Everybody’s geekin’ for the weekend, part three: Space (the final frontier)

Having gone to Arkadia Retrocade on Friday night in Fayetteville, followed by a Saturday morning visit to the Stafford Air & Space Museum in Weatherford, Oklahoma, we headed homeward, but with one more stop planned in Oklahoma City itself (40 minutes east of Weatherford) before returning to Fort Smith.

The second leg of the central Oklahoma space pilgrimage took us to Oklahoma City proper, in a part of town that we might not have visited otherwise but for the presence of a starship. In a rented space next to a roofing repair company in Oklahoma City is one of the only two 360-degree classic Star Trek bridge sets in the United States, replicating – if not improving on – the Enterprise set from the original ’60s series.

Starbase Studios was holding one of its rare open house events. They’re rare because the bridge is a working film set, and exposing it to the public puts it at increased risk of suffering accidental damage. Keeping the entire set fully lit (rather than the usual practice of only lighting those sections needed for a particular spot), and running fans to make the already-warm studio space tolerable for visitors, runs up a considerable electric bill, even for a single day.

We joked en route that the directions to the nondescript studio building sounded like a ransom note – in between lines of the directions I had printed out from the studio’s web site, I was riffing helpful additions like “place the money in an unmarked paper sack inside the newspaper vending machine on the corner; do not look around you, you are being watched.”

The verdict? Totally. worth. it.

After signing a waiver to release the studio from any liability in the event of injury, we walked along a narrow passage behind the set…

…and you have to admit, there’s a UFO-esque vibe from the outside…

…until we wound up in a familiar enclosed space: the turbolift! And then the doors opened…

…and there we were, on the bridge!

These sets were formerly housed in Austin, Texas, and were built by the Johnson brothers for their short-lived but promising Star Trek fan series, Starship Exeter. Starbase Studios acquired the sets and moved them to OKC as the hub of a few promising new fan series of their own. The sets have survived tornadoes and floods that I’m going to guess most starships probably don’t have to dodge.

The workmanship is outstanding. It’s both bigger and smaller than you’d expect.

All. the. blinky. buttons. It just makes you want to raise the shields, open the hailing frequencies, and fire the phasers.

The dimensions of the set and everything on it are amazingly precise to the original set plans from the 1960s. The set does come apart as a sort of donut of “pizza slices”, but as it is, the new owners keep it fully assembled with two exits – the aforementioned entrance through the turbolift, and a non-console panel of lights and buttons to the right of the viewscreen which can be closed up seamlessly or left open as an access door.

While I was able to restrain my self from Pushing All The Buttons, the boys quickly became a blur of activity, trying to save the universe from the Klingons.

Every kid should have the chance to play Star Trek on an actual Star Trek set. I mean, look at that serious face! The ship is in danger! I had a flashback to my teens, when the living room was the bridge, the kitchen was the transporter room, the strange stuffed cat thing was the only alien life form in the budget, and the camcorder was always rolling, churning out something that was somewhere in the middle of a Venn diagram with the labels “Roddenberry”, “Zucker-Abrams-Zucker” and “Raimi”. The phrase “Take your father’s place and fulfull your destiny!” echoed in the back of my head as I watched him play, completely un-self-conscious about the fact that there were adults standing around talking.

So far, the only damage reported on any deck is to the unfortunate upholstery on that chair.

Who’s driving this thing?

Yes, the red alert lights actually work. (The guys who run the place were obviously having fun with the kids, since the ship went to red alert while they were saving the universe…)

Most of the various eye-level screens at the various stations are actually screens: dozens of LCD monitors behind plexiglas.

Even the ever-rotating moire pattern of Spock’s science monitor is animated. Little E may not be blinded by science, but he’s sure blurred by it.

Given the amount of scrutiny that the science station (a.k.a. Spock’s main hangout) is likely to get in any given production, it’s a beauty.

Communications ain’t too shabby either.

One of Chandra’s photos of the bridge. There had been over 200 visitors by the time we showed up.

I was so enthusastic about taking pictures (I used up all of phone’s internal and SD card memory, and ran out the batteries on my other camera), I deprived myself the chance to sit down at all the places on the bridge and just drink it in.

More lighted buttons…

…and a green screen waiting for action.

Signs that you may have watched a little bit of Star Trek with your son: he instinctively knows that you get under the console and pull off the little grilles to repair stuff in the heat of battle.

Some of the few screens that aren’t live LCD monitors.

Little E takes command…

…but he can also set the course…

…and fly the ship. See? All that flight simulator time put to good use already!

Songs from the big chair.

And did I sit there? Oh yeah, you bet I did. But this was sadly the best photo I got of myself on the set – Little E couldn’t quite hold the camera still we were under attack at the time and the ship was shaking, don’t ya know.

Second and final attempt: red alert! A brightly colored amorphous blob has materialized on the bridge! Hey, at least that much rings absolutely true for Star Trek…

“Record tapes” at the big chair: captain’s eyes only.

Despite his attempts to point out that his fun level was rising fast…

…Little E had to bid the bridge goodbye.

Oh, and the buttons in the turbolift? Arcade buttons. It’s like our wild weekend of geekery had lapped itself and returned to the beginning. 😆

The neat thing about Starbase Studios’ acquisition and custodianship of these sets is that they’re doing something completely different from the other various groups making Star Trek fan films around the country: the sets are open to anyone who wants to use them, not just for projects spawned within that group’s existing Gene pool (yes, that was meant to be capitalized).

On the one hand, it’s tempting to think that there are already too many of these projects clamoring for attention, often of wildly varying quality. But the clips shown of the upcoming productions already filmed here – Starship Ajax and Starship Valiant, both projects gestated within the Starbase Studios group – are promising, and the idea of democratizing the process is even more promising.

Just because you can get these for thirty bucks and have an Art Asylum phaser and tricorder doesn’t mean you suddenly have the whole set.

There are probably folks with great ideas for Star Trek adventures, but not the resources to build the set. Starbase Studios is inviting them to use these sets and bring their ideas to life. I’m sure there’s some fine print somewhere – the utility bills and the lease on the building have to be paid somehow – but even that has to be cheaper than the lumber, the paint, and the time. They’re currently building the transporter room behind the bridge area; other sets, including the ubiquitous corridors, will almost certainly follow as time and donations and material and manpower allow.

I have to admit, an old idea came swimming up to the surface on the drive home. I have no ambition to be in it – much skinnier and prettier people than me would need to do that – but write, direct and post-produce it? Oh yeah.

Holy cow, Mr. Sparkly-Eye Lizard Guy. I think dad’s Gorna be back.

The trip home was more eventful than any of us were hoping for – where the morning traffic was quite cooperative, the evening been-out-at-the-lake-having-a-few-beers traffic tried to get us a couple of times – but we made it back to Fort Smith safe and sound, where we said goodbye to the Martins and headed home. Little E was sad that his big adventure with his new friends was over, but he has a whole weekend of new memories that I’m glad (and grateful) that I could help him make. This stuff wasn’t around when I was a kid, but it is now… and seeing him walk into a room full of rockets, or onto a filming set, wide-eyed with wonder… it keeps me young too.

A huge thanks to Starbase Studios for acquiring the sets, adding onto and maintaining them, and having a great idea to make themselves a hub of Star Trek fan film activity, putting these beautiful sets at everyone’s fingertips who wants to make some Star Trek with themselves in it. I wish I’d had more cash to drop in the donation box – I certainly would’ve done so. They’re doing something wonderful here.

Thanks also to the Martins for taking us to Oklahoma and back; I had all but given up on making the trip after a week of plaintive pleas on Facebook for any like-minded friends to give me and the boy a lift (just myself, the boy, no droids, and two questions asked…) and certainly didn’t expect to redirect their vacation plans. I hope they had as much fun as I did (I’m guessing that the abundance of boy-shaped blurs in the photos above probably means they did).