Star Trek fans get ready, today is the opening of JJ Abrams’ new spin on the Star Trek universe, and the deletion of 43 years of sci-fi history.
Of course if you haven’t heard, the plot involves a handy temporal device called a paradox, an action taken during time travel that prevents the possibility of an outcome to happen. In this case, Spock and the films’ villain Nero travel 120 years into the past and interfering with the time when the younger Spock, Kirk and the rest of the future Enterprise crew come together, creating a continuity paradox.
To make it easy and explain how the paradox affects the timeline we need to reference 2 other movies:
In the movie Next (2007) Cris Johnson, played by Nicholas Cage states “every time you look into the future it changes, because every time you see it , changes everything in it”. Basically saying being aware of the future changes the possibilities leading to that future, thus changing the outcome.
Take another hint from Terminator. In the original, Skynet becomes self aware in 1997. By 2029 Skynet sends a Terminator back in time to erase John Connor from the timeline by assassinating Sarah Connor before he is born. Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to defend her, who becomes his father, thus “creating” himself. 1st time intervention: Connor is born.
Terminator 2 sends back new machines to target Connor in 1995, which carries the fight to Cyberdyne HQ, destroying the company and all the research. 2nd time intervention: Judgment Day postponed to until 2003. Sarah Connor dies in 1997 as a result of leukemia.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, picks up just after Terminator 2. Here John Connor faces a new threat and quickly escapes it thanks to another Terminator sent back to protect him, their actions and up causing them to displace to 2007 via time travel. 3rd time intervention: Judgment day is pushed to 2011. But back in 2029 Skynet is no longer losing the war, but on equal grounds.
By postponing Judgment Day once again, The Sarah Connor Chronicles now places Skynet’s creation in a more technologically advanced humanity, not available to the 2 previous versions of Skynet. Therefore the timeline shifts to have Terminator machines on 2029 who appear to have free will (Terminator Salvation), some choosing to fight alongside humans (Sarah Connor Chronicles: Season 2, Episode 23), while John Connor appears to have his own reprogrammed ‘metal’ army embedded within the humans (The Sarah Connor Chronicles).
To keep it brief, it is not so much as saying time travel changes time, rather that knowing the future ultimately leads to a new one. The one sure thing about it is that every time a Terminator is sent back through time to unmake future history, someone makes money… and if this formula works on ‘Trek’, then we will probably see a franchise-wide rewrite.
Mind you big events in the Trek timeline must still come to pass, as they are already in motion within the new timeline. Kahn is still out in space in cryo-sleep, Voyager is traveling back to earth looking for its creator, the two whales must still be rescued to fend off the can-shaped ship and so on. So will Star Trek be remade in its entirety? That’s a question of how big a hit it turns out to be in the box office.
Quantum mechanics aside, the old ‘paradox destoys the future’ scenario does some good to the francise, offering a fresh and modern look at the show.
Star Trek is Directed by JJ Abrams. With Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Leonard Nimoy as Spock (Prime). Dealing with the early days of James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew.
