Nothing gets me into the holiday mood like Star Trek movies. Or at least, that used to be the case. And it took me a while to understand why. But I think I finally figured it out.
I didn’t really get into Star Trek until 1994, at the tail end of The Next Generation (TNG). I was able to catch about half of the final season on TV, and then my very first Star Trek movie was Star Trek: Generations; the infamous meeting between Captain Kirk and Captain Picard. Talk about a fanboy’s dream. From there my interest really bloomed, I was able to watch all the TNG re-runs on Fox, I caught new episodes of Deep Space Nine when they aired (most of the time) and I was right there at the beginning of Voyager in 1995.
When 1996 came along and the second TNG movie (Star Trek: First Contact) was set to come out, I put it off for a while due to Jurassic Park coming out on VHS. When I finally did go see the movie it was well into November of that year and the Christmas season was in full swing. I was absolutely blown away and to this day it remains my favorite Star Trek movie. Despite being sixteen years old, I managed to find a Borg Sphere under the Christmas tree that year. But that in itself was not enough to forge this association.
No, it was something more.
See, for the longest time I was a recluse as a child, which meant most people didn’t know what to get me as gifts. Lego was usually a safe bet but I was far past what most considered the “prime” Lego building years and I think people probably felt a little strange buying Lego sets for a teenager (hint: I would have taken them happily, social norms be damned).
But what people could buy me were movies or videos. This was back when Paramount (in their infinite wisdom) began releasing individual episodes of the Original Series and TNG on VHS. Yes, you had to pay $14.95 or even sometimes $19.95 for AN EPISODE. Practically it was impossible for a company to put 22 or 24 episodes on videocassette to sell as a season ($358!!!) but people wanted their Star Trek. So what were they supposed to do?
But this was also close to the advent of DVD as a viable and persistent medium, leading to TNG being the first Star Trek show released by the season and allowing for hours and hours of binging. But I digress. The point of this was that I began receiving Star Trek episodes and movies as Christmas presents. And naturally I couldn’t wait more than a day to watch them, so an association formed that has stuck with me to this day.
So every year when Christmas starts to come around I get the urge to watch Star Trek movies. Whereas most people probably like to watch Miracle on 34th Street, Home Alone (see the last post, it’s still a favorite!) or It’s a Wonderful Life I really get my nostalgic kick from the Trek library, even though they have absolutely nothing to do with Christmas story-wise. I also established a similar association with the first Star Wars movies (4-6, not the prequels) as they were always on TV in the late 80’s and early 90’s on Christmas day, but it isn’t nearly as strong.
Why is this important? Well…it isn’t really. It’s just one of those strange little quirks about me; something that has been part of my milieu. Perhaps this gives you insight to my character or perhaps this has been nothing more than a waste of your time! 😂
Merry (Star Trek) Christmas!
