Live Long and Prosper


I boldly went to see a late showing of Star Trek last Friday, when I knew quite well that I would spend days trying to recover. No one said space travel was easy.

In the future, there will still be wars and conflicts; Iowa will still be filled with cornfields; a boy without a father will still rebel to drown his pain uptight nerds will still be at a loss to understand daredevils and people will still carry flasks with a little somethin' somethin' in them. Isn't it a comfort to know that the more things change, the more they stay the same?

Really though, I like the direction the took with the Star Trek prequel. It was a fantastic movie with a lot of action and a good storyline.

By the end of the movie, though, I had turned to my usual griping about the roles women, specifically women of color get to play. By then, it seemed that Uhura (played by Zoe Saldana) was only there to comfort her love interest. But then I remembered that her intelligence and competence had been established early on. She had been assertive with a superior to get the assignment she wanted and her knowledge had provided key information that the hero used to save the day. And as far as her being there to comfort someone, well back in the day audiences were scandalized when Uhura as played by Nichelle Nichols kissed William Shatner's Captain Kirk--the first kiss between an African American and a Caucasian on a television show of that type.

Her role may not have been perfectly balanced (who's is?) but Uhura did have range. And that is a lot more than many women get in movies that are primarily adventure stories that focus on male characters.