“Boldly go where no man has gone before!”
It all began with Star Trek: The Original Series! “Space… the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before”
In 1960 when Gene Roddenberry first began to create Star Trek, which was first aired in 1966, he had no idea he was also about to create such a strong following and culture. What is now known as “Star Trek: The Original Series” only aired for three seasons. The Network decided to cancel the show based on the Nielson ratings. However, it was later realized that the series was appealing to a very lucrative audience. The series grew in popularity through airing reruns and that is when the strong following began to really develop.
Today, the Star Trek Franchise has grown and so has the fan base and culture. Fan conventions can be found across the country, Las Vegas being the largest of them all. Fan’s attend the conventions, dressed in Star Trek costumes, depicting characters from each of the six television series and the eleven feature films.
Find all of your Star Trek Memorabilia and gifts here at StarTrekStuff.org!
Roddenberry publicly marketed Star Trek as a “Western in outer space” and as a “Wagon Train to the Stars”. However, it was stated that privately to friends he said he was actually modeling it on Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” with the intentions of every episode being two fold: a suspenseful adventure and a morality tale. Roddenberry stated: “By creating a new world with new rules, I could make statements about sex, religion, Vietnam, politics, and intercontinental missiles. Indeed, we did make them on Star Trek: we were sending messages and fortunately they all got by the network.”
Gene Roddenberry accomplished his goals of providing adventure filled moral stories and creating a platform for acceptable political, sex and religious content. Even more so, he created a huge following of fans and a craze in the realm of the Science Fiction world. No doubt he was a dreamer, but I do wonder if he actually dreamed that Star Trek would grow into such a successful topic and story line with six different television series
Check out our Star Trek Toys and Star Trek Posters posts.