"Trekonomics," with Author Manu Saadia

This week I sat down with Manu Saadia, the author of "Trekonomics." We had a great, wide-ranging talk, about Star Trek and the vision of the future laid out by Gene Roddenberry. We talked about the elements that contribute to the economics of the 23rd and 24th centuries, and we explored how many of those elements are either with us today, or exist in very nascent form.

It's very surprising to find that nobody's ever written a book about the economics of Star Trek before. You'd think somebody would have. What fascinating about it is that the path to the kind of world Roddenberry envisioned will have as much to do with economics and politics as technology.

Getting to a world where people work together, and racism and poverty is a thing of the past, may not be a question of technology, but rather politics. The tools will exist, the question is how will they be distributed. Ultimately, the question of whether our future looks like Star Trek or Terminator is less about the machines than it is about mankind. Have a listen. This was possibly my favorite podcast yet: Star Trek, economics, and even some bitcoin thrown in there, too.

 

That's not exactly the bridge of the Enterprise in the picture, but it's close. It's from the exhibit at Star Trek: Mission, the convention at the Jacob Javits Center this past weekend. It was built by James Cawley and his team, a group that's been making Star Trek fan films for about 15 years. I've got a feature in the works on it.

A Far Better Resting Place for Jim Kirk

William Shatner made a surprise appearance on my show, The Markets Hub (wsj.com), in 2011. He was in the Wall Street Journal newsroom taping an interview for his new (at the time) book, and one of our producers thought it would be exciting to have him walk onto our show live.

You can watch the video here; Shatner comes on right at the 16:00 mark, and if I don’t seem all that surprised, trust me, it was just because I was keeping cool. Capt. James Kirk was a childhood hero, and to have the guy who played him come onto my set unannounced was an out-of-body experience.

Also, and much to his credit, he actually talked about the markets with us.

Anyhow, as you may imagine, I had Capt. Kirk on the brain a lot after that appearance. I started thinking Kirk deserved a better send-off than the one he got in Generations (as a truly deranged Trekkie, I will watch just about any Star Trek story if I come across it on TV, but Generations is pretty lame when you think about it). I started thinking if J.J. Abrams could screw with the Star Trek universe for his silly re-boot (see my take on that one here), then why couldn’t we redo Kirk’s final tale? That’s when this Kirk story started forming in my mind.

William Shatner on the Euro Crisis and the Best Trek Movie

Here's one of the Markets Hub shows from October 2011, when we were surprised on the set by William Shatner. Click in at the 15-minute mark to get an idea of what we were talking about before Shatner came on. He comes on set at the 16-minute mark.

Back then the shows were a half-hour (they're only 20 minutes now) and we had two anchors. So Michael Casey and I were interviewing Shira Ovide about banks in the U.S. and Europe when who do I see getting mic'd up on the set, but William Shatner. I think to myself, wow, William Shatner's here. But I'm wondering where he's going (you can see at one point in that 15-minute frame where it becomes obvious I've noticed him). I didn't think he was coming onto my show.

That's because Shatner was not scheduled to be on the show.

The Star Trek Reboot, Rebooted

With the new Star Trek movie coming out soon, I've been thinking more and more about the 2009 Star Trek reboot, too much probably but that's another story. I've grown to both hate it and have an unhealthy fascination with it. It's not a good movie. But you can see where it could have been a good movie, and that's where the fascination lies.

The movie actually has a lot going for it. The special effects are superb without seeming cartoonish (like the Star Wars prequels or Avatar). The sets are well designed, the casting is good to even inspired, the movie's fast-paced, doesn't take itself too seriously, has fun with itself, and throws a ton of welcome homages and references to the original series.

It's just the story that's an absolute wreck.

Really, there's so much going on in this movie, and it moves so fast, you don't even really notice at first one key thing: the plot is absolutely incomprehensible. It literally makes no sense. Let's review it, in detail.

Okay, look, I can't do that here. It's too convoluted and it'll take too long (Red Letter Media does a very good job of breaking it down, anyway). Besides, I only want to bash the story as a setup for my alternate story. So I'll assume you're familiar with the plot. If you want to debate me on this its putridity, have at it.

Here's just one example of a plot hole you could, well, pilot a starship through.