Posted on 02/16/2005 10:29:59 PM PST by WillRain
Star Trek has been with us in one form or another for 39 years now. What started as just another TV show that very nearly never made it to air flourished into a media phenomenon that spanned the globe and five different decades, spawning hundreds of television episodes, a string of movies, and creating the world's biggest fan club.
This show – this legend – has shaped the world. The very first space shuttle was named in honour of the show; even now, astronauts speak fondly of the show that inspired them to go out into space and has continued to inspire them to further humanity's progress. Engineering faculties around your country are full of students who wanted to be the miracle-working engineers they saw on the show.
Scientists, politicians, entrepreneurs, celebrities, humanitarians, astronauts- these people and many more are part of the generations that were inspired by a show that dared to portray a better humanity. A better future. A better understanding of our world and acceptance of those around us. On the eve of the fortieth anniversary of this amazing social and cultural phenomenon, its latest outing – Enterprise has been cut short, for lack of perceived interest.
Legends never die.
Now we invite everyone here and the world around to pick up the gauntlet thrown down to us by the people with the power to make the show happen. For every child that grew up to be somebody special because of Star Trek. For every pessimist that grew to think the future might be a wondrous and brilliant destiny rather than a dismal and dark demise. For the knowledge that Star Trek is relevant to our society today and that the values it teaches have been transforming the heart of our world culture for years now.
I want you to sit down in front of your TV this October. To hear the rising sounds of instruments beginning to play in harmony. To see the vibrant colors of scenery fade into life. I want you all to see Enterprise's fifth season explode on to your TV screens in a magnificent blaze of sound and passion signifying everything. And I want you to think: I made this possible. I had a hand in creating this. I helped give birth to this next chapter in the most entertaining and incredible saga ever told.
And next October, I want you to know that around the world, millions of people who hold the same ideals as you, who love the show as you do, are sitting in unison forged by that same bond. Welcome to TrekUnited.com.
We've got a show to save. Let's do it!
For those of us who have suffered through seeing a show we dearly loved (for me, most recently, it's Firefly) callously cast upon the scrap heap of TV history, there's something here to keep an eye on.
These bold souls are attempting to raise money - up to as much as $36 million - in order to PAY Paramount to continue Star Trek: Enterprise into a fifth season.
Dreamers? Yeah, most defiantly. But what a dream. Consider, they've raised $22,000 in less than 48 hours, and they are putting out feelers to a host of well-heeled Hollywood, media and celebrity types who have long professed a love of Star Trek from Howard Stern to Kelsey Grammer to billionaire Paul Allen to the King of Jordan.
If they succeed, they will have revolutionized the way TV networks consider the fan response to an announced cancellation. Credit Firefly fans with the genesis of this idea. When that show was being deep-sixed by Fox, fans discussed the notion of subscriber based, direct-to-DVD productions and figured feverishly to guess what a subscription would have to cost and how many subscribers would be necessary to keep it going. Sadly, that spark of an idea died with the series, but the notion of fan financing still lives.
Whether or not you are a Trek fan or an enterprise fan, if you've ever lost a show you loved too soon, you ought to be rooting for these guys.
As for me, a Trek fan of 30+ years, I'm behind them all the way. not because I think they can succeed, but because the first time a group of fans changed the TV world, they were Trek fans. Nothing could honor that legacy any better, as Trek approaches her 40th anniversary, than for Trek fans to do it again.
Well said! If anyone can do it, the Trekkers can!
Consider these points:
1. they probably only need to raise about $7-10 million to reach a "jumping off point" which the combination of noteriaty and media attention, and the building bad PR for Paramount makes success a serious possibility;
2. Paramount already has a syndication deal in place for re-runs on stations covoring 90% of the nation - more than UPN does. it would not take much to adjust that contract for first-run episodes and it's hardly concievable any of those stations wouldn't jump at the chance to have them...if the price was right;
3. The effort is worthwhile, even if the only effect is to challange the Neilsen rating paradigm for what constitutes TV success. God in heaven knows we need something completely new to break the stranglehold of reality TV.
Also, FYI, the account set uup is finacially sound in terms of integrity, and pledged to return all donations if the goal is not achived.
Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News."
The problem is that they made the show where you had to see every episode in order to understand the plot. They didn't do many 'stand alone' episodes.
The Space Shuttle ENTERPRISE never went into space, it was the test ship
Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News."
Linear plots are what makes sci-fi shows so good, whether it is DS9, B5, Farscape, Stargate or Enterprise.
"Enterprise" doesn't originate with Star Trek either, not by hundreds of years.
You do not count OV101?
I just thought you might like to know.
Enterprise, the first Space Shuttle Orbiter, is the centerpiece of the new McDonnell Space Hangar at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. The orbiter's been at the museum since it opened last December, but the space hangar has been closed off while workers refurbished the Enterprise.
Source: Shuttle Enterprise at Center of Museum's Space Hangar
And I'm just talking about the music....
True, but you may be unaware that Enterprise was not the original name of that vessel. President ford was diluged with mail from Trek fans and they changed the name to Enterprise after that campaign. the cast of the Original Series was on hand for the first roll-out.
Ahh. I'm just a bit too young to have any memories of Ford. (Sadly I do remember Carter.)
Farscape pwns Star Trek.
'Sides, the Federation are a buncha commies/ ;)
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Trek-Marxism.html
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