Is the utopistic Trek gone with this movie?

[Arpy]

I haven't followed this thread that closely, but want to say that giving up the better future (not the perfect future, but also not the just marginally better one either) is giving away something that is very rare in popular culture and very powerful to countless viewers - core and occasional. I think that it speaks to the core of who we are and what we suffer the slings and arrows for. Who wakes up thinks, "By golly, I'm going to make today no better than yesterday!"

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The TOS future seemed better when I was a kid because we had spaceships, rayguns and cool stuff like that. Also there was no war on Earth, racism was unknown here and everyone had enough to eat. The criminal justice system appeared to be humane as well.

None of that has changed in nuTrek.

As for Utopia...fuck Utopia. Utopias only work as long as you don't ask vexing questions, so you accept them as they boringly are or you look for something to aspire to that actually fits human beings in this universe rather than as they might appear in nursery tales.

Some smart person once said that all utopian schemes begin with the assumption that every individual will be satisfied with their "fair share" and then go into great detail about whether that fair share will be delivered by airship or motorcar. So it is with Star Trek.

 

[Arpy]

I agree with much of what you've said, but, and without promoting them, I want to point out a common mistake that people make when describing utopias: that they're boring. Or that if you just scratch under the surface you'll find their nasty secrets showing them to not be all that great. Any utopia that's either boring or harboring some dark secret ISN'T a utopia. The most basic criteria for an honest to goodness utopia is, all other things being equal (i.e. sentimental attachments not being at issue), you'd rather live there than here. The problem with coming up with absolute ideal utopias is that everyone has their own ideas about what they'd be like, no one really knows everything they need/want, and everyone's constantly changing requiring changes be made to even their personal utopias.

...Now I will promote utopia: despite its being elusive and difficult and remote, you don't really give up on it. Would you tell an American slave in 1860...or in 1680 for that matter, to give up on this whole emancipation thing - that nothing really changes and shouldn't and their lives would be boring if it did?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I agree with much of what you've said, but, and without promoting them, I want to point out a common mistake that people make when describing utopias: that they're boring. Or that if you just scratch under the surface you'll find their nasty secrets showing them to not be all that great. Any utopia that's either boring or harboring some dark secret ISN'T a utopia. The most basic criteria for an honest to goodness utopia is, all other things being equal (i.e. sentimental attachments not being at issue), you'd rather live there than here. The problem with coming up with absolute ideal utopias is that everyone has their own ideas about what they'd be like, no one really knows everything they need/want, and everyone's constantly changing requiring changes be made to even their personal utopias.

...Now I will promote utopia: despite its being elusive and difficult and remote, you don't really give up on it. Would you tell an American slave in 1860...or in 1680 for that matter, to give up on this whole emancipation thing - that nothing really changes and shouldn't and their lives would be boring if it did?

In that case, you're conflating "utopia" with "better than what we've got," and that jus isn't the case. Utopia--and utopianism for that matter--is the belief that happiness is the default condition that results from the elimination of a requisite number of problems. Different utopianists have different ideas about just which problem needs to be eliminated in order for everyone to be happy; the only thing they all have in common is they assume the elimination of JUST that set of problems is all that is necessary for a perfect existence.

The thing people refuse to give up on isn't "utopia," that's just plain human progress. This is why slaves struggled to gain their freedom, it's why their descendants struggled to get rid of Jim Crow, and why THEIR descendants struggled to improve their own socioeconomic/political situation.

 

[Greg Cox]

Exactly. People are confusing "progress" with "utopian."

Star Trek has always presented an optimistic view of a future that would be better than today. But TOS never pretended to be a perfect future full of perfect people. If anything, god-like aliens were constantly reminding Kirk that human beings were still mostly savages, but savages that might someday evolve into something a little less violent and primitive.

In the meantime, you still had obnoxious bureaucrats, madmen, struggling miners, mail-order brides, con men, spies, saboteurs, jealousy, intrigue, emotional humans losing their tempers, etc. You know, the fun stuff.

At its core, TOS was about thrilling adventures and escapades on a dangerous "final frontier," not blueprints for a utopian society.

 

[Sharr Khan]

Exactly. People are confusing "progress" with "utopian."

Star Trek has always presented an optimistic view of a future that would be better today. But TOS never pretended to be a perfect future full of perfect people. If anything, god-like aliens were constantly reminding Kirk that human beings were still mostly savages, but savages that might someday evolve into something a little less violent and primitive.

In the meantime, you still had obnoxious bureaucrats, madmen, struggling miners, mail-order brides, con men, spies, saboteurs, jealousy, intrigue, emotional humans losing their tempers, etc. You know, the fun stuff.

At its core, TOS was about thrilling adventures and escapades on a dangerous "final frontier," not blueprints for a utopian society.

Thank you! A perfect summery.

Its also possible, and I seem to run into it on this forum often, there is a built in assumption that one cannot be a Star Trek fan, a "Trekkie" unless one buys into its philosophical precepts. Those who think this fail to see, one can enjoy Star Trek for its characters as well as its setting and the fun to be had there.

 

[Greg Cox]

^ Thanks! Glad you liked it!

I gotta admit, when I sit down at the keyboard in the morning, I'm not thinking "What can I write today that will best demonstrate Gene Roddenberry's utopian vision?"

I'm thinking: "What kind of exciting/scary/funny/sexy trouble can I get Kirk into today . . . and can I get it done by Thursday?"

 

[Yevetha]

Exactly. People are confusing "progress" with "utopian."

Star Trek has always presented an optimistic view of a future that would be better today. But TOS never pretended to be a perfect future full of perfect people. If anything, god-like aliens were constantly reminding Kirk that human beings were still mostly savages, but savages that might someday evolve into something a little less violent and primitive.

In the meantime, you still had obnoxious bureaucrats, madmen, struggling miners, mail-order brides, con men, spies, saboteurs, jealousy, intrigue, emotional humans losing their tempers, etc. You know, the fun stuff.

At its core, TOS was about thrilling adventures and escapades on a dangerous "final frontier," not blueprints for a utopian society.

Thank you! A perfect summery.

Its also possible, and I seem to run into it on this forum often, there is a built in assumption that one cannot be a Star Trek fan, a "Trekkie" unless one buys into its philosophical precepts. Those who think this fail to see, one can enjoy Star Trek for its characters as well as its setting and the fun to be had there.

Since there is no way to purge out those who do not agree with Trek philosophy we might as well not make a deal out of it.

 

[NSTrekfan]

^ Thanks! Glad you liked it!

I gotta admit, when I sit down at the keyboard in the morning, I'm not thinking "What can I write today that will best demonstrate Gene Roddenberry's utopian vision?"

I'm thinking: "What kind of exciting/scary/funny/sexy trouble can I get Kirk into today . . . and can I get it done by Thursday?"

However, Trek does take an optimistic view of the future. You can't have Kirk decide to simply slaughter the colonists and make off with the dilithium. There's elements of Roddenberry that are part of Treks DNA. Perhaps some interpert Roddenberry too strictly but "humanity has improved and will continue to do so" is a big part of what makes Trek stand out.

Simply writing a big adventure story with lots of shooting and the main characters slaughtering innocents is pissing the point of what makes Trek Trek. (Not saying you've done that at all.)

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ Well, there IS the whole "General Order 24" thing on Eminar VII...

 

[Temis the Vorta]

A utopia wouldn't be boring to live in, I'm sure it would be great, but it's boring to watch as a fictional story. Fiction requires conflict.

Fortunately Star Trek has always solved this dilemma by largely ignoring the utopian Earth and the Federation, in favor of all that juicy un-utopian stuff beyond its borders. Occasionally the un-utopian stuff invades the Federation or Earth, and then it's possible to have stories inside the Federation. But when the angry Rommies aren't blowing up planets anymore, it's time to return to the frontier.

That's why we know a shitload more about Romulans and Klingons and the Borg than we do about the inner workings of the Federation - political structure, culture, mass media. Star Trek needs to stay on the fringes of utopia, because that's where all the fun is.

Abrams understands this as well as any of his predecessors: Utopia is the rationalization for Starfleet to run around shooting the bad aliens without having to feel guilty about it. That's an integral part of Star Trek and will never be dropped. But utopia can serve its purpose just fine without spending much screen time on it.

Star Trek has always presented an optimistic view of a future that would be better than today. But TOS never pretended to be a perfect future full of perfect people.

They're much better than people today, not nearly as greedy, nasty, and bigoted. That's where the "utopia" idea comes from. They need to be better than 21st C Earthlings, so that Starfleet can shoot Klingons with impunity and we can have our fun stories.

 

[sonak]

^ Thanks! Glad you liked it!

I gotta admit, when I sit down at the keyboard in the morning, I'm not thinking "What can I write today that will best demonstrate Gene Roddenberry's utopian vision?"

I'm thinking: "What kind of exciting/scary/funny/sexy trouble can I get Kirk into today . . . and can I get it done by Thursday?"

However, Trek does take an optimistic view of the future. You can't have Kirk decide to simply slaughter the colonists and make off with the dilithium. There's elements of Roddenberry that are part of Treks DNA. Perhaps some interpert Roddenberry too strictly but "humanity has improved and will continue to do so" is a big part of what makes Trek stand out.

Simply writing a big adventure story with lots of shooting and the main characters slaughtering innocents is pissing the point of what makes Trek Trek. (Not saying you've done that at all.)

Not being able to have Kirk slaughter large amounts of civilians to get at some resource has nothing to do with "utopia." It's because Kirk is the hero of the story.

In Batman comics, you don't have Batman blowing up buildings full of people just to get at the Joker, but that's not because the DC universe is a utopia-it's because Batman's the hero.

"Star Trek" is about peaceful explorers who occasionally become reluctant warriors-it's not called "James T. Kirk, mass-murdering sociopath."

 

[NSTrekfan]

I don't recall Kirk & company shooting anyone with impunity. They usually had a good reason for doing so and rearely did they "shoot to kill". That's one of the problems I had with the last movie. Kirks grin when Spock told him it was OK to shoot Neros ship. They may have to kill sometimes but I'd prefer they don't take pleasure from it.

 

[M'Sharak]

Exactly. People are confusing "progress" with "utopian."

Star Trek has always presented an optimistic view of a future that would be better today. But TOS never pretended to be a perfect future full of perfect people. If anything, god-like aliens were constantly reminding Kirk that human beings were still mostly savages, but savages that might someday evolve into something a little less violent and primitive.

In the meantime, you still had obnoxious bureaucrats, madmen, struggling miners, mail-order brides, con men, spies, saboteurs, jealousy, intrigue, emotional humans losing their tempers, etc. You know, the fun stuff.

At its core, TOS was about thrilling adventures and escapades on a dangerous "final frontier," not blueprints for a utopian society.

Thank you! A perfect summery.

Its also possible, and I seem to run into it on this forum often, there is a built in assumption that one cannot be a Star Trek fan, a "Trekkie" unless one buys into its philosophical precepts. Those who think this fail to see, one can enjoy Star Trek for its characters as well as its setting and the fun to be had there.

Since there is no way to purge out those who do not agree with Trek philosophy we might as well not make a deal out of it.

And that would be assuming that, even among those who do feel that Trek has a consistent underlying philosophy, it would be possible for all to agree upon
A) just what that philosophy is and
B) what requirements it implies, when viewed from a storytelling standpoint.

 

[UFO]

It's new for Star Trek, which was my point.

What’s new for ST? Star Trek rising above its times happened in TOS. And all of its audiences were "modern", when originally screened, so that happened too.

To be sure, it took one look at the Enterprise under construction to get him to finally decide to go for it. I doubt Kirk had actually gone to the shipyard to join the academy, and hadn't made up his mind to do so until he got there.

He made the effort to get up early and ride out to the "ball park". Stopping to take a look at the E was just sightseeing not a decision making milestone.

The car, the runaway brother, the abusive stepfather, the dad who died as a martyr in a career cut disastrously short.

Fair enough, but I doubt he was really worrying about most of those things (excluding his father, who didn't need redeeming as he did nothing wrong).

You're still thinking about the revised history in "Tapestry." In Picard's retelling of the event, the loudmouthed Ensign Picard caught the Naussicans cheating and then intentionally picked a fight with them.

Sure, he admits to starting the fight but the reason behind that is still the same: to support his friend. The first time, Picard was on a date with Penny when the Naussicans cheated his friend and he said he helped him get revenge by rigging the table. The Naussicans were outraged at losing and wanted a fight and Picard obliged. So contrary to what he said earlier in the episode, he didn’t intentionally pick the fight with them in either version. He was just stupid.

I don't see how fighting with three foreigners in a bar over a glorified pool game counts as "honorable" while a misguided attempt at chivalry does not.

It wasn’t over the game, he was supporting his friend not his own pride. "Misguided attempt at chivalry" my rear end. Cupcake had a thing against "townies"! Everyone knew it! He was argumentative from almost the start, which none of the other examples (Tribbles or Tapestry ) were. And his excuse was by far the weakest since as I said, Cupcake would have had little or no reason to believe there was a problem from Uhura’s behaviour. He was just looking for a fight and manufactured provocation when there was none. His fellow crewmembers did nothing to stop him either and were happy to be included in the odds he was boasting of. You do seem to be still happily overlooking the odds differential and the worse part: His continuing to bash Kirk when the fight was over which makes it a beating rather than a brawl. For which we never get the slightest hint of consequences.

No, I suppose not. But that was what made the prime Star Trek great! Whether is was done well or not.

Speak for yourself. I thought it was an obligatory TV-trope intended to please the moral-majority demographic and therefore a necessary evil for ratings purposes.

And yet I don’t recall the same sort of "going the extra mile" in other contemporary shows.

Now we live in a post-9/11 world where even the moralizers among us will loudly applaud the deaths of terrorists and/or tyrants. Swift justice is all the rage these days.

I am aware of the modern thinking and reasoning. I am suggesting that under those circumstances ST needs to take up its traditional moderating role more than ever. Subtly of course to prevent loss of revenue! Certainly not to dive in to the abyss.

Which makes the characters that much harder to relate to, whatever the subtext is.

OK, let’s not make things difficult then.

The other problem, seldom recognized in these discussions, is that whatever duty and honor means to humans in the future, it doesn't mean the same to ANYBODY ELSE. Utopia can only exist in a vacuum …

Which is of course the whole point of showing it! This is how they behave, perhaps us too? I have redefined what I think "utopia" means in the context of Star Trek to be a significant improvement in some areas over what we now have, not a perfect society. Perhaps you and Greg Cox missed that?

Picard's "evolved sensibility" becomes a vain pretension in a universe inhabited by the Romulan Star Empire, the Borg, the Dominion, and a wide pantheon of sociopathic races/organizations/individuals looking for every opportunity to gain an advantage over their competitors. On first contact with the REAL WORLD, those evolved sensibilities are exposed for what they really are: maddening naivete.

No, but I agree they should be realistically applied. Moral codes are only tested when things are going badly.

Which Kirk found out the hard way, when he shouts "Give me your hand!" and Kruge immediately tries to pull him over the edge.

You have to pick you times, but if no one made any gestures war or mistrust would not end.

Pragmatism, IMO, is preferable, since morality for the sake of morality more often devolves into naivete.

In my opinion good morality is pragmatism tempered by experience and the wisdom of history. Some morality can have a bloody minded aspect of course. However that’s where reason comes in. But pragmatism on its own is just too "inhuman" and often counterproductive in the long run.

In TOS, for example, Kirk demonstrated his moral superiority ONLY while standing over the battered corpses of his enemies.

That is of course incorrect. Kirk is not generally the kind of Captain to shoot first and ask questions afterwards, even when urged to do so.

In that case, you're conflating "utopia" with "better than what we've got," and that jus isn't the case. Utopia--and utopianism for that matter--is the belief that happiness is the default condition that results from the elimination of a requisite number of problems. ...

Exactly. People are confusing "progress" with "utopian."

It doesn't seem that anyone really thinks Star Trek is a "real" utopia and that (perhaps unfortunately) the word is being used as a short hand for significantly "better than what we've got,". as I have redefined it previously.

Whatever you call it, Star Trek has generally included that aspect, particularly in the moral area. I would have been happy if STXI had just managed to avoid contradicting it.

Star Trek has always presented an optimistic view of a future that would be better than today.

Apart from the removal of the threat, I didn't see that in STXI. As I have said, it looked like today with spaceships. It was suggested that Kirk may have been treated better than he probably would today but he was still decribed by Pike as a repeat offender.

Well, there IS the whole "General Order 24" thing on Eminar VII...

A fair point. But I wouldn't have minded a good moral quandary (that didn't dominate the film), just not the blind assumption of the latest movie that bad things are OK in a "good" cause just because most people now seem to agree.

Utopia is the rationalization for Starfleet to run around shooting the bad aliens without having to feel guilty about it. … They need to be better than 21st C Earthlings, so that Starfleet can shoot Klingons with impunity and we can have our fun stories.

I won't deny some Klingons really need shooting! But being morally or socially "superior" doesn't appear to be able to act as a justification in any way I'm familiar with. More the opposite I would have thought.

I don't recall Kirk & company shooting anyone with impunity. They usually had a good reason for doing so and rearely did they "shoot to kill".

Yes exactly. How they behaved in achieving their goals was usually a factor.

Since there is no way to purge out those who do not agree with Trek philosophy we might as well not make a deal out of it.

How did we get to purging "… out those who do not agree with Trek philosophy"? Obviously that is just ridiculous (without a suitable show trail. ). But seriously, its not that hard to avoid painting Star Fleet in such a poor light (with no commentary) even if only a few fans view that as important.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I agree with much of what you've said, but, and without promoting them, I want to point out a common mistake that people make when describing utopias: that they're boring.

It's not a mistake.

A utopia is not "someplace better than here." It's an ideal society, embodying whatever the author happens to think constitutes a perfect social organization.

Human beings are more complex, greater creatures than any ideal about how we should live. The shortcoming of all utopian notions is that human beings as we exist cannot live in them; only the author's idealized, perfected - ie, truncated - notion of what human beings are can inhabit them. Since the people in them cannot exhibit the whole range of real human thought, passion and behavior, utopias are boring.

 

[UFO]

I agree with much of what you've said, but, and without promoting them, I want to point out a common mistake that people make when describing utopias: that they're boring.

It's not a mistake.

A utopia is not "someplace better than here." It's an ideal society, embodying whatever the author happens to think constitutes a perfect social organization.

True. The main problem with utopias is not that they are boring, but that they can't exist (as you imply).

This is why its the wrong word to use to describe the social optimism of Star Trek. It also allows people to say: "Well, STXI isn't utopian, but neither was TOS, so there must be is no difference between them".

 

[Sci]

There was a utopian vision in this one.

I didn’t see it. If fact we didn’t get to see much of Federation society except the confirmation that child raising is no better in this future that it is now.

I hardly think that a single troubled family is an indictment of the entirety of Federation society. Even in a world with excellent parenting, there will always be some children who are emotionally troubled. It's just life.

I guess I just wasn't impressed by the trite characterisation to be honest

Which is fair, but that doesn't mean that one troubled family is an indictment for all of Federation society's child-rearing, as you implied above.

but of all the children that have dialogue in the movie (five I think, not sure all of Spock's bullies have lines) 100% are either poorly raised or troubled in some way.

You mean all two of them?

And, again, Spock's abusive classmates were established in "Journey to Babel." There's no way around that. If you show Spock's childhood, you have to show him suffering social discrimination for being half-Human.

And no, the bullies are not "villains" (I never said they were) but their behaviour is certainly bad (hence "bad guys").

I'm sorry, but you're getting silly then. IHaven'tGotALife was clearly referring to the role of villains, that is, unambiguously immoral characters, when he said there were large chunks of this movie without a bad guy. Petty 10-year-old bullies are not bad guys, they're spoiled children who need a good spanking.

And even for someone as troubled as Kirk, things seem to have turned out okay -- his emotional problems did not deny him a good education, nor lead to him being trapped in an abusive judicial system that denied him the chance to make something of himself. The system seems to have treated an emotionally troubled guy a hell of a lot better than it often does today.

I accept its possible you have a point about how the system treated Kirk after his joy-ride. It would be nice to think so but we don't get to see even a glimpse of that

The guy became a leading student and then the commanding officer of a starship within three years of joining Starfleet, even after having what Captain Pike establishes to be a long history of petty criminal behavior, up to and including hijacking his step-father's groundcar and driving it into a quarry.

Of course we see the system treat him a hell of a lot better than it would someone with similar developmental problems today! Do you think someone with Kirk's history could have become commanding officer of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan today (even if we triple the number of years it took Kirk)? Most people who have problems like Kirk's end up getting trapped in poverty or an abusive criminal justice system today. The system treats Kirk MUCH more kindly than it does people in real life!

He may have been able get an education despite official indifference or worse.

Star Trek has long established that Federation and United Earth education systems are vastly superior to those we have today, and there's nothing about the destruction of the U.S.S. Kelvin by the Narada that would have changed that.

But after such dedication and discipline why is he still so directionless per Pike's comment?

Because even the most supportive of societies cannot give someone direction if they don't chose it themselves. People are, at the end of the day, responsible for their own lives, too.

The Vulcan bullies were canonically established in "Journey to Babel," ...

Its an alternate reality. Nothing is written in stone,

No. The only changes in the ST2009 timeline are those that stemmed from the destruction of the U.S.S. Kelvin. There's no reason to think the destruction of the Kelvin would result in a small number of Vulcan 10-year-olds not behaving like little turds. Hell, if anything, the premature revelation of the relationship between Vulcans and Romulans 33 years before it happened in the Prime Universe's "Balance of Terror" might even exacerbate Human-Vulcan social tensions within the Federation and make such bullying worse for Spock.

Older Kirk is an "improvement", but far worse are the undisciplined thugs he meets in the bar who have unaccountably managed to steal Star Fleet uniforms.

Right, because no Starfleet officers ever started fights for poor reasons in TOS.

Can you name an example where SF officers behave that badly in that context? No, this was not a "good brawl" (even if you think it started out that way) so neither Finnegan nor the Tribble episode qualify.

Neither Finnegan nor "The Trouble With Tribbles" nor the Picard-Nausiccan brawl were "good brawls." They were all brawls where Starfleet officers or cadets behaved in petty, bullying, prideful manners, and where they all deserved to get slapped down by their superior officers for their behavior. You know, the way Pike slapped those cadets in ST09 down.

Then Spock is shown to have a relationship involving an obvious potential conflict of interest. Its debatable whether a conflict actually occured. Regardless I really can’t imagine how that got into the film.

As long as human beings interact, there will always be people falling in love. And as long as people fall in love, there will be times when it happens between people with differing ranks within power structures. If anything, nuTrek's depiction of an emotional supportive, egalitarian relationship between Spock and Uhura is quite optimistic, since it's clear that Spock neither gave Uhura undue favors nor used his position of authority to sexually harass or extort her. They're egalitarian behind closed doors, which is something real couples who start out in different power ranks have trouble with.

You make some good points regarding Spock and Uhura but I am surprised the academy allowed such a thing to happen.

What makes you think the Academy knew?

Even if your assessment is correct, the situation almost costs Uhura her life! Clearly it effected how they related to each other in some ways. But the principle is not to allow even the perception of conflicting interest.

That was certainly Spock's view. Uhura's was that she shouldn't be denied an opportunity she had earned because there was an inaccurate "perception" of a conflict of interests. It's not like these kinds of arguments will ever stop, even in a truly enlightened society. There will always be clashes of opinions, there will always be people falling in love when they're in differing ranks in power structures, there will always be goodwill attempts to avoid creating a perception of conflicts of interests, there will always be counter-arguments that perception is not important if someone has genuinely earned something. Life will never be conflict-free in areas like this, that's just all there is to it.

They offer to save Nero, and he refuses. They recognize that since the Narada survived one journey through a black hole, it might do so again, so they destroy the ship. Seems fair to me.

Kirk: Your ship is comprised. [You are] too close to the centre of the singularly to survive without assistance which we are willing to provide.

Nero doesn’t disagree! But even if they believed there was still a small chance of the Narada surviving, no such reason is given.

It seemed fairly obvious to me that he still represented a potential threat so long as he was unwilling to surrender -- one who had already demonstrated a willingness and ability to murder 6 billion (that is, six thousand millions) people.

 

[Greg Cox]

^ Thanks! Glad you liked it!

I gotta admit, when I sit down at the keyboard in the morning, I'm not thinking "What can I write today that will best demonstrate Gene Roddenberry's utopian vision?"

I'm thinking: "What kind of exciting/scary/funny/sexy trouble can I get Kirk into today . . . and can I get it done by Thursday?"

However, Trek does take an optimistic view of the future. You can't have Kirk decide to simply slaughter the colonists and make off with the dilithium. There's elements of Roddenberry that are part of Treks DNA. Perhaps some interpert Roddenberry too strictly but "humanity has improved and will continue to do so" is a big part of what makes Trek stand out.

Simply writing a big adventure story with lots of shooting and the main characters slaughtering innocents is pissing the point of what makes Trek Trek. (Not saying you've done that at all.)

Don't worry, Kirk doesn't slaughter anyone, innocent or otherwise, in any of my Trek books (although there is a good, old-fashioned TOS-style fistfight in the new one). And, of course, I wouldn't write a STAR TREK novel as though it were CONAN or UNDERWORLD. Different series, different approaches. I wouldn't put a chainsaw massacre or an R-rated sex scene into a NANCY DREW book either. That would be inappropriate.

But that's more about being consistent to the tone of the franchise, and keeping the characters in character, than trying to promote some sort of utopian philosophy or agenda. It's like writing Batman or Zorro. They're the heroes so you write them that way. Ditto for Kirk or nuKirk.

In my experience, when authors (or fans) start thinking that the "message" is more important than the story, people lose perspective and the writing goes downhill. You get people arguing that "sure, that episode was brilliantly written and acted, but it sucked because it wasn't true to my vision of Star Trek," or, conversely, "sure it was talky and boring, but at least it was true to Gene's vision--which is what really matters!"

One can also argue that there's a world of difference between early, TOS-era Roddenberry and the Roddenberry of TNG, who was perhaps a little more invested in the idea of TREK as some sort of visionary moral lesson. TOS was a lot more rambunctious, and the characters were more imperfect . . . like in the new movie.

And, in fact, Earth in the new movie does look better than Earth today. We appear to have a united government, humans and aliens are working together in Starfleet to explore the universe, there's been tons of scientific progress, we haven't blown ourselves up or turned into an oppressive police state . . .

But space is still dangerous, people argue and get themselves into trouble, have all sorts of emotional baggage, and even get into brawls and sleep with wrong people sometimes.

Just like on TOS.

 

[Set Harth]

I wouldn't put a chainsaw massacre or an R-rated sex scene into a NANCY DREW book either. That would be inappropriate.

But also awesome.

Especially if they're both the same scene.