Trekkies 2

Trekkies 2, the sequel to the hilarious 90s documentary Trekkies won’t likely be playing a theatre near you, but it can be purchased. The second film tours the Trek Cons of the world, and we see more people and more places. Unfortunately, we experience less of what made the original both compelling and hilarious. Members of the original crew also make themselves conspicuous with their absence.

Cast, Crew, and Other Info:

Director: Roger Nygard

Features: Denise Crosby
Gabriel Köerner
A Bunch of Nerds

Available from Amazon.com and Amazon.ca

Premise:

Seven years after Trekkies, Nygard and Crosby once more examine Trek fans, this time touring the world and catching up with devotees in Serbia, Australia, Brazil, and elsewhere. They also spend a fair bit of time in the United States, where we catch up with fans profiled in the original film.

These include Whitewater alternate juror Barbara Adams, and nerd icon Gabriel Köerner, who since Trekkies has guest-starred as himself on tv shows and found work in the industry, doing visual effects for Battlestar Galactica and Serenity. Alas, we do not see Spiner-femme Anne, who spewed much venom on the original movie, once she realized she came across as a tad creepy.

Extras

Extras include some fan films, some information on the director’s other projects, a commentary track, and nearly an hour of deleted scenes. These feature Trek fan art, couples who met through Trek, and an interview with Free Enterprise director/co-writer Robert Mayer Burnett. Viewers can also spent more time with Gabriel and Allison Köerner. He remains somewhat socially inept, but he retains his affable personity, tempered by some perspective about his interests, and his status as a “Z-list celebrity.”

High Points:

1. The chap in England who has converted his entire home into a Federation starship. You need to see this. The man has gone farther than the Trek dentist from the first film.

2. The Serbian fans. These people turned to Roddenberry’s vision in part because they have depressingly real experience of what happens when we don’t practice tolerance.

Low Points:

1. The fact that Part 2 gives us so little consideration of the whys of fandom, which is where this sequel needed to go. It doesn’t even seriously attempt to answer its own subtitle, How Much is Too Much?. We’ve already watched the funny film about “Trekkies.” A sequel needs to build on the original, especially when it doesn’t match it in the humor department.

2. The fan films. I hate to gripe about productions into which fans obviously invested work, time, and capital.* Visually, they look surprisingly professional, especially given their meagre budgets. But Köerner’s short film, while it boasts impressive effects, just isn’t very funny, while Brian Dellis’s, in which a Scotty-heavy crew shoot it out in the old west, seems like a lot of effort to capture forty-somethings playin’ Cowboys ‘n’ Astronauts.

I’d have preferred Ken Hegan’s William Shatner Lent Me His Hairpiece. That is a fan film.

The Scores:

Originality: 1/6 Trekkies was original. The sequel doesn’t find one original take on the subject.

Effects: 4/6.

Story: 4/6: Fiziko wants to create a documentary category. It’s a good idea, but I’ll leave it to him. I’m awarding a “4” to Trekkies 2 because the film does hold together. Its episodic structure lacks real “flow,” however. In format and length, most of the segments would work as filler on Space or SF.

Acting: 4/6: Once again, it’s a documentary. The people do a fair job of playing themselves. When it comes to actually acting, as in fan films, the performances generally prove abysmal.

Production: 4/6

Emotional Response: 4/6 .

Overall: 3/6.

In total, Trekkies 2 receives 24/42.

Final Comments

Some actors from Enterprise appear, but the controversy over the show receives only indirect reference, with some fans suggesting that perhaps Trek should go on hiatus until those in charge can come up with, in the words of one, “more creative” ideas.

We see a segment on Trek-themed bands, which all seem to hail from Sacramento. Does anyone care to explain this fact?

*I am aware of the irony of me suggesting that anyone’s fan-related efforts might tend towards the obsessive.