Secret Spock 2010

Every year, the members of Playtrek, the listserv for collectors of Star Trek action figures, can participate in "Secret Spock", in which Star Trek related gifts are sourced and sent to each other, without the identity of the givers becoming known (at least at first).



Although I don't usually participate, one Playtrekker had difficulty sourcing a new, carded, Romulan action figure - and I volunteered to forward one to the intended recipient, sending it back to the USA. I'd ended up with at least one duplicate, in my attempt to ensure I didn't miss out on a Romulan, which was seemingly going to be tricky for many to locate. At the last minute, I realised I had a rare opportunity to make the gift even more exciting.



Using my own opened Romulan as the stand-in, I surrounded him with Aussie souvenirs ( which I later "carded" with Gladwrap onto the mint figure), created holiday snapshots in my backyard and even designed a Photo Peach slideshow. The slideshow requires that your volume is up.

Enjoy! I hope Secret Spock was kind to you all.

The Enterprise Experiment

I picked up my copy of IDW Publishing's "Star Trek: Year Four: The Enterprise Experiment" #1 yesterday and read it in the train on the way home. A major role for "Star Trek: The Animated Series" (TAS)'s tripodal Lieutenant Arex - yay! - and a great, page-turning beginning for the new story arc by DC Fontana (Mrs TAS herself!) and Derek Chester.

I loved the TOS/TAS rendition of the San Francisco airtram station, soon to be upgraded in time for TMP, I presume.

The story is, of course, a sequel to the TOS episode, "The Enterprise Incident" (in which Captain Kirk disguised himself as a Romulan to steal a cloaking device from the female Romulan Commander). This time, in a story that takes place during the TAS years, the Enterprise is testing a cloaking device of its own.


Arex: such a handy crewman to have around


No "Quad Covers (TM)" for this storyline (as per the "New Frontier" issues)? When I arrived at the comic shop, they'd put aside the "Year Four" Spock cover (Cover B) issue for me, but I really wanted the great Mr Arex and Kirk (Cover A) instead, of course. But all the shelf copies had sold already! (Stock only arrived the day before.) Luckily, my trusty comic seller rummaged through the standing order boxes, found the last unclaimed Arex cover issue, and did me a swap. Too bad if the other guy preferred Arex, too.

I'm really enjoying IDW's efforts; I just wish the multiple and "rare" covers didn't cause as many heartaches for me, or for the completists out there who must be driven crazy by now.

Saavik - she's half Romulan, Jim

Many fans wonder from whence came the idea of Kirstie Alley's Lieutenant Saavik ("Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan") being a Romulan-Vulcan hybrid. Sure, Vonda N McIntyre used the concept in her movie novelizations, but it was originally a (cut) scene from the actual movie. Lucky fans at a US film industry convention called ShoWest saw the scene in a presentation reel, long before the movie premiered:




Note that in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock", Robin Curtis's Saavik is played as a full Vulcan, a choice made by her director, Leonard Nimoy (Spock) himself.

Decisions, decisions: The Empty Chair and this week's purchases

I finished the Star Trek novel "Rihannsu: The Empty Chair" on the train home from the city tonight. Very mixed feelings; it's taken me all month to get through it - frustratingly, I started it the very night I bought "Demands of Honor" ("Errand of Fury #2").

Parts of TEC I loved: the fabulous rec deck parties, with witty Kirk, Ael, McCoy and Spock banter; jovial Harb Tanzer and chirpy K's't'lk the Hamalki, and the final scenes with the Empty Chair itself. However, I felt there were just too many huge slabs of preparations-and-speculations-for-war that seemed to move so slowly; sometimes I could spend an hour reading/phasing in and out, and only get a few pages accounted for. The rec deck stuff moved so much faster, but Diane Duane made us wait sooooo long to see Harb - eleven chapters in (p 186). And Naraht the horta's cameo was cute (p 405) but also too far into the book.

I'm thrilled that Diane Diane was finally able to complete this (Romulan) story arc (and once again use her great original characters). I was never really expecting it to continue beyond Book #2.

"The Wounded Sky", which introduced us to the glass-spider-like Hamalki scientist, was my very first purchase on US soil (my first American trip, starting with a Hawaiian stopover in December 1983 - friends had told me I'd never find Star Trek books in Honolulu - but the wonderfully engaging, quite lengthy, book kept me company on plane journeys all over USA... with the timely arrival of "The Trellisane Confrontation" to keep me company on the way home at the end of January 84). I still regard TWS most fondly, and also appreciated its bare-bones transformation into an early episode of TNG (ie. "Where No One Has Gone Before", with Eric Menyuk's the Traveller taking on the Hamalki's role).

With TWS's original characters so vivid in my mind, I eagerly devoured the first "Rihannsu" novel, "My Enemy, My Ally" (July 84), and its sequel, "The Romulan Way" (Aug 87), as they turned up, then mourned with the rest of Treklit fandom the loss of the Rihannsu via "that memo" in 1989 - and then delighted in their unexpected, but still controversial, return with "Swordhunt" and "Honor Blade" - because Ms Duane's unfinished manuscript, that was to end the whole thing, was running late, so Book 3 suddenly turned into Books 3 and 4, and ended with "To Be Continued". Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!!!!

I'm also thrilled that the saga was recently collected, with ranks and timeslines revised, for the handsomely-produced "The Bloodwing Voyages".

And I'm ultimately satisfied that "The Empty Chair" concludes with some (perhaps inevitable) links to TNG's "The Neutral Zone" and "Unification". Ael's final line was unexpected, but probable should have been predictable. Excellent!

But what to read next? I finished TEC, and I thought I was moving on to "Demands of Honor" tonight. I even had it in my backpack, anticipating finishing up TEC. But tonight I found "Enterprise: The Good That Men Do" and "Crucible: Kirk". I say again, Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!!!!

Mego Museum freebies

In the mail today came my complimentary set of fourteen Mego Museum trading cards, #39 to 52 inclusive, featuring the highly-coveted Mego 8" Star Trek action figures from the 1970s. All one had to do to get these cards was send both email and postal addresses to the guys who run the Mego Museum website.



The photography is very nice. The designers and photographers have managed to get those early figures, including the ultra-rare Andorian and Romulan figures, into some great poses. The monochrome cardbacks feature "Mego Facts", and trivia questions and answers. Too bad the mailing list has been closed off for now, or they'd be swamped with more word-of-mouth orders.

On the sixth day of Christmas

While cleaning up some file boxes in the garage this week, I found a batch of my "Star Trek" movie scripts, which I haven't seen since I moved house in 2000. I'd forgotten that I owned three versions of the ST III script, in addition to Harve Bennett's slim bootlegged premise, ST III: "Return to Genesis".

But in the so-called FIRST DRAFT script of "ST III: The Search for Spock", dated March 23, 1983 -- well after the Romulan crew of "Return to Genesis" has officially morphed into a Klingon crew -- Mr Bennett has this to say about the controversial makeup change from TOS:

"Present are the 1ST LORD of the Klingons, and his command staff. The variety of Klingons will be fully explored. Elders have been seen in STAR TREK I. Forehead bumps are marks of age and wisdom, not common. What is common is that they are a dark race of large and frightening appearance."

The "elderly" Klingon idea has obviously been nixed by the REV. FINAL DRAFT script of September 13, 1983, because Valkris wears a half-veil to hide her own bumps, and Captain Kruge is described as a "handsome but frightening presence, and relative youth".

(Since those early days, of course, we've seen Alexander, Worf's son in "The Next Generation" series, as a toddler with a matching bumpy forehead to his Dad's. Then we had Worf's enigmatic comment in DS9's "Trials and Tribble-ations", and a two-part explanatory episode about the origins of smooth-foreheaded Klingons in "Star Trek: Enterprise".)

The early script also specifies a flotilla of Klingon heavy cruisers, and Kruge's cloakable Romulan Bird of Prey that "Trek buffs will recognize" from its "distinctive bird & wing motif". After they watch the Bird of Prey turn visible, the script goes on:

1ST LORD: What is this? None of you knew?

3RD LORD (hastily): It is his toy, sir. A Romulan prize. He has perfected their Cloaking Device.

1ST LORD: Commander Kruge, I want you here... Now!

INT. BIRD OF PREY BRIDGE - ON KRUGE

KRUGE: Always your servant, my Lord.

(He turns and CAMERA reveals his CREW, the most awesome collection of large, cruel and piratical men since the Pittsburgh Steelers of the Seventies. We will see more of them later.)

KRUGE: Well, my jolly lads, a few more triumphs like this and we'll all be back in prison.

(then turning)

Try to behave yourselves while I'm gone.

My take on it all? I reckon this Kruge probably should have had a Klingon parrot on his shoulder (but perhaps the lizard/dog from the REV. FINAL script ate it?)

A major character difference is the addition of vulcanoid (Romulan?) defector, Galt, who essentially fills the role taken by Maltz the Klingon in the final film. Galt is actually welcomed back to Vulcan by Sarek at the end of the movie.

Towards the end, instead of the REV. FINAL DRAFT and FINAL SHOOTING script version of Kirk saying to Kruge, "I... have had... enough... of you!" the FIRST DRAFT script has Kruge saying, "The last face you see, Kirk. The last face you ever see."

He then grabs Kirk in a choke hold, they struggle, and Kirk seems doomed - but when the zombie-like Spock grabs Kruge from behind, Kirk is able to break free, retrieve the Klingon dagger and throw it into Kruge's back. Then he asks Galt to beam them up, abandoning several remaining Klingons to their fate on the doomed Genesis.

Bennett's script notes also say: "The writer suggests to the producer and director that no acting credit be given for the role of SPOCK until the END CREDITS. (And that's what they actually did. There's a blank space in the opening credits of ST III, where Nimoy's acting screen credit should normally be.)

Cool, eh? Anyway, here are today's Christmas ornaments:

Above left: For 1996, the Coca-Cola polar bear mascot, sitting in the stocking to chug down his Coke straight from the bottle, was bought just after that Christmas, from a countertop display in a roadhouse (on the way to wherever I was holidaying in January 1997). Marvin the Martian, from "Looney Tunes", was a Hallmark boxed ornament. He has a Santa sack of (Acme?) dynamite over his shoulder and is, no doubt, trying to clear his view of Venus for Christmas. As Marvin would say, "Isn't that lovely?" Purchased from Grace Bros. in Roselands.

Above right: For 1995, the cute mouse on a swing has a hard head and a soft, stuffed body. He's actually standing up on a swing, and the swing's rope is what attaches to the tree. Another purchase from the Lakemba pharmacy/newsagency. The haloed angel cow is made of some form of clay and looks like it's been homemade, but was from Grace Bros. in Roselands.