Star Trek Actor Slams Sci-Fi Films For Being Infantile: ‘I’m going to Retire From Geekdom’

A geeky British thespian who had a bit part in the Star Trek movies has chosen to not so much bite, but tear off the hand that feeds him, and launch a scathing attack on the infantilism and plain old dumbness of the sci-fi genre.

Simon Pegg who plays Montgomery “Scotty” Scott in Star Trek, and who is often regarded as geek royalty, has launched a viciously vitriolic verbal volley at cinema-goers’ obsession with science-fiction.

Lamenting the long lost days when the public universally adored films about lone sociopaths with a disturbing grasp on reality, trigger-happy thrill killers, and deeply corrupt families who atone for their sins by dressing well, Pegg told Radio Times that Star Wars pretty much ruined the fun.

“Before Star Wars, the films that were box-office hits were The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Bonnie and Clyde and The French Connection – gritty, amoral art movies. Then suddenly the onus switched over to spectacle and everything changed.”

Quick to admit his own obsession with science fiction, the Star Trek man still points out that “We’ve been infantilised by our own taste.”

“Now, I don’t know if that is a good thing. Obviously I’m very much a self-confessed fan of science-fiction and genre cinema. But part of me looks at society as it is now and just thinks we’ve been infantilised by our own taste.

“Now we’re essentially all consuming very childish things – comic books, superheroes… Adults are watching this stuff, and taking it seriously!

“It is a kind of dumbing down in a way. Because it’s taking our focus away from real-world issues. Films used to be about challenging, emotional journeys or moral questions that might make you walk away and re-evaluate how you felt about… whatever. Now we’re walking out of the cinema really not thinking about anything, other than the fact that the Hulk just had a fight with a robot.”

Missing the point that films depicting ‘emotional journeys‘ and movies about men in tights saving the planet are all about the same thing at the end of the day and that is “escapism,” Pegg blunders into the trap that has ruined many a good thespian who considers their craft to be something more than “let’s pretend and make believe,” and begins to profess a desire for that most dreaded of things, “serious acting.”

“I sometimes feel like I miss grown-up things. And I honestly thought the other day that I’m gonna retire from geekdom. I’ve become the poster child for that generation, and it’s not necessarily something I particularly want to be. I’d quite like to go off and do some serious acting.”

(Photo By John Phillips/Getty Images)