Fine. Sorry for bringing it up further.
ST canon is inconsistent and contradictory.
- Thread starter Trekkie27
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I think he was having a really bad day in general though, what with the comment about the Orion Traders on one hand and the poorly worded remark about his new Yeoman on the other.
Personally, I tend to interpret his line as Pike simply being unused to having a female Yeoman (since his previous ones were all male) but it came out all wrong. His subsequent attempts to cover the blunder just make things more awkward as from the above post we clearly see that there were already other women on the Bridge.I guess he saw this officer as different too.
I see no reason to do backflips to make the line work or create a separate "universe". Just ignore the line and move on.
And even before her there were a few female Admirals seen in background roles on Enterprise.
Gene Roddenberry was a notorious womanizer, and he would eventually marry Number One, as in Majel Barrett, so it would seem obvious he would have a pilot talking of female slaves (who engaged in erotic dancing), and the women on the Enterprise would wear mini-skirts.
But he still had a female as First Officer, and he even had an African woman as communications officer, so he wasn't totally sexist.
But he still had a female as First Officer, and he even had an African woman as communications officer, so he wasn't totally sexist.
Star Wars is very inconsistent, something that becomes ever more plainly obvious if those movies are watched in chronological order.
All long-running franchises will hit this wall at some point. It's inevitable, when you're trying to tell stories in a single universe, but the writers of that universe are diversely spread across half a century or more. Inconsistencies will creep in.
The problem with this topic is that it covers everything from bits of dialogue that “feel” inconsistent (despite having an explanation) to a new production giving a franchise a spiff-up of the day. Star Wars doesn’t have the latter because George Lucas retained ownership until he sold his company to Disney and even then left behind a culture of telling stories within a very specific framework. You just can’t reimagine a blaster effect or a hyperspace jump or an Imperial uniform to the point where the casual viewer will say, “Wait, that doesn’t look right.” On Star Trek everything is fair game except for the storytelling timeline (unless you create your own).
I wonder what the backflips are for the whiter than white crew? All the other nonwhite personnel were in the Engineering sector?
But it was Grace Lee Whitney who brought in the miniskirt idea, it was just accepted. Not necessarily for the same reason (the skirt was seen as liberation and empowerment by Grace. Some saw it was trendy and would bring in more viewers.)
As with any nitpick in a story, if the inconsistencies are good or great they're more often more easily accepted/forgiven/etc. The Borg Queen is the best example, as is Q - the one who said he'd stop interfering with humans (but still does after a retcon, per "Q Who") or how the trial was done yet it never ended, and so on. And that's when individual taste makes an appearance...
As with any nitpick in a story, if the inconsistencies are good or great they're more often more easily accepted/forgiven/etc. The Borg Queen is the best example, as is Q - the one who said he'd stop interfering with humans (but still does after a retcon, per "Q Who") or how the trial was done yet it never ended, and so on. And that's when individual taste makes an appearance...
In terms of Q, there's no inconsistency, because he was never sincere when he said he would never interfere again. Would you believe him, after all he's done?
Inconsistency is the name of game. Even within ESB and ROTJ you can find inconsistencies, and things that don't "feel" like Star Wars, especially if ANH is the only point of reference.
But, SW is its own thing, its own world. And even with Lucas being the head there was still oddities, especially in the Prequel Era compared to the OT.
Trek is different animal, all together, since it references real world human history for its backdrop, rather than the space fantasy history.
I don't think he saw himself as sexist, certainly by putting women in positions of power and prestige on the show (although, yes, no female Captains or Admirals), but he was a product of his time, and even worse in many respects.
I think the Orion "animal women" is one respect. I think he intended them to be (in The Cage) at least, less than sapient, to have an almost "animal intelligence". Thus, in his mind, you could sleep with them and have them dance for you and treat them like sex slaves, without the conscience pecking away at you for treating another human being like that. He believed women were, or should be, equals to men, so he came up with a fictitious creature to be the basis of what he sometimes wanted women to be (but, not really).
The pilot openly has a Captain struggling with sexist attitudes towards women, with the "can't get used to women on the bridge" line and the daydreaming about sex slavery, but he's trying to overcome them. To be the good guy. The women in the episode (Number One, Colt, Vina) are all thrown at him by hyper-intelligent beings to be his playthings, but he's not taking the bait. It's not all about the relationship between men and women (or "Adam and Eve"), but there is plenty there to interpret on a personal sexual basis.
And he was banging both of them!
He didn't bang Uhura ... did he?
I heard Nichelle Nichols say in a con a few years back that he did.
There's an interesting anecdote on that subject from Bob Justman in the book "Inside Star Trek"
You had to be careful wandering into Roddenberry's office, you never knew what you were going to find!
You had to be careful wandering into Roddenberry's office, you never knew what you were going to find!
He was one of many, and both women were willing, I feel sorry for the first Mrs Roddenberry
Yeah. Most people don't realize just how much Empire retconned various things from Star Wars for the sake of making it a trilogy. The opening crawl of SW states that the stolen Death Star plans "can save [Leia's] people and restore freedom to the galaxy." And the huge celebration and medal ceremony at the end of SW really only makes sense if they just won the war against the Empire, rather than just a single battle. But TESB starts with the Rebel Alliance on the run and in hiding against the still all-powerful Empire. The galaxy is far from having freedom restored to it.
Plus Han Solo still hasn't been able to pay off Jabba the Hutt yet for some reason, and then there's the whole Luke/Leia/Han romantic triangle which plays super oddly in the light of the ROTJ revelation that Leia is Luke's sister. Oh, and in Empire, Luke runs off to Cloud City before his Jedi training is complete, but in ROTJ, Yoda says that Luke requires no more training. The Star Wars movies had a bad habit of stating something definitively in one film, and then immediately going back on it in the next.
Good point.
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