The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams cover art

The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams

The Complete, Uncensored, and Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek

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The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams

By: Edward Gross, Mark A. Altman
Narrated by: Alex Hyde-White, Jason Olazabal, Nate Aldrich, Steve Marvel, Susan Hanfield, James Cronin, Aaron Landon, Martin Hillier, David Stifel, John Rocha, Eric Martin, Julie McKay
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This is the true story behind the making of a television legend. There have been many books written about Star Trek, but never with the unprecedented access, insight and candor of authors Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross. Having covered the franchise for over three decades, they’ve assembled the ultimate guide to a television classic.

The Fifty-Year Mission: Volume Two is an incisive, no-holds-barred oral history telling the story of post-Original Series Star Trek, told exclusively by the people who were there, in their own words—sharing the inside scoop they’ve never told before—unveiling the oftentimes shocking true story of the history of Star Trek and chronicling the trials, tribulations—and tribbles—that have remained deeply buried secrets... until now.

The Fifty-Year Mission: Volume Two includes the voices of hundreds television and film executives, programmers, writers, creators, and cast, who span from the beloved The Next Generation and subsequent films through its spin-offs: Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, as well J.J. Abrams’ reimagined film series.

 Entertainment & Celebrities Entertainment & Performing Arts Fiction Film & TV Science Fiction Star Trek Celebrity Entertainment Fantasy Thought-Provoking
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Critic reviews

"[T]his is an absolute must for the serious fan." -AudioFile Magazine
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How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narration in this volume is often awful. Several of the narrators are people who it would be difficult to listen to in normal conversation, and yet apparently they are prolific narrators of audio books. One woman in particular drives me up the wall. She attempts to speak with personality and passion, but she reads everything with a horrible smirk (and invariably trailing syllables at the end of each sentence) that makes everyone she reads for sound obnoxious or foolish.Pronunciations are also laughably bad (Voyager's first officer is apparently someone called 'Shah...COTAY' and their principal enemies in season one were the Kah Zon). Pronunciation is very bad throughout. It's bad enough that I considered just giving up.

Interesting, with terrible narration

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if you love Star Trek, you will love this audio book! the reading was excellent.

it goes through all the TV shows in detail, told by the actors and folks who wrote and directed them.

A Bible for Trekkies

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I found it to be an interesting listen, recounting the thoughts and ideas behind the franchise. this may not be for everyone but for me a fan of all things 'trek' I loved listening to the creative essence of the episodes, in particularly the thoughts of the creators, actors and crew. we hear from the writers and producers from time to time but this was much more in depth.
I enjoyed the listen to both this and the first book. They are very long, but cover each film or t.v. programme in depth. Die-hard fans will enjoy!

interesting listen.

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Overall, I've enjoyed both parts of this book and would definitely recommend them for any die hard Star Trek fans, or people curious to know what might have been and what goes on behind the scenes.

Some of the stories I'd heard before, many of them I had not. Some of them make for uncomfortable listening when it becomes pretty clear that people you'd admired and/or defended aren't quite so great after all.

A few things that did start to bother me, however, particularly in the second half of the book:

- One of the performers sounds very bored when it's his turn to read, which I suppose is understandable after such a long book but it comes across in the reading.

- Some of them start to do 'accents' for people they're representing, which are distracting as those accents weren't done earlier in the book (particularly the guy born in Germany who apparently speaks with a strange Chinese/French accent!).

- There are some awkward pronunciations of character and place names, especially during the DS9 section. Admittedly this will probably only irritate Star Trek obsessives like me ... but surely they could have had somebody to guide them during the recording?

Overall - it can be quite a dry book that casual listeners might struggle to get through. But for a Star Trek fan who loves behind the scenes gossip and information, especially hearing about what might have been ... it's an essential purchase.

Fascinating insight, with some frustrations

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If you have a desire and interest in the making of Star Trek both this and the 1st book are great. Both respectfully acknowledge these are interviews and that some time memory can be fallible but by having such a range of POV it helps build a picture that you can consider yourself. There are a few recaps of the series that are inaccurate by the editors -eg saying Trip dies before the final episode of Enterprise (but I think this is more miscommunication in that originally he was going to die before the final episode). The performances are ok but annoying that the directors haven’t made sure that that the actors know how to pronounce names correctly of stuff from the show but more importantly peoples actual names involved in production. It’s not a major issue however.

Book 2 delivers more

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