star trek font next generation

If you’ve ever tried to faithfully recreate the graphics seen on Star Trek , you know that the distinctive typography requires just the right fonts. I’ve found quite a few useful ones at various websites over the years. Whether it’s a movie title, a computer interface, or an alien script you’re looking to illustrate, there’s probably a font here to get you started. The fonts collected below aren’t supposed to be a complete archive of every font available, but rather a source for the best and most useful versions that are out there.

I’ve used many of these fonts to create various graphics for Star Trek Minutiae over the years, from the You’re the Admiral! maps to that time this site was assimilated by the Borg . I hope you find these useful, too!

Archivist’s Note: These fonts have been obtained through various free download websites. All fonts are copyrighted by their original creators.

Title Fonts

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Alien Fonts

External Links

• Memory Alpha’s list of Star Trek fonts
• Star Trek Fonts from FontSpace
• Star Trek Fonts from MyFonts
• Typography: The Final Frontier from FontShop

Star Trek fonts

• View history

The following is a list of fonts used in the different Star Trek series categorized by the companies that hold the rights to them.

• 1 Bitstream
• 3 Mark Simonson Studio
• 4 MicroProse
• 6 Further reading

Bitstream [ ]

Horizon font sample

Galaxy font sample

Millennium font sample

Sonic font sample

Swiss 911 Ultra Compressed font sample

There were at least two Li'l Bits packages released by Bitstream , one for Star Trek: The Original Series and a second for fonts from Star Trek: The Next Generation .

Linotype [ ]

Mark simonson studio [ ], microprose [ ].

With the game Star Trek: The Next Generation - Klingon Honor Guard by MicroProse , the company offered a couple of Klingon -like fonts from the game:

Jefferies Extended font sample

The following is a list of fonts that can be used to achieve lettering as used in the series.

Further reading [ ]

• Dave Addey, Typeset in the Future: Typography and Design in Science Fiction Movies . Abrams, 2018, ISBN 978 -1-4197-2714-6, pp. 80-117.
• 3 Ancient humanoid

Explore curated typefaces created by independent creatives from around the world.

FREE Star Trek Fonts To Take Your Designs To The Next Level and Beyond

Table of Contents

NBC aired the first voyages of the starship USS Enterprise on September 8, 1966. Its mission was ‘to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before’.  Who could forget the adventures of Commander Spock and Captain James T. Kirk? Certainly, they have made their mark not only in 60s pop culture, but also in modern sci-fi circles.

About the Enterprise

The Star Trek exploration has gone beyond the original TV series. The adventures continued in the 22-episode Star Trek: The Animated Series. Its return to being a television series was marked by three sequels: Star Trek, The Next Generation (1987), Deep Space Nine (1993), and Voyager (1995-2001). The prequel Enterprise (2001) was made set in the early days of human interstellar travel . Alternate timelines and spin-offs were created in the following years.

Star Trek has become a cult phenomenon since. The franchise has expanded towards media such as games, toys, novels, comics, and video games. Its multiple races, with their own languages and unique cultures, have been welcomed by non-fans and have been put in highest regard by followers of the series.

For Trekkies out there, you can learn more about the beloved Star Trek typography from the Font Shop . Check out Font Memes for the various fonts used in the TV series, such as Final Frontier Old Style by Allen R. Walden (as seen in the Original Series from 1966 to 1969), Starnext (The Next Generation 1987-1994), and the Enterprise Font (Enterprise 2001-2005).

For fan-created material, head on over to Star Trek Minutiae , a personal Star Trek site developed and maintained by Dan Carlson. If you simply want to re-create the famous logo, use the Star Series font from Famous Fonts .

Sci-fi Star Trek Fonts

Posted by: Igor Ovsyannykov

Hello, I am a seasoned Graphic and Type Designer, boasting a distinguished career spanning over 16 years in the creative industry. During this time, I have meticulously crafted hundreds of innovative designs and iconic logos, leaving a lasting impact on various brands. My expertise lies not only in the aesthetic creation of visuals but also in understanding the profound significance of selecting the perfect font to embody a brand's essence. This unique blend of skills has enabled me to transform mere ideas into powerful visual identities, making me a trusted and respected figure in the design world.

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Star Trek TrueType Font Collection

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Folders and files, repository files navigation, fonts-startrek.

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Star Trek TNG-Title Regular

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All Styles of Star Trek TNG-Title Font

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Fop title style font.

Star Time JL

Star Title Down

StarTrek BT

Star Trek Hebrew

Star Trek Hebrew Italic

Star Trek TNG-Title

This package contains true type and open type Star Trek fonts.

Installation

Install trekfont from CRAN with

Install the development version from GitHub with

trekfonts contains one dataset, trekfonts , which is just a character vector of all 107 available font files.

Font files can be installed using the sysfonts package.

Here are some examples, leveraging sysfonts and showtext .

Use base graphics…

or ggplot2…

Did you ever think you would be annotating your plots in Vulcan and Klingon?

The rtrek package does not import trekfont , but it does provide a convenient wrapper function, rtrek::st_font , for previewing the various fonts if trekfont is installed. This is the example plot shown at the top.

Packages in the trekverse

rtrek : The core Star Trek package

Datasets related to Star Trek, API wrappers to external data sources, and more.

lcars : LCARS aesthetic for Shiny

Create Shiny apps based on the Library Computer Access/Retrieval System (LCARS).

trekcolors : A color palette package

Predefined and customizable Star Trek themed color palettes and related functions.

trekfont : A fonts package

True (Trek) type fonts to style your Star Trek themed graphics text.

Matthew Leonawicz (2021). trekfont: Star Trek Fonts Collection. R package version 0.9.5. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=trekfont

Contributions are welcome. Contribute through GitHub via pull request. Please create an issue first if it is regarding any substantive feature add or change.

Please note that the trekfont project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct . By contributing to this project, you agree to abide by its terms.

• Download from CRAN at https://​cloud.r-project.org/​package=trekfont
• Browse source code at https://​github.com/​leonawicz/​trekfont/​
• Report a bug at https://​github.com/​leonawicz/​trekfont/​issues
• Full license
• Code of conduct
• Matthew Leonawicz Author, maintainer

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Star Trek Font

Mar 9, 2022 By Dafont Leave a Comment

Star Trek is an entertaining television science fiction franchise created by Gene Roddenberry and first aired on NBC on June 26, 1966. Since then it has expanded significantly with four major series – Original Series, Animated Series, Next Generation (The Next Gen), Deep Space Nine Voyager and Enterprise being some of the more significant ones.

This font is free for PERSONAL AND COMMERCIAL USE.

License: Personal & Commercial Use! Font Type: Free Format: TTF Total Files: 1

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Star Trek Font

Mar 12, 2022 By Free Fonts Leave a Comment

Star Trek  is a science fiction television entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry and Its first series was seen on NBC in 1966. Its six most important TV series include: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise.

This font is free for PERSONAL AND COMMERCIAL USE.

Star Trek Display Font

License: Free for Commercial Use! Font Type: TTF Format: .Zip Total Files: 1

Ancient Rome Font

Dirty Drags Font

Enthernity Font

Sarcastic Nova Font

Gardenia Script Font

Bravery – Free Display Font

Dewi Free Typeface

Night Lover Font

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photoframd.com

Just a photoframd world of photoshop, photography and new york city..

Free Star Trek fonts

Posted on May 8, 2009 Author photoframd 1 Comment

Share and Enjoy !

In honor of J.J. Abrams reboot, I wanted to do something for Star Trek . So, for the fanboys, here are some Star Trek fonts!  The original fonts are the property of Bitstream and were offered around 2000 in a bundle called “ Li’l Bits “.  Got a 3.5 floppy drive?  You can still find it on ebay and Amazon for about $5.  These fonts are currently sold by MyFonts.com for $25 each, but have been renamed Horizon , Sonic and Galaxy .

If you want a real fan experience, there are several fan-created fonts which are “inspired” by the originals used in the TV shows and movies.  In fact, if you name a popular series or movie, chances are Da Font has a fan-created font to match.  The following fonts are all free from Da Font :

Original series: Federation Classic font (lower case is italic)

Star Trek movies, Deep Space & Voyager: Star Cine font

Next Generation: Star Next font

New movie: Federation Classic font (upper case is normal)

Fun Star Trek dingbats: Prime Directive font

There is also a great video on YouTube which shows all of the logos leading up to the new movie – Enjoy!

The History of Star Trek Title logos

NOTE: There is a related discussion of the various Star Trek fonts available here .

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An italic-only family designed by Dick Jones for Letraset in Italic (1980), Extra Bold Italic (1981), and Light Italic (1982) styles. Expanded with Bold Italic (Peter O’Donnell, 1986) and Italic Inline Shadow (Vince Whitlock, 1987).

Digitizations as Letraset Crillee (ITC, four styles lacking the Light) and as Crillee (Elsner+Flake/Scangraphic, four styles lacking the Inline Shadow).

• Elsner+Flake
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• Peter O'Donnell
• Vince Whitlock

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Metra tickets, 1990–1991 c. 1990

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Metra logo and timetables 1985

Nightshift – “Kivullisii” (feat. Dreas, Ibe, Pyhimys) 2021

• Julian Grönberg
• Luis Bustamante
• Simbayu Studios

Contributed by Julian Grönberg

Clip Books of Line Art , Volk (1984) 1984

• Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio

Photo(s) by Bart Solenthaler on Flickr.

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Photo(s) by Maurits van den Toorn on Flickr.

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Real City Heroes (RCH) 2014

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Fonts Collection

This is from the box back.

Energize your communications with Star Trek typefaces, symbols and insignias!

This exciting new Bitstream font pack includes the typefaces used in the original Star Trek TV series and the Star Trek movies. You also get the font that appears on the exterior of all Starfleet vessels. And, there's a collection of insignias worn by the crew, plus symbols of the Klingon language and the Klingon Empire. It's everything you'll need to create pages that look like a Starfleet Command Communication.

The Star Trek Font Pack is a member of the Bitstream Li'l Bits series, an innovative collection of novelty fonts designed to bring character to all you do in Microsoft Windows 3.1.

• Star Trek -- the typeface design of the original Star Trek TV series
• Star Trek Film -- used for titles and credits in the Star Trek movies
• Star Trek Pi -- Star Trek insignias and Klingon symbols
• Starfleet Bold Extended -- the typeface used on the exterior of all Starfleet vessels
• Venetian 301
• Square 721 Condensed

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Published Apr 10, 2024

A Brief History of the Progenitors in Star Trek

They designed life itself!

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains story details and plot points for Star Trek: Discovery 's "Red Directive ."

StarTrek.com

Captain Burnham's top-secret mission in the final season of Star Trek: Discovery has finally been revealed. But this time, the Discovery crew isn’t stopping a future-destroying A.I., or a lethal, extra-galactic force. Instead, they’re investigating the basic mysteries of why most species in the Star Trek universe look vaguely human.

As revealed in " Red Directive ," the search for technology used by ancient "Progenitors" sets-up a massive treasure hunt for the season. But, who are the Progenitors? What did Jean-Luc Picard know about the secrets of inter-species alien DNA? And how does all of this fit in with Gene Roddenberry’s earliest ideas for Star Trek ?

Here’s a brief history of the Progenitors, from the early 1960s, to the 24th Century, all the way to 2024, and the 31st Century.

The Real World-Origins of the Progenitors

"The Cage"

When the U.S.S. Enterprise first set out to seek out "new life and new civilizations," a huge swath of those alien lifeforms turned out to look a lot like human beings. And the primary reason for that, at least behind-the-scenes, was two-fold.

First, human actors are more affordable, and second, Gene Roddenberry wanted the classic Star Trek to avoid the sci-fi trope of "Bug-Eyed Monsters." And so, in one of the original 1964 pitch documents for Star Trek , Roddenberry floated the idea of "The Parallel Worlds" concept . The idea was that the format of Star Trek — from a writing and production standpoint — would generally deal with "...plant and animal life, plus people, quite similar to Earth. Social evolution will also have interesting points of similarity with ours."

Unlike a huge swath of science fiction on TV at the time, the promise of strange, new worlds, that were, in fact, populated by people , is something that set Star Trek apart, and was the cornerstone of what gave the series its humanist angle. But, the side effect of course, was an in-universe question — why were so many aliens humanoid?

The Old Ones, Sargon, and The Preservers

"The Paradise Syndrome"

The first two seasons of The Original Series are sprinkled with hints that, in the distant past, the galaxy was visited by super-powered aliens with technology far more advanced than anything in the Federation.

In " What Are Little Girls Made Of? ," we meet Ruk, an android built by "The Old Ones," an alien race capable of creating humanoid androids that were basically immortal. In " Return to Tomorrow ," the disembodied soul of Sargon, refers to humanity as "my children." While Dr. Muhuall says this idea flies in the face of evolutionary theory, Spock mentions the idea that aliens seeded life would "explain certain elements of Vulcan pre-history."

Then in Season 3, in " The Paradise Syndrome ," Bones and Spock tackle the question head-on. When they realize an ancient race of "Preservers" helped various humanoid species throughout the galaxy, the idea of an ancient alien race guiding and "seeding" a ton of humanoid species became less of a myth and more of a working theory. "I’ve always wondered why there were so many humanoids scattered through the galaxy," Bones says. To which Spock replies, "So have I. Apparently, the Preservers account for a number of them."

And then, the questions about an ancient humanoid species went answered. At least, until The Next Generation . 

"The Chase"

Directed by Jonathan Frakes and written by Ronald D. Moore and Joe Menosky, " The Chase " was a sixth-season episode of The Next Generation , which, according to The Next Generation Companion , was considered in the writers' room the most "Roddenberryesque" episode of TNG at that time. The story itself took cues from Carl Sagan's novel Contact , and posited that yes, ancient aliens not only seeded most of the humanoid species, but also hid a message in the DNA of all those species.

Captain Picard's interest in archeology comes in handy during the quest to locate all the DNA strands and reveal the message, which was also represented metaphorically by the ancient artifact known as the Kurlan naiskos .

At the end of the episode, representatives from the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Empire, the Cardassian Union, and the Federation, all witness the truth — an ancient Progenitor (played by Salome Jens) makes it clear that all the humanoid species in the galaxy don’t exist out of pure hubris, but instead, out of a kind of desire for legacy. "You are a monument, not to our greatness, but to our existence…. Remember us."

Ronald D. Moore pointed out that there's no reason to believe that the Progenitors from "The Chase" and the Preservers from TOS aren't one in the same. Though not explicitly stated in the script, he said, "But this could be them, and be internally consistent."

Discovery Brings It All Home

"Red Directive"

While The Next Generation established a canonical fact that TOS only danced around, that only answered the question of why . With Discovery Season 5, a stranger, and more complex question is getting broached — how ?

"The Chase" told us why there are so many humanoid species in the galaxy, but we had no idea how the Progenitors specifically pushed life to evolve on various planets toward the exact form of life we’re all so familiar with. As the crew of Discovery — and other forces — are in pursuit of this ancient tech, Star Trek is boldly speculating on one of the biggest questions of all time.

If there was a supreme intelligence behind the creation of life, what was their method? While these kinds of questions are somewhat mind-boggling in real life, what Discovery is doing now is what Star Trek has done all along: Ask provocative questions that are beyond what we know now, so that maybe, in the future, we’ll be better prepared.

We don’t know that the Progenitors exist in real science, but the "panspermia hypothesis," is a very real scientific concept. A friendly alien may not have consciously sparked life on Earth eons ago, but, in reality, it is possible that some building blocks for life itself may have come from the stars.

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Ryan Britt is the author of the nonfiction books Phasers on Stun! How the Making and Remaking of Star Trek Changed the World (2022), The Spice Must Flow: The Journey of Dune from Cult Novels to Visionary Sci-Fi Movies (2023), and the essay collection Luke Skywalker Can’t Read (2015). He is a longtime contributor to Star Trek.com and his writing regularly appears with Inverse, Den of Geek!, Esquire and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Maine with his family.

Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4 are streaming exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia and Austria. Seasons 2 and 3 also are available on the Pluto TV “Star Trek” channel in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The series streams on Super Drama in Japan, TVNZ in New Zealand, and SkyShowtime in Spain, Portugal, Poland, The Nordics, The Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe and also airs on Cosmote TV in Greece. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

• Star Trek 101

How Star Trek Made LeVar Burton Actually Glow For Its Identity Crisis Episode

In the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Identity Crisis" (March 25, 1991), Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) meets an old friend, Lieutenant Commander Susanna Leijten (Maryann Plunkett), the only surviving member of a mission they both went on years before. It seems that their compatriots have gone missing or stolen shuttlecrafts to return to the planet Tarchannen III, where they were last united. Soon after her arrival, Leijten also begins exhibiting weird behavior, twitching nervously and demanding a visit to Tarchannen III. Her body begins to mutate. Her fingers fuse together and eerie blue veins appear on her skin. Her eyes turn yellow. It's all Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) can do to slow the mutations.

Geordi, while unattended, also suddenly begins to mutate. He eventually returns to Tarchannen III, having turned into a near-invisible creature that can only be seen under a special blacklight. Leijten has to overcome her own mutations and communicate with Geordi before his transformation becomes irreversible.

"Identity Crisis" is a good body-horror episode of "Star Trek," and perhaps shouldn't be watched in the dark alone. The scene where Geordi recreates a shadow on the holodeck is one of the scariest in the show's history.

In order to achieve the look of the invisible alien, Burton had to undergo a full-body makeup process  that involved a facial prosthetic, contact lenses, a lot of painted-on veins, alien gloves, and alien feet. It was the most makeup Burton ever had to wear on "The Next Generation."

In the book "Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages" edited by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, "Crisis" director David Livingston recalled the makeup process in detail, as well as the complex lighting the episode required. Livingston used U/V light on set, a first for the series.

The Mark & Brian Show

Some fun trivia: local KLOS DJs Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps, stars of "The Mark & Brian Show," played two additional aliens in the episode. They had no lines and just lurched past the camera. They also didn't have to undergo the same makeup process that Burton did, wearing full-body stockings and masks instead. The issue was getting the aliens to glow as it said in the script, a problem Livingston presented to his producer, Peter Lauritson. After checking out some test footage, Livingston went to longtime "Trek" makeup artist Michael Westmore and longtime costumer Robert Blackman about achieving the look. Livingston explained:

"We were talking about how we're going to make these guys glow and Peter Lauritson said to me, 'Why don't we try ultraviolet?' [...] I said because we had done a test the year before. I almost dismissed it, but then pulled out the tape and looked at it, and said this stuff is great. [I] went to Michael Westmore and Bob Blackman and said we want to do this, and they designed these suits and we painted them with U/V [paint] and put these contact lenses into this woman's eyes that glowed. [...] LeVar looked fabulous."

The costumes looked great, and they did indeed glow under a blacklight, a phenomenon anyone who has visited a commercial haunted house has likely encountered. The next problem, however, was lighting a set with blacklight-activated aliens on it. It seems that Livingston had to employ a special kind of blue lamp on set to bathe everything in a low, even color. This was in addition to the white lights needed to illuminate the actors. This kind of lighting had never been done on "Next Generation," a show that typically featured clean and even lighting.

The blue beacon

Livingston described the lighting rig as follows:

"We used heavy blue light for the set lighting, and it's different lighting than you see elsewhere because all the source coming from behind the camera is blue light. That's a decision we made and it should look harsh and unrealistic and not well-lit because it's not lit from one single blue source. It's basically a beacon shining out. It looked different than anything else and that was intentional." 

It was certainly strange-looking, giving off a ghostly vibe that wasn't used elsewhere in the series. Livingston noted that it worked well before adding that, after 1991, many other photographers and TV-makers started to use a stylized U/V light to create glowing images, notably in music videos. He continued:

"What I was surprised at was how powerful the U/V reflected back, and MTV is using it a lot now. I liked our use because it was integrated into the story. We used it to make it work dramatically rather than doing it as an effect. To me, that was a major accomplishment. We didn't do it to just be glitzy, we did it because it tied in dramatically with the story."

The makeup on Burton took four makeup artists and six full hours to apply. It was not just Burton's most extensive makeup job but the longest application in the history of the series. Luckily for Geordi, he was spared a subplot in the "Crisis" script wherein he and Leijten experienced a stalled romance. Geordi had already experienced several stalled romances , and piling another one on the character seemed cruel. The showrunners merely mutated him into an alien instead.

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Star Trek: Discovery is cracking open a box Next Gen closed on purpose

The USS Discovery is on a mad chase across the galaxy for one of Star Trek’s biggest secrets

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Calling back to a single 30-year-old episode of television is a time-honored Star Trek tradition , one that’s led the franchise to some of its most fascinating detours. And in its two-episode season premiere, Star Trek: Discovery seems to be kicking off an entire season calling back to one particular episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation .

And not just any episode! The 1993 installment of Next Gen in question delivered a revelation so seemingly earth-shaking that it should have rewritten galactic politics on a massive scale. But then, as was the way in the 1990s era of episodic TV, nobody ever mentioned it again.

At least until now.

[ Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5.]

Writer Michelle Paradise and director Olatunde Osunsanmi lay out the connection at the end of the first of two episodes released this week, “Red Directive.” Discovery’s mission is to follow a series of ancient clues leading to a cache of ancient technology, and to get there before a couple of professional thieves, Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak (Elias Toufexis), do.

The technology, as Doctor Kovich (David Cronenberg) explains, belongs to the so-called Progenitors, a barely understood ancient spacefaring species that “created life as we know it […] every humanoid species in the galaxy.” Presumably such tech holds the key to understanding how the Progenitors did that, and how that power could be used again.

The Progenitors are from the Star Trek episode “The Chase”

Kovich also calls up a helpful video presentation of the moment the Progenitors were discovered by an assembled group of Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Cardassian captains, including Jean-Luc Picard. But you don’t have to be a Star Trek lore nerd to know you’re actually just looking at clips from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation .

Specifically, from the 20th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation ’s sixth season, “The Chase,” in which Picard and crew discover pieces of a computer program hidden inside the DNA of species from dozens of different planets. Questions abound: What does the program do? And what kind of entity could have been so ancient and powerful that it had determined the genetic legacy of most of the known galaxy before sentient life had even evolved here — and then left no trace of its existence except the genetic codes themselves?

In a nutshell, the mysterious death of Captain Picard’s old archeology professor (did you know that if he hadn’t gone into Starfleet, Jean-Luc was studying to be a space archeologist? Well, now you do) sets the captain and the Enterprise on a search for the missing DNA fragments necessary to complete his unfinished work.

The action of the episode becomes a grand chase, as Klingon and Cardassian captains come to believe the program must be a great weapon or dangerous secret. Eventually Picard and his rivals all discover the lonely planet with the final DNA strain — and when they get there, some Romulans who’ve been secretly following all of them show up, too, just to make things even more tense.

In the end, the program isn’t a weapon or a secret, but a message from an ancient race of humanoids that apparently created sentient life in our galaxy as we know it.

Actor Salome Jens appears as a Progenitor hologram, and delivers a speech that’s stirring by any standard of Star Trek monologues, telling the story of a race of sentients that took to the stars and found them empty. They had evolved too early to meet other forms of sentient life, and knew that their time was too limited to ever expect to.

“We knew that one day we would be gone; that nothing of us would survive, so we left you,” Jens’ Progenitor explains. The Progenitors seeded humanoid life across the galaxy in their own image; life that tended to evolve into bipedal, tailless, largely hairless creatures with two eyes and two arms and five fingers on each hand. And they left clues in the genetic signature of their work, broken up among the stars.

Wait, was this really all about lampshading the limits of Star Trek’s alien design?

Kinda, yes! The writers of “The Chase,” Ron Moore and Joe Menosky, were inspired by elements of Carl Sagan’s Contact , but also by Menosky’s pet fascination creating an in-universe explanation for why all the common alien species in Star Trek are basically shaped like humans (albeit with latex on their faces).

In other hands, it would be hokey and trite, but even under heavy makeup, Jens sells the hell out of her single scene on voice and stance alone — it’s no wonder she was asked back to the Trek fold to play a major antagonist role in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .

“It was our hope that you would have to come together in fellowship and companionship to hear this message, and if you can see and hear me, our hope has been fulfilled,” the Progenitor hologram concludes, with gentle compassion. “You are a monument, not to our greatness, but to our existence. That was our wish: That you, too, would know life. [...] There is something of us in each of you, and so something of you in each other.”

But though “The Chase” carried a sweeping revelation, nothing ever really panned out from it. You’d think that a message of togetherness that fundamentally rewrote the origin of life in the universe would have to have tweaked Star Trek’s galactic politics a bit, right? Seems like this would give the Star Trek setting a radically different understanding of the origins of life than we have in the real world — this is literally intelligent design! At the very least there’d be some other characters talking about how humans and Vulcans, Klingons and Romulans and Ferengi and Cardassians and Trill and Bajorans, all share the same genetic ancestor.

But nope: The Pandora’s box of Progenitor lore remained closed. Gene Roddenberry’s successor and Trek producer Rick Berman seems to have been disenchanted with the episode’s reveal — and you can’t really blame him for not wanting to rock the whole cosmology of Star Trek in an episode that’s mostly about explaining how if you turn the DNA snippets like this they make a cool spiral. Now look at this computer screen with the spiral :

Except now, Star Trek: Discovery is opening the box and rocking the boat. This new mad, puzzle-box chase around the galaxy promises to expand on the Progenitors, an idea so big that not even The Next Generation was willing to touch it. It’s a tall order, but Discovery has never been more free to shake up Star Trek continuity than it is right now — we’ll have to wait for more episodes of the show’s final season to find out how free it intends to be.

Star Trek: Discovery is finally free to do whatever it wants

The 10 horniest episodes of star trek, ranked by cultural impact, the picard legacy collection puts one of the greatest remasters of all time in sprawling context, loading comments....

New Star Trek Prequel Movie Is Officially Official, Andor And Black Mirror Director Confirmed

C aptain's Log: Stardate 2024. It's been eight years since the USS Enterprise's last voyage on the big screen, with the franchise having since returned to its roots on television. During that period, the property has proliferated thanks to an influx of streaming series that's included everything from a "Next Generation" reunion to a raunchy cartoon and a wonderfully silly musical episode . But through it all, the question has lingered: when will Trekkies get to undertake another mission painted on the largest canvas available?

It's not been for lack of effort on Paramount's part. Ever since the commercial disappointment of 2016's "Star Trek Beyond" brought the escapades of the Kelvin Universe film series to a halt, the studio has cycled through one filmmaker after another in its quest to get "Star Trek" up and running in theaters once more. Most recently, it turned to "Black Mirror" director Toby Haynes to helm a new chapter based on a script by "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" and "The LEGO Batman Movie" scribe Seth Grahame-Smith. At the same time, Paramount has continued to try and mount a fourth and final chapter in the Kelvin Timeline story that began with J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" in 2009, having only barely recruited Steve Yockey ("The Flight Attendant") to work his magic on the screenplay.

Thankfully, we finally got an official update today during Paramount's CinemaCon presentation in Las Vegas (which /Film's Ryan Scott was there to witness with his own two eyes). The studio confirmed that Haynes' film will usher in the franchise's long-awaited return to theaters while, apparently, also functioning as a prequel to the previous Kelvin Universe movies. Production will begin later this year.

Read more: 12 Reasons Why The Original Series Is The Best Star Trek Show

Star Trek Will Boldly Go Before It's Never Gone Before

Literally winding back the clock for a mission is common practice in "Star Trek," so much so that the property even has a strict set of rules covering all the do's and don'ts of time travel (lest anyone step on a butterfly and wipe James Kirk out of existence). Prequels, on the other hand, only really came into vogue in the 2000s with the one-two punch of "Star Trek: Enterprise" and Abrams' film, the latter of which also introduced the alternate timeline known as the Kelvin Universe. Now, much as its big screen reboot 15 years ago served to reinvigorate the franchise while also appealing to a new generation of Trekkies, it's possible Paramount's goal here is for Haynes' prequel to revive the Kelvin series before bringing the main cast back while at the same time offering a jumping-on point for those who're new(ish) to the whole trekking across space thing.

Haynes' movie itself has previously been described as an "origin story" for "Star Trek" at large , which certainly supports the idea of it functioning as a soft reset without actually wiping out any earlier continuity (just like Abrams' movie). The director, for his part, has already demonstrated an appreciation for the property with his acclaimed "Black Mirror" episode "USS Callister" -- a darkly satirical take on "Star Trek" tropes and toxic fandom -- while his work on the "Star Wars" series "Andor" proves he's more than up for the task of taking a beloved sci-fi property and subverting it in fresh and exhilarating ways. With a little luck, these past eight years will prove to be more than worth the wait.

Keep it tuned to /Film for further updates on anything and everything "Star Trek."

Read the original article on SlashFilm

The Star Trek “Origin” Movie Is Finally Going Into Production

The new Star Trek prequel movie is set to be revealed on the big screen. Probably.

For 30 years — from 1979 to 2009 — the longest wait between new Star Trek feature films was seven years. And, for most of that period, from the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) to Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), there was almost always a new Star Trek movie in theaters every two to four years. But after the wildly successful J.J. Abrams-directed reboot film in 2009, the release clip for Trek movies went from maximum warp to impulse power, to glacially slow. And now, by the time the next Star Trek movie hits theaters, it will have been about 10 years since the previous one — Star Trek Beyond — beamed into cinemas in 2016.

Since that time, for Trekkies, updates of a new Star Trek film have been very similar to the game football Lucy plays with Charlie Brown; just when a hypothetical movie sounds real, it gets snatched away. But now, there’s a glimmer of hope. Thanks to reports out of CinemaCon 2024, it looks like, the next Trek film is scheduled for release in either 2025 or 2026. But what’s it about? And will it really happen?

Star Trek 14 is “an untitled origin story”

The new “origin story” will be set before the 2009 reboot. But how many decades before?

During CinemaCon 2024, Paramount confirmed several in-development projects including a live-action GI Joe / Transformers crossover (teased in 2023’s Rise of the Beasts ), a hardcore Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live-action movie, a remake of the sci-fi thriller The Running Man (from Edgar Wright), the confirmation of an Avatar trilogy, and the assertion that a new Star Trek feature film will go into production this year, with a release date soon to follow.

Since 2016 to now, there have been at least five different attempts to make a new Star Trek film, either as timey wimey direct sequel to Beyond (“Star Trek 4”) a one-off space mobster movie (Quentin Tarantino’s script) or something else entirely (Noah Hawley and Matt Shakman’s attempts that remain undisclosed). But now, although Paramount is reportedly developing a sequel to Beyond — which would feature the reboot cast from the 2009 film one last time — the next Star Trek movie is not that sequel, but instead, as previously reported , an “origin story” that “takes place decades before the 2009 Star Trek film that rebooted the franchise.” This movie has been confirmed to be directed by Toby Haynes ( Andor, Doctor Who ) with a script from Seth Grahame-Smith ( The Lego Batman Movie , Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter) .

Wait? Wasn’t the 2009 film an “origin story?” While the answer to this question is technically a “yes,” the 2009 film (just titled Star Trek ) was also partially a time-travel sequel to the canon established in The Next Generation , and literally everything else in the Trek franchise up until that point. By saying the new prequel film takes place “decades before” the first reboot, this could hypothetically mean that the movie takes place in both the Prime and Kelvin timelines simultaneously.

TLDR: The Trek timeline diverged in the first reboot movie, beginning in the year 2233, so, a story set even a few decades before that divergence, in the 2210s or 2220s or earlier, would be consistent with all versions of Trek's future history. Presumably, the “origin story” won’t take place in the two decades between the prologue of the 2009 film (2233) and the main story (2258), because honestly, even for hardcore Trekkies that’s a big canon headache. So, sometime in the early 2200s, but before the 2230s is probably the best bet. And, even if the movie was set a bit earlier than that — say in the late 2180s or 2190s — we’d still be dealing with a very early point of Starfleet history that has never been depicted and that we know almost nothing about. Hence, if you squint — and don’t think about the prequel series Enterprise (2151-2161) too much — then yes, we’re looking at an origin story in which pretty much anything could happen.

Star Trek “origin” movie release date

One of the earliest shots of the USS Enterprise — from the 1964 Star Trek pilot episode “The Cage.” The new prequel film will likely be set half a century before this moment.

While some tweets out of CinemaCon seemed to indicate that the new Star Trek movie could hit next year in 2025 , TrekMovie confirmed that the “Untitled Star Trek Origin Story,” is on the Paramount slate for 2025 or 2026. TrekMovie also predicted that 2026 is more likely, writing, “If Paramount can move fast enough they could get the origin movie into theaters by 2026 — in time for Star Trek’s 60th anniversary.” Then again, 2025 is not impossible, it’s just cutting it a little close.

It should also be noted that the entire corporate entity of Paramount is reportedly close to a merger that would see it purchased by Skydance Media, the same production company behind the three existing J.J. Abrams-produced Star Trek reboots. If that deal is finalized soon, then, yes, this Star Trek feature film might actually happen very quickly. And if it doesn’t, there will still be plenty of new Star Trek shows streaming , not to mention the first direct-to-streaming standalone Star Trek movie, Section 31 , starring Michelle Yeoh, which will hit Paramount+ sometime later this year.

All the reboot Star Trek films (2009-2016) are currently streaming on Paramount+. The previous ten films (1979-2002) are all on Max.

Ryan Britt's new book on the history of Star Trek's biggest changes. From the '60s show to the movies to 'TNG,' to 'Discovery,' 'Picard,' Strange New Worlds,' and beyond!

• Science Fiction

Screen Rant

1 star trek: tng episode was so bad, it inspired 3 writers to write their own episode.

Three Star Trek writers decided they could write a better episode than one from Star Trek: The Next Generation season 2 they disliked.

• A weak Star Trek: TNG season 2 episode inspired 3 writers to write a better season 3 story.
• "Samaritan Snare" was criticized for TNG characters behaving oddly.
• "Tin Man" offers a better TNG episode, even if it's not one of the classics.

One particularly weak episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation inspired three writers to write their own, much better, episode. Following the adventures of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the USS Enterprise-D, TNG took a couple of seasons to truly find its footing. While there were some genuinely great episodes during TNG season 2, there were also a few flops. Still, the characters were what ultimately made TNG a success, and even the bad episodes sometimes inspired others to imagine their own stories with Captain Picard and his crew.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation season 2, episode 17, "Samaritan Snare," Captain Picard travels to Starbase 515 for a cardiac replacement surgery, leaving Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) in command . When the Enterprise receives a distress call from a Pakled ship, Riker underestimates the dumb aliens, and Lt. Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) is taken hostage. Although Riker has proven himself to be a capable commander in the past, he makes several questionable decisions throughout "Samaritan Snare," behaving out of character in service of the plot.

Best Star Trek: TNG Episode From Each Of The Show’s 7 Seasons

3 star trek writers decided to write their own tng episode after seeing "samaritan snare", dennis russell bailey, david bischoff, and lisa putman white went on to write tng's "tin man.".

According to Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, "Samaritan Snare" inspired writers Dennis Russell Bailey, David Bischoff, and Lisa Putman White to pen their own Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. When talking about "Samaritan Snare," Bailey said: "None of the plot could have happened if all of the characters hadn't suddenly become morons that week." Morons may be a bit harsh, but Commander Riker does send the Chief Engineer alone to an alien ship they know little about. He also ignores the advice of both Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) and Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), which is, again, out of character.

In the secondary storyline, Captain Picard's surgery has complications, and Dr. Katherine Pulaski (Diana Muldaur) has to travel to the Starbase to complete the operation. Initially, Picard refused to have Pulaski perform the surgery on the Enterprise because he did not want to appear weak in front of the crew. Although it's stated multiple times that the procedure is routine, something still goes wrong and none of the doctors on the Starbase are equipped to handle it. This is another element that Dennis Russell Bailey points out as being odd, and he eventually decided to write his own episode. Together with David Bischoff and Lisa Putman White, Bailey then wrote the script that became Star Trek: The Next Generation season 3, episode 20, "Tin Man."

The story for "Tin Man" was based on a short story called Tin Woodman by Dennis Russell Bailey and David Bischoff. Co-writer Lisa Putman White was not officially credited for the episode, but Bailey was listed as Dennis Putman Bailey.

"Tin Man" Is A Much Better Star Trek: TNG Episode

The name of the episode is inspired by the tin woodman from l. frank baum's the wonderful wizard of oz..

The Star Trek: The Next Generation season 3 episode "Tin Man" may not be perfect, but it's a better episode than season 2's "Samaritan Snare." When the Enterprise-D encounters a living alien ship, Betazoid Federation emissary Tam Elbrun (Harry Groener) comes aboard to the aid with first contact. Because of his extremely powerful telepathic abilities, Elbrun struggles to tune out the voices of the many crewmembers on the Enterprise-D . He forms a connection with Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner), whose thoughts Elbrun cannot hear.

Tam Elbrun was the first male Betazoid seen on screen. Actor Harry Groener also appeared as different characters in episodes of Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise .

Elbrun begins communicating with the sentient ship, who is initially referred to as Tin Man before revealing his name to be Gomtuu. In the end, Elbrun helps save Gomtuu and ultimately decides to remain with the alien ship creature. Elbrun is a fascinating character and Gomtuu makes for a truly alien lifeform. The story of "Tin Man" is classic science fiction, and the episode avoids the out-of-character behaviors that plagued "Samaritan Snare." Not every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation was a winner, but sometimes even the bad episodes led to something great.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

‘Star Trek: Discovery’s Connection to ‘The Next Generation’ Explained

...And it involves a new crew.

The Big Picture

• The USS Discovery embarks on a red directive mission with ties to Star Trek lore, focusing on the Progenitors' technology.
• New faces join the crew on a mission to uncover an artifact related to the Progenitors in the Next Generation era.
• The technology to create life poses a powerful threat if misused, as Moll and L'ak aim to sell the artifact to the highest bidder.

The first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 are finally available on Paramount+, putting Captain Michael Burnham ( Sonequa Martin-Green ) and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery back on the boldly going business. This time, they're not going another 800 years into the future, but instead, their mission has a connection to another time: the Star Trek: The Next Generation era. Back then, Captain Jean-Luc Picard ( Patrick Stewart ) once led the U.S.S. Enterprise-D on a mission that uncovered the secrets of life itself as we know it . It may have been a one-episode story, but it's now getting the proper arc it deserves; the time has finally come to learn the secrets of the Progenitors.

Star Trek: Discovery

Taking place almost a decade before Captain Kirk's Enterprise, the USS Discovery charts a course to uncover new worlds and life forms.

The Discovery Is Given a Red Directive Mission by Dr. Kovich

The final season of Discovery starts off with its foot on the door, with ties to past Star Trek lore and the return of Dr. Kovich ( David Cronenberg ), which always means business for the Discovery crew. This time, his mission is so important that it interrupts a Starfleet event, but can't be disclosed because it's a red directive (a mission of a highly classified and dangerous nature that takes precedence over all other tasks) . Captain Burnham doesn't like the idea of keeping secrets from her crew, but since the Discovery is the only ship that can take this mission thanks to its spore drive, she accepts it.

The secretive mission introduces some new faces to Discovery , including couriers, Moll ( Eve Harlow ) and L'ak ( Elias Toufexis ), as well as U.S.S. Antares Captain Rayner ( Callum Keith Rennie ). The mission was to retrieve an artifact from a Romulan science ship that had been adrift for 800 years, but Moll and L'ak beat them to it, then take the artifact to the planet, Q'mau, where the synthetic antique dealer, Fred ( J. Adam Brown ), opens it up and reveals a diary written by the Romulan scientist, Vellek ( Michael Copeman ). Even though Moll and L'ak have escaped Starfleet in Q'mau, Admiral Charles Vance ( Oded Fehr ) helps officer Sylvia Tilly ( Mary Wiseman ) obtain information on Vellek.

As it turns out, Vellek was once part of a group that—under the leadership of Captain Jean-Luc Picard —attempted to solve the mystery of the planet Vilmor II. There, they found out about a race of humanoid aliens known only as the Progenitors , who have created life in its humanoid form and are the common link between all present humanoid species in the galaxy. The Discovery's mission, however, isn't about the Progenitors themselves, but rather about the technology they used to do what they did.

The Progenitors’ Story Comes From a Single Episode in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’

Season 6, Episode 20 of The Next Generation , "The Chase," is one of the wildest in the entire series. For the first time ever, a Star Trek episode shows Humans, Klingons, Romulans, and more together in the same scene. That's all thanks to one of the most interesting plots in the franchise, which sees these races coming together to discover the secret of their common origin. Unfortunately, The Next Generation didn't carry on with this plotline, but Discovery is finally giving it the sequence it deserves.

"The Chase" starts off with Captain Picard meeting his old mentor, Professor Galen ( Norman Lloyd ), aboard the Enterprise-D. The scholar is there to recruit Picard for a long-term mission that will result in the most important scientific discovery of their time, but Picard can't give up his post on Starfleet. Picard decides to take the Enterprise-D and finish what Galen started. He begins by analyzing the data his mentor had gathered (large blocks of numbers laid out in a sort of sequence). Following this trail, he eventually discovers that the numbers are actually a DNA sequence. On the planet, Loren III, Picard intervenes and mediates their conflict upon learning that both of them are there for the same reason the Enterpreise-D is, calling for them to analyze the combined DNA strands they have. They learn that those are all part of a puzzle, with each sequence complementing one another, but that there are still missing pieces.

The Enterprise-D follows the Cardassians to Vilmor II with the Klingon emissary on board, and they find out the planet has lichen growing on the dried-up ocean floor. Discreetly, Dr. Beverly Crusher ( Gates McFadden ) inserts all the DNA samples they now have onto her tricorder, which then projects the recording of a humanoid woman ( Salome Jens ). Thankfully, everyone stops arguing to listen to the projection, as the woman explains that she belonged to a race of ancient aliens from 4.5 billion years earlier. Her species eventually came to terms with their extinction, but they sowed pieces of their own DNA on many planets where life could grow across the galaxy as a way of ensuring a lasting legacy . Their intention was for all those future species to come together upon discovering their shared ancestry . Cardassians and Klingons immediately resume their bickering, unable to accept that they have anything in common. Later, Picard ponders with the Romulans that one day, in the future, perhaps all species will learn to coexist for the sake of their shared ancestry.

Where Does This Leave Captain Burnham and the Discovery Crew?

The race of ancient humanoids is never named onscreen, but they are referred to as the Progenitors from then on. With Discovery finally finishing this loose thread in Star Trek lore, it's important to ponder that the Progenitors must have used powerful tech to sow their DNA across the galaxy, which is what the overall plot of the season is going to be. The technology to create life is powerful by definition , and can be used for terrible things if it falls in the wrong hands. Right now, Moll and L'ak have the diary, but they're unwilling to cooperate with the Federation after a failed negotiation attempt by Cleveland "Book" Booker ( David Ajala ). However, they're looking to sell the diary to the highest bidder.

After the events of the first part of the season premiere , "Red Directive," Captain Rayner has been discharged from his command of the U.S.S. Antares. As sad as it is to see an officer of 30-plus years being discharged, it's also very serendipitous, as Captain Burnham is in need of a new number one for the Discovery as Saru ( Doug Jones ) is about to take a new diplomatic post for the Federation. During their chase on Q'mau, Rayner mentions that he has history chasing Moll and L'ak, which will surely come in handy . Also, Book finds out he has a past connection to Moll that makes them all but family, which is another potential lead to finding her.

Star Trek: Discovery is available to watch on Paramount+ in the U.S.

Watch on Paramount+