And?
Is it just me, or is Star Trek going the wrong way?
- Thread starter LunaticBurnout
- Start date
Somehow I still enjoy TOS.
I'm still waiting for a proper argument to my initial post. Instead, the fallacy rabbit hole just gets bigger and bigger.
Since I haven't experienced what you have I'll just take your word that it is constantly happening.
Perhaps if you rephrased and clarified the argument you think you're making, we could all respond in a manner you would approve of. As it is, you seem to just be accusing the people currently running Star Trek of virtue signalling. That's not an argument, it's just vice signalling. So perhaps I'm missing the finer points.
I didn't make an argument. I posted a valid criticism that has - in fact - yet to be denied.
I was instead met with a barrage of the same old, tired two-wrongs red herring that is the only ammunition anyone ever seems to have against anything negative said about Discovery.
I was instead met with a barrage of the same old, tired two-wrongs red herring that is the only ammunition anyone ever seems to have against anything negative said about Discovery.
You certainly posted criticism, but who is the arbiter to determine if it was valid or not? Can your criticism really not be denied?
However since you've explicitly invited an analysis, let's see:
This first bit is pure opinion - just a thing you don't like. So it's true but only in as much as you feel that subjectively.
The first sentence may or may not be factual, I don't know. But is CBS & Team Kurtzman sometimes patting themselves on the back for their work actually detrimental? That would have to be demonstrated.
The second sentence is less factual and more in the realms of exaggeration, since it can be easily shown that not "every other sentence" they ever publish is what you state.
More subjective feelings here - see paragraph one.
So, cutting through the hyperbole the general gist of your criticism is that CBS & Kurtzman publicise their use of inclusivity a lot, which you personally feel undercuts the benefits of that work. You haven't demonstrated that connection, just stated that you feel it.
It seems others feel differently, citing examples that such behaviour is nothing new for corporations in general and Star Trek in particular.
The problem is that if your personal feelings are enough to qualify your criticism as "valid" then another person's feelings are sufficient to dismiss such validity.
In conclusion I don't deny that you personally feel these things, but you have to demonstrate your claims as valid or factual.
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If only we had an entire forum dedicated to bitching about Disco...
I don't want to repeat what Mytran said, but this is your "valid criticism."
Nobody is going to deny your initial statement because we all recognize that you don't like it. I'm not about to say, no, you DO like it, you big fibber.
If you're criticizing new Trek for doing what all Star Trek has done, but saying only the new stuff is bad for doing it, feel free to explain why that's not a problem with your argument.
Giving the benefit of the doubt I'd guess from their response that the issue they are taking with this matter is that they were solely speaking about Kurtzmann and so whether it was done in the past doesn't change their opinion.
It wasn't said but they may even have found it annoying back then - I'm inferring this based on the fact that when it was raised the response given wasn't to defend the past but to simply state that it bore no impact on their assessment.
I guess I don't see the issue then. As with many things with new Trek it seems that old Trek can do it and I barely heard a peep while new Trek can do no right.
The only one I found mildly annoying was the whole black captain comment I saw from SMG, I think. I mean, it's not accurate, but few press releases are so I just ignore it.
The only one I found mildly annoying was the whole black captain comment I saw from SMG, I think. I mean, it's not accurate, but few press releases are so I just ignore it.
"CBS and the higher-ups and even Team Kurtzman" does not suggest that someone's talking specifically about one person.
That was poorly phrased on my part - I meant that the statement was making no judgement on what Berman era people had said but purely focused on Kurtzman era
I'm not going to check interviews by all the CBS higher-ups, but I did look at the first ten Google results for "Interview Alex Kurtzman Discovery" and only one of those mentioned "diversity" as a single line comment (and it was from the article writer, not him), and none mentioned "Roddenberry's vision". Not denying that he has said any of those things before on multiple occasions (because I have seen it), but seems to put a damper on the argument that it's being said in "every other sentence" or "every chance they get" even accounting for the hyperbole.
Until such time as reflective diversity in casting is so commonplace that it is merely the default, I would argue that it is important to not only directly participate in such casting choices but to also promote them openly wherever possible so that they serve as a notice for others in the industry that this is the right path to choose, and to inform fans who might not have tuned in otherwise that they can find characters that resemble them. I don't consider that patting oneself on the back so much as correcting a long overdue imbalance and letting people know they should feel welcome.
Yeah because Star Trek has totally not been telling people how to live via our heroes telling alien species how awful their cultural practices are since 1966.
To me a good story transcends the dated special effects of older episodes, which is why, I believe, many of those older shows are still watched and enjoyed. At the same time, flashy special effects and gratuitous T&A cannot make up for poor writing. Now when it comes to the writing, I tend to like an overall uplifting and positive story over a dark and depressing one, especially during our current world situation. After all, it's called entertainment, right?
Entertainment means different things to different people. Discovery is just as positive but it is willing to acknowledge darkness as a part of life, and a positive outcome means work.
Star Trek has been self-congratulatory for so long, since Roddenberry's university tours. And fun fact, most of that stuff was disproven. The network wanted a multiracial cast. The network didn't have an issue with a female Number One, they had issue with Gene's mistress as the female Number One.
When Disco premiered and they self-congratulated over gay inclusion my reaction was that if it had happened during ENT 20 years ago it might have been noteworthy. I tend to tune writers/producers patting themselves on the back out.
When Disco premiered and they self-congratulated over gay inclusion my reaction was that if it had happened during ENT 20 years ago it might have been noteworthy. I tend to tune writers/producers patting themselves on the back out.
It was still worth noticing, given that, for example, Ira Steven Behr said in the DS9 documentary they hadn't done enough back in their time. I don't see it as smugness, it's more like, we've said the show has these values, and this is how we're living up to that today.
But speaking of Roddenberry's university tours... oy. I saw him around 1983-84. He would stop occasionally after he said something, and it seemed strange, until we all realized that was our cue to applaud him for being so meaningful and important and right on. It's not as if people disagreed with a lot of it, it's more that he was presenting safe and shallow comments as something challenging and edgy, and expected to be praised for it.
But that could lead me on a tangent about how, going back at least as far as the 1970s, there's been a tendency in Star Trek, on both sides of the fan/pro divide, to make a big deal of Star Trek's utopian/progressive/however you want to label it vision. For decades fans have been saying, with a straight face, I would never have known that sexism/racism/every other kind of bigotry was wrong if I hadn't watched Star Trek. And everyone on the pro side has always said something like, well, Star Trek's not really science fiction, it's a morality tale with important lessons for us today. In the case of the former, I'd think, wow, you must have had a clueless and sheltered life. And in both cases of the divide, it's hard not to get the impression that everyone saying all that is thinking, "they think I'm an idiot because this is all just guys in space pyjamas shooting their laser beams, how do I make this seem like something appropriate for a grown adult."
Note: I do think there is a core message in Star Trek, and I do think most of it is reasonable entertainment for adults.
But speaking of Roddenberry's university tours... oy. I saw him around 1983-84. He would stop occasionally after he said something, and it seemed strange, until we all realized that was our cue to applaud him for being so meaningful and important and right on. It's not as if people disagreed with a lot of it, it's more that he was presenting safe and shallow comments as something challenging and edgy, and expected to be praised for it.
But that could lead me on a tangent about how, going back at least as far as the 1970s, there's been a tendency in Star Trek, on both sides of the fan/pro divide, to make a big deal of Star Trek's utopian/progressive/however you want to label it vision. For decades fans have been saying, with a straight face, I would never have known that sexism/racism/every other kind of bigotry was wrong if I hadn't watched Star Trek. And everyone on the pro side has always said something like, well, Star Trek's not really science fiction, it's a morality tale with important lessons for us today. In the case of the former, I'd think, wow, you must have had a clueless and sheltered life. And in both cases of the divide, it's hard not to get the impression that everyone saying all that is thinking, "they think I'm an idiot because this is all just guys in space pyjamas shooting their laser beams, how do I make this seem like something appropriate for a grown adult."
Note: I do think there is a core message in Star Trek, and I do think most of it is reasonable entertainment for adults.
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Ah hell, as early as TOS season 3 you could see the writers were taking note of the show's reputation for progressiveness and purposefully injecting it into the episodes. The stuff about inclusiveness and acceptance in Plato's Stepchildren or Let That Be Your Last Battlefield are perfect examples of the show starting to enjoy the smell of its own flatulence.
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