Posted on 12/24/2015 11:17:11 PM PST by Impala64ssa
Dear Mr. Abrams,
When you were younger, did your elders ask you questions like, "If you could have lunch with anyone in the world, who would it be?" I have a hunch your answers were a lot like mine: Jean-Luc Picard, or rather Data. Possibly Q. Definitely Princess Leia. Maybe Darth Vader. (On second thought, maybe not Vader. I feel like he’d be distinctly unimpressed with me.) Star Trek gave me hope. Star Wars was my happy place.
Which makes you my hero. And a lot of other people's, too.
You’ve rebooted both sacred franchises. You not only get paid to live in some of the greatest worlds ever conceived, but to extend them into our age. What an honor and a privilege it is to re-imagine our most cherished tales. But with great power, as Ben Parker would say, comes great responsibility.
This should be a joyous week for me, with the release of both the new Star Trek Beyond trailer, and Star Wars:The Force Awakens. Had you asked me about this a few months ago, I would’ve told you so much happiness in so few days should be banned.
But that was before Paris, San Bernardino, before leading presidential candidates began actually talking about people like me being banned. The national climate for Muslims is uglier than I can recall. I'm legitimately afraid folks dressed up as Jedis at the premiere might be confused for Muslims, and attacked.
That’s where we are right now.
When it comes to Islam, a fair proportion of Americans seem to go nuts. We’ve had Ben Carson saying Muslims aren't loyal enough to be be president, Jeb Bush claiming Muslim refugees shouldn't be let in, Donald Trump talking about special IDs, databases, surveillance techniques, killing family members of the San Bernardino shooters, and Klu Klux Klan members are recruiting anew on the fear of Islam.
I think you can see where I'm going with this. Many Americans fear Islam and think our faith is incompatible with U.S. values. We cannot possibly change these narratives on our own. Whether or not someone likes Muslims is dependent on whether or not she even knows a Muslim. It’s unlikely, even if every Muslim had a transporter device, that we could meet everyone, and change minds single-handedly.
As Muslim American parents, we’re struggling to keep our kids faith innocent
There are a few million American Muslims. There are over 300 million Americans.
Movies and music, art and popular culture — your purview — they can make the introductions we need. At light speed. I know there will be many other projects and films with your name, your vision and your lens flares inside them. (I'm hoping someone gives you the money to make The Silmarillion.) But please, Mr. Abrams, consider going back to Sector 001 one more time. There’s just nowhere like it.
Especially for the away mission we need you to go on.
A Pakistani kid growing up on the margins, I was an awkward child with overly large glasses and way too much hair (not a problem for me anymore, incidentally), who had his first conversation with a girl he was attracted to many years after most of his peers forgot about their braces. I adored Star Trek because it portrayed a future where imagination, discovery and courage were all that mattered. Who cared about races or religions when there was an entire universe out there to explore and discover?
That's the very kind of place where America can not only meet a Muslim, but see her as a hero. What other franchise can do that? A white guy called Luke, born on a planet named after a city in overwhelmingly Muslim Tunisia (Tataouine inspired Tatooine), that we can all believe. But a Jedi named Muhammad? Right now that feels unlikely.
By bringing a Muslim to Star Trek or Star Wars, you'd be so very faithful to the enterprise, too, continuing a proud tradition of breaking boundaries, of reconfiguring the stuff of our stereotypes. Just like Gene Roddenberry, of course the original creator of the Star Trek TV series.
When the Star Trek creator cast Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Uhura, he made a Trekkie out of Martin Luther King Jr. One of America’s greatest leaders knew the power of visibility. In fact, he urged her to stay even when she was disillusioned with her role. (When Kirk and Uhura kissed, the show was banned by CBS affiliates in parts of the South.) There was a Russian character too, Pavel Chekov, when Russians were the evil empire on the other side of the world. There was Hikaru Sulu, too, of Japanese descent, when the internment camps were not so distant a memory.
All of them, on the bridge, against Khan or, better yet, joining forces to expand our knowledge of the universe. These weren’t characters briefly introduced and revoked. They were protagonists who opened the door to the diversity many of us now take for granted, precisely because they challenged the norms and expectations of their time. Let’s do it again.
A crew of Asians and Caucasians, Vulcans and Muslims (bottom line, there would need to be a few of us to represent anything close to global population stats, but I'd be satisfied at this point with one), seeing what's just around the corner, facing down danger together: Star Trek against the clash of civilizations, a movie that inspires generations, that takes hold of our imagination, that forces us to wonder whether the things that divide us today might not tomorrow. Make it so, please.
There are Muslims on ST. They are called the Borg.
See post 81.
Here’s a simple solution:
Convert.
Well, if the author were such a Star Wars fan he’d know Luke wasn’t born on Tatooine.
Also there is a Muslim super hero. The new Ms Marcel is Muslim.
The Death Star.....people by raging jihadists..melted by the universe’s largest laser? now theres a plot!!
I thought they had moslem heroes in those Arabesque and Arabian Nights movies back in the 1940s ‘50s and ‘60s from Hollywood and Italy.
Rock Hudson
Tab Hunter
John Hall
John Payne
Elvis Presley
Victor Mature
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Maybe Western actors don’t want to play cutthroat desert murderers any more.
Create a Muslim hero who converts all of his fellow Muslims into Christians and I’ll watch it.
How about that moment in the film where they come to realize that their satanic rock is just a meteorite?
Cue themes from 2001.
....the black rock was Alluh’s....Gallstone
Muslims refuse to criticize their own theology. That tells us what we need to know about their theology.
To reference CS lewis, as Aslan is to Tash, Jesus is to Mohammed. Some of the Calormene are good decent people but they need to drop their subservient attitude to a demonic entity.
1.4 billion people and they can’t manage a movie production?
Listen, Mr. Taqiyyah, if you bow to a moon rock in the Middle East 5 times a day, then you are a cult member ... you and your ilk are just Squeaky Froomes with beards. Crazy to the core, and incompatible with any civilized, modern society.
FOAD.
One could debate the applicability of an implied premise here. They’re finally getting hauled into technological modernity, even though that evolved in a Judeo-Christian context. Communication is more possible than ever.
However Christ continues to loom over the situation. His obvious question is, Why not use all that to evangelize?
In one way that attitude is like a FOAD to God. The real God, not the Allah of Islam.
Oh they’ll debate it, and sometimes as a result go on jihads against one another. Not wanting to leave a theology in general, however, can’t logically tell us whether it is good or bad.
All valid points.
CIA recruiting heavily for females and minorities. . .for field agent positions.
Yup. . .PC rules again, like females and minorities will blend in over-seas in heavily infested areas of muslime crazies.
It was particularly noteworthy that "The Colony", as the Islamic government on Bellevue was called, were the first colonists to have arrived on the planet following "the Last Jihad", bearing a fragment of the Kaaba from, as the books describe, "burning Mecca."
All-in-all, a very good series of books ...
Al Lah had a lot of gall.
and much of the rest of Europe...
oh sorry that was Mohammad...
Bin Laden should have been cremated with no prayers just to send a message.
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