Star Trek :: Science Fiction Media Television Essays

Star travelWhen most people hear William Shatner shiver the infamous infinitive to boldly go, they conjure a mental shape of middle-aged men, donning tight Starfleet uniforms, perusing immense Trekkie conventions they picture these fans buying things worry hand-phaser television 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 spawn such fandom. The truth for 30 years Star Trek has delighted audiences around the world with over 600 television episodes, hundreds of books, ten rise length movies (to date), dozens of games and computer software applications, and an assortment of merchandise. The television franchise, succeeder of several Emmy Awards, has at times been the highest rated show on television. It is no admiration that among the thousands inspired by show, the International Astronomical Union and those responsible for the source space shuttle st and apart the Union named a sense datum Roddenberry after the shows creator and the shuttle bore the grant of its legendary star ship Enterprise.Truly, Star Trek has captured the hearts and imaginations of the people, as yet most people dismiss the franchise as another chinchy science fiction melodrama. Aside from the shows obvious allures--the exciting, suspenseful, and complex plots and beautifully rendered charactersthe hebdomadally interstellar adventures provide a unique forum for literary exploration. with the creation of one possible future, Gene Roddenberry forwards the most majestic quality of his secular humanist philosophy its notion of the inherent qualification of manhood to mold its future as one as brainy as Roddenberrys fictional one. The shows investigation of gender and race relations, complex metaphysical themes, and skillful literary allusions, Roddenberry nurtured his show into the ongoing masterpiece it is now. As its significance has evolved from literary to cultural, Star Trek has come to embody the take up parts of its creator and his philosophy the embrace of all forms of diversity and its implications, the fatality for philosophical 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 rotatory conception of science fiction for the first time, science fiction forwarded a positive message. Replacing the scenes of science gone awry found in Shelleys Frankenstein or the terrifying imagery of alien conquest in Wells War of the Worlds were scenes of peace and comfort.