by Chelsea Doyle, Editor
I don’t think I can remember exactly when I first saw Star Trek. I remember very clearly The Voyage Home, because I was a little girl and I loved whales and I loved Spock. My parents watched Star Trek: The Next Generation and they also showed me all the original series movies. I watched ST:TNG in syndication, and Star Trek: Voyager was on the air when I was old enough to watch it from the very beginning. My dad would sit down with me and watch it, and I remember that show in particular having such an amazing influence on me because Janeway was a female Captain. Here is this beautiful and brilliant woman in charge of a perilous journey, and it was never a question whether or not she deserved to be there. As a young woman in her impressionable teen years, I can’t tell you how much that meant to me, even more so since it was my entry into the world of geekdom, and I’ve never looked back. I developed a love for science fiction from my parents, and that’s why this movie really connected to my heart. It’s about Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, searching for his father and for a part of himself he either lost or never had. And by finding that, he realized what a broad cultural (and personal) impact a single idea can make.
Trek Nation is a documentary featuring interviews from cast, crew, writers, directors, and personal friends of Gene Roddenberry and the Star Trek series. It starts out with Rod discussing how his father died when he was young and he wasn’t particularly a Star Trek fan; maybe he resented it or wanted to rebel by pretending it didn’t matter to him. Through looking deeper into the Trekkie fanbase he started to understand his father through the eyes of other people exactly what the show did for television, popular culture, and the world. Sure it’s easy to laugh off something on TV as having had that huge of an impact, but the documentary explores in a sincere and heartfelt way, the gestalt of Star Trek, and of the man who created and guided it over decades. Star Trek was on before the moon landing. Many of the astronauts in the sky today cite influence from the series as their reasons for wanting to study space. Modern technology occasionally tries to invent and fiddle with the type of ideas they came up with on the show. The Trekkies are famous for having a fandom that was so intense and sincere that it became a community of friends and family. I think it’s easy for anyone in the geek community to say that being around people who love what you love is heartwarming. That type of connection is immeasurable, and that’s what Star Trek created. The Enterprise crew was intelligent, mulch-ethnic, thoughtful, peace loving, brave, and most of all they were a family.
The documentary takes videos from over the decades while Rod watches his father’s original ideas for the show, how it did with the ratings, why it ultimately failed, and how it came back. He gives personal accounts about his Gene Roddenberry and how he was far from a perfect man. His vision was inspirational, but he also knew there would be more beyond him. Gene created the Trek Nation, but it took on a life of his own from there. This movie is touching, personal, engaging, and in some times even painful. Not unlike Star Trek itself. It’s fascinating to see the interviews from Rod in the beginning and throughout production, and how amazed he was by the fans and then these stars like George Lucas and Stan Lee talking about what it meant to them. It gets into the concept of the show, how it reflected the political landscape at the time, what it did for racism and sexism, and how it made science fiction into credible enough drama to get Emmy nominations. At the heart of this story is the narrator, and what an interesting and humble man he is. He doesn’t have to live up to his father nor does he seem interested in it; he’s a viewer, like the rest of us.
This is a two-disc special edition with the first disk having the documentary itself, and then the second disk featuring several special features. This includes extended interviews with George Lucas, JJ Abrams, Stan Lee, Seth MacFarlane, Wil Wheaton, and several other influential actors. It has a special feature on the intense Trekkie fandom titled “Infinite Diversity: The Fans of Star Trek.” As a fan myself, I have to say that one is particularly moving, as some of the stories are very personal and close to home. There’s “A Star Trek is Born” about Gene coming up with the concept, “Star Walking” the old footage of Gene getting his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, some old home videos from Gene Roddenberry, and a commentary track for the documentary itself. Each and every one of these is worth a watch, maybe more than once. I’d really suggest the George Lucas one, because since he’s the father of Star Wars it’s great to see him to put competition aside and speak from the heart about that “other fandom”.
This documentary was made for people like me, who already kept Star Trek close to their heart, but also for the new audiences discovering it for the first time thanks to the JJ Abrams films. They might be interested in knowing how this phenomenon came to happen and getting a glimpse of how it got there. And now they can. Trek Nation is a must-have for any Star Trek fan, new and old. It can also be an interesting journey for anyone remotely interested in the history of television or the power that fiction and media can have over a culture. I’ll admit I was the perfect audience for this, but I feel like it has value for non-fans too. All of Star Trek itself is now on Netflix and out on DVD, and I’ve been doing my own rewatch. This was the perfect 82 minutes to remind me why it’s twenty-two years later for me and I still get a light in my eyes talking about Star Trek. I plan to watch Trek Nation again right now, so I’ll have to stop this review.
Rating: 
ComicsOnline gives Trek Nation 5 out of 5 Gene Roddenberry well deserved Walk of Fame stars.
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