Trekkies Are The Problem

So, I have one friend who I consider my nerding out free pass.  He’s the guy who will not only indulge my intermittent desire to discuss Star Trek, but will also do me one better by somehow making connections to dragons and what may be Tolkien references.

I am a very exclusive nerd.  If it does not blow something up, I probably don’t care.  If it is not the product of some orogenic belt, I probably do not care.  If it does not involve music (not to say band trivia), I probably do not care.  If it does, however, include a story that lends itself to day-dreaming, I find myself drawn in.

Star Trek is bad about that.  I hate 80% of the franchise and pretty much all its self-defined ‘real’ fans.  I can’t discuss Star Trek miscellanea with them because they are frighteningly passionate and extremely over informed.  It’s like arguing with anyone who has a clear moral stance on something like abortion or gun ownership.

He has a blog that I really, really want to read.  For one thing, I have a feeling he would, at times, mention his Philistine friend who thinks The Mormons in Space era (The Next Generation, as it is so-called by purists), is why Star Trek has sucked huge donkey balls for the last twenty years.  Then all the Rick Berman fans would tell him he shouldn’t be associating with someone who does not understand that Star Trek (or ‘Trek’) is not simply an interesting sub-genre of ship-based SciFi but a GENUINE FUTURE PHILOSOPHY AND THE HOPE FOR MANKIND!!!!!!*

One discussion we had recently veered nerdily between the fields of Original Series stuff, the future fate of Star Trek as a TV show, and World War Two naval strategy (I know!).  Somehow, it went from there to old movies.  Then I had an interesting thought.

The whole reason the Original Series Star Trek was even interesting was because it allowed deep immersion in the stories.  The effects were shitty, the acting was that super-cheesy Shakespearean thing 60’s TV loved, and the show didn’t have the budget to really wow an audience with stupid shit.  It was basically Das Boot.

So, if you were to make a new Star Trek with the intention of introducing new fans, it would stand to reason to go back to the original drawing board.

They sort of approached this with the show Enterprise, but then abandoned it to the same bull shit hand wringing sermonizing of the Next Generation writers.  I call bullshit.  You have a ship full of people who want to see new places and fill their life with new experiences.  They want to leave home for as long as possible on these arduous voyages.  I can tell you from experience why people do that:

Strange Ass.

That’s just about the whole reason anyone joins a Navy.

Now, this is in space, so the typical WWII Navy movie format would not work.  No one out on deck, etc.  But, the stripped down and gritty battles against nature and other ships of something like Run Silent, Run Deep or Das Boot with the occasional aln ass-getting in port would be goddamn awesome.

He recommended we collaberate on some fan fiction.  Seriously.

So, anyone think they can out-nerd me now?

*Actual comment I lifted from a message board he was reading.