By Saleem Khan
“GET A LIFE!” screamed William Shatner to a horde of Star Trek fans at a Star Trek convention. And I have to agree with him.
Of course, the comment was in the context of a skit on his now-infamous Saturday Night Live appearance during the late ’80s. After the show aired, he swore up, down, sideways and backwards (at warp speed!) that he didn’t mean it seriously…but we all know the truth.
Let’s face it: Star Trek fans are a bunch of rabid geeks. Some years ago, I went to an advance screening of Star Trek III. When I arrived at the threatre, I found I was one of the few normal people in the audience. Most of the Trekkers had come decked out in their Star Trek regalia: plastic Spock ears, poorly-applied Klingon makeup, cheesy pyjama uniforms and all. These people actually walked around in public wearing these get-ups!
If you’re still unconvinced, walk into the Computer Science lounge and say something like, “I bet Sisko could kick Kirk’s and Piccard’s butts…Hell! Janeway could kick Kirk’s butt!” The Trekkers would be all over you like maggots on a month-old corpse rotting in some psychopath’s malfunctioning freezer, devouring you for your brazen insolence at suggesting a woman—let alone a space station bureaucrat—could pulverize the aging and aged Picard and Kirk. Go on. Try it.
Even ignoring that, we’re left with Star Trek’s root problem.
I went to see Star Trek: Generations (the seventh movie?…eighth?) in December. I also watched the season premiere of the new, new, new (fourth) Star Trek television show, Star Trek: Voyager. I can say without reservation that both of them had Deep Space Nine-sized scripting problems.
For example, why does the mad scientist in Generations have to destroy entire solar systems to make an energy stream come to him? Why can’t he just fly to the stream in a spaceship? And in Voyager, in her attempt to keep it from enemy hands, why does Capt. Janeway have to strand her and her crew 70,000 lightyears from Earth to destroy the device that. can instantaneously send them on the otherwise decades-long journey home? Have they never heard of time bombs in the 24th century? (And why does the Supreme Alien in Voyager choose to present itself as an extra from Deliverance? – ed).
So there you have it: Capt. Kirk hates Trekkers since they’re all geeks, and Star Trek is one dumb thing after another.
Besides, everyone knows that The X-Men is where it’s at.
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