Trekkies [VHS]

In just under 90 minutes, this dynamic documentary manages to boldly go where a lot of Star Trek fans have gone before: into the heart of Star Trek fandom, where humanity blossoms into its most endearingly odd and bracingly positive manifestations. Are "Trekkies" (or "Trekkers") just a bunch of geeks, loners, and societal outcasts who've found their niche on the fandom convention circuit? This delightful film proves that the stereotypes are simultaneously valid and woefully myopic, because the people introduced here are only as strange as you make them. We could just as easily embrace them as ideal citizens of the United Federation of Planets, living Gene Roddenberry's fictional future on present-day Earth. Who's to say theirs is not a better world than ours?

Superbly directed by Roger Nygard and hosted by Denise Crosby (who played Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation), the film offers splendid interview segments with all of the original Star Trek cast, and many from later Trek series, but the real story here lies with the devoted fans who are profiled with an equal balance of fascination, bemusement, and respect; they're a bit weird, to be sure, but these die-hard Trekkies are never unduly patronized. Instead, Crosby and Nygard respond as all Trek insiders have in the past: with astonished affection.

Filmed in 1996-97 at a variety of locations and conventions, Trekkies visits a vast array of Trekkers, Trekkies, and just plain folks who love the series and its pop-cultural progeny. Uplifting, thoughtful, comprehensive, and frequently hilarious, this good-natured film (sanctioned by Paramount without being subservient) is guaranteed to entertain fans and nonfans alike, and a proposed sequel would be wholeheartedly welcomed. --Jeff Shannon