Nimoy's Talk at NSS - Article and Video

Media Blvd Magazine just published a story about Nimoy's talk at the National Space Symposium. It has a great recap of some of the stories and jokes that he told, and off to the right has video of him actually giving the speech. Definitely worth taking a look at!

Also, it looks like I got the chance to meet him just in time - he's now retiring from acting, and even from the convention circuit! (Star Trek fans in mourning as Leonard Nimoy announces his retirement)

Anyway, here's the article:

Nimoy Receives High Honor From The Space Community
(Media Blvd) April 21, 2010, By Kenn Gold
Leonard Nimoy, best known as the iconic half-Vulcan, half-human Spock from Star Trek was given the 2010 Douglas S. Morrow public outreach award last week by the Space Foundation.  In front of a crowd made up largely of NASA and DOD space scientists and engineers, and aerospace company executives, Nimoy was the honored speaker at the award ceremony and dinner held on the final night of the 26th National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

He spoke of the good memories of being with the rest of the Star Trek cast in 1976 in the Mojave desert as the space shuttle Enterprise rolled out.  “It was thrilling to be there,” he said.  A mail in campaign by Star Trek fans had led to the naming of the shuttle after the star ship from the series.

Nimoy says that people often confuse actors with the characters they play, but that he is not a scientist, though he recognizes that the cast members of the series are role models, and is proud of that fact.  He related an experience from a few years ago when he was invited to speak at Caltech, and then was given a tour of the projects that the students were working on.  “I met some of the very brilliant young people, 20, 21, 22 years old, working on extremely sophisticated projects.  And they were explaining these things to me.  It was not my language!  I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about, but I nodded very sagely, stroked my chin a little bit and was very thoughtful.  They said, “What do you think?”  And I said, “You’re on the right track.”

Nimoy attributes the shows popularity, in part, to the real life NASA space race, and to the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing.  “It had a great impact on the Star Trek reruns.  I think people began to look at Star Trek in a new and different way.  There seemed to be a potential reality to what we were doing,” he said.  Instead of drifting away, the show became even more popular, which would lead to the future film franchise, and multiple television spin offs.  “The show began to find a tremendous new audience,” he said.

Nimoy spoke of the return of the movie franchise as a result of the popularity of the reruns of Star Trek, but acknowledges that the first film has its problems.  “We did three seasons.  People are shocked that we only did three seasons, but that’s all it was in 1966, 67 and 68.  Then we shut down and were out of business for awhile, for 11 years.  Eleven years later, as a result of the success of the Star Trek reruns, and as a result of the success of George Lucas’ Star Wars, Paramount woke up and said let’s do a Star Trek Movie.  So in 1979, we did Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  And frankly, it was not our best effort,” he said.

He agreed to a death scene in Wrath of Khan, thinking that the movie was going to be a low budget take on the Star Trek saga, and wouldn’t be very good.  “I thought, “We’re going to scrape the barrel and turn out a cheap Star Trek movie, how good can that be?  Ok, I’ll go out as a hero and save the crew and the ship, and go out in a blaze of glory.”  So we began working on the second film, and obviously, it was going to be a good one.  The script was good, the direction was good.  And we were all having fun, and were back to the kind of chemistry that we had when we were doing our best television work.  So I thought, maybe I might have made a mistake,” he said.

After seeing the second film, Nimoy thought he had made a mistake in letting Spock die, but was hopeful after seeing the final scene with his burial tube in tact, that he would be around for more feature films.  “And sure enough, they called me and said, we’d love you to be involved in the next Star Trek movie, and I said, “Thank you very much, I’d love the opportunity to direct, and they let me.   I did two of them, Star Trek 3 and Star Trek 4.  It was in 4 where people think maybe Bill tried to drown me, I’m not sure.  Anyway, we had a great time.  We made six of them, then the next generation took over,” he said.

null Working with J.J. Abrams was a high point for Nimoy, and he is very grateful that the franchise was re-invented.  He also spoke of his work on Fringe, and gave some ominous hints to the future of William Bell.  “Now I’m doing some occasional work on the Fringe television series.  It’s a darn good show, very well produced, and I just finished some work in Vancouver about there days ago, which will be on the air in May.  Watch for it, I think you will enjoy it.  It’s some very interesting work.  My character, William Bell meets up with Walter, and we have a very interesting process that we have to work out together,” he said.

Nimoy is happy with his career, and was honored by the award he received.  “I’ve had a great, great, great time.  As far as the honor issue is concerned, here I am tonight honored by the Space Technology Hall of Fame.  How much more honored does it get.  I’m a very happy guy.  I believe in living a creative life.  I believe in bringing more to the party than is required or asked for.  I believe in showing up and using both sides of the brain,” he said.

At the end of his speech, as in the beginning, Nimoy was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd and a standing ovation as he said, “I thank you all, may you all live long and prosper.”  As CEOs, engineers, rocket scientists, military officers, and at least two astronauts (literally) rose, many with hands outstretched in the iconic V- Vulcan salute, Nimoy knew he was among friends.  And he knew that many of the people in the room were at least partially inspired in their own careers in the space field by his Mr. Spock and the rest of the Enterprise crew.Nimoy announces his retirement

The Room

I'm not sure how I've never heard of this before, but this movie, "The Room" is definitely one of the worst movies ever made. It's in the same category as Buckaroo Banzai and Zardoz... and it may ever surpass them in horrible-ness.

Jeff and I got together with Paul Colling and his friend, Kris. I'd gotten an intro to the movie similar to the one I included above. Apparently, it plays at the Uptown theater in Minneapolis one weekend each month as a midnight movie.

The movie has tons of plot holes, horrible acting, an extremely awkward script, and lots of other errors that they just don't bother to fix (more than once, the main character is called Tommy, his real name, rather than Johnny, the character's name).

People go to the midnight movie each month and yell things out at the screen, quote along with the movie, and throw spoons. Yep, throw spoons. There is a mantle in one of the (two) rooms in the movie that has a framed picture of a spoon. Whenever it comes onscreen, people yell "Spoon!" and toss plastic spoons at the screen.

I had a great time at the movie - its really is hilariously, painfully, unbelievably bad. And if you're considering seeing it, also be warned that it has sex scenes - and they are somewhat nauseating. That said, if you want to challenge yourself to make it through one of the worst movies ever, or if you can find a place that's showing it, and you know where to buy plastic spoons, I'd definitely check it out - it's quite the experience.

(And to anyone in DC reading this blog - it plays once a month at the E Street Cinema, and I will be planning a group outing.)

Visiting Friends

It's really difficult to visit all the people I'd like to see when I just visit Minnesota for a couple days, like I did last weekend. Luckily, I did get a chance to visit some really good friends.

Annette come over to visit on Saturday afternoon. We hung out a bit in the afternoon, and then went on a short trip to visit my friend Rachel.

Rachel, who is another friend from high school, had a baby since the last time I saw her. Her new son, Ari, is now about two and a half months old. He was tiny and adorable - he didn't cry at all the whole time we were visiting, even as Annette and I took turns holding him. So cute!

Jeff, Annette, and I then got Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner, and went back to my house where we chatted and hung out with my dad for a while. Fun evening!

Watching the Twins at Target Field

The Minnesota Twins new baseball stadium just opened this season - there have only been a handful of games played there so far. My brother was able to find tickets so that him, Emily, Jeff, and I could all go to the Saturday game against the Kansas City Royals.

It was a beautiful day - high sixties and sunny. It was pretty incredible to have outdoor baseball in Minnesota - all I've even known is the metrodome.

The stadium is awesome - apparently tickets are hard to get - every game is selling out - but I'm hoping to make it to another game when I visit home sometime this summer!

Oh, and we won. :)

Minnesota!

When I bought the plane ticket to attend the conference in Colorado Springs, it turned out that my return flight had a layover in Minneapolis. I decided to turn the one hour layover into a weekend layover by ditching the second half of my trip to DC and just buying a one-way to take me back on US Airways (officially extending the layover was really expensive for some reason, so this was a better option.) Jeff got a great deal on a ticket and came for the weekend, too.

We had an awesome trip, with Saturday being the most eventful day. I was exhausted when we got in on Friday, so we mostly hung out with my parents, watching Doctor Who and eating Chinese food.

On Saturday, we saw a Twins game at the new stadium and visited friends - but these are things that will get their own post, since I have pics and more to say.

On Sunday, we had a pretty quiet day - lunch outside at Panera with my parents, some monkeying around with electronics trying to figure out how to record from our DVR to a DVD, and then dinner at my brother's house (with amazing food - thanks Emily!).

It was especially nice to go home this weekend, because my parents are selling the house, and it could easily (hopefully) be sold before I get back to Minnesota again. I've been in that house since I was about 5 years old, so though it's exciting (and makes sense) for my parents to move, it's crazy to imagine going to Minnesota and not going to that house. Lots of memories...

Spock!

One of the highlights of the conference this year was the opportunity to see Leonard Nimoy (Spock from the original Star Trek series) speak. He gave a talk at the final evening dinner.

I have never seen him in any role but Spock, and was impressed and pleased to find that in real life, he's energetic, funny, and just a great speaker overall. I think even people who aren't big Star Trek fans really enjoyed his talk.

He talked about moving to Hollywood when he was 18, getting drafted after only having done a movie or two, how he was originally chosen to play Spock in the Star Trek pilot, what it was like having (kind of crazy) fans, how he came up with the Vulcan greeting and the Vulcan death pinch, and all sorts of other fun and funny stories. I'd love to put them all in the blog, but I think they're much better told in person - so just ask me next time you see me, and I'll tell you all about it!

I was also very lucky to catch him on his way out of the room, say a quick hello, and get a picture.

NSS - Evenings

One of the really fun things about this conference is the collection of creative networking events in the evenings. Opening Ceremonies was on Monday, featuring the band Barrage, which was very good - they have a bunch of violins, an electric guitar, and other instruments - very unique. There were stormtroopers around for extra security.

On Tuesday, there was a casino night, which is always a lot of fun. I ended up playing Texas Hold'em, and I didn't do too bad. Playing with fake money makes it much less nerve-racking, though. :)

Wednesday was 'hospitality night,' where each company hosts a suite with some special theme. This year one suite had a rock and roll theme, and gave out feather boas and crazy sun glasses. It's really fun to chat with people in this more laid back and fun environment.

One of the evenings, Jaisha and I toured the exhibition center and spent some time chatting with this robot.

I also got a chance to meet the first Chinese Taikonaut!

Thursday there was a new event this year - the New Generation dance party (though people of all ages were invited). I thought it went really well - it was fun to end the week having everyone together in one spot, and getting the chance to dance and relax a bit.