Animation is a medium, not a genre; the rich variety of Star Trek's animated series

Despite the tendency to dismiss animation as a "kiddie genre," animation is, in fact, a full, vibrant art form of its own. While it shares many things in common with live-action filmmaking, animation also offers unique opportunities to depict stories and worlds that may be difficult to render in live-action. This makes animation excellent for the kind of sci-fi adventure that is Star Trek's bread and butter.

Fortunately, these opportunities have not been entirely ignored by the producers of Star Trek over the years. With three animated Star Trek shows, dating as far back as 1973, we can see how the strengths (and limitations) of animation have helped to shape the universe.

Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974)

The second-ever Star Trek series shares a lot in common with its predecessor. With effectively the same cast and writers, it is arguably just more of the original series (a win if, like me, TOS is your favorite show). Even so, animation allowed it to explore worlds and creatures that would have been difficult or impossible in live-action TV of that era.

Extremely visible examples of this are the alien crewmembers of the Enterprise, Arex and M'Ress, whose appearances would have probably been impossible (for Arex) or distractingly cheesy (for M'Ress) on a 1973 live-action TV budget. In animation, however, they are right at home with Kirk, Spock, and everybody else.

The one animation-caused limitation of this series, however, is the animation itself. Produced by Filmation, Star Trek: TAS employed a technique known as "limited animation," which tended to hold static images and use stock animation footage to save on costs. While these techniques are still quite common today, they have been refined to be less noticeable and distracting.

Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020-2024)

It took nearly 50 years before Star Trek returned to animation in series form. Unlike, TAS, however, Star Trek: Lower Decks actively departs in tone and even genre from all Treks that have come before. While Star Trek shows often have light and comedic episodes, Lower Decks is the first (and so far only) Star Trek to be a comedy first and foremost.

Interestingly, Lower Decks takes advantage of being animated to accomplish much of its comedy. This is often by taking a scene or premise that would be horrifying or weird if shown in live-action and softening it through animation. Cartoon violence has a long history in animation, going back to silent animation that predates even the Looney Tunes and Mickey Mouse.

Additionally, the delivery of lines and style of writing for Lower Decks has an exaggeration that is acceptable (or even expected) in animated comedies, but would be viewed as bizarre in a live-action comedy. We see this with the way Mariner and Boimler are toned down a bit when they appear in live-action on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, even though they are being played by their voice actors.

Star Trek: Prodigy (2021-2024)

Like the other two animated Star Trek shows, Prodigy takes advantage of animation to expand the worlds and characters we can see. With an almost entirely alien cast, time and money is probably saved by not having to put the actors in make-up every day. Plus, character and environment designs can be more detailed, thanks to the fact the series uses 3D computer animation.

One limitation that TAS and Lower Decks have that Prodigy does not is that they are drawn animation. This requires simple designs, so that they are efficient to draw over and over. With the CGI that Prodigy uses, it isn't a problem to have detailed characters, like Jankom Pog or Rok-Tahk.

The future of Star Trek animation?

Unfortunately, with the cancelation of Lower Decks, and the ambiguous future of Prodigy, there is no confirmed animated Star Trek heading in to 2025. I hope we'll get more, though. I'd love to have an ongoing series, but it would also be cool to see a variety of different takes on Star Trek through animation in an anthology, like what Disney did with Star Wars: Visions a few years ago.