Why it is important some people are unhappy
- Thread starter AudioBridge
- Start date
What's wrong with morality, even Sunday School morality, anyway?
Morality checks the behaviour of humans and ensures they survive as a species.
Added to that, ST's heroes have served as role models and inspired people to go into engineering, science and medicine. It's helped people up.
Morality checks the behaviour of humans and ensures they survive as a species.
Added to that, ST's heroes have served as role models and inspired people to go into engineering, science and medicine. It's helped people up.
Fantastic. Another buffoon who attempts to IMPOSE a set of rules where NONE apply.
NO. You DON'T get to decide who is a fan or isn't a fan. Get that through your thick skull. The criteria by which one decides, FOR ONE'S SELF, is entirely dependent upon the one in question--NOT on the arbitrary set of "rules and expectations" of self-anointed "true fans" or some other such drivel. I've been watching Star Trek since 1973, I've seen every iteration more than once, I own all the films, the first season of TOS in HD DVD, about 100 Trek novels (I'm even reading one right now), so don't even THINK about suggesting I'm not a fan, much less that I "actually hate Star Trek." YOU have NO STANDING to make such a determination and it is the height of arrogance for you to do so. On top of that, I am VERY MUCH looking forward to this new movie AND I'm glad for all the changes I've seen/read about. Even those changes that might not accord with what I would do don't bother me at this time. I will wait until I see the whole movie before I pass judgement and opine on whether I like it. So DO NOT PRESUME to tell this fan (or any other) what it means to be a fan. It is NOT your right to do so. You can decide FOR YOURSELF whether YOU are a fan. Otherwise, it is a self-identified characteristic subject only to the terms set by the individual in question. Don't like it? Tough shit.If he HAS read read the book, he will know what ST was originally set up to be. A vehicle for a message.
QFT. I think this has been the problem with the "modern" approach to Trek - TIIC start out with the premise that they need to tell a "Star Trek story," instead of saying, "Pitch me a good story - we'll make it Star Trek later."
Of course I've read "The Making Of Star Trek." Bought it as soon as it was published; I must have owned a dozen copies since then.
You know, accepting what people connected with Trek say about it as gospel is not a substitute for watching it and forming one's own conclusions based on experience. Producers and fans can insist from now until doomsday that Trek is one of the most sophisticated and adult TV shows/movie series in history, and that won't make it true - it's simply not. Some fans seem to have a big investment in making Trek out to be Important in some ways that it isn't.
Roddenberry claiming (after the fact, mind you) that the show was a "vehicle for a message" doesn't make it so, or make it particularly thoughtful or "mature" - only the episodes themselves can do that, and a great percentage of the time when the writers aimed too consciously at Making A Statement they simply created lackluster melodrama.
"Encounter At Farpoint" was a pretty good opening episode for TNG. "Adult?" Not particularly. Heavy-handed declamations about Big Things ("we're no longer a savage race!") don't make a story intelligent on their own.
Ovation, even assuming you felt it necessary to rise to what should have been obvious bait, it would have been entirely possible to make every point you had without employing the personal jabs I've bolded and underlined here.Fantastic. Another buffoon who attempts to IMPOSE a set of rules where NONE apply.
Those (particularly the "buffoon") get you a warning for flaming.
In the future, if you absolutely feel you must respond to such taunting: type it all out, tweak it, tone down the shouty ALL-CAPS stuff (which never really makes anyone look good), get it just right... and then don't post it. You'll have gotten it out of your system and will be able to go on to something else instead.
Cheapjack, here we are again. You're presuming to lecture people and making insinuations about the maturity of those who don't agree with you. Don't do that. Discuss what you like and present whatever argument you've got, but make your point without getting personal.
You lose a lot of books? Your dog likes to chew them up? You have a thing for seeing duplicates on your shelf?
To the best of my knowledge, TMOST has never been published in anything other than a mass-market paperback edition from Ballantine (later "Del Rey") books. Old paperbacks have a tendency to fall apart when you handle and re-read them frequently over the decades. The high-acid paper turns yellow and brittle, as does the glue spine (at least in paperbacks from the 1940s-1960s. I'm not sure that some kind of plastic glue that's more durable isn't used now). If one is a careless packer, they don't do particularly well with multiple movies either. And loaning paperbacks is a great way to lose them.
One of the two copies I currently own is the original publication, the one with Kirk and Spock pictured at the bottom and the three-foot model of the Enterprise shot against a "sky" background at the top. I was really pleased to find it at a convention some years ago, as I'd lent my first copy to a kid in my Latin class in 1970 and - of course - he never returned it.
I think I've owned about six copies of the Starfleet Technical Manual, as well.
Starsdhip:
All I can say is that Roddenberry,Justman, Bennett and Nick Meyer have said that ST is a message show.
And I go on what I see. ST4 had a very obvious message. ST6 had themes relating to the JFK assasination and political assassinations in general, and I don't see that being discussed in a Sunday School! Insrurrection had themes about interefering in other cultures and the title itself gave a clue.
Some ST is a bit lighter than others, but all of it has a message. Spock's brain is about becoming too reliant on technology!
There's not a lot that can convince you if you've read the initial mission statement for the show and still disagree.
The action is a hypodermic for the message. You could just have the message on it's own, but that would be pointless and boring.
All I can say is that Roddenberry,Justman, Bennett and Nick Meyer have said that ST is a message show.
And I go on what I see. ST4 had a very obvious message. ST6 had themes relating to the JFK assasination and political assassinations in general, and I don't see that being discussed in a Sunday School! Insrurrection had themes about interefering in other cultures and the title itself gave a clue.
Some ST is a bit lighter than others, but all of it has a message. Spock's brain is about becoming too reliant on technology!
There's not a lot that can convince you if you've read the initial mission statement for the show and still disagree.
The action is a hypodermic for the message. You could just have the message on it's own, but that would be pointless and boring.
It might be a good idea to actual wait until the movie is released and you have seen it before you start proclaiming a jihad on it.
Starship:
Harve Bennet DID say that St4's message was little 'candy-coated', I'll give you that, and ST doesn't stand up to any professional philospohical work, but you must admit, it's quite clever?
I've given examples of messages in some TOS episodes,(Spock's Brain), where some fans could see none. In fact I would say they ALL have.
Gene Roddenberry wanted to 'change the face of America' when he did ST. Surely that's some mission statement?
It's 50/50 message and action. If you lose either totally, or nearly comlpletely, it isn't the St Roddenberry set up, and that has sold billions and inspired milllions.
My fear about ST11 is that it will just say that humans are still around in 300 years, and decent and professional, which is something, but it's a bit minimal.
Harve Bennet DID say that St4's message was little 'candy-coated', I'll give you that, and ST doesn't stand up to any professional philospohical work, but you must admit, it's quite clever?
I've given examples of messages in some TOS episodes,(Spock's Brain), where some fans could see none. In fact I would say they ALL have.
Gene Roddenberry wanted to 'change the face of America' when he did ST. Surely that's some mission statement?
It's 50/50 message and action. If you lose either totally, or nearly comlpletely, it isn't the St Roddenberry set up, and that has sold billions and inspired milllions.
My fear about ST11 is that it will just say that humans are still around in 300 years, and decent and professional, which is something, but it's a bit minimal.
I'm sure the film will carry some theme or message of some sort. Most stories do, but they don't have to be morality plays to be relevant.
Its a prequel with time travel, the message will probably be about friends, or family, the unknown, new beginnings, second chances, something like that.
Unless the adult theme is about time travel, like that old adage 'If you play in the past, you might cock it up'
Its a prequel with time travel, the message will probably be about friends, or family, the unknown, new beginnings, second chances, something like that.
Unless the adult theme is about time travel, like that old adage 'If you play in the past, you might cock it up'
But, they wouldn't be Star trek! I feel I have to stick up for GeneRoddenberry here. Even if it gets people to watch the original. it's something
No, to be Trek they would need the other signature elements too. Warp Drive, Transporters, Starfleet, Stardates, Klingons and other such gubbins.
Not all TOS episodes were "morality plays" - the best ones were character dramas. The episodes to which that "allegorical commentary on issues" label sticks like sickening spoiled honey are the worst ones - notable among them several bad ones written by Roddenberry himself (crap like "The Savage Curtain" for example).
That one can find moral issues in the best TOS episodes - shows like "Doomsday Machine" or "The City On The Edge Of Forever" - does not make them "morality plays" except to the extent that someone is trying to shore up an argument on that end. One can find the same themes - sacrifice of love, obsession, the dangers of going after revenge - on just about any cop show or western (sometimes done badly, occasionally well). It's hard to tell any story about human beings without morality and moral conflict being at least implicit in the behavior of the characters. The only difference is that "Cimaron Strip" and "The Brady Bunch" don't have a dedicated troupe of defenders who insist on confusing it with the Bhagavad Gita.
That one can find moral issues in the best TOS episodes - shows like "Doomsday Machine" or "The City On The Edge Of Forever" - does not make them "morality plays" except to the extent that someone is trying to shore up an argument on that end. One can find the same themes - sacrifice of love, obsession, the dangers of going after revenge - on just about any cop show or western (sometimes done badly, occasionally well). It's hard to tell any story about human beings without morality and moral conflict being at least implicit in the behavior of the characters. The only difference is that "Cimaron Strip" and "The Brady Bunch" don't have a dedicated troupe of defenders who insist on confusing it with the Bhagavad Gita.
Huh. To each his own... I guess I treat my books more delicately. I still have my original copy of TMOST (a 1986 printing), and it's still in terrific shape (after five or six moves since then). As far as Trek books go, I do have two copies of Trimble's Concordance (my first was a library binding, obtained as a discard in the early '80s, and it got a bit beat up), and I somehow completely inadvertently acquired two copies of Gerrold's Trouble With Tribbles, but otherwise I've only ever had one copy of anything.
To the best of my knowledge, TMOST has never been published in anything other than a mass-market paperback edition from Ballantine (later "Del Rey") books. Old paperbacks have a tendency to fall apart when you handle and re-read them frequently over the decades...
(Tends to be the case with my non-Trek books, too... and I have more of those than most people will readily believe. Kind of a collector's mentality at work, I guess. And then there are the comics...)
I completely agree. That's one of the things the show was always known for, at least when I was growing up and first getting into fandom. Hell, the very concept of something like the Prime Directive (however much it was later mis-used on TNG) demonstrates a thoughtful attitude far different from most adventure shows, past and present.
Granted some of the efforts to incorporate these deeper themes worked better than others (IMHO "Last Battlefield" was particularly anvilicious), but the efforts were always there.
I definitely lack the collector's mentality - I use books for reference, mark them up, fold back pages to mark my place, all that kind of thing. Comics I tend to read and discard.
