What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

None of the Red Squad cadets deserved to die. That's just horrific nonsense. But, Cadet Watters was disobeying direct orders by attempting to destroy a tactically superior ship instead of returning to Allied territory with their new intel. They should have clearly returned to Federation space, returned the Valiant and the intel to Starfleet, and resumed their duties. Furthermore, Cadet Watters should have immediately turned command over to Ensign Nog when he came aboard, since he was the only one who was the one who actually had a commission and was therefore the ranking officer on site. Had Cadet Watters survived, he clearly should have been subjected to a court-martial.

 

TNG is immensely, blatantly racist and antisemitic.

 

Is that controversial instead of, like, the entire point of the episode?

...do people say Watters was right?!

edit: Full disclosure, I did not scroll up before replying here.

 

Why have I not heard the "My Heart Will Go On" on the flute recorder thing before. I have changed my opinion on this episode mainly because of the Mind Rape issue, but she seemed a little harsh. Still, the MHWGO thing was funny.

 

Did the magazines teach you how a star going 'cold' in TOS could cause an orbiting planet to explode and how that planet could defy the laws of physics and change its mass before doing so?

Or even better, how the disembodied spirit of Jack the Ripper could travel across several light years and possess not only people, but also computers?

How about the one where Apollo, the actual Greek God is sad because nobody worships him anymore?

Or how, more generally, FTL travel is made possible by magic red space crystals?

ALL Trek is full of nonsense science. Let's not pretend it's just the new, eh?

 

This is a series that has transporters and faster than light travel. You have to suspend some disbelief.

 

Since when?

 

1966, give or take.

 

Hmmm...well, things were different back then. People didn't take it so seriously*



*it was very difficult to type that with a straight face.

 

It's not though is it?

Not really.

Next!

 

IMMENSELY and BLATANTLY. (But just TNG.)

 

I don't know season 1 of TNG has some episodes that aged like raw milk.

 

"When the Bough Breaks" means well but it's as boring as watching drywall. "Coming of Age" has the great Wesley-attempts-to-enter-Starfleet Academy subplot but otherwise it doesn't offer much. And then you have "The Naked Now" which was done far better in 1966 and by a different cast with fewer resources.

 

Yeah, I can see that. Worf fits into various "noble savage" stereotypes. And it's pretty noticeable that the almost all-white writing staff wrote Geordi to fit into the trope of the "black nerd who can't get a girl" -- a trope that African-American science fiction writer Steven Barnes has argued is often used by white male writers who subconsciously don't want to depict black men as viable sexual competition to white men. And obviously the majority of the TNG cast was white or coded as white, and Latino, Asian, and Indigenous representation was almost nonexistent. And obviously the Ferengi as depicted in TNG come uncomfortably close to quite a few antisemitic stereotypes, and the fact that we never once saw evidence that Jewish culture still exists in the 24th Century doesn't help.

 

That is one thing that I miss.

 

Not just, but possibly most. DS9 being a close second.

Obviously TOS was, as much of the media at the time was, but mostly by ommission, which has mostly been the issue with the whole franchise until recently.

But TNG and DS9 were actively racist AF.

 

It is though, isn't it? Very much so.

As is literally being so dismissive, so, NEXPPPPPFFFFTTTTTTT

 

Because in 1966 they had to come up with different motivations for the characters than "we want to have sex".

How often in TNG did we see evidence that ANY contemporary faith exists? If The Great Bird is involved then the answer is "NONE!" That's what Bajorans (and possibly Space Native Americans) are for.

 

1) Jewish culture encompasses more than the religion of Judaism. There are plenty of atheist Jews.

2) It is still antisemitic to not have Jewish representation in an idealized future, even if you don't depict other faiths. All that means is that TNG is antisemitic and Islamophobic and anti-Christian and Hinduphobic and anti-Buddhist, etc.

Congratulations, you've argued that TNG is institutionally antisemitic as a result of Roddenberry's prejudice against religions.