11. WHERE NO MARKET HAS GONE BEFORE: “THE SCIENCE-FICTION INDUSTRY” AND THE STAR TREK INDUSTRY

In 1953, the ever-prescient Hugo Gernsback wrote an editorial for his magazine Science-Fiction Plus, “The Science-Fiction Industry,” which began by conventionally summarizing the recent expansion of science fiction in books, magazines, television, comic strips, and films. However, after discussing “what may be termed as the ‘two dimensional’ aspect of science-fiction: the printed word, radio and television, and the film,” Gernsback added that “in recent years, a new form has been added: the third dimensional world of science-fiction.” He elaborated:

These new three-dimensional forms of science-fiction which are now beginning to swamp our stores consist of toys, games, gadgets, scientific instruments of all kinds, wearing apparel for youngsters, and countless other constantly-evolving, ingenious devices.

Space helmets of every description, space-suits, space guns, space shooting ranges, Space Cadet modelcraft, space viewer picture guns, “Buck Rogers Sonic Ray Gun,” “Official Space Patrol Watch,” “Space Patrol Monorail Train,” “Meteor Express” (imported), dozens of space rockets and space ships―these are only a small part of the large catalog of this type of merchandise now to be found in thousands of stores.

Remember, this is only a modest beginning.... So far, little has been produced for the youngsters from ten years upward. This easily may become the most lucrative three-dimensional market.

While he proceeded to optimistically predict more sophisticated―and more educational―products of this kind, Gernsback clearly was willing to accept such materials as an integral part of the science fiction field, which in tandem with its other forms “will certainly play an impressive role in the future.”54

Gernsback’s assertion that the science fiction merchandise of the 1950s represented only a “modest beginning” may qualify as his most accurate prophecy, for new science fiction films and television series today invariably engender huge numbers of the sorts of products he discussed―not only toys and games for children, but souvenirs and collectibles for adults as well. (The related phenomena, not further discussed here, are “original” works based on products, featuring characters from toys and video games, like the Transformers movies, and works created primarily or solely to serve as the basis for marketing activities, like the Masters of the Universe cartoons and films.) Indeed, the descriptive phrase Gernsback proudly coined―“The Science-Fiction Industry”―might be used by a critic today to epitomize everything that is wrong with modern science fiction.55

The situation could be described in this way: in the beginning, or at the core, there may be a worthwhile original work; but postmodern megacapitalism, determined to exploit that work to a maximal extent, replicates the work in all conceivable ways and attaches its name and images to every imaginable piece of merchandise that might be successfully foisted upon easily duped consumers. As a result, while there remain a few valuable works that critics might profitably examine, these are now surrounded by masses of overt and covert “products” that critics should unhesitatingly ignore.

But an alternative view might be offered. Consider the mock commercial on one Saturday Night Live episode farcically presenting “action figures” based on characters in the film Philadelphia (1993). “Nobody discriminates against me!” a little plastic Tom Hanks exclaims as he blasts away with a rocket launcher at a little plastic Jason Robards, Jr. In the comic incongruity of these toys, and in the impossibility that such toys would ever actually be marketed, one observes an important principle: all sequels, spinoffs, tie-ins or merchandise based on a given novel, film, or television series must, at least in a small way, derive from and build on some real aspect of the original work. One cannot market action figures based on a serious adult film, just as one cannot market, say, expensive designer jewelry based on underground comic book characters. Thus, all products that emerge from or accompany a given work, no matter how repugnant or exploitative they may seem, can correctly be interpreted as outgrowths of and responses to that work—even as commentaries on that work. From this perspective, critics might profitably analyze not only an original work, but also all the products inspired by the work, in order to better understand it.

To test this hypothesis, one might logically turn to the largest science fiction industry of them all―the innumerable offsprings of the television series Star Trek (1966-1969). But to understand this phenomenon, one must consider the story of how all these products came to be, and the two very different ways that the Star Trek universe expanded beyond its original parameters.

At first, while it was on NBC, the official exploitation of Star Trek was surprisingly minimal, even by the standards of the time. James Blish wrote three collections of stories based on Star Trek episodes; Gold Key produced a Star Trek comic book; Mack Reynolds wrote a juvenile Star Trek novel, Mission to Horatius (1968); and Stephen Whitfield, drawing heavily upon interviews with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, produced a celebratory look at the series, The Making of Star Trek (1968), crediting Roddenberry as co-author. And that was about it.

In the 1970s, even as reruns of Star Trek episodes proved amazingly popular in syndication, products based on the series remained limited in extent. Blish wrote nine more volumes of Star Trek stories; with the publication of the twelfth volume, completed by his wife J. A. Lawrence after Blish’s death, all 78 episodes had been immortalized in story form. Blish also contributed an original Star Trek novel, Spock Must Die! (1970), often (and erroneously) described as the first Star Trek novel. After the Saturday morning cartoon version of Star Trek (1973-1975) was launched, Alan Dean Foster generated ten volumes of stories based on its twenty-two episodes. David Gerrold, who wrote scripts for the original and animated series, published two books about the series, The World of Star Trek and The Trouble with Tribbles (both 1973), and a few other books about Star Trek appeared. Marvel tried its own Star Trek comic book, without much success, and Star Trek “Fotonovels”―featuring stills from series episodes with added dialogue balloons to tell stories in comic-book form―appeared in 1977. A few items of merchandise reached the stores; in the 1970s I was given plastic toy replicas of a Star Trek phaser, tricorder, and communicator, and I received a birthday card that included detachable, cardboard Vulcan ears. Nevertheless, given the enormous and enduring popularity of Star Trek, all of this represented a rather restrained exploitation of the series. It was not until 1980, after the appearance of the first Star Trek film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), and after Pocket Books launched its series of original novels, that the marketing of Star Trek started moving at warp-speed, further strengthened by ten later movies to date and the four successor series, Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999), Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001), and Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005).

However, during the early years of official inactivity, the fans of Star Trek were far from idle. As described in Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak, and Joan Winston’s interesting book, Star Trek Lives! (1975), the series from the beginning attracted unusual numbers of extremely dedicated fans―and, for a science fiction series, an unprecedented number of female fans. While the series was being filmed, many people asked to visit the set; one visitor, Bjo Trimble, soon became a leading force in early Star Trek fandom. Fans carried on enormous letter-writing campaigns to keep the series on the air; and the cancellation of the series in 1969 did nothing to diminish their interest.

Fascinated by the series and its characters, but tired of watching the old episodes, fans began writing their own Star Trek stories, published only in crude amateur fanzines; some of the best of these later appeared in Marshak and Myrna Culbreath’s anthologies, Star Trek: The New Voyages (1976) and Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 (1978). Most stories, predominantly written by women, focused on two themes: the erotic appeal of the Vulcan Mr. Spock; and the strong emotional bond between Spock and Captain Kirk. Star Trek Lives! includes passages from one amateur novel, Diane Steiner’s Spock Enslaved, where Spock and Kirk visit a planet resembling ancient Rome and Spock is sold into slavery:

“Now,” Octavian continued, “it dawns on us that I have bid the highest price ever paid for a slave, without even seeing what I paid for.” The guests laughed.

“Strip him!” Octavian ordered suddenly.

Spock stood frozen in mid-breath, unable to believe what was happening to him. His guards moved quickly, pulling off his shirt and undershirt, then proceeded to remove the rest of his clothing. Spock closed his eyes, forcing all the resistance from his muscles, as he tried to fight down his rising rebellion. He thought of Kirk, who was counting on him, and of what might befall the Captain if he didn’t control himself. The guards had completed their task.

“Your money was not wasted, Prefect,” Cornelius said appreciatively.

Octavian chuckled. “I had no doubts of it, Cornelius. But see for yourself.”

Trying to endure this treatment to prevent Kirk from being harmed, Spock nevertheless rebels, and Octavian decides to punish Kirk. Soon, the injured Kirk is returned to Spock’s cell:

“Captain?” Spock called. There was no response from Kirk. “Captain! Jim!”

Kirk seemed to pull himself together slowly, like a reluctant dreamer coming from sleep, then pulled back slightly, still steadying himself against the Vulcan’s strength, to meet Spock’s worried eyes. What Spock saw there was nearly enough to make him drop his gaze. For he had never seen such a terrible expression on Kirk’s face, such naked hurt in his eyes in all the time he’d known him. There was a pain in them beyond anything physical Spock could see had been done to him. It cut into the Vulcan like someone running a knife through his heart.56

In these scenes of the naked, humiliated Spock and Spock’s emotional reaction to Kirk’s injury, the sexuality of Spock, and the powerful bond between Kirk and Spock, come to the surface more than in the original series.

Fans did not limit their activities to writing stories: they painstakingly sewed their own Star Trek costumes, fabricated Vulcan ears, and built their own replicas of Star Trek insignias, phasers, and equipment, so they could attend conventions dressed as their favorite characters. Original drawings, paintings, and sculptures of the Star Trek characters were displayed and sold at every convention. (Trimble’s The Star Trek Concordance [1976] features several pages of fan art.57) In the early 1970s, some fan created a crude Star Trek computer game that spread to every college campus in the nation; I recall playing it. The player’s task was to employ a limited amount of phaser blasts and photon torpedoes to destroy an attacking Klingon ship, aided by informative comments from other crew members. Since I could never accomplish the task, my games always ended with the destruction of the Enterprise and the message, “A Captain Kirk you’re not!” A later version involved more participation from other Star Trek regulars. And, as conventions of Star Trek enthusiasts became regular activities, another type of Star Trek game became standard: the Star Trek trivia contest, in which fans were asked to identify, for example, the exact beverage that the alien child in “The Corbomite Maneuver” (1966) offered Captain Kirk.

None of these stories, artworks, or games were created or sanctioned by the companies that owned the rights to the series; none of them emerged because of any desire for financial gain. Rather, they spontaneously grew out of the overpowering fondness that many fans felt for Star Trek, a fondness that could not be satisfied by endlessly watching reruns or reading adaptations of the episodes. This suggests one conclusion: viewing the many “tie-in” products―novelizations, comic books, games, toys―that seemingly accompany all major films, one logically regards them not as the results of any natural demand, but instead as products being foisted by greedy exploiters on a gullible, brainwashed public conditioned to purchase such extraneous detritus whenever they are commanded by the Powers-That-Be. However, no advertising masterminds or corporate executives were responsible for the first, unofficial marketing of Star Trek, which was an entirely consumer-created phenomenon. Surely, then, there is sometimes a natural, unmanipulated desire for stories, objects, or games based on popular films or television programs, and perhaps in some cases such products in fact represent a classic market response to legitimate demand.

As indicated, the official marketing of Star Trek belatedly―but wholeheartedly―took off in the 1980s. A complete description of all modern products would demand an article in itself, but a brief summary might be attempted. The first six films, all episodes of the first series, and the original series pilot were made available as videocassettes, and all of these, along with the later films and all episodes of the later four series, were later released as DVDs. In print, there have been literally hundreds of novels featuring Star Trek characters, some adaptations of movies or series episodes, but most of them original novels; a series of novels for younger readers featuring cadets at Starfleet Academy; an unauthorized parody series, Star Wreck, which generated at least six volumes; and a third comic book, produced by DC Comics, that lasted longer than previous versions. A small library of books about Star Trek have appeared, not only predictable items―guides to all series episodes, books about making the series and films, memoirs of cast members ― but also reference books purportedly written by and for inhabitants of the future world of Star Trek, including Stan Goldstein and Fred Goldstein’s Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology (1980), Jeff Maynard’s Star Trek Maps (1980), Shane Johnson’s Mr. Scott’s Guide to the Enterprise (1987), and Rick Sternbach’s Star Trek: The Next Generation: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D Blueprints (1996).

Beyond celluloid and print productions, a number of products based on Star Trek have been marketed. For young, presumably male children, toy stores have recently featured a number of “action figures” (dolls) of the heroes and villains of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as well as replicas of the starship Enterprise, its bridge and transporter room, and a Romulan warship. For children who do not want to play with dolls, there have also been plastic replicas of Star Trek paraphernalia―phaser guns, tricorders, communicators, and insignias―for full-scale play-acting. Games based on Star Trek include the one to be assembled from Bruce Nash and Greg Nash’s The Star Trek Make-a-Game Book (1979), the Super Nintendo video game in which players get to “command the Enterprise” (as one advertisement puts it), and many later video games, usually featuring the voices of original series actors, designed for more sophisticated game systems.

For adults, especially those with a lot of disposable income, there have been “collector plates” featuring the starship Enterprise and its crew to be purchased at an exorbitant price and carefully preserved in hopes that later enthusiasts will be willing to pay an ever more exorbitant price for these “Limited Edition” items. (An advertisement in the April 10, 1994 issue of Parade, for example, announced “a compelling new issue” of “Brilliantly conceived and masterfully executed” collector plates from “The Hamilton Collection” based on the first six Star Trek films―for $35.00 each.58) The home shopping network QVC, while devoting two hours to “The Star Trek Universe,” offered viewers a number of expensive products, including a Star Trek titanium necklace ($51.00), a clock with a picture of the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation ($53.75), and Captain Kirk and Captain Picard “Autograph Plaques” ($125.00 each). There was even, for several hundred dollars, a deluxe chess set with pieces that looked like the heroes and villains of Star Trek.

For those with less money to spend, new Star Trek calendars have appeared every year. And the coffee cups―how could I forget the coffee cups? For several years my sister, Brenda Bright, recalling my ancient fondness for the first series, would find a new one to send as a Christmas gift; my favorite one shows the Enterprise apparently soaring through a quadrant of empty space―but when you pour hot liquid into the cup, a Romulan warship, previously employing the “cloaking device,” suddenly materializes. (For Christmas, 1999, however, Brenda found a more upscale substitute gift: a framed envelope, signed by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, featuring the Star Trek postage stamp, stamped on its first day of issue.)

With all these products and merchandise available, the unofficial marketing of Star Trek largely came to a halt. As committees were established to oversee the regular production of polished Star Trek novels, there was no longer much interest in crudely printed amateur efforts, and most of those stories could not appear as part of the official series. (Lichtenberg’s Kraith stories, for example, could not be published because they violated too many established facts of the Star Trek universe; and the makers of Star Trek novels, vigilantly seeking to ensure that their products were acceptable to juvenile readers and their parents, would never sanction the barely concealed eroticism of a novel like Spock Enslaved.) Similarly, amateur artworks could not compete with the more attractive and authentic-looking products that professionals could produce, and no one would want to play a primitive computer game like the Star Trek game when more sophisticated games for the latest consoles were available. In sum, the official marketplace of Star Trek generally destroyed its unofficial marketplace.

There is, however, one prominent example of an unofficial expansion of the Star Trek universe that continued to flourish after 1979―the so-called “slashzine” cult. The premise advanced by these fans is that Kirk and Spock were in fact homosexual lovers, and many new stories have been written and have circulated among fans that explicitly depict such a relationship. As their most striking and creative effort to advance their thesis, members of the cult have cleverly re-edited footage from the original series to make it appear that Kirk and Spock are embracing, or looking at each other with longing eyes; similar scenes can also be observed in doctored photographs. Clearly, this is one form of fondness for Star Trek which could never be satisfied by the sanitized novels and products available in the marketplace, and the expressions of this movement, unlike others, surely endured because, in this case, none of the official products could replace them.

One reaction to these stories and videos would be that a strange fringe cult inappropriately seized upon a work of popular culture and distorted it to reflect their own peculiar priorities—an example of the process of “excorporation” described in John Fiske’s Understanding Popular Culture (1989). Yet there have been many popular films and television series in the past thirty years, and few of them have been singled out for such treatment. Perhaps something about the series invited the slashzine reading of Star Trek; after all, traces of such eroticism can be detected in some early fan fiction, like the aforementioned Spock Enslaved. In fact, this cult may represent an extreme but defensible interpretation of Star Trek and its complex emotional undercurrents.

Consider this hypothesis about the hidden structure of the original Star Trek series. Despite their relationship to science fiction, most episodes actually adhere more closely to the patterns and themes of the romance novel. James T. Kirk (William Shatner) is the Heroine―young, beautiful, impetuous, and highly emotional. Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) is the Boy Next Door―affable, down-to-earth, comforting, but not very romantic and, overall, rather boring. Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is the Mysterious Stranger―dark, exotic, and forbidding, somewhat cold and distant but nonetheless fascinating because there are hints of powerful passions concealed by his stoic exterior. Kirk the Heroine is basically drawn to Spock, despite the danger and mystery, though there are times when the coldness of Spock drives Kirk to the familiar company of McCoy. And, as Kirk cannot decide between Spock and McCoy, the two suitors compete for Kirk’s affections in an overtly polite but sometimes petulant and mean-spirited manner.

Without undertaking a full analysis of the series, one can locate many aspects of various episodes that would support this interpretation. The essentially womanly character of Captain Kirk emerges time and again: in “Balance of Terror” (1966), as Kirk reluctantly takes the Enterprise into battle with the Romulans, he is tormented by the thought that this action might actually kill somebody, and spends considerable time worrying about this possible consequence; but of course a real man―say, John Wayne playing a general in a World War II movie―would order his men into a battle for a good cause without worrying about possible casualties. There is also one startling pattern: if Kirk is in fact the hero of Star Trek, his main activity should be rescuing people from danger―that is what heroes are supposed to do. But many episodes are built upon precisely the opposite situation: Kirk is in danger, and he must be rescued. Kirk is stranded on a hostile planet, so Mr. Scott (James Doohan) must locate him and transport him back to the safety of the Enterprise; Kirk and the Enterprise are about to be destroyed, so Scott and Spock must hastily repair the engines to save him and his crew; Kirk is dying of a rare disease, so McCoy must devise some treatment to save his life. In other words, Kirk is repeatedly cast in the role of the Heroine in peril who must be saved by a male Hero. Perhaps the most revelatory episode is the last one filmed, “Turnabout Intruder” (1969), in which a vengeful woman takes mental control of Kirk’s body. Portraying Kirk with the mind of a woman, William Shatner changed his acting style remarkably little; the episode displays only a slightly exaggerated version of the way Shatner had always played Kirk. “Turnabout Intruder” was appropriately the last Star Trek episode, since it finally revealed the true nature of Kirk: he is a turned-about intruder, a man trapped in a woman’s role.59

All I am expounding here is what might be termed a structural interpretation of Star Trek, noting that Kirk seems to take on the functions of a romance-novel heroine and that Spock and McCoy take on the functions of romance-novel suitors. One can accept this reading without imagining that there was any conscious or unconscious effort to depict Kirk and Spock as actual homosexual lovers. Nevertheless, given these patterns in the series episodes, this would be a logical extension of the relationship shown there. (Of course, the slashzine cult has largely ignored the possibly erotic relationship of Kirk and McCoy, but the sexuality of the Boy Next Door in romance fiction is often minimized, since his role is to essentially serve as a sexless alternative to the overtly sexual Mysterious Stranger.)

There are, then, lessons to be learned from the slashzine cult and the other official and unofficial expansions of the Star Trek universe. The various products, official and unofficial, that have grown out of the original Star Trek series allow critics to understand the essentially three-fold nature of that series and the three corresponding reasons for its appeal.

First, in the second series Star Trek: The Next Generation, one sees what could be termed the official interpretation of the original Star Trek, as developed and approved by creator Gene Roddenberry: that it was a serious dramatic series that employed the devices of science fiction to focus on and explore a number of important human questions and concerns―something like Masterpiece Theatre with special effects. Casting a British Shakespearian actor, Patrick Stewart, as the second Enterprise captain was one clear sign of this desire to provide the Star Trek universe with an aura of respectability.60 Unlike the hot-headed and violent Captain Kirk, Picard insists that all conflicts can be resolved by calm conversation and patient diplomacy; and episodes religiously steered away from any sorts of violence―phaser guns and photon torpedoes are simply not the way that mature people settle their disputes. Here, no one can deny that Star Trek: The Next Generation is legitimately building on one aspect of the original series, which did pay more attention to character development and important social issues than other television series of its day, and which did offer several episodes, like “Errand of Mercy” (1967), “The Omega Glory” (1968), and “Let This Be Your Last Battlefield” (1969), that were overt anti-war statements. And the various upscale products based on Star Trek that I mentioned―the collector plates, plaques, and chess sets―similarly draw upon this sense of dignity and serious purpose to effectively enshrine the original series as an expression of the finest aspects of the American character.

However, in the old and new computer games, the action figures of Picard and his crew, and the models of the Enterprise and toy phaser guns for children, we observe another aspect of the original Star Trek series that was slighted in its second version: that it was a juvenile adventure series, rooted―like much science fiction―in nineteenth-century stage melodrama, a galactic game of Cowboys and Indians with the virtuous Captain Kirk of the Enterprise blasting away with photon torpedoes at the evil Klingons or Romulans. Oddly enough, toys based on the second Star Trek series recall the atmosphere of the first series, with its uninhibited violence, recurring phaser battles, and fistfights. But these toys are, then, legitimately building on another aspect of the first Star Trek series, one that many commentators found lacking in Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was often lambasted as boring and slow-paced in contrast to the violent and colorful original series.

Finally, in some of the more exuberant fan fiction of the 1970s and in the later slashzine cult, we observe a third aspect of the original series―that it was a drama with flimsily concealed and highly convoluted erotic undercurrents largely (but not entirely) focused on a structural but concealed romantic relationship between Kirk and Spock. And this is another element that could not be found in Star Trek: The Next Generation; for all of its purported maturity and freedom from network censorship, the series was on the whole surprisingly chaste. The best illustration of this shift in mood would be the character designed to replace Spock―the android Data (Brent Spiner). Unlike the adult and often tormented Spock, Data is an eternal child, cheerful and optimistic, approaching each new experience with joy and curiosity, and utterly lacking in strong internal conflicts. Even the loss of his virginity in the first season episode “The Naked Now” (1987) did not alter his essential innocence. In keeping with this childlike atmosphere, Star Trek: The Next Generation initially featured a young boy as a regular character (though the role of Ensign Wesley Crusher [Wil Wheaton] was later eliminated). Also, while Star Trek: The Next Generation delved a few times into the repressed romantic feelings of Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), and William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), such intimations of hidden eroticism are completely absent in most episodes; and certainly, these relationships are not as interesting or as foregrounded as the Kirk-Spock relationship in the original series. Commentators who have bemoaned the absence of action and violence in Star Trek: The Next Generation have failed to announce its corresponding absence of underlying sexuality―but that may be another reason why the second series generally did not attract the type of obsessive fans who attached themselves to the first Star Trek.61

Decades ago, when Gernsback first noted and embraced science fiction merchandise, he believed that such items would eventually serve as another way to achieve one major goal of science fiction―providing scientific education for youngsters. He predicted “the more serious `Scientific Instruction’ branch of the industry” may someday have a “boom” and envisioned products like “Knockdown astronomical telescopes,” “scale models (for home assembling) of the solar system,” “Space rockets...which actually can ascend (by compressed air),” and “Scale models of space ships, complete with all interior instrumentation” (2). In this respect, of course, Gernsback’s prophetic vision was inaccurate; but if young people are not being educated by the modern products of science fiction, critics who examine them may be educated in a different manner―as this cursory examination of the Star Trek industry demonstrates.

As I argue elsewhere, good literary critics, like good scientists, should always be interested in examining new data, even if it appears unpromising at first glance; and the modern tendency of narrative works to inspire hoards of subsidiary products, whatever negative effects it might have, also creates new and relevant data. When discussing computer games based on Larry Niven’s Ringworld novels, Frederik Pohl’s Heechee series, Piers Anthony’s Xanth novels, and Frank Herbert’s Dune novels―often produced in close consultation with the authors―Clyde Wilcox and Kevin Wilcox note that these games “In some ways...serve as additional sequels to the original novels.”62 The release of any major film today may be accompanied by a novelization, comic book, toys, games, and collectibles. And while nothing has emerged to rival the size and impact of the Star Trek cult, smaller groups of fans devoted to other films and television series are creating their own marketplaces of amateur work; there was once, for example, a considerable body of underground literature featuring characters from the television series Beauty and the Beast (1987-1990). When marketers watch a forthcoming film trying to think of profitable products to accompany its release, and when devoted fans create their own stories and artifacts, they are in effect functioning as literary critics, trying to locate and emphasize key elements in those works. To be sure, the resulting products may be arbitrary and meaningless―just as some scholarly analyses may be obtuse or irrelevant; but the possibility exists that such products may reveal a certain shrewdness in evaluating their works.

In addition, even if certain items of merchandise do not perfectly reflect the character of the original narrative, they might be fruitfully examined as a potential influence on the continuing film or television series they derive from. Consider the action figures of characters in Star Trek: The Next Generation. As noted, Captain Picard and his crew engaged in precious little action during the course of their series, but the later films have been noticeably different in this regard: in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), for example, Picard can be observed brandishing and firing a phaser and punching out an opponent. While a producer’s desire to foreground violence in a film for mass audiences cannot be discounted as an explanation, one could also argue that, after two decades of appearing in toy stores as an action figure, Captain Picard was finally inspired to start behaving like one.

For critics of Star Trek in all its incarnations, then, I submit that the Star Trek industry requires, and will reward, serious scholarly attention. Gene Roddenberry came to believe, and wanted the world to believe, that Star Trek was a series that appealed to the highest and most admirable elements in human nature―concern for important social and human issues and a desire for meaningful stories and complex characterization. But the series also appealed to some baser elements in human nature: a simplistic fondness for the clarity and simplicity of black-and-white, melodramatic conflict and the resolution of disputes with fistfights and ray guns; and a need for expressions of repressed and socially unacceptable erotic passions. Those who expanded and marketed the Star Trek universe, therefore, may have understood the original series better than its creator.

54. Hugo Gernsback, “The Science-Fiction Industry,” Science-Fiction Plus, 1 (May, 1953), 2. Later page references in the text are to this edition.

55. There were several commentaries on this theme during the 1990s, the most extensive being Christina Sedgwick’s “The Fork in the Road: Can Science Fiction Survive in Postmodern, Megacorporate America?,” Science-Fiction Studies, 18 (March, 1991), 11-52. Different perspectives on these concerns can also be found in the essays collected in Gary Westfahl, George Slusser, and Eric S. Rabkin’s critical anthology Science Fiction and Market Realities (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996).

56. Cited in Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak, and Joan Winston, Star Trek Lives! (New York: Bantam Books, 1974), 243, 245.

57. Bjo Trimble, The Star Trek Concordance (New York: Ballantine Books, 1976), 19-31.

58. “To Save the Future, They Must Rescue the Past,” Advertisement for the collector plate Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Parade, April 10, 1994, 21.

59. A rejoinder to this interpretation would be that Kirk regularly has affairs with beautiful women, marries a Native American woman in “The Paradise Syndrome” (1968), and meets a former lover and his now-grown son in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). However, as one convention of the romance film, a heroine may in the course of the film be seen in the company of many suitors, but her true feelings are revealed by the man she accompanies in the final frame. And how do most Star Trek episodes end? With Kirk talking to Spock, or Kirk standing between Spock and McCoy.

60. As are, more broadly, the frequent references in Star Trek: The Next Generation to the works of William Shakespeare, extensively documented in several essays that appeared in the Spring, 1995 issue of Extrapolation.

61. Interestingly, there are signs that Rick Berman, who inherited control over Star Trek after Roddenberry’s death, was aware of these deficiencies in Star Trek: The Next Generation and attempted to correct them in the successor series he helped to create. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise all offered milieus that were less sanitized and less civilized than that of Star Trek: The Next Generation (Quark’s bar in the first series, for example, also serves as a brothel), and all series feature more stories with conflict and violence. And, in the ambivalent sexuality of Dax in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a woman who combined her personality with that of a male alien, and in hints of a lesbian relationship between her and Kira, we see the sorts of concealed eroticism seen in the original Star Trek. These series, then, are following the lead not of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but of the first series and the products that sprang from it.

62. Clyde Wilcox and Kevin Wilcox, “New Gateways to Adventure: The Creation and Marketing of Science Fiction Computer Games,” Science Fiction and Market Realities, 199.