Introduction: ‘to boldly go …’ — approaching the texts of Star Trek

Abstract

Over the course of more than three decades Star Trek has evolved into an unparalleled multimedia phenomenon, comprising five television series, eight major Hollywood movies and numerous novelisations, not to mention a highly lucrative ‘spin-off’ merchandising industry. Its characters, locations and familiar catchphrases such as ‘Beam me up, Scotty’, ‘To boldly go’, ‘Make it so’ and ‘Engage!’ are recognised across the globe and its highly visible and organised fan base has created an international network of conventions, publications and artefacts. Its prominence in American culture was underlined as early as 1976 when NASA, in response to a concerted letter-writing campaign by fans, named the first space shuttle Enterprise. Today it can be considered to be one of the most valuable ‘cultural properties’ in the world.

Today, images abound everywhere. Never has so much been depicted and watched. We have glimpses at any moment of what things look like on the other side of the planet, or the other side of the moon. Appearances registered and transmitted with lightning speed.

Yet … something has innocently changed … Now appearances are volatile. Technological innovation has made it easy to separate the apparent from the existent. And this is precisely what the present system’s mythology continually needs to exploit. It turns appearances into refractions, like mirages, refractions not of light but of appetite. In fact, a single appetite, the appetite for more …

(John Berger, Tate, Spring 1977)

TV functions as a social ritual … in which our culture engages in order to communicate with its collective self …

(John Fiske and John Hartley, 1978, p. 23)

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 civilisations — to boldly go where no man has gone before.

(Captain Kirk’s voiceover, original Star Trek credit sequence, written by Gene Roddenberry)