Zephyrus of the Anemoi

What will you be doing on May 8th, 2008?

I know I’m going to be at the movie theater watching Star Trek. I’ve been mildly excited for this movie since I first heard word of it. But I’ve been skeptical, too. Star Trek has always been such a hit and miss thing. The original series was something I watched quite often as a kid. I loved Star Wars more than anything. I wanted to be a Jedi, and fly the Millennium Falcon, and blow up the Death Star, and have a lightsaber duel, and, and, and…

But Star Trek was a different sort of beast for me. I didn’t get super-excited and bounce around the room like I did with Star Wars. I didn’t pretend to be Captain James T. Kirk or Mister Spock on an away mission to the surface of an unknown world. It just wasn’t my thing. But I enjoyed watching the show. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I loved it, but I certainly liked it.

And then something changed. Star Trek became something for nerds (a moniker I was given in junior high) and losers, as I aged. Star Wars received the same punishment but to a lesser degree. Many of the “cool kids” liked Star Wars also, just not to the extent that I did. But none of them liked Star Trek. And none of them would tolerate a “Trekkie” in their midst.

It was well enough then, that I stopped caring about the show before I entered junior high just because there were other things for me to focus on. And as a result, I gave Star Trek my own dash of vile and bile. Never mind the fact that my favorite “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” book was a hand-me-down Star Trek-themed novella. Ignore the fact that I really enjoyed Star Trek: The Next Generation. Everyone hated Star Trek. I had to hate it as well.

It wasn’t until high school that I really started to like Star Trek again. A friend of mine named Larry started the process. In the beginning it was just him and I giving each other grief over which was better: Star Wars or Star Trek. Obviously, I had the Force on my side. His crummy show didn’t stand a chance. But it made me realize that there were other people that liked Star Trek, too. Popular people. Even semi-cool people. It was okay to like Star Trek again.

And like that, the flood gates opened. I started watching Star Trek: TNG reruns in secret. I gave a few episodes of Deep Space Nine my undivided attention (it didn’t stick). I even watched most of the first season of Voyager. But for some reason, I could never get back behind the original series. It was just too hokey and easy to humiliate. My interest waned. I watched the movies on VHS and the later ones on DVD. But when Enterprise came out, I didn’t even give it a shot. For whatever reason, Star Trek was over for me.

Then I saw this.

The first trailer was nothing to sneeze at. Just a small teaser with a brief glimpse of the Enterprise being constructed. Big deal. But the new trailer. Oh, baby, the new trailer.

If even one Star Trek project after this is as awesome as this one looks to be, Star Trek could finally be what the Star Wars prequels failed to be: a saga from my adulthood that I want to imagine myself into.

If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to go see the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. And yes, I used the term film and I stand by it. Quantum of Solace is not a movie, despite it’s blockbuster tendencies. With incredible action sequences, gorgeous vistas, and jaw-dropping stunts, it certainly has the trappings of a summer big screen smash. And yet, its the scenes between the action, where Daniel Craig interacts with the various other characters of the film, that truly make this a spectacular piece of cinema.

I found the most compelling moment in the entire film was a brief interlude in which Bond seeks out the aid of a former MI-6 member and sits on his veranda sharing a glass of wine. This presents us with a stunning swatch of the film that appears to have been stylistically lifted directly out of the classic Bond films starring Sean Connery. Costumes, settings, and dialogue all feel timeless and familiar.

Character development is a key factor in Quantum, as it was in Casino Royale. While in Casino, Bond shows quite a range of emotion that humanizes him in short bursts, dehumanization has become key in Quantum. Daniel Craig’s Bond seems to care very little for the lives of anyone he uses through the course of the movie to accomplish his goals. Grim determination is the only emotion portrayed, and it makes viewers care so much more about Bond, because he is something less than human, but still so incredibly interesting to watch.

By the end of the movie, I felt as though I could watch two or three more iterations of this saga and still feel like the character arc had further to go. I highly recommend that if you haven’t seen it yet, seeing it soon. And if you have, to go see it again. Take a friend or two and tell them that they can’t say they’ve seen a James Bond film if they haven’t seen this one. A movie, perhaps, but not a film.