Picture, if you will, a Star Trek convention, at which several notable actors and past guest stars are invited to speak in front of legions of sci-fi fanatics. One of them, let's call him John de Lancie ("Q" from Star Trek: The Next Generation), has come down with a terrible flu and is barely able to attend the event. He manages to hold his own, and prepares to leave in his gravely ill state. One fan offers $60 to drink the rest of the water left in de Lancie's glass. 60 bucks, man. For water. Then he shouts out, "I've got the 'Q' virus!" and chugs the contents defiantly. That story, for me, clearly defines the extremes that are depicted in Roger Nygard's unique movie Trekkies.
I used to consider myself a Trekkie until I saw this documentary. I'll give you some examples. One woman is summoned for jury duty and appears for selection in a Starfleet uniform (she never leaves home without her Tricorder, her communication badge, and her "phaser"). A dentist converts his office into a shrine of Trek memorabilia -- including getting all of his employees to wear uniforms. One fan writes erotic fictional stories for an underground publication. Another builds a fully functional Captain Pike chair just like the one from the original series and rides down the street in it. And on. And on.
The film is narrated by Denise Crosby, who played Tasha Yar during the first season of The Next Generation, and it's hard to tell whether she admires the people she talks about, whether they freak her out, or whether she is there to poke fun at them. No matter, most viewers will be snickering by the time they are introduced to the school that teaches Klingon syntax, or the woman "Spiner-Femme" who takes dozens of rolls of pictures of Brent Spiner ("Lt. Commander Data") and stores them in dozens of albums, as if his photos were replacing the existing ones of her immediate friends and family.
There are some more inter-personal sequences, however. A touching story is told by James Doohan ("Scotty" from the original series), where he may have successfully stopped a woman from killing herself. The film also touches on the aspect of hope that comes from creator Gene Roddenberry's vision of an optimistic future. It also demonstrates the camaraderie these fans seem to share, which outsiders will obviously never fully comprehend.
I don't own any little Picard figurines and I've never been to a sci-fi convention. After watching Trekkies, I think I'd be out of my element anyway. True, these people love the series and the themes it embodies, but they have obviously meshed a fictional universe into their way of life -- into their mentality. It leaves you wondering, though, whether you'd really want them as your actual dentist or as Juror #4.
