I think SNW pulls off those moments quite well. I've been watch TOS as part of Star Trek days and I think it was the best at those moments. The characters are very relatable.
How would DS9 be different, if it were made today instead of in the 90's ?
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I agree SNW is by far the best of the live action shows to do this. Also, SNW does not do season long stories like DISCO and PICARD did, so I don't think this is a coincidence.
Another reason why I feel season long arcs are not typically well done in the franchise.
I think Discovery did so as well, and Lower Decks. They have those minor moments that speak out. Even ST 09 and ID did this.
We will always have war. The complaints I see today echo even Roman commentators:
Virgil (70 BCE-50 CE) wrote: "Right and wrong are confounded; so many wars the world over, so many forms of wrong; no worthy honour is left to the plough; the husbandmen are marched away and the fields grow dirty; the hook has its curve straightened into the sword-blade. In the East, Euphrates is stirring up the war, in the West, Germany; nay, close-neighbouring cities break their mutual league and draw the sword, and the war god's unnatural fury rages over the whole world; even as when in the circus the chariots burst from their floodgates, they dash into the course, and, pulling desperately at the reins, the driver lets the horses drive him, and the car is deaf to the curb."
It was a world where violence had run amok. When Tacitus came to write the history of this period (1st Century CE Rome), he wrote: "I am entering upon the history of a period, rich in disasters, gloomy with wars, rent with seditions, savage in its very hours of peace.
You sure you're not a 1st Century Roman poet in disguise?
I think you should be citing your source.I think Discovery did so as well, and Lower Decks. They have those minor moments that speak out. Even ST 09 and ID did this.
We will always have war. The complaints I see today echo even Roman commentators:
Virgil (70 BCE-50 CE) wrote: "Right and wrong are confounded; so many wars the world over, so many forms of wrong; no worthy honour is left to the plough; the husbandmen are marched away and the fields grow dirty; the hook has its curve straightened into the sword-blade. In the East, Euphrates is stirring up the war, in the West, Germany; nay, close-neighbouring cities break their mutual league and draw the sword, and the war god's unnatural fury rages over the whole world; even as when in the circus the chariots burst from their floodgates, they dash into the course, and, pulling desperately at the reins, the driver lets the horses drive him, and the car is deaf to the curb."
It was a world where violence had run amok. When Tacitus came to write the history of this period (1st Century CE Rome), he wrote: "I am entering upon the history of a period, rich in disasters, gloomy with wars, rent with seditions, savage in its very hours of peace.
You sure you're not a 1st Century Roman poet in disguise?
Well for one, it'd have 10 episodes per season, one season every 3 years. And every comment section would have 20 people calling it Woke for having a black captain.
I don't think they'd be bold enough to portray political terrorism in a positive or at least gray colored light. And I'm not even sure they'd portray a hypercapitalist race as so gray. They'd go straight to the war arc and the Dominion would be more Nazi-esque and pick a segment of the population to oppress whose side the Federation would take.
I don't think they'd be bold enough to portray political terrorism in a positive or at least gray colored light. And I'm not even sure they'd portray a hypercapitalist race as so gray. They'd go straight to the war arc and the Dominion would be more Nazi-esque and pick a segment of the population to oppress whose side the Federation would take.
Ugh, those people would be annoying
I think they could definitely show a hypercapitalist race as being less than ideal. As for the Dominion War, I do think they'd head straight there, but the Dominion already were fairly Nazi-esque. I think we'd see more Vorta and Jem'Hadar characters, though
I think there'd be a Jem'Hadar in love with a member of the oppressed group as a main character. They wouldn't be genetically compelled to loyalty.
My comment about Ferengi wasn't that they wouldn't show them as negative, it was they wouldn't rehabilitate them the way DS9 did. They wouldn't have those scenes like the root beer scene, or when Quark points out the reason humans hate them is that they remind them of their prior selves. They'd play them more one dimensionally like TNG. If Quark ever saved everyone like in Sacrifice of Angels they'd make it clear he realized the error of his ways and make him less capitalist after.
I mean, what did we have from the Ferengi going in to a TNG and Picard follow up series? They were often bumbling but still a low key threat and rarely shown in a positive light. Quark was rarely shown positively early on too.
I don't see any idealism to the Ferengi at all going in to such a show.
I don't think they'd go that way. If anything I think the portrayals of species are less one dimensional now than they used to be, which was a big problem in TOS and TNG
As for the Jem'Hadar, that's possible, though I think that would change the nature of the Jem'Hadar. But I could see them having a recurring Jem'Hadar and Vorta characters who'd somewhat redeem both species.
DS9 helped improve them though. Picard only had 1 Ferengi
I hope that you're wrong here.I think Discovery did so as well, and Lower Decks. They have those minor moments that speak out. Even ST 09 and ID did this.
We will always have war. The complaints I see today echo even Roman commentators:
Virgil (70 BCE-50 CE) wrote: "Right and wrong are confounded; so many wars the world over, so many forms of wrong; no worthy honour is left to the plough; the husbandmen are marched away and the fields grow dirty; the hook has its curve straightened into the sword-blade. In the East, Euphrates is stirring up the war, in the West, Germany; nay, close-neighbouring cities break their mutual league and draw the sword, and the war god's unnatural fury rages over the whole world; even as when in the circus the chariots burst from their floodgates, they dash into the course, and, pulling desperately at the reins, the driver lets the horses drive him, and the car is deaf to the curb."
It was a world where violence had run amok. When Tacitus came to write the history of this period (1st Century CE Rome), he wrote: "I am entering upon the history of a period, rich in disasters, gloomy with wars, rent with seditions, savage in its very hours of peace.
You sure you're not a 1st Century Roman poet in disguise?
I do think that humanity are capable of developing to a state where war is seen as it should be seen, as something destructive which creates more problems than it solves problems.
There have actually been some progress. Around the time for WWI, people thought that wars were inevitable and people cheered when the soldiers went out to the great war.
In later years, people have demonstrated against the wars and there have been efforts to stop them.
However, I must admit tha the Ukraine war hasshattered my hope, at least for now.
I actually thought that the events in 1989 should stop further wars at least in the Western Civilization, that the wars in former Yugoslavia were leftovers from the bad days, the results of unsloved confklicts from the past and that the wars we have in the Middle East and other countries outside the Western Civilization were caused by the factsd that those countries hadn't developed past the state where wars seem inevitable.
I was wrong and now we have this devastating conflict in the middle of the Western Civilization which has polarized the population in many countries.
But I must also admit that I do think that many Star Trek fans in common and especially the creators of Star Trek takes a possible WWIII scenario too lightly.
It's too much of "oh, we have a nice little world war and then we'll realize how wrong it was, we rebuild our civilization to something better and the nice Vulcans will help us developing it into a high-tech society where everybody has a good life".
It won't happen that way:
If there is a WWIII, it will wipe out the world and send the possible survivors back, not to the stone age but to something even worse, to a radioactive world where people have a lifespan of 30 years in the most optimistic calculations.
And there will be no nice Vulcans or other species there to help us. Other civilizations will se Earth as an example of a failed civilization and avoid it:
Most likely, humanity will cease to exist.
Personally I hope that we can avoid such a scenario.
If DS9 were created today, and I suspended my disbelief about several different factors, it would be a 50-episode series with five 10-episode seasons. DSC, PIC, and PRO have their seasons start and finish their story arcs the same season, then the next season has a different focus.
Using this model five months ago, I figured out how DS9 would translate into this format.
www.trekbbs.com
Cutting-and-pasting:
I think this makes for a weaker series, if you translate the series as-is into this format.
The one way around this is to not resolve the story arcs at the end of every season and have them continue from one season to the next. Have the seasons end with a cliffhanger instead of a resolution. Limit the focus to things that involve Bajor and the Cardassians, then you have a series that can feel like a full run and work with 50 episodes.
Using this model five months ago, I figured out how DS9 would translate into this format.
Kurtzman on Any New Series Reaching 100 Episodes
That's not easy, to be honest. Season 2 might get some spillover into season 1, and season 3 might get a couple into 2. Also hard to chip away because a lot of character episodes that were pretty essential might get lost if you do just the main DS9 arcs. I might try to do that, but that will...
www.trekbbs.com
Cutting-and-pasting:
I think this makes for a weaker series, if you translate the series as-is into this format.
The one way around this is to not resolve the story arcs at the end of every season and have them continue from one season to the next. Have the seasons end with a cliffhanger instead of a resolution. Limit the focus to things that involve Bajor and the Cardassians, then you have a series that can feel like a full run and work with 50 episodes.
As a gay man, I find this offensive. I know it was all over Disc but the show was poorly written. I never cared for any of the characters except for the Emperor. Michelle Yeoh could do a dramitic reading of lines of code and make it enjoyable.
The Symbiots of Trill have no sexes, until combined so they can be bisexual or homosexual, no problem. Dax showed us that. Only Worf seemed top have a problem with it. The rest of the crew didn't seem to have a problem. I doubt most Klingon's would have problems with any Klingon, so long as they can fight like a klingon. The Vulcans belive in IDIC. Again no problem. Any part of the LTGBTQIA+ would be part of the IDIC. The uptight religious Bajorans seemed to have little problem with it.
ANTIFA is not an organization. It is people who are Anti Faschist. When they do get together they do so peacefully. Section 31 would leave them alone. A bunch of nonviolent protesters are no threat, except by means of propeganda, as seen in the constant real world talking point that ANTIFA was befind January 6th.
In TNG were supposed to be a threat, but were simply ridiculous.
In DS9, they were too humanized to be seen as a threat.
I'd imagine a reboot of the Ferengi would be to show them as cunning, ruthless capitalists. Outwardly charming, but once you're in their debt you find out how ruthless they can be.
The type that would withhold a cure they have to a poor world dying of a virus, because they also sell the virus as a weapon to rich warring factions and they don't want to lose their profits.
I think it would suffer the way new Trek shows suffer and that's they're very performative. Things become less subtle. You can't interpret, you must be told. And it must be clear that you both understand the writers' social credentials and their cleverness.
While DS9 had its message episodes (Past Tense for example) as did all Trek, it did a lot just through existing. As a 15 year old tuning into DS9 it never once crossed my mind that Sisko was black, and that this was in some way unusual or signifcant. And really aside form Far Beyond the Stars they didn't really address race - Sisko was just Sisko. Trek had moved beyond it being a thing, and this was demonstrated in its storytelling. I don't think in today's world it would get by so casually... they'd make more of a deal of that in storytelling and in publicity of the show. It'd become more about the show being brave in some way.
Ditto female empowerment. It wasn't a thing, it just was and woven into the tapestry.
Yes a bit more gay inclusion wouldn't have been bad in past Trek, but equally I don't need to have it forced upon me. Too much inclusion these days is by straight people and often in stereotypical ways. I often don't feel validated as a gay guy, I feel used. Netflix has a spreadsheet of all the boxes you need to tick in a show and it becomes formulaic gunk. It's not inclusion. DS9 would likely suffer from this somewhat.
I think politics is where it would probably become very Americanised. DS9 drew from history to create a rich tapestry of politics. None of it directly related was outright a person or country, but there were obvious parallels. When I see how people say "DS9 predicted 9/11" because of the Jem'Hadar on the Odyssey I slap my head so hard. Because it wasn't a prediction, it was history. DS9 draws upon history, you are just blind to it. if DS9 were now there'd be a crazy American orange human trying to take over the world and there'd be lots of tut tut tutting.
There'd also be a lot more swearing probably, which DS9 never needed.
And as it'd be a shorter season you'd see all the war and negative stuff, but none of the humanity of the 'filler' episodes. The respite. The reason for living.
I guess what I'm saying in my rambling thoughts which I'm not sure I'm really making clearly is... DS9 was bold. In race, in gender, in its story, in its knowledge of history. It did this all as just a matter of course to tell a good story. Trek - and TV in general - has lost subtlety. And so much of what DS9 did well would be exaggerated and politicised and become more about the writers demonstrating themselves and their opinions rather than the story being a good story.
While DS9 had its message episodes (Past Tense for example) as did all Trek, it did a lot just through existing. As a 15 year old tuning into DS9 it never once crossed my mind that Sisko was black, and that this was in some way unusual or signifcant. And really aside form Far Beyond the Stars they didn't really address race - Sisko was just Sisko. Trek had moved beyond it being a thing, and this was demonstrated in its storytelling. I don't think in today's world it would get by so casually... they'd make more of a deal of that in storytelling and in publicity of the show. It'd become more about the show being brave in some way.
Ditto female empowerment. It wasn't a thing, it just was and woven into the tapestry.
Yes a bit more gay inclusion wouldn't have been bad in past Trek, but equally I don't need to have it forced upon me. Too much inclusion these days is by straight people and often in stereotypical ways. I often don't feel validated as a gay guy, I feel used. Netflix has a spreadsheet of all the boxes you need to tick in a show and it becomes formulaic gunk. It's not inclusion. DS9 would likely suffer from this somewhat.
I think politics is where it would probably become very Americanised. DS9 drew from history to create a rich tapestry of politics. None of it directly related was outright a person or country, but there were obvious parallels. When I see how people say "DS9 predicted 9/11" because of the Jem'Hadar on the Odyssey I slap my head so hard. Because it wasn't a prediction, it was history. DS9 draws upon history, you are just blind to it. if DS9 were now there'd be a crazy American orange human trying to take over the world and there'd be lots of tut tut tutting.
There'd also be a lot more swearing probably, which DS9 never needed.
And as it'd be a shorter season you'd see all the war and negative stuff, but none of the humanity of the 'filler' episodes. The respite. The reason for living.
I guess what I'm saying in my rambling thoughts which I'm not sure I'm really making clearly is... DS9 was bold. In race, in gender, in its story, in its knowledge of history. It did this all as just a matter of course to tell a good story. Trek - and TV in general - has lost subtlety. And so much of what DS9 did well would be exaggerated and politicised and become more about the writers demonstrating themselves and their opinions rather than the story being a good story.
Behr has noted over the years that they probably wouldn't be able to get away with depicting Kira as a "heroic terrorist" in the post 9/11 world, so that'd be one notable difference were DS9 done today.
In the seven years since it started, Streaming Trek has avoided having a Trump-like character. Although if DS9 were made today, it would be more likely to have one. "Make Cardassia Strong Again" sounds a lot like "Make America Great Again". So, that's one of two ways where DS9 Today would have its Trump. The other way is the super-obvious one: Trump is a Ferengi.
It is amazing how they use the word terrorist with levity in the show. Not even freedom fighter... or paramilitary. In fact most of the descriptions of Kira are more that she's paramilitary. I don't think she'd gone bombing schools or anything to get her aims.
