Star Trek :: Science Fiction Media Television Essays

Star TrekWhen around people hear William Shatner split the notorious infinitive to boldly go, they conjure a mental image of old men, donning tight Starfleet uniforms, perusing immense Trekkie conventions they picture these fans buying things like hand-phaser boob tube remotes and costumes for their pets and discussing the recent Klingon translation of Hamlet. Few people, however, take the time to investigate the phenomenon that could breed such fandom. The truth for 30 years Star Trek has delight audiences around the world with over 600 television episodes, hundreds of books, ten full blank shell movies (to date), dozens of games and computer software applications, and an assortment of merchandise. The television franchise, winner of some(prenominal) Emmy Awards, has at times been the highest rated show on television. It is no surprise that among the thousands stir by show, the International Astronomical Union and those responsible for the first space shuttle stand ap guile the Union named a star Roddenberry subsequently the shows creator and the shuttle bore the designation of its legendary star ship Enterprise.Truly, Star Trek has captured the hearts and imaginations of the people, yet most people dismiss the franchise as another cheesy cognizance fiction melodrama. Aside from the shows obvious allures--the exciting, suspenseful, and complex plots and beautifully rendered charactersthe weekly interstellar adventures provide a unique forum for literary exploration. Through the substructure of one possible future, Gene Roddenberry forwards the most noble tincture of his secular humanist philosophy its notion of the inherent capacity of humanity to mold its future as one as glorious as Roddenberrys fictional one. The shows investigation of gender and race relations, intricate metaphysical themes, and skillful literary allusions, Roddenberry nurtured his show into the ongoing masterpiece it is now. As its consequence has evolved from li terary to cultural, Star Trek has come to embody the best separate of its creator and his philosophy the embrace of all forms of diversity and its implications, the necessity for philosophic inquiry in all parts of life, and the beauty of humanity and the art which represents it. Star Trek, when it aired in the 1960s, presented the public with a revolutionary purpose of science fiction for the first time, science fiction forwarded a exacting message. Replacing the scenes of science gone awry found in Shelleys Frankenstein or the terrifying imagery of alien conquest in surface War of the Worlds were scenes of peace and comfort.