Mind Meld With 'Trekkies' By Stephen Hunter Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, May 21, 1999

"Trekkies" host Denise Crosby poses with a needlepoint portrait sent to her by a fan. (Paramount) Director: Roger Nygard Cast: Denise Crosby; Majel Barret Roddenberry; James Doohan; DeForest Kelley; Walter Koenig; Nichelle Nichols; Leonard Nimoy; William Shatner; LeVar Burton; Brent Spiner; Chase Masterson Running Time: 1 hour, 28 minutes Nothing offensive unless you are offended by "Star Trek," as some are

That last creed – the religion of "Star Trek" – is the object of study in "Trekkies," a highly amusing documentary that opens today. The film is by far a more holy relic than either "Joan of Arc" or "Star Wars."

Laugh not, thou heathen! Ye of little faith, hellfire and damnation await, when we of the elect will be beamed up to paradise whilst ye perish screaming in a forever of agonies. One little detail: "Paradise," as defined by this faith, consists of a tacky plastic-and-balsa "bridge," blinking lights connected to nothing, and a slew of never-made-it TV actors standing around in raspberry polyester clicking their dentures in time with the dialogue. You have a problem with that?

Roger Nygard, who directed this film with equal shares amusement and love, does not. He covers the pre-paradisiacal world of "Star Trek" passion with the thoroughness of an investigator from the secular press, but he never succumbs to an inside-the-Beltway boy's cruelty or sense of self-importance. He lets the supplicants define themselves, and he never intercedes editorially.

His one concession to formula is to anoint Denise Crosby, a co-star of one of the "Star Trek" TV spinoffs, as anchor person. She fronts for the director, again without condescension, but not without an awareness of the ironies being unveiled.

What place is this? Where are we now? We seem to have been beamed to a "Star Trek" planet. There, we meet a dentist from Orlando who has remodeled his office along the Starbase Dental lines. He and his staff dress in Trekkie uniforms. Even he and his wife and children relax at home in the mufti of the Starfleet.

"DOC, PLEASE, IT HURTS!"

"My son, as the great Spock has instructed, pain is merely temporal, on reality but not of reality, while the cool Vulcan mind controls all."

BZZZZZZZZZ!

"YE-OWWWWWWW!!!!"

Then there's David, Laurel and Tammi Greenstein, all dressed in their uniforms. Tammi's the one with four legs. You know, the poodle. David, who seems quite mild and sane in all other respects, does admit to one little funny thing in his brain: He's thought about having his ears surgically altered into little Vulcanesque points. I am not making this up.

Gabriel Koerner, 14, from Bakersfield, Calif., is into advanced studies. Not content with Trek culture as it exists, he's begun extrapolating creatively in it, designing uniforms for a generation of star explorers as yet unborn. Like many of the deeply faithful, he's a regular attendee at the "Star Trek" conventions that dot the planet, where some of the old actors tell stories of set-life, still in their now ill-fitting uniforms, and meanwhile a fierce barter economy of memorabilia obtains, a truly Machiavellian world where trinkets are exchanged with desperate savagery, and woe to the man who represents a Playco Inc. plastic 1967 Spock action figure as coming from the rarer 1966 vintage, for that man will be torn to shreds, his liver eaten and his children shamed.

The true queen of the Trek world is Barbara Adams, the doughty little Starfleet Lieutenant Commander and printing shop employee who served on the Whitewater grand jury, to the amusement of the world. Excuse me, but Commander Adams does not see anything amusing in this at all. It's not funny at all. She does her duty as if she's still hoping for admission to the academy. Not a lick of wryness or self-deprecation attends her rather stern personality. And, she's a hell of a printing shop clerk. If there's any justice in the world, Paramount will offer her a bit part in "Star Trek 8: The Borg Are Re-Bjorn."

Two minor flaws irritate this otherwise luscious unguent. The first is that it is, like most documentaries, a little too long, even at 88 minutes. Yes, grown-ups in funny suits who don't get the joke, very funny, ha ha ha, but eight minutes less would have been eight minutes better.

And last, why couldn't the two big enchiladas, William Shatner and Patrick Stewart, be persuaded (or ordered) to appear? If Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley and Jonathan Frakes can, why not these guys? Are they too big? I think not. They are, after all, two rather ordinary actors who have had lives beyond any sane reach of their gifts, on account of their connection with this phenomenon. They should not forget the supplicants who gave them everything they have.