I know, right? It's almost as if the producers think Star Trek is supposed to be COOL
Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x07 - "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
You're seriously overthinking this. Consider for a moment that if the producers actually created a speculative futuristic English dialect that realistically reflected 200 years of social and political evolution on Earth, not to mention over a century of global unity under the United Earth superstate, we wouldn't have any idea what the fuck they were saying.
And that assumes that English would even wind up being the dominant language on Earth -- let alone the standard language for Starfleet or the entire Federation -- something which is, at this point, FAR from certain. The language barrier has been removed for our convenience, but sure, but if you want to complain about their vocabulary and dialect being period appropriate, you need to start with the fact that we really shouldn't be able to understand them in the first place.
Wow, what a silly nitpick. Over all of the series, characters have enjoyed vintage art, music, culture and events. Bashir and O'Brian enjoyed replaying the Battle of Britain, Cyrano de Bergerac played on TNG, Riker liked to play his trombone to some 20th Century jazz or swing, others have referenced Rock 'n Roll or even punk rock: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Rock_and_roll.
Louie louie? Really? Now that's high brow.
Why do so many people have a bee in the bonnet about the music in this episode? I can totally buy that the BeeGees made a musical impact and that rap/hip hop which has become such a cultural phenomenon in the past 20 years might also have some avid fans in the future. Is it a class or race thing? I'm just going by the objections in the comments; they come across as really dismissive to how such music might have popular lasting appeal.
Look at Tom Paris, he was obsessed with 20th century music and pop culture. He also loved Captain Proton which might have been 'original' but everyone knows it was totally a 1930's style schlock sci fi horror parody like Flash Gordon. His hobbies were used as plot devices on VOY.
I just don't get how terrible this particular nod to 'vintage' culture is compared to everything which has aired before.
Louie louie? Really? Now that's high brow.
Why do so many people have a bee in the bonnet about the music in this episode? I can totally buy that the BeeGees made a musical impact and that rap/hip hop which has become such a cultural phenomenon in the past 20 years might also have some avid fans in the future. Is it a class or race thing? I'm just going by the objections in the comments; they come across as really dismissive to how such music might have popular lasting appeal.
Look at Tom Paris, he was obsessed with 20th century music and pop culture. He also loved Captain Proton which might have been 'original' but everyone knows it was totally a 1930's style schlock sci fi horror parody like Flash Gordon. His hobbies were used as plot devices on VOY.
I just don't get how terrible this particular nod to 'vintage' culture is compared to everything which has aired before.
Random observation. Is the 'weaponized dark matter' in any way related to the way the Varon T Disruptor works, and could Lorca invent the Varon T Disruptor?
@Subbubint
It has more to do with the current standing of this particular version of the song. It's a song that made a brief impact on MTV for a couple months then went away and nobody really thought about it again. It's just a strange choice for people to be listening to in 250 years. People weren't really even listening to it in 2 years. Nothing to do with 'class or race', I think Hey Ya or something like that would have been a totally believable choice. They might as well be listening to Squirrel Nut Zippers or White Town.
@Subbubint
It has more to do with the current standing of this particular version of the song. It's a song that made a brief impact on MTV for a couple months then went away and nobody really thought about it again. It's just a strange choice for people to be listening to in 250 years. People weren't really even listening to it in 2 years. Nothing to do with 'class or race', I think Hey Ya or something like that would have been a totally believable choice. They might as well be listening to Squirrel Nut Zippers or White Town.
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I think the unfortunate thing is, at this juncture, that there are enough folks who are either so predisposed not to like it and/or have staked out that position so vehemently that nothing that happens on DSC is going to change their minds.
It's unfortunate, because it continues to surprise and it really does feel like "very good Trek" now.
I think there's lots of folks who are missing out.
Not on a planet
Not on a planet
Not on a planet
Not on a planet
(Okay this is bad side Kirk, but the booze is right there in his quarters)
I think people are picking up on the random pattern of social references. Groovy fits the Sixties and maybe original Trek. Then 'groovy' kind of died until Discovery wanted to match it up with another decades influences and music. It's a mess. If Discovery is supposed to morph into a TOS feel era in ten years - it's not working.
I have the suspicion it was meant to be the actual Staying Alive at one point.
If it was the Bee Gees Stayin Alive it would have made a lot more sense than Wyclef Jean's.
I thought the episode was good for 30 minutes, but the ending was a bit poor. It's like Mudd has the entire computer wired to be invincible until the last loop when he's suddenly completely powerless. And the plot they had to finally beat him should have taken more than 10 minutes to organize. It seemed like "It's time for the episode to end. Okay umm they win this time." They set up a great premise then didn't make an effort to earn the resolution. But still, at least they're finally making the characters memorable.
Fair, but you also just described nearly every episode of VOY and like a 1/3 of ENT.
And DSC has far better characters and production values than either of those shows...so it gets a big pass from me.
If it had been the sped-up version used in Airplane!, I'd be all for that.
Yeah, because TNG NEVER did anything like that....oh, wait:
Beaucoup was widely used in Vietnam even before the US military presence. Having been there in the late 1960s, I recall it being used by Vietnamese people trying to communicate with Americans (It WAS, after all, a foreign word) and having a comparative sense of very or a lot of. The weather might be characterized as "boo-coo hot" or an overweight person as "boo-coo fat".
^^^
And what does the above have to do with all this?
From TNG's - "Lonely Among Us" (Episode 7 of TNG's first season BTW):
Yep Star Trek has never used colloquial 20th century words and phrases in it's episodes...oh, wait...
You do know that when someone is nitpicking a single word used by a character in an episode that they are most likely unable / unwilling to see anything you're trying to logically and factually argue for, correct?
People still say groovy. People still listen to older forms of music. This happens every day in the real world. They aren't trying to "match anything up". They're just choosing things that fit.
Do you like this party?
Goldsman said he picked the Wyclef Jean song because it wasn't as well known.
Not on a planet
Not on a planet
Not on a planet
Not on a planet
(Okay this is bad side Kirk, but the booze is right there in his quarters)
Numerous other references as well-
Helen Noel mentioning the Enterprise Christmas party
Scotty mixing the Interphasic Space Antidote with Scotch
Kirk and McCoy drinking together
Party after Sha Ka Ree douchealiengod was defeated
A
Amaris
Guest
The crew in universe and out have embraced the disco.I dug the song choices. And as for one of them, for all we know it was a DSC crew in-joke. One week after the DISCO t-shirts we get a song that's a disco remix? Can't be a coincidence.
Alternate Episode Title: "Panic! On the Disco"
They should use their music in an episode.
Most of their singles titles sound like DISCO episode titles.
My first thought was, "wait, that's right now, or a few years ago." Then I realize it's 15 years ago, but it feels like things haven't changed that much. It's not like the change from '80, when they took my elementary school class down to the office to show they had bought a microcomputer and showed us it could do arithmetic, and '95. But maybe things have change more than I realize.