Is it just me, or is Star Trek going the wrong way?

[F. King Daniel]

Irish Romulan housekeepers are the best Romulans.

 

[cooleddie74]

Momulan is best Romulan.

#TeamLaris

 

[CorporalClegg]

And people are entirely misusing what subjective means. Subjective does not mean you have a blank check to claim whatever you want. Value is partially determined by the independent person but that does not mean there aren't objective truths within that process. An out of tune guitar is not subjective, it's a quantifiable fact. Subjective means you can like guitar sounds that are out of tune, off time and sloppily played. But at the end of the day you're just playing a semantics game, where a person is unwilling to admit they are a fan of something of lower quality. It's throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Just the same you can stick electrodes to a brain and collect consistent data on how a person will view a property. Cutting someone's eyeball out has a predictable gut reaction with the majority of the population. Just the same a psychologist can make effective judgements that most of the cast of STD are written as if they have serious personality flaws. Just the same you can take a survey to determine the proportion of the population who can see that discovery has serious plot issues. Just the same you can see a spectrum of people who can predict the popularity and acceptance of a property. Just the same it's easy to see a correlation with special effects budgets and how well it is received. The failures of nutrek are incredibly easy to see.

There's tonnes of things I like that I can objectively state as being "bad". This is where the phrase "guilty pleasure" comes in. I don't think anyone thinks there's guilt associated with liking these things, it's a personal acknowledgement that you like something of poor quality.

Shades of Gray is objectively an awful episode. But I personally enjoy it. I don't deny that it's a thing limited to me, and it'd be absurd to suggest my enjoyment of the episode in any way repairs the objective flaws in its creation.

If you're reading a math problem that says "Jane has 3 brothers and 6 sisters, how many siblings does she have?".

Saying "all of them" isn't smart, it's a failure to comprehend the intended question.

Just the same saying "it's subjective" doesn't address the nature of whether there are objective truths in art.







Because I can give you a link to personality surveys and virtually anyone can see he's had unrealistic changes to his entire personality.

Just the same anyone with any understanding of how art works can tell you it is counterproductive to give a romulan the behaviours of a british tea granny. The entire premise of establishing a group of aliens is leveraging canon and behaviour patterns to imply that something that doesn't exist(alien cultures) is a real thing.

There's no continuity in how romulans are defined in tng and how they are defined in STP.

If you're tone deaf that doesn't mean there aren't people walking around with perfect pitch. Not perceiving poor quality doesn't mean something isn't of poor quality. Being tone deaf isn't a character flaw, extending your tone deafness across the broader population is in fact a flaw.

And my reference point isn't my feels on picard, it's the things being pointed out by relative experts. RedLetter Media are more than proficient in pointing out a large number of issues with picard. You don't have to agree with their subjective opinions to acknowledge what they are talking about.

In this whole word salad you demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of your own premise. It's like you knocked and drew the bow with precision and efficiency and then flung the arrow whirling straight into the ground. Good job.

Because you defined the dictionary definition of 'objective' and turned right around and fell into the common colloquial definition. For something to be quantifiably of poor quality there has to be something to quantify. No such thing exists in the appraisal of art. Now, there are certainly things having to do with the quality of television production that are absolutely quantifiable. But even at its absolute worst, Star Trek has maintained a quality-level well above any baseline standard.

 

[cooleddie74]

And "I don't like it and think it's too dark" isn't proof of poor quality in a series or movie.

 

[fireproof78]

And "I don't like it and think it's too dark" isn't proof of poor quality in a series or movie.

Indeed. It's amazing how quickly it goes from "I don't like it" to "it's objectively bad." That's a strange shift.

 

[cooleddie74]

I don't like many things about DSC. None of them make it an objectively terrible series or affront to the legacy of Trek.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Indeed. It's amazing how quickly it goes from "I don't like it" to "it's objectively bad." That's a strange shift.

It seems to crop up over and over again.

 

[fireproof78]

I don't like many things about DSC. None of them make it an objectively terrible series or affront to the legacy of Trek.

Quite so. Moreover, Trek has dealt with dark themes before. Usually they are some of the most popular stories.

 

[cooleddie74]

Do fans forget TWO ENTIRE SEASONS OF DS9???

I know. Rhetorical question.

 

[Lord Garth]

Do fans forget TWO ENTIRE SEASONS OF DS9???

I know. Rhetorical question.

"But that's different!"
"How is that different?"
"I like it!!!"

 

[Nerys Myk]

Quite so. Moreover, Trek has dealt with dark themes before. Usually they are some of the most popular stories.

But...But...my utopia!!!!!!

 

[fireproof78]

Do fans forget TWO ENTIRE SEASONS OF DS9???

I know. Rhetorical question.

That's not dark.

Don't ask me how. It just is!

 

[Mudd]

And people are entirely misusing what subjective means. Subjective does not mean you have a blank check to claim whatever you want. Value is partially determined by the independent person but that does not mean there aren't objective truths within that process. An out of tune guitar is not subjective, it's a quantifiable fact. Subjective means you can like guitar sounds that are out of tune, off time and sloppily played. But at the end of the day you're just playing a semantics game, where a person is unwilling to admit they are a fan of something of lower quality. It's throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Just the same you can stick electrodes to a brain and collect consistent data on how a person will view a property. Cutting someone's eyeball out has a predictable gut reaction with the majority of the population. Just the same a psychologist can make effective judgements that most of the cast of STD are written as if they have serious personality flaws. Just the same you can take a survey to determine the proportion of the population who can see that discovery has serious plot issues. Just the same you can see a spectrum of people who can predict the popularity and acceptance of a property. Just the same it's easy to see a correlation with special effects budgets and how well it is received. The failures of nutrek are incredibly easy to see.

There's tonnes of things I like that I can objectively state as being "bad". This is where the phrase "guilty pleasure" comes in. I don't think anyone thinks there's guilt associated with liking these things, it's a personal acknowledgement that you like something of poor quality.

Shades of Gray is objectively an awful episode. But I personally enjoy it. I don't deny that it's a thing limited to me, and it'd be absurd to suggest my enjoyment of the episode in any way repairs the objective flaws in its creation.

If you're reading a math problem that says "Jane has 3 brothers and 6 sisters, how many siblings does she have?".

Saying "all of them" isn't smart, it's a failure to comprehend the intended question.

Just the same saying "it's subjective" doesn't address the nature of whether there are objective truths in art.







Because I can give you a link to personality surveys and virtually anyone can see he's had unrealistic changes to his entire personality.

Just the same anyone with any understanding of how art works can tell you it is counterproductive to give a romulan the behaviours of a british tea granny. The entire premise of establishing a group of aliens is leveraging canon and behaviour patterns to imply that something that doesn't exist(alien cultures) is a real thing.

There's no continuity in how romulans are defined in tng and how they are defined in STP.

If you're tone deaf that doesn't mean there aren't people walking around with perfect pitch. Not perceiving poor quality doesn't mean something isn't of poor quality. Being tone deaf isn't a character flaw, extending your tone deafness across the broader population is in fact a flaw.

And my reference point isn't my feels on picard, it's the things being pointed out by relative experts. RedLetter Media are more than proficient in pointing out a large number of issues with picard. You don't have to agree with their subjective opinions to acknowledge what they are talking about.

Everything that we're discussing here and everything you've asserted here are subjective opinions. And you misuse words like "nihilism," so it's hard to take this kind of lecture seriously.

 

[dupersuper]

"The Neutral Zone" is fantastic. I'd rewatch it before I'd rewatch lots of episodes from later seasons.

I can't get past Jean-Luc "why didn't you just leave them dead?" Picard. Our hero, folks.

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I think you missed the point of these movies.

To make money and popularize lens flare?

 

[Lynx]

I wish I could fly through space and explore all the unknown worlds out there, that's why I love star trek! I think they did a good job until they started trying to veer away from the motif set forth by FOUR fully successful and incredibly popular series (TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager) What I love the most about the first four series is that they were always exploring new worlds and seeing new things in the universe while they simultaneously told a story arc and it seemed like the writers were genuinely trying to stretch the limits of what people would imagine is possible to exist out among the stars, it made it a truly unique work of video-graphic art.

I also love how they portrayed humanities future potential in a very positive light, world peace, no more need for currency within our own species, scientific idealism, peaceful cooperation and exploration with the species we meet. Its a refreshing change from the millions of sci-fi stories that believe we are a hopeless species who will only end up killing anything intelligent we find out there. It seems that most authors believe humanity is much closer to the alternate negative dimensions version of events rather than the altruistic peaceful society that The Federation stands for. That's just depressing. If that's true we don't deserve to continue as a species, so I prefer to hope that Star Trek will be a good example of how humanity can still choose to show their best side and save not only our world but ourselves and our future.


I tolerated their experiments in the star trek enterprise even though the time travel was horribly convoluted and made little sense, they even ignored previously established super powerful beings for the convenience of forcing their story arc to exist mostly because I liked how they did do a bit of exploring and random adventuring or encountering random ships of unknown aliens unlike anything imagined in previous series.

However after that it seemed like they went all out sell out and tried to change the show to imitate the most popular mainstream counter parts such as "The Expanse" which seemed to be in direct competition with ST Discovery or it seems like Picard is a direct counterpart to the Mandalorian, as if their trying to make the new series about Picard as rough and gritty as the new series about the Mandalorian. Come one can't we please just have our series back? I dont care if "new viewers" like it, what about the already established fan base? Are we such worthless pushovers that they think we'll just throw our money at them no matter what they put the star trek logo on?

I'm sick of it, I'm about ready not to watch any new star trek series ever again, the last 3.5 series they came out with were basically a middle finger to the fans (because enterprise was half okay) they have all but said "...you know what, we hate our fan base and want a new one..." . It would be like if they took family guy and redrew it and rewrote it to imitate the simpsons from now on, sure it might still be an okay, but it definitely wouldn't be family guy anymore it would just be another show imitating something higher up in the "pop culture food chain". They even specifically said that they wanted to "Bring it to a new generation" which actually translated from PR double talk means "turning a classic into some desperate corporate shill scheme to get the wealthiest dumbest largest fan-base possible" so yeah, thanks for ruining something I used to be excited about.

Now to be clear, these would be perfectly good TV shows, if they weren't supposed to embody the spirit of their predecessors, just take the Star Trek name off them and no one would even realise they were star trek, and they could have their own style and story arc and not have to worry about living up to Gene Roddenberry's original vision.

Stop trying to make it into something its not. Star trek was always like us nerds at school, it was never the most trendy with the "popular kids" and it looked different than the other shows even of the same genre, but it always seemed to be more aware of where we were and where we, for better or worse, could one day be. If you've ever seen a friend try to force another friend to try to be something they're not then you know that its not right and its a bad idea! ^_^

You're right! Star Trek has become too dystopian for my taste.

I think that it's a sell-out to current trends. Since the 2010's and the 2020's are dystopian times, it has affected the whole entertainment business. Almost every TV-serie and movie today are dystopian. Doom-and-gloom, dark scenarios and a humanity who is heading to it's own destruction.

Star trek was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be about a better future for humanity. But ever since the NuTrek movies, Star Trek has become more dystopian.

In fact, Voyager was the last series which was Star Trek. Enterprise wasnt that dystopian but the whole series was a failure. A badly done retro series. The NuTrek movies were lousy, Discovery a downright disaster and Picard is just sad to watch. it's like if, let's say Beatles would make a come-back and selling out to the current trends by including rap and today's boring lightweight pop into their music.

Star trek should need a re-start. A series set in the 24th century without all that doom-and-gloom, instead focusing on good adventiures and new good characters.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Sorry, I just caught the bit where he called the baby yoda show gritty

 

[BigDaveX]

You're right! Star Trek has become too dystopian for my taste.

I think that it's a sell-out to current trends. Since the 2010's and the 2020's are dystopian times, it has affected the whole entertainment business. Almost every TV-serie and movie today are dystopian. Doom-and-gloom, dark scenarios and a humanity who is heading to it's own destruction.

Star trek was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be about a better future for humanity. But ever since the NuTrek movies, Star Trek has become more dystopian.

In fact, Voyager was the last series which was Star Trek. Enterprise wasnt that dystopian but the whole series was a failure. A badly done retro series. The NuTrek movies were lousy, Discovery a downright disaster and Picard is just sad to watch. it's like if, let's say Beatles would make a come-back and selling out to the current trends by including rap and today's boring lightweight pop into their music.

Star trek should need a re-start. A series set in the 24th century without all that doom-and-gloom, instead focusing on good adventiures and new good characters.

Making another TNG/Voyager-type show is instantly going to run into the problem of how to make it distinct from those two shows without causing the critics to immediately call "seen it all before". And yeah, it might be tempting to say that critics aren't fans, that they don't get it, and we shouldn't listen to anything they say - but casual audiences usually do listen to what they say, and the last time that critics outright bashed a Trek-related work, it was Nemesis. And we all know how that turned out.

Besides, saying a franchise is supposed be X or Y is a pretty narrow-minded view to take. Just to name one other example, James Bond has managed to make it work both as a gritty spy drama and a high-camp adventure series over the years. Sure, there have been times when they've gone too far in one direction or the other and ended up alienating audiences (i.e. Licence to Kill in the case of the serious style, and Die Another Day in the more over-the-top style), but with good enough storytelling, audiences will often let you get away with a lot.

 

[Steve Roby]

Making another TNG/Voyager-type show is instantly going to run into the problem of how to make it distinct from those two shows without causing the critics to immediately call "seen it all before".

I'd add to that my often made point that all Star Trek is not based on The Next Generation. It is not the original show, it is not the Alpha and the Omega, it is not what all Star Trek must be compared to. It's one of many offshoots of the original Star Trek, which was a TV series from 1966 to 1969 that way too many Star Trek fans ignore. The TNG/Voyager style is just one of many ways of making Star Trek. It's also something that we already have a hell of a lot of.

 

[fireproof78]

I'd add to that my often made point that all Star Trek is not based on The Next Generation. It is not the original show, it is not the Alpha and the Omega, it is not what all Star Trek must be compared to. It's one of many offshoots of the original Star Trek, which was a TV series from 1966 to 1969 that way too many Star Trek fans ignore. The TNG/Voyager style is just one of many ways of making Star Trek. It's also something that we already have a hell of a lot of.

Exactly. TOS demonstrated that a variety of stories are possible in the Star Trek sandbox. It is a variety platform not a prescriptive approach. TNG is not the way it should be and neither is Discovery. Both are valid in the larger Star Trek sphere.

 

[cooleddie74]

I can't get past Jean-Luc "why didn't you just leave them dead?" Picard. Our hero, folks.

Season 1 Picard may be one of the worst lead Captains in Trek. I'm glad Patrick forced him to evolve as a character because had he remained Season 1 Picard for the entire series he'd be downright insufferable.