Get a Life!

The title of this documentary is taken from one of the funniest Saturday Night Live" skits of the 1980s--the one where William Shatner addresses a groups of Trekkies and tells them to 'get a life'! It's an excellent title to this Shatner-hosted show, as it explores Star Trek fandom as well as tries to draw some meaning to all this.

Now I mentioned in the summary that it was more enjoyable than the documentary "Trekkies" and I think this is true for two main reasons. First, I really liked all the touching vignettes in "Get a Life". While I would have STILL preferred more of these, much of "Get a Life" nearly brings you to tears even if you are not a Star Trek fan. Second, it does offer a bit more depth than just folks attending conventions and obsessing about the Trek. Shatner and others try to find a deeper meaning and often parallels to Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey" are discussed. In other words, how are traditional mythology and Star Trek obsession similar?

Overall, this is clearly a show that would appeal most to Star Trek fans, but even to the casual and non-obsessed fan (like myself) it has a lot of appeal. Well worth seeing.

Don't listen to the haters here. William Shatner does not come across as insulting or condescending in any way. Here, he plays the part of the bewildered narrator, trying to understand Trekkies. Besides, about half of this documentary is simply fans interacting with the stars. It contains a lot of very emotional moments that will touch fans.

Based on the William Shatner book of the same name, "Get A Life!" is a two-pronged looked at the Star Trek phenomenon. One prong works very well, while the other one fails pretty much miserably:

-The parts of the show that focus on the Trek conventions and the fans that populate them are very interesting, humorous, and touching all at the same time. Fellow Trek fans will relate to many of the stories told and identify with the people telling them. Plus, it is just fun to see all the great costumes!

-However, the parts of this documentary where Shatner tries to "figure out" the philosophical meanings of Star Trek are boring and fall completely flat. It doesn't help matters that we all know by now that Shatner is such a clown that to take him seriously on anything is ludicrous (!).

Had this been a documentary entitled something like "Star Trek: The Conventions" and stripped of all Shatner's musings, it would have been a much better overall experience. As it is, "Get A Life" is only so-so, with moments of pure fun/emotion off-balanced by philosophical ramblings.

Shatner made this documentary to squeeze some more money out of the Star Trek fans. In the first 20 minutes, several nice people are interviewed only to be ridiculed by Shatner's voice over and cut scenes. He obviously does not live by the phrase, "you don't bite the hand that feeds you".

If you love Star Trek I encourage you to continue, but I have no respect for the actor/director William Shatner. The people interviewed in this film should file a class action lawsuit against his actions. They were interviewed by a camera crew only to have Shatner add his voice over later making sport of the very people who make the Star Trek fiction a life of reality.

Get a Life! (2012)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

William Shatner wrote and directed this documentary that has him wondering who are all those people who show up at Star Trek conventions. Shatner narrates the various stories of people but he also interviews them about what makes the TV series and movies so special to them and why they travel hundreds of miles to hang out with other fans. The title itself refers to a joke that Shatner said on a Saturday Night Live appearance but those worried this film is going to make fun of the people who are fans then they have nothing to worry about. I must admit that to date I've only seen a couple of the movies and I've never seen any of the television shows so I'm certainly an outsider to this fan-mania. With that said, I still found the film to be slightly entertaining because I too am interested in the types of people who go to these festivals. I think it's clear that you can't just call them "geeks" because just about every type of person goes to these things. I think, for the most part, the film manages to be entertaining when it's looking at the actual fans. The thing starts to get a bit overblown when Shatner is interviewing so called "experts" who discuss the meanings of fans and what they see in the show. GET A LIFE! runs just 58-minutes so it's certainly not complete by any stretch of the imagination but I think fans of Shatner and the series should enjoy it.