You know, Lynx, as someone who largely agrees with you I'd actually push back at the "dark and gloomy Trek" thing. Picard and DSC sort of fit, but SNW and SFA are both trying something different.
Whether or not they're doing it well is up for debate, but SFA in particular really feels like it's trying to fight back against the HBO-y gloom of modern TV (though it's still got one foot in that world and can't quite fully detach itself). It's interesting to watch even if the show itself isn't always great, just because it does actually feel like a group of writers grappling with the fact that a cultural era is ending.
I actually agree here.
Note that I haven't labeled SNW and SFA as dystopian or even dark and gloomy which might be a more appropriate word.
SNW is actually OK. The only tjiong I wasn't happy with was the "replacement actors" who played the TOS characters.
But SFA looks actually too silly for my taste, too much of a bad parody.
"Star Trek was supposed to be" wasn't even a consistent standard in the late 1960s.
That's right. But it became that way and since then it has been supposed to be about a better future.
It's an alternate history based on the idea of what would happen if the Soviets beat Apollo to the moon. It's probably the best alternate history series ever made. It might be the best science fiction show ever made, honestly. Ronald D Moore is the showrunner. And there is more than a litle Trek in it.
this is like the litumus test for For All Mankind. I have found people who don't really dig this scene, are never going to get the series.
Could be interesting but only the thoughts of the Soviets beating the US in the "moon race" and maybe became the dominant world power makes me cringe.
THAT'S really dystopian if anything!
Because he lived in a extremely depressing time were World War 3 was considered inevitable. You can see it all across science fiction of the era. So context is essential rather than think he was just a blind optimist. He wasn't. He, like all artists, was impacted by thr culture of the day.
Wot? I get the impression that the 1960's was a happy time.
At least the music was great.
And most of the movies and TV series too.
I watched the series "The Fugitive" after watching the movie with the same name and even if the movie was great, the series was even better.
I have no doubt but I was referring to Star Trek and why it isn't dystopian.
Sorry, my mistake. I thought you were referring to today's society, not to Star Trek.
But maybe too many Movies and TV series are dark and gloomy because they are made in an era which might be becoming dystopian?
In entertainment? No, I disagree completely that comparison is necessary.
It is.
Because otherwise we'll be stuck with third-rate stuff and don't have any clue about the fact that there once were high class productions available.
You just have to compare the recent Walker Texas Ranger with the original to see that.
The original may have been a bit goofy but it was at least fun to watch. It had action, humor and good actors. The remake had nothing of that and it wasquite dark and gloomy.
And not only that one. recently I've encountered a lot of "re-makes" of series from the 90's and they've been
horrible compared to the originals.
And this illustrates why comparison is a thief. It's always below a standard and ignores the positive of the new for a rose tinted glasses view of the past.
But it can als show us that things might have been better made and produced in the past.
If we don't have that reference, then we'll might be stuck with third-rate stuff.
Honestly, Trek has always had an air of gloominess and dystopia.
I don't think so.
The two best series, since probably TOS.
If you had added TNG, DS9 and the first three seasons of Voyager, I might have agreed with you.
Star Trek at its best is extremely honest about the human condition. It isn't lofty or idealized but strongly pragmatic, balancing individual and collective goals, logic and emotions, optimism and cynicism.
Which is good, I think.
Trek is pretty unique in that it claims a happy and prosperous future, then goes out and blasts anyone that gets in their way.
Well, if you're living in something like a paradise, there might be necessary to defend it against intruders who want to destroy it!
Thank you, 1960s through 2000s action-adventure television format and audiences!
If you go back and watch TNG, it was essentially self-contained science fiction stories with very little character development. It was plot over character, where most stuff reset at the end of each episode. But it was essentially an optimistic future. At its worse, it was the Office in Space.
TNG had its flaws, like every series or movie has.
But it was a great show with great characters and stories.
Trek is whatever the producers want it to be, even a fourth wall-breaking animated comedy.
That's the problem!
Too many ego-maniac producers who want to set
their mark on the product by killing off some popular character, making Klingons become Mutant Ninja Turtles and destroy important planets in the Star Trek universe.
See, this is what most of us are talking about. This is a very judgy statement without a lot of merit to it. Say what you want about the quality of the Kurtzman era Star Trek, but the commentary that it is dark, gloomy and destroying good characters is a very uninformed and meritless opinion.
Edit: better word choice
Personally I have to disagree here because what I've described with those words is exactly what I've seen.
Doom and gloom?
Post apocalyptic?
I want to push back on dystopian. A requirement of dystopian is that it's in the middle of the oppression. 1984 is dystopian. Hunger Games (from what I have gleaned because I've never read nor watched) is dystopian because the oppressive government is in charge (state sanctioned compulsory combat to the death where the victor gets food for their community). Star Trek's Mirror Universe and Picard's season 2 Confederation of Earth are dystopian. The stories are set in that dark time where evil rules.
But 31st century DISCO and SFA are not dystopian. Had the setting been immediately or within a few decades after The Burn I might agree with you. But the 31st century setting is a universe of progress and recovery. The pieces are being put back together and the government being presented to the viewers is one of good and light.
Simply being set after a disaster does not make the setting dystopian. TOS Trek is set 200ish years after both the Eugenics Wars, the Second Civil War, and, finally, WWIII. Any supposed series set after DS9 or in the PRO era would be set after the Dominian War, yet it sounds like you (it was you, right?) wished for such a Bermanesque series and setting.
SFA is not dystopian. Yes, Caleb has a dark, dystopian style backstrory, but so did Data, Worf, Tasha, Kira, Odo, Kes, and Seven. Outside of opening few minutes of the first episode, SFA has been as cheery and positive as Smallville, Everwood, or anything in the Berman era Trek. Trek has had dark dystopian back stories ever since TOS. WWIII, Eugenics Wars, Romulan War, Tarsus IV, Tomed Incident, Khitomer Massacre, Bajoran Occupation, Dominion War, Xindi War, on and on.
I say this and I'm not all that much a fan of modern Trek.
The difference is that even if there have been troubled characters and dark times in the previous series, it has worked out for the best most of the times. The characters you mentioned have all managed to grow out from previous experiences and used those experiences to become better persons.
What we have in recent series (not only Star Trek) is gloomy scenarios which never gets better or starts changing to the better, it's all the same dark world or universe and there's no use in trying to change that. The characters are troubled persons and a lot of the series are filled with internal squabbles, failed relations, family issues problems with drugs and alcohol and all that.
Take a series like Criminal Minds for example. It's the same story over and over. The team goes on a mission to Dallas, Los Angeles, Copenhagen, Angmagssalik, Vladivostok, The Lunar Base, Cardassia or Ocampa to find a sadistic serial killer. After some incident when they catch the wrong guy and some long and detailed torture scenes where the real killer is still on the loose, they finally manage to catch the killer.
Then back on the bus, train, plane, spaceship or intergalactic cruiser, one of the members of the team looks out of the window and mutters something about what a terrible world, space sector or galaxy they live in.
it's not just Star trek but Star Trek has become affected by the current doom and gloom things too.
I've never stated that SFA is "dystopian", dark or gloomy. That series is only silly. My point is that it's very far from the Starfleet Academy we saw in TNG episodes like
Coming Of Age and
The First Duty.
It looks like it's from some alternate universe where people have been on LSD for some thousand years or so and this is the result.
I do think that DSC had a lot of doom and gloom. Not to mention that it was just bad!
To be dystopian, a story must take in a dystopia. Not a time that’s unhappy or foreboding or even suffering the effects of a disaster, a dystopia: a society in which the very structures of life have become extremely bad, not one where we’ve decided not to help the Romulans anymore, and also not one where there are no solid structures (Max Max is a terrifying world, but it’s too anarchic to be dystopian as a whole). Star Trek has never been this, no matter how bad a situation gets.
That's true.
It's just that i find it hard to find a good word for the dark scenarios we see in many series and movies today.
