Is the utopistic Trek gone with this movie?

[Greg Cox]

Technically the Trek 'Utopia' died at Wolf 359, but whatever...

Or when the Doomsday Machine wiped out all those planets. Or Kodos the Executioner slaughtered half the population of Tarsus IV. Or when the Gorns slaughtered that other outpost. Or when the neural parasites attacked.

The final frontier has never been particularly safe or utopian.

 

[T'Girl]

If you mean an idealistic future in which people of all races--including non-Human--work together, I'd say it was still there.

The command crew of the Enterprise, the featured slice of the Federation that we were shown, had exactly one non-Human. And actual, he was half.

Take a look at the background characters on the Enterprise, the crew of the Kelvin and the Starfleet cadets. Look at the racial diversity among the humans - there's far more than any Trek has had before.

The named officers of the Enterprise, including Pike and Olsen, are mostly male, white, and again Human. There's one non-male, one half-Human, and two non-whites.

The only three members of the Kelvins crew featured, the Captain and the two Kirks, were all Human, two were white.

not very diverse in certain areas, like when it comes to gays for example.

Maybe they are there, just not making a big production number out of something that is no one's business in the first place, especially in settings where it has no relevance.

If it has no relevance then why; Nero's spouse is female, Sarek's spouse is female, Kirk's bed partner is female, Spock's relationship partner is female, Uhura's relationship partner is male. At no point in the movie, when a romantic or sexual relationship was shown, was the relationship shown to be gay. JJ Abram's clearly showed four, all heterosexual.

Besides Ultraman you know how we gays just love our "big production numbers."

 

[Capt_Pickirk]

Technically the Trek 'Utopia' died at Wolf 359, but whatever...

Or when the Doomsday Machine wiped out all those planets. Or Kodos the Executioner slaughtered half the population of Tarsus IV. Or when the Gorns slaughtered that other outpost. Or when the neural parasites attacked.

Or at Talos 4...

The final frontier has never been particularly safe or utopian.

Exactly.

 

[ALF]

You can't have utopia in a film continuum where all the producers in hollywood are chanting, "darker, darker!!! make more films darker, dammit!!"

 

[Capt_Pickirk]

You can't have utopia in a film continuum where all the producers in hollywood are chanting, "darker, darker!!! make more films darker, dammit!!"

*walks into movie theatre*
*thump*
Ow.
*thump*
Sorry.
*thump*
Ow, sorry.
*thump*
Oh for FS. Why does hollywood keep making these movies so dark? I can't see anything

 

[F. King Daniel]

You can't have utopia in a film continuum where all the producers in hollywood are chanting, "darker, darker!!! make more films darker, dammit!!"

You can when the director's yelling "Lens flares! More lens flares, dammit!!"

 

[Nerys Myk]

You can't have utopia in a film continuum where all the producers in hollywood are chanting, "darker, darker!!! make more films darker, dammit!!"

You can when the director's yelling "Lens flares! More lens flares, dammit!!"

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The movie was not inconsistent with the utopian vision of Earth and the Federation. We didn't see slums, disease, war, injustice, etc. Unless you count a kid fighting with his uncle and wrecking his car in revenge, but no utopia will ever squelch human nature. (And the persistence of human nature in all its messy, irrational glory has always been a Star Trek theme, in fact one that's been neglected in all series beside TOS).

Also, the utopia of the 23rd C was apparently more capitalistic and Starfleet more freewheeling than the straightlaced commie utopia of the 24th C. So the 23rd C does need to be a bit messy by comparison.

 

[T'Girl]

The movie was not inconsistent with the utopian vision of Earth and the Federation. We didn't see slums, disease, war, injustice, etc.

Maybe not slums, no. But there was a fair number of diseases mentioned, McCoy's "space is disease comment. They have Andorian shingles, that make your eyeballs are bleed. McCoy uses the symptoms from a Melvaran mud flea virus to get Kirk aboard the Enterprise. Sulu is on the bridge because "McKenna" has lungworm, Captain Pike doesn't find having his usually helmsman having lungworm unusual.

As far as war is concerned, the Federation in the alternate realm is a "peacekeeping armada" now, which it was not (or never refer to as) in the prime universe. Not Starfleet mind you, the Federation itself was an armada. And something was keeping the primary fleet engaged in the Laurentian system.

 

[xortex]

It's certainly a utpoia for the people at Bad Robot. A utopia in the middle of downtown hell, that is. or his will, he'll, you know who. Utopia is easy to write. Magic is difficult.

 

[Greg Cox]

The movie was not inconsistent with the utopian vision of Earth and the Federation. We didn't see slums, disease, war, injustice, etc.

Maybe not slums, no. But there was a fair number of diseases mentioned, McCoy's "space is disease comment. They have Andorian shingles, that make your eyeballs are bleed. McCoy uses the symptoms from a Melvaran mud flea virus to get Kirk aboard the Enterprise. Sulu is on the bridge because "McKenna" has lungworm, Captain Pike doesn't find having his usually helmsman having lungworm unusual.

But, again, who said there's not supposed to be disease in Kirk's era? Just off the top of my head . . .

"Metamorphosis"--Commissioner Hedford is dying of a rare alien fever.

"For the World is Hollow, etc.."--McCoy contracts a terminal disease.

"The Galileo Seven"--the Enterprise desperately needs to deliver medical supplies because of an epidemic on some Federation colony.

"Conscience of the King."--A rare fungus has wiped out all the crops of a planet.

"Miri"--the landing party contracts a deadly virus that has already killed off all the adults on the planet.

"Journal to Babel"--Sarek has Vulcan heart disease.

TOS was never a sterile, disease-free zone. Why do you think they kept Dr. McCoy around?

 

[Merky]

I did not catch any sort of utopistic vision in this one.

A Utopia is a world without famine, disease or war.

Trek was/is anything but that. There's more dystopia than there is an utopia.

 

[Greg Cox]

I did not catch any sort of utopistic vision in this one.

A Utopia is a world without famine, disease or war.

Trek was/is anything but that. There's more dystopia than there is an utopia.

I wouldn't call TREK dystopic. Compared to Planet of the Apes, Terminator, Mad Max, Logan's Run, The Matrix, and practically every other sf series, TREK definitely presents a positive vision of the future. It's not a cautionary tale about the dangers of science or whatever.

But I'm not sure where people got the idea that Trek was supposed to be this squeaky-clean, sterile utopia where everybody is perfect and nothing bad happens.

 

[Gepard]

But I'm not sure where people got the idea that Trek was supposed to be this squeaky-clean, sterile utopia where everybody is perfect and nothing bad happens . . . .

TNG, circa Roddenberry's "no conflict" decree. Probably.

 

[T'Girl]

I've been a fan of Star Trek since I was a small child (caught it from my parents), until I started reading this site two years ago, I didn't know that the Star Trek universe was supposed to be a utopia.

It really doesn't come across as one.

 

[Merky]

I did not catch any sort of utopistic vision in this one.

A Utopia is a world without famine, disease or war.

Trek was/is anything but that. There's more dystopia than there is an utopia.

I wouldn't call TREK dystopic. Compared to Planet of the Apes, Terminator, Mad Max, Logan's Run, The Matrix, and practically every other sf series, TREK definitely presents a positive vision of the future. It's not a cautionary tale about the dangers of science or whatever.

But I'm not sure where people got the idea that Trek was supposed to be this squeaky-clean, sterile utopia where everybody is perfect and nothing bad happens . . . .

Correct. I guess I would have been clearer if I stated that there were more focus on planets with more a dystopia than the UFP itself. (edit: The UFP just comes in and corrects the problem, lol)

Trek is just today's society in the future. There will always be conflict; its now on a galatic scale.

 

[BillJ]

A Utopia is a world without famine, disease or war.

Trek was/is anything but that. There's more dystopia than there is an utopia.

I wouldn't call TREK dystopic. Compared to Planet of the Apes, Terminator, Mad Max, Logan's Run, The Matrix, and practically every other sf series, TREK definitely presents a positive vision of the future. It's not a cautionary tale about the dangers of science or whatever.

But I'm not sure where people got the idea that Trek was supposed to be this squeaky-clean, sterile utopia where everybody is perfect and nothing bad happens . . . .

Correct. I guess I would have been clearer if I stated that there were more focus on planets with more a dystopia than the UFP itself. (edit: The UFP just comes in and corrects the problem, lol)

Trek is just today's society in the future. There will always be conflict; its now on a galatic scale.

Q: And later, on finally reaching deep space, humans of course found enemies to fight out there too. And to broaden those struggles you again found allies for still more murdering. The same old story, all over again.

 

[zar]

It's certainly a utpoia for the people at Bad Robot. A utopia in the middle of downtown hell, that is. or his will, he'll, you know who. Utopia is easy to write. Magic is difficult.

What is ... what?

 

[Merky]

It's certainly a utpoia for the people at Bad Robot. A utopia in the middle of downtown hell, that is. or his will, he'll, you know who. Utopia is easy to write. Magic is difficult.

What is ... what?

Translation: Bad Robot destroyed Star Trek

I wouldn't call TREK dystopic. Compared to Planet of the Apes, Terminator, Mad Max, Logan's Run, The Matrix, and practically every other sf series, TREK definitely presents a positive vision of the future. It's not a cautionary tale about the dangers of science or whatever.

But I'm not sure where people got the idea that Trek was supposed to be this squeaky-clean, sterile utopia where everybody is perfect and nothing bad happens . . . .

Correct. I guess I would have been clearer if I stated that there were more focus on planets with more a dystopia than the UFP itself. (edit: The UFP just comes in and corrects the problem, lol)

Trek is just today's society in the future. There will always be conflict; its now on a galatic scale.

Q: And later, on finally reaching deep space, humans of course found enemies to fight out there too. And to broaden those struggles you again found allies for still more murdering. The same old story, all over again.

No, the same old story is the one we're meeting now. Self-rightous life-forms who are eager, not to learn-but to prosecute to judge anything they don't understand or can't tolerate.


Oh, how deplorable human nature truly is. Though, I guess it is more of a natural instinct of survival.

 

[M'Sharak]

It's certainly a utpoia for the people at Bad Robot. A utopia in the middle of downtown hell, that is. or his will, he'll, you know who. Utopia is easy to write. Magic is difficult.

What is ... what?

Be careful what you ask for. Some utpoia will, he'll, you know, downtown understood - not magic hell.