Yet Another Generation

I want to go see the new Star Trek movie. I really like the idea of bringing in new actors and making a fresh interpretation. Star Trek is a real, actual, living modern myth. It's not Gene Roddenberry's any more, it's pierced the collective narrative. Humans tell stories, they know themselves and define themselves through stories. And let's face it, many 21st century people have little relationship any more to something like Prometheus or King Arthur. Even Charlton-Hestonesque Bible epics would probably have little appeal several decades later. They are display-case mythologies, something removed and handed down to us to be referred to under the "mythical" label, so we continue to define ourselves through what used to be alive for generations before us, but not something present in people's consciousness, not part of their everyday, not something they would draw on for real. Yet people have a need for mythology all the same - and meanwhile, this slot has been occupied by modern, as yet consciously unacknowledged myths. So like Harry Potter or Tolkien, Star Trek is assimilated and used as a basis for new people's creative expression, for new people reestablishing their relationship to what archetypal qualities the characters represent, by retelling the story in a context that hits closer to home.