To boldly go...

Three days after my last post and I'm just about over my cold, so I guess the swines didn't get me. I was well enough to take the car in for servicing on Friday, and whilst driving is definitely one thing that I miss when I'm in the North, I could do with out having to pay excessively for the privilege. All four tires (that's how we spell it in Canada) needed replacing as well, but seeing as they resembled the automotive equivalent of Jean-Luc Picard, they had to 'baldly' go.

Talking of Star Trek (nice segue, eh?), I saw the new film today, and I must say that I left the cinema with mixed feelings. As a standalone piece of science-fiction movie making it was highly acceptable, but as a chapter in the existing Trek canon, it simply didn't cut it for me. Whilst there were some nice references to the original series - "I'm a doctor Jim, not a physicist!", "I'm giving you all she's got captain!" and even the inevitable death of a red shirted security guard - there were simply too many anomalies for the film to fit in the established Trek timeline. Without wishing to give too much away, this is (kind of) explained during the film, but for me there is a kind of Da Vinci Code feeling about it all; most friends who had read Dan Brown's book didn't care too much for the film whereas people like me, who hadn't read it, really liked the movie version. In the case of Star Trek, substitute original series for the book and you get the idea.

Whatever my personal feelings about Star Trek though, I think the franchise will be boldly going in its new form for a few years yet, in spite of the fact that the bridge of the Enterprise now looks like an intergalactic branch of the Apple store. Director JJ Abrams has taken his own Kobayashi Maru test and just about passed it by applying his own form of original thinking, and a (star)fleet of sequels is now a certainty.

Take us away Mr Sulu, warp factor three...