

To say there’s been a dry stretch of real Star Trek news lately is the same as saying that Tribbles are cute. There just hasn’t been anything really big going on since the release of J.J. Abrams’ “reboot” of the Star Trek franchise.

Until last week, that was.

Seems as though Paramount Recreation, in collaboration with CBS, have inked a deal with The Rubicon Group to bring a $1 billion, 184-acre Star Trek them park to the tourist Mecca of …

… Aqaba, Jordan.

Uh yup.

Jordan.

You know, that place where every Trekkie dreams of traveling to so they can partake in the wonders of Kirk’s travels through the Guardian of Forever. You know, walk through the famed corridors of the USS Enterprise-D. You know, shop to your heart’s content on the promenade at Deep Space Nine. You know, experience the fear of being lost in the Delta Quadrant …

Wait … what was that? What do you mean this theme part won’t have any of that? What? What’s that you say? This new $1 billion theme park will be based solely on the new Abrams “reboot” movie?

In Jordan?

Huh?

Wow.

And Paramount Recreation, CBS, Rubicon and the others involved think they’re going to make money on this?

This quote caught my eye from some of the news coverage of this. It’s from Liz Kalodner, executive vice president and general manager of CBS Consumer Product.

“At its core, Star Trek is about bringing worlds together and about a profound hope for the future.”

While what Ms. Kalodner says is true — pardon my skepticism. I am as optimistic as they come. I’ve been called Pollyanna and given truckloads of grief because of how strongly I feel in Gene Roddenberry’s themes of the promise of humanity’s ability to overcome its own centrism.

You see, Star Trek is about bringing worlds together and showing profound hope for the future. Too bad J.J. Abrams’ film reflected nothing of that hope that Roddenberry inspired.

Seriously, Paramount? Seriously CBS? You have the audacity to build a theme park, based on a fatally flawed reboot of a treasured franchise in Jordan, where no one but locals will travel, and you expect to actually make money?

I am constantly amazed at the raw stupidity of corporate entertainment moguls.

Building a Star Trek theme park and ignoring well, Star Trek, is amazingly short-sighted. Why would I want to travel around the world, to an area that isn’t easy to get to — or into — to go to the theme park that celebrates nothing of what Star Trek actually is actually about?

If the theme park had separate areas in which to revel for each show. If it had an area where I got to go on a ride that let me feel the tension of trying to find Khan in a nebula before he found us. If I got to walk around a Borg cube and feel the fear of possible assimilation. If I go to hunt Maquis in the Badlands or take a ride in the Delta Flyer. If I got to go to an area called “The Mirror Universe” and see the Terran Empire’s fall and rise to power. I might, might be tempted to go to a country where the king is a really big Trekkie too.

But this park won’t have any of that. It will have everything but what Trek was founded on, and frankly I’m aghast at the whole project is even moving forward. What are they thinking? What were they smoking when they thought this was an awesome idea?

Am I completely off base here? Will this venture succeed as to make a profit? Tell me what I might be missing, because seriously … I smell doom.