At
first glance Zachary Quinto, the actor chosen to play Spock in the new
2009 Trek movie, is perfect . . .
After all the
Heroes actor (he played
Sylar) is a dead ringer for Spock and the announcement of his casting
hardly raised the same eyebrows (er, sorry) that Pine’s did. But while
Quinto is a talented and promising young actor, Spock’s character as
written by screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman is all wrong.
While Nimoy’s Spock may have been as cool as Zaphod Beeblebrox (so cool
you could store a steak inside him for a week!) Quinto’s Spock is more
like Bruce Banner, ready to Hulk out at the slightest provocation!
(If you’re familiar with Star Trek you might want
to skip this paragraph. In Star Trek the Vulcans are an advanced
alien race who prides themselves on their lack of emotion and their
machine-like “logic” which has saved them from a violent and war-like
past. Being half human Spock is caught between these two worlds of cold
logic on the one hand and human emotionality on the other. Cold logic
usually won out in Spock’s case, much to chagrin of his fellow crewmembers
in particular Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, the ship doctor.)
[SPOILER
ALERT!] When we first meet Spock as a young boy in Abrams’ Trek
flick, he is being taunted by two fellow classmates for having a human
mother. Instead of shrugging it off, Spock looses his cool and physically
attacks his tormenters. Fast forward several years and Spock is now a
young adult. However when one of the Vulcan High Council members drops
that Spock is at a disadvantage because of his half human heritage, he
decides to join Starfleet in a pique instead of the path laid out by his
Vulcan elders.
|
"Quinto’s Spock is more like Bruce Banner, ready to Hulk out at
the slightest provocation!" |
It gets worse for emo Spock. Later on we see him
involved in a relationship with Uhura (!) as played by Zoe Saldana. (Some
background: in the Trek series it is always Kirk and Uhura who may
or may not have a “thing” going. They in fact made television history when
they shared the first interracial kiss shown on American television.) The
whole “Spock getting Kirk’s girl instead” thing may have struck the
writers as a cool inversion of viewer expectations, but it strays even
further away from Spock’s original character.
Later on in the movie, the plot depends on Kirk getting
Spock to lose his cool so that he will relinquish command of the
Enterprise. Not much of a problem really. It may have taken a lot to get
the old Spock to lose his temper, but Quinto’s Spock is shown to be
practically a cauldron of seething emotions throughout the entire movie so
it doesn’t take more than Kirk making a “your mother wears combat boots”
jibe to have Spock frothing at the mouth. [END SPOILERS!]
Spock’s whole “what does it mean to be half human?”
spiel seems to be more like Data in the
Next Generation
series than anything else. This new Spock is simply not, well, logical.
The writers probably decided that there wasn’t a lot of, er, “human
interest” in a cold and detached Spock – but they wound up missing the
point behind Spock’s character and the fascination it holds for long-time
trekkies. Which nerdish 11-year-old boy is going to be intrigued by an
overemotional dude with pointy ears even if he does have a sexy
girlfriend? Ultimately Quinto’s Spock comes across as simply constipated
as opposed to Nimoy who oozed self-confidence. (And that, as anyone will
tell you, that is what really turns on the chicks!)
There is a lot of deviation from Star Trek canon to irk
stuck-up trekkies in Abrams’ reboot. [SPOILER ALERT!] The
planet Vulcan – and the handful of people the movie shows to be living
there – gets blown up for starters. And Kirk’s dad who lived to see Kirk
graduate from the Academy is killed off before he is even born. [END
SPOILERS!] But the movie’s biggest lost opportunity is getting
Spock’s character wrong and you don’t even need an anal trekkie to tell
you that . . .
