Star Trek

Star Trek

While Cold War tensions were growing in Europe and civil rights were causing upheaval in the United States, a new show was first airing on American televisions. The series took place in space, onboard a starship. Its creator, a World War II veteran and ex-policeman named Gene Roddenberry, had imagined a show that would go on capture the imagination of the world. Often describing his show as a “wagon train to the stars,” Roddenberry named his new creation “Star Trek.” From its humble beginnings in 1966, Star Trek continues to push the limits of visual technology as it creates stunningly impressive and often beautifully breathtaking artistic imagery.

Star Trek is enjoyed by many people for many reasons. Without a doubt, the sheer visual masterpieces created by the show offer a large incentive for watching. Taking place in the future, the show must always portray futuristic devices and techniques that push the limit of visual and computer technology. Perhaps the most notable of such devices is the transporter. Lawrence M. Krause, author of The Physics of Star Trek, writes that “it was really the transporter that seduced me” (xv). Krause is not alone in his judgment. In 2003, Howard A. Anderson Jr. was awarded the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers President’s Award in part for his contributions to the development of the transporter effect (“Creator”), a fact which illustrates the impact the transporter has had on the world.

But the transporter effect has indeed evolved greatly over the years from its humble genesis under Roddenberry and Anderson. Beginning as “aluminum ‘flitters’ shot through a 5000-watt light and a column of smoke” (“Report”), it was this simple visual effect that spawned the interest of thousands. The transport effect has recently become digitally rendered, using computer technology to achieve stunning results. People have even been inspired to create tutorials for generating the transporter effect using the popular vector graphics program, Macromedia Flash (Rossi). Considering the impact that Rodenberry’s dream technology has had, it becomes clear that transporter effects have become synonymous with impressive visual art.

Other visual techniques continued to improve in subsequent series. Fire-like and other organic-looking elements were created using the newly available medium of liquid nitrogen. The impressive temporal anomaly from The Next Generation episode “All Good Things…” (1994) was created by utilizing liquid nitrogen (Stipes 89-92). In the days when motion control was the norm and computers were still not viable for television effects, Star Trek’s visual effects team reached out for the next generation of science-fiction imagery.