Thus Spock Zarathustra

Okay, like everyone else, I saw the new Star Trek movie. Like everyone else, I loved it. Everyone else, that is, except George R. R. Martin. But to him, I say "shut up and get back to work, bitch."

Hard for me to admit that, because this film had time travel. I hate time travel stories.

Basically some Romulans going back in time to blow up Spock's planet. In the process, they kill Captain Kirk's father about 45 seconds after Baby Jim is born. Old Spock shows up later (time travel is the opposite of an exact science) and convinces Young Spock to give Jim a chance, and everything is fine. We'll get at least two more movies showing how these two are the best of friends like always. Meanwhile, Vulcan is destroyed and Old Spock goes off to live out his days with the survivors on a colony planet.

See? Time travel. Mostly evil.

Bear with me as I exorcise this: Spock... That is not the same Kirk you knew. I know you need K&S to be buddies, and might not even know about Kirk's dead dad at first. But the man whore/Priceline shill you knew grew up in a two-parent house. Not that someone from a one-parent household can't be a good person who is just as willing to have sex with other species and tell pre-Industrial cultures that their symbol tribal beliefs are horseshit. But having your father murdered by aliens? Might that be a destabilizing influence when you encounter other space-faring races?

Sulu: Captain, Klingon ship decloaking. Weapons powered down. Looks like they've taken damage.
Uhura: Captain, they are surrendering.
Kirk: Scotty, phasers at full power.
Scotty: Oh, hell yes.
Kirk: Open fire, Mr. Chekov.
Chekov: Hot damnski.
Kirk: Where's Yeoman Rand?

This Kirk has all the makings of a different Kirk. The one Old Spock knew became T.J. Hooker. This younger one has already been in a Lindsay Lohan movie. If you had sat through Just My Luck, you would wish you were on Vulcan when the Romulans turned it into a black hole.

On the plus side, now we have a backup Spock who knows a lot about what's coming up. He's getting kind of old, so he could write up some memoirs. Or, if he's worried about screwing up the timeline AGAIN, he could schedule some last-second messages.

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To whichever Captain comes across the SS Botany Bay,

Do us all a favor and blow it up without boarding. If you can't bring yourself to do that, do not set the survivors down on Ceti Alpha 5. Seriously.

Live long and prosper,

Spock

P.S. Ceti Alpha 6 is going to explode in six months. Not normal for planets. Maybe have someone go figure out why?

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Dear Captain, sorry, Commander Decker,

That giant cloud hides Voyager 6. It's back. Look up the cheat codes for its ground computer and send someone replaceable there to set it to broadcast. Do your best to ignore the drug trip on the way in. Bring a recorder. Good luck with baldy.

LL&P,

S

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To Starfleet Command,

The M-5 multi-tronic unit is a piece of shit. That idiot Doctor Daystrom plugged in his own brain in. It would have worked if he had tracked down a Vulcan to help, but Daystrom is a megalomaniac with a chip on his shoulder and a loose grasp of morality. He's like a shark with an overbite that other sharks make fun of.

If you already signed a contract with Doctor Dickhead, then plug his murderous little toy into a shuttlecraft with no weapons or engines. I bet it's good at chess.

\V/,

The Spocker

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Jim,

When you capture the space hippies, just take them to their stupid planet. All the grass is covered in acid and all the fruit is poisoned. Send webcam too, please?

Keep it logical, yo!

Spah

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Dear younger me,

I don't know where the Uhura thing came from, but well done! If it doesn't pan out long term, that Nurse Chapel is going to be up in your space every chance she gets. I suggest giving her some thigh-cramping pon farr just to calm her down. Srsly, send her right up Mount Silea and back.

If she gets clingy, just invent some increasingly bizarre Vulcan rituals until she freaks right out. Won't take much. Take a look at the list I included from a Klingon you'll meet later.

Hang in there with Uhura, though. This is what you had to look forward to until Vulcan blew up:



Looks like fun, no? That's some white-knuckled pon farr right there. Where no man has gone before, my ass.

Live large and peace out,

Cool me

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That'll be fun, if they follow through. And it seems like PineKirk is close enough to ShatKirk to occasionally save life as we know it and still have time to populate a small galaxy of people looking for cheap hotel prices. (Chris Pine might not be an ass to Wil Wheaton if they ever meet, though.)

Anyway, the movie is a lot of fun. I still don't like time travel, but I've seen it done worse (for example, every single time they've done it since Back to the Future). If that's what it takes to double up the Spock, then I'll cope.

When's the next one come out?