Star Trek :: essays research papers

                "Star Trek" A ChronicleSpace... the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship"Enterprise." Its continuing mission to explore strange bran-newworlds... to seek out new life and new civilizations... to boldlygo where no one has gone before...The above blurb has been used to introduce the tv set showStar Trek The Next Generation. The shows run has elapsed that ofits predecessor, the original Star Trek. The original spawned half a dozenmovies and endless conventions, and both have given elbow room to actionfigures for children, national clubs, and other variousparaphernalia. This is the chronicle to end all chronicles thefull analysis and timeline of one of the most popular televisionprograms in coeval American history.Americans are fascinated with the possibility of intelligent lifesomewhere else in the universe this has been displayed in booksand plays and movies too numerous t o mention, not to mention theaccounts of " habitual people" who say that they have encounteredaliens and unidentified flying objects (UFOs). This fascinationbecame so great that in the late 1970s, President Carter decidedto launch an investigation within NASA (the National Aeronauticsand Space Administration) to uncover the mystery of UFOs andintelligent life in the universe.Science fiction plays upon this obsession. The great sciencefiction writers have send our imaginations into overload withscores of stories to tell. The two most popular futuristic sciencefiction stories, Star Trek and Star Wars, both have similarcharacteristics. two involve many different species of life (ournearest equivalent would be "races"). The Ferengi, Vulcans,humans, Betazoids, Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, androids, andBjorans are in the Star Trek series (which includes the originaltelevision series, the six movies, the NextGeneration televisionseries, and the television series Deep Space Nine), while the StarWars movie trilogy includes humans, Wookies, Jawas, Ewoks, droids,Tusken Raiders, and a host of various other strange and exotic looking at lifeforms. Each species has its own heritage, customs,beliefs, and socioeconomic status. I am sure that each sciencefiction storyline has its own unusual breed of lifeform, but this newsprint will examine only a particular science fiction storylinewhich has mushroomed into a cultural obsession. I choose not tofocus on the works of Ray Bradbury and the like Im sure thatthey are superb writers. (A fantastic example is Bradburys "ASound of Thunder," which is the probable predecessor to all oftodays hype border the film Jurassic Park and the childrenscharacter Barney the dinosaur.) However, Ive never heard of a RayBradbury convention, or action figures based on characters hescreated.Star Trek appeared in the right place at the right time.