My Thoughts on 50 years of Star Trek

I just recently learned of the 50 year anniversary of Star Trek. I would not call myself a Trekkie but I am what you would call a big fan of Star Trek TV shows and movies. My favorite Star Trek episode is Devil in the Dark. Also, I have seen practically all of the episodes of Star Trek: Next Generation and the movies connected to that, which came after the show. My favorite one was Star Trek: Insurrection. I have the same history that I have with Next Generation with the other three TV shows they have done after Star Trek which are Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Enterprise.

I saw a special about the 50 years of Star Trek on the History Channel that mentions how groundbreaking the original Star Trek was.  I recall it enough to know that they were right and that some of the other Star Trek TV shows continue with that tradition. Namely Star Trek Enterprise and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, they each did an episode that focus on issues like Star Trek did.
Star Trek was groundbreaking because they had a black female crew member on there called Uhura during the time of Civil Rights movement. They also focus on racism in an episode called “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.” It has two aliens in it. One was black on the right and white was on the left. The other was the inverse.

Star Trek has covered in their own way issues that were going on in the real world. What Star Trek Enterprise did when it came to an issue, was an allegory on AIDS and gays. It was called Stigma. Deep Space Nine focused on racism that blacks had to endure like Star Trek had done. It was an episode called Far Beyond The Stars. It is one of my favorite episodes of the show to date. They did very good quality writing with that episode. It just basically got everything right when it came to writing an episode about that subject.

Another smart move that Star Trek Deep Space Nine did was bring the character of Worf from Next Generation to the show. According to what someone said in the TV special I watched, he made it even more popular than it was at the time when the character was brought in. Even the actor mentioned in the TV special, that his work was better in Deep Space Nine than it was in his previous show.

Four movies happened after the Star Trek TV series ended. The same thing happened with Star Trek: Next Generation after it ended. Then three more TV series followed. A whole lot of right moves must have been continually done by the writers involved in this and other people as well for this kind of luck to go on. I believe the fact that there are two more new Star Trek remakes which have gotten put into theaters for people is the evidence that that has indeed happened.

If another 50 years have passed and we are celebrating a one hundred year anniversary of Star Trek then I believe Gene Roddenberry would be very happy because people remember his creation quite well.