Spoilers Picard 1x1, "Remembrance"

[Campe]

I probably should have editted this to my other reply as I touched on there, but this is another example of perspective coming in:

When Obama was elected, The Voice ( the newspaper for ‘black britons’, a concept I admittedly find disheartening in many ways) ran a headline ‘would the last black person in Britain please turn out the lights’. The idea that America had suddenly become precisely a Utopia for ‘black’ people. It was depressing frankly. But America has always sold its dream. The same way now we have the Faragist mobs wishing dearly and vocally that they could have Trump as their leader.
The way pop culture has shaped that can’t be overlooked tbh. You can be Black and be a star in America. That’s not so common here. (It’s not exactly impossible, especially these days.) That sells.
Thing is, outside of occasional breakthroughs leading to a boom (anyone with a scouse accent in the sixties, Mancunians in the nineties.) it’s not race/ethnicity sewing up stardom here... it’s class. Guitars ain’t cheap. Tuition ain’t cheap. ‘Working class boy done good’ is still a news story because it’s still a rare enough occurrence to be a thing. Acting is not for the working class, and depending on your background, not lower middle class either.
It’s changing, but America is still seen as the dream.

But none of that is being a utopia. I just completed my Masters of Healthcare Administration and in one of my final classes, we had a guest speaker come in and talk about the transition between Obama and Trump and how that has affected disparities and really truly why, from a policy perspective, Trump is so attractive to the white working class. The simple answer (I could go into a lot of details with the numbers but I won't) is they literally felt abandoned in the Obama Administration and feel they have someone in their corner now. The situation is now reversed where minorities feel abandoned. But a utopia doesn't replace one disparity with another, which is ultimately why its an ideal to strive for. Its perfection for all, not for one group of individuals, which is why its not likely to happen. We have to come together and find a way to work through all of the baggage in order to find how we can help all, not one group at the suffering of another. Because that really defeats the purpose of a utopia.

Again, believe what you want. I just can't get behind your definition of a utopia.

 

[Reverend]

They were 1000 years away because they were fundamentally incapable of recreating Soong's work/Data. Maddox did an end run around the problem by finding a way to salvage Data's design from what was left of him instead of trying to recreate it.

Exactly. The android body was never the problem; it was the positronic brain.

 

[Danja]

Imagine the struggle that TOS had. With 29 episodes in season one, and 27 in season two.

Back in the 60's, TV seasons were usually 35 episodes (The Honeymooners was cancelled after one season).

 

[Vger23]

I actually agree with you in general, although I can't resist pointing out that, prior to the reboot movie, the most commercially -successful Trek movie was a light-hearted romp about the saving the whales.

Talk about sending the Powers That Be mixed messages! We love KHAN . . . and the whales! We love how utopian TNG is . . . but our favorite eps include the one set in a dark dystopic version of TNG ("Yesterday's Enterprise") and the one where the captain is captured and mutilated by horrifying cyborg zombies!

I agree wholeheartedly...but those facts are a data point all their own perhaps: Star Trek is at its best when the tone varies liberally, and isn't stuck in one mode. Actually, TOS (which of course was the original take on the entire franchise) did this best of all!

Very true. Personally I quite like grimdark when it is done with proper amount of black humour and satire. I just don't want grimdark in Star Trek.

But, as I pointed out earlier, grimdark has always been a part of Star Trek. Perhaps not in excess, but it's always there, and often in the most well-received and successful iterations. I personally think that it's ok in Star Trek, as long as it's a brief departure or side-journey designed to test our characters and our overriding philosophy. But, I agree that it shouldn't be the basis for a protracted Star Trek story. (For example- a "Fall of the Federation" story so many fans seem so interested in....no thank you).

How soon we forget......!

Who ever once has believed we were in a utopia? I’ve never heard that word as a description of current circumstances used outside of speculative fiction in my lifetime.

With no disrespect to anyone, all this talk about "the Federation as a Utopia" is horseshit. It's a very good, successful society that has excelled at the integration of different cultures and philosophies and achieved great things technically, but it's sure as hell isn't a utopia, and has never been portrayed as such. Sure, various characters have spouted the patriotic rhetoric about the virtues of the UFP,....but reality has never been as such. And, I've always believed that there is a big difference in Star Trek between what the characters say versus what is actually portrayed (I give the latter WAY more weight to gauging what the fictional "reality" is in Trek, while it seems most fans just go with "But Picard says it's perfect...so it MUST BE!"). The Federation has plenty of flaws, and that's the simple reality, regardless of what a Picard or Janeway lecture seems to indicate.

Hell, the theme of multiple TOS episodes was that "mankind isn't meant for paradise." A utopia, by all definitions, is essentially a paradise.

I’m not certain you understand what the word means. It’s not a matter of perspective. A utopia implies we have figured everything out. The definition is literally:



Ignoring the imaginary part, there has never been a time in my life where everything is perfect. We have never figured everything out. We always have problems. Sure, we’ve solved problems. We’ve managed to make the world a little bit of a better place. But poverty, disparities, corruption, greed... they are all very much there. You can’t have a utopia if there are still people suffering.

This discussion is starting to turn to "modern day politics" as opposed to Star Trek: Picard unfortunately. There's a reason I stay out of TNZ.

Utopia isn't going to happen, folks. We might get close but it won't be happening.

Agreed. And I'm not sure that utopian existence is healthy or constructive to human beings. Challenges and problems give us purpose, and so long as we have different cultures and diverse thinking (which I would never want to see homogenized), there will always be challenges to overcome. So, I think it's ok that we'll never get there.

 

[jaime]

But none of that is being a utopia. I just completed my Masters of Healthcare Administration and in one of my final classes, we had a guest speaker come in and talk about the transition between Obama and Trump and how that has affected disparities and really truly why, from a policy perspective, Trump is so attractive to the white working class. The simple answer (I could go into a lot of details with the numbers but I won't) is they literally felt abandoned in the Obama Administration and feel they have someone in their corner now. The situation is now reversed where minorities feel abandoned. But a utopia doesn't replace one disparity with another, which is ultimately why its an ideal to strive for. Its perfection for all, not for one group of individuals, which is why its not likely to happen. We have to come together and find a way to work through all of the baggage in order to find how we can help all, not one group at the suffering of another. Because that really defeats the purpose of a utopia.

Again, believe what you want. I just can't get behind your definition of a utopia.

None of which is what I said though. My point here is that there was a sense of utopia that some people were feeling (wrongly tbh). My overall point is that Trek from our perspective is/should be Utopic, and the the ‘now’ is Utopic from historical perspectives.

 

[Campe]

None of which is what I said though.

Its an example, utilizing the racial issue (that you did bring up,l btw) of how far away we really are.

 

[Vger23]

NoMy overall point is that Trek from our perspective is/should be Utopic, and the the ‘now’ is Utopic from historical perspectives.

Any situation where mankind has put aside their macro cultural differences to achieve prominence in a vast intergalactic community and achieved enough technical excellence and cultural/ethical maturity to explore the galaxy freely and make contact with new alien races seems pretty frigging "relatively utopian" to me and from "our perspective."

Everything else is just gravy. I mean, honestly, people are bitching & whining about the behavior of the Fox News reporter who interviews Picard or, just a few weeks ago, that bullying at school age still exists as if these things are massive gut-punches to the "ideals of the Federation." Give me a break. Really people, do we actually think mankind is just going to put aside millions of years of base instinct and conditioning because we have replicators and warp drive? Some of these guys have been drinking Picard's Earl Gray flavored Kool Aid again!

 

[jaime]

Its an example, utilizing the racial issue (that you did bring up,l btw) of how far away we really are.

My discussion of it is the same as yours (Obama saviour! Trump Saviour!) but my point is how people believed these people had ushered in a sense of a utopia for ‘their people’. Both were obviously wrong.

But I don’t see how either of those changes the idea of perspective. People of certain ideology once believed the USSR to be a Utopia. Perspective, even there.

 

[Vger23]

My discussion of it is the same as yours (Obama saviour! Trump Saviour!) but my point is how people believed these people had ushered in a sense of a utopia for ‘their people’. Both were obviously wrong.

But I don’t see how either of those changes the idea of perspective. People of certain ideology once believed the USSR to be a Utopia. Perspective, even there.

Or, even more (fictional) perspective:

In the time of the Federation, Earth's people are no longer waging horrific wars, committing genocide / ethnic cleansing, engaging in racism, and fighting for local resources and power. I mean....that's a MASSIVELY optimistic and bright vision of the future all in itself!

I think we sometimes get a little crazy in our expectations about how "perfect" the future should be, saying "Star Trek is awful now because it portrayed an Admiral who was a dick" or "because the Federation made a bad political decision" or "those two Starfleet officers were mad at each other...that shouldn't happen in Gene's Star Trek."

 

[Campe]

Utopia is an ideal. We are never going to reach it, but we can continually strive to be better. That is my point.

 

[jaime]

Utopia is an ideal. We are never going to reach it, but we can continually strive to be better. That is my point.

Essentially mine too. And Treks.
But this is one of those ‘I wants realism’ things.
Like, unlimited energy, unlimited food, faster than light travel, matter transportation with on the fly matter-to-energy conversion, consciousness transferral, bald seventy year olds being romantic interests and being able to free climb random objects...and they idea that we will finally stop being dicks to each other, than this can be achieved without a secret society of Uber dicks in the background shaping things, is somehow unrealistic.

Picard is still very much the Utopia of TNG, but like our own (from a perspective) Utopia (of the nineties) is on its decline. The chinks in the armour (the fear of engineered bearings, or the most-treatment of what we create) were already in place, we saw them from virtually the beginning of the series (anyone remember those early TNG books where Riker wasn’t exactly sure of Data’s place? How about Pulaski the bigot?) and here they have manifested to the point where someone who is in many ways the embodiment of that Utopias ideals...is a broken man. I don’t think taking a wrong turn and setting it right is a bad story for Trek, as long as you know what you are playing against.
That’s why I had a problem with DSC in its first year...not that they were pushed to making a wrong turn, but that they were already in that wrong turn so fast and stayed there. Almost no-one was likeable, and almost no-one (I will probably go with no-one) was in that Federation mould. The war started with Federation committed war crimes, and ended with some more shady shenanigans, almost as though they had totally failed to grasp what DS9 was doing with its stories.
They got some contrast in series 2, especially with Pine, but I got bored and hate the Control concept for obvious reasons.

Picard is a good return to tell a new story tied in with the old, but it needs that old stuff to work. And it’s doing ok as of episode 1.

 

[DaveyNY]

My feelings about the current discussion as pertaining to Episode-1 of STAR TREK: PICARD ...




... is it Thursday yet.

 

[AgentCoop]

Star Trek is at its best when the tone varies liberally, and isn't stuck in one mode.

Agreed wholeheartedly, and that's exactly the problem with the usual studio mindset of "going with what works". You get stuck in a rut of trying to recreate the things that were popular in the past (I'm looking at you, Star Wars) while ignoring the lesson that those past installments were the result of experimentation and taking risks. Unfortunately, "going with what works" will always be seen as the safer option.

As to the utopia discussion, to me it simply comes down to whether Gene's vision of how humanity should behave in the future is compatible with good storytelling and in my opinion it's not. Gene was a genius, but in some ways his vision is where good drama goes to die.

 

[BillJ]

My feelings about the current discussion as pertaining to Episode-1 of STAR TREK: PICARD ...




... is it Thursday yet.

Definitely interested in where they are heading.

 

[BillJ]

Gene was a genius, but in some ways his vision is where good drama goes to die.

I'm not sure it was a sustainable way to do a TV show, but I appreciate TNG for trying to buck the trends of the time. There were hits and there were misses.

 

[Vger23]

I'm not sure it was a sustainable way to do a TV show, but I appreciate TNG for trying to buck the trends of the time. There were hits and there were misses.

Where TNG's version of The Vision fell apart was assuming that an advanced, positive view of future society meant that everything was damn-near perfect. TOS had the balance far better, by saying "Hey, we're pretty proud of the fact that we don't war with each other or hate each other because of our differences any more, we didn't end up annihilating ourselves...and we KNOW we're flawed and barbaric...but we work our asses off to repress that and get a little better every day" The idea that we have to work our asses off is dramatic and interesting. The idea that we're already through the journey and achieved everything we want is not.

 

[Doc Mugatu]

I treat Picard Season 1 like a Prime Timeline version of a 10-hour Star Trek XI. … I think PIC looks and feels more like a movie than the actual TNG Movies.

Agreed.

I’m a science fiction fan, largely due to the original Star Trek. I have no issues revisiting the good old days and still liking new work. … A more recent production date doesn’t make something superior.

Well said, and ditto.

I like that interpretation, as even when I was in my twenties a friend of mine called me an old hippy. But I recognize that the science fiction that was available to watch during my formative years was mostly not very good, so I don't put it on a pedestal just because it was there when I was a kid.

Not to sound like Ye Old Fogey, but some of it was good and I miss the expectation and suspense of the shows back then as they were rare. A treat. Maybe get 1 or 2 a year with almost zero chance of getting renewed. Hollywood now has flooded the market. It's like the western TV series of the late-50s to early 70's. A few were great, many were okay and more than a few were schlock.

Star Trek was my first scifi series, quickly followed by Space 1999, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers. But to be honest, my dad's science fiction book collection stirred my imagination a whole lot more as it wasn't limited like media SF is.

Similar - though I didn't see my first Dr. Who episode until 1981 (I had read the American novelization series - the ones that had the Harlan Ellison forward). I was also into the pulps (Shadow, Doc Savage, Spider) and chapter serials (Flash Gordon, Captain Marvel, Zombies from the Stratosphere, etc.) as well as the books of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Isaac Asimov, Sir Author Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells. The only series my father and I shard was Don Pendleton's Executioner series. So I was a bit all over the place. I was also heavy into Abbott & Costello and Laurel & Hardy.

*sigh* I'm not talking about box office. I'm talking about overall popularity in the here and now and I'm not sure why you want to harp on this one thing and try to turn it into a debate. I said TMP is not as popular as other Trek films and it isn't. The fact that you rank it in the middle of the pack proves my point. I never said it was the worst Trek film. I never even said it was the least popular. I said that, on the whole, it is not as popular as other films in the franchise. Because it's not.

It's okay to like a less popular movie. Hell, I absolutely love Generations and most people think that movie is terrible.

Except you say "objectively" yet look to exclude objective measures such as box-office. Do you know what "objective" means? You further go on to retcon your position to the point of making what you say meaningless. You did insinuate which ones you felt the least popular ... which is you speaking beyond yourself to include the majority yet all you fall back on is "subjectivity." It is not a matter of wanting to argue. It is a matter that you are looking to get something accepted as a general fact without anything but your subjective opinion.​

 

[AgentCoop]

Except you say "objectively" yet look to exclude objective measures such as box-office. Do you know what "objective" means? You further go on to retcon your position to the point of making what you say meaningless. You did insinuate which ones you felt the least popular ... which is you speaking beyond yourself to include the majority yet all you fall back on is "subjectivity." It is not a matter of wanting to argue. It is a matter that you are looking to get something accepted as a general fact without anything but your subjective opinion.

I know what "objectively" means. And I stand by my statement (which, I say again, was a very minor part of the original point I was making) that TMP is objectively less popular than other Trek films. It just is. But go on, keep harping on it and quoting pointless box office statistics at me. Have a party.

 

[Doc Mugatu]

The original Star Trek wasn't remotely utopian.

Yes and no. Earth and Starfleet were portrayed as utopian especially by 1960s standards. Of course here in the 21st century we are enlightened by virtue of the stone of Elostirion that is the internet which allows us to see all of utopia's flaws.

 

[Doc Mugatu]

I know what "objectively" means. And I stand by my statement (which, I say again, was a very minor part of the original point I was making) that TMP is objectively less popular than other Trek films. It just is. But go on, keep harping on it and quoting pointless box office statistics at me. Have a party.

Apparently you do not know what "objective" means as you keep using it incorrectly. As for standing by your statement, well, many stood upon the deck of Titanic as it sunk beneath the frigid waters. As for your retconned statement that "TMP objectively less popular than other Trek films" again your use of "objective" is unsubstantiated as well as now being so general and vague as to be meaningless. Way to nullify your own point!