The Golden, Silver, and Bronze Ages of Star Trek

[Stan]

I just posted a blog post on my new blog with my ideas about defining the different eras of Star Trek. I'd love your feedback on this notion of 'Ages', and what you think distiguishes the tone and content of each era. In particular, I'm trying to define what it is I like about The Original Series as opposed to what came later.

classictrek.org/star-trek-fandom/the-different-eras-of-star-trek/

Key points from my blog article:

Golden Age (1966-1986)

The Golden Age of Star Trek is a 20 year era that began with the premier of TOS on September 8, 1966 and ended with the debut of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home on November 26, 1986.

This era closely followed franchise creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision for the future.

Silver Age (1987-2005)

The Silver Age of Star Trek is an 18 year era that began with the premier of TNG on September 28, 1987 and ended with the conclusion of Enterprise on May 13, 2005.

This era continues with episodic, planet-of-the-week format, featuring a bright and hopeful future, and a timeline that builds on the past continuity rather than reinventing it.

Bronze Age (2009-present)

The Bronze Age of Star Trek began with the Star Trek film on May 8, 2009 and continues to the present day. In general, this era features new directions with different tones than what came before.

The Kelvin movies featured a departure from past continuities and a move to more action-oriented, less cerebral scripts.

The new TV series include the Lower Decks TV-MA cartoon with adult humor, Star Trek: Discovery which includes the F-word, and Star Trek: Picard whose storyline has darker and more cynical tones. The sets tend to feature dark rooms with shadows and less of the bright, fluorescent atmosphere of the series in the Silver Age.

Both movies and TV series have cases of recasting TOS characters with new actors.

[starcruiser]

I'd have to argue that the current era is more of a "Pewter" or "Lead" age since it's pretty vacuous and has nothing positive to say...

[Falconer]

Hard agree on The Voyage Home as the end of the Golden Age.

I think there are a couple of possible endings to the Silver Age. On the publication side, April 1993 saw the printing of the Okuda Chronology, which represented a hard reboot of published continuity. Franz Joseph, Star Trek Maps, FASA, Worlds of the Federation, basically everything other than the 1991 TNG Technical Manual were not only declared non-canon but were intentionally contradicted from that point on by the Chronology, the Encyclopedia, LUG, Star Charts, etc.

On the screen side, all of TNG proper definitely, and Generations maybe, count as Silver Age. I think First Contact really kicks off the Bronze Age in a strong way. It established Star Trek as an action film franchise some years before Kelvin, with badassery prioritized above all other concerns. (I like First Contact on its own terms, and I want to give the Bronze Age a proper kickoff.) And, it was really the beginning of the Trek Prequels (First Contact — Enterprise — Kelvin — Discovery). (All of which wreak havoc with even the 1993 Chronology, by the way.)

I’m not really sure where that leaves Deep Space Nine and Voyager. I’m not really familiar with them, for one thing. I know DS9 intends on some level to differentiate itself from TOS/TNG, but I think probably most people see DS9/VOY as TNG’s fumes—aesthetically more of the same, but neither aspiring to its lofty vision nor yet throwing in with the dark and violent vision yet to come. This is rather eye-opening:

[Stan]

Awesome points Falconer! I'll mull that over and think about how to tweak the 'ages' breakpoints. Thanks for the great feedback! :-)

[ThrorII]

Very interesting.

I would categorize the Golden Age as 1966-69 (TOS); Silver as 70-99 (ending with ST: VOY); and Bronze Age being everything after 2000

Gold is the original TOS
Silver is all that is derivative of the TOS, including the Animated Series, the TOS movies, Next Generation, DS9, and VOY.
Bronze is 'revisualizing' all that came before, and ignoring canon.

[Stan]

Dec 16, 2020 22:23:27 GMT -5 ThrorII said:

Very interesting.

I would categorize the Golden Age as 1966-69 (TOS); Silver as 70-99 (ending with ST: VOY); and Bronze Age being everything after 2000

Gold is the original TOS
Silver is all that is derivative of the TOS, including the Animated Series, the TOS movies, Next Generation, DS9, and VOY.
Bronze is 'revisualizing' all that came before, and ignoring canon.

I like this! I believe I will update my timeline since I think this is a great way to think of it.

[Falconer]

Don’t comic books have four ages, now? Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Modern?

You guys are right, there really is nothing quite in the same category as TOS.

[Stan]

Yes, the ages approach is based on comic books, which in turn was inspired by the "Ages of Man": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_Man

And yes, those are the four comic ages: www.sparklecitycomics.com/what-are-the-different-comic-book-ages/

:-)

[Falconer]

How about…

GOLDEN AGE 66-69
The Original Series
The Making of Star Trek
The Concordance

SHADOW OF THE GOLDEN AGE 70-78
The Animated Series
The BASIC Game
The Novelizations
The Blueprints
The Technical Manual
Fanzines
Early novels and RPGs
Starfleet Battles

SILVER AGE 79-94
The six TOS cast movies
The Pocket Books novels
The FASA RPG
The Next Generation
Ongoing fanzine/technical/SFB scene

SHADOW OF THE SILVER AGE 93-08
Deep Space Nine
The four TNG cast movies
Voyager
Enterprise
LUG/Decipher
DS9 Relaunch novelverse

BRONZE AGE 09-
The three Kelvin movies
Discovery
Picard
Lower Decks
Modiphius

[Stan]

Oooo, I like the idea of those breakpoints, and adding in the novels and games of each era. Harkening back to the 'Ages of Man' where you speak of 'Late Bronze Age', etc., here's what how we could name the eras:

BTW, what is the 'SFB scene' -- Star Fleet Battles?

** GOLDEN AGE 66-78 **

EARLY GOLDEN AGE 66-69
The Original Series
The Making of Star Trek
The Concordance

LATE GOLDEN AGE 70-78
The Animated Series
The BASIC Game
The Novelizations
The Blueprints
The Technical Manual
Fanzines
Early novels and RPGs
Starfleet Battles

** SILVER AGE 79-08 **

EARLY SILVER AGE 79-94
The six TOS cast movies
The Pocket Books novels
The FASA RPG
The Next Generation
Ongoing fanzine/technical/SFB scene

LATE SILVER AGE 93-08
Deep Space Nine
The four TNG cast movies
Voyager
Enterprise
LUG/Decipher
DS9 Relaunch novelverse

** BRONZE AGE 09-Present **

BRONZE AGE 09-
The three Kelvin movies
Discovery
Picard
Lower Decks
Modiphius

[Falconer]

Yeah, SFB = Starfleet Battles, just basically saying that all that Late Golden fan scene continues.

[TardisCaptain]

What's the BASIC game?

[Falconer]

Basically the original computer game.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_(1971_video_game)

[starcruiser]

Played that WAY too often in High School (had a printed copy of the code for years).

[Falconer]

I used to play it, of course it has been floating around in thousands of different variants over the years. I am thinking of giving it another spin to get some simple ideas, specifically thinking about damage to ship systems.

I played “Star Trek Classic” on the Apple IIGS. Later I played “WinTrek” by the same designer.