Like any good geek, I’m an equally avid Star Wars fan,but there is a key difference between the two franchises: one involves us,humanity, while the other is set in a “galaxy far, far away” (is there any other kind?).  As much as I love it, I can admit that Star Wars is really just fantasy dressed up like sci-fi.  It has more in common with The Lord of the Rings than is does with Star Trek. Sci-fi as a genre, should either be set in present times yet contain some cool science, be set in a “parallel universe,” or be set in our future.  Our future.  Humanity’s future.

Within these constraints, why is Star Trek singularly awesome?  In a word, it is the one massively popular vision of our future that is optimistic.  Let’s look at the other major franchises that have achieved some degree of mass popularity.

• Terminator – This whole story is based on the concept that we create machines that then turn against and destroy us.  I find the Terminator series, while sometimes cool, possibly the most pessimistic of all sci-fi series.
• The Matrix – The fundamental premise is roughly the same as the Terminator franchises.  While a lot of people didn’t like the third installment, I did (bad physics aside).  Perhaps in part because it ended with a degree of optimism.
• Battlestar Galactica – Post-Earth, Pre-Earth, whatever.  Love the show, but it is really just a better version of the Terminator premise.
• Blade Runner – This is the quintessential future dystopia, which really isn’t so bad.  Sure it is overcrowded and people speak all sorts of crazy languages, but just visit NYC or another big city and you will find that it is already that way.  Still, Ridley Scott did his best to make it bleak and we should aspire for better.  Another Ridley Scott film, Alien, deserves mention as a popular sci-fi franchise too, but it (and to a greater extent, its sequels) are assuredly pessimistic.
• Firefly – Laura and I had a debate about this one.  I initially put it in the Star Wars camp- it is just a western show that uses starships instead of horses.  Laura says that that universe does indeed come from the descendents of Earth, which was destroyed or something.  Even if that is the case, Earth is destroyed and Mal and his crew live to outwit a galactic fascist government.  Still not ideal.
• Wall-E – Surely a light-hearted animation aimed at kids should predict a happy future for humanity.  Wrong.  Earth is a big trash heap and people are all fat, dumb, and apathetic.   Another animated film, Titan AE, gets props for being somewhat optimistic, but it still involves destruction of Earth, a predicament I’m hoping we’ll avoid until the Sun itself does the job.
• War of the Worlds – Or Independence Day, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Invasion, or any variation of an alien invasion film or series (my childhood favorite was V: The Final Battle).  Granted, Independence Day is optimistic in a hokey sort of way, but the fact that most sci-fi movies involve us fighting some external alien invader is telling.  We would rather just smash some heads than solve our problems.  Also telling is the fact that most of the time in these movies we win the day on a technicality.  Like water (I’m looking at you Signs, possibly the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen).

Upon reflection, I can only now appreciate the genius of Gene Roddenberry: the courage to be optimistic.  Of course even in the Star Trek universe, there are challenges and threats to humanity, like the Borg (metaphor much?).  But unlike just about everything, these are challenges that humanity faces together in a united front.  In the Star Trek universe starvation, racism, sexism, and poverty are things of the past.  Somehow we have managed to inhabit this planet, not kill each other, and sustainably persevere without depleting all of the resources.  In Star Trek, everyone enjoys a first-world lifestyle without anyone having a shit job or smothering in pollution.

How exactly we achieve this is only vaguely hinted at in the series, and to a large degree it involves excellent technology.  Because we don’t actually have this amazing technology and can see no way to the bright future depicted in Star Trek, some dismiss the show as impossibly idealistic, but I beg to differ.  We humans are quite capable and resourceful.  Sometimes the thing that is missing is the vision of what we should be spending our time doing.  Technology is continually progressing and things aren’t going to slow down anytime soon.  More than ever, we need a guide post.  We need to know what is worth continued investment and what isn’t, and we need to have some sort of agreement as to what our goal is as a civilization.

If you believe in a future for our species (some honestly don’t), then you should think about what that future might look like and what it would be like to live there.  Can any of our contemporary fiction movies or novels give us a future worth working toward that surpasses that of Star Trek?  I’ve racked my brain and can’t think of one.  So to what I imagine would be the delight of the fifteen-year-old me, I remain a faithful Trekkie.  I hope the new movie doesn’t suck.