Waiting for Kirk

I'm glad to see you back. I thought you were gone forever.
- from Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

I remember the original Star Trek. I was only four, but I remember when it aired. Not in syndication, but when brand new episodes aired on NBC on Tuesday nights. I remember arguing with Mark Lydon, my bff at the time. I thought the transporter room was behind the doors off the bridge and he didn't. I was wrong.

Since then, I've seen every episode of Star Trek. All 80 episodes of the original series (including the pilot, which didn't feature James T. Kirk). 176 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. 173 episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. 170 episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. 98 episodes of Enterprise. 22 episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series. All in all, that's 719 episodes.

There were ten films and two documentaries. I can still remember anxiously waiting in line for the return of the valiant crew of The Enterprise when William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy et al., hit the silver screen with Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979. Gripped the edges of my seat when Spock died in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. And so-on.

But after an unceremonious end to the poorly-received Enterprise, in 2005 I was suddenly faced with a grim reality.

That was it.

The sounds of crickets chirping in the night haunted me. No more Trek, no more Trek, they seemed to echo. For the first time since 1987, a part of me, something which has been around my entire life, was gone. Gene Roddenberry's epic mythological universe was no longer. No movies, no shows. No Picard, no Spock. No Data, no Kirk.

No Star Trek.

I felt like Vladimir in Waiting for Godot. Alone, destitute, wondering when - or if - Kirk would ever save me from my existential reality. During the past four years, I've often speculated if or when Paramount Pictures would revive the massively successful franchise. While Trekkies all over the world continued to don Klingon outfits and give their Starfleet counterparts the 'live long and prosper' salute, the studio was suspiciously silent. Shocking, really, considering the success of the franchise, which has generated billions of dollars and influenced millions of peoples' lives.

Honestly, I believed the studio would respond immediately to the cries in the wilderness with a new television series. I even came up with a few ideas of my own: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, or Star Trek: The Fourth Millenium. Sitting and waiting for Kirk, I devised my own characters and lived-out imaginary episodes (not really; I'm just waxing poetic. Bear with me).

But when I first heard that uber-producer/director J.J. Abrams was going to do the unthinkable - start all over again - I did what most Star Trek purists probably did. I cringed. I tried to reconcile the terrifying images that come from trying to imagine anyone but William Shatner as James Tiberius Kirk. Say it ain't so, J.J.! No way, man! NO WAY!

That was my first impression. But, perhaps assuaged by relief knowing that Star Trek wasn't dead forever - and made a religious convert to Hollywood's latest trend of reinventing franchises (à la Batman) - I quickly got over it and searched for my plastic pointy ears. I knew they were in that box somewhere, amongst a panoply of fake communicators, posters of Jonathan Frakes and a Seven of Nine action figure. 'Beam me up!' I cried from the highest hill I could find. (Actually, I was in the tub playing with Seven of Nine, but it was nothing kinky. Really.)

Now, I'm excited. Enthralled, anticipatory. Downright anxious to get myself to the theater to find out why those teaser trailers have made me salivate like a pathetic Pavlov dog. Sadly, it won't be this weekend. Unlike December, 1979, when I was ready to brave the cold and stand in line for ST: The Motion Picture, for the eleventh instalment of the series my fiancée and I have decided to sit-out the initial fracas and see it when we're not going to be threatened by pubescent Ferengi and smelly Nausicans.

Once I see it - in the next week or so - I'm sure that I'll have some things to say about the film, but I'm pretty confident it won't be negative. It might be a little depressing, though, for like the ending of The Wrath of Khan, seeing this latest instalment will leave me with one unpleasant feeling: that I'll have to suffer another two years before the next one.

Live long and prosper.

Hollywood Bad Boyz Part II: 'Lost Boys' Meets '24' Edition

As if I'm some sort of reincarnated Oracle from ancient Delphic Greece, no sooner had I posted 'They ruined it for me: Hollywood bad boys or just jerks?' than Kiefer Sutherland received my telepathic message. Answering the call to foolishness, his recent head-butting extravaganza is the stuff legends are made of.

For those of you who are too engrossed in my writing to click the link above, here's a quick recap. Sutherland, the star of the Fox megahit 24 and countless Hollywood ditties - although I can't think of any memorable recent ones - is fresh off a DUI conviction in Los Angeles last year, for which he served 48 days in a California jail. The intrepid Jack Bauer lookalike is on the front end of five years' probation for the offense, so it would make sense for him not to rock the boat by shooting up a New York street or beat up on thoughtless fashion designers, even if it is to save the free world from terrorist threats. With me so far?

But when the President - or, in this case, Brooke Shields - is endangered, SutherBauer must listen to the call of his instincts, even if they're really, really bad instincts. Earlier this week, Sutherland attended a party, following an annual costume gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Enter fashion designer Jack McCollough, who apparently bumped into the lovely Ms. Shields and didn't have the decency to apologize. Can you hear 24's eerie and impending dee-dee! dee-dee! dee-dee!? I can. So did JacKiefer, whose mind must've been on the filiming of 24 earlier in the day and (I like to imagine) thought he really was Jack Bauer.

So what does he do? Get the careless McCollough in a full-nelson and escort him to the door? No, that would be too cliché. Draw his fake Glock 19 on the rude designer and point him toward the exit with the plugged barrel? Admonish him with his gravelly Jack Bauer voice?

Nah. C'mon! This stuff writes itself! He HEAD BUTTED him!

I could stop right there and my work would be done; but it goes without saying that Kiefer's incredibly thick skull impacting with Mr. McCollough's head caused the fashion designer to bleed. Duh.

It goes without saying that Mr. Sutherland is in a world of trouble (real world, not the 24 world where the President would already be on the phone demanding his release). An assault charge is a serious violation of his five year probation, so we must wonder what's in store for Sutherland, the show, and the state of a world without Jack Bauer in it.

This one hits a little close to home, since Kiefer's father, the arguably more successful Donald Sutherland, is a native of Nova Scotia, and so am I. We Bluenosers are world-renowned for our friendliness, our hospitality and, like all Canadians, our banal personalities. This is, of course, a myth, but it's fun to keep a low profile, 'cause that way they don't see you coming.

Now it's not just the Nova Scotia connection that has me thinking about this. In 1980, I met Daniel Petrie, the late Hollywood director who made some interesting films, including Buster and Billie, Fort Apache the Bronx and a movie called The Bay Boy, Kiefer Sutherland's second film. Danny Petrie was my father's childhood friend and when we went to his home in Hollywood in 1980, he showed us a script for The Bay Boy, which is based on actual events from their childhood in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.

The main character, Donald Campbell, was loosely inspired by my father and the character Kiefer Sutherland played in the film. Of course, at that time he was a relative unknown and simply the son of Donald Sutherland.

Kudos to him for having an impressive career that stands apart from his familial connection. But shame on him for becoming a Hollywood cliché, like the aforementioned Tom Cruise and Christian Bale. Maybe if he hadn't had the DUI and a host of oft-rumored character flaws, his act on Monday night might come off as being valiant and chivalrous, but here's the uncomfortable truth.

They ruined it for me: Hollywood bad boys or just jerks?

Last week, Christian Bale finally broke his silence and spoke out about the temper tantrum heard 'round the world. Conspiracy theorists who might wonder about the upcoming release of Terminator: Salvation - the fourth installment in the mega-series made popular by Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger - need not wonder any longer. Of course Bale made nice: the May 21st release of the Warner Brothers film is supposed to make the studio bags of whatever currency they use in post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. But when Hollywood bad boys open their big mouths, people tend to listen. And that can translate into box office oblivion, because people today aren’t as nearly as forgiving as they used to be.

Considering the current recession, who can blame them? While people struggle to make their mortgage payments, the mega-rich, like Christian Bale, are losing it over getting too much foam on their latte, or so it seems. His rant was coarse, vulgar and disappointing. And he ruined it for me.

I liken it to walking into your parents’ bedroom and finding them doing it. Ick, right? That’s an unpleasant image you’ll never lose. Well, in the same way, Christian Bale ruined the upcoming Terminator: Salvation, and that angers me, because I’m a huge fan of the series and now wonder if I’ll even watch the film. Worse than that, he ruined Batman for me, another series of which I’m a huge fan. You see, once you see your parents doing it, you never forget. Ever.

What makes it worse is that Bale wasn’t even that remorseful. Instead of falling on the sword and admitting that he has way too many Ferraris to relate to the common people, he made his interview about trust between actors like Bale and the supporting set workers (you know, the ones who actually make the movie?). In one breath Bale states that he “takes the consequences” but then says that director of photography Shane Hurlbut violated an “essential trust.” Really? It’s tantamount to saying ‘I can say whatever I want, whenever I want, because I’m Christian Bale. Even if it means the uncomfortable demeaning of someone in front of others. So there.’ Here’s an essential trust for Christian Bale: people pay money to see his movies. What’s going to happen when that essential trust is broken? Ask Tom Cruise.

People like Bale, Cruise and Sean Penn are what’s wrong with entertainment. Now I’m willing to admit that Penn’s cleaned it up a bit, but perhaps that’s because he has a good publicist. And I won’t dump on Cruise too much, because he does a fine job of it all by himself. But the other night I finally watched Valkyrie. Yes, I bit the bullet, swallowed my pride and watched the film, because I’m a bit of a history buff and I'm interested in the topic. But when Cruise appeared on the screen, I couldn’t see his character, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. All I could see was the monkey-man jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch. The guy who just couldn't keep his religious beliefs to himself.

Listen, I respect anyone who has religious beliefs. In these times, so many seem not to. But I don’t go around spouting my religious beliefs, nor do I appreciate it when people with bibles ring my doorbell.

Enough on that. My point is that it was so glaringly obvious that Cruise’s ‘people’ needed to apply the paddles to his dwindling career, they came up with a brilliant little scheme (not unlike the scheme in the movie): ‘let’s have Tom Cruise assassinate Hitler!’ It didn’t work out well for Stauffenberg, nor did it work well for Tom Cruise. Why? Because when he came out with his diatribe on Brooke Shields and his utter disdain for antidepressants, he pretty much made us do something horrific - watch him doing it.

Walk in on our parents doing it.

There was a time when being the bad boy was the ‘in thing.’ We romanticize when we think of Errol Flynn, James Dean or Jack Nicholson. But these guys were classy and icons unto themselves. Today, our tolerance for people who don’t understand basic concepts like ‘respect,’ ‘honesty’ and ‘decency’ has grown incredibly thin.

For good reason. We live in a world where YouTube and Google are only a click away. That Christian Bale is like that isn’t surprising. That we discovered he’s like that isn’t either.

We all know our parents did it – how else would we be here? But knowing they did it and seeing them do it are two massively different enchiladas.

I think I will have to see Terminator: Salvation; but when I do, I probably won't enjoy it. Christian Bale has ruined it for me. By letting us see (hear) what he’s really like, he let the genie out of the bottle.

No feigned words of ‘remorse’ can put that genie back.