ThinkGeek has gotten in some new Star Trek items, and they're getting a little weird…

First up, a replica hand phaser kit.Not a snap-together, mind you, but all the same sort of parts used to create the original:

…the Star Trek Hero Prop Type-I Phaser Kit was created by Star Trek prop expert and special effects artist John Long (he's so knowledgeable about these props, auction houses rely on him to authenticate the real things). This ultra high quality, full-scale kit enables you to build a completely accurate re-creation of the original Hero version of this iconic prop (Hero props were the ones used in close-ups). You'll build a museum-quality replica of the actual studio filming prop – all the same materials, all the same electronics and functioning (it was molded off an original prop for perfect accuracy).

Which is seriously cool, and as close as you'll get to the real thing without a second mortgage. The next item is also seriously cool, if a little odd: the Star Trek Enterprise Bottle Opener.Officially licensed, this heavy and stylish opener is ready for anything, including the obligatory Romulan Ale jokes.

Handy and stunning, these chromed-out beauties do quick-work on bottles while still screaming Federation. They feel heavy in your hands, like a good phaser, so if diplomatic relations fail you, you can always chuck 'em at your hosts' heads as a weapon.

Again, cool. But the next one I have to wonder about: Red Shirt Star Trek Cologne.This strikes me as the exact opposite of Axe Body Spray, frankly.

Red Shirt Star Trek Cologne is both silly and not all at once. Sure it's mocking all the poor extras who filled the role of cannon fodder for Kirk and his crew, but it also smells really dang nice too. Because sometimes you just need to smell your best, and Red Shirt Star Trek Cologne is a way to do it in style. And who knows, you might not just be an extra destined to die – you could very well be this week's guest star.

Which makes me wonder if I could weaponize Axe. If you dumped a bucket of it on someone, would that person then be smothered by frantic, helpless aroused women? It would be a kind killing, or a really interesting method of suicide.

The limited edition version of these Star Trek Starfleet Academy Titanium Sporks engraved with the Starfleet logo and motto sold out quickly,  but you can get these standard issue eating utensils right away. Nosh like a Starfleet officer!

Just like the one Kirk used while a student (perhaps even while planning to cheat at the Kobayashi Maru scenario), these are laser engraved with the Starfleet emblem and other stuff which we'll tell you about soon. And remember, we know how important it is for you to hold a replica of Spock's Student Spork at the premier of the new movie! Live long, and prosper.

In stock at ThinkGeek.com

That… was an excellent movie.

I'm about to go into detail, so don't read on if you're avoiding spoilers. Lots of them.

I'll get my annoyances out of the way first, because there aren't many.

- Sulu's magic folding sword just made me laugh. Would have been better for him to grab something sword-like and use that.
- Can't Kirk go 10 minutes without hanging from his fingertips off a precipice? I half-expected him to fall off something during his award ceremony. "I award you… Kirk? Where'd you go?"
- Nero waited 25 years? Just, what, hovering there? And his crew put up with this?
- The Romulan ship interior, which was designed on George Lucasian blueprints, with the obligatory tiny walkways over dizzying heights with no handrails whatsoever.
- Why was Chekov also the transporter expert? One of the things that was troubling about the original shows was how the entire ship was seemingly run by the same 10 people, over and over.
- The complete and total absence of any defense of the Earth whatsoever. Or orbiting ships. Or anything.
- Didn't that just piss off an awful lot of experienced officers who spent years working their way up the ranks to get their own ship? "Well done! But instead we're going to give this new ship to the brand new crew of just-graduated cadets." Sure, they saved the Earth, but still.
- I would have liked a bit of the theme to have been played in the beginning. Personal preference.

And that's pretty much it. Otherwise I loved this as a return to the kinds of things I loved from the original series. The humor, the action, the relationships, the funky science. Some things that especially struck me:

- McCoy. Urban nailed McCoy so perfectly that his McCoyisms fit smoothly into the dialogue, where they might have felt forced with any other actor. My favorite actor of the bunch, and that's saying something.
- A Federation starship that finally, [i]finally[/i] looks like something that might actually work. Shuttles that look like they might actually transport people. Airlock signs on the elevator doors. A barrier between the teleporter pads and the control panel. A lot of thought went into the design, and I loved it all.
- Spock(s). Zachary Quinto turned in a brilliant performance. Most Vulcans besides Spock, Sarek and T'pau, through the past 4 decades of Trek, have seemed overly emotional or cruel or just poorly acted. Quinto got it right. And Nimoy presented the ideal Spock is looking for, a balance of human and Vulcan that has moved past intelligence into wisdom.
- The humor. I've heard people complain about the amount of humor in the movie, and I direct them to go watch the original series again.
- Kirk. My brother-in-law noticed that Kirk throughout the movie avoided Shatnerisms but made a decent enough Kirk, until the end, when he appeared on the bridge in uniform and was truly Captain Kirk for the first time.
- Halfway intelligent space battle. "Fire everything!" Much better than the traditional "fire one torpedo and let's see what happens before we do anything else" method that worked so well for Starfleet in the past. Loved the quick decimation of the shields, loved the rapid fire, loved the hull breach that reminded us that this stuff is dangerous.
- An Uhura who gets to do more than "Hailing frequencies open, cap'n, sugar." Although if she keeps rushing off the bridge whenever Spock does, I think people will suspect.
- Nero. About time we had a bad guy with an easy motive, who already had the machinery he needed, and didn't quote Shakespeare.
- Pike's wheelchair. Nice touch.- Sulu. Nicely acted, nicely portrayed. Pity about the silly sword.
- Spock and Uhura's romance, or whatever it is. One of the biggest changes, but now I'm insanely curious to see where they go with it.
- Chekov having a better defined skill set than the original show, where they never seemed to know where to put him.
- The boldness of wiping out Vulcan. Didn't see that coming…
- Sarek. I didn't think anyone could match Mark Leonard for the gravitas and intelligence of Spock's dad, but this wasn't too far off.
- No sound in space! Or not much. And constantly moving cameras, and out-of-focus zooming. Joss Whedon's legacy lives on.
- Scotty's humorous sidekick did not in any way save the day. I appreciate that. And Scotty was fantastic.
- The colored warp lines, gone. Thank you.

Actually, I realize I could keep going. Suffice it to say "Star Trek" worked for me, a diehard Trek fan from the original series, and I hope they maintain the quality and attention to detail. (Although I missed seeing the tribble. I'll have to se it again) And to think, this was an <i>odd</i> numbered episode. That means the next one will be even <i>better</i>!

I just hope future Spock left a long list of upcoming threats that were stopped the first time around, with instructions on how to handle them. "First, get some whales…"

"My favorite color?" he asked incredulously as the audience howled with laughter. "Who sent you? Who are you?"

"Have you never been asked that before?" the fan asked.

"No!"

"Maybe that's why I asked."

Nimoy considered, then smiled broadly. "Well, good for you!"

(It's blue, by the way.)

Nearly one hundred and fifty people were listening to "A Discussion with Leonard Nimoy" Sunday morning at the FX International convention at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. Eager fans shelled out admission fees from $125 to $250. Each received a goody bag with a movie poster, various collectible items and a voucher for an autograph from the man himself (Nimoy was holding court).

The 78-year-old Nimoy handled the room like a pro, telling stories and promoting the upcoming relaunch of the beloved franchise, JJ Abrams' blockbuster movie Star Trek, something he said he realized would be great after seeing the first, unadorned cut months ago:

"My wife is… she loves me a lot and I love her, and she's a great Star Trek supporter, but she's hardly a big science fiction fan, she's not like, like… well, you people," he said to general laughter. "So she was skeptical. About 15 minutes before it was over, she turned to me and she said 'I don't want this movie to end.'"

Nimoy had nothing but praise for the other actors, including Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Winona Rider as Spock's mother. "She's wonderful! Wonderful!"

"The movie is big, a gigantic movie, a cinematic movie, but it also has great heart for the characters," he said. He saw the final version recently and said, "I'm gonna tell you I cried a lot. I sat there and cried a lot, watching it. Don't tell anybody.

"Out of character for me," he added.

"Big, gigantic canvas and story, it's a big, big story and the people in it are so versatile, so human, and the way this crew comes together to become the crew of the Enterprise is a very wonderful story, you'll love it. You'll love it," he said. "See it seven or eight times."

With a slightly raspy voice the chatty, laughing Nimoy was light years away from his most famous persona. For most of the hour he answered questions from fans, which ranged from his voiceover work as Galvatron in the animated Transformers movie, to his relation by marriage to Michael Bay ("and he won't hire me!"), to his long-standing friendship with William Shatner, to the photography that has been the focus of his life for the past 15 years, to his upcoming guest spots on JJ Abrams' FOX show Fringe (one in the last episode airing May 12, and two episodes next season, "and then we'll see how the character develops").

One fan even asked him to reproduce his legendarily mocked musical performance of "The Legend of Bilbo Baggins," but instead Nimoy forced the Starfleet-suited fan to come up to the stage and perform it himself, even helpfully supplying the lyrics when the fan tried to back out.

But it always came back to Star Trek.

Shatner didn't really try to kill him in Star Trek IV The Voyage Home, but the robe Nimoy was wearing sucked up water and dragged him down to the bottom of the tank. The Vulcan hand gesture is from a childhood memory of a Jewish High Holy Days ceremony. He didn't appear in the seventh movie, Star Trek: Generations, because the lines written for him weren't Spock lines and he didn't see the point. He was very blunt about disliking "Generations," and not seeing any reason why Kirk had to die in it.

He was fascinated with the issues he brought out in the sixth movie, Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country, based loosely on the Russians' problems with the Chernobyl disaster and their crumbling economy. He loved the way The Voyage Home brought humor back to the Star Trek universe. And he battled with the movie studio over having an alien force in that movie that not only was impossible for humans to understand, but hadn't come to talk to us anyway. Their proposed solution? Subtitles for the probe.

"I said no, no, no, no, we're not gonna do that." He fought, and won, and when the movie was test-screened and the advance audience unanimously agreed that they understood the plot, Nimoy sent that back to the studios with a… well, I can't repeat it here, but it is distinctly odd to hear Spock cuss.

The final question was why, after turning down other offers to appear in the various incarnations of Star Trek over the years, he chose to bring Spock back to life for the new movie.

"I was done. I thought I was quite done, and for many years I was," he said, mentioning the photography that had become his passion. "I was aware of the TV work that (JJ Abrams) was doing, which I thought was interesting and well done. I got a call from him, would I come to a meeting where I met with he and the writers and a couple of the producers.

"And I was struck by the intensity of their feelings about the classic Star Trek material that we did. By their awareness of what the characters were about, and how important the characters' development was, and how important the ideas of those shows were. I was really touched by them, very touched. In fact, it's been reported I got misty at that meeting, and I actually did," he said.

"Because for a long time, I felt marginalized. I thought, no, (the new Treks) have nothing to do with me," he said. "It's over for me. But these people made me feel that what we had done in the original series was still relevant, and useful, and meaningful, and they wanted to get back in touch with that," he said. "And that's what brought me into the project."

JJ Abrams' Star Trek premieres May 8, 2009. Watch the latest trailer at the official site.
Leonard Nimoy's photography (includes nudity): leonardnimoyphotography.com

(Yes, I know this makes three science fiction columns from me in a row, but when you get science fiction you get trilogies. It just happens.)

Paramount is celebrating 40 years of relatively successful franchising by having all 79 episodes — even the bad ones — of the iconic 1960s sci-fi series digitally remastered to bring back the color, fix some of the more embarrassing FX gaffes, punch up the music, add some depth to the planet scenes (so horizons no longer look like they're 20 feet away), and CG the space scenes so they look more like, you know, space. Purists gave a half-hearted outcry for the unsullied versions, but since the originals are still easily available — unlike the original theatrical Star Wars movies, which Lucas finally released yesterday under gunpoint — it hasn't been that big a deal.

Early reviews say that the new episodes are cleaner and brighter, with Enterprise flybys more suited to a high-def widescreen TV, although Paramount has said they have no immediate plans to release the remastered versions on DVD. (Pause now for a hearty laugh.) But will there be any other changes besides the purely cosmetic? One or two, one or two. . .

In the credits, the name "William Shatner" has been replaced with "Emmy AwardTM-winning William Shatner, best-selling author and star of stage, screen, and recording studio, now on Boston Legal, Tuesday nights on ABC." The other credits will be reduced accordingly, to make room.

The Kirk/Uhura kiss in "Plato's Stepchildren" now has 23% more tongue.

The previously deleted Jabba the Hut scene has been restored.

A wide and expressive array of obscenity, human and alien, has been added for the cable markets.

If you look closely at the Starfleet personnel when they face the "onlies" in "Miri" you can see that their phasers have been changed to walkie talkies.

To help alleviate the contradictions and inconsistencies introduced by 20 years of successive Star Trek series, minor references will be looped into the dialogue. "Look at that, Bones. Must have been Klingons, or possibly Xindi, an alien race we've never mentioned previously that nonetheless wiped out millions of humans on Earth before being chased by Captain Archer on an earlier Enterprise which we have also never mentioned before."

The scene in "The Naked Time" where Sulu runs around topless and oiled has been digitally remastered to be, somehow, even more gay.

Thanks to a paid sponsorship from MTV, the Enterprise has been totally pimped to include chrome fenders, spinning rims, nerf bars, a billet grill, a spoiler, a full-on, bitching sound system and a black and red scalloped paint job, with flames.

Ninjas, ninjas, ninjas!

Dialogue will be updated to be more relevant, replacing Lt. Uhura's "Hailing frequencies open, sir," with "Oh, no you di-int, girl" and introducing Spock's dispassionate "Fascinating, yo."

One major crewmember will die. Call in and cast your vote now!

"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," the one with the two warring white-black and black-white guys, now includes even more overt references to racial issues (including subtitles) in case you somehow missed them the first time.

The Enterprise's LCARS computer system has been replaced by Vista, although popups still warn that it's a beta version.

With the aid of sophisticated filters, the rest of the cast has been subtly dimmed so you can see Kirk better.

Spock's love scene in "This Side of Paradise" now offers full frontal.

To address a major lack in racial parity among the otherwise balanced crew, all of the red-shirted landing party members will be given Hispanic features.

The hippies in "The Way to Eden" will be replaced with neohippies, Deadheads, off-the-gridders, and members of Greenpeace.

In an effort to tone down the sex-kitten-look of the female Starfleet uniforms, longer skirts were created by taking material from the uniforms' cleavage.

A rap version of the theme song will play during the credits, for some ungodly reason.

Not all of the suggested changes went through. Seatbelts were considered for the bridge chairs but were deemed dangerously undramatic. And after the idea was floated to digitally alter Kirk's face to resemble Matt Damon (rumored to be playing a young Kirk in an upcoming prequel movie), it was decided it would be more cost effective and easier all around to just surgically alter Matt Damon.

The first reworked episode, "Balance of Terror," will begin airing September 16. Check your local listings.

A rocket which will blast the ashes of Star Trek star James Doohan into space has had its take-off delayed because of engine trouble.

The Falcon One was to take the remains of Doohan, who played engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott aboard the fictional Starship Enterprise, from California into space next month but the launch is now scheduled for January instead.

Charles Chafer of Space Services Inc says, "They had an engine test they didn't like so they will do another month of testing."

George Takei, who as helmsman Sulu steered the Starship Enterprise through three television seasons and six movies, has come out as a homosexual in the current issue of Frontiers, a biweekly Los Angeles magazine covering the gay and lesbian community.

Takei told The Associated Press on Thursday that his new onstage role as psychologist Martin Dysart in "Equus," helped inspire him to publicly discuss his sexuality.

[...]

"The world has changed from when I was a young teen feeling ashamed for being gay," he said. "The issue of gay marriage is now a political issue. That would have been unthinkable when I was young."

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I'm guessing this is not a big discovery for his friends and family if he's been with a guy for 18 years, but now I'm wondering what happens with his career. Does the Federation have a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy?