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Star Trek Producer Wants It To Appeal To Kids In The Same Way As Star Wars

Despite the very superficial similarities, it’d be difficult to imagine two outer space franchises more different than Star Wars and Star Trek. This is because on a basic structural level, they’re from different genres. Trek is science fiction and Wars is fantasy. Both are trying to tell very different stories in very different ways, with Trek happy to tackle political […]

Despite the very superficial similarities, it’d be difficult to imagine two outer space franchises more different than Star Wars and Star Trek. This is because on a basic structural level, they’re from different genres.

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Trek is science fiction and Wars is fantasy. Both are trying to tell very different stories in very different ways, with Trek happy to tackle political and philosophical issues that I couldn’t imagine fitting into Star Wars at all. And up until now, both have happily occupied their own separate spheres of fandom. But it’s sounding as if Trek now wants a piece of Star Wars‘ pie. Or at least, that’s what this quote from Executive Producer Alex Kurtzman makes it seem like.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, he explained the impact that he wants Trek to have on younger audiences, saying:

“I go back to my childhood and Luke Skywalker, the [Star Wars] farm boy who looks out at the twin suns of Tatooine and imagines his future. Trek never gave me that. Trek was always fully formed adults, already in Starfleet and people who have decided who they are. And it never was aspirational that way. It’s important to me to find a way to go back and reach younger kids in a way that Trek should and never really has.”

Thing is though, for most of its existence, the franchise has appealed to children. The Original Series was met with a huge merchandising blitz aimed at kids (and a well-regarded animated series). Thirty years later, I recall seeing The Next Generation toys on the shelves of Toys-R-Us and in fact, I still fondly remember my plastic Worf toy.

It seems to me that any conscious attempts to make the existing shows more accessible to kids is just going to result in Wesley Crusher 2.0, and nobody wants that. Fortunately, it sounds like we might get something better in the as-yet-untitled animated Trek series (the one that’s not Lower Decks). We don’t know much about it right now, but we do know it’ll be kid-focused.

If you ask me, my advice would be for the franchise not to try too hard to appeal to the young ones. After all, children already seem attracted to Star Trek no matter how high-falutin’ the philosophy gets, probably because they sense they’re not being talked down to by it.