Is Star Trek more popular now than ever before?

[Jefferies]

It is my impression that Star Trek as a culutral phenomenon has become more accepted and respected by mainstream society than ever before.

In the last couple of years, I find that people make references to the different shows more frequently and that these references are getting more detailed and specific. Also these references are accompanied by a certain reverence which I have not been used to in the past. Also this is not just from people I know personally but the general media, especially newspaper articles (which I read a lot of, from different countries and in different languages).

It also seems to me that slowly but surely Star Trek is moving into the cool zone, similar to what has happened to Harry Potter, LoTR, Marvel Comics and currently with Game of Thrones. All of this seems to coincide with a cultural shift towards a true embrace of all things Fantasy and SciFi.

In addition, Star Trek is getting a lot of mention when it comes to explaining emerging technologies and other aspects of our society in the future. News media seem to think that by using Star Trek as a metaphor in these instances it will be easier to understand by the general public.

So what do people think? Ar you experiencing a shift like this too and if so how would you explain it?

 

[T'Girl]

a cultural shift towards a true embrace of all things Fantasy and SciFi
.

Fantasy yes, science fiction no.

More popular than ever? I'd say no. not really. If anything, I believe Star Trek is slowly fading from the public consciousness. There was a blip with the last movie, and we'll get one again with the next, but the constant reinforcement of a weekly series (like Game of Thrones) isn't there.

Compare the box office, the last Twilight Saga movie earned $283 million on its opening weekend. The Avengers made $532 million. The Hunger Games made $396 million

Star Trek Eleven on the other hand made about $112 million it's opening weekend, a good amount of money, but in this day and age that doesn't exactly indicate that people are jumping up and down about it.

 

[Mage]

Definatly not. For a period of 7 years, there were two Trek shows on tv, that movies were being made was a given, novels being released all the time, loads of merchandising being released. We have none of that right now. Sure, there's a new movie coming out. Sure, we are still getting novels. Sure, there is still merchandising. But not with the same fanbase it had over a decade ago.

Go to a general SF/Fantasy convention, and ask people what they are a fan of. You'll get a lot more Potter/Twilight/GoT and such then you will Star Trek. Sad but true. Twinkly vampires and wizards are hot man.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Nope. Trek was bigger sometime around the mid-1990s.

 

[Jefferies]

I wasn't trying to argue that its as big as Harry Potter or Twilight. Merely that the rising popularity of general "nerd" culture is paying off for Star Trek as well.

 

[Mage]

I wasn't trying to argue that its as big as Harry Potter or Twilight. Merely that the rising popularity of general "nerd" culture is paying off for Star Trek as well.

I don't agree. There aren't any more spotlights on Star Trek now then there were 4 years ago. Most non-Trek fans who saw Star Trek 11 in cinema's don't think of this movie any more often then they do of other movies they liked or disliked. Some of them have become fans, certainly. My girlfriend is one of them. But other then that, no, there is no more populairity of Trek now then a few years ago.

 

[DarKush]

I don't think Trek is more popular than ever. Despite the incredible success of the last Trek film, and certainly there is some anticipation for the follow up, but I don't see a return of Trek to the public cultural discussion or consciousness, at least not any more than there has been before. And certainly not since 1994, when GEN opened and Kirk and Picard were on the Time magazine cover.

Outside of Trek boards, I don't see or hear much discussion about Sisko, Janeway, or Archer, or the shows they headlined. I think the Abrams film has perhaps made Trek 'cool' again to some extent, but there hasn't been much follow up (outside of comics) to build on that.

One missed opportunity was getting a new generation of fans with a Trek cartoon, something along the lines of Transformers: Prime or the Green Lantern series. Or maybe Young Justice, with good art and stories. A toy line and more video games wouldn't hurt either. And more novels from the Abrams verse.

Echoing Mage I think the latest Trek film was just another cool film for many, but didn't spark an interest in Trek overall. I think many of these fans will be back for sequels, but it is debatable if they will support future Trek movies or go watch prime universe Trek. The Abrams movie really sets aside the need to check out the prime universe if you really don't want to. Which has positive and negatives.

 

[Frontier]

I think "nerd" and "geek" culture has become more accepted, and so it could easily seem that because of such, Trek itself has as well. But really, it's that because all of the people who where geeks and nerds and playing with dorky computer parts in their garage and soddering together homemade circuit boards in the 60s and 70s and 80s are now running the world and given people something they enjoy and can't live without through the net and cell phones and such, that those things traditionally associated with such folk - comics and sci-fi and fantasy - have all sort of lost a chunk (but never all) of their "eww, omg, how lame" factor from the non-geek and/or non-nerd portions of the populace.

There has been a para-dime shift, but it's little if nothing to do with Trek and such shows and films, and more to do with the fact that technology - previously seen as something geeky - is now seen as a means of financial wealth, and thus, a means to obtain other things such as power and sex - and so it's sort of a dawning of a realization to the large massive "middle of the road" folk who've historically idolized athletes that, "hey, I can't play sports like a pro - but I can maybe learn that tech junk and be rich and famous from it!" sort of thing.

Trek itself, is actually at the lowest point it's been at since the early 70s when it was between cancelled and re-run revival phenomenon.

The 1980s through 1990s where HUGE, and I doubt we'll ever see Trek balloon back up to such heights.

Though the new film has sort of broadened the main-stream appeal of it some, no matter how some people feel about it. (I'm not particularly fond of it, but I don't hate it - I can't hate any Trek, just like it less. LOL)

So... I see what you mean, but, it's not Trek doing such. It's cell phones and the web and twitter and facebook and all that jazz making people go "Hrm, tech is cool. IE, people who know tech are ok. IE, the things they enjoy aren't as bad as I thought."

 

[The Wormhole]

Nope. Trek was bigger sometime around the mid-1990s.

Agreed. The toy stores always had Trek action figures on hand, the book stores had a seperate section entirely for Trek novels. Potato chips had little Trek mini trading cards inside each bag, there were special Star Trek-themed Oreos. The list can go on.

All Trek XI has done is changed it so that instead of thinking of "that terrible show starring the guy from Quantum Leap," the general public think of "that movie from a few years ago which was kind of cool" when asked about Star Trek.

 

[MacLeod]

I would say at best it's stayed static. I would Star Trek hit it's peak in the early-mid 90's, when it started to play safe as a network show on UPN is when it potentially began to wane a little. Sure individual episodes from the shows might be good but as a whole average at best.

Simply put the ST production team was caught sitting around, whilst quite a few other shows where trying something different (though not always succeding) ST for the most part turned churned out the same formulatic episodes. VOY at times was referred to as TNG-lite. That's not exactly a glowing endorsement. Many agree that ENT started to come good around S3, which is when they tried something different, and S4 where we had new people on the creative team.

ST will be back at some point to the small screen.

 

[plynch]

Most of my high schoolers have NO idea about star trek. At least half have never seen a SW movie, which was much bigger and accepted.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

In sheer numbers, yes. As a percentage of mindshare, no. The population continues to increase but the number of things competing for people's attention is increasing faster.

The big trend in pop culture is fragmentation. There are more things with a smaller % of mindshare now. Not necessarily a bad thing to be niche. Just as long as you make the $ to keep going, the % doesn't matter.

 

[Galileo7]

Nope. Trek was bigger sometime around the mid-1990s.

Agreed. The toy stores always had Trek action figures on hand, the book stores had a seperate section entirely for Trek novels. Potato chips had little Trek mini trading cards inside each bag, there were special Star Trek-themed Oreos. The list can go on.

All Trek XI has done is changed it so that instead of thinking of "that terrible show starring the guy from Quantum Leap," the general public think of "that movie from a few years ago which was kind of cool" when asked about Star Trek.

Agree on all points.

 

[MacLeod]

Dispite the critical success of shows such as TNG and DSN, and the other Trek shows. To many people ST is Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty. Those characters have entered the public conscious. we hear phrase like "we'll beam me up Scotty" to express incredulity about somethin (i.e. I don't believe you/it). If someone is referred to as Spcok, it can indiacte that they thinking logical and/or without emotion.

I don't think the characters from the later shows have had the same impact.

 

[T'Girl]

Though the new film has sort of broadened the main-stream appeal of it some, no matter how some people feel about it. (I'm not particularly fond of it, but I don't hate it - I can't hate any Trek, just like it less. LOL)

Thing is, if another Star Trek movie didn't materialize, how many of the people in the "main-stream appeal" would really care? I had my problems with ST Eleven, but if Twelve never showed I would be saddened. If no new series eventually appeared, a part of my life would be diminished.

That isn't true for the majority of the populace.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Not entirely on topic, but fun: President Obama, Mitt Romney and Star Trek, courtesy of today's NYT. If you're not interested in the article as a whole, just read the last two paragraphs.

 

[Captain Mike]

I would say at best it's stayed static. I would Star Trek hit it's peak in the early-mid 90's, when it started to play safe as a network show on UPN is when it potentially began to wane a little. Sure individual episodes from the shows might be good but as a whole average at best

I agree, it has generally stayed the same between us fans but to the general audience all it was to them was a big action packed summer space movie. Of course it brought in some new fans that started watching the series and movies but all in all that doesn't make it more popular. Hell in my area alone people I meet all the time ask me what TV shows I watch and when I mention Star Trek, they still roll their eyes.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I wouldn't say it's more popular exactly, but by now it's more ingrained into the public conciousness. All the kid/young adult fans during the 90's boom have grown up, and we're seeing that in the constant Trek references everywhere.

 

[Gary7]

Is "The Sopranos" very popular now, 5 years after it ended? I think when the last season became available via NetFlix, it was high on the rental list. But now? Not so much.

Star Trek doesn't have an active TV series any longer, and probably never will again. The Roddenberry franchise doesn't have any "old guard" actors to draw upon. I doubt we'll ever see Avery Brooks don the uniform on screen again. Nor Kate Mulgrew and certainly not Scott Bakula. Trying to start something new off the old franchise would be confusing because of the Abrams' version. Besides, the audience turnout was just dwindling far too much for any movie production house to believe there's enough money in it. And Abrams is just about movie Star Trek, not series.

So, with that significant turn of the page on Star Trek, I'd say it is not more popular than it has ever been. It is waning. Sad, but true. It'll never die, but very soon there won't be any more new media created, and that's kind of the beginning of the slow slide into obscurity.

Fan fiction productions may help keep it alive a bit. And who knows... maybe we'll start to see this "sub Indie" movie movement, where non-union productions get serious funding and we find that some competitive quality work gets produced within the realm of Star Trek.

 

[Trek Survivor]

Nah. It's popularity peaked circa '93-95 and I can't see it reaching that again.