Once Upon a Geek

We interrupt your usual ONCE UPON A GEEK reading for an important announcement…  The new Star Trek movie trailer is now available for viewing online at the official website, www.startrekmovie.com.  I’ve taken a number of screen captures from the trailer and posted them below so you can get a better look at some of the cool things in the trailer.  For more pictures from the new Star Trek movie, please click here.

This movie looks simply amazing!  If the movie itself is half as good as this trailer, than I think they truly have a chance at breathing new life into this franchise.

Here is a shot of the new Enterprise.  Or the original Enterprise, depending on how you look at it.  This didn’t come from the second trailer, but is still awesome!

Here is the young adventurous James T. Kirk.

A futuristic policeman or security guard of some kind.

Kirk riding a motorcycle past some really cool looking structures.

The USS Enterprise under construction (or repairs).

The planet Vulcan most likely.

The Enterprise pulling away from a space station.

The Enterprise traveling at warp speed.

Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Kirk (Chris Pine) on the bridge of the Enterprise.

The bridge of the Enterprise with Chekov (Anton Yelchin) featured.

The viewscreen on the bridge of the Enterprise.

The beautiful Uhura (Zoe Saldana) on the bridge of the Enterprise.  Notice the funky ear piece!  There is a much more interesting photo of her I could have posted from the trailer, but decency prevented me from doing it.

Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg) enjoying himself.

Sulu (John Cho) on an away mission.

Three Starfleet personnel sky diving towards a planet.  My guess is that it’s Kirk, Spock and Sulu.

Kirk (Chris Pine) hangs on for dear life as Nero the Romulan (Eric Bana) watches from above.

A monstrous creature in a snow storm.  The scene continues to show the creature opening it’s enormously large mouth and moving towards the person in the foreground.

The following two images show the new Enterprise transporter effect.  Pretty snazzy!

Thanks for stopping by ONCE UPON A GEEK.  I don’t know about you, but May 9, 2009 can not get here fast enough!

I hear from a lot of my friends that Star Trek is dead to them.  They don’t believe there is any Star Trek out there worth taking notice of.  I believe there are tons of Star Trek stories out there to enjoy if you simply look. Much of what I like is older, but it’s new to you if you haven’t been exposed to it previously.  Everything from TV shows, cartoons, movies, comic books, manga, video games, novels, role-playing adventures, fan fiction, and so on.  Some are good, some are great, and some are crap.  The trick is finding what you might like.

There is one trait that many Star Trek fans have mastered that Star Wars fan lack.  After decades of the Star Trek franchise wandering aimlessly, many of the fans have developed the ability to ignore the crap they don’t care for related to their obsession.  For example, a Trek fan who doesn’t care for ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ just thinks to themselves, “Whatever, I’m not going to watch or care about that garbage.  Oh, wait… that Seven of Nine is pretty hot, but forget the rest.”  Whereas when a Star Wars fan is presented with something they don’t like, they typically go out of their friggin’ minds.  They will endlessly rage against Episodes 1-3, ‘Clone Wars’, the Yuzhong Vong, or George Lucas himself until they use up all the viable oxygen on the planet.  They should learn to take a chill pill.  Take a page out of the Star Trek fans playbook and simply say to themselves, “Hmmm… Jar Jar Binks f-ing sucks.  I’m just going to ignore that excrement.  Wow, Jango Fett is kind of a bad ass.  That’s cool.”  Figure out what is good and ignore the rest.

That’s what I’ve had to do to keep the Star Trek flame burning in the back of my mind for many years.  There are a lot of Star Trek stories I’ve enjoyed, and a lot I’ve disliked, or just plain ignored.  I’m excited about the new movie because there really hasn’t been much to pique my Star Trek interest of late.  The later TV series relied too much on sex to sell the shows (Seven of Nine and T’Pol), so hopefully the movie won’t do that as well.  I’ve outlined below the Star Trek stories I’ve enjoyed, paying particular interest to the novels because I really enjoy them and feel they don’t get the respect they deserve.  Basically this post is partially to serve as recommendations for you, and partially to enable my OCD for making lists. 

TELEVISION SERIES

• Star Trek - The Original Series (TOS) - The original series is obviously one of the favorites.  It’s just so fantastic, bigger than life, and full of awesome.  I even like the recently updated special effects.  Pretty cool.
• Star Trek: The Animated Series (ANI) - I’ve only seen a few episodes, but I loved the heck out of them.  I have a soft spot for anything by Filmation in the 1970s.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) - Loved this show.  I really stepped up my game as a Star Trek fan during the run of this series.  I watched each episode at least three times; once when it aired, once with my brother, and then once with my friend Race.  I still have every episode on video tape somewhere packed away.  I have a hard time turning the channel when I stumble across this show on Spike nowadays.  Some of the earlier episodes didn’t age well, but you can appreciate how good it was at the time.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9) - I really liked this show early on.  However, I lost track of it somewhere around season five or six.  I still watched the big important episodes, but stopped watching it on a regular basis.  I know lots of people think this was the “smartest” Trek series, but for me it’s sort of “Meh”.
• Star Trek: Voyager (VOY) - I tried to like this show.  I really did.  I gave it a few seasons before totally abandoning it.  I tuned in for the occasional big episode, but that was it.  I liked Tom Paris, but otherwise the entire show could be forgotten as far as I’m concerned.  Every episode hit the “reset” button.  Ugh.
• Star Trek: Enterprise (ENT) - I think I’m one of the few people that actually enjoyed this show.  I’m still working my way through some of the later episodes, but that’s only because I didn’t have time to watch them when they originally aired.  Good stuff.  I think people should give this one another chance.  Bakula made a phenomenal Captain.

MOVIES

• Classic Series Movies - Out of the entire Star Trek franchise, I think the classic series movies are my absolute favorite things.  I love the usual ones:
  • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
  • Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
  • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
  • and even Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
• Next Generation Movies - These have been pretty hit and miss.  I think ‘Star Trek: First Contact’ is possibly the greatest Star Trek movie of all.  The rest follow far behind.  Ones I enjoy are:
  • Star Trek: First Contact
  • most of Star Trek: Nemesis
  • some of Star Trek: Generations

COMIC BOOKS

There have been a number of Star Trek comic book series over the years.  I’m not going to list all of them, just the ones that interest me.

• Star Trek (DC Comics - 1984-1988): I never read this series, but it looked really good.  The stories did their best to be relevant, but were hampered by the time period they were being published during.  Many of them were published after Star Trek III, but before Star Trek IV.  So while there really wasn’t a gap between Star Trek III and Star Trek IV, the comics had to figure out a way to create one. If I remember correctly, the crew took over the USS Excelsior (as the Enterprise had been destroyed in Star Trek III).  There were also several Mirror Universe stories in this run.  Someday I’ll have to find these issues and read them.
• Star Trek (DC Comics - 1989-1996): The real stand-out thing about this run is that the first year was written by Peter David.  That’s about how long I collected this book.  It was definitely a good read.  Much better than its TNG sister series at the time.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Malibu Comics - 1993-1996): I didn’t read a lot of this series, but the issues I read were pretty good.  They did a good job telling a strong story, while remaining true to the characters.  I was also a sucker for anything by Malibu at the time, so I may have been a bit biased.
• Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (Marvel Comics - 1996-1998): A really fun series and the best of Marvel’s Star Trek efforts.  This comic followed the Omega Squad, a group of cadets at Starfleet Academy, as they got into misadventures.
• Star Trek: Assignment Earth (IDW Publishing - 2008): A nice five-issue mini-series by John Byrne that followed Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln.  A spin-off from the TOS episode, ‘Assignment: Earth’.
• Star Trek: New Frontier (Wildstorm - 2000 & IDW Publishing - 2008): Peter David writes comic books.  Peter David writes ‘Star Trek: New Frontier’ novels.  Hmmmm… let’s put these things together.  Like peanut butter & jelly.  Good stuff.  If you enjoy the ‘New Frontier’ novels, be sure to check out the comic books.

GAMES

• Star Trek: Armada & Star Trek: Armada II - These are the only Star Trek video games I’ve ever played at any length.  I’m not much of a gamer, but since I was already a fan of ‘Starcraft’, this game was an easy fit.  Lots of fun building your armadas and attacking!
• Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game by Decipher - During the summer of 1994, we played the heck out of this game.  While it didn’t really feature new stories (like a comic or novel), it did allow you to play in the Star Trek universe.  The game mechanics weren’t as good as ‘Magic: The Gathering’, but we were willing to ignore that just so we could play in the TNG universe.  Good times.

NOVELS

For whatever reason, I have enjoyed many of the Star Trek novels since I was a youngster.  Maybe it’s just my passion for reading, or maybe Star Trek just happens to translate well into the written word.   I feel the Star Trek novels don’t get enough respect in the Trek scheme of things, especially considering the quality of storytelling in many of them.  Here are some of my favorite Star Trek novels and authors:

• Star Trek: New Frontier (1997-current) - Peter David’s own little corner of the Star Trek universe.  These are by far the best Star Trek novels.  There are over 20 novels in the series already.  They take place during the TNG era, but are focused on a completely different ship and crew, the Excalibur.  I can’t recommend these books highly enough.
• Star Trek TOS adaptations by James Blish (1967-1975) - The first Star Trek books I read.  These made the most sense to my young mind since I had seen many of these episodes and could visualize the story easily.
• Dreadnought! (1986) and Battlestations! (1986) both by Diane Carey.  These books tie together and take place during the TOS era.
• Strangers from the Sky (1987) by Margaret Wander Bonanno - A great book that detailed the first contact between Humans and Vulcans, long before ‘Star Trek: First Contact’. One of the neat aspects of this novel is that it flashes-back between a couple different time periods (the TOS era and the classic movies era).  One of my all-time favorite Trek books.
• Final Frontier (1988) and Best Destiny (1992) both by Diane Carey.  These books tie together and deal with Kirk’s dad pre-TOS era.
• The Lost Years (1989) by J.M. Dillard.  I’ve only read the first one in the ‘Lost Years’ series, but I enjoyed this.  It begins to detail the period of time between the end of the television series and ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’.
• The New Earth series/Challenger Series (2000) by various authors.  This started off as a six book series detailing an attempt to establish a new Earth-like colony deep in space.  It depicted the events of a second five-year mission taking place between the events of ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’ and ‘Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan’. The publisher was hoping to spin-off a new series of books called ‘Star Trek: Challenger’ that covered the settlers.  I enjoyed most of the six ‘New Earth’ books.  It was an ambitious project and worth the read.  I did not however pick up any of the ‘Challenger’ novels.
• Vendetta (1991) by Peter David - As always, Peter David delivers a great story.  This time it’s a TNG novel where the Enterprise has to face the Borg again, and even features a Doomsday machine from the TOS era.  Good stuff!
• Dark Mirror (1993) by Diane Duane.  This is a TNG novel that is a sequel to the classic TOS episode, ‘Mirror, Mirror’.  Keep in mind this novel was written before DS9 or Enterprise featured episodes dealing with the Mirror Universe.
• Q-Squared (1994) by Peter David.  This time Peter David links the character of ‘Q’ from TNG to ‘Trelane’ from TOS.  As always, his books are great!
• Crossover (1995) by Michael Jan Friedman.  This was a fun TNG novel because it included Spock, McCoy and Scotty all as they were during the TNG era.  It even included Scotty hijacking an old Constitution-class starship from a museum. Fun!
• The Best and the Brightest (1998) by Susan Wright.  This was a fun story that may have been a back-door attempt to launch a Star Trek Academy series of novels.  This story is set during the TNG era and some parts even take place during the movie ‘Star Trek: Generations’.  If you like Star Trek Academy stuff or the TNG episode ‘Lower Decks’, then you should enjoy this book.
• The Captain’s Table novels (1998) by various authors.  Star Trek: The Captain’s Table was a series of thematic crossover novels that spanned several eras (TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, New Frontier, and even pre-TOS with Christopher Pike). The Captain’s Table is a mysterious bar that appears to exist in another dimension because its door can appear anywhere around the galaxy, and it is visible only to captains. Drinks in the bar are provided free of any monetary charge; the “payment” required by the proprietor is for the captain to tell a story to the rest of the patrons. Thus, the Captain’s Table novels are a collection of short stories, each told by a captain or commander from Trek lore, bookended by short sequences taking place inside the Captain’s Table bar. This was a nice loosely-connected series with some good stories.
• Section 31 (2001) by various authors.  Star Trek: Section 31 was a four-part series of thematic crossover novels that spanned TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY. The common theme among all these books was the influence of the Section 31 agency during a particular story. I read the TOS story ‘Cloak’, and the TNG story ‘Rogue’.  Both were good reads.  I liked the dark aspect of the Section 31 intrigue.

If you were ever a Star Trek fan, I encourage you not to walk away from the entire Trek franchise.  You can still dabble and enjoy some good quality Star Trek stories.  You just need to find what you like and ignore the rest (like “How to Speak Conversational Klingon”).

With all the hype surrounding the new Star Trek movie, I thought I would take a moment to reflect on how I was first exposed to Star Trek.  I don’t consider myself to be a Trekkie or Trekker, just a fairly knowledgeable fan of some of the incarnations of Star Trek.  I’m happy to say that the first Star Trek show I was exposed to is still one of the best.

My pre-teen years were spent in a typical early-80’s middle class suburban home.  Two parents, four children, a dog, and a swimming pool.  My dad was the general manager for a local television station, while my mom worked part-time and did the majority of the child rearing.  Each night while mom made dinner, it was the kids’ job to stay out of dad’s way.  After all he’d had a long day at work and needed time to unwind.  He’d come home, drink a cocktail, watch the news, and gobble down a pack of Rolaids in just a few hours.  Since the kids interacted primarily with mom, it was a big deal when dad got involved.  When dad said he wanted something done, you jumped.

And there came a day unlike any other when my eyes were truly opened for the first time.  I was about nine years old at the time.  I happened to stroll into our family room where my dad was watching television.  He looked at me, looked back to the television, and then looked back at me.  He sort of squinted, like he was sizing me up for a fight.  Then he spoke those words I’ll never forget, “Boy, sit down.  Watch this.  It’s important.”  Knowing my place in the household, I did exactly what my dad told me to.  I sat down and spent the next hour watching this TV show that he seemed to think was important.

The show featured strange new words that I was unfamiliar with, like “Stardate”, “Enterprise”, “Warp Factor”, and … “Gorn”. That’s right, it was the episode entitled “Arena” from the first season of the original Star Trek television series.  That’s the one where some powerful entities force Captain Kirk to battle the Gorn unarmed.  Great stuff!  I was hooked from then on.  I mean, c’mon, I didn’t stand a chance.  Kirk versus the Gorn?  What a fantastic way to get introduced to the franchise!

Soon afterward my dad took me to see “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” in the theatre.  Even as a kid, I could tell that movie was just plain awesome.  So I guess I’ve got my dad to thank for my lifelong connection to Star Trek.  I’ve continued to dabble in the various Star Trek incarnations since those early years, but nothing will ever beat discovering it for the first time.

Come back tomorrow for a little more on Trek.

The new Star Trek movie is coming, whether you like it or not! And this time they are aiming to make Star Trek cool.  Hard to believe, I know.  Directing and producing this new Star Trek film is J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias, Fringe, Cloverfield), so there is a good chance the movie will be entertaining (even if you don’t like Star Trek).  In fact, Abrams has been quoted as saying, “We weren’t making a movie for fans of Star Trek. We were making a movie for fans of movies.”  That’s encouraging!  The release date is May 8, 2009, but there is already lots of news and photos making their way through the tubes and the internets.

• You can see the teaser trailer for the movie at the official website Star Trek Movie.com.  The full trailer is scheduled to debut in front of “Quantum of Solace” in just under a month.
• There is a lengthy article explaining the new vision for Star Trek at Entertainment Weekly.com.  Watch for spoiler warnings as you read the article (if you care).
• There will be a prequel comic book mini-series from IDW called “Star Trek Countdown” that focuses on the origins of the Romulan villain Nero.  Be advised, there are minor SPOILERS in this link.
• Lots of information in the Wikipedia entry on the movie.
• You can check out the viral campaign at NCC-1701.  Click the little numbers (like a combination lock) to get the picture clarity to 100%.

After looking through all this information, I’m really starting to get psyched for the film!  Can’t wait for May 8, 2009!  And now… on with the photos!

Teaser poster.  Picture from IGN.

Kirk played by Chris Pine.  Picture from Entertainment Weekly.

Spock played by Zachary Quinto (Sylar from ‘Heroes’). Picture from Entertainment Weekly.

Dr. McCoy played by Karl Urban, with Kirk in the background. Picture from Entertainment Weekly.

Sulu played by John Cho.  Picture from Entertainment Weekly.

The Enterprise Crew — Pictured L to R: Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Kirk (Chris Pine), Lt. Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg), Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban), Sulu (John Cho), and Uhura (Zoe Saldana).  Picture from UGO Movies.

Spock throttling Kirk.  Picture from Ain’t it Cool News.

The saucer section of the original Enterprise under construction. Picture from Screen Rant.

The updated bridge of the Enterprise.  Picture from MTV Movies.

Kirk climbing from a crash landed shuttle.  Picture from IGN.

Nero, the Romulan villain played by Eric Bana. Picture from Entertainment Weekly.

Another Nero pic.  Picture from JoBlo.

USS KELVIN - Before Kirk is even born, this ship comes under Romulan attack, launching the plot for the new movie.  Picture from Entertainment Weekly.

The USS Kelvin takes a hit in the film’s opening sequence. Picture from TrekMovie.com.

And finally, not a picture from the new movie but a motivational poster I absolutely love.  Picture from Screen Rant.

Stop whatever the hell you are doing right now and go watch the movie, “Free Enterprise“.  At work right now?  Screw it. Tell them you’re violently ill and need to go home.  Already seen the movie?  Then you know what I’m talking about.  Go celebrate 10 years of this masterpiece!  Go watch it already!  Geez… Do I have to tell you everything multiple times?

If you haven’t seen the film, it stars Eric McCormack (Will from ‘Will & Grace’), Rafer Weigel (sadly who never really went on to do much else), and William Shatner (a little known actor, you’ve probably never heard of him).   Worth mentioning also was Phil LaMarr (a man with SERIOUS geek cred) in a supporting role.   It’s a comedy about two geeks, one of which is having trouble accepting that he’s about to turn 30 years old.  During the film, these two geeks get to meet their real-life idol, William ‘Bill’ Shatner.  Unfortunately, Bill is about 30 cards short of a full deck.  From there wacky hijinks ensue!

This movie is an affirmation of your geekdom!  More importantly, it was made years before Hollywood decided to capitalize on us geeks.  This film was released in 1998 and celebrates fanhood of things like ‘Logan’s Run’, Mego action figures, comic books, buying movies on disc (back then it was Laser Disc), ‘Star Wars’, and obviously ‘Star Trek’.  Also worth mentioning is that it treats geeks as people who can have successful lives/relationships.  The two main characters are scoring with chicks frequently (yes, there is a little nudity in the film), going to swank Martini bars, and are generally cool.  The dialogue in this movie stands out especially because these guys talk like us geeks, throwing obscure references left and right (i.e. “Bad call, Ripley”, “Stay on target”, etc).  Oh yeah, and they drop the F-bomb about as much as I do.  Some people describe this movie as “Swingers” for geeks.  I think that’s a fitting description.

Here is a trailer for the film…

If you can’t view the trailer with the embedded player, click here.

And here is one of the last scenes of the movie.  Sorry if it spoils it for you.  This is ‘Bill’ performing his version of Julius Caesar.  It’s so crazy campy, it’s brilliant!

If you can’t view the video with the embedded player, click here.

Surprisingly, John Byrne’s recent comic book, “Star Trek:  Assignment Earth” #1 was actually enjoyable.  While I’m not a huge devotee of Star Trek TOS (”The Original Series” for those of you not in the know… geez), I do remember the episode “Assignment: Earth” with Gary Seven (Robert Lansing), Isis the cat, and Roberta Lincoln (a very young Teri Garr).  I’m also a lapsed fan of John Byrne.  I certainly don’t buy everything by him, but I do have fond memories of his Alpha Flight & Superman runs.  So every so often I’ll pick up a book he’s working on just on a whim.  This was just such a purchase.  I hadn’t expected it to be any good, so I was pleasantly surprised.

The story wasn’t anything earth-shattering, but it was a fun read.  It took place in 1968 and was really very reminiscent of the action/adventure spy series of the time.  I felt like I was reading a comic book version of “I Spy” with a dash of sci-fi.  The fact that the main threat was Soviets really helped to sell the 1968 factor.  With the nuclear testing, Soviets, and scientists, it reminded me a little of the origin story of the Hulk.  Also, I loved the swinging sixties-style decorating of Gary Seven’s pad.  I’m not sure if this is held over from the TV appearance or just for the comic.  Regardless, I fell in love with the secret sliding door behind the bar.  Brilliant!

Byrne’s art was fine for the issue, though I’ve read interviews where he was worried about getting the likenesses of real people correct.  No worries here, everything looked good.  Issue #2 just came out and the cover indicates that somehow Gary Seven and Ms. Lincoln will once again bump into 23rd century Starfleet folks.  Looks cool to me.

This is a five issue mini-series that will apparently leap forward one year with each issue.  Neat idea which will hopefully pay off.  I probably won’t add this book to my pull-list, but I’ll pick it up off the shelf if it hits me on the right week.

Also, you should be checking out IDW’s Star Trek: New Frontier title.  I’m not sure how it would read for newbies to the “New Frontier” corner of the STNG universe, but I’m loving it!  IDW is really making a worthwhile push this year with their Star Trek Second Stage initiative.  Good luck to them!