Is it time to put Star Trek to rest?

[Rahul]

I do find Hunger Games dystopian. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who is in charge, bad things go down. I certainly never found Hunger Games or any of the other YA shit you’re speaking of “fun.” A cautionary tale for sure.

Yes, season 1 of Disco could be considered dystopian.

Okay, interesting, because then you & me have quite different opinions on what defines a "dystopia".
Because for me that's pretty much only about the setting - after a sort of "downfall" (catastrophic or long decline) - NOT about the story itself.

As I said, I don't consider DIS season 1 a dystopia - it's just a pretty dark story. But I DO consider season 3 a dystopia, because of the "burn".

E.g. Battlestar Galactica is a dystopia, because if the whole human holocaust thing. Not for the daily violence on the show.
"Game of Thrones" is not a dystopia. It's quite violent, but they're trying to STOP said catastrophe before it happens.
"Alien" franchise is a dystopia - but not because of if the Alien & it's violence, but because of the oppressing corporate setting that clearly doesn't care about humans & sends them to a gruesome death.
"Event Horizon" on the other hand is just a horror movie in space. It's even more disturbing and violent. But humanity as a whole seems fine, flourishing even, and the "evil" in this story is some dark, Lovecraftian ancient horror - not a recent downfall or catastrophe. And everyone outside the titular ship seems fine.

But that is very much turned around by season 2. A dark story with Control and Section 31, but definitely one with hope at its core. Season 3, sure, if that’s really how you want to describe it, why not? But season 4 and 5 are far more hopeful and optimistic. I’d call it post-dystopian. And I find absolutely nothing about SFA dystopian. It is certainly more than hopeful.

I really do like this description - "post-dystopian".

I think it fits very well with SFA & late DIS. I think I'm going to use this going forward.

 

[Dukhat]

Actually, I thought the beginning of DSC season 3 was meant to be dystopian. But then that quickly went away. Like, by the third episode.

 

[Dar70]

It does, it’s just… no offense, but your general posts paint a picture of a person who is completely out of touch with modern culture.

What things exactly in modern culture are people out of touch with? Because I dislike much of NuTrek but love a lot of other new shows.

 

[cooleddie74]

Actually, I thought the beginning of DSC season 3 was meant to be dystopian. But then that quickly went away. Like, by the third episode.

"The Burn. The day the galaxy took a hard left."

Normally that would signal lots of ultradark stuff is coming, but the producers managed to avert some of it and that's for the best. ENT directly avoided storylines about World War III and postnuclear ruins and destroyed cities on Earth, and in hindsight that might have well been the wrong road to travel.

 

[Lynx]

If these haters had a platform in 1987 TNG wouldn't have got a second season.

alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die was bad enough.

I agree and I'm happy that it didn't.

As for the "hate Wesley" crap, it had an opposite effect on me.

I wasn't that fond of Wesley from the start. I didn't hate or dislike him but sometimes it was too much of the "Wesley saves the day" concept. Not to mention every time he screwed up something, like with the nanites and all that.

But when I got an Internet connection and saw all that hate which some people spewed out against him, I actually started to like him and defend him!

Wait.... Just out of curiosity...

Are you telling us you have formed an opinion on something you haven't watched? Like a child that says a food tastes bad before even tasting it?

The point is that I've watched too much of NuTrek.

I watched ENT for five episodes. I didn't like the concept of the series, the characters or how they screwed up established Trek history.

I watched the NuTrek movies and disliked them for the same reason.

I watched four episodes of DSC and found it unwatchable.

I watched the first season of PIC and found it gloomy and boring, sort of a funeral for TNG.

I watched the first season of SNW, sort of OK but I didn't like the "rebooted" TOS characters.

What I've watched so far of Youtube videos about SFA don't exactly give me any reason to want to watch it.

After 10 years of watching one crap series or movie after another, I know how crap looks even if I see it from a far distance.

And note that I'm not referring only to current Star Trek here. There are certain movies and series who are far worse.

The sad thing is that if series like PIC and SFA had been made shortly after the end of VOY, they could have been good. Of course if they have been made after the same concept as TNG, DS9 and VOY.

But when they have been adapted to what someone here called "modern culture" they don't work.

For me, Starfleet Academy is what we saw in TNGs The First Duty. SFA seem to be very far from that.

Saw Green Day in Little Rock when they were playing bars. Been a fan since.

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Good band! I really like "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams"!

I do find Hunger Games dystopian. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who is in charge, bad things go down. I certainly never found Hunger Games or any of the other YA shit you’re speaking of “fun.” A cautionary tale for sure.

Yes, season 1 of Disco could be considered dystopian. But that is very much turned around by season 2. A dark story with Control and Section 31, but definitely one with hope at its core. Season 3, sure, if that’s really how you want to describe it, why not? But season 4 and 5 are far more hopeful and optimistic. I’d call it post-dystopian. And I find absolutely nothing about SFA dystopian. It is certainly more than hopeful.

Hunger games is very dystopian. It almost made me puke wjen I accidentally watched an episode of it.

DSC wasn't only dystopian It was plain bad. The characters were awful, the whole scenario too and most of all the Mutant Ninja Turtles Klingons!

With the modern stuff I've seen of Trek, Trek being put to rest to some degree would be a better fate than it just being turned into modern slop like every other series, the Simpsons, Family Guy, Star Wars, etc, all have lost their original character and I unfortunately feel Star Trek is going down that path.

I actually have to agree here.

What they are turning Star Trek into now is just another dark, gloomy, dystopian thing with dark hopeless scenarios, stories more focused on the characters personal problems and miserable lives than on exploring space and adventures, blodd-splattering scenes and scenes with long outdrawn torture scenes, the destruction of planets characters and everything which was god in the REAL Star Trek.

In that case I have to agree that it's better to put Star Trek to rest than let it be ruined as it is today.

The sad thing is that it actually will happen if they continue to do what they are doing. The real fans will abandon Star Trek and the fans of doom and gloom and dystopia will only stay on until a new and worse blood-splattering dystopian series will show up. Then they too will abandon Star Trek for the new and worse series.

But it would be really sad if Star trek would disappear. The whole concept is too good to be destroyed by current dystopian trends.

 

[Paul Weaver]

But it would be really sad if Star trek would disappear. The whole concept is too good to be destroyed by current dystopian trends.

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.

 

[Starflight]

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.

 

[Turtletrekker]

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.

 

[cooleddie74]

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 Salt Umpire]

I agree and I'm happy that it didn't.

As for the "hate Wesley" crap, it had an opposite effect on me.

I wasn't that fond of Wesley from the start. I didn't hate or dislike him but sometimes it was too much of the "Wesley saves the day" concept. Not to mention every time he screwed up something, like with the nanites and all that.

But when I got an Internet connection and saw all that hate which some people spewed out against him, I actually started to like him and defend him!

The point is that I've watched too much of NuTrek.

I watched ENT for five episodes. I didn't like the concept of the series, the characters or how they screwed up established Trek history.

I watched the NuTrek movies and disliked them for the same reason.

I watched four episodes of DSC and found it unwatchable.

I watched the first season of PIC and found it gloomy and boring, sort of a funeral for TNG.

I watched the first season of SNW, sort of OK but I didn't like the "rebooted" TOS characters.

What I've watched so far of Youtube videos about SFA don't exactly give me any reason to want to watch it.

After 10 years of watching one crap series or movie after another, I know how crap looks even if I see it from a far distance.

And note that I'm not referring only to current Star Trek here. There are certain movies and series who are far worse.

The sad thing is that if series like PIC and SFA had been made shortly after the end of VOY, they could have been good. Of course if they have been made after the same concept as TNG, DS9 and VOY.

But when they have been adapted to what someone here called "modern culture" they don't work.

For me, Starfleet Academy is what we saw in TNGs The First Duty. SFA seem to be very far from that.

Good band! I really like "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams"!


Hunger games is very dystopian. It almost made me puke wjen I accidentally watched an episode of it.

DSC wasn't only dystopian It was plain bad. The characters were awful, the whole scenario too and most of all the Mutant Ninja Turtles Klingons!

I actually have to agree here.

What they are turning Star Trek into now is just another dark, gloomy, dystopian thing with dark hopeless scenarios, stories more focused on the characters personal problems and miserable lives than on exploring space and adventures, blodd-splattering scenes and scenes with long outdrawn torture scenes, the destruction of planets characters and everything which was god in the REAL Star Trek.

In that case I have to agree that it's better to put Star Trek to rest than let it be ruined as it is today.

The sad thing is that it actually will happen if they continue to do what they are doing. The real fans will abandon Star Trek and the fans of doom and gloom and dystopia will only stay on until a new and worse blood-splattering dystopian series will show up. Then they too will abandon Star Trek for the new and worse series.

But it would be really sad if Star trek would disappear. The whole concept is too good to be destroyed by current dystopian trends.

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.

 

[XCV330]

alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die was bad enough.

zoinks. i remember that newsgroup

 

[Turtletrekker]

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.

Texas-Class fiasco, Battle of the Living Construct...

 

[cooleddie74]

The Shinzon Crisis.

 

[Turtletrekker]

The Shinzon Crisis.

Borg attacks on Earth.

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

 

[XCV330]

and something happens which causes O'Brien to be the most revered Starfleet personnel of that era.

 

[Paul Weaver]

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.

Charitably I would put Picard season 1 as trying to say "things get bad, but things will get better"

That doesn't work in a 10 hour story, and I don't think worked at all. I saw it as "a few people are still good but no matter what they do they can't prevail"

The future depicted in Lower Decks is far better. I want utopian escape, where even the shady characters have hearts of gold. Sure it's not realistic based on today's world -- give me hope that things will be better, not a Federation which abandons people to Stardust City, which needs the Fenris Rangers to mop up. Sure you get a bad AI or disgraced ex cadet, but those aren't big things.

I want systems that are good, run by people who are good, and who prevail over the bad. You'll get bad admirals, but they get their commupence. Is that unrealistic? Sure. It isn't as unrealistic as warp drive and transporters though - at least I want to believe it isn't.

I want some proper evolved humans on a well-lit bridge quoting Shakespere in an adventure-of-the week with some background growth, and I want 20+ a year for years on end. I want to be able to pick up a random episode and watch it without worrying where in the overall narrative it is.

If that's a procedural show with 5 bottle episodes a year and 15 on a holodeck or beaming down to vasquez rocks or studio backlots or something similar in the Toronto or Vancouver or Pinewood area then so be it. Sure all the planets SG1 visited looked like Eastern Canada, that didn't impact the story.

I also want more producers like Braga:

We live in a dark time, and a lot of television's dark literally. Sometimes it's hard to see what you're watching, which is why I love Cosmos and The Orville. They're bright, welcoming futures

None of this requires putting Trek to rest, or "rebooting" it. It does require money though - and people aren't willing to pay money for entertainment, only time.

 

[Starflight]

The thing about Star Trek utopianism is that you could easily write it as ultra-resilient. The reaction to things like Picard's Mars disaster and Romulan refugee crisis could easily be written as "well, we've got the technology to handle this, we've got the will to help, let's do this."

I mean if you look at how the TOS/TNG/VGR Federation react to various atrocities:
Cestus III destroyed = "oh, maybe we provoked them, let's pursue peace"
Crewmember murdered and ship stolen by Rojan = Kirk invites Rojan to join the Federation while he's still strangling him
Crystalline entity eradicates two planets, conspires with Lore, kills endless colonists = "maybe we can talk to it with soundwaves! (and get genuinely blindsided at the notion that a woman who's son was murdered feels continued antipathy)
Borg nearly destroy Earth = refuse to use Hugh as a weapon a few years later (Necheyev pissed, but apparently not enough to damage Picard's career)
Crew experimented on and organs stolen by Vidiians = refuse to take the stolen organs back, invite a Vidiian woman onto the ship a year later to heal her injuries

The gloom that Picard starts in is just as much a deliberate tonal choice as any of these, I'd suggest; you could have the Federation get absolutely slammed by sixteen different threats with Earth on the brink of collapse and still have them cheerily pursuing peace and reconciliation, genuinely thrilled at the idea of integrating Romulan refugees into society.

 

[MurphyCooper]

I actually have to agree here.

What they are turning Star Trek into now is just another dark, gloomy, dystopian thing with dark hopeless scenarios, stories more focused on the characters personal problems and miserable lives than on exploring space and adventures, blodd-splattering scenes and scenes with long outdrawn torture scenes, the destruction of planets characters and everything which was god in the REAL Star Trek.

In that case I have to agree that it's better to put Star Trek to rest than let it be ruined as it is today.

The sad thing is that it actually will happen if they continue to do what they are doing. The real fans will abandon Star Trek and the fans of doom and gloom and dystopia will only stay on until a new and worse blood-splattering dystopian series will show up. Then they too will abandon Star Trek for the new and worse series.

But it would be really sad if Star trek would disappear. The whole concept is too good to be destroyed by current dystopian trends.

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.

 

[The Salt Umpire]

The thing about Star Trek utopianism is that you could easily write it as ultra-resilient. The reaction to things like Picard's Mars disaster and Romulan refugee crisis could easily be written as "well, we've got the technology to handle this, we've got the will to help, let's do this."

I mean if you look at how the TOS/TNG/VGR Federation react to various atrocities:
Cestus III destroyed = "oh, maybe we provoked them, let's pursue peace"
Crewmember murdered and ship stolen by Rojan = Kirk invites Rojan to join the Federation while he's still strangling him
Crystalline entity eradicates two planets, conspires with Lore, kills endless colonists = "maybe we can talk to it with soundwaves! (and get genuinely blindsided at the notion that a woman who's son was murdered feels continued antipathy)
Borg nearly destroy Earth = refuse to use Hugh as a weapon a few years later (Necheyev pissed, but apparently not enough to damage Picard's career)
Crew experimented on and organs stolen by Vidiians = refuse to take the stolen organs back, invite a Vidiian woman onto the ship a year later to heal her injuries

The gloom that Picard starts in is just as much a deliberate tonal choice as any of these, I'd suggest; you could have the Federation get absolutely slammed by sixteen different threats with Earth on the brink of collapse and still have them cheerily pursuing peace and reconciliation, genuinely thrilled at the idea of integrating Romulan refugees into society.

Exactly. If I want dystopian entertainment, there are multidinous options on my Roku. Or I can watch the evening news. I watch neither of them. The people in charge at P+ set the tone. If we get a break from Trek for awhile, it might reset to a more optimistic outlook if different people are at the controls.

 

[fireproof78]

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

It's not.