A YouTube video discussing the time between the cancellation of Star Trek and The Motion Picture. It would be an era unimaginable to fans of a just-cancelled franchise today: back then, you either saw the showed when it aired, or you didn’t. Until it hit syndication, there was for all intents and purposes no way for someone to see the show. All you had were your memories, the verbal descriptions from others, the occasional magazine article, and a series of novelizations of the episodes. There was no renting an episode on tape at Blockbuster, no buying the DVD, no streaming it online. A few might have access to crappy films.
And yet… when the first Star Trek Convention was held in 1972, the place was swamped, and attendance only grew from there. It was an analog IRL experience unlike anything possible today. On the one hand it was lean, dark times, with limited resources and opportunities; on the other hand, it led to fandoms and communities of a kind impossible today. There is value in rarity, I suppose. People value that which they have to work for.
A post from a few years ago with a Star trek Convention film shot in 1976.