No, I didn't go see Star Trek this weekend. There's only one Star Trek and that ain't it. The real Star Trek was the one that ran in syndication when I was in junior high school. It came on a half-hour after school let out and it enthralled my friends and me and we had a great time discussing the minutiae. We were in our early teens, for crying out loud. Then I grew up. The original series was still loved but I could see that it really wasn't very good. And, as an adult, I could tell that all the followup television series and movies were... dumb. They were pretentious ("It was the best of times, it was worst of times" -- Star Trek II) and hackneyed. My problem was compounded by the fact that nearly all of the science fiction I was trying to read then really wasn't very good either, whereas it had been great when I was younger. As an adolescent, SF was truly mind-expanding, if you'll permit the cliché. And it really was a great adolescence, with my friends and Star Trek and SF and my paper route and junior/senior high school and marching band and not having to worry about the stuff that grownups have to worry about.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Star Trek
No, I didn't go see Star Trek this weekend. There's only one Star Trek and that ain't it. The real Star Trek was the one that ran in syndication when I was in junior high school. It came on a half-hour after school let out and it enthralled my friends and me and we had a great time discussing the minutiae. We were in our early teens, for crying out loud. Then I grew up. The original series was still loved but I could see that it really wasn't very good. And, as an adult, I could tell that all the followup television series and movies were... dumb. They were pretentious ("It was the best of times, it was worst of times" -- Star Trek II) and hackneyed. My problem was compounded by the fact that nearly all of the science fiction I was trying to read then really wasn't very good either, whereas it had been great when I was younger. As an adolescent, SF was truly mind-expanding, if you'll permit the cliché. And it really was a great adolescence, with my friends and Star Trek and SF and my paper route and junior/senior high school and marching band and not having to worry about the stuff that grownups have to worry about.
No comments:
Post a Comment