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Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 48 Comments
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I tend to have the opposite experience. Whenever I tell someone that I'm into sci-fi, most of the time, I get "Sci-fi? You mean, like, Star Track?" uttered from underneath a nose wrinkled in distaste. This is mostly from women, so I guess in the real world women I'm interacting with aren't the legions of women watching the Sci Fi Channel. However, these same women tend to turn around and ask me to show them how to compress a file or do a mail merge.
I'm not nearly as big a Trekkie as I am a fan of other genre franchises, but Trek – mostly TNG and DS9 – was certainly a part of my formative geek years. I find that, when lumped in with Star Wars, Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, seaQuest, Highlander, Stargate, the Buffy-verse, Firefly, the Matrix films, etc., it doesn't have the same stigma. It seems to be okay to be a fan of genre stuff in general. It's when you pigeonhole yourself with a single fandom – and Trek in particular – that the "normals" start to back away slowly and avoid eye contact.
Society takes a while to change its opinions. And, since the most visible and vociferous fans – the ones who cand and do discuss tachyon field variances – have been the stereotype for the past few decades, it'll take a little longer for mainstream Trekkies to not receive weird looks.
What the studio knows is that the Trek world is such a part of our cultural lexicon now that everyone, not just the hardcore fans, will go see the new film. It will make a lot of money. The difference between success and big success will be whether it's good enough to entice the hardcore fans into repeated viewings. Whether it's another First Contact or the next Nemesis. Only time will tell.
OMG GORN CAPTAIN! I have a doll of him, for real.
Anyway. Glad you wrote this, because the stigma of being a Trekkie seems to be disproportionately larger than any other fandom I've seen. I mean, does Star Wars have a documentary slightly mocking their fans? Nuh-uh.
Talking about the EW article, I thought it was absolutely HILARIOUS that Abrams tried to play the movie off as less geeky than it really is. I think he said "Star Trek isn't a movie for fans of Star Trek. Star Trek is a movie for fans of movies." Uh, denial much? Your movie is a geek movie, you Cloverfield-dork, so stop denying it!
Although I guess I can't blame him for saying that (totally ridiculous) quote. The whole EW article has an undertone focused on poking fun at the campy 60's show–and then Abrams is forced to defend his movie in a very playground way. "Well, it's revamped! And it's for fans of movies!! So neener neener!"
Finally, I have to agree with Lisa–I don't know anyone who is secretly a Trekkie like me. It's hard to find people that like Buffy!
@Rhea Dee – There IS a movie poking fun at Star Wars obsessives – A Great Disturbance, but it has nowhere near the distribution or exposure that ST films have had. And, of course, the movie Fanboys looks to take the piss out of Star Wars fans everywhere.
Maybe it's about time spent in popular culture – Star Trek has a decade plus lead on Star Wars in popular culture.
@Rhea Dee – It's pretty normal that whenever a new Star Trek thing comes along the producers fall all over themselves trying to assure everyone that it's for a wide audience, not just the fans. They did it for First Contact, they did it for Insurrection, they did it for Nemesis. It's the reason why Enterprise didn't have "Star Trek" in its title for the first couple years. It hasn't worked yet but I'm sure they'll keep trying.
I'm a sci fi snob, in that, if someone says thay aren't into sci fi, I don't waste my time with them.
Consequently, save for my blood relations and a few former coworkers, *most* of the people I know are also sci fi geeks.
I'm not on board with the new Trek film yet, though. I wasn't impressed with the casting, especially knowing some of the people that were up for certain roles and were turned down. I mean, even Jimmy Doohan's son was rootimg for Paul McGillion to be Scotty! And of course I would have been all over David Hewlett playing Bones. Maybe others wouldn't have been, but I can see him in the role more easily than Karl Urban (even if I do *like* Urban)! I like Siler, but his voice doesn't say "Spock" to me (it's his lisp, sorry), nor does his heavy brow. And I am thus far utterly uninterested in Chris Pine as Kirk. Personally, I was hoping for a DS9 movie.
I think STAR TREK is the perfect modern myth to capture the spirit of the Obama generation. I'm hoping it leads a wave of movies and comics returning to the 60s spirit of hope and away from the "grim'n'gritty" school that has infected them since WATCHMEN and THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS.
If I may digress a bit, I beleieve that the Kennedy assassination fixed an idea in the national consciousness with the generations who grew up after that, that good guys get dead; that you can't do good for its own sake, you have to be obsessed or something; and that we have to be meaner than the bad guys to survive. That even infected TREK, where exploration and peaceful contact gave way to Bajoran/Cardassian wars, Borg wars and Dominion Wars. The new Trek online rpg has the whole gorram Trekverse at war. FIREFLY, with its merry band of outlaws is more hopeful than that; Gene Roddenberry's spirit must be restless.
Don't get me wrong, darker stories have their place and I love X-FILES, BUFFY and FRINGE, but not as a steady diet. I'm hoping for a large scale return to more positive myths.
If I might self-advertise, I've posted a 30s fantasy cartoon called THE SUNSHINE MAKERS at my blog Stories Are Signposts that to me captures the hope that Obama's election offers (especially if you view the dark gnomes as neocons!)
OH MY GOD, a DS9 movie would be AMAZING. *fingers crossed*
But I like Chris Pine. He's got just enough hot, jock swagger to be able to pull it off. I think he's purdy.
I thought Zachary Quinto as Spock was an inspired choice, and I'm happy to see Simon Pegg in ANYTHING.
And JJ Abrams is one of the few people I would trust with a Star Trek prequel. I'm excited for this movie!
@ Adam:
Whoa, there, son! You might wanna' amp down that persecution complex a bit. It's not 1973, when I can and did get beat up for liking trek. It's not even 1979 when I got made fun of for draggint my family to that God-awful movie.
Trek was increasingly successful thorugh the 80s, came back to TV in the late 80s (Despite being kind of crappy for the first couple years), and became increasingly popular. By the mid-90s, everyone knew what trek was, it had 3 spinoffs – all long running – and actually polls showed that at least 30% of Americans considered themselves at least marginally Trekies. This was the period where people turned up at halloween costumes in starfleet uniforms and didn't get made fun of, put "Starfleet Academy" Stickers on their cars, and so on. It was a HUGE trendy deal for like a decade there. X-files had nothing on Trek in it's prime!
Then everyone got kind of bored with it because at root Trek really only has 6 or 8 storylines, and they used 'em to death in most of the shows, and people wandered off to find more interesting SF shows like Babylon 5 and Lost and the Stargate franchise and stuff.
So we're not living in a world where Trekies are persecuted, we're living in a world where Trek has come and gone, and no one cares anymore. Trek is about as relevant nowadays as 19th century Nurse Romance Novels are.
@ Wolfen and Teresa
A lot of people have hoped for a DS9 movie for a long time. The show's been off the air for nine years and it was never as popular as the others, so I doubt it's going to happen.
@ Doctor Zen
You, my friend, are a wise, wise man or woman.