Star Trek: The Movie Adaptations

Today, JJ Trek (also known as ‘Star Trek’) drops on DVD shelves everywhere.

As a sort of homage/tie-in, I thought I’d bring you a couple of the comic book adaptations.  First up, one of the best of the Trek movies ever made – Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country:

After the disaster that was ‘The Final Frontier’, ‘The Undiscovered Country’ was a great flick and comic.

Brief synopsis: Federation: “We want to help you now that you’re only source of energy has been destroyed. Dumbasses.”  Klingons: “Oh no you din’t!” Federation: “I mean, honestly – who keeps a single moon as their ‘chief energy source’ – who does that? *laughs*”  Klingons: “I KEEL YOU!”  Federation: “With what? YOU DON’T HAVE ANY MORE ENERGY, REMEMBER?”  Klingons: “WE HAVE SHAKESPEARE!” Federation: “. . .  Well, now you’re just making shit up.  Who do you think you are?  Chekov?”

…um.  Yes.  Well.  That…  Yeah…

Moving on…

Of course, the film that followed The Undiscovered Country was horrible.  ‘Generations’ was punctuated with bad lighting, a bad story, Klingon’s too stupid to say ‘Disengage cloak and raise shields’ in the five minutes it took for a torpedo to cross the space between them and the Enterprise – not to mention the fact that they couldn’t shoot worth a shit and, of course, two horrible endings wherein our Captain, Kirk, gets kilted.

In the cover above, Captain Picard is reaching for your wallet and asking, “Give me $4 for this excrement.”  See, he wouldn’t say ‘crap’. He’s too classy for that.  The artwork was better than the poorly lit flick of the same name.

Intended to launch a series of films based on the wildly popular Next generation tv show, it was also supposed to ‘bridge’ the Next Generation and the Original series by having Kirk in it.  They killed Kirk in it.  Badly.  In two versions.  There were not a lot of fans of the way he died.  Either time.

Brief synopsis: “Paramount wants us to do another season!” “Shit! That’s like… *does math on fingers real quick* Um… a lot of shows and stuff!  Quick – somebody write a movie!  They only need to be like, one hour or something.  What’s that?”  “Three day old mooshoo pork.”  “Can it type?  Never mind – it’s hired – ‘head writer’ has a nice ring to it, eh?  Eh?”  “It moved!”  “And moved me as well – I think I heard it say, ‘Paul is dead’…”  “Wait – what if -we- kill Paul?”  “There is no ‘Paul’ in Star Trek.  Paul is in Dune.”  “Oh, right.  We could write one!”  “Yeah!  No, wait – that’s just stupid.  Let’s kill someone that’s already written – it’ll be less hassle than dealing with a new.. ah… what do you call them?”  “Actors?”  “Yeah – those.  Let’s just kill someone else.  Who could we kill…”  “Look!  It’s Kirk!  Kirk Cameron – right there outside our offices!”  “Hey… I think you may have stumbled onto something…”  “Yeah?”  “We can kill the kid!  Wesley!”  “Uh, he’s no longer under contract.”  “Shit.  Wait a minute – did you say ‘mooshoo pork’?!”  “Yes.”  “That’s inspired!  We’ll kill Kirk!”  “Oooo – I like it.  He’s old – we have to pay him tons just to show up.”  “Right you are – it’s a ‘win-win’!”

Never one to let his character be dead – Shatner brought Kirk back in a novel called ‘The Return’:

Which (Yes, I own it) he referenced (What? So I bought the damned book!) in his complaints (I WAS CURIOUS!) that he wasn’t included (STOP GIVING ME THAT LOOK! IT’S JUST A DAMNED BOOK!) in the reboot the way Nimoy (FINE! FINE! I BOUGHT -ALL- THE DAMN BOOKS! ARE YOU HAPPY?!  ARE YOU?!) was (…and I read them, too.).  There was something about JJ saying it would be difficult to bring Kirk back since he died in canon, to which Shatner said: “I did it.”

BTW, I didn’t like this book (shaddup…).

The last adaptation I have is for ‘First Contact’.

This is my favorite of the Next Gen movies and a great adaptation.  I admit it – I cringe and jump a little every time I see the needle go towards Picard’s eye in the dream sequence.  YEESH!

Synopsis: “Berman, I’m boooorrrred.” “Hmmm.  We could do another movie.”  “That could be fun. You know what I liked?” “What’s that?” “When Data banged Tasha Yar.  He needs to get a little more action, ya know?”  “Spiner would be down with that.  The man lives for sex.”  “Really?”  “No.  But how to work a love interest into a Next Gen movie and have it make sense?”  “What if the Borg aren’t really a collective, but they have a Queen and she’s kinda freaky, kinda hot and has a thing for Data and wants to jump his bones?”  “Hmmm.  That could work.  but what about the rest of the crew?” “Ah, I don’t know – let’s say the Borg have traveled into the past and are trying to assimilate humans before anything began.  We can throw some Vulcans in, have everybody camping out in the trees or something – it’ll be a hoot.”  “Camping?  Sounds very cheap.  I can sell Paramount on cheap.”  “And if it doesn’t suck, the fans will stop burning you in effigy at Creation!”  “…wouldn’t that be a nice change?”

Well, that’s it – that’s my little tour down Star Trek movie adaptation lane.  Hope you liked it. 🙂

~P