The shared universe dates back long before Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and co. sat down to eat shawarma after the Chitauri. Superheroes have been moonlighting in each other’s comic books for decades, and Cheers regulars frequently visited Frasier in Seattle. Before Marvel Studios launched the MCU,Marvel Cinematic UniverseHowever, it wasn’t until the late 1990s that the concept really started to go mainstream.
By incorporating the contrasting adventures of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Black Widow into one huge, overarching story, Marvel has managed to blend the spectacle of cinema with the “watch every episode” ethos of TV series. The MCU’s famous end-credits jolt has also had the unexpected side effect of convincing us all to stick around to see the ending credits of every movie.
From a business standpoint, it was one of the smartest creative decisions ever made in Hollywood, turning the MCU into the most profitable franchise of all time, while spawning a legion of imitators. Some quickly fell out of fashion: Universal’s planned Dark Universe didn’t survive past the first film, The Mummy; others (most notably DC’s original answer to the MCU) simply felt tired in comparison. But with apologies to box-office behemoth Marvel, Star Wars And the MonsterVerse, home of Godzilla and King Kong, the most exciting shared universe of them all, is currently somewhere on its final frontier.
Not “infinite variety in infinite combinations” (sorry, Mr. Spock),Star TrekVariety has been “Discovery’s” guiding principle since the series returned to television in 2017. “Discovery” began as a prequel to “The Original Series” before warping further into the future, to the 32nd century, which created gaps in the timeline and marked the less-contiguous voyages of the pre-Kirk Enterprise.Strange New World“Picard” will tell the story of an elderly Jean-Luc Picard 20 years after the final voyage of the “New Generation” crew, while the children’s animated series “geniusThe stars of shows like “The Great Passage” and the all-out comedy “Lower Decks” were given the freedom to take on some of the boldest challenges in Trek history.
Throw in upcoming spy adventures.”Article 31“And a cadet-themed ‘Disco’ spinoff.”Starfleet Academy” and it’s clear that beyond the usual tropes of warp drive and phasers and frequent violations of the Prime Directive, the main thing that unifies these very different series is a shared universe. Even the settings are far enough apart geographically. and Chronologically speaking, there’s little risk of story conflict in Spacedock.
The contrast between the Alpha Quadrant and a certain galaxy far, far away is striking.Acolyte“All regular Star Wars and TV Programs It spanned several generations of the Skywalker family, but even ignoring the limitations of that brief timeline, much of the saga’s storylines and dialogue feels increasingly uniform.
The “Acolyte” scene (set about a century before “The Phantom Menace”) isAhsoka” (a few years after Return of the Jedi), while the powers that be at Skywalker Ranch seem more preoccupied with filling in holes in existing lore than telling the story themselves. What was the final episode of Season 1 of The Acolyte if not a prequel to the prequel trilogy?
“Star Wars” is supposed to be an exhilarating interstellar playground capable of supporting any story imaginable, but it seems increasingly constrained by strict rules that must never be broken. “Star Wars” Wants Its Own ‘Lower Decks’ Style Comedy.”and the upcoming “Space Goonies.”Skeleton Crew” Done It should be a launching pad for kids, much like Prodigy was for “Star Trek.” “Star Wars” probably needs both, because at this point, all of its canon can easily be daunting for anyone looking to take that precious first step into the larger world.
That’s not to say that Star Trek’s current series denies the series’ rich past: Picard’s glorious final season was full of nostalgia from start to finish, welcoming back familiar friends and foes and giving the TNG crew a fitting send-off — if you can recreate the cake. and That season showed us the way, if you like. “Prodigy” also does deep cuts in a big way, but the point is, you don’t need to know that the name of the USS Voyager A’s resident whale (Gillian) is a reference to “Star Trek IV.” Or that the reference to the “dysfunctional” crew of the Cerritos is a callback to “Lower Decks.” All the inside jokes are just window dressing to hold the universe together without excluding newcomers.
That’s the genius of modern “Star Trek,” and its leaders have made it clear to all viewers that they’ve got more than 900 episodes and 13 Star Trek movies Rewatching the entire back catalog is a surefire way to fail: The MCU and Star Wars had fascinating lives when they were built around a relatively small number of films, but both franchises are now too large and unwieldy for even casual viewers to become completionists.
No one should see allSo, some people set a target computer on “The Mandalorian” and said,AndreJust like some “Discovery” fans can skip “Picard” and not feel like they’re missing out.
And we shouldn’t be surprised to see Star Trek leading the way, since this isn’t Starfleet’s first expeditionary mission into a shared universe. In the ’90s, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, four movies, and even the prequel series Enterprise all shared characters and storylines. So much so that after hundreds of hours of TV, the planet was losing interest in the increasingly formulaic programming. Sound familiar? The franchise’s newest directors have boldly realized this. Now it’s time for Star Wars, the MCU, and others to follow in their warp trail.
Discovery, Picard, Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks are available to stream on Paramount+, along with The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise. Prodigy is available on Netflix.
