I also loved the two-issue Who's Who in Star Trek by DC Comics. The 70's and early/mid-80's were Trek's Wild, Wild, West days.
My father died when I was 10-years-old. He used to watch TOS when I was small, and I didn't really pay attention, but I really got into Star Trek after his death when I watched a marathon of the best episodes and saw "The Devil in the Dark." To this day, I love that story and if Star Trek has a philosophy, theme, and overarching ideology, I feel it gets the quintessential essence of it. I’m sure what originally pulled me toward science-fiction was lasers, cool-looking technology, and space battles. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize a lot of my love for the genre can be seen through the prism of my father’s death when I was a child, the effect it had on my mother and me, and trying to cope through cathartic wish fulfillment. Because, “in a better world,” we can do anything. When at its best, with the idea of the Federation and what it means for humanity, things seem to make sense. Unlike in the here and now, problems can be solved with reason and science, no one looks down their nose at others for being different, and the worst mistakes can be made right again. Brave heroes boldly charge through the darkness in great machines to save the day. While there will be struggles and suffering, even death itself can be opposed. I think it's also the reason I loved watching old episode of The Twilight Zone with Rod Serling. They were great episodes of television, but there’s a fatherly figure who acts as our guide, while dispensing wisdom and lessons of morality in between drags on his cigarette.
I love The Twilight Zone as well. There just weren't enough spaceships leaving Earth in it, to eclipse Star Trek.
I don't think it has to. I think that, for a lot of people, the general state of the universe is of one that gets better. It is an important part of the mythos, even if it always doesn't seem that way.
That's true. It doesn't. My favorite series is Deep Space Nine and I love the nuance it brought to the ideas that surround Star Trek. But ... If I'm being honest about the appeal of Star Trek, why I think I fell in love with it, I think it's that pure idealism and that spark of hope for something better. That people can be better and build a better world. In most other science-fiction series, the Horta in "The Devil in the Dark" is the monster of the week that gets killed off at the end of the episode. In Star Trek, the Horta mother is ultimately a sympathetic entity with a tragic story, but Starfleet finds a way for everyone to live together in peace. GENE RODDENBERRY: "As you know, one of the joys of Star Trek, for me, has been the variety of our fans. When I go to conventions and I see people of all sizes and shapes and abilities, and when I see people with nerve disorders that can’t really sit properly and so on, I still know what’s in their mind. They are saying, "In a better world, I can do anything. I’ll be there in a better world. In a better world, they will not laugh at me or look down their nose at me."
Funny, to me things like TNG and even Spock at times feel like they're looking down their noses. I don't disagree with you in principle. I just feel like Trek makes a better world a distant dream, and requires war and sacrifice to get there but not one person talks about the challenge to get there. The condemnation of past humanity without a hand up of how to get there. I would disagree.
Same, only throw in BSG. Old and new. To some people, anything that involves spaceships and lasers is either Star Trek or Star Wars.
Funnily enough, one time I had Doctor Who confused as Star Trek, it wasn't even because there were any spaceships or futuristic stuff present, at least not in that particular scene. I was watching the episode Cold War, with Matt Smith's Doctor. The episode takes place on a Soviet submarine, and the opening scene of the episode is the submarine's crew conducting a battle drill. My mother, saw that scene, and asked "which Star Trek is this?" I said "none of them, it's Doctor Who." She shrugged and said "I hear alarms and people yelling about battle stations, which sounds like Star Trek to me."
It sure was. At that time, the “real” Star Trek universe was whatever you made of it from the various books/comics/games that you knew weren’t canonical but kinda imagined as such anyway. Star Fleet Battles was a big part of that too for a while — all those ships and tantalizing Nexus magazine covers! And of course, FASA (all those other ships! Plus reference stardates! And John M. Ford Klingons!).
Trek for me is four distinct timelines. 1) TOS/TAS 2) TOS movies, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, LDS, PIC, PRO 3) Kelvin 4) DSC, SNW, SFA, S31 I enjoy them all but I do separate them. I would never wish that to be imposed on anyone and I don’t think any kind of official word should come from TPTB, but it’s just a lot neater like that for me.
Thanks for collating those images, Michael. Haven’t they done a fantastic job and doesn’t it just show the strengths of the original designs too? Brilliant.
The TOS movies are a curious phenomenon because, to borrow a biological term, I believe them to be a polyphyletic group – that is, I don't think they really belong together in one collection with any of the other major groups, or even really with each other. They're on a kind of "continuity spectrum" with ST:TMP at one end being the most like TOS/TAS, and STVI:TUC at the other which is definitely part of the TNG+ group. We might say that STII:TWOK, STIII:TSFS, and STIV:TVH are a single collection but don't fit brilliantly with either TOS+ or TNG+ continuities; and STV:TFF is its own batshit little thing off to the side somewhere.