J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek
has the ability to reawaken the dormant Trekkie within you. That’s certainly
the feeling you get as you walk out of the film, suddenly aware of why you had
fallen in love with the franchise in the first place. Kind of like that moment
at the end of Wrath of Khan, when
Bones asks Kirk, “You okay, Jim? How do you feel?”, to which Kirk responds,
“Young. I feel young.”
There’s
a sense of Trek giddiness that struck
this writer that hasn’t been felt since the months and weeks leading up to the
release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture back in 1979. And while that film, in many ways, took away a bit of
the joy, this new one merely makes you hungry for more. Thankfully the taste
for that particular meal can be satiated with the CBS/Paramount release of
season one of the original series on Blu-ray.
On a
creative level, season one of Star Trek was
all about the bringing together the elements that would come to define the
show, and its evolution is obvious as the season unfolds. Along the way we
start to sense the depth of the Kirk/Spock relationship, which manages to be
given even more weight thanks to the addition of the Abrams film.
And part
of the key to the Blu-ray set, as inadvertent as it may have been, is that it
serves as the natural follow-up to that big screen adventure. In particular,
one should check out the episodes “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (the second
pilot, and the first to team Shatner with Leonard Nimoy) and the first regular
episode shot, “The Corbomite Maneuver.” It’s a whole new experience following
the feature film as the actors are still discovering themselves, and the
characters each other.
Aiding
in the experience, of course, is the Blu-ray transfer itself. One cannot
imagine these episodes looking or sounding as good as they do even on their
original airings in the mid 1960s. The digital transfer is stunning, the colors
as vibrant as anything shot today. And with the restoration of the film is a
certain vitality that makes you not want to take your eyes off the screen.
Added to this is the brilliant idea of updating the show’s visual effects,
which has served the purpose of making it relevant again to a generation of
viewers who likely wouldn’t watch because the original effects were deemed
cheesy.
And yet
that’s only the beginning, thanks to the wide range of extras on the Blu-ray
edition. There are picture-in-picture commentaries of particular episodes, the
vast majority of extras and interviews from the previous DVD release, Billy
Blackburn’s home movies, which really do offer a previously unimaginable trip
back through time to catch cast and crew at work, completely oblivious to the
fact that they were creating a legend; there’s a documentary on the remastering
of the series, showing the process for modernizing the show for the 21st
century; an interactive Enterprise tour that, as it sounds, guides you around
the starship; and considerably more.
The
bottom line is that the Blu-Ray edition of Star Trek is easily the definitive one, and, like the new film
itself, should go a long way in giving Trek the relevancy it deserves.
OUR OWN BONUS FEATURE:
As noted above, the early episodes of season one serve as
an interesting continuation point from the J.J. Abrams film. When you’re done
checking out the Blu-Ray edition of “The Corbomite Maneuver,” for instance, go behind the
scenes on the episode in this excerpt from the recently published book Trek
Classic: The Unofficial Making of the Original Series.
The Corbomite Maneuver
Episode #10:
"The Corbomite
Maneuver"
Original Airdate: 11/10/66
Written by Jerry Sohl
Directed by Joseph Sargent
Guest Starring: Anthony
Hall (Dave Bailey), Clint Howard
(Balok)
The Enterprise
destroys a dangerous alien probe while exploring an uncharted region in space.
Moments later, they are locked in the tractor beam of a ship identifying itself
as the Fesarius, which has threatened them with destruction. All attempts at
escape fail, and Kirk develops an ingenious plan to trick his opponent. What's
even more ingenious is the episode's denouement, in which the true identity of the Fesarius' captain is revealed.
Writer
Jerry Sohl explains, "I was thinking suppose you ran across a cube in
space. A cube is so damn finitive and so square and so unlike nature, and so
un-asteroidish, that you know right away that it represents intelligent life,
unless of course it could be some salt cubes or something like that. Anyway, a
thing like that in space, whirling around all by itself, has to be a great
mystery. Immediately I thought, 'What is it doing there?' Then I thought, 'It's
like an electronic warning system at the frontier, and Kirk and his group are
so arrogant that they just destroy it,' which, of course, is the point where
this ship appears and says, 'Okay, you guys stepped too far and it's tough
shit.' That's where my thinking went.”
In terms of STAR TREK and this episode's impact on it, Sohl says,
"'The Corbomite Maneuver' was supposed to be the first episode, but
unfortunately it did not appear first in the series because they had so much
trouble with the special effects. However, Gene told me that the network liked
my script so much that they ordered nine or thirteen more. Whether he
bullshitted me and made me feel good, I don't know. [But] the first script [had
to deal with such issues as] whether the elevator goes up...Gene wanted the
elevator to be able to go sideways through the entire ship. I wrote it so that
you never knew whether it was going up and down or sideways. The ship was
supposed to be as big as the Empire State Building.”
Story Editor John D.F. Black
notes, "The thing about 'The Corbomite Maneuver' is that it was such a
simple story. When you think about it, structurally, in terms of most science
fiction, and I can think of three or four others that we had that would be the
exact antithesis; that were so much more complicated naturally that it was
something to watch. Here the situation was to watch that the story was not
expressed as simply as it really was. Television and any entertainment medium
is magic. We are all in the magic business. Well, here it was like close-up
magic, which is what Jerry was doing. It was like he has five cards in his hand
and he wipes his hand and he's got four, he wipes it again and he's got three,
and you're only a foot and a half away and you don't know what he did with
them. 'Corbomite Maneuver' was, by its nature, a very simple story. Jerry knew
it and that's really why he wanted to do it, because he thought science fiction
when it was adapted to film became so elaborate in story and structure, that he
really wanted to do this one and he really busted his tail.”
Director Joseph Sargent, whose
other foray into the world of science fiction was the 1970 cult classic, Colossus:
The Forbin Project, recalls, "They
chose mine as the one to open up the series [though it aired as the tenth
episode]. The comforting thing is that I had a hand in shaping the characters.
For instance, they had an Asian, a Scotsman and an alien. I suggested that they
have a black communications officer. Gene Roddenberry instantly jumped on the idea because it provided an
interesting balance." [It should be noted, however, that
Roddenberry had cast actor Lloyd Hanes in the role back in the “Where No Man
Has Gone Before” pilot]
Sargent, however, had a differing
view of that logical "alien," Mr. Spock. "Leonard Nimoy was
unhappy because his character was without emotion," he laughs. "He
said, 'How can I play a character without emotion?
I don't know how to do that. I'm going to be on one note throughout the entire series.'
I agreed with him and we worked like hell to give him some emotional context,
but Gene said, 'No way, the very nature of this character's contribution is
that he isn't an earthling. As a Vulcan, he is intellect over emotion.' Leonard
was ready to quit because he didn't know how he was going to do it. Humorously
enough, after I saw STAR TREK IV,
I called him and we discussed the ironies of life. If he had quit, he wouldn't
be anywhere near where he is now. Not only is he a household symbol, but he's
also a very high-priced director."
Despite only directing one
episode, Sargent's feelings about STAR TREK
and what it was trying to do are very succinct.
"I'm not a science-fiction fan because after a while, it gets
into a sameness," he states. "But STAR TREK was filled with imagination and substance. Each
episode had that distinctive added dimension to it. It's science fiction with
something to say, along the lines of Ray Bradbury, who I think was a big
influence on Gene Roddenberry in terms of making the stories say something as
well as provide entertainment. That's why STAR TREK has been so enduring. It's not just because the
characters are fun and appealing, which they are, and not just because
somebody's beaming somebody else up, but also because they're beaming up
something a little more important than action and adventure."