Proving again that there is no truth in advertising, a theater full of Star Trek fans promised a shiny print of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan were instead forced at phaser point to sit through the new J.J. Abrams reboot of the franchise due in theaters next month. To say this is an outrage would be an understatement. I stayed up all night putting the finishing touches on my Ricardo Montalban breastplate! Do you know how many times I rehearsed Khan’s big speech so I’d be prepared to emote along as he announced, “I'll chase him round the moons of Nibia and round the Antares maelstrom and round perdition's flames before I give him up!”? And all that for nothing. I was so upset, I actually left my tricorder in the men’s room.
All right, I didn’t actually attend the screening last night. I’m always up for a little Khan, but I really don’t want to be in a theater full of people who are really, really up for a little Khan. Call me a hypocrite if you must, but now I know I missed out on a big surprise. This is the event as originally advertised by the Alamo Drafthouse: “Fantastic Fest and Ain’t It Cool News present a free screening of STAR TREK 2: THE WRATH OF KHAN with an exclusive sneak preview of 10 minutes of NEVER BEFORE SEEN footage from the new STAR TREK!” According to Wired, Leonard Nimoy – yep, Ol’ Gray Ears himself – stunned the audience with a surprise appearance and announced that they would be seeing “the entire new movie just hours before it made its international bow in Sydney.”
If anyone was disappointed by the bait and switch, they weren’t tweeting about it. Slashfilm has collected reactions ranging from Harry Knowles’ predictable “holy fuck! the new Star Trek fucking rules the universe” to the more restrained “ZOMG!! Just saw the new star trek movie and it MELTED MY PANTS!!!!!\” This is all well and good, but it still raises the troubling question: Can we ever trust the Alamo Drafthouse again? For instance, tonight’s schedule would have us believe that the “Young Frankenstein Quote-Along” is on tap, but if I show up in my Igor hoodie, how do I know I won’t get some new Will Ferrell remake of Young Frankenstein I haven’t even heard about yet?
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go look for my tricorder.
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