With the new Star Trek movie set to be released in the next two weeks, I know many people, including myself are waiting with great anticipation. We have all watched the trailers, read about it online, and some of us are even planning on waiting in line for a midnight release. It will be glorious.
For over forty years now, Star Trek has been very much a huge part of geek culture and that is why I’m writing my first column about it. Star Trek has spawned numerous shows, a cartoon, movies, and has become a big part of pop culture in of itself. It is a franchise that is known worldwide.
Get a bunch of geeks together and mention the words “Star Trek” and you will likely get a heated debate going. Who was the best captain? (Picard rules!) Which alien babe of the week was best in the original series? (That’s for the guys.) Can you name the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition? (You must be really hardcore for that one.) Everyone has their favorite characters, stories, aliens, and episodes they love to trash.
I think a big reason why many geeks love Star Trek is our usual innate love for science-fiction. Look at the games we play! Many of them have a sci-fi theme. So do our television shows and our choice of books. And how many of us can’t say that at least once we haven’t dreamt of space travel or wondered what was beyond our solar system.
That’s a big attraction to Star Trek for me. I love astronomy. I’ll to a planetarium and enjoy the show. In fact, the last one I went to was narrated by Nichelle Nichols. I even took an early class my senior year of college in astronomy just because it was offered. I did not regret it. And I got an A.
Star Trek has even reached into popular culture by showing up in other geekyshows such as “Futurama, and, more recently, “Family Guy.” According to Memory-Alpha.org, a Star Trek wiki site, over 90 shows have had Star Trek references in them. How many shows have a broad cultural reach like that? Awesome!
Star Trek’s contributions have been recognized by scientific groups like NASA and The Smithsonian. We have a space shuttled named Enterprise for cryin’ out loud!
To sate your Star Trek gaming tooth, game developers Cryptic Studios are working on an MMORPG called Star Trek online. I have been following the development for quite a while and it looks awesome. One feature is a very strong character creator that allows you to create your own alien, ones currently known in the Star Trek universe, or combine elements to make a new one.
Star Trek will be always be a big part of geek culture, love it or hate it. I, for one, love it, and will continue to watch my favorites and anticipate new developments as the franchise will hopefully be revived with the new trilogy. A geek can dream.
Clearly Sisko is the best captain.
I’m not even a big Star Trek fan, but I think the new movie looks badass and I am very excited. Also, I may have added TNG to my Netflix queue as a direct result of reading Just A Geek. Maybe.
When Leah says maybe it always means definitely. I’m adding it to my queue as well and I really want to check out the new movie.
If you watching TNG from the beginning for the first time give it a bit, the first 2 or 3 seasons did not age well… (Deep Space Nine on the other hand is awesome from the first episode)
Take Evan’s advice to heart, TNG only really gets cooking into the second season or so. DSN took a few episodes for me, but it otherwise rocks because it has a cohesive story that ties the whole series in.