Gene Roddenbury's Vision Is Probably Not Realistic Enough to Be in Our Future

[VulcanMindBlown]

It's interesting, but it's a very lofty goal and paved with wishful thinking. I liked TOS (favorite show) and TNG for what it brought to the table, but ultimately their vision of the future (though not perfect, like in the other thread I made, I discovered) is not going to happen.

Darkness and long stories will win the day in Trek, especially considering what's going on right now in the world.

 

[2takesfrakes]

The real problem with Gene Roddenberry's Vision of/for the Future was that it had ever been taken seriously. STAR TREK needed a "universe" to set the show in, that's all. But there are attractive elements to it, obviously, which seem like they should be attainable. For example, World Peace. Human Reason should naturally gravitate toward this seemingly inevitable outcome. And yet ... it remains an idealistic dream. World Hunger should've most certainly been eliminated, by now ... yet, it's still present and accounted for.

Even in STAR TREK, World Peace was attained only after governments incinerated unsuspecting populations in World War 3. And even then, we didn't learn our lesson, as Colonel Green demonstrated. It took aliens from outerspace ... Vulcans, actually ... to come to Earth and teach us Humans right from wrong. How to live without money, how to embrace the logic of working for the common good and a common future. There's nothing for us mere Humans to do, by STAR TREK's telling ... we just have to be softened up, then handheld and spoonfed what we have to do. That's not any kind of a future reality that I want to believe in. But it does make for interesting fiction ...

 

[BillJ]

"Roddenberry's Vision" was just about making money and getting starlets to put out.

 

[Iamnotspock]

It took aliens from outerspace ... Vulcans, actually ... to come to Earth and teach us Humans right from wrong. How to live without money, how to embrace the logic of working for the common good and a common future. There's nothing for us mere Humans to do, by STAR TREK's telling ... we just have to be softened up, then handheld and spoonfed what we have to do.

That's a Berman-era development though. Roddenberry was the guy who got angry at the whole Chariots of the Gods ancient aliens idea for belittling human accomplishment.

"Roddenberry's Vision" was just about making money and getting starlets to put out.

"I made this show so I could retire to some tropical island filled with naked women. That's Gene Roddenberry. That's his vision."

 

[BillJ]

Roddenberry was the guy who got angry at the whole Chariots of the Gods ancient aliens idea for belittling human accomplishment.

I do agree with Roddenberry there. The Ancient Alien non-sense is just religion in another form.

 

[2takesfrakes]

I have the greatest admiration for Rick Berman and the late Gene Roddenberry. But they had both made very unfortunate missteps in this franchise. What always gets me, though, is that they are perpetuated. I'm not happy that Aliens from Outer Space are Humanity's benefactors ... especially, making them the Vulcans! For godsakes ... But the optimism and hope that STAR TREK employs in describing future centuries is something that does translate, especially in America. The USA has always believed that the future was going to be brighter. Nothing beats good, ol' American Know How ...

 

[BillJ]

The USA has always believed that the future was going to be brighter.

If you're a white Christian male.

 

[The Wormhole]

It's interesting, but it's a very lofty goal and paved with wishful thinking. I liked TOS (favorite show) and TNG for what it brought to the table, but ultimately their vision of the future (though not perfect, like in the other thread I made, I discovered) is not going to happen.

In TOS there is no "Gene's Vision" other than humanity becoming a united race, which could happen. It isn't likely, but it could. It's the utopian enlightenment stuff that humanity becomes in the 24th century which isn't really all that realistic.

 

[TheGoodStuff]

It's interesting, but it's a very lofty goal and paved with wishful thinking. I liked TOS (favorite show) and TNG for what it brought to the table, but ultimately their vision of the future (though not perfect, like in the other thread I made, I discovered) is not going to happen.

Darkness and long stories will win the day in Trek, especially considering what's going on right now in the world.

I couldn't disagree with that last sentence more, and theme of the thread,if I tried.

Darkness, pessimism, doom & gloom have been done to death. Hell, 80's Sci-fi was full of it [Cold War, recession etc]. What Trek has always brought to the table has been the best thing about it: optimism. In a world of negatives, where TV shows love doom and despair, Trek has always risen above those cliches and shown us a potential future.

And that is really the point. Trek's Utopian future is a possibility. 'Gene's Vision', or 'The Spirit of Trek' is a beautiful thing and I think it is part of why people are so fanatical about Trek: its message touches people in a very real, very deep way. It is easy for people to make the usual snide comments about Roddenberry in threads like this but he still gave the world a remarkable franchise, based on positivity, Humanism, tolerance, science, socialism.

And look at the West right now. All of those things are slowly on the rise. Humanism/Atheism is growing, socialism is growing, look at people's rights and how they have changed over the past 50 years alone, tolerance is growing... Human history has been nothing but progress. Slow, painful, progress.

So to cut my essay short: I can't say 'The Vision' is unrealistic. This planet will be ramarkably different by 2150...by 2250 it will be unrecognisable from now. You shouldn't be such a product of your time to call a utopian vision nonsense that will 'never' happen.

'Never' is an awfully long time.

 

[Irishman]

"I made this show so I could retire to some tropical island filled with naked women. That's Gene Roddenberry. That's his vision."

I wonder if that is why they decided to have Zefram Cochrane utter nearly the same line in First Contact? A nod to dismissing ill-placed romantic notions of people, maybe? He said that dollar signs was his vision.

 

[Lynx]

It's interesting, but it's a very lofty goal and paved with wishful thinking. I liked TOS (favorite show) and TNG for what it brought to the table, but ultimately their vision of the future (though not perfect, like in the other thread I made, I discovered) is not going to happen.

Darkness and long stories will win the day in Trek, especially considering what's going on right now in the world.

I have to disagree.

Darkness and gloom is a trend right now, much of that because what is going on in the world today.

But will it be a trend in, let's say 10 years?

Not to mention that we really need something uplifting in these days too. A hope for the future and that is what Star Trek stands for.

There are a dozen or so boring "doom and gloom" series going on right now which will be forgotten in a few years.

But there's only one Star Trek and may it continue to stand for hope for the future and a better life.

 

[Saul]

It's interesting, but it's a very lofty goal and paved with wishful thinking. I liked TOS (favorite show) and TNG for what it brought to the table, but ultimately their vision of the future (though not perfect, like in the other thread I made, I discovered) is not going to happen.

I don't want to wear a skirt in the future so it's ok.
I never felt there is anything wrong with the lofty goals. That's what humanity is about. We at least want to be better even if we can't work it out yet. The idea of that kind of future it appealing to many people, it's a good start.

Darkness and long stories will win the day in Trek, especially considering what's going on right now in the world.

There is always something dark going on in the world. It's just more in our face 24/7 now. But it's nothing new. That's why we need Star Trek more than every to get us through the darkness. And Star Trek did have a WWIII so I think we aren't doing so bad compared to Trek's history.

 

[Horizons96]

Well said, TheGoodStuff.
I agree that it's a very deep - almost archetypal - level Star Trek resonates with us on.
The 'vision' is simply that of positive human progress based on hard work and a commitment to betterment. What could be more realistic?

 

[Doom Shepherd]

Darkness & Gloom is already so overdone that people are starting to make fun of it, hence the pejorative "grimderp," and Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy (Which honestly hit me about halfway through both NuBSG and X-Files.)

 

[The Wormhole]

I wonder if that is why they decided to have Zefram Cochrane utter nearly the same line in First Contact? A nod to dismissing ill-placed romantic notions of people, maybe? He said that dollar signs was his vision.

Berman, Braga, and Moore have denied drawing inspiration from Roddenberry in regards to how Cochrane was depicted in FC. Still hard to overlook the similarities, though.

 

[RAMA]

It's interesting, but it's a very lofty goal and paved with wishful thinking. I liked TOS (favorite show) and TNG for what it brought to the table, but ultimately their vision of the future (though not perfect, like in the other thread I made, I discovered) is not going to happen.

Darkness and long stories will win the day in Trek, especially considering what's going on right now in the world.

You could argue this is the most prosperous, peaceful, least despotic, most technologically advanced time in the history of civilization, and you'd be right. That doesn't stop bad things from happening, but it's also true.

I don't think we'll get to a post scarcity, peaceful humanity the way Gene saw it, (for one thing, biotech, technology and computers will be far more central to it) but there is a very good chance some form of Gene's vision will come to life.

I diverge further from Gene's vision the further we get into the future...eventually we will meld with machines (most likely out of necessity) and this technological version of mankind will be our evolutionary legacy.

I would also suggest that possibly 80% of the technology we've seen in Star Trek--at least in the UFP--will be available before 2050, not the 23rd century or 24th.

 

[suarezguy]

In TOS there is no "Gene's Vision" other than humanity becoming a united race, which could happen. It isn't likely, but it could. It's the utopian enlightenment stuff that humanity becomes in the 24th century which isn't really all that realistic.

I think a lot of people, especially in the '60s, would say the former was pretty utopian.

 

[The Wormhole]

I think a lot of people, especially in the '60s, would say the former was pretty utopian.

There's a difference between "humanity becomes united" and "humanity espouses philosophies about enlightenment and proselytizes to aliens about the human condition as a matter of course."

 

[BillJ]

I really wish we could get away from "Roddenberry's Vision", maybe replace it with "Fan's Vision". It just seems a little more honest since Roddenberry co-opted much of it from the fans in the 70's.

 

[JesterFace]

If not a realistic vision, it's at least hopeful.