I used to be a BIG Star Trek fan

[Rÿcher]

Now, not so much.

It's all the same thing over and over and over again. Star Trek is a metaphor for the time in which it was shown and to show how we can all get along despite our differences even in the turbulent sixties what with the civil rights demonstrations and Vietnam going on. Shatner, Nimoy, Takei... they all regurgitate that shit at every opportunity. They have nothing else to say about Star Trek. No personal takes on the show, not what it meant to them as individual people but as a collective. Every single interview you see with the cast of trek - you watch them - you'll see that they bring up the sixties and how the strife of that era was reflected in the series and how Roddenberry wanted to use the show to show us another way.

Sure, Trek's taught me a lot of fancy words and how to play nice but dear damn, let go of the rhetoric already! We've heard it enough! Time for something new, something fresh. People still have instincts and desires and that's not going to all vanish with the appearance of an alien craft in north ass-crack Montana. It's going to take thousands of years to really get prejudice, war, hate, intolerance, bigotry, greed and want out of our systems.

it's really no wonder that Star Trek is perceived as more juvenile and more nerdy than other science fiction shows and movies out there. You get a Star Trek fan and a Star Wars fan in high school, which do you think is going to be picked on more? It's like a 17 y.o. liking Blue's Clues in 5th grade when all the other kids like Pokemon or whatever the kids are watching these days.

Now in my mid thirties, my head is filled with useless trivial knowledge about Trek. That's why I hang around these boards. That and to make chums. I still like to make the models and whatnot and it is still kind of a guilty pleasure.

 

[The_Beef]

I think the rhetoric holds true to an extent in that, when Star Trek has been popular and has flourished, it has reflected the spirit of its times. This is really true for any show, of course, but it's discussed so much about Star Trek because Trek has always thrived on social commentary. The trouble is that Star Trek stopped being relevant. It became stagnant with Voyager and Enterprise and it just stopped, for the most part, speaking to people. Aside from the social commentary aspect, it simply became irrelevant as entertainment. Rehashed stories with better special effects just couldn't cut it. Any show has to be innovative to thrive and it must be appropriate for it's time and place. Star Trek, by the end of the Voyager era and by the time of Enterprise, was just a fish out of water, trying to be TNG, which was very much a show that could have only existed in the late '80s and early '90s. That's not a special effects matter, that's referring to the types of stories, to the optimism, to all the other myriad characteristics that are too many to name.

Let's take a look at another sci-fi show for contrast, one that has been well received in recent years: Battlestar Galactica. It's a show that, from the very start, tapped into the feelings of shock and paranoia in the post-9/11 world. It deals in morally gray issues and asks the fundamental question time after time, "Is humanity worth saving?" Enterprise tried to address all these things, but ultimately it was still a failure because it was still tied, deep down, to the optimism that has been part of Trek since the beginning. We just haven't been in an optimistic era and, admittedly, all of Trek's ideals can seem like pure rhetoric when you're seeing a world that's radically different.

Trek can, however, reestablish itself as something culturally relevant. It has to tap into modern sensibilities and ideas, modern fears and issues. I really do think the problem that you've exhibited here is not, really, that it's all empty rhetoric. It's that it seems like empty rhetoric because it no longer speaks to or resembles the age we live in.

 

[jgdst]

Two posts that make excellent points. I agree that Voyager wasn't all that relevant, particularly towards its end, and Enterprise only really cottoned onto the idea in season 3. While the whole Xindi arc was a response to the post-9/11 world, I don't think it really said enough on the subject - like offering hope, or how people actually responded to it. Archer got a bit angry and Trip couldn't sleep. But no reactions from anyone else.

Also the episode Chosen Realm that basically said "religion sucks, Trek is right" was rather ill thought out and really didn't ask any questions of fundamentalism so much as make a judgement on religion in general.

I think if Trek is to become popular again in the future, it's got to tap into the current mood of the world at that time, but it's still got to offer hope. DS9 did this superbly I thought. It managed to have its say on politics, religion and war, and still come across that everything was worth fighting for, and that it's going to be the utopia that Roddenberry imagined.

Who knows what the future holds though? I'm hoping the new film goes back to TOS's idea of dressing up real issues in a sci-fi disguise (at least a little bit), rather than just an all-out action flick in space.

 

[RAMA]

Now, not so much.

It's all the same thing over and over and over again. Star Trek is a metaphor for the time in which it was shown and to show how we can all get along despite our differences even in the turbulent sixties what with the civil rights demonstrations and Vietnam going on. Shatner, Nimoy, Takei... they all regurgitate that shit at every opportunity. They have nothing else to say about Star Trek. No personal takes on the show, not what it meant to them as individual people but as a collective. Every single interview you see with the cast of trek - you watch them - you'll see that they bring up the sixties and how the strife of that era was reflected in the series and how Roddenberry wanted to use the show to show us another way.

Sure, Trek's taught me a lot of fancy words and how to play nice but dear damn, let go of the rhetoric already! We've heard it enough! Time for something new, something fresh. People still have instincts and desires and that's not going to all vanish with the appearance of an alien craft in north ass-crack Montana. It's going to take thousands of years to really get prejudice, war, hate, intolerance, bigotry, greed and want out of our systems.

it's really no wonder that Star Trek is perceived as more juvenile and more nerdy than other science fiction shows and movies out there. You get a Star Trek fan and a Star Wars fan in high school, which do you think is going to be picked on more? It's like a 17 y.o. liking Blue's Clues in 5th grade when all the other kids like Pokemon or whatever the kids are watching these days.

Now in my mid thirties, my head is filled with useless trivial knowledge about Trek. That's why I hang around these boards. That and to make chums. I still like to make the models and whatnot and it is still kind of a guilty pleasure.

One quibble: I don't think ST is perceived as MORE juvenile, though definitely nerdy. I think the perception is that it is too mature and intellectual, and therefore less accessible than something like SW.

RAMA

 

[Navaros]

I agree that the TOS actors don't have anything interesting to say and just keep regurgitating the same old meaningless generic spiel.

The interviews on the the DS9 DVD extras with the actors and showrunners have them giving much more insightful & intelligent interviews. However, Paramount only put tiny bits and pieces of them on there, and most of the time of those pieces is wasted showing footage of the show.

Anyhow my point is that the DS9 actors seem to have a lot better commentary about Trek and acting in general to give than the actors from the other shows.

Here's a really good interview with Armin Shimerman, for example:

http://www.interviewinghollywood.com/videos/video-187.html

 

[Marie1]

Thats why I rarely watch any extras, interviews etc. And then, when I do, they're usually about sfx. I try to take the shows and appreciate the ideals from my own perspective. I mean, not everything is about the Nazis... there have been lots of other horrible groups. So its all a matter of interpretation, so I just take whats happening to each show, see if I like it, and how it applies to the present if I bother with the message.