Spoilers Disco and Picard weren't the first Trek shows to hold a dystopian view.

[Orphalesion]

I stand by what I said before -- it's invalid to atttempt to argue about such things on the level of individual characters, since the words describe the overall approach of the story and its worldbuilding. TNG was utopian in that it chose to portray an idealized humanity with little conflict. DS9 challenged that utopia while remaining consistent with it, by taking characters from that idealized society and putting them through hardships that challenged their ideals, as well as playing them off against characters from more dystopian backgrounds to create conflict. You could have swapped out individual characters from one series to the other and they would've adapted to the approach of the overall series. Indeed, exactly that did happen with the O'Briens and Worf. The characters were the same, but their context changed to be less idealized. That's why your attempt to define the question in terms of individual characters just doesn't make sense.

And that's fine. Just don't assume you're the only one who graduated high school the next time. That's what I reacted negatively to.
And I still disagree that the individual character level can be ignored. The OP already talks about individual characters ("Janeway is cold") and I approached from that perspective before you started ranting at me.
But still I'd say that TNG frequently didn't portray a humanity that was *that* much more idealized than the DS9 one. I say they were on the same level. Yes DS9 tested more and challenged them more, but in the end they were still very idealized.

I think I've made it clear that I reject the entire premise of this thread, that even using the word "dystopian" to talk about any Star Trek series is an erroneous application of the word.

But that's exactly what I meant, my point was that the Star Trek series that the OP calls "dystopian" are not that much more pessimistic than the one he calls "utopian". There's nothing dystopian about Picard or Discovery.

 

[fireproof78]

And that's fine. Just don't assume you're the only one who graduated high school the next time. That's what I reacted negatively to.

Where in the wide world of sports did that come from? O_o @Christopher didn't imply anything about education.

 

[The Wormhole]

TNG with its picture perfect utopia was the outlier, as TOS was never about utopia. They were presenting a better world, not a perfect one. It was a recurring theme in TOS that utopia was undesirable since it would lead to stagnation and ruin.

And truth is, even TNG didn't present as perfect a world as it claims. Even in TNG's first season under the Divine Hand of Gene Himself there was a human colony world that devolved into pure anarchy where rape gangs ruled the streets.

 

[Christopher]

And truth is, even TNG didn't present as perfect a world as it claims. Even in TNG's first season under the Divine Hand of Gene Himself there was a human colony world that devolved into pure anarchy where rape gangs ruled the streets.

Yeah, but that's because it wasn't a Federation world, wasn't part of the perfected society. It fell that far because it was cut off from the rest of civilization.

 

[NCC-73515]

"Many works combine elements of both utopias and dystopias. Typically, an observer from our world will journey to another place or time and see one society the author considers ideal, and another representing the worst possible outcome. The point is usually that the choices we make now may lead to a better or worse potential future world."
"In another literary model, the imagined society journeys between elements of utopia and dystopia over the course of the novel or film."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_and_dystopian_fiction

The Fifth Element, Forbidden Planet, and Wall-E are listed as dystopian, even though they clearly don't show 100% oppression, dictatorship, poverty, injustice, wide-scale suffering, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_films

Star Trek is listed as utopian, and so is Forbidden planet, which seems to be both at the same time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Utopian_fiction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Utopian_films

 

[fireproof78]

Wall-E

Because it is. Its frightening and meant as a cautionary tale.

 

[NCC-73515]

Were you scared of floating chairs, cute robots, and endless comfort?
If Wall-E is dystopian and Trek utopian, then TNG's rape gangs and Borg stuff, and DS9's occupation and war stuff, are not as bad as whatever was so frightening in Wall-E (your earlier arguments)... right? XD

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

DS9 is best summed up in Season 2:

Do you know what the trouble is? The trouble is Earth--on Earth there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the windows of Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise. It's easy to be a saint in paradise, but...in the demilitarised zone all the problems haven't been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints, just people--angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive, where it meets ith Federation approval or not.

 

[Lord Garth]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say I think @The Rock just poorly titled his thread. I think I know what he's really trying to say: "DSC and PIC aren't the first Star Trek series to be dark. So was DS9."

 

[Christopher]

DS9 is best summed up in Season 2:

Do you know what the trouble is? The trouble is Earth--on Earth there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the windows of Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise. It's easy to be a saint in paradise, but...in the demilitarised zone all the problems haven't been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints, just people--angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive, where it meets ith Federation approval or not.

I've always thought DS9 got that backward, though. Looking at history, and at contemporary events over my lifetime, it's seemed to me that people in crisis are the ones who stand together and strive to make things better, while people who are prosperous and complacent are the ones who get paranoid about losing what they have and start turning on their neighbors and imagined enemies, like Americans did in the '50s, the decade of our greatest prosperity but also the decade of anti-Communist witch hunts and KKK lynch mobs. And saints, in the literal sense, are frequently people who stood up for the helpless or who sacrificed themselves in defiance of oppressors. The most saintly person I can think of in modern history is Gandhi, who fought to free his people from centuries of subjugation by an occupying power.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say I think @The Rock just poorly titled his thread. I think I know what he's really trying to say: "DSC and PIC aren't the first Star Trek series to be dark. So was DS9."

Which is pretty much a consequence of them all being more serialized than the others. A story needs to have bad things happen to the protagonists until the end when they finally prevail. In an episodic series, you get to see the heroes triumph over the bad things once a week, but in a serial, the badness has to continue and worsen up until the end when the heroes finally achieve victory. It's one of the reasons I think season-arc serial storytelling is overused these days. It limits the kinds of stories you can tell.

 

[Vger23]

Star Trek Picard is darker and more dystopian than "The Road." Most depressing, horrifying show ever created. I'm surprise the entire Earth didn't end up like the Reaver planet in "Serenity" after it premiered.

Change my mind

 

[suarezguy]

Two or three notably controversial Janeway decisions, one or two questionable but reasonable Federation decisions in TNG are far from dystopian.

Deep Space Nine was pretty contrarian and yes, held that humans were fundamentally quite flawed, their more advanced morality just due to their good living conditions and when faced with strong threats or dangers they would disregard a lot of restraints. I don't know about dystopian but definitely iconoclastic to the idea of utopia and probably even social advancement.

 

[Christopher]

I think what's being lost here is that an intrinsic part of much utopian fiction is questioning the idea of utopia, not blindly endorsing it. Thomas More's book that coined the name was a satire. Utopias in fiction are frequently dystopias beneath the surface, their facade of perfection turning out to be a cover for an oppressive or decadent state (see Brave New World, for instance, or Logan's Run). As The Wormhole mentioned above, TOS did a number of stories about seemingly utopian worlds that took away people's freedom -- Omicron Ceti III, Landru's planet, and so on.

It's true that DS9 and PIC both challenged the 24th-century Federation's perfection and showed it lapsing when put under pressure. But that's not really utopian or dystopian, because a utopian satire would show that the utopia was intrinsically flawed, that the very things that made it appear perfect were the source of its problems and injustices. DS9 and PIC just showed the Federation stumbling as a result of external crises like the Dominion War and the Romulan supernova, rather than being an intrinsically flawed or corrupt system. They showed that the better world the Federation had built was not an illusory utopia but a more realistic result of continued hard work and commitment to being better, and thus there would inevitably be stumbles and backslides from time to time -- a point TNG itself made occasionally in stories like "The Drumhead," "Ensign Ro," and Insurrection. (Again, the difference is between TNG's episodic approach and the other shows' serial approach.)

 

[fireproof78]

Were you scared of floating chairs, cute robots, and endless comfort?
If Wall-E is dystopian and Trek utopian, then TNG's rape gangs and Borg stuff, and DS9's occupation and war stuff, are not as bad as whatever was so frightening in Wall-E (your earlier arguments)... right? XD

That misses the point.

 

[BillJ]

When people say they don't like Disco and Picard because it doesn't hold Trek's optimism...

I didn’t care about utopian or dystopian, I just have found both shows dull and overly dependent on nostalgia. If I just want to keep reliving Trek’s greatest hits, I can just go watch the older shows.

 

[Vger23]

It's true that DS9 and PIC both challenged the 24th-century Federation's perfection and showed it lapsing when put under pressure. But that's not really utopian or dystopian, because a utopian satire would show that the utopia was intrinsically flawed, that the very things that made it appear perfect were the source of its problems and injustices. DS9 and PIC just showed the Federation stumbling as a result of external crises like the Dominion War and the Romulan supernova, rather than being an intrinsically flawed or corrupt system. They showed that the better world the Federation had built was not an illusory utopia but a more realistic result of continued hard work and commitment to being better, and thus there would inevitably be stumbles and backslides from time to time -- a point TNG itself made occasionally in stories like "The Drumhead," "Ensign Ro," and Insurrection. (Again, the difference is between TNG's episodic approach and the other shows' serial approach.)

Yes, and this approach is far more interesting and dramatic than just "Wow...awesome....everyone in Star Trek is so enlightened and so inherently good and evolved!"

That's not dramatic or interesting. But, the "hard work and commitment to being better" and slipping / recovering ARE interesting...and positive...and inspirational.

 

[The Wormhole]

I'm surprise the entire Earth didn't end up like the Reaver planet in "Serenity" after it premiered.

At the moment, we're not really that far off from becoming that, are we?

 

[Lord Garth]

I didn’t care about utopian or dystopian, I just have found both shows dull and overly dependent on nostalgia. If I just want to keep reliving Trek’s greatest hits, I can just go watch the older shows.

And yet you like the Kelvin Films.

 

[The Rock]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say I think @The Rock just poorly titled his thread. I think I know what he's really trying to say: "DSC and PIC aren't the first Star Trek series to be dark. So was DS9."

You're absolutely right!

 

[BillJ]

And yet you like the Kelvin Films.

Yeah. They weren’t dull. Plus, they were coming out every three or four years.