If you’re of my vintage, chances are you’ll have grown up watching original runs of the original Star Trek episodes. In fact, Trek was the first program on TV I ever saw in color!

The Star Trek series you like the most seems to be the one you grew up with. For those born in the 70s and 80s, it was Next Generation and/or Deep Space Nine. Those born a few years later favour Voyager. And Enterprise was favored by those born in the mid 80s and after.

Most people who watched the original run of The Original Series (TOS) remember it fondly and feel its morality tales still have relevance in today’s world. Those growing up on Next Generation and later series see TOS as being kitsch, dated and suffering low production values. It’s interesting that because TOS was shot on film, Star Trek is being released on Blu-Ray in high definition whereas Next Gen was shot on video and so it will never appear on Blu-Ray.

Enterprise is the only other Trek series incarnation that’s likely to appear in high definition on Blu-Ray. This series received a lot of criticism from Star Trek fans for rewriting Trek history. Spock was supposed to have been the first Vulcan serving in Starfleet, yet T’Pol served as First Officer 150 years earlier in Enterprise. As she was a member of the Vulcam High Command rather than Starfleet, the apparent dichotomy was solved. Enterprise contained other rewrites of Trek history as well. Actually, this didn’t annoy me that much as Enterprise was much more in line with the spirit of TOS than the intervening efforts.

The first Star Trek movie appeared 30 years ago. The last movie, Star Trek: Nemesis, limped out of movie theaters in 2002. And now, seven years later, Star Trek XI lands on May 8th, 2009.

I’ve looked at the trailers and hmmm…I have a lot of reservations about this movie. But that’s because I grew up with the old crew and I don’t think Trek history should be messed with (despite my being okay with what Enterprise did). The problem for me is that the new movie plays around with the characters’ own histories, alters their relationships and will fundamentally change how those characters will be perceived.

I can see that this is a reboot for a new, younger audience, but (not having seen the movie), perhaps it would have been better to use a different crew and ship, even if still set in the years leading up to the original 5-year mission. I’m not taken with some of the casting choices either. Okay, I agree I’m something of a curmudgeonly old fart on this.

Time will tell. Star Trek XI will be here in a acouple of weeks. Of course I’ll go to watch the movie. I really hope that I’ll be applauding at the end of the movie and wanting more instead of holding my head in my hands disappointed with the “vision” of a director who wasn’t even a Star Trek fan.

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