The Michigan Daily Friday, May 15, 1981 Page 11
TREKKIES RODDENBERR Y GA THER A T COBO

They're in space to

By TIM YAGLE
Welcomed by a white on blue "Star
Trek Lives" banner at the front of the
arena, about 4,000 committed
"trekkies," moderate Star Trek
aficionados, and the simply curious
turned out last Saturday night at
Detroit's Cobo Arena to keep the show's
flame of popularity lit, and hopefully to
intensify it.
The evening's emcee,
creator/producer Gene Roddenberry,
waited until nearly the end of the
presentation to tell his loyal followers
what they were waiting to hear.
The agoniiing wait is almost over.
Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles
will soon begin polishing a script for a
two-hour Star Trek movie or TV show
which will be the beginning of a new
series of six-to-eight two hour episodes
with the original cast.
THE SHOW will feature new
producers because Roddenberry said
that he wants fresh minds working on
the script and the overall production.
Roddenberry said, however, that he
will be a consultant to the production so
that it doesn't stray too far from the
show's original ideas. He said if it does,
he'll remove his name from the credits
as a sort of warning to Star Trek buffs

that he wasn't involved.
While the turnout for the presentation
was somewhat paltry, the crowd's en-
thusiasm wasn't lacking. Roddenberry
was to his groupies as Bob Ufer is to
maize 'n blue diehards, delivering
stirring speeches and making sure the
message of Star Trek was still strong.
"Truth and beauty come in many for-
ms, and just because something is dif-
ferent, it doesn'tmean it's wrong."
"What binds them (trekkies)
together are ideas," Roddenberry said.
"The human adventure is really just
beginning." Star Trek embodies this
philosophy, and that's what propelled
the TV series to its phenomenal cult
popularity. This message is also what
Roddenberry offered to the arena
gathering.
"WE ARE at one of the most crucial
times in all history," Roddenberry con-
tinued, "because we can destroy our
planet. Can we evolve into an adult
species? There is a clock that is ticking
down. We don't have a lot of time."
The 60-year-old writer/lecturer also
said that the U.S. should maintain its
world leadership in space exploration
for the benefit of humankind. "Our
spirit of adventure is not lost," he ax-
claimed. "We belong any damn place
we can get. We are a legitimate part of

what is there. Any nation that spends $6
billion on cosmetics can afford a space
program," he went on, drawing ap-
plause. "The human species is now at a
crossroads of whether or not we'll
become an intelligent life form. We can
survive. The cosmos outside and the
cosmos inside are one and the same."
The two-and-a-half hour presentation
opened with a short film of "bloopers"
from several of the TV episodes,
followed by Roddenberry's address on
Star Trek's message.
THE SPACE CADETS were then
treated to a behind-the-scenes look at
how Star Trek: The Motion Picture was
filmed. It showed the viewers just how
massive a production the motion pic-
ture was (32 Paramount studios were
used, including 21 sound studios and
two separate models of the "Enter-
prise" spaceship.)
Roddenberry went on to discuss the
differences between film and TV. "With
film, the audience expects more of a
happening ... (film can) probe an idea
and an emotion in ways that TV.sim-
ply can't do."
But he added that "movies are trying
to trick us into believing that what we
see is real. Film relies too much on
special effects for dramatic ex-
citement."
Random interviews with persons who
attended the lecture showed that while
some were slightly underwhelmed with

stay
the presentation, Star Trek as a
message and an addiction is still
strong, and will remain that way.
"It's the thrill of seeing the future put
before your eyes," commented recent
University graduate Paul Kowalewski.
"It's a very positive kind of thing. I
think it's probably stronger now than
when the show first ran (15 years ago).
It's the nostalgia, the romanticism, the
futuristic Western element and the
escapism (that keeps it strong). . . It's
something that you can't do but can
have fun thinking about."
A LESS DEDICATED Star Trek fan
said he was surprised at the strength of
the show's following. I never realized
there was this much interest in it, that it
was still this strong," said Vince
Tabacco, an Eastern Michigan Univer-
sity student. He said he was "really im-
pressed with the presentation. Most
people who come to see this will get
some kind of spark about space."
Tabacco, whose dream is "to get off
this planet," said, "you feel so in-
significant on this one little thing (Ear-
th)."
Joe DiMeglio of Warren said he was
"disappointed" in the show because he
wanted to hear something new. "It was
basically a nostalgia trip. The concept
(of Star Trek) was to say something
meaningful . . . to make statements
other programs weren't saying,"
DiMeglio said.

Resurrected Roches
LP worth 2nd look

Maggie and Terre Roche - Seductive
Reasoning' (CBS) - Maggie and Terre
Roche's Seductive Reasoning is a 1975
LP that died an undeserved commer-
cial death, arriving long after the
singer/songwriter craze had officially
been pronounced dead, not offering
anything easy enough for to a wide pop
or folk audience to latch onto. Joined by
sister Suzzy, the Roches re-emerged
with a superb 1979 self-titled album,
and with the release early this year of
the disappointing follow-up Nurds,
they've sealed their saleability as
patented eccentrics.
The charm is much more wide-eyed
and less calculated on Seductive
Reasoning, which has been repackaged
(with an unctuous jacket blurb by Suz-
zy) to grab some stray bucks. Half of
the songs are fairly routine ramblin'-
girl essays, their backwoodsiness more
perfuctory and fashionable than felt.
The rest, though, gets about as good as
singer/songwriter pop-balladry can get
- they're an early flowering of the
composing gifts of Margaret Roche,
who matured into a more rueful
delicacy on The Roches and got buried
by her flashier but less interesting kin
on Nurds.
THE OPENER, "Underneath the
Moon," is a flushed surrender to
romance, with piano and vocal har-
monies pouring downward like a Bac-
chanal rainfall; 1e segirlsanthelpit.

Terre's flawless soprano is isolated on
"West Virginia" (the only Seductive
Reasoning song the Roches performed
this past February in Ann Arbor), a
stark, mysterious ballad that builds
perhaps a little too melodramatically,
but is melodically stunning all the
same. "Malachy's" is an elgaic,
bemused sketch of performing days as
unknowns, of the people who walked out
and laughed in the middle of a song.
"Telephone Bill" uses seeming trivia
as a metaphor for the dissolution of a
romance: "What have you left me
with?/telephone bills." As with the best
of Maggie's work, the view here is
charmingly eccentric but still
touching; she has the odd tension of
someone-who keeps cracking jokes to
keep from crackingup.
Hut the mood turns unexpectedly
much darker on the album's revelatory
last song - "Jill of All Trades," a
ballad more despairingly direct than
anything Maggie's written since, in
which the hopelessness of a wayward
life is drawn so plaintively and unsen-
timentally that the tune becomes more
devastating with each listening.
Seductive Reasoning is uneven, with
low spots - especially a contrived
charade in which one-shot producer
'Paul Simon dumps his worst arranging
tendencies on the helpless Roches. But
the high points are more than enough to
make this a very welcome reissue.
Dennis Harvey

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