TotalSF - Star Trek IV
I really enjoy a bad movie. The type of bad movie that takes a big swing where the people making it were having a good time in the process.
I also enjoy watching a movie with familiar locations - especially when a movie features San Francisco.
Now Star Trek IV isn’t exactly bad. It’s pleasant and delivers on the plot points it sets up.
It is certainly ridiculous. The crew of the Enterprise fly a Klingon ship toward the sun to travel back in time somehow because there’s a burrito-shaped alien probe that will vaporize the oceans if they can’t find a whale so the only way to save earth is to bring whales back to the future. Leonard Nimoy made some real interesting choices in directing this movie.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home has long been hailed as one of the best movies at featuring San Francisco locations (along with another Nimoy movie, the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers), so the SF Chronicle writers who host the Total SF podcast chose this movie for a viewing party on January 9, 2021.
I was inspired to participate my making paintings inspired by the movie live on Instagram during the online event.
The organizers used a Twitter poll to select #DoubleDumbassOnYou as the hash tag for the event.
When I tore myself away from the screen for a moment, I found @theartdontstop creating “Star Trek IV” art live on Instagram. Check it out! (He has the same handle there.) #TotalSF #DoubleDumbassOnYou pic.twitter.com/PbaUT6v0Il
— Heather Knight (@hknightsf) January 10, 2021
Wow, @theartdontstop has been busy with the Star Trek IV paintings! Looking good, Todd! #doubledumbassonyou pic.twitter.com/Y6F7Pr9Ueo
— 𝐉𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗺𝘆 (@JspiderSF) January 10, 2021
Two important updates!!
— Peter Hartlaub (@peterhartlaub) January 10, 2021
We got #DoubleDumbassOnYou trending. Thanks to all who made this happen.
Check out @theartdontstop on Instagram! Making live “Star Trek IV” art. pic.twitter.com/ah4yHRe8bJ
Time Traveling with George and Gracie
acrylic on canvas, 9” x 12”, 2021 (sold)
The movie provides some surrealist visual effects to represent the experience of the human stars of Star Trek when they travel through time, but does not show us what it feels like for the whales to travel through time on an alien space shape to arrive in a future San Francisco Bay and immediately begin communicating with a giant space burrito probe.
This painting attempts to capture the experience of George and Gracie the whales at this moment.
Star Trek in San Francisco
acrylic on canvas, 9” x 12”, 2021 (sold)
The crew of the Enterprise has arrived in San Francisco and head immediately to North Beach where they try to get their bearings.
The view down Columbus street at the green building that houses Francis Ford Coppola’s and the Transamerica building is a great way to feature the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. I also appreciate getting a view of kids playing on Fresno Street as Scotty, Bones, and Sulu walk past the Saloon. Those kids were surely hanging out at Community Education Services which used be an after school center in that alley and which was where I had my first Americorps VISTA job in SF in '98.
Punk on the Muni Bus
acrylic on canvas, 8” x 8”, 2021 (sold)
A punk rocker annoys everyone on the San Francsico Muni Bus as it crossed the Golden Gate Bridge until he is assaulted and made unconscious by Mr. Spock. Kirk Thatcher played the punk and also wrote and performed the music for the scene. Hear him tell the whole backstory for the character on the Total SF podcast.