Greetings dear fellow Trekkies!
I came aboard 10 days ago but I found this thread only a few minutes ago.
I'm from Bonn, Germany, 31 years old and I have been a Trekkie since the mid nineties.
I don't remember exactly for sure how it all started but I guess it was a Star Trek Computer game for the Atari System, which my father had. I guess I became fascinated by the bridge functions in that particular game, I was able to fight Klingons and Romulans and could choose my personal away team to beam Kirk and his crew to whatever planet it was.
I guess at the same time "Sat.1" has been the ultimate Star Trek channel in Germany and they were re-running the first seasons of TNG. I remember that I was watching the season 1 episodes "skin of evil", "the naked now" and some others.
There was also a TNG sticker album from Panini I guess and stickers in a german chewy called "fritt". For instance one sticker had Dr. Crusher on it with some text as far as I remember.
I guess the more episodes and films I was watching the more I felt in love with Trek.
I had quite a lot of toys: action figures, lots of micro machines
(one day i bought a big set of ships at toysrus), the ent-e from first contact with these funny looking nacelles and the wrong impulse engines, the borg inner space head and the stargazer with these tiny figures, an insurrection phaser, a captain Kirk TOS uniform with phaser (i remember that my dad said: you either get the phaser or the communicator. Not both toys. Haha. So i chose the phaser because to me that was more Kirk-ish
). Oh boy. I miss these mid-nineties while I'm writing these words...
My best friend (same age and still best friends since 1996) is also a Trekkie and both of us owned the type II phaser from insurrection. So we were playing starfleet guys and his younger siblings were borg drones. We had to tell them how to walk, move and so forth. Haha.
In the mid-nineties Trek was sooooo hyped in germany. Really. You couldn't find a day where Sat.1 did not have any Trek in its program. It was so awesome to be a Trekkie, no matter how old you were.
So, in 1996 VOY began its first season on Sat.1, but I did not really notize it. I was eight years old and there was already TOS, TNG, DS9 and I got somewhat confused I guess. So much Trek on television. I was really fascinated.
Alright, 1997 was the year of the Borg to me, because I could not watch First Contact in cinema so i had to wait for its VHS release which was 1997. Alright.
My father and I frequently visited our local library where we could also lend movies and series on VHS. They had BobW as a feature and FC on tape and man, as an eight or nine years old boy these stories were soooo exciting to watch. From this time forward I was really fascinated by the Borg.
Somewhat later Sat.1 showed VOYs third season and along the way came Unity. My father captured it for me on VHS but it took a while until I could watch that episode but my best friend told me about it how cool it was. But that was nothing compared to Scorpion.
Scorpion was brought to television as a feature length movie at prime time in 1998 and I was allowed to watch it with my parents. It was a blast. Truly amazing.
Then in 1998 i was able to watch insurrection at the cinema with my father.
In early 2000 as an eleven years old boy i was on vacation at my aunties house and I was watching Dark Frontier... alone!
My aunt and my younger sister were downstairs watching sth else. That episode was so creepy to me back then. Oh boy!
Meanwhile they were releasing translated comics from wildstorm which i really liked by the time and the walls in my room were filled with dozens of star trek pinups and posters.
Later on ENT started and I was collecting the entire first season on VHS. Thirteen tapes... it was the first trek series I could watch from its very beginning. I felt in love with it but the second season was kind of a mess, right? But i loved regeneration and the xindi despite the former episodes contradictory content.
When the third and fourth seasons began to be released here... well at that time ENT was my favorite show. I especially loved season four because now it was the prequel everyone hoped it to be when it initially started. And then ENT got cancelled. I was totally shocked and sad.
And in 2006 I thought Trek was dead but I had all these tapes and DVDs to watch it all over again.
In 2009 the JJ Trek films started and I really liked the first one. It was fresh, action packed, well cast, beautifully shot except for the lens flares... haha but it still... it wasnt my Star Trek although I liked it. Into Darkness was... well they brought nothing really new to the table and that is what JJ Abrams is. Style over substance kinda... same goes for the new SW trilogy. Its boring. Well, Beyond was imho much better. But i dont like that loud and over the top bubblegum Star Trek with too much pew pew. Those films remind me of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. You know?
It is not a future where I can see myself being a part of it. Au contraire to the 90s Trek of course.
When they announced that DISCO was coming, my best friend and I were totally thrilled... but then... well you know its hard to explain how I feel about especially the first season. Definetely not my Trek, but as a Trekkie I accept all of Trek no matter how... let's say different it is compared to my 90s Trek. The second season was better because of Pike and different themes. There was more of the old spirit but to me it doesn't fit visually into the canon. Storywise I'm not quite sure. But, you know, I accept it and I love the retconned NCC-1701 and Pike is well written and wonderfully played by Anson Mount. Burnham is nice to look at, but I hate the fact that she is portrayed like a superhero or superhuman. She is always right and always crying. I like Tilly better. Can you believe that? Still looking forward to season 3.
But I'm totally excited about PICARD. I'm so hyped and watching lots of TNG episodes. My favorite Trek series is TNG. And I'm frequently wearing my TNG hoodies. One is in the style of the third season Picard uniform and the other one is FC style. Haha.
I owe Star Trek quite a lot. From Trek I've learned to talk more sophisticated, to respect every human as it is, to be gracious, to think that we are not the only "intelligent" species, to be diplomatic when you have an argument, to believe in the good in people, to watch the stars and to hope for a better future.
I love Star Trek... forever!
I'm a VERY picky collector, I only get figures that REALLY look like Jean-Luc - to me it's not about completing a collection, it's about having a good one. Most recent JLP figures, including the one you mention, left a LOT to be desired in the "looks like Jean-Luc" department, at least for me, which is why I didn't buy most of them. There was a great recent Locutus figure tho, I bought that one since it passed my "has to look like Jean-Luc" test with flying colors, I was really quite impressed by it.
