Star Trek Woman In Motion Doc Explores Nichelle Nichols's NASA Work
Woman in Motion: Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek and the Remaking of NASA explores how the sci-fi icon brought diversity to America's space race. The trailer for the documentary, which will air exclusively on Paramount+, tells the story of how Nichols, who originally played iconic Starfleet officer, Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, campaigned to recruit both women and people of color to the NASA program in the 1970s and '80s. The documentary feature will premiere to the streamer on Thursday, June 3.
The Woman in Motion documentary goes back to the year 1977 to tell the inspiring true story of how Nichols transitioned from playing a fictional hero to being one in real life. The movie explores Nichols' work in founding Women in Motion, Inc., which went on to recruit 8,000+ people of color, African American, Asian, and Latinx, as a part of her groundbreaking campaign to create, according to the official press release, "one of the most diverse independent agencies in the United States Federal Government.”
Directed by Todd Thompson, the feature-length movie also features appearances by co-star and activist, George Takei, science aficionado, Neil deGrasse Tyson, music producer, Pharrell Williams, chief executive officer of Roddenberry Entertainment, Rod Roddenberry, American civil rights activist, Al Sharpton, human rights advocate, Martin Luther King III, and many more. The Woman in Motion trailer was released by Paramount+ on Monday, April 5, better known as First Contact Day to Star Trek fans everywhere. Check out the trailer below:
The notion of diversity, as explored in Woman in Motion, made huge waves in Star Trek: The Original Series when, in the 10th episode of season 3, titled "Plato's Stepchildren," Uhura and Captain Kirk share an on-screen kiss. It was the first interracial kiss ever to be shown on American television. That historical moment in pop culture entertainment almost never happened. Transitive logic would dictate that scene, along with a historic conversation between Nichols and civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr, that also inspired this documentary.
After briefly deciding to leave the series once the first season ended in 1966, King met Nichols and revealed he was a Star Trek fan. King told her that the role of Nyota Uhura was one of the few examples of racial and gender equality seen on television at the time. The interaction between the two has since become legend and has inspired millions. It led Nichols to return to the series, which then ended up making the communications officer an iconic character in the genre.
Similar to the story that was told by Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe in the 2016 movie, Hidden Figures, which was set during America's 1960s Jim Crow era and followed Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), and many other black women in NASA's West Area Computing Unit the Black female mathematicians who helped NASA, it looks like Woman in Motion will continue to educate fans about the importance of diversity and equality in the workplace. Much progress has been made, but as the documentary will surely point out, there's still a lot of work to do. Woman in Motion: Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek and Remaking NASA will premiere Thursday, June 3 on Paramount+.
Source: Paramount Plus