From Newsgroup: alt.tv.star-trek.tos   
   From Address: santolina@juno.com   
   Subject: Star Trek:  Am I the Only One?   
      
   Just watched the DVD of the new Trek film and I must say there are a   
   couple of things I'm disappointed in.  First, the film, but only a   
   little.  When I first read about the premise and the individuals who   
   would be responsible for making it I set my sights rather low.  This   
   outing, I thought, will likely be heavy on pyrotechnics and light on   
   everything else.  But then the reviews started pouring in, and they   
   were almost uniformly positive.  We were assured that fans of the   
   various incarnations of Star Trek, as well as the public at large,   
   would be thoroughly entertained.  Fair enough, I set my sights a   
   little higher and was determined to like it.  Turns out my first   
   instincts were closer to the mark.   
      
   Second, I'm disappointed either in myself or popular culture in   
   general, but I'm not sure which.  After all, consider the   
   "story" (I'll avoid the temptation to compose a long essay on how   
   threadbare it was and just leave the word in scare quotes).  Decimated   
   by the loss of his family, a mad scientist named Soran skips across   
   space and time looking for some sort of emotional resolution to his   
   devastating loss.  The answer lies in his destruction of an entire   
   planet full of innocent people, but he doesn't care.........oops.   
   Sorry, I forgot to note the "spoilers" there.  I just gave away the   
   entire plot of the new Star Trek movie.  Shoot.  And since there are   
   no subplots or subtexts of any interest I've basically just summarized   
   the whole darn thing.  Oh well.   
      
   What's that?  Dr. Soran was in a different Star Trek movie?  That the   
   new one changes the planet he's from and the planet he blows up?   
   Well, that makes all the difference, doesn't it.   
      
   Look, I know that Trek borrowing heavily from itself is a time honored   
   tradition, but has it really come to this?  That a movie can   
   flagrantly steal the story from another movie in its own franchise   
   which is barely fifteen years old, strip out any subplots and nuance   
   to virtually nothing, and that's all okay because more shit blows up   
   in the latest one?  Honestly, somebody tell me a single way that the   
   latest is an improvement over Generations, other than they spent more   
   money and blew up more shit.   
      
   The "story" is threadbare and stolen.  The characters are utterly   
   devoid of depth except for Spock (surprise).  Backstory is generally   
   uninteresting or limited to factoids that can be delivered in a single   
   line of dialogue.  But, by god, there are fist fights and lots of shit   
   blows up.   
      
   But maybe it's just me.  Maybe the fact that I've seen shit blown up   
   in the movies 500 times and I just am not interested in seeing shit   
   blow up anymore is a poor reflection on me and not our social values.   
   Maybe Abrams and his cohorts telling us almost in as many words in the   
   DVD extras that this movie is directed at teenagers shows me to be an   
   aging curmudgeon.  Maybe I should just sit quietly in my hovel and let   
   the kids enjoy their cardboard cutout characters blowing shit up left   
   and right.  But at least I had my say.   
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