(written from a Production point of view)
Star Trek is a science fiction franchise comprising eleven television series, thirteen films, three companion series, numerous novels, comics, video games, reference works, podcasts, role playing games, along with thousands of collectibles.
History
Originally, Star Trek was a product of Desilu Studios as created by Gene Roddenberry in a first draft series proposal "Star Trek is...", dated 11 March 1964.
Beginning with a single pilot episode, "The Cage", filmed in 1964, Star Trek was not placed on the schedule of the NBC network until a second pilot episode, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", was produced in 1965.
Star Trek officially went into production on April 21, 1966 and ran for three seasons until it was canceled in 1969. Four years later, the series returned to NBC as a Saturday morning animated series which ran from 1973 to 1974.
No new production of Star Trek took place until 1979, when Star Trek: The Motion Picture took the franchise into feature films, which have continued to be produced periodically since. Star Trek did not return to television until 1987 with the debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Following three more spin-off productions, the 2005–2006 TV season was the first since 1987 without a new Star Trek series being broadcast, though all series remain in syndication.
As a result of a 2005 split between the former Viacom and CBS, Star Trek television productions fell under the umbrella of CBS Studios. During this period, films continued to be produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures under a licensing agreement. A thirteenth film was released in 2016. CBS and Viacom were reunited and merged under the name ViacomCBS in late 2019, reuniting the film and television branches of Star Trek. In 2022 ViacomCBS rebranded itself as Paramount Global, or simply Paramount.
After 12 years off the air, the franchise returned to the airwaves with its first streaming series, Star Trek: Discovery, which premiered in the fall of 2017. This also saw the franchise expand into companion series, like the aftershow After Trek, which premiered right after the Discovery.
Currently, licensees of Star Trek products (reference works, novels and collectibles) include Art Asylum toys, Pocket Books, and IDW Publishing. Older licenses for previously produced material belong to numerous companies.
Conception and setting
"Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms."
"We believed that the often ridiculed mass audience is sick of this world's petty nationalism and all its old ways and old hatreds... and that people are not only willing but anxious to think beyond those petty beliefs that have for so long have kept mankind divided."
The stories in Star Trek mostly revolve around the experiences and adventures of the Humans and aliens who serve under Starfleet Command, the space-borne peacekeeping, exploratory, and humanitarian armada of the United Federation of Planets.
Many of the conflicts and political dimensions of Star Trek are allegories of contemporary cultural realities. Star Trek: The Original Series addressed social-political issues of the 1960s, just as later spin-offs have confronted issues of their respective decades. [1] Issues depicted in the various series include war and peace, personal loyalty, authoritarianism, imperialism, economics, racism, religion, human rights, sexism, and the role of technology.[2]
Roddenberry intended the show to have a progressive political agenda reflective of the emerging counter-culture and the civil rights movement of the 1960s,[3] though he was not fully forthcoming to the networks about this. He wanted Star Trek to show a future of what humanity might evolve to become, if it would learn from the lessons of the past, most specifically by ending violence. An extreme example is the alien race known as the Vulcans, who suffered a violent history but learned to finally achieve peace by suppressing their emotions and by adopting the guiding principles of logic. Roddenberry also placed great emphasis on an anti-war message in Star Trek, depicting the United Federation of Planets, a vast interstellar alliance founded on the enlightened principles of liberty, equality, justice, progress, and peaceful co-existence, as an idealistic version of the United Nations.[4](X) His efforts were opposed by the network because of concerns over marketability; as they opposed Roddenberry's insistence that the USS Enterprise have a racially diverse crew.
Production history
- See also: Production timeline.
The Original Series
Star Trek: The Original Series premiered on NBC's fall schedule on 8 September 1966.
- Desilu/NBC, Gene Roddenberry, 1966–1967
- Paramount/NBC, Gene Roddenberry, 1967–1969
- Cast (Remastered) • Episodes
Spin-off series
Star Trek: The Animated Series
Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Paramount/Viacom; Rick Berman & Michael Piller, 1993–1999
- Cast • Episodes
- Paramount/UPN; Rick Berman & Michael Piller & Jeri Taylor, 1995–2001
- Cast • Episodes
- Paramount/UPN; Rick Berman & Brannon Braga, 2001–2005
- Cast • Episodes
- CBS Television Studios/CBS All Access; Bryan Fuller & Alex Kurtzman, 2017–2020
- CBS Television Studios/Paramount+; 2021–
- Cast • Episodes
- CBS Television Studios/CBS All Access; 2018–2020
- CBS Television Studios/Paramount+; 2021–
- Cast • Episodes
- CBS Television Studios/CBS All Access; 2020–2020
- CBS Television Studios/Paramount+; 2021–
- Cast • Episodes
- CBS Television Studios/Nickelodeon; 2021–
- Cast • Episodes
- CBS Television Studios/Paramount+
- CBS Television Studios/Paramount+
Films
- The Original Series films
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
- Paramount, 1979–1991
- Producers: Gene Roddenberry, Robert Sallin, Harve Bennett, Steven-Charles Jaffe, Ralph Winter
- Directors: Robert Wise, Nicholas Meyer, Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner
- The Next Generation films
- Star Trek Generations – Star Trek Nemesis
- Paramount, 1993–2002
- Producers: Rick Berman
- Directors: David Carson, Jonathan Frakes, Stuart Baird
- The alternate reality films
- Star Trek – Star Trek Beyond
- Paramount, 2009–2016
- Producers: J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof
- Directors: J.J. Abrams, Justin Lin
Aftershows
- CBS Television Studios/CBS All Access, 2017–2018
- CBS Television Studios/Facebook Live, 2019–
Podcasts
Engage: The Official Star Trek Podcast
- CBS Television Studios, 2016–2018
- CBS Television Studios, 2020–
Unproduced projects
Overseas adaptations
Star Trek has been aired around the world throughout its run of television and film series. Most often, it has been dubbed into the native language of the larger population countries in question, while other, smaller population countries subtitled the productions and kept the original language tracks. During this time, the titles, characters, and so forth have been changed as they move from language to language.
Variations of the Star Trek title
Japanese title logo
- note: the foreign language representations of the title all mean "Star Trek", unless otherwise noted
- Albanian: "Udhëtimi yjor"
- Bulgarian: "Стар Трек"
- Chinese: "星际迷航"(first appeared in TAS, meaning "Lost in space")
- Croatian: "Zvjezdane Staze"
- Czech: "Star Trek"
- Esperanto: "Stela Vojaĝo"
- French: Only in Quebec (french speaking community) Canada: "La Patrouille du Cosmos" ("Space Patrol" TOS only, all other series and films used the English version "Star Trek" moniker, followed by the French language subtitle)
- German: "Raumschiff Enterprise" (this is actually "Spaceship Enterprise" translated. Also used for "The Next Generation", as "Raumschiff Enterprise: Das Nächste Jahrhundert" or "Spaceship Enterprise: The Next Century")
- Greek: "Σταρ Τρεκ"
- Hebrew: "מסע בין כוכבים" (meaning "Journey Between the Stars")
- Hungarian: "Űrszekerek" (rarely used, especially in connection with the movies, meaning "Space Wagon Trains")
- Japanese: "宇宙大作戦" ("Uchū Daisakusen") (only used in reference to TOS, meaning "Big Operations in Space")
- Latin: "Iter Stellare" (meaning "Star Journey")
- Macedonian: "Ѕвездени Патеки" (Szvezdeni Pateki)
- Persian: "پیشتازان فضا" (meaning "Vanguards of Space")
- Polish: "Gwiezdna wędrówka"
- Portuguese (Brazil): "Jornada nas Estrelas" (literally "Journey to the Stars", but in modern day parlance just "Star Trek")
- Portuguese (Portugal): "O Caminho das Estrelas" (literally "The Road/Track of the Stars", but in modern day parlance just "Star Trek")
- Russian: "Звёздный путь"
- Serbian: "Звездане стазе, Звјездане стазе"
- Slovenian: "Zvezdne Steze"
- Slovak: "Star Trek"
- Spanish: "Viaje a las Estrellas" (meaning "Voyage To The Stars", only used in American Spanish-speaking countries)
- Turkish: "Uzay Yolu"
- Ukrainian: "Зоряний шлях"
As a somewhat generic rule of thumb, it can be surmised that the more substantial variations of the Star Trek title are usually employed in those territories where the productions are dubbed in the native language – typically the large language countries with Italian and French (somewhat surprisingly, as France in particular vigorously combats the use of anglicisms in its language at every level of its society) being notable exceptions insofar the title is concerned – , whereas the English expression remains commonly unaltered – whether literally translated/transcribed in the local language/script or not – for the smaller language countries using subtitles for the retained English language tracks. Notable is that Brazil employs the dubbed format, whereas mother country Portugal employs the subtitle format.
Licensed media
Floor tile in the NBC gift shop at 30 Rock
Related topics
See also
- Star Trek parodies and pop culture references
- Star Trek documentaries and specials
- Star Trek corporate history
- Production timeline
- Production staff
- Star Trek auctions
- Star Trek fonts
Other topics
- 47
- Bottle show
- Design patents filed for the Star Trek franchise
- I'm a doctor, not a...
- Redshirt
- Shakespeare and Star Trek
- Stardates
- Story arcs
