Star Trek and Authorship

Star Trek ran through a weekly series (oft too far past my bedtime to watchas a child, so I became familiar with the episodes only when I reached college), then it was taken off the air, then resurrected through movies, then a new cast brought back weekly series on television(NexGen), then that went, while it branched off into different aspects for example, Deep Space 9.

The original series has many allusions to older models, some in science fiction and some in earlier models. Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy, the ships doctor and surgeon, reminds me of the relationship between Captain Aubrey of the 18th and 19th century Royal Navy and his Doctor Maturin in the Patrick O’Brian novels. Jack Aubrey is not without major faults, and neither is James Kirk, hardly superhero types.

As for science fiction, the voyages of Captain Kirk’s Enterprise to "strange new worlds" remind me of the one voyage of a spaceship in the science fiction classic, Forbidden Planet, involving a trip to a strange world of Altair IV, with deadly secrets. Robby the Robot served Morbius, the scientist as his advisor, while in Star Trek, that role was embodied in Mr. Spock, a logical, non-emotional Vulcan, serving Kirk.
The powers-that-be in Hollywood will soon restart the original series with new actors. It will be interesting to see if they rely upon tradition.

Collins uses Batman and Bond, and cites them as superheroes. I cannot see Kirk as a superhero, and often he appears to believe he is sent by the powers above to cause pain. Still, in the earlier episodes, he behaves as a tough, no-nonsense commanding officer, while in later shows he is a weak Bond in his attempts to propagate the galaxy. Yet the show persists in the minds and hearts of rabid “Trekkies” (even I am partially infected), thus the lingering of the series.
Of course, there are Trek books, including children’s texts, and games. I am not that familiar with the current versions of the franchise, so I do not know what the games have evolved into, but the older ones dealt with crushing the Klingon ships. The goal of the games, books, TV shows and movies is to draw the reader into another world, but the Trekkies are already there! They have a clear understanding of the movies and serials. Indeed, an acquaintance of mine knew the lines to swell in my first time in college that we waited for him to say them at key points in the television episodes.
Yet Matrix according to Jenkins did very well with people who did not understand the concepts in the movie.

The complications here are that by drawing upon earlier models by earlier authors, it is hard to tell how much of true authorship is afforded the newer producers of Star Trek and other shows.