Anti-Trek sci-fi show/movie?

[ambelamba]

I wonder what would be like if someone creates a sci-fi series that is a complete antithesis of Star Trek.

For the sake of story and scale, there should be FTL technology and whatnot. But the rest of the elements are completely different.

It would be a dark, pessimistic, violent, and sinister trilogy of movies or tv show. The first contacts with aliens always starts with grave miscommunication and ends with black and blue eyes. FTL breaks down constantly. People are driven by greed. Less advanced aliens want to wait for some advanced schmuck to land down and forcefully capture the technology when the opportunity occurs.

And the visual of the series would be something like "Techno-Baroque". All the spaceships look like they are some kind of gigantic sculptures. costumes look very baroque and steam-punk. Profanities are endless.

So many alien species are very intolerant of each other. Religious fanaticism, just like Dune universe, is rampant in the Galaxy. Powerful empires constantly expand themselves, driven by unquenchable greed. Planetary genocide happens every other day and Galactic News Network reports the news of brutality.

Darfur and Rwanda-like planets are dime in a dozen. Refugees fill up the shipping lane. Visually, it's vicereal. The series never pulls the punch. Everything is IN YOUR FACE. Scenes of genocide, mass rape, starvation, slavery, cruelty are shown unfiltered.

 

[Michael]

I guess it would be like the Mirror Universe episodes. Sans the fun.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Farscape.

So many alien species are very intolerant of each other. Religious fanaticism, just like Dune universe, is rampant in the Galaxy. Powerful empires constantly expand themselves, driven by unquenchable greed. Planetary genocide happens every other day and Galactic News Network reports the news of brutality.

That isn't so far from the Star Trek mold. Remember, the Federation is holy and pure, and the aliens are all nasty and evil.

Farscape is the anti-Trek because it depicts all the powerful forces as sinister and unbeatable - the only force capable of beating the resident evil empire is the evil empire next door - and the little guy has no hope to do anything more than scurry around like a rat and try to survive.

 

[Anthony Sabre]

Like Firefly?

 

[patlandness]

They did. It was called: Deep Space Nine. Hello?

 

[Colonel Green]

Red Dwarf.

 

[patlandness]

Red Dwarf.

No sir. "Red Dwarf" is closer to Trek than anything that's come after TNG. And I'll argue that point with anyone.

 

[Anthony Sabre]

They did. It was called: Deep Space Nine. Hello?

I always took DS9 as more anti-TNG then anti-Trek.

 

[DWF]

Blake's 7, it's certainly the first of the anti-Star Trek shows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake's_7#Critical_reception

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I wonder what would be like if someone creates a sci-fi series that is a complete antithesis of Star Trek...Scenes of genocide, mass rape, starvation, slavery, cruelty are shown unfiltered.

What would it be like?

Cancelled in three weeks is what it would be like.

 

[ambelamba]

I wonder what would be like if someone creates a sci-fi series that is a complete antithesis of Star Trek...Scenes of genocide, mass rape, starvation, slavery, cruelty are shown unfiltered.

What would it be like?

Cancelled in three weeks is what it would be like.

Ok, then a trilogy of movies, then.

Have you guys seen Salvador directed by Oliver Stone? I saw it at a film history class in college. Stone was a medic in Vietnam war. He was well aware of how gunshot wound look like. If you haven't seen Salvador, rent it and watch it.

If I were a producer with a huge pocket, I would make a sci-fi film trilogy with the visual of Riddick and the intensity of Salvador.

 

[trevanian]

I wonder what would be like if someone creates a sci-fi series that is a complete antithesis of Star Trek...Scenes of genocide, mass rape, starvation, slavery, cruelty are shown unfiltered.

What would it be like?

Cancelled in three weeks is what it would be like.

Ok, then a trilogy of movies, then.

Have you guys seen Salvador directed by Oliver Stone? I saw it at a film history class in college. Stone was a medic in Vietnam war. He was well aware of how gunshot wound look like. If you haven't seen Salvador, rent it and watch it.

If I were a producer with a huge pocket, I would make a sci-fi film trilogy with the visual of Riddick and the intensity of Salvador.

I've seen SALVADOR ... once. It and JFK are STone's best pics by far for me, but the diff is that I've seen JFK about 15 times. SALVADOR is a great film, but it actually INDUCES despair (the stuff with the nuns is just too hard to watch) ... a trilogy of SALVADORs would have audiences running to cinemas with upper decks just so they could jump off them to their deaths.

However, Anti-Trek is a great concept, and a bunch of folks have tried coming up with it (myself included.) Personally, I liked a less overtly or less showy evil, more insidious kind of take on it, where you take delusional Trek elements and act them out realistically (the prime directive, which would be unenforceable in any univers including the trek one, would serve as a way to keep any tampering through 'official' channels, but also leave the coast clear for covert tampering/interference, up to and including getting a planet to nuke itself so that your federation could come in after and clean up on minerals and such without a fight.)

And it is a universe where orthidonture is a lost art, so nobody has straight teeth ... you need to put in 15 years military service to get your teeth fixed (that was part of my notion of having characters who didn't look Hollywood.)

 

[Anachronus]

Like Firefly?

Blakes 7 did it first and better

 

[trevanian]

Like Firefly?

Blakes 7 did it first and better

Did it first and with bigger hair (and at least SOME sf content) and a second lead who was a cross between Dirty Harry and Dr. Zachary Smith, but not better.

 

[GeneHunt]

Red Dwarf.

No sir. "Red Dwarf" is closer to Trek than anything that's come after TNG. And I'll argue that point with anyone.

Explain

 

[UnknownSample]

Like Firefly?

Blakes 7 did it first and better

Good God, yes. No further discussion necessary. Every attempt to do a science fiction series after B7 has modelled itself after B7... Andromeda (every character has a corresponding B7 character), Farscape, Firefly.... but the modern American "sci-fi action-adventure" element ended up undermining these shows, to some extent. Farscape at least had an interesting attitude to it.

 

[patlandness]

Red Dwarf.

No sir. "Red Dwarf" is closer to Trek than anything that's come after TNG. And I'll argue that point with anyone.

Explain

Well, Trek at its best (TOS and TNG) had

1) compelling, intelligently written storylines

2) solid characters with at least a passing familiarity with morality

3) an overall premise with a vision of where it was going

4) an overall sense of fun and adventure

Sorry, DS9, VGR, and ENT may have had a few of these four traits but not all--hence, few people remember these shows.

True, "RD" never took the world by storm like TOS and TNG, but being an SF comedy, it had a valiant run.

 

[Carpe Occasio]

Battlestar Galactica

 

[RobertScorpio]

I wonder what would be like if someone creates a sci-fi series that is a complete antithesis of Star Trek...Scenes of genocide, mass rape, starvation, slavery, cruelty are shown unfiltered.

What would it be like?

Cancelled in three weeks is what it would be like.

It might be a hit in...oh...Kentucky

Rob

 

[diankra]

I wonder what would be like if someone creates a sci-fi series that is a complete antithesis of Star Trek.

For the sake of story and scale, there should be FTL technology and whatnot. But the rest of the elements are completely different.

It would be a dark, pessimistic, violent, and sinister trilogy of movies or tv show. The first contacts with aliens always starts with grave miscommunication and ends with black and blue eyes. FTL breaks down constantly. People are driven by greed. Less advanced aliens want to wait for some advanced schmuck to land down and forcefully capture the technology when the opportunity occurs.

And the visual of the series would be something like "Techno-Baroque". All the spaceships look like they are some kind of gigantic sculptures. costumes look very baroque and steam-punk. Profanities are endless.

So many alien species are very intolerant of each other. Religious fanaticism, just like Dune universe, is rampant in the Galaxy. Powerful empires constantly expand themselves, driven by unquenchable greed. Planetary genocide happens every other day and Galactic News Network reports the news of brutality.

Darfur and Rwanda-like planets are dime in a dozen. Refugees fill up the shipping lane. Visually, it's vicereal. The series never pulls the punch. Everything is IN YOUR FACE. Scenes of genocide, mass rape, starvation, slavery, cruelty are shown unfiltered.

Ummh, Lexx. Its creators continually described it as the anti-Trek, and the writers guide said 'Any submitted stories where our heroes learn a moral lesson, or teach one to the audience, or make the planet they visit a better place, will go straight in the bin.'