Ok, ok, I'll relent: yes, old Trek has some pretty bad moments. Let me
clarify: I think that despite its bad moments, the later series are not
so free of fault that they can afford to look down upon the original
series. They're just different kinds of annoyances. If old Trek has too
much preachy allegory related to the cold war and the civil rights
movement, then new Trek has too much preachy get-in-touch-with-
your-feelings psychobabble and too much "It's our duty to infect
everybody in the galaxy with the meme of secular humanist
pseudo-socialism" crap, which is why the best characters in new
Trek are pretty much all Klingon (and I don't mean Worf). From what I can
recall, Gauron is probably the coolest individual character in all of TNG,
DS9, and Voyager (and he's not even *in* Voyager AFAIK).
As for ST:TMP, I'm not arguing that it hasn't got its faults, just that
those faults are less significant than the faults borne by most of the
other movies. As for borrowing the idea of V'ger from "The Changeling," I
really can't see how that's any worse than a writer borrowing an idea
touched upon in a short story and working it up to a full-length novel for
a more in-depth treatment. Even if you don't like the movie, I don't
think it's possible to argue that in the movie the concept isn't handled a
far grander and more serious way.
Sigh. For me, though, I guess it all boils down to Spock, who strikes
me as being ST's only real spiritual and philosophical pilgrim, the only
character that evolves over time to become more than he was, and yet still
recognizable as a fellow traveler in life. ST:TMP is crucial to that
story-arc, I think, in ways in which ST 2, 3, and 4 aren't--his encounter
with V'ger makes him question his goals and direction on a profound level,
whereas his subsequent death and resurrection really only represent a
brief interruption in his overall progress. If Star Trek has a main
character, then Spock is it.
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
