To Boldy Go...Looking for Trim

This week’s Newsweek magazine’s cover screams “To Boldy Go…how Star Trek taught us to Dream Big”.

Now, I’m not a Star Trek hater, so all of you fanboys out there about to get your panties in a bunch and fire off angry responses can simmer on down and take a deep hit off that inhaler (yeah, that was a cheap shot, but it’s my blog so sue me- and save your venom). Point is, I don’t mind ‘Trek…I used to like some DS9, and the original series is good for some laughs, and TNG was pretty decent, hell, I even caught some Voyager (but let’s be honest, that was more for Jeri Ryan than anything else.)

Anyway, the point of all this is that for years, hell, decades, we’ve been hearing from scientists and physicists and all other kinds of “ists” about how Star Trek pushed them to enter the field of space exploration and all that.

Now, I’m not disputing that for a second, I think Star Trek did push these folks into the profession (and good for them!) but I think their reasons ( or the reasons of some) may be a bit too altruistic for my tastes.

Considering that science fiction and space travel stories predate Star Trek by more than a century, that these people would all of a sudden point to Star Trek as their main source of inspiration seems a bit laughable.

But, I have a different proposal.

There is one thing that Star Trek had when it debuted that no other previous sci-fi novel or black and white movie serial had before then: It had sexy.

That’s right, Star Trek had sexy. I mean, come on, what did Kirk really do? He kicked all kinds of ass and got laid by alien chicks- a lot. Sure, they threw in some sociological crap here and there about the condition of man, segregation and all of that noise, but let’s be honest, you think these guys that tuned in when they were pre-pubescent teens were tuning in for tips on how to be a better human being or for those short-short skirts Uhura wore?

Yeah, you’re damn skippy. They tuned in to see those legs brother.

And that’s cool! I wouldn’t expect any less from red-blooded American teenagers. I mean, until then they had to go all the way to the theaters, drop hard earned coin on black and white serials just to see some action, and even then the quality of the ladies was marginal at best (And let's be honest, just look at some of these guys and tell me if you think they were scoring all kinds of action when in high school.)

But now? Woah brother! This was in color, and right in their living rooms! Right there! Kirk banging some green chick! Hell yeah! And I bet you could hear the cry across America the first time these brainy, geeky teenagers tuned in:

I’ve got to get me some of that!

So they did. They used those big brains and good grades and got into college and pursued the dream of making it into space so they could kick/get ass like Kirk did, and if they had to stare at Uhura’s short skirt and backside every shift, well that was okay too.

So, next time you tune in to some show on Discovery Channel or whatever and this scientist begins to go on about how Star Trek and it’s deep sociological ideals and concepts caused him to study and enter the field of aeronautics or whatever, put that sucker on pause, take a good, looong look at the screen and imagine this guy as a kid back in 1966, glued on the tv screen to check out the hot green alien slut parading around in next to nothing. Yeah, he might be running a line of bullsh*t on us now, but the real reason he got interested is because of the possibility to boldly go where no man has gone before- right up some alien skirt.

And now there is a new Star Trek movie on the horizon, and the producers aren’t fools. They’ve followed the same formula the moviemakers of the X-Men films and Spider-Man flicks and Batman franchise….oh the list goes on.

Bring the sexy, and the closet geeks out there who are too “cool” for the comic books will show up in droves. Why? Because you’re bringing the sexy. Sexy actors, actresses, top notch eye candy for the masses to sink their teeth into because, “if Actor X is cool enough and hot enough to be in the movie, then it’s cool if I go see it”, and that’s the greenlight for all of the superficial asshats out there to flock to the theaters to check it out. Oh, but they aren’t geeks, no, no way. They don’t read comics, but they will shell out fifty bucks to see Chris Pine shake his ass a few times.

But I digress, and that’s a whole other blog topic.

Anyway, the lesson to this theory is that Star Trek brought the sexy to TV, and that’s the reason a majority of folks got interested in the space program and decided to pursue their dreams- but those dreams weren’t of space exploration folks, oh no, it was of getting laid. Plain and simple.. And personally I say Thank God for it. I got no problem with our space program being driven by raging hormones.

No problem at all.