They Call Me Mister Spock!

We have all died and gone to geek heaven and it Leonard Nimoy is God. (by David Hill)

Did last night really happen or was it just some mass geek hallucination? Were you there? Did you have a Spockgasm, too? Is the Alamo Drafthouse the coolest place in the universe, or what? (Seriously. It's official. The Alamo Drafthouse is the Coolest Place In the Universe.)

When the Alamo announced recently that they'd be presenting a free screening of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, followed by a ten-minute clip from the opening of J.J. Abrams forthcoming Star Trek franchise re-boot, Trekkers and laypeople alike rejoiced. And why not? Apart from being a supercool sci-fi classic featuring space battles galore, Ricardo Montalban's rich, Corinthian pecs, and a story line ripped straight from the pages of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, it's also flat-out one of the greatest vengeance movies ever made. Quentin Tarantino, no stranger to the vendetta genre himself, proclaimed it so at his last Alamo appearance at the original Alamo Drafthouse on Fourth and Colorado. And we agree: Khan is a textbook example of badass cinema.

So it was to an SRO packed house that Alamo founder Tim League introduced the film and the surprise arrival of the Abrams-Trek's screenwriters, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who duly noted that they were supposed to be at their own premiere down in Sydney, Australia, but had declined in favor of watching Khan-plus with the rabidly appreciative Alamo crowd.

The house lights dimmed, the opening star field shot of Wrath of Khan appeared on-screen, to cheers, and then ... the film, a badly-scratched copy, jammed in the projector gate and bubbled to a halt. Damn the luck!

League hastily called for the lights, apologized to the audience, and ran off to shoot the projectionist while the Trek-reboot scribes stepped up to the stage and stalled for time.

And then ... reality collapsed in upon itself like a white dwarf star or a Kardasian soufflé as the one, the only, Leonard "Mr. Spock" Nimoy appeared out of nowhere (possibly beamed in from his backyard barcalounger) at stage left.

Never has anyone in the known galaxy seen so many geek butts rise so fast from their seats in unison and so many geek throats yell with absolute ecstasy and joy and love for the once and forever Science Officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701) as happened at the Alamo Drafthouse South last night at 10 pm CST. Our hands still bear the sting of uncountable clappings, our throats are still raw from delighted hollering. Wow. Seriously. How cool was that?

Slightly cooler than what came next, actually. Not Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, but instead J.J. Abrams Star Trek, the for-real world premiere, beating out the "official" premiere in Australia by a good six hours (or thereabouts). Impossible, yes, illogical, perhaps, but we were there and it did happen. (We even sat four seats away from Mr. Nimoy and didn't even realize it we were so utterly gobsmacked.) This was the stuff of film exhibition legends. This was one for the logbooks. This was the coolest night ever in the coolest theater ever. And yes, the 78-year-old Nimoy did close the night out with the Vulcan hand sign and salutation, "Live long and prosper."

So how was J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot? Ask us in five weeks when it comes out. Frankly, we're a little too giddy right now to exercise reliable critical judgement.

Seriously: did that just happen?

Yes, it did. And here are the pics to prove it.