Snafu in the Space Time Continuum

I have an issue with the new Star Trek.
It's a fine movie with action so intense it stunned my eyeballs - especially since Velvet and I saw it in IMAX at 10:00 in the morning. The guy who plays Velvet's favorite character in Heroes makes an outstanding Young Spock, and seeing Leonard Nemoy as the Spock of Future Past is particularly satisfying.

Velvet can't wait to see the movie again and thinks my objections are silly - but I don't understand how they could have destroyed the planet Vulcan and killed Spock's mother and still have a movie - Number 4, where Spock saves the whales - which starts out on Vulcan and includes Spock's mother. Frankly, I don't understand how this new movie can exist without wiping all of the original series out of existence.

Velvet says that's because even though the movie itself takes place prior to the series - actually it takes place between Star Trek Enterprise with Captain Archer and T-Pal and the original series that I watched with my dad when I was a little kid - the events that started the plot's trajectory occurred after the original series but before Next Generation. I don't know when Captain Janeway was lost in the Delta Quadrant and didn't pay much attention to Deep Space Nine since it reminded me of The Love Boat. Evidently the planet Vulcan is ultimately unnecessary to the show because Spock himself exists outside of the space time continuum. Spock shows up all over the damn place in nearly all of the versions of Star Trek which remains possible because he and his dad are among the last surviving Vulcans at the end of this new movie.

Velvet says that since the renegade Romulan came from the future, all of the original series and the subsequent movies had already happened. Spock's mom could visit any number of Enterprises and have meaningful conversations with Spock on Vulcan before he goes off to save the whales. Spock will still return to Vulcan and be forced to fight Captain Kirk if he wanted to get laid in "Amok Time."

Since Future Spock lived his full life before the trouble that led to the renegade Romulan turning Vulcan into a black hole - it all happened just like we saw it happen over and over and over again whether we smoked weed or not. That Reality is Secure. Those events did occur; they just won't occur now.

How is that possible?

There's still a Starship Enterprise with Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Chekov, Sulu and Scotty - even Captain Christopher Pike in a wheel chair. It's just that now they're on a different trajectory because reality has changed. New Reality might even be so good that Captain Pike won't have to return to Buttheads on Talos IV since this set up is a big improvement over having his head sticking out of a rolling black box, only able to answer yes/no questions by flashing his little light.

Note the crease at the bottom of the big, round, bald heads. That's why we called 'em Buttheads

Lucky for everyone that Nero the Renegade Romulan maroons Future Spock on the very same ice planet where young Spock jettisons young James T. Kirk. That Scotty happens to be stationed on the same ice planet as a result of loosing Captain Archer's beagle in a transporter accident is simply a happy coincidence. I don't get it because Nero simply stashes Future Spock somewhere to live out his days isolated with the pain of knowing his home world had been destroyed. Nero doesn't give a flying fuck about any of the crew of the Enterprise from the original series. He could have ditched Spock on any deserted planet. Maybe this ice world was the only one handy for both Nero and Young Spock.

Without Spock of Future Past, Kirk would have been some monster bug's lunch. Consequently he'd never arrive at Scotty's outpost. Even worse, without Future Spock there to give Scotty an equation that Scotty invents in the future to transport folks onto ships traveling at warp speed, it would have been technologically impossilbe for young Scotty and Kirk to join their comrades on the Enterprise thereby uniting the original crew to save the Earth and Captain Pike then boldly go where no man has gone before.

It's not exactly alternate or parallel reality. I don't understand the difference between Parallel Reality and Alternate Reality but one of them explains the existence of the Bizarro Enterprise which is how the landing party met Evil Spock when the transporter malfunctioned during an ion storm - but that might have been a Parallel Universe, not to be confused with parallel development which explains how the guys have to fight in Roman gladiator games in "Bread and Circuses," and perhaps those gangsters in "A Piece of the Action," although that whole episode had to do with cultural contamination and The Prime Directive.

Maybe Universes and Planets are different from Realities - none of which has anything to do with being trapped in a repeating loop of time. That's also happened on Star Trek before and they had to send themselves clues to keep from blowing themselves into back into another cycle of the time loop. Maybe in real life the writers got that idea from the ever popular production number in Rocky Horror when everybody sings, "Let's do the Time Warp again!"


This new trajectory may have been necessary so that, in real life, countless movies can be made with buffed up, hot new versions of our favorite characters who are free to roam the galaxy where events are similar to the old reality but not quite. If that is the case, then I think Sulu should definitely be openly gay, life George Takei in real life. The fabulous Mr. Sulu would kick major ass with his gleaming sword - similar to Robert DeNiro in Stardust which is, naturally, a fairy tale and doesn't involve outer space at all. At the moment, the only flaming queen I remember in outer space is Dr. Smith who is a wonderful character but not exactly heroic. As much as I enjoyed the holographic doctor, who seems pretty gay, an Emergecny Medical Hologram doesn't count as a real, openly gay character.



The hot, buff factor would explain why there is a role in this new movie for Future Spock, who looks great as a geezer, but not Captain Kirk who anyone can see from the Priceline commercials is a pudgy goofball. However, the absence of Future James T. Kirk may have more to do with his being trapped in The Nexus during this movie killing time until he has to assist Jean-Luc Picard in Generations. That's a much more plausible explanation than William Shatner being such a roaring ass that nobody wanted to work with him and, I suppose, means there is order to the space time continuum after all.