The Star Wars Track at Dragon Con welcomed Darin Bush, J.J. Miller, Melissa Miller, R Alan Siler and William Hudson to their track room (Marriott A706) Saturday at 1PM for a panel considering the issue of Star Trek and its influence upon Star Wars. The two franchises have been mainstays of American popular culture for fifty years (in the case of Star Trek sixty) but they are mostly seen as unique, with very little interaction between the two. This panel wanted to examine that issue and assess exactly to what degree they impacted one another.
Star Trek is a decade older than Star Wars. Premiering on NBC in 1966, the series brought science fiction into America’s living rooms, and proved that a market for this material did in fact exist. Siler points to a couple factors that facilitated this: 1) Roddenberry packaged the program as a western, (“Wagon train to the stars”) a genre that was immensely popular in America at the time (Bonanza and Gunsmoke being two examples) and 2) it had a loose military structure that was identifiable to veterans of World War II and their families. By utilizing these elements to his advantage, Roddenberry showed the next generation of creators, including George Lucas, that the genre could resonate in America.
J.J. Miller pointed in another direction: licensing. In 1966 the only creator who fully controlled the rights to his work was Charles Schultz (Peanuts). Schultz was able to veto the appearance of work that ran counter to his vision. Roddenberry came to network television at a time when there was no assumption that such would apply. He fully realized the need to control his intellectual property when adaptations by James Blish began to appear along with comics that not only used his scripts but took creative license with his characters. It was a real battle. Lucas learned from Roddenberry’s struggles and was determined to control his product. That led to licensing agreements that ensured the integrity of his intellectual property. One of the ways that manifested itself was the publication schedule for the novelization by Alan Dean Foster and the comic book adaptation of Star Wars. Lucas maintained tight control over the work. Foster’s novel appeared six months before the film’s release, and the comic hit the shelves three months in advance. Foster’s novel adaptation went into 94 printings, with Lucas enjoying his rights throughout.
According to Miller, Lucas was never a huge science fiction fan. His passion was Japanese cinema, especially the work of Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998). It was the issue of quality control and oversight that dominates the relationship between the two franchises. Lucas simply did not want to face the same issues that plagued Gene Roddenberry.
The group took some time to reflect upon the impact of robots in the respective franchises. Siler was more into Lost in Space than the original Star Trek series because it had a robot as a regularly occurring character. He pointed out that robots attracted younger audiences. Star Wars had R2D2 and C3PO playing important roles in the story and as such, drew in audiences across all ages. The original Star Trek series did not have any. In fact, it’s not until Star Trek: The Next Generation that we see the introduction of an android (Data) as a recurring character. Hudson then postulated that the droid liberation thread that developed in Star Wars may well be rooted in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Measure of a Man,” in which the question of Data’s sentience and individual rights gets challenged and examined.
J.J. Miller sees another interesting interaction between the two as Star Wars established (across media) a body of canon. It was much more open and innovative in its approach to rolling material in. Star Trek, on the other hand slow walked the absorption of new material until 2017 when Kirsten Beyer, who wrote several Star Trek: Voyager novels was in the writer’s room for Star Trek: Discovery. She also went on the co-create Picard and serve as a co-executive producer of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. When Miller was writing novels for these various series, he always began with a call to her. She provided the guidance he needed to know what he could and could not do vis-a-vie the series.
When asked to sum up the influence and impact of the two franchises, it was William Hudson who made the declaration of the day. Hudson spent ten years working for NASA as an education and science liaison. His work allowed him to directly engage with the astronaut corp. He’s even interviewed astronauts on the International Space Station and had them simulcast into classrooms across the country. A point he wanted everyone to know is that these two franchises have inspired virtually every astronaut he has encountered. Even more, they have “helped push human space flight forward.” One may be a voyage into the future, and the other a retelling of an archetypal myth, but together theirs is a profound legacy.
