I’m a lifelong Star Trek fan, but I like to poke fun at the franchise because, well, that’s how my sense of humor rolls. (But don’t just take my word for it; the best jokes about Star Trek are to be found in the bar at any science fiction convention, from the fans — and often from the writers and the cast — themselves.)

So for fun back in my college days, I started writing tongue-in-cheek “reviews” of the movies, and I’ve kept it up ever since. When I launched SV, I collected them all on the page Star Trek Films: The Good, The Bad, and The Sublimely Ridiculous.

However — and as hard to believe as it is — there are some people who don’t appreciate fun being poked at the show. And last night, I heard from one of them in the form of a comment on the aforementioned page. The thing is, the comment is such a masterpiece of fannish outrage that I couldn’t simply approve the comment and have it languish at the bottom of the page; no, it deserved to be featured in a post all to itself.

What The Eye of Argon is to science fiction, what Stardust the Super Wizard is to comic book action heroes, what My Pal Foot Foot is to rock-n-roll, this comment is to Sotto Voce. It is that good.

With the identity of the commenter hidden for his own good, here in all its unedited, raw glory — with all typos and grammar preserved in amber — is the comment that arrived in my inbox last night:

From: Humor-Deprived Fanboy [virgin@parents-basement.com]
Subject: [Sotto Voce.] Please moderate: "Star Trek Films: The Good, The Bad, and
The Sublimely Ridiculous"

Get over yourself already!!!!! What IS your problem?! Granted TMP pretty bad 
& extremely sloooooow! Shatner's direction of #5 was all about him even tho 
he tried to shirk it off when he spoke to (Harve Bennett), but the line was barely 
audible. What kills me is all you folks are more concerned w/ whether things match 
technically that you technogeeks don't ACTUALLY WATCH THE STORIES AND JUST ENJOY 
THEM. I'm great at catching continuity errors, but to take issue with sweaters and 
uniforms or Chekov's panel displays--OMG!! That is so picayune, I don't even know 
where to begin!! 

Y advice to you and others like you is to take a chill pill, remember it's TV's 
beloved characters and they're getting old--just like YOU!! Just enjoy, because 
they're going fast. Kelley was the oldest by a few months over Doohan and they're 
gone. But we enjoyed them--we laughed, cried, got exasperated WITH THEM AND STILL 
KNEW IT WAS FOR OUR ENJOYMENT!! Adore them while you can. The signatures on#6 was 
their way of saying goodbye. They knew it was the end and Gene had only see a 
rough cut before his death 3 days later, and passing on the baton. Star Trek, esp 
the original is ethereal & ephemeral. It will always be. If you want to gripe 
then gripe about TMP uniforms--how horrible!! I was happy w/the changes, updates 
& sweaters!! So get off your soap box and just enjoy it all; the 
experience!!!!!

I think it reaches sublimity at “picayune.”

There’s a sad postscript to this story, however. When I tried to reach Humor-Deprived Fanboy to thank him for the laughs, I was saddened to learn from his mom that he had just died of apoplexy after hearing that someone once made fun of Firefly on a discussion board.

Categorised as: Life the Universe and Everything | The Kids Today

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