Star Trek
Star Trek collectively refers to six science fiction television series, ten motion pictures, and hundreds of novels, video games, and other works of fiction all set within the same fictional universe created by Gene Roddenberry in the early to mid 1960s. It depicts an optimistic future in which humankind has overcome sickness and poverty and warfare on earth; the central characters explore the galaxy, finding new worlds and meeting new civilizations, while helping to spread peace and understanding. Star Trek is one of the most popular names in twentieth century science fiction entertainment.
The original series (1966-1969)
Star Trek debuted on NBC on September 8, 1966. It told the tale of the crew of the starship Enterprise from the United Federation of Planets and their adventures "to boldly go where no man has gone before". Initially, it was not successful; ratings were low and advertising revenue was lackluster. However, when threats of cancellation loomed in the show's second season, the show's devoted fanbase conducted an unprecedented campaign, convincing NBC to produce a third season. The last episode aired on June 3, 1969. The series became phenomenally popular in syndication.
To distinguish this first series from the sequels which followed, it has become known as Star Trek: The Original Series, abbreviated as ST:TOS or TOS.
The animated series (1973-1974)
The series was aired under the name Star Trek, but it has become widely known as Star Trek: The Animated Series (or abbreviated as ST:TAS or TAS). It was produced by Filmation and ran for two seasons with a total of twenty-two half-hour episodes. It featured most of the original cast performing the voices for their characters. While the freedom of animation afforded large alien landscapes and exotic lifeforms, budget constraints were a major concern and animation quality was poor. A few episodes are especially notable due to contributions from well-known science fiction authors. The series is not considered to be canon, with the episode, "Yesteryear" being largely an exception, which has caused controversy among some fans.
Star Trek: Phase II
Main article: Star Trek: Phase II.
Planned but never produced, this television series was set to air in 1978. It would have put the original crew back onto the Enterprise for a second five-year mission. Twelve episodes were scripted; the first became Star Trek: The Motion Picture, while two others became episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)
Main article: Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Star Trek: The Next Generation (also known as ST:TNG or TNG) is set nearly a century later and features a new starship and a new crew. It premiered on September 28, 1987 with the two-hour pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint" and ran for seven seasons, ending with the final two-part episode "All Good Things . . ." on May 29, 1994. The show gained a considerable following during its initial run and has been widely syndicated since then.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)
Main article: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (ST:DS9 or DS9 for short) ran for seven seasons. It chronicles the events surrounding the space station Deep Space Nine. In the first episode, the crew discovers the presence of a nearby stable wormhole which provides immediate travel to and from the distant Gamma Quadrant; this immediately makes the station an important tactical asset, as well as a vital center of commerce with the largely-unexplored area of space. Deep Space Nine sheds some of the utopian themes that embodied the previous versions of Star Trek, and focuses more on war, religion, political compromise, and other modern issues.
Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)
Main article: Star Trek: Voyager.
Star Trek: Voyager (also known as ST:VOY or VOY) was produced for seven seasons, and is the only Star Trek series to have had a female captain as a lead character. The series follows the adventures of the Starship Voyager and her crew who have become stranded in the Delta Quadrant, seventy-five thousand light-years from Earth. Unless they can find some kind of shortcut, it will take them seventy-five years to return to known space. Although Voyager's ratings were initially solid, they fell dramatically as the show progressed. Some fans feel that Voyager is the weakest of the Star Trek series.
Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-present)
Main article: Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise (named simply Enterprise during its first two seasons, and abbreviated as ST:ENT or ENT) is a prequel to the other Star Trek series. The pilot episode, "Broken Bow", takes place ten years before the founding of the Federation, about halfway between the events shown in the movie Star Trek: First Contact and the original Star Trek series. This series depicts the exploration of space by a crew that is able to go farther and faster than any humans had previously gone. It presents situations not entirely unfamiliar to Star Trek fans, but which allow its characters to face them unencumbered by the experience and rules which have built up over the following years of Trek history.
Motion pictures
A common opinion among fans is that the even-numbered Star Trek films are good, and the odd-numbered Star Trek films are bad. This rule-of-thumb is most easily applicable to the first few films: Star Trek II and IV are usually at or near the top of the fan favorites, while I and V are usually at the bottom (though I has since received quite a bit of positive reevaluation in the wake of an acclaimed "Director's Edition" revision released on DVD). The "even-numbered" rule appears to have been broken by the unpopular Nemesis, the 10th Trek film.
- Movies based on Star Trek: The Original Series:
- Crossovers between multiple series:
- Star Trek: Generations (1994) (crossover between ST:TOS and ST:TNG)
- Movies based on Star Trek: The Next Generation:
Rick Berman revealed in 2003 that preliminary work had begun on an eleventh Star Trek feature film. It is rumored that this film will be a prequel involving Spock, Captain Kirk, and Dr. McCoy played by new actors, perhaps entitled Starfleet Academy or Starfleet Command. However, rumors of such a prequel have circulated several times during the 1990s without result. In the past, there has been considerable demand among the fanbase for a film based on Deep Space Nine, but interest in the series has waned since it ended. Little interest has been shown in producing a film based upon Voyager. There have also been reports that the eleventh film might take place between the events of Enterprise and that of the original series, perhaps during the Romulan War.
Society and Star Trek
Roddenberry was an ardent proponent of egalitarian politics, and frequently used the shows to showcase his vision of a future society based on those principles. A prominent female crew member, Uhura, was played by Nichelle Nichols, one of the first African-American women to hold a major acting role on American television. Only two decades after the second World War, Star Trek featured an officer of Asian ancestry, Hikaru Sulu (George Takei). In the second season, a Russian character, Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) was added.
Modern viewers might find the old series' portrayals of minorities and women to be prejudiced by today's standards, but the program was progressive and daring for its time. One of Star Trek's claims to fame in the United States is that it featured the first televised kiss between a white character and a black character. The episode "Plato's Stepchildren" showed Captain Kirk and Uhura being mind-controlled and unwilling, but they pressed their lips together, though there was no passion in it.
Later series also went against stereotypes. Star Trek: The Next Generation put a bald man in the lead role, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine starred a black man, and Star Trek: Voyager starred a woman as captain. Additionally, as Klingons had been used in the original series to represent the real-world Soviet Union and the Cold War going on, TNG's use of a Klingon ally in the main cast foreshadowed the end of the Cold War two years before the Berlin Wall fell. Star Trek has always been ahead of its time, especially when it comes to social commentary.
Star Trek: The Next Generation added much more information on the Star Trek universe. The Federation has an economy of abundance without money, enabled by advanced replicator technology. Labor, purchase, and sale are not necessary, as there is no scarcity to limit the satisfaction of one's material needs and wants. However, certain resources are still limited, such as those necessary to power warp and replicator technology, and interplanetary commerce is not uncommon. Greed and jealousy are thus greatly reduced. Characters often explain that the purpose of the people of the Federation is personal and universal beneficence.
Many of the alien species encountered in the series are strikingly similar to humans, both in physical form and in relationships. Mixed race offspring are also possible. In the TNG episode "The Chase", it is explained that many primordial worlds of the galaxy were "seeded" by an ancient race of spacefarers, so that their dying race would live on in various forms around the galaxy.
Fans of the original Star Trek series came to be known as Trekkies. By the time Star Trek: The Next Generation was produced, the term "Trekkies" had come to imply a certain nerdy fanaticism among fans and was considered pejorative by some. In response, some fans of the new series decided to call themselves "Trekkers". The terms have become interchangeable.
After Roddenberry's death in 1991 (and indeed for some time before) there were growing signs that some Trekkies/Trekkers have gone beyond looking at the franchise as simply entertainment, and are now considering Roddenberry's concepts to be almost a religion unto itself. This first manifested itself in the negative response of some fans to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and its grittier, less-positive look at the future, which led to some fans accusing the show's producers (particularly Roddenberry's successor Rick Berman) of virtual blasphemy. The later series Voyager and particularly Enterprise, as well as most of the movies, have also come under fire for allegedly violating the "Word of Roddenberry".
Star Trek in pop culture
Due to its popularity, some of the concepts and the language of Star Trek have found their way into the culture of the population at large and can be considered to be pop culture. Phrases such as "Beam me up, Scotty!" and "Resistance is futile" are widely recognized and understood, as are warp drive and transporters. Star Trek has been referenced, parodied and spoofed in a wide range of television series, movies and other contexts. See References to Star Trek for a listing of such references.
In 1977, due to lobbying from fans of the series, NASA named its prototype space shuttle Enterprise.
In 2004, billionaire Richard Branson announced plans to develop the first commercial passenger carrier into space, Virgin Galactic. The first aircraft of the line will be called the V.S.S. Enterprise.
An uncertain future for the franchise
Next Generation stars Marina Sirtis, Patrick Stewart, and Jonathan Frakes have suggested that no more TNG films will be produced; Brent Spiner and Leonard Nimoy are also no longer interested in reprising their respective characters. (However, Spiner will be portraying Arik Soong, an ancestor of his Data character's creator, in Enterprise's fourth season.) The low ratings of Enterprise, as well as the poor showing of the 2002 film Nemesis, have brought the future of the franchise into question. Some fans suggest that Paramount should retire the franchise temporarily or permanently, and in an ironic twist to the fan-based efforts to bring back Trek in the 1960s and 1970s, there are actually factions actively seeking the end of Star Trek, feeling that the concept has run its course.
Many Trek fans want the replacement of the heads of the franchise, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga; Majel Roddenberry, the widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, is occasionally proposed as a replacement. There is also a sizable movement to bring back Captain Kirk, as played by William Shatner, suggesting that the character be given a more dignified end than that in Star Trek: Generations.
Despite its poor ratings (see the show's entry for possible reasons for this), Star Trek: Enterprise has been renewed for a fourth season. Like its predecessors Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, Enterprise has taken the first few seasons to find a consistent footing, and has changed significantly from its original premise. Although there are doubts that it will be able to run the traditional seven seasons on UPN, the show's producers have suggested the series may continue to be produced in first-run syndication if it is cancelled.
In 1998, Viacom entered an agreement with Activision to produce Star Trek video games. Many games were released under this agreement, but in 2003, Activision filed a lawsuit against Viacom stating that they weren't holding up to their end of the bargain. In 1998 there were two Star Trek Series running concurrently. This continued during the entire run of Deep Space 9. There was always another movie on the horizon. Activision claimed that the Star Trek franchise was not as valuable as it once was. Activision cancelled the contract and sought after compensation for losses. In 2004, Perpetual Entertainment announced plans for a huge multiplayer online Star Trek game of the same type as Everquest, indicating that gaming interest in Trek is alive and well.
It is worth noting that predictions of Star Trek's demise are nothing new. As early as 1993-94, when Star Trek: Deep Space Nine failed to generate the high ratings of its predecessor, magazines such as Entertainment Weekly predicted the demise of the franchise. The near-cancellation of Star Trek: Voyager in the mid-1990s led to more such predictions. But Star Trek continued to survive, and even Star Trek: Enterprise has continued to defy expectations despite media predictions of cancellation after its first, second, and third seasons. Many Trekkies feel that reports of the imminent death of Star Trek are premature. In November 2004, Paramount announced that it would be offering the first four seasons of Enterprise in television syndication in 2005. Some have seen this as a vote of confidence suggesting the series will continue into a fifth season, while others suggest this is the death knell of the Star Trek franchise.
Star Trek Technology
In every episode of Star Trek some sort of technology from the shows period is used. The Technology is a important part of Star Trek, without it Star Trek would not be as popular as it is today. The most prominant piece of technolgy is probably the Warp Drive, the Starships off Star Trek use the Warp Drive to get around the Galaxy.
Star Trek Science
Any decent Star Trek fan should know that even with technology you wouldn't get Star Trek without the science.
Other storylines
Main Article: Star Trek Other Storylines
Although books, comic books, video games, and other material based on Star Trek are generally considered "non-canon", there are several which deserve mentioning.
Further reading - Links etc.
Main Article: Star Trek Further Reading
This section contains links to further areas of reading, Internally and Externally.
Selected Links
- List of Star Trek characters
- StarTrek.com (http://www.startrek.com/)
- StarTrekFans.net (http://www.startrekfans.net/)
As this page was low on space (32kb) I have moved this section to another area, they have been transfered to the "Main Article" or Star Trek Further Reading.
de:Star Trek
eo:Star Trek
et:Star Trek
fi:Star Trek
es:Star Trek
fr:Star Trek
he:מסע בין כוכבים
hu:Star Trek
it:Star Trek
ja:スタートレック
la:Star Trek
nl:Star Trek
nn:Star Trek
no:Star Trek
pl:Star Trek
pt:Star Trek
sv:Star Trek