Yesterday, I attended my first ever Star Trek convention right here in Seattle. The convention commemorated Star Trek’s 40th Anniversary and was definitely quite a hoot. I know I promised a lot of people pictures of the event (and they’ll be up in due course) but before I post them, I wanted to write a quick commentary on the centerpiece of these Star Trek Conventions: the actors.
Here’s a quote from a CNN article that seems to sum it up nicely:
After innumerable anniversaries, interviews, conventions, books, press junkets, red carpet arrival lines, DVD featurettes and commentaries, it’s abundantly clear: They are so over “Star Trek.”
The article contains a video link to an interview CNN attempted to do with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, and if you watch it, the meaning of the quoted passage above becomes clear. Both actors are constantly interrupting the questioner, cracking jokes here and there, and basically acting completely irreverent and almost foolish. In fact, it appears that the whole interview is so trivial to Shatner and Nimoy that when they do decide to give a serious answer, they actually point out the fact that they’re going to give a serious answer for once (doesn’t happen that often, though)
And you know what? They’re absolutely justified.
40 years is a long time to be picked, prodded, questioned, and revered, by generations of fans who love hearing Walter Koening say “nuclear wessels” and Leonard Nimony flash the vulcan greeting, especially when the actors don’t feel as though Star Trek was the best place for them to flourish artistically. Why should someone spend 40 years in the lime light, they wonder, for saying “aye captain!” And they’re probably right. And now, 40 years later, all of them have long moved on to other creative projects where they have been given the opportunity to develop as artists, and they’re justifiably sick and tired of legions of fans fixating on something they did years ago that doesn’t even represent their best work.
Case in point: At the convention yesterday, Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes took center stage late in the afternoon to do their “convention thing.” Just like Nimoy and Shatner, however, they were constantly interjecting in the middle of a question, cracking jokes that were rather racy at times (but funny!) To be fair though, Frakes and Sirtis were both immensely entertaining, and are not quite as fargone in their “Trek-itis” as Shatner and Nimoy obviously are (they still have about 20 years to go).
The truth is, these actors are so sick of Star Trek that the only way they can maintain their sanity through a convention or an interview is to constantly crack jokes and maintain a sense of humor of it all. And I can’t say I blame them. 40 years is a long time to be harped on something that you’ve long since moved on from, especially when it’s not your best work. So, even though I want to be a little disappointed with the blaze attitude many, if not all, of the Star Trek actors have towards the franchise that made them so popular, you have to admit that they’ve definitely put in their dues with the fans.
For better or for worse, for these actors, it seems that this too, shall not pass.