Star Trek

Van/over Star Trek is bier, dat weet ik al, anders had ik daar hier niet over geschreven... Maar goed, na alle aandacht voor Star Wars (It's La Trappe! en The Force Awakens) kan dit niet uitblijven natuurlijk.

Star Trek begon als TV-serie, maar vervolgens is het tevens een film-serie geworden en zijn er een hoop spinoff series van.

Star Trek, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2016, is one of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time. The groundbreaking original series, created by Gene Roddenberry, spawned a dozen feature films and five TV series. Almost half a century later, the Star Trek series are licensed on a variety of different platforms in more than 190 countries, and the franchise still generates more than a billion social media impressions every month (http://deadline.com/2015/11/star-trek-tv-series-alex-kurtzman-1201603597/).


Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) and its crew. It later acquired the retronym of Star Trek: The Original Series (Star Trek: TOS or simply TOS) to distinguish the show within the media franchise that it began.
The show is set in the Milky Way galaxy, roughly during the 2260s. The ship and crew are led by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), first officer and science officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and chief medical officer Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley). Shatner's voice-over introduction during each episode's opening credits stated the starship's purpose:
Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
The series was produced from September 1966–December 1967 by Desilu Productions, and by Paramount Television from January 1968–June 1969. Star Trek aired on NBC from September 8, 1966 to June 3, 1969...Star Trek's Nielsen ratings while on NBC were low, and the network canceled it after three seasons and 79 episodes. Several years later, the series became a bona fide hit in broadcast syndication, remaining so throughout the 1970s, achieving cult classic status and a developing influence on popular culture. Star Trek eventually spawned a franchise, consisting of five additional television series, twelve feature films, numerous books, games, toys, and is now widely considered one of the most popular and influential television series of all time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series) (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek).



1The Original Series
2Star Trek: Phase II
3The Animated Series
4The Next Generation
5Deep Space Nine
6Voyager
7Enterprise
(https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek)

CBS Corp. had been high on rebooting Star Trek with a new series installment, which had been a priority. The move is clearly designed to boost the company’s upstart streaming platform, CBS All Access. Sony Pictures TV similarly helped usher original programming on sibling Playstation digital platform with the Powers drama series....New ‘Star Trek’ TV Series Set For 2017 Run On CBS All Access (http://deadline.com/2015/11/star-trek-tv-series-alex-kurtzman-1201603597/).

Een bekende term uit de originele serie is die van de roodhemden (red shirts):

Redshirt is a term used by fans and staff of Star Trek to refer partially to the characters who wear red Starfleet uniforms, and mainly to refer to those characters who are expendable, and quite often killed, sometimes in great numbers, often security guards, or an engineer. They are the unlucky victims of attacks and sicknesses (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Redshirt).

A "redshirt" is a stock character in fiction who dies soon after being introduced. The term originates from the original Star Trek (NBC, 1966–69) television series in which the red-shirted security personnel frequently die during episodes. Redshirt deaths are often used to dramatize the potential peril that the main characters face.
In Star Trek, red-uniformed security officers and engineers who accompany the main characters on landing parties often suffer quick deaths. The trope first appears in the episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" (1966). Of the 59 crew members killed in the series, 43 (73%) were wearing red shirts. The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine book Legends of the Ferengi says Starfleet security personnel "rarely survive beyond the second act break". An episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine titled "Valiant" (1998) also references red as a sort of bad luck omen, in which the plot centers around a group of cadets calling themselves "Red Squad" who all die later in the episode. The cinematic reboot of the franchise features a character named Olson (portrayed by Greg Ellis) who dies early on during a mission; he wears a red uniform in homage to the trope from the original series.
In other media, the term "redshirt" and images of characters wearing red shirts represent characters destined for suffering or death (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirt_(character)).

Ookal is het dan zo dat als je als roodhemd bij een landing crew was en de kans dat je stierf heel hoog was, was dat niet vreemd als je het geheel in ogenschouw neemt:

Matthew Barsalou breaks down the numbers for Significance Magazine. He sticks with the original series and starts by looking at the casualty rates for the different uniform colors across all three seasons....Although Enterprise crew members in redshirts suffer many more casualties than crew members in other uniforms, they suffer fewer casualties than crew members in gold uniforms when the entire population size is considered," Barsalou writes. "Only 10 percent of the entire redshirt population was lost during the three year run of Star Trek. This is less than the 13.4 percent of goldshirts, but more than the 5.1 percent of blueshirts." (www.cnet.com/news/surprise-star-trek-gold-shirts-more-deadly-than-red-shirts/)



The Most Interesting Man in the World Played a Red Shirt on Star Trek and Survived!
Jonathan Goldsmith, who plays the beer company’s Most Interesting Man in the World, appeared in the second episode of the original Star Trek series, “The Corbomite Maneuver.” He only appears on screen for a moment, but he also doesn’t get a death scene (http://neveryetmelted.com/2013/10/24/the-most-interesting-man-in-the-world-played-a-red-shirt-on-star-trek-and-survived/).


Sinds 1979 zijn er twaalf Star Trekfilms uitgebracht ((https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek)):
The Original Series-films
Star Trek - The Motion Picture
Deze film uit 1979 speelt ruim twee jaar na de vijfjarige missie, in het jaar 2271. Kirk is inmiddels gepromoveerd tot admiraal, zijn bemanning is inmiddels over andere schepen verspreid of heeft Starfleet verlaten. ...[A]ls een wolkachtige entiteit het bekende heelal binnenkomt en alles op haar pad vernietigt, neemt Kirk het bevel over de Enterprise weer op zich, en verzamelt zijn oude bemanning om zich heen om de dreiging het hoofd te bieden.
Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan
De Wraak van Khan - In 1982 kwam deze tweede Star Trekfilm uit. Het is nu 2285. Spock heeft het commando over de Enterprise en leidt daar kadetten op. Admiraal Kirk komt aan boord om hun laatste trainingsmissie bij te wonen. Intussen legt het ruimteschip USS Reliant NCC-1864, met Chekov aan boord, onbedoeld contact met Khan Noonien Singh, die de Reliant kaapt en een plan ten uitvoer begint te brengen om wraak te nemen op Kirk.
Het personage Khan en zijn geschiedenis met de bemanning van de Enterprise stammen uit de aflevering 'Space Seed', uit het eerste seizoen van de Originele Serie.
Star Trek III - The Search For Spock
De zoektocht naar Spock - Deze film uit 1984 sluit aan bij de vorige. Spock heeft aan het eind van de vorige film zijn leven geofferd om de Enterprise en haar bemanning te redden. Als blijkt dat er toch nog hoop is om Spock te doen herleven, maar dat de bureaucratie er alleen op uit is om de Enterprise te slopen, stelen Kirk en zijn bemanning het schip, en offeren hun carrières en uiteindelijk zelfs het schip op voor Spock.
Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home
De reis naar huis - Deze film uit 1986 speelt deels werkelijk in dat jaar, en deels in 2286. Kort na de gebeurtenissen uit de vorige film treedt een ramp op die alleen kan worden afgewend door de aanwezigheid van intussen uitgestorven bultrugwalvissen op aarde. Kirk probeert terug te reizen in de tijd om zo het probleem op te lossen. Een deel van de actie in deze film was destijds "hedendaags". Dat, en het feit dat de film zonder veel Star Trekkennis gevolgd kon worden, maakten waarschijnlijk dat deze film een groot succes was bij het grote publiek.
Star Trek V - The Final Frontier
De laatste grens - In 2287 probeert Sybok, de halfbroer van Spock, het centrum van het heelal te bereiken, waar hij hoopt de planeet Eden, de "woonplaats" van God te vinden. Hij weet zijn situatie precies zo te manipuleren dat de Enterprise met zijn halfbroer hem voor dat doel in handen valt.
Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country
Het onbekende land - Dit is de laatste film uit de verhaallijn van de karakters uit de oorspronkelijke serie, uit 1991. In het jaar 2293 is er eindelijk kans op vrede tussen de Federatie en de Klingons nadat de Klingon-maan Praxis is ontploft. De Kanselier van het Klingon keizerrijk heeft om onderhandelingen verzocht. Kirk wordt opgedragen de kanselier naar de aarde te begeleiden. Al voert hij zijn missie uit, Kirk protesteert omdat hij gewend is de Klingons als de vijand te zien. Maar in beide kampen zijn er tegenstanders van de vrede die meer doen dan alleen protesteren.
The Next Generation-films
Generations
Generaties - De doorgeslagen wetenschapper Tolian Soran doet er alles voor om weer in de Nexus te belanden. In deze Nexus, een door het heelal reizend lint van energie, bestaat geen tijd en men waant zich er in de zevende hemel.... De kapitein van de Enterprise in het jaar 2371, Jean-Luc Picard, belandt ook in de Nexus, maar weet daar de hulp in te roepen van een illustere voorganger, James T. Kirk. Gezamenlijk keren ze terug uit de Nexus en proberen ze het zonnestelsel voor vernietiging te behoeden.
Deze film uit 1994 is geregisseerd door David Carson en is de laatste [op Star Trek in 2009 en Star Trek Into Darkness na] waarin enkele van de personages uit de originele serie voorkomen.
First Contact
Eerste contact - In het jaar 2373 zetten de Borg opnieuw een aanval in tegen de Aarde. Maar ditmaal proberen ze de mensheid te veroveren in het verleden: ze reizen naar het jaar 2063 om te voorkomen dat raketgeleerde Zefram Cochrane ontdekt hoe je sneller dan het licht kan reizen. Diens proefvlucht in de Phoenix-raket initieert het eerste contact met de Vulcanen, een buitenaards volk. De Enterprise volgt de Borg om inmenging te verhinderen. Maar terwijl de technici Cochrane ondersteunen bij de proefvlucht, komen de Borg aan boord van de Enterprise en zorgen daar voor een bittere strijd tussen Picard, Data en de leider van de Borg, de Borg Koningin.
Insurrection
Rebellie - De androïde Data raakt in 2375 op een undercovermissie beschadigd en rebelleert tegen de Federatie. Picard zoekt Data op, om achter de motieven van de anders zo integere Data te komen. Tijdens het onderzoek komt een grootschalig complot naar boven, gesmeed door de So'Na en Starfleet, om het Ba'Ku-volk te verdrijven en zo de weg vrij te maken voor het binnenhalen van een bijzondere natuurlijke bron: metafasische straling die een verjongende invloed heeft op alle levende wezens. Picard en zijn bemanning besluiten ten strijde te trekken tegen de So'Na en het eigen opperbevel.
Nemesis
Deze film uit 2002, geregisseerd door Stuart Baird, speelt in het jaar 2379, waarin er een machtsgreep in het Romulaanse Rijk plaatsvindt. De Enterprise is onderweg naar Betazed waar Riker en Troi een traditionele huwelijksceremonie zullen ondergaan. Onderweg wordt de Enterprise met Picard naar Romulus gestuurd omdat de nieuwe praetor wil praten over vrede. De praetor, Shinzon, blijkt echter geen Romulaan te zijn, maar een imperfecte kloon van Picard. En vrede staat niet op zijn programma.
Star Trek (nieuwe tijdlijn)
Star Trek
De film werd geregisseerd en geproduceerd door J.J. Abrams. De gebeurtenissen spelen zich af kort vóór de originele televisieserie Star Trek uit de jaren 60. In de film zien we hoe de crew rond James T. Kirk elkaar ontmoet. Van de originele acteurs speelt Leonard Nimoy (Spock) een bijrol. Het verhaal speelt in een, voor de fans, parallelle tijdlijn, waarin onder meer Spocks thuisplaneet Vulcan is vernietigd. Aan het eind van de film is de tijdlijn niet hersteld. Dit maakt dat de 'toekomst' voor nieuwe films en/of series volledig open ligt.
Into Darkness
Star Trek: Into Darkness is de twaalfde film uit de Star Trek-franchise. Het is een sequel op de film Star Trek uit 2009. De film werd geregisseerd door J. J. Abrams naar een scenario van Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci en Damon Lindelof (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek)


...the key to “Star Trek’s” longevity and cultural penetration was its seriousness of purpose, originally inspired by creator Gene Roddenberry’s science-fiction vision. Modeled on “Gulliver’s Travels,” the series was meant as an opportunity for social commentary, and it succeeded ingeniously, with episodes scripted by some of the era’s finest science-fiction writers. Yet the development of “Star Trek’s” moral and political tone over 50 years also traces the strange decline of American liberalism since the Kennedy era.
...Roddenberry and his colleagues were World War II veterans, whose country was now fighting the Cold War against a Communist aggressor they regarded with horror. They considered the Western democracies the only force holding back worldwide totalitarian dictatorship. The best expression of their spirit was John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, with its proud promise to “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
This could have been declaimed by Captain James T. Kirk (played by William Shatner), of the starship U.S.S. Enterprise, who, as literature professor Paul Cantor observes in his essay “Shakespeare in the Original Klingon,” is “a Cold Warrior very much on the model of JFK.” In episodes like “The Omega Glory,” in which Kirk rapturously quotes the preamble to the Constitution, or “Friday’s Child,” where he struggles to outwit the Klingons (stand-ins for the Soviet menace) in negotiations over the resources of a planet modeled on Middle Eastern petroleum states, Kirk stands fixedly, even obstinately, for the principles of universal freedom and against collectivism, ignorance, and passivity.
In “Errand of Mercy,” the episode that first introduces the show’s most infamous villains, he cannot comprehend why the placid Organians are willing to let themselves be enslaved by the Klingon Empire. Their pacifism disgusts him. Kirk loves peace, but he recognizes that peace without freedom is not truly peace.
This was not just a political point; it rested on a deeper philosophical commitment. In “Star Trek’s” humanist vision, totalitarianism was only one manifestation of the dehumanizing forces that deprive mankind (and aliens) of the opportunities and challenges in which their existence finds meaning.
In “Return of the Archons,” for example, Kirk and company infiltrate a theocratic world monitored and dominated by the god Landru. The natives are placid, but theirs is the mindless placidity of cattle. In the past, one explains, “there was war. Convulsions. The world was destroying itself. Landru…took us back, back to a simple time.” The people now live in ignorant, stagnant bliss. Landru has removed conflict by depriving them of responsibility, and with it their right to govern themselves.
When Kirk discovers that Landru is actually an ancient computer left behind by an extinct race, he challenges it to justify its enslavement of the people. “The good,” it answers, is “harmonious continuation…peace, tranquility.” Kirk retorts: “What have you done to do justice to the full potential of every individual? Without freedom of choice, there is no creativity. Without creativity, there is no life.” He persuades Landru that coddling the people has stifled the souls it purported to defend, and the god-machine self-destructs.
This theme is made more explicit in “The Apple,” perhaps the quintessential episode of the original Star Trek. Here Kirk unashamedly violates the “Prime Directive”—the rule forbidding starship captains from interfering with the cultures they contact—by ordering the Enterprise to destroy Vaal, another computer tyrant ruling over an idyllic planet.
Like Landru, Vaal is an omniscient totalitarian, and he demands sacrifices. The natives, known only as “people of Vaal,” have no culture, no freedom, no science—they do not even know how to farm—and no children, as Vaal has forbidden sex along with all other individualistic impulses. This sets Kirk’s teeth on edge. There are objective goods and evils, and slavery is evil because it deprives life forms of their right to self-government and self-development.
...Roddenberry’s generation emerged from World War II committed to a liberalism that believed in prosperity, technological progress, and the universal humanity they hoped the United Nations would champion. In the Kennedy years, this technocratic liberalism sought to apply science, the welfare state, and secular culture to raise the standard of living and foster individual happiness worldwide.
....
Kirk, it turns out, has personal reasons for his skepticism. In “The Conscience of the King,” we learn that he is something of a Holocaust survivor himself. When he was young, he and his parents barely escaped death at the hands of the dictator Kodos the Executioner, who slaughtered half the population of the colony on Tarsus IV. Having eluded capture, Kodos lived 20 years under an assumed name, making a living as a Shakespearean actor, until one of Kirk’s fellow survivors tracks him down. Now Kirk must decide whether the actor is really the killer.
Aired in 1966, this episode is a commentary on the pursuit of Nazi war criminals, and it typifies the original Star Trek’s moral outlook. During the show’s three seasons, more than 20 former Nazis were tried for their roles in the Holocaust, including five who only two weeks after this episode aired were convicted for working at the Sobibór extermination camp. Intellectuals like Hannah Arendt were preoccupied with the moral and jurisprudential questions of Nazi-hunting. “Conscience” puts these dilemmas into an ambitiously Shakespearean frame.
Like Hamlet, Kirk faces a crisis of certainty. “Logic is not enough,” he says, echoing Hamlet’s “What a rogue and peasant slave am I” soliloquy. “I’ve got to feel my way—make absolutely sure.” Yet one thing Kirk is already sure about is justice. Hamlet may curse that he was ever born to set things right, but he knows it is his duty. Likewise Kirk. When McCoy asks him what good it will do to punish Kodos after a lapse of two decades—“Do you play god, carry his head through the corridors in triumph? That won’t bring back the dead”—Kirk answers, “No. But they may rest easier.”
For Shakespeare, justice is less about the good prospering and the bad suffering than about a harmony between the world of facts in which we live and the world of words we inhabit as beings endowed with speech. When the two fall out of sync—when Claudius’s crime knocks time “out of joint”—the result is only a perverse and temporary illusion. And Kirk is, again, not impressed by illusions. “Who are you to [judge]?” demands Kodos’s daughter. Kirk’s devastating reply: “Who do I have to be?”
...
“Next Generation’s” Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) was more committed to coexistence and non-intervention than to universal liberty and anti-totalitarianism. Following Spock’s lead, Picard would elevate the Prime Directive into a morally obtuse dogma and would seek ways to evade the responsibility of moral judgment. Time and again, the show featured false equivalency on a grand scale, coupled with the hands-off attitude that the Kirk of “The Apple” had dismissed as complicity with evil.
....Roddenberry’s generation of “Star Trek” writers would have thought Picard... hopelessly reactionary—to be precise, inhuman. But by the end of “Next Generation,” the liberalism that once preached technological progress and human reason has reversed its priorities and now regards “progress” as incipient colonization and a threat to diversity and the environment.
...
“Star Trek’s” latest iterations—the “reboot” films directed by J.J. Abrams—shrug at the franchise’s former philosophical depth. In 2009, Abrams admitted to an interviewer that he “didn’t get” “Star Trek.” “There was a captain, there was this first officer, they were talking a lot about adventures and not having them as much as I would’ve liked. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough.” His films accordingly eschew the series’ trademark dialogues about moral and political principles, and portray the young Kirk and crew as motivated largely by a maelstrom of lusts, fears, and resentments.
...
Ultimately, Khan is presented as evil not because he wars against equality and freedom, but because he isn’t one of us, while Kirk is—and because he loses, while Kirk wins. This arbitrariness infects the film’s single effort to express an abstract principle: “Our first instinct is to seek revenge when those we love are taken,” says Kirk in the final scene. “But that’s not who we are.” We are not told why not, beyond this tribalistic assertion. But it is who Khan is, and he is better at everything. Doesn’t that make vengeance right?
Having lost their principles, the show’s heroes cannot really explain, or understand, what differentiates them from their enemies, and so are rendered vulnerable to the very forces they once opposed....Over nearly 50 years, “Star Trek” tracked the devolution of liberalism from the philosophy of the New Frontier into a preference for non-judgmental diversity and reactionary hostility to innovation, and finally into an almost nihilistic collection of divergent urges. At its best, “Star Trek” talked about big ideas, in a big way. Its decline reflects a culture-wide change in how Americans have thought about the biggest idea of all: mankind’s place in the universe (http://thefederalist.com/2015/09/15/how-star-trek-explains-the-decline-of-liberalism/).

Naast deze teloorgang van filosofische diepgang is er natuurlijk ook de welbekende begroeting:


Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning 2015 at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83. .....Born in Boston on March 26, 1931, Leonard Simon Nimoy was the second son of Max and Dora Nimoy, Ukrainian immigrants and Orthodox Jews. His father worked as a barber.
From the age of 8, Leonard acted in local productions, winning parts at a community college, where he performed through his high school years. In 1949, after taking a summer course at Boston College, he traveled to Hollywood, though it wasn’t until 1951 that he landed small parts in two movies, “Queen for a Day” and “Rhubarb.”
He continued to be cast in little-known movies, although he did presciently play an alien invader in a cult serial called “Zombies of the Stratosphere,” and in 1961 he had a minor role on an episode of “The Twilight Zone.” His first starring movie role came in 1952 with “Kid Monk Baroni,” in which he played a disfigured Italian street-gang leader who becomes a boxer [o.a. Columbo en Mission: Impossible, zie o.a. hier, hier en hier]
.....
His artistic pursuits — poetry, photography and music in addition to acting — ranged far beyond the United Federation of Planets, but it was as Mr. Spock that Mr. Nimoy became a folk hero, bringing to life one of the most indelible characters of the last half century: a cerebral, unflappable, pointy-eared Vulcan with a signature salute and blessing: “Live long and prosper” (from the Vulcan “Dif-tor heh smusma”). ...Mr. Nimoy directed two of the Star Trek movies, “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” (1984) and “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” (1986), which he helped write. In 1991, the same year that he resurrected Mr. Spock on two episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” Mr. Nimoy was also the executive producer and a writer of the movie “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.”
 (www.sodahead.com/united-states/leonard-nimoy-spock-of-star-trek-dies-at-83/question-4725518/).

Nimoy became famous for portraying the half-human, half-Vulcan Spock in all 79 episodes of Gene Roddenberry's legendary TV series "Star Trek" (1966-1969), a role he later repised in "Star Trek: The Animated Series" (1973-1973), six "Star Trek" feature films (1979-1991), a two-part episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" ("Unification", 1991) and in both films of the "Star Trek" reboot series (2009-2013).
Outside of Star Trek, he starred in two seasons of "Mission: Impossible" (1969-1971), appeared in various episodes of "Night Gallery" (1972), "Columbo" (1973), "T.J. Hooker" (1983), "The Outer Limits" (1995), "Invasion America" (1998), "The Big Bang Theory" (2012) and "Fringe" (2012), he hosted and narrated 38 episodes of the documentary series "In Search Of..." (1976-1982) and made an appearance in the sci-fi uber-classic "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" (1978).
Mr. Nimoy asserted that his work was consistent with the teaching of the kabbalah.  His religious upbringing also influenced the characterization of Spock. The character’s split-fingered salute, he often explained, had been his idea: He based it on the kohanic blessing, a manual approximation of the Hebrew letter shin, which is the first letter in Shaddai, one of the Hebrew names for God.
“To this day, I sense Vulcan speech patterns, Vulcan social attitudes and even Vulcan patterns of logic and emotional suppression in my behavior,” Mr. Nimoy wrote years after the original series ended.  But that wasn’t such a bad thing, he discovered. “Given the choice,” he wrote, “if I had to be someone else, I would be Spock.”
 (www.sodahead.com/united-states/leonard-nimoy-spock-of-star-trek-dies-at-83/question-4725518/).
De Vulcaanse groet (Engels: Vulcan salute) is een handgebaar uit Star Trek. Het gebaar dient als groet en wordt voornamelijk gebezigd door het buitenaardse volk der Vulcanen. De groet was voor het eerst te zien de aflevering Amok Time in de originele serie van Star Trek.
Het gebaar is een opgestoken vlakke hand met de handpalm naar voren gericht en de vingers gespreid tussen de middelvinger en de ringvinger. De Vulcaanse groet gaat vaak vergezeld van de woorden live long and prosper (vertaling: Leef lang en vaar wel).
De Vulcaanse groet is bedacht door Leonard Nimoy, die het personage Spock vertolkte in de oorspronkelijke Star Trek-serie uit de jaren 60 van de 20e eeuw; hij was geïnspireerd door de zegening van een rabbi (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcaanse_groet).




Een ander personage uit de serie is


Wesley Crusher is a fictional character in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, appearing regularly in the first four seasons and sporadically afterwards. He is the son of Beverly Crusher and is portrayed by actor Wil Wheaton.
In the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Wesley Crusher first arrives on the Enterprise-D with his mother, soon after Captain Jean-Luc Picard assumes command. Crusher's father was killed while under Picard's command, with Picard delivering the message to Wesley and to his mother, Beverly. Picard initially found Wesley irritating, as he is often uncomfortable around all children, a fact which he discloses to his first officer, Commander William Riker, in the pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint". In early episodes of the series, Picard does not allow Wesley on the bridge of the ship. However, during the first season, Picard comes to realize that he understands many things beyond his age and has inherited his mother's high level of intelligence, and grants him more opportunities on board the ship. An alien known as the Traveler tells Captain Picard that Wesley possesses a unique intelligence and great potential when provided encouragement and opportunity, comparing him to a child prodigy like Mozart. Picard soon appoints Crusher as an acting ensign.
Crusher eventually takes the entrance exam for Starfleet Academy. His test score ranks lower than required, and he is not accepted into the Academy in his first attempt, as shown in the episode "Coming of Age". Later, he misses his second chance to take the Academy entrance exam during the episode "Ménage à Troi" in which he assists the Enterprise-D crew in rescuing Riker, Deanna Troi, and Lwaxana Troi from hostile Ferengi, for which Picard grants him a field promotion to full ensign.
In the third season episode "The Bonding", Wesley reveals that following his father's death, he harbored animosity towards Picard, because Picard was in command of the Stargazer during the mission in which Wesley's father was killed. By the end of the episode, he no longer harbors these feelings.
Crusher is then invited to reapply the following year, taking the exam and being accepted into the Academy where he joins an elite group of cadets known as Nova Squadron. His involvement with this group leads to his losing academic credits when a squadron-mate is killed attempting a dangerous and prohibited flight maneuver and, under pressure from the team leader Nick Locarno, Crusher abets the squadron's efforts to cover up the truth. Although the crew's intervention and Crusher's own testimony saves him from expulsion, all of Cadet Crusher's academic credits for the year are canceled and he is required to repeat the year and graduate after most of the rest of his class. He remains in the Academy thereafter until the Traveler re-contacts him, whereupon he resigns his commission and goes with the Traveler to explore other planes of reality.
He is next seen sitting next to his mother in the background of the wedding scenes in the feature film Star Trek: Nemesis. In a scene deleted from the movie,Captain Picard asks Crusher if he's excited to serve on board the USS Titan (Captain Riker's ship), and Crusher tells him that he will be running the night shift in Engineering, indicating that Wesley returned to Starfleet at some point prior to the events of the film.
...
The Wesley Crusher character was widely unpopular among Star Trek fans. Many fans, including Wil Wheaton himself,[8][not in citation given] considered the character to be a Mary Sue and a stand-in for Gene Roddenberry, whose middle name was "Wesley". The character's role in the show was greatly downplayed after the first season when Roddenberry's involvement in the show's production became more peripheral, and he was written out altogether in the season four episode Final Mission following the end of Roddenberry's hands-on involvement.
Some fans disliked the idea of a young boy who seems to constantly save the whole ship as a deus ex machina plot device. Commentators have observed at least seven times in which Wesley, "who has trouble getting into the Starfleet Academy" and is on a ship "filled with Starfleet's best and brightest crew members", has come up "with the needed solution". The dislike of Star Trek fans for Wesley Crusher has become somewhat of a pop-culture meme, reflected in other TV shows such as The Big Bang Theory and in a 2009 Family Guy episode, "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven", which included the main The Next Generation cast and featured Wil Wheaton in character as Wesley being bullied by Patrick Stewart (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Crusher).


Here’s actor, writer and TableTop host Wil Wheaton wearing a Ghanaian hoodie. Nah, just kidding (http://technabob.com/blog/2014/11/15/star-trek-tng-wesley-crusher-hoodie/).




Er is dus ook bier van, zoals ook blijkt op: www.federationofbeer.com/:

VULCAN ALE: tagline “Mind Melding Good”
Brewed at the Harvest Moon Brewing company in Montana under the umbrella of Pluto’s Moon Beer company under the direction of the Federation of Beers. (federationofbeer.com) Complexities aside, it’s licensed by CBS so this beer is legit.
Their description:
“A logical choice for a palate pleasing libation. Vulcan Ale is an Irish Red style ale brewed to honour the Vulcan Homeworld, a founding member of the Federation of Beer. In the aroma there is a sweet caramel, medium fruitiness and brown sugar. The flavour draws out a light breadiness and toffee upfront with some berry fruitiness. In the middle, the beer sharpens with some graininess and the finish is moderately sweet. Overall, it presents as a well-brewed, satisfying red ale.” -(http://www.federationofbeer.com/#!brews/c1h6a) (https://monsterzombiecakes.wordpress.com/tag/ale/) Whilst based on everything I know about Spock I would have expected a crisper, colder, more calculated Pilsner-y beer for the Vulcans, however this is very much so a red ale. Creamy mouth feel, and quite sweet to taste. Everything they said in their description of their own beer, seems to hold true upon this reviewers taste buds.
As stated on the Wikipedia page for Vulcan (Star Trek) “Vulcans are said not to drink alcohol, though they are depicted indulging on special occasions or as a storyline warrants”, I wonder how the company came to choose such a full flavored ale to represent this logical unemotional race (https://monsterzombiecakes.wordpress.com/tag/ale/).

KLINGON WARNOG: tagline “Roggen Dunkel”  Klingon for: Dark Ale (according to bing.com, i apologize to any Klingon friends if this is wrong, I just do what the internet tells me to)
Their description:
Klingon Warnog is an official Star Trek TM beer brewed under license by Tin Man Brewing Company of Evansville, Indiana. This singular beer incorporates rye malt into a moders Dunkelweizen grain bill, creating a flavor profile that is both familiar and unique. Warnog’s aroma is predominantly mild banana and clove produced by the German wheat yeast, supported by subtle sweet malt character from the use of Munich malt. The flavor draws heavily from the blending of the rye malt and traditional clove character, creating a very rich and unique flavor. The inclusion of wheat and caramel malts help to round out the mouthfeel of this beer, making this Dunkelweizen heartly enough to be called a Klingon Warnog.
On the can it boasts in psuedo Klingonese: The spicy rye flavor of victory will pair perfectly with Heart of Targ on your Day of Honor.  The smell of Earth clove will pry you from your Mat’loch.  Fill your next Grail of Kahless with Warnog! (https://monsterzombiecakes.wordpress.com/tag/ale/).
Our Review:
Based on a warring ruthless race the beer is actually quite pleasant. It is thinner and more acidic tasting than the Vulcan Ale, also paler in color. I’m not sure this beer is putting me in a fighting mood per say, but rye has had a tendency to make me more wild and I-want-to-jump-off-that-y than violent in the past as is.  Whereas the Vulcan Ale reminds me of a Big Rock Trad in that I would drink it to warm me on a cold day,
(https://monsterzombiecakes.wordpress.com/tag/ale/).

SINDICATE LAGER, THE ORION SEDUCTRESS: tagline “A Perennial Favorite for a Millenia”
Their Description: Star Trek Sindicate Lager is inspired by the popular Green Orion girls of Star Trek lore and it’s produced in Zatec, Czech Republic, the heart of Bohemia that is renowned for the cultivation of Saaz noble hops and barley malt. The lager is brewed using traditional Czech technology that produces a lager golden in color with full flavor. Its nose is of medium aroma of light malt with hops and it shows a rich head.” (https://monsterzombiecakes.wordpress.com/tag/ale/).
Our Review: Well, the “rich head” holds on like a lingering sea foam, thick head is what I am saying. ...It’s light. Clean. Crisp. It’s balanced. And Nice. And you know, bad ass, like you expect a green space woman to be. (https://monsterzombiecakes.wordpress.com/tag/ale/).

Er is ook een drinkspel van/over Star Trek
(https://vintagely.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/date-night-kit-star-trek/):

if you’re ever having a bad day, just remember that kirk and spock once drank beer with satan (http://lemonsweetie.tumblr.com/post/54694229037).



Pon Farr
an Extract American Pale Ale by Yanick
Ugly Stick IPA turned out well, but for the 2015 NASA ICC I had to stick with BJCP American Ale and/or Stout. With Space Race already fermenting I figured this might be a good option for an Ale submission. Here's hoping its a big bold Pale Ale (https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/pon-farr).


Wil Wheaton has turned into some kind of crazy nerd god. Now he’s a brewmaster.
(http://swallowdaily.com/2013/07/round-up-66-banana-splits-wil-wheatons-beer-the-lanford-lunch-box/), met een bierblog. Zie zijn optreden en brouwen in Brewing with Wil Wheaton on Brewing TV - Part 1 en Brewing with Wil Wheaton on Brewing TV - Part 2. In de eerste aflevering is ook zijn hond te zien, die hond is ook op een bieretiket te zien. Hij verteld er ook over in een interview met William Shatner hier, over zijn Belgische dubbel en hij beoordeeld een Cabernet Suavignon alsof het een pale ale is. Hij is dus een echte thuisbrouwer:



Wheaton, of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Stand By Me, has been a friend of Stone Brewing co-founder Greg Koch for some time. It seemed inevitable that Wheaton would end up at the brewery at some point, and true to his awesomeness, Wheaton decided to get involved in the actual brewing process (www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/awesome_of_the_day/2013/03/wil-wheaton-and-drew-curtis-dabble-in-beer-crafting.html). Hij is een echte biernerd (en kan ook advies geven over nerd zijn en de eventuele pesterijen). Zo heeft hij o.a. een Newcastle Scotch Ale gebrouwen (zie www.chrisrawlinson.com/2014/11/wil-wheaton-entertainingly-punts-newcastles-new-scotch-ale/).
"Newcastle Scotch Ale is a well-balanced, malt-forward brew with a delightful velvety finish," he says in the press statement. "Basically, Newcastle and Caledonian made a kick-ass beer that does not suck." (www.adweek.com/adfreak/wil-wheaton-giant-beer-geek-humorously-introduces-newcastles-scotch-ale-161380)

The Scotch Ale is the first in a series of what Newcastle is calling "collaboration edition" beers made in partnership with some of Europe's finest and oldest breweries. This first partnership is with its Edinburgh-based sister brewery Caledonian.
"One of our dreams is to get rid of the 'intimidation' factor that prevents so many people from foregoing boring 'yellow beer' and enjoying more interesting brews," says Brett Steen, brand manager for Newcastle Brown Ale. "Wil is an inviting and knowledgeable guy, and we're stoked that he's taking this herculean effort of humor and wisdom onto himself so we don't have to." (www.adweek.com/adfreak/wil-wheaton-giant-beer-geek-humorously-introduces-newcastles-scotch-ale-161380)
(www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-comic-con-wil-wheaton-beer-20130716-story.html).

Geek icons joined forces with Stone Brewing Co. to brew a collaboration beer to kick off Comic-Con International: San Diego, and Stone Farking Wheaton w00tstout is the nutty result.
I sat down with "Star Trek: The Next Generation" actor, science fiction author and home brewer Wil Wheaton to share a bottle of the pecan-laced imperial stout and to discuss the genesis of the project and what it was like to turn pro brewer for a day...
Wheaton said he took up home brewing more than two years ago as a way to connect with his adult son, and that he was quickly hooked by brewing's melange of art and science. When Stone's  Brewing's founder and Chief Executive Greg Koch -- a longtime friend of Wheaton -- asked the actor if he would be interested in working on a collaboration beer with the Escondido brewery Wheaton said he replied, "Who says no to that?"
The wheels were in motion, and soon the third member of the collaboration team was added: news site fark.com founder, beer geek and mutual friend Drew Curtis.
It was Curtis' idea to create the beer version of Derby Pie -- the chocolate, pecan and bourbon confection from his native Kentucky -- and the recipe for an imperial stout that used wheat, rye and pecans soon followed. To reinforce the Kentucky bourbon connection, a portion of the brew was aged in used bourbon barrels for more than two months then blended into the finished beer. The results are a 13% alcohol stout that is rich, thick, and complex.
Wheaton is no stranger to brewing equipment, but he said being turned loose in Stone's production brewery made him feel like he had a golden ticket, .....The change in scale of the brew -- from making five gallons of homebrew at a time to hundreds of gallons of beer in Stone's brewhouse -- also made an impression on Wheaton: "I remember I cut open a sack of grain to crush on brew day, and it was like 40 pounds [of grain], then I cut open a second sack of grain, and I said to Greg [Koch], 'this is more grain than I've used in 2 1/2 years brewing every other week.'"
 (www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-comic-con-wil-wheaton-beer-20130716-story.html).