Ömer the Tourist in Star Trek

Ömer the Tourist in Star Trek () (also known as Turkish Star Trek) is a 1973 Turkish cult comedy-drama science fiction film, produced and directed by Hulki Saner, featuring Sadri Alışık as Ömer the Tourist, a Turkish hobo who is beamed aboard the Starship Enterprise. It is the last film in the Ömer the Tourist franchise. As a Turksploitation film, the film is a low-budget Turkish adaptation of Star Trek and uses unauthorized footage from it.

The film is a product of Turkey's cultural climate at the time. Ömer the Tourist represents a stereotypical lower-class individual who nevertheless manages to confuse and outwit higher-class, educated individuals—in this case, the ship's crew. The film also includes many distinctly Turkish stylistic elements.

Background The film is the eighth and final in a series of films featuring Alışık as Ömer the Tourist. The plot and dialogue are almost verbatim from The Man Trap, with borrowings from What Are Little Girls Made Of? and I, Mudd (a collection of androids), Arena (Kirk battles a Gorn-like creature), and Amok Time (Kirk and Spak are forced to fight each other), as well as the unauthorized use of special effects footage from the series, a defining feature of Turksploitation films. Although unofficial and part of another franchise, it is the first movie taking place in the Star Trek universe, filmed six years before the official motion picture.

While Star Trek was created in 1966, it was not shown in Turkey until 1973, when the state owned Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) began broadcasting it, which was the only television broadcaster at the time. By the next year, it attained enough popularity that director Hulki Saner decided to set the final installment of the Turist Ömer series in the Star Trek universe.

The movie makes frequent use of distinctly Turkish stylistic elements, such as the actors facing the camera instead of each other when speaking, the use of the ruins of Ephesus for the set of an alien planet, and Ömer the Tourist constantly using urban Istanbul slang and local reference points that cause friction with the crew of the Enterprise. This friction is particularly evident with Spak (Spock), whose sense of Vulcan rationality is challenged by Ömer's behaviour, prompting him to label Ömer an "illogical creature". By the end of the film, however, both characters have adopted some of each other's characteristics. For instance, Spock playfully uses the slang phrase "!" while pulling his hand back from a handshake with Ömer. Meanwhile, Ömer gains pointed Vulcan ears and similar abilities.

Author Iain Robert Smith draws a parallel between the characters of Ömer the Tourist and Spak and those of Karagöz and Hacivat in the eponymous Turkish shadow play. While this framing could be seen as simply upholding Orientalist (and Occidentalist) stereotypes, Smith argues that Ömer/Karagöz connects with the audience by giving them a sense of power against higher-class individuals like Spak/Hacivat.

The film is also notable for its complete flouting of Star Trek's copyright, which Smith calls "one of the most significant contextual factors" surrounding it. At the time, Turkey did not conceptualize copyright and plagiarism the same way the Western world did, despite having signed the 1952 Berne Convention, which was rarely enforced. Eva Hemmungs Wirten argues that international copyright treaties serve the interests of those "who can be seen as exporters/producers of assets deemed intellectual property, and not the interests of the importers/consumers of the same assets". For 1970s Turkey, a net importer of such assets, the cultural climate in which Ömer the Tourist in Star Trek was created did not encourage the expansion of copyright to imported media.

1970s Turkey was also one of the largest film producers in the world, yet there was still a high demand for American films. At the time, it was prohibitively expensive to screen major imported films anywhere but in urban cinemas. For this reason, cheaper Turkish remakes were produced for screening elsewhere in the country.

Plot (character names and spellings taken from the film's credits)Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: The Enterprise visits planet M-113, where Doktor McCoy's old girlfriend Nancy, and her husband Profesör Crater, harbor a secret. "Nancy" is really a shapeshifting creature who kills for salt. When Nancy kills several crewmen, Profesör Crater pulls Ömer, on the point of being forced into a shotgun wedding, from his time zone, reasoning that Kaptan Kirk and Mr. Spak will blame him for the murders of the crewmen. Ömer beams aboard the Enterprise (, 'Enterprising'), creating havoc, especially irritating Mr. Spak. During the course of the movie, Kirk battles androids, a Gorn-like creature and even Mr. Spak, after Nancy assumes the shape of Ti-Pau, a Vulcan. The creature is defeated by Kirk, Spak and McCoy, and Ömer returns to his shotgun wedding.

Cast Per film billing order, and with spellings taken from the credits (certain descriptive names translated): Sadri Alışık as Ömer Erol Amaç as Mr. Spak Cemil Şahbaz as Kaptan Kirk Ferdi Merter as Doktor McCoy Kayhan Yıldızoğlu as Profesör Crater Elif Pektaş as Jenice Şule Tınaz as Nancy Crater Oytun Şenal as Green Füsun Olgaç as Uhura Nevhilal as Mary Necip Koçak as Darnell Nermin Altınses as Ti-Pau Yılmaz Şahin as Scoty Nuri Uğur as Sulu Yılmaz Suiller as Black man Neslihan Özgür as Crewmember Sönmez Yıkılmaz as Hercules Yadigar Kırmızıgül as Monster Kazım Oğuz as Joe

Ömer the Tourist in Star Trek

Bron en licentie