Trekkies

THE STORY: This is a different kind of movie than what I'm used to and doesn't fit into my regular format of judgement. Its a documentary and thus it deserves more of a rant-type write-up than the standard Inferno treatment.

In this documentary we get to meet several people that are die hard Star Trek fans and some of the cast of the various Trek shows. I'm not going to wait to tell you this...for the most part I think these people are nuts. I'm certain you know I'm going to tell you why and that there's a story involved.

No lies, I am a Trek fan. I like Star Trek. I always have. When I was a kid in the 70's I used to watch reruns of the original Trek and I wanted to be Captain Kirk. Hey, Kirk got all of the women! I even went to a few conventions. But I never, never dressed up in any kind of costume. Before I was in the military my friend Iron Annie was in a college class with the cousin of a girl I went to high School with, lets just call her Beth. Well, Beth and I were talking and she told me about a local Trek convention that was coming up. Seeing how I was single then and she was hot I accepted her invitation to meet her there. I figured I'd maybe get a model to build and a few trinkets. On the day of the convention I was to meet Beth in front of the Hotel where the convention was taking place. I was wearing some jeans and a T-shirt, when Beth came walking down the street in a full Star trek movie uniform! At first I thought she was out of her mind, but after we went inside I noticed that almost everyone in there has a costume on of some kind. There were several Doctor Who's, lots of klingons, various aliens and of course many people dressed as Starfleet officers. I felt out of place. One of the only people in regular gab and I felt like I was naked.

Now, in itself that's not a bad thing. I mean, its a Trek convention. I don't see anything wrong in the harmless fun of dressing up for a few hours and pretending to be someone else. I think its a bit eccentric, but what the hell. I do it every Halloween. But in this movie, Trekkies, there are people that do it beyond the extreme.

Where do you draw the line between fruit-loopiness and harmless fun? Well, damned if I know. That's a nebulous determination. But I'd say that when you spend 90% of your time thinking or talking about a TV show you've crossed the line. When you feel the need to dress up as characters from the show EVERYDAY  you need to seek out some professional help. When you go to jury duty in a costume from that show (and its a costume not a uniform...Starfleet does NOT EXIST fanboys) you're almost as nutty as a Snickers Bar. I don't have a problem with fan clubs or people wearing the costumes at the appropriate times, but watching this film made me realize why I don't even tell people I like to watch Star Trek sometimes. Because they equate me then with these "trek freaks".  Hey, I like a lot of shows. I'm a big fan of Highlander but I'm not going to go around with a sword muttering "There can be only one!" and telling people to call me Wil from the clan Wilson. So I'm going to throw a little cold water on the extreme fandom....

-It is not really appropriate to to ask people to call you by whatever rank you may have in this Trek club thingie. For instance if you're "Lt. Commander Smith of the Starship Philadelphia" in your club, don't ask people to call you "commander". That's ridiculous. Starfleet is a fictional organization on a [unwrite]in' TELEVISION SHOW! If I'm not in that club why would I want to call you that. I have a real rank in a real military organization and I don't even ask my close friends to address me in that way. Get into reality.

-If you feel the need to wear a costume from the show all the time you need to find some new things to do with your time. Hell, get a website and post bad movie reviews! At least people will laugh with you.

-Collecting things is fine. I have a few Trek things that I picked up over the years...but when you're willing to pay over $1000 for a piece of the costume an actor wore on an episode, then  you've either got too much time and money or you're out of your mind. I'd almost understand if it was something like Fonzie's second leather jacket, or the rank off of Radar O'Reilly's uniform, but a prosthetic klingon headpiece worn by a guy that was maybe in four episodes? Um....that's kind of obsessive. For a thousand bucks its really obsessive.

-If you actually take the time to learn the fictional Klingon Language, why don't you go out and learn a REAL language? Learn Spanish, or French, or even Japanese. What are you going to do with klingonese? Order Gagh at Denny's?

-For God's sake....don't make your small children and pets dress up too. That's just so darn...oh, I'm not even going to get into it! If you make a six year old wear a Trek suit you need to get thyself to the real world pronto.

Its not all bad. There were a lot of positive messages in this documentary. Some of the people were quite intelligent. There was the dentist who had his office and clinic done in a Trek motif. That was kind of cool. I think it was a good idea, business wise. There was a kid who, while obsessed with Trek had written a screenplay. Yeah, that may have been a big waste of his time, but he had a lot of technical knowledge and at least he was doing something positive when he could have been out getting into trouble, drinking, screwing chicks...hey! He should have been doing that!

When its all said and done I had the feeling that most of the fans featured in this documentary needed to "get a life" as they say. Maybe I'm jaded....living in the real world is hard and most of us have to face reality and some pretty [unwrite]ed up truths every day. In a way I'm jealous a little. I mean, I have my own little fantasies, but none of them obsess me to the point of all else. I just wouldn't allow a TV show to take up that much 'space' in my life.

Best Lines: While I didn't pick out any best lines from this documentary I have one from real life. When I first took my wife to my hometown I was showing her places I used to hang out in as a kid. One place was a comic book shop and they had loads of Trek stuff. This was when Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had first aired and the store had racks of the Trek jumpsuits featured in the show. My wife asked me if I wanted one...she was going to buy it for me, but they cost about $75.00. My reply? "I don't care if its only $10.00! where the hell am I going to wear it? They'd laugh me right out of Fort Myer if I wore that!I don't like star trek THAT much!"

THE TALLY: This is an interesting little film. It didn't do anything to make me sympathize with some of the people in it, but it was insightful. Even if you don't like trek you might want to check it out. At the very least it'll give you people to laugh at. Live long and prosper!