Still Seeing Stars

You know, after all these years, I am still a Trekkie. In my junior high days with my best friend, Jay Morrone, we would have lengthy discussions at the lunch table with one of our teachers Phil VanKleeck about worm holes and the space time continuum and whether Jean Luc Picard was a better captain than James T. Kirk. We were the loudest table and lunch and pretty much everyone thought we were nerds (we were) but we didn’t care because science fiction was our life. I have personally watched Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home at least 50-60 times in my life. Seriously. Not only that, but I have actually gone to Trek convections and have autographed photos of some of my favorites, including my all time favorite scoundrel – The “Q” played by John DeLancie.

All of that leads up to the new Star Trek movie, which I saw yesterday. I was actually pretty jazzed up to see it. I now some of the purists are freaking out, but honestly, I loved the film. I love what they have done to the old characters, the ship, Starfleet. What it did was take something we all loved and bring it to a new generation. The characters my parents would have grown up with (were they fans) were the young fresh faced actors in the 60s. I grew up with the older more mature movie versions of those actors, and then moved on to the next generation and the whole series of shows and movies that followed then. So now a new generation of people can live some of the stories retold for their time. I think that’s awesome. Reinventing some of the elements – the Romulans are more fierce, the ships more believable, the technology more sleek, the explosions more realistic. Sure there was some cheese factor in there, but it would not be Star Trek without some cheese (at least they didn’t vaseline the camera lenses!). Of course there were a few obligatory scenes that were unecessary, but I guess that was expected when Cowboy Jim was on the loose. I loved the McCoy character, he put a cool spin on the guy without completely remaking him. Scotty was another one who was hilarious – gave the needed comic relief, but at the same time, you could see hints of the Montgomery Scott that you have loved for so long. Then there was Spock, always my personal favorite (along with Data in the Next Gen). I loved the reinvention of him and some of the interesting surprises along the way. All in all a great action-packed film and I did not leave disappointed in any way.

Photos above – “Beam Me Up Scotty…” was actually a bumper sticker I had on one of my cars… Got it at a convention perhaps. I don’t recall. When I got rid of the car I kept the sticker and put it on one of my photo albums. The second one is the lunch table discussion before the excitement. Chris Center on the left, he never got into it too much, I don’t even know why he put up with us, to be honest. Then me, with much more hair (!) and my signature glare (from what I am told) and Jay on the far right. Jay and I were the rabble-rousers — Jay more than me. We really did have alot of fun though.