DVD REVIEW: TREKKIES 2

I think it’s only proper when reviewing a film about a controversial group of people, those being the titular Trekkies, that the review should be equally controversial.  Like the majority of you out there, I’m a fan of most things Trek.  I grew up watching the original series, watched The Next Generation with wide teenage eyes and especially enjoyed the different take on the Trek universe afforded by Deep Space Nine.  Then there’s Voyager…and then there’s Enterprise, which is really coming into it’s own – finally.  I enjoyed the movies and have several of them in my collection.  I consider myself a Trekkie.  But there are Trekkies, and then there are Trekkies.  They were the uniforms, collect the merchandise, attend the conventions, speak Klingon, don’t get laid, live with their parents….Anyway, there’s plenty of good stuff to be mined if one were to take a camera and point it at these people.  I’ve only seen parts of the first film, but I got a couple of  eyesocketfuls of this one.  An hour-and-a-half of hundreds of people talking about why they love Roddenberry’s hallowed creation.  Since they all got their two cents’ worth, I thought I’d take a moment and toss in my useless copper Lincolns on the whole Trek experience.

The Flick:

Here’s the plot of this documentary: Continuing her work from the original film, former Star Trek: The Next Generation pinup girl, Denise Crosby, travels the world in search of all things Trek and interviews the legions of pointy-ear-wearing nutbags from every race, culture and sexual orientation who have kept this franchise alive for nearly 40 years…….
 
(awkwardly long pause)

(crickets chirping)

(reviewer sweats nervously)

Okay.  That didn’t take long.  Thought I’d have more to say about the movie… uhmmm…shit. 

See here’s the thing: if I don’t actually fill up some bandwidth reviewing this thing, Nick and Dave will treat me like Zed treated Marcellus Wallace.  So for the sake of staying regular, please allow me to share with you observations I’ve made in my many years of watching Trek, several of which include things I’ve seen in this documentary.  These are just streams (more like steady leaks) of consciousness and are in no particular order of importance (like anything in this review is important). Some of these observations may be humorous, some may cause ethnic cleansing.  But please, I urge you, however you choose to react to these comments, please do so in an orderly fashion.  Thank you.

•    Although she’s gotten a bit of the Gold Kryptonite since she left TNG, Denise Crosby still has some great M-Class planets.

•    Why is it that the fattest, ugliest and usually the most pathetic Trek diehards are always Klingon warriors?

•    Sexiest Trek babe: Jolene Blalock (Enterprise) with Nichelle Nichols (Star Trek: The Original Series) a close second.  Scariest Trek babe: naked Nichelle Nichols (Star Trek V).

•    Biggest yet probably least-known Trek handjob: My wife speaks fluent Swahili, and I was dying to know what the salt vampire from TOS episode “Man Trap” said when it  changed into the black crewman and macked on Uhura.  So I recorded the segment and showed it to my wife to find out.  Her reply?  “I don’t what the hell that shit is, but it’s not Swahili.  I don’t think it’s even a language.”  What???

•    I watched a little TV before I started watching Trekkies 2 and I don’t know what scared me worse: the people I saw at the Star Trek conventions or the people I saw at the Republican convention.

•    Was it me or was Gwynyth Walsh (B’Etor from TNG and Generations) the sauciest Klingon ho you ever saw?

•    If/when there’s another Trek flick, I better not hear any bullshit about Federation ships’ shields failing, maximum warp or photon torpedoes when the least-regarded series, Voyager, introduced switchblade armor, quantum slipstream and transphasic torpedoes.

•    The Best season of any Trek series?  Season 7 of DS9.  Hands down.

•    Do black Vulcans have bigger phasers than white Vulcans?

•    Do Andorian chicks menstruate blue? 

•    Do Orion slave chicks menstruate green? 

•    Do Borg chicks menstruate WD-40? 

•    Do Vulcan chicks menstruate once every seven years? 

•    When we really do get around to creating holodecks, whom do you think future generations are going to be spending more time with, Vic Fontaine (DS9), Moriarty (TNG) or Jenna Jameson?

•    On minute 57:40 of the Trekkies 2 DVD, there’s a chick named Kathleen Copper who has the Enterprise-D tattooed on her back, when in reality she was big enough to have the entire Federation Fleet tattooed there.  Never seen the Enterprise with that many rolls of fat…

•    There’s another chick on the DVD, I believe in Italy, that was dressed as a Klingon and talking about why she loved Star Trek so much.  Thing was, I couldn’t tell if it was in Italian or in Klingon.

•    When the Doctor downloaded himself into Seven of Nine’s ocular implant in the Voyager episode “Body and Soul”, did he get around to any other implants?

•    Wasn’t the biggest plothole of Generations having Guinan in it at all?

•    How come there’s no five-breasted female aliens anywhere in the Star Trek universe?

•    With all of the Trek series that have come and gone the last 17 years, how come there weren’t new episodes of The Animated Series made?

•    Was Frank Gorshin’s running in the Enterprise’s corridors at the end of TOS episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” the most oddly gay thing you’ve ever seen?

•    After she was done with Riker and Worf, did Troi work her way around to LaForge, Data and Picard?

•    Was it me or did Geordi’s visor look like a golden hair barrett? 

•    Could the Klingons get the Spice Channel off his visor when they modified it in Generations?  If so was it in hi-def?

•    Did Kirk re-teach Uhura about sex when she got her mind wiped by Nomad in TOS episode “The Changeling?”

•    It was shocking to me that a couple of the low/no budget fan films on Trekkies 2 were better than the last couple of TNG flicks.

•    If Bob Marley had had a guest spot as a Red Shirt on TOS and gotten iced, would Bones have had to say, “He’s dred, Jim?”

•    Am I the only one who would have liked to see the proposed special edition versions of TOS episodes with the updated F/X?

•    When the Vulcans use their fingers down on their chicks during pon farr, do they do use the “live long and prosper” method?

•    Universal Star Trek truth: unless you’re an actor, it’s impossible to look good in a Trek uniform.  Period.  Give it up.

•    How can Ferengi and Klingons get BJs from their chicks with teeth like that?

•    I take it I’m not the only one to notice that Generations blatantly ripped of a couple of Bird of Prey F/X shots from The Undiscovered Country, particularly the destruction scene?  No?  I thought not.

•    Do Borg chicks get breast implants?

•    Considering what the female crewmembers were wearing on the “Mirror, Mirror” episode of TOS, and what the evil Kira was wearing on the Mirror DS9 episodes, would you have wanted to go back to the regular universe?  I don’t think so.

•    Isn’t it truly pathetic that I know that when Troi said she never
kissed Riker with a beard in Insurrection, I knew that that wasn’t true
because she sucked faced with the other Riker in the TNG episode “Second
Chances?”

•    I’m of the opinion that TNG would have been an even cooler show if
they continued with the war timeline from “Yesterday’s Enterprise.”

•    Don’t you think the fact that Data could remove his head, as
evidenced in TNG episode “Disaster,” would come in pretty handy when he
did it with Tasha in the episode “The Naked Now?”

•    You think the Kirk android from TOS episode, “What Are Little Girls
Made of” trying to hump every friggin’ piece of machinery he could
find?

•    You think Kirk tried to do himself when he switched bodies in TOS
“Turnabout Intruder?”

•    After seeing the TOS episode, “Assignment: Earth,” did you ever look at a black cat for hours and just hope…
And finally, these last few inflammatory thoughts:

•    DS9 was better than TNG.

•    Rick Berman and Brannon Braga are not the antichrists. 

•    Voyager didn’t completely suck.

•    Don’t front.  It’s Trekkie, not Trekker.

•    I would have done the Borg Queen.
If you liked Trekkies, slap Trekkies 2 in the player and you’ll get more of the same, only well, more of the same.

7.7 out of 10

The Look:

It’s shot on video.  Good video, but video.

4.0 out of 10

The Noise:

It’s shot on video. 

6.6 out of 10

The Goodies:

Here’s where the dilithium’s located.  A pretty loaded DVD:

•    Commentary by host Denise Crosby, director Roger Nygard and producer Mike Lahey.

•    Two fan films by hardcore Trekkies Brian Dellis, Final Frontier Revisited, and Gabriel Koerner’s Really Bad Star Trek Clip.

•    Two clips of Roger Nygard’s other works, Suckers and Six Days in Roswell.

•    Deleted Scenes.  This is the de facto Trekkies 3.  An hour of clips that didn’t make the movie (plus a few that did, which was weird).  Nevertheless, this is almost like getting two movies for one.

7.0 out of 10

The Artwork:

The Trek baby’s back and this time he has a chick, which is something the majority of Trekkies can’t say.

7.0 out of 10

Overall:  7.5 out of 10