What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

I believe the production also said that they weren't going to adhere to previous Trek's one season equals a year of in-universe time.

 

Honestly, I could see it ending by ignoring the accident altogether. I mean, we know what happens to Pike and how he gets back to Talos. Why retell it or bring back footage from The Menagerie. Just end it with either Pike and co flying off to their next adventure. Or have a small scene with Pike turning over command to Kirk and saying goodbye to Spock.

 

Ooh that would invalidate the time crystal vision.... Perfect, also it would anger rabid fans

 

I’m not saying that doesn’t happen to Pike. It has to happen.

I’m just saying that maybe at the end of the show they don’t leave it on a downer. Don’t end it with a crippled Pike in one form or another.

 

They could cop out of it at the end by saying: Parallel reality in which it never happened!

(Though I suppose that would make a lot of fans angry after having watched the show for so many years expecting the show to lead up to that point).

 

Maybe this is simply an observation, not a controversial opinion, but it strikes me that Star Trek as a whole is no longer associated with an optimistic view of the future, it’s just run of the mill entertainment. No one is inspired to make the Roddenberry vision a reality.

 

Much as I love DS9, they started loosening their attitude to that vision in that series. At least to the extent that 'people will do desperate things in desperate situations, Federation ideology or not'.

Then again, humanity was stiflingly perfect by the time of (early) TNG.

 

Because Star Trek is trying hard to just be it's own thing and not be about our humanity or it's future. People would rather hold on to the perfectionism of TNG rather than believe it is possible like TOS.

 

SNW should end with the accident; it serves as a coda to his active life in Starfleet, and a nod toward his well-known future, so there would be a mix of tragedy and hope at the end of it all.

This.

TNG set the looking-down-the-nose-at-everyone approach to ST that's infected most ST productions ever since. Instead of creating a universe where the notion of a better life / worldview is something to aspire to, yet the reality of a dangerous, often brutal universe is what one must deal with (TOS), the heartless, lifeless Berman era came off like a political party convention, where its guests collectively inform you of the "correct" manner of thought, action, and personal destiny.

That was not Star Trek.

 

We had survived the late 20th c. Peoples of earth were cooperating. There was hope.

That was the vision.

People were still people though. Far from perfect. Far from living utopia.

 

I only notice this holier-than-thou attitude in TNG, and then, most pronounced in early TNG. In my view, it had been dialed back in DS9 and VOY, already.

The characters had a certain disdain for earlier eras in those series, but we also see that in TOS - at least in the movies. (For example, Kirk calling 20th century San Fransisco 'An extremely primitive and paranoid culture.').

 

We will never see a return to that extreme form of optimism in STAR TREK (or fiction in general) ever again.

9/11 made sure of that.

At best, we'll see little glimmers of it.

 

Which is part of the appeal. Being able to connect with people, while feeling like change is possible. To me, TNG shows the end result but disdains the process. In regards to TOS I think it does, as you note, being far from perfect helps make the vision more hopeful.

 

I disagree entirely that Star Trek no longer projects hope for an optimistic future, but I do agree that early TNG was was less than subtle in its morality tales.

I write that up to the fact that when we begin the next generation, the Federation is looking at an extended period of peace with the Klingons and isolation from the Romulans. There was a border conflict with the Cardassians and some skirmishes that are on record, but for the most part, the Federation was at peace for over 80 years. Then, at the end of the first season, the romulan isolation ends and in the second season of TNG we're introduced to the Borg. Both of these things would cause a peaceful and utopian society to start looking towards defense and security.

 

Yeah, The Cardassians, Talarians and Tzenkethi seem to be the big baddies the Federation has fought since the TOS Movie Era and as big a threat as the Cardassians were in DS9 they just didn't give off the same feelings of imminent and existential danger to the Federation in TNG that the Klingons and Romulans did in the earlier series and films. That's roughly 50 years of more low-grade conflicts that, while in their own way were bloody and scarred those who fought in them(Miles O'Brien and Captain Benjamin Maxwell to name two Starfleet officers)weren't the quadrant-altering conflicts that the Earth-Romulan War in the 22nd century, the later Cold War with the Romulans and the recurring wars and border conflicts with the Klingons were and for the better part of 140 years.

The Federation of the early-to-mid 24th century was, to be frank, more optimistic and willing to take a utopian and egalitarian approach to interstellar relations and even the worlds of its own member species.

 

It does, but not in the way some fans would regard it as optimism. It's the same thing I run in to with clients at work-the expectation of perfection on the first go around in changing behavior. Optimism requires sweat, hard work and efforts in managing new behaviors and willing to overcome adversity.

Optimism nowadays reflects far more of the "Happily Ever After" style ending that once it goes right no other work is needed.

 

Well, we have prominent cast and creators (Sir Patrick) telling us that this is no time for optimism. Ahem. YOU LIVED THROUGH THE SECOND WORLD WAR!

 

To be fair, WWII ended when he was five.

He remembers the second World War about as well as I remember the Cold War.

The part he remembers is, "Our side won!"

 

It's not uncommon to look down upon the past. We look down upon the 1950s. I hope people in the future look down upon the 2020s. The times we're living in are pretty messed up.

 

To me, there is a difference in looking down and touting current superiority and acknowledging the past as messed up but valuable for growth.