Star Trek from different points of view

(tags academic, culture, criticism, remake, CG)

Someone with rock-solid attention span seriously studied Star Trek. Dr. Djoymi Baker's 90,000 word dissertation on Star Trek, called "Broadcast Space: TV Culture, Myth and Star Trek" won the University of Melbourne’s Chancellor’s Prize for Excellence in the PhD, presumably in the Humanities and Creative Arts area. She studied the source material, a whopping 624 hours, to draw insights on how we create and continue our myths. (Thanks Slashdot, U. Melbourne PR, The Age)

I too have studied about 90% of the source material, over dinner, on lazy Saturday afternoons, channel surfing in the middle of the night, etc, multiple times. I'm definately not alone in this respect. Only Enterprise and The Animated Series has escaped my review. I systematically re-watched The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager on DVD. I wish I had the foresight to review (or at least rank) each episode, though.

But to study it with a critical eye on the "myths" takes academic stamina. One example is the link between the series and the space race, and how one promoted the other, and vice versa. I'm pretty sure she touches on race diversity and gender relations. What other myths and mores underlay this series? This dissertation sounds very interesting and I want to read it. How many pages is 90,000 words? Can you download this? Is this going to go in some book somewhere? Do I have to go to a Star Trek convention to get it?

Then the wire puts out another Star Trek rumbling: The CG remake of The Original Series (TOS) on High-Definition format (thanks again Slashdot, The Digital Bits). Ugh, go ahead with your money-grabbing conversion, but you don't have to make me watch it. Wait, I don't want it to be converted at all. Showing the outmoded space scenes intensifies the idealism and vision. I want newer viewers who have never witnessed a transporter scene to feel the jarring that comes from the reminder of yesteryear's special effects. You're not watching a product, you're watching history.

Well, luckily (!) I already secured my own canonical copy of TOS on DVD. Heh. I wonder if the Animated Series on DVD will ever reach Japanese shores (it was released on LaserDisc with only Japanese voices)? Should I fire off a query email to U.S.S. Kyushuu?