TrekMovie is helping out some people who are looking to find Trek fans who are ready for their close-up. First up, a UK documentary is coming to coming to Los Angeles and the producers want some Trekkies to help them as they get the cast of TOS together. Plus a photo-journalist in Jacksonville Florida wants meet some Trekkies in their natural habitat.
Today at the official Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, CBS announced that a new official Star Trek fan club will be launched by the end of the year. Details are sketchy for now, but CBS promised more details to come next month and have launched a new website to gather fan input on this new venture. In related news, Dan Madsen, who ran the previous fan club, is involved in a new fan venture that is partnering with Roddenberry.com
Gene may be gone, but the Roddenberry family is still here doing what they can to honor and keep the fans involved with the Roddenberry legacy. To that end they have a number of new things going on at Roddenberry.com and they just announced a special ‘Revolution Party’ in Las Vegas this week.
On Sunday TrekMovie.com shared some exclusive preview pics of a Star Trek themed cake to be featured in an upcoming episode of the Food Network show “Ace of Cakes.” The article spawned many comments here and some sites and blogs picked up the story (as per usual). But then some other sites decided to focus on the comments and took one in particular way too seriously.
Several months ago we reported that the tiny town of Vulcan, Alberta was hoping to hold the world premiere of the new Star Trek movie. Paramount have yet to book the corporate jet for a trip to Canada next May, but that hasn’t stopped the Vulcanians who have now upped the ante by bringing in two more ‘Trek cities’ to bid on three global Star Trek premieres.
After 40 years, Leonard Nimoy is still amazed and grateful for the popularity ‘Star Trek’ and his character, Mr. Spock. In an interview with The Jewish Chronicle, the actor says he is "flattered, amused and delighted" that ‘Star Trek’ has endured They were good stories, interesting stories, stories that are universal and stand up over time. Star Trek has never been a millstone. It has always given me opportunities to make choices about what to do with my work and my life.
Last week’s rumors of a new Star Trek (2008) teaser trailer were of course wrong – we are still many months away from the real thing. However, that has not stopped many fans from making their own. Here is a collection…the first of which is from TrekMovie.com community member Buckaroohawk.
Last week Rosario Dawson revealed her inner Trekkie on the Conan O’Brian Show. Hey JJ, there has got to be a role for her somewhere.
Just some little Trek items to tie you over…. The new companion for Dr. Who has admitted that she is more of a Trekkie. The Sun reports Freema Agyeman is a big fan of Patrick Stewart and the Next Generation and has even attended Trek conventions. more at Sun Online… Will Wheaton (TNG’s Wesley Crusher) is getting ready to head back to Trek. Wheaton announced that he will write a story for the next volume in ‘Star Trek: The Manga’ from Tokyo Pop. The actor says he was reluctant when first approached, but then a voice in his head said "Dude, this would be so cool! Come on, man, let’s do this!". more at his blog…
In the "Corbomite Maneuver" Lt. Baily says to Kirk "I vote we blast ’em," to which Kirk quickly replied "Thank you, Mr. Bailey, I’ll consider that when this becomes a democracy." But that attitude doesn’t stop fans from voting their opinions, including three currently running Trek XI polls on other sites. IMDB is asking for thumbs up or down on Matt Damon as Capt Kirk. Current result is a split decision of 48% for it, 52% against [UPDATE: IMDB have followed up with a new poll asking ‘if not Damon, then who?’…so far ‘an unknown’ leads with 34% with Ewan McGregor is 2nd with 11%] TrekToday also have a Trek XI casting poll going, asking what is people’s favorite casting rumor. The Sinise as Bones rumor leads with 40%. StarTrek.com have a tongue in cheek list of potential names for Star Trek XI, with "Star Trek XI: The First Generation" in the lead.
In a March 5th Newsweek article about the Star Trek XI announcement there were some general reactions from George Takei, Rod Roddenberry and Trekkies documentary director Roger Nygard. Something that caught our attention was the statement that Nygard was ‘interviewing Trekkers for the latest installment of his "Trekkies" documentaries.’ TrekMovie.com contacted Nygard to find out what was up and apparently Newsweek ‘got their tenses wrong.’ Nygard says that he is not currently at work on a Trekkies 3, but that he and producer Denise Crosby are planning on doing one. "We are on a 7 year schedule," said Nygard, referring to how the previous two came out in 1997 and 2004 respectively. The Trekkies team would like to catch up with some of the Trek fans featured in the previous entries, like digital artist Gabriel Kroener who Nygard called "a Trekkies success story."
If you have been following our little extras throughout the weeks when news is slow, you’ll notice we have found video clips of various Trek parody/references in Family Guy. The show’s creator Seth MacFarlane is an admitted Trekie and even had two cameos as an extra officer on Enterprise. Once again community member Kelvington has nicely put all the video clips into one giant Trek funny reel. I love it!
This week the long arm of Star Trek has stretched into the US political Arena. First up is U.S. Representitive David Wu (D-OR). Whether or not you agree with his politics, you got to admit he knows his Trek. The Oregonian has more on the controversey and suggests Wu may have a second career speaking at Trek conventions. But Wu wasn’t the only Trek fan making news in politics this week…
Fanboys is a film about a group of hardcore Star Wars fans who travel across the country to steal a pre-release copy of Episode I: The Phantom Menace so their terminally ill friend can see it before he dies. Although the film is about Star Wars fans, Star Trek makes an appearance in the form of original Captain Kirk himself William Shatner. Actor Jay Baruchel describes the Shatner cameo to MTV Movie News: Captain Kirk? Chalk that one up to the great ‘Star Trek’ wars…there’s a big-ass battle between all the Trekkies and all the fanboys. We fight with lirpa, which is the Vulcan weapon with the sickle on the top and mound on the bottom.
Spotted this tidbit about Denise Crosby in the most recent Vegas con report on StarTrek.com After producing and hosting the first two "Trekkies" documentaries, Crosby said she is toying with ideas for a third one. "We’ll see — I’vegot it in mind to do. I’d like to do three; I just think three seems more complete — I’m looking at the boxed set down the line, y’know?" She said the theme of the next project would likely involve what she called "fan filmdom." It would be an interesting move for Paramount to put out another ‘Trekkies’ movie around the same time they are trying to expand the audience for Star Trek with Star Trek XI. If it does happen one would hope that Crosby and the other producers strived to be a bit more balanced then the previuos two films. Many Trek fans have felt that Trekkies I and II reinforced many of the negative stereotypes of Star Trek fans, some of which are now being dispelled by Trek Sociologist John Tenuto. The choice of the so called ‘fan films’ is also interesting, it could be seen as one step closer to legitimacy for these independent Trek films.
A week ago we reported how WWME is really running with Trek Remastered, here is a new promo featuring Chicago fans version of the Star Trek opening monolog and theme: Are we seeing a resurgence of original series nostalgia…JJ Abrams is certainly banking on that.
Sociologist John Tenuto shares some preliminary findings from his study of scifi fandom… The concept of the Star Trek fan is a myth.Those attending Star Trek conventions see a variety of people that questions the simplistic view that all Trekkers are the same. Star Trek fans are multifarious in political views, occupation, demographics, and shape. Yet, the myth persists that all Star Trek fans are similar. Similarly geeky. Similarly minded. Similarly shaped. Similarly bereft of social relationships. This is not true. Never has been. Probably never will be.
CNBC’s ‘On the Money‘ show took a trip to the Vegas Con to see just how much money there was in Star Trek. Their conclusion…A LOT. They estimate that the franchise has been worth $4 Billion for Paramount. A recent unnamed source from Paramount has caused a bit of a stir with his not too favorable comments to IESB about the Trek Franchise, but CBS Paramount VP John Wentworth goes on the record with CNBC: Star Trek is certainly more than a show, more than a movie. It is more than an auction, it’s more than a theme park, collectively it is just the most successful franchise I’ve ever seen in entertainment
It has been 10 days since Paramount announced the first teaser poster for Star Trek XI. This was big news and has been picked up all over the world in both the geekerazzi and the mainstream media, even Christianity Today. Most of the news analysis came to the same conclusion as the Trek Movie Report, that the poster is an indication the new film will be ‘old school Trek’ from the TOS era. Now Playing Magazine puts it succinctly: “The Trek poster would seem to indicate that the new film will return to the era of the original Kirk and Spock adventures” obviously picking up on the two major clues, the insignia (only used on the Original Series) and the colors (matching Kirk and Spock’s uniforms). But of course being about Star Trek…the speculation doesn’t end there.
Much has been made about the recent rumor reported by the Insider that JJ Abrams wants Matt Damon to be the next Captain Kirk. The original report specifically said that JJ Abrams sought and recieved Shatner’s blessing. Since then USA Today reported Shatner as OKing Damon as young Kirk, quoting him “”I think it’s great. The tragedy is that when somebody else is playing you younger, you’re really old.” Now StarTrek.com is getting into the mix saying sources ‘close to Shatner’ claim Abrams seeking his advice is ‘news to him’ going on to say he hasn’t heard anything from Abrams or the producers of Star Trek XI. So there you have it…clear as mud.