To Go, Boldly

There. I've dispensed with that niggling split infinitive. Kirk, I could understand, but Picard? quel horreur.

A bit of needlessly pedantic revisionist copy editing, and just the sort of error which the upcoming JJ Abrams "Star Trek" reboot is showing great promise of avoiding. Literally (and I do mean that literally) every review I have read to date has filled me with anticipation of what looks to be a rousing and intelligently crafted reimagining of the Star Trek universe. And this is not a thing I am predisposed to take lightly.

When I was a kid (let' say between the ages of 6 and 8), I remember being an avid fan of "Lost In Space," "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," and any hackneyed pastiche which partook even peripherally of the SF genre. Drank it up like it was The Antidote.

But I avoided Star Trek. At least till I was 10 or so, I simply felt as though it was beyond me. I recall feeling as though the stories it told were above my intellectual pay grade and, as consciously as one does anything at that age, I never did more than check in on it from time to time. I was a little intimidated. I was probably just about 10 when I read one of James Blish's Trek anthologies ("Star Trek 4," in point of fact), and finally got it. After that, I never missed a syndicated episode on New York's WPIX, channel 11.

Star Trek was a formative element in my development as a human being. The Enterprise as an interstellar allegory for the just man (and the just State), balancing intellect, empathy, and will, attacking intellectual problems with eyes and minds and hearts (and, if necessary, gun ports) open has been one of the guiding archetypes in my pervasive construal of how I would choose (or at least aspire) to move through the world.

Any attempt, then, to go back and edit the basic code of the construct has a steep hill to climb before I buy into it. (c'mon, count the metaphors)

All accounts indicate that Abrams may have found The Equation. This film has been described as embodying real reverence for the spirit (and many of the details) of the original, while still finding a way to justify the juxtapositions of the familiar with the subtly (or blatantly) divergent aspects of what I am comfortable treating as an alternate universe. As a lifelong SF junkie, I can roll with the alternate universe thing, no problem. What amazes me about this is the degree to which Abrams and his team have finessed the Many Worlds device in such a way that I might just be able to let myself be surprised by a new set of stories, without having to check all that is best about Trek at the door. If they really pull this off, it will be one for the history books.

And I've come at least this far since breaking the double digits in laps round the Sun: I'll be there on opening night (midnight, if possible).

Starfleet Dress uniform optional, of course.