Starfleet Academy Will Revive an Age-Old Star Trek Conundrum

Whatever Roddenberry’s intentions, Star Trek cannot seem to shake its military trappings, in part because they make for more engaging storytelling. Certainly, Star Trek: The Motion Picture has its fans, but not nearly as many as Wrath of Khan or Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, with its end of the Cold War allegory. The Next Generation only became the classic it is today when an ailing Roddenberry had to cede control, allowing for more conflict in the show, including, yes, military conflict.

Which brings us back to Starfleet Academy. The series gives the main cadets rivals in the form of the War College, an explicitly militaristic school next to the Academy. In addition to the interpersonal conflict arises, the clash of the two schools also allows the series to wrestle with the nature of Starfleet, a continuing question in Nü-Trek (see, obviously, the Strange New Worlds episode, “What is Starfleet?”).

For Kurtzman, the tension ties into one of the primary lessons the students need to learn. “It’s not a game, right?” Kurtzman said of the task put before Starfleet cadets. “It’s Top Gun, right? It’s the best of the best. And if you’re the best of the best, they’re not necessarily going to coddle you through everything. They’re going to prepare you.”

For longtime Trekkies, including some who haven’t loved Kurtzman’s tenure running the franchise, that actually sounds like good news. The affirmative, feeling-focused approach to Starfleet in Nü-Trek has too often forgotten that the series is about highly trained professionals. Many will be pleased to hear that Starfleet Academy puts an emphasis on professionalism, maybe even hurting some feelings in the process. And if that means that Starfleet has to adopt some military procedures to do it, well, that’s nothing new for Star Trek, no matter what Picard once said.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premieres on Paramount+ on January 15, 2026.