Friday, September 7, 2007

On Moriarty

Not the Professor, but the guy over at ACIN who's writing what people have been calling "Star Trek Spoilers" for a while now. I've had some time to think about his article and re-read it.

First of all, it sounds like a terrible movie, or at least like it could be a terrible movie. Sometimes I really hate that they're doing the movie at all. I recently told someone that if Gene Roddenberry came back from the dead to do this movie, I'd still have some doubts. I'm scared and I'm not gonna hide it. Moriarty basically describes an accidental time warp (thankfully not to the late 21st Century) and Romulans doing... something... like killing Kirk or blowing up Vulcan.

Moriarty describes a terrifying world in which the "Universe 2" versions of the characters can be played with to JJ's heart's content. So they're gonna make it more complicated, because we need that. Wow. Never mind that whoever came up with this has a shaky definition of temporal mechanics, but how exactly do they plan on reintegrating the timelines because they have to reintegrate, otherwise the future never happened and Kirk never took command of the Enterprise... so how would we ever get back to what's supposed to be...

Moriarty uses the example of the original captain of the Enterprise - who do we know it to be? Who does JJ Abrams say it's gonna be in his universe? But then I realized something.

It. Is. Conjecture.

He presents it as fact, or at least rumor, but it is nothing more than a guess. What that guess is based on I don't know, but it is a guess. Moriarty doesn't know what's gonna happen - all he knows is that the movie is coming, and he knows one way it might turn out. He makes several guesses that are either in conflict or else planned for several different movies - otherwise, you couldn't fit it into two hours.

Which says two things. First, that JJ had better get cracking on his script writing. Second, that all guessing is pointless. While Moriarty may have gotten his digits on some real notes, an early draft of the script, or even an interview, the truth is that we can't know what's coming. So now there are two choices. We can hide our heads in the sand or we can do what Moriarty has begun for us: analyze what we can get our hands on, test our reactions to whatever comes our way, and pray.

A New Quote to chew on

"Different in appearance, yes. But we are both living beings - we are born, we grow, we live, and we die. In all the ways that matter, we are alike!"
-Picard to Nuria
"Who Watches the Watchers"

Picard's intelligence shines again

Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Survivors

One destroyed planet with two people who happen to have survived, a warship that sometimes protects them and sometimes destroys them, and Deanna Troi gets a really annoying song stuck in her head. Somehow Picard pieces all this together. I think his intelligence doesn't really get it's due. Of course, how could it with Boy Genuis Wesley Crusher around?