Arduinna

Sigh, at some point I'll probably write about something other than Star Trek. But that unreal universe happens to be the place I'm escaping to right now, so here we are.

The CTV sci-fi channel has been running all the Trek movies from TMP to (presumably--we're not there yet) the Abramsverse. The viewing partner and I have been recording and rewatching all of them. So far we're up to First Contact (1996).

I remember having quite a few quibbles about plot points and characterizations when the film was first released. (KRAD rewatched the film in 2013, and he and his commenters noted many of its strengths and weaknesses in his review.) Now, from a distance of decades, I find that the film hits differently than it did thirty years ago.

This time--maybe because I'm feeling so bereft of optimism and hope these days--I was way less nitpicky about it. I was able to move past the plot-hole-riddled Borg stuff and focus on the underlying, and uplifting, story of Cochrane and Sloane and the Enterprise crew. Now I see the film as interweaving the right amount of humour and absurdity with serious-minded themes of human aspiration and exploration and the overcoming of apparently intractable political and personal shit. I was actually feeling happy by the time the credits rolled, and I was willing to believe that a better world--and eventual interstellar union--was on the horizon for the Cochrane-era characters.

I still hope I'll be able to say something similarly positive about SNW by the end of the season, but it's not looking promising.