The Girl Who Made The Stars

DVD, Short Treks (The Girl Who Made The Stars)

Some say that far across the land there lives a powerful tribe, one that can move the mountains, control the stars and uproot the very land itself. They say that this tribe will one day control the whole world because of their great power. They say that any smaller tribe that wishes to be bigger and stronger should go to that tribe and become part of it, to add their distinctiveness into its own. Then and only then will it be powerful enough to fight other tribes for the best lands, to be lauded the world over and to attain glory as much as the other tribes. Some say the name of this great tribe's power is called storytelling. Some say that the name of the great tribe is Disney…

Genuinely, some people seem to believe that Trek would have been/would be better off by being sold to Disney and becoming part of their portfolio of properties along with Marvel and 'Star Wars,' but if you watch this episode it's like it already happened! I began the 'Short Treks' odyssey at the beginning, with 'Runaway,' what I considered to be a poor entry in the Trek canon, and so it is fitting that I end with another, equally unengaging entry. Of course the big draw would probably have been the tenth and (to date), final 'Short Treks' episode to have been released, 'Children of Mars,' a prequel to 'Star Trek: Picard,' but for 'reasons' they chose not to include it on the physical release. I've probably mentioned this before, but it's astonishing, especially when you consider the Trek audience are such completists by nature - the suspected logic for not including all four of the first 'Short Treks' on the 'DSC' Season 2 set was that they were planning to release all of them together, so it was like a taster to whet the appetite. It was harsh and unfair, but that's the way it was. And then when they did release the set they left off the last one! So it remains incomplete. If it was a disc space issue as some have speculated, I can understand them not wishing to double their cost with an extra disc, though it would have made the package more attractive. If they really couldn't stretch to the extra disc (as with 'DSC' S2), they could easily have knocked off a couple of extras since these are not that interesting or deep (especially on 'DSC' S2 - there's a doc that's almost an hour long, but around two-thirds of the running time is made up of clips from the season!).

If it seems strange I'm concentrating on the missing 'Short Treks' episode so much it shouldn't be, because there isn't much to talk about with 'The Girl Who Made The Stars.' It is basically just a tiny Disney animation, complete with empowered little girl making her elders look foolish (that's the role of youth, apparently!), huge, expressive eyes, and a moral about standing up to darkness in the most simplistic terms. Put simply, it is for children. Nor does it have any but the faintest connection to 'Star Trek.' It is in keeping with the 'Discovery' move towards fantasy and myth far more than science and psychology, but you could be forgiven for wondering if you're watching 'The Lion King' or something! The loose Trek connection is that it's about Michael Burnham (as so many things in the universe seem to be!), as a child on a space station, presumably a research posting for her family, being told a bedtime story by her Father (pleasingly played by Kenric Green who originated the role in 'DSC' - doesn't matter they couldn't get Arista Arhin as Young Michael Burnham since she was older), in order to help her not to be afraid of the dark. On the surface it sounds like a cutesy idea for this sub-series considering it's all experimental. The animation is very different from 'Ephraim & Dot,' which was a much flatter style reminiscent of 'The Animated Series,' this a three-dimensional CGI that looks just like something Pixar cooked up.

I have to say the animation style did not appeal, and yet again it reminds that they want every different flavour of Trek under the sun as they try to find what works outside of what used to work (and still does for me!). I only hope that 'Star Trek: Prodigy' isn't in this style of either visuals or storytelling because when they said it was aimed at children I still hoped that it would at least be in Trek tradition and not stray too far. Just as 'TAS' was simply animation, but in the style of 'TOS,' they could have done the same for other branches of Trek. Other than 'Prodigy' it's difficult to see what this episode points to for Trek's greater presence, because if people squealed with delight that they finally had something to show their very young daughters that would be something they'd like, then there isn't anything else in this vein to continue them towards their planned reeling in to fandom of the young generations (and 'DSC' certainly isn't for kiddies!). As always it's a problem with what Trek is, or always had been, and what those in charge wish it to be. People were worried in the 90s and 2000s that the franchise was doing too much, that it would burn out: 'give it a rest for a few years,' they said. But the truth of it was that if you love something you always want more of it, it's just a question of how much people love Trek.

If they don't love Trek, but merely see it as the latest serial to blaze through between 'The Mandalorian' and whatever else is streaming this month, then it doesn't matter how much craft you put into building it up for the future, there isn't the dedication there. At the same time, those that are dedicated are a smaller crowd, but they're the ones that will stick around. Unless things stray too far from what they love about Trek, and what makes it Trek. I've said it so many times, but trying to appeal to the general audience doesn't work as a model for a successful franchise: they have to be already drawn to what the content is. If you change the content to fit what other franchises are doing, like Marvel and 'Star Wars,' then you lose what made Trek Trek in the first place and the whole thing crumbles. My point is, rather than trying to draw in an audience or appeal to seven-year-old girls because that will ensure their future, they should be making good Trek and people will come to it. That's how it always worked in the past, but is a lesson they've forgotten (because they weren't around in the business then to learn it). Trek became successful partly through nostalgia, but also because it had a wide appeal for both its action and its thoughtfulness. Now it's about aping as many different things that are successful to see if people will come because it's like something they already enjoy. Except when they come they find it's a pale imitation.

It's not that the story or the animation is bad in this episode, it's just that, like 'Ephraim & Dot,' it's doing something that is far removed from Trek. It's hard to see how this would ever appeal to the majority of those that enjoy the TV series', even 'DSC,' because it really has only the barest connection to Trek. It's the shortest short at under eight minutes, but that's a relief for me because there really was nothing of interest here. I know that Season 2 of 'DSC' opened with Burnham narrating this very story of 'The Girl Who Made The Stars' (sans alien involvement), and it may be based on a real African myth, but it's hard to see the place of such myths in the hard science of Trek, one more reason why 'DSC' seemed so off the mark - whether it was time crystals or crying in almost every episode, it all had to be melodramatic and fantastical. I can understand that if Burnham had an interest in her genetic heritage, perhaps she'd studied ancient anthropology and become fascinated by myths and it might have added to her character as a curious Starfleet officer, but if anything I'd have thought she'd be more informed on Vulcan myth and it would have been far more interesting from a Trek perspective to explore one of theirs. As it is, while this is only a bedtime story for an immature mind, it's hardly the kind of thing you'd expect a Federation scientist to be telling his daughter. But these are all side arguments, it's the tone of 'DSC' and much of 'Short Treks' that has been discordant, and once again it's a tale of people that don't understand Trek.

I can only imagine what Trek would have looked like if someone who understood it had been given the keys to the kingdom. Would Brannon Braga be the heir apparent after working with Rick Berman for so many years? Would Berman have handed off the reins to his protege, or would he have kept hold for dear life? Would Manny Coto, The Man Who Made 'Enterprise' Work have arisen from the ashes of the Viacom split to craft successful spinoffs? Or would someone from Trek's past have come to power. We know what happened, it was Bryan Fuller who was given the chance, but he messed it up, and I'm not sure whether his removal was a bad thing because he wanted to change so much as it was. But I still can't see him doing Disney cartoons in his vision of what Trek was. I could be wrong. As it was, Alex Kurtzman was, and is, the ultimate authority, and it's hard to imagine who would have been a less favourable choice among the faithful since his films were the populist mainstream goal that ended decades of history and serious attention to detail. Will he ever advance in his Trek understanding and will the pendulum swing back to what Trek worked as? Or are we destined forevermore (or the next few years, anyway), to endure the most un-Trekky stories, characters and style as we do?

Some will say 'The Girl Who Made The Stars' is evidence of a plan to throw Trek's doors wide open and appeal to all ages, genders and cultures, and I'd say they're right. Some will say it is a very Trekky story because it's all about a moral. I'd say they're not so right. Yes, there is a moral, but it's couched in things that are hard to enjoy and hard to designate as Trek. There's very little Trekness there. If it could be done in any other TV show (and it has been), then what's the point of Trek? Should Trek not be unique? Once again, though, it's not about Trek, it's about fiddling with the property in a vain attempt to please as many as possible at the expense of itself. Just as JJ Abrams wanted to grasp the nettle and make Trek 'popular' in his own image and chuck the rest of it out, Kurtzman has seemingly taken his former master's approach to heart. Does he have a goal other than making as much out of Trek as he can and enlarging his own company's footprint? It's worse than when Abrams wanted control because he wanted it all set in his own timeline, as the films were, but Kurtzman's team continually claim this is all in the Prime timeline, the original continuity. And yet they've made it like Abrams' timeline. Unfortunately, no matter how much they throw at the wall, none of it will stick for me unless it's the 'old' stuff. It's not even about age, it's not the 'old' stuff, it's the 'true' stuff. Everything runs by a formula, even the best TV and films, and you can't throw out the formula and still expect good results.

At least there was one of the 'Short Treks' which demonstrated signs of Trekness ('Ask Not'), otherwise these have been as patchy and uncomfortable as 'DSC' has been. The only hope is that eventually they'll somehow come to a compromise that appeals widely, but also has sufficient Trekness within it that the name 'Star Trek' means something again, rather than meaning a myriad of confusing things.

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