Trek Wrecks
by Kaz Kozalak


Star Date… I have no freakin’ idea what the Star Date is. There are some people around that can do the conversion from this date to a Star Date. They could be lurking anywhere – like in your neighborhood like sex offenders – except there is no public registry for you to find out and steer clear of these people.

A good tip-off to the “I’ve Substituted A Real Life For Star Trek” person is the wearing of the Federation Starfleet uniform in totally inappropriate places. During the Clintons’ Whitewater grand jury, a woman insisted that she wear her Federation Starfleet uniform to court. What’s worse is that the judge allowed this. Maybe the judge was a closet Trekker. All I know is that if I got jury duty, I was planning to wear a Federation Starfleet uniform into court in order to be excused from jury duty. I’ll have to re-tool that plan now. Damn.

If you’ve seen people who’ve Substituted A Real Life For Star Trek, a common explanation is that Star Trek represents a “more peaceful and civilized world” or words to that effect. I guess that they have been watching a whole other Star Trek than I have. There is hardly a TV episode, and definitely no Star Trek movie, when massive amounts of weaponry aren’t unleashed. People may cry out for peace, but there is no peace.

I don’t know how many times the Enterprise has been damaged or totally wrecked. The name Enterprise on a ship has a worse safety record than ships named Titanic. In the latest movie Star Trek: Nemesis, the Enterprise is up to replacement F. I’m pretty sure it was F. So this is the F’n Enterprise. Once again, the Enterprise is damaged so badly in a space demolition derby that it is almost but not quite totally wrecked.

I wonder how much this regular wreckage is costing the Federation? Answer: It’s not costing them anything. Gothcha! In the Star Trek Universe, the need for money has been abolished and conquered. How this got to be is never explained. Just have faith. So the Enterprise can be wrecked forever and it doesn’t cost anything! When cars come equipped with that option, I’ll go get me a Ferrari.

In Star Trek: Nemesis, there is a long countdown before a massive weapon is activated. This the same climax that happened in Star Trek: Insurrection, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek: Generations. There may be more but I have not Substituted My Real Life For Star Trek. I’ve Substituted My Real Life For The Sopranos. The need for money in the Sopranos’ Universe has not been abolished. Let’s hear it for Tony. The common thread between Star Trek and The Sopranos is plenty of killings. Actually, the body count in Star Trek is massively higher than The Sopranos could ever dream of.

The only substantive difference between Captain Kirk, Captain Picard and Tony Soprano is that Tony Soprano has to pay the tolls on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Tony still needs money, remember? Well, maybe that’s not the only difference. Captain Kirk and Captain Picard get to wear spiffy uniforms. Tony gets to wear a bathrobe.

If you think Star Trek is the only movie that has had a climax waiting for a massive weapon to be deployed with a countdown going on before the bad guy gets killed, well… You’d be wrong.

This has been the climax of numerous James Bond movies. Maybe it was in all the James Bond movies. I sort of gave up on James Bond a long time ago due to repetition of story themes. This certainly was the scenario in You Only Live Twice. I could swear the voice doing the countdown in Star Trek: Nemesis is the same voice as in You Only Live Twice. This was also the same scenario in Goldfinger except there was no voice, just a digital display, and the bad guy gets killed after the bomb is diffused. I think in Goldfinger there were three seconds left before the bomb went off. [It was actually 7 – as in “007” – but who’s counting? – The Blank] In Star Trek: Nemesis there are two seconds left. That extra one second was really worth the price of admission. But I didn’t pay admission. I rented it at home on DVD. Take that, Hollywood!

Neither the James Bond movies nor the Star Trek movies originated the failure of a massive weapon as the theme of the movie. This is the theme of every Roadrunner cartoon.