Was Star Trek Really that Good to Begin with?
Was Star Trek Really that Good to Begin with?
Theresa: Star Trek hit at a time when fantasy and sci-fi were needed in America. The world was in upheaval and people needed something to escape into. The tradition has continued through the years, with varying degrees of success, but yes I think the original series was good and extremely popular.
John: I think it broke new ground for what TV could be. The adventure format was nothing new, but that freaky aliens and plastic space ships bobbing on fish line could be a hit with audiences must have been a huge revelation to Hollywood. Great comment! I didn't consider the escapist possibilities.
Theresa: Think about what was happening in the 60s when the original series began. We were just coming out of Korea and heading into Vietnam. Kids, and many adults, wanted only to forget reality for a while. Twilight Zone was a huge hit, as was the Alfred Hitchcock Hour for the same reasons.
John: Great point. This was the 60s, and the social upheaval was messing with everyone's emotions. During the great depression people went to movie theatres for the same reason.
Theresa: True. The serials offered the same type of emotional release. Books in those eras also reflected the greater desire for surrealism.
Theresa: Star Trek was an antidote for what was happening in its day. The same performance has been perpetuated for the last 40 years, with measurable success. America is once again ripe for an influx of fantasy, hence the block-buster rating for LOTR and Harry Potter. As long as there's conflict and dismay, there will be a need for release and escape.
John: Star Trek was and is near mythical for me. When it veered into being too commercial and too politically correct it wavered, but I can't think of a series or a franchise I've enjoyed more. I credit Star Trek somewhat for inspiring me to be a writer myself. I'm really pulling for them to go back to the space exploration formula in a new series.
posted by J.J. Ace @ 10:33 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
HI JOHN!
Of course Star Trek was good to begin with. As Theresa mentioned, it was a much needed escape. On a different level though, and I might be stretching it here without evidence, but it seems inate in us to look to the stars and wonder if there is life out there in that black, star-filled soup that has no end. So any work that attempts to breach the topic and answer any part of the mystery of what is out there greatly intrigues us.
What I'm trying to say is that Star Trek was successful not only because it gave us an escape from reality but it took us out past the borders of our sky and into that frontier we only knew in our dreams. And that magic was captured in the successful run of Battlestar Galactica, subsequent Star Trek shows, X-Files, etc. and successfully employed in the hits Star Wars, Alien, Contact, Space Odyssey 2001, Titan A.E. to name a few.
It's late and I'm rambling. Over and out.
Great to hear from you, Michael. I think you're probably correct; we all look out into the stars and wonder what the heck is out there. Its so big that anything and everything could be there. That's partially what this blog is all about, imagining what the heck could be going on in all that big space.
Post a Comment
<< Home