Oh... the horror
Things that date Trek
- Thread starter WraithDukat
- Start date
I think most of Star Trek holds up except for some of the ridiculousness of TNG Season 1 and 2. The uniforms and hairstyles and alien costumes are quite ridiculous.
The entire score of ST IV (shudders),
I think all the series/films has bits that date them pretty substantially. But that's the beauty of it, really.
Despite it being a metaphor for the whole Earth in the future, no other IP has so distinctly visually cataloged the last half-century of evolving Americana.
Despite it being a metaphor for the whole Earth in the future, no other IP has so distinctly visually cataloged the last half-century of evolving Americana.
Some of my favorite fantasies resemble that reMarkie Post!
Ah, Neutral Zone vs Friend Zone...
Lenny Kravitz, The Beastie Boys
Not Rihanna though, she is timeless
Not Rihanna though, she is timeless
In TNG "The Naked Now," Mr. Data is told to search the Federation database for any reference to someone taking a shower with their clothes on. He does this by sitting at a monitor and personally flipping through every singe page of information in existence.
He can do it at high speed because he's such an advanced android. But he has to do it because this is 1987 and the search engine hasn't been invented yet.
He can do it at high speed because he's such an advanced android. But he has to do it because this is 1987 and the search engine hasn't been invented yet.
Discovery dates all the other Trek
He wants to be thorough. Even the best search engine is limited by what you type into it and what combination of words are used.
It was still anachronistic by that time. The fast typing thing looked silly then and it looks sillier now. Anyway, why didn't he just do EVERYTHING at that speed? He's a freaking android. Sidenote, you're thinking about him and Yar, now. You weren't before, but you are now. Stop visualizing.
The writers were living in the past. Cyberpunk novels were outselling most other SF at the time. They knew better. You could search databases using WAIS protocl if you had online connectivity. Few did, but this was Star Trek. SF set in the future has to try to be predictive, but Star Trek also had to appeal to an already aging audience that the producers clearly did not trust. All too often they refused to challenge their audience and still do so.
The backlash to post-humanism has been an interesting side effect in Trek also. Enterprise and Deep Space 9 were both daring enough to at least observe it, but not to really ever do anything about it. The answer seems to be that any attempt to go beyond your limits will result in disaster, unless you're Bashir.
There are so many anachronisms in TOS that I actually think it makes the tech look a bit alien and inexplicable. TOS weirdly stands on its own because we don't know what those freaking buttons are, why people have to stare into a tiny view screen, why everyone uses sneakernet with the data cartriges (hey.. I got to bring up WAIS.. so I can say sneakernet. I am so freaking 90's-me right now. Time to find that Meatpuppets CD..).Maybe there are reasons beyond our reckoning because it's 300 years from now and if we were instantly transported in time to that ship we'd just be looking around pointing and yelling "What are those?!" and no one would get the joke because it's a long time from now.
TNG's ship on the other hand looks like a nicely (not greatly.. just nicely) appointed spa lobby in the late 1980's. I assume the bridge's rear sliding doors lead to the raquetball courts. The dustbuster phasers look dated. Why make a weapon that doesn't look threatening? You may need to point it at someone meanacingly at some point in a way that clearly states "I'm going to do something terrible to you with this thing, I really will. So stop whatever it is you're doing that's causing me to point this horrible device at you." instead TNG phasers look like "Stop, or I'll clean!"
Sounds in the vacuum of space: it's a problem. Always has been. It doesn't need to be. 2001 showed you didn't have to do it to appease audiences. TOS was sparing with it, just opening credits swooshes, mostly. Star Wars went apeshit with it, and everyone had to follow suit. I still think Star Trek shows attempts at trying in that regard. At least in Trek you understand most noise is internal computer and fan noise. And that's accurate. Human spacecraft like the New Shepard and ISS are extremely noisy. Just not on the outside.
We can hand wave that away. What Data is actually sifting through is every instance of entries referencing showering and clothes. He's looking for something useful, not just a reference to the subject. Think about how many hits you still get when using Google. Anyway once Data adds the Enterprise history qualifier, it pops up immediately. Close enough for me.
Meh, everything is dated soon enough. I remember Nicholas Meyer saying on the TUC commentary (IIRC) that if you look at three movies about a specific time period, say the Civil War, and one was made in the 1950s, one in the 70s and one in the 90s. And even though they're portraying the same time period, just from the look/style of it you could easily tell which was which within minutes if not seconds.
So does early TNG look like it was a TV show made in the late 80s; hell yeah. But that just adds to it's charm for me.
Equally you can already tell some stuff in Discovery will be dated very quickly.
So does early TNG look like it was a TV show made in the late 80s; hell yeah. But that just adds to it's charm for me.
Equally you can already tell some stuff in Discovery will be dated very quickly.
An excellent summation of why TOS is the best
It occurred to me that, because styles-such as clothes and hair-run in cycles, one could deliberately use styles that aren't current. One could reuse styles from an earlier time.
On the other hand, technological revolutions are harder to anticipate. Such as the Information Revolution of the last few decades.
There's nothing dated about that, as we've had similar terrorist attacks and 9/11 still affects us as far as airline security is concerned and how we treat Muslim people generally in North America and Europe. What the frak do people want, Star Trek to be only about space exploration?
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I never said it did, if you re-read the comment I'm adding to someones list of 9/11 allegories on Star Trek,
"Dated" can mean, "just looks really old" and not of current style. Then from TOS and TNG we could say "just about everything." As to fashions/lingo/hair/social norms in 2318, we have no idea.
The other definition that ppl seem to be running with is "implausible that things will be that way in 23rd/24th century." The assumption being that we don't have a calamity and regress a lot technologically and have to bounce back by then. That's a theory I've heard about why TOS looks/feels weird. Someone above mentioned the jellybean buttons and little viewscopes.
Assuming no catastrophe/set back/pandemic that rolls back or pauses tech development . . .
1. Yeah, the multiple PADDS.
2. Space navy. The singularity will usher in the whole universe as a quantum computer and we will be all places at once. Warp 10 and lizard babies, y'all!
3. I have never noticed CRTs on DS9. We're in a rewatch so will look for them.
4. So little AI automation, though that all may be superseded by item #2, above.
This is a good thread. Looked up Chekov's Fauntleroy suit online. OW!
Allow me to digress and say something nice about the JJ films. (Don't tell anybody.) Their design ethos just doesn't (to my eyes -- ymmv) look like contemporary style. The brightness; the whiteness. I know everyone will scream Apple store. But I live in a town of 15,000 and have never darkened the doorway of one. I know Apple's design ethos affected packaging and book covers: lots of white and lots of margin. But as far as echoing the overall look of our everyday world, JJ-Ent looks less similar to its times than 60s or 80s/90s Trek. I think.
The other definition that ppl seem to be running with is "implausible that things will be that way in 23rd/24th century." The assumption being that we don't have a calamity and regress a lot technologically and have to bounce back by then. That's a theory I've heard about why TOS looks/feels weird. Someone above mentioned the jellybean buttons and little viewscopes.
Assuming no catastrophe/set back/pandemic that rolls back or pauses tech development . . .
1. Yeah, the multiple PADDS.
2. Space navy. The singularity will usher in the whole universe as a quantum computer and we will be all places at once. Warp 10 and lizard babies, y'all!
3. I have never noticed CRTs on DS9. We're in a rewatch so will look for them.
4. So little AI automation, though that all may be superseded by item #2, above.
This is a good thread. Looked up Chekov's Fauntleroy suit online. OW!
Allow me to digress and say something nice about the JJ films. (Don't tell anybody.) Their design ethos just doesn't (to my eyes -- ymmv) look like contemporary style. The brightness; the whiteness. I know everyone will scream Apple store. But I live in a town of 15,000 and have never darkened the doorway of one. I know Apple's design ethos affected packaging and book covers: lots of white and lots of margin. But as far as echoing the overall look of our everyday world, JJ-Ent looks less similar to its times than 60s or 80s/90s Trek. I think.
I think all the CRT's on DS9 are embedded in consoles, so you can't tell it's a tube TV. However the screens still show the telltale curvature of a CRT, which is what I think everyone is referring to here.
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