Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Look back on 50 years of Star Trek in Paramount’s anniversary trailer

With the Star Trek franchise celebrating its 50th anniversary this week, Paramount Pictures is paying tribute to the sci-fi saga with a new video that celebrates the big-screen history of the franchise.

Titled “Celebrating 50 years of Star Trek … and Beyond” the video features a montage of scenes culled from each of the Star Trek movies, from the (somewhat forgettable) 1979 original film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, on through the “Next Generation” era, and all the way to this year’s Star Trek Beyond, featuring the new cast and rebooted “Kelvin” timeline.

Recommended Videos

The video was posted on Facebook’s official Star Trek page, and offers a nice mix of iconic moments and imagery that put the spotlight on the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise over the years in all of the ship’s various iterations, and that reminds fans of how much things have changed — and how much they’ve remained the same from those early days.

The first episode of Star Trek aired September 8, 1966, making yesterday the official 50th anniversary of the television show’s premiere. The series went on to spawn 13 feature-length films, as well as six spinoff series (including a short-lived animated series). The sixth of those series, Star Trek: Discovery, will premiere in 2017.

To date, the 13 films in the Star Trek franchise have collectively earned nearly $1.4 billion in U.S. theaters and $1.7 billion worldwide.The most recent film, Star Trek Beyond, has earned $155.4 million domestically and $294 million worldwide so far. A 14th film — the fourth film in the rebooted timeline — was confirmed by the studio to be in development.

Rick Marshall
Former Contributing Editor, Entertainment
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
30 years ago, Star Trek Generations captured crucial moment in sci-fi franchise
The Enterprise crew in Star Trek: Generations

Star Trek Generations was released in November 1994 at a moment of peak popularity for the franchise. Star Trek: The Next Generation had aired its series finale six months earlier while still a huge ratings success, and it could easily have kept going for more seasons. But with Deep Space Nine recently launched and Voyager in the offing, the collective wisdom deemed that it was time for The Next Generation to beam to the big screen after 178 episodes.

By teaming up Captains Kirk (William Shatner) and Picard (Patrick Stewart), Generations would mark the official transition from the cinematic adventures of the original crew to the new one. Unfortunately, the entire, um, enterprise was a miscalculation, driven by Paramount’s desire to capitalize off fan enthusiasm at a time when there wasn’t much franchise entertainment in cinemas, and virtually no space operas. The marketplace was ripe, in other words, and the movie was a solid box office success generating about $75 million at the domestic box office and $118 million total.

Read more
Netflix’s Back in Action teaser trailer: Cameron Diaz teams with Jamie Foxx for first movie in 10 years
Cameron Diaz holds a phone while standing next to Jamie Foxx.

For her first film since 2014, Cameron Diaz is teaming with Jamie Foxx to play spies in Back Action, an upcoming action comedy from Netflix.

After working for the CIA as spies, Emily (Diaz) and Matt (Foxx) leave espionage behind to start a family. Years later, the couple returns to the field after their cover is blown. "For the first time in a really long time, I felt alive again," Emily tells Matt in the teaser trailer. Rediscovering their elite combat skills is easy. Explaining their previous life to their two kids (McKenna Roberts and Rylan Jackson) is challenging.

Read more
5 years ago, The Mandalorian made Star Wars fun again
Din Djarin walks with a hostage in The Mandalorian.

It is a reality of Hollywood filmmaking that the longer a franchise goes on, the more baggage it accrues — both culturally and canonically. Hollywood's studios have done their best to ignore this in recent years, but one need look no further than Star Wars for proof. What was once the crown jewel of the franchise world has become a troubled property plagued by creative issues, toxic fans, and recycled ideas. As the franchise's novelty has faded, viewers' hunger for truly new stories set in the Star Wars universe has grown.

Pilot opening scene - The Mandalorian Season One (2019)

Read more