We now know they drive cars rather than beaming anywhere. They don't even take public transportation which is disappointing. The sick kid's parents live in a normal looking home with a real alarm clock. I couldn't tell amongst all the destruction if there were shops or anything. I'd like to know if anyone noticed anything else. It came off to me like any other future Earth from Back to the Future 2 or Demolition Man or I, Robot. Nothing particularly trekian. Where was the public sex? That's what Gene would've wanted.
Gene Roddenberry was a visionary and a deeply progressive man in many areas. He also was lying his butt off in his claims he had one singular vision which didn't change or evolve over the years. Likewise, what we know of as Star Trek, has been shaped by hundreds of writers over the years as well as the actors themselves. JJ Abrams chose to emphasize this is *OUR* world in the future and a not terribly distant future at that. I appreciated that.
I noticed a kind of swish dressage inspired fashion was in evidence. Though this may the usual "oh 'tis england" embarrassment america often does. Still, it looked nifty.
There is probably public transport, but the major 20th/21st century environmental arguments for public transport have probably been alleviated by the fact that cars are carbon-neutral. I don't actually believe that humanity would ever change enough for "public sex" - not sure where I ever heard of Roddenberry advocating that? Closest you would find that is I suppose Logan's Run? But no hint of it in Trek.
I like the idea that not everything is going to change in the 23rd-Century. Yes, you'll see some aliens here and there, and the occasional shuttlecraft flying overhead, but quite a few parts of Earth may otherwise look indistinguishable from how they are today (while in other areas, the changes may be more profound).
Not surprising that there would still be a lot of use of cars and public transit. If everybody transported everywhere, the 'bandwidth' may have become crowded and prone to malfunctions. Besides there would have to be transporter stations everywhere which would tend to ruin the landscape. Possibly derived from Gene's concept of "new humans", which IIRC had a rudimentary collective consciousness (or at least could generate one), walked around naked all the time, hated Starfleet and any kind of authority structure, the type of thing that you would not be at all surprised Gene could come up with (especially if you read the novelization of TMP ).
Yeah that's a good point. I can also imagine constant beaming to be really disruptive to the serenity of any given environment in the utopia. I wouldn't want to sit at a coffee shop and listen to a transporter across the street. And yeah I'm joking about public sex.
I agree that some things should not change, a few little details like the antique alarm clock make the future relatable to a modern audience. That being said, the future depicted in STID didn't look at all like how I've ever pictured the 23rd century. It looked more like the mid- to late-21st century. Some things stay the same, but most things change. I think The Motion Picture had a more realistic portrayal of future Earth.
I'm pretty sure the Deltans have sex in public - indeed, every facet of the Deltans' existence is sex-oriented. But that's just on their own homeworld.
If you study history it is amazing to see not only what has changed in how we live, but what hasn't chaneged. I think any depiction of the future that seems very radical may turn out to be not accurate.
There was public sex in STID but the footage was censored to be suitable for the outdated views on public decency of the 21st century barbarians. Just like when they show TOS in Victorian England, they cover up women's feet and edit out their make up.
People are irate about a two-second underwear scene. I can't imagine how they would react to rampant public sex everywhere. Transporters are probably too power intensive to completely supplant normal modes of transportation. There are probably civilian transporter hubs located around the city, and of course Starfleet would have greater access to transporters (as seen in DS9 when Sisko would beam from San Francisco to New Orleans to see his dad and Jake each night), but for getting around town, cars are probably much more efficient. In TNG - All Good Things... there was a hovercar that zoomed past Data's building at Cambridge even though later on in Voyager we saw that there are civilian transporter hubs, so the two modes of transport are not mutually exclusive. There was a weird sort of road train thing on the street in San Francisco. It was a bunch of connected pods pulled by the first car. I don't know if that was public transportation or if it was a cargo carrier, though. There was also one of San Francisco's present day cable cars shown still in operation. Plus, there were those dirigible-like craft shown flying above London, and there were flying vehicles everywhere in San Francisco, some of which were probably public transportation. None of the homes or the more elaborate crew quarters like those aboard the Enterprise-D have been exceedingly futuristic looking with their design and decor, with the exception of amenities like the replicator and sonic shower. As far as the alarm clock goes, we're just used to seeing people aboard starships where the ship's computer would wake you up. If you don't have that in your home, there's no reason to think alarm clocks would necessarily be obsolete.