Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

Alan Dean Foster’s adept Adaptation of the 2009 Film hits Mass Market Paperback finally

By Carl Lawrence

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 Stars

This is a broad overview of Alan Dean Foster’s Novel Adaptation of last year’s Star Trek movie in which the focus will be how well the book matches up to the film, or deviates from it, and also takes into account statements related to plot points made by screenwriter Roberto Orci just after the release of the film to theaters last year. (Orci and co-writer Alex Kurtzman wrote the screenplay for the 2009 film and share writing credit for the novel adaptation as well.)
There are a few noteworthy discrepancies that quickly caught my attention while reading this book that I shall cite.

To help illustrate my initial point, I would ask that you first read the following excerpt from the Foster novelization . . .

The fence was not particularly high, but it was strongly charged. The invisible energy beams that hummed through the traditional metal latticework and rose higher than his head could not be interdicted without setting off multiple alarms. Vertically aimed beams meant that a would-be intruder could not simply soar over it. Kirk made no attempt to do so. Instead, he pulled up just outside the perimeter. Within, wrapped in a web of metal and composite scaffolding, a starship was under construction.

Its presence was no secret. Starfleet had chosen central Iowa as the site of this particular construction yard not only because of its proximity to Mississippi shipping and the industrial-commercial hubs of the Midwest but because if something blew, few people outside the yard itself would be at risk. There was ample room to work, plenty of territory for subsidiary firms and support industries to set up shop, and the ground was flat and tectonically stable.
(Pages 55, trade paperback edition)

I felt it necessary to provide that excerpt so you the reader can more fully appreciate the significance of what isn’t there. More specifically, Roberto Orci stated shortly after the release of the movie that the Enterprise was being built in Iowa for the purpose of honoring George Kirk, Jim Kirk’s father. Yet nowhere in the novel adaptation does this supposed fact appear.

Likewise, it would have also been easy to mention that what occurs on Vulcan is happening during the spring season, hence, a blue sky rather than the red sky longtime fans would have naturally expected instead. If either of those points were addressed in the book, it would have been easier to take what Orci has had to say more seriously even if some viewers of the film felt inclined to disagree on either front anyway. (What is also bothersome about the appearance of Vulcan is how easily CGI could have been utilized to change the sky from blue to red in the movie if the producers were interested in being consistent with how the planet was depicted in prior stories centered around the original cast of characters.) This lack of supporting evidence in the novel leads one to question the veracity of Orci’s statements all the more concerning such matters.

Beyond that, Foster’s novel differs from the movie mostly in small ways. Instead of it opening with the Kelvin and her crew seeing the Narada emerging from the singularity, it starts with Spock’s birth, which is short and runs only a few pages, but that change was not an unreasonable decision on the part of the author. There are also some minor modifications in terms of character dialogue, such as where Kirk and McCoy meet on the transport ship. In the film, McCoy remarks that he ended up there as a result of a recent divorce, with his wife having pretty much left him with only his bones, and his being fortunate that he still had those once she was done with him. (That’s very different from the way in which he had acquired the nickname “Bones” in the original series by the way, where it was a term of affection apparently assigned to him by Kirk as a reference to his old country Southern American roots). In the novel in contrast, McCoy refers only to his “skeleton” rather than his bones upon meeting young Kirk on the transport ship out of Iowa. (I wonder if Alan Dean Foster did that intentionally, having rejected the manner by which the nickname had been assigned to McCoy in the film by its writers.)

The novel deviates a bit more so from the movie a little past the halfway point in the book, where Foster devotes significantly more time to character dialogue in various places, particularly with respect to the timeline issue and its implication for this new cast of characters compared to the original players. The problem is however that despite all that extra effort, one is still left wondering whether the original timeline has actually been overwritten by the events of this story, or whether it remains intact. This novel is well written and an easy read however, and Foster is due credit for at least injecting the possibility that a multiverse scenario is at issue in contrast to the film, which hints at it only very indirectly at best, and if anything leaves the viewer more so with the impression that the original timeline is being rewritten instead (viewers who turned to the Internet and found solace with Roberto Orci’s talking out of both sides of his mouth on the matter notwithstanding).

The book also does a notably better job of delving into and explaining Nero’s motivation than the film does by comparison. The reader is left with a clearer, more concise insight into his thinking concerning his genocidal planet-destroying reign of terror.

One final thought about the films’ writers. It had been reported prior to the release of the movie that Alex Kurtzman was more of an original series and cast fan, whereas his colleague, Orci, had a preference for Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Graphic Novel Comic series prequel to the 2009 film, titled Star Trek: Countdown, appears to indicate that both men are actually TNG fans first and foremost, however. Being an original cast and series fan myself it’s nice to know that one of them had a preference for classic Trek over what followed much later on, but neither of them felt inclined to review episodes of the original series before sitting down to write the script for their first Star Trek movie. I consider that rather unfortunate. They claimed to have read a number of the novels however, none of which are considered canon, and the one book it appears they made no attempt to get their hands on apparently was The Making of Star Trek, which was co-authored by Gene Roddenberry in the late 1960s. Were they in any way required to do that kind of background research? Obviously not, although it would have been welcome, and the kind of movie they produced in the end had an obvious bearing on the form and shape the novel adaptation would take on as well, ultimately. The film fared well with critics and audiences alike nonetheless, however, but it was a very different kind of Star Trek compared to the original. More modern, yes, but the dynamic between the characters, and indeed the characters themselves have taken on a new and different tone in this post-Roddenberry age. Your father’s Star Trek it ain’t, as the early promotional ads boasted prior to the film’s release. For better or for worse, this is now where we are and where things stand.

Bemoaning about what might have been versus what is aside, though, Foster’s book is an enjoyable read, well worth the time if you’re a devoted Trekker, and particularly if you would like more insight than the film itself provides. It’s the same story, following very much the same path, so it’s easy to relive the events of the movie in its pages while reading it, and while it offers relatively little in the way of new or additional material, it leaves the reader with a better and fuller understanding of the film overall, nonetheless by filling in some of the more noticeable gaps.

I read the first edition that was published as a trade Paperback last year to coincide with the release of the movie, which was a New York Times Bestseller. A new edition in Mass Market Pocket Paperback is set for release at the end of this month.

Related:
Movie Review: Star Trek
Comic Book Review: Star Trek: Countdown

Buy the Novel, The Countdown Graphic Novel, and the Movie from Amazon.com:

By Carl Lawrence

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve lost practically all interest in Smallville, since it has extended itself into more far-out fantasy than one would have expected from this show in its early seasons. It basically got too ridiculous to be taken at all seriously and has become a bad parody of itself as a show, especially in its last two seasons, although things were already degenerating prior to that stage in its evolution. That said, closing out the series without a return of Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor would be a horrible thing for them to do, and even though Lana got on my nerves all too damn often, being that the writers were always determined to make her such a focus of the show, it wouldn’t be a good move to end the series without her return either even if only to help close it out.

At any rate, here are two recent articles about what may or may not be coming for the show’s tenth and final season.

From Zap2it.com:

‘Smallville’ final season: Tom Welling wants Lex and Lana to return

‘Smallville’: News from The CW upfront

The Comic Prequel to the Hit Movie

By Carl Lawrence

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 Stars

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

The four books of Star Trek: Countdown are more like Chapters in this Comic Book prequel to the latest movie. There is information contained therein that people who have seen the movie would benefit from knowing, although most are probably not already aware of these things.

First off though, I should say that the Art work is for the most part very good, and it is indeed a true prequel to the movie that should be viewed and regarded as canon material. This commentary about it will contain major Spoilers however, so if you would prefer to read this comic book series on your own rather than having portions of it revealed to you here, then I would advise you to stop reading at this point.

Relevant precursors that also tie into the film:

–The markings on Nero’s forehead are there because it’s a Romulan tradition memorializing loss; he does this to commemorate the death of his wife, unborn child and planet. (Interesting that we’ve never seen this cultural custom before concerning the Romulans, but that’s the reason for his tattoos.)

–Nero’s mining ship is retrofitted with Borg technology, which the Romulans integrated with their own. This happens at a highly secret Romulan military station meant for high ranking officials following a major disaster, which in this case was the destruction of Romulus.

–Spock’s ship (the “Jellyfish”) is a prototype that was also originally designed by Geordi La Forge. (FYI – In this Comic, Data Captains the Enterprise E; Picard is an Ambassador, and Worf is an officer in commission with the Klingon Empire.) The Vulcans also modify the Jellyfish as per Spock’s instructions.

–The red matter that Nero uses to destroy planets is actually a highly classified Vulcan scientific and military secret that initially they refuse to share with Spock and Nero out of concern for what the Romulans might do with it once the Hobus star problem gets resolved. Spock has also fallen out of favor with Vulcan High Command as a result of his many years working as a diplomat on Romulus, and the Vulcans now find it difficult to trust him for that reason.

These next comments are more my own personal observations, but there’s a glaring problem with the overall premise of the story, which the movie also indicates and therefore suffers from too as a result: it is clearly indicated that the Hobus star going supernova affects not just Romulus directly, but also the planets Vulcan and Earth as well. This is too far-reaching in scope and not consistent with the universe we know. Vulcan should be too far away and therefore not affected, and the same goes for Earth. Yet the story ties them all together in terms of the dire consequences of the star going supernova despite the enormous distances that there should be between these planets and their surrounding galaxies.

Furthermore, it’s a little difficult to accept that in this era of highly advanced technology that the Romulans are unable to determine what will soon happen to the Hobus star; Spock warns them, but they refuse to believe him, and one would think that their instruments would confirm Spock’s findings, and it’s basically a major crisis that could have been averted had they just listened to him and studied the star carefully for themselves in the first place.

This four-book series reaches its climax as Worf is severely injured in the final book/chapter and his fate is left in question at the end. Indeed, after being impaled the way he is on the Narada, it seems incredibly unlikely that he would be able to survive. (Nero pulls the same stunt with Worf that we see him pull with the Captain of the Kelvin in the movie, and then later with Pike too, by ordering him to shuttle over to the Narada following a battle in which Worf and his ship and Fleet end up basically at Nero’s mercy.)

However, aside from Worf’s fate hanging in the balance once all is said and done, Picard and Data, et al, and their timeline, appears to remain intact following Nero and Spock being sucked into the black hole at the end of the story, which, given the extent of dramatic changes that take place in the film, seems highly unlikely. We know, for example, that Vulcan has not previously been destroyed in Kirk’s era, as happens in the movie, so one wonders how Orci and Kurtzman would justify this, or if they have any interest whatsoever in caring to do so. They have stated in interviews, along with Leonard Nimoy, that what happens in the movie takes place in an alternate universe even though the movie doesn’t bear it out as Uhura’s use of the term “alternate reality” on the bridge of the Enterprise about midway through the film is not really enough to establish that it’s not the original prime timeline that has been altered as a result of Nero’s actions.

This Comic Prequel is an enjoyable addition to the film that otherwise fits nicely alongside it as a companion piece, but the references to the Hobus star going supernova as affecting both Vulcan and Earth are misguided and never would have passed muster to make its way into a screenplay or teleplay. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who share story credit and gave final approval to this four-book series before it went to publication should have changed that aspect of the story, but otherwise, it’s a fun read.

More Star Trek Comics, Graphic Novels, Toys and Other Merchandise is Available from TFAW.com

J.J. Abrams ventures into the final frontier with a new cast

By Carl Lawrence

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

I have a number of problems with the plot of this film, not the least of which is its seemingly, on the surface at least, erasing of all prior original series-related canon, which is in fact its greatest sin, and its overall implications don’t even stop there because it renders virtually all subsequent modern Trek mythology established in later shows null and void as well. That amounts to hundreds of episodes and ten movies rendered completely moot by virtue of their being undone. I never in my wildest dreams would have thought I would ever say this, but this is worse than if they were to have resurrected Kirk from the dead post-Generations the way a contingent of the fan base had been pining for over a period of many years because the implications here in contrast are much more far-reaching. J.J. Abrams and his two writers, along with Leonard Nimoy, have stated in interviews that what takes place in this movie occurs in an alternate universe. However, the clear evidence attesting to that is lacking in the film itself. My review will therefore proceed taking that into account for what it is: an absence of hard and credible evidence.

In terms of action, the film opens well. Nero, the Romulan Captain of a ship called the Narada, emerges from the future and into the past, initially without his even realizing it. In a rage over having just witnessed the destruction of his planet in his own era, he attacks the first ship he sees: a Federation Starship (the USS Kelvin) that also carries Kirk’s father and his pregnant mother. The Captain of the Kelvin is instructed to beam aboard Nero’s ship during the assault and Kirk’s father is placed in command. As a result of the peril at hand, Winona Kirk goes into labor as the ship is being evacuated and Kirk’s father sacrifices himself and the ship in order for the crew to escape safely. High intensity action and I couldn’t help but notice the striking resemblance of the escape shuttles to the shuttles seen in the original series –a nod and homage of a sort that I really liked and appreciated.

Jump-shot to Kirk as a boy racing a 20th century Corvette recklessly over the side of a cliff just after being warned by his stepfather not to damage the prized vehicle. The young lad barely makes it out of the classic sports car in time and pulls himself up from the side of the cliff as the automobile crashes to the bottom of the canyon. I can understand some boyish impetuousness, but this is just plain crazy. Kirk’s mother is never seen again. His stepfather is never shown and never heard from again, and this standalone scene can almost be edited out of the film entirely, but it does help set the stage for the older Kirk we’re about to meet, who—to put it mildly—still has issues.

He hits on the first girl he sees in the next scene, which happens to be Uhura, and in his bold inebriated stupor then proceeds to pick a fight with four Starfleet cadets, asserting that they’re short on muscle to put him in his place. Chris Pine is good in the role, and this is an angrier Kirk than we’ve come to know up until now, with the underlying reason for his defiant rage a result of the absence of the father he never got to know and who wasn’t there to raise him. (This becomes clearer later in the movie when he meets the elder Spock and specifically asks him if he ever knew his father in the other timeline that Spock came from.)

Overall the stage is set and the film doesn’t waste any more time on Kirk’s misspent youth. Pike sits down and has a father-son type talk with him following the bar fight and manages to convince him to join Starfleet. Initially I had some reservations about Bruce Greenwood in the role of Pike, but he does a fine job. What happens with his character ultimately, as with all the main characters, is another matter entirely, however.

As we met up with Kirk as a young lad, so too is the case for Spock as well, who has a bad encounter on his home planet, Vulcan, with full-blooded Vulcan boys intent on tormenting him into showing human anger and emotion resulting from his mixed heritage. This is certainly consistent with what we already know about the character’s background and childhood, but what follows later in his early adulthood is not. These two principal characters—Kirk and Spock—meet in Starfleet Academy following Kirk’s having cheated on the Kobayashi Maru Test, which, as it turns out here, had been designed, or at the very least maintained by Spock. The original series and big screen features in no way indicates anything like this, and the writers rely here on vagueness and a lack of implication in those prior films to reach this contrivance. And while Kirk’s life up to this point has taken some very different turns than what he had experienced in the original unaltered timeline, Spock’s existence appears to have gone unaffected up to this point for the most part, seemingly consistent in both.

Here is where things begin to get hairy again, however, because unbeknownst to all, and what Kirk will shortly figure out is that Nero has lurked about quietly for the last quarter of a century and decides that it is now time to re-emerge finally. Another contrivance, and instead of taking a more logical course by having Nero’s ship disappear into the black hole that hurled him into the past immediately following the destruction of the Kelvin, only to have him reappear again twenty-five years later, with it being only mere moments to him and his crew, writers Robeto Orci and Alex Kurtzman choose to have them skulking around in the shadows for that period of time waiting for Spock to appear. One wonders why Nero’s crew would remain steadfast and loyal throughout all that time, and even though they’re Romulans, who like their Vulcan cousins have a considerably longer lifespan than human beings, it is nevertheless somewhat remarkable that Nero and his crew show no signs of age nonetheless compared to how they look when they’re first encountered at the beginning of the movie.

Zachary Quinto does a fairly adequate job as Spock, but his portrayal is very different from Nimoy’s in the original series or the movies that followed. While we shouldn’t have expected nor hoped for simple impersonations by any of these actors in their respective roles, it’s more noticeable in Quinto’s case that the performance varies from his original counterpart because Nimoy is in the movie, which also serves as an unintentional reminder. Some of what Quinto does in the role is also very out of character, such as stranding acting First Officer Kirk on the inhospitable far side of planet Delta Vega (nice nod to “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” though seemingly inaccurate nonetheless), and damn near getting him killed as a result. And while the planet harkens back to the second pilot episode of the original series, where it was Spock’s recommendation to strand Gary Mitchell (who is nowhere to be found here interestingly enough) once he began developing superior god-like powers, and thereby endangering the ship, young Kirk is hardly the same kind of threat here in contrast, although events leading up to this perpetrated by Nero could be deemed enough for Spock to behave in a seemingly irrational manner. Nevertheless, it still amounts to a lot for Kirk to forgive once he makes his way back to the Enterprise.

It’s on Delta Vega that Kirk meets the elder Spock as he runs for his life from a giant predator into a cave. (I guess we’re supposed to chalk this “chance meeting” that defies astronomical odds up to “fate.”) From there the two meet up with Scotty, who, in addition to being awkwardly brilliant, is intended for comic relief more than ever before in the annals of Trekdom, which incidentally, no longer matters a darn anyway as previously pointed out. Upon their return to the Enterprise, young Kirk follows through on elder Spock’s instruction to expose Spock the younger as being emotionally compromised after the destruction of the Vulcan home world by Nero, and in doing so the writers blow an excellent opportunity to show the shrewd and cunning side of Kirk and his ability to outsmart Spock the younger at a critical moment by having Kirk remove Spock from command after his outburst instead of Spock removing himself. I guess they felt they were being true to the Spock character here by having him realize the extent to which he is emotionally compromised right away rather than it taking a little longer for him to realize it, but it would have provided a great distinction between the two characters had it been handled the way I just suggested instead, while also helping to illustrate why, of the two, it is Kirk who actually belongs in the command chair.

At least with The Wrath of Khan there was the strong sense of a continuing saga, with an old familiar foe coming to exact vengeance. Here, however, the villain appears out of nowhere, and with undo prejudice proceeds to wipe out all of established canon in the blink of an eye, basically telling longtime fans of the franchise of all stripes to just forget about all they’ve watched for the last forty-plus years because none of it matters any longer. (Should that be viewed as an appreciation of the fan base, or as a slap in their collective group of faces?)

The film’s climax, while exhilarating to many, was in many respects nothing we haven’t already seen before, which is why it fell somewhat flat for me, although points for showing the Enterprise firing scores of high intensity bursts, very atypical of what longtime fans are accustomed to seeing, are in fact well deserved. However, the movie ends on a note not consistent with the characters we have come to know, especially in the case of the elder Spock, who never would have stood for the destruction of his home world. The Spock we know would have convinced young Kirk to help him undo the damage that had been done by Nero by their going back in time to change a course of events that was never intended in the first place as evidenced by the original timeline (and deep down this is something Kirk also knows to be true from a much more personal standpoint). That’s just basic “Star Trek 101” – we’ve seen it many times before in similar situations, and the rest of the new Enterprise crew here would have agreed to help restore things to their natural order simply because it was the right thing to do. Kirk’s father need not have died in vain as a result, nor the six billion inhabitants on Vulcan, not to mention their future generations that had been deprived of ever being born as a result of Nero’s actions, none of which was ever meant to be. Genocide on a scale so massive that it is almost inconceivable is instead allowed to stand.

Star Trek has always been about hope –hope for mankind, hope for our future, but with that ending, hope is in very short supply and hard to come by …to say the least.
…And if it all really does take place in an alternate universe as Abrams, Orci, and Kurtzman have been saying for the better part of a year at this point, they really should make that irrefutably and abundantly clear in the sequel so that there is no longer any doubt.

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