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These are the films that wanted so desperately to boldly go out into the world of Star Trek.
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00:00Look, I want to be Star Trek, you want to be Star Trek, that guy in the bushes over there behind you
00:04wants to be in Star Trek as well. There's nothing wrong with that. The Star Trek bit I should
00:08mention. With that in mind, I'm Sean Ferric for Trek Culture and here are 10 films that wanted
00:15to be Star Trek. Number 10, Avengers Endgame. I'm not actually joking. This is one that's
00:20actually been confirmed by the Russo brothers, both of whom openly admitted to being heavily
00:25inspired by Star Trek The Next Generation. Specifically they said that All Good Things
00:29was the main point of reference when putting the film together. Both stories see the heroes
00:33travelling to various points in time, affecting the past and future. Both also see them, when
00:37in the past, trying their hardest not to interfere with the normal flow of time, though this proves
00:42impossible in the big budget film. There's a large emphasis on Technobabble in Endgame,
00:46along with the standard explanations that tended to follow Trek's Technobabble, allowing for
00:50plenty of in-jokes with the audience. Finally, once all was said and done with the film, the
00:54end credits begin to roll. Oddly enough, that's when the Star Trek inspiration is most brazenly
00:59on show. When the big six stars are credited, the signatures appear on screen. While the
01:04original Avengers theme swells around them, this is a direct lift or borrow from Star Trek
01:096 The Undiscovered Country. Another nod to the Star Trek fans and another little inclusion
01:14that makes this movie far closer to a Trek film than many in the audience ever expected.
01:19Number 9, The Quester Tapes. The Quester Tapes was a made-for-TV movie written by Gene Roddenberry
01:24himself. The original idea was a reworking of his script for Star Trek's second season,
01:29Assignment Earth. In that story, a benevolent species sends Gary Seven to protect Earth
01:34from its own mistakes. In The Quester Tapes, a benevolent race installed android protectors
01:38among humanity there to guide and lead them away from harm. In both stories, the rapid advent
01:44of technology changes the parameters of the visitors' missions. The televised version of
01:48The Quester Tapes also contains elements that would appear again in Star Trek The Motion Picture.
01:52Quester is an android lost and looking for its creator. This, of course, is highly reminiscent
01:56of V'ger, though there are also shades of data. When a situation calls for the need to seduce
02:03a lady, Quester states that he is fully functional. The movie almost went one step further. Though
02:08Robert Foxworth, who would later appear as Admiral Layton and Administrator Velas, played
02:13Quester in the film, Leonard Nimoy was originally asked to play the part. He went so far as to
02:18take part in makeup tests before he was passed over for the role.
02:22Number 8, Forbidden Planet. Now, looking at the year of release, 1956, a very obvious question
02:28springs to mind. How could Forbidden Planet want to be Star Trek nine years before The
02:33Cage was even written? Well, this is a slightly more subjective entry than the others on the
02:39list. Forbidden Planet was, in many ways, quite ahead of its time and would easily have
02:44been an episode of the original series. Morbius, Altera, Adams and Robbie the Robot are characters
02:50right out of Star Trek's very Bible. Adams is clearly an inspiration for Kirk. Encounter
02:55Stranded Woman, woo Stranded Woman, bring Stranded Woman away with him. Robbie is also
02:59credited as one of the first depictions of an android beyond a simple automaton, serving
03:04as inspiration for Data. The core threat of the film shows the battle between the conscious
03:08and the unconscious, along with the war between the ego and id. With that, the main villain
03:13of the film is a dream, one made manifest by alien technology and the protagonists don't
03:18understand that. Star Trek itself owes more than a little to this seminal sci-fi film, while
03:23Forbidden Planet, had it simply come along a little later on, might well have suited William
03:27Shatner and Majel Barrett in the heroic roles, and probably would have had Gene Roddenberry half
03:31a chance to say something about it. Number 7, Enemy Mine. Enemy Mine is a 1984 film directed by Wolfgang
03:38Peterson, serving as inspiration for The Enemy, a fourth season episode of Star Trek The Next
03:43Generation. It features Dennis Quaid and Louie Gossett Jr. as Davage and Jerry, two soldiers
03:48from opposing species marooned together on a barely hospitable world. The film is Star Trek to the
03:53core. First, both parties speak in languages that are barely understandable to each other, as both
03:57attempt to overpower the other. Then, as time wears on, they learn to understand each other before
04:03cooperating. The final mission of the film sees one defecting to the other side to
04:07save a child. The film has shades of the original series episode, Arena, in which Kirk fights
04:12the Gorn of Cestus III. That story revealed that the aggression between the Federation and
04:16the Gorn hegemony stemmed from a miscommunication, something that Roddenberry often returned to
04:21in Star Trek. In fact, Star Trek The Motion Picture begins with V'ger unable to understand
04:26why it is not receiving a reply from its creator. Enemy Mine could quite easily slot into the Trek
04:31franchise with minimal chains and the crew of Malcolm Reynolds' ship armed with the full authority
04:36of the government. The browncoats are the separatists, so often depicted as the bad guys in franchises
04:41like Star Trek, though shown sympathetically here. The crimes of the Alliance are revealed,
04:45coated in good intentions with disastrous results. Gene Roddenberry described humanity going through
04:50hell to reach heaven, with both ends on show in Whedon's Wild West here. Reynolds is like Kirk,
04:56with a greater sense of humour, though like Kirk, Picard and the rest, he has an infallible sense of doing
05:00the right thing even in the wrongest circumstances. It's far from perfect, but Serenity attempts to
05:06show a future where people can do the right thing, something that Star Trek has preached
05:11since its earliest days. Number five, Hellraiser Bloodline. Be honest, this one's a bit of a shock
05:17innit? While there was an argument to include Hellraiser 3 on this list, featuring Terry Farrell
05:22in her pre-Deep Space Nine days, the fourth Hellraiser film actually fits the world of Star Trek a little
05:27better than many might assume. For one, the film is primarily set in space. The film, released in 1996,
05:34the same year that Star Trek First Contact hit theatres, sees a time-hopping tale that goes from
05:39an advanced future to Earth's past, in a plot that feels more than a little inspired by the Borg's
05:45temporal plans for humanity. The film introduces Angelique, a new variation on the Cenobites and
05:50Demons from Hell. With the film also featuring Adam Scott, who has a small role as the helmsman of the
05:55USS Defiant in Star Trek First Contact, there are several similarities here. Angelique is easily
06:00likened to the Borg Queen, with both attempting to use temptation to gain power. Trickery is eventually
06:05the downfall of both the Borg and the Cenobites, as the descendant of Le Marchand deduces the way to
06:10destroy the demons, while the former drone, Locutus, Jean-Luc Picard, destroys the Borg. Though Bloodline
06:17may be one of the outliers in this list, there are enough similarities to say that this Hellraiser film
06:22was trying its best to be a part of the final frontier. Number four, Arrival. In many ways,
06:28Arrival feels like a big budget extra long episode of Star Trek. The story revolves around the attempt
06:33to communicate with a species not of this world, with little to no emphasis on action. In fact,
06:38many of the negative reviews of the film received highlighted its slow pace and largely dialogue
06:44heavy script. Amy Adams stars as the linguist brought in by the military to try and find common
06:48ground with this race of aliens. She feels like a lift from episodes of the original series, something
06:52we say very much as a compliment here, for when Star Trek was at its best, it was attempting to
06:57solve the issues of the universal nature of understanding. Arrival also focuses on the topic
07:02of time, something that features again and again, pun not intended, in Star Trek. Both Star Trek's
07:084 and Star Trek First Contact see the various crews of the Enterprise travelling through time to save
07:13humanity, with many episodes of the various series visiting it as a theme as well. All else aside,
07:18Arrival is a film that dares to take its time to tell its story. Though visually impressive,
07:23it relies less on the CGI of the world that it creates, and more on the story built within said
07:28world. It falls into the same type of sci-fi in which Star Trek lies, boldly going forward rather than
07:33simply blowing things up. Number three, Silent Running. Silent Running is a 1972 film directed by Douglas
07:40Trumbull, who would go on to create the effects for Star Trek The Motion Picture. The film depicts
07:44Bruce Dern as Freeman Lowell, an astronaut and botanist who serves aboard the Valley Forge.
07:49It's a biodome orbiting Saturn tasked with keeping various plants and fauna alive,
07:54to later be returned to an earth that is currently unable to manage them. The film's theme of
07:58conservationism is pure trek, with Lowell rebelling against his human superiors to protect the plant life
08:03aboard a ship. He befriends three drones, Huey, Louie and Dewey, who help him care for the greenery,
08:08though Louie is lost along the way. While there is a logical issue within the movie,
08:12how did everyone forget the plants need sunlight to survive? It's still a surprisingly forward
08:16thinking environmentalist film for the time. The Valley Forge's mission would be borrowed by
08:21Star Trek Discovery, this time portrayed by the USS Teacoff. While the Valley Forge itself takes its
08:26name from the aircraft carrier, there is also an Excelsior class ship serving with that name during the
08:31Battle of Chintaka in Deep Space Nine. The film may owe more to 2001 than it does to Star Trek, but it still
08:37deals with the theme of humanity's own short-sightedness, a theme that had already been and would
08:42again be visited in Star Trek many, many times. Number two, Star Wars A New Hope. Now, put down
08:49your lightsaber for a second. When George Lucas was writing his space opera, Star Trek had been around
08:54for almost a decade. The galaxy far, far away takes inspiration from some of the more militaristic
09:00elements of Star Trek, while still forging an entire universe of its own. In a strange case of a snake
09:05eating its own tail, Star Wars followed on from Gene Roddenberry's works while also inspiring
09:10Paramount to scramble to get the motion picture up and running. Lucas himself stated that Star Wars
09:15stood on the shoulders of Star Trek as the latter had softened the audience to the idea of fantasy
09:20in outer space. While Trek had stumbled through a second life with the arrival of the animated series,
09:25its fans had kept the franchise alive long enough for other attempts at sci-fi fantasy to make a name
09:31for themselves, including the tale of young Master Skywalker. To say that there has been a rivalry
09:36between Star Wars fans and Star Trek fans is a little bit of an understatement, but the original
09:41creators both saw the merit of each other's franchises. No matter which side of the debate one
09:46comes down on, it's clear that they both owe a debt of gratitude to each other. Number one, Galaxy Quest.
09:51What list of Trek themed films would be complete without Galaxy Quest? The 90s parody that was effectively a
09:56forerunner to Seth MacFarlane's The Orville. It's both satire and a loving tribute to the original
10:01series, while also standing as its own thoroughly enjoyable adventure. The film began life as Captain
10:05Starshine, a script by David Howard, who struck on the idea of extraterrestrials believing that the
10:10actors really were astronauts. Although this version of the story was ultimately scrapped, the idea was
10:15passed to Bob Gordon, who added far more humour than it had originally been present. Harold Ramis was
10:20hired to direct, though he passed on the project after Tim Allen was cast as Nesmith. Ramis wanted action
10:24stars who could do comedy, as opposed to comedians doing an action film, though he did eventually
10:28praise Allen's performance. The film has achieved cult status as both a movie in its own right,
10:33but also as a de facto Star Trek film, with the Protector now considered another ship in Starfleet,
10:38even if it's a little bit more like the Cerritos in terms of its standing. That's everything for our
10:42list. If you reckon we missed anything, please drop it into the comments below. Please don't forget to
10:46like, share and subscribe. Remember that if you want to get in touch with us, you can follow us over on
10:51Twitter at Triculture, and you can catch myself over on Twitter at Sean Ferric as well. We want to take
10:56this opportunity to express our solidarity to our friends over in the Ukraine. We wish them peace,
11:01we wish them safety. Jeti dovo, i prost fitati. Thanks very much.
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