Space the Final Frontier...Entering New Worlds!

The opening line to the Star Trek film and television series is "Space the final Frontier."  As I watched
 the reboot of the original Star Trek series, from JJ Abrams last night, it made think about how films provide a beautiful escape to new unexplored worlds for viewers.  For me films like Star Trek are great because they provide an escape to a place that I may never be able to explore myself, or experience a made up world.

Throughout this past week I have been watching a lot about the exploration of space.  Last weekend I watched every Star Wars film starting with episode I and ending with episode VI.  On a film level this reminded me how Phantom Menace was not awful, Attack of the Clones is the worst, and the original series is untouchable.

Star Wars like Star Trek has made it apparent that we are anxious to follow through with the goals of Republican Presidential hopeful New Gingrich, we want a base on the moon that will help start exploring the final frontier.  The problem with this statement or this ideology is that there are more pressing matters on earth that deserve our attention.  This is where movies, television and books fill the void.

While space exploration is cool (and they are talking about it on Bill Maher as I am typing this ironically) at the moment we must depend on the escapism from film, television and books.  Together these three mediums have helped people to explore new worlds for many years.  Each conduit has also shown that there is more than space, there is Middle Earth, Narnia, Westeross, and many many more.

The power of these different mediums is that they can provide an escape to a galaxy far far away or to the final frontier, and using your imagination the viewer can be part of an incredible adventure.  As a young child I remember people encouraging me to use my imagination while playing.  As I grew up and became an adult no one told me to stop, but people looked at me as though I was different when I kept using my imagination for different things. Movies, television, and books have provided me with an escape from the real world for my entire life.  I want to keep using these methods to escape my hectic life and be able to journey to a far away land where people have light sabers, or there may be dragons.  Entering new worlds through your imagination takes away the stress of life, and provides a fun escape.