“ Star Trek wouldn’t exist without Star Wars ,” William Shatner, more popularly known as Captain Kirk, said during the Star Trek convention in Las Vegas. According to Shatner, Star Wars and Star Trek tend to feed off each other, being both science fiction movie franchises.
Captain Kirk , says i09 shocked the convention on Saturday with his bold statement regarding a movie franchise that “boldly goes where no man has gone before.”
The source poses the question to all the Trekkies and Star Wars fans all over the world: “Now, can there finally be peace between the fandoms?”
Brokering peace in an exciting era of space travel is definitely a step in the right direction. Presently, China and Indiaare having a close rivalry in getting the upper hand to explore Mars first, claims CNN. Another Inquisitrarticle explains that mankind could be going back to the moon as early as next year with Moon Express, reportedly a company founded by billionaire entrepreneur Naveen Jain.
“For the first time in history, the U.S. government will allow a commercial venture to travel and explore beyond Earth’s orbit.”
These are definitely exciting, if not rivalry-ridden times, in both reality and science fiction. Nowadays, Hollywood space wars come in the form of Star Wars and Star Trek dishing up an ever-increasing number of sequels, spin-offs, and reboots. The two franchises also try to outdo each other with box-office records.
But getting back to reality, do you honestly think that Moon Express can make it to the moon as early as next year? It looks like a very close call — like injecting the fast food mentality into space travel. In fact, the Naveen Jain company makes SpaceX and its founder Elon Musk look bad as the Jain firm aims to accomplish its moon mission by using rocket technology at barely 10 percent of Musk’s budget for his company’s Falcon 9 rocket.
Admittedly, the two high-tech firms have two separate trajectories —the moon and Mars — still, the deadline that Moon Express has set for itself is roughly the time it takes to finish shooting or making, say, a Star Wars or a Star Trek movie, these days.
Enter North Korea, which, according to the country’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un, intends to colonize the moon in 10 years , according to The Sun . By Moon Express’ “fast food” standards, the deadline that North Korea has set for itself is laughable as that will be way too late. Perhaps, by the time Kim Jong-un’s North Korean crew lands, Jain’s company would have already set up a chain of fast food stores on the moon. So much for the so-called relativity of time.
Anyway, 10 years or a decade is also roughly how much Star Trek antedates Star Wars in real time, Captain Kirk reminds us.
“It [Star Trek] also got canceled after three seasons, with little hope of it ever returning,” i09 explains. From this point, Captain Kirk carries on with the dialogue at the Trekkies convention in Vegas, as follows.
“Every year, there was the threat to be canceled. The third year, we were canceled, and everybody accepted it…At Paramount Studios, they were running around bumping into each other. What do we got?! What do we got to equal Star Wars ?… It was called Star Trek ? Let’s resurrect that!”
Thanks to the Star Wars ‘boost, Star Trek is alive and well on planet Hollywood. Star Trek: A Motion Picture was flawed, admits William Shatner. However, the failing grade didn’t stop the franchise from improving. To-date, Star Trek: Beyond has almost made $200 million worldwide according to i09.
The source is also happy to report that “a new CBS show, Star Trek: Discovery, is on the way.”
For its part, Star Wars may be coming soon to a television set near you, according to Variety , as follows.
“ABC is still hoping to visit a galaxy far, far away, according to network president Channing Dungey, who says the Alphabet has been in discussions with Lucasfilm over the possibility of bringing the Star Wars universe to TV .”
For now, Variety claims that it’s all conversation but no formal agreement yet between Alphabet and Lucasfilm, but who knows, Star Wars may be headed to where Star Trek has gone before. Talk about parallel universes.
[Photo by Bob Galbraith/AP Images]