Everything about Star Trek totally explained
Star Trek is an American
science fiction entertainment series and
media franchise. The Star Trek
fictional universe created by
Gene Roddenberry is the setting of six television series including the original 1966, in addition to ten feature films (with an eleventh in post-production), dozens of computer and video games, hundreds of novels and other
fan stories, as well as a in
Las Vegas. The original TV series alone is one of the biggest
cult phenomena of modern times.
Setting
In the Star Trek universe, humanity developed
faster-than-light space travel, using a form of propulsion referred to as "
warp drive", following
nuclear war and a
post-apocalyptic period in the mid-
21st century. According to the story time line, the first warp flight happened on April 5th, 2063. Later,
humans united with other
sentient species of the
galaxy to form the
United Federation of Planets. As a result of the intervention and scientific teachings of the
Vulcans, an advanced telepathic alien race, humanity largely overcame many Earth-bound frailties and vices by the twenty-third century. Star Trek stories usually depict the adventures of human and alien beings who serve in the Federation's
Starfleet.
The protagonists are essentially
altruists whose ideals are sometimes only imperfectly applied to the dilemmas presented in the series. The conflicts and political dimensions of Star Trek form allegories for contemporary cultural realities; addressed issues of the 1960s, just as later spin-offs have reflected issues of their respective eras. Issues depicted in the various series include
war and
peace,
authoritarianism,
imperialism,
class warfare,
economics,
racism,
human rights,
sexism and
feminism, and the role of
technology.
Television series
Star Trek originated as a television series in 1966, although it had been in the planning stages for at least six years prior to that. Although
The Original Series was cancelled after its third season due to low ratings, it has served as the foundation for five additional Star Trek television series. The show tells the tale of the crew of the
starship Enterprise and that crew's five-year mission "to boldly go
where no man has gone before." The original 1966-1969 television series featured
William Shatner as Captain
James Tiberius Kirk,
Leonard Nimoy as
Mr. Spock,
DeForest Kelley as
Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy,
James Doohan as
Montgomery "Scotty" Scott ,
Nichelle Nichols as
Nyota Uhura,
George Takei as
Hikaru Sulu, and
Walter Koenig as
Pavel Chekov. In its first two seasons it was nominated for
awards as Best Dramatic Series. After three seasons, however, the show was canceled and the last episode aired on
June 3,
1969. The series subsequently became
popular in reruns and a cult following developed, complete with fan conventions.. The remastered episodes currently air in syndication while the originals appear on
TV Land,
G4 (TV channel),
Sci Fi in Australia,
The Sci-Fi Channel in the UK, in
Poland on TV Puls and, additionally, on
BBC2 in the UK, and other small stations. Although these broadcasts are infrequent and irregular.
The Animated Series (1973–1974)
Star Trek: The Animated Series was produced by
Filmation and ran for two seasons from 1973 to 1974. Most of the original cast performed the voices of their characters from
The Original Series, and many of the original series' writers, such as
D. C. Fontana,
David Gerrold and
Paul Schneider wrote for the series. While the animated format allowed larger and more exotic alien landscapes and lifeforms, animation and soundtrack quality, the liberal reuse of shots (pioneered by Jonnie 'Roy' White) and musical cues as well as occasional animation errors has detracted from the reputation of the series. Although originally sanctioned by
Paramount (who became the owners of the Star Trek franchise following its acquisition of
Desilu in 1967), Roddenberry forced Paramount to stop considering the series
canon. Even so, elements of the animated series have been used by writers in later live-action series and movies (for example Kirk's middle name, Tiberius, first used in was made official in, and elements of Spock's childhood from, referenced in the TNG episode ) while the
holodeck makes its first appearance in the
TAS episode
The Practical Joker. TAS won Star Trek's first
Emmy Award on
May 15 1975. The TAS series briefly returned to television in the mid-1980s when it was rebroadcast on the children's cable network
Nickelodeon and in the early 1990s on cable network
Sci-Fi Channel. It was released to
DVD in 2006. The complete TAS was also released on Laserdisc format during the 1980's.
Phase II
Star Trek: Phase II was set to air in June 1978 as the flagship series of a proposed
Paramount Television Network, and 12 episode scripts were written before production was due to begin. The series would have put most of the original crew back aboard the
Enterprise for a second five-year mission, except for
Leonard Nimoy as
Spock, who didn't agree to return due to a disagreement on how many episodes he should appear in. A younger, full-blooded
Vulcan named Xon was planned as a replacement, although it was still hoped that Nimoy would make guest appearances. while two others were eventually adapted as episodes of
Star Trek: The Next Generation during the
1988 Writers Guild of America strike.
The Next Generation (1987–1994)
Star Trek: The Next Generation (Also known as "TNG", The Next Generation) is set about 85 years after
The Original Series. It features a new starship, the
Enterprise-D, and a new crew led by Captain
Jean-Luc Picard, played by
Patrick Stewart. It also features the first
Klingon in Starfleet,
Worf, played by
Michael Dorn. The show premiered on
September 28,
1987 and ran for seven seasons, ending on
May 23,
1994. Unlike the previous television outings, the program was
syndicated instead of airing on network television. It had the highest ratings of any of the Star Trek series and was the #1 syndicated show during the last few years of its original run. It was nominated for an
Emmy for Best Dramatic Series during its final season. It also received a
Peabody Award for Outstanding Television Programming. The series currently airs on
HRT in Croatia, AXN Sci-Fi in Bulgaria and Poland,
TV6 in Sweden, Viasat 4 in Norway, SBS NET in Denmark, ETV in Estonia, Virgin 1 and
BBC 2 in the UK,
Sci Fi in Australia, Mexico, Argentina and in Brazil,
SIC Radical in Portugal, and
Space in Canada.
Deep Space Nine (1993–1999)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is set during the same time frame as
The Next Generation and went on for seven seasons, debuting in 1993. Like Star Trek: The Next Generation, it aired in syndication in the United States and Canada. It is the only Star Trek series to take place primarily on a space station rather than aboard a starship. It is set on the
Cardassian-built
spacestation Deep Space Nine, located near the planet
Bajor and a uniquely stable
wormhole that provides immediate access to the distant
Gamma Quadrant. The show chronicles the events of the station's crew, led by Commander (later Captain)
Benjamin Sisko, played by
Avery Brooks. Recurring plot elements include the repercussions of the lengthy and brutal
Cardassian Occupation of Bajor, Sisko's unique spiritual role for the
Bajorans as the Emissary of the
Prophets and a war with the
Dominion. Deep Space Nine stands apart from earlier Trek series for its lengthy serialized storytelling, conflict within the crew, and religious themes — all of which were elements that Roddenberry had forbidden in earlier Trek programs. Nevertheless, he was made aware of plans to make DS9 before his death, so this was the last
Star Trek series with which he was connected. The series currently airs on
Spike in the U.S.,
Virgin 1 in the UK and soon on
TV4 Science Fiction in Sweden.
Voyager (1995–2001)
Star Trek: Voyager was produced for seven seasons from 1995 to 2001, launching a new Paramount-owned television network
UPN. It features
Kate Mulgrew as a new commanding officer, Captain
Kathryn Janeway, the first female commanding officer in a Star Trek series.
Voyager takes place at about the same time as
Deep Space Nine. The series' pilot shows the
USS Voyager and its crew stranded in the
Delta Quadrant, 75,000
light years from
Earth. Faced with a 75-year voyage to Earth, the crew must avoid conflict and defeat challenges on its long and perilous journey home. Like
Deep Space Nine, early seasons of
Voyager feature greater conflict between its crew than is seen in later shows, as a large contingent of the crew is made up of
Maquis fugitives forced by circumstance to cooperate with Starfleet regulations instead of doing things the Maqui way. Eventually, though, they settle their differences, after which it becomes more reminiscent of
The Original Series.
Voyager is originally isolated from many of the familiar aspects and races of the Star Trek franchise, barring those few represented on the crew. This allowed for the creation of new races and original plot lines within the series. Later seasons, however, brought an influx of characters and races from prior shows, such as the
Borg,
Q, the
Ferengi,
Romulans,
Klingons, Cardassians and even multiple instances where members of the
Next Generation crew appear in the series. The series is currently airing on
Space in Canada,
Spike TV in the United States,
Virgin 1 in the United Kingdom, Canal Jimmy and Sci-Fi in France.
Enterprise (2001–2005)
Star Trek: Enterprise (originally titled as "
Enterprise" prior to season 3), produced from 2001 to 2005, was a
prequel to the other Star Trek series, beginning over one hundred years before the original
Star Trek series. The series is set aboard Earth's first warp-five capable starship, the
Enterprise commanded by Captain
Jonathan Archer (
Scott Bakula).
Enterprise shows the origins of several elements that are common in the other series.
For the first two seasons,
Enterprise was mostly episodic, like the original series and
The Next Generation. The third season's big epic arc "
Xindi mission" carried through the entire season. Fourth season's story arcs are often spread to two or three episodes. Ratings for
Enterprise started strong, but declined rapidly. The show continued to lose ratings mainly during the third season, and Paramount canceled the show in early 2005. It currently airs on HDNet, Sky Two,
Virgin 1 in the UK, the SciFi Channel in the US and Australia, Star World in India, and
Space in Canada.
Feature films
Paramount Pictures has produced ten Star Trek feature films, with an eleventh film currently in production, set for release on May 8, 2009. The first six films continue the adventures of the
The Original Series cast, the seventh was an amalgam of "The Original Series" and "Next Generation" casts, and the next three were exclusively Next Generation's cast. Although North American and UK releases of the films were no longer numbered following the sixth film, European releases continued numbering the films. The eleventh film is a prequel about the early lives of
Kirk and
Spock.
Some fans consider the even-numbered Star Trek films to be superior to the odd-numbered Star Trek films (the so-called "
Star Trek movie curse"); the,,, and films are considered fan favorites, whereas the,,,
seventh, and are often considered the weaker films.
| Title |
Release date |
|
December 7, 1979 |
|
June 4, 1982 |
|
June 1, 1984 |
|
November 26, 1986 |
|
June 9, 1989 |
|
December 6, 1991 |
| Star Trek Generations |
November 18, 1994 |
|
November 22, 1996 |
|
December 11, 1998 |
| Star Trek Nemesis |
December 13, 2002 |
| Star Trek |
May 8, 2009 |
Notable film appearances
Cultural impact
The Star Trek franchise is a multi-billion dollar industry, currently owned by CBS.
Gene Roddenberry sold
Star Trek to
NBC as a classic adventure drama; he pitched the show as "
Wagon Train to the stars" and as
Horatio Hornblower in space. Though set on a fictional
starship, Roddenberry wanted to tell more sophisticated stories using
futuristic situations as
analogies to current problems on Earth and rectifying them through
humanism and
optimism. The opening line, "to boldly go
where no man has gone before," was taken almost verbatim from a
US White House booklet on space produced after the
Sputnik flight in 1957. The central trio of
Kirk,
Spock and
McCoy was modeled on
classical mythological storytelling. The show’s cultural impact goes far beyond its longevity and profitability. Star Trek
conventions have become popular, though now are often merged with conventions of other genres and series, and fans have coined the term "
Trekkie" to describe themselves. Others, however, prefer the term "Trekkers". Fans of
Deep Space Nine are better known as "Niners". An entire subculture has grown up around the show which was documented in the film
Trekkies.
The Star Trek franchise is believed to have motivated the design of many current technologies, including the
Tablet PC, the
PDA,
mobile phones and the
MRI (based on Dr. McCoy's diagnostic table). It has also brought to popular attention the concept of
teleportation with its depiction of "matter-energy transport." Phrases such as "
Beam me up, Scotty" have entered the public vernacular. In 1976, following a letter-writing campaign,
NASA named its prototype
space shuttle Enterprise, after the
fictional starship.
Riverside, Iowa has proclaimed itself the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk, a character from the television show Star Trek played by William Shatner.
Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, asserts in his book The Making of Star Trek that the character of Kirk had been born in the state of Iowa.
In March 1985, when the town was looking for a theme for its annual town festival, Steve Miller, a member of the Riverside City Council who had read Roddenberry's book, suggested to the council that Riverside should proclaim itself to be the future birthplace of Kirk. Miller's motion passed unanimously. The council later wrote to Roddenberry for his permission to be designated as the official birthplace of Kirk, and Roddenberry agreed.
The city of
Garland, Texas is the
first city known to have an official place name based on the TV series: "Star Trek Lane," located off of Apollo Road and east of North Jupiter Road.. The city of Birmingham, Alabama also boasts a "Star Trek Lane," and "Star Trek Circle," in the Sunrise East subdivision of its Roebuck neighborhood.
An unincorporated area near the
Las Vegas Strip contains a residential street named "Roddenberry Avenue." While the mailing address lists the avenue as being located in
Las Vegas, Nevada, the physical address is an unincorporated township called "
Enterprise". There is no indication that the township's name has any connection with the Star Trek series, and it's unknown whether or not the street name is a deliberate tribute to the Star Trek creator.
A limited number of
Famous Players theatres in Canada house large replicas of the
USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A. One such theatre can be found in the town of
Thunder Bay, Ontario.
The town of
Vulcan, Alberta,
Canada contains a large replica of the Star ship Enterprise as it appeared in the fourth through sixth movies.
Parodies of Star Trek include the internet-based cartoon series
Stone Trek, the song
Star Trekkin' by
The Firm and the feature film
Galaxy Quest.
In the SeaQuest episode "Hide and Seek", William Shatner (Captain Kirk) appears as a dictator named Milos Tezlov. When Calling the SeaQuest, Shatner's vidcom locater in the lower right hand of the screen is listed as NCC1701. NCC-1701 was the Hull Serial Number of the Enterprise in Star Trek, The Original Series.
Current status and future
After
Star Trek: Enterprise was canceled in 2005, the Star Trek franchise found itself for the first time in over 25 years without a series or film in production or development. In April 2006, the official announcement of
an eleventh feature film made it probable that the franchise hasn't yet ended. Filming was also completed in 2006 for an unofficial mini-series,, which contains many cast members from the TV series and movies and is directed by Tim Russ (Tuvok from
Star Trek: Voyager); it'll be released free of charge on the internet in stages, starting on
December 22,
2007. The enhanced version of
The Menagerie was in limited theatrical release, with an introduction by Gene Roddenberry's son,
Eugene Wesley, Jr.
In 2006,
CBS Paramount Domestic Television began syndicating an enhanced version of the original 79
Star Trek episodes. State-of-the-art visual effects replaced those in the series (created in-house by
CBS), the original theme music has been rerecorded, and the show was transferred from the original negatives in high definition. The show is currently syndicated in HD.
Also in 2006, it was announced that there was a pitch in the works for a new animated series that would, if produced, be released as several 6-minute episodes, available online (similar to
The Animatrix and ). The series is to be set 150 years after the time line, during an era of upheaval and strife in the Federation. The Romulans have used several "
Omega Particle" explosions to render much of Federation space impassable by traditional Federation vessels. Many Federation worlds have been isolated and some races, including the Vulcans, have withdrawn from the Federation altogether. The series is, as yet, untitled and there has been no full confirmation.
On
January 19,
2007, CBS announced that its newly-formed home entertainment unit would begin releasing the remastered episodes on
HD DVD before the end of 2007. Though the remastered first season was released on DVD/HD-DVD hybrid discs, the latter two seasons will instead be released on DVD only on the wake of CBS's decision (and that of the industry) to abandon the high-definition format.
Perpetual Entertainment was also developing a
MMOG based on Star Trek called
Star Trek Online, the licence has been sold to Cryptic Studios.
IDW Publishing have also bought the rights to the comic book. The original series' characters are also featured in two volumes of
manga by publishers
Tokyopop.
Star Trek also continues in many
Star Trek fan productions.
A new movie, a prequel to the original series simply titled
Star Trek, was initially slated for a Christmas 2008 release. In order to take advantage of the summer movie season, however, Paramount has pushed the release date back to May 8, 2009.
Major Villains
The first major villains to be introduced into the Star Trek storyline come from
The Original Series, a multitude of episodes revolving around the ongoing cold war between the
The Federation and the
Klingons, a war like race known for their aggression and (in later series' and all films) their cranial ridges. Only the
Romulans were of the same level of villainy as the Klingons, and beyond that villains were often individuals or groups over entire races. The Klingons were also the primary villain in many of the Star Trek films, most notably
The Search for Spock,
The Voyage Home,
The Final Frontier and
The Undiscovered Country, where a peace is finally brokered resulting in the
Khitomer Accords. During The Next Generation, the threat of the Klingons was decreased due to this uneasy truce and a stronger alliance later formed, as a result, the threat of the Romulans increased along with the introduction of the
Cardassians and the
Borg, with the latter remaining the key villains through the later seasons of
Star Trek Voyager. To a lesser extent, the
Ferengi and the
Q were also villains, however they'd later be used for a more comedic, less threatening effect.
During Deep Space Nine, which itself was partly launched from a story-arc involving the Borg, new villains were introduced, with
The Dominion being the main villains, along with the Cardassians and a brief resurgence of hostility with the Klingons, who later return as a result of the Dominion threat as strong allies. During Voyager, the writers of Star Trek wished to take the story away from villains who had by now been in the storylines for over thirty years. Seeing the title ship flung to the far side of the
galaxy, this enabled shows producers to introduce new villains. Initially, these were the
Kazon, however with the success of Borg storylines and the popularity of the Borg were introduced to Voyager as the ship passed through Borg space, and they remained the principal villain and the center of a number of storylines, a central character (
Seven of Nine) and the final episode.
Following
Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek Enterprise, a prequel, capitalized on the use of well-known villains including the Klingons. It did, however, introduce new villains known as the
Xindi and the
Suliban, as well as showing darker sides to previously friendly races including the
Vulcans and
Andorians.
Both the Original Series, Deep Space Nine and Enterprise also feature a
mirror universe featuring a darker side to many characters, telling the story of the
Terran Empire (replacing the Federation). In the Original Series, the characters from each universe swap over, causing conflict, and in each subsequent mirror episode of Star Trek many these mirror characters have been villainous.
Further Information
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