Local Trekkers play it cool for new 'Star Trek'

VIRGNIA BEACH

When the new “Star Trek” movie opened early this morning, Joy Dean wasn’t there.

That may be surprising, since she’s president of a nearly three-decade-old “Star Trek” fan club, called Starfleet Atlantic.

“William Shatner in the infamous 'Saturday Night Live’ skit told 'Star Trek’ fans to get a life,” Dean said, “and we do have lives.”

Dean is a paralegal, and she said others in the 20-member club include a chemist, a VDOT worker, an author, an artist, a Virginia Beach school employee, people from all over South Hampton Roads.

Most of them won’t be wearing plastic, pointy Spock ears, but by Saturday afternoon Starfleet Atlantic club members will be easily found at the Regal Columbus 12 theater in Virginia Beach. One or two club members may be in costumes, Dean said, but most will probably just be wearing “Trek” T-shirts.

“A couple of our people have some uniform type thing,” Dean said, “whether they can still fit into them ...”

Not that they are not serious fans – they’ve been planning for this movie for a year. They just show it differently than the stereotypical “get a life” fans. They meet every month at the Janaf library and have “lively debates” about particular episodes of the TV show, all the while clipping coupons for their “Overseas Coupon Program” for military families at a base in Rota, Spain.

The club also puts out a monthly newsletter that stretches to 20 pages.

Starfleet Atlantic members will be in the Columbus 12 theater lobby from 2 p.m. until well into the evening Saturday, displaying “Trek” tapestries, showing “Trek” bloopers and parodies for those waiting in line and offering flyers promoting their annual Science Fiction Yard Sale (May 23, Trekkers). They’ll offer free trading cards for children, and a side-by-side cheat sheet differentiating the old actors with the new ones.

“Of course, I’m a lifelong Kirk fan,” Dean says. “It’s certainly going to be a different generation’s take on 'Trek.’ I’ve always been the old school, and to me the only one was the original 'Trek.’”

Lon Wagner, (757) 446-2341.

lon.wagner@pilotonline.com