Prime Directive

I ate a lot of popcorn yesterday. There were free refills for the large tub that cold have been used to bathe a small child once all the kernels had been emptied. I gnawed anxiously as I watched Kirk and Spock made yet another last-minute save of life-as-we-know-it. Why was I so nervous? Did I really believe that Paramount would spend millions of dollars jump-starting the Star Trek franchise just to kill off their intergalactic show ponies? Don't bet your Federation credits on it.
And so I sat back and enjoyed the ride, since that's exactly what it was: I knew that when I was done I would be dropped back in the same spot that I left, and only needed to gather my belongings as I headed for the exit. It was the cinematic equivalent of Chinese food. After about an hour I wanted to go see a movie. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily, since just like Chinese food, I have developed a taste for franchise films. It's not nutrition that I'm after. I'm after things that go boom, and this one had plenty of them. Not only that, but I got to feel clever as I sat in the darkened theater, spotting references to previous Trek visions.
As my mother pointed out to me the other night, I was never exactly a Trekkie. For most of my generation, it was a whole lot easier to learn the ways of the Jedi. But that didn't keep me from sitting in dorm rooms, staring at a little black and white TV, absorbing the original series and staring incredulously at the one guy who, after watching for half an hour, perks up just enough to say, "Hey! I think I've seen this one before."
Of course you have. Star Trek is part of the social consciousness of the United States. Stephen Colbert might not have been able to talk NASA into naming a room in the International Space Station after him, but there were enough letters written back in 1976 to get the first space shuttle named for Gene Roddenberry's flagship. As I pawed to the bottom of our second bucket of popcorn, I wondered if Scotty hadn't somehow arranged for Spock to travel back through the centuries to a time when minds were so much easier to manage.Then that the first generation of what would become several more could be filled with the promise of visiting strange new worlds, and going boldly where - well - you know.
I sat through that first Star Trek movie, and then I watched the "expanded version" on video. I guess that makes me a fan. My wife maintains a polite little father-fixation on Jean-Luc Picard. My father's memorial service provided an opportunity for my brothers and I to enjoy a massive in-joke, as a bagpiper strolled down the center aisle playing "Amazing Grace," the only words the three of us could imagine were William Shatner's halting eulogy for his fallen comrade: "Of all the souls that I have encountered in my travels across the galaxy, his was the most," wait for it, "human!"
So it goes. I went wading knee deep in the murky pond of pop culture for a couple of hours and though my feet got a little wet, I didn't feel the need to go any deeper. If you've read this far without needing to access any of the allusions I have made, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you're scratching your head, maybe I could off you some tranya. I hope you relish it as much as I.