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Shatner Leaks Trek XI Details
An anonymous reader writes "The rumors that the next Star Trek movie would revolve around the earliest missions of Kirk and Spock have been confirmed by William Shatner in a Sci Fi Wire interview. J.J. Abrahms (creator of 'Lost') will direct, and has confirmed that a draft script is completed. So, the question is, will Shatner appear as a reminiscing older Kirk in the beginning, setting up the rest of the movie as a flash-back, or will geriatric-Kirk and young-Kirk meet?"
To me, half of the fun with Star Trek was watching technology develop. From Enterprise NCC-1701 to Enterprise D, to the Defiant and on to Enterprise E and Voyager. The fun for me was watching what the writers did with new starships and how new technology was being implemented. It is the progression of the Star Trek universe that I took pleasure in, at least as much as I took pleasure in the interactions between characters. This is why enterprise was uninteresting to me. I knew where the federation was going to be in a few hundred years, so watching Scott Backula fly around in a starship that a 24th century shuttlecraft could tear apart in combat seemed like a waste of time.
If they had any balls at all they would have gone with the idea of having Captain Riker commanding the Titan in a time when the federation is being systematically destroyed in a major war (ie, the feds are losing). To see the federation being destroyed and fighting for it's life by spiting out warships would have been interesting to me. Watching a film about how kirk and spock originally fell in love is not. I'll probably see 11, but only at a friends house where it's on and I don't have a choice.
Terrorism. There will be terrorists in the plot and I remember something about the series
about clone and eugenics wars that early in "starfleet history". Of course it is pretty
much left up to them what terrorist foe they will present on the screen, but it will
certainly be in tune of current events.
Those working towards a predictable population are just as predictable themselves.
I don't think the "there is no money in the 23rd Century" is necessarily contradictory with the shops, etc.
There is still an economy, and therefore there still has to be some method of accounting and exchange. What's more likely is that there is no money in the traditional sense--no cash, no pay checks, no banks for individual persons. Instead, typical Star Trek style soft socialism takes hold. The closest contemporary analogy is the expense account. Rather than paying out of pocket or being limited to a fixed wage, a person could simply use his account to make purchases. If someone got out of hand with their spending, it would pop up a red flag for review. Any people abusing this would be restricted from purchasing "luxury" items of any sort--only housing, utilities, food, etc. would be covered and all other charges would be rejected (like maxing out a credit card). As an added advantage for our future friends, the emergency car repair or unexpected medical expense would be covered. Rather than having to worry about insurance, people could simply enjoy "free" medical care, using just checkups for the healthy and more extensive treatment for the ill. Individuals wouldn't subsidize each other, nor would they suffer the libertarian folly of "paying taxes." Companies would still be taxed to fund the government, and companies would foot the bill directly rather than the three-step cut check/deposit/withdraw process we have today.
In other words, "no money" doesn't actually mean no money, but rather that the individual no longer deals with finances directly and instead can focus on enjoying life. The higher up your position, the looser the limits on your 'expense account'--not everyone would eat caviar and live on 5000 acre estates.
The appeal of Trek (well, TOS and TNG) was G.R.s vision of humanity's future, in which everyone is a cosmopolitan secular humanist, and all of today's economic problems are solved by technology. It gave hope to the generations menaced by the cold war, and now it gives hope for the future in contrast to today's religion and oil fueled conflicts.
Your idea may be a good one, but it isn't Trek, to me.
Also, the idea of a universe being ruled by a european male conspiracy might not sit well with Trek's primarily european male fanbase.
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