Star Trek Bachelor Party

by Jarrah Hodge

Dear Roberto Orci,

I know a lot of Trek fans were upset about you being named the frontrunner to direct the Star Trek movie. There were objections to your lack of really any directorial experience, your antagonistic relationship with fans, and your involvement with two Trek movies that really sold out the female characters.

You’ve said, “I can’t claim to be an expert on feminism,” and I have to say, I was not at all shocked to hear that. But I’m not here to bust your chops.

I’m sure you have something to offer the franchise, so what I’m going to suggest is that you leave the third reboot movie in order to take on a Trek project that would be much more up your alley:

You are going to make the movie version of the 1984 DC comic Star Trek: Bachelor Party!

Don’t tell me that doesn’t inspire you. J.J. would’ve been all over it!

Now I don’t expect you’re necessarily familiar with this comic book, so let me set the scene a bit.

The comic was written by Peter David, with penciling by Tom Sutton, and inking by Ricardo Villagran. It takes place in the part of a larger arc about Federation conflict with the Klingons, but don’t worry: it also has a half-naked green dancing girl popping out of a cake, and a lot of very manly drunken brawling.

Konom is a Klingon Starfleet officer who’s engaged to marry human Ensign Nancy Bryce.

The action in the book starts right away as Scotty and Chekov kidnap him to his surprise bachelor party.

Konom is not familiar with the idea of a bachelor party. We later learn in Deep Space Nine that Klingons have their own form of bachelor party, called Kal’Hyah, but I’m sure you won’t mind messing with canon just a little.

Scotty, Chekov, Sulu and McCoy explain the idea and it turns out that the passage of two centuries and the influence of countless alien cultures has had zero effect on the human tradition of bachelor parties. They’re still about getting the guys together to celebrate the groom’s “freedom” by getting trashed and collectively ogling scantily-clad women before the groom is “tied down” in marriage.

Ok, there is actually one difference: Kirk has said there is to be no alcohol at this bachelor party. But Scotty, Chekov, and McCoy independently decide to spike the punch.

I have to pause at this point because you’re sure to notice this comic book takes place a little later in the Enterprise’s mission. Everyone’s a little older and you’re going to need some different actors for a different style of film.

May I suggest: Ed Helms as Chekov, Seth McFarlane as McCoy, and Owen Wilson as Scotty. After all, Wilson basically already has Scotty’s haircut from the original movies and I’m sure he can pull off a bad Scottish accent.

And I think Zach Galifianakis is the obvious choice to play Konom.

Casting Kirk is going to be more of a challenge. If you go with how he’s drawn in the book, you have to find a way to get Ted Danson looking the same age he does today, but with the same hair he wore in Cheers.

Back to the story. Things are about to get freaky at the bachelor party when robots wheel in a giant cake and men of all races, shapes and sizes (seriously, there are beavers in Starfleet uniforms) watch as a universal ideal of womanly sexuality pops out!

“The Unforgettable Geena” dances to the accompaniment of Scotty’s bagpipes, which strikes me as possibly the musical equivalent of a cold shower, but Geena’s green gyrations seem to more than compensate.

And then, the surprise twist! Geena is actually fiancée Nancy painted green! That means they were all just fantasizing and drooling over a fellow officer, which is marginally better than her being an Orion slave that they brought aboard the Enterprise. Of course at least some of them thought she was a slave and were apparently fine with that.

Anyway, the rest of the ladies in the crew, by helping make up Nancy as an Orion slave girl, have now “earned the right to crash [the] haven of masculinity” that is the bachelor party (props to the comic writers for at least recognizing that is what it was), but I don’t notice any of the guys offering to paint themselves green.

Can I make a special request that you just cut Uhura from this part? Uhura is too great a character to be in any story so bad. Or she can hang out on the bridge with Spock, who appears on only one page of the comic, on the bridge, disapproving of the party.

Back at the party we learn alcohol is bad, but also funny. It makes Sulu recite poetry to the worst-drawn version of Caitian M’Ress I have ever seen. Is she a lion? Is she a hedgehog? Who’s to say? You are, Roberto Orci.

It also makes Konom really growly at his fiancée and her friend.

Ensign Bearclaw, also drunk, steps in to defend the friend, though he makes it clear it’s cool if, “You can insult [Nancy] Bryce all you want. That’s fine. I don’t like her, either. But you lay off Ensign Sherwood.”

From there, the party devolves into an out-and-out brawl, fueled by racial divides among the crew.

Dang, that’s manly.

And then Kirk walks in and gets hit by a flying bottle.

Now, you’re going to need to do some work on the ending, which is basically just Kirk giving everyone a lecture for “feelings that have no place in an enlightened society…and certainly no place in this crew.” Sexy, green, potentially-enslaved women in cakes? No problem.

But the lecture might be a bad way to end this kind of movie. I mean, calling out racism is an important message, but how can you end on a lighter note and let Kirk come off as more of a bro and less of a cranky dad?

When you were answering critiques of the Carol Marcus bra scene in Into Darkness, you and J.J. said it was okay because Kirk was also half-naked in both movies. Sure, it was a false equivalence, and objectifying men doesn’t actually make objectifying women somehow better.

But what the heck, let’s paint Kirk green and make him jump out of a cake.

I will make this happen for whatever you got paid for Into Darkness.

LLAP

Jarrah Hodge
Trekkiefeminist.tumblr.com

Jarrah Hodge is the founder and editor of the Gender Focus blog which looks at politics, pop culture, and current events from an anti-racist feminist perspective. Gender Focus aims to showcase news and opinion relating to issues of social inequality, stereotyping and representations of marginalized groups in society, and the intersections between gender and public policy. In 2011 and 2012 Gender Focus was named the “Best Feminist Blog” in the juried Canadian Weblog Awards. Jarrah has B.A. in Women’s Studies and Sociology from UBC, and has written for the Huffington Post, Bitch Magazine Blogs, the Vancouver Observer and About-Face.

On Jarrah’s secondary blog, Trekkie Feminist, she does in-depth analysis of Star Trek and feminism. Jarrah is a featured panelist at conventions discussing feminism relating to Star Trek and sci-fi. Connect with Jarrah on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.

by Deyvid