TOS was never trying to keep it out.
Early Criticism: What’s Unfounded and What Isn’t
- Thread starter trekfan_1
- Start date
Personal preference. For me, It tends to pull me out the story and weaken the suspension of belief / verisimilitude that what I'm watching is "The Future ". But that's me.
Why does it feel like they're going through a checklist of words they want to add to Trek? Is it because so many of these terms are invented/popularized yesterday on the Internet?
Everyone's accepting the starting premise that the writers have chosen relatable modern language, but I don't know anyone in real life who talks anything like that. I get the feeling to an actual 18 year old, it'll read as the most bizarre shit ever, a weird disjointed mix of TikTok phrases crossed with 80s film cliches crossed with things a 40-year-old writer assumes are still cool (, bitches!).
Where I'm from, if someone comes up to you and says anything akin to "people say I have unpaid dating coach energy, bitches!", the responsible thing is to immediately begin checking them and yourself for signs of a stroke. Maybe in America the kids are talking like that, I dunno.
Where I'm from, if someone comes up to you and says anything akin to "people say I have unpaid dating coach energy, bitches!", the responsible thing is to immediately begin checking them and yourself for signs of a stroke. Maybe in America the kids are talking like that, I dunno.
On occasion like "The Way of Eden " and other situations , yes. But for the most part, the every day lower decks speak amoung crewmen was not overtly 60s. It was more military-esk speak which is much more mild mannered v.s civilian lingo . Thats why shows like MASH dates well because the lingo was a bit more netreal due to the military setting.
Last edited:
It doesn't.
It was exactly the way characters in similar roles spoke in other, contemporary television dramas. The writers were not conscious of writing any kind of heightened, formal dialogue.
By the time TNG mimicked the language and cadence of TOS twenty years later, it came across as stilted.
People a century from now will talk in ways you wouldn't understand today, never mind a thousand. There's not a moment in watching Star Trek since I was sixteen that I've confused it with a plausibly real future.
When doing a futuristic sci-fi/ Star Trek series, you essentially have a few different options when it comes to language and dialogue.
1. Use mostly neutral speech, with only light touches of modern phrasing.
Given that Star Trek is structured similarly to a military organization, this approach keeps things more formal and grounded.
Pros:
Adds verisimilitude.
Doesn’t call attention to itself by using obviously contemporary slang in a show set centuries in the future.
Cons:
Can come across as stiff or bland to younger or more modern audiences.
2. Go fully modern with the dialogue (which is largely what’s being done now).
Pros:
Feels more accessible to new or casual viewers who may be intimidated by the size and history of the franchise.
Gives the impression of Trek “loosening up” and trying to feel more current or relatable.
Cons:
For some viewers, it pulls them out of the story and weakens the suspension of disbelief that this is supposed to be the future. Will look dated fairly quickly.
3. Invent a distinct “future” slang or linguistic style.
Pros:
Unique and world-building focused.
Avoids sounding either stiff or overtly modern.
Cons:
Requires a lot of creativity and consistency.
Very risky and difficult to pull off without coming across as campy or silly.
4. A hybrid of options 1 and 2.
SNW comes close to this, though there’s still a bit too much modern phrasing for my taste. Star Trek: Enterprise, however, felt like the sweet spot. The dialogue was less stiff than TNG but not so modern that it broke immersion.
Personally I would use modern style figures of speech with a futuristic spin. I.e "I'm going to toss you out the nearest window" becomes " Im going to toss you out the nearest airlock" . They have done it this way before and I rather just see much more of that style instead of *very* overt modern talk or what the showrunners perceive as modern talk..
1. Use mostly neutral speech, with only light touches of modern phrasing.
Given that Star Trek is structured similarly to a military organization, this approach keeps things more formal and grounded.
Pros:
Adds verisimilitude.
Doesn’t call attention to itself by using obviously contemporary slang in a show set centuries in the future.
Cons:
Can come across as stiff or bland to younger or more modern audiences.
2. Go fully modern with the dialogue (which is largely what’s being done now).
Pros:
Feels more accessible to new or casual viewers who may be intimidated by the size and history of the franchise.
Gives the impression of Trek “loosening up” and trying to feel more current or relatable.
Cons:
For some viewers, it pulls them out of the story and weakens the suspension of disbelief that this is supposed to be the future. Will look dated fairly quickly.
3. Invent a distinct “future” slang or linguistic style.
Pros:
Unique and world-building focused.
Avoids sounding either stiff or overtly modern.
Cons:
Requires a lot of creativity and consistency.
Very risky and difficult to pull off without coming across as campy or silly.
4. A hybrid of options 1 and 2.
SNW comes close to this, though there’s still a bit too much modern phrasing for my taste. Star Trek: Enterprise, however, felt like the sweet spot. The dialogue was less stiff than TNG but not so modern that it broke immersion.
Personally I would use modern style figures of speech with a futuristic spin. I.e "I'm going to toss you out the nearest window" becomes " Im going to toss you out the nearest airlock" . They have done it this way before and I rather just see much more of that style instead of *very* overt modern talk or what the showrunners perceive as modern talk..
Last edited:
I'd loose all swear words and Shakespeare phrases too. Force the writers to invent new language from the ground up. These future people should be inscrutable from our primitive mindset.
NuBSG tried that and it did work well in a way.
Trek writers, you heard it here first.
I sometimes think that removing Shakespeare phrases from Star Trek may be a good idea. Though I mostly think this after rewatching Star Trek 6.
The problem with modern lingo is it's very subjective. What sounds relatable to one nation or region sounds very odd to another. The Californiacation of Trek sounds really off putting to me.
They beat the gimmick and they had plenty of time to target the pirate weapon systems and disable them, like what we see in lots of trek episodes.
Also we can't forget dear captain Ake who loves peace, empathy, and patience wanted to beam them into space.
I hope this is foreshadowing Ake wants desperately to paint Nus as a monster.
But her actions may have killed a lot more people like Anisha than him.
Even the shows people cite as developing their own unique forms of speech are overstating the matter. Firefly just has the characters talking like they're in a western movie, but with Chinese words sprinkled in. The Expanse it's just the Belters who have their own unique lingo, everyone else talks same as modern times. Especially Avasarala.
They did? They said frak instead of fuck, but that had more to do with the fact they couldn't say fuck on SyFy. And even then, frak actually originates from the original BSG. They otherwise kept all other profanity same as, though in the case of "shit" it's my understanding SyFy bleeped that out. Space channel in Canada didn't.
However, Nu BSG still had plenty of Shakespeare references. Off the top of my head, President Roslin once says "you have your pound of flesh." There's also Baltar delivering a sermon to his cultists where he lifts the quote verbatim from Hamlet about the undiscovered country.
So aside from copious uses of the word frak, Nu BSG dialogue was very contemporary Earth. And even then, it's clear from context frak is just meant to be fuck sneaking past the censors.
Last edited:
There might have been a Shakespeare in the colonies same way there was a Bob Dylan on Kobal.
Imagine the manufactured outrage if Boothby had told Chakotay "get your fat ass into the ring" in The Fight. That or it would have provided one singular memorable thing for that episode.
Wednesday is funny, well-written, has good actors and is consistent with the established Addamsverse as established by the 60s TV show, Charles Addam's cartoons and the movies. It got me right away. My wife is as much or more a fan.
I didn't watch DIS past a few shows in their 1st season, STA feels as chaotic and unclever as DIS. Whomever they're written for, it's not me. I don't feel this way about all NuTrek, I enjoyed LD and SNW very much, PRO was okay. But SFA and DIS leave me cold.
Similar threads
- Poll
