Do you think Star Trek needed a reboot?
- Thread starter The Overlord
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But it made for less memorable characters and situations.
Always struck me as funny that TOS was supposed to be utopian in values and show the best of humanity when McCoy is such a racist arsehole to Spock all the time.
And everybody's just cool with it. Imagine if he walked on to the bridge and talked that way to Uhura or Sulu about their race.
I prefer TNG's approach in that humanity have progressed further in ridding themself of prejudice and conflict. It makes for stranger viewing and better escapism.
I'm not sure if TOS ever touted their world as a utopian society (at least not during the TV run). They said they had overcame a lot of social ills that plagued the Earth in the past, but they never said they had no problems "period".
We people in the 21st century would also say we are much more civilized than, say, 300 years ago, and have overcome many social injustices over the past few centuries. However, we would never claim that our society is totally enlightened.
Civilization is a veneer. Always has been. Always will be.
McCoy was there to keep everyone honest. Even if his ways weren't PC by even 21st century standards. Frankly, you need a person like that around, now and then.
(And, I reach, Herbert Roykirk, with your other post about the utopian ideals in TNG being a little bit creepy. Pompous, too. To me, it comes down to this: would you rather be at a party with Kirk on a New Years Eve in the 23rd century, or with Picard in the 24th? To me, the answer is obvious.)
Well, one would provide fascinating intellectual and philosophical debate and the other would be fucking my girlfriend in the broom cupboard.
With Kirk you'd likely get both...
I love Kirk as much as anybody but I think Picard sums up what I personally like about Star Trek more than the other captains. Kirk is too driven by his passions. Picard is more about intellect, while still being a man of supreme conscience.
The Inner Light is my favourite episode of all Trek. Closely followed by DS9's The Visitor.
And let's not forget Dr. Polaski's Prejudice with Data and O'Brien's dislike of Cardassians (And I'm sure many other vets of recent wars/confrontations feel the same prejudice for their recent combatants)
The Inner Light puts me to sleep and The Visitor is only slightly stronger. I like my Trek to be entertaining first and foremost.
The Inner Light balances intelligent, imaginative sci-fi/fantasy and moving character drama perfectly. It's my ideal type of Trek.
One of the big reasons the TNG films suck, is that they made Picard more like Kirk.
Ehh?? There's a clear difference between judging someone based on how they were born and judging someone on what they believe. Not that I'm saying it's necessarily right to judge someone who chooses to be a theist, but there is quite a distinction between being bothered by someone because of their biology and being bothered because of someone's beliefs. Unless you just mean the show in general being anti-theist, in which case it's just another belief of the creator (har, har) that is promoted in the art, just like it's anti-murder, anti-rape, anti-racist, etc. No prejudice involved.
I love DS9 the most out of the Treks but I had to roll my eyes during my current rewatch when Sisko warned Jake that writing off the views of insane, babbling, uncivilised crackpot witches was a form of ignorant fundamentalist intolerance and that all beliefs are equally valid.
It's my ideal sleeping pill. Forty-five minutes of me watching Picard watch a movie and Riker acting like a moron.
I'd much rather watch an episode that has a pulse. Things like The Royale or Skin of Evil or The Enemy or Improbable Cause/The Die is Cast or Homefront/Paradise Lost or In the Pale Moonlight or Basics I/II or The Augment Trilogy...
There is probably six hundred episodes of Trek that I'd rather watch.
It's possible to be prejudiced against someone based on the choices in life they make. Roddenberry's attitude towards religion was blatantly prejudicial.
As per Braga: "In Gene Roddenberry's imagining of the future [...] religion is completely gone. Not a single human being on Earth believes in any of the nonsense that has plagued our civilization for thousands of years. This was an important part of Roddenberry's mythology. He, himself, was a secular humanist and made it well-known to writers of Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation that religion and superstition and mystical thinking were not to be part of his universe. On Roddenberry's future Earth, everyone is an atheist. And that world is the better for it."
That kind of thinking is prejudicial.
Religion is not a "plague." Religion is not all "nonsense," "superstition" or "mystical thinking" and getting rid of it will not automatically make the world a better place. That's the kind of person who believes that all people of faith are evil backwards people, and that is prejudice.
As per Braga: "In Gene Roddenberry's imagining of the future [...] religion is completely gone. Not a single human being on Earth believes in any of the nonsense that has plagued our civilization for thousands of years. This was an important part of Roddenberry's mythology. He, himself, was a secular humanist and made it well-known to writers of Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation that religion and superstition and mystical thinking were not to be part of his universe. On Roddenberry's future Earth, everyone is an atheist. And that world is the better for it."
That kind of thinking is prejudicial.
Religion is not a "plague." Religion is not all "nonsense," "superstition" or "mystical thinking" and getting rid of it will not automatically make the world a better place. That's the kind of person who believes that all people of faith are evil backwards people, and that is prejudice.
There is probably six hundred episodes of Trek that I'd rather watch.
I love it. Sometimes you don't need a sexy MTV cast, Michael Bay editing, lens flare and a million explosions.
No, sometimes all you need is a bald guy and his flute. Utterly captivating.
Agreed. I'd have been more satisfied if Riker had sacrificed Wesley in a burning wicker man as an offering to Osiris.
And if Trek truly supported this, the practices of the Borg would be a valid lifestyle. You're right; beliefs aren't equal.
How's it any different than Trek's future being a world where humans no longer go to war or no longer steal from the poor? Superstition is something that Roddenberry thought was an impediment to human progress and morality and so he had it removed in his ideal future along with other things. If you personally don't think it is an impediment, that's your opinion, but I don't think there's anything prejudicial about Roddenberry removing one more idea he thought was harmful to humans along with all the others he removed in the ST future.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Roddenberry never said that anyone who has faith is an evil, backwards person. Just that he didn't like something that many people, some extraordinarily good, some extraordinarily evil, happened to believe. It's entirely possible to think that there are good, kind, considerate religious people while simultaneously thinking that the concept of superstition (which religion IS; it's belief without evidence, the very definition of superstition) is harmful to humanity as a whole.
In my personal canon humanity have realised organised religion is evil and anti-intellectual but still embrace individual spirituality.
Riker is a devotee of the teachings of Aleister Crowley and through a combination of drugs, sex rituals and pagan texts he believes he can directly communicate with the god Enki.
Beat that Abrams.
Riker is a devotee of the teachings of Aleister Crowley and through a combination of drugs, sex rituals and pagan texts he believes he can directly communicate with the god Enki.
Beat that Abrams.
I'm sure you'll kindly point out where the elements you mention above are at in the episodes I listed?
None of them, appears you've got the wrong end of the stick.
With Troi as his personal concubine who feels the emotions of dead spirits and transfers them to Riker through numerology. Abrahadabra
I like TNG a lot (as I do TOS). I love "The Inner Light".
However, I still feel the whole "we are sooooo enlightened in the 24th century" shpeel to be unbelievable. As I said above, I find their ideas of what the 24th century to be like to be creepy in a way, and (as others have pointed out) a little pompous. Even with that, I STILL enjoy TNG, because I know it's just fiction, as is its idea that the 24th century is full of renaissance men who can all recite Shakespeare and Keats, all have a passion for classical music, and who all can't fathom the idea of human injustice, human violence, or human prejudice.
That's why I find it hard to conceive that someone would dislike AbramsTrek over some idealist vision of what THEY think the future will be like. I don't think the TNG idea of the 24th century is our future (at least I hope it isn't), but I still enjoy TNG immensely. So why would Abrams' depiction of the 23rd century cause anyone to automatically dislike his film?
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