60 Years Later, ‘Star Trek’ Is Celebrating a Colossal Sci-Fi Milestone

Published Sep 1, 2026, 10:53 AM EDT

Collier Jennings is an entertainment journalist with extensive experience. Collier, or “CJ” to his friends and family, is a dedicated fan of genre films - particularly science fiction, fantasy, and comic book adaptations, not to mention all forms of animation. This stems from a close bond with his father, who introduced him to these genres via copies of X-Men comics and reruns of the original Ultraman series. With his near-encyclopedic knowledge and bottomless love of genre, he’s tackled a wide variety of articles.

Very few science fiction franchises have impacted pop culture as much as Star Trek. When*** *Star Trekpremiered in 1966, it depicted a future where humanity set aside its petty differences to explore the stars. That set the stage for a franchise that encompasses multiple spin-off series and movies *and has inspired other sci-fi creators over the years. Sixty years later, Star Trek *is celebrating its anniversary with multiple events this September.

Those events include theatrical screenings of select Star Trek* *movies paired with select episodes. An example pairs ***Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan **and the Star Trek episode “Space Seed,” which sets up the movie’s events. There are also plans for screenings and pop-ups around the world, including an attempt to set a Guinness World Record for the most Vulcan Salutes at London’s Science Museum. These celebrations show that Star Trek *isn’t just a popular sci-fi franchise; it’s a series that continues to have a major impact on the world, no matter what form it takes.

Part of Star Trek’s universal appeal is that it’s a series that’s constantly reinventing itself over the years. The first spin-off, Star Trek: The Next Generation, distinguished itself from the original series in many ways. While William Shatner’s James T. Kirk is a take-charge, action-first captain, **Patrick Stewart **brings gravitas and emotional depth to Jean-Luc Picard. The Klingons, former foes of the Federation, are now its allies. This also means that Picard and his crew encounter new threats like the reality-warping Q and the malevolent artificial intelligence the Borg. This approach has continued in other *Star Trek *series, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Discovery.

The biggest example of how versatile Star Trek* *is as a series lies in its current ongoing series, ***Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ***and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. *Strange New Worlds *quickly gained a reputation for episodes that explore other genres, including one that’s a full-blown musical and a recent episode where the cast of the Enterprise are turned into puppets. *Starfleet Academy, on the other hand, spotlights a younger cast attending the titular school. This means that Star Trek *fans have two different approaches to the franchise, which could serve as an entry point for newcomers.

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.

The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.

You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.

The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

window.arrayOfGalleries[“article-gallery-1-110091239”] = ’“<div class=“w-gallery-carousel”><section id=“main-carousel-1-110091239” class=“splide splide-gallery” data-gallery-expanded-id=“main-expanable-carousel-1-110091239” data-gallery-expanded-thumbnail-id=“expanded-gallery-thumbnails-1-110091239”><button class=“expand icon i-expand” type=“button”></button><div class=“splide__track”><ul class=“splide__list” style=“—gallery-aspect-sm: 2 / 1; —gallery-aspect-md: 2 / 1; —gallery-aspect-lg: 2 / 1;” ><li class=“splide__slide gallery-main-img”>