For some Star Trek fans, the iconic science fiction series will always be worth watching for those clingy red velour miniskirts.
"Miniskirts were really short back in the 1960s and whenever the starship Enterprise got hit by a Klingon disruptor blast you'd always see miniskirts flying around," said Trekker Charles Bae.
But when pressed about why the Star Trek canon has endured for more than four decades, Bae, like thousands of others who will transport themselves to the Sheraton Wall Centre this weekend for a star-studded convention, believes the morality tale set in the future has stood the test of time.
"It paints a bright vision of the future," said the 3-D modeling student. "It inspires me to always dream big, to think of better ways to do things, and to play a role in the future that humanity has."
The depiction of a better tomorrow that Bae described is inextricably linked to William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, who played the iconic characters Captain James T. Kirk and Commander Spock, respectively, in the original series.
The septuagenarian entertainers will take the convention stage together Sunday evening for a keynote address that promises more comedy than sci-fi minutiae.
It's a moment both Bae and convention host Gary Berman are eager to see - albeit for different reasons.
"I like watching people who haven't seen them before," said the co-CEO of Creation Entertainment. "It's very electric and emotional, I think. You spend 40 years watching someone on television and then you get to see him in a room that holds 1,000 people."
The friendship Shatner and Nimoy share off-stage was evident on-screen for a story that's profoundly affected a generation, Bae said.
"Star Trek is all about the relationships, especially the Kirk and Spock relationship, because the show was about a guy having a best friend and defending the universe together," he explained. "That's pretty much everyone's dream. Plus, they have girls on the side. Does it get any better than that?"
"It's very electric and emotional, I think. You spend 40 years watching someone on television and then you get to see him in a room that holds 1,000 people."