An outline for my upcoming talk in Istanbul.

I rather suspect that this clip was already filmed and scheduled to be released pretty soon anyway. In any case, most of the season finale’s plot twists have been circulating as rumors for a while – albeit intermixed with other stuff that turned out not to be true.

But, whatever. Enjoy the clip:

Congratulations to Kim Stanley Robinson, whose novel 2312 – which is set in a libertarian-socialist future of Mondragon cooperatives that is sort-of connected to his Mars books – has just won the Nebula award.

I can’t go into much detail about what I liked without getting into spoilers either, so let me make just three points:

On one level, I think ST:ID may be the most fan-friendly film in the franchise, i.e., the one with the greatest number of older Trek references for fans to pick up on – a bit like what Steven Moffat has been doing with Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary year – while at the same time being perfectly accessible to non-fans. (There’s one line – no, not one of the obvious ones – that’s a subtle reference to a specific scene in a previous film – argh, can’t talk about that yet ….) And there’s enough character development to give the two main actors the chance to do some nice work.

On a political level, the movie is a stinging indictment of the war on terror, bearing a clear message that a) terrorism should be treated as a crime of individuals rather than as a pretext for war, and b) one doesn’t have to sympathise with terrorists to recognise that their actions can be blowback from wrongdoing on one’s own side. (This message may seem to be undercut by the film’s dedication, but I suspect the dedication is ass-covering for the message.)

On yet another level, ST:ID represents a criticism of, and the promise of a departure from, the militarist, non-exploration focus of much recent Star Trek. Although the odds of Abrams directing the next Trek film are low, given that he’s got another rather hefty upcoming slice of iconic sf currently on his plate, I think it would be very difficult for anyone to follow up this movie with another recycled V’ger/whales/Borg/Remans/Romulans-attacking-Earth tale. The movie clearly points in a different direction, even if it doesn’t yet head there.

Self-promotion şarkı:

Click for enhanced magnitude.

Then I’m flying to Athens (second time) to do this at this.

I start by flying from Atlanta to Charlotte to Rome to Athens to Istanbul, changing planes in each city. What could possibly go wrong?