SG1 wasn't star trek, but was a space adventure of some sort, had a sense of optimism, had positive outcomes, had an end goal, had problems and mysteries, and had relationship dynamics Trek could only wish for.
But it wasn't trek.
What will make it "Star Trek"?
- Thread starter ChallengerHK
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SG1 wasn't star trek, but was a space adventure of some sort, had a sense of optimism, had positive outcomes, had an end goal, had problems and mysteries, and had relationship dynamics Trek could only wish for.
But it wasn't trek.
I don’t agree with people who say that DS9 was not optimistic and positive. A better society in a hopeful future can still face hard situations and difficult choices.
It's important to note that saying "Star Trek must have Quality A to be Star Trek" is not intrinsically the same thing as saying "All things with Quality A are Star Trek."
I was thinking about this the other day but the only thing for a thing to be Star Trek is for it to be set in the Star Trek universe. You don't even need the name Star Trek because Enterprise didn't have it for two years. People would bring up the exploring space and the final frontier, new civilisations, strange worlds, stories about the human condition etc etc. Except there's plenty of stories where that never happens. Star Trek is just a thing that has many flavours of stories. Some are garbage and some are good.
I don't think DS9 is a dystopia, if that's what you mean. Rather, I think it's in a middle ground. The same as with PIC. The jury is out on DSC, depending on how they handle things in the third season.
DS9, DSC, and PIC happen to be my favorite non-TOS Star Trek series. So I don't see this as a bad thing from my standpoint as a viewer.
I should've seen this coming...
It's connected to the Star Trek franchise and TPTB considered it Star Trek. So it's still Star Trek.
I have to assume that they added "Star Trek" to the title later on to lure in viewers who weren't watching it or aware of its franchise connections. I don't know who those people might have been, but I guess they must have exacted -- certainly the Powers That Be must have thought they did and were hoping to gain their patronage (as it were.)
They thought Star Trek was too nerdy and trying to lure in “normal people” by removing it from the title and doing sitcom episodes about a crewman birthday. Very clever!
I find this question very interesting because it ultimately tells nothing but one's preferences for what they would like to see in Star Trek. But for me, Star Trek is ultimately made Star Trek by taking place in the Star Trek universe.
Of course, there are topics and themes that Star Trek has consistently portrayed, but even they aren't exclusive criteria. Star Trek has generally showed us a positive future where humanity wasn't discriminating against each other, eradicated most diseases and lived in abundance, at least on Earth... the frontier has always been another story. Unfortunately, many people have mistaken it to mean that Star Trek portrayed a perfect post-scarcity utopia populated by perfect people, where no dysfunctions of the system ever existed. The newer installments were excluded from the body of Star Trek by many fans because they dared to portray these dysfunctions, for which they were perceived as rejecting the positive vision of Star Trek in its entirety, despite these concepts having been there all along. Tasha grew up on a failed colony plagued by drugs and gang violence after all, and several 24th century Starfleet officers were shown to be racist and prejudiced against aliens... and, of course, the very reason that the Enterprise was visiting all these Federation colonies on the frontier in the first place was that they still had lots of problems to deal with.
These were things that Star Trek did, naturally. But these still aren't what make a series Star Trek. Voyager didn't magically cease being Star Trek the moment they left the Federation and found themselves all alone in a vast region of the galaxy filled with oppressive, hostile alien empires.
Of course, there are topics and themes that Star Trek has consistently portrayed, but even they aren't exclusive criteria. Star Trek has generally showed us a positive future where humanity wasn't discriminating against each other, eradicated most diseases and lived in abundance, at least on Earth... the frontier has always been another story. Unfortunately, many people have mistaken it to mean that Star Trek portrayed a perfect post-scarcity utopia populated by perfect people, where no dysfunctions of the system ever existed. The newer installments were excluded from the body of Star Trek by many fans because they dared to portray these dysfunctions, for which they were perceived as rejecting the positive vision of Star Trek in its entirety, despite these concepts having been there all along. Tasha grew up on a failed colony plagued by drugs and gang violence after all, and several 24th century Starfleet officers were shown to be racist and prejudiced against aliens... and, of course, the very reason that the Enterprise was visiting all these Federation colonies on the frontier in the first place was that they still had lots of problems to deal with.
These were things that Star Trek did, naturally. But these still aren't what make a series Star Trek. Voyager didn't magically cease being Star Trek the moment they left the Federation and found themselves all alone in a vast region of the galaxy filled with oppressive, hostile alien empires.
The belief was the Star Trek name would scare away new viewer because they were daunted by a franchise they never watched before with, at the time, thirty-five years of history. UPN really wanted new viewers with no familiarity with Star Trek to watch the show. Then by the third season when it became clear the show was struggling with ratings, UPN decided to add Star Trek to the title, thinking the Star Trek name will draw new viewers.
Although Berman was on board with the decision to leave Star Trek out of the title, he voiced objections to the decision to re-add it on the grounds that it was unnecessary since "everyone who is into Star Trek are already aware of the show anyway." Which actually is a true point, but he was overruled on the matter regardless.
Star Trek is what Gene Roddenberry made it to be in the 60s.
Then there are variations, first being TNG, which was also created by Roddenberry but soon taken over by other people. All the other series have Star Trek written on them but aren't exactly what Star Trek was originally.
What if we were to agree that there is the original series, Star Trek, and then there are others that are also Star Trek, just different in one or more ways. Things change over time.
Would it be too confining to say what exactly is Star Trek. It can be many different things. There's an entire universe to tell stories about. Soap operas are about relationships, fashion, petty arguments and what have you. Star Trek is more.
Then there are variations, first being TNG, which was also created by Roddenberry but soon taken over by other people. All the other series have Star Trek written on them but aren't exactly what Star Trek was originally.
What if we were to agree that there is the original series, Star Trek, and then there are others that are also Star Trek, just different in one or more ways. Things change over time.
Would it be too confining to say what exactly is Star Trek. It can be many different things. There's an entire universe to tell stories about. Soap operas are about relationships, fashion, petty arguments and what have you. Star Trek is more.
Completely agree. Star Trek was one of the first shared universe projects there was - new instances (tas, films, tng etc) didn’t rewrite the universe like many other franchises, they built on it.
Personally I think a Star Trek series just needs to be set in the future, in space with aliens and space ships other science fiction elements.
That's pretty much the basic premise of the whole Franchise, and as long as those elements are present they can pretty much do whatever they want with the show.
That's pretty much the basic premise of the whole Franchise, and as long as those elements are present they can pretty much do whatever they want with the show.
i remember interviews o the times, they were trying to have a title that made immediately clear it was Star Trek without containing Star Trek in it. Go figure.
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