Star Trek: The Next Generation Cast Takes The Best Selfie, With William Shatner
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I’ve never taken a selfie. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I recently took a close up photo of part of my beard because I was stoked about how much grey has started showing through (I can’t wait to be a grizzled old man who sits on his porch and yells at neighborhood kids, that’s been my life goal since, well, since I was a kid). And when I was in Mexico for grad school once I tried to take a panorama picture of myself in front of the massive bowl of the high mountain desert I found myself in, but it was super bright and just looks like I’m scowling with some hills in the background. However, Star Trek, as in most things, has won the selfie wars, and everyone else just needs to throw up their hands and quit right now.
At the recent Wizard World Comic-Con in Chicago, there was a Star Trek: The Next Generation panel, which was, oddly enough, hosted by William Shatner, who has little or nothing to do with TNG. At a point right before the crew mounted the stage for the festivities, LeVar Burton got everyone together and posed them for a selfie. (Or a group selfie? Is that a thing? Is it called a groupie?) The result, as you can clearly see for yourself, is pretty rad.
Burton tweeted the photo, which was later picked up by the Star Trek Universe Facebook page:
About to take the stage in Chicago with the Next Gen Cast & Tne Shat!!!
#bydhttmwfi
http://t.co/MLJmdagS6V
— LeVar Burton (@levarburton) August 24, 2014
In addition Burton and Shatner, you have Jean-Luc Picard himself, Patrick Stewart, Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi), Jonathan Frakes (William Riker), Gates McFadden (Dr. Beverly Crusher), Brent Spiner (Data), and Michael Dorn (Worf)—though you can only see a sliver of his face. And what appears to be some random dude in the background. My money is on him being someone who works for the Con, and who is probably totally stoked to be in this photo. How often to you get to photobomb the crew of the Enterprise?
The best part of this entire thing, however, is the look of complete and utter confusion on Shatner’s face. He looks like he’s thinking, “Hey, these aren’t the people I commanded on the show. Where am I, how did I get here, was I kidnapped? What’s a selfie?” At least that’s how I imagine it going down. Of course, even though this is a the cast of a totally different Star Trek show than the one he appeared on, they should have at least a passing familiarity, he has appeared with some of them before, like in Star Trek Generations.
I have to say that this is the single most appropriate use of selfie technology. It may be an indicator of narcissistic personality disorders, and be super obnoxious to boot, but wading through all the crap is totally worth it for this one picture. This is like that one that Ellen made everyone take at the Oscars last year, but like a thousand times awesomer.
