By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 17 seconds ago
Star Trek and Star Wars have always had a weirdly symbiotic relationship. George Lucas has previously stated that Star Wars would never have become a success if it hadn’t been able to stand on the shoulders of the earlier sci-fi series. Meanwhile, Star Trek never would have been able to make the leap to the big screen (a move that made this franchise relevant again) without the success of the first Star Wars movie.
Unsurprisingly, fans have often wanted to see some kind of official crossover between the two universes, one which would do cool things like pit the Starship Enterprise against a Star Destroyer. While we never got any kind of big-screen crossover like that, a forgotten episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation tried to bring these fictional worlds together. In the episode “Up the Long Ladder,” a computer screen casually mentions that vessels in the 22nd century would undertake diplomatic missions to Alderaan!
A Tale Of Two Colonies
“Up the Long Ladder” is a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode in which the Enterprise encounters two very different space colonies: one that previously forsook advanced technology in favor of an agrarian lifestyle and one that embraced 24th-century innovation. The second colony embraced it a little too hard, and Dr. Pulaski quickly surmises that everyone there is a clone. They need more viable genetic material and kidnap Riker and Pulaski to steal their DNA. However, Riker later destroys the clones that the colony starts cooking up, and Picard convinces them to merge with the first colony to create a more viable gene pool.
As you can tell, the only thing with any real Star Wars flavor here is the emphasis on clones. However, this Star Trek episode’s reference to a galaxy far, far away didn’t allude to the clone armies made famous by George Lucas. That makes sense because back when this episode was made, “the Clone Wars” was a throwaway line in the first Star Wars movie rather than the name of a beloved TV show that helped flesh out the prequels.
Set A Course To Alderaan, Maximum Warp
Instead, the Star Wars reference was snuck into the background. Both of these colonies were established in the 22nd century, and at one point, Picard is researching the different types of missions that ships of that era embarked upon. In the original footage of the scene where Riker visits the captain’s ready room, you can see that one of the mission categories for these vessels is listed as “Diplomatic Mission to Alderaan,” which was Leia’s cover story (she was secretly smuggling the Death Star plans) in the first Star Wars movie.
Now, this was never intended to seriously link Star Trek and Star Wars together, as much as fans from both franchises would love to see that. Instead, this was one of countless in-jokes snuck onto the set by people like Mike Okuda. For the most part, these jokes were only meant for the cast and crew, as such fine detail (a tiny screen with even tinier lettering) wouldn’t be easy to discern on the smaller, lower-definition televisions of the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Use The Force, Jean-Luc
However, Star Trek: The Next Generation got an absolutely beautiful Blu-ray remaster, one which fans now watch (either through the discs or through streaming) on their huge, high-definition televisions. Most of those in-jokes for cast and crew are easy to read now, including the Mission To Alderaan in “Up the Long Ladder.” Accordingly, the name was changed for the remaster, and the fictional Alderaan was now replaced with the real planet Aldebran.
Just as the Death Star completely destroyed Alderaan, those remastering Star Trek: The Next Generation completely removed any references to Princess Leia’s homeworld. Still, those wanting to relive this tongue-in-cheek attempt to link Star Trek and Star Wars together can always dust off their old DVDs. If you don’t have them on hand, you can always give yourself a new task: “Diplomatic mission to the thrift store!”
