In Their Century, All Is Well – ‘Star Trek’ fans draw inspiration from idealistic series
War in Iraq. Savage crimes. Nuclear proliferation. Bickering nations.
A depressing glance at international affairs need not lead to a doomsday prognosis — or so say local “Star Trek” fans, who are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the iconic television series this month with fresh hopes of following the starship Enterprise’s mission “to boldly go where no man has gone before.”
Donning costumes that include wigs, skintight shirts and pointy Vulcan ears, members of a Morris County-based fan club are reveling in their fantasy world as much as they’re applying lessons of the Gene Roddenberry series to their take on real global events.
“‘Star Trek’ is one of the few things out there that gives us hope,” said Lake Hiawatha resident Gene Hendricks, a member of the USS Justice, a Trek fan club that will celebrate the series’ four decades all day Saturday at the Morris County Library.
“It tells us that even 300 years into the future, people can look forward to all the races of the Earth getting together,” Hendricks said. “It’s definitely an inspiration to us.”
The fictional “Star Trek” universe — which exploded from the 1960s TV show into an American franchise spanning six popular series, 10 feature films and hundreds of novels and computer games — depicts a post-World War III future in which humans have united with other intelligent species of the galaxy to form the United Federation of Planets.
With characters who are generally unselfish and conflicts that play off cultural realities, humanity in the “Star Trek” cosmos largely overcomes many earthbound weaknesses as a result of science and alien intervention.
In full Trekkie regalia, the 20 USS Justice members and other volunteers spend time acting out their own version of events in the Trek world. The club has produced three original films in the last several years as part of its own “fanchise,” or fan-made series, called “Tales of the Seventh Fleet.”
Most of the characters and story ideas were taken from the group’s role-playing experiences, with the latest episode, “A Touch of Home,” to premiere at Saturday’s celebration.
“Star Trek” clubs from around the world, boasting a fan base of 250 million, have created similar films, which often are distributed over the Internet and continue the timeline forward or backward from the original series.
Club founder Ed Tunis, appropriately enough, plays the captain — but not James T. Kirk, as portrayed on TV by William Shatner. Tunis, who started the group about 12 years ago, depicts the otherwise-nameless leader, who hails from the Efrosian species but has spent a lot of time on Earth.
The 37-year-old full-time student, who’s been hooked on “Star Trek” since high school, had an opportunity to meet his television counterpart in 2003 at a celebrity paintball game. But Tunis doesn’t put too much stock in playing the captain of the USS Justice, with his long white hair and an unusual matching mustache.
“It doesn’t mean I get to take 13 items on the express aisle of the supermarket,” he noted. “Besides, it’s a real team effort.”
The movie is so much of a team effort, in fact, that Tunis’ wife, Trisha, plays an Android and Hendricks and his wife, Michelle, play a couple in the fanchise. In a world — real or pretend — where like attracts like, Trekkies seem to stick together on many levels.
“I met my wife in a fan club,” said Dan Swift, a Hackettstown resident who remembers watching his first Trek episodes “on a fuzzy old black and white TV.”
Trekkies say they are often fans of other science fiction franchises, such as “Star Wars,” but they are foremost Trek fans. The true allure of Trek, they say, is how the stories involve questions of politics, science and ethics. They’re “just morality plays, when you look at them,” says Swift, 40.
“In ‘Star Trek,’ there’s always hope for the future,” added Swift, who plays Commander Carl Stoeffles, a human science nut whose personality repels all the other crew members. “You just look at the news today and you want to turn off the TV. ‘Star Trek’ says, everything is not that bad.”
Saturday’s event will begin at the Morris County Library, 30 East Hanover Ave. in Whippany [in Morristown NJ area (USA)], at 10 a.m. and run until 4:30 p.m. Cast and crew of “Tales of the Seventh Fleet” will be on hand to answer questions relating to the series and fandom in general.
Also scheduled to appear are Alex Rosenzweig, one of the world’s leading “Star Trek” experts, Keith R.A. DeCandido, author of several “Star Trek” novels, and Terri Osborne, author of several “Star Trek” short stories and e-books. Games and activities will go on all day, including screenings of the original series episodes and a trivia contest. For more information, visit the USS Justice Official Website.
Written by: Maureen Salamon (for the Star Ledger)