OPINION:
Earlier this year, Paramount released “Starfleet Academy,” the latest in a long line of efforts to revitalize the 60-year-old Star Trek franchise. Yet the show is emerging as yet another battle in the culture wars, with Hollywood elites trying to find a “modern audience” by rebranding an established property with corporate-approved woke themes.
In one viral clip, the show’s bridge crew consists almost entirely of women whose appearance raises serious doubts about whether they could pass even the most basic training. Elon Musk ridiculed the scene as proof that the show now prioritizes body politics over competence, quipping on X, “Turns out they banned Ozempic and LASIK in the future lol.”
The Babylon Bee piled on with the headline, “New Starfleet Vessel Unable to Reach Warp Speed Because Crew Is Too Fat.”
Critics have also pointed to the show’s emphasis on diversity over drama, with dialogue often centered on themes of inherited trauma, systemic inequality and the need for manufactured representation over actual unity. For many longtime viewers, these choices feel less like organic storytelling and more like a checklist of liberal priorities, crowding out the spirit of exploration that once defined the franchise.
Such unneeded woke-ification of a beloved TV series puts Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison back in the spotlight. Mr. Ellison has a net worth of more than $500 million and stands to inherit 10 times that amount from his father, Oracle founder Larry Ellison. The Ellisons have mounted a hostile bid for the assets of Warner Bros. Discovery, in part by bragging about their alleged close ties to President Trump.
It’s a surprising strategy given that David Ellison’s deep-pocketed alliance with the Democratic Party is no secret. In 2024, he funneled roughly $1 million to Democrats, including Joseph R. Biden and Kamala Harris. His father has poured at least $35 million into Republican primaries — not to support Mr. Trump but to sabotage him from winning the party’s nomination.
The same out-of-touch elitism driving the Ellisons’ political gamesmanship is on full display in the show’s approach to its audience. Instead of listening to criticism, Ellison-run Paramount is doubling down. Case in point: “Academy” co-star Robert Picardo took to X to preemptively attack his fan base for not accepting the show, suggesting that “Star Trek” has always been woke. Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller disagreed, jokingly insisting that William Shatner (Captain Kirk) needs to come back to save the franchise. This has all attracted so much attention that even Greg Gutfeld did a segment on it.
Until now, “Star Trek” has always been unapologetically masculine and proudly patriotic. Captain Kirk was an American cowboy leading a crew that was conquering the “final frontier” of space, aboard a class of ship literally named the U.S. Constitution. Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, once proudly proclaimed, “Captain Kirk was a Republican.”
“Star Trek” featured an episode about space hippies, portraying them as naive and reckless. Another episode predicted the horrifying income inequality of San Francisco 30 years before even The New York Times was forced to acknowledge it.
Perhaps the best-known episodes in the “Star Trek” canon, “The City on the Edge of Forever,” is explicitly conservative. Kirk and Spock are sent back in time and accidentally save the life of a sincere, liberally minded social worker, played by Joan Collins. In doing so, they accidentally alter the past, allowing her to lead a pacifist movement that delays the U.S. entry into World War II. To restore the past and prevent a Nazi victory, they throw her in front of a moving car.
This beloved hour of TV has been on every “Star Trek” top 10 list for the past 50 years and was named series creator Gene Roddenberry’s favorite episode. Its warning about out-of-control liberalism isn’t the subtext but rather the plot of the story.
To be sure, the Star Trek franchise featured elements of traditional 1960s American liberalism. In an episode where the Black communications officer, Lt. Nyota Uhura, meets Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president accidentally uses a racial slur, and the lieutenant immediately forgives him. In the future, she tells Lincoln, “We’ve learned not to fear words.” Imagine if the same thing happened on “Starfleet Academy”!
Nothing Paramount has done with “Star Trek” has had any cultural significance in the 21st century. It has been overshadowed by more creative sci-fi such as “The Expanse,” “Battlestar Galactica” and “Firefly.” The pablum churned out, so obtuse to its own legacy, reminds one of Sam Rockwell’s character in “Galaxy Quest” when he stammers, “Did you guys ever actually watch the show?”
• Jared Whitley is an award-winning writer, a former U.S. Senate and White House staffer, and a big “Star Trek” fan.
Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified the release month of “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.”
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