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I have always been a bit ambivalent about Star Trek. I grew up watching Gene Roddenberry’s original show in syndication. Along with
Batman, Gilligan’s Island, and yes, even The Brady Bunch,
Roddenberry’s unlikely hit show and pop-culture phenomenon played, I suspect, a
fairly sizable role in my adolescent development, as it did for many. When a
beautiful alien woman looked meaningfully into Captain Kirk’s eyes and
whispered “Tell me more about this thing you call… a kiss,” the groundwork
for my future teenage lasciviousness was laid in a heartbeat.
And it never mattered a whit either that she was green, so I guess you could
reason that I learned some important lessons about racial tolerance and
acceptance to boot, but at the time, I just thought Kirk was the shit.
He got the babes in droves, without fail, and he was damn good with a phaser,
and hey, cool hair, too. It’s easy to laugh at the old show now, dated almost
as much as Adam West’s blue tights, but at the time… man. Very cool.
When Star Trek: The Next Generation finally reared its head in the
mid-Eighties, I studiously ignored it for as long as possible. At that point, I
had already attended — out of a curious melange of curiosity and weekend
boredom — a pair of Trekker conventions, one here in Austin and one in Dallas.
Both were fun in the silly, ephemeral way such things are to essential
outsiders, but I’ll never forget the image of running into a gaggle of
supposedly rational adults costumed like old-school Klingons — darkly painted
faces with pointy eyebrows, scowling and brandishing plastic phasers as they
moved down hotel hallways in search of… what? The bathroom, probably. They
did, after all, look agitated.
In short, the Star Trek convention experience brought me closer to king
geekdom than I cared to venture. For all I knew, it could be contagious. Best
to stay away.
When I finally did begin to get into The Next Generation, watching it
sporadically (just as I did with The X-Files more recently), I was
happily struck, as I think many people were, by just how good it actually was.
Roddenberry and producer Rick Berman had come up with a new cast that worked
together almost as a family. The acting, especially from hunk-to-be Patrick
Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, was uniformly excellent and the story lines
were head and shoulders above the Shatnerized bathosphere of the old
Trek. It was, all things considered, one of the better shows on
television in the late-Eighties and early-Nineties. I was impressed, and so
were the legions of fans, geeks or otherwise. Soon, Internet sites sprung up
like horny tribbles, and today a Lycos search with the keywords “Star Trek”
brings up thousands of sites, some good, some bad, but all ravenously hungry
for new information, picking apart specific episodes, line by line, with
zealous, rabid abandon. The fans. It always goes back to the fans.
Paramount Pictures’ recent press junket to Los Angeles to preview the newest
Star Trek: The Next Generation film — Star Trek: First Contact — offered the choice opportunity to not only pick the brains of the makers of
the film, but also to be in the same room with Patrick Stewart only a few feet
away. The dawning realization that I cared about that at all disturbed
me momentarily: Like it or not, I had somehow become one of them: a Star
Trek fan. Perhaps I could get an injection or something? I’d check with my
physician when I got back. Until then, best to enjoy the ride.
Stewart, in person, is exactly as you’d expect. Self-assured, confident, with
a wry wit and a forthcoming nature, he’s eager to promote the film and answer
any and all queries regarding his involvement in the series, the pantheon,
whatever. That voice, that wonderful theatrical baritone is in full effect, and
I cut right to the chase, ignoring the movie altogether and instead asking him
what he thinks about the series’ outlandish longevity, and its fervently loyal
following.
“Fervent loyalty is not at all a bad thing,” he begins. “I have found the fans
en masse, at the conventions, and that sometimes means up to three,
three and a half thousand people, and really, it’s just delightful. I actually
resisted attending these conventions for quite a while, but I’ve found there
are many good reasons to go. For one thing, it’s very rare in film or
television that you can have contact with your audience and hear from them
about how they think things are going, what they enjoy, what they would like to
see, and so on. And it’s a wonderful stage workout as well, because it usually
means standing for up to 90 minutes in front of thousands of people. It’s a bit
like doing stand-up in front of the most adoring audience in the world.”
Does Stewart have any explanation for this rampant adoration? It’s well known
that Trekkers’ love for their heroes extends well beyond what is considered the
norm for celebrity worship. Hence their official — and not entirely deserved
— status in the upper realms of geekdom.
“Honestly, I really don’t know what sparks the adoration, except, perhaps,
that there are elements of the Star Trek mythos which seem to capture
the interest of people in a very intense way.”
“Well, duh,” I’m tempted to say, but instead keep my mouth shut. This is
Patrick Stewart, after all. Best to keep quiet.
“I don’t quite know why, though,” he continues. “I know we tell good stories,
we’ve got a strong cast, the relationships are interesting. And I know it’s
also a show with a very positive view of the future, and I think that can be
very affecting.”
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other topics, I ask about the differences between his starship commander and
Shatner’s. The two worked closely together on the set of the previous film,
Star Trek: Generations, and it’s interesting to compare their styles.
Kirk is full of masculine bombast, a walking testosterone factory. Picard will
never be mistaken for a wimp, sure, but his intellect is his finest feature.
Two completely different styles, although I mention that First Contact seems to have gone out of its way to invest Picard with more manly derring-do:
The film has more than its share of high caliber stunts and battle scenes. At
times, it almost feels like Braveheart in space. Almost.
“Picard is definitely more, um, active in this film, and I like that very
much. It’s why the idea of doing a sequence of films is so charming. I keep
saying that to people, although they seem not to hear me each time. I have an
investment in doing these movies, you know? Not many actors can play a leading
role in a $50-60 million movie and then, right after it’s finished, talk about
how they’re going to develop the role for the next one. I guess Connery did
that with Bond, and maybe Harrison Ford with Indiana Jones, but what others
have had this opportunity over an extended period of time to really develop a
role? We did it with the television series, of course, but….”
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captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Pre-Trek, Stewart toiled
onstage in a number of Shakespearean companies, but these days, more people
identify him with the Borg than the Bard. I wonder if this bothers him? Is he
destined to wind up repeating himself endlessly, providing voiceover narration
to car commercials 20 years from now with the cloying statement that the new
Chrysler LeBaron’s V8 turbo engine will “Engage!” nicely and your local Chevy
dealer is just itching to “Make it so!?”
“[The role has pigeonholed me] to a degree. I remember not long after the
series ended, there was a role in a non-Star Trek film that came up
which I passionately wanted to play. I asked about it, through my agent, and
the director said, `Stewart? Oh, yeah, that’s the Star Trek guy,” and
that kind of hurt a bit. But then, of course, I’d been acting for 27 years
before I did Star Trek, and I’ve found a lot of interesting roles to
play in that time. [His one-man performance of Dickens’ A Christmas
Carol is becoming a perennial favorite.] I now find myself in a leading
role opposite Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson in Dick Donner’s new movie [The
Conspiracy Theory], and so I hope that what this indicates is that I’ve
actually broken through in that sense, on past Picard.”
And so he’s satisfied with his lot thus far? No regrets?
“Not really, no, because in the end, the Star Trek franchise gives me
the freedom to do what I want to do, or at least now it does. It’s a very, very
lucky situation I find myself in.”
Star Trek:First Contact opens Friday, Nov. 22 in theatres across the
country.
This article appears in November 22 • 1996 and November 22 • 1996 (Cover).