Yeah but that's the whole point though...
Has the Trek franchise exhausted itself
- Thread starter Voth commando1
- Start date
For the record, social commentary and preaching the virtues of progress orients the show to me, and a lot of other fans, clearly, since people have loved Trek and its message for 50 years.
Just write myriad universe novels about Sisko in the Klingon war verse, or novels that have fist fights between Organians and Q
Do more mirror universe novels, expand, expand, expand
Orient it to fan service and exploring/developing the universe of Trek for Trek's sake.
Do more mirror universe novels, expand, expand, expand
Orient it to fan service and exploring/developing the universe of Trek for Trek's sake.
But the message is layered within those stories. It was in the original stories that inspired those peripheral works you want to see.
True but as been stated previously the market for that message has declined(for good or ill) and the "peripheral" stories I and I'm sure other fans would like to see deserve the light of day simply because the universe exists that we can imagine them in.
None of that has anything to do with social commentary. You can't just say any half-baked bromide (and yes, "great leaders need great mentors" is precisely the kind of vapid, trite, little tautology I'd call a bromide) is social commentary. Nor is a handwave to "current research" really an argument either. CITE a study, don't just grab at the mantle of almighty science in attempt to give your specious sayings unearned legitimacy
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I think there's still people who like those stories. And sure while not every Trek story is about those issues, social progress is inherent within the universe. The UFP and Starfleet and United Earth are inherently social progress statements. I'd hate to see writers turn cynical (a rather un-Trek trait) and think their stories can't say anything at all for fear of alienating people.
Alienating people is not the problem, part of the problem is the opposite bending over backwards to accomadate people who aren't into sci fi in general-offenders-DS9, Enterprise, the Kelvinverse.
The movers and shakers of the franchise should understand their will always be a fanbase yes a declining one but one that could last well into the future exploring the wonderful universe Roddenberry set up for its own sake.
First of all, Roddenberry did not set Star Trek up on his own. Second, Roddenberry and the other creators of the franchise did not set it up for its own sake. It exists for two purposes: (1) to make money by entertaining as wide an audience as possible; (2) to make insightful commentary about real-world situations, both scientific and social. Both those purposes are inimical to your desire for the franchise to retreat into inaccessible, self-referential escapism in the name of catering to a vocal minority proclaiming themselves to be the voice of the fan(atic)s and their preferences.
Google is your friend, my friend
Link 1 goes to the Huffington Post with a write up by a doctor of human behavior
Link 2 goes to the Importance of Father's by a clinical psychologist regarding fathers and their influence on children's behavior.
Link 3 is an adaptation of a hardcover book on Scientific American and fathers influence upon teens behavior.
Those are quick results and do no get in to the research articles that I certainly could look up from my school, or personal anecdotes from individuals I have interviewed over the years of researching counseling and psychology.
The fact that it gets dismissed out of hand as a bromide or tautology is more interesting to me than the commentary itself. The general resistance to the importance of fatherhood indicates to me that such a story in ST 09 is not only commentary, but needs to be done again in a less subtle way, as Trek has done in the past.
Yes, alienating people is the problem. Star Trek, as a franchise, cannot grow and be introduced to new audiences if the show becomes so self-referential and clings to past glories that the average person cannot get in to it. Why would a franchise want to limited in that way?
Star Trek is intimidating enough as it is. Kelvin universe at least made some changes (for good or ill) that allowed non-science fiction fans, like my wife, to actually get to know the universe and enjoy the characters. She even tried watching DS9 after that, so there was a good way for her to dip her toe in the pool.
GR set up an entertainment franchise to make money off of, as well as employ some social commentary. His first goal was to entertain, and when it looked like he wouldn't make money, he prepared to move on to the next show (Assignment: Earth).
Star Trek, as a franchise, moved in to a pretentious mode with TNG, and that carried forward as a long shadow in to ENT. Humanity has evolved, and we no longer employ these barbaric methods from the 21st century. Perhaps that is how history will regard this century, but it certainly isn't a way to hook an audience unless they enjoy being looked down upon by the protagonists.
tl: dr-Star Trek needs to become more accessible, not less.
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Google is your friend, my friend
You can shove your sarcasm out the airlock. When YOU make a claim, it's on YOU to cite it. If you aren't willing to do the footwork, dont make the claim in the first place.
This issue at hand isn't "father's: good or bad?". The issue is your poor arguments. You can't seem to grasp the difference between a study that concludes children with father's are less likely go up to be impoverished or suffer from psychological issues (which is not a recent discovery) and the statement I took exception to earlier.
See, those studies make specific, testable claims. "Great leaders need great mentors" on the other hand is vague as hell. "Great" is not a scientific term, for one, and that's just for starters.
The validity (which I'm not even going to dispute) of your sources themselves is ⅓ of the argument you need to make. The second is demonstrating the cited trek matieral says what you claim it does. The third is connecting the two claims, proving study X supports your analysis of movie or episode Y. In other words, prove that the study is relevant to the conversation. That is an argument. That is what I claim you haven't done.
And I don't just mean the connecting your claims. The scientific consensus on the institution of fatherhood is literally the ONLY thing you've said I don't dispute.
Applying that to Kirk, however, I disagree absolutely. We have no idea what the childhood of either Jim Kirk was like. All we know about Prime George Kirk is that he lived a lot longer than JJGeorge. That's it. The TOS writers deliberately made JTKs upbringing vague. Jim was presented fully formed without an origin.
By the same token, all we know about Alternate Jim's step dad is that he liked old cars. We don't even know how long he took care of Jim.
We *do* know about Sarek, enough to know he wasn't a particularly good father.
This, and what followed, does not seem related to the argument at hand. You seem to like JJTrek. Find. Enjoy. Just keep THIS conversation on track.
Self referential escapism as you so condescendingly put it is why fiction exists today.
The hostility is unnecessary.
We have evidence in the form of Spock Prime's comments about Kirk Prime and his dad. The absence of George Kirk left a mark on Kelvin Kirk in a way that he asked Prime Spock about it, and there is a moment of pain as Kelvin Kirk reflects on that.
That's the connection that I see, but I am appreciating your pointing out were I have made a deficient argument. I will work to improve on that.
It was not in response to you.
I don't know how you could defend that broad claim.
If you want to talk about the historical origins of the concept and practice of "fiction," they are not self-referential escapism.
If you want to talk about what kind of fiction makes money today (and thus gets created most often), again, it's not self-referential escapism. By contrast, relevance and mass appeal are two things at the top of the list of what commercial fiction tries to create and how marketers of fiction try to sell it.
Quoted for truth.
I hope the franchise doesn't reach the state that the Q continuum does in Death Wish where this nothing left to say and everything that can be done has been done.
Thank you.
The only way to avoid that is to introduce new audience members, new ideas, new styles and concepts, take some risks, make some mistakes, and learn from them.
This. The road to obsolesce is to continue to trade in past glories and offering nothing of relevance for the next generation.
It's a good description of the current state of the Star Wars franchise, that's for sure. So for anyone to hoist this up as a cardinal sin that destroys any and all sci-fi franchises isn't accurate.
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