Plano, Texas – “Star Trek” first flickered onto the small screen almost 40 years ago; “Star Wars” burst onto the big screen a decade later.
In the intervening eons, they became the two biggest stars in the science-fiction galaxy, pulling millions of fans into their orbits and creating vast systems of marketing, merchandise and events.
But a black hole is forming, even as that galaxy is swirling with excitement over this week’s opening of “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.” The sixth “Star Wars” movie is also said to be the last, and it appears the week after “Enterprise,” the final “Star Trek” spinoff in production, was blasted into oblivion because of low ratings.
Just like that, the two brightest stars are going dark. Where will new light come from? What new force will keep fans together? Is the sci-fi galaxy destined to fade?
“You know, I’ve been wondering the same thing,” says Dennis Putnam, 34, of Arlington, Texas. He has had plenty of time to ponder such questions since he set up camp April 30 in a grassy field next to the Cinemark Legacy Theater in Plano. Putnam says he quit his delivery job to be the first resident of the tent city of devoted fans gathered to await the “Star Wars” screening early Thursday morning, at a minute past midnight.
“This is a fantastic time, and I can’t wait to see the movie,” he says. “But it’s also kind of sad because we don’t know where it’s going from here.”
One thing is certain: The end of one phase may be near, but the beginning of a new one is sure to follow.
Pop culture, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Old brands never die in pop culture. And if there’s still money to be made, they don’t fade away either. After 10 films and five TV series, it’s hard to imagine we’ve seen the last of the “Star Trek” franchise. And even before what George Lucas swears will be the last “Star Wars” movie has opened, he’s already floating plans for a live-action “Star Wars” TV series.
Beyond any spinoffs or sequels yet to come, we may be on the cusp of a transformation in sci-fi storytelling, driven by that inevitable engine of change: technology. “Star Trek” is the classic sci-fi TV series; “Star Wars” is the ultimate sci-fi movie series.
Perhaps the next big bang will happen in cyberspace, in the electronic dimension of online gaming.
“Think of it as an evolutionary step,” says Jung Suh, co-founder of Gamefly.com, an online video game rental service. “From the world George Lucas created to a world that thousands of players will continue to create.”
The role-playing interactivity made possible by online gaming, in which thousands of players can link up, create their own characters and play with and against each other, is a natural extension of what sci-fi fans already do to immerse themselves in these fictional worlds.
Elaborately hand-sewn costumes are worn at conventions. Websites are devoted to translating historic documents into Klingon. At the last official “Star Wars” fan fair, “Celebration 3,” the Star Wars Pop Culture Theater screened fans’ homemade “Star Wars”-themed movies.
All are expressions of that essential element of fandom: to find more ways to connect, to make those connections deeper, to be a real part of the fantasy. The Internet and video games make that possible in ways that movies, television, comic books and action-figures can’t.
And for the new generations of “Star Wars” and “Trek” fans who have grown up playing computer games, that role-playing interactivity is an essential part of the experience.
“When you’ve got 50,000 people around the world helping to create the game they are playing, you have a much richer environment than when you’ve got a few hundred people in a theater watching a movie,” says Soh. “The new generation of fans are going to want more ‘Star Wars,’ just not necessarily from George Lucas. They’re going to want to create more for themselves.”
While the future of science fiction seems secure – half of the top-10 grossing films in 2003 were from the sci-fi genre – the real question is whether its old stars will burn again or some new stars appear to light up the skies.
“Star Trek” and “Star Wars” may be time-tested, but they are also timeworn.
In the end, “Enterprise” has been canceled for the same reason most shows are canceled. Among fans, this latest spinoff is widely regarded as the weakest, and the vanishing viewership has reflected that. While there’s tremendous fan anticipation of seeing the Darth Vader-ing of Anakin Skywalker, the past two “Star Wars” films were roundly criticized.
“The fact is the most recent incarnations of both franchises have been disappointing,” says Deborah Geisler, a communications professor at Suffolk University and the chair of the 2004 World Science Fiction Convention in Boston. “And the science-fiction community has gone through a lot of changes. It’s so much bigger now, which is good, but it’s not as tightknit.
” I think the next big thing needs to move in a whole new direction, something to create that gosh-wow feeling,” she says.
Maybe we can find a void-filling clue to what’s next in the record-setting, $125 million opening-day sales of the intergalactic video game “Halo 2.” Maybe it’s in the boom of small presses in sci-fi publishing. Perhaps “Star Trek 11: Return of the Tribbles” is just around the corner. Or maybe George Lucas won’t be able to resist adding another film trilogy to the “Star Wars” legend.
Back in the tent outside the Cinemark Legacy, it’s an open-ended question of where fans will go from here. There will, of course, continue to be “event” movies. There’s “The Chronicles of Narnia,” based on the C.S. Lewis fantasy, as well as the next Harry Potter movie and the release of the original “Star Wars” trilogy in 3-D.
The show, the movies, the games may change, but the people following them will remain the same. As it turns out, that’s where the magic happens – not up on the screen of some theater, but sitting down in the seats and standing in line and roaming a convention hall.
“People walk by and they see a bunch of nerds in a tent. They don’t get it,” says first-in-line Putnam. “I’ve made a lot of great friends by being the kind of fan who camps out for three weeks to see the new ‘Star Wars.’
“The best thing about something like this isn’t the movie, it’s the people who go to it. And I hope that never changes.”
