Is there a star trek version of the Star Wars 501st/Rebel Legion club/organization ? The Star Wars clubs are often invited to participate in parades/charity events/ Lucasfilm PR events .... Is there a Trek similar club ? Thanks
There is a Starfleet 1701st uniform club. I haven't visited the site for quite a while, so I'm not sure if they are still active.
There are a good few Trek clubs - I'm part of one but typically the UK Colonial Marines or OK Garrison tend to do most events. It's a little bit cooler having Stormtroopers or a Xenomorph guarding the lines and greeting attendees than a guy in a red shirt I'm not sure about the US region, but in the UK various members here have been involved with fundraising, appearances and all sorts - and a more localised club I'm not affiliated with has done the same. Not many as as orginised as the 501st are in terms of appearances, but.... the booking/demand likely isn't there.
When the ex and I went cross-country several years back, we came across an adopt-a-highway sign somewhere in the vicinity of Salt Lake City for a Trek club...named after a ship, with "Starfleet" under the name so people would get it.
No there's no fan groups for Star Trek that get official recognition by CBS like the 501st does by Lucasfilm.
Do you have links for these? I tried googling both but the result for UK Colonial Marines seemed to be Aliens-based and I got nothing useful for OK Garrision. dJE
The UKCM are Alien based, but there's a lot of crossover with the Garrison and they tend to get booked together. I made a minor typo, supposed to be UK not OK. Not enough coffee yesterday They've got a FB page here: https://www.facebook.com/UKGarrison/?fref=ts I don't really have much info on them as I'm not part of either, just know a few people in the mix.
it's sad that Star Wars has the 501st Club (Stormtroopers, etc) ...the Rebel Legion (Jedi, X-Wing pilots, etc)and they are recognized by Lucasfilm and at times even contacted by Disney/Lucasfilm for PR events (march in the Rose Parade -about 10 yrs ago,) and this year's Hollywood Christmas parade, and other major events) and for Star Trek-- nothing ? wow...why ? is it CBS/Paramount ? Lack of fan organization ? ? in fact the star wars 501st club was invited by Disney/Lucasfilm to the world premiere of Rogue One... shouldn't there be a star trek version ? (I would join if it existed)
Back in my days as a theater manager in Garland, there was a group from the fan club USSJoshua in Dallas that had a large group in uniform turn out for the opening night of "Star Trek: Nemesis". They were mostly in Starfleet uniforms. But there were some Kilngons along as well. We got them to appear as part of our promotion for the movie and the 30th Anniversary of Star Trek. I believe they did appearances at other theaters as well.
Trekkies turn up in costume at events, premiere's etc at their own free will. Stormtroppers, not so much as it's a lot more difficult to relax and have fun in armour It's more than likely a matter of perception. Stormtroopers look cool, a Vader leading the troops down a red carpet is pretty awesome visually. A parade of red-shirts walking down the red carpet? Not so much, not just for the visual, but other reasons including the higher level of introverts within Trek fandom that SW fandom. That said, Trek clubs are being hired out on occasion by other orginisations. This year we've done TV, Radio, promotional work and we have been asked to appear as a group in uniform for particular events - one of them a licensed gig that just gave too short notice (it's pretty hard to arrange a group of uniformed Trekkies with four hours notice). There's been more in the US than UK, but.... I don't work in the US so I dn't take much notice outside of the Riverside event
Totally CBS/Paramount. You have to remember, Lucasfilm and George Lucas have always been very lenient in regards to fandom and fan productions. Indeed, Star Wars fan productions have been a thing a lot longer than Star Trek fan productions were. Part of the reason there is that Lucas is very chill about fans making their own fan films, and has even been known to watch and enjoy a few of them. Star Trek fandom on the other hand has always been they'd be sued by Paramount if they went down this road, and as precedent we have the incident involving the infamous Borg Tribble. Granted we do now have Trek fan productions aplenty that are for the most part tolerated by CBS, with the exception of Axanar. Though to be fair, Axanar does skirt a bit too close to copyright infringement (they actually tried to launch their own self-published novel tie-in line). The biggest impact of the 501st is that they even got incorporated into canon. The 501st Legion was Anakin Skywalker's personal Clone legion during the Clone Wars, and afterwards the re-branded 501st Stormtrooper Legion became Darth Vader's personal Stormtrooper legion during the time of the Empire. The 501st in SW canon is in fact named after the fan group, in recognition of the charity work they do, mostly visiting sick children in hospitals and brightening their days by getting to see Star Wars characters "in the flesh" so to speak.
I think a big part of the reason that the 501st is more recognized and popular is that Stormtroopers (and Vader, Boba Fett, Jawas, etc.) are faceless characters. You can put just about anyone into that armor and it would be the same as if they came off the screen. It's not quite the same when you have to have a face on a character. Sure, you can have a bunch of people in Starfleet uniforms, but they're not *quite* Kirk or Spock, and people are put off by that. It's just some random guy in a costume to them. You'll notice that even though there are some Star Wars face characters, they aren't as numerous or as popular as the Stormtroopers.