Slight Star Trek/Star Trek Into Darkness Spoilers Ahead…

So, in the year 2013, I finally tried out Star Trek for the first time in my life. I was never a Trekkie. I never hated the show, but I never really watched it. I don’t know why, I mean my parents watched Next Generation when I was a kid, but I never followed in their footsteps. But my wife likes the show, so I decided to at least watch the 2009 movie. And I was pretty darn impressed. And it was just in time to see Star Trek Into Darkness, which was even more fun and exciting. So, yeah, I at least like those movies and I need to watch some of the series.

But the fanboys really need to get on with their lives.

No, this isn’t a rant against losers in blue shirts with bad haircuts making a V with their hands outside the midnight viewing of the Wrath of Khan re-release. If you guys want to remain single, that’s your prerogative. But don’t destroy your own series.

My biggest complaint about Star Trek ’09 was…uh…well, the plot, sorta. Or the fact that is revolves around a cameo. The darn movie uses a time travel plot in order to bring back Lenard Nimoy to reprise his role as Mr. Spock. There’s just one problem: Spock is already in this movie!

The movie makers went through all the trouble of finding a new cast to play old, familiar characters, but then they went ahead and pulled out the old actor to play the old character anyway. I have nothing against Leonard Nimoy or the old Star Trek series, but I thought that this was a new installment. I thought the Star Trek series would get some fresh life with these new remakes, but they cling to their predecessors like a toddler who demands that Mommy carry him everywhere. 

That’s not an exaggeration. The Old Spock answers everything. In the first film, he gives Scottie the formula he was supposed to discover for himself later. In Into Darkness, Old Spock returns to tell New Spock all about Khan because he’s already faced him in that one movie. The old series had to actually come into the movie itself and tell the new movie what to do! That’s not tribute, that’s dependence! The new Spock may as well have popped in the Wrath of Khan DVD and taken notes!

I think the fanboys really need to move on with their lives. Because if they don’t, good movies become mediocre fanfiction. Yeah, it’s fun to see Old Spock and New Spock talking together, but don’t build a plot around it by punching your own rules in the throat! We know how much you loved the old Star Trek, but at some point, you’re going to have to let go.

Revamps and reimaginings I’m okay with, but vapid continuations are not cool. Too much of a good thing is not a good thing. In a long-running series, you must at some point let something good die (a character, an actor’s performance, a plotline, the series itself, etc). If you don’t…

• Kirk will fall off a cliff.
• Darth Vader will be played by Hayden Christensen.
• Buffy will get a 6th and 7th season.
• The Godfather will have a Part III.
• Superman will Return.
• The Weeping Angels will cease to be scary.
• Near will take over Death Note. 
• Scrubs will get a 9th Season.
• Fonzie will jump the shark.

As fanboys, a patrons of our beloved franchises, it is our sacred duty to defend them. And in the name of defense, we must learn to say “enough,” or else the things we love will be slowly destroyed from the inside-out.

The funny thing is that Next Generation proved that Star Trek could indeed live on outside of its old cast. Why can’t we?