to boldly go where others have gone before

i ain't down with this. not one bit.

paramount studios is gearing up to shoot a new "star trek" movie, featuring the characters from the original series.

not the original actors, mind you. same characters, different faces.

i'm a big fan of the star trek franchise. i have been, i realize, for decades. so i should be happy to see another installment, with an all-new (old) enterprise brought to life with the latest digital legerdemain.

but i'm not.

kirk should always be william shatner. sure, he was overwrought, but that was part of the fun. spock and leonard nimoy are indistinguishable. and no one, but no one, will ever replace james doohan in his signature 'scotty' role.

i know, it's silly. it's just hollywood fiction and now completely about the money. i should care about this not one bit.

can't help it. it feels like they're trying to take something valuable from those of us who embraced the originals for all their quirks and flaws. it feels like they should just leave this fond memory of my childhood well enough alone.

it feels like i'm getting old.

take a look at the actors in that link. cripes, they're children. they don't have the chops of deforest kelley or george takei. they have none of the gravitas of patrick stewart or kate mulgrew. to quote shatner from one of the star trek movies, "i don't think these kids can steer."

creatively, i also object to the completely derivative nature of the project. as if the failure of upn's retro 'enterprise' experiment weren't instructive enough. why would anyone want to go down the "butch and sundance--the early days" road again?

it's pointless. and lame. and it diminishes the franchise.

i know. i should wait to see the damn movie. it might be the greatest thing since klingons and tribbles. and maybe i'm just afraid i might like it. because, really, i don't want to like it. i like the old characters, and the old characterizations. the idea of throwing them over for a bunch of upstarts feels, i don't know, disloyal.

after years of watching the plot lines mature, and the actors grow old, and the series itself evolve in myriad directions, i'm loath to let go. then again, enjoying the premise all this time requires a certain suspension of disbelief. perhaps resistance is, in fact, futile.

we'll see. maybe the old magic can happen--one more time.