Amnesia of the Future: Encounter at Farpoint
10th November, 2009 by Christina - 2 Comments
NOTE: Here be spoilers. About the show and book. I’m not interested in trying to talk circles around what I really want to say. Plus, I’m assuming if you want to read this you’re already a Star Trek fan.
Let’s skip all the talk about plot and acting and incredible use of available technology and skip straight to the bone and marrow of what’s important here…or lack of bone and marrow I guess…
HOLY GIANT JELLYFISH!
If someone were to tell me that in a few hundred years humans will regularly be traveling vast swaths of space and encountering other intelligent life forms, I would not at all be surprised to find Giant. Space. Jellyfish. included amongst the aliens. Actually, I think it’s kind of cool and in my next life would like to come back as one.
There were two moments of my introduction to Star Trek that transcend all of that stuff normal Trekkies would be talking about like how awesome the Enterprise is, the fact that some guy walked by in a really really mini skirt, and well, all that Trekkie stuff like the foreshadowing of the Kindle (approximately 25 minutes in during the court room scene.)
I prefer to skip all that because on my first viewing all that was great and all that was awful didn’t matter. Rather, the way the show was presented smacked me in the solar plexus and made me really excited to keep watching.
Moment 1: There’s this passage in the graphic novel T-Minus that shows the Apollo 8 mission. Bill Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell are floating around taking photos out of their tiny windows when a sight to behold makes them ignore the NASA-provided checklist of photos to take one of inspiration. When you turn the page (and that was a stroke of genius in teasing the reader), you see one of the most recognizable photos from space – the earth rising over the horizon of the moon.
Watching the opening sequence was like reliving that page turn. As Captain Jean-Luc Picard* provides the voice-over, the camera pans through our galaxy and beyond into these twinkling stars…I wanted to transcend everything to be a part of everything and nothing and meld with that vast vastness of space that is so vast. This, oxymoronically, is sort of the opposite and the same as the message being put forward here–that for all its faults, humanity is pretty darn good and an important part of the universe.
Moment 2: For the closing quote of the two-part episode, Captain Picard says, “Let’s see what’s out there. Engage.” It just builds so stunningly on the desire to go forth and explore that was set up for us in the opening. Returning back to my T-Minus comparison, there’s a sequence when Ed White becomes the first American to walk in space during the Gemini 4 mission. I cried as, after repeated requests from Houston to return to the vessel, White states that, “This is the saddest moment of my life.” I identified so strongly with that feeling of wanting to be a part of something so much bigger than life as we know it, to just be…in space.
My personal experience was delightfully marred by the crowd of hecklers in the audience with me. My Trekkies got very excited for the separating of the saucer from the main portion of the ship. Sure it was impressive, but on my own I wouldn’t have understood just how big a moment this had been for Trekkies across the country twenty-two years ago when the episode first aired.
Memories of the Future: Chapters 1 & 2
Wil Wheaton is funny. Like seriously funny. New York mailboxes are tiny, so I had Memories of the Future shipped to my office and proceeded to read a wee bit on the subway ride home. And I’ll own up to the fact that I was actually trying to passively hit on geek guys with my impressive reading material. It didn’t work.
Instead, I laughed at the first page of the tangent-filled synopsis, told myself to close the book lest I meet a spoiler, and proceeded to read on. The writing is so engaging that even if I were to stop watching the DVDs now, I think I would honestly enjoy reading his book simply for the entertainment value.
There’s plenty to make fun of in this first episode. Like the Wesley-Cam in part 2. And have I mentioned Troi’s hair yet? No? Or what about the fact that watching her sense emotions is more painful than the pain she senses? Anyway, glad to see Wil Wheaton all jovial about making fun of the same thing. Except he forgot to mention her hair, which is really bad.
Happily, I discovered that I’m not the only one who wanted bitch slap Q. Not so happily, he’ll probably return later in the series thanks to that obvious, “I don’t promise not to return” ending. He’s insanely annoying and Wil Wheaton nailed it by calling him an internet troll.
I know many people eventually hate Wil Wheaton’s character of Wesley Crusher, but based on this episode alone Crusher is simply an over-excited, annoying puppydogteenager; and who wouldn’t be in his place? It was right after watching this episode that the whole Die Wil Wheaton Die thing was explained to me and I was quite happy to read some subtle (and one blatant) self-deprecation towards the news group. Plus it adds a little something to the episode of The Big Bang Theory which we watched immediately after the Star Trek-a-thon.
Post entertaining recap of the episodes, is the “Behind the Scenes Memory” which brings a rather cool dimension to the show. Despite the faults Wil Wheaton points out about the two-part episode, they were obviously doing something right. I didn’t notice the repetition of background actors during the mall scene and, even after having it pointed out, re-watched the episode and still missed them despite telling myself “Hey, self, look out for the repeat actors!”
The chapters end with a C-grade average. I give it a “super cheesy for 2009 but probably incredibly cool in 1987, and I’ll be back for more.”
*French name, British accent. Someone please explain.
