Star Trek will be out of date soon!

[Flake]

In a decade or so Star Trek will be woefully out-of-date and its already on the borderline of being out-of-date. Technology we use today is oddly absent in our Trek future because the core of Trek is still based on the 60s template. In 10 years we will have wearable computers/augmented reality/ultra smartphones and god knows what else, people are going to wonder wtf happened to our future where they appear to be stuck in a pre-Apple era!! It is supposed to be the future! Warp drive and automatic doors only are not going to fool people for much longer

Is it possible to adapt Star Trek or will this generation and the next generation simply stop watching it because its seems so dated?

I dont think Trek will ever be able to return to TV without some form of radical reboot that brings it up to speed. It may be better to keep it as a movie franchise and hide this 'dated future' behind lots of action and special effects.

Will this happen or will Trek adapt somehow?

 

[R. Star]

Yeah this happens. It happened with the 60's Trek and go figure... we got four more series and a eleven movies and counting still.

Sure, there's a ton of episodes where something as basic as an iphone would be highly useful to the crew.

As time goes on, it's only fitting that our vision of the future evolves with the times. Star Trek has demonstrated it can do this, and I'm sure it will continue to do so.

 

[Flake]

They did tweak the 60s template in the TNG-era under the guise of having moved into the future and therefore TNG is more futuristic looking and has more futuristic 'gadgets' like touchscreen computers and voice recognition and flat screen monitors, commbadges etc.... and we are now living in this future and in some ways surpassed it.

So when it gets re-invented again they will have to either go further forward into the Trek future and into a post TNG era or they need to properly reboot and put some new gadgets in like TNG did that are appropriate for todays and tomorrows audience that are futuristic now, not futuristic 30 years ago.

 

[indolover]

You presume people watch Trek exclusively for the technology featured in it. it's sci-fi, so technology is intrinsic.

Star Trek really is thinking man's science fiction, as well as depicting a positive future for humanity. Those are the true points of appeal IMO.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Any futuristic science-fiction will become out of date because it's made in the here and now, not in the future.

Things get old. You either build from it and keep moving forward or you spend a whole lot of time trying to fix the past.

 

[Flake]

Sure, I realise people watch for other reasons than technology, they watch it to be entertained. I am not debating this.

I also realise that everyone here who watches and enjoys Star Trek now will love Trek as it is now and believe that it is not necessary to change it because its fine. Fair enough.

But will the next generation who are born and grow up today watch Star Trek in its current form when they become adults or will they just laugh at it and thus begin a decline of Trek into insignificance as its core audience dies off!?!

 

[Flake]

I watched mission impossible 4 a few weeks ago. Now I realise the tech in that is not currently available, but in a decade or two many of them will be. For example, we have an agent wearing a contact lense that communicates with his smartphone. It tells his smartphone who he is seeing. This is tech beyond anything seen in Star Trek and it is in a movie set in our present day rather than in 250-350 years time. Examples like this are everywhere in TV and Movies now. Trek is standing still whilst the world moves on :P

 

[Christopher]

I do think that eventually it will be necessary to reboot Star Trek from the ground up -- not just do an alternate timeline in the same reality, but completely start over and build a new version of the universe from first principles -- in order for future generations to relate to it. And I don't understand why many fans are so resistant to that. What's important about Star Trek isn't the minutiae of continuity or worldbuilding, but the characters and themes and ideas, the spirit of adventure and sense of wonder. In its day, ST was on the cutting edge, not only in its futurism but its social progressiveness, its dramatic sophistication (it was the first non-anthology SF series to be written on the same level as the adult dramas of the era), and its daring sexuality. By the '90s and '00s it had become the stolid, conservative establishment franchise that new upstarts like Babylon 5 and the rebooted Battlestar Galactica were pushing beyond and deconstructing. Now it's increasingly seen as retro and nostalgic. Which doesn't seem right for a franchise that's about looking forward to the future. It would be good to have a Star Trek that was as much on the cutting edge for its own era as TOS was for the '60s.

 

[YARN]

This thread is out of date, we've already had this discussion.

And seeing as how we missed out on the Eugenics Wars, I think we can safely conclude that the Star Trek timeline cannot be our own timeline.

 

[Flake]

When this reboot happens and Trek is again at the cutting edge it is likely that we will hate it and we will not relate to it but the target audience will. We will put old repeats of Trek on whilst our children and grandchildren are glued to the TV/Tablet/Computer in another room watching NEW NU-Trek in all its futuristic splendour whilst we realise that we are old Its like the music of the 40s vs the music of the 60s?!!?? Its all part of natural evolution! Trek has to adapt & change as well.

Spock will be a girl and Kirk will be gay. They are all Borg-like but without visible implants! And when they beam down to a planet they will wear Iron Man esque space suits that can do all sorts. Its coming people. Get ready for the post Abrams Trek of the 2020s. It has to change and it will, it is inevitable.

 

[R. Star]

This thread is out of date, we've already had this discussion.

And seeing as how we missed out on the Eugenics Wars, I think we can safely conclude that the Star Trek timeline cannot be our own timeline.

That's what they want you to think. Khan nearly took over the world without anyone even knowing it!

 

[YARN]

When this reboot happens and Trek is again at the cutting edge it is likely that we will hate it and we will not relate to it but the target audience will. We will put old repeats of Trek on whilst our children and grandchildren are glued to the TV/Tablet/Computer in another room watching NEW NU-Trek in all its futuristic splendour whilst we realise that we are old Its like the music of the 40s vs the music of the 60s?!!?? Its all part of natural evolution! Trek has to adapt & change as well.

Really? Has Shakespeare had to adapt and change? Homer? Twain? How did adaptation and changing work for Lucas and Star Wars?

If Trek did something really new I would be genuinely surprised. Our stories are archetypal and tap into the same psychological appetites. There's a reason why popular action stories follow Campbell's monomyth so closely.

They'll have different gadgets and different sensibilities (about politics and sexuality), but the structure will be the same.

The narrative will only really change once the human race hits the singularity, and we will have much bigger issues to consider at that time than the continuity of Star Trek.

 

[Flake]

It has to change because its in the future. How can a science fiction show set in our future be taken seriously when our hero is unable to do something on some faraway planets surface that we could do today by taking our smartphone out?

Sure, the fact we got there in a giant spaceship with FTL travel seems like a futuristic concept but when in the next few years we start to see wearable computers where information may be conveyed through glasses or a contact lense and 'augment' our reality using directions etc (like a sat nav hud on top of your vision !) how do you explain that these technologies are simply ignored and binned in the future? Where did they go? Wouldn't it be handy if they actually had them? Its the future afterall!

 

[Flake]

Star Wars gets away with it because its a fantasy realm, its not in any way shape or form connected to our Earth or galaxy. Its medieval knights in space or something..

 

[YARN]

Star Wars gets away with it because its a fantasy realm, its not in any way shape or form connected to our Earth or galaxy. Its medieval knights in space or something..

Uhura got it right in Star Trek III,"This isn't reality, this is fantasy!" Star Trek has always been more fiction than science.

 

[Flake]

It is science fiction though, not fantasy. Uhura is wrong in this context

 

[robau]

I like to think in the Utopia they took a more minimalist and disconnected approach to technology. Shit like computers in glasses and smartphones became too distracting for the goal of self improvement and were discarded. The future doesn't necessarily have to mean hyperconnectivity and whatever just because of what we have now.

 

[R. Star]

Flake I really think you're focusing way too much on the trivial things like what gadgets and gizmos they use. Star Trek isn't about that. It's about a sense of hope for a better future of humanity. How cool and futuristic the props are is really secondary.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It is science fiction though, not fantasy. Uhura is wrong in this context

Because the Vulcan Mind Meld is more realistic than the Jedi Mind Trick?

 

[Melakon]

I would think the OP also has trouble watching something like 2001: A Space Odyssey, since it seems to be impossible for him to suspend disbelief.