Hi guys,
I love most of the Star Trek series, but I don't consider myself a religious Trekkie.
I saw the new film on Wednesday, and I think it's a very good SF/Action movie when viewed out of Trek context. And it's also a really intriguing and clever twist to branch off an alternate timeline even before the original series.
So far, the time travel theories in the Trek series were based on key events that - when altered by a time traveler - would change the course of history. And so far, each and every time our Star Trek heroes somehow managed to undo the "damage" to the supposedly correct timeline when someone meddled with it. And the timeline was considered the right one if it played out as if no one from the future altered it.
There were episodes with an endless number of parallel universes with different timelines where historic events played out differently (like the "Mirror Universe" episodes). But this was not through manipulation by a time traveler.
Now for the first time we have the situation that a "tarnished" timeline is left that way without being "restored" to its correct course of history. As a consequence, all the Star Trek series - except Enterprise, which pre-dates TOS - basically never happened. So I can understand that there must be many Trekkies who are not happy about this and just feel that J.J. Abrams has kicked them in the nuts - hard!
Personally, I'm a bit undecided whether to congratulate Abrams for this stroke of genious, or if I should condemn him to a life sentence of hard labour at Rura Pente.
But in the end we all have to take a deep breath, take a step back, and view Star Trek - in all incarnations - for what it is: good entertainment!
And after all: it's SF, and they have time travel! Who's to say that the timeline won't be restored in one of the next films; maybe some Starfleet temporal agents from the future will undo the damage done...
Best regards,
Oliver
