Is it time to put Star Trek to rest?

[Turtletrekker]

Whereas, and of course I speak only for myself here, if I never saw Braga's name on a Star Trek script ever again I would be happy. I was firmly in the "Fire B&B" camp back in the day, and I have never been in the "Fire Kurtzman" camp.

 

[1001001]

I think “dystopian” is a word that does not fit Star Trek at all.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Both the Dominion War AND the Mars disaster. And both within a decade. Three if you count the destruction of Romulus. For about a dozen years shit was hitting the fan in the Federation.

[Team America voice] 9/11 x 10,000!

 

[Turtletrekker]

It occurs to me that there have been two Star Trek shows that features Jean-Luc Picard, and they both open up in diametrically opposing places in Federation history.

TNG opened up in an era of unparalleled peace, 70 years after Khitomer and over 50 years since Tomed. Of course the tone and attitude would be hopeful and optimistic and forward-looking.

Picard opens up with a Federation in the exact opposite position. Multiple Borg invasions, the Dominion War, Utopia Planitia and foreign manipulation have all chipped away at the Federation's ideals and resources in multiple ways, resulting in a much more pragmatic approach on events.

 

[Danja]

It occurs to me that there have been two Star Trek shows that features Jean-Luc Picard, and they both open up in diametrically opposing places in Federation history.

TNG opened up in an era of unparalleled peace, 70 years after Khitomer and over 50 years since Tomed. Of course the tone and attitude would be hopeful and optimistic and forward-looking.

Picard opens up with a Federation in the exact opposite position. Multiple Borg invasions, the Dominion War, Utopia Planitia and foreign manipulation have all chipped away at the Federation's ideals and resources in multiple ways, resulting in a much more pragmatic approach on events.

Picard: "This isn't Starfleet!"

 

[Turtletrekker]

Picard: "This isn't Starfleet!"

At least, not the Starfleet that he came up in, but rather one that was forced to adapt to the times.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Both the Dominion War AND the Mars disaster. And both within a decade. Three if you count the destruction of Romulus. For about a dozen years shit was hitting the fan in the Federation.

The entire latter half of 24th Century & early 25th Century was especially hard on the UFP.

2311 AD = Tomed Incident & the Signing of the Treaty of Algeron
2344 AD = Battle of Narendra 3, the Enterprise-C is lost. Klingon-UFP relationship is dramatically improved
2364 AD = Parasitic Aliens try to take over StarFleet at the highest of levels. (StarFleet Command was almost lost)
2367 AD = Battle of Wolf 359 & Earth nearly being conquered by a single Borg Cube (Earth was almost lost Pt. 1, all of Earth, & potentially the rest of the UFP could've been assimilated)
2371 AD = Voyager is Lost in the Badlands (A Brand New StarFleet StarShip mysteriously disappears)
2373 AD = Right before the Dominion War starts, the Borg makes another attempt at Earth, resulting in the Battle of Sector 001 (Earth was almost lost Pt. 2, all of Earth, & potentially the rest of the UFP could've been assimilated)
(2373 - 2375) AD = Dominion War (UFP was almost lost)
2378 AD = Voyager Returns
2379 AD = Shinzon Crisis (Earth was almost lost Pt. 3, Shinzon was going to Genocide Earth with Thalaron Radiation to make a statement)
2384 AD = Battle near Gamma Serpentis, loss of the USS Protostar (Many StarFleet ships were hijacked via Alien Living Malware, many StarFleet ships were damaged or lost; if left unchecked, all of StarFleet's StarShips would've been lost)
2385 AD = Mars Synth Attack along with Synth Ban (Loss of countless lives & many StarShips, StarFleet's Ship Production is dramatically impacted, loss of one of StarFleet's Primary Ship Yards)
2387 AD = Romulus is destroyed by the SuperNova (Loss of countless lives & some Planets)
2399 AD = Admiral JLP meets Dahj and the entire truth about the incident behind the Mars Synth Attack eventually gets revealed to the public ~ 14 years after the original incident.
2401 AD = Queen Agnes Jurati of a Small Borg Cooperative prevents the destruction of the local sector (maybe entire quadrant?) with forced help from StarFleet's local Fleet. Countless lives were saved.
2401 AD = Battle of Frontier Day (Earth was almost lost Pt. 4, Loss of Earth's Orbital Defense System, Damage/Loss of Countless StarShips, the Youth within StarFleet was almost assimilated)

 

[F. King Daniel]

TNG opened up in an era of unparalleled peace, 70 years after Khitomer and over 50 years since Tomed. Of course the tone and attitude would be hopeful and optimistic and forward-looking

Until they retconned in the Cardassian Wars. And then the Tsenkethi Wars.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Until they retconned in the Cardassian Wars. And then the Tsenkethi Wars.

Fair points. However, the Cardassian wars were described as border skirmishes -- not inconsequential, but also not existential threats -- and the Tzenkethi as far as I can remember were only mentioned the one time and never again. They certainly didn't put the entire quadrant on a war footing like the Klingons and Romulans did before that.

 

[cooleddie74]

Three times, in "The Adversary(DS9)," "Homefront(DS9)" and "Paradise Lost(DS9)."

 

[Farscape One]

There were at least two Tzenkethi wars implied in Sisko's log in "THE ADVERSARY", when he said about 'the last Tzenkethi war'.

 

[Lord Garth]

I don't think it's time to put Star Trek to rest. To the contrary. I look forward to the next person where I'll like half their shows and support them for about seven or eight years.

Just like what happened with Rick Berman and Alex Kurtzman. There's now an established pattern. "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."

 

[fireproof78]

There were at least two Tzenkethi wars implied in Sisko's log in "THE ADVERSARY", when he said about 'the last Tzenkethi war'.

Tholian War, Tallerians skirmishes, and the Cardassians of course.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

There were at least two Tzenkethi wars implied in Sisko's log in "THE ADVERSARY", when he said about 'the last Tzenkethi war'.

I think it was more because he was expecting a new Tzenkethi war to be starting then and there not because there was more than one prior one.

 

[Farscape One]

I think it was more because he was expecting a new Tzenkethi war to be starting then and there not because there was more than one prior one.

That log entry when he mentioned the last Tzenkethi war was before the sabotaging became apparent and they got that fake distress call. There was no reason for him to expect a new one at that time.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

That log entry when he mentioned the last Tzenkethi war was before the sabotaging became apparent and they got that fake distress call. There was no reason for him to expect a new one at that time.

They were actively concerned the Tzenkethi would engage the Defiant in battle from the get go, they were afraid of a war starting as soon as they got the fake news there was a new autarch.

 

[Farscape One]

They were actively concerned the Tzenkethi would engage the Defiant in battle from the get go, they were afraid of a war starting as soon as they got the fake news there was a new autarch.

They wanted to show the flag to indicate to the Tzenkethi that the Federation would protect their colonies, true.

But I still don't see how Sisko worded his log as expecting a new war.

Also, the Federation has had more than one war with the same power in the past, so there is precedence for there being at least two Tzenkethi wars.

 

[Lynx]

Any reboot would be dystopian as it would follow current trends.

the number of executive producers on modern trek outweighs the number of cast, and that’s before “network” interference. This isn’t Moore vs Berman on an episode or two, this is 12 people trying to set a direction for 10 episodes.

The closest to utopian trek post enterprise we’re likely to see is Orville. They had episodes on the prime directive, or post scarcity economy, on time travel and its consequences, all from a utopian society, although less sanctimonial than early tng’s evolved humans - Orville had progressed but were still fallible and were still aware where they came from.

That was because it was under control of one person who was influenced by the 90s, and had a unique experience of 9/11 to temper the pivot America took.

Perhaps the lack of immediate existential threats in reality from a generation that grew up in the Cold War made dystopia less likely, hence the growth in that market. Hunger Games, Fallout, the last of us,

Or perhaps the longer term lack of control from global warming and population/economic collapse has affected things too. At least in the Cold War you could imagine that Kirk sitting down and giving a speech would de-escalate things between people in charge. How could he change the narrative when social media exists. It was easier to make allegorical episodes when there was less interference from producers and you had 25+ a year to make them

Or maybe modern trek isn’t dystopian. Lower Decks being a prime example, but SNW too, and I have seen SFA and without venturing into spiked territory I don’t see the episode plots being out of place.

Picard and Discovery suffered as a “single long story” - at least for the most part with discovery, but it feels like later series were a lot more hopeful than the whole Mars/Romulan situation or Klingon war - certainly discovery

It’s ironic as when Patrick Stewart announced Picard back in Vegas he came out with a letter about how TNG was a welcome relief from the horrible world.

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Picard to my mind is the most dystopian of new trek.

I agree on PIC. I found it horrible, like watching a funeral. Only DSC was worse.

It's also typical that all the events, except for the Dominion War, which are supposed to affect the times to become dystopian are events that have been made up in later dystopian times, like "The Mars disaster" and the destruction of Romulus which I find the most idiotic event ever in Star Trek.

Dystopian events written i na dystopian era wgich unfortunately has affecter a series which was supposed to be a bout a better future. !sn't it ironic!

It's not me being negative. There is something really wrong with series and movies now and what's wrong is the gloomy 2010's and 2020's.

What we really need now are some more optimistic and exciting series and movies which could lighten up the lives for us here in the Gray Universe.

But I'll guess that we have to wait untill the next 1960's, 1980's or 1990's comes, some era when there's more optimism and faith about a better future.

I hope that Trek will survive until then.

The prestige/dystopian trend has to be coming to an end, it's much more common to find people who are absolutely sick of it at this point. Mentioned it in another thread recently (or maybe this thread) but it turns out breezy network procedurals absolutely demolish prestige drama in viewership anyway.

If the Baldur's Gate 3 TV series keeps the tone of the game and is a big success then it could be a catalyst that helps push genre fiction back toward fun, but obviously there's about a thousand failure points between here and that outcome.

You're absolutely right!

I'm defnitely sick and tired of all this doom and gloom, the reason why I only watch one TV series nowadays and that's NCIS. Not as good as it used to be because almost all the great main characters are gone but still watchable.

I haven't watched Baldurs Gate 3 yet so I can't comment on it.

And even Picard took place in the aftermath of two catastrophically tragic events. You don't just wake up the next day all smiles after that.

Yes, but note that those "tragic events" were written for PIC, which means that they were a part of the series being dystoipian or in other words events written and created in the dystopian 2020's to make PIC become dark and gloomy.

Maybe we should add the recent destruction of great characters from "The Golden Years of Star Trek" in certain newer books to that trend too.

Not even the books brings any refuge from the dystopian winds which are blowing in the Gray Universe.

Both the Dominion War AND the Mars disaster. And both within a decade. Three if you count the destruction of Romulus. For about a dozen years shit was hitting the fan in the Federation.

Actually "shit" made up by 2010's and 2020's people.
Dystopian minded people comes up with dystopian scenarios.

I too would rather see it end than become dystopian. With the paramount merger, it may end anyway.

We had an 18 year gap from TOS to 1987..that might be a good thing to give it a chance to reset from our current culture.

There's a risk for that. There will always be some more blood-splattering, pessimistic series to whatch somewhere so why would those who like that kind of stuff watch

Borg attacks on Earth.

Needless to say, the Picard era was an extremely fragile one for the Federation.

It was so because dystopian minded writers and producers wanted it to be so.
The perfect way of burying TNG and the other series from the late 80's and 90's.

This is the reason why I don't like modern Trek. I don't mind if they have dark scenes here and there, but if they make that the entire premise of the show that isn't Trek. That is just another show entirely.

There is too much dystopian stuff lately. I like dystopian stuff actually, but it feels over-saturated. The old Trek shows were uplifting, about the good of humanity, that we can overcome our differences and base nature and be better than what we are. TNG and TOS gave me many lessons growing up, I don't see that same aspect in modern trek anymore.

I totally agree here.

I don't like dystopian movies and dseries because I see too much of that in real life now. I can watch some series with darker episodes but I don't like having constant current dystopoie a spewed over me as soon as I turn on the TV.

If Star Trek was actually dystopian I'd want it to take a rest.

It's not.

Unfortunately I find it dystopian compared to what we had in TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY.
And not only Star Trek, its a common trend in many series and movies made after 2010.

Whereas, and of course I speak only for myself here, if I never saw Braga's name on a Star Trek script ever again I would be happy. I was firmly in the "Fire B&B" camp back in the day, and I have never been in the "Fire Kurtzman" camp.

I have been very critical to Berman and his gang for many years.

I did apppreciate their work with TNG but I didn't like how they messed up VOY and I didn't like ENT, a retro series was a step in the wrong direction.

But Kurtzman and his gang are ten times worse!

Fair points. However, the Cardassian wars were described as border skirmishes -- not inconsequential, but also not existential threats -- and the Tzenkethi as far as I can remember were only mentioned the one time and never again. They certainly didn't put the entire quadrant on a war footing like the Klingons and Romulans did before that.

That's true. The Cardassian "situation" must have been going for a long time before the treaty in which the Federation gave up some worlds in the DMZ to the Cardassians.

Are there any list somewhere about how many worlds there were in the DMZ which were given to the Cardassians?

 

[fireproof78]

Unfortunately I find it dystopian compared to what we had in TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY.
And not only Star Trek, its a common trend in many series and movies made after 2010.

Yeah, no.


TOS and TNG had world War 3 and several wars and the most devastating attacks on Earth. Enterprise was more dystopian, if we strain that word to a definition that definitely does not include Star Trek.

 

[cooleddie74]

7 million people died when a test probe attacked Earth. That was a storyline conceived in 2003, long before Abrams or Kurtzman got their hands on the franchise. 7 million killed in one attack, which led to a crisis threatening the very survival of both Earth and the human race.

That was Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.