Rush to judgment.

It's a common concept, and it's something we saw with the Nifong/Duke Lacrosse players. When news first came out that exotic dancers had been raped, it was way to soon that the players and their coach were dismissed from the school, that the lacrosse program was cancelled for the year, and that Nifong was re-elected. At that time, I told my wife that the boys were probably guilty of bad judgment to hire erotic dancers for their party, but I sincerely doubted the whole story. I couldn't believe the rush to judgment against these players. Not that they were choir boys, believe me -- I've been there, I know what goes on at college parties -- but I also knew that at a similar party about twenty-five years ago, one of the "entertainers" for the evening told a group of fellow students that they needed to pony up some more money or she'd scream rape. These students -- and no, I wasn't among them -- complied, and hit up Tilly the All Time Teller at First National Bank of Georgia (one of the first ATMs invented) and paid her the extra $250 she was demanding. In the Duke case, I don't doubt for a moment that something similar happened except you can add the complication of a prosecuting attorney using the alledged events to promote his campaign for re-election. It was a rush to judgment of which America should be ashamed.

So what does this have to do with Star Trek?

I'm already hearing whispers from many fans (and shouts of indignation from a few) that the new Star Trek film will be terrible. Without knowledge of a cast, without details of a script, these fans have already decided to rush to judgment and condemn the new Star Trek film without one second of film being in the can. And that, my friends, is wrong.

Some will argue that I'm being hypocritical, that I was and remain one of Enterprise's biggest critics. But I gave the show a chance. True, I was skeptical about the storyline ("Future Guy" and the timeline war being an example), and I was truly critical of the lack of respect paid to what fans had come to expect from canon (the Enterprise defenders called it "fanon," but that doesn't change the fact that fans had certain expectations for the Vulcans, and Enterprise utterly failed to meet them). And it's true that I've declared it not to be part of the Orion Universe canon. But folks, I gave it a chance. I didn't rush to judgment. I simply let Berman and Braga hang themselves on the rope that was their product before I condemned the show.

And yet I remain hopeful for the new Star Trek film, even though I also remain skeptical.

That's hard for a lot of fans to believe, but I'm simply waiting for them new movie without any preconceptions. Will it be Star Trek? I don't know. Will it be any good? I don't know that either. I'd like to believe that it will be both. Will it be a reboot? Probably. Will I accept it as canon? I don't know. All I know is that I want it to be good.

But I'm not going to engage in some sort of rush to judgment for the production. I'm going to adopt the 'wait and see' approach, and I hope that all of you are, too.

Randy

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