Trekkies [*], rejoice!\u00a0 <\/p>\n
New TOS (\"The Original Series\", for the unitiated) episodes are being made by fans <\/span>and are available for free download.\u00a0 It\u2019s called \"Star Trek: New Voyages\"<\/a> [this is a site hosted by Wired;\u00a0 the real site <\/a>loads painfully slowly, but it\u2019s worth the wait if you can do something else in the meantime], about which Wired says<\/a><\/p>\n The original Star Trek<\/cite> set out on a five-year mission that network execs cut short in 1969. Now a new confederation of amateur Kirk worshippers and studio renegades is repairing the space-time continuum and finishing the job.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n One amusing tidbit:\u00a0 A fanatical fan, one of the founders of the series spent years building a perfect replica <\/em>of the bridge of the Enterprise in a barn!<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t downloaded the first episodes yet.\u00a0 <\/p>\n It was interesting to look at the cast photos.\u00a0 With the notable and lamentable exception of Lt. Uhura\u2013who\u2019s played by a woman who looks barely \"ethnic\" (Is she Latina?), much less Black\u2013they managed to do a good job in matching people.\u00a0 The guy playing Kirk not only looks the part, but manages to ham it up even in the way he sits in the captain\u2019s chair.\u00a0 The likeness in the case of Bones is really striking.<\/p>\n The photos of the actors playing extras and minor characters are also there.\u00a0 A perusal of this long gallery of mug shots is entertaining.\u00a0 <\/p>\n The first thing you notice is the dearth of non-white faces.\u00a0 Unless I missed something, every single actor involved appears to be white.\u00a0 Perhaps this is just another example of the funny things middle class white people do when they have too much free time on their hands\u2013remember, this is a labor of love by diehard fans, not a commercial production\u2013but those demographics remind me of how science fiction and fanstasy in general tends to be made for and by white men.\u00a0 There are notable exceptions (e.g., Octavia Butler, Ursula K. LeGuin, \u2026), but it remains a decidedly WASPy and testosterone-filled genre (e.g., the playful but very white & male\u00a0 \"Starship Troopers\"<\/a>, which I really enjoyed as a white and a male), as far as I can tell.<\/p>\n Speaking of race, I see that they\u2019ve returned to TOS system for Klingon appearances.\u00a0 Anyone who\u2019s watched much Star Trek knows that Klingons on TOS looked very different from today\u2019s Klingons.\u00a0 In the original series, these baddies were basically dark-haired, ruddish-hued white guys of normal build.\u00a0 In TNG (Star Trek The Next Generation) and DSN (Star Trek Deep Space Nine), they decided to make them more \"alien\" and fierce-looking, adding all sorts of ugly facial ridges and wigs to their heads and casting large muscular (and usually black) actors.\u00a0 [It would be interesting to know how many aspiring black actors got work due to this policy change by Paramount.]<\/p>\n It\u2019s also interesting to see all these red shirts (the infamously short-lived security officers in Star Trek wear red shirts).\u00a0 I wonder if this new series maintains the old Aztec-style ritual of sacrificing the hapless and nameless red shirts to an angry god.\u00a0 The book, All I really need to know I learned from watching Star Trek<\/span><\/a>\u2013whose premise I feel was stolen from me, as I\u2019ve long said that all of life\u2019s lessons can be found in one episode or another of Star Trek\u2013sums up the gory red shirt phenomenon quite wittily (unfortunately, I don\u2019t have the book, so I borrowed the quote from here<\/a>):<\/p>\n Anyone with even a passing interest in Star Trek should know this rule: Never, ever, ever wear a red shirt\u2013not under any circumstances. Don\u2019t do it.<\/span><\/p>\n Pick any episode. Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, a series regular like Uhura, and some guy you\u2019ve never seen before are standing on the transporter pad. If the guy is wearing a red shirt, he will not live past the first commercial. Somewhere on the planet below certain death awaits.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve watched these guys in red shirts get shot, be blown up, be disintegrated, have all their blood drained, have every cell in their body explode and otherwise meet the most painful and horrible deaths imaginable.<\/span><\/p>\n The endings aren\u2019t even especially heroic. First a guy beams down, then he\u2019s dead. At least it\u2019s usually quick. Nine times out of ten, the poor fellow doesn\u2019t have a clue what hit him. Within seconds, Bones examines the fallen crewman with a tricorder, turns to the captain and says, \"He\u2019s dead, Jim.\" By the next scene it\u2019s as if the guy never existed. There\u2019s no wake, no funeral and most of the time his name is never spoken again. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n * I note sadly that there are some skin-deep fans who sniff at the term \"trekkie\" and demand to be categorized instead as \"trekkers\".\u00a0 As the old saying goes, it it looks, writhes, and leers like an <\/span>Orion slave girl<\/a>, it\u2019s an Orion slave girl!\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n All these sissy fans who fear the mockery of the ignorant, non-sci fi-inclined masses.\u00a0 Does a connoisseur of Impressionism care a whit whether some philistine who considers hologram posters art approves of her taste in paintings?\u00a0 Get some backbone, Trekkies.\u00a0 Say it and say it loud:\u00a0 \"I\u2019m a Trekkie and proud.\"<\/span><\/p>\n In a world where Bill Gates is be the alpha male\u2013That film \"Revenge of the Nerds\" was eerily prophetic!\u2013we have nothing to be ashamed of.\u00a0 Wear your pocket protectors with pride, guys. Speaking of the infamous Orion slave girls, it just occured to me that they are basically a cross between the <\/span>Incredible Hulk<\/a> and the popular conception of the\u00a0 <\/span>houri<\/a>.\u00a0 I wonder what happens when they get mad.\u00a0 Umm, nevermind.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Trekkies [*], rejoice!\u00a0 New TOS (“The Original Series”, for the unitiated) episodes are being made by fans and are available for free download.\u00a0 It\u2019s called “Star Trek: New Voyages” [this is a site hosted by Wired;\u00a0 the real site loads painfully slowly, but it\u2019s worth the wait if you can do something else in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":357,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-fiction","category-star-trek"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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