I found that to be very interesting when the ad for JJ Abrams relaunch popped up on TV earlier today. It goes a long way in supporting this idea of adaptations/remakes making concerted efforts to replace the source material in cinema discourse. I'd been playing with that theory for a while, but rarely do you hear such a brazen disavowal of an original source (in this case, Star Trek) in order attract new viewers.
Typically the filmmakers and studio make efforts to pay lip service to the "classic" nature of the original (e.g. "Rob Zombie's re-imagining of the classic horror film" or "No one's saying that King Kong isn't a classic, this is just our homage" and so forth) so I was impressed that in order to draw in new fans (and potentially alienate the trekkie / trekker base), this film is being advertised as the "sexy", "action packed" Star Trek that your stuffy old man wouldn't like. Because The Wrath of Khan is soooooo 1982, guys!
Of course, from a marketing standpoint (and, from what I understand, a plot standpoint. more on that in a bit), it makes sense. With documentaries like Trekkies and frequent jokes made at the Star Trek universe's expense (which are, to be fair, at times warranted), it can't hurt to "sex it up", so to speak. Star Trek needs to be "cool" again is what Paramount is saying, I guess. I'm fuzzy when exactly it was ever "cool", and this is coming from a nearly life-long fan of the show(s) and movie(s). For their sake, it is just easier to forget that Nemesis and Enterprise ever happened and start fresh, so they are correct to market the film accordingly.
If I understand the plot correctly, this also makes sense. I'm going to wade a little bit into "spoiler" territory but most regular readers of a blog with Dr. Re-Animator on the splash logo don't strike me as Trek fans, but tread cautiously.
The comic which leads up to the film (an olive branch extended to fans who actually want to know how Nemesis could lead to Star Trek) seems to involve some catastrophe that destroys Romulus and drives a simple Romulan miner crazy. That miner is the Eric Bana character (or, since even I didn't reconize him, the bald dude with the tatoos that screams "Fire Everything!"), who somehow goes back in time in order to undo that massive disaster. Or just kill Spock, who tried to save Romulus and failed. I didn't actually read the comic so I don't know.
Anyway, that's why Leonard Nimoy appears as "Old Spock" in the movie, because the evil bald miner dude changes history and basically creates a "tangent" universe, ala Donnie Darko or Back to the Future Part 2, minus the falling engines and hoverbikes. That way, JJ Abrams is free to change histories of characters or where ships came from or how Kirk took over the Enterprise etc etc. This way, old school Trek fans can still have their Star Trek and the "new", "hip" crowd can enjoy the "Not Your Father's" Star Trek. Everyone wins, and Paramount gets to release all of the movies on Blu Ray in the next few weeks.
Except that yes, this open disavowal of the "old", "boring" Star Trek does mean that new fans to this movie are not necessarily encouraged to buy the original shows or films. Because, unless you want to be a lame-o Trekkie, why the hell would you care that the Enterprise wasn't built on Earth in the original series? That's totally dumb to even be bothered about, right? Duh! This isn't the OLD Star Trek, it's the hip cool NEW Star Trek so get over it boring old nerd dude*.
I find it very interesting that it's necessary to replace source material, or in this case, openly disavow it in order to guarantee success of a more recent incarnation. Along the same lines, why bother watching Friday the 13th parts 1-4 when they roll all the best parts into one remake? Pirate Channels are soooooo 20 years ago, people! The New Flesh would obviously work its way through a YouTube channel. Come on now, isn't that obvious**?
Hell, sometimes it works. Cronenberg's remake of The Fly does, in fact, contemporize the story in a way that makes it legible for 1980s audiences. Instead of a fear of science, we understand the story as a way to deal with the AIDS epidemic or watching a loved one fall apart (in The Fly's case, literally). John Carpenter's The Thing is, in many ways, a more effective and creepy movie than The Thing from Another World because it taps into fears about not knowing who we are. Both of them have generally taken the place of their predecessors in film discourse. They are, without a doubt, two of the most frequently cited "successful" remakes.
I will undoubtedly return to this subject in the future, but I thought it might be interesting for readers to watch this trend in full effect as we move towards the "new" Star Trek. Film discourse happens in ways we might not even be aware of on a conscious level, so maybe this will help you watch carefully.
* In this theoretical exchange I imagine douchebag hipsters taunting Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.
** I'm not actually saying that's how the Videodrome remake will operate but it is the logic behind remaking these types of movies.
1 comment:
Death to Videodrome('s remake)! Long live the New Flesh (and by that I mean Videodrome).
This has nothing to do with anything, really:
http://208.116.9.205/10/content/17195/1.jpg
Now that I've taken up half the page, my only legitimate reply is that there is a very thin line between remaking a film contemporaneously, removing the extemporaneous (or, in The Fly's case, removing the anachronistic) and basically recodifying the film as an anachronism. Much like Cronenberg's The Fly, which, in a sense, does allegorize genetic experimentation and self-destructive behavior (without ever really sexualizing it), with the AIDS epidemic and panic of the mid '80s right underneath the surface: the misconstrued protagonist, fearful evasion from critical and central allies, and the anger and outrage that ensued from the "community" being treated like monsters. That environment is pretty much deceased, and given enough time, Cronenberg's Fly might have the same time-capsule effect on audiences that I see in films like The China Syndrome, The Manchurian Candidate (the good one), Robinson Crusoe on Mars, and, to an extent, even Tron. True, there's a sizable difference between having overtly date-referencing materials in a film and having the interpretation of the film occupying a certain space in a shared history when we're dealing with the films qua films, but the end result still becomes cemented in time in a certain mindframe and a certain politic that is difficult to escape -- and may need to be avoided in a remake. This subjectifies my argument quite a bit, but the beauty of a film-in-amber, as it were, is that through the parable-ization of one moment we're supposed to apply its insight later on -- not simply rework it for pertinence to be forgotten in 20 years when it's remade again.
Shrug.
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