Is There Still A Need For A Proper Star Trek Canon?

Given J.J. Abrams somewhat “overtly liberal” rendition of the recent Star Trek motion picture, is there still a need to follow the proper established series’ canon?


By: Ringo Bones


The latest Star Trek movie did manage to earn serious money, but given that it has alienated a significant number of long-time Trekkers by deviating from the long-established Gene Roddenberry canon, can the movie be still considered an indisputable success? After all Trekkies / Trekkers are probably fed up with that “it’s all that we have” excuse, aren’t we?

This hitherto unprecedented breach of established canon had many long-established Star Trek fans up in arms over the latest Star Trek movie despite of its indisputable box office success. J.J. Abrams attempt at a “metaphysical” retelling of Star Trek’s most influential characters – i.e. James T. Kirk has not been to everyone’s taste. James Joyce’s Ulysses it is not, as some fans put it. Some Star Trek fans even suggested using the planned sequel to use as a “metaphorical” platform for the Free Tibet movement, given that the US Government is unable to take a justified stance on the Tibet issue because it is now beholden to the People’s Republic of China’s bond holders. No thanks to the malfeasance of the Bush-Cheney consortium that ran a disastrous “War on Terror” campaign.

If we don’t follow the Star Trek canon established by Gene Roddenberry (even those independent Star Trek-based novels tried to follow it), Spock could easily break out into song by singing the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins or is it the Ballad of Frodo Baggins. Especially during that famous campfire scene in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier just because Leonard Nimoy is a big fan of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Or Captain Kirk singing William Shatner’s “famous” songs committed to vinyl during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Or what about Keith Carradine’s appearance on Star Trek: Enterprise. Does he have to sing a few songs from his I’m Easy album, which was released back in 1976? Maybe, I’ll subject this particular Keith Carradine musical opus to a music review once I get hold of a copy of I’m Easy – hopefully on the much-soulful vinyl format.

In my opinion, the established Gene Roddenberry canon is more than probably what makes those Star Trek TV episodes and movies that had been done before claim the upper echelons of the science fiction universe. J.J. Abrams’ use of inexplicable musical montages – i.e. the extremely youthful James T. Kirk’s joyride with The Beastie Boys’ Sabotage playing in the car stereo to poke fun at the latter Captain Kirk’s somewhat odd pronunciation of the word Sabotage – may work on an episode of Family Guy. But it will not work on a main feature of Star Trek.

Given that the J.J. Abrams Star Trek managed to earn serious money during the summer 2009 season and with a sequel in the works, Abrams could well be directing it. Because the taskmasters at Paramount are still very reluctant to risk hard earned money, especially during the recovery period of an economic recession. Maybe we’ll just hope that the storyline of the sequel will return Star Trek to the original Gene Roddenberry established canon, if not, we’ll there are those DVD remasters of the “glory day” episodes that we’ve grown to love over the years.