Yeah, I know. This came out a while ago. Like I said I’ve got a back log. Allow me to play catch up.

I’ve seen Star Trek twice now and I could honestly see it a third time. Normally, I don’t go out of my way to see a movie multiple times (with rare exceptions,) but if someone wants to see a movie that I already have, I’m generally game as long as it wasn’t a complete crapfest. When my girlfriend’s dad mentioned he wanted to see it, I was immediately down with the idea. In fact, I had already been thinking about it. The movie was great in my opinion. It dodged the mess that would have been completely throwing away years of previous continuity as well as gave an accessible introduction for those who aren’t familiar with the franchise. The look was clean and modernly sci-fi, if a bit shiny. And for some reason I really dug the uniforms. They look ultra casual for what essentially seems to be a military organization, but I like them. The one nitpick I have is that if those stripes on the bottom of their sleeves denote their ranks, why wouldn’t that be carried over to Uhura’s? Not that I’m complaining a whole lot about her uniform, mind you, its just a design choice that seems to pander more to the nostalgia of the original series than making a consistent look across all the styles. Anyway…

Let me give you a little bit of background on my relationship with Star Trek. I don’t really have one. My brother and dad used to watch The Next Generation and I’d catch the occasional Deep Space 9 when the tv was on in the background (pretty much constant in my house,) but I couldn’t tell you a damn thing about what happened on those shows. I’ve always been more of a Star Wars guy and lately I raced through the first three seasons of Battlestar Galactica, so I could be caught up in time for the finale (which I almost didn’t accomplish.)

So imagine my surprise when I got home from watching Star Trek and I wanted more. When I find something I like I tend to want to know all the little nuances of that universe so I found myself digging through various Star Trek wiki entries over the course of the following week. Its not enough though. I know there will be more movies (at least two more, I’m sure cause god forbid Hollywood not work in trilogies,) but that’s not going to be enough either. I hope there is serious consideration to creating a new series in this rebooted/alternate universe.

This is how I’d do it. Make a new ship with a new crew. Leave the Enterprise to go on the big adventures in the movies. Expand the crew. I’m sure this isn’t totally correct, but the previous series seem to focus on a small handful of characters. I feel like on a ship with a crew as big as it appeared in the movie you could have a larger cast and take some of the emphasis off of the senior crew. I’m not really sure why the senior crew members would always be dashing off into these dangerous situations, but hey maybe that’s just how Starfleet rolls. I have a cast the size of BSG’s in mind, but as I said maybe the older series had that and I wasn’t aware. I want to say that the last step would be to send them on missions where they’re not stuck in a holo deck (does this Enterprise even have one? I have no idea) or trying to blend in with some other culture to rescue someone. I know there had to be more to the series than that, but honestly those are the types of episodes I remember. It should concentrate on being a lighthearted drama. Not lighthearted where you get sitcom style hijinks… maybe positive is a better word. Isn’t that what Star Trek is anyway? A bright view of the future?

So that’s the first one. The inaugural issue, so to speak, of Things I Like. Feel free to post your feedback and reactions in the comments.