboys claim is important and b) erasing the entire canon that said drooling-fanboys obsess over like a gang of talmudic scholars (only far less cool).

And so, last night, the Pundit's heart grew two sizes with glee; the first at seeing what was to me the best Star Trek movie since Star Trek VI, and the second, at massive, massive schadenfreude.  I know just enough about the Trek-fanboy's obsessions, and about the history of the series itself, to be able to identify at least many of the major points in the movie where I could see the little dipshits exploding in rage at how J.J. Abrams pissed all over their precious continuity, or did something that doesn't fit the technological or historic canon of the series, and I could imagine their impotent wailing at the fact.  And so I would laugh at odd moments while watching, to the confusion of The Wench and our host, no doubt. 

Though it is kind of tragic; and I feel absolutely no pity at all for all the poor stupid fucking nerds who feel 'put upon' by how the current stewards of the franchise wished to have a series that would actually appeal to people who bathe more than once a month, who feel outraged that the series that wasn't theirs to begin with is being 'stolen' from them by evil writers who care more about crafting a good story than ticking a list of obsessive-compulsive nerd turn-ons or having to craft their script to fit in with centuries of pseudohistory crafted by shitty mass-fiction novelists, all in outrageous effort to appeal to the "non-34-year-old-virgin" market (and no, your life-size "seven of nine" blow up doll doesn't count).

But I do sometimes think how damaged an individual you must be, to be completely incapable of appreciating the crafting of an archetypal tale, just because your flawed mind is stuck on caring about technical jargon and continuity-wankery, because you can understand those things but can't understand concepts like duty, fraternal dedication, or self-sacrifice, much less deeper philosophical issues around things like state secrecy, terrorism, whether revenge can ever be justifiable, or the militarization of society; no, because you're too busy being outraged that it "makes no sense" that they have 'trans-warp' technology in kirk's time because that contradicts the novels or that they screwed up klingon physiology or that they got to Kronos way too fast plus why haven't the tholians shown up and the ship's engines don't match the 3rd edition Star Trek Technical manual and so now your little worlds make no sense anymore.  That is fucking tragic.

So yeah, count this as one vote of profound gratitude to the people who've finally stopped running Star Trek into the ground and have made it awesome again.

RPGPundit

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