Star Trek: Axanar

In the time period BEFORE TOS? Oy...I really have trouble respecting fan films that don't respect the source material. It stops my "suspension of disbelief" and I can't get into the story.

TOS made it EXCEPTIONALLY clear that women are not allowed to be captains in Star Fleet...one woman was so overwhelmed by trying to buck that system that she went insane.

So, unless you tell me that this "strong female Star Fleet captain" is actually a complete emotional wreck and incompetent screw-up that, you know, made Star Fleet rule "no more women in the command seat!" - it just comes off as fan wankery...which, personally, makes me lose respect for any project...because when you see it once from producers, it's a fair bet you'll see it a lot.

Just my personal opinion.

 

While some people have noted the problems with FaceBook... it, and a forum of your own, have the unique advantages of allowing you to control who can post or comment, as well as making sure only positive comments or thoughts get posted.

There's another group doing that same thing - and it's working for them.

 

And it was a bad idea from a ridiculous episode that filmmakers actually living in the 21st century are perfectly free to drop. The point of the exercise being that the results should be fun, not painstakingly faithful to the mores of Sixties sexism.

TOS' first dictum was believability, and its base template for Starfleet was the American Navy. They could get away with not having female starship Captains in an age that had no actual female ship Captains (at least not commanding combat ships). We don't live in such an age, and it doesn't make sense for anybody to confine themselves to that standard.

 

Absolutely.

 

I love a thread in which the men are the feminists and a female is supporting a male-leader-only view. Carry on, BigJake and Corporal Captain. I salute you.

 

There is nothing in TOS that says that women cannot command starships other than the rantings of a character written to be imbalanced. There's a line where Kirk says her treatment wasn't fair, but she's supposedly dying in bed at that point. Who argues with someone on their deathbed about matters which, in the context of dying, mean little?

Moments later, that same woman rants that Kirk always wanted to kill her:

"You should've smothered the life in me. Then they would have said Doctor Janice Lester died of radiation poisoning in the line of duty. Why didn't you do it? You always wanted to. Didn't you? You had the strength to do it. But you were afraid. You were always afraid. Now Janice Lester takes the place of Captain Kirk. I already possess your physical strength. Only this Captain Kirk is not afraid to kill. Now you know the indignity of being a woman. For you this agony will soon pass, as it has for me. Quiet. Quiet! Believe me, it's better to be dead than to live alone in the body of a woman. It's better to be dead. "

Here's a person who hates herself, for who knows what reasons. But it's likely not because of Starfleet supposedly not allowing women to be captains.

In fact, Trek (on screen canon) shows female captains on starships predate the Federation:

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Erika_Hernandez

 

andriech:

The actual smoking gun line from "Turnabout Intruder" is: "Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women."

Although it could mean that women are not permitted to be starship captains, it might just mean that crazy. murderous Dr. Lester falsely believes that women are not permitted to be starship captains. (She doesn't seem to be a very reliable historian. I'm not convinced that "Kirk walked out on her" is an accurate account, either.)

Also, as has been discussed ad nauseum, the quote might simply mean "Your world and life as a starship captain doesn't permit any time for women in your life.)

I think that Dr. Lester's single line has considerable wiggle room.

More discussion here:

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=225631

 

I'd also like to point out that the ship's executive officer in the very first episode of Star Trek was a woman. One step away from command if the captain himself was incapacitated, and, arguably, in charge of the Enterprise through a substantial part of the episode. It's ridiculous to assume Star Fleet or UESPA would let a woman get that high in rank, yet not allow her to go any further.

Lester washed out because of her own inadequacies as a person, not as a woman, and chose to salve her ego with a fantasy of male domination. A number of explanations will fit the on-screen dialog, as has been discussed.

 

I think a female Captain is a minor issue of how slavish to TOS continuity Axanar will be.

 

Oh, there are several smoking gun lines in "Turnabout Intruder".

Spoiler: more smoking gun lines

Here's a couple more [transcript]:

KIRK: Violence by the lady, perpetrated on Captain Kirk? I ask the assembled personnel to look at Doctor Janice Lester and visualise that historic moment. Can you, can you tell me why Doctor Janice Lester would agree to this ludicrous exchange?

JANICE: Yes. To get the power she craved, to attain a position she doesn't merit by temperament or training. And most of all, she wanted to murder James Kirk, a man who once loved her. But her intense hatred of her own womanhood made life with her impossible.​

The subtext here with the use of the word temperament is that women are too moody to command starships. And the last line of the series:

KIRK: Her life could have been as rich as any woman's, if only. If only.​

Woman, stay in thy place is the message loud and clear. The boldfaced passages are lifted practically verbatim from sexist playbooks. What an unbecoming message to end the show on.

andriech's position here is a very well-supported one, although it's one supported by only a single episode. As mentioned, it's in contradiction with "The Cage" and "The Menagerie".

Based on experience, the chances that we are all going to agree on the interpretation of the episode are exactly zero.

In any case, TI is irrelevant here. The point is that fan films aren't obliged to be slavishly consistent with canon, any more than episodes produced in canon were obliged not to contradict earlier episodes. What's interesting in each fan film production is how each team chooses to adapt the material. Will they stay boxed in by previous continuity and be retrograde, or will they expand the universe, and if they choose to expand, how seamlessly will the new material they bring fit next to the parts of canon that the production incorporates verbatim?

 

And Enterprise retconned any thought of that with the Columbia (NX-02), and her captain Erika Hernandez. The misogyny of the late 1960's can be as easily dismissed as the budget crisis of the production, such as dying a dog pink, gluing a horn to its fur, and calling it an alien in TOS. The times change, and real world prejudices of the time period that reflect in the production can easily be dismissed with a dash of common sense.

 

TOS had ONE exchange that vaguely hinted women might not be allowed to be starship Captains in the episode 'Turnabout Intruder'.

Janice Lester: ...Your world of Starship Captains doesn't admit women. It's not fair..."

James T. Kirk: "No, it isn't..."

HOWEVER - it's pretty clear janice lester was nuts; and further, that she and Kirk had argued the situation before, and Kirk's response in the episode might have just been to placate Lester, and avoid another argument/outburst. IMO - it's just as likely janice lester failed her Psych evaluation, but saw that as an excuse for Star Fleet denying her a command.

Given what was shown in the original TOS Pilot episode "The Cage"; where the female character 'Number One' is the First Officer, and Pike's second in command (and she does in fact assume command when Pike is captured) - it leads me to think that Janice Lester's comment is just one of a bitter woman who was denied command for a valid reason; and not an indication the women are bared from Starship command in the 23rd century era; either before of after Pike's time.

 

While Facebook might not be everyone's cup of tea, a lot of people use it. Axanar also has a forum: http://startrekaxanar.invisionzone.com/

 

There have definitely been women star ship captains in Trek Cannon.

Dropping out of TREK for a moment... In the here and now:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/royal-navy-commander-sarah-west-3016527

 

Certainly canonical Trek has dispensed long ago with the idea that women cannot command starships, and as a number of folks here have already pointed out, even the dialogue in "Turnabout Intruder" is easily interpretable as Janice Lester's hangups, not anything resembling "official StarFleet policy".

Beyond the canonical, licensed Trek had been featuring female COs for a long time, too. One of my favorites is CAPT Nechama Rabin, first CO of the USS Farragut.

So am I bothered by Kate Vernon's character in "Axanar"? Not at all. In fact, I'm hugely looking forward to seeing it, and her. I've been interacting with some of the folks working on putting "Axanar" together, and while I'm way out on the periphery of that group, one thing is abundantly clear. The people who have spearheaded this project LOVE Star Trek, and will do their level best to make what's on the screen worth watching, not just as Star Trek, but as a movie, too.

They have my support and enthusiasm, at least!

Best,
Alex

 

There was very little, if any, subtext in Turnabout Intruder. It was all spelled out. Janice Lester was batcrap insane. She couldn't have Jim Kirk, so she decided to become Jim Kirk.

The throwaway line about women captains was just that. Throwaway. Kirk's "temperament or training" line had nothing to do with keeping women ""in their place." It only meant what he said. Janice Lester was not fit to be a starship captain because she did not have the temperament or training. Whether other females could qualify was never in question.

The last line ending with "if only" just means that if she wasn't completely full goose bozo she might have had a full, rich life. But because she wasn't qualified or capable, she blamed the man who left her and drove herself to madness and murder.

Seriously, people try to read too much between the lines. There aren't that many lines to read between.

 

^ Well, I'm on board with CorporalCaptain's analysis of the episode itself, but the basic takeaway is that no matter what the episode said or didn't say, no current-day director ought to feel all that bound by it.

 

We don't disagree on that last part.

 

In the Starfleet meeting room in STID there was a woman with captain's rank stripes and another with commander's. So while that's a different universe it is the 23rd century. Also there was the captain of the Saratoga in TVH. I think it's a non-issue.