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“What would God want with a starship?” That line, uttered by William Shatner’s Capt. James T. Kirk in the much-derided Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) — co-written and directed by Shatner himself — is probably that film’s most famous (or infamous) moment. In the weeks building up to the recent debut of CBS’s new series Star Trek: Discovery, buzz around the franchise has raised a different question: What would a starship want with God? The topic was raised several weeks ago when a news story spelled out that — in keeping with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s secular-humanist brand...

*** Roddenberry never stopped rewriting. “The problem,” says his biographer Joel Engel, “was that he basically couldn’t write well enough to carry it off.” For 25 years, a script never left Roddenberry’s hands without becoming worse. For all of the control Roddenberry exercised over Star Trek, the franchise prospered only when it was under the aegis of others. As early as one month before the show’s premiere, an exhausted and embattled Roddenberry took a vacation. Television veteran Gene L. Coon, a Marine veteran of the Pacific, was hired as producer. “To a large degree,” write Gross and Altman, “it would...

Recovery comes just as 50th anniversary of “The Original Series” approaches Documents written by “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry have been recovered from 200 floppy disks owned by the late TV writer and producer. DriveSavers and eDiscovery announced Monday that after months of work they were able to pull data from the disks, which Roddenberry used to store information while he was working on “Star Trek.” Mike Cobb, DriveSavers director of engineering, would not reveal what was on the disks, but he did offer some clues. “Lots of documents,” Cobb hinted in a press release. “2016 just happens to be...

That Time Ronald Reagan Visited Star Trek: The Next Generation And Took The Captain's Chair Ronald Reagan was a fan of Star Trek-and even a critic of it sometimes. In his diary he talks about watching Star Trek III in the White House theater and how he thought it sucked. In his post-presidential years apparently this interest in the franchise continued, and in 1991 he visited the then-highly popular Next Generation Set. The Gipper's attendance at Paramount Studios Stage 8 came as the cast and crew were filming the season four Klingon-centric two-part finale, Redemption. There were Klingons running around...

So much of science fiction's core topics intersect with war, one way or the other. Rapid social change and technological innovation both get supercharged during wartime, and some of our greatest explorers are also warriors. So it's not surprising that many of science fiction's most well-known authors served in the military at some point — especially during the era when we had a compulsory draft. But how did serving in the military shape these writers' books? Here's a look at 15 of the authors who served in the armed forces, and how their work reflects that experience.

Sorry to all you Star Trek fans out there. I may be the only science fiction fan in the universe that really hates his guts. He stands in the annals of history with Karl Marx as one of the most vile perpetrators of socialism and communism this planet has ever known. I call him the used philosophy salesman…. and he was good at that job, one of the best. Today is the anniversary of his birth and I have been constantly reminded of this all morning. Tributes everywhere I look to the man who turned the brains of a generation...

Rare Star Trek Photos Show Green Orion Slavegirls Like You’ve Never Seen Them The original Star Trek pilot, "The Cage," included a lot more of the scenes where Vina is turned into a green Orion slavegirl who dances for Captain Pike — but they were cut because they were too saucy for prime time television. Now, some rare Trek behind-the-scenes pictures include a brand new look at the unshown parts of Vina's dance sequence. Including a part where the poor slavegirl gets whipped. Turns out being an Orion slavegirl isn't all dancing and quoting poetry. Tom Redlaw, aka Bird of...