In the late nineties, Universal and Warner Bros. decided to team up to milk some more juice from the strangely lucrative yet chronically under funded teat of the Star Trek franchise. With that mixed metaphor under their belt, they decided to throw bad money after good: to create Hawaii Vulcan Oh, a movie franchise and television series based on Mr. Spock’s nephew, Billy Spock (Alex Winter, in his first major role since Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey), and his adventures as a Surf Detective in Hawaii.
Aware that a movie could not be made based on a hitherto unknown relative of a beloved character, Billy Spock was placed under the supervision of his adoptive Aunt Uhura (Nichelle Nicols, whose contract stipulated that she must appear in a bikini in every scene*).**
With a spate of puppy kidnappings unsolved, Billy Spock would use his wicked mad logic and tubular awesome wave riding skills. It would turn out that the villain was Frank Langella, donning his Skeletor costume from Masters of the Universe.***
While the script was written by a man who had neither heard of nor seen Star Trek, and who chose not to research the program so that he could make his own work more “honest”, the studios decided that they would allow The Next Generation alum Brent “Data” Spiner to direct. As an emotionless android and a vocal critic of the “Shatnerverse”, the world’s most respected Mary Sue franchise, Spiner was the only man who could have done the job.****
Word of mouth spread across the internet, still in its fledgling days, before the word “douche” became as popular as it is today. Harry Knowles was banned from the set after various fluids secreted from his body in his excitement spoilt several minutes of film. “If I had that strong a reaction,” he wrote on his site, comparing the experience to rimming, “imagine how much all of you sexless internet nerds will love it!”
Hawaii Vulcan Oh screen tested well, although the producers did come away with the suggestion that a magical talking dog be inserted into the story. The internet groundswell turned into a landslide upon its theatrical release. The general consensus on sites such as IMDB and Star Trek Toe was “Not as good as Surf Ninjas” and “Needs more death grip”.*****
Sadly, almost no one actually attended the film at the cinemas, and Hawaii Vulcan Oh did not fare well with the critical elite either. Leonard Maltin was heard to remark
“An overlong and boring film in which surf and logic attempt to high five each other while grinding their way across gnarly waves, instead resulting in a total WIPE OUT! (ha ha ha!) *1/2
Perhaps more notorious than the movie itself was Roger Ebert’s own review, apparently written on a bender:
“You think you can come in here and play this shit, Brent Spiner? I know you don’t have any emotions or whatever, but you want to come into MY HOUSE and play MY GAME and you don’t expect to get your ass whooped? Next time, bring Rob Schneider! He is the only guarantee of a good movie left in Hollywood. I’m giving this a thumbs up on the strength of Nichelle Nicols’ amazingly sprightly figure.”
Ebert was later sent into the rehab clinic known as “The Road to Erudition”. He has not been seen since.
Hawaii Vulcan Oh has since been hailed as a cult classic, largely by cultists who have claimed that the film is “really good to excise a goat’s heart to”. Due to its failure, planned surf projects such as Surf Klan and its more PC rewrite Surf Klan Must Die were cancelled and the planned Star Trek soap opera was repurposed into the NBC smash Passions. Many Star Trek fans blamed Hawaii Vulcan Oh for the fact that Enterprise wasn’t very good; in fact, the only people happy with this outcome were internet pundits glad to wrest some power from the spendocrats in Hollywood.
The proposed television series spin-off had a budget large enough to finance The Matrix. Unfortunately, and mind-bogglingly, the executives at Warner Bros. found that they actually had enough money to make The Matrices Reloaded and Revolutions. Further misfortune befell the company when they realised that they had just enough to make the movies, but not quite enough to pay the Wachowski Bros. to write them.
Keanu Reeves came into work every day, having memorised his lines off of beer mats provided by the Wachowskis. Photocopying and transcription were not allowed on this top-secret project, so Reeves had to pass them on to Hugo Weaving, Carrie Anne Moss and Laurence Fishburne in turn. The man in the tea store had been hired but not informed of the work structure. He decided to improvise, and the best line in cinematic history … “I aporogise” … made its way onto the screen.
Batrock.net was later informed that the cast managed to get through the rest of the shoot only through excessive consumption of Oracle Cookies.
This is the sad legacy of Hawaii Vulcan Oh. God rest your soul, Billy Spock: you coulda been a contender.
*Including her memorable “You’ve got to fight for your right to puppy” speech, given on the steps of a town hall to a crowd of unfeeling Klingon elders (the Hawaiian administration apparently having been taken over by the warrior race) … now one of the most beloved scenes in cinema among the vocal minority who have seen and loved this film.^
**This technique met with great success in the American Pie franchise’s American Pie: Band Camp, American Pie: Naked Mile and American Pie: Please go home, Eugene Levy.^
***Masters of the Universe went so overbudget and was so poorly received at the box office that the actors had to pay for their own costumes. Rather than being outfitted for Hawaii Vulcan Oh, Langella was heard to grumble “may as well get my money’s worth out of this damned thing.”
It has been rumoured that Dolph Lundgren is set to re-use his He-Man costume for the upcoming Rocky VII: Adrian’s Beatdown in a grudge match against Talia Shire.^
****For the amount being offered.^
*****To this day, nobody knows where the idea of the Vulcan Death Grip came from; anthropologists have theorised that it was created in an ad campaign for vacuum cleaners.^
Disclaimer: This article is all lies, and any slights against Leonard Maltin and Roger Ebert are purely in jest. The Harry Knowles bit is kind of malicious, though.
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