Star Trek: The Auction, and One Man’s Opinions

I’m ten days late in mentioning the following items, but I was busy last week and I figure somebody out there might not have heard about them and would appreciate getting the word. Besides it’s my blog and I want to mention them, so there…

First up is the news (what do you call it when it happened ten days ago? It’s not “new” anymore…) that Christie’s pulled in over $7 million from a three-day auction of Star Trek memorabilia. It wasn’t just any old run-of-the-mill memorabilia, though; it was all “screen-used” items that actually appeared in the production of the five TV series and ten movies (although, judging from the article I linked to, it appears that the inventory was mostly items from the four recent spin-offs and the later movies; there’s not a lot of classic Trek stuff in evidence, at least not in this article). The items came directly from the Paramount vaults and included costumes, props, set pieces, and special-effects shooting miniatures (i.e., model spaceships). Those aforementioned miniatures took in the lion’s share of the loot, with the large “hero” model of the Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation selling to an anonymous individual bidder for over $500,000.

I wish I had sufficient resources that I could blow half a mil on a model spaceship. The Enterprise-D would make a great coffee table, what with that big, flat saucer section, and the stubby engine nacelles that are perfectly positioned for use as foot-rests. I can just picture it front of my couch, covered in magazines, unread junk mail, and empty beverage cans.

Seriously, though, I’ve seen some grumbling on the ‘net that all this stuff more properly belongs in a museum than in the hands of individual collectors, and that Paramount’s sale of it all means that the studio is finished with the franchise. To both concerns, I say, eh.

While I personally think that a Star Trek museum would be cool, it just doesn’t make sense from a business perspective, and, unlike some fanboys, I’m realistic enough to admit it. Star Trek‘s mass appeal peaked in the mid-90s, when Next Gen and DS9 were running concurrently, and any residual attention the franchise still receives, I believe, is mainly due to inertia and fond memories. I’m frankly surprised that the Star Trek Experience in Vegas, which is, in part, exactly the sort of prop museum a lot of folks would like to see, is still up and running. It seems so “last century” even to me, and I’m a pretty hard-core Trekkie. I suspect that most Hollywood memorabilia — the stuff that wasn’t thrown out, anyway — belongs to individual collectors, and I’m fine with that. Better that than the dumpster, kids, even if it means that only a handful of friends and close family members will ever get to see these things in person.

As for the question of whether Paramount is sending a signal by selling this stuff, maybe it is, maybe it’s not. Even if there are plans afoot for more Star Trek projects on down the line, it’s unlikely that they would use any of the items from the earlier incarnations. From Paramount’s perspective, it doesn’t make sense to let all that stuff occupy space in the warehouses. And if Paramount has decided it’s time to put the Trek horse out to pasture, well then, so be it. As Next Gen acknowledged in the title of its finale episode, all good thing do come to an end, and I’d rather that the franchise be allowed to remain dignified in death than driven any further into the ground.

So, if this franchise is, by my own admission, dead and buried, why do I keep blathering on about it? Wil Wheaton had a few ideas about this just the other day:

…I’m spending a lot of my time watching my TNG and TOS DVDs, and I’ve discovered this thing that I’d always taken for granted about Star Trek, TNG and TOS: The stories.

 

It’s easy to lose perspective on just how spectacular the original series was when it started, because it was forty years ago . . . but with rare exception — Battlestar Galactica comes to mind — there just aren’t that many shows that know exactly what they are, and exactly where they are going so quickly. See, the original series was just spectacular right out of the gate. In the first fifteen episodes, we have The Corbomite Maneuver, The Naked Time, Balance of Terror, Dagger of the Mind, and Conscience of the King. Set aside for a moment just how great those stories are, and consider the character relationships that are revealed in all of them. In these shows, we truly believe that Bones, Kirk and Spock have known each other forever, and we instantly and easily care about them and their ship.
Next Generation got really good around the third season. Sure, there are some great shows in the first two, but massive turnover in the writing staff and ambitious producers who were looking to climb the ladder rather than just make great shows never gave us a chance to define a direction and stick with it. Once Michael Piller took over the show in the third season, however, all that came to an end, and the show began to realize its potential. Gene [Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek] knew that Michael was responsible for guiding the show, and he asked Michael to stay around a little longer, even though Michael originally planned not to. I’m glad he stayed.

 

We who spend a lot of time wrapped up in the business or fandom of Star Trek — or that place where they intersect — can easily lose sight of the story of Star Trek, which is, presumably, the whole reason we got involved with it in the first place. I’m incredibly grateful that I’ve had the opportunity recently to just watch these shows (especially the original series) just for the pure enjoyment of them.

Those remarks actually came from an entry in which Wil was shilling for his latest (and very funny) review of a Next Gen episode. He followed that up a couple days later with his long-promised comments on the original show’s 40th anniversary, which included this relevant tidbit:

…science fiction has a long tradition of holding up a mirror to our modern world, and reflecting it back to us in a way that doesn’t beat us over the head with a message, but makes that message easy enough to find for those who want to see it. In the 1960s, Star Trek did this better than any other show except maybe The Twilight Zone, and it did it during an incredibly turbulent time when it was risky [to] even acknowledge that mirror existed, much less hold it up. For that, alone, it deserves all the attention and accolade its been given in the last forty years.

 

However, there’s something that just isn’t said enough, some trees that are lost in Star Trek’s forest of socially relevant and envelope-pushing episodes, that I want to put a very fine point on: it’s just a really cool show, with characters we really care about, who find themselves in incredible situations week after week.

Stories, envelope-pushing, and great characters. That was Star Trek in its earliest, purest form, and Next Gen and DS9 on their best days. These were the qualities that Voyager and Enterprise seemed to lose sight of. And these are the reasons why people are still talking about these cheese-ball TV shows about guys with pointy ears and latex blobs on their faces. And why they’re spending half a million bucks to own an honest-to-god piece of television history that would make a great coffee table…

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4 comments on “Star Trek: The Auction, and One Man’s Opinions

  1. Brian Greenberg

    If it helps any, most of the things in museums are owned by individual collectors and on loan to the museum. This benefits the public, to be sure, but I believe it also increases the value of the item itself, especially if the museum is well known. So, for instance, if the guy who spent $500K on the miniature spaceship can get the Smithsonian to display it right next to Archie’s chair, Oscar’s garbage can and Fonzie’s jacket, it’ll be worth over $1 million in a few years, just because he can say, “displayed in the Smithsonian” on the next auction card.
    Not a bad deal…

  2. jason

    Hm, I hadn’t considered the whole collector-loan-to-a-museum angle. Interesting.
    Even if it never ends up on public display, however, I’m happy to think that this stuff still exists somewhere, rather than have it all go into the trash, which is what used to happen to Hollywood’s detritus before the collector mentality came into vogue.

  3. Brian Greenberg

    Just think, it could be worse: they could open up those Planet Hollywood restaurants again…

  4. jason

    Now there’s a question: what happened to all the memorabilia that used to be in those places? (Assuming that it was the real deal, of course…)