All I know's what I read on [public] Twitter

Hey, I'm as up for a little Internet hits-n-glory as the next um, millennial… 

But the reports of my having "announced" or "broken" news re: the writing staff of the new Star Trek 2017 series are … greatly exaggerated, to steal a line from Mark Twain. I did see an exciting, and almost unbelievable public Tweet from show writer Kemp Powers about Joe Menosky, and mentioned it during a panel at Phoenix ComicCon, betraying my own excitement about it. But one audience tweet later, and you'd think I unmasked Watergate's Deep Throat.  I've tried to clarify the detail, but to no avail. 

Gotta love the Internet…. or not. Making news for having eyes! 

And hey. I love PHXCC (more to come on that).. but what IS it about Phoenix writers and me? 

Bring on the movie fans!—and this ST Beyond event

Bless me, but I'm actually excited for Friday. 

After this long fallow decade of Trek... after two flashy yet brief film trips to the alt-Trek they created... with an actual, short-season Prime episode run coming as flagship of the new CBS All-Access ... and the excitement it has spawned running far more than the movie's—the one with a troubled start and practically no promotion so far...

Bless me, but I'm actually excited for this Star Trek Beyond Fan Event and Trailer #2 Premiere Friday night on the Paramount lot, led by director Justin Lin (left) and more headline cast/crew names TBA soon. Sorry, it's going to feel a bit "local" in the turnout, you far-flung fans reading this—unless you were among a handful to win a paid trip from Paramount to see it. (Or, of course, catch it on Facebook Live streaming.)

But even without that "radical" access ... it's literally going where no on-lot, live Trek movie promo event has gone before–especially for the public. Far more than just the trailer and talkers, I hear talk of some really cool displays—so we'll see!  "Star Trek: The Temporary Experience" is as welcome as any right now.

All of us will be eager to finally see what this jump-start buzz machine will actually jump-start among fans, their social media, and even hard-core media. That's the catch-up strategy, and it's already starting up this week.

But I also can't wait to meet and hear from the alt-movie fans, for once—if indeed a lot of them get in the gates Friday. I don't know that they always break through the "established" circles of fandom that tend to circle me... but I am so ready to gauge their reactions and feelings about what is unveiled this night. I really, really hope to finally meetup a lot of the fanbase who've come to Trek only since 2009, via the big-screen entry point.

With time not on the side of print media, I'll be writing a piece for Star Trek Magazine about not so much the event but the variety of fan feelings that night about both it and the movie. 

Look, as this unusual decade has played out with Trek in flux, my own perspective has finally evolved to understanding that while the "alt-verse" was not my first choice, this an overall well-cast film series has been amazing at pumping in new fans, and grabbing respect in The Town and This Media. It's been the best entry-level drug Star Trek has had in decades.

And if I haven't said it lately, I've said it often on-air: I had been excited to see what Bob Orci was going to bring to the series once left to his own, with JJ Abrams' shifting his gaze to Warsland; I felt for a long time that the JJ veneer on top of any Trek that Bob or anyone has done has been greatly underrealized, and had been eager to see what the final product would be without that veneer. for once. That said, even with its rushed restart after Orci's story was let go, I still have high hopes for the script that fanboy Simon Pegg and partner Doug Jung (right) turned out—and I pay no attention to group think: Lin has directed a far wider range of tales than simply that F&F tag he was stuck with—and he rejuvenated that. (Awesome profile on his life and its affect on his storytelling here.) 

I always hope for the best, and I'm really pulling for these guys. Maybe it's a luxury of optimism, now that we know a weekly return to Prime is due next winter. 

We'll see Friday. 

And I can hardly wait.




UPDATE: per Paramount: "The event will not be live streamed in it’s [sic] entirety. Buzzfeed Entertainment will be live streaming a portion of the event through their Facebook page. "

Happy 94th, Gene: Would you have been @trekmaker?

Gene Roddenberry would have been 94 today. I could just leave you here with this simple, backyard LA Times photo I came across (at right, with the now-missing three-foot 1964 Big E).... or reiterate some thoughts I had a few years back about "GR" and me and us ...

We've had so much fill in in recent years for rank-and-file fans on the full story of the "godhood" versus all the man's human's foibles.... much less the workhorses who also brought the Star Trek vision about: Bob Justman, Dorothy Fontana, Gene Coon, Matt Jefferies, and more ... then Harve Bennett and Nick Meyer who popped up the movies so that Rick Berman and Michael Piller could come along and restart the sequel machine...and many more with them all.

But I've been thinking lately about Gene, and what he would have been like living in a 24/7 social media world. I think he would have loved the chaos and messiness, but most of all loved the empowerment of fans, the increased communication and the increasing channels of fan creativity—even as the holders of the copyright deal with it as a monster of popularity and thoughtfulness and try to let that leashed beast run as freely as possibly.

He may have been a visionary, but he did know how to access and wield some pretty powerful hands-on tools. He saw a paradigm or two come along in his own life as media monopoly power broke up for TV content and delivery, and would be delighted that even so many more options exist now for producers and their ideas.

Most of all, I believe the vibrant, sprawling geek-is-mainstream sensibility he helped ignite would just tickle him. I'm betting.

What about you? How do you see Gene Roddenberry today, after all we now know and measure since the early days?

On losing Leonard: the first social mourning in Trek

I know it has been about seven weeks since Leonard Nimoy finally lost out in his battle with COPD.  On the 11th hour at deadline, official Star Trek Magazine held up a few days to include mention of his passing—and turned to me to do so. 

Very honored to do that, and very proud of the piece… especially from the angle of how, in 2015, we all experienced the moment and insight together: a real paradigm change, brought home by this central nexus in so many lives. And had we taken Spock for granted all these years?


STM's Issue 56 for Summer will be a full-on tribute issue in a few weeks, but Issue 55 for Spring is on newsstands now, with Spock on the cover of course... and this is how it opens:

Just one segment of the layout:

STV: Why Doug Drexler backs that petition for a Netflix ENTERPRISE

Amid all the hoopla over that movie that came out May 17, or even our little Star Trek Continues ...

You might have choked on your gagh a few weeks back to read about a campaign to get Netflix to fund a "fifth season" of none other than... Star Trek: Enterprise?

It may have even popped up on your Facebook. That's how I first dropped my jaw over the topic. But I find out all about in this vidchat--just below. But first, consider this:

Netflix funding of original series and now the return of "old" series, of course, is a done deal already: new eps of cult classic Arrested Development are a movie lead-in, Kevin Spacey's original House of Cards aired there too—and now a Veronica Mars comeback movie, of all things, is green-lit after zillions of Kickstarter backers.

So look at where we are in 2013!

For the first time, a "dead" show could actually be brought back to life with non-network backing .... even an online streaming service. And the show's still-pissed-off fanbase would actually have a hand in resurrecting it by demand, and continued streaming.

And so that leads us to Jen DeSalle and Robert Bolivar, who decided to launch their own Facebook et al petition campaign to convince Netflix to do the same thing for Enterprise. After all, if zillions got a 20-something mystery drama back in production, surely many times more would stand up for the disrespected and increasingly missed final incarnation of TV Trek?

Then what to my wondering eye should appear than the respected name of Doug Drexler among the "backers" of the petition drive. No fan-flak he, make-up and CGI pro Doug went on to the Battlestar franchise of course and works all over now—but Trek is still his heart and soul. He wouldn't attach his name to this Facebook petition to Netflix lightly—so I had to track him down and ask, given all we know about Trek TV these days...



So the Facebook campaign HQ is here—and I wrote the founders to get more about it.

Jen told me that she was for the campaign to convince Netflix even with the Paramount/CBS "moratorium" on Trek TV. "Trek on TV has consistently done better than any of the movies by far. Now, CBS may not see this in the short term but over time, one of the things we hope to show them, is that the TV side is not only profitable, but, in the case of a series like Enterprise, also cost-effective." And, she adds, the "selfish" chance for a lifelong fan to create a page, CGI mockups and promo banners on such a campaign with Doug and other sites was "too much to pass up".

It was a comment by exec producer Brannon Braga, of all people, about using Netlfix to revive Enterprise as a renewed series or even TV movie that nudged Bolivar to jump ahead with the campaign for fans who feel "cheated" at the early departure of the NX-01. "Network interference, declining ratings and other studio red tape are something that every show has faced," Rob says. "Enterprise was just hitting its stride when it was cancelled. With our Facebook campaign, we are doing something that has never really been done with Trek before. We have gathered the fans, actors, production staff, etc.— all of them in basically the same place to support each other and the cause. Are there hurdles? Absolutely, but we have the ability of hindsight this time around. We know what works and what doesn’t. We know how to keep costs down and with the advances in digital sets; we can film just about anything. I think that Netflix is the perfect medium for this type of endeavor. Enterprise fans deserve this. We just want to see the series played out the way it was supposed to be.

" It's a worthwhile cause, and I hope, and pray that it is noticed, that we are heard, and we get our dream, at least one more season of Enterprise, to see some of what we can do now, and of course maybe the Romulan War wouldn't hurt.," Jen adds. As does Rob: "Streaming media is the future of television, and so is Star Trek."

What do YOU think? Does this really have a chance of appealing to Netlfix, much less persuading CBS to let it be done in the first place?

Or do we truly live in an "all bets are off" media world of change today, and who knows?

It's APRIL FIFTH: Make First Contact with #StarTrekDay & share your pics!

WE WANT YOUR PICS! Of what? See below...

So, first the cool news:

In this, the FORTY-SEVENTH year of aired Star Trek .... we have exactly FIFTY YEARS until first contact with the Vulcans.

In Bozeman, Montana*.

On April 5, 2063.

Sparked by Zephram Cochrane's test warp flight of the Phoenix that day, a landmark in human history.

(Since the Vulcans, Romulans and Klingons, for starters, had all already been there/done that.)

Meanwhile, back in our time ... the boom in social media has led to the cutesy mainstream appearance of memes and trivia in posts and tweets that geeks formerly had to pass amongst themselves, like secret handshakes. Such as the launch of the Jupiter II (Oct. 16, 1997), or the day the Moon was blasted out of its Earth orbit (Sept. 13,1999)—did you miss them both? (And if I have to explain either one of those non-Trek references, you need to go back to Go and not collect 200 quatloos.)

But thus was how Star Trek's birthday on Sept. 8 (1966, first airing of TOS on NBC), and May 4th over in SWarsville  (May the Fourth/ "May the Force...",  get it?) got even more note among the mundanes .... and were soon to be joined by 4/5/63 as just as key a date in Trekland—The Day Everything Changed. Finally.—when humanity not only got a faster-than-light engine but a Galactic Consciousness as well (according to First Contact, of course.)

And in typical Twitter  "hashtags" or trending label protocol, that begat  #firstcontactday or #starwarsday or #maythefourth. #Startrekbirthday seemed a little long for Sept. 6 every year, though.

Now, this year and this week, I'm being told, via TrekRadio and others, that there's a movement afoot to unify behind "Star Trek Day" as a sole hastag/moniker for April 5—only to enlarge the outreach and the viral factor for those mundanes who see it and recognize more easily the franchise, not just an event.

Now, as usual, it's not a lockstep monolith of ideas on this. Some folks resent not saving Sept. 8 for #startrekday, and want to keep April 5 as #firstcontactday. I can see both sides, but I also see that #firstcontactday has limited recognition to a wider audience... nay, even the vast armchair fandom out there who merely sit and watch and enjoy Trek, and not much more beyond their living rooms and dens.

So, I'm all in for the unified #startrekday hastag. Call it #firstcontactday to your Alpha Beta Trekka frat brothers and sisters if you will, too—for it is. But let's think big.

Celebrate in your own burg and check out all the Facebook events—which, of course, touch on Star Trek's greater message of IDIC and world peace and understanding or even reveling in the Other—not fearing it, as our dark sides (and recent politics) would have you do.

In fact, are you having a Star Trek Day event for First Contact? If so, send us your pics at  larry@larrynemecek.com and we'll share them with all.

But don't ever underestimate the power of marketing to keep your passion bigger than a cult.

Look what #ST2009 did for that!



*Thus becoming the second immense event in history ever to happen in that burg. Along with the birth of Brannon Braga.

Yep, another one: the Star Trek/"Email" creation link

Didn't exactly realize it til today, on the 29th birthday of the copyright of the term "email"—another brand lost to generic language use!—but the guy behind the name and early system credits Star Trek for that, too.


Says developer V.A. Shiva on his website, getting attention today in news stories for the anniversary of his Aug. 30, 1982 copyright filing—first developed at age 14!—for his EMAIL messaging system.

"The two words, 'Electronic' and 'EMAIL' juxtaposed together for me originally brought images of vaporizing paper and somehow transporting it across electrical wires, like the transporter in Star Trek," says Shiva. "That is how NEW those two terms next to each other were in 1978." 

Once again, it's NASA and/or Star Trek that inspired the dreamers—plus, in this case, a a college computer lab professor's personal challenge to create such a system. We never know where, or how—but it comes back, time and again. And it's waaaay beyond just cell phones.

That's why we need them BOTH back—at full funding, and more frequently than just the occasional splash! (I'm lookin' at you, Congress and CBS...)

There's a lot more about it all on Shiva's website (Shiva, at left), including a great timeline infographic about his work and others' in the development of email—a great snapshot for those of you whom this all sneaked up on, or for those of you who never knew anything else!

STV: Live from Vegas—It's Dehner time!

Before I FINALLY get the full batch of pics and video  up from Vegas Trek '11...let me just say:

I am proud to have been Mary "@Televixen" Czerwinski's first video endorser in her clever and hearltfelt drive to get the character of Dr. Dehner into the next JJ movie—she of the ill-fated and very reluctant godhood alongside Gary Mitchell in "Where No Man Has Gone Before." All of this, of course, to get a chance to be able to PLAY her!

If you've seen Mary at cons or heard her on DVDGeeks, or caught her in one of her acting or modeling gigs, you'll know this blonde ain't no bimbette. Thus it's no surprise that Mary has a great blog with some thoughftul posts and musings about Dehner at her campaign site, aptly named makemedehner.com.

But why go one and on about it here? When we can have Dr. Dehner tell you herself...fresh from Vegas (with Ariel "@trexmatetrix" Roy as the Intendent, too!):

Vegas in my aft viewer: A year like none before

Artwork courtesy CharityWood.com

Something happened this year ... still not exactly sure of all the reasons ... but the big annual Creation Trek bash in Vegas—Vegas Khhaaan! to the Facebookers and simply #STLV to the Twitterati—went to a whole new plane. A whole new critter.

And I should know—I've seen them all.

In a time when the Trek anniversaries are piling up right and left—the 45th for the franchise debut this year, the 30th for Star Trek II and the 25th for TNG both in '82—this was also the 10th year for a grand "Vegas Khhaaan" since they started in 2001... and Creation's had them all after that first one by Dave Scott's now-defunct Slanted Fedora shows. So, maybe it was about time for what happened.

Especially in a year when the overall U.S. economy remains poor-to-middling, these numbers and demographics are Just Amazing.

Now, you've read all the basic reporting elsewhere already; I'm going to save my stills and video for a separate post, and some more sentimental bits with it. So THIS missive will be  some general observations with big-picture touches. And brother I've got more than a few, but the overall bottom line?

Vegas Trek simply EXPLODED this year, pure and simple.

And on so many levels!

—Pure numbers? Reports say about 20,000 total sold seat-days—about 13,000 unique fans in all —and only the bigger space afforded by the Rio absorbed the uptick. Many complained of the longer walk in these post-Hilton digs, but at least there was no Sardine Factor at work anywhere. And Creation thankfully saw it coming: we got an email note a week earlier that doors and dealers would be open an hour earlier on the weekend—starting at 7 AM!

—Costumes? Oh my god—at one point I Tweeted that the overwhelm onrush felt like the "Comicconification of Vegas"... meaning, in reference to the huge cosplay rep of Comic-Con San Diego, that we had not the just the number but the ingenuity and obscurity—ie, the coolness factor—of so many outfits and concepts had just shot through the stratosphere. (See more later, soon!).

—The secondary room, after one or two years as I've been keeping tabs, is now clearly a monster to be reckoned with. Time was when the "side stage" was home to great but woefully under-attended scientists who'd attract maybe a dozen or so hard-core fans, the ones not aware they were supposed to be in a line somewhere. But, beginning with the new influx from JJ's movie we saw in '09, that room has reeked with newbies the first year, and then just simply big numbers—usually 150 or more. My events were there (trivia line, at right), as were Anthony "trekmovie.com" Pasquale's, and many more.

—Those two groups famously thought to be absent from Trek fandom by hand-wringing marketers only three years ago—a) anyone under 20, much less anyone under 30 ... and b) those of the female gender—were instead, in a word, EVERYWHERE. The Orion slave-girl explosion of 2010 has just evolved into so many guest-star homages—or totally creative getups with skin—that it was simply breathtaking. Of course, Uhura/Rand red miniskirts remain a staple, but there were so many more—in both Nichols and Saldana versions. And so many more adult incarnations were busting out, too, if you know what I mean. Congrats to Mary Czerwinski & Co. who hosted both a first-ever geekgirls panel for Vegas—again, heavily attended—as well as a crafting panels for anyone, especially the kids and parents. It was just the tip of the iceberg.

—A twenty-something crowd also translated into a party crowd, both at the Creation planned events as well as the Rio's nightclubs in general. For the "overflow" fans shut out of Creation's sellout events, we co-sponsored a Thursday night game night with DVD Geeks and treknews.net  at McFadden's, an early but noisy fan favorite—but the open-area'd iBar and Masquerade Bar also came in for a lot of biz. As they, and a special indie Trek party at Crown discovered, Trekfen like their volume low for talking... but, again, that's a growing pain.

Setting the record: LV Weekly/Sam Morris photo

—And all of it combined for smashing the ever-climbing Guinness World Record for The Most Real Star Trek Costumes In One Place—a total that in just the past couple years has become a big annual triangular rivalry between Vegas, Dragon*Con in Atlanta, and FedCon in Germany. Each one constantly raises the bar in turn, but this go-round all those factors above helped Vegas smash the record of 691 with an incredible 1,040—and it stopped there only because of the clock, and that the Guinness folk ran through all their "official counter cards." Reports of at least 60-100 more waiting in line would have boomed it bigger,  of course.

But why?

Maybe it was simply the new digs at the Rio, after the two-year farewell to an Experience-less Hilton finally gave out for Creation owners Adam Malin and Gary Berman and crew. Certainly in part it was the hubbub about being Leonard Nimoy's last Vegas appearance before his retirement from the con circuit this year (and what a farewell it was.) Maybe it's the ongoing earthquake caused by the JJ movie of 2009, where "new" fans continue to tumble into "old fandom," assimilating not just TOS but TNG and all the rest.

It's all of that, and perhaps one more factor: one I stumbled into just a few short weeks earlier.

In the words of social science, Trek big-con fans are finally "self-empowered" as never before—mostly thanks to social media, which finally hit con fandom in ways far beyond mere one-to-one contact. Groups like the "Unofficial Star Trek Las Vegas Convention 2011" on Facebook, whose 250+ members fast evolved into a fertile ground for hatching meetups, party ideas, newbie help, costume details—and simply introductions. In short, Creation provided the main program, but fans had a way to organize themselves, and early on, when they had the time and inclination.

Not to get too Vulcan about this, but what we did was just see a huge shift in the culture of fandom, yet again—the impact of online media. It was hardly an Arab Spring, but the effect is the same: self-powered organizing. And it's got nowhere to go but up. Already, plans are in the works: you can see the wheels spinning, plans evolving, and shields adapting...

All of this shows a few things, coupled with the "show of hands" polls I took in my audiences, or in just talking with peeps at my table or happenstance in the halls:

—Fans old and new, whether first-gen Trekkies or converts from the 2009 flick, have NOT forgotten any of the "700 Club" TOS or TNG, etc.,  series. If there was to be a mass migration to "modern" Star Trek alone, and a virtual "Forget" mind-meld of All That Went Before... well, it's not with this bunch. Even though a lot of them do owe their fandom entry to JJ-Trek.

—In fact, the image of young, partying, good lookin' and nay even imbibing Starfleeters was everywhere in media—not that that's not 180-degrees misleading in its own way, too. A lot of those folks ARE workin' it this weekend, in any of a zillion niche jobs. But the fact that media admitted to the possiblity the image EXISTS, 25 years after Shatner's "Get a Life" SNL skit forever sent stereotypes askew, is shocking enough. And long overdue. Creation's Vegas con logo (right), the play on the historic Vegas tourism logo, actually finally begins to make sense!

—Which in turn, finally, points to a trend I've noticed in the days since—this one in national media: maybe generational, maybe part of this post-2009 "mainstreaming" perception. And it may be the most shocking one of all: the Era of the Respectiful National Journalist Who Gets It. Maybe, finally, someone realized that the guys who paint their bellies topless in subzero endzone cheap seats for football are no more/no less crazy that the Trekfans who get their Orion green or Andorian blue on—with a lot more philosophy and a lot less alcohol involved in the latter. Somewhat less, anyway.

Yessir, we may finally have gone where no Vegas Khhaaan—and the ever-powerful national media meme—have ever gone before.

Beyond the new hotel thing, even.




On the fun side: More pics and video to come. Stay tuned ...

"invisible" fans: Not just a blog, it's a breakthrough!

Yes, amid being way behind on my deserving video and posts, folks...

It's showtime for yet another guest post of mine over at the "new" startrek.com in the series I like to call "Trekland, Supplemental."  I think the topic of "invisible" fans is not only timely but intriguing and, well, a big blind spot that will do well for people to think about.

More importantly, it marked a landmark for slow-learnin' me as I tackle the Online Social Digital Revolution—not having been born in the last 6 years, and all.

Namely, I want to thank all the Trekland peeps on Facebook and my @larrynemecek Tweetsters who answered my call to opine, and who still continue to sound off on the points and questions I raised this week. I used a few of your comments in this TLS this week.  It's a discussion that can go broad, and not one where I wanted to simply rehash the old "truefan" debate chestnut ... but to explore, as I say, the nature of the "unknown" fan, if it exists. And if any online results can be quantified enough to describe this new "fan species," if legitimate.

And when Treklanders get a chance to "pre-comment," so much the better.

My one regret: Since I didn't state up front on either platform that your words might be quoted by name, I decided to limit and paraphrase what I did use. This time.

Next time, we will do it—and you all can go cross-platform social right along with me and we'll all make our points. We'll exploit that true social-media brain machine for all she's worth!