Spoilers Yeah... I give up - Star Trek has abandoned philosophical naturalism - it's depressing/juvenile
- Thread starter INACTIVEUSS Einstein
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This is the best post in the thread. If this was a show dealing with modern issues and war, it would features the Klingons invading a world, and millions of refugees being forced onto Earth, Andor and Vulcan, and how society reacts to it, their different social mores - the Orville has done more in this area.
The issue, other than it's abandonment of naturalism, is, as you say, it's abandonment of humanism.
Sorry. That’s one of the things I like about it.
I must disagree on this point. The most effective way for a writer to pull the rug out from under the reader/viewer is to construct the reveal such that it also pulls the rug out from under the characters. Clues should be seeded judiciously through careful foreshadowing such that the audience looks back at the moment of revelation and only then puts it all together. Discovery's writers can't manage to set things up without placing traffic cones, safety tape, flashing signs, and road flares around any twist. I don't care how artfully the reveal is crafted. If the outcome is already easily guessed, the reveal is empty window dressing.
Bye now!
Are you going to start threads about how stupid it was for Spock to stick his soul into McCoy? How about all the space wizards that we've seen over time, starting with the very first two episodes? You can't claim that a bunch of Vulcans banging gongs to cast Revivify is any more naturalistic than communicating with an interdimensional fungus.
It's kind of perfect for 2018 media, though. Blends with the American political landscape.
Spock's Katra, anyone?
Sure, we could invent some technobabble reason that Spock's Katra could possibly be transferred (and held) by McCoy, but when you get right down to it, it is mystical story about Spock's spiritual soul.
And then there is all of the Bajoran religious story lines in DS9. Again, the writers invented the wormhole aliens to explain it, but those stories were very mystical.
Sure, we could invent some technobabble reason that Spock's Katra could possibly be transferred (and held) by McCoy, but when you get right down to it, it is mystical story about Spock's spiritual soul.
And then there is all of the Bajoran religious story lines in DS9. Again, the writers invented the wormhole aliens to explain it, but those stories were very mystical.
Star Trek never wholly embraced naturalism though. If anything it embraced the fantastical more than the naturalistic. TOS was meant to be hornblower in space. Yeah it explored some societal themes, but it was also filled with fantastical elements like space monsters, god-like aliens, and shatner's acting.
TNG was the same, yeah it had it's philosophical episodes, but then it also had things like crystalline entities, picard getting turned into a kid, and Crusher having sex with a space ghost that lived in a candle. How many times were problems solved by power being rerouted somewhere or using the deflector dish to emit some made up particles?
Deep Space Nine may have explored religion but at least it was a fairly nuanced in it's examination. You had religious fanatics represented by Kai Winn, the Vorta and the Jem'Hadar, Religious moderates represented by Kira and Non-Believers represented by people like Sisko (in the beginning) Dax, Odo and others. It was topical then and remains topical to this day. Why can science fiction not be used to explore religion?
Do most of the fanbase care about the philosophical, naturalistic aspects though? In my experience, the debates about canon, technobabble and whether the Akira class starship has 5 or 15 torpedo launchers and can carry fighter jets seem to far outweigh the philosophical debates.
TNG was the same, yeah it had it's philosophical episodes, but then it also had things like crystalline entities, picard getting turned into a kid, and Crusher having sex with a space ghost that lived in a candle. How many times were problems solved by power being rerouted somewhere or using the deflector dish to emit some made up particles?
Deep Space Nine may have explored religion but at least it was a fairly nuanced in it's examination. You had religious fanatics represented by Kai Winn, the Vorta and the Jem'Hadar, Religious moderates represented by Kira and Non-Believers represented by people like Sisko (in the beginning) Dax, Odo and others. It was topical then and remains topical to this day. Why can science fiction not be used to explore religion?
Do most of the fanbase care about the philosophical, naturalistic aspects though? In my experience, the debates about canon, technobabble and whether the Akira class starship has 5 or 15 torpedo launchers and can carry fighter jets seem to far outweigh the philosophical debates.
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Everyone knows it has 18, fake fan!
TEH TECH MANULE ONLY SHOWS 15!!!!!!!111!!!! WHERE ARE THE OTHER 3????!???!!!!!!?!?!??!?
But, enough about DS9...*rimshot*
Largely, the DISCO story has come from the fact that these are not optimistic times. Naturalistic philosophy, despite its name, isn't something that is just given-it has to grow from somewhere. We are discovering the manure from which TOS arose.
I would rather have the dynamic story, even with the darker undertones than the episodic format with nice and neat packaging about controversial issues.
TEH TECH MANULE ONLY SHOWS 15!!!!!!!111!!!! WHERE ARE THE OTHER 3????!???!!!!!!?!?!??!?
But the screen shot here! Clearly shows 1 more on each side! And this quote from tweeter from the artiest says....
Sounds like a better time.
This is what I don't understand, why people can't see where this has been heading from the start. The show-runners and writers have stated it explicitly many times. This show is showing how they got to a more enlightened, more hopeful society. It goes on a journey of inner as well as outer discovery. They are gonna be tested by difficult crises, where their ideals are put in question. It's going to be a struggle, not something easy. Do they stick by their principles or just go 'to hell with it, the ends justifies the terrible means' like Lorca sai?. Do they grow as a collective, lean on each other and aspire to do better or do they fall into their individual abysses. This is what makes Discovery so damned awesome to me.
A utopic mindset that's not hard-earned is useless to me. It's another imposed ideology on people who've never had to deal with true hardship. As much as I once loved TNG, I find the message to be self-righteous and smug at times. Like an after school special in terms of how certain topics were dealt with, all done by
Discovery's story is obviously not for everyone. That's cool. Just don't pretend it's more of a departure than TMP was from TOS, or TNG from TOS or DS9 from TNG etc. Each series has tried to find its own feet and it's own message. You may not like how much more serialized and nuanced the moral and philosophical dilemmas are, but they're still there. If you don't like this iteration of Trek, that's fine. Just don't try to tell me it's not just as much Trek in its identity as everything that preceded it.
A utopic mindset that's not hard-earned is useless to me. It's another imposed ideology on people who've never had to deal with true hardship. As much as I once loved TNG, I find the message to be self-righteous and smug at times. Like an after school special in terms of how certain topics were dealt with, all done by
Discovery's story is obviously not for everyone. That's cool. Just don't pretend it's more of a departure than TMP was from TOS, or TNG from TOS or DS9 from TNG etc. Each series has tried to find its own feet and it's own message. You may not like how much more serialized and nuanced the moral and philosophical dilemmas are, but they're still there. If you don't like this iteration of Trek, that's fine. Just don't try to tell me it's not just as much Trek in its identity as everything that preceded it.
I agree with this assessment - and I lean toward a Libertarian/Autarchist point of view. The entertainment industry as a whole tends to promote a sort of 'Pop Progressivism' that is very much reflective of whatever happens to be trendy at the moment. It's all about momentary popularity but few if any spend the time to think about the real implications of what they are promoting with any depth.
I wouldn't mind seeing some iteration of Star Trek dealing with these in a thoughtful intelligent way; even more so if the storytellers would dare to take on the view that a typically liberal or progressive approach may not always be the best perspective from which to solve a particular problem. For example how do you deal with the doomsday scenario above if the only way to save the largest number of people is to sacrifice that civilization? What are the limits of 'tolerance' of as a cultural ideal? Is diversity in all it's forms always a strength? When can it be a weakness?
Television has changed and so has the world around it since the last incarnation of Star Trek was on the air (not to speak of TOS). One reason for the change may be that we are now constantly bombarded by these sorts of socio-political questions on a daily basis. The original Star Trek (and Twilight Zone etc) dealt with these issues by 'hiding' them in a science fiction context because censorship of the time would not allow them to be dealt with directly or openly. That is no longer the case.
In that sense Star Trek is no longer 'needed' in the same way it may have been in the past. Perhaps this is just the natural evolution of entertainment in general.
Well said - I couldn't agree more.
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