Star Trek

"Skinny Pete: What do you think all those sparkles and shit are? Transporters are breaking you apart right down to your molecules and bones. They're makin' a copy. That dude who comes out on the other side? He's not you. He's a color Xerox."

"...there's really two things that we can say about that Trekonomics, that economics of Star Trek. The first being that you can't, on logical grounds, actually have an economics in such a world. And the second being that you can, but it will be the sort that Karl Marx was talking about. For the basic premise of the Star Trek universe is that we've conquered scarcity. And as Marx was most insistent about pointing out, communism couldn't arrive until the absence of scarcity."

"There is also the problem of the dignity of work -- people enjoy feeling needed. But human values change over time, and there seems no obvious reason why people couldn't get their self-worth from artistic self-expression, or from hobbies. This is the basic Star Trek future. But actually, I think that the future has a far more radical transformation in store for us. I predict that technological advances will actually end economics as we know it, and destroy scarcity, by changing the nature of human desire. So, there's that one sense that we can't have an economics of such an environment. For economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. But if resources aren't scarce then how can we study the allocation of something that doesn't exist? Of course, you might think that most economists are only discussing angels on pinheads anyway. And if we're honest about it all economists would insist that at least one current major theory is nothing more than that. But in the entire absence of scarce resources, economics would be even more like that. Akin to asking whether those angels could waltz or jitterbug upon their pinhead. However, we do have another guide to what would be happening at this point, in the absence of scarcity. And that's the Bearded One himself, Karl Marx. And the answer is True Communism. Or at least, the way would then be open for True Communism to finally arrive."

"Star Trek: The Original Series"

"Star Trek: The Animated Series"

"Star Trek: The Next Generation"

"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine"

"Star Trek: Voyager"

"Star Trek: Enterprise"

"Star Trek: Discovery"

"Star Trek: Short Treks"

"Star Trek: Picard"

"Star Trek: Lower Decks"

"Star Trek: Prodigy"

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds"

"Star Trek: The Motion Picture"

"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"

"Star Trek III: The Search for Spock"

"Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home"

"Star Trek V: The Final Frontier"

"Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country"

"Star Trek Generations"

"Star Trek: First Contact"

"Star Trek: Insurrection"

"Star Trek Nemesis"

"Star Trek Into Darkness"

"Star Trek Beyond"

"Star Trek Continues"

"Star Trek: New Voyages"

"Star Trek: Borg"

"Star Trek: Klingon Academy"

"I'm always amused when Ted Cruz says that ‘Star Trek’ is his favorite television show. Because I don't think there is any world where Star Trek is anything but a progressive, liberal vision of the future — in which big government is a good thing, and we can all get along. It's a utopian ethos that is a result of one world government, and not exceptionalism of any particular country."

"One reason why Star Trek has endured from one generation to the next is that most of the stories themselves are indeed moral fables. Though the episodes are obviously self-contained, when taken as a whole they constitute a harmonious philosophy filled with hope. While our Star Trek heroes are far from perfect, they are nonetheless essentially decent beings whose interaction with "new life and new civilizations" is always guided by nobility and morality."

"Burton has said that he got a call to audition for The Next Generation in 1986 because producer Bob Justman remembered how much Burton had loved the original Star Trek; the two had previously worked together and Burton had often talked about the series. Justman convinced Burton to consider The Next Generation by noting the involvement of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in the new spinoff series. (Wesley Snipes) also auditioned for the role of Geordi and later hailed Burton as “a greater actor” when Burton got the part instead.) “Gene Roddenberry’s vision was one that really meant a lot to me,” Burton later told NPR. “It said when the future comes, there’s a place for you. Seeing Nichelle Nichols [the Black actress who played Uhura in the original series] on the bridge of that ship meant that when the future got here, there was a place for people who looked like me.”"

"As it turns out, it is possible to name a movie or two, in which the captain or supervisor or organization aren't a blithering idiots. The Fugitive, The Silence of the Lambs, and Apollo 13 all show institutions and public officials functioning well. Incidentally, they were all big hits. One of the core differences between Star Wars and Star Trek lies in how those two franchises treat the question of civilization. In the cosmos of George Lucas, not a single institution is shown functioning or doing its job. Once. At all. Ever. In contrast, Trek always loved to chew on questions like when and how the social compact might work, or fail, or need adjustment, or call for flexibility, or be handled differently by alien minds. Civilization — along with its laws and codes and contradictions — is often a major character in each show. A participant, subject to scrutiny, skepticism, but also sometimes praise. But of course, Star Trek always was an exception to every rule."

"I would have loved to have done a Star Trek crossover. The very first year, we talked about it. Then Star Trek finally went off air. Landing the Tardis on board the Enterprise would have been magnificent. Can you imagine what their script department would have wanted, and what I would have wanted? It would have been the biggest battle."

"The franchise garners the kind of obsession that's endearingly embarrassing: flashing the Vulcan hand salute, having intimate knowledge of Klingon chess, making detailed costumes for conventions. “Trekkie” has become cultural shorthand for a very specific kind of fixation. It suggests, with a patronizing wink, that wanting to be part of the world of “Star Trek” requires a mix of social isolation and naiveté. Instead I think it requires hope, or a profound lack of it."

"According to “Star Trek,” everything we're worried about right now will be OK. There will be other things that go wrong — a species intent on taking over the universe, arguments between factions of aliens — but these concerns are foreign enough that they're intriguing rather than scary. The show depicts its fair share of pain and suffering, but usually it's the aliens who suffer in any permanent way; when humans do, it's an aberration from the new normal that's been created. By the time the Enterprise is exploring new worlds, we've eliminated climate change, war, disease, xenophobia and sexism. On Earth, everything is as it should be. In the rest of the universe, though, these things still exist, and nearly every conflict on the series involves starship crews becoming entangled with random and calculated unfairness, cruelty and moral complication. We get Klingon in-fighting, alien merchants selling slaves, a civilization about to be decimated by its dying star. “Star Trek: The Next Generation” is especially prone to depicting easily-recognizable versions of real quandaries. The characters encounter everything from sex trafficking to territorial disputes on distant planets, and they're forced to confront moral codes that exaggerate the ironies and falsehoods of our own beliefs. Familiar dramas play out: Apartheid is displaced onto a matriarchal society in “Angel One,” and the Israel-Palestine conflict plays out with a group of alien separatists in “The High Ground.” Here lies the ethical problem with “Star Trek,” and also the thing that is so deliciously attractive about it: Every earthly dilemma has been outsourced to an alien species, and we get to be the arbiters of goodness, the agents of scientific reason. Who wouldn't want to buy into this vision of the future?"

"Star Trek often has starships facing each other at close range, making everyone think, “That Admiral Nelson was really on to something with those sailing ships and broadside cannon battles!” While Star Trek is the archetype, Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars also feature ships facing off like the British against the French at Trafalgar. After travelling billions of miles and using entire solar systems as their battlegrounds, they fight to the death at ranges of a few feet."

"Captains Kirk and Picard on Star Trek are one-man SEAL teams fighting the enemy whenever they decide to take a break from their real jobs commanding starships, even though they have crews of literally several hundred other people better suited to fighting than the ship's captain."

"Star Trek is not like any other show because it is one unique vision, and if you agree with Gene Roddenberry's vision for the future, you should be locked up somewhere. It's wacky doodle, but it's his wacky doodle. If you can't deal with that, you can't do the show. There are rules on top of rules on top of rules...Gene sees this pollyanish view of the future where everything is going to be fine...I don't believe it, but you have to suppress all that and put it aside. You suspend your own feelings and your own beliefs, and you get with his vision...or you get rewritten."

"Because creator Gene Roddenberry believed in showing the essential humanity of all sentient species regardless of their planet of origin, extraterrestrial nonhumans also let us look at real psychological processes. While Star Trek explores many aspects of human nature, key issues keep reappearing, particularly those of importance to understanding and resolving conflicts between diverse peoples. Even the ongoing struggle between logic and emotion usually manifests as a cultural issue."

"Each Star Trek series' cast includes a main character who seeks to understand human emotion: Spock the Vulcan-human hybrid (Star Trek, known to fans as The Original Series - TOS); Data the android (Star Trek: The Next Generation - TNG); Odo the shapeshifter (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - DS9); Tuvok the Vulcan and the Voyager's holographic Doctor (Star Trek: Voyager - VGR); and yet another Vulcan, T'Pol, a female for once (Star Trek: Enterprise - ENT). While the Vulcans suppress strong emotions beneath the veneer of logic, emotionless Data seeks to become more human and Odo, capable of mimicking human beings, dispassionately observes human nature with curiosity, rarely envy."

"Star Trek is an optimistic franchise, full of hope for the human race collectively and as individuals. Gene Roddenberry envisioned many struggles ahead of us and many advancements for the whole of humankind. He expected great things for the human condition. Positive psychology can make great use of Roddenberry's creations."

"Moore: Star Trek has very, very strong bones. The original concept was just very strong and, at the same time, flexible. You could play a lot of different kinds of stories in the idea of a starship boldly going, arriving in a new society, a completely alien world. You could play with a whole series of sets of problems and adventures with a starship crew and this society and then leave at the end of the episode and go do it again next week. There's just a huge canvas of stories you can tell. You can just keep riffing on that. It wasn't such a challenge to reinvent it. Even J.J.’s work… there just had been so much Star Trek by that point that it kind of needed to wipe the slate clean and start over. It wasn’t that Trek lacked imagination; it was just that the franchise had been burdened down by its own continuity."

"Interviewer: Frank Hunt asks: What were the most important lessons you took away (as a writer and producer) from your time working on Star Trek?"

"Ultimately, it’s the franchise’s ethical principles, progressive acceptance, and strong sense of justice embedded within each episode that autistic people find themselves relating to. Sara Luterman, an autistic journalist, previously wrote “[Spock] exists in an environment where everyone around him accepts his alternate perspective and never treats it as burdensome or a deviation from the ‘correct’ one.” Another autistic fan, Leena Haque, told me she loved that Star Trek “always promoted the importance of equality.” With crew members believed to be autistic and getting along in a world with fairness and justice, it was easy for some autistic fans to feel that was a world they could live in and feel like part of our real world communities, too. Even while not being a superfan, Star Trek always makes me feel as though I could live in an accepting world that so many of my friends and fellow autistics observed throughout the galaxy and dream of here on Earth."

"Season 2 of the prequel series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will deliver ten more episodic "classic" franchise stories about discovery, optimism and politics. Even for all its accolades, it couldn't avoid the "woke" label from critics angry at the new wave of Star Trek stories. While the definition of the term is as nebulous as the Delphic Expanse, its intention is easy to discern. Any show or movie with a diverse cast focused on stories of empowerment, compassion or inclusion is sure to be hit with the label. When it comes to Star Trek, however, this criticism doesn't make sense as creator Gene Roddenberry designed the series to advance his progressive political ideology about a diverse and equitable future. Star Trek: The Original Series featured the most diverse cast of principal characters at the time. It may have held that title well into the 1990s. This is because of Roddenberry's motto for the future he created: infinite diversity in infinite combinations. Even the tiny details about his future are radical political statements. Earth no longer uses money, and the driving force of society isn't about material gain. There are no longer countries, but rather a single Earth government. Gene Roddenberry was the original globalist, even though not everything in Star Trek held up. In fact, each Star Trek series has been representative of the uncorrected biases of their time. However, what makes Star Trek so progressive is that the franchise evolves to try and be better."

"Star Trek often makes use of present-day events for its own history. A Season 2 episode of The Original Series called "A Private Little War" is a very unsubtle allegory about Vietnam being a destructive, losing gambit before the release of the Pentagon Papers. The Season 3 episode "Let This Be Your Last Battlefield," is an equally unsubtle examination of racism and its destructive nature less than a year after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. Similarly, in its series premiere, Strange New Worlds used footage from the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. It was shown to a warring alien race as part of a presentation on how Earth fell into World War III."

"Star Trek as a franchise has lasted until today, but its message of hope and prosperity has found increasing difficulty resonating with contemporary audiences."