The Star Trek Franchise

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Transmedia storytelling is the perfect opportunity for media production companies to create a franchise. The more the audience is familiar with a story, in a form of movies or TV shows, the more the audience wants to see the characters and the story again. Star Trek pushed the idea of a transmedia franchise pretty far: the Star Trek franchise has been building out the world of Star Trek across not only twelve feature films, but also a series of comics (first from the Marvel comic production, then by the DC comics company), an animated series, plenty of video games and novels and even a theme park attraction (which lasted until 2008). Each of these works adds something important to our appreciation of the whole: each has its clear aesthetic …show more content…

However, it is advised as many character coming from the show come back in the movies, the novels and the games. Film aesthetics assume that everything you need to know will be in the movie and that it will be reminded to the viewers several times. But in the Star Trek movies, it is important to know the TV show story because some characters from the show appear in the movies, yet their presence is not explained. The viewer, then, need to check the original narrative to find answers however, those information are not necessary to understand the movies. This makes for a more multilayered story. In an article for the MIT Technology Review, Henry Jenkins wrote that: “Each franchise entry needs to be self-contained enough to enable autonomous consumption. That is, you don’t need to have seen the film to enjoy the game and vice-versa.” For instance, it is important to know the original story to understand fully all the story of the movies, novels, etc. but it is not …show more content…

The transmedia of the first show was not official however plenty of books were written by the fan community to extend the universe of their favorite show. The first official use of a second medium comes from the Star Trek animated series. This series provides new adventures for the characters including one episode giving an extensive back story for one of the main characters. A few years later, Star Trek explored a new medium by making the first movie of the series. With the movie and the animated series, Star Trek officially becomes a transmedia franchise. The primary franchise of Star Trek stopped in 2005 with the end of the last Star Trek spin off series: Star Trek Enterprise. In 2009, the Star Trek franchise was reborn in true Hollywood fashion. The movies are no longer independent from each other but are interconnected because each movie follows the one before. The rebirth of the Star Trek franchise had a huge success as it played with the nostalgia by rewriting the one of the first Star Trek movies: Star Trek II- Wrath of Khan, in a new light creating a parallel universe to justify the remakes’ place in the Star Trek

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