The Star Trek franchise has long been one of the most consistently popular in the entire sci-fi genre. Its success, which began in the 1960s with Star Trek: The Original Series, has only continued with the many subsequent TV shows, movies, comics, novels, and video games that have expanded the franchise. Throughout the timeline of Star Trek TV shows, one particular aspect of the franchise has been absolutely central to its many stories: its spaceships. The nature of Star Trek‘s story puts its ships at the centre of most narratives, giving them the air of iconic characters in their own right rather than simple vehicles. However, one of the franchise’s most iconic ship designs was actually the result of a happy accident.
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There have been many iconic Star Trek ships over the years, but few underwent a redesign as bold and shocking as that of the USS Voyager, although it turns out that the final design of the ship was actually an accident. Speaking with TrekMovie, Doug Drexler, who was working as a junior illustrator on concepts for the USS Voyager, explained that ahead of a meeting where the executives were going to assess the design of the Voyager, he was given half an hour to come up with some alternatives, specifically to give them “something to hate.” However, they actually liked one of Drexler’s designs, and he then “found out that those sketches threw a monkey wrench into the whole thing and that they wanted to develop one of them.”
How The Voyager’s Design Paid Homage To The Past And Also Subtly Shaped Star Trek’s Future
Operating on such a short time scale, Drexler drew inspiration from a model of Uncle Martin’s spaceship from the 1963 sitcom My Favorite Martian he had on his desk, coming up with a much sleeker design than those the Star Trek franchise had used before. It was this that inspired the bold, streamlined designs that ultimately shaped the Voyager’s final look. While it stemmed from a very different ’60s sci-fi show, and was initially conceived simply to provide visual contrast with the original planned design of the ship, it ultimately came to bring about greater change within the Star Trek franchise.
The design of the Voyager was the first real step away from the Enterprise that had defined two eras of the Star Trek franchise. With the daring redesign of one of the franchise’s all-important ships, Star Trek’s new flagship indicated that the franchise was beginning to move into a new era. The new look of the Voyager subtly suggested that the Star Trek franchise was capable of evolution, adapting to better fit the tone and look of modern sci-fi rather than blindly root itself in nostalgia. This arguably eventually led to the movie reboot franchise, which recast iconic characters and reimagined the stories of The Original Series, to considerable success despite its source material once seeming sacrosanct.
As well as visually updating the concepts within the franchise, the accidental redesign of the Voyager proved successful in its own right. Many fans appreciated the sleek, streamlined design, and its popularity has seen Star Trek: Voyager sequels find success in other forms of media. Although Drexler’s initial instruction was simply to provide alternative ideas for the show’s executives to dismiss, his accidental stroke of brilliance, inspired by one of his own sci-fi favorites, ultimately proved to be a pivotal moment in the Star Trek franchise.
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