Star Trek Training Day

There’s a news story about the next Star Trek movie in which the new filmmakers say their inspiration is Training Day or Crimson Tide—basically a two-hander where there’s some kind of bad apple or corruption within Starfleet.

Of course I’ll keep an open mind, but it seems to be the same mistake that has been made with Star Trek since the 1990s: throwing out Roddenberry’s vision.

Roddenberry’s vision was that humanity had perfected itself and there wasn’t conflict within the characters. This drove the writers crazy because they had to manufacture drama some other way.

But the entire appeal of Star Trek is that idealized version of humanity. Throw it out and it’s just another sci-fi dystopia.

This always happens because it’s so easy—make the institution into the villain. They tried it in Star Trek: Insurrection—didn’t work. They tried it in Into Darkness—didn’t work.

I don’t think it’s ever worked. We’ll see.