And with all due respect, the Prime Directive doesn't stink of utopia.
Star Trek Picard is not Star Trek
- Thread starter AnotherGalaxys
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That is extremely pedantic. I think most of us here have watched and rewatched these series far more than we ought to have. That everyone is going to take away something different from all those viewings is normal.
McCoy and Kirk routinely made racist jokes at Spock's expense. If this were a modern military force he would have filed so many complaints Kirk would be busted down to hospitality ensign on the USS Ravenous. There wasn't ROOM for bigotry on Kirk's ship, when he wasn't having a go at Spock
How many episodes were spent discovering new planets? In one of those, Errand of Mercy, Spock specifically takes the role of a Vulcan merchant. Kirk mentions payday at some point in another episode. There are so many allusions or direct mentions of money in Star Trek that it is accepted mostly that some kind of currency existed. That is a thread that has been done many times, and I've lost interest in discussing it, but there are still many a person willing to vigorously punch the clown thinking about how money works or doesn't work in Star Trek. Prime Directive/General Order 1: exists in the story to get repeatedly violated, or as an excuse for Archer to commit mass murder.
except it wasn't. Saint Gene would not allow writers to have contlict within the crew. TNG season 1 may have reused a plot or two and had colorful uniforms, but it is about as TOS'y as Mr Roger's Friendly Neighborhood. Gene hamstrung his writing staff, and they didn't get truly free until he kicked the bucket.
To make a lot of money and hire his mistress?
The Klingon culture that we saw in several episodes (there were a few that just had them as villains of the week) of TOS carries over to what we had in the movies and TNG (which is where the full fledged Klingon culture was born). They even brought back 3 actors, including two of the most Klingon of Klingons, Kor and Kang, in DS9 to repirse their roles. And the series eventually got around to providing an explanation, but Star Trek VI had already done that with Chang (put hair on his head and he would have no visible ridges). But the mutation and fix that Enterprise added makes everything makes sense (so no, the fans hadn't really gotten over it because it was addressed whey they went back to an earlier time). So just throwing all that out to make brand new Klingons is not following canon, it is rewriting it. That is what reboots do, not canon-inclusive sequels. Picard is making it clear just how badly Discovery botched it by doing it right this time. Kor, the first Klingon we met was really the template for all the Klingons who came after. Gruff, arrogant, following his own code, a warrior, unapplogetic, fierce, etc. Even Discovery, for all their changes to the lore, kept what John Colicos started.
But we are supposed to be discussing what has changed for Picard to be labeled "not Star Trek". I am nearly as familiar with TNG as TOS and I can't pinpoint anything that has changed. Rather than change things, the creators of Picard have dug deep into canon and pulled out ideas that they feel they can explore further and deeper. The characters have left the main Federation and are in unexplored territory (at least for a Star Trek series). The two major worlds we have visited are not part of the Federation. One is a seedy underbelly world, reminiscent of the old FASA Triangle region. The other is a Romulan refugee colony. We are decidedly out of Starfleet and not subject to its rules. We saw the crew dress up to play parts (which we have seen many times in TNG, often to avoid violating the prime directive) to rescue someone. It's not like Star Trek has not had it's fair share of murders in the past. Lenore Karidian for example. So I'm at a loss as to what has changed to consider Picard "not Star Trek". They have done the opposite of Discovery. They have kept the characters true. The world remains true (though they have built an issue in it - one that we have seen before). We are 20 years after the end of TNG and its final film so the technology changes are not a huge leap. Now, the story is darker, but how is that an issue. Star Trek doesn't have to be about bright cheery settings. It hasn't always been, though this is probably darker than we have seen before. But we have also traveled into the future into a new age of story telling and television. This is not broadcast TV, but streaming. Does being darker change what makes something Star Trek? I don't think so. That wasn't my objection to Discovery. Blood, swearing, dark stories... we've seen it before. Don't remember the swearing. How many times did Picard say "merd"? It means shit in French. So they have gone to streaming and made Star Trek more adult for the 21st century. Otherwise this is the same Star Trek. More realism, more grit, with the same dream of a better future that underpins it all. That is still Star Trek.
So basically Gene Roddenberry wanted you all to live in 2002-2007 European Union?
so my theory is correct and there ARE open-air Parisian pissoirs built into Enterprise's corridor walls every so often.
Well, that is one way to look at it. Not the way I ever have. Like I said (something you didn't chose to quote), you have to look at TOS in its era, not like it was made today. I would describe the what goes on between Kirk, McCoy and Spock as what passed for friendly banter at the time. It was part the exploration of Spock's alienness and humanity.
Also, they writers were not free of Gene's rule of no conflict when he kicked the bucket. That existed while Berman and Pillar were in charge. I for one think it was an excellent idea. It forced the writers to bring in conflict from the outside and I think created better stories. Season 3-6 of TNG are outstanding and I think some of the best Star Trek ever made.
And I really do see TNG Season 1 as a continuation of TOS. It has that feel, which didn't work so well in the late 80's. It has some stories that were recycled or could have been in TOS. I'm surprised that they didn't reuse any more of the Phase II stories since the new cast was perfect for it. They did recycle a couple of them later. It wasn't until Season 2 that TNG started to reallybreak away from TOS and it wasn't until after the writer's strike that they ended up with the type of scripts they needed (evidently partially due to the writer's strike). Picard has roots in one of those stories - Measure of a Man. The Offspring as well. Best of Both Worlds came out of that, as did Yesterday's Enterprise. But Season 1 was too much like recycled TOS and it didn't fit the new crew or the new time. But it was very comforting for those of us who had been fans a long time. It made it familiar and let us get to know the crew.
Boy, you really missed a key aspect of the Prime Directive. A growing a developing society. When Kirk does act, it is because it is either stagnant or been interfered with already so the Prime Directive does not apply, In A Private Little War, Kirk acts to counter Klingon interference. In The Apple, Kirk frees a stagnant population from a controlling computer (same as in Return of the Archons and For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky). It is brought up before Kirk ever interferes.
Anyway guys there are only two issues with discovery klingons that really bumps with canon:
Their spaceship design and the fact that they are BIG.
TOS klingons look more human just because the makeup compartment was not as advanced as in TNG and that's the real issue. ENT retconned that klingons looked that way because they got a virus, but to me it looks like they desperately wanted to make TOS look better even if it was already an old show at that point.
Discovery season 1 shows hairless klingons because they shaved for war (the in-lore explanation is that they wanted to make an allegory to the hairlock that Khaless threw into the volcano or something like that) and in fact in season 2 they have hairs again and they look more similar to TNG and DS9 klingons.
But they look way fattier, they really should lose weight!
I would expect a pre-TOS klingon to look more like those from The Undiscovered Country (oh also the main adversary there is a shaved klingon too)
As for spaceship design I don't think I have to explain that. While Klingons look pretty much the same from the 80s to the early 2000s, klingon spaceships looks almost the same from the 60s. I would have chose a different spaceship design
Their spaceship design and the fact that they are BIG.
TOS klingons look more human just because the makeup compartment was not as advanced as in TNG and that's the real issue. ENT retconned that klingons looked that way because they got a virus, but to me it looks like they desperately wanted to make TOS look better even if it was already an old show at that point.
Discovery season 1 shows hairless klingons because they shaved for war (the in-lore explanation is that they wanted to make an allegory to the hairlock that Khaless threw into the volcano or something like that) and in fact in season 2 they have hairs again and they look more similar to TNG and DS9 klingons.
But they look way fattier, they really should lose weight!
I would expect a pre-TOS klingon to look more like those from The Undiscovered Country (oh also the main adversary there is a shaved klingon too)
As for spaceship design I don't think I have to explain that. While Klingons look pretty much the same from the 80s to the early 2000s, klingon spaceships looks almost the same from the 60s. I would have chose a different spaceship design
I don't think I'd call how Star Trek portrays our future as a real utopia. It is utopian in that we have grown up and are better than we are now. Gene's vision of that in the 60's was limited by what he could actually show. It comes up now and again, but the series had to stick very close to 60's norms to stay on the air. NBC wanted action and adventure but Gene gave them philosophy as well. He cast the series so that modern audience don't even notice what at the time was one of the most diverse casts on TV. He made it very forward, but he had to be careful to avoid making it seem like he was championing communism. So what TOS shows is very limited, but it is there. TNG didn't have those same limits and Gene was free to craft things how he liked them and so we have a much nearer utopian society. It is not a pure utopia, but it takes us to a workable approximation of that. So even TNG is not a utopia, but it the best word to use. According to the dictionary a utopia is an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. Things are not perfect, even in TNG. But from today I'd say that we get an image of where we'd end up in the 22nd century (Enterprise), the 23rd century (TOS and movies), and the 24th century (TNG, DS9, and Voyager and now Picard). Nothing is ever perfect. No season of TNG ever portrayed the Federation and Starfleet as perfect, but it does follow a progression and is closer to it even than TOS. So utopian is an imperfect word, but the one I've seen used to describe it most often.
LOL... nice one.
Perhaps....but you'd never hear the New Humans saying such vile, revolting, offensive non-family-friendly things.
Gotta disagree. TOS was optimistic in that it took place in a future that was better than 1966, in a future that one might actually want to live in (as opposed to some dystopian cautionary fable), but it wasn't utopian, nor had humans "evolved" beyond our mortal flaws and weaknesses. We were still a half-savage child race--as god-like aliens never ceased to remind us.
Indeed, as I've pointed out many times before, TOS was actually pretty suspicious of utopias. Anytime they found a planet where people seemed to be a little too peaceful and happy, you could count on there being a fly in the ointment: alien spores, an insane computer-god, a brain-washing ray, etc.
"Maybe we're not meant to live in Paradise," sayeth James T. Kirk, more than once.
What about Love Instructors? Do they get a little leeway when its time to explain talking dirty?
What you described is progress, not utopia. Most people don't confuse the two.
I really should finish watching DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise. I've spot watched everything between Trials and Tribbleations and Flashback to In A Mirror Darkly, but I really should binge them. Maybe when the kids are older. The finale's for each are okay, but I just didn't get the feeling that the series were nearly as good as I had hoped.
***Ding****Ding****Ding***
"So utopian is an imperfect word, but the one I've seen used to describe it most often."
The prime directive itself is not utopian. It's a deep ethical principle, but we can see it in modern earth also.
Have you ever heard of the so called "uncontacted tribes"? There are people who don't even know about modernity yet, they still live in a pre-medieval society hunting with bow and arrows to live.
The common approach with those is to let them be and study them from afar (much like pre-curvature aliens in the Trek franchise).
I could also argue that you can still have an utopia without the prime directive, just imagine if Kirk would be able to go to a planet full of savages and teach them how to build spaceships!
They don't do that just because it's more convenient plot-wise: what's better, a story about imposing your culture to others or a story about acting as a caring father and watching your children live and grow up by themselves?
Because you and others have used it improperly in order to make invalid claims on the franchise. Don't equivocate!
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