Before I share my rating of them though, I did write a bit of a disclaimer as to just how much of a Star Trek fan I really am. I'm enough of a fan to have bought The Star Trek Encyclopedia, and while reviewing it in my journal (over a decade ago), I'm afraid I was also quite a bit unflattering towards the type of fans who attend conventions dressed up as fictional alien species. If this is you, I apologize, but you have to admit: it is often seen as strange behavior to people on the outside looking in, and some, though not all, of these people take the whole thing perhaps one step too far. (This coming from someone who is about to review all the shows on his blog, season by season!)
The Star Trek Encyclopedia was
colorful and fun to just flip through. I
thought it should have been written a bit less geeky. I would have preferred more
of a story format, and less a list of fictional facts. You see, it’s the stories that I find
fascinating, and not the detailed lists that make up those stories,
really. Still, this is a fun book to
just pick over from time to time, but it is, obviously, only for die-hard Star Trek fans.
I do consider myself a
die-hard fan, yet I do not see myself as fanatical. Although I admit it might be kind of a fun endeavor, so far, you’d never catch me wearing alien make-up and costumes at some (overpriced) Star Trek convention (though the Trills look pretty cool with
those discrete spots). My computer
desktop may look like a station on the Enterprise, and I may have a few Star
Trek books, and the DVDs, but my interest actually stops there. The shows are extremely good, but some fans
wind up taking it all to a whole new level. I even know of
one co-worker whose daughter’s middle name is some Klingon word, poor
thing! The point these people seem to miss, at least from my point of view, is
that this show is not really about these fantasy cultures or these intriguing gadgets
like the transporter and the universal translator, in and of themselves. It is, instead, primarily focused on the stories surrounding these alien species, and the intriguing gadgets are mere props. Oh sure, these elements of the show are certainly neat,
inventive, and stimulating, and they give the show such an air of (inviting) unreality, but if the focus is placed only on these things, they can wind up stigmatizing the show when some people latch onto these fake devices and
cultures in their everyday normal lives.
These are, first and foremost, television shows – and that’s it really! They entertain in both a creative and
intellectual sense, but they are also commercial product designed to make a
profit for the studio that produces them.
They are well written and produced stories that excite my imagination
and expand my mind - it's why I love them - but I realize this is also entertainment for guys who think too much sometimes, and who also relish their
eccentricity (I'm lumping myself in with this crowd as well). Some fans take it one step
further than this, and into the realm of turning the show into one big
commercial, with an endless catalogue of props and costumes and overpriced
trinkets and novelty items sold at the Sci-Fi conventions. What must these actors think when they
headline one of these conventions and look out at the sea of geeks in Spock ears
and Klingon garb, with their Starfleet Technical Manuals and stuffed Tribbles. When people go to jury duty wearing a Starfleet uniform, or have an
exact replica of Sisko’s command chair from the Defiant in their living room,
or name their children after Klingons, well, what can I say? I'm sure it's fun to dress up in costumes, like we do for Halloween, as long as we realize it is still just a TV show.
These characters they like, and like
to emulate so much, wouldn’t do that! They'd be like Kira, embarrassed over the time Dax convinced her to dress up in a fairy princess dress for a holosuite adventure, right when she met Worf for the first time, wouldn't you know! These noble fictional characters would find this kind of endeavor a bit of a waste of time. They would most likely label this kind of behavior as an unhealthy obsession, or an
addiction, just like Barclay’s injurious holodiction. The holodeck is a great example. Most of the characters in the fictional world
of Star Trek use the holodeck for an occasional diversion or even a more useful
function like simulated training or in-depth analysis of some problem, and like
these characters, that pretty much describes me and my enjoyment of, and use
of, this show. They would see such behavior as what I described above, as a rather detrimental obsession, just as they do whenever Barclay tries to retreat into a fantasy holodeck world. I’m a Star Trek fan, not a fanatic, and I would hope that people would be able
to tell the difference.
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