The Collective: Quest For Star Trek Movie Autographs

Some parents and children share a common love of baseball or stamp collecting. For our six year old Nicky, it is a shared appreciation of autograph collecting and Star Trek. When the new Star Trek was announced back in in 2006, my wife Mary Jo and I thought it would be an interesting quest to try and get the autographs of everyone involved in the film for Nicky, this is our first progress report on that quest.


Nicky is very excited about the new Star Trek movie. This is going to be Star Trek for his generation. His favorite TV show is Star Trek: The Animated Series, so he is very happy that these characters will be featured in the first Star Trek film he will see in theaters.
The idea is to write to everyone from the film, from the writers to the actors, from the artists to the editors. As signature collectors, my wife and I often wonder what if our parents, who were always supportive of our hobbies, would have written to the stars of Star Wars a year before its release, before the actors were household names and before George Lucas was too busy to sign. At six years old, Nick might not really get the idea of his collection, yet hopefully ten years from now, when JJ Abrams is giving our son his fourth Star Trek film, this special collection will mean something. Hopefully, it will show him how much he means to us.

This article is our first "progress report" on this, the one year anniversary of our starting our quest, and one year before its hopeful completion with the May 8, 2009 release of Star Trek. It is on that day that Nick learns of his collection when we reveal it to him for the first time. We have written every actor and crew person we could whose address is available, especially sending letters to Paramount during the filming of the movie. Unfortunately, so far, Paramount Studios hasn’t worked out as good a place to send letters as we thought. As of now we have got back around a dozen autographs. However, as long-time autograph collectors, we have learned that there two qualities to have for those who pursue through-the-mail autographs: persistence and patience. So as Spock likes to say: there are always possibilities. So we continue to peruse our goal of a complete set and hopefully more signed pictures will arrive over the next year.

Here are some samples of autographs we have received so far (click to enlarge):


Eric Bana (Nero)


Zachary Quinto (Spock)

 


Jimmy Bennett (young Jim Kirk)


Simon Pegg (Scotty)


Anthony Vitale (‘Welder Guy’ from Trailer)


Daniel Mindel (Cinematographer)

Others we have collected so far:

Cast:

  • Leonard Nimoy (Spock) = signed Star Trek XI teaser poster
  • Chris Doohan (Starfleet character) = signed picture
  • Jennifer Morrison (Winona Kirk) = signed picture

Crew:

  • Roberto Orci (writer and producer) = signed picture
  • Alex Kurtzman (writer and producer) = signed picture
  • Mary Jo Markey (editor) = signed picture and letter

We also got a couple of actors that we anticipated might be in the movie: William Shatner signed a Star Trek XI poster and Greg Grunberg sent us a signed picture.

A couple of special letters
Every letter we get is much appreciated, especially when the signers add something special. For example, Jimmy Bennett told Nicky to "rock on!" and Simon Pegg signed his picture that he was going to "beam up." The letters from Mindel and Markey are very enthusiastic about the film and its quality. Of these, though, the two we treasure are Anthony Vitale and Zachary Quinto’s items.

Since writing him, Vitale has become a friend and we have become fans of each of his films and television shows. The picture he sent Nicky was the very first Star Trek autograph Anthony ever signed. He wrote our son a very wonderful letter, concluding it with the advice that "We are never too young to dream, nor too old to learn. Life is always…Under Construction." The reference to the Star Trek tag line from the teaser Anthony performs as The Welder in is poetic and heartfelt. Nicky loves watching the trailer with its music and drama, and this will be an autograph he treasures.

When we got a letter from Zachary Quinto, we were already fans of his because of Heroes. Yet, we were very impressed by his friendliness and kindness with his letter to Nicky. He not only sent a signed picture, telling Nick to "be good" but also sent us all a letter. He told us that he had read our letter the same day after he formally signed his contract to play Spock, and that the Star Trek emblem we sent him was a "auspicious omen." After reading many interviews with him, we notice that he resembles Leonard Nimoy more than merely in looks. Like Nimoy, he is incredibly thoughtful about his character of Spock. And he is incredibly thoughtful to his fans.

Many more to go
There are many autographs we are waiting for. We hope our letters get to the various actors and crew, and we hope they can find the time to return a signature to Nicky.

We have been collecting Trek autographs for a long time and to us are no insignificant roles or crew. So our past autographs from famous names like William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, Nick Meyer and others are cherished along with our autographs from artists like Rick Sternbach, set decorators like Jim Mees, composers like Velton Bunch and even extras.

In the future, we will continue to inform fellow fans about the quest. Also, we will provide a guide to the autograph world of Star Trek.

Thanks to all those who make Star Trek, past and future. You help make entertainment which bonds families.

 

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The coolest parents ever!

seguro que el dia de mañana valdran una pasta, la verdad es que dais envidia, ya que desde donde escribo, aqui en España, conseguir esos maginificos autografos es imposible.

My birthday is coming up. I am some decades older than Nicky, but would love such a present.
Have a great time at the movies, Nicky!

I swear every time I play that teaser trailer and that horn plays those most famous 10 opening notes, i get a wicked chill up my back. This is the worst anticipation I can possibly imagine.

Not to mention Anthony Vitale just became the most famous welder on Earth. That, and he’s a classy guy for making the kid feel special. “Welder Guy” FTW!

Lucky!

GIMME QUINTO!!

So very awesome! I just geeked out a little bit!

I’m almost 17 and I just sent my first letter request for an autograph, although I have been going to conventions for the past 5 yrs or so and have collected about a dozen or so now. I was able to write to the theater Patrick Stewart was at in NYC last month and he mailed me an autograph. I hope your son realizes how special it is to share an interest such as this with his parents. I know my dad and I are still very close (even in my terrible teenaged years) partly because of this common interest. There are times where my dad is more of a friend than a parent and that is very special.

Nice! So, how does a fan contact actors? Through P’mount?

Kigs

I use a site called movieeye.com for addresses, but for the new movie you should be able to contact them through paramount, whereas with the TV shows they will no longer forward the mail to the given actor.

“Standing by to beam up!”

Simon Pegg is the awesomest!

Pegg’s and Quinto’s messages really make me smile. What a bunch of class acts these guys are!

Great post, love Nicky is collecting autographs. It’s so retro! And a lot of fun. Extra cool getting Anthony Vitale! :)

The pride of my Trek collection is the picture of my 4 year old daughter and Nichelle Nichols.

I also have one of her with Clint Howard when she was 2.

My wife and I will be taking her to Shore Leave again this year (she’ll be 5), and I can’t wait to see who we can get a photo of her with this year!

A ST:XI poster signed by William Shatner?!? Wow! That’s probably going to be worth a mint!!!

Anthony Vitale has a contact on his IMDB page under contact details

Eric Bana in a Ferrari hahaha
These are all unbelievably cool

John,
make sure, if you haven’t already, to get hold of Michael Giacchino’s (composers) autograph, getting John Williams’ autograph as he was writing the first Star Wars score would have been something special, getting Giacchino’s for this, just might be as well.
http://www.michaelgiacchino.com

I seriously doubt that kid listens to LA Guns.

Does anyone know which Trek cast members still do autographs by mail? I look around the internet and see websites for cast members. I can’t tell the legit factor of it.

Does anyone know of any that they have used before and been successful?

totally

Zachary Quinto so cute ~~~^^.
so lovely~~~~