The Long Spear

Vid
Title:	The Long Spear
Creator:	jmtorres,niqaeli, traykor, echan, and grey_bard
Date:	2009
Format:
Length:	3:47 minutes
Music:	"The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel, with additional musical snippets from earlier Star Trek fanvids, plus one verse sung by fans
Genre:	metavid
Fandom:	Star Trek
Footage:	Star Trek: TOS & Star Trek: Reboot, original footage of fans, actors and President Obama
URL:	original vid announcement. photo collage near the end of the vid of actors, fans and President Obama giving the Vulcan salute
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The Long Spear is a Star Trek vid by "jmtorres, niqaeli, et al." The vid, which premiered at Vividcon in 2009, combines footage from both Star Trek: TOS with Star Trek: Reboot, along with original footage of fans, actors and yes, President Obama.

The vidder explains the song's title as follows: in literature we discuss how sequels or other works emotionally echo their original source material. These later works "are that sharp point on the long spear, they have an emotional impact because of the history of the other novels they carry. I consider the Star Trek: Reboot movie to be the sharp point" of all of Star Trek.

The vid was widely received by fans as a meta commentary on vidding and fandom as well as how deeply the Star Trek mythos has become part of our shared culture. A few viewers commented that the inclusion of outside audio source (at one point the Simon and Garfunkel song fades and the last verse is taken up by the vidders themselves) distanced them from the vid and the message. To others this was a minor quibble.

One commentator said she hadn't understood why the vidders had chosen this song for their vid, as the initial verses sung by Simon & Garfunkel didn't have any clear connection to either Star Trek or fandom in general. But when she heard the vidder singing the last verse, the song choice became clear to her:

"Now the years are rolling by me, they are rockin evenly,

I am older than I once was,

And younger than I'll be, that's not unusual.

No, it isn't strange, after changes upon changes,

We are more or less the same,

After changes, we are more or less the same."

A year after the vid's premiere at Vividcon 2009 the vidders released their editing notes.

Opening Sequence Gallery

Although it is not often discussed, even the vid's opening sequence positions the viewer to understand that media fandom - and media fandom women in particular - have something to say about Star Trek and our culture. By the end of the vid, the viewer will understand that women have been saying "it" for the past 40 years, and this vid is the latest in that long line of voices.

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  title card from the vid. It reads "The Long Spear, a Star Trek vid to Simon & Garfunkel's The Boxer"

• 

  The next scene reads: "but also hear these women's voices..." and lists fans, the USS Enterprise (often referred to as a "she" on the show) and female songwriters, ending with "Fandom" at the bottom

• 

  The names fade away, leaving only that of the USS Enterprise. The ship's computer can be heard addressing Captain Kirk, saying "Computed and recorded, dear."

• 

  The voice of Captain Kirk, angrily ordering the computer: "Computer, you will not address me in that manner. Compute."

• 

  The computer's sarcastic response? "Computed, dear." The screen fades to black and the song begins.

Reactions/Reviews

• "Oh gosh, I absolutely adore the weight of the history you've filled this vid with, how it feels both nostalgic and endless, like there's all that's come before and yet more to come in the future."
• "I think there are valid criticisms of this vid, namely that the ending with the different audio tracks and the fan singing is kind of jarring and awkward, and that the last section of the vid, where it tries to encapsulate previous Trek vids, doesn't work nearly as well as the middle, but overall I don't mind too much because I love the concept and I love a lot of things about the execution. The idea that the new Trek movie is the point of a long spear, that it carries all this history and feeling and oh god HISTORY behind it . . . that's beautiful. Like Sleeping With Ghosts, it's about how the Treks echo back on each other, but it takes that idea much, much further. Oh god, when Dax is dressed up in the beehive and red miniskirt in "Trials and Tribble-ations," and it's about how Trek loves itself and its history as much as we do . . . ! I love the middle section where it expands into all the Treks, and I almost can't keep up with how much I love so many of those Trek characters and Trek moments; I also unabashedly love the montage of Vulcan salutes, and I love that Obama is in there."
• "Wow!!! I feel like we need to add a postscript to Francesca's essay, because this? This is her argument in a nutshell. or rather, the response, the taking back of that female missing voice, not only in fic but in a gorgeously self-reflexive, self-aware tour de force through 40 years of Star Trek, 40 years of fandom, 40 years of *us*! The comments on the female computer voice comes back to us in the end when [Simon & Garfunkel's] song suddenly is carried by a female voice, and the ST ethos and mythology we see in the middle of the vid extend into all the sequels only to come back to STR doesn't remain in the fictional ST verse but extends into all out lives...those shots of people--famous and not--are marvelous, showing the impact of this show not just on us...but it comes back to us...very much so :) Just...wow!!! There are sometimes vids where I feel like I can write a 20 page paper or I can just hand someone a particular vid, because all of it is RIGHT THERE. This is one of those vids!!! Thank you :)"
• "The history and the hope in this vid make me flail with joy. I had to watch it twice immediately to get a *few* more of the parallels between the series and the zillion moments of joy. The second time through, at the end, I paused a lot to get a better handle on all the pictures that make up Trek fandom and its place in culture. Everyone from fangirls to the President knows and owns and loves a part of [Star Trek], and as you have demonstrated, we can all play with it and make it better."
• "The parallels there are amazing and you all did such a brilliant job with it that I'm blown away. I'm curious about why you chose to switch the music around at the end to so many different songs, I found it jarring because it was so unexpected (I don't think I've ever seen a vid with >1 song) but just ... wow. I don't think you could possibly have fit all those years of Trek and pop culture in any better!"
• "This is a complex, thinky vid that weaves the Trek reboot and its fandom into the larger history of Trek. I watched it about ten times yesterday."
• "The Long Spear is a rather nice vid - general tribute to Star Trek as a whole, in the light of the new movie. In general, I'm not a fan of vids with additional sound added to the base song, and at first I really couldn't see why "The Boxer" was an appropriate choice - other than vaguely so for teenie-delinquent-rebootverse-Jim - but then they used the original final verse, which Simon and Garfunkel never recorded, and suddenly everything fell into place."