VaBeachGuy

Star Trek wax figures get new mission: helping museum

http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/television/article/Star-Trek-wax-figures-get-new-mission-helping-11037917.php#photo-12635234

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The starship Enterprise has a new five-year mission: to boldly go and raise money to help a quirky museum live long and prosper.

The Hollywood Science Fiction Museum recently took possession of life-sized wax figures of all seven crew members from the original "Star Trek" TV series, including Capt. Kirk.

The figures and a replica of the Enterprise bridge had spent a decade in storage.

"This is kind of a holy grail of Trek fandom," museum founder Huston Huddleston said in an online museum video.

The figures were crafted for the Movieland Wax Museum, a Buena Park tourist attraction. Around 10 years ago, the defunct museum auctioned off its contents, including the figures that had drawn generations of Trekkies.

"As far as anyone knew, it was lost," Huddleston said Wednesday of the Trek tableau. "It was either in a rich person's house and never seen again, or it was destroyed...nobody knew."

In fact, the intrepid crew had been rescued.

At the museum auction, Steve and Lori Greenthal ponied up $40,000 for Kirk, Spock, Sulu, Uhura, Dr. "Bones" McCoy, Chekov and Engineer Scott.

They wanted to keep the set from being broken up.

"We took them home and put them in our dining room," Lori told the Orange County Register (http://bit.ly/2nkPdRq).

Steve didn't like the way their life-like eyes stared.

"We put paper bags over their heads," he said.

Steve called a buddy, Chris Liebl of Anaheim, and they hatched a plan to make money from the figures. Liebl offered to pay half the purchase price and together they spent another $40,000 building a 20-by-30-foot mockup of the Enterprise bridge, complete with sounds effects from the TV show.

They took the set to Las Vegas for a 40th Star Trek anniversary gathering and sold about 800 photographs of people posing with the figures. George Takei, who played Sulu, and Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed Uhuru, even stopped by to pose with their alter egos.

But the venture didn't make money and the setup was cumbersome.

So the figures eventually were dismantled and the wax heads and hands placed in cold storage. The bridge set was stored in a hangar at the Fullerton airport.

However, the airport now needs the hangar for other things.

Three months ago, the owners donated the set and its wax crew to the museum. On a recent weekend, they held a party to say goodbye.

"I've been on an emotional roller coaster," Lori Greenthal told the Register. "I'm happy they're going to be together and on display. It brings such joy to so many people."

The museum held a successful Kickstarter campaign to pay for about $14,000 to cover the expected costs of restoring the figures.

"Most of them are great shape," Huddleston said. "The only damage is their hair was messed up over the years and also 30 years of really harsh light on them had made their paint fade off."

Spock's figure already has been restored. Among other things, that meant removing a "terrible, tacky wig" that someone had stuck on top of the figure's original hair, which was composed of individual strands painstakingly punched into the wax, Huddleston said.

The nonprofit museum, which has no permanent home, plans to take the figures on a five-year North American tour beginning later this year in Los Angeles, Huddleston said.

The tour will help raise money to give the museum a home in North Hollywood.

Meanwhile, the Spock and McCoy figures will be introduced at the Wondercon convention in Anaheim that begins Friday, Huddleston said.

Huddleston called the figures "true pieces of art."

"I'm living a nerd's dream," he said.

 

 

 

I've recently completed listening to the audio book version of "The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek: The First 25 Years" and am in the middle of "The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams: The Complete, Uncensored, and Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek".

I've read that Gene Roddenberry wasn't an easy man to work with/for, but these books really don't paint a flattering picture of him. It's not just one author, writing about him. It comes from many different sources.

The way these books are written, a large amount of what's told is told through quotes and stories from all of the various people associated with all of the various Star Trek projects. From TOS through the movies and on into TNG, DS9 and beyond.

They're very interesting to listen to, and if you like audio books, I'd definitely recommend getting them. They're fairly long books though, I believe the First 25 years was about 25 hours long and the Next 25 years is about 35 hours long.

They contain great stories though and should be a definite read/listen for any Star Trek fan.

I saw this episode again for the first time in several years, it always makes me laugh.

Last weeks Tribal Council was crazy, the craziest one I've seen in all 17 years that I've been watching Survivor.

As a kid, I just do remember Gunsmoke but I was only about 6 when it went off the air. Would Little House be considered a "Western"? Not that it was a favorite, I was more of a Waltnons watcher than Little House back then, and of course The Waltons wasn't a western at all.

10 minutes ago, Bethlehem said:

Kevin, you are a great guy. I love hearing about people caring for people. The site looks fantastic, now to figure it out.

Thanks, like I said, family comes first in all things. At least it should, that's how I feel.

The upgrade is still a 'work in progress', so right now (as I post this), the look and feel of the main page isn't what it will be when all is said and done. Right now, it's a bit sloppy and slow to load. But I have to have it set that way for the immediate future while everything is happening in the background. Once everything is set though, I'll get a portal set up and will have a few Twitter feeds on it as well as other board content.

I saw the documentary that his son did. In watching it, I realized that at the time Leonard Nimoy was born in Boston and at the hospital in which he was born, my grandmother was a nurse. So, my grandmother was most likely inside the hospital when he was born and if she wasn't there at the time, she was there not long after.

He grew up not far from where my mother and her siblings grew up. We're talking about maybe half a mile to a mile in distance.

35 minutes ago, Admiral Riker said:

Looking good. I was finally able to login. Could not use ` in my username as i had before.  Hoping for the best!

Yeah, Invision changed their system for logging in. I believe it's your Display Name that you have to use to log in now.

37 minutes ago, athena28 said:

Site looks good!

Thank you, I'm still working on it. The old themed skin wasn't compatible with the new version, so slowly, I'm building it up as best as I can.

I upgraded the site yesterday (March 16th), so there's a lot of new features and some old features are gone, like the front page portal but I think the new software is a nice upgrade, and at some point, a new portal may make its way back onto STF.

Quote

I hope to come back with the new series, but I am so busy. I am still taking care of my mother, so I completely understand being away from the forum. Just because I finally remembered my password does not mean I will get here to post, but if I can I will.

What I have done a lot of lately is watch Star Trek fan fiction on you tube. I wish everyone the best!

Hello mj, I'm afraid that the database was backed up and moved to our new server before you posted, so when we did the upgrade, your post wasn't in the database and thus, wasn't moved over, but I wanted to reply and say hello.

Family always comes first in all things, so I understand that. An uncle of mine, who didn't have any other family, was diagnosed with prostate cancer and when his health got to the point where he wasn't able to care for himself, he was put into a nursing home. But that was NOT a good place, so he came to live with me and I cared for him for the rest of his life.

It was all consuming, 24/7, but well worth it because he was able to live his final year with family who cared for him and loved him rather than having to live in a cold, uncaring environment where the people saw him as an annoyance.  

woohoo. Maybe people will return

Hopefully, with the new series not far off, activity will pick up again and the old gang will get back together again.

CBS likes to put videos up and then take them down for some reason. I fixed it (for now) with a video of the first 7 minutes of episode 1.

On last week's episode, I was a bit disappointed in the 2nd vote. I was hoping to see that person for a while longer in this season.

For anyone interested in Survivor, a pretty cool Survivor site is http://www.snuffedtorch.com

I am currently reading The Autobiography of James T. Kirk: The Story of Starfleet's Greatest Captain, it has been a fanwank filled funhouse so far. I will probably someday read this one too.

Totally unrelated to Star Trek, but still within the realm of Sci-Fi, if you want to read (or listen to on Audio Book) a really good book, get "The Martian". I loved the movie but I love the book 10 times more.

Yeah, it's a money move by CBS.

It's been 6 years since our last upgrade, and it's time for a new one. I hope to have it completed within the next couple of weeks, but it's been so long since the last one, that a lot has to be done to prepare the site from a compatibility standpoint.

I've created a STARTREKFANS Twitter account as well, and the new board platform will have enhanced social media connectivity, so look for some exciting changes coming to STF.

Tonight begins the latest season of Survivor, Survivor: Game Changers.

With Star Trek: Discovery not far off, I've added its own forum for discussions about Discovery.

I had thought I had read something about them wanting to re-master DS9, but that was at least a year ago that I read that.

Hello everyone (anyone still around). I've been inactive for a long time due to multiple issues, ranging from finishing my degree to taking on the responsibility of caring for a terminally ill family member for a while and then liquidating his estate. Many things have just conspired to keep me busy for the past few years.

The site isn't as active as it once was, with social media taking much of the 'audience' away. But the site will remain, regardless, and it's time for the site to get a facelift. So today I've begun to look into upgrading and over the course of the next few weeks/months, I'll see what I can do to spruce the old place up a little.

Anton Yelchin, of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Films and TV's Huff, Dead at 27

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/anton-yelchin-star-trek-films-182249151.html

 

Anton Yelchin, who plays Chekov in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek film franchise and on TV played son to Hank Azaria’s Huff, was found dead on Sunday after getting pinned between his car and his home’s security gate. He was 27.

 

According to TMZ, which first reported the news (since confirmed by the Associated Press), Yelchin’s body was found by friends at 1 am in the morning, after he was a no-show for a rehearsal. His body was pinned between the car, its engine in neutral and still running, and a mailbox attached to his San Fernando Valley home’s security gate, which was at the bottom of a steep incline.

 

In addition to his run as teenage Byrd Huffstodt on Showtime’s Huff, Yelchin’s TV credits included the alien abduction miniseries Taken, The Practice and episodes of Criminal Minds, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and NYPD Blue.

 

More recently, Yelchin was set to star as Mr. Mercedes in AT&T Audience Network’s 10-episode adaptation of the Stephen King novel. He also was announced this week as part of the voice cast for Guillermo del Toro upcoming Netflix series Trollhunters. Del Toro in turn reacted to the tragic news on Twitter.

Sorry for the board being down for a little while, I've been pretty busy and hadn't realized that the hosting renewal hadn't gone through.

Anyway, I've just finished school (graduated Magna Cum Laude) and should be able to do more to update things and refresh the boards.

Hey everyone, I know I've been gone for quite a long time but life has been pretty hectic. I'm finishing up one of my degrees this semester.

I'd like to get the site to be more active, like it used to be, but I don't know if that's doable since Facebook and Twitter probably garner most the most online attention these days.

Regardless though, STF will stick around. Activity or not. I'll keep it online as long as I'm still "online" lol.

Very sad news, I had heard of his health issues a couple of weeks ago and feared that this was coming.

RIP Neil.