Star Trek (2009) - Fanlore

The Star Trek movieverse fandom (Star Trek XI, Star Trek Reboot, or AOS on ASC ^[1]) took off rapidly after the film's release, attracting both fans of the original series, and people new to the franchise.

The movie takes place in an alternate timeline, and does not affect the preexisting Star Trek canon during the TOS era, though the destruction of Romulus and the older Spock's travel to the alternate timeline do impact the non-reboot Trek universe after that point in time.

Pairings

Kirk/Spock is the most popular pairing in Star Trek: The Original Series, and a classic slash pairing. Kirk/Spock is also popular in the movieverse fandom, although it doesn't dominate the fandom. Traditionally, name order in pairings is determined by rank, with Kirk/Spock being shortened to K/S. Some movieverse fans have embraced portmanteaux such as "Spirk" and "Kock." ^[2]

Kirk/McCoy is another popular slash ship. (The Kirk/McCoy ship comm on LJ has over 1900 members as of January 2010, slightly more than kirkspock, both of which are open to TOS as well as XI in principle). Sulu/Chekov also has a small but active fandom. (about 650 members in the main LJ comm in Jan 2010)

The most popular het ship is Spock/Uhura. While some fans noted flirtatious moments between Spock and Uhura in TOS^[3], a romantic relationship is new, and unique to the movie's canon. The Spock/Uhura Shippers community is highly active, with more than 1000 members as of May 2009, over 1800 members in January 2010.

However, many of the most active communities are open for all pairings as well as gen such as the st_reboot LJ Comm (slightly over 2300 members in January 2010) or the very popular first Reboot kink meme community st_xi_kink [1] that ran for fifteen rounds (closed October 2009).

Conflict

While many TOS fans welcomed newcomers, others regard movieverse fans with dislike. ^{[4] [5]}

Uhura has been heavily criticized by some segments of fandom. Some fans feel that Uhura is nothing more than "The Girl," and serves no purpose outside of her romance with Spock. Other fans claim that Uhura is nothing more than a Mary Sue (some people having gone so far as to call her a "whore"). ^{[6] [7] [8]} However, Rawles pointed out in a recent meta essay that the "reduced to The Girlfriend" interpretation ignores the fact that "Nyota Uhura is not a white girl"; during (but not limited to) the era of the original show's run, black women were not seen as legitimate objects of romantic interest, so Uhura's relationship with Spock represents a step forward.^[9]

There has been conflict between the slash shippers, those who ship Kirk/Spock vs Kirk/McCoy or Spock/Uhura. With the former, the movie had built Kirk and McCoy as best friends that many new fans caught the subtext and made them become a popular ship. With the latter, Spock is in a canon relationship with Uhura (leaving out Kirk).

Something about SEE here, a way to promote LGBT issues by pushing for a gay couple in the next movie, but is/became an ill disguised attempt to make Kirk/Spock canon.

Communities

For a list of STXI communities see: Star Trek (2009)/Communities

Notes

1. ↑ ADMIN: Request For Comment Codes as a result of Star Trek (2009) (Accessed May 20, 2009)
2. ↑ I kind of miss the days when everyone knew the difference between "P/C" and "C/P." (Accessed May 20, 2009)
3. ↑ Why Spock/Uhura now? 'Tis a tradition. (Accessed May 21, 2009)
4. ↑ Teenagers Who Have Recently Seen Star Trek. (Accessed May 20, 2009)
5. ↑ At the Star Trek Fandom In General. (Accessed May 20, 2009)
6. ↑ Because all the Uhura bashing is pissing me off. (Accessed May 20, 2009)
7. ↑ On Uhura and the whole "Mary Sue" thing. (Accessed May 20, 2009)
8. ↑ So, there's one thing about Star Trek XI fandom. (Accessed May 20, 2009)
9. ↑ now that we've got that clear, and you know that i'm not here... (Accessed August 19, 2009)