SubscribeAs I watched the previews for the new Star Trek movie last year, all I could think was, "WTF?" Not even the full phrase could come to mind, because giving it three words, instead of three letters, would be providing too much credit to what I was seeing.
I immediately pushed it out of my mind. After all, as someone who has seen every episode of every show, every movie, and wished he could live in the twenty fourth century and serve on a starship, I was baffled that Paramount would take this step backwards with a cash-cow franchise.
So recently, as the release date has approached, I decided to try to watch a couple more of the trailers that were releas; all I could thing was, "WTF?"
We have a movie with speeding cars, flights, laser shows, and hot young actors. This isn't Star Trek, this is MTV meets the idiot causing Gene Roddenberry to roll in his grave. With that, I also began to think about Hollywood in general, are where it has come and gone over the years. From televisions to movies, everything goes in waves, with ideas crunched together; one person has a good idea, and a dozen others copy it. Someone else has another good idea later, and the process starts all over again.
If we look back to the original Star Trek series, you have William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and Deforest Kelley. None of these people are hot. Instead, they were hired to play roles of people who were in charge of a spaceship flying around with a fuel that could destroy a freaking planet. This is not a job I would want some twenty-two year old guy with ripped abs and a buzz cut in charge of.
Actors used to be hired because they could act, or at least do something with a semblence of acting. Bea Arthur, may she rest in peace, would never have had a career today; she looked like a lesbian, and people didn't care, because she could play good characters. Instead, if Maude were cast today, she would be 26, toned, possibly tatooed, wit blond hair down to her shoulders and perfection in the skin.
I am certainly not saying that people who look "hot" can't act, but let's put the full hand on the table. I've turned on MTV, I've seen movies in the last fifteen years. The typical movie/television show has been an excuse for some hot woman to pull down her clothes to her bra, or some guy to drop it down to his boxer shorts so he can show his six pack ab; the acting is always non-existant. Hell, they'd be better off not having any actual lines for these people, and just focus on their looks.
Of course, the music industry isn't much better. For an industry where looks really should matter (sound recordings), we've seen the 'hotness' factor be more important than actual singing and music. Every generation complains about the next generation's music, but every generation prior has had music that didn't need to be sound-corrected, remodulated, and enhanced to the level that the music today does. It is more important in today's music industry for someone to look good on the cover than sound good on the disc
Talent is cast aside for appearance; what is on the surface is more important than what is underneath. While there were plenty of good looking actors and musicians in the past, they still had to have talent, something that is lost on the entertainment executives of today.
