Public perception of Star Trek?

[fireproof78]

Is that how they respond? It's quite normal for propaganda groups to spread contempt for something they consider politically dangerous. Whereas the original Star Trek might deserve some of this contempt for general primitive TV cheeseballyness it was in no way any more cheesy than most of the other 60's action/adventure shows and really fit right in with them.

Exactly. Which is the feel Abrams was going for in Trek 09 and STID. There can be disagreement on the execution, but the tone and spirit certainly carried the 60s feel.

Regardless of what GR wanted later on, I think that Abrams did well with the TOS style adventure with some social commentary. It may not be like TMP or TNG or other later Trek works, with humanity evolved. It is simply a humanity who survived WW3 to explore the stars.

More may have come later, but it isn't dismissing Trek's achievements to commend it where it succeed it and critique it where it failed or didn't do things as well as contemporary shows of the time dealing with serious issues. There are many topics that have been cited that were dealing with social issues far better for the time than Trek. Trek didn't have the cutting edge on all social issues.

Trek succeed some places, lacking in others, and generally speaking quite entertaining. I think that's more than enough without making it a "warm light for all mankind" that is being belittled by those who disagree. I don't agree with all Trek's points, but I can certainly appreciate the storytelling.

 

[AdmiralShran]

but the tone and spirit certainly carried the 60s feel.

No, it didn't. JJTrek glamorized violence instead of derided it as TOS does:

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TOS didn't even find glory in conquering an enemy:

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JJ parodied the above scene in ST2009 with Nero giving no speeches about duty or honor, but instead speaking as if he acts out of pure maddened spite (he does act out of maddened spite because he's a totally awful villain). Kike then shoots the ship as it's already being destroyed by a black hole. Of course, the guy has just committed genocide of Vulcan for no particular reason so this is an understandable reaction on Kirk's part. Somehow all these Romulans are complete psychopathic genocidal nutcases as opposed to our old Romulans who were disciplined soldiers.

JJ's Trek is a parody of Star Trek - Kirk is incompetent, spiteful, and unintelligent. Spock is robotic rather than philosophical. Uhura is a nagging shrew who is shocked her Vulcan boyfriend doesn't show his emotions (what a surprise!) instead of a competent and professional officer. McCoy makes no speeches from the heart or squares off with Spock over matters of emotional weight - just says stupid one-liners. Honestly this is JJ and Orci making fun of Trek and, unfortunately, there's far too many fans not paying enough attention to note it.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I mean that Star Trek was and has been targeted by a more "high level" character assassination campaign. Similar to how video games are maligned frequently by TV networks as in some way being "juvenile" while watching the latest police procedural or sitcom miraculously isn't juvenile. It's about getting rid of competition and crafting ideological narrative.

Video games are a competitor with TV networks for peoples' entertainment money and free time. Every hour someone enjoys a video game is an hour's worth of TV ad money lost.

What the fuck are you talking about?

 

[AdmiralShran]

What the fuck are you talking about?

Active suppression of humanism in the media.

 

[AdmiralShran]

Regardless of what GR wanted later on, I think that Abrams did well with the TOS style adventure with some social commentary.

I don't remember any social commentary... I remember a self-righteous and juvenile diatribe against George W. Bush with Starfleet having to play the unfortunate role of the US Government.

 

[Franklin]

I don't remember any social commentary... I remember a self-righteous and juvenile diatribe against George W. Bush with Starfleet having to play the unfortunate role of the US Government.

A "diatribe against George W. Bush" (as you interpret it in STID) wouldn't be social commentary? I assume you mean "against" Bush as in being against going into Iraq. But then, how is Abrams glamorizing violence on the one hand (as you assert in a post above) and being against the Bush Administration's incursion into Iraq on the other? Wasn't it a point of Kirk's speech at the end of STID that we should avoid such temptations? Didn't Kirk seek to avoid war, and the terrible violence that would ensue? Kirk also refused the direct order to kill Khan because he came to believe Khan should face due process of law. If Abrams wanted to glamorize violence, then Khan would've been killed, and Marcus would've had his war. And, to quote an old Klingon, "it would have been glorious."

 

[AdmiralShran]

But then, how is Abrams glamorizing violence on the one hand (as you assert in a post above) and being against the Bush Administration's incursion into Iraq on the other?

Because it's against Bush, not against violence and war. It's a political tract, not a moral exploration. Furthermore, it contains nothing of depth to examine the nature of tensions with Iraq and why the US lied to remove a mass murdering psychopath like Saddam who literally would chop of the bodies of his political enemies and send their body parts back to their wives. In Orci's world everything and everyone is black and white - Admiral Marcus is just a madman who loves war because he's evil because this is what Orci thinks the real world is - with Mr. Burnses around every corner scheming mass murder. In actual Star Trek, almost pathologically, even the most callous villains cannot be defeated without deflating any sense of glory in their defeat and almost none are left without a sense of sympathy or explanation for their actions.

Admiral Marcus has no explanation for his actions - he just is evil because white men in powerful positions are evil duh!

Wasn't it a point of Kirk's speech at the end of STID that we should avoid such temptations?

That might fly if it weren't for the fact that Kirk was the only one making these mistakes and lusting for revenge throughout the movie. He's pushing his deeply flawed and inept character onto everyone else in Starfleet in this speech. (His character is only extremely inept due to the ineptness of Orci's scripts) It was Kirk that was angry about Pike's death and Kirk that was so driven by revenge that he ignored all his senior officers' advice about taking aboard those torpedoes so his speech isn't really welcomed and it seems completely arrogant and out of place because it was Kirk acting like a madman to begin with.

Furthermore, I liked Star Trek because it presented a view of how a government should work. Instead I got talked down to by a hackneyed writer for the Iraq war which I never was particularly fond of but neither do I believe was inherently wrong. In Orci and Abrams mind - Starfleet is the evil empire because Orci and Abrams are not capable of thinking outside their narrow "teenage punk music liberalism" box.

 

[Gov Kodos]

In Orci's world everything and everyone is black and white

In actual Star Trek, almost pathologically, even the most callous villains cannot be defeated without deflating any sense of glory in their defeat and almost none are left without a sense of sympathy or explanation for their actions.

Admiral Marcus has no explanation for his actions - he just is evil because white men in powerful positions are evil duh!

In Orci and Abrams mind - Starfleet is the evil empire because Orci and Abrams are not capable of thinking outside their narrow "teenage punk music liberalism" box.

Besides creating an absurdly simplistic strawman argument out of Abrams's Trek and Trek before he came along (that description of prior Trek itself dubious beyond credibility), the writers and producers are not the same as the work. It is as ludicrous to say Ocri sees the world as you've described based on Trek films as to say Stephen King is a would be sociopathic killer who luckily for the residents of Maine took up the hobby of writing.

 

[AdmiralShran]

It is as ludicrous to say Ocri sees the world as you've described based on Trek films as to say Stephen King is a would be sociopathic killer who luckily for the residents of Maine took up the hobby of writing.

Unfortunately he believes the US Government was behind the 9/11 attacks and has publicly stated so.

I would love to know where there's pure-breed evil villains in Star Trek - because I don't remember them. Even the Klingons in TOS are humanized - for example - in "Errand of Mercy." And these are supposed to be pretty much the main villains of TOS. Later this tradition is continued by making Gul Dukat downright pitiable by seeing his daughter killed by Dumar, for example.

The only "pure, motiveless, evil" in the Star Trek universe I remember are machines running on autopilot - like Nomad or the Borg or the Doomsday Machine. There are just antagonists and villains.

By contrast, in Orci trek, we have genocidal nutcases like Nero who have no discipline, and are motivated by completely dubious motives "well, Spock was indirectly responsible for the destruction of Romulus so I'm gonna start a one-ship war against Starfleet and the Vulcans" or Admiral Marcus "I was never going to spare your crew!"

It's just a given these people are pure baddies. Maybe I'm supposed to think the fact that Nero's planet was destroyed makes him somewhat pitiable, except for the fact that it was done by natural phenomena and not any sort of direct or even indirect act of malevolence by the Vulcans which makes him nothing more than a complete madman in space.

I suppose Nazis are never really humanized in Star Trek because that would be super controversial.

 

[Franklin]

John Gill was humanized.

Look, we're way off base, and this has been brought up many times before, but there are real-world people like Marcus. Google "Curtis Lemay." He actually went to President Kennedy with a plan for a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Russia. He's one person I believe Peter Weller said he modeled Marcus after.

Nero wrongly blamed Spock Prime for failing to save Romulus (and Spock Prime even blamed himself). Losing your entire planet and billions of people, even to a natural disaster, could understandably cause one to become unhinged. Frankly, Nero is a very sympathetic character.

On topic, one of the public perceptions of TOS is that it was a noble and high-minded show. However, it wasn't the paragon of virtue to which so much other Trek is compared.

 

[AdmiralShran]

Google "Curtis Lemay." He actually went to President Kennedy with a plan for a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Russia.

Not an unreasonable suggestion considering the Soviet butchers in the Eastern Theater in WWII and their conquest of half of Europe in its aftermath. Personally I'm of the opinion that Moscow should have fallen by 1950 and it was a grave error in judgement that we did not destroy Stalin. Consequences for not taking an aggressive stance against Soviet imperialism include people today who act like the Soviets were innocent victims of evil westerners so thorough has communist propaganda been.

Nero wrongly blamed Spock Prime for failing to save Romulus (and Spock Prime even blamed himself). Losing your entire planet and billions of people, even to a natural disaster, could understandably cause one to become unhinged. Frankly, Nero is a very sympathetic character.

It makes no sense. Firstly: the Romulans would NEVER support a Vulcan trying to do something so important to save their homeworld. Secondly: there's no such thing as a supernova that just suddenly "happens" - you know about it centuries in advance. Thirdly: even if by some rank stupidity on part of the Romulans such that the entire capacity of the Romulan Empire became so stupid that they would somehow think their only hope is Spock, they would be more than certain that they were working with someone who, even if he failed, was actually working in their best interest.

You know I'm right: that Nero is a dumb dumb dumb villain and the whole premise is ultimately dumb.

 

[AdmiralShran]

Losing your entire planet and billions of people, even to a natural disaster, could understandably cause one to become unhinged. Frankly, Nero is a very sympathetic character.

Addendum: I'm not saying you always have to be perfect in everything you write - there's lots of plot holes throughout Star Trek. But if you're going to come into Star Trek as a writer and then blow up three planets for your plot you better damn well have a good reason and have covered all your plot holes and motives and technobabble consistency. Orci doesn't even come close to competent in this. Watching planets blow up on a screen is impacting to the viewer so they're going to naturally scrutinize the whole thing more. It's not something you can "just get away with" doing lazily like suggesting that somehow the Romulan Star Empire is so incompetent as to have to rely solely on Spock to protect them from this ridiculous notion of a spontaneous supernova.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Furthermore, it contains nothing of depth to examine the nature of tensions with Iraq and why the US lied to remove a mass murdering psychopath like Saddam who literally would chop of the bodies of his political enemies and send their body parts back to their wives. In Orci's world everything and everyone is black and white - Admiral Marcus is just a madman who loves war because he's evil because this is what Orci thinks the real world is - with Mr. Burnses around every corner scheming mass murder.

You realize that you provided a real world example of a scheming mass murderer in the sentence preceding the one where you criticize Orci for thinking there are scheming mass murderers in the real world, right?

Admiral Marcus' motivation was to provoke a preemptive war against the Klingons using advanced weaponry in order to remove them as a threat before they became too powerful for the Federation to deal with. It's evil certainly, but it wasn't evil just for the sake of it with no ulterior motive. In his own twisted and corrupt way he thought he was doing what's best for the Federation, as most delusional tyrants and mass murderers do.


ETA: On a mod related side-note, the multi-quote function (the "+Quote" link on the bottom right of each quote box) is now working properly again, so if you could please consolidate your posts from now on instead of posting several replies in a row, that would be appreciated.

 

[AdmiralShran]

You realize that you provided a real world example of a scheming mass murderer in the sentence preceding the one where you criticize Orci for thinking there are scheming mass murderers in the real world, right?

Saddam was a tyrant - not a scheming mass murderer who started wars for no particular reason. He did everything with reason. He butchered the Kurds for a reason, he massacred his own party members for a reason.

Admiral Marcus has no reason - he just is evil. Even if they had described him wanting to colonize Klingon space it might have made sense. But even Orci doesn't understand his own characters (or - more disconcertingly - just wants people who watch his show to buy into his "evil military" story without thinking about it) so he can't figure out why they're doing what they're doing.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Fictional "evil" characters tend to be a little less nuanced than individuals who are evil and, you know, actually exist.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Admiral Marcus has no reason - he just is evil. Even if they had described him wanting to colonize Klingon space it might have made sense. But even Orci doesn't understand his own characters (or - more disconcertingly - just wants people who watch his show to buy into his "evil military" story without thinking about it) so he can't figure out why they're doing what they're doing.

I already told you what his motivation was above:

Admiral Marcus' motivation was to provoke a preemptive war against the Klingons using advanced weaponry in order to remove them as a threat before they became too powerful for the Federation to deal with. It's evil certainly, but it wasn't evil just for the sake of it with no ulterior motive. In his own twisted and corrupt way he thought he was doing what's best for the Federation, as most delusional tyrants and mass murderers do.

Here's some more spelled out in dialogue from the film:

Khan: Alexander Marcus needed to respond to an uncivilized threat in a civilized time, and for that, he needed a warrior's mind - my mind - to design weapons and warships.

Spock: You are suggesting the Admiral violated every regulation he vowed to uphold, simply because he wanted to exploit your intellect...

Khan: He wanted to exploit my savagery! Intellect alone is useless in a fight, Mr. Spock. You, you can't even break a rule - how can you be expected to break bone? Marcus used me to design weapons. I helped him realize his vision of a militarized Starfleet. He sent you to use those weapons, to fire my torpedoes on an unsuspecting planet, and then he purposely crippled your ship in enemy space, leading to one inevitable outcome: the Klingons would come searching for whoever was responsible, and you would have no chance of escape. Marcus would finally have the war he talked about, the war he always wanted.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Unfortunately he believes the US Government was behind the 9/11 attacks and has publicly stated so.

I would love to know where there's pure-breed evil villains in Star Trek - because I don't remember them. Even the Klingons in TOS are humanized - for example - in "Errand of Mercy." And these are supposed to be pretty much the main villains of TOS. Later this tradition is continued by making Gul Dukat downright pitiable by seeing his daughter killed by Dumar, for example.

The only "pure, motiveless, evil" in the Star Trek universe I remember are machines running on autopilot - like Nomad or the Borg or the Doomsday Machine. There are just antagonists and villains.

By contrast, in Orci trek, we have genocidal nutcases like Nero who have no discipline, and are motivated by completely dubious motives "well, Spock was indirectly responsible for the destruction of Romulus so I'm gonna start a one-ship war against Starfleet and the Vulcans" or Admiral Marcus "I was never going to spare your crew!"

It's just a given these people are pure baddies. Maybe I'm supposed to think the fact that Nero's planet was destroyed makes him somewhat pitiable, except for the fact that it was done by natural phenomena and not any sort of direct or even indirect act of malevolence by the Vulcans which makes him nothing more than a complete madman in space.

I suppose Nazis are never really humanized in Star Trek because that would be super controversial.

No. You will continue the walls of text spouting this simplistic opinion, no doubt, but in the end it is simply not credible.

 

[Franklin]

Saddam was a tyrant - not a scheming mass murderer who started wars for no particular reason. He did everything with reason. He butchered the Kurds for a reason, he massacred his own party members for a reason.

Admiral Marcus has no reason - he just is evil. Even if they had described him wanting to colonize Klingon space it might have made sense. But even Orci doesn't understand his own characters (or - more disconcertingly - just wants people who watch his show to buy into his "evil military" story without thinking about it) so he can't figure out why they're doing what they're doing.

Locutus has provided you with a clear explanation of Marcus's motivation, but let me try this spin on it. Within TOS, the Klingons were essentially the Soviet Union to the Federation being the United States. The Klingons and Federation were in a cold war similar to the USSR and US. All TOS fans know this analogy. You said upthread that you believe Moscow should've fallen by 1950 (Patton and Lemay would've happily tried to see to that for you). They wanted to do it then because the US still had a significant military advantage over the Soviets. They feared in time, the USSR would become a match for the US, and given their expansionist rhetoric, start a war they could very well win. The reason why you believe Moscow should've fallen, your motivation for it, is that if this had been done, it would've prevented a greater threat in the future, and hence a better world to live in. That was the motivation of Marcus. He was Lemay or Patton. Stop the Klingons while the Federation still can with some certainty. Don't sit around and let the Klingons become a force that could grow to some day truly threaten the existence of the Federation.
For what it's worth, I don't even find it particularly evil. Just coldly cruel and devoid of morality. And because nothing is certain in war, a little stupid.

 

[AdmiralShran]

I already told you what his motivation was above:

Very well, I will do my best to assume that insane mass murdering admirals exist in Starfleet such that they will massacre hundreds of Starfleet officers for their agenda. I guess I'm supposed to think this is a dedication to the USS Liberty or something next...

 

[AdmiralShran]

They wanted to do it then because the US still had a significant military advantage over the Soviets. They feared in time, the USSR would become a match for the US, and given their expansionist rhetoric, start a war they could very well win. The reason why you believe Moscow should've fallen, your motivation for it,

No, Patton had the right motivation for his aggression against the Soviet Union: their imperialism. They had conquered Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bugaria, etc..

How easily people forget that to keep Hitler from getting a small piece of Poland, we gave all of Poland, half of Germany, all of Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary to Stalin.

Patton's words were "We have failed in the liberation of Europe, we have lost the war."