Star Trek: Basic Information of the Original Series

In order to distinguish it from other sequels, the West generally calls it Star Trek: The Original Series, abbreviated as ST:TOS or TOS. Please refer to Star Trek for a more comprehensive overview. 1964, Rodenberg's concept of "original series" won him a three-year R&D contract with Dexilu Company. Sid Road is a leading independent television production company founded by comedians lucille ball and Desi Arnaz. Rodenbury was promoted to several major TV networks in the form of a TV series similar to "Star Caravan", describing it as a future version of a western film (for example,] Wagon Traini and] Gun Smoke I), which was very popular on TV at that time. In Rodenbury's original vision, the protagonist was Captain Robert Appleby on the starship York. However, the role eventually became Captain Christopher Parker. 1964 produced and broadcast the first leading chapter "The Cage". Many concepts of Rodenbury were quite advanced at that time. In his imagination, the crew of the starship was multi-racial and multi-species, because according to his hypothesis, there was no racial discrimination in the 23rd century-which was quite controversial at that time, because many parts of the United States were still strictly implementing the policy of apartheid. He also joined other alien species to play an important role. For example, Spock is half human and half alien. Other innovative features of the Primitive series include ingenious solutions to basic production problems. The idea of superluminal warp drive is not a new concept in the sci-fi world, but it provides an effective narrative device for the script creators, allowing the Enterprise to travel quickly in the vast space. The material transporter, which allows the crew to "teleport" from place A to place B, simply solves the problem of how to quickly move characters between scenes, because the production team soon found that it was too expensive to shoot a spaceship landing process for each episode and was forbidden.

The first chapter of the original series was originally offered to CBS, but they rejected it and chose the more mainstream Elvin Allen's Lost in Space. Then the original series was awarded to the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). At first, NBC was also very exclusive, thinking that it was too stupid and lacked action scenes. However, NBC executives were deeply moved by this concept and made a very unusual decision, hoping to shoot the second pilot chapter-"Never before". Only Spock (played by leonard Nimoy) in the first pilot chapter appeared in the second pilot chapter, and only two original pilots (Majel Barrett and Nimoy) appeared in the subsequent TV series. It is worth noting that the original female first mate role on the starship was also changed to male in the second pilot chapter. Although the pilot of the first chapter was never released in the original (the original series was released on TV DVD), the production team was smart enough to "recycle" many clips in a later episode.

In the second pilot chapter, almost all the main characters (and the actors who play them) have joined the series, including Captain Kirk (played by william shatner); Chief Engineer Major Scott (played by james doohan); There is also Lieutenant Sulu (played by George Takei). In this episode, he is a botanist on board and later becomes a helmsman. What does not appear in this episode is the chief medical officer, Dr. McCaughey (played by DeForest Kelley), but is replaced by Dr. Piper. And communication officer Uhura (played by Nicole Knicks). It was a bold attempt for Rodenbury to add Sulu (and later Ursula) to the TV series, because American TV programs at that time were very conservative in nature (and racism was deeply rooted in many American societies).

There is no doubt that Takei and Nichols are the first actors from their respective ethnic backgrounds (Nichols is African-American, while Takei is Japanese-American). They all play normal roles in TV dramas, and the descriptions of their roles are not the stereotypes of inferior races in the past. In addition, it is worth noting that Nichols' role is also the first female role in an American TV program that occupies a high position and is equal to a male colleague. Indeed, according to Nichols, her performance in TV series was regarded as an important progress in African-American biography, so when she told Martin Luther King that she was considering leaving TV series, he urged her to stay.

Many aspects of starship life in TV series are set in the royal navy in the era of great navigation. Rodenbury originally intended to portray Christopher Parker (the captain in the first pilot) as a captain similar to Horatio Hornblower in the novel. There is a certain degree of formality between roles; The author's TV series guide points out that in an emergency, beautiful pilots should not rush into the captain's arms and wait for the fate of destruction together. "Enterprise" is one of thousands of starships in the Starfleet, belonging to the Starfleet Federation, which is composed of more than 150 planet members.

Spock and Dr. McCaughey are two close friends of the captain, which reflects the reality of19th century. At that time, the captain often considered the suggestions of similar people outside the command system. The connection with the real situation of the traditional navy is also reflected in some small details. For example, when the captain arrives at the bridge, he will hear three "boatswain whistles"; Moreover, in the battle, the ships are relatively static and fire at a distance from each other. Different from the world of Star Wars, it has not been inspired by the way aircraft carriers fight in modern naval battles. There are no small fighters in the original series. Later, a fighter plane briefly appeared in the next-generation movie Uprising.

Rodenberry's production team has two main members, one is Matt Jeffries, artistic director, and the other is William WarISS, a fashion designer. Jeffries is the designer of Enterprise, and his contribution is very remarkable, so his name has become a part of starship design and will be immortal. It is the so-called Jefferies pipeline, which is included in the design of every federal starship. Sith created corporate uniforms and designed beautiful and sexy costumes for every female guest role. Hua Chang, an artist and sculptor who used to work for Disney, was also hired to design and make props. He created a clamshell communicator, a triple recorder ("perception-recording-calculation"), and a light gun improved from Jeffrey's original design.

In creating the appearance of the original series, Rodenberry and his team made considerable efforts to build a completely surrounded and credible future world. This future world is full of space travel and high technology, which is not only visually amazing, but also quite consistent in meaning. While TV plays bring many new ideas to the audience, they also push the narrative mode of sci-fi works on the screen to a new height. For example: warp drive, material transmission, wireless handheld communication equipment and scanners, directional energy weapons, desktop computer terminals, laser surgery, computer speech synthesis. Although these concepts have appeared in many sci-fi literature and movies before, they have not been completely integrated in such a convincing way. Even the automatic doors on the ship are quite novel in 1966, which makes the original series considered as a contribution to the research and development of automatic doors in real life, leading to the result that automatic doors can be seen everywhere today.

Rodenbury is particularly keen on avoiding outdated designs and original special effects (like early sci-fi movies and TV series). The original series had very real visual effects in the most famous places at that time. He is reporting to jeffries on the design of the spaceship (now starship Enterprise). In short, he wants to avoid all the cliches of space travel in the past-no rockets, wings, exhaust gas or tail smoke tracks, etc. However, Jefferies still had to argue with Rodenberry that the hull design of the spacecraft should be as simple as possible.

After hundreds of revisions and lengthy discussions, Jeffrey's starship concept became the final design of "plates and chopsticks", which was also the design template for all subsequent Star Trek spacecraft. Jefferies also developed the main part of the "Enterprise" bridge (originally designed by Pato guzman), and combined with his practical experience as an air force pilot in World War II and his understanding of aircraft design, designed a fashionable, functional and ergonomic bridge design. The characters in the original and subsequent TV series constitute a multi-ethnic group. Rodenbury's original intention is to show that the future of mankind has entered a more enlightened period, and people work together and are no longer distinguished by national boundaries.

Like Star Wars, the original series is famous for turning actors from little-known to stars. Kelly has appeared in many movies and TV programs, but most of them are small roles. Shatner and Nimoy have had TV and movie experiences before, but they are not very famous (although Shatner once played a frightened plane passenger in the classic Twilight episode "20,000 Feet", which is unforgettable). Compared with its competitor "Space Trek", the cast of "Native Series" is much worse. The latter has many famous actors, including Guy Williams and Bill Mummy, the masked soloist, who was one of the best young actors in America at that time.

The three main characters in the original series are Captain James Tiberius Kirk, Dr. Leonard McCaughey (Kirk called him "old bones") and scientific official Spock. The three became a strong team, and their opponents performed well. Their characters were generally welcomed by the audience: Kirk was affectionate, witty and brave, Spock was calm and logical, and McCaughey was good at mocking and telling his thoughts truthfully.

Spock, who is half man and half Vulcan, has intelligence and strength beyond human beings. This role is obviously based on Sherlock Holmes. As the only non-human character in the original class, this character originally wanted to be a calm observer and see human abilities and shortcomings more clearly. The role of Spock was initially rejected by network executives because they thought that his appearance was vaguely similar to Satan (pointed ears and eyes), which might make some viewers feel uneasy. In fact, Rodenbury found that the TV network had retouched the ears and corners of the photos before sending the publicity materials to the more conservative southern state legislators. However, Spock gradually became one of the most popular characters in TV series. His role is cool and cold. Compared with Dr. McCoy's enthusiasm as a country doctor, their tit-for-tat has also become the favorite of fans. Many actress fans also find Spock's appearance attractive to them, because they fantasize about the rich feelings of human faces hidden under his calm Vulcan appearance.

This TV series was produced and broadcast during the Cold War, and its plot occasionally alludes to this period. Occasionally, the original series will meet other advanced space civilization races, including Klingon and romulan. , all of these are at the same time with their interstellar federation "cold war". However, the cold war in history is clearly depicted as a part of the past in TV dramas, and many human characters have Russian names. Many episodes of the Primitive Man series have stories of the Enterprise encountering forces far greater than it and its crew. These "forces" have many different faces: powerful advanced alien race, ferocious alien machine, and once met a "god". Sometimes a pilot will gain divine power in an unusual accident, which will eventually bring destruction to himself or other pilots. Taking a cautious attitude towards automation won the victory. In many episodes, Captain Kirk also saved the alien culture from the overbearing computer.

Kirk solved many such situations when this force enslaved or destroyed starships and crew. His usual strategy is to outsmart his opponent with wit and defend the value of human nature with generous remarks. Many dramas usually end with short moral and a little humor.

In terms of script creation, another famous feature of the original work is that it is the first sci-fi TV series that employs contemporary top sci-fi writers (such as Harlan Ellison) and veteran TV writers to write scripts. Dorothy C. Fontana, the script editor of the series, is another important role in the success of the original series-she edited most of the scripts and wrote about a dozen episodes, but her contribution was greatly underestimated at that time. She went on to write several episodes of The Next Generation for the first season, but left before the second season began. Later, she also criticized the direction of the new TV series, Rodenberry's rule over TV series, and his credit for the success of TV series.

Excellent dramas in the original series include: The Zoo (the only chapter divided into two parts, written by Rodenberry himself. He also used some films of the introductory chapter of The Cage, The Trouble of Tribles (written by Davi Jay Jerrold), The City on the Forever Edge (written by Harlan Ellison), The Devil in the Dark (written by Gene L. Coon), The Balance of Terror (written by paul schneider) and so on. Although most chapters of the original series are independent, there are still several famous themes in the whole series. It can be said that the most important thing is to discuss several major problems in the United States in the 1960s, such as gender discrimination, racism, nationalism and global war. Rodenbury believes that if there is a new perspective, people will look at these problems in their lives in a very different way. But some critics accused him of propaganda for the left.

For example, some dramas in the original series, such as "The Apple" and "The Return of the Archons", all subtly and clearly show anti-religious themes. Other dramas, such as Bread and Circus and Omega Glory, praise religion and patriotism more openly. However, some people think that dramas like this, which are generally regarded as terrible scripts, are just Rodenberry's attempt to cater to the traditional and mainstream American consciousness to avoid censorship. However, it should be remembered that the interference of TV networks, including the comprehensive review of scripts and films, was a normal state in the 1960 s, and the original series was also tampered with to some extent. Many scripts must be revised after being reviewed by NBC. According to a book about this TV series, the maw of the "salt vampire" monster in the episode of "Man's Trap" is actually an internal joke, which is used to satirize the habit of TV network censors to cut off love scenes with their mouths open.

Another famous feature of the original series is its sense of humor, such as the tit-for-tat bickering between Spock and McCaughey's friends. Some episodes, such as "Trouble in Tribles", "Me, Mudd" and "Part of Action", were written and filmed in a comedy way. This humor was slightly diluted in subsequent TV dramas and movies, but it was widely used in the movie Save the Future.

Several of them have been incorporated into the proverbs in American culture, which is a completely unexpected result. Perhaps the best example is the episode "Plato's Stepchildren", in which Spock's thoughts are controlled (through telepathy). The inhabitants who control his planet chose ancient Greece as an example for some reason. Under their control, Spock sang a song with the word "bitter dregs" while playing the harp. As a result, when an American team performed badly in a certain season, the fans suggested (for example, writing to the editor of the sports column of the local newspaper, or calling the radio sports talk show, etc. ) think that the team should name their annual focus film "Plato's Stepson", because the team has become a "bitter slag" in the league. The theme song of the TV series was composed by Alexander Courage. Although there were lyrics, they were never used. This lyric was published in "The Making of Star Trek" written by Steven E. whitefield, with publication number 1968:

Beyond the edge of the starlight, my love roams in the starry sky. I know that he will find strange love among the stars and love a female teacher. I know that his journey will never end and his interstellar travel will continue forever, but tell him that when he roams in the starry sky, please remember me. Herb Solow and Robert Justman mentioned in their book "Inside Star Trek: A True Story Written in 1996" that gene roddenberry wrote this lyric privately without telling the composer Alexander Chriqui, and he didn't intend to. This conventional practice is not new, and it is quite common in the music publishing industry, but some people think it has moral doubts. Although some recorded versions of the theme song have lyrics, many people point out that the lyrics don't match the melody and it's hard to sing.