I think most people know me as an enormous Star Wars fan. Although I had enjoyed the original trilogy since I was young, I didn't really get into Star Wars until Episode III came out in 2005. Only then did I start collecting the novels, comic books, Legos, etc. Long before that, I was a Star Trek fan.
My uncle enjoyed the original Star Trek series, so I saw the occasional episode while visiting my grandparents' house. When Star Trek: The Next Generation came out in '87, my best friend and his family watched it religiously. I also remember my parents watching the Next Generation series premier. However, I was never really interested in the show.
One night in 1990, while looking for something to watch on TV, I came across a rerun of the Next Generation episode Peak Performance. That's the episode where Commander Riker is commanding the U.S.S. Hathaway in wargames with the Enterprise when the Ferengi interfere. Shortly thereafter I saw what was to become one of my alltime favorite episodes, Yesterday's Enterprise. I was immediately hooked and began to watch the series regularly. The next year I saw my first Star Trek movie in the theaters, Star Trek VI (which has one of the coolest post-opening credits moments ever). By that time I had begun collecting trading cards, novels, and technical manuals. Soon I had even caught up on all the original series episodes that were shown on cable at various hours.
I never missed an episode of Trek prior to college. Unfortunately, I was deprived of Star Trek for most of my time at BYU since BYU Cable didn't get the Paramount network. The worst was that I only got to see a handful of episodes of Star Trek: Enteprise before it was cancelled (then I bought all four seasons on DVD and watched the entire series within a couple months).
With the cancellation of Enterprise and Star Trek: Nemesis' poor performance at the box office (I really liked the movie, personally) it looked like the franchise might be dead. Novels were still being published, but TV series and movies seemed to be long gone. I think it was the apparent death of Star Trek, along with the subsequent rise in the popularity of Star Wars (which seems to have reached a peak with the excellent Clone Wars cartoon series) that turned me from a casual Star Wars viewer into a fan. However, I really hope that this new Star Trek movie revives the franchise in one form or another. The more I see of the movie, the more hope I have for it.
A little more history on my grandparents - they are always the first to have new high tech gadgets. They had cell phones back when they were the size of brief cases and had already had car phones for a while before that. My Granddad works in the communications field so is well on top of all new inventions. Love of exploration and constant improvement is huge for them.
ReplyDeleteIt is always interesting to hear how people got into Star Trek. Thanks for the insight!