In a world without Star Trek, where would we be?
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It’s a fair question to ask, after all the franchise was nearly trashed. NBC passed on the original Star Trek show at first. Dejected, Gene Roddenberry then looked towards other projects and struggled to let the series go. For awhile it looked like Star Trek would never reach warp, but the franchise was eventually saved when Desilu Productions stepped in and pitched a second successful pilot episode.
But what if that hadn’t happened? Well, sci-fi would certainly be different.
Star Trek stands as one of the most popular sci-fi franchises of all time. The series was cultivated in 1960s, a time when space exploration was gaining international appeal. The Space Race was being reflected in popular culture through literature and film, setting the scene for Star Trek‘s sleek entrance. Sitcoms like It’s About Time were put on air alongside famous sci-fi series from Irwin Allen.
And, following the success of Twilight Zone, shows like Outer Limits and Night Gallery hit the small screen. None of these series dared go where Star Trek voyaged as Roddenberry’s series asked viewers to complexly envision serious space exploration.
Without Star Trek, the future of sci-fi might have taken a goofy turn.
Scholar Henry Jenkins said the genre would have become, “larger-than-life, though much less campy than Lost in Space at its worst…moments.”
The magic of Star Trek was found in its characters and their relationships which humanized an extraterrestrial TV series. Eugene Roddenbery, the son of Star Trek‘s creator, stressed his dad, “made a science fiction series about humans, about us.”
“I think a lot of the other science fiction of the day was more fear-oriented,” he explained.
Eugene wasn’t wrong about that. The 1960s saw a fair amount of dark plots hit the sci-fi genre. Projects like Fahrenheit 451, A Space Odyssey, and The Planet of the Apes helped fans imagine what Earth might look like as a gritty, futuristic dystopia.
If one of these series had become the template for modern sci-fi, the genre would retain some of its key points today. There would still be discussions of hotbed social issues, but sci-fi would perhaps feel too dark or too apocalyptic for our tastes. “It would have been a darker vision of what humans had become,” Jenkins mused, “rather than the promise of a better world that Star Trek offered us.”
If there were no Star Trek, some rightly wonder whether sci-fi juggernauts like Star Wars would have been created. After all, George Lucas’ famous space opera began in 1977, placing a decade between Star Wars and Star Trek. Many sci-fi fanatics now implicitly divvy up sci-fi into two periods: pre- and post-Star Wars, so it’s nearly impossible for them to imagine a world without Jedi and The Force.
So, it’s good to know that Star Wars would have still existed without the influence of Star Trek. George Lucas wanted to make a thrilling sci-fi franchise after being inspired by Flash Gordon, a comic strip that dates back to 1934. However, the filmmaker could not secure rights to the series and forced him to create Star Wars. However, that’s not to say Lucas was immune to the appeal of Star Trek.
Chris Taylor, author of How Star Wars Conquered The Universe, notes that Lucas watched Star Trek reruns while drafting his own scripts. The sci-fi series helped Lucas find a “vital sense of movement” for the intense battle sequences he would shoot for Star Wars, and more importantly, the cult popularity of Star Trek made Hollywood more willing to finance the filmmaker’s vision.
And, in terms of fandom, it’s possible the phrase might not have existed without Star Trek. According to Jenkins, “Star Trek proved to be a watershed event in the development of modern fandom [and] was the first media property to get a critical mass of fans.” A loyal cult following has rallied behind Star Trek since its inception, and the fanbase only grew once shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation revived the franchise. Fans became active champions of the series and went so far as to create fan-videos and fan-fiction about Star Trek – and Roddenberry welcomed these fans with open arms.
“Roddenberry worked closely with those fans from the start — previewing the pilot at World-Con and collaborating with them to develop the letter writing campaign that helped promote the visibility of the series and keep it on the air,” Jenkins described. “We can see this as the very start of the media industry’s current fascination with “fan engagement.” So, for both fans and producers, Star Trek shaped what fandom looks like.”
Of course, it would be too much to say that Star Trek single-handedly altered the course of sci-fi – though Pavel Chekov did a damn good job in steering the USS Enterprise towards success. Star Trek energized an uncompromising genre filled with starkly portentous or campy content. A world without it would have still supported hits like Star Wars, but the absence of Star Trek might have sabotaged the core elements of contemporary sci-fi.
Star Trek directed sci-fi into the hands of fans and humanized even the most far-out alien races. The series asked fans to imagine a world filled with both danger and comradery, ultimately pushing sci-fi through its final frontier and into the hearts of millions.
