Don’t forget! Due to the July 4th holliday, Diamond might be getting your books into your friendly neighborhood comic shop tomorrow. But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t drop into that LCS, pick up a trade you’ve been eying and say Hi as I can assure you most of the staff will be very confused and a little lost without their books and you, their faithful public.
But today, while we wait and wonder for the week’s books, I’m going to set aside my die-hard love of Marvel Comics to ask Montgomery Scott to grab those bagpipes as it’s time for a sad tune that might still have a stirring ending in sight.
Last night I was hit with the rather hard blow of hearing we’ll be losing Star Trek: the Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton this year For long time fans, it’s kind of no surprise really; it’s been awhile since our show was ‘as good as it used to be’ and public interest has waned substantially. Mind you, not my interest and not in the slightest. Ever since I saw Rick Berman break ground with faux phaser fire back in the day, I have long longed to go visit something that seemed impossibly cool and I was lucky enough to go see Quark’s Bar and ride the most awesome ride in the whole wide world on my honeymoon last year. My husband remembers it fondly as I finally got to live a childhood dream of stepping on to the bridge of the 1701-D and truly have an experience like no other. He quizzed me on all the little props and bits in the History of the Future Museum, a sort of ‘timeline’ of Trek on display and it came back to me like high school Spanish… okay, a lot better than high school Spanish. The backstage tour just cemented the fact that the whole thing was a labor of love, from the little tiny detailadded to the big model of the Enterprise in the main lobby to the actors backstage chatting about their characters and the infamous and incredible ‘transporter trick’ that amazed me even after I found out how it worked. I could have worked there. I could have lived there.
And the food was incredible for theme restaurant food.
Now, I didn’t have such a spectacular a moment of truth as say, Mr. Wil Wheaton, pop culture guru and my secret childhood crush (don’t tell anyone!), as he shared with us his epiphany from stepping into the future but I could understand it. I got goosebumps when a decidedly young Riker came on screen and clutched my new husband’s hand a little tighter as we were told to get into a shuttlecraft because one of us could be Picard’s ancestor (guy with male pattern baldness at 6 o’clock!), kind of caught between being a newly married adult and a little girl who religiously taped every episode of TNG. Just stepping off the transporter pad and into the corridor felt so much like the show I dedicated a good portion of my life watching (sometimes memorizing), from the lighting to the Okudagrams to the actors themselves. I mean, they really did call it ‘the Experience’ for a reason. Mr. Wheaton (or Sweet Wesley, as I call him in my dreams) says the Experience will be closing down as of September 1st, so please, if you’ve ever called yourself a Trek fan, do yourself a favor and make the trip to a sacred spot. It’s a terrible shame this wonderful piece of fandom is leaving us.
And if that wasn’t enough, TrekMovie.com has been steadily reporting of a lack of Star Trek panels at this year’s San Diego Comic Con. All the tools so to speak will be at the Con (Paramount, JJ Abrams and crew promoting other movies) but no scheduled Trek Movie Panel. Awkward, yes, but since the date of the big film has been pushed from this Christmas to the coveted Start of Summer spot, maybe Paramount thinks they don’t have to try so hard to generate buzz on the film until it’s in clear sight.
Or maybe it’s a really bad idea. So bad a lot of people have started to question the accuracy of the report, thinking there would be no way that a savvy company like Paramount would miss a major marketing opportunity like this. After all, the past couple Cons have given us hope for the future of the franchise and Abrams did promise us one more Con before the movie was to come out.
And yet, Star Trek will be SDCC in a big way, it’ll be just a few feet in another direction: at the San Diego Air and Space museum where Star Trek: the Exhibition will be on display during the Con itself. There’s talk of coupons for the event, a big party hosted there during the Con and even some awesome sounding bus ‘skins’ to make them look like shuttlecraft. IDW will also weight in with content for their comic titles and a panel “Star Trek without a blueprint. How books and comics keep expanding the boundaries of the Star Trek universe.”
More and more through the years, Star Trek has been in the hands of the fans. Some could say the show’s been that way since the fans started that letter writing campaign years ago. A real labor of love from the fans who promote it to the fans who line up to see it, there’s a support structure there that holds true no matter what Paramount decides. Let’s face it, if we can survive Star Trek: Insurrection, Star Trek fans can survive anything.
So, the Experience closes down and Paramount is going light on promoting a movie they’ve promised will revitalize the franchise and please both fans and non-fans alike. At this point, does it matter? I don’t want to incur the wrath of fandom fate here, but I think we’ve got it covered.
July 9th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
“Fandom fate”?
More like “Khan”.