The highest-grossing movies of this summer have been comic-book adaptations. Think Hollywood invented Iron Man? Hellboy? Batman? The Hulk? Please. Tinsel Town writers have been mining the most hallowed trusts of geekdom for their latest blockbusters, and comic books aren’t the only film fodder.
Audiences still want to believe in Fox Mulder and Dana Scully: X-Files has returned to the big screen. The next Harry Potter movie is in production. Trailers for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek are taking that franchise in enterprising directions. There’s even an animated Star Wars film on the way—one that has fans shrugging and saying, “It’s got to be better than Episode I.”
On top of all that, Japanese manga now has its own section at major bookstores, the cult of Mac probably has more followers than Joseph Smith (and don’t forget that Jedi is a recognized religion), and Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro have been discussing a return to hobbits and wizards with a movie version of The Hobbit.
The geek have inherited the Earth.
Long the butt of jokes, scorn, and occasional low-grade violence—wedgies, anyone?—geeks have seen their numbers swell in recent years. But is it because more people are willing to publicly embrace their inner Spock? Or is the geek net being cast in wider and wider circles?
Maybe it’s a little of both. Director Christopher Nolan’s reinvention of the Batman franchise, for instance, brought eager fans out of their darkened hiding places and into the sunlight (and back into darkened theaters), as well as captured attention from mainstream audiences.
Or take the popular TV series Lost. You may not want to admit it, but the island and all of its attendant polar bears and force fields and time warps is primetime sci-fi. Then there’s Heroes, set up in blatant comic-book-frame format. And if you haven’t at least heard of Superman’s days as Clark Kent in Smallville, you’re not really paying attention. We at the Sun, however, have been, and we’ve sensed that the world is as ready to accept us as it’s ever going to be.
Yes, we are geeks. We have action figures galore—they cover our desks and shelves and windowsills. Large cardboard cutouts of Aragorn and Gandalf from Lord of the Rings guard the corners of the office. Two of our writers recently attended Comic-Con in San Diego, a long weekend of autographs, panels, previews, costumes, merchandise, and more. One of us even has a Tree of Gondor tattooed on his forearm. We’re talking serious geek cred.
So in celebration of this, the geekiest of summers in recent memory, we’ve decided to open our lives to you, our readers. All we ask is that you don’t judge us for our fanatic tendencies. After all, we’re pretty sure that you’ve got a little geek blood pulsing through your own veins. Excited about The Watchmen’s debut in 2009? Planning on picking 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 on your next lotto ticket? Think that The Joker was Heath Ledger’s crowning role? Happy that Gambit will be appearing in the next X-Men film? Did you sing along with Dr. Horrible?
And, most importantly, did you get one or more of those references without having to ask someone what we’re talking about?
Yeah, you’re one of us.
Ryan Miller and Star Trek
Vandenberg Air Force Base, according to rumor, was set to be the launching point for James “Scotty” Doohan’s ashes. While I mourned the loss of a Star Trek icon at the actor’s death in 2005, I was excited at the prospect of attending the ceremony. I was—and still am, I suppose—a Trekkie.
After hitting a few dead ends, however, I gave up my attempts to cover the launch and ultimately learned that the memorial space flight took off from somewhere in New Mexico in 2007. Some reports I recently found—on the Internet, so believe them at your peril—announced that more of his ashes were scheduled to head into space from the Kwajalein Atoll this summer. No Vandenberg, though.
I was disappointed. The Central Coast isn’t inhospitable to a geek such as myself, but opportunities to connect with actors, creators, and other fans aren’t as prolific as tribbles. Still, I’ve had a string of encounters good enough to make at least a mid-level geek envious: I’ve toured the Santa Maria-based CafeFX workspace and seen the beginnings of special effects for a few blockbusters. I ran into actors Billy Boyd (Lord of the Rings) and Dominic Monaghan (Lord of the Rings, Lost) at Best Buy in Santa Maria a few years ago. I once drove to Santa Barbara to get author Ray Bradbury’s autograph. A memorial space launch for a sci-fi legend would have made the list a little longer.
I must say, though, that as a confirmed Trekkie, I’ve been to enough conventions—many in costume—to rack up an impressive set of anecdotes and autographs. So I’m not too disappointed.
I do, however, regret that I didn’t travel south from Santa Maria for this year’s Comic-Con in San Diego. The stories that our staffers brought back convinced me to nab some tickets for next year.
Sarah Thien and Harry Potter
Inside the convention center at Comic-Con International, it’s easy to be a geek. Surrounded by superheroes and monsters, no one noticed the wand I was carrying, except to look at me with warning if I waved it near their eyes. (It was so crowded in there, I almost blinded at least three convention-goers.)
But step outside the confines of the Con (as we geeks call it) and venture out onto the streets of San Diego and your true geek mettle is tested. At this point, you have two choices: Put the wand away and try to blend, or let your freak flag fly. And fly it did, in my case, all the way to a nice sit-down restaurant near the waterfront.
In the end, though, no one at the eatery was really looking at my brother Chris and me in our Harry Potter costumes—they were too busy gawking at the Star Wars stormtrooper patiently waiting for a table. To be fair, we were looking, too. There’s something about a stormtrooper waiting to be seated … now that’s funny.
It’s not a secret that I’m a huge Harry Potter fan. What was a slightly better kept secret is the fact that I’m also obsessed with sci-fi and fantasy in general. Think Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, etc. What I learned the weekend of July 25 is that I’m not alone.
In the 39 years since Comic-Con began, the convention has never completely sold out —until now. About 125,000 people showed up for the Con this year, and they weren’t there just for the comics. Every genre was represented, from mainstream fare—like The Office and 24—to tried-and-true geek favorites.
Just to let you know, in my normal everyday life, my geek level sits firmly at an eight out of 10. At the Con, I was a comparative four—maybe. It was great. In this crowd, I didn’t have to explain that I read kids’ books to escape from reality, that I watch sci-fi because I live in and report on the real world, and I don’t need to see any more of it. I didn’t have to explain any of this, because these people knew and they felt the same way.
I discovered Harry Potter just a few years before graduating from college. On a break from school, I went home for a visit and found the first book lying in my parent’s living room, abandoned by a little brother too young to appreciate its charms. I stayed up all night and read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone cover to cover.
In the years since, that series has lasted me through college and the start of my career. It’s given me an outlet, something fun to look forward to, and something harmless to distract me from real-life stresses.
And while the economy is in the gutter and the real world seems to get more and more depressing each day, what’s the harm in escaping for a few days into the realms of geekdom? I know I had fun at Comic-Con. So much fun that I plan to return next year, with my little brother Chris, my sister Emily, and my other brother Joe. We can all let our geek flags fly for a day.
Plus, I have to get back to the place where it’s okay to carry a wand around. That was a kick.
Amy Asman and X-Files
Entering the San Diego Convention Center, it feels like I’m exploring another planet. Thousands of sc-fi enthusiasts swarm around me—some dressed in the standard nerd uniform of all black, others decked out in costume, barely recognizable as humans.
Part of me wants to run away as fast as I can. The air is sweltering and stagnant, and I have to stare at the ceiling to figure out where I’m going. But another part of me feels completely at home, seduced by a strange sense of belonging.
The truth is, I can’t claim too much “otherness.” Underneath my seemingly normal exterior beats the heart of a full-blown geek.
At the DC Comics booth, as I patiently stand in line to meet X-Files creator Chris Carter and writer/producer Frank Spotnitz, I fondly recall my inauguration into the world of geekdom.
It was the fall of 1993. I was 8 years old. One of my friends had invited me to a sleepover. A little before 9 p.m., after raiding the pantry for popcorn and ginger ale, the other girls and I huddled around the television set to watch what our adolescent host called “a really cool show about FBI agents, aliens, and stuff.”
An eerie silence filled the room as we sat in the darkness, our eyes big as saucers, watching the spooky story slowly unravel before us.
Halfway through the show, somewhere between Mulder and Scully unearthing a shriveled up, ape-like corpse and a girl spurting copious amounts of blood out of her nose, I decided that The X-Files was not for me.
Through bursts of frenzied tears, I begged the other girls to turn it off. When they laughingly refused, I spent the rest of the hour hiding under a blanket with my fingers crammed in my ears.
Though I laugh about it now, this was admittedly not one of my finer moments as an X-Phile. That’s right, I’m an X-Phile. Ironically, the sniveling little girl who couldn’t bear to watch Mulder (David Duchonvy) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) on their first big adventure grew up to become one of the show’s rabidly devoted fans.
For those of you who have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, let me explain.
From 1993 to 2002, The X-Files basically formed the roots of modern sci-fi and crime-based television. The story is told through the eyes of two FBI agents: one, a believer (Mulder; a gifted psychological profiler who, as a boy, witnessed the abduction—alien or otherwise—of his younger sister) and the other a skeptic (Dana Scully; a perfectly coifed Navy-brat-turned forensic pathologist who, against her parents’ wishes, left medical school to join the FBI).
Armed with guns, badges, and a healthy dose of Unresolved Sexual Tension (UST in fanfic speak), the duo traveled across the country investigating cases of paranormal phenomenon. From alien bounty hunters to fluke worms to werewolves to Mexican goatsuckers, Mulder and Scully saw it all. Still, as much as I loved the mystery and suspense expertly woven into each storyline, it was the mystical dynamic between Mulder and Scully themselves that made me a true Believer.
The relationship had a balance of intelligence, respect, and, yes, even romance that I had never seen before on television. And the sarcastic, innuendo-laced banter between the two was electric. For a sentimentally romantic, geeky teenybopper like me, Mulder and Scully were like the sci-fi Romeo and Juliet of the 1990s.
Eventually, I am pulled out of my silent stroll down memory lane to come face to face with the men who started it all: Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz.
Suddenly, my throat goes dry, and the endless stream of questions that’s been swirling through my brain ceases. I smile and push a movie poster under Frank’s hovering Sharpie.
Finally, I ask, “Where do you get your inspiration?”
“I don’t know,” he says with a mischievous smile. “It’s a complete mystery to me.”
Chris is equally vague: “I don’t know. What did he say? The truth is out there.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is an X-File in itself.
Lord of the Rings and Joe Payne
I first heard about The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien when I was in junior high school, right around when the first of the Peter Jackson films was about to come out. I read The Hobbit before the films opened, and The Lord of the Rings after that. I was immediately fascinated by the series, but couldn’t fully appreciate it—not until high school did I realize that Middle Earth was much more than elves, dwarves, and wizards.
Geeking out on some form of media isn’t always bad. Many stories speak truth through fiction. Tolkien’s books don’t just bide my time with distraction, they inspire me into action. In his universe, Tolkien gives the natural world a voice of its own, through the Ent Treebeard, which completely opened my mind to the way our world works. Maybe trees do talk, we just can’t understand them. Maybe it’s just been that long since we tried to listen.
In the books, Treebeard leads an army to where the corrupted white wizard Saruman has been building great furnaces and gears of war to equip his evil goblin army. This type of imagery—nature wreaking its vengeance on the industrialist—makes me think only of today and the current state of our planet’s ecosystems, the human race’s industrial might, and the many natural disasters plaguing the planet.
To that end, I keep the book’s themes in my mind and regularly ask myself: What would Gandalf do?
Shelly Cone and Star Wars
When I was a kid, I had a crush on a boy simply because he played Han Solo in our daily Star Wars game. I, of course, was Princess Leia. Then we stopped acting out the game and I realized he was just the chubby kid from next door. My crush may have faded, but my love for Star Wars never did.
In all reality, I should hate the Star Wars universe. It’s long and dramatic and requires more than just a short attention span. But leave it to George Lucas to make a story about war, politics, and the struggle between good and evil sexy. Oh, wait, Han Solo had a little to do with that, as well.
Even without a snarky smuggler with roguish good looks, the story is one of the most intricate and greatest told, exploring the dark side while offering the hope of the good side.
I guess that’s why when I have a bad day, I pop in any of the Star Wars movies, grab a blanket and a bowl of ice cream, and suddenly having the water turned off because someone forgot to pay the bill doesn’t seem as bad as finding out your father is an evil Sith Lord.
Getting lost in another galaxy is one of my secret indulgences, and Lucas is a genius for creating this universe—and for casting Harrison Ford as Han—but especially for enlightening us to The Force. I often have to call on my own mastery of it at times of imminent need—like when I’m driving on cruise control and I need the light to turn green before I reach it.
Inevitably, I have imbued in my children (one of whom, for a minute, was going to be named Luke) the love of all things Star Wars. It’s a good thing, too, because my three young Padawan are the best excuses I have for seeing the new animated Star Wars movie this summer.
INFOBOX: What are you, a nerd?
The term “geek” once applied to people who bit the heads off of live animals at circuses and freak shows. Many less-gory definitions now abound, but the closest to an all-encompassing descriptor seems to be: A person who’s practically single-mindedly focused on a particular subject (computers, the Civil War, Battlestar Galactica) even to the detriment of popularity and a social life.
Geek out with Executive Editor Ryan Miller at rmiller@santamariasun.com, Sports Editor Sarah Thien at sthien@santamariasun.com, Staff Writer Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com, Calendar Editor Joe Payne at jpayne@santamarisaun.com, and Arts Editor Shelly Cone at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 7, 2008.