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

star trek 50th anniversary video 1 970x647 c
NBC
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.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

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
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
10 best Star Trek: Discovery episodes, ranked
The cast of Star Trek: Discovery.

Of all the completed Star Trek series, Discovery may be the most difficult from which to pick out the 10 best episodes. That’s not because it’s the weakest series in the franchise like Enterprise is -- by our reckoning, it’s actually in the low middle -- but because its serialized format makes it tricky to isolate specific chapters to celebrate.
Each season of Discovery followed Michael Burnham and the crew of the show’s eponymous starship on a lengthy adventure with cosmic stakes, but not every hour packed a memorable punch. Still, while many of the chapters tend to blur together, there are some definite standouts spread evenly throughout the show’s entire five-season run.
Ready? Let’s fly.

10. “Coming Home” (season 4, episode 13)
The finale of Discovery’s fourth season is an example of everything that’s great about the series, but also everything that’s lame about it. The Federation’s climactic confrontation with the extragalactic Species 10-C is visually splendid, emotionally intense, and ultimately a story about communication and empathy, the cornerstone of Star Trek’s ethos. Sonequa Martin-Green delivers one of the best performances in the entire franchise, as her character swallows her shock and grief at her partner’s apparent death and steadies herself for duty.
But, by the end of the episode, everything has worked out swimmingly, there are hugs and smiles and no lasting consequences. Popular progressive lawmaker Stacey Abrams makes a cameo as the President of Earth to congratulate the show’s producers Captain Burnham on her inspirational work. That’s Discovery for you -- sometimes amazing, sometimes cringe, often at the same time.

Read more
7 best Star Trek villains, ranked
Ricardo Montalban in ‘Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.’

Thanks to its more than 50 years of continued existence, Star Trek has produced just a lot of stuff. That stuff includes several great TV shows, more than a few outstanding movies, and perhaps most importantly of all, some genuinely great villains.

Because Trek has always concerned itself with the politics of the stories it tells, the series has also introduced some genuinely nuanced bad guys. There are plenty of great villains of the week, to be sure, but there are also legendary villains who have made their way onto this list. These are the seven best Star Trek villains, ranked.
7. Nero

Read more
Disney+ reveals the first trailer for Star Wars: Tales of the Empire
Barriss Offee in Star Wars: Tales of the Empire.

In 2022, Disney+ and Lucasfilm unveiled Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, a six-part series of animated shorts. A second season was announced soon after, and it's now just a month away. However, the show has undergone a name change to Star Wars: Tales of the Empire, and it's about to dive into even darker territory. Disney+ has dropped the first trailer for Tales of the Empire, and it chronicles the story of two women who embrace the Dark Side of the Force.

Tales of the Empire | Official Trailer | Disney+

Read more