I disagree. They should tell the story they want to tell with the tools they have in the toolbox. It isn't like you can't just reform the UFP five years later for the next story.
Picard for President?
Spoilers Variety Article on Patrick Stewart's Return
- Thread starter Tuskin38
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I disagree. They should tell the story they want to tell with the tools they have in the toolbox. It isn't like you can't just reform the UFP five years later for the next story.
Picard for President?
I disagree. They should tell the story they want to tell with the tools they have in the toolbox. It isn't like you can't just reform the UFP five years later for the next story.
Picard for President?
While I'd prefer to see The Federation portrayed positively I don't disagree that good writers could make a compelling darker story about the Federation losing its way.
Personally I don't think it's wise to use the Federation as an analogy for Britain or the U.S. to make some political statement that is probably simplistic or misinformed.
They should be do whatever they want. It's their toybox.
Why? It is a story. No one is forced to take the writers ideology to heart.
It's a rather odd thing given Trek's history to constrain the story telling options. Analogies are part of the reason Trek is SF to begin with.
Well, get used to it, because season 3 of Disco is going to show us a Federation that has turned villainous and evil fighting a civil war with a splinter group who want to revert back to peaceful utopia.
I don't disagree.
Thus it would be expected that current events inform storylines and plot points.
It does feel like they are going to the same well with both shows.
We don’t know that yet.
I watched that as well. I'm of two minds on the issue. I see great story potential in the idea if done right. I do have more trust in this shows ability to do something that feels relevant more than I have with Discovery which to me lost a lot of trust when they fired Fuller. I have felt it's been corporate controlled since then. This though to me feels like a passion project were I don't think it's all about the money with the people making it.
I do worry though about what comes next. I mean once you decide Trek is no longer going to be about hope and it's just going to be another space show then to me the franchise does loose something. Something that might not be a issue with this show but something that hurts in the long run. When I first heard the show I also thought some of the idea's were interesting to explore. Like turning the Romulan situation into a metaphor for Refuges. Also the idea of a Picard who is kind of broken as well sounded great. I am not so sure though I wanted the Federation to become evil. I don't mind that you have these sort of evil aspects to it like Section 31 but if your saying the Federation is rotten at it's core that does bug me. I think I was hoping for something more realistic and more of a drama and less as a adventure show but still Trek in it's ability to be hopeful. Maybe the West Wing of Trek and I am not sure what it's going to be now.
Jason
Unearned utopia on a silver platter isn't the only way to convey a message of hope.
Well IMO that is what DS9 did. I mean the shows unofficial motto is the 'It's easy being a saint in Paradise." But even they didn't go as far as I think they might go with this show. I kind of hope they go with the idea that the federation is conflicted in that it's doing things out of feeling the need to be pragmatic and not a "Fuck the Aliens" type of thinking. The Federation should not just be having a existential crisis but maybe and outside crisis that is making them feel the need to reel in some of their more progressive ways of thinking. The Dominion War would be a good thing to do that but that might be to fan service since it's unknown how many casual or even old TNG fans were into DS9.
Jason
I suspect there's a sane middle ground between "the Federation is a utopian paradise" and "the Federation is rotten to the core." Maybe, the Federation is, like every civilization throughout history, a mixture of lofty ideals and ugly realities, doing the best it can in a universe that is not often easy on sentient lifeforms. "Hopeful" does not mean "perfect." It just means trying to be better than you were before.
Remember "The Enemy Within"? The whole point of that ep is that you can't just flush Kirk's "evil" half out of the airlock. He needs both his positive and negative impulses to be complete and fully human.
Same with the Federation. It's not an either/or thing, utopia or dystopia. Like most societies, it's going to be a little bit of both.
Well I agree with that. I mean when you think about it TNG was the only one that was really all in on the Utopia thing and even they were trying to get out of that box as much as Berman would allow them. TOS and then DS9 tended to go with the better future but not utopia except of course DS9 had to still pretend the utopia thing was a thing because of being in the same setting of TNG.
Only thing is if this is the case then it means the Federation doesn't need to be changed because we already have started to see some of it's bad side so I am not sure why Stewart is saying they were to perfect. I think it is very possible he might not be really aware of anything about Trek beyond TNG and has no idea that DS9 already took a more nuanced look at the Federation which means everyone is nervous for no reason. He is speaking about something that he isn't fully aware of but I am not sure what the other people like the writers are thinking on the issue.
Jason
One of the reasons why Trek was to powerful because it never explained its utopia and how it was accomplished. That inspired the viewers to reflect how to find real life solutions to come closer to this fictional utopia. The same way the fictional gadgets are never explained and then someone finds a way to create a flip phone in real life.
The reason why Trek got dark is not because of better drama. The reason is simple: Dark drama does not challenge anybody. It does not challenge producers, it does not challenge writers, it does not challenge actors and it does not challenge viewers. Everyone involved knows this kind of fictional drama. The product is easier to create (thus the paycheck is easier to earn) and it is easier to sell, because they viewers get more of the same, a form of fictional drama they knew since their birth.
I became a Trek fan because TNG had the balls to find a way to tell drama in an utopian environment. And thus challenged everyone involved - those who did create the show and those who consumed it. It did not explain the utopia or the technology, it left it to the viewers to find explanations and solutions in the real world. A genius concept.
Unfortunately Trek is not genius anymore. It is more of the same. Dark, gritty, about war, with villains. Boring, safe, more of the same. Thus I dont care for it anymore. Trek today is a product I dont buy, because it is simply lame and pathetic, a cynical pop culture product that challenges nobody.
I come back to Trek when it dares to challenge with Utopia again - challenges those who make it and those who watch it.
The reason why Trek got dark is not because of better drama. The reason is simple: Dark drama does not challenge anybody. It does not challenge producers, it does not challenge writers, it does not challenge actors and it does not challenge viewers. Everyone involved knows this kind of fictional drama. The product is easier to create (thus the paycheck is easier to earn) and it is easier to sell, because they viewers get more of the same, a form of fictional drama they knew since their birth.
I became a Trek fan because TNG had the balls to find a way to tell drama in an utopian environment. And thus challenged everyone involved - those who did create the show and those who consumed it. It did not explain the utopia or the technology, it left it to the viewers to find explanations and solutions in the real world. A genius concept.
Unfortunately Trek is not genius anymore. It is more of the same. Dark, gritty, about war, with villains. Boring, safe, more of the same. Thus I dont care for it anymore. Trek today is a product I dont buy, because it is simply lame and pathetic, a cynical pop culture product that challenges nobody.
I come back to Trek when it dares to challenge with Utopia again - challenges those who make it and those who watch it.
I don't think that is why you have dark or edgy drama. I think you have many reasons for it. First it started off being a means to say things tv or movies wouldn't allow you to say because you had to be mainstream to get ratings or get people to see the movie. While you could try and sneak things through it often also meant you had to dumb things down. Another is it opened the door to tell stories about people who you usually didn't see stories told bout. Not just people of color or women having agency either thought that was one of them. I am also talking about the anti-hero or the not so nice people in the world. You could now tell the story of lets say a serial killer like "Dexter" if you wanted and it was something new.
I do agree that tv has had lots of creative freedom now for awhile. Sopranos first episode is now over 20 years old. That mean some tropes and clichés have formed so now we see more of the deconstruction phase in Hollywood. Basically everything you use to like it seems actually sucked usually because society wasn't woke enough when these things were created so people weren't aware of certain blind spots in their views on society and it seeped into the art. I think this has worked some but not all the time because we have seen somethings deconstructed people were still very much fine with like say Star Wars.
I do wonder what the next big wave is going to be. I have always said the PC stuff will go away again, because that stuff tends to come and go all the time, but the importance of diversity will stay. A lot depends IMO on what happens with Trump. If he stays you will see people double down on what they are doing now and it will in turn create a kind of counter programing response and that would be a Right Wing Hollywood. YouTubers have already figured out their is a market for this and next you will see more movies and tv like that only it will be good stuff this time and not the God is Not Dead type of crap. More like Yellowstone style shows. Which to me could be interesting because I figure this will make the competion for a audience even more important.
I actually see the same sort of happening even if Trump goes only you will see more uplifting stuff as a result at least from shows and movies that lean left because having Trump loose will create more hope in our future. The right wing stuff will proably be kind of cynical either way because I tend to think that is kind of what appeals to people on the right. Cynical heros but with noble intentions.
Jason
It's funny in a way. TNG is certainly the most aggressively "utopian" of the Trek shows, although even they toned that down after the first season or so, and folks often talk as though it's the somehow the gold standard for Trek, to which all other Trek shows should be compared. "That new show is too dark! Why can't it be more like TNG?"
And yet, if you look at it from another angle, you can argue that TNG is the outlier, and that most Trek is closer to TOS or DS9 or DISCO in tone. So maybe we should stop expecting every new Trek show to be as "utopian" as TNG aspired to be?
(I'll cop to being a shameless TOS partisan, who prefers Kirk's rough-and-ready Final Frontier" to TNG, which sometimes got carried away with the "utopian" thing. As I like to point out, Kirk tended be highly suspicious of utopias. Anytime they found a planet that seemed a little too perfect or peaceful, you could count on there being a fly in ointment: mind-warping spores, an insane computer-god, etc. TOS was never "utopian," as Dr. McCoy would surely agree! )
Granted, even TNG did a widely-acclaimed episode in which Picard is mercilessly tortured, so we should note that even TNG wasn't all hope and progress and "non-scarcity" all the time, which is probably a good thing. An unexamined utopia is just escapism.
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Then never dealt with the ramifications of that horrendous experience. Just on to the next weeks adventure. In today's TV that just wouldn't cut it.
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