tamaradixon
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Oct 1, 2024 5:36:44 GMT -4
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Post by tamaradixon on May 11, 2009 12:59:03 GMT -4
One of my first bits of fanfic expose ever was when I bought a big ole Kirk/Spock fanzine from the local (and late) sci-fi book store. Fished out of box on the death-defying second floor. This was 1990 I think. Topic? Saw the movie and loved it. I'm not a huge Star Trek fan but the movie just pulled me in. And I loved the Spock/Uhura relationship especially during the scene where Kirk and Scotty are looking like "how's he get a woman like that?" It's interesting how many bits of Trek have just worked their way into general culture (red shirts, "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a ______", etc). You didn't have to be a Trekkie to get the humor. And I like Quinto's smirky-Spock. Actually, I remember watching a couple of TOS shows and thinking 'Spock is totally making fun of you' with the way Leonard Nimoy delivered the lines. What's the red shirts bit?
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Post by angelaudie on May 11, 2009 13:10:44 GMT -4
Red shirts, in TOS, refers to characters that were killed within the first few minutes of introduction. The death was used to introduce the big looming danger the crew would face in the episode. These character have never been seen or referred to before (though it's pretty obvious the main characters know who they are) and they always wore red shirts. In other words, a character never seen or heard from before wearing a red shirt was doomed to die within minutes of first being seen. It kinda became a running gag.
In the movie, when Sulu and Kirk are flying off to the disable whatever was blocking the transmission signals, there is another character with them that is also supposed to help them. He's wearing a red space suit. That character was killed. The big predicament Sulu and Kirk faced was how to disable the drill because red suit guy had the charges. Of course, Kirk quickly realized they can simply use guns to accomplish their task.
ETA: You know while I've thought I was only vaguely familiar with TOS I apparently know more than I thought!
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Post by azaleaqueen on May 11, 2009 13:13:42 GMT -4
We used to refer to the red shirt people as the "expendable crew members". Yeah, you could spot them in a heartbeat.
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Deleted
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Oct 1, 2024 5:36:44 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2009 13:21:45 GMT -4
This was a great compromise between wham, bam, thank-you ma'am action flick to bring in newbies and reboot with shout-outs to us oldsters. Definitely opens up possibilities for future movies (that I hope are a little more thought-provoking but not bogged-down.) I just have one nitpick -- Eric Bana should always have hair. Without it, his head is shaped like a mango. I'm glad it opened so well. Please, sir, I want some more!
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Post by tabby on May 11, 2009 13:25:03 GMT -4
As far as I know, you're correct. Kirk/Spock was the original 'ship, and Star Trek pretty much spawned fanfic as we know it.
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Oct 1, 2024 5:36:44 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2009 13:26:22 GMT -4
Spock/Kirk shipping - what the frak?! Oh I am so glad I have the attention span of a gerbil or that image would haunt me for a long time. Heh, where have you been? I'm not even a Trekkie and I'm all too aware of the Kirk/Spock shippers! IIRC, wasn't the K/S fandom responsible for some of the earliest forms of fanfiction as we now know it? Before the Internet was around, these people were scribbling their K/S stories, drawing their erotic K/S pictures, and swapping them back and forth in zines. Specifically, the genre of fanfic known as "slash" has its root precisely in Kirk/Spock fantasies (hence the slash between the "K" and the "S"). Heh, he said "root".
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Deleted
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Oct 1, 2024 5:36:44 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2009 13:47:08 GMT -4
Heh, where have you been? I'm not even a Trekkie and I'm all too aware of the Kirk/Spock shippers! IIRC, wasn't the K/S fandom responsible for some of the earliest forms of fanfiction as we now know it? Before the Internet was around, these people were scribbling their K/S stories, drawing their erotic K/S pictures, and swapping them back and forth in zines. Specifically, the genre of fanfic known as "slash" has its root precisely in Kirk/Spock fantasies (hence the slash between the "K" and the "S"). Heh, he said "root". Hey. Up until now I've been happily ensconced on my big rock candy mountain where unicorns roam free and there's a lake of stew and whiskey too and I can paddle all around them in a big canoe. There are certain things my delicate sensibilities are not prepared to handle! I didn't know anything about fanfic other than it exists, so this has been informative. I'm going take this new found knowledge and use it poorly and for the purposes of evil. I don't know how, but I'm sure I'll find a way.
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Deleted
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Oct 1, 2024 5:36:44 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2009 14:37:59 GMT -4
Use this information carefully, saltpeanut, for you may find that venturing into slash is a path you soon regret.
I know I did. Seriously, some of that Mulder/Skinner and Mulder/Krycek slash was... nausea-inducing.
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Post by GoldenFleece on May 11, 2009 14:58:35 GMT -4
Well, one of the trailers there was scene of Winona cuddling a baby so I think the original plan was to show Spock's birth as well. That may be why they decided to hire a younger actress. An actress in her 50s giving birth to a baby would probably taken people out of the movie as well. Though, that all became a mute point since his birth wasn't shown for whatever reason. Okay, that makes sense. Maybe the plan was to show how Kirk and Spock's childhoods panned out, starting with birth, but then the movie needed to be shorter and Spock's entry into the world wasn't so dramatic and ended up on the cutting room floor. Without knowing all that, though, you just get the headscratcher of Winona Ryder layered in matronly spacewear and old makeup for five minutes of screentime. I feel slightly better about the direction of career now. Not only did slash get its name from Kirk/Spock stories, but another famous convention of fan fiction also originated in the Trek fandom: At one point, the Enterprise was being jostled in space, and it seemed as if everyone was doing the "lean hard to the side to make it look like the whole set is moving" trick.
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Post by angelaudie on May 11, 2009 15:48:04 GMT -4
Huh. So, we have Star Trek to thank for slash fanfiction and, in a way, the term Mary Sue. You truly do learn something new everyday!
Ok, I know the fandoms of Star Trek and Star Wars have a bit of a beef. But is there some X-Men and Star Trek feud I'm unaware of? I've noticed in some other boards X-Men fans bashing Star Trek and trying to make it out to be some sort of financial and critical failure while Wolverine is biggest movie ever. It's amusing but kinda sad there are people that take these things so seriously!
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