Cultural influence of Star Trek

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Star Trek is one of the most culturally influential television shows – and perhaps the most influential science fiction TV series – in history. The original series, which aired in the late sixties, has since spawned five successor series, ten movies (with an eleventh in production), a plethora of merchandise, and a multi-billion dollar industry collectively known as the Star Trek franchise (now owned by CBS Paramount Television).

[edit] Star Trek: The Original Series

Gene Roddenberry sold Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS), to NBC as a classic adventure drama, calling it a "Wagon Train to the Stars." Set aboard the starship Enterprise (NCC-1701), the format of the TV show borrowed heavily from the 1955 movie Forbidden Planet. In reality, Roddenberry wanted to tell more sophisticated stories, using futuristic situations as analogies for current problems on Earth and rectifying them through humanism and optimism. The show's writers frequently addressed moral and social issues in the episodes by tackling topics such as slavery, warfare, and discrimination. 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 was unique, however, in terms of its portrayal of diversity and unity among the wider cast of characters. At a time when there were few non-white or foreign roles in American television dramas, Roddenberry created a multi-ethnic crew for the Enterprise, including an African woman, a Scotsman, a Japanese American, and – most notably – an alien, the half-Vulcan Spock. In the second season, reflecting the contemporaneous Cold War, Roddenberry added a Russian crewmember. Although the show is sometimes chided today for cheesy effects and campy acting, TOS was a groundbreaking show which garnered multiple Emmy award nominations during its run, setting standards for shows that followed it. While there were other successful science fiction TV shows like The Twilight Zone, TOS was the first series aimed at adults that told of morality tales with complex narratives. Despite a limited budget, the show's special effects were superior to contemporary TV shows, its stories were often written by notable science fiction authors, and many of its production values – particularly costuming – were of high caliber.

During its initial run from 1966 to 1969, TOS did not garner substantial TV ratings and was almost canceled after its second season. A letter-writing campaign by fans, unprecedented in television, prompted network executives to reverse their decision and renew the series for a third season. NBC put the show in a disadvantageous timeslot, and TOS was finally canceled after its third season. Soon afterward, however, marketing personnel of the network complained to management that the series' cancellation was premature. It turned out that after using new techniques for profiling demographics, of the viewing audience they found the Star Trek audience was highly desirable for advertisers to the point where they considered the series a highly profitable property. Unfortunately, that revelation came too late to resume production of the series.

[edit] Cancellation and aftermath

In 1976, a letter-writing campaign compelled NASA to name the inaugural (and test) space shuttle Enterprise after the fictional eponymous starship. In this image, Enterprise is rolled out of the Palmdale manufacturing facilities with Star Trek television cast members and creator Gene Roddenberry in attendance.

After its cancellation, Star Trek took on a life of its own, becoming more popular and reaching a much wider audience than when it had originally aired. In the early seventies, a group of fans decided to hold a convention featuring the original actors: hundreds were expected, but (surprisingly) thousands arrived.

In 1976, following another fan-organized letter-writing campaign, NASA named its first space shuttle orbiter, Enterprise (OV-101), after the fictional starship. The Enterprise was used in a number of flight tests, but NASA's plans to make it spaceworthy were canceled as impractical. Enterprise was occasionally used for engineering tests and was also used to investigate the 2003 Columbia accident, but has spent much of its life in storage and is now displayed at the Smithsonian Institution's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center outside Washington, DC. The opening sequence of the later series Star Trek: Enterprise (2001) features a shot of this real-life space shuttle in homage, intending to show it as a namesake for other eponymous ships in the Star Trek universe.

NASA also employed actress Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura – and is touted to have partaken in the first multiracial kiss with Shatner's Kirk on TV in the episode "Plato's Stepchildren" – to attempt recruiting African-Americans and women to become astronauts. During her work on the show, Nichols became frustrated at her relative lack of lines and was considering quitting. She was talked out of this decision by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., who told her that a show that depicted a black woman working alongside whites in a position of importance helped further the goal of racial equality.

A possibly direct follow-on to Nichelle Nichols' inspiration was once stated by Whoopi Goldberg, as she had once been quoted as saying that Nichols' role as Uhura was her inspiration to get into acting. In the movie Trekkies It is told that as a child seeing Star Trek for the first time, Ms. Goldberg ran around the house screeming "hey Mom! Look! There's a negro woman on TV and she ain't cooking dinner!" Ms. Goldberg was eventually to portray the recurring El-Aurian female character Guinan on The Next Generation.

[edit] Waxing and waning

In the mid-seventies, encouraged by the burgeoning fan base for the show, Roddenberry sought to start a second television series (Star Trek: Phase II); this abortive attempt morphed into Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979. The movie did sufficiently well at the box office, grossing more than $80 million, and spawned several more movies during the eighties. In 1987, Roddenberry created a second TV show, Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), which was set aboard the fifth Federation starship Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) more than seventy years after events in the earlier series and related movies. Unlike TOS – which often reflected a bold, interventionist American philosophy – TNG had a less aggressive and more socially liberal message. This show, unlike its progenitor, was syndicated and sold to individual local TV stations rather than a nationwide network. It became the number one syndicated TV show, lasting seven seasons, and spawned two sequels, a prequel, four movies, and a vast marketing business.

Star Trek and its spinoffs have proved highly popular in television repeats, shown endlessly on TV stations in the US and worldwide. The Star Trek franchise is similarly prolific: arguably, only Star Wars has had as significant an influence as a science fiction and pop culture phenomenon. According to Forbes magazine:

• the five live-action Star Trek series have garnered 31 Emmys and 140 nominations, and at least nine specials have been produced
• the ten movies have cumulatively grossed $1.76 billion at the box office: the most successful movie was Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) grossing $133 million worldwide ($235 million in 2005 terms); however, none have garnered Oscar wins despite a combined nine nominations for four films
• at least 120 compact discs and 40 video games contain "Star Trek" in their titles; the CDs are mostly soundtracks and audio books but also Klingon language instruction
• about 70 million books are in print
• the franchise entails a merchandising business with a total lifetime gross of about $4 billion from companies including Playmates Toys, Hallmark, and Hasbro
• resorts include rides and attractions at Paramount-owned amusement parks as well as Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton

Star Trek conventions have become popular, though waning and now often meshed with conventions of other genres. Fans coined the terms "Trekkies" and "Trekkers" to describe themselves, and produce an abundance of fanon material like fanzines with fiction, art and songs.

The show’s cultural influence goes far beyond its longevity and profitability. An entire subculture grew up around the show and, anecdotally, there are indications that Star Trek has influenced many peoples' lives. This is apparent from the reported testimonials of people, such as scientists and engineers, who claim that their professional and life choices were influenced by Star Trek. Whoopi Goldberg, harking of Nichols' portrayal, was compelled to act and would later appear on TNG regularly. In addition, phrases like "Beam me up, Scotty", "Resistance is futile" (from the iconic Borg), and Treknobabble have entered vernacular. Words from the show including Klingon have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary, and "Trekkie" is the only fan label listed in that dictionary. Fictional devices in the show have also been claimed as inspirations for actual devices like mobile phones (communicator) and medical technology (hypospray).

Many fans contend that the Star Trek franchise, particularly after the death of Roddenberry in 1991 (during TNG’s run and before DS9’s run), is in decline and has reached a nadir. Reduced viewership of Star Trek: Voyager, lackluster performance of Star Trek Nemesis, and the short tenure of Enterprise connote decreased popularity. Some assert that the many incarnations are formulaic, repetitive, mediocre, and sometimes discontinuous. Others ascribe this decline to static leadership at Paramount, which has been over-exploiting the phenomenon as a cash cow and asserting copyright at the expense of fandom. However, it should be noted that all these other programs competed with popular rival space themed sci-fi TV shows such as Stargate SG-1 (1997-2007) or Babylon 5 (1994-1998). Consequently, they could not be expected to command more viewership than TNG which was often the only major sci-fi TV series during its 1987 to 1994 run.

[edit] Parodies and tributes

Star Trek has been the subject of a large number of parodies and tributes.

Prominent among film parodies is Galaxy Quest, as it parodied the original Star Trek series, elements of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the whole Trekkie phenomenon. Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning is a fan-made parody of both Star Trek and Babylon 5.

On television, the animated series Futurama makes frequent references to Star Trek and parodies some of its better known plot elements on a regular basis, including the character Zapp Brannigan who is based on a combination of Captain Kirk and William Shatner, and cast members of the original series have taken part in one episode.^[1] Prominent examples in other television series include multiple episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy.

There are many other parodies in comic strips, music and computer games.

NASA and other institutions have paid explicit tribute to the series in the use of names of ships and characters from the series. Subtle acknowledgments in media and real life include the use of Star Trek ships' registry numbers, especially the Enterprise's NCC-1701.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Star Trek parodies and pop culture references article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
• Star Trek parodies and pop culture references (film) article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
• Star Trek parodies and pop culture references (television) article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
• Star Trek parodies and pop culture references (music) article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
• Star Trek parodies and pop culture references (literature) article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
• Star Trek tributes article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki