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{"id":378,"date":"2009-02-01T09:03:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-01T09:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2009\/02\/star-trek-and-sci-fi-action-movies\/"},"modified":"2009-02-01T09:03:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-01T09:03:00","slug":"star-trek-and-sci-fi-action-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2009\/02\/star-trek-and-sci-fi-action-movies.html","title":{"rendered":"Star Trek and “sci-fi action movies”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The Super Bowl ad for the upcoming Star Trek<\/a><\/i> movie is now online, and once again, they\u2019re clearly pitching it to a generation weaned on the likes of Firefly<\/a><\/i> (2002-2005) and Battlestar Galactica<\/a><\/i> (2003-2009), to say nothing of the Star Wars<\/i> prequels<\/a> (1999-2005). It brings to mind what Star Trek: The Next Generation<\/i> alumnus Wil Wheaton recently said<\/a> of the previous trailer<\/a>: \u201cIt felt like a sci-fi action movie, with Star Trek costumes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dE8xjK_tLxk<\/a>
Click here<\/a> if the video file above doesn\u2019t play properly.<\/p>\n

As it happens, one of my longstanding gripes about the Star Trek<\/i> movies is that nearly all of them have been \u201caction movies\u201d of one sort or another. On the weekly TV series, there was a freedom to experiment, to make each episode its own genre or combination of genres \u2014 comedy, drama, romance, character study, espionage thriller, medical emergency, submarine warfare, you name it. But the movies, created in the wake of Star Wars<\/a><\/i> (1977) and its many imitators, need to attract a much bigger audience than the typical TV episode, and so they have done this, or tried to, by pumping up the action. Sometimes they do it very well (1982\u2019s Wrath of Khan<\/a><\/i>, 1996\u2019s First Contact<\/a><\/i>), and sometimes they do it pretty lamely (1989\u2019s The Final Frontier<\/a><\/i>, 1998\u2019s Insurrection<\/a><\/i>), but do it, they do.<\/p>\n

There have been two major exceptions to this, and, ironically, one of them \u2014 The Voyage Home<\/a><\/i> (1986), which was more of a time-travel comedy than anything else \u2014 happens to be the top-grossing movie<\/a> in the series so far, at least in North America. So these movies don\u2019t have<\/i> to be all about the action in order to attract an audience. The other major exception, however, is the first film \u2014 The Motion Picture<\/a><\/i> (1979) \u2014 which was a decent hit in its day but is widely regarded today as one of the lamer films, because it is so slow and ponderous.<\/p>\n

Still, you have to give the makers of that film credit for doing something different<\/i> from the space-battle setpieces that were all the rage after Star Wars<\/i> came out. And in that light, it\u2019s kind of ironic that J.J. Abrams, director of the new movie, suggested in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times<\/a><\/i> that Star Trek<\/i> needs to get out from under the \u201cshadow\u201d of Star Wars<\/i>, yet it was wrong for The Motion Picture<\/i> to be so \u201cslow-moving\u201d, etc.<\/p>\n

I do hope that this new film is one of the \u201cgood\u201d action movies in the series and not one of the \u201clame\u201d ones. But it needs to set the template for something more<\/i> than just \u201caction\u201d. If this film is to have any sequels, it needs to leave the door open for something more than just another round of explosions next time.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"