Live Long and Prosper, Yo!
Hello My Children. Your den Mother Colleen is feeling fond and nostalgic. Tonight Syfy was actually playing a genuine Scifi movie: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Now I have a particular fondness for the movie...its my favorite trek film after Wrath of Khan, which any Trekkie will tell you is the BEST Star Trek Film. Its a Time Travel film, where we get to watch the crew of the Enterprise deal with 1980s San Francisco. Its the film where we get to see Spock mind meld with a whale..."Maybe he's singing to that man!" -Thanks sweet little old lady... And most especially, its getting to watch Spock Vulcan Neck Pinch a Punk Rocker after he's flipped the bird. A great movie and a wonderful time capsule to the mid 1980s.
The Voyage home also holds a great moment of Nerdhood for me. In the 7th grade, my class was doing an extended project on Endangered species. The Voyage Home was shown to illustrate the 'worst case scenario' of what could happen when a species goes extinct. In the case of IV, it involves the destruction of Earth because a probe wants to talk to the humpback whales -which, according to Trek chronology, had gone extinct. Why was this a true moment of nerdhood for me you ask? Well because if you haven't seen Star Trek II or III, the first 20 minutes of the movie will have you excessively confused. As the well known trekkie of my grade, I was bombarded with questions such as "When did Spock die?" "How did he come back to life?" "What's Project Genesis?" "Kirk had a son?!?" You get the drift. But the true moment of pride came from the fact that the ENTIRE grade was utterly riveted by the movie. Once I quickly synopsized the previous two movies, the cafeteria was silent, other than spontaneous exclamations of approval at various moments of the movie -the aforementioned Neck Pinching of the punk rocker got a huge applause. But the moment that will live in my mind forever is when Spock and Sarek were saying goodbye with the customary "Live Long and Prosper." My entire grade, as one, lifted their hands and did the hand gesture along with Father and Son. It was truly the greatest moment a Trekkie could witness! I will always remember it. I have often been ostracized for being a geek. However, there are moments that made being a geek worthwhile.
And for your enjoyment the Neck Pinching of a Punk Rocker...to Leonard Nimoy's Bilbo Baggins Song!!!
