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in 25years will they have Funny Muslim Terrorist in SF programmes.

B

Borg451

Captain
what was the point of the ep then?

the causalness was l how everything was just Nazi Nazi Nazi... was no good reason for it.. just for novelty..

there was no mention of the reasons or crimes the Nazis did..
 
Borg451 said:
what was the point of the ep then?

the causalness was l how everything was just Nazi Nazi Nazi... was no good reason for it.. just for novelty..

there was no mention of the reasons or crimes the Nazis did..
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You have to remember it was the 60's. Talking about gas chambers and human experiments would have been a no-no. But the overall concept of a society on another planet emmulating the Nazi's was powerful enough. Plus, it served the low budget TOS had. Much easier to use old movie costumes and props than creating something new.
 
I feel very certain 60 years from now a science fiction program will end its season with its main character waking up in a cave to find Osama bin Laden and an alien friend of his standing watch over him.
 
A muslim suicide bomber episode as a cliffhanger for a show that's about to be cancelled would be just as ridiculous as ENT's Space Nazis. Those eps did nothing for the show's plot and development and their sole purpose was to boost the ratings. Pitiful.

I particularly enjoyed the bit where the Mary Sue suggests the Enterprise kill everyone in Berlin, because even the civilian population are TEH EVULZ. Now talk about being the good guys. Hm, makes you wonder, kind of. Stupid Mary Sue! What a waste of time, that story arch.

I hope they never, ever do something like that on Trek again. Especially not involving Bin Laden and an alien or whatever.
 
CommanderRaytas said:
A muslim suicide bomber episode as a cliffhanger for a show that's about to be cancelled would be just as ridiculous as ENT's Space Nazis. Those eps did nothing for the show's plot and development and their sole purpose was to boost the ratings. Pitiful.

I particularly enjoyed the bit where the Mary Sue suggests the Enterprise kill everyone in Berlin, because even the civilian population are TEH EVULZ. Now talk about being the good guys. Hm, makes you wonder, kind of. Stupid Mary Sue! What a waste of time, that story arch.

I hope they never, ever do something like that on Trek again. Especially not involving Bin Laden and an alien or whatever.
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Oh come on. The Alien Nazis weren't about plot development, making a meaningful message, or even ratings. They was about having fun with and incredibly silly idea. And they succeeded masterfully.

Besides I just watched Storm Front today. Campy and silly as hell. But I doubt it was meant to be taken seriously. Besides, the episode had some good dialogue, and Vosk the Alien Nazi commander was played by a good actor.
 
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Nerys Myk said:
You might want to avoid "Hogan's Heroes"
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Damn ya beat me to it. :D

there was no mention of the reasons or crimes the Nazis did..
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In the mid-60s, maybe they blithely assumed that telling the audience about the Nazis would have been idiotic because of course everyone knew. Many people in the audience would remember WWII or have fought in it. Reiterating the obvious would have been very strange.
 
I don't think that Muslim Terrorists will be showed up in the same way as the Nazis were in that episode. So far those terrorists have had a minor impact on the world history

Remember also that the Soviets killed 60 million people between 1920 and 1955 without resulting in any"space Stalin" or "space commies" showing up.

I think the reason that the Nazis show up the way they do in certain episodes are that they are so easy to set up as villains. The crimes they did, the uniforms, leader cult, racist policy and general behavior makes them somewhat believable as enemies. Not to mention that they were so totally defeated and their crimes so openly revealed as well.

And don't forget that the series was made in the 60:s wehn WWII wasn't so far away and at that point there were no Muslim Terrorists, the cold war between the US and the USSR was not as "cold" at that specific point and there were no other "evil power" visible which could be transformed into the Star Trek universe.

Still, I agree that the episode was over the top with those stereotype Nazis. With all respect to TOS which I actually like very much, it was simply a badly written episode.

When it comes to portraying people lead by evil ideologies, I'm more impressed when they take the ideas and actions of the Nazis (and maybe similar attributes from Soviets and terrorists too) and use them for some future hostile alien regime without putting on Nazi (or Soviet) uniforms or without using 20th century Earth symbols like the swastika or hammer and sickle for those aliens.

I did watch a Stargate SG1 episode some time ago when the team was sent to a planet where the people asked SG1 to help them fight some merciless enemy. At the end of the episode it was revealed that those who wanted the help from SG1 actually had the same values as the Nazis and had actually started the war which was going on. I did find the aliens in that episode more scary and repulsive than the rather comical Nazis in the TOS episode.
 
Borg451 said:
what was the point of the ep then?

the causalness was l how everything was just Nazi Nazi Nazi... was no good reason for it.. just for novelty..

there was no mention of the reasons or crimes the Nazis did..
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Regarding the TOS Patterns Of Force episode...

I didn't think the episode was a comedy - yes, it had comic moments, but it was pretty serious stuff.

I thiink the main point was that we must guard against blindly following leaders down the same paths that will inevitably lead to disaster.

Gill (a historian who should have known better) decided the Ekosians needed new leadership with an "efficient" society and thought that Nazi Germany was a suitable model. Unfortunately, he found that you can't have a Nazi society without the evil side.
 
Borg451 said:
Having never watched the 'Nazi Episode' of TOS i decided it was high time i gave it a download.

And i was shocked at how casually the nazis are portrayed.
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Expanding a little on TigerofDarkness's post...

It was a Prime Directive story, of the "road to hell is paved with good intentions" variety. There's a planetary culture that's in rough shape. A foolish person from the Federation thinks it makes sense to try to unify the society and restart its economy by using Nazi Germany as a model, deluding himself that it will be safe enough because there's no Hitler there, just a benign and well-meaning guy who's more technologically advanced and who thinks he can keep the system harmless. The point of the story is that a political system like Nazism will find its Hitlers, regardless of the intentions of the people who started it. And a troubled society with a totalitarian government facing a lot of difficulties will find a scapegoat.

It's not a comedy. I'm surprised that a TOS episode was too subtle for you to grasp; subtlety isn't something TOS is often accused of by its detractors.
 
Steve Roby said:
Borg451 said:
Having never watched the 'Nazi Episode' of TOS i decided it was high time i gave it a download.

And i was shocked at how casually the nazis are portrayed.
Click to expand...

Expanding a little on TigerofDarkness's post...

It was a Prime Directive story, of the "road to hell is paved with good intentions" variety. There's a planetary culture that's in rough shape. A foolish person from the Federation thinks it makes sense to try to unify the society and restart its economy by using Nazi Germany as a model, deluding himself that it will be safe enough because there's no Hitler there, just a benign and well-meaning guy who's more technologically advanced and who thinks he can keep the system harmless. The point of the story is that a political system like Nazism will find its Hitlers, regardless of the intentions of the people who started it. And a troubled society with a totalitarian government facing a lot of difficulties will find a scapegoat.

It's not a comedy. I'm surprised that a TOS episode was too subtle for you to grasp; subtlety isn't something TOS is often accused of by its detractors.
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I see your point and I agree with your statement. But maybe they should have avoided some of the most obvious things, like the uniforms and made the culture more futuristic. That would have made the episode more realistic.

The story is actually believable in one aspect, which is that copying such a system, good intentions or not, will lead to that kind of society in the long run, maybe with some differences but with almost the same result. It would be the same if someone made a similar copy of the Soviet Union or some rigid terrorist based community run by Al-Qaeda principles.

In fact, every ideology which is based on violence and disrespect for individuals will lead to dictatorship and opression, something history has showed us.
 
No they won't because Islam and it's followers are a serious force to be reckoned with in terms of not offending them. No one would wanna risk offending them for a TV show. This will remain so in 25 years just as it is so today.

Nazis on the other hand, are marginalized and no one cares if they get offended.
 
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