Found this little gem of oddness over on Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist.
It’s safe to say that I’ve never been a Trek fan. I just have never really enjoyed the show(s) all that much, even when they were originally aired. Just something about it turned me off. I think it was the utopian ideals that did it. It just seemed too unrealistic. Too much of a pipe dream. I much preferred the nihilism and dystopian futures presented in such films as Bladerunner, Alien and more recently The Matrix and Firefly/Serenity. To me those were more real and plausible, and subsequently much more enjoyable. Yes, I’m well aware that I just said The Matrix was plausible. Shut it!
The other thing that really turns me off from the whole Trek phenomenon is the fans. Now I’m not talking about the regular people who like Trek, there are tons of those and for the most part they’re just normal people united in a common bond over a television show. It happens. We’re human. We do silly shit like that all the time. It’s genetic. The problem isn’t those few, the problem is THE FANS. Those people that go above and beyond. The ones that Trek is not just a show, it’s a fucking religion. The rabid, red shirt wearing, klingon speaking, “I’ve got my own moulded Vulcan ears”, Kirk vs Picard, “I know every bloody episode backwards”, “I hate Wesley”, “In episode three.one.seven of Next Gen, they couldn’t really do that because in episode one.zero.two they did…” idiots that just don’t get out enough. To me, Trek fans like the idiots that news reporters find when they do their “Live on the scene with an Eyewitness” reports. Those guys are always the most inbred, useless, shower cap wearing, idiots ever to flunk out of third grade. You all know the type. The stereotypical idiot that gives the rest of us a bad name. That’s what Trek fans are in my eyes. Just plain idiots. They give the rest of sci-fi fandom a bad name.
Maybe I’m just bitter and cynical and spent too many years behind the Warp/Outland counter listening to an endless parade of ‘Gavins’1 sour me to all things Trek.
The above link just proves that to me one more time. These guys really, really really need to find something more productive to do with their time. Guh. The mind boggles. I bet that prior to their little manifesto petition, the hardcore amongst them spent a good four months of forum trolling, emailing and newsgroup posting just to come up with the idea.
Bah! What the hell do I know or care. I’m a self confessed browncoat. (It’s not the same. Shut it!)
1 It’s a Kids in The Hall reference. If you know me, you know I’ve done the voice… “If my head were made of_____, how much do you think it’d be worth?”