News Update

I've been invited to participate on a panel at the 40th anniversary Star Trek convention in Seattle. I'm hoping to be able to make arrangements to do so. It's a pretty exciting prospect.
UPDATE on the update: I will be moderating the panel on Soul of Star Trek: The Prime Directive and Beyond, probably on THE anniversary, Friday, September 8.


You may have read the depressing quotes purported to come from a Paramount executive, pretty much dissing Star Trek fans for abandoning "Enterprise" and "Nemesis," and stating that the new Trek movie will be a complete reboot of the original series. If fans like it, fine, but basically they're going for a totally new audience, the kind that watches "Lost."

I can't imagine J.J. Abrams could be happy about such a statement. I haven't seen it denied yet, but I expect it will be, though it remains to be seen how truthful it really is. It does remind me of at least one prior instance, when the people who decided to "reboot" the Lone Ranger went out of their way to distance their project from the original series, to the point of denying its star, Clayton Moore, the right to wear his trademark mask at personal appearances. When I read this statement from a supposed Paramount source, I suddenly remembered an odd detail--that Paramount had refused William Shatner the right to use "Captain Kirk" in the title of the special he did for the History Channel. This supposed source was openly contemptuous of Shatner's statement that he'd been happy to appear in Star Trek XI. Is it possible they are trying to distance Shatner from the character he created?

It's hard to believe they could be that obtuse, but then a certain executive broke up the championship Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan, and so that team became the NBA punching bag for a decade. For Trek, it goes beyond diehard fans. At a time in the 1990s when it was said that half the world's population had never used a telephone, a quarter of it could recognize the face of William Shatner as Captain Kirk. I think that demands a little respect.

Anyway, that Lone Ranger movie failed dismally, and destroyed its own future. How many "reboots" or remakes (as the first story is as a feature film) were really better than the original? I just saw part of Peter Jackson's "King Kong" and it's not even as good as the De Laurentis version, let alone the original.

Does Paramount want a war between the old fans and the new (assuming there are any)? Do they think it will come out like the TOS v. TNG wars, in a story marriage? It's quite a risk. Conflict could stimulate publicity, but how bad blood and wars turn out is anything but certain.

Some Star Trek fans active on Internet discussion boards have been pretty negative and even toxic in the recent past. But that's not the majority. If Paramount succeeds in alienating traditional fans, it may get itself a hit movie anyway. But only one. The whole thing could end up being such a debacle that there will be no Trek XII. They risk the end of Star Trek, except for what fans create.


What follows here is the first in a series creating the context of Star Trek's debut in 1966, and then examining aspects of its legacy and meaning for us now. We begin with the dawn of the space age, which was both exciting and frightening--both aspects important to what Star Trek was and what it is today.