However, there will be no celebrations for me on this day, my friends. Mr. T emailed me some rancid information that put a damper on my blogging festivities. But before I go further I should probably clarify that I am not talking about the Mr. T. I mean I’m sure that Mr. T is quite a lovely fellow but it’s not like we hang out or anything.
No, I am talking about a pal of mine who neglected to come up with a cool alias for himself for my blogging purposes and so I had no recourse but to give him one myself.
At any rate, I was sitting there feeling all celebratory about my four readers when I open Mr. T's email suggesting I look at the new Star Trek trailer. Up until this point, while I was excited about the forthcoming Trek, I had successfully managed to avoid reading anything about it, so I wouldn’t have any unfair expectations. Sadly, my curiosity got the better of me. I’m sorry; I am not feeling at all enthusiastic. If you haven’t looked at the trailer and are not planning on it, I guess you should...um...turn your head away? Ooh, look I am totally creating a spoiler alert. I am crazy 21st century!
So if you’re still reading, at first glance at the trailer, I was immediately reminded of Patton Oswalt’s shtick about killing George Lucas with a shovel. (It's just the first few minutes of the video, but don’t click on the link if you are offended by vulgar language...or the concept of once-brilliant directors being beaten to death by gardening implements.)
I thought Patton could have easily been referring to the new Trek because the 2nd trailer seems rife with the stench of Lucas’ now questionable influence. In the first seconds we get to see James T. Kirk as a little kid. And he looks like he’s running away in a car he must have borrowed from Mark Hamill’s Corvette Summer set. And he looks very sad. And then we cut to the teen heartthrob version of Anakin...er...Kirk riding a motorcycle. And he looks very sad. And then later we see a prepubescent Spock, who looks very sad – but mainly bewildered to have to be sporting an old Beatles wig. Next we are treated to an image of an older Spock, in a setting that looks like it was swiped directly from the Revenge of the Sith, comforting someone I am assuming is his human mom, Padmé...no...I’m sure that couldn’t have been her name…
But neither Patton nor Mr. T could have prepared me for the trauma I was about to endure. I decided to rewind the trailer after that last bit because I wanted to double check if I had actually seen Leonard Nimoy as older Spock. It was him! Those fleeting moments of elation were immediately eclipsed by the sudden and horrific realization of the actress playing the wife. IT’S WINONA RYDER!!!!!!
Why is J.J. Abrams doing this to me? To us, people! In the brief seconds she was on the screen, I could see she was doing one of her two emotions – "exhausted". Typical. Argh, I can just hear her saying, in her most annoying Little Women whine, “I could never love anyone more than I love my Spock”. Then I checked the IMDb and she’s got like 72 other movies about to come out. Was she in hiding, just biding her time til the moment was right to creep up on us again? Weren’t we doing ok without her upsetting brand of milquetoastiness?
Ok, I need to stop being pessimistic. At least she doesn’t appear to be doing "jaded" – the one other emotion in which she specializes. Oh goodness, this does not bode well for the future of the franchise. The future is now so uncertain. Thanks a lot, Mr. T. Thanks a lot, pal.
