10 Films That Wanted To Be Star Trek
These are the films that wanted so desperately to boldly go out into the world of Star Trek.
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00:00Look, I wanna be Star Trek, you wanna be Star Trek, that guy in the bushes over there behind
00:04you wants to be in Star Trek as well. There's nothing wrong with that. The Star Trek bit,
00:08I should mention. With that in mind, I'm Sean Farrick for Trek Culture, and here are 10 films
00:14that wanted to be Star Trek. Number 10, Avengers Endgame. I'm not actually joking. This is one
00:20that's actually been confirmed by the Russo brothers, both of whom openly admitted to being
00:24heavily inspired by Star Trek The Next Generation. Specifically, they said that All Good Things was
00:29the main point of reference when putting the film together. Both stories see the heroes
00:33travelling to various points in time, affecting the past and future. Both also see them when,
00:37in the past, trying their hardest not to interfere with the normal flow of time,
00:41though this proves impossible in a big budget film. There's a large emphasis on technobabble
00:45in Endgame, along with the standard explanations that tended to follow Trek's technobabble,
00:49allowing for plenty of in-jokes with the audience. Finally, once all was said and done with the film,
00:54the end credits begin to roll. Oddly enough, that's when the Star Trek inspiration is most
00:58brazenly on show. When the big six stars are credited, their signatures appear on screen.
01:03While the original Avengers theme swells around them, this is a direct lift or borrow from Star
01:08Trek 6 The Undiscovered Country, another nod to the Star Trek fans, and another little inclusion
01:14that makes this movie far closer to a Trek film than many in the audience ever expected.
01:19Number 9, The Questor Tapes. The Questor Tapes was a made-for-TV movie written by Gene Roddenberry
01:25himself. The original idea was a reworking of his script for Star Trek's second season,
01:29Assignment Earth. In that story, a benevolent species sends Gary Seven to protect Earth from
01:34its own mistakes. In The Questor Tapes, a benevolent race installed android protectors
01:38among humanity there to guide and lead them away from harm. In both stories, the rapid
01:43advent of technology changes the parameters of the visitors' missions. The televised version
01:48of The Questor Tapes also contains elements that would appear again in Star Trek The Motion
01:51Picture. Questor is an android lost and looking for its creator. This, of course, is highly
01:56reminiscent of V'ger, though there are also shades of Data. When a situation calls for the need to
02:02seduce a lady, Questor states that he is fully functional. The movie almost went one step
02:08further. Though Robert Foxworth, who would later appear as Admiral Layton and Administrator Velas,
02:13played Questor in the film, Leonard Nimoy was originally asked to play the part. He went so
02:18far as to take part in make-up tests before he was passed over for the role.
02:22Number 8. Forbidden Planet. Now, looking at the year of release, 1956, a very obvious question
02:28springs to mind. How could Forbidden Planet want to be Star Trek nine years before the
02:33Cage was even written? Well, this is a slightly more subjective entry than the others on the list.
02:39Forbidden Planet was, in many ways, quite ahead of its time and would easily have been an episode
02:45of the original series. Morbius, Altera, Adams and Robby the Robot are characters right out of
02:51Star Trek's very bible. Adams is clearly an inspiration for Kirk. Encounter stranded woman,
02:56woo stranded woman, bring stranded woman away with him. Robby is also credited as one of the
03:00first depictions of an android beyond a simple automaton, serving as inspiration for Data.
03:05The core thread of the film shows the battle between the conscious and the unconscious,
03:09along with the war between the ego and id. With that, the main villain of the film is a dream,
03:14one made manifest by alien technology, and the protagonists don't understand that. Star Trek
03:20itself owes more than a little to this seminal sci-fi film, while Forbidden Planet, had it simply
03:24come along a little later on, might well have suited William Shatner and Majel Barrett in the
03:28heroic roles, and probably would have, had Gene Roddenberry had a chance to say something about it.
03:33Number 7. Enemy Mine. Enemy Mine is a 1984 film directed by Wolfgang Petersen,
03:38serving as inspiration for The Enemy, a fourth season episode of Star Trek The Next Generation.
03:43It features Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett Jr as Davage and Jerry, two soldiers from opposing
03:48species marooned together on a barely hospitable world. The film is Star Trek to the core. First,
03:53both parties speak in languages that are barely understandable to each other, as both attempt to
03:58overpower the other. Then, as time wears on, they learn to understand each other before cooperating.
04:04The final mission of the film sees one defecting to the other side to save a child. The film has
04:09shades of the original series episode Arena, in which Kirk fights the Gorn of Cestus III.
04:13That story revealed that the aggression between the Federation and the Gorn hegemony stemmed from
04:17a miscommunication, something that Roddenberry often returned to in Star Trek. In fact, Star
04:23Trek The Motion Picture begins with V'ger unable to understand why it is not receiving a reply from
04:28its creator. Enemy Mine could quite easily slot into the Trek franchise with minimal changes
04:33required, which of course was part of the intentions of the time. Number 6. Serenity.
04:37Serenity, the spin-off and tying up of Firefly, owes a big debt to Star Trek, as did the series
04:43before it. While Joss Whedon said that he set Firefly in a region of space that the Enterprise
04:47would have flown right past, the Alliance forces represent a twisted version of the Federation
04:53from the point of view of the worlds that didn't exactly want to be under Starfleet's heel.
04:57Serenity sees an officer hunting down River and the crew of Malcolm Reynolds' ship,
05:02armed with the full authority of the government. The Browncoats are the separatists,
05:05so often depicted as the bad guys in franchises like Star Trek, though shown sympathetically here.
05:10The crimes of the Alliance are revealed, coated in good intentions with disastrous results.
05:15Gene Roddenberry described humanity going through hell to reach heaven, with both ends on show in
05:20Whedon's Wild West here. Reynolds is like Kirk with a greater sense of humour, though like Kirk,
05:25Picard and the rest, he has an infallible sense of doing the right thing, even in the wrongest
05:30circumstances. It's far from perfect, but Serenity attempts to show a future where people can do the
05:35right thing, something that Star Trek has preached since its earliest days.
05:395. Hellraiser – Bloodline
05:42Be honest, this one's a bit of a shock, isn't it? While there was an argument to include
05:46Hellraiser 3 on this list, featuring Terry Farrell in her pre-Deep Space Nine days,
05:51the fourth Hellraiser film actually fits the world of Star Trek a little better than many might
05:55assume. For one, the film is primarily set in space. The film, released in 1996, the same year
06:02that Star Trek First Contact hit theatres, sees a time-hopping tale that goes from an advanced
06:06future to Earth's past, in a plot that feels more than a little inspired by the Borg's temporal
06:12plans for humanity. The film introduces Angelique, a new variation on the Cenobites and demons from
06:17Hell. With the film also featuring Adam Scott, who has a small role as the helmsman of the USS
06:22Defiant in Star Trek First Contact, there are several similarities here. Angelique is easily
06:27likened to the Borg Queen, with both attempting to use temptation to gain power. Trickery is
06:32eventually the downfall of both the Borg and the Cenobites, as the descendant of Le Marchand
06:36deduces the way to destroy the demons, while the former Drone, Locutus, destroys the Borg.
06:43Though Bloodline may be one of the outliers in this list, there are enough similarities
06:47to say that this Hellraiser film was trying its best to be a part of the final frontier.
06:524. Arrival
06:54In many ways, Arrival feels like a big-budget, extra-long episode of Star Trek. The story
06:59revolves around the attempt to communicate with a species not of this world, with little to
07:03no emphasis on action. In fact, many of the negative reviews of the film received highlighted
07:09its slow pace and largely dialogue-heavy script. Amy Adams stars as the linguist brought in by the
07:14military to try and find common ground with this race of aliens. She feels like a lift from episodes
07:18of the original series, something we say very much as a compliment here, for when Star Trek was at
07:22its best, it was attempting to solve the issues of the universal nature of understanding.
07:27Arrival also focuses on the topic of time, something that features again and again
07:33in Star Trek. Both Star Trek IV and Star Trek First Contact see the various crews of the
07:38Enterprise travelling through time to save humanity, with many episodes of the various
07:42series visiting it as a theme as well. All else aside, Arrival is a film that dares to
07:47take its time to tell its story. Though visually impressive, it relies less on the CGI of the
07:51world that it creates and more on the story built within said world. It falls into the same type of
07:56sci-fi in which Star Trek lies, boldly going forward rather than simply blowing things up.
08:023. Silent Running Silent Running is a 1972 film directed by Douglas
08:07Trumbull who would go on to create the effects for Star Trek the Motion Picture. The film depicts
08:11Bruce Dern as Freeman Lowell, an astronaut and botanist who serves aboard the Valley Forge.
08:16It's a biodome orbiting Saturn tasked with keeping various plants and fauna alive,
08:21to later be returned to an Earth that is currently unable to manage them.
08:24The film's theme of conservationism is pure Trek, with Lowell rebelling against his human
08:28superiors to protect the plant life aboard his ship. He befriends three drones, Huey,
08:33Louie and Dewey, who help him care for the greenery, though Louie is lost along the way.
08:37While there is a logical issue within the movie, how did everyone forget that the plants need
08:41sunlight to survive? It's still a surprisingly forward-thinking environmentalist film for the
08:45time. The Valley Forge's mission would be borrowed by Star Trek Discovery, this time portrayed by
08:50the USS Tikov. While the Valley Forge itself takes its name from the aircraft carrier, there
08:54is also an Excelsior-class ship serving with that name during the Battle of Chintaka in Deep Space
08:59Nine. The film may owe more to 2001 than it does to Star Trek, but it still deals with the theme
09:04of humanity's own short-sightedness, a theme that had already been and would again be visited in
09:10Star Trek many, many times. Number two, Star Wars A New Hope. Now, put down your lightsaber for a
09:17second. When George Lucas was writing his space opera, Star Trek had been around for almost a
09:22decade. The galaxy far, far away takes inspiration from some of the more militaristic elements of
09:27Star Trek, while still forging an entire universe of its own. In a strange case of a snake eating
09:32its own tail, Star Wars followed on from Gene Roddenberry's works, while also inspiring Paramount
09:38to scramble to get the motion picture up and running. Lucas himself stated that Star Wars
09:42stood on the shoulders of Star Trek, as the latter had softened the audience to the idea of
09:46fantasy in outer space. While Trek had stumbled through a second life with the arrival of the
09:51animated series, its fans had kept the franchise alive long enough for other attempts at sci-fi
09:57fantasy to make a name for themselves, including the tale of young Master Skywalker. To say that
10:02there has been a rivalry between Star Wars fans and Star Trek fans is a little bit of an
10:06understatement, but the original creators both saw the merit of each other's franchises, no matter
10:12which side of the debate one comes down on, it's clear that they both owe a debt of gratitude to
10:16each other. 1. Galaxy Quest
10:18What list of Trek-themed films would be complete without Galaxy Quest, the 90s parody that was
10:23effectively a forerunner to Seth MacFarlane's The Orville? It's both satire and a loving
10:27tribute to the original series, while also standing as its own thoroughly enjoyable adventure. The
10:31film began life as Captain Starshine, a script by David Howard, who struck on the idea of
10:36extraterrestrials believing that the actors really were astronauts. Although this version of the
10:40story was ultimately scrapped, the idea was passed to Bob Gordon, who added far more humour
10:44than had originally been present. Harold Ramis was hired to direct, though he passed on the project
10:48after Tim Allen was cast as Nesmith. Ramis wanted action stars who could do comedy, as opposed to
10:53comedians doing an action film, though he did eventually praise Allen's performance. The film
10:57has achieved cult status as both a movie in its own right, but also as a de facto Star Trek film,
11:02with The Protector now considered another ship in Starfleet, even if it's a little bit more like
11:07the Cerritos in terms of its standing. That's everything for our list. If you reckon we missed
11:10anything, please drop it into the comments below. Please don't forget to like, share and subscribe.
11:14Remember that if you want to get in touch with us, you can follow us over on Twitter
11:19at TrekCulture. You can catch myself over on Twitter at SeanFerric as well. We want to take
11:23this opportunity to express our solidarity to our friends over in the Ukraine. We wish them
11:28peace. We wish them safety. Jeti dovo i prostvitati. Thanks very much.