Reboots

Well. We have had a few reboots of venerable SF series over the last few years. From Dr Who with Christopher Ecclestone to Batman (I mean on film; The Dark Night graphic novel is too old to fit into the timeframe). If you count the prequels, then even that most clunky of franchises, Star Wars, has had a little of the makeover treatment.

And in the last few weeks we have had two more arrive.

Red Dwarf, which disappeared for reasons I don't understand some years back, but which had in any case become more something to watch late at night after the pub than anything akin to event TV (the SF equivalent of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps), has had a new episode air over several days on Dave. Presumably as a taster for Dave repeating all of the series over the next few weeks.

This was all vaguely unsatisfying. The actors had aged, the story in theory should have worked (about the Red Dwarf characters discovering they were fictional - at least in our universe - and with a relatively playful sideswipe to Blade Runner), but I ended up feeling short changed. It wasn't just that the scenes where the main characters met their fans had been somewhat better done in Dr Who, but that they over-egged them. It seemed very, very slow. Also it was more self indulgent than I felt was justified by the material. Rather like the end of the most recent Dr Who series. And I've always felt Blade Runner to be a vastly overrated movie, so that annoyed me a tad also.

And now we have a Star Trek reboot. This is a franchise that you could argue has lived only by periodically refreshing itself. Yet this film is a far more major rewrite of the history of Federation space and time. Without giving away too much of the plot, a Romulan travels back in time and changes Kirk's early life, and with it much of Federation history (the backstory) as we knew it from all the other stories. And by the end, some of the changes that occur in the alternative past/future stay changed.

All of which means that some of the events in the stories from the so-called 'canon' (other films and the various TV series) now cannot happen. They come from a universe that no longer exists because of the events in this story. Which I think is wonderful, but has lead to a little confused handwringing amongst some of the fanbase. This is a far more radical plot development than anything in (what I remember of) Red Dwarf - who would always reestablish the true plotline at the end of each story.

And is it any good? Well, I enjoyed it. Smashing. A real success. Also hugely self-indulgent - much more so than Red Dwarf (especially when watching the crew of the original TV show slowly assembled from a bunch of rookies). But somehow this indulgence is something you, well, you indulge. They get away with it. And with some good jokes too (like the voice-activated computer which doesn't understand Chekov's Russian accent).

This seems like something of a reversal. I can recall, say fifteen years or so ago, arguing that Red Dwarf was so much more fun than the bloated franchise that Star Trek had become because it had more agile plots, could properly use SF tropes and had genuine humour. I think this was probably around the time of Star Trek: Generations.

Oh well.

What I now wonder is whether the Star Trek lot intend to stick with this new timeline, or whether they'll return to the original, seeing this as a sport.