1
1
1
It was sunny and warm in L.A. last Saturday. Despite the lovely weather, both my teenage sons preferred to spend the daylight basking in the light of a monitor, sunscreen not required. I can only blame myself. After all, I did buy the X-box 360, in front of which our 12 year old neighbor, controller in hand, was exploring new worlds and “seeking out new life and new civilizations”—or new deaths and destruction of civilizations.
I have long since ceased to marvel at the beauty of some of those worlds. Computer graphics have improved to the point that I see the TV screen as Alice’s looking-glass—a real universe just beyond my fingertips. And so, “virtual reality” is no longer an oxymoron, but a fact of life. Especially my children’s lives.
Sadly, not mine. As an avid reader of science fiction in my own childhood, I dreamed of the day when I could myself travel to new worlds beyond the boundaries of my imagination. Even if NASA couldn’t take me around the solar system, I was, for a few hours, chauffered to adventure in a darkened theater by Industrial Light and Magic. Like many Star Trek fans, I eagerly awaited JJ Abrams’ critically acclaimed “re-boot” to launch my latest travels.
Then I saw “New Trek” today. It looked pretty, up there on the big screen. JJ and his team did a remarkable job of casting and marshalling the requisite corps of actors, including the Enterprise herself. The special effects were polished, as were the sets. I could even visualize the literal amusement park ride that might follow the summer “thrill ride” of almost continual action in the film. But, like Dorothy’s companions in Oz, the film skimped somewhat on “brain”, and most definitely on “heart”.
Of course, there were moments that were meant to be moving. The opening of the film, James Kirk’s birth, aimed for poignancy, but rang contrived. The villain’s story, exposited sonorously, meant to engage us in both pity and fear, yet succeeded in indifference. A tragedy that shook the foundations of the Star Trek universe was glossed over as a plot convenience—billions of lives extinguished as our camera focuses on the exploits and adventures of our impulsive heroes. (Now that sounds familiar…)
The actors accredited themselves well on the whole, based on what they were expected to be. Chris Pine resonated a touch of George Clooney flair in a few scenes, but came off in the end more a handsome, athletic James West, than an insightful, complicated James Kirk. Quinto’s performance as Spock seemed a bit tinged in figurative “baby fat”, but was credible in context. I was pleased to see a talented young Russian-American play Chekov with a more genuine accent, as well as a charismatic Scotsman play Scotty, again, with more linguistic acuity. Uhura, Sulu, and Bones, were all fine as well. No, it wasn’t the actors on our team that disappointed me, but the writers and director.
I know the reviews have been glowing. I can’t complain. I didn’t look at my watch once in the theater, and I rode the CGI roller coaster with the appropriate exhilaration. But again, I wasn’t moved. I wasn’t touched. I didn’t care. And, now, out of the movie house, I am left with merely a shrug.
I’ve realized that it has been a long time since a film has drawn me in to its world like the Purple Rose of Cairo literally grabbed its protagonists. And I’ve wondered why. Yes, I’m post-prime demographic, having left 35, and even 49 behind me. But, even movies that grudgingly target the middle-aged leave me cold on the whole. What has happened? I believe it is a generation issue.
But not the obvious one. I used to work in TV (which by the way, still manages to tickle my emotions on occasion). Back in the day, we used to use videotapes to record our work, one or three-quarter inch in width. Copies of our products needed to be sparingly made from the master reel, because over-copying could deteriorate the recording quality, on both the master and the dubbed tape. Copying a copy was considered another generation—by the time a program was copied several generations, the sharp colors, focus, and luster of the show would have significantly deteriorated. I have come to feel that the movie industry has become a second or third generation of creativity.
The “Golden Age” of TV as well as film was penned and promoted by men and women who had lived life through the Depression and war. Their experiences and culture were based not on “virtual reality” but “actual reality”. When they wrote, acted, produced, they drew on a well of life experience that my generation only witnessed through books and grainy, bleeding NBC peacock colors. But it took a few more years for “actual reality” to die out as a cultural source for most artists. By the 70’s and 80’s, film auteurs were studying their predecessors’ films for inspiration, and not life. Today, my children and their peers spend even their outdoor time buried in texting, messaging, twittering, and processing input—sheltered and controlled input—through a screen.
The original Star Trek was not a mythological classic, a Homerian epic. It was a TV show and a few movies whose goals were to earn money and to entertain, and, to sprinkle some kernels of thoughts and themes about the human condition among the dramatic hooks and the slapstick tribble-ations. I missed these themes, these touchstones for identification and introspection, in this Star Trek lite amidst the flares and the explosions. The numbers were all painted in diligently, but I longed for the art.
I admit to a bias that maturity seasons talent—that Hollywood’s focus on youth leads to film products that are strong on testosterone and underdeveloped in the frontal lobe. Older artists, whose craft has matured with the passing of the years, have in most cases been exiled or sidelined in today’s “Industry” with a capital “$”. Yes, there are young people with talent in all the creative arts—but if the gatekeepers are “3rd generation” viewers and critics themselves, these young artists may be swept aside for the derivative whose product seems safe, comfortable, and familiar. At your local multiplex this summer, StartreX-menirontransformerspiderbat in IMAX 3D!
I so want to enjoy the cinema as my holodeck to travel to places where no one has gone before. And when I reach the Wizard, behind the curtain, I long for a “there” there, to move my heart.
