Star Trek XI: The Reboot

Dear Readers,

If there's one thing that Star Trek* fans hate, it's continuity errors. You know, like if in episode X someone says that Deep Space Nine was built in 2346 and in episode Y someone else says it was built in 2351. You see, we like Trek, and therefore we pay attention. Now, I'm the kind of fan that likes to look at the larger ethical and social issues discussed instead of tracking a timeline of the production of space stations, but even I can't help but be annoyed when Data uses contractions even though it's clearly stated that he is incapable of doing so (and this inability is a major factor in various episodes). Glaring contradictions in history, dates, character traits, and the like make us fans feel like we care more about Star Trek than the writers and producers do, or that the writers and producers don't realize the attention we pay to the shows in the first place, and we hate that. Furthermore, they know that we hate that. So I'm just a little confused when Paramount announces that the next Star Trek movie is going to be a reboot of the franchise.

For those of you who are unaware, a reboot occurs when The Powers That Be clear the slate and start all over again, taking the bare bones of the franchise and doing whatever they want with it. This means that the writers have an incredible amount of freedom and will have the chance to make Star Trek into what they believe will be more accessible (read: marketable) to a new potential fan base. Basically, they want to attract people who haven't already watched the 700-plus episodes and ten movies that comprise the franchise, believing the old fan base has had their fill of Trek and can no longer do anything but buy DVDs and action figures.

First of all, I find it hard to believe that it is necessary to trash 40 years of well-loved stories and characters in order to make way for something that may or may not work. Star Trek as it was originally conceived has managed to withstand the test of time, and I really fail to see why it is suddenly so inaccessible. One of the advantages that Star Trek has always had in the first place was its innate timelessness. Because it is set in the future and deals with universal themes, it has the unique ability to transcend the time in which it was originally produced. Now, I realize that some episodes are dated because of their special effects, but the majority might as well have been made yesterday. I don't see how material that timeless could be considered inacessable. TPTB may think that it is impossible to continue to build upon the franchise, as all of the ideas have been so so completely exhausted that it is impossible to come up with more. Two words: fan fiction.

Second, the idea that you have to watch every single episode in order to be a fan is complete bunk. A new Star Trek fan can be made in the time it takes to watch a single episode. I've considered myself a hardcore fan all of my life, and even I didn't get around to seeing all of TOS (The Original Series) until recently. Sure, there are fans who criticize the newbies, but most of them don't realize that some of us weren't alive until well after 1969. Ignore them. All that is needed, in my opinion, is a good movie that can stand on its own two feet, draw the attention of the masses (if Matt Damon is needed, so be it), and create an interest in the franchise that would eventually lead to the other incarnations. The current writers seem to think that this is impossible without wiping the slate clean. I think that we need new writers.

Third, I think that one look at the Trek fans today would be incontestable proof that we are not only still interested in the Star Trek that has already been made, but also that we are hungry for more Star Trek to come. Take a look around. We're so hungry we're making our own episodes out of our own time and money, for Pete's sake! Nothing says "hungry for more" like average people who wear Spock ears and build CGI starships at near-professional quality.

So that's the rundown. I realize it's unfair for me to judge a film that is still in pre-production, but it's just not looking good so far. I'll be satisfied when we get to see what happened to Voyager.

Best wishes, regards, and pet peeves,

-Cecily Jane

P.S. And in the category of Reboots, the Thanks-for-Sharing Award goes to . . .

Ronald Moore for his comments on why he left Star Trek to reboot Battlestar Galactica:

"[T]hey just love torture and rape and killing babies . . . I have been allowed to do the show I want to do."

*I'm using Star Trek here to refer to all of the shows under that name, just to be clear. This means Star Trek, Star Trek: The Animated Adventures, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, and the ten Star Trek films.

Sister Moment #1: Adventures in English

My Dear Reader,

As you may very well know by now, HermanaMayor and I are both English majors, which has its positive and negative aspects to it. On the negative side, I have the same major as my sister. On the positive side, we can edit each other's papers, and we end up being stuck late in the library together when it comes time for finals. So last time finals rolled around, there we were, in the library on a Saturday night writing papers like good sisters do. I was doing research on a poem by William Blake and getting nowhere, and she was writing a paper on The Rings of Saturn by Sebald and something else I don't remember. As we were sitting back to back in the computer lab, HermanaMayor tapped me from behind. She asked me how I was doing with my paper, and I told her I was about to pull my hair out. I asked her how she was doing, and she gave a similar response. Then we decided that it might be a nice change of pace if we switched places.

Now, I wasn't about to go and write HermanaMayor's paper for her or anything (plus, I hadn't read the book, so it wouldn't have done much good), but I thought maybe I'd write something that would give her an idea on what she could write, as that was what her problem was in the first place. So going from the outline that she wrote, just started writing whatever popped into my head. The result was the following paragraph:

"Sebald’s setting in his novel, however, is so ambiguous that even Sebald himself has trouble keeping up with it. This is evident by his cries of 'and what was I talking about again?' and 'Who am I? What is my purpose in life? I need to get 112 pages out to my publisher by Monday and all I have so far are two sentences about how Vogel ate a carrot for breakfast. So I think I’m going to change the setting around here, mainly because I forgot where we were last time' (156, 9875). In the novel, the main character seems to be in this setting, by page 76, however, he is obviously not there anymore, as he talks about being on a beach and going surfing when before we thought he was in Minnesota sipping tea with grandma. By page 145, the setting seems to have changed again, when Sebald describes a violent snowstorm, causing the reader to wonder how it could possibly snow on the beach. When confronted with a seemingly nonsensical setting such as this, the reader can become confused and want to throw the book at a despised enemy or treasured loved one, but luckily Sebald has enough writing skill to keep the setting ambiguous in a way that is more confusing than enraging, or otherwise he would probably be sued for malpractice. This creates a somewhat ethereal effect on the reader, as the setting turns into some kind of dreamy wasteland full of billy goats and hippies. There is obviously a reason as to why Sebald decides to do this, and this is what I’m eventually getting to. The reason is simply that Sebald hates us and wants us to die without running the risk of being sued for malpractice. I guess that if you want a narrator who loves you, you’d have better luck reading Dr. Seuss."

Okay, so I was probably having too much fun with that, but there you go. Classic words straight from the brain of Cecily Jane.

In the meantime, HermanaMayor actually helped me find some useful articles. Go figure.

Regards, best wishes, and the sebald code,

-Cecily Jane

*This leads to the misconception that either we are exactly alike or that I was so desperate to choose a major that I just copied her. First of all, there are many big differences between HermanaMayor and I, even in the way in which we each approach the major. For example, I can spell. She can't. She does outlines and pre-writing. I don't. She is on the reading side, and hates writing, while I push myself through the reading so I can get to the writing that I love so darn much. In the end, she's going to law school, and I'm hopefully going to sell a book, so yeah, we've got some differences there. Secondly, it took me three years to choose my major because I really didn't want to choose the major my HermanaMayor chose. I chose the English major because I tried doing just about everything else and it just wasn't working. After that, I avoided actually declaring my major until the beginning of my fourth year of college because I was so embarrassed about having the same major as my sister. So there.

You Know You Live in Utah When . . .

My Dear Reader,

You know you live in Utah when your hair is bigger than your waist, or when your best hair products are high in protein and cholesterol and come from the fridge.

You know you live in Utah when the weather report is the most exciting part of the 11:00 news.

You know you live in Utah when you go to see what they have to sell at the sell, or you just bought a new four-weller, or you want to praise the lard and sing all hell to Jesus' name.

You know you live in Utah when you put the play in pleasure.

You know you live in Utah when you start talking about Relief Society or Nephi or BYU in the supermarket and the people around you actually know what you're talking about.

You know you live in Utah when everyone around you asks what it's like to be an only child.

You know you live in Utah when you and your soda pop are on a last-name basis.

You know you live in Utah whenever anyone utters the phrase "Oh my heck!"

You know you live in Utah when you get brownies at your doorstep at least once a week, or when you're sick and five separate people show up at your door with chicken soup.

You know you live in Utah when you only have to lock your doors on Sunday during church.

You know you live in Utah when your neighbor gives you a 2-liter of root beer dressed up as Rudolph for Christmas*.

You know you live in Utah when you consider hanging out a sin, or when you're over 20 and single and people give a care.

You know you live in Utah when a question asked is not as important as the creative way in which it was presented.

You know you live in Utah when everyone plays some kind of musical instruments, or when the ward actually has talent.

You know you live in Utah when people use apostasize as a verb and recommend as a noun as if they're actually supposed to be used that way.

You know you live in Utah when people pass on the right, run red lights, and think of turning signals as an added bonus.

You know you're in Utah when license plate frames that say things like RULDS2? are completely pointless.


Regards, best wishes, and signs of warning,


-Cecily Jane

*Okay, that's a true story; it happened to my aunt. It was a very cute Rudolph.

An Extremely Awkward Experience

My Dear Reader,

I suppose that I could tell you that I'm the most awkward person on the face of the planet, but luckily enough for me I've met enough people that I know that's not the case. I think that if I was on an awkward scale of one to ten, ten meaning Fonzi and one meaning Steve Urkel, I'm probably somewhere in the neighborhood of a six*. This means that I am comfortable around boys only when it's clear that we're just friends, and that I am constantly sticking my foot in my mouth without knowing exactly how to get it out again. Every once in a while I'll run into a person at level four or five, and I love it. Now, I know it's wrong, but I get a certain satisfaction from knowing that there are people out there who are more awkward than I am. And then, of course, I always try to be extra nice to them because I know what it's like to be in their shoes.

For example, in my job at the Missionary Training Center (where we train the guys who show up at your door in ties and name tags), I often see missionaries with name tags in many different languages. Each missionary has a name tag with the Church's name written in whatever language they are assigned to speak in their assigned area, and I can recognize the Spanish, French, Mandarin, Japanese, and other languages, but I also see a lot that I can't recognize at all. A while ago, I saw a missionary wearing a name tag in words I didn't recognize, so I stopped him and asked him to satisfy my curiosity. The situation went something like this:

Cecily: Hey Elder**, what language is that on your name tag?
Elder: It's Croatian***.

Now, at this point, he had stopped as if he expected to start talking with me about Croatia, and not only do I know next to nothing about Croatia, but I also I hadn't expected to start a conversation on the subject. I could have just said something like, "That's great!" and moved on with my life, but I wasn't sure what to do, and I made the mistake of letting sound escape from my lips before I had figured out what I was actually going to say:

Cecily: Oh, wow, that's . . . great. You're . . . going . . . to be . . . one of the few . . . Americans . . . in . . . Croatia?
Elder: I'm not American.

Now a bad situation got worse. At the MTC we accommodate every missionary who needs to learn a language for their mission, and since the membership of the church is worldwide this means that we have missionaries from everywhere between Samoa to Spain. So even though I swear he looked and spoke just like your typical American, I had just insulted his heritage and dug my hole just a little deeper:

Cecily: Oh . . . well . . . uh . . . where are you from?

I was originally going to guess Canadian but thought better of it. I'm glad that I did:

Elder: I'm from Sweden.
Cecily: Wow, that's . . . great. You have, like, a really great accent. . . . Is English your second language?
Elder: Yes.
Cecily: Well, that's just . . . that's great. You fooled me! I thought you were . . . well . . . you have a great day Elder.

What I really meant was that his English was impeccable and would he mind if I just curled up and died? But I was still able to stop talking, which was what I desperately needed to do.

I have tried to figure out what creates awkward situations, and while I've come up with explanations such as a lack of experience or a brain that runs faster than the mouth, I think the best explanation I can come up with is that awkward people generally have a small comfort zone, and when a person is uncomfortable with something, people get nervous and things become awkward. And people usually become uncomfortable when they break one of the unwritten rules of society. If you don't believe me, try standing in a crowded elevator with your back facing the door, and you will experience what it's like to break one of those unwritten rules. We have these rules for everything, especially when it comes to conversations. That's why it's awkward to talk about a certain thing with a stranger when you can have the same conversation with a very close friend without a worry, and vice versa. So I guess I need to expand my comfort zone? I'm not sure about how to do that one. I've got to think about that some more. Anyway, the entire purpose of this story was to provide you with a story that will let you know, Gentle Reader, that there are people out there who are more awkward than you are, and I think I've accomplished at least that much.

Regards, best wishes, and Croatian,

-Cecily

*I'm just hoping that life grades on a curve.

**All Mormon missionaries spend their entire mission being called by their last names only, and instead of using a first name, they use their title. The men are all called Elder, because that is the priesthood office that they hold while on their mission. The women are all called Sister, because they don't hold the priesthood and because it acts as a reminder that we are all the children of God. I have some guesses as to why it's done this way, but I'm not sure.

***Okay, so I don't really remember what the exact language was, but it was something like Croatian. Like I said, it was a while ago.

On Dying in Dreams

Dear Reader,

So there's this thing that people have told me ever since I was a little girl: if you're asleep and in some sort of life-threatening situation in your dream, you always wake up before you actually die, because when you die in dreams you die in real life. Setting aside my own suspicion of this very convenient and old wive's tale-like explanation, I personally can refute this theory because I've died in my dreams before and am still very much alive.

The particular dream was incredibly odd in itself, despite its usefulness at proving people wrong. I guess that must be because of the situation I was in when I dreamed the dream, yet dreams are so mysteriously arbitrary that I hardly ever dare to make sense of them. So I think for this once I'll leave the context out of the story and let you get to the heart of the matter.

I dreamed that I was in this odd sort of room that didn't really have walls or a ceiling, but instead was filled with tables for as far as I could see. There were hundreds of people sitting at these tables, each gorging themselves on pizza after pizza. Every face was the face of someone that I knew, which is really strange because I rarely dream about real people. As I stood, confused and trying to make sense of what I saw, a good friend of mine came up to me and offered me a slice of pizza. I found myself incredibly full, and I didn't want to inconvenience anybody, so I declined. She asked me again, and again I declined. Then it seemed that all of the people around her decided to join in the request, and they begged me with such force that I was afraid that they were going to grab me and start shoving pizza down my throat. And then I found that I was suddenly and inexplicably hungry, so I relented. As I was about to take a bite, however, everyone in the entire room looked up at me as if I had just committed the most offensive act possible. Several people tore out of my hands the food that had been offered so forcefully and let me know that I was in no way welcome to partake. I stood there for a while, feeling even more confused than I was before, becoming weaker and weaker until I eventually died of starvation. No joke.

Anyway, after this rather odd and disappointing encounter, I found myself in some kind of ethereal afterworld, where people were congregating for some kind of awards ceremony. I stuck around and eventually won the award for Most Pathetic Way to Die. It was a pretty sweet trophy, though. Very shiny.

So as you can imagine, I woke up that morning in a very confused state. I tried to put some rhyme or reason to the dream, but as I said, dreams aren't generally too cooperative with clear thinking. So I decided to forget about the pizza part and let the fact that I actually died in a dream be my take-home message of the day. So there you have it--clear and irrefutable evidence. Hopefully, Gentle Reader, you will now be able to sleep a little easier. That's what I'm here for.

Regards, best wishes, and tight sleeping,

-Cecily Jane

Racism: a Capital Offense

Dear Reader,

A while ago, I came across this entry in the American Heritage Usage Dictionary (I'm an English major; we use these):

Black is sometimes capitalized in its racial sense, especially in the
black press, though the lowercase form is still widely used by authors of all
races. The capitalization of Black does raise ancillary problems for the
treatment of the term white. Orthographic evenhandedness would seem to require
the use of uppercase White, but this form might be taken to imply that whites
constitute a single ethnic group, an issue that is certainly debatable.
Uppercase White is also sometimes associated with the writings of white
supremacist groups, which for many people would of itself be sufficient reason
to dismiss it. On the other hand, the use of lowercase white in the same context
as uppercase Black will obviously raise questions as to how and why the writer
has distinguished between the two groups. There is no entirely happy solution to
this problem. In all likelihood, uncertainty as to the mode of styling of white
has dissuaded many publications from adopting the capitalized form Black.

Interestingly enough, I recently learned that to be completely grammatically and politically correct, the capitalized Deaf is supposed to be used any time one is addressing the Deaf culture or community, just as you would capitalize Asian or Mormon. Although it is an issue that is completely separate from the capitalization of black, I still find it fascinating that a simple thing such as capitalization can cause such a controversy, but that seems to just be the way it goes when it comes to racial and cultural identity. All in all, I'm personally okay with using both black and white in the lowercase, as long as the context is clear enough. Also, I agree with the fact that the word white can't be used to describe a single ethnic group, though I wonder if that also means that the same restriction must be applied to the word black. Since I don't have a single ancestor from the African continent, I don't feel qualified to give an answer. Maybe we should just give up using the words black and white in a racial context altogether?

Regards, best wishes, and quandaries,

-Cecily Jane

"Life's Not Fair"

My Dear Reader,

There are few phrases that anger me more quickly than "life's not fair." I've heard it throughout my life, as I'm sure you have in yours, no doubt from your own mothers, fathers, teachers, bosses, or anyone else who was either unable or unwilling to fix some perceived injustice. The reason I hate it, to put it bluntly, is because it's generally a lie.

When you think about the word fair, there can be about a hundred different definitions of what fair actually is. Merriam-Webster lists eleven. The definition that most adequately describes the fair I'm talking about is number six:

"a : marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism b (1) : conforming with the established rules : ALLOWED (2) : consonant with merit or importance : DUE c : open to legitimate pursuit, attack, or ridicule ."

This definition is not to be confused with number two: "superficially pleasing." The fair I'm talking about is a synonym with just, something I believe people should truly take into account before claiming that life isn't fair.

Is life really as unjust as we think it is? Is it unjust for a parent to discipline an unruly child? Is it unjust for a teacher to put a poor grade on a poorly done assignment? Is it unjust that the natural course of probability doesn't always tip in your favor?

How about an example: If I happen to be running late to work and I run into a red light at every intersection, could I call this an injustice? And if so, where is the malice or exclusion brought about by this occurrence? After all, every other car on the road is required to stop at certain times. I, like anyone else, must stop at the red light and go at the green. This is what we call equality; the same rules for everyone* else. Also, it's not like the traffic lights are manned by people bent against my punctuality or that it is the traffic lights' responsibility to get me to work on time. In this case, I would say that if I'm a victim of anything, I'm a victim of chance or inconvenience, not injustice.

Yet I am concerned that half of the time people claim that something isn't fair, it really is. This is why the cries of unfairness often come off as childish, as children often do not have the ability to see the bigger picture in which fairness is preserved. I contend that any other whines of a similar nature are just as childish. So is it fair if it rains at a wedding? Yes. It's not desirable, but what's not fair is expecting the laws of nature to bend around individual wishes. I'm afraid that the truth is that life is too often more fair than we would like to admit.

Of course, there are things that should never happen to anyone. Some of them stem from nature, like violent weather or incurable diseases. This especially hits home to me, as my beloved grandmother suffers from Alzheimer's. To anyone that has not felt the pain of watching a loved one's individuality fade in such a manner, allow me to vehemently assure you that no one should. Yet is this unjust? I'm tempted to say yes, and I don't believe I'm qualified to say no. In these situations, the question of injustice is a moot point; time should be spent on finding a cure or coping than arguing about technicalities.

Other issues of a more moral nature often arise. Because I believe in the Bible, I strongly believe that baptism by authority is required by God. Yet is it just for people who have no access to someone with God's authority to be punished for something they couldn't control? I believe in a God who is not a respecter of persons, so I must say yes. What about people who have no opportunity to accept Christ as their Savior because they lived their whole life without even hearing His name? This too is an injustice, and this is why the Atonement of Jesus Christ was so important, because it corrects all of these injustices, and does even more. By suffering for our sins, Christ atoned for the fall, for our sins, and for the choices we were unable to make. This is why we call our God a just God, and why we worship Him. This is the good news. And with this in mind, in addition to the concept of God's grace, we can come to realize that in an eternal perspective, life is more than fair.

And then there are the many true injustices in the world. Cheating, stealing, lying, are among the more mild ones; murder, rape, racism, and abuse are among the more serious. There is an inner part of us, present from birth, that abhors each and every one of these actions. More importantly, these actions are sins which bring us farther and farther from God and salvation. There have been too many times when a complaint against one of these offenses has been responded to with "Life's not fair." To me, the call of "life's not fair" in these instances is an attack against our very humanity. I don't believe that anyone honestly thinks uttering the words "life's not fair" will automatically solve any problem. Yet, more often than not, people use "life's not fair" as a way to escape blame or responsibility. Yes, injustice goes on in the world, but it shouldn't. What is the point of living if there is no hope for the betterment of life? As moral people, don't we have an obligation to do something? There is always something that can be done. Sometimes becoming aware and informed is enough. Sometimes a letter to a representative is in order, or even more. If all humans are truly created equal, than don't we have an obligation to make sure we treat each human with justice and equality? I believe we do, and I believe that our opportunity to become the change we want to see in the world can have a greater effect than we often think possible.

In conclusion, I encourage you, Gentle Reader, to challenge those** who are inclined to tell you that life isn't fair. They may be too absorbed in themselves to see the bigger picture, or they may be trying to make an excuse when they should make amends. In any case, it's a question that should be asked.

Regards, best wishes, and change,

-Cecily Jane

*With understandable exceptions for emergency vehicles, of course.
**I would also encourage those who say that they aren't perfect, because "life's not fair" and "I'm not perfect" are often two symptoms of the same sin. Neither is an adequate excuse for bad behavior.