It must be increasingly hard for the writers and producers of Star Trek to come up with an enemy. The original, of course, took our then mortal enemies (The Ruskies and the Chinese) and put them at the helm of the ship. There was a good ol’ American boy in the captain’s seat just to keep everyone calm. Not quite sure how to account for Spock. Making peace with the Elves perhaps?
So then there is the enemy. First it was the Klingons. Protruding vertical brow ridges are no laughing matter. Have you ever tried finding a football helmet to fit one of those things? Not fun. So the Klingons have a bad time growing up. We know that. That’s why they are so angry. Let’s be lovers of the inner Klingon child then. Welcome them on to the bridge of the Enterprise even. Not in the rich Corinthian leather of the captain’s chair, of course, but on to the bridge.
But who are we going to fight then? Not the little green men, given that Kirk is getting it on with a little green girl in the new Star Trek. She was hot, by the way. The Borg was a hottie too, if not a bit creepy. Given the widespread adoption of bluetooth headsets, especially among the working classes who are most likely to go see a ridiculously expensive movie rather than wait for it to come to Netflix, it’s best to leave the ethics of human-computer interaction alone for now.
Instead, let’s go for the cheap score: the face tattoo guy. Yeah, the face tattoo. Everybody knows that guy is a loser. Or an excon, bail jumper. He is not the guy you want hanging around Uhura (also hot). So let’s beat up on him. Until you stop to consider that maybe, just maybe he has body image issues. Maybe those came from not having the brow ridge of a Klingon or the ears of a Vulcan. Everyone made fun of him in school for being boring, so he got the tat. Now you are going to pile on with the intergalactic menace label too, J. J. Abrams? Really? That’s not right.