The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams: The Complete, Uncensored, and Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek Hardcover – August 30, 2016

Just as with the first volume, this is a collection of interviews, past and present, from the many people directly involved with the rebirth of the Star Trek universe to others on the outside, from critics to relatives. [The reviewer’s opinions will be within these brackets.]The following television series and films are included:• Star Trek: The Next Generation [I don’t hate this series, but unlike TOS, I don’t rewatch more than maybe five episodes from the series. TOS was joy and excitement and the thrill of exploration. TNG was like coming to work every day, very rarely exciting.]• Star Trek: Generations [The film that was to pass the baton on from TOS to TNG. It didn’t serve either series well. And they killed Kirk in such a stupid, useless way. He deserved a better send-off.]• Star Trek: First Contact• Star Trek: Insurrection• Star Trek: Nemesis [Never saw it, in the theater or on television. I just didn’t trust them to do it right. I probably need to find it at the library and watch it. Someday.]• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine [My favorite of all the later Star Trek series, even if it took me about half the first season to get what they were doing. The most innovative of them all, in my opinion.]• Star Trek: Voyager [My dad loved it. Me, didn’t watch after the first season. I thought there was so much potential, never achieved. Waste of the Maquis.]• Enterprise (only became Star Trek: Enterprise after the series began) [The theme music immediately turned me off. I tuned in for Star Trek and Scott Bakula, struggled to watch 20 minutes before giving up. Dad and I agreed on this one.]• Star Trek IMAX (never filmed)• Star Trek: The Beginning (never filmed) [This sounded quite intriguing, but I doubt that the studios would be able to stay away from the scripts. To deal with the Earth-Romulan War as a starting point had a lot of potential. And the idea of using The Illiad and The Odyssey as loose inspiration for the first two films of the series would’ve had me watching.]• Star Trek: Reboot the Universe (never pitched due to J. J. Abrams’ film plans)• Star Trek: Federation (never filmed due to Abrams’ film plans) [Another intriguing concept about how achieving utopia causes stagnation.]• Star Trek: Final Frontier (proposed web based animated series; never filmed)• Star Trek (2009 film) [Loved, loved, loved the reboot!]• Star Trek Into Darkness [Liked it, but felt the Khan storyline came too soon in the movies. Cumberbatch did his usual standup job and the scenes with Chris Pine jumped off the screen. Unlike many fans, I truly loved the Kirk death scene. As said in the book, Spock dying in Wrath of Khan was the end of a long, loving friendship. Kirk dying in this film was the end of the beginning of a great friendship.]• Star Trek Beyond [Again, I haven’t seen this one. Not Abrams run, so I’m not sure if it will disappoint or not. Probably should check this one out of the library.]• Star Trek Remastered (not a new series, just an updating of the old with new, true to the original effects, CGI)Also discussed are the books slapped down by the Abrams’ films; the various fan made web series, the homages and spoofs. The book ends with opinions as to why Star Trek resonated with so many over the last fifty years and what the future could be. [With the new television series beginning the same time as one of the most divisive U.S. Presidents ever elected taking office, my wish is that the series can bring hope for a future just as the original series did during an equally divisive period in history.]I would definitely recommend this book to all Trek fans, as well as those who are intrigued by how films and television series are made from, primarily, a writers’ perspective. 5 out of 5.

When I read the first book covering the first 25 years, it covered information I already knew pretty well from reading other sources. This book covers the last 25 years which I was familiar with but these interviews took me much deeper into the material. It details how difficult it was to continue Star Trek after the death of Roddenberry. The people who were in charge of being show runners, writers and directors had to wrestle with the question that bedevils us to this day... what is Star Trek? I remember when TNG ended how surprising it was that they were going straight into shooting Generations without taking a break. The one recurring theme I found after Roddenberry is just how much Paramount (and later CBS) wanted to exploit the Star Trek brand despite repeated warnings that they were going to the well far too often. I know it is popular to trash Rick Berman but it is clear that if Berman refused to go along with Paramount's wishes, they would have fired him and found someone else to do their bidding.Sure, it was great having DS9 started while TNG was still running because I would have watched 10 new Star Trek shows a week being a diehard Trekker. Then we got Voyager while DS9 was still on as the tentpole for the new UPN network. Then, without a break, you get Enterprise, which did not fit into the target demographic that UPN was aiming for at that time. The showrunners and writers were exhausted because there had been no break from Star Trek since TNG started. It's fascinating to see what people like Braga argued for on Voyager and Enterprise but was overruled by the network suits at Paramount. Thank the Great Bird they refused to go along with putting a boy band on the show every week. Berman and Braga did the best they could under very trying circumstances. We should be thrilled that they were able to produce a decent show most weeks given the constraints they were under.That is the takeaway from this book for me. It is amazing to see the amount of political wheeling and dealing that went on which put limits on the narrative of Voyager and Enterprise. I also hated to see that Paramount forced director Stuart Baird into the filming of Nemesis. He clearly wasn't a fan of Star Trek, wasn't familiar with TNG or previous films and didn't work on focusing on the characters. Den of Geek has a great story on this issue, "Star Trek: Nemesis - what went wrong?" that goes into more depth about Baird's failings and what the movie could have been. It was also interesting to read about the attempts to resurrect Star Trek, including a story by Babylon 5 creator, J.Michael Straczynski. Even an animated series was discussed which would have been really cool. All of that was shut down when JJ Abrams was brought in to reboot Star Trek.It was a pity that Paramount and CBS split the rights to Star Trek. Unlike Star Wars, there can be no coordination between the film franchise and the TV/Novel franchise. Imagine if Paramount had consolidated Star Trek under one central authority, It could have rivaled Star Wars in terms of multimedia products, i.e., movies, TV series, books, graphic novels, music, websites, etc. What we can take away from this book is despite all of the commercial pressure from Paramount, Star Trek attracted a plethora of talented people who contributed to the success of the franchise. We have 700+ hours of Star Trek episodes to enjoy along with 13 movies. 2017 will see the return of Star Trek to the small screen with Discovery. It will be interesting to see what the 75th Anniversary book will say about the coming 25 years of Star Trek.

I was 10 when Star Trek premiered in 1966. If Fireball XL5 ignited my love of all things aeronautical and astronautical, Star Trek threw a 50 gallon drum of nitro methane on it. I believed. I was fortunate enough to fly for a living as a career. Having read Cushman's books and now these, I now feel I understand just how hard all of it was to make. I really enjoyed the style of these books and having so many view points from those that created Star Trek in all of its different forms. Thank you Ed and Mark, I hope I am around for the third installment!

As a lifelong Star Trek fan. I found reading this book fascinating. In particular i enjoyed reading about the cultural impact. I've always seen these references in pop culture but had honestly not connected them to the wider impact of the franchise until reading this book. While I enjoyed it immensely I could not give this book a full 5* due to the authors treatment of everything after TNG. I purchased this as an ebook and according to the kindle app 48% of the book was devoted to TNG series and movies. Now don't get me wrong I understand that Star Trek was reinvigorated in no small part to this series; but as a result of this so much has already been explored in regards to TNG. I went into this book hoping to learn more about its successors. Sadly DS9 only made up 17% of the book, Voyager and Enterprise got 11% respectively, JJ Abrams movies got 9% and the the cultural impact of Star Trek got 4%. The sections that came after TNG felt rushed and not really fleshed out. Being honest it felt like the author did The section on TNG and then remembered that the franchise had expanded past it. Overall it was a good book but my disappointment over the lack of attention to what came after TNG is what has cost it that final star.

This book is huge! I just read it a little bit at a time as the format was a bunch of quotes on whatever topic was being discussed before moving onto the next topic. Some of it was interesting or entertaining while some of it was not. There were a handful of amusing little stories throughout, and it was enlightening in places about what went on with the writers, the cast, etc. behind the scenes. There's some interesting insight into how the shows and movies got made, how some characters changed from the initial stages etc. Recommended for fans of the shows who want to know more.

Interested in Trek, you have to buy this book and if you bought the first book thinking fifty meant fifty then here is the conclusion. All very serious stuff, no tittle tattle. No reference to the crossover film where Patrick Stewart got $500,000 and Shatner got four million, I had wanted that confirmed but never mind. Never a fan of DS9 (preferred Babylon) a lot of the second half of the book covers it which is fair enough and quite expected. A lot of people say the same thing so it gets a bit repetitive in places.

good insight from the actors and producers

Just what I needed - Excellent service too.