That's as fair a reason as i can imagine.
In fact one of the nicest things about the whole TNG cast is the genuine friendship that exists between all of them. Very rare in a Star Trek cast.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
- Start date
That's as fair a reason as i can imagine.
In fact one of the nicest things about the whole TNG cast is the genuine friendship that exists between all of them. Very rare in a Star Trek cast.
V
Vale
Guest
I guess we'll find out whether it's justified in the narrative soon enough.
V
Vale
Guest
Which is fine, and indeed makes sense, except they don't apply it consistently. 68-year-old Jonathan Frakes played 64-year-old Will Riker and 64-year-old Marina Sirtis played 63-year-old Deanna Troi in Picard season 1, and both of them looked very much their actual age. Remember, Picard was 63/64 in TNG season 5 and 6, and he still had many years of starship adventuring ahead of him before retirement; whereas both Riker and Troi seem to be semi-retired at a much earlier age, a la Kirk and crew in the late 23rd century. Kirk is only supposed to be 60 in Generations, and Picard is still the action hero with no thoughts of retirement in Nemesis at the age of 74!
Maybe Picard was into clean living but Riker and Troi were having coke parties every night when their shifts ended.
Also it's (usually) presented as a post-money and post- scarcity society so people would probably retire at all sorts of ages, just whenever they felt like it. Picard didn't have a family, he stayed on a long time. Riker and Troi had a family and medical reasons (their son) to leave. Nothing to say that in ten years when their daughter is older they won't return to duty.
Gnnngh, Star Trek and the on/off post-money society...
I've been rewatching Picard Season 1 and was struck by Picard having to 'hire" Rios and Rios saying if Picard was going to mess around then he could 'hire' another ship... So is it post-money or not? Or what does Rios or another Shipmaster get 'paid' in?
- Edit - Latinum?
I suppose Earth could be post money, but Rios could be paid in a currency was usable elsewhere or cargo that was scarce in another place and could fetch a good price.
I answered my own question. Sorry.
I've been rewatching Picard Season 1 and was struck by Picard having to 'hire" Rios and Rios saying if Picard was going to mess around then he could 'hire' another ship... So is it post-money or not? Or what does Rios or another Shipmaster get 'paid' in?
- Edit - Latinum?
I suppose Earth could be post money, but Rios could be paid in a currency was usable elsewhere or cargo that was scarce in another place and could fetch a good price.
I answered my own question. Sorry.
Chabon was explicitly asked about this on instagram, and more or less dodged the question by implying that the core of the Federation is just social democracy on steroids.
Honestly Chabon is the one person involved with New Trek I don't care for and where I, personally, wish he had never been involved with Star Trek.
Last edited:
Nostalgia.
this is how I’ve always thought of it. Works well with DS9 too. Not well with Kirk selling his house but you can’t have everything!
Although Kirk would have sold his house in the 2280s and the TOS and TOS Movie Eras were rife with inconsistencies about money and currency. I could buy a non-human buying Kirk's cabin, paying him in their own currency or a form of Federation credits and then Kirk redirecting that payment into, say, something he wanted to buy like his residence in San Francisco that we see in TWOK and TSFS.
I haven't read any other replies yet & apologize if this has already been mentioned but...
With all due respect, Seinfeld's finale doesn't even hold a candle to the finale of M*A*S*H (76.3 vs 105.9 million viewers). Granted there were more networks/choices in the late 90's than the early 80's but I don't recall Seinfeld creating a citywide disruption. In regards to M*A*S*H...
"An estimated million viewers in New York City alone used the toilet after the show ended, pouring 6.7 million gallons of water through the city’s sewers, United Press International reported at the time. “In speaking to engineers who’ve been around 30 or 40 years, they haven’t encountered anything like this before,” Peter Barrett, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, told UPI."
**Granted I'm biased as I'm a HUGE M*A*S*H fan & didn't like Seinfeld.
Money is a concept. Humans, if denied a form of money, say in prisons, will invent one. Saying "we don't use money" is disingenuous. It's a statement by someone with zero understating of what money is, the difference between specie (latinum), and currency (Federation credits), or anything of how an economy works. (Wife took banking law, I audited.)
A friend and I have banged heads against this for some time. The best you can say it is a fantasy writer fiat economy that works. There are not enough clues.
There have been plenty of cases of human civilizations without money. The earliest Mesopotamian city-states didn't seem to have anything akin to open exchange, and ran as command economies centered around the major temples. Hell, the Inca empire existed within recorded history and not only lacked currency, but a market system. They collected resources as tribute (and used a labor levy system) and then distributed from public warehouses according to need). Things like food, clothing, and shelter were free, and there's no evidence that a "trader class" existed.
Not to say any of these scenarios are utopian. But advanced human societies worked in the absence of any regularized system of exchange, which shows it doesn't just develop organically.
I think looking at the Federation as "all Utopia, all the time" misses the point. Enlightenment isn't a badge to be worn or a title to be earned, it's a constant struggle of growth and learning. It's something to constantly strive for rather than a destination to arrive at.
I was annoyed by Cumberbatch's unnecessary stripping.
On a similar note, I've never been that fond of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Some scenes work individually but taken as a whole it's a dismal drudge with no meaningful payoff.
Red Dwarf also has this problem - Rimmer is a hologram so shouldn't visibly age, but Chris Barrie obviously looked a lot wrinklier in 2017 than in 1988. Kryten might suffer similarly but the heavy makeup covers so much of his face that it doesn't matter as much.
Then there's The Simpsons, where certain characters (e.g. Lionel Hutz and Edna Krapabbel) have been retired when their voice actors died. At some point it will happen to one of the main five - already for some years now Marge has sounded way older than she should.
There's an ongoing controversy surrounding the ethics of recasting older Doctor Who characters (whose original actors have died) for modern appearances.
I think that even where the actor is alive, they're not necessarily still up to playing the part. I know many Trek fans struggle to believe the 81-year-old Sir Patrick Stewart in PIC (especially the notorious stair chase scene). Sir Christopher Lee is another example - he had long dreamed of playing Gandalf in a LOTR film, but by the time it actually happened he was 78 and conceded he wouldn't physically be up to it. He instead went for Saruman - a role that didn't require him to swing swords, ride horses or climb mountains. By the time of the Hobbit films he was pushing 90, and had to be greenscreened in from Pinewood because he couldn't manage the journey to New Zealand. The fight scene at Dol Guldur is similarly troublesome.
Unfortunately the tendency is to expect utopia as a destination rather than a muscle to work out.
Similar threads
- Locked
