Baggage you wish Star Trek could be free of?

[Kor]

We could do with leaving behind the one dimensional alien races. It had it's day with Vulcans, but by the time the Ferengis came around, it was kind of insulting. Constantly taking an aspect of human behavior and isolating as a defining characteristic of a whole group of people, while useful to a point, wears thin damn fast. I honestly don't think that was the intention the Vulcan race was meant to have, that every alien race from then on be a stereotype, even if there's a cheap ability to use it as a commentary on life

The only character arc you can possibly get from it is "Can Character X finally break free of their narrow minded ways, in order to become an actual person?"

Maybe this is a reflection on our inability to write alien characters that are alien. We only have the human point of view to draw upon.

Literary science fiction does aliens much better than TV ever has.

Kor

 

[martok2112]

Two of the best aliens ever portrayed on screen:

Jeriba Shigan from Enemy Mine

The titular menace from ALIEN.

 

[Richard Baker]

Two of the best aliens ever portrayed on screen:

Jeriba Shigan from Enemy Mine

The titular menace from ALIEN.

TMA-1 from 2001. So different it is not even recognized as a lifeform (I count it because it was clearly one in the book written at the same time as the movie was filmed).

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

The idea that the humans (and other races) of the 23rd and 24th centuries are more evolved than the humans of today; people are people, which won't change just because humanity can travel at speeds faster than light.

--Sran

 

[martok2112]

Two of the best aliens ever portrayed on screen:

Jeriba Shigan from Enemy Mine

The titular menace from ALIEN.

TMA-1 from 2001. So different it is not even recognized as a lifeform (I count it because it was clearly one in the book written at the same time as the movie was filmed).

Good choice.
Makes me wanna watch that film again. I loved the cinematography. It was shot in 67-68, and looks like it was made in the early '80s. Simply stunning.

 

[Kor]

^ One of my favorite SF films.
Though I have to be in the exact right kind of mood to sit down and watch the whole thing.

As far as people having a problem with "one dimensional" alien races... maybe diversity and multiculturalism are purely human traits, and we shouldn't expect extraterrestrials to be that way.

Kor

 

[JWPlatt]

The idea that the humans (and other races) of the 23rd and 24th centuries are more evolved than the humans of today; people are people, which won't change just because humanity can travel at speeds faster than light.

Tell that to Tom Paris. Ha!

Perhaps you are conflating physical and social evolution?

Part of the fiction of Star Trek is that we solved the basic problems enough that we were ready to join, even help form, an interstellar community. I would class a meritocratic society where everyone has opportunity and no one goes poor or hungry as requiring and implying significant social evolution. We can't judge that future by our incredibly slow, or lack of, progress today. In the fiction, the evolution is stipulated.

 

[T'Girl]

In the fiction, the evolution is stipulated.

Or is just something that exists in the "Picard Bubble."

An assumption that doesn't bear up to close examination of the greater society.

 

[Starborn Dragon]

The idea that the humans (and other races) of the 23rd and 24th centuries are more evolved than the humans of today; people are people, which won't change just because humanity can travel at speeds faster than light.

Tell that to Tom Paris. Ha!

Perhaps you are conflating physical and social evolution?

Part of the fiction of Star Trek is that we solved the basic problems enough that we were ready to join, even help form, an interstellar community. I would class a meritocratic society where everyone has opportunity and no one goes poor or hungry as requiring and implying significant social evolution. We can't judge that future by our incredibly slow, or lack of, progress today. In the fiction, the evolution is stipulated.

It may not be a realistic or plausible but it is a good message. One that I try to embrace,

And it can be done because not everybody is so locked into their tribal xenophobic fear of people who are different than. Just an awful lot of people.

 

[Ithekro]

In the fiction, the evolution is stipulated.

Or is just something that exists in the "Picard Bubble."

An assumption that doesn't bear up to close examination of the greater society.

And yet it is repeated several times by people that are not Picard including at least one civilian.

 

[martok2112]

^ One of my favorite SF films.
Though I have to be in the exact right kind of mood to sit down and watch the whole thing.


Kor

Aye.... if I watch it, I usually just skip right on to the future starting with the orbital laser defense platform.

 

[uniderth]

And it can be done because not everybody is so locked into their tribal xenophobic fear of people who are different than. Just an awful lot of people.

Ironic though because I think that for such a thing to happen we would need to re-embrace our tribal nature. We should be moving more in harmony with our natural evolution. We would be living in smaller communities of closely related family groups.

Based on my theory I tend to think that by Picard's time and probably even Kirk's the "advanced humans" line has become more of a platitude. Cultures are ALWAYS changing and the "advanced" humans of Kirk's time are going to be vastly different than the "advanced" humans of Picard's time.

I would say that the golden age of "advanced" humanity hit in the mid to late 22nd century. It would have changed and evolved since then.