T5W#317-Top 5 Similarities between Star Trek and Gundam

Today marks the 55^th Anniversary of one of the most influential and popular SciFi franchises in history: Star Trek.  We all know it in some shape or form and instantly recognize it when we hear the names “Captain Kirk” or “The Starship Enterprise”.  Star Trek’s been a foundation on which science fiction has built itself upon and its effects on the entertainment industry, pop culture and even everyday life can be felt today.  For me, Star Trek was one of the first science fiction sagas I was ever introduced to as a kid (right alongside Star Wars), so it holds a very dear place in my heart (Fun Fact: My sister is named after Spock’s Mom).  With all of this in mind, what’s a fun way I can talk about Star Trek with an Anime twist here on the blog?  Well it is a Wednesday, which means I need to think up a Top 5 list.  Well, there is one unique connection I think Star Trek has to Anime that most might not realize.  It’s long production history kind of mirrors that of my #1 Anime franchise of all time: Mobile Suit Gundam.  Don’t believe me?  Well let’s take a look and see if I can back up that claim properly (or not).  These are the Top 5 Similarities between Star Trek and Gundam.

#5-Two of the Longest Running Scifi Franchises in History

Star Trek might’ve debuted more than a decade beforehand, but Gundam’s longetity is nothing to sneeze at either.  At 42 years old, Gundam has spanned multiple TV Series, Movies, OVAs, Manga and Video Games, touching just about every aspect of the Anime medium and that’s before looking at the impact Gunpla and the Gundam Action Figures have also had.  At 55 Years Old, Star Trek has had 9 TV Series (with at least two more forthcoming) and 13 feature films with an equally healthy presence in comics, video games and legendary fan conventions.  Both franchises have life size or nice sized replicas of their flagship icons on display at multiple museums worldwide, recognizing just how big they’ve become overtime and how timeless they have become in the process.  These are two titans of SciFi that have stood the test of time and are changing with the times and adding more and more to their legacies.  Star Trek and Gundam might be old, but they aren’t going anywhere.
 

#4-Entries Appealing to a Younger Demographic

Gundam and Star Trek both aim to get the attention of a teenage or older audience with mature stories and often times they can get pretty heavy.  And yet they’ve been known to capture the hearts of much younger dreamers finding science fiction and Anime for the first time.  Just because Star Trek and Gundam might feel a bit grown up at times, doesn’t mean either haven’t tried to bring in younger viewers in their own way.  Both franchises have taken stabs at less intense projects meant strictly for kids.  For Gundam, that’s their SD, Build Fighters and Build Divers series-letting Chibified Gundams go on amazing adventures or letting anyone of all ages build their own Gunpla and let it loose on the world.  Star Trek had one short lived Animated Series in the early 70’s but it’s trying its hand at a more kid friendly series this year with the forthcoming Star Trek: Prodigy on Nickelodeon.  Granted, Prodigy could be very Star Wars: Clone Wars in execution (so it looks like a Kid show but is more mature than you’d expect).  But it is a nice little gateway to little Trekkies joining the Trek fam, just as Build Fighters is both a love letter for long time fans and a fun door for kids to walk through before they discover what Gundam is all about.
 

#3-The One Show that Broke the Mold

Star Trek and Gundam both started with a formula that they ran with for a good deal of their initial inceptions.  Star Trek was a series about exploration deep in space and the mission to seek out new life and new civilizations, a mission statement that would carry on throughout the whole franchise but directly continuing in Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Mobile Suit Gundam is about the horrors of war with Giant Robots and the young generation that finds itself thrust to the forefront of an ever changing history.  Theyre both good mission statements and both have strong stories worth telling.  But what about changing things up a bit?  Experimenting with new formulas and seeing what comes of it?  For Star Trek, that was Deep Space Nine.  Gone was a Starship hopping across the stars (though it did get one sort of eventually) and instead the series focused on a massive space station and the people stationed there who find themselves at the forefront of a war for the fate of the galaxy.  Mobile Fighter G Gundam, the first alternate universe Gundam, took away the war element of Gundam and replaced it with a fighting tournament with Kung Fu Fighting Robots.  Both shows turned their franchises on their heads, in good ways.  Deep Space Nine wasn’t afraid to explore themes and corners of the universe The Original Series and The Next Generation hadn’t dared to, while G Gundam took Gundam’s more serious tone and dared to have some fun with it.  And guess what: both DS9 and G Gundam are considered by many to be one of (if not the) best entries in their respective franchises.

 
#2-The 90s TV Legacy

We’ll talk about the identical beginnings these franchise had next but here, i want to talk about the decade where they truly thrived.  Yeah, Gundam had a couple of shows and movies and Star Trek had several movies in the 1980s.  But the 90’s were where both franchises kicked it into high gear, churning out new shows and movies at a far faster rate than the 80s.  While Star Trek: The Next Generation began at the tail end of the 80s (1987 to be more precise), the 90s is where its popularity soared and gave birth to three sequel films from 1994-1998 (Generations, First Contact and Insurrection) and two popular spin off series (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager).  Mobile Suit Gundam enjoyed new movies and OVAs but when it came to TV, it was a juggernaut for several consecutive years.  From 1993-1996 you had the likes of Victory Gundam, G Gundam, Gundam Wing and Gundam X before Turn A Gundam capped off the decade in 1999.  That’s a pretty impressive resume from a strong decade for Anime and Sci Fi in general.
 

#1-Cancellation and Resurrection

This is where the cross connections begin, right at the very beginnings of both franchises.  While Star Trek’s opening narraration stated the Enterprise was on a 5 Year Mission, the series was cancelled after 3 Seasons due to low ratings in 1969.  Over in Japan, Mobile Suit Gundam’s initial run was met with low ratings, which led to it being cancelled after 43 episodes out of an intended 50-51.  Unlike Star Trek, Gundam got enough notice to craft a proper series ending (and some might say the series ended just fine when it did).  Point is: both were popular but not enough to complete their initial broadcasts.  It wasn’t until after they ended that the legacy began to grow.  Both Star Trek and Gundam found a new audience through reruns and their fanbases ballooned in time.  Gundam got a trilogy of Compilation Films showing the original story in a new light while Star Trek eventually found its own way to the big screen with a series of popular movies throughout the 80’s.  These successes would lead to Gundam getting a proper sequel in 1985 with Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, while Star Trek would eventually see The Next Generation take off in 1987 to even greateer success than the original series.  Star Trek and Gundam might faltered at launch…but time has shown that failure hasn’t been the destiny of either franchise.  Fly on Gundam…and Engage.