Baggage you wish Star Trek could be free of?
- Thread starter Autistoid
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Just asking, but were they mentioned as such? I suppose there's a difference between applying religious themes (Christian, Hindu, Judaism, etc) to writing, and outright stating it like in Wormhole's example above.
I also ask because I think it's pretty easy to find Christian themes in Trek in general, even if they aren't coded explicitly as such, simply because that's the majority religion (with all its subsets) and so it influences many Western writers, even non-Christian writers. So finding Hindu themes and references, I think, would be pretty neat.
Just asking, but were they mentioned as such?
In one TNG ep, Data makes reference to a Hindu festival being celebrated aboard the ship.
Not to nit-pick... ok, I am nit picking... While your point is clear, your description is inaccurate. Humanitarian isn't an organization. The rest of your list are organizations.
Humanitarian is an adjective that can (or cannot) be used to describe those organization. The Peace Corp. is a humanitarian organization. The Navy conducts humanitarian missions.
Semantics.
Both TOS and TNG have references to Hinduism.
Just asking, but were they mentioned as such?
In one TNG ep, Data makes reference to a Hindu festival being celebrated aboard the ship.
Data's Day, the Hindu Festival of Lights is being celebrated.
I'd much prefer get rid of the techno-babble that is beneath any credible engineer.
Again, you're missing my point. You seem to have an ongoing issue with casting decisions that is a big deal for you. But I don't think it as much of a genuine societal ill as you think it is. Weren't you the one pushing so hard for a female Doctor on Doctor Who, for instance?
This is, at the end of the day, entertainment. I am not anti-diversity but I don't see diversity being the driving objective of starting a creative work. It's about presenting characters that are interesting and have a story people can relate to, and when I say relate, that goes beyond simply thinking "gee, that person's gay and I'm gay, so I automatically relate" or "gee, that person's Asian and I'm Asian, so I relate". Identification happens across racial and gender (or even species) lines.
So if we adopted your attitude, we shouldn't have gotten into Kirk or McCoy because they are white males. So I sense a certain amount of "white guilt" thing going on here.
The problem with Trek, looking back at it 50 years on, was the degree to which we naively made a big deal out of the presence of blacks or Asians without looking deeper to how those characters were featured. A lot of has been written about how TOS wasn't intended to be an ensemble, and as a result characters like Uhura and Sulu got only a few episodes in which they were prominently featured. The rest of the time they were little more than symbols or tokens of diversity. Sulu with his "course laid in and plotted, Captain" and Uhura with "Hailing frequencies open."
So after everyone pats themselves on the back for putting a minority on the bridge, what exactly are you left with? Characters that are really not more than cardboard cutouts, and that does not move the needle on diversity.
Now let's look at the idea of a lesbian Asian captain who is a womanizer. Kirk's womanizing ways is actually the least redeeming, least heroic aspect of the character. In what way is merely copying Kirk's least admirable qualities in an unlikely form progressive? It's just a publicity stunt, after which you're left with nothing more than a caricature.
We'll have really evolved on the diversity front when diversity isn't something people do so gratuitously.
You see this continue to play out with the recent tempest in a teapot over the idea of a black James Bond and Roger Moore's objection to the idea. Everyone wants to somehow score some sort of PC points. I'd rather the focus be on quality instead of the superficiality of the casting decisions.
And for the record, I thought Avery Brooks wasn't very watchable on DS9, and Janeway was kind of an amorphous character on Voyager. So the diversity we got in the TNG era wasn't really that much better than TOS. At the end of the day a good character is a good character and it has nothing to do with this simple "identity politics".
I thought that was done because they were originally the descendants from the original Separated Vulcan's on Romulus mated with many of the original inhabitants of Remus and caused half-breeds which became commonplace and they simply took that idea down because of the corruption of the Tal-Shiar and the Romulan Empire?
Except for that captain that turned out to prophet.
I would rather have the Holodecks used more for investigative purposes and less for entertainment. The couple of time when they were used for that they worked pretty well- I am not going to google the show names but when Geordi had to figure our what was happening to his former crewmates, Riker had to exonerate himself on trial or when people were being kidnapped in their sleep you could see how versatile a tool the Holodeck was.
I would have space being more diverse in alien cultures- when you visit a colony or Starbase it would be like Babylon 5 with bizarre ships using unique technology and alien looking aliens in abundance. In TOS almost every ship you saw was Constitution class and almost every alien looked human. Every being seemed to use the same atmosphere mixture and had the same sensory equipment.
Increase the type of weaponry options- it seems odd that some type of phaser and torpedo are the only two options available. These are big ships- the Captain should have a number of choices as to how to deal with a confrontation. There are a couple of improvised ones- the Deflector Beam of Death in "The Best of Both Worlds' and the 'Crimson' something Geordi made up to confuse the Pakleds (sp?), but be it TOS, ST-E or ST-V, phasers and torpedoes seem to be the only armament.
If you encounter a unique technology/culture/technique KEEP THE NOTES. Too many shows find something great or learn from an advanced race only to forget everything for the rest of the series. Have some mention about an attempt of adding new equipment and testing it based on an earlier encounter. Maybe it is incompatible with current systems, or has some undesirable elements, but at least acknowledge that the cool information learned was not just squirreled away in some 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' warehouse...
I would have space being more diverse in alien cultures- when you visit a colony or Starbase it would be like Babylon 5 with bizarre ships using unique technology and alien looking aliens in abundance. In TOS almost every ship you saw was Constitution class and almost every alien looked human. Every being seemed to use the same atmosphere mixture and had the same sensory equipment.
Increase the type of weaponry options- it seems odd that some type of phaser and torpedo are the only two options available. These are big ships- the Captain should have a number of choices as to how to deal with a confrontation. There are a couple of improvised ones- the Deflector Beam of Death in "The Best of Both Worlds' and the 'Crimson' something Geordi made up to confuse the Pakleds (sp?), but be it TOS, ST-E or ST-V, phasers and torpedoes seem to be the only armament.
If you encounter a unique technology/culture/technique KEEP THE NOTES. Too many shows find something great or learn from an advanced race only to forget everything for the rest of the series. Have some mention about an attempt of adding new equipment and testing it based on an earlier encounter. Maybe it is incompatible with current systems, or has some undesirable elements, but at least acknowledge that the cool information learned was not just squirreled away in some 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' warehouse...
Ugh, I feel like I need to trade in my Trekkie Membership badge.
^ Explain.
Since all Trek is produced for viewing by the public, I'm not sure that dismissing the fans' view of it is in any way possible.
Remember, a lot of these things that we dismiss (and rightly so) as "baggage" are done precisely BECAUSE of this. Concessions had to be made to be able to produce the onscreen product - and get ratings. So clearly it is important what the fans think, because their ratings matter.
Remember, a lot of these things that we dismiss (and rightly so) as "baggage" are done precisely BECAUSE of this. Concessions had to be made to be able to produce the onscreen product - and get ratings. So clearly it is important what the fans think, because their ratings matter.
Regardless of how we can interpret it now, the intent at the time was to suggest humans were now secular. Who Watches the Watchers was basically Roddenberry's thesis regarding religion and his beliefs.
Sisko isn't really a Prophet, and regardless, what does this prove? Sisko himself likely isn't a believer in the Bajoran religion, and he views the Prophets as an alien life form, not as gods.
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^Although Sisko's faith may not have been as strong as Kira's, his actions during the later seasons of the series suggest that he believed in the Prophets at some level.
--Sran
--Sran
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