More writers goood at writing unironic optimistic stories in the past?

[USS Pertinax]

Not talking about the very distant past.

Were there more writers capable writing optimistic optimistic fiction during the TNG run?

Which i guess despite its flaws and some misguided episodes i see it as peak optimistic Trek outside of TOS.

Were there more active American and Canadian writers capable of doing that without irony and self mockery compared to today?

Should the rights holders had been more open to embracing more foreign writers and even translating their work into English if there is less proven talent out there that can do that?

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Question: why emphasize "capable?" Whatever the writers did, the producers could always swoop in to make a script all sunshine and roses, if that was what they wanted.

 

[USS Pertinax]

Question: why emphasize "capable?" Whatever the writers did, the producers could always swoop in to make a script all sunshine and roses, if that was what they wanted.

Rewrites have to feel organic after they are finished.

 

[The Wormhole]

SNW is unironically optimistic.

 

[Sketcher]

Depending on who you are, 30-40 years ago when TNG was on, IS the distant past. And it's only gonna become that more and more as time goes on. And no, the writers wrote episodes that fit in that era, where life in general seemed more optimistic and dare I say innocent. Could they do it now, sure. But that's not the type of writing or world we live in now. There have been a lot of world events, both large and small, that have reshaped the world psyche where dropping an episode of TNG onto modern audiences just isn't gonna fly.

 

[USS Pertinax]

There have been a lot of world events, both large and small, that have reshaped the world psyche where dropping an episode of TNG onto modern audiences just isn't gonna fly.

Will not fly because...?

Koreans can make optimistic tv series and pitch dark thriller movies at the same time.

Early MCU was optimistic fun time.

 

[Lord Garth]

SNW is unironically optimistic.

I've got a feeling he's never seen Strange New Worlds.

Depending on who you are, 30-40 years ago when TNG was on, IS the distant past.

Never say that again.

 

[James Cole]

Were there more writers capable writing optimistic optimistic fiction during the TNG run?

Which i guess despite its flaws and some misguided episodes i see it as peak optimistic Trek outside of TOS.

TOS managed to be incredibly optimistic in the 1960's... real risk of nuclear annihilation, a much higher percentage of the global population living under authoritarian if not totalitarian dictatorship, civil unrest in the US, a presidential assassination (which a sizable percentage of the population considered a coup d'etat), Vietnam...

If anything NuTrek should be even more optimistic... there's far less to worry about!

 

[Lord Garth]

... there's far less to worry about!

There are different things to worry about, I wouldn't say less. If what happened in 2020 and 1/6/21 wasn't Civil Unrest, I don't know what is. As far as 2023 or 2024, I'd say we're on the cusp of some serious problems on top of ones that a lot of people like to pretend don't exist.

And thanks to Reagan, deregulation, and Corporate Democrats not changing what the Republicans have done because they want to appeal to a center that no longer exists, our generation has been screwed over domestically. So has the generation after ours. We live in a 2nd Gilded Age.

Star Trek can't pretend everything's rosey. Because it's not. I prefer that Star Trek take the red pill instead of the blue pill.

 

[James Cole]

There are different things to worry about, I wouldn't say less. If what happened in 2020 and 1/6/21 wasn't Civil Unrest, I don't know what is. As far as 2023 or 2024, I'd say we're on the cusp of some serious problems on top of ones that a lot of people like to pretend don't exist.

The US does seem to have a lot of sheer government incompetence that aides situations escalating out of control...

And thanks to Reagan, deregulation, and Corporate Democrats not changing what the Republicans have done because they want to appeal to a non-existent center, our generation has been screwed over domestically. So has the generation after ours. We live in a 2nd Gilded Age.

True, this was one reason I spent most of the last decade outside the US.

Star Trek can't pretend everything's rosey. Because it's not. I prefer that Star Trek take the red pill instead of the blue pill.

I guess I prefer more timeless allegories instead of haphazardly inserting in partisanship (see PICARD seasons 1 and 2). TOS has aged surprisingly well in this regard.

 

[Sketcher]

I feel like you can write an optimistic future (as SNW has done), but the the reasons behind it and how we came to it can't be glossed over. I believe Russel T. Davies said something similar with his new run on Doctor Who, where you can't nowadays just be like "there was a terrible ethnic war, but we settled our differences. Life is great now". Ok, well how was that achieved? What were the struggles and sacrifices that brought us out of our troubled present and into a better future? That's what I feel modern audiences want from their optimistic future stories now. The explanation.

 

[USS Pertinax]

TOS managed to be incredibly optimistic in the 1960's... real risk of nuclear annihilation, a much higher percentage of the global population living under authoritarian if not totalitarian dictatorship, civil unrest in the US, a presidential assassination (which a sizable percentage of the population considered a coup d'etat), Vietnam...

If anything NuTrek should be even more optimistic... there's far less to worry about!

Yes but the talent pool was there form the 50s and early 60s even if 50s tv gives the wrong impression of the decade, there was plenty of darker pulp mass consumed in book form than what was shown on tv..

Now we have people writing whose parents also consumed a lot of dark edgy stuff on tv.

 

[James Cole]

That's what I feel modern audiences want from their optimistic future stories now. The explanation.

There was a retrospective review of INS a few years back (or someone that took an initial argument and expanded it somewhere like Slate or Salon) that argued moderate liberal suburban Californians basically won every political battle leading to the Star Trek future.

Now we have people whose parents also consumed a lot of dark edgy stuff on tv.

Grimdark worked so well for the DCEU and other franchises. Hopefully we're finally out of the deconstruct everything for the sake of it phase.

On dark / edgy earlier shows... Up until the late 1990s, most US TV shows aired on over the air network television, so were subject to government content regulations and the need to appease advertisers. So that effectively put guardrails in place for things getting too far out there. But it's also crazy looking back and seeing what say THE X-FILES or TWIN PEAKS managed to get away with... and both shows had overall great writers. There were also less TV shows being produced. Now with the streaming boom, too many shows have bad or mediocre writing. One fix might be doing quality over quantity, and paying better writers better wages.

 

[at Quark's]

If anything NuTrek should be even more optimistic... there's far less to worry about!

Doesn't Trek assume a horrible mid-21st century before things start getting better? Seems we're moving in that direction :P

That said, viewing back in retrospect, the 60 don't feel quite that bad to me as far as the threat of nuclear war goes. 2 opposing but in themselves fairly stable superpowers that threatened each other with nuclear war but really didn't want to go that way - even though there of course there was always the risk of some escalation both sides really didn't want but couldn't stop either past a certain point. I'd say that today is actually scarier in that respect, with nuclear weapons in more (and less predictable) hands than back then, and Russia being less stable than the Soviet Union back then. And perhaps the USA, as well. Even though I remember growing up in that era (well, the 70's actually but I guess that decade wasn't that different in this respect) and always feeling the specter of nuclear war as a threat. The Doomsday clock (from the Bulletin of Atomic scientists) has been put closer to midnight as of 2023 than it ever was back then (not even in famous crises such as the Cuban Missile crisis), and I guess that isn't for nothing, either.

But of course these things always look different in hindsight, as well.

 

[USS Pertinax]

On dark / edgy earlier shows... Up until the late 1990s, most US TV shows aired on over the air network television, so were subject to government content regulations and the need to appease advertisers. So that effectively put guardrails in place for things getting too far out there. But it's also crazy looking back and seeing what say THE X-FILES or TWIN PEAKS managed to get away with... and both shows had overall great writers. There were also less TV shows being produced. Now with the streaming boom, too many shows have bad or mediocre writing. One fix might be doing quality over quantity, and paying better writers better wages.

Probably most writers wanted to write movies in that era and now tv prestige and influence is on par with the movies.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Things you first watched as a child always seem better

 

[at Quark's]

^True. I still have a fondness for Berman Era Trek, but that's also because that was the Trek I was first exposed to. (not as a child, but as an adolescent/young adult)

 

[USS Pertinax]

Things you first watched as a child always seem better

Optimistic without 645 layers of irony and self mockery does not equal better. But it is different.

 

[James Cole]

Doesn't Trek assume a horrible mid-21st century before things start getting better? Seems we're moving in that direction :P

Luckily Star Trek is a parallel universe that stopped being our history in the 1960's

^True. I still have a fondness for Berman Era Trek, but that's also because that was the Trek I was first exposed to. (not as a child, but as an adolescent/young adult)

&

Things you first watched as a child always seem better

Star Trek is a fairly unique franchise in that it was something you could get into as an 8 year old and have it stay with you into adulthood, where you can watch the episodes with fresh eyes and appreciate additional layers, while also having new content coming in.

I'm a child of the 90's. In elementary school I was into the Power Rangers, but that didn't stay with me past age 11. I remember the Pinky and the Brain song, but it's not like I have ANIMANIACS going on Hulu. The X-Men, Spiderman, and Batman cartoons were pretty good, but I've never revisited said cartoons and am just a "normie" fan of those characters. Practically everyone was a fan of THE SIMPSONS, but that's very casual viewing.

That leaves THE X-FILES and the Stargate shows as the only other ones I really got into as a kid that stayed with me.

Optimistic without 645 layers of irony and self mockery does not equal better. But it is different.

I really don't like postmodernist deconstruction for its own sake or smug snarkiness... so some NuTrek is out <G>

 

[1001001]

SNW is unironically optimistic.

I think Discovery has some dark elements here and there, but is essentially optimistic without irony as well. Sometimes goofily so.