What Movie Did I Watch?!

Perhaps a good reason why I would hate the new Star Trek even though everyone’s said good things about it. I like my Trek & I like my Wars but I don’t like them mixed together. This just gives me more reasons not to go see the new movie.

On a somewhat unrelated note, an episode of Family Guy I watched tonight had big Star Trek II references in it.

Lily, Exactly!

Are our story archetypes and plot patterns becoming this obvious?

There’s also Han Solo and Leia as the quarrelling couple acting as mercury and sulphur on Luke. Han is jealous of Luke and Leia but it turns out she’s Luke’s sister. Ron is jealous of Harry and Hermione but it turns out she’s like a sister to him (and look, both pairs of “siblings” have the same first initials). Vader finally takes off his mask so he and Luke can see each other for real before he dies. Snape figuratively takes off his mask by giving Harry his memories and looking into his eyes before he dies. Killing Obi Wan Kenobe makes him more powerful than Vader can ever know. Killing Dumbledore makes him more powerful than Voldemort ever realizes. Yada yada yada.

Guess our story archetypes are: young earnest, untrained, hotheaded good guy who wants to prove himself and whose ties to his past are weak or destroyed (Harry, Luke, Peter), evil bad person who wants more power, domination and control, etc. (Voldemort, Vader/Emperor, White Witch), helpful friends who bicker (Ron&Hermione, Han Solo&Leia, Susan&Lucy), older wise man (Dumbledore, Obi Wan Kenobe, the professor/Aslan), an underdog/underground organization trying to stop the bad guys (OOTP, the Rebel Alliance, Aslan& the Narnians faithful to him), someone who is both good and bad (Snape, Vader, Edmund), an especially evil plot the good guys must foil (attempt to steal sorcerer’s stone, attempt to deploy Death Star, 100 years of winter&plan to kill the Pevensies), etc. I don’t remember if there was supposed to be a prophecy in Star Wars, but in both Potterworld and Narnia there is a prophecy foretelling the arrival of the one(s) with the power to defeat the evil person and the evil person tries to kill them first.

In a more lighthearted comparison, in the TV show Sabrina the Teenage Witch (which was my favorite show when it was still on the air), Sabrina is goodhearted but impulsive, lives with her aunts, who are like sulphur (Aunt Hilda) and Mercury (Aunt Zelda) to her, battles whatshername the bitchy girl from school is constantly trying to get her in trouble, can go to another world through a closet (like a wardrobe), has a cat who is a former bad guy who tried to take over the world and is now Sabrina’s friend, and doesn’t apply herself as well as she should to learning her magic.