Creation Con Salutes Star Trek
| Star Trek Convention | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Creation Con Salutes Star Trek |
| Dates: | June 1989 |
| Frequency: | |
| Location: | Los Angeles Hilton |
| Type: | |
| Focus: | |
| Organization: | Creation Con |
| Founder: | |
| Founding Date: | |
| URL: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Creation Con Salutes Star Trek was a for-profit Star Trek convention put on by Creation Con.
Guests
William Shatner, George Takei, Mark Lenard, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Marina Sirtis, Jonathan Frakes, Walter Koenig, Gene Roddenberry, Majel Barrett, Spice Williams, Susan Sackett, Todd Bryant (Klaa in ST5), Cynthia Gouw (Calthlin Dar in ST5), Guy Vardeman and Richard Arnold, and more.
Art Portfolio
Chuck Frazier was the artist of an art portfolio offered there for sale.
Con Reports
AT THE LOS ANGELES HILTON JUNE '89! WITH GUESTS: WILLIAM SHATNER, GEORGE TAKEI, NICHELLE NICHOLS, JAMES DOOHAN, MARK LENARD, MARINA SIRTIS, JONATHAN FRAKES, GENE AND MAJEL, AND MORE AND MORE! That's a crowded 48 hours! The impressions are jammed door to door in my head and now I'm sitting in an Amtrak railways carriage behind a train that is hoisting itself up the Rockies while I try to remember it all.
There are guests, two whole days of them - one after another - from eleven in the morning until seven in the evening! It would take a whole newsletter to recall what everyone said and did but who can forget the demon tornado that is William Shatner live. He bursts on to the stage, brimming with energy, full of funny stories, engaging in a knock down match with the audience. He's devastating! The audience love it but no one dares to ask a serious question!
George Takei is as dapper as ever with a message of tolerance for the future and the story of his parents’ internment during the last war. Jimmy Doohan gives a full throated rendering of "Captain, there be whales here!" Walter Koenig, declaims that although he is "not a company man" he enjoyed making ST, and thought the director was sensitive and considerate to the actors (this was the general verdict, it seemed). He says, though, that he does not think ST5 is as good as ST4. Mark Lenard, witty as always, gives us, by popular request "the red telephone story", plus an update on his planned two-hander with Walter Koenig Called "The Boys in Autumn", it shows Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn as middle-aged men and is still in the planning stages.
Nichelle Nichols looks simply stunning, having lost weight especially for the movie. She tells us of the agonies of working with Spice Williams (who plays the Klingon, Vixis). One of the highlights of the con comes when she tells us how she meant to leave the cast in the early days, frustrated by, "Hailing frequencies open", but was persuaded to remain by Martin Luther King because as Uhura, a black woman doing a responsible job, she was playing a new and vital role in the movement. She says she's very happy with the character development in the film.
Spice Williams is a body builder, had boundless energy, and a bright Californian tan. (A sunbed tan, she tells us, for the movie.) She regales us with tales of learning Klingonese and the work she had to do to get the part. Both she and Charles Cooper, a Hollywood veteran (hope he doesn’t mind me saying that) who worked with Hitchcock and who plays General Korrd obviously enjoyed their time on the ST5 set and are clearly having great fun at the con.
The appearance of Marina Sirtis is a surprise if you think she’s like the reserved, intense character she plays. Marina is... frizzy is the only word. If the fans ask silly questions she tells them! And if they ask the same thing twice she tells them off for not listening. The fans love it but a man leaves in the middle of her talk.
She yells, "Oi, where are you going?"
"My wife’s having a baby!"
She stands staring after him. "His wife’s having a baby and he’s at a Star Trek con!"
Another surprise comes with Jonathan Frakes. "Hugs are us!” he roars, crashing on stage, hugging armfuls of happy fans. “Kisses are us!" The fans are ecstatic. Another star with demon energy.
Gene and Majel have the last spot. Fans ask the same unanswerable questions. "Will there be more Klingons in STNG... more Vulcans... more of Q?" Each time the same polite answer: it depends on the writers. Gene says, perhaps a little tiredly, that he wishes people would leave him in peace to get on with the lob of entertaining the fans. He announces that Diane Muldaur will he leaving the series and Gates McFadden will be returning. He explains that a tension had been lost in the series which they wanted to restore.
After all this there is still the evening cabaret. We abandon this (and an enormous queue) and go to dinner with some friends.
Now the hardened con-goers among you might at this stage be muttering about professional cons and the contrast with the 'amateur' variety and I understand there has been some controversy of late in another fandom on this issue. So without taking sides, here are a few observations! Creation Cons are run to make money. They are run efficiently and they provide one factor of the 'con scene' in abundance: guest at era. (Especially at this con which is the biggest, an annual bash). (In addition to the list above were Susan Sackett, Todd Bryant (Klaa in ST5), Cynthia Gouw (Calthlin Dar in ST5), Guy Vardeman and Richard Arnold as well as a vary effective group of stuntmen who gave a demonstration!) There is also a film room and the largest dealers' room you can imagine. If you put together all the dealers' rooms of all the cons that have ever been held in Britain, you get the idea? On the other hand, it was necessary to queue each day for seats in the hall (the LA Hilton put their three ballrooms together) if you wanted to get anywhere near the front. Some fans did not go to bed on Saturday night, they began queueing at 1 am. This led to people keeping seats for others and the resultant outrage of those who had been waiting since the early hours. With some thought about a seat numbering system of some kind, all this might be avoided.
At a professionally run con, fan access to the guests (with some exceptions) is limited to their formal appearances. But you do get to see them. There is no fan run programme of talks and discussions or evening activities (the cabaret was a first at this con) and if you are very shy it might be difficult to make friends, but sit down in a queue and someone is sure to talk to you. Americans are more immediately convertible than we are, perhaps. There are no name badges which I did find a drawback, for the shy it means you have to introduce yourself and you can't search for names of people whose stories you have read. The dealers' room might be huge but I wasn't much tempted. Almost all the merchandise had a similarity about it and moat of the dealers were professionals (they don't display their names either). There were some fan dealers, who mostly shared tables. The cost of a table here was $200. [1]