Casual clothes TNG to PIC - from terrible to far too 2020s?
- Thread starter Phil123
- Start date
No it isn’t. Because again, you’re nodding to the future. You’re making an attempt. Like you are with the costumes and special effects. None of it hits the real future mark, but it is actually running with the concept.
Those people are not watching sci-fi. This is the same argument made before nerds conquered the world.
And are those that are most beloved. But you’re going too far with it. People love the way Picard or Kirk too speak. They’re not talking like contemporary audiences either. At least they didn’t until recently — for fuck’s sake. Bro.
Please. For one, the point is to nod at the future speak, not to engage in classism. I also love the fraks of nuBSG and the Belter language of The Expanse. What that got to do with putting on a Transatlantic accent a la Katherine Hepburn.
For another, classist is thinking that poor people wouldn’t like to use fancier words if they’d had access to a better education. We’re all human beings affected by circumstance. Please don’t suggest that circumstance should prescribe or fetishize who different people actually are.
No, using prescriptivist English is just as unrealistic as using contemporary vernacular. 24th Century English will absolutely not be like contemporary prescriptivist English or modern varieties of vernacular English; using either one is no more realistic than the other.
Okay, but why not have everyone speak in African-American Vernacular English, then? That would be just as much an act of "nodding to the future."
Says who? People want to emotionally connect with characters. They don't want characters that register to them as fake.
And one of the ways nerd culture conquered the world was by abandoning its reliance on prescriptivist language and embracing language that reflects psychological realism.
1) Picard has a character-based reason for using prescriptivist English -- he's a stuffy, formal, emotionally-distant guy! And his entire character arc is based around him gradually learning to let that go and let people in. And as he does, his language becomes more informal over the course of TNG and now PIC.
2) Kirk doesn't speak in prescriptivist English! He uses vernacular all the time.
No, classism is thinking that there is a such thing as "fancier" words. There isn't. There are just words.
I think that TOS did a good job with men's formal wear - and with various levels of futuristic suits, from the simple outfit of Arne Darvin to a slightly more elaborate suit for Nils Baris to the outfits worn by Sarek's aides in "Journey to Babel" up to Sarek's own suits to the suit worn by Commissioner Ferris (and Garth of Izar). A nice group of variations on a theme that compares pretty well to the variation in men's formal suits today.
Hopefully the modern business suit and tie will not die out. I don't get as much of a chance to wear mine as I would like, but I always get a lot of compliments from women when I do.
Yes, it is. For the point you conceded to in your next paragraph. I’m thinking you just like to argue?
Okay, make your case for it. I’m open. Are you?
?? You don’t think fans can emotionally connect to people who are not like them? You think they’d register different people as fake when they’re choosing to watch a science fiction television program set hundreds of years in the future with latex forehead aliens? You’re not giving viewers enough credit. TOS was a step ahead from the sci-fi of its time because Trek gave viewers more credit.
It’s not just Picard, everyone’s favorite RADA trained starship captain. Trek overall doesn’t sound like it’s time period, from the 60’s on.
Yes, and some are more nuanced and complex than others. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we all knew every last one and could code-switch to our hearts delight instead of that being the privilege of the few?
I'm the opposite. Put someone in something outlandish and I'm rolling my eyes if it doesn't fit the narrative.
No, it is not. There is no more and no less realism in using any form of contemporary English in a fictional 24th Century setting. The use of any form of contemporary English, even prescriptivist English, is unrealistic.
1) I did not "concede" any point.
2) I am asking you to break out of the mindset that holds that prescriptivist English is somehow "better" than other forms of English and out of the mindset that using prescriptivist English in a fictional future setting is somehow more "realistic" than using other forms of English. They are all equally unrealistic. No form of English in the real year 2365 will resemble any form of contemporary English, anymore than contemporary English today resembles prescriptivist, vernacular, or any other form or dialect of English of the 16th Century.
I am, but the point is not to "make a case." The point is that the use of AAVE in a fictional future setting is inherently just as valid as the use of prescriptivist English in a fictional future setting, because both are equally unrealistic. There is no "case" to be made for either one except on the basis of audience relatability.
That is not what I said.
I think that audiences are more than capable of handling characters who use some form of non-prescriptivist language, but that characters who only use prescriptivist language without a compelling reason based upon their personality will register as emotionally false.
The only character on TOS who only used prescriptivist English was Spock. The rest used forms of non-prescriptivist English.
No, they're not. There is as much nuance and complexity to, for one example, AAVE, as there is to prescriptivist English.
That's the point though -- so few characters on Berman-era Star Trek even code switch! So many just speak as though the idea of vernacular and slang and alternate dialects have just disappeared.
Yes,
it is. Not giving a thought to the future setting is more unrealistic than doing so. It commits the double sin of not trying on top of getting it wrong, which is a forgone conclusion either way.Your first word was “okay.”
You’re hung up on all the baggage that comes along with “prescriptivist” English. My point is in creating something that harmonizes with everything else going on to fit the concept the series. Future sets, future ships, future clothes, future characters, future date…not trying for future lingo is incongruous, and that’s on you, in my humble opinion.
Nah. There’s some colloquialisms in the dialogue as with any show, but they’re not speaking like people on the street or on a naval vessel. Ask any sailor.
But they did switch time to time. You’re arguing that they compound their shortcomings in doing so more often by prescribing, by institutionalizing, contemporary vernacular. Or, you know, they could get more creative and be more dazzling with every form of language. They do so with ships and costumes, why not play with language?
To me, wearing a tie and knowing how to tie one properly is something I'm proud of. Clip ons are the worst. I'd only touch one at gunpoint.
Meh. Fashions change. I have no idea what people will wear in the 24th century. Why not what we see in TNG?
Has anyone ever watched the movie Alien only to have their suspension of disbelief shattered because the crew of the Nostromo wear t-shirts and baseball caps?
On the other hand, has anyone ever watched the 1980s Flash Gordon movie and had their suspension of belief shattered because everybody looks so fucking stupid?
For me, it’s no to the former. The performances of the cast and the story itself mean it took me a few watches to even look at what they are wearing. In the latter however… it’s difficult to believe that Flash Gordon was released in the same year as The Empire Strikes Back.
Bad space clothes date sci-fi terribly. Alien… never gonna date. 42 year old movie and still looks great. Flash Gordon looked stupid in the year it came out and it still looks stupid now.
On the other hand, has anyone ever watched the 1980s Flash Gordon movie and had their suspension of belief shattered because everybody looks so fucking stupid?
For me, it’s no to the former. The performances of the cast and the story itself mean it took me a few watches to even look at what they are wearing. In the latter however… it’s difficult to believe that Flash Gordon was released in the same year as The Empire Strikes Back.
Bad space clothes date sci-fi terribly. Alien… never gonna date. 42 year old movie and still looks great. Flash Gordon looked stupid in the year it came out and it still looks stupid now.
Star Wars does a good job because it bases it off of real world clothes, mostly WW2 surplus.
Yeah, I thought the clothes looked a little silly in Alien, but they’re supposed to look that way. Alien is horror; they weren’t going for realistic. They were going for atmospheric. Just a bunch of blue collar truckers hauling ore here to there. Christ, look at the technology they’re using. The phone I’m writing this on is more sophisticated. But the baseball caps and the sad white tees hurts said these were sad people…about to be murdered by a highly sophisticated genetically engineered psychosexual nightmare of a super weapon. Serenity is another of these. The idea is space western more than sci-fi.
Star Wars looks great in a lot of ways, but it is space fantasy, per its own creator and the guy who approved every costume. I’d love for Trek look more Wars costume wise in some ways (I mean, the JJ movies already do, probably DSC too) but you want to weave that stuff in where appropriate, not flat copy and paste, because it’s not really fully appropriate.
I would like Trek's wear, especially in TNG era, if it felt more grounded and appropriate.
It's ugly and uncomfortable.
Yes,
Making a conscious decision to use dialogue that won't alienate most of the audience is not "not giving a thought to the future setting."
"Okay" can just mean, "I hear you." It is not a concession.
Using prescriptivist English exclusively for all your characters does not "harmonize" with anything. It's an unrealistic depiction of human speech that ignores how language actually functions between real people.
Contemporary prescriptivist English is not "future lingo." If you want your space opera to make a greater effort at depicting how language evolves in the future, then a show like The Expanse or even Firefly 20 years ago does a better job of it than Star Trek.
"I cannae do 'et, cap'in!"
"Can you take me to the nuclear wessels?"
Very prescriptivist.
As I have said several times before, when you use prescriptivist language exclusively or almost exclusively, without a character-based motivation for doing so, you signal to your audience that these are not emotionally realistic characters and you alienate your audience base. There is a reason that one of the first things to go in the version of Star Trek that brought the franchise back from the dead, the 2009 film, was prescriptivist formal English.
i think you’re assumptions are patronizing and wrong. Sci-fi audiences go to watch sci-fi. They’re not going to be immediately alienated. It’s about execution.
“Whatever.”
No more unrealistic than the sets and ships and costumes and aliens…yet they’re all there working in concert to create the illusion. But you’re drawing the line here at the language. In my humble opinion, that’s on you. But to each their own.
And that’s okay with you, ceding that territory to other series? It’s not with me. No reason Trek can’t make more of an effort, and do it better and to more popular success than others.
Because JJ was a Star Wars fan. And 2 of the 3 sucked, and the one that didn’t only worked when you didn’t think to hard about the billions of people dying left and right and the murder that called it off.
To quote F. King Daniel: Jake Sisko dressed like a bus seat. Garak the tailor dressed like a carpet factory explosion.
I hope that's not what the future looks like.
I hope that's not what the future looks like.
