• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Star Trek

dr wu said:
Love all the Trek shows but particularly fond of Deep Space 9......been watching all the old episodes on one of the US cable channels.
Click to expand...
I think DS9 was my favourite too. And Quark was my favourite character (Arthur Daley looks pale by comparison).
 
I've always thought DS9 was underrated, and deserves better attention! Unlike the crews of the Enterprise and Voyager, who could turn up, deal with the Problem Of The Week, then warp the hell out of there, leaving the locals to deal with the aftermath, DS9 faced the consequences of their actions (or the actions of others) when it came back to bite them in a years time/five years time/etc!
 
Star Trek’s 50-year mission: to shine a light on the best of humankind
The visionary sci-fi series first aired in September 1966 – and its utopian, confident blueprint for society still resonates in the age of Trump

Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, Leonard Nimoy as Spock and William Shatner as Kirk in the original series of Star Trek. Photograph: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images

DaveSchillingL.png

Dave Schilling

@dave_schilling
Sunday 4 September 2016 07.00 BST

Shares
533
Comments
289
Save for later
There is no grand political statement in the first episode of Star Trek, 50 years ago. The Man Trap is a languid little thriller about a monster that eats salt and has a curious habit of shape-shifting into the image of your ex-girlfriend.

If you happened to tune in on 8 September 1966, you would have had no concept of the utopian idealism favoured by Star Trek’s creator, Gene Roddenberry, no inkling of the socialist concepts of the sharing of resources that would pop up in later incarnations of the franchise. It was high adventure set in space, nothing more.

But there’s no question that what defines Star Trek today is an egalitarian, pluralistic, moral future society that has rejected greed and hate for the far more noble purpose of learning all that is learnable and spreading freedom throughout the galaxy.

That doesn’t exactly chime with the world we live in: one that is increasingly polarised, violent, and arguably teeming with existential despair. Star Trek was born out of the era of John F Kennedy, the space race, a well-educated middle class and a sense in America that anything was possible.

Of course, underneath that attitude was the threat of the atomic bomb, the simmering tensions of the civil rights conflict, gender inequality and growing anger at the Vietnam war. Star Trek’s creative brains trust – Roddenberry, Gene Coon, DC Fontana, John DF Black and a who’s who of science fiction luminaries – was marvellously adept at grappling with these issues and, through the course of 44 minutes plus commercials, convincing the audience that intelligent, progressive minds could work together to solve any problem.

Captain Kirk, Mr Spock and Dr McCoy often thought their way out of a situation, rather than simply blasting everything in sight. That’s an inherently liberal position to take: but there are still conservatives among us who project their own ideas on to the series.

Advertisement
Barack Obama is a well-known Star Trek fan, but so is Texas senator and former presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who told the New York Times Magazine last year: “It is quite likely Kirk is a Republican.” He also compared William Shatner’s portrayal of Kirk to that of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard, as played by Sir Patrick Stewart. “Kirk is working class; Picard is an aristocrat. Kirk is a passionate fighter for justice; Picard is a cerebral philosopher.” One could be forgiven for thinking he had substituted Kirk for himself and Picard for Obama. Such is the stereotype of Republicans (rugged adventurers) and Democrats (stuffy twits) in the US.

In that same interview, Cruz said: “The original Star Trek pressed for racial equality, which was one of its best characteristics, but it did so without sermonising.” That’s a peculiar way to look at the show, considering Star Trekfeatured the first interracial kiss on American TV and numerous episodes were allegories about the evils of racism – specifically the episode Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, an unsubtle instalment from the third and final season in which aliens with half-white and half-black faces squabble over their skin-colour differences.

Mark A Altman, a screenwriter, producer and lifelong Star Trek fan who recently wrote The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete Uncensored & Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek, notes the strong connection between Star Trek’s vision and the liberal ideals of JFK. “Star Trek was born in the crucible of the 60s, when society was questioning many of the tried-and-true conservative 50s values they once took for granted,” he says.


FacebookTwitterPinterest
The show was born in the era of the space race and John F Kennedy’s ‘New Frontier’. Photograph: George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images
“It’s not an accident that James T Kirk was an analogue of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, nor that the final frontier was indeed a thinly veiled extension of Kennedy’s New Frontier,” he says, referring to the slogan popularised by JFK during the 1960 presidential campaign. “During a time in which mankind was questioning the very fact as to whether there would be a future in the wake of the hydrogen bomb and nuclear proliferation, and the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, Star Trek definitively said not only would there be a future, but mankind would endure and flourish.”

Star Trek gave an already optimistic nation hope that it could get even better. The era of its original broadcast run was one in which unity seemed achievable, regardless of the obstacles before us. In 2016, science fiction rarely approaches social strife that way. Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror is just one example of a sci-fi series that posits a future far more ominous than what Star Trek offered in 1966.

Altman, who is currently participating in the Star Trek: Mission New York fan convention, doubts whether Roddenberry’s vision still appeals today. “For a genre in which dystopian futures and space pulp dominate, one has to wonder whether the thoughtful, cerebral, kinder, gentle Star Trekkian ethos still has a chance to engage and excite new viewers – particularly in light of the tepid box-office reception to the most recent Star Trek [film].”
Click to expand...

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/sep/04/star-trek--50-year-mission-best-of-humankind
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
DS9 get bonus points for making O'Brien a proper character, and giving Worf something else to do other than grimacing and being wrong about everything.

Click to expand...
That's Klingon's for you .. can't trust 'em ..
 
Something that's always troubled me about the Klingons: if they're such honourable warriors, why do they sneak around in cloaked ships?
 
graylien said:
Something that's always troubled me about the Klingons: if they're such honourable warriors, why do they sneak around in cloaked ships?
Click to expand...
'Orrible, not honourable.
 
Not a massive fan of ST but watched the rerun of STNG and spotted this women.

latest


I'm guessing it promoted many an Intergalactic boner in the Mess Hall.
 
Last edited:
CarlosTheDJ said:
DS9 get bonus points for making O'Brien a proper character, and giving Worf something else to do other than grimacing and being wrong about everything.
Click to expand...
I have to say, no-one comes close to Michael Dorn for several years of persistent, slightly-outraged exasperation. Not to mention his po-faced delivery of some hilarious dialogue, particularly with his son: "Alexander! Unless you undergo way-heyy, you will never attain brouhaha."
 
Those intergalactic boners in the mess hall was part of the plot of that episode.
 
Star Trek’s 100 Most Important Crew Members, Ranked

THIS WEEK, WE celebrate the 50th anniversary of the originalStar Trek TV series. To do so, we thought it might be a good time to rank all of the Star Trek crew members. Before we do, a few stipulations:

1: Only Starfleet personnel and related enlisted crews have been considered for placement on this list. (Which means that characters such as Quark, Morn, or, let’s be honest, half of Deep Space Nine are absent.) Placement on the list is the result of long consideration of characters’ service to Starfleet and/or Starfleet-related causes as shown or implied during their appearances, with one exception that shall not be discussed further. (Good luck figuring out which one is placed specifically due to personal bias.)

2: Only original on-screen media was considered during deliberation. If spin-off material such as novels and comic books had been included, both Captain Clark Terrell and Commander Elizabeth Shelby would be considerably higher up in the ranking. (Star Trek: Vanguard and Star Trek: New Frontier FTW, as the famous 24th century saying goes.)

3: Your argument is invalid.

Key:
TOS: The Original Series, aka Star Trek (1966-1969)
TAS: Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974)
TMP: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
TWK: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
TUC: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
STG: Star Trek: Generations (1994)
TNG: Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)
DS9: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)
VOY: Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)
ENT: Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005)
KTL: The Kelvin Timeline, aka Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), Star Trek Beyond (2016)

100. Crewman Lon Suder (VOY)
99. Admiral Alexander Marcus (KTL)
98. Lieutenant Marla McGivers (TOS)
97. Lt. Commander Gary Mitchell (TOS)
96. Dr. Elizabeth Dehner (TOS)
95. Commodore Matthew Decker (TOS)
94. Captain Ben Maxwell (TNG)
93. Kes (VOY)
92. Fleet Admiral Cartwright (TUC)
91. Lieutenant Valeris (TUC) ...

http://www.wired.com/2016/09/star-treks-100-crew-members-ranked/?mbid=social_twitter
 
My sense is that the future achieved in Star Trek was made possible mainly because limits to growth were overcome. That is, various technologies were allowed to access energy and material resources outside the planet. Given an abundance of resources, human beings found no more need to use money or to compete with each other economically. Instead, they sought to improve themselves in various ways.

Given current circumstances, that makes the show both inspiring and depressing.
 
ralfy said:
My sense is that the future achieved in Star Trek was made possible mainly because limits to growth were overcome. That is, various technologies were allowed to access energy and material resources outside the planet. Given an abundance of resources, human beings found no more need to use money or to compete with each other economically. Instead, they sought to improve themselves in various ways.

Given current circumstances, that makes the show both inspiring and depressing.
Click to expand...

No the Space Gods of Bongo delivered their God-Emperor son Trump to the world and that set Earth onto the path of Star Trekiness. It's just that Roddenberry never wanted to talk about it.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
No the Space Gods of Bongo delivered their God-Emperor son Trump to the world and that set Earth onto the path of Star Trekiness. It's just that Roddenberry never wanted to talk about it.
Click to expand...

More like four decades before Trump.
 
"no-one comes close to Michael Dorn for several years of persistent, slightly-outraged exasperation."

And his remarkable stoicism when he opted to undergo discombobulation, so the Klingon empire could save face.
 
He used his Tardis to slingshot around the sun and travel back through time (and pick up a few whales at the same time! Who said men cannot multi-task?!)
 
Star Trek 50th anniversary: how are trekkies celebrating around the world?
Telegraph Reporters 8 September 2016 5:48pm

"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."

The first episode of Star Trek was broadcast on NBC on Thursday September 8, 1966. Fifty years later, Trekkies across the world are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the much-loved sci-fi franchise.

To mark the occasion, we spent the day sharing all the latest #StarTrek50 news, tributes and events as they happened. Below you can also find some in-depth pieces about the history of the franchise, its legacy, and its enduring appeal - just in case you feel like venturing out a little further into the Star Trek universe.

Happy birthday, Star Trek! Live long and prosper.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/...ersary-how-are-trekkies-celebrating-round-th/
 
Sigh......... from the day I got my Star Trek Pajamas I've been waiting to enter the academy. Bit too old now.

Seems that the slow progress of the warp drive has deprived me of my real destiny :(.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top