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Today Marks The 50th Anniversary of 'Star Trek' (ew.com)
Dave Knott writes: Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first television broadcast of Star Trek. The first episode of the science fiction series was aired on September 8, 1966. From its humble beginnings, Star Trek has gone on to become one of the best-loved and most successful television concepts of all time, an enduring pop culture touchstone that changed science fiction forever and spawned multiple series and movies that continue to this day. What does Star Trek mean to you? Are you a trekkie/trekker? What are your best memories of the series, and how has it affected your life?
Before the reboot it was awesome.
I even have books that most trekkers don't know about like "Spock Must Die".
After the reboot, having kirk and spock looking longingly at each other and Uhura emerging as a the true power in the ship just makes me hope that trek passes away.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
The Next Generation was amazing, DS9 is still my favorite, but the original series broke so much ground it is mind boggling. One of my favorite stories is of Ohura and Kirk kissing. The producers didn't want to do it, so Shatner convinced them to film both scenes, the kissing first. He then proceeded to screw up every take without the kiss until they were running low on film, which was quite expensive. The producers were forced to take that step forward in history.
Kate Mulgrew was the best Kirk.
COME AT ME
You are welcome on my lawn.
TOS set the technology up with some really good plot hooks. Things like:
You can't beam someone onboard while the shields are up.
You can go to distant planets, but it still takes considerable time.
The transporters are sensitive, finicky things that tend to break.
All of these make great places to hang plot from, such as:
So item #1 makes for a tense situation when you're in a shuttlecraft (or on the planet) while the ship is facing off an enemy.
Item #2 means you might not get there in time (KIRK: Make a challenge. Warn that ship off. UHURA: Trying to, sir. They don't acknowledge.)
Item #3 means you might get stranded on the ship after you've set it to blow up.
Compare with the modern reboot movies, where you can beam from Earth to another planet using a transporter the size of a duffel bag, starships that can hide underwater, and magic serum from Khan's blood that will bring someone back from the dead.
The modern reboot movies think sacrificing the technology makes for good plot, but it's just the opposite: Good plot will be based on the limitations of the technology.
Consider: How can anyone get emotionally involved in someone's death, knowing that they can be brought back to life now using Khan's blood?
(Let's not mention a red liquid that can turn a planet into a black hole, delivered by hand using a big syringe. Or a cold fusion bomb that can't be remote armed, has to be assembled and armed by hand while standing at the place of detonation. Or a bomb the size of a class ring that can take out a building. Or beaming from a planet onto a ship that's been at warp for a couple of hours using a formula that considers the ship and the planet stationary while the space between them moves.)
Or as William Shattner just had to say:
I'd just like to say... GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it's just a TV show! I mean, look at you, look at the way you're dressed! You've turned an enjoyable little job, that I did as a lark for a few years, into a COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME!
I mean, how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves?
You, you must be almost 30... have you ever kissed a girl?
I didn't think so! There's a whole world out there! When I was your age, I didn't watch television! I LIVED! So... move out of your parent's basements! And get your own apartments and GROW THE HELL UP! I mean, it's just a TV show dammit, IT'S JUST A TV SHOW!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The news essentially ignored it. There is nothing on TV, no show marathons or special programs. Google didn't even do a doodle for it. What a bummer... I didn't even find out about it until I saw a buried story about the 50th anniversary. I guess Trek really has fallen off the face of the earth, and its influence has truly waned. That is a real shame.
http://startrekcontinues.com/
JJ and the reboot of 'Star Trek' make mediocre action films, but they aren't Star Trek anymore.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
As a very young boy, I exhausted the children's area of our small-town library in no time. With my parents' permission and a wonderful librarian, I was allowed to start getting books from the Adults' floor. I was a complete science fiction addict. I went through the whole section. I was even allowed to read stories like Farmer's "The Lovers" and Sturgeon's "Venus Plus X", which at the time were considered very definitely not for children.
I was thoroughly familiar with concepts that are now almost trite, but at the time were pretty much limited to the science fiction community: preserving time lines to preserve reality, the implications of faster-than-light spaceships, matter transmission, parallel universes and a lot more. Television science fiction (except Outer Limits and Twilight Zone) bored me to tears, and Lost In Space made me sick. My parents couldn't figure out why I loved SF books so much, but had no time for "Fireball XL-5".
Then, just as summer was winding down, the networks started promoting the new TV shows for the coming season. And there was Star Trek. Even the very limited "trailers" made it clear this was going to be something different. It delivered in spades. All of the stuff I'd been reading about was brought to life, and I got to watch my family and friends catch onto the same things that had held me spellbound for a good part of my short life. And most important, Star Trek made it clear that we'd get through all the evil and ugliness we saw around us...Vietnam, the assassinations, the Cold War. It was looking pretty bleak there, for a while.
And it also did what science fiction was supposed to do: hold up a mirror to problems in our own world we didn't often discuss openly. Plus (huge bonus) some of the seriously imaginative science fiction writers whose work I loved were writing episodes. My mother, who was a tough, capable woman, cried like a baby at the end of "The City at the Edge of Forever", and my dad was very quiet. They'd both lived through WWII (my dad served with the RAF), and they both knew just how close Hitler came to winning.
But it was that first view of the first promo I remember best...when my sister and I were sitting on the living room floor playing a card game and I looked at the TV and just couldn't believe what I was seeing.
All these years later, I know how lucky I was to see it happen through a child's eyes.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I'm very close to 40.
When I was a kid I watched reruns of ToS on TV and some of my dads VHS tapes he got suckered into buying at $30 a pop from some subscription, with only 3 eps per tape. I loved it and I enjoyed sporadically watching TnG as it aired.
Eventually I became a dumb angsty later teen and thought Star Wars was what's cool and Trek was dumb / lame.
As I've gotten older (well 20 years later) and every god damned movie and TV show has taken on a "dark edgey tone" and I've finally started to not give a shit if someone calls me a dork! or nerd! I can accept Star Trek as god damn cool, because it was so out there, it's camp, it's silly, it's great. The humour can be fantastic and the nerdiness I don't need to feel ashamed about. When Star Trek is funny I laugh with it, when it's bad I laugh with it "oh that silly old Star Trek!"
At the core of Star Trek though is that Roddenberry philosophy of an almost utopian future. I can respect that, more and more as I age. As I see the world around me slip in to eventual chaos, the environment becoming a disgrace, capitalism, greed and globalization becoming more intense, the world is becoming a very very dark place and I think it's not going to end well, Star Trek is a welcome, fantasy relief of what would happen if almost all humans all did the right thing, for humanity and the universe not just for themselves.
Heck when I see a 1966 show talk in metres and kilometres and not have smoking on the show despite the lost potential revenue from product placement because that's how it would be in the utopian future, I can see why Gene is so lauded as a visionary.
A great show that I'm finally proud to say I'm a big fan of.
Say what you will about The Search for Spock as a whole; that sequence in which Kirk steals the Enterprise and escapes spacedock is one of the most engaging I can think of in all of cinema. Everything from "Don't call me Tiny" to "The doors Mr. Scott!" "Right sir! I'm working on it!", "Oh, I'll have Mr. Adventure eating out of my hand." all the way up to "Kirk, you do this, you'll never sit in the captain's chair again." It's an incredibly emotionally charged scene that is simultaneously tense, funny, and thrilling even though it takes place at 1/4 impulse power, there's no lens flare, and nobody gets choked or murdered or even shot at. That's classy fucking filmmaking. And scoring too! James Horner's finest work in my opinion.
Lucile Ball was the first trekkie [blastr.com]. Yes, Lucile Ball, your new geek overlord.
Basic gist here is that it was her production company that initially got it produced and sold, and the one person at that company that was sold on the vision of the show was in fact Lucile Ball herself. At one point her whole board voted to can the show, because they were a small company and already had 3 shows on their plate. There would have been no Trek. She vetoed them.
MLK said he was a Trekkie. Wouldn't let Michelle Nickhols leave the show. [npr.org] MLK, blerd before it was cool.
Ms. NICHOLS: I went in to tell Gene Roddenberry that I was leaving after the first season, and he was very upset about it. And he said, take the weekend and think about what I am trying to achieve here in this show. You're an integral part and very important to it. And so I said, yes, I would. And that - on Saturday night, I went to an NAACP fundraiser, I believe it was, in Beverly Hills. And one of the promoters came over to me and said, Ms. Nichols, there's someone who would like to meet you. He says he is your greatest fan.
And I'm thinking a Trekker, you know. And I turn, and before I could get up, I looked across the way and there was the face of Dr. Martin Luther King smiling at me and walking toward me. And he started laughing. By the time he reached me, he said, yes, Ms. Nichols, I am your greatest fan. I am that Trekkie.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. NICHOLS: And I was speechless. He complimented me on the manner in which I'd created the character. I thanked him, and I think I said something like, Dr. King, I wish I could be out there marching with you. He said, no, no, no. No, you don't understand. We don't need you on the - to march. You are marching. You are reflecting what we are fighting for. So, I said to him, thank you so much. And I'm going to miss my co-stars.
And his face got very, very serious. And he said, what are you talking about? And I said, well, I told Gene just yesterday that I'm going to leave the show after the first year because I've been offered - and he stopped me and said: You cannot do that. And I was stunned. He said, don't you understand what this man has achieved? For the first time, we are being seen the world over as we should be seen. He says, do you understand that this is the only show that my wife Coretta and I will allow our little children to stay up and watch. I was speechless.
Yes, MLK was a (self-identified!) Trekkie.
I concur - my own dark sense of optimism was formed at the Age of 2 thru 4 during the initial run of the show. After that, I refilled periodically with reruns...
I think this is what differentiates this 'border' generation (tweeners) - they were at the right age to absorb and appreciate Star Trek deeper than they consciously knew at the time. These are the people holding together the technological world today as the boomers go off and retire not really understanding it, and the generations that have followed never knowing a world without the technology they depend upon - and take for granted every day.
That being said, there are many people doing amazing things to help solve problems, and accomplish the piece parts that can make up a better world when put together. In fits and starts progress is being made - so I can't complain really. I continue to stand by my dark optimism.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain