Good.
Earth's Role
- Thread starter Jeyl
- Start date
Good.
Adding flavor to the Trek universe can only make things better. Especially since it remains one of the few optimistic futures in mainstream science fiction. Not being destroyed by robots, aliens or ourselves is a great thing to look forward to. Especially if we can see that our heroes come from a world familiar to our own but free of crime and poverty.
Plus we know almost nothing about civilian life in the Federation, especially Earth. As far as I know the first hint as that there are still reporters because we see them at the launch of the 1701-B.
Seeing trucks and cars and busses that look so much like the ones we have today is strange. I'm trying to envision Picard driving a car to work at Starfleet HQ, or Scotty riding a bus somewhere. It's taking a little getting used to. I kinda like it, though.
I guess it means that IMDB listing for a meter maid was legit!
I guess it means that IMDB listing for a meter maid was legit!
It makes sense really. They've never shown mass use of the transporters and using shuttlecraft probably only replaces what we'd use a plane for or to get to a spacestation. A car, probably purely electric, is still a decent form of travel and probably preferred by some. I would think they would use a lot of mass transit as well.
The sanitized view of Earth we've seen in Trek TV and most movies makes it hard to imagine that it is potentially OUR future. It doesn't look like any place with which I'm familiar.
Many of the buildings and streets that were around 200 years ago are still used today. Heck, I used to live in a 150 year old house; no big deal. I want to see a 23rd century world that is in many ways familiar to the world in which I live, because I bet the 23rd century WILL (in many ways) look very much like the world in which we live today.
I suppose Star Trek does not NEED to be taking place in our potential future, but I feel that is what most people would like to think.
Last edited:
Haven't you seen Apple's 24th century logo?
That's cool man. It would be awesome if characters were walking around Star Fleet headquarters with some futuristic version of an iPad and the apple logo on the back.
Or maybe if they went to the past wearing Levis... but that'd be crazy.
Actually I like that idea. Levi's were invented in 1853 and there is no reason not to believe that 150 years from now that people may also be wearing them.
Some people IIRC in this thread have criticized the bar scene from Trek X as to 21st century and not a place where people in Star fleet may hang out.
Whomever said that has never lived near a Naval base because if they had and went to a local bar - a scene not to dissimilar would occur today, 50 years ago or even 100 years ago. So it's likely that a bunch of young SF recruits would be hanging out at a seedy bar.
The bar was also near the construction site where the Enterprise was being built. A tavern near a place where college-aged cadets and construction workers are. Great location, I'd say. And for either group, I wouldn't expect it to be The Ritz.
As far as "product placement" goes, "2001: A Space Odyssey" is hardly ruined by Pan Am, Bell Telephone, and Howard Johnson not even making it to 2001. Just roll with it.
Ordering a budweiser classic I can roll with, but the Beastie Boys and Nokia in the span of seconds? Come on, I want to escape this loud and commercialized world of ours.
Seedy bars (or taverns, pubs, or whatever) have always existed. I'm not sure why people think it is unrealistic to show a seedy bar in the future.
We may have more technology than we did 150 or 200 years ago, but human nature really hasn't change that much. If you read novels written 150 or close to 200 years ago, such as Little Women (for examples of American life) or the works of Charles Dickens (for examples of English life), you can see that the characters are quite contemporary when compared to people today, and they have similar actions and similar motivations we have. Those stories had very recognizable themes.
I read the biography of John Adams by David McCullough and was amazed by how contemporary seeming he and the world around him were during and after the time of the American revolution. You could have changed the names and dates in the life of John Adams and get a very modern story out of it.
Human nature and humans actions have not really changed in 200 years. I don't find it hard to believe that in 200 more years the nature of people will not seem that unrecognizable to us (nor us to them).
We may have more technology than we did 150 or 200 years ago, but human nature really hasn't change that much. If you read novels written 150 or close to 200 years ago, such as Little Women (for examples of American life) or the works of Charles Dickens (for examples of English life), you can see that the characters are quite contemporary when compared to people today, and they have similar actions and similar motivations we have. Those stories had very recognizable themes.
I read the biography of John Adams by David McCullough and was amazed by how contemporary seeming he and the world around him were during and after the time of the American revolution. You could have changed the names and dates in the life of John Adams and get a very modern story out of it.
Human nature and humans actions have not really changed in 200 years. I don't find it hard to believe that in 200 more years the nature of people will not seem that unrecognizable to us (nor us to them).
That Beastie Boys song is indisputably awesome.
I wouldn't mind Bud being around in the 2250s, but I'd have a hard time calling a world where people still listen to The Beastie Boys a utopia.
I always thought using The Beastie Boys (intended or not) was with the same tongue-in-cheek attitude of this exhange between Kirk and Spock in TVH:
Kirk: You mean the profanity? That's simply the way they talk here. Nobody pays attention to you if you don't swear every other word. You'll find it in all the literature of the period.
Spock: For example?
Kirk: Oh, the complete works of Jacqueline Susan, the novels of Harold Robbins.
Spock: Ah. The giants.
Spock's line got one of the biggest laughs of the movie in the theater where I saw it. I mean, what the heck.
Exactly. Which is one of my primary criticisms of TNG. If you believe the dialogue of the characters all of a sudden human nature dramatically changes with poof a few new gadgets and inventions like the holodeck and replicator technology.It's preposterous to think that all of a sudden humans would abandon our selfish ways and as Picard said, "work to better humanity."
Abrams vision of the future is far more realistic than to a lesser degree Roddenberry's TNG was and/or Bermans.
There's nothing wrong with a little tongue-in-cheek wink-and-a-nod playfulness from the filmmakers directed at the audience.
It's similar to that Easter egg/inside joke I posted in the Peter Weller thread regarding the Okudagram seen in the TNG episode "Up the Long Ladder". In that episode, there was an entry on Picard's computer monitor for a ship named the "SS Buckaroo Banzai", captained by John Whorfin, and on a mission to the Planet 10 (fans of Buckaroo Banzai will understand the references to captain and mission).
It's entertainment. Just roll with it; have fun with it.
I saw that in the other thread. Apparently, little Easter eggs like that were all over those PADDs.
Another neat thing on the bus scene in TVH was the passenger you can see reading an issue of "OMNI" magazine (for you youngsters, the magazine used to publish science articles and some sci-fi -- it stopped publishing in the late 1990s). You can't see the issue on screen, but years later, I read it was the one celebrating 25 years of manned space flight.
Similar threads
