Thursday, March 26, 2009

Star Trek: The Old Series


Everyone knows Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock and of course Scotty, McCoy and Uhura. For those of you who have seen those actual episodes of TOS you probably also remember the really cheap sets and those cheap and sometimes ugly costumes as well. Frankly it was before I was born, so I don't really remember them when they were first aired, but I do remember them when I saw the reruns decades later.  

However, my fondest memories of The Old Series crew was not from the series itself, but rather from the movies created later. Personally I loved all of them (except Star Trek V).

Star Trek: The Motion Picture had beautiful artistic license. Plus we got to see a side of Spock that was not normally seen. Seeing the enormous size of the V-Ger probe was astounding.

Star Trek:II The Wrath of Khan tied up some important things that I guess the series had left out about Khan (plus I think many people wanted to see a villain like Khan again.)

Star Trek: III The Search for Spock HAD to be created because many fans could not deal with the fact of Spock's death at the end of Star Trek II. (I think Spock's character was more well loved than even Kirk but who knows for sure).

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is my personal favorite. NOT because it's about saving whales... (although I care about that too) but because it was so hilarious! I mean some seriously great comments (satire) was made about our modern society. For example, how we swear all the time, the fact that we are "still using money", and McCoy thought we were living in the dark ages as far as medicine was concerned.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was not the best Movie done by far. It was all about Spock's half-brother Sybok and his desire to see what was at the center of the galexy and that he would supposedly find GOD there... the whole time I was saying to myself, "yeah, right" to me it seemed very far fetched.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was a very good movie which even my own mother enjoyed in spite of the fact that she's not a Star Trek fan at all. This movie explored moving into new territory no matter what kind of territory that might be. However at the time the movie was made, it really represented our no longer being enemies with the Russians.

These are the six main movies made solely based on The Old Series. However there was one more move made with both The Old Series and The Next Generation crew called: Star Trek: Generations. This brought both crews together and in a way merged the two series together. It was a great movie mostly covering the theories about time travel, death, immortality etc. together.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

The History of Star Trek



Star Trek is one of the oldest Science Fiction series, not to mention probably one of the most lengthly, with 10 movies, and 5 different Series, it is by far the greatest, and of course has the most material, and information of the Star Trek universe.

Star Trek has it's own Encyclopedia (which I have by the way), and many Technical Manuals including "Scotty's Guide to the Enterprise" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation, Technical Manual" (this last one I also have).  This really shows how much detail has gone into creating the Star Trek universe, which makes it a huge value to Science Fiction in general.

Star Trek by far was NOT the first Science Fiction show, and even was not very celebrated by fans. In fact, when Star Trek first aired on TV in 1969, very few people watched it, or even knew it existed, because it was on at a very inconvenient time (most likely in the middle of the night when no one was up, although I can not confirm this fact).  However Star Trek did face a very interesting path which allowed for it's resurrection.

When Star Trek began being shown as re-runs on TV, the re-runs were shown at a more convenient time, when people were home, watching TV.  And when this happened, many people began watching it, and even loving the show.  A fan base started and people began wondering what had happened to Star Trek, and why it had not continued.

Where was the rest of Star Trek?  People began to want more.  The fans banned together, and eventually, the TV station and Gene Roddenberry began to work together to create more Star Trek.  They decided to create a movie "Star Trek: The Motion Picture".

Many of us Trekkies know that every movie that the people of Star Trek created, they thought would be the last, and yet, instead of ending them, they made one movie after the next.  This was the beginning of the Star Trek craze that we now know of today.

Now, you can go to Star Trek conventions which have their own "atmosphere".  People come dressed as their favorite Star Trek character.  Some even make their own costumes from scratch.  This shows just how dedicated they are to not only the genre itself, but the morals and ethical aspects taught in Star Trek, such as the "Prime Directive" which tells us not to interfere  in the natural development of a race.

This Prime Directive is probably one of the most important ethical debates talked extensively in Star Trek, and even among many people today.  One of the biggest issues today being whether or not we should be in Iraq or other countries spreading our beliefs and making people become "Americanized".  The Prime Directive was even one of the things considered when creating the United Nations, when trying to figure out how much power the UN should have over all the Nations in the world.

Friday, March 6, 2009

I LOVE SCIENCE FICTION!

I am one of those people who totally loves Science Fiction.  Okay, maybe I should say that I'm obsessed with it.  

It really doesn't matter what series, I love them all.  Star Trek, Star Wars, The Matrix, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, nearly any Science fiction, preferably not horror.

Ok, and hear is one of the oddest things,  I'm a woman who loves Sci-fi.  I know mostly it's men who like it, but not me.  I love it, and I'm a woman, so I'd like to hear from other women who also love Science Fiction.  It's about time that people who create Sci-fi relize that it's not just for men any more.  :)