Dear JJ Abrams,
You don’t know this, but I lost my virginity to you last week.
Let me begin by saying this: I don’t watch movies or TV shows with “Star” in the title. I have never seen Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Starship Troopers or even Rock Star. They weren’t readily available when I was growing up in Tokyo, and when I tried to watch Star Wars: Episode One at a movie theater upon arriving in this country for college, I fell asleep within the first half hour. When my boyfriend watches Battlestar Galactica on TV, I always end up picking at my fingers or pulling feathers out of the couch. It’s nothing personal. I guess I just don’t have enough points of reference in the imagined future that allow me to enjoy them. Or maybe I’m just wired differently than Star movie watchers. After a while, I just lost interest.
Then along you came with this new “Star” Trek movie. And it confused me because as much as I wanted to hang onto my pure Star-free existence, a part of me was curious, too curious, about what it would be like. So when someone offered me a free ticket to the press preview last week, I decided to go for it. I’m a dedicated Lost fan, and decided that if I was ever going to lose my Star virginity, I should lose it to you.
So I did it. I watched your Star Trek movie.
I thought the theatrics were great. So much drama from the instant it starts (*spoilers ahead*) …the planet that’s about to get blown up, the beautiful pregnant girl that must be saved, the imminent evil that only the greatest warrior can combat by sacrificing his own life. I was with you up to there. Then Spock appeared, and the confusion set in. There are so many things that still don’t make sense to me. Here are some of my looming questions.
First of all, why do the Vulcans have bowl cuts? Even if they’re the same race, couldn’t they conceivably have different textured hair, or slightly different styles? Is it like how Sikhs wear turbans–a religious symbol? Are Asian school boys styled after Vulcans, or is it the other way around? I also wonder about the evolutionary purpose of their pointy ears.
Why do the bad guys live in a fort with giant deadly holes that they themselves could fall into and die?
How does Mr. Spock end up with Uhura? She’s so beautiful and he’s so awkward and ambiguous. What does she think of his haircut?
What are “Star Years”? Do the Star Years and Star fleet numbers have some mystical meaning like the numbers on the hatch in Lost?
Why is there one girl in the Star Fleet Academy who is painted green? Is she the token green girl? What do the other classmates think of her? Do green folk coincidentally have similar sexual behaviors as Americans, or did she learn that from having lived in America for several years?
Why is there an augmented reality head face that looks like President Bush floating around in the evil guys’ fort in the beginning?
What do Vulcans and toilet paper have in common? (Ok, I actually know this one. This last one is a joke some fanboy in the audience shouted out before the screening. Punchline below.*)
Also, during last week’s Lost, I saw a trailer of Star Trek in which Kirk is being chased by a giant monster in snow country. I totally don’t remember seeing that–did I fall asleep at some point in the movie? Please don’t take it personally. I don’t think my nap lasted for too long–just a quick picker-upper. I am notorious for falling asleep during movies, especially ones I have a hard time understanding. After a lifetime of not understanding Star movies, a few minutes here and there were completely inevitable. Sorry!
Despite all my questions, I thought the film was really good.
How do I feel about having finally lost my Star virginity? On the one hand, I feel like I crossed a major milestone in my life. I am no longer a Star virgin. Woohoo! But a part of me feels dirty. Tarnished for life. Impure. Sullied. A fallen woman. I’ve lost my innocence forever. But I think it had to happen sometime, and I didn’t want to miss my chance to lose it to the right guy.
JJ, I don’t regret losing it to you. Thanks for being my first.
xoxoxoxo,
Lisa
*They’re both trying to reach Uranus and avoid cling-ons. Which reminds me: what the hell are cling-ons?
Okay.
“You Had Me At Vulcan Hello”
You lost me at “I don’t watch movies or TV shows with “Star” in the title.”
It’s just like Louis Armstrong said about jazz music, “If you have to ask what (it) is, you’ll never know”
My waveform remains intact, because I don’t care one way or the other.
I hated this.
So you lost your Starginity but in bragging about it, you admit to having fallen asleep?! Too bad you missed the giant snow lobster– totally explains what lies in the shadow of the statue.
We’ve reached smug factor 10, captain.
Cling-ons are the poops that get stuck to your butt and sorta dangle there.
But I skipped over the other questions in the article, because if you really cared you’d go read AlphaWiki or see the shows.
I was fortunate enough to see Star Trek on Saturday, and if you didn’t see the snow chase scene you probably missed the next scene that explained what was up with Spock.
I don’t really care, but why complain about the plot if your not paying attention?
cling-on:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cling-Ons
I enjoyed your essay and had my girlfriend read. Now she is willing to go see it with me at the local imax. Thank you.
i’ll be in line opening night here. just like i was for the first trek movie. and i will hope that unlike the first, the actual event will surpass my expectations.
I believe the exact technical term for ‘cling-ons’ is ‘dingleberry’
Gene Roffleberry approves of this letter.
Actually, humans have pointed ears – kind of. Run your finger over the helix (the folded over outer edge of the ear) near the top. Many people have a little bump there. That is the evolutionary holdover from our mammalian ancestors that did have pointed ears – it’s the “tip” of the ear. So the question isn’t why the Vulcans have them, it’s why did ours mostly go away.
I was lucky enough to see a special screening of Star Trek last week.
I’ve been watching Star Trek since I was a toddler. I’ve seen almost every episode.
The movie blew me the hell away. Seriously. I couldn’t sleep for hours, I was so jazzed.
Note: questioning the green girl proves that it’s one hell of a stretch to criticize this movie.
I’m going to see Star Trek at least 3-4 more times in theaters.
Oh, and the bowl cuts are simply so they look badass.
Would have been better to say nothing and save yourself the embarrassment.
ive been a trek fan since the original series… but i realized that at some point, the well had run dry. it seemed impossible to write anything related to star trek that didnt involve time travel as a cheesy “out” to make up for lazy writing and an utter disregard for continuity. i decided then to boycott anything star trek that even remotely touched on time travel… which means i get to save myself 10 bucks and two hours of my life that i would almost certainly want back after viewing.
Thanks for writing this – it was hilarious and thoroughly amusing. It’s always great to see that the community built around fetishizing the future (as the gadget community tends to be) is diverse and includes plenty of people who go their whole lives without waiting for lightsabers. Thanks for a look out of my narrow perspective and into another!
other anonymous-
You may want to re-think that, this is one of the better time travel stories out there, in pretty much any of the sci-fi media. More what you;d see form a Larry Niven time-travel story than a Rick Berman one. That’s a good thing.