I recommend watching a documentary “Chaos of the Bridge”. It looks into the behind the scenes on the first two seasons of TNG. They talk about the amount of hate mail (as in snail mail) they received.
Star Trek has always inserted modern politics into its stories. TOS had a black woman on the bridge of the ship during a time that black people couldnt drink from the same water fountain, eat at the same restaurants…this happened at the height of the civil rights movement. They had a Russian crew member at the height of the Cold War with Russia. There are episodes that talk about classism, America’s actions in south east Asia.
You can have politics but you better know how to incorporate them so that you dont alienate your viewership. You also have to have character development, something many writers no longer do. Yes TOS and TNG did episodes that brought up different political and social issues, though they did a good job of not trying to offend those who may not share the same viewpoint.
The same thing is happening in comics. X-Men for example has always had political and social undertones, as the team is basically a comic commentary on the civil rights era. However as long time reader of the book, and someone who likely voted for very few of the politicians that the writers and artists of the book did, I still never felt attacked. Many writers now though put their politics first and actively look to attack any fan who doesnt share their political viewpoint.
You want character development so that your audience cares about your characters. Too often though writers feel that if they show any weakness then they are creating a weak character, particularly if they have made the character to make a political statement. You get the I have to make my female star perfect to show shes a strong woman. That though only makes a wooden character that nobody cares about. Nobody wants to watch a Mary Sue character, because they can do everything perfect and nothing is a challenge to them. Take Rae from Star Wars. Shes a expert mechanic, can fly ships shes never been in like a fighter ace, fight better than any man, beat opponents with a light saber who have been training for years and she hasnt trained a day yet, and in no time becomes a force expert.
I had a saying I would use when talking about comics that also applies to any genre. If you make a good superhero, that happens to be black, or TRIBBLE, or female, or asian, or hispanic, or... then most readers will probably like the character. If though you make a character that is TRIBBLE, or black, or female,... and is a superhero second then nobody is going to want to read your book. This is true for any medium and genre.
The test of if you have made a good character is this. If at the end of your movie or book you have the main character die, and your audience isnt sad, then you didnt make a good character. If though you kill them and you make some identity group angry because you killed of a strong female (or any other identity) character, then all your character was, was a political statement and will be forgotten in no time. Shazam and Capt Marvel came out around the same time. The theater I was in had most of the audience sad, choked up, or crying in some cases, when Billy finally finds his mom and she tells him she doesnt want him. Capt Marvel though gave such a wooden performance that you could have put a bullet in her head at the end of the movie and nobody would have been sad. Some feminists might have been angry, but nobody would really miss her.
> @dragonhawke777 said: > You can have politics but you better know how to incorporate them so that you dont alienate your viewership. You also have to have character development, something many writers no longer do. Yes TOS and TNG did episodes that brought up different political and social issues, though they did a good job of not trying to offend those who may not share the same viewpoint. > > The same thing is happening in comics. X-Men for example has always had political and social undertones, as the team is basically a comic commentary on the civil rights era. However as long time reader of the book, and someone who likely voted for very few of the politicians that the writers and artists of the book did, I still never felt attacked. Many writers now though put their politics first and actively look to attack any fan who doesnt share their political viewpoint. > > You want character development so that your audience cares about your characters. Too often though writers feel that if they show any weakness then they are creating a weak character, particularly if they have made the character to make a political statement. You get the I have to make my female star perfect to show shes a strong woman. That though only makes a wooden character that nobody cares about. Nobody wants to watch a Mary Sue character, because they can do everything perfect and nothing is a challenge to them. Take Rae from Star Wars. Shes a expert mechanic, can fly ships shes never been in like a fighter ace, fight better than any man, beat opponents with a light saber who have been training for years and she hasnt trained a day yet, and in no time becomes a force expert. > > I had a saying I would use when talking about comics that also applies to any genre. If you make a good superhero, that happens to be black, or TRIBBLE, or female, or asian, or hispanic, or... then most readers will probably like the character. If though you make a character that is TRIBBLE, or black, or female,... and is a superhero second then nobody is going to want to read your book. This is true for any medium and genre. > > The test of if you have made a good character is this. If at the end of your movie or book you have the main character die, and your audience isnt sad, then you didnt make a good character. If though you kill them and you make some identity group angry because you killed of a strong female (or any other identity) character, then all your character was, was a political statement and will be forgotten in no time. Shazam and Capt Marvel came out around the same time. The theater I was in had most of the audience sad, choked up, or crying in some cases, when Billy finally finds his mom and she tells him she doesnt want him. Capt Marvel though gave such a wooden performance that you could have put a bullet in her head at the end of the movie and nobody would have been sad. Some feminists might have been angry, but nobody would really miss her.
There was more than a few stations that refused to air the TOS episode that had the first interracial kiss on Tv.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
> @kayajay said: > I'm guessing here, but if they'd made Star Trek: Phase II instead of The Motion Picture...I don't think there was enough of a fanbase to generate hate. By '87, you had a whole new generation (no pun intended) or TOS and Kirk/Spock fans and also, TNG really hadn't found its feet. The first two seasons had the bones (no pun intended again) of something great, but the characters weren't flushed out, you had Diana REALLY throwing things off for me personally in season two and everyone found love from season three onwards. The films had well and truly peaked and TNG was going strong with well-rounded characters and strong plots.
I’m willing to bet that a majority of the fans that hated TNG was against it just because it wasn’t Kirk, Spock and McCoy.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Phoenix, for the 93rd time, I would ask you to kindly stop referring to "the traditional fans". I'm about as traditional as fans get, been watching this since TOS was still on NBC, and I'm really digging DSC. Stop trying to claim that we're all haters. It's one of the most annoying forms of gatekeeping we get here - even worst than that "true Star Trek fans" TRIBBLE.
When I say traditional fans I am talking about the fans of the various traditional Trek series, and I am not using it in a gatekeeping way. I know there are people who like both (it is not a binary toggle where liking one automatically means hating the other), I happen to like DSC (though a lot less than the traditional series) for instance, but there are not a lot of ways to differentiate the fans who like the traditional more than the new stuff in a compact way.
I get tired of everyone assuming anyone who criticizes "NuTrek" (again, I use the term for brevity, not as a slam) is some kind of wild-eyed fanatic who absolutely hates the new stuff and always means the worst, most extreme interpretation of any words they use.
To be clear on the subject of Gatekeeping, many times people have used the "No true Scotsman" argument against people who don't agree with them as a form of attack, citing that "A TRUE Trek fan would not like X", and thus dictating who is and who isn't a Trek fan based on personal bias. And as mentioned above, it is alright to express your opinions. HOW you express them is what gets threads shut down. Rants tend to devolve into flame wars. If it is a civil debate highlighting things liked and not liked, its fine. But when it turns into "I'mma trash this and anyone who doesn't agree with me is THE ENEMY"... then we have problems.
As for people not liking Discovery... it follows the time tested pattern of not liking the new stuff.
TNG: Nothing like TOS
DS9: Not based on a starship.
Voyager: (Honestly don't remember)
Enterprise: Too advanced to look like its from "the past"
Kelvin Timeline: OMG THEY DESTROYED EVERYTHING WE KNOW!!! (despite the bone of Alternate Reality given) and Too advanced to look like TOS era
Discovery: Too advanced to look like its from "the past"
Now... if we look at those same shows...
TNG: Well liked now
DS9: Viewed as one of the best
Voyager: Eh... has its flaws
Enterprise: Has its flaws but no longer hated
Kelvin Timeline: Has its flaws but no longer hated
Discovery: STILL hated because its current.
The main reason we hear so much more about it is because of advancing technology has allowed people to voice their opinions a lot more openly now than they were able to back in 1987 when TNG first came out. And IMO a lot of the same arguments used against Enterprise were recycled for use against Discovery. Almost seemed like the second Discovery came out, Enterprise was forgotten about or just suddenly accepted as alright. Same with the Kelvin Timeline. Second Discovery came out... KT was fine.
Anyways... its not the CONTENT that is being modded, its the ATTITUDE.
Im not sure your analysis is completely accurate. Here is my take.
TNG: Dont remember too much backlash over that show, in part because the internet wasnt a thing then. Also people had gone so long without a ST show they were happy to get something. Yes there were criticizisms and they did compare it to the original, but overall I think the show was well liked from the start.
DS9: It also suffered from the fact that it was called out as a complete ripoff of Babylon 5. Many B5 fans refused to watch the show, because CBS had obviously ripped off the show from Strasinsky after he pitched it to them and they said no.
Voyager: Had weird premises going on alot and got fairly convoluted. Generally it was a story telling issue in my opinion.
Enterprise: Agree, plus its always tricky to do a show based in the past of an established franchise. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place, because you want to do new and interesting stories but they may interfere with established lore. In general its much safer to just progress a story than to go back and fill in the gaps, particularly if your doing it with something that you want to occur weekly and go on for seven years. A movie works better as its just one 2 hour show vs a series that could go on for hundreds of hours.
Kelvin Timeline: Going by ingame chat its still hated. Also I would say that it would be more accepted if they didnt try to redo classic stories like Wrath of Khan. The first movie was much better than the second, because of this. The third suffered from bad writing but had its good points like how they handled Nimoys death.
Discovery: Its still hated because its awful writing, and the way it inserts modern politics into the storylines. The fact that Orville is considered more Star Trek than Discovery is should tell you something. In general I would say the phrase of go woke go broke applies more to Discovery, than the idea that its hated because its different and current. Like Enterprise though it will have to deal with many of the same issues like how to do stories without breaking existing lore.
In the end I dont think down the road that Voyager will be loved or hated, I think it and its characters will just be forgotten. Much like in Star Wars, Han, Lea, and Luke are known around the world, but in 10 years Po, Rea, and Fin wont even be remembered.
I recommend watching a documentary “Chaos of the Bridge”. It looks into the behind the scenes on the first two seasons of TNG. They talk about the amount of hate mail (as in snail mail) they received.
Star Trek has always inserted modern politics into its stories. TOS had a black woman on the bridge of the ship during a time that black people couldnt drink from the same water fountain, eat at the same restaurants…this happened at the height of the civil rights movement. They had a Russian crew member at the height of the Cold War with Russia. There are episodes that talk about classism, America’s actions in south east Asia.
I'm guessing here, but if they'd made Star Trek: Phase II instead of The Motion Picture...I don't think there was enough of a fanbase to generate hate. By '87, you had a whole new generation (no pun intended) or TOS and Kirk/Spock fans and also, TNG really hadn't found its feet. The first two seasons had the bones (no pun intended again) of something great, but the characters weren't flushed out, you had Diana REALLY throwing things off for me personally in season two and everyone found love from season three onwards. The films had well and truly peaked and TNG was going strong with well-rounded characters and strong plots.
You must be kidding. There was a huge and very active Star Trek fanbase in the 1970s, and since there was no new Trek on the horizon (just a lot of false alarms up until TMP actually hit the theaters) Trek fanzines were flourishing.
If Phase II had come out it would have been quite popular and it would have given Roddenberry a way to get the 'warmup' episode he needed out of the way before a possible jump to movies (the movie production environment is very unforgiving compared to TV, one or two bad episodes out of a season of 26 is nothing, but one bad movie is a major disaster). It would have probably made the movies completely different however since Phase II would have set standards and make it harder for them to go hareing off in crazy directions the way they did.
The first season of TNG had the most toxic and disfunctional writer's room of the decade due to a bored troll (Roddenberry's lawyer) getting his jollies by making everyone as miserable as possible. And that was on top of having to rush because all the time they would have had earlier was wasted wrestling with the original concept (which was vastly different from the one that aired) and dropped at the last minute and converted into the much simpler space-procedural format that aired.
And since everyone got fed up with the toxicity and left by the end of the first season, the new writers struggled in the second season to pick up the pieces and find their own footing in a completely cold start. DS9 and VOY had their own problems later, but nothing came close to the toxic disaster in the writers room of first season TNG until Birds of Prey came out in 2002.
As for the political message/social commentary stuff, all the series did it they just were (usually) more subtle about it than Kurtzman's bunch which in turn is rather common in recent years. Just compare the original Charmed with the remake series to see an even worse example than DSC does (such heavy-handed gems as instead of a few episodes of self-discovery and reveals where the main characters discover they are the Charmed Ones and what it means, the new Charmed had the witches tied to chairs while their white-lighter pontificated at them about it ad nauseum near the beginning of the pilot episode for instance).
Phoenix, for the 93rd time, I would ask you to kindly stop referring to "the traditional fans". I'm about as traditional as fans get, been watching this since TOS was still on NBC, and I'm really digging DSC. Stop trying to claim that we're all haters. It's one of the most annoying forms of gatekeeping we get here - even worst than that "true Star Trek fans" TRIBBLE.
When I say traditional fans I am talking about the fans of the various traditional Trek series, and I am not using it in a gatekeeping way. I know there are people who like both (it is not a binary toggle where liking one automatically means hating the other), I happen to like DSC (though a lot less than the traditional series) for instance, but there are not a lot of ways to differentiate the fans who like the traditional more than the new stuff in a compact way.
I get tired of everyone assuming anyone who criticizes "NuTrek" (again, I use the term for brevity, not as a slam) is some kind of wild-eyed fanatic who absolutely hates the new stuff and always means the worst, most extreme interpretation of any words they use.
To be clear on the subject of Gatekeeping, many times people have used the "No true Scotsman" argument against people who don't agree with them as a form of attack, citing that "A TRUE Trek fan would not like X", and thus dictating who is and who isn't a Trek fan based on personal bias. And as mentioned above, it is alright to express your opinions. HOW you express them is what gets threads shut down. Rants tend to devolve into flame wars. If it is a civil debate highlighting things liked and not liked, its fine. But when it turns into "I'mma trash this and anyone who doesn't agree with me is THE ENEMY"... then we have problems.
As for people not liking Discovery... it follows the time tested pattern of not liking the new stuff.
TNG: Nothing like TOS
DS9: Not based on a starship.
Voyager: (Honestly don't remember)
Enterprise: Too advanced to look like its from "the past"
Kelvin Timeline: OMG THEY DESTROYED EVERYTHING WE KNOW!!! (despite the bone of Alternate Reality given) and Too advanced to look like TOS era
Discovery: Too advanced to look like its from "the past"
Now... if we look at those same shows...
TNG: Well liked now
DS9: Viewed as one of the best
Voyager: Eh... has its flaws
Enterprise: Has its flaws but no longer hated
Kelvin Timeline: Has its flaws but no longer hated
Discovery: STILL hated because its current.
The main reason we hear so much more about it is because of advancing technology has allowed people to voice their opinions a lot more openly now than they were able to back in 1987 when TNG first came out. And IMO a lot of the same arguments used against Enterprise were recycled for use against Discovery. Almost seemed like the second Discovery came out, Enterprise was forgotten about or just suddenly accepted as alright. Same with the Kelvin Timeline. Second Discovery came out... KT was fine.
Anyways... its not the CONTENT that is being modded, its the ATTITUDE.
Im not sure your analysis is completely accurate. Here is my take.
TNG: Dont remember too much backlash over that show, in part because the internet wasnt a thing then. Also people had gone so long without a ST show they were happy to get something. Yes there were criticizisms and they did compare it to the original, but overall I think the show was well liked from the start.
DS9: It also suffered from the fact that it was called out as a complete ripoff of Babylon 5. Many B5 fans refused to watch the show, because CBS had obviously ripped off the show from Strasinsky after he pitched it to them and they said no.
Voyager: Had weird premises going on alot and got fairly convoluted. Generally it was a story telling issue in my opinion.
Enterprise: Agree, plus its always tricky to do a show based in the past of an established franchise. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place, because you want to do new and interesting stories but they may interfere with established lore. In general its much safer to just progress a story than to go back and fill in the gaps, particularly if your doing it with something that you want to occur weekly and go on for seven years. A movie works better as its just one 2 hour show vs a series that could go on for hundreds of hours.
Kelvin Timeline: Going by ingame chat its still hated. Also I would say that it would be more accepted if they didnt try to redo classic stories like Wrath of Khan. The first movie was much better than the second, because of this. The third suffered from bad writing but had its good points like how they handled Nimoys death.
Discovery: Its still hated because its awful writing, and the way it inserts modern politics into the storylines. The fact that Orville is considered more Star Trek than Discovery is should tell you something. In general I would say the phrase of go woke go broke applies more to Discovery, than the idea that its hated because its different and current. Like Enterprise though it will have to deal with many of the same issues like how to do stories without breaking existing lore.
In the end I dont think down the road that Voyager will be loved or hated, I think it and its characters will just be forgotten. Much like in Star Wars, Han, Lea, and Luke are known around the world, but in 10 years Po, Rea, and Fin wont even be remembered.
I recommend watching a documentary “Chaos of the Bridge”. It looks into the behind the scenes on the first two seasons of TNG. They talk about the amount of hate mail (as in snail mail) they received.
Star Trek has always inserted modern politics into its stories. TOS had a black woman on the bridge of the ship during a time that black people couldnt drink from the same water fountain, eat at the same restaurants…this happened at the height of the civil rights movement. They had a Russian crew member at the height of the Cold War with Russia. There are episodes that talk about classism, America’s actions in south east Asia.
I'm guessing here, but if they'd made Star Trek: Phase II instead of The Motion Picture...I don't think there was enough of a fanbase to generate hate. By '87, you had a whole new generation (no pun intended) or TOS and Kirk/Spock fans and also, TNG really hadn't found its feet. The first two seasons had the bones (no pun intended again) of something great, but the characters weren't flushed out, you had Diana REALLY throwing things off for me personally in season two and everyone found love from season three onwards. The films had well and truly peaked and TNG was going strong with well-rounded characters and strong plots.
You must be kidding. There was a huge and very active Star Trek fanbase in the 1970s, and since there was no new Trek on the horizon (just a lot of false alarms up until TMP actually hit the theaters) Trek fanzines were flourishing.
If Phase II had come out it would have been quite popular and it would have given Roddenberry a way to get the 'warmup' episode he needed out of the way before a possible jump to movies (the movie production environment is very unforgiving compared to TV, one or two bad episodes out of a season of 26 is nothing, but one bad movie is a major disaster). It would have probably made the movies completely different however since Phase II would have set standards and make it harder for them to go hareing off in crazy directions the way they did.
The first season of TNG had the most toxic and disfunctional writer's room of the decade due to a bored troll (Roddenberry's lawyer) getting his jollies by making everyone as miserable as possible. And that was on top of having to rush because all the time they would have had earlier was wasted wrestling with the original concept (which was vastly different from the one that aired) and dropped at the last minute and converted into the much simpler space-procedural format that aired.
And since everyone got fed up with the toxicity and left by the end of the first season, the new writers struggled in the second season to pick up the pieces and find their own footing in a completely cold start. DS9 and VOY had their own problems later, but nothing came close to the toxic disaster in the writers room of first season TNG until Birds of Prey came out in 2002.
As for the political message/social commentary stuff, all the series did it they just were (usually) more subtle about it than Kurtzman's bunch which in turn is rather common in recent years. Just compare the original Charmed with the remake series to see an even worse example than DSC does (such heavy-handed gems as instead of a few episodes of self-discovery and reveals where the main characters discover they are the Charmed Ones and what it means, the new Charmed had the witches tied to chairs while their white-lighter pontificated at them about it ad nauseum near the beginning of the pilot episode for instance).
By the end of the original Charmed, it was all about magic and you'd never even know that they were supposed to be sisters with normal lives. Holly Marie wanted to leave along with Shannon, but she was locked in. And the remake...urgh. It didn't make sense! And it was political correctness FORCED into a show. You have to represent this, that and the other demographic and don't worry about the premise or the writing, just as long as you tick those boxes.
Why, even, join Starfleet? Aside from captains, you are likely to labor in almost complete anonymity until you retire, there's no prospect of loot, there's no pension you're working towards, and the business of serving on your average ship is just rife with danger (in the case of the bigger vessels, not only for yourself, but also your immediate family).
Why do people of above-average capability voluntarily enlist in the United States Marine Corps? It's dangerous, dirty, generally unappreciated work which pays the junior enlisted less than they'd make flipping burgers in several states. For four to six years at a time, enlisted personnel choose to surrender most of their autonomy, serving anonymously in places most folks either don't care about or don't think they should be. (For officers it's even worse - you get twenty to thirty years of pretty much the same thing but with better quarters and uniform, and usually the only way anyone knows your name is if you tribbled up bad.) So why do it?
If you can answer that, you might be able to answer your own question.
As for why people work at all, there's only so long most of us can tolerate eating lotus blossoms and contemplating our navels. After a while, humans generally feel a strong need to get up and do something.
Yes, this is a great answer. Some people want to work, want to explore, want to see the world, or even just want the excitement and glory from a dangerous job. There is satisfaction when you can look at something and say you were a part of that, or you helped build that, or you helped discover that.
My father after he retired was bored out of his mind, and didn't take long before he went back to work part time. I'm sure some people would be happy to sit around all day and do nothing, but some people can't do that.
Star Trek also offers us the idea that humans have evolved mentally and emotionally, while also presenting a future where everyone likes their job. Robotics and computers can take a lot of the dull tasks, while you can still work with your hands if you want.
There's no question its an odd place with lots of questions on how it works, but while there aren't answers to all those questions, that is because it is a fiction. At some level it doesn't function the same as reality, and we just can't answer how it works.
Except that it really wasn't a great answer.
First of all, almost nobody is actually serving on star ships. Star Trek itself paints the academy/active service as extremely selective posting typically reserved for people who are genius-level or above (so, in addition to being the [potentially, if you're the captain] most glamorous line of work around, it's an elitist old-boys club). The vast - vast - majority of people who apply are therefore declined - they have to work in mundane positions, like serving as guards with funny hats in windowless rooms, or being the unfortunate person who cleans the latrines (or repairs the robots who clean the latrines).
Second, the answer assumes that nobody is capable of entertaining themselves - or deriving pleasure from life - bereft of the stimulus provided by labor. I'm sorry, but we're not all simpletons - people have consuming hobbies that don't in any way qualify (nor could they be creatively described) as "work;" people have interests that, if given the chance, could consume every bit of their spare time. We do not all have hollow, echoing voids at our core, desperate for some - really, any - form of banal work to fill. Not everyone is a good little slave in search of a trivial 'purpose.' More to the point, my guess (based on years of observing what the modern man does in their off time) is that most people would prefer a day populated by nothing than one filled with mind-numbing repetition (for no pay).
Finally, it did nothing to explain why people should be assuming enormous risk for no reward. I don't deny that there are high voltage electric linesmen (the guys who climb the 150-foot power towers) or deep sea fishermen who genuinely enjoy their fields (there certainly are [and there are probably an equal number of those who don't ]), but the pay for most risky lines of work is commensurate with the danger - there's a fat paycheck waiting for these people when they get home. You assume that human nature would change so much in the span of... about 150 years now until the first Star Trek?... that nobody is going to want any kind of reward for doing the ultra-perilous, largely anonymous/thankless work that is required to keep any civilization on its feet? In fact, they're all - every one of them - there because their lives are so meaningless and empty that they're willing to imperil them 'because reasons?'
You are giving way too much credit to the resident 'deep thinker' of the forums. The guy is not a sage.
In any world, young people need to learn the ropes, work their way up. You don't learn to walk before you can crawl. That the starship captain was, 20 years prior, the latrine cleaner is forgotten.
And a lot of the points you bring up I don't disagree with. It is a hard thing to believe. It wouldn't work with modern humans, and so we should all be very wary of anyone who thinks they can make a Star Trek like world today.
Star Trek, however, knows that and states that. It is part of the fictional universe of Trek, that the humans in the show are different from us, grown up in a different world with none of the problems we have. That is very fictional indeed. But that is the imagining Star Trek builds on; they are past that era of humanity.
> @dragonhawke777 said:
> You can have politics but you better know how to incorporate them so that you dont alienate your viewership. You also have to have character development, something many writers no longer do. Yes TOS and TNG did episodes that brought up different political and social issues, though they did a good job of not trying to offend those who may not share the same viewpoint.
>
> The same thing is happening in comics. X-Men for example has always had political and social undertones, as the team is basically a comic commentary on the civil rights era. However as long time reader of the book, and someone who likely voted for very few of the politicians that the writers and artists of the book did, I still never felt attacked. Many writers now though put their politics first and actively look to attack any fan who doesnt share their political viewpoint.
>
> You want character development so that your audience cares about your characters. Too often though writers feel that if they show any weakness then they are creating a weak character, particularly if they have made the character to make a political statement. You get the I have to make my female star perfect to show shes a strong woman. That though only makes a wooden character that nobody cares about. Nobody wants to watch a Mary Sue character, because they can do everything perfect and nothing is a challenge to them. Take Rae from Star Wars. Shes a expert mechanic, can fly ships shes never been in like a fighter ace, fight better than any man, beat opponents with a light saber who have been training for years and she hasnt trained a day yet, and in no time becomes a force expert.
>
> I had a saying I would use when talking about comics that also applies to any genre. If you make a good superhero, that happens to be black, or TRIBBLE, or female, or asian, or hispanic, or... then most readers will probably like the character. If though you make a character that is TRIBBLE, or black, or female,... and is a superhero second then nobody is going to want to read your book. This is true for any medium and genre.
>
> The test of if you have made a good character is this. If at the end of your movie or book you have the main character die, and your audience isnt sad, then you didnt make a good character. If though you kill them and you make some identity group angry because you killed of a strong female (or any other identity) character, then all your character was, was a political statement and will be forgotten in no time. Shazam and Capt Marvel came out around the same time. The theater I was in had most of the audience sad, choked up, or crying in some cases, when Billy finally finds his mom and she tells him she doesnt want him. Capt Marvel though gave such a wooden performance that you could have put a bullet in her head at the end of the movie and nobody would have been sad. Some feminists might have been angry, but nobody would really miss her.
There was more than a few stations that refused to air the TOS episode that had the first interracial kiss on Tv.
Yup and nobody at ST or CBS responded by blindly attacking everyone at those stations or everyone who watched those stations. There is an old saying that you cant control how people respond to you, only how you respond to them. So if you take the high road, even if certain people are being ignorant then quite often it turns out better in the end.
I remember reading one of Dr Ben Carsons books and him talking about becoming a doctor. It was in the seventies and there werent many black doctors then. Doing his residency one of the nurses thought he was an orderly and wanted him to change a bedpan or some other meanial task. He could have responded one of three ways. 1) Got angry and scream at her. 2) Publicly humiliate her. 3) show her that her prejudices were wrong, but do it in a way that doesnt publicly humiliate her. He chose number 3 and she later came up to him and apologized for what she said. He also said that she was one of the better nurses who would assist him when he was at that hospital.
So you can chose to go on the attack and insure your audience hates you or you can take the high road and maybe change some minds. Writers today seem to more often than not choose to attack, pretty much insuring they wont have any real effect on things and both them and their work will end up in the trash heap of history.
So, Phoenix, you now admit that when you say "traditional Star Trek fans", you mean yourself.
Please replace "traditional fans say..." with "I think...". It raises a lot less hackles from some of us other old guys who don't happen to share your opinions. (I really dislike other people putting their opinions in my mouth, as though it were Universal Revealed Truth with which I must of necessity agree.)
> @keepcalmchiveon said: > im betting you are incorrect. not saying some didnt feel the desire to see the famous enterprise crew again, but i say lets be real. the show was not presented well, and had many oddities attached to it. (one of my issues, so you all know, was wesley crusher...not that he was a kid as a rule, but a brat presented as a savior of mankind - my take, ymmv) > note: the first cpl seasons of concerns etc, could be due to things in the background none of us were privy to, and i am certain that was projected onto the screen. > > other than that, a few times things would be off for me, as i am sure most people find things that hit them in some way or another. not that that is bad in and of itself, but every person will see things different. however, overall, as time went on, it seemed to connect just fine.
I was referring to the hate that was sent TNG’s way before it even aired.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Personally I prefer Picard and Discovery over JJ's Kelvin Trek, but the problem with Discovery is Michael Burnham, the writing team clearly doesn't know what to do with her, for someone who was raised on Vulcan she's too emotional and teary eyed, sometimes even whispering to herself like she's on the verge of a mental breakdown, in my opinion Saru, Booker, Ryn and Linus all seem like better characters in comparison.
I think they DID in fact know what they wanted to do with her when they wrote Burnham - but like everything else, they didn't do it right.
She seems to have been written as someone suffering from severe PTSD, and also as a commentary on how the overwhelming majority of people across the planet think mental maladies aren't real, or that they can be fixed by simply 'getting over it' or 'just stop being upset' (As way too often comes up with Depression) - or my personal favorite: 'it's all in your head'...yeah, no TRIBBLE, Sherlock - it's a MENTAL malady, of course it's in their head!
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
So, Phoenix, you now admit that when you say "traditional Star Trek fans", you mean yourself.
Please replace "traditional fans say..." with "I think...". It raises a lot less hackles from some of us other old guys who don't happen to share your opinions. (I really dislike other people putting their opinions in my mouth, as though it were Universal Revealed Truth with which I must of necessity agree.)
You are just trying to twist words now (or at least that is the impression I get). And the phrase "I think..." does not convey the right meaning (I do use the term "I think" when it is appropriate).
Would you prefer I used something long winded like "it is probable that most of the fans who prefer traditional Star Trek and may or may not dislike the Kelvin Trek and/or the new CBS offerings..."? every time I used "traditional fans" or "fans of the traditional Treks"? If so you will be disappointed since I don't like to type out unnecessarily long phrases that often, these are comments not legal contracts or scholarly papers that require using that kind of stilted formal language. As some people have pointed out, I tend to be rather long-winded enough without that dancing around with terms nonsense.
And no, I am not the only person who likes both but prefers the various traditional Treks (or would it make you happier if I used the clunky phrase "Roddenberry-led and Berman-led Treks" instead of "traditional Treks", or list all the series out each time?), one only has to look at any Star Trek forum (including this one) to know that.
I have no control over how you interpret the term "traditional" in reference to Star Trek and I am sorry if you mistook my use of the word to mean "long time fans", but that was not my intention (if it was I would have said long time fans). I used "traditional" in relation to the shows, not the age of the fans.
And I generally try to phrase it as "many fans of traditional Treks" (or "most" instead of "many" if appropriate) but when I am typing fast I tend to compact things or even drop words or rearrange them, sometimes to the point that I have to go back and fix it, and in very long comments I sometimes miss instances of that (and I tend to flip-flop between SVO and SOV word order at times which doesn't help either).
Why, even, join Starfleet? Aside from captains, you are likely to labor in almost complete anonymity until you retire, there's no prospect of loot, there's no pension you're working towards, and the business of serving on your average ship is just rife with danger (in the case of the bigger vessels, not only for yourself, but also your immediate family).
Why do people of above-average capability voluntarily enlist in the United States Marine Corps? It's dangerous, dirty, generally unappreciated work which pays the junior enlisted less than they'd make flipping burgers in several states. For four to six years at a time, enlisted personnel choose to surrender most of their autonomy, serving anonymously in places most folks either don't care about or don't think they should be. (For officers it's even worse - you get twenty to thirty years of pretty much the same thing but with better quarters and uniform, and usually the only way anyone knows your name is if you tribbled up bad.) So why do it?
If you can answer that, you might be able to answer your own question.
As for why people work at all, there's only so long most of us can tolerate eating lotus blossoms and contemplating our navels. After a while, humans generally feel a strong need to get up and do something.
Yes, this is a great answer. Some people want to work, want to explore, want to see the world, or even just want the excitement and glory from a dangerous job. There is satisfaction when you can look at something and say you were a part of that, or you helped build that, or you helped discover that.
My father after he retired was bored out of his mind, and didn't take long before he went back to work part time. I'm sure some people would be happy to sit around all day and do nothing, but some people can't do that.
Star Trek also offers us the idea that humans have evolved mentally and emotionally, while also presenting a future where everyone likes their job. Robotics and computers can take a lot of the dull tasks, while you can still work with your hands if you want.
There's no question its an odd place with lots of questions on how it works, but while there aren't answers to all those questions, that is because it is a fiction. At some level it doesn't function the same as reality, and we just can't answer how it works.
Except that it really wasn't a great answer.
First of all, almost nobody is actually serving on star ships. Star Trek itself paints the academy/active service as extremely selective posting typically reserved for people who are genius-level or above (so, in addition to being the [potentially, if you're the captain] most glamorous line of work around, it's an elitist old-boys club). The vast - vast - majority of people who apply are therefore declined - they have to work in mundane positions, like serving as guards with funny hats in windowless rooms, or being the unfortunate person who cleans the latrines (or repairs the robots who clean the latrines).
Second, the answer assumes that nobody is capable of entertaining themselves - or deriving pleasure from life - bereft of the stimulus provided by labor. I'm sorry, but we're not all simpletons - people have consuming hobbies that don't in any way qualify (nor could they be creatively described) as "work;" people have interests that, if given the chance, could consume every bit of their spare time. We do not all have hollow, echoing voids at our core, desperate for some - really, any - form of banal work to fill. Not everyone is a good little slave in search of a trivial 'purpose.' More to the point, my guess (based on years of observing what the modern man does in their off time) is that most people would prefer a day populated by nothing than one filled with mind-numbing repetition (for no pay).
Finally, it did nothing to explain why people should be assuming enormous risk for no reward. I don't deny that there are high voltage electric linesmen (the guys who climb the 150-foot power towers) or deep sea fishermen who genuinely enjoy their fields (there certainly are [and there are probably an equal number of those who don't ]), but the pay for most risky lines of work is commensurate with the danger - there's a fat paycheck waiting for these people when they get home. You assume that human nature would change so much in the span of... about 150 years now until the first Star Trek?... that nobody is going to want any kind of reward for doing the ultra-perilous, largely anonymous/thankless work that is required to keep any civilization on its feet? In fact, they're all - every one of them - there because their lives are so meaningless and empty that they're willing to imperil them 'because reasons?'
You are giving way too much credit to the resident 'deep thinker' of the forums. The guy is not a sage.
In any world, young people need to learn the ropes, work their way up. You don't learn to walk before you can crawl. That the starship captain was, 20 years prior, the latrine cleaner is forgotten.
And a lot of the points you bring up I don't disagree with. It is a hard thing to believe. It wouldn't work with modern humans, and so we should all be very wary of anyone who thinks they can make a Star Trek like world today.
Star Trek, however, knows that and states that. It is part of the fictional universe of Trek, that the humans in the show are different from us, grown up in a different world with none of the problems we have. That is very fictional indeed. But that is the imagining Star Trek builds on; they are past that era of humanity.
But most people don't 'grow up' to be the captain - they don't even grow up to be on the senior staff of a star ship. As in today's military, the vast majority of officers will not progress beyond O-3; the vast majority of enlisted won't get past E-6 or E-7. There just aren't enough jobs in that pyramid scheme for everyone to get their cut at top dog, or even close to it.
Star Trek obsesses over the lives of the command staff because that's where the action and glory is - these are the people making the life and death decisions for all the hundreds (or thousands, or even tens of thousands) of anonymous schlubs laboring behind the scenes. And most of those people (although there are obviously exceptions) aren't going anywhere - they will never be much more than they are, or advance much further than where they currently reside.
Why, even, join Starfleet? Aside from captains, you are likely to labor in almost complete anonymity until you retire, there's no prospect of loot, there's no pension you're working towards, and the business of serving on your average ship is just rife with danger (in the case of the bigger vessels, not only for yourself, but also your immediate family).
Why do people of above-average capability voluntarily enlist in the United States Marine Corps? It's dangerous, dirty, generally unappreciated work which pays the junior enlisted less than they'd make flipping burgers in several states. For four to six years at a time, enlisted personnel choose to surrender most of their autonomy, serving anonymously in places most folks either don't care about or don't think they should be. (For officers it's even worse - you get twenty to thirty years of pretty much the same thing but with better quarters and uniform, and usually the only way anyone knows your name is if you tribbled up bad.) So why do it?
If you can answer that, you might be able to answer your own question.
As for why people work at all, there's only so long most of us can tolerate eating lotus blossoms and contemplating our navels. After a while, humans generally feel a strong need to get up and do something.
Yes, this is a great answer. Some people want to work, want to explore, want to see the world, or even just want the excitement and glory from a dangerous job. There is satisfaction when you can look at something and say you were a part of that, or you helped build that, or you helped discover that.
My father after he retired was bored out of his mind, and didn't take long before he went back to work part time. I'm sure some people would be happy to sit around all day and do nothing, but some people can't do that.
Star Trek also offers us the idea that humans have evolved mentally and emotionally, while also presenting a future where everyone likes their job. Robotics and computers can take a lot of the dull tasks, while you can still work with your hands if you want.
There's no question its an odd place with lots of questions on how it works, but while there aren't answers to all those questions, that is because it is a fiction. At some level it doesn't function the same as reality, and we just can't answer how it works.
Except that it really wasn't a great answer.
First of all, almost nobody is actually serving on star ships. Star Trek itself paints the academy/active service as extremely selective posting typically reserved for people who are genius-level or above (so, in addition to being the [potentially, if you're the captain] most glamorous line of work around, it's an elitist old-boys club). The vast - vast - majority of people who apply are therefore declined - they have to work in mundane positions, like serving as guards with funny hats in windowless rooms, or being the unfortunate person who cleans the latrines (or repairs the robots who clean the latrines).
Second, the answer assumes that nobody is capable of entertaining themselves - or deriving pleasure from life - bereft of the stimulus provided by labor. I'm sorry, but we're not all simpletons - people have consuming hobbies that don't in any way qualify (nor could they be creatively described) as "work;" people have interests that, if given the chance, could consume every bit of their spare time. We do not all have hollow, echoing voids at our core, desperate for some - really, any - form of banal work to fill. Not everyone is a good little slave in search of a trivial 'purpose.' More to the point, my guess (based on years of observing what the modern man does in their off time) is that most people would prefer a day populated by nothing than one filled with mind-numbing repetition (for no pay).
Finally, it did nothing to explain why people should be assuming enormous risk for no reward. I don't deny that there are high voltage electric linesmen (the guys who climb the 150-foot power towers) or deep sea fishermen who genuinely enjoy their fields (there certainly are [and there are probably an equal number of those who don't ]), but the pay for most risky lines of work is commensurate with the danger - there's a fat paycheck waiting for these people when they get home. You assume that human nature would change so much in the span of... about 150 years now until the first Star Trek?... that nobody is going to want any kind of reward for doing the ultra-perilous, largely anonymous/thankless work that is required to keep any civilization on its feet? In fact, they're all - every one of them - there because their lives are so meaningless and empty that they're willing to imperil them 'because reasons?'
You are giving way too much credit to the resident 'deep thinker' of the forums. The guy is not a sage.
In any world, young people need to learn the ropes, work their way up. You don't learn to walk before you can crawl. That the starship captain was, 20 years prior, the latrine cleaner is forgotten.
And a lot of the points you bring up I don't disagree with. It is a hard thing to believe. It wouldn't work with modern humans, and so we should all be very wary of anyone who thinks they can make a Star Trek like world today.
Star Trek, however, knows that and states that. It is part of the fictional universe of Trek, that the humans in the show are different from us, grown up in a different world with none of the problems we have. That is very fictional indeed. But that is the imagining Star Trek builds on; they are past that era of humanity.
But most people don't 'grow up' to be the captain - they don't even grow up to be on the senior staff of a star ship. As in today's military, the vast majority of officers will not progress beyond O-3; the vast majority of enlisted won't get past E-6 or E-7. There just aren't enough jobs in that pyramid scheme for everyone to get their cut at top dog, or even close to it.
Star Trek obsesses over the lives of the command staff because that's where the action and glory is - these are the people making the life and death decisions for all the hundreds (or thousands, or even tens of thousands) of anonymous schlubs laboring behind the scenes. And most of those people (although there are obviously exceptions) aren't going anywhere - they will never be much more than they are, or advance much further than where they currently reside.
at least with Lower Decks we get to see how life is like for these anonymous schlubs.
Why, even, join Starfleet? Aside from captains, you are likely to labor in almost complete anonymity until you retire, there's no prospect of loot, there's no pension you're working towards, and the business of serving on your average ship is just rife with danger (in the case of the bigger vessels, not only for yourself, but also your immediate family).
Why do people of above-average capability voluntarily enlist in the United States Marine Corps? It's dangerous, dirty, generally unappreciated work which pays the junior enlisted less than they'd make flipping burgers in several states. For four to six years at a time, enlisted personnel choose to surrender most of their autonomy, serving anonymously in places most folks either don't care about or don't think they should be. (For officers it's even worse - you get twenty to thirty years of pretty much the same thing but with better quarters and uniform, and usually the only way anyone knows your name is if you tribbled up bad.) So why do it?
If you can answer that, you might be able to answer your own question.
As for why people work at all, there's only so long most of us can tolerate eating lotus blossoms and contemplating our navels. After a while, humans generally feel a strong need to get up and do something.
Yes, this is a great answer. Some people want to work, want to explore, want to see the world, or even just want the excitement and glory from a dangerous job. There is satisfaction when you can look at something and say you were a part of that, or you helped build that, or you helped discover that.
My father after he retired was bored out of his mind, and didn't take long before he went back to work part time. I'm sure some people would be happy to sit around all day and do nothing, but some people can't do that.
Star Trek also offers us the idea that humans have evolved mentally and emotionally, while also presenting a future where everyone likes their job. Robotics and computers can take a lot of the dull tasks, while you can still work with your hands if you want.
There's no question its an odd place with lots of questions on how it works, but while there aren't answers to all those questions, that is because it is a fiction. At some level it doesn't function the same as reality, and we just can't answer how it works.
Except that it really wasn't a great answer.
First of all, almost nobody is actually serving on star ships. Star Trek itself paints the academy/active service as extremely selective posting typically reserved for people who are genius-level or above (so, in addition to being the [potentially, if you're the captain] most glamorous line of work around, it's an elitist old-boys club). The vast - vast - majority of people who apply are therefore declined - they have to work in mundane positions, like serving as guards with funny hats in windowless rooms, or being the unfortunate person who cleans the latrines (or repairs the robots who clean the latrines).
Second, the answer assumes that nobody is capable of entertaining themselves - or deriving pleasure from life - bereft of the stimulus provided by labor. I'm sorry, but we're not all simpletons - people have consuming hobbies that don't in any way qualify (nor could they be creatively described) as "work;" people have interests that, if given the chance, could consume every bit of their spare time. We do not all have hollow, echoing voids at our core, desperate for some - really, any - form of banal work to fill. Not everyone is a good little slave in search of a trivial 'purpose.' More to the point, my guess (based on years of observing what the modern man does in their off time) is that most people would prefer a day populated by nothing than one filled with mind-numbing repetition (for no pay).
Finally, it did nothing to explain why people should be assuming enormous risk for no reward. I don't deny that there are high voltage electric linesmen (the guys who climb the 150-foot power towers) or deep sea fishermen who genuinely enjoy their fields (there certainly are [and there are probably an equal number of those who don't ]), but the pay for most risky lines of work is commensurate with the danger - there's a fat paycheck waiting for these people when they get home. You assume that human nature would change so much in the span of... about 150 years now until the first Star Trek?... that nobody is going to want any kind of reward for doing the ultra-perilous, largely anonymous/thankless work that is required to keep any civilization on its feet? In fact, they're all - every one of them - there because their lives are so meaningless and empty that they're willing to imperil them 'because reasons?'
You are giving way too much credit to the resident 'deep thinker' of the forums. The guy is not a sage.
In any world, young people need to learn the ropes, work their way up. You don't learn to walk before you can crawl. That the starship captain was, 20 years prior, the latrine cleaner is forgotten.
And a lot of the points you bring up I don't disagree with. It is a hard thing to believe. It wouldn't work with modern humans, and so we should all be very wary of anyone who thinks they can make a Star Trek like world today.
Star Trek, however, knows that and states that. It is part of the fictional universe of Trek, that the humans in the show are different from us, grown up in a different world with none of the problems we have. That is very fictional indeed. But that is the imagining Star Trek builds on; they are past that era of humanity.
But most people don't 'grow up' to be the captain - they don't even grow up to be on the senior staff of a star ship. As in today's military, the vast majority of officers will not progress beyond O-3; the vast majority of enlisted won't get past E-6 or E-7. There just aren't enough jobs in that pyramid scheme for everyone to get their cut at top dog, or even close to it.
Star Trek obsesses over the lives of the command staff because that's where the action and glory is - these are the people making the life and death decisions for all the hundreds (or thousands, or even tens of thousands) of anonymous schlubs laboring behind the scenes. And most of those people (although there are obviously exceptions) aren't going anywhere - they will never be much more than they are, or advance much further than where they currently reside.
No not everyone gets to be general or captain. Neither is everyone cut out for it. In ST, I'm sure many figure out the Starfleet life isn't the one for them, but go on to other things. Yep some of them die to a blob alien or get Borgged or whatever. Just like real life. What is the issue?
Uhura is probably a good example of that loosing interest in command. She started out in command track avocado the first episode or two she is in, then switched to operations red. Maybe she didn't want to get stuck in command of a frigate or destroyer unable to advance to capital ships because of the glass ceiling Janice Lester was going on about, or she may have realized that she preferred technical career path over a command one.
Come to think of it Kirk is another one, he disliked being an admiral and was glad to get busted down to captain again. Riker refused promotion quite a bit too, for that matter, though he eventually accepted it and command of the Titan.
Uhura is probably a good example of that loosing interest in command. She started out in command track avocado the first episode or two she is in, then switched to operations red. Maybe she didn't want to get stuck in command of a frigate or destroyer unable to advance to capital ships because of the glass ceiling Janice Lester was going on about, or she may have realized that she preferred technical career path over a command one.
Come to think of it Kirk is another one, he disliked being an admiral and was glad to get busted down to captain again. Riker refused promotion quite a bit too, for that matter, though he eventually accepted it and command of the Titan.
I remember loving that episode of TOS where she put on a boiler suit and started rewiring her station and also when Kirk tells her to take the con. It would have been terrific to see her advance her career, but then I also thought that Janice should have been Sulu's XO. When I watched Undiscovered Country and Flashbacks, I really thought she was and not just communications.
Personally? I'm kinda happy with all the publicly expressed dislike of Discovery from a too vocal minority who think entirely too much of themselves.
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. once said if the NASCAR fans in the stands aren't making any noise at all, then NASCAR was in deep trouble.
I wonder how many people have tuned in to Discovery simply because someone here with an ego the size of an Enterprise-J felt compelled to share their hatred with a public which actually doesn't hold them in the high regard they imagine.
Gatekeepers! (rolls eyes) Didn't William Shatner once tell fans to, "Get a life!"? Good advice then and still good advice for some here.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
Uhura is probably a good example of that loosing interest in command. She started out in command track avocado the first episode or two she is in, then switched to operations red. Maybe she didn't want to get stuck in command of a frigate or destroyer unable to advance to capital ships because of the glass ceiling Janice Lester was going on about, or she may have realized that she preferred technical career path over a command one.
Come to think of it Kirk is another one, he disliked being an admiral and was glad to get busted down to captain again. Riker refused promotion quite a bit too, for that matter, though he eventually accepted it and command of the Titan.
Spock also refused multiple promotions, he would rather serve under Kirk than command his own ship.
Personally? I'm kinda happy with all the publicly expressed dislike of Discovery from a too vocal minority who think entirely too much of themselves.
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. once said if the NASCAR fans in the stands aren't making any noise at all, then NASCAR was in deep trouble.
I wonder how many people have tuned in to Discovery simply because someone here with an ego the size of an Enterprise-J felt compelled to share their hatred with a public which actually doesn't hold them in the high regard they imagine.
Gatekeepers! (rolls eyes) Didn't William Shatner once tell fans to, "Get a life!"? Good advice then and still good advice for some here.
I find this open hostility to the people who dislike Discovery very strange. They don't like the thing you like so you are happy to insult them. What is the point of that, exactly?
Most people I've observed who dislike the show can specifically point out what they don't like, and why. It isn't some random hate, its reasoned criticism.
Have you ever asked yourself, what if they got what they wanted? What if ST:D was rewritten and redone and was a better show that fits alongside oldtrek much better for addressing those complaints? Would we even be getting Strange New Worlds without those people?
Personally? I'm kinda happy with all the publicly expressed dislike of Discovery from a too vocal minority who think entirely too much of themselves.
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. once said if the NASCAR fans in the stands aren't making any noise at all, then NASCAR was in deep trouble.
I wonder how many people have tuned in to Discovery simply because someone here with an ego the size of an Enterprise-J felt compelled to share their hatred with a public which actually doesn't hold them in the high regard they imagine.
Gatekeepers! (rolls eyes) Didn't William Shatner once tell fans to, "Get a life!"? Good advice then and still good advice for some here.
I find this open hostility to the people who dislike Discovery very strange. They don't like the thing you like so you are happy to insult them. What is the point of that, exactly?
Most people I've observed who dislike the show can specifically point out what they don't like, and why. It isn't some random hate, its reasoned criticism.
Have you ever asked yourself, what if they got what they wanted? What if ST:D was rewritten and redone and was a better show that fits alongside oldtrek much better for addressing those complaints? Would we even be getting Strange New Worlds without those people?
The way I see it Trek is Trek, there's no NuTrek or Old Trek, the whole alien of the week trend died out in DS9 when they introduce the Serialized Dominion War, ENT at least tried to follow in TOS Episodic footsteps but some people hated it for some reason, so now we have to deal with Serialized Trek.
> @dragonhawke777 said:
There was more than a few stations that refused to air the TOS episode that had the first interracial kiss on Tv.
^^^
That claim is made a lot, but in the end, it's honestly an urban myth. By that point Star Trek's Network ratings were very low overall; but there was no channel (even in the South at the time) that actually pre-emted the episode due to it's content.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,579Community Moderator
The way I see it Trek is Trek, there's no NuTrek or Old Trek...
This is my stance as well on it. Star Trek is not just one format, or about one thing. Its an entire universe full of stories of all kinds. There's room for all of it. And just like any large franchise, you're welcome to any part you like.
@phoenixc#0738 I believe the core issue with your arguments is that 9 times out of 10 it comes across as a form of gatekeeping by segregating types of fans. Unintentional it may be, text doesn't always convey intent. And a lot of people like to try and segregate fans who like Discovery from fans who don't, and tend to use it as a form of attack, either towards Discovery, the people behind it, or the people who actually do like Discovery. It does kinda come across as a variation of the "no true scotsman" argument at times, which is why you get so much pushback on it.
Also you do use a lot of behind the scenes information on things when canon tends to only care about what is on screen. I know that the Command Division uniforms are supposed to be some kind of green, but the lighting and film made it yellow. So which is the canon color for command? Green or Yellow? Canon leans towards yellow, based on Trials and Tribble-ations in DS9. And after TMP, Rodenberry basically said that the Klingons ALWAYS looked the way they do in TMP, yet on screen they didn't. This was later addressed in Trials and Tribble-ations when Worf actually said "We don't like to talk about it", and was again later addressed in Enterprise with an actual reason for it.
So stating things like the TOS Enterprise was intended to have touchscreens and Number One is an Augment kinda falls short because there's no on screen evidence to back it up. I'm not doubting your knowledge of things behind the scenes, but as of what was seen on screen... there really isn't much to back it up as fact. As far as I am aware, the idea of Number One being an Augment is strictly Beta Canon and limited to books. Until we learn more about her in Strange New Worlds... that's all it is. We can't say it is a fact without the on screen evidence to back it up.
Discovery was made with heavy political correctness in mind and it's making it difficult for me to like it. It only feels like Star Trek whenever there is a scene with Pike, other than that, it's real world political correctness portrayed by the other characters. Unfortunately though, this is the world we live in now where everything has to be politically correct.
As for the ship itself, well so far I've only seen it in scenes where it's either jumping, or just sitting there. . .
In any case, expect some bias because it's the current Star Trek right now.
I'll go on record to say that I didn't watch Enterprise, but I've watched all the others and absolutely love Voyager. Discovery is certainly the first Trek I've ever watched that is having difficulties holding my attention.
Also, the way I feel, if you watch any Star Trek and follow the lore, movies, etc, you;re a Trekkie. Some of us grew up with Kirk all the way to Janeway and Sisko. It's a big part of our lives.
Discovery was made with heavy political correctness in mind and it's making it difficult for me to like it. It only feels like Star Trek whenever there is a scene with Pike, other than that, it's real world political correctness portrayed by the other characters. Unfortunately though, this is the world we live in now where everything has to be politically correct.
As for the ship itself, well so far I've only seen it in scenes where it's either jumping, or just sitting there. . .
In any case, expect some bias because it's the current Star Trek right now.
I'll go on record to say that I didn't watch Enterprise, but I've watched all the others and absolutely love Voyager. Discovery is certainly the first Trek I've ever watched that is having difficulties holding my attention.
It's true. I think it's why it feels so forced, because it's political correctness gone mad, with producer-engineered twists, turns and concepts.
We have to have a TRIBBLE married couple. We have to have a trans character and even though in 2021 and gender non-binary is perfectly recognized, it has to feel like we're addressing it. We need an excuse for more CGI, so lets have detachable nacelles on the ship, etc.
It wouldn't be so bad is Discovery was episodic, because like all the series before, you could just have a few off episodes, but it just feels like a slog and a battle between politically correctness and the producers.
It's okay if every single demographic isn't represented for the sake of representing them.
Discovery was made with heavy political correctness in mind and it's making it difficult for me to like it. It only feels like Star Trek whenever there is a scene with Pike, other than that, it's real world political correctness portrayed by the other characters. Unfortunately though, this is the world we live in now where everything has to be politically correct.
As for the ship itself, well so far I've only seen it in scenes where it's either jumping, or just sitting there. . .
In any case, expect some bias because it's the current Star Trek right now.
I'll go on record to say that I didn't watch Enterprise, but I've watched all the others and absolutely love Voyager. Discovery is certainly the first Trek I've ever watched that is having difficulties holding my attention.
Also, the way I feel, if you watch any Star Trek and follow the lore, movies, etc, you;re a Trekkie. Some of us grew up with Kirk all the way to Janeway and Sisko. It's a big part of our lives.
Oh please - ST: D's 'political correctness' or 'heavy political commentary' is no different/worse than the ORIGINAL Star Trel when it premiered in Sept. 1966 with its integrated/interatrial crew (that in season 2 included a COMMIE RUSSIAN at a time when teh Cold War was at its height) - or episodes like "A Private Little War" (a direct allegory to the Vietnam war with was a major political issue); or "The Enterprise Incident" which was DIRECT commentary on an incident with a U.S. Ship held by North Korea (in January 1968) - https://www.britannica.com/event/Pueblo-Incident
^^^
So yeah, sorry, but to somehow claim ST: D is made more with 'political correctness' in mind than any other iteration of Star Trek pretty much showcases how little you know about the Star Trek franchise' production history when it comes to social and political issues.
Yes, y9ou may not have realized just how polarizing and controversial some elements of past Star Trek series were at the time they were originally broadcast - because by the time you saw them, many of these issues were no longer as polarizing or politically charged as they once had been - but it doesn't change the fact that ST: D today is about as contentious and Star Trek (TOS) was in it's original 1966-1969 network run.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Discovery was made with heavy political correctness in mind and it's making it difficult for me to like it. It only feels like Star Trek whenever there is a scene with Pike, other than that, it's real world political correctness portrayed by the other characters. Unfortunately though, this is the world we live in now where everything has to be politically correct.
As for the ship itself, well so far I've only seen it in scenes where it's either jumping, or just sitting there. . .
In any case, expect some bias because it's the current Star Trek right now.
I'll go on record to say that I didn't watch Enterprise, but I've watched all the others and absolutely love Voyager. Discovery is certainly the first Trek I've ever watched that is having difficulties holding my attention.
Also, the way I feel, if you watch any Star Trek and follow the lore, movies, etc, you;re a Trekkie. Some of us grew up with Kirk all the way to Janeway and Sisko. It's a big part of our lives.
Oh please - ST: D's 'political correctness' or 'heavy political commentary' is no different/worse than the ORIGINAL Star Trel when it premiered in Sept. 1966 with its integrated/interatrial crew (that in season 2 included a COMMIE RUSSIAN at a time when teh Cold War was at its height) - or episodes like "A Private Little War" (a direct allegory to the Vietnam war with was a major political issue); or "The Enterprise Incident" which was DIRECT commentary on an incident with a U.S. Ship held by North Korea (in January 1968) - https://www.britannica.com/event/Pueblo-Incident
^^^
So yeah, sorry, but to somehow claim ST: D is made more with 'political correctness' in mind than any other iteration of Star Trek pretty much showcases how little you know about the Star Trek franchise' production history when it comes to social and political issues.
Yes, y9ou may not have realized just how polarizing and controversial some elements of past Star Trek series were at the time they were originally broadcast - because by the time you saw them, many of these issues were no longer as polarizing or politically charged as they once had been - but it doesn't change the fact that ST: D today is about as contentious and Star Trek (TOS) was in it's original 1966-1969 network run.
You can be political just don't be so blatantly obvious and self righteous with it and besides no one likes pandering like that time when Discovery tried to promote with their "first" non-binary character just for twitter brownie points even though TNG did the non binary thing first, while it's not a big deal for me and I'm glad some LGBTQ people are getting some representation, the discovery writing team could at the very least do the research before posting something like that, it would help win more people over.
Comments
You can have politics but you better know how to incorporate them so that you dont alienate your viewership. You also have to have character development, something many writers no longer do. Yes TOS and TNG did episodes that brought up different political and social issues, though they did a good job of not trying to offend those who may not share the same viewpoint.
The same thing is happening in comics. X-Men for example has always had political and social undertones, as the team is basically a comic commentary on the civil rights era. However as long time reader of the book, and someone who likely voted for very few of the politicians that the writers and artists of the book did, I still never felt attacked. Many writers now though put their politics first and actively look to attack any fan who doesnt share their political viewpoint.
You want character development so that your audience cares about your characters. Too often though writers feel that if they show any weakness then they are creating a weak character, particularly if they have made the character to make a political statement. You get the I have to make my female star perfect to show shes a strong woman. That though only makes a wooden character that nobody cares about. Nobody wants to watch a Mary Sue character, because they can do everything perfect and nothing is a challenge to them. Take Rae from Star Wars. Shes a expert mechanic, can fly ships shes never been in like a fighter ace, fight better than any man, beat opponents with a light saber who have been training for years and she hasnt trained a day yet, and in no time becomes a force expert.
I had a saying I would use when talking about comics that also applies to any genre. If you make a good superhero, that happens to be black, or TRIBBLE, or female, or asian, or hispanic, or... then most readers will probably like the character. If though you make a character that is TRIBBLE, or black, or female,... and is a superhero second then nobody is going to want to read your book. This is true for any medium and genre.
The test of if you have made a good character is this. If at the end of your movie or book you have the main character die, and your audience isnt sad, then you didnt make a good character. If though you kill them and you make some identity group angry because you killed of a strong female (or any other identity) character, then all your character was, was a political statement and will be forgotten in no time. Shazam and Capt Marvel came out around the same time. The theater I was in had most of the audience sad, choked up, or crying in some cases, when Billy finally finds his mom and she tells him she doesnt want him. Capt Marvel though gave such a wooden performance that you could have put a bullet in her head at the end of the movie and nobody would have been sad. Some feminists might have been angry, but nobody would really miss her.
> You can have politics but you better know how to incorporate them so that you dont alienate your viewership. You also have to have character development, something many writers no longer do. Yes TOS and TNG did episodes that brought up different political and social issues, though they did a good job of not trying to offend those who may not share the same viewpoint.
>
> The same thing is happening in comics. X-Men for example has always had political and social undertones, as the team is basically a comic commentary on the civil rights era. However as long time reader of the book, and someone who likely voted for very few of the politicians that the writers and artists of the book did, I still never felt attacked. Many writers now though put their politics first and actively look to attack any fan who doesnt share their political viewpoint.
>
> You want character development so that your audience cares about your characters. Too often though writers feel that if they show any weakness then they are creating a weak character, particularly if they have made the character to make a political statement. You get the I have to make my female star perfect to show shes a strong woman. That though only makes a wooden character that nobody cares about. Nobody wants to watch a Mary Sue character, because they can do everything perfect and nothing is a challenge to them. Take Rae from Star Wars. Shes a expert mechanic, can fly ships shes never been in like a fighter ace, fight better than any man, beat opponents with a light saber who have been training for years and she hasnt trained a day yet, and in no time becomes a force expert.
>
> I had a saying I would use when talking about comics that also applies to any genre. If you make a good superhero, that happens to be black, or TRIBBLE, or female, or asian, or hispanic, or... then most readers will probably like the character. If though you make a character that is TRIBBLE, or black, or female,... and is a superhero second then nobody is going to want to read your book. This is true for any medium and genre.
>
> The test of if you have made a good character is this. If at the end of your movie or book you have the main character die, and your audience isnt sad, then you didnt make a good character. If though you kill them and you make some identity group angry because you killed of a strong female (or any other identity) character, then all your character was, was a political statement and will be forgotten in no time. Shazam and Capt Marvel came out around the same time. The theater I was in had most of the audience sad, choked up, or crying in some cases, when Billy finally finds his mom and she tells him she doesnt want him. Capt Marvel though gave such a wooden performance that you could have put a bullet in her head at the end of the movie and nobody would have been sad. Some feminists might have been angry, but nobody would really miss her.
There was more than a few stations that refused to air the TOS episode that had the first interracial kiss on Tv.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
> I'm guessing here, but if they'd made Star Trek: Phase II instead of The Motion Picture...I don't think there was enough of a fanbase to generate hate. By '87, you had a whole new generation (no pun intended) or TOS and Kirk/Spock fans and also, TNG really hadn't found its feet. The first two seasons had the bones (no pun intended again) of something great, but the characters weren't flushed out, you had Diana REALLY throwing things off for me personally in season two and everyone found love from season three onwards. The films had well and truly peaked and TNG was going strong with well-rounded characters and strong plots.
I’m willing to bet that a majority of the fans that hated TNG was against it just because it wasn’t Kirk, Spock and McCoy.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
When I say traditional fans I am talking about the fans of the various traditional Trek series, and I am not using it in a gatekeeping way. I know there are people who like both (it is not a binary toggle where liking one automatically means hating the other), I happen to like DSC (though a lot less than the traditional series) for instance, but there are not a lot of ways to differentiate the fans who like the traditional more than the new stuff in a compact way.
I get tired of everyone assuming anyone who criticizes "NuTrek" (again, I use the term for brevity, not as a slam) is some kind of wild-eyed fanatic who absolutely hates the new stuff and always means the worst, most extreme interpretation of any words they use.
You must be kidding. There was a huge and very active Star Trek fanbase in the 1970s, and since there was no new Trek on the horizon (just a lot of false alarms up until TMP actually hit the theaters) Trek fanzines were flourishing.
If Phase II had come out it would have been quite popular and it would have given Roddenberry a way to get the 'warmup' episode he needed out of the way before a possible jump to movies (the movie production environment is very unforgiving compared to TV, one or two bad episodes out of a season of 26 is nothing, but one bad movie is a major disaster). It would have probably made the movies completely different however since Phase II would have set standards and make it harder for them to go hareing off in crazy directions the way they did.
The first season of TNG had the most toxic and disfunctional writer's room of the decade due to a bored troll (Roddenberry's lawyer) getting his jollies by making everyone as miserable as possible. And that was on top of having to rush because all the time they would have had earlier was wasted wrestling with the original concept (which was vastly different from the one that aired) and dropped at the last minute and converted into the much simpler space-procedural format that aired.
And since everyone got fed up with the toxicity and left by the end of the first season, the new writers struggled in the second season to pick up the pieces and find their own footing in a completely cold start. DS9 and VOY had their own problems later, but nothing came close to the toxic disaster in the writers room of first season TNG until Birds of Prey came out in 2002.
As for the political message/social commentary stuff, all the series did it they just were (usually) more subtle about it than Kurtzman's bunch which in turn is rather common in recent years. Just compare the original Charmed with the remake series to see an even worse example than DSC does (such heavy-handed gems as instead of a few episodes of self-discovery and reveals where the main characters discover they are the Charmed Ones and what it means, the new Charmed had the witches tied to chairs while their white-lighter pontificated at them about it ad nauseum near the beginning of the pilot episode for instance).
By the end of the original Charmed, it was all about magic and you'd never even know that they were supposed to be sisters with normal lives. Holly Marie wanted to leave along with Shannon, but she was locked in. And the remake...urgh. It didn't make sense! And it was political correctness FORCED into a show. You have to represent this, that and the other demographic and don't worry about the premise or the writing, just as long as you tick those boxes.
In any world, young people need to learn the ropes, work their way up. You don't learn to walk before you can crawl. That the starship captain was, 20 years prior, the latrine cleaner is forgotten.
And a lot of the points you bring up I don't disagree with. It is a hard thing to believe. It wouldn't work with modern humans, and so we should all be very wary of anyone who thinks they can make a Star Trek like world today.
Star Trek, however, knows that and states that. It is part of the fictional universe of Trek, that the humans in the show are different from us, grown up in a different world with none of the problems we have. That is very fictional indeed. But that is the imagining Star Trek builds on; they are past that era of humanity.
Yup and nobody at ST or CBS responded by blindly attacking everyone at those stations or everyone who watched those stations. There is an old saying that you cant control how people respond to you, only how you respond to them. So if you take the high road, even if certain people are being ignorant then quite often it turns out better in the end.
I remember reading one of Dr Ben Carsons books and him talking about becoming a doctor. It was in the seventies and there werent many black doctors then. Doing his residency one of the nurses thought he was an orderly and wanted him to change a bedpan or some other meanial task. He could have responded one of three ways. 1) Got angry and scream at her. 2) Publicly humiliate her. 3) show her that her prejudices were wrong, but do it in a way that doesnt publicly humiliate her. He chose number 3 and she later came up to him and apologized for what she said. He also said that she was one of the better nurses who would assist him when he was at that hospital.
So you can chose to go on the attack and insure your audience hates you or you can take the high road and maybe change some minds. Writers today seem to more often than not choose to attack, pretty much insuring they wont have any real effect on things and both them and their work will end up in the trash heap of history.
Please replace "traditional fans say..." with "I think...". It raises a lot less hackles from some of us other old guys who don't happen to share your opinions. (I really dislike other people putting their opinions in my mouth, as though it were Universal Revealed Truth with which I must of necessity agree.)
> im betting you are incorrect. not saying some didnt feel the desire to see the famous enterprise crew again, but i say lets be real. the show was not presented well, and had many oddities attached to it. (one of my issues, so you all know, was wesley crusher...not that he was a kid as a rule, but a brat presented as a savior of mankind - my take, ymmv)
> note: the first cpl seasons of concerns etc, could be due to things in the background none of us were privy to, and i am certain that was projected onto the screen.
>
> other than that, a few times things would be off for me, as i am sure most people find things that hit them in some way or another. not that that is bad in and of itself, but every person will see things different. however, overall, as time went on, it seemed to connect just fine.
I was referring to the hate that was sent TNG’s way before it even aired.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
She seems to have been written as someone suffering from severe PTSD, and also as a commentary on how the overwhelming majority of people across the planet think mental maladies aren't real, or that they can be fixed by simply 'getting over it' or 'just stop being upset' (As way too often comes up with Depression) - or my personal favorite: 'it's all in your head'...yeah, no TRIBBLE, Sherlock - it's a MENTAL malady, of course it's in their head!
And getting back to PTSD...
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
You are just trying to twist words now (or at least that is the impression I get). And the phrase "I think..." does not convey the right meaning (I do use the term "I think" when it is appropriate).
Would you prefer I used something long winded like "it is probable that most of the fans who prefer traditional Star Trek and may or may not dislike the Kelvin Trek and/or the new CBS offerings..."? every time I used "traditional fans" or "fans of the traditional Treks"? If so you will be disappointed since I don't like to type out unnecessarily long phrases that often, these are comments not legal contracts or scholarly papers that require using that kind of stilted formal language. As some people have pointed out, I tend to be rather long-winded enough without that dancing around with terms nonsense.
And no, I am not the only person who likes both but prefers the various traditional Treks (or would it make you happier if I used the clunky phrase "Roddenberry-led and Berman-led Treks" instead of "traditional Treks", or list all the series out each time?), one only has to look at any Star Trek forum (including this one) to know that.
I have no control over how you interpret the term "traditional" in reference to Star Trek and I am sorry if you mistook my use of the word to mean "long time fans", but that was not my intention (if it was I would have said long time fans). I used "traditional" in relation to the shows, not the age of the fans.
And I generally try to phrase it as "many fans of traditional Treks" (or "most" instead of "many" if appropriate) but when I am typing fast I tend to compact things or even drop words or rearrange them, sometimes to the point that I have to go back and fix it, and in very long comments I sometimes miss instances of that (and I tend to flip-flop between SVO and SOV word order at times which doesn't help either).
But most people don't 'grow up' to be the captain - they don't even grow up to be on the senior staff of a star ship. As in today's military, the vast majority of officers will not progress beyond O-3; the vast majority of enlisted won't get past E-6 or E-7. There just aren't enough jobs in that pyramid scheme for everyone to get their cut at top dog, or even close to it.
Star Trek obsesses over the lives of the command staff because that's where the action and glory is - these are the people making the life and death decisions for all the hundreds (or thousands, or even tens of thousands) of anonymous schlubs laboring behind the scenes. And most of those people (although there are obviously exceptions) aren't going anywhere - they will never be much more than they are, or advance much further than where they currently reside.
at least with Lower Decks we get to see how life is like for these anonymous schlubs.
No not everyone gets to be general or captain. Neither is everyone cut out for it. In ST, I'm sure many figure out the Starfleet life isn't the one for them, but go on to other things. Yep some of them die to a blob alien or get Borgged or whatever. Just like real life. What is the issue?
Come to think of it Kirk is another one, he disliked being an admiral and was glad to get busted down to captain again. Riker refused promotion quite a bit too, for that matter, though he eventually accepted it and command of the Titan.
I remember loving that episode of TOS where she put on a boiler suit and started rewiring her station and also when Kirk tells her to take the con. It would have been terrific to see her advance her career, but then I also thought that Janice should have been Sulu's XO. When I watched Undiscovered Country and Flashbacks, I really thought she was and not just communications.
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. once said if the NASCAR fans in the stands aren't making any noise at all, then NASCAR was in deep trouble.
I wonder how many people have tuned in to Discovery simply because someone here with an ego the size of an Enterprise-J felt compelled to share their hatred with a public which actually doesn't hold them in the high regard they imagine.
Gatekeepers! (rolls eyes) Didn't William Shatner once tell fans to, "Get a life!"? Good advice then and still good advice for some here.
Spock also refused multiple promotions, he would rather serve under Kirk than command his own ship.
I find this open hostility to the people who dislike Discovery very strange. They don't like the thing you like so you are happy to insult them. What is the point of that, exactly?
Most people I've observed who dislike the show can specifically point out what they don't like, and why. It isn't some random hate, its reasoned criticism.
Have you ever asked yourself, what if they got what they wanted? What if ST:D was rewritten and redone and was a better show that fits alongside oldtrek much better for addressing those complaints? Would we even be getting Strange New Worlds without those people?
The way I see it Trek is Trek, there's no NuTrek or Old Trek, the whole alien of the week trend died out in DS9 when they introduce the Serialized Dominion War, ENT at least tried to follow in TOS Episodic footsteps but some people hated it for some reason, so now we have to deal with Serialized Trek.
That claim is made a lot, but in the end, it's honestly an urban myth. By that point Star Trek's Network ratings were very low overall; but there was no channel (even in the South at the time) that actually pre-emted the episode due to it's content.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
This is my stance as well on it. Star Trek is not just one format, or about one thing. Its an entire universe full of stories of all kinds. There's room for all of it. And just like any large franchise, you're welcome to any part you like.
@phoenixc#0738 I believe the core issue with your arguments is that 9 times out of 10 it comes across as a form of gatekeeping by segregating types of fans. Unintentional it may be, text doesn't always convey intent. And a lot of people like to try and segregate fans who like Discovery from fans who don't, and tend to use it as a form of attack, either towards Discovery, the people behind it, or the people who actually do like Discovery. It does kinda come across as a variation of the "no true scotsman" argument at times, which is why you get so much pushback on it.
Also you do use a lot of behind the scenes information on things when canon tends to only care about what is on screen. I know that the Command Division uniforms are supposed to be some kind of green, but the lighting and film made it yellow. So which is the canon color for command? Green or Yellow? Canon leans towards yellow, based on Trials and Tribble-ations in DS9. And after TMP, Rodenberry basically said that the Klingons ALWAYS looked the way they do in TMP, yet on screen they didn't. This was later addressed in Trials and Tribble-ations when Worf actually said "We don't like to talk about it", and was again later addressed in Enterprise with an actual reason for it.
So stating things like the TOS Enterprise was intended to have touchscreens and Number One is an Augment kinda falls short because there's no on screen evidence to back it up. I'm not doubting your knowledge of things behind the scenes, but as of what was seen on screen... there really isn't much to back it up as fact. As far as I am aware, the idea of Number One being an Augment is strictly Beta Canon and limited to books. Until we learn more about her in Strange New Worlds... that's all it is. We can't say it is a fact without the on screen evidence to back it up.
As for the ship itself, well so far I've only seen it in scenes where it's either jumping, or just sitting there. . .
In any case, expect some bias because it's the current Star Trek right now.
I'll go on record to say that I didn't watch Enterprise, but I've watched all the others and absolutely love Voyager. Discovery is certainly the first Trek I've ever watched that is having difficulties holding my attention.
Also, the way I feel, if you watch any Star Trek and follow the lore, movies, etc, you;re a Trekkie. Some of us grew up with Kirk all the way to Janeway and Sisko. It's a big part of our lives.
It's true. I think it's why it feels so forced, because it's political correctness gone mad, with producer-engineered twists, turns and concepts.
We have to have a TRIBBLE married couple. We have to have a trans character and even though in 2021 and gender non-binary is perfectly recognized, it has to feel like we're addressing it. We need an excuse for more CGI, so lets have detachable nacelles on the ship, etc.
It wouldn't be so bad is Discovery was episodic, because like all the series before, you could just have a few off episodes, but it just feels like a slog and a battle between politically correctness and the producers.
It's okay if every single demographic isn't represented for the sake of representing them.
Oh please - ST: D's 'political correctness' or 'heavy political commentary' is no different/worse than the ORIGINAL Star Trel when it premiered in Sept. 1966 with its integrated/interatrial crew (that in season 2 included a COMMIE RUSSIAN at a time when teh Cold War was at its height) - or episodes like "A Private Little War" (a direct allegory to the Vietnam war with was a major political issue); or "The Enterprise Incident" which was DIRECT commentary on an incident with a U.S. Ship held by North Korea (in January 1968) - https://www.britannica.com/event/Pueblo-Incident
^^^
So yeah, sorry, but to somehow claim ST: D is made more with 'political correctness' in mind than any other iteration of Star Trek pretty much showcases how little you know about the Star Trek franchise' production history when it comes to social and political issues.
Yes, y9ou may not have realized just how polarizing and controversial some elements of past Star Trek series were at the time they were originally broadcast - because by the time you saw them, many of these issues were no longer as polarizing or politically charged as they once had been - but it doesn't change the fact that ST: D today is about as contentious and Star Trek (TOS) was in it's original 1966-1969 network run.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
You can be political just don't be so blatantly obvious and self righteous with it and besides no one likes pandering like that time when Discovery tried to promote with their "first" non-binary character just for twitter brownie points even though TNG did the non binary thing first, while it's not a big deal for me and I'm glad some LGBTQ people are getting some representation, the discovery writing team could at the very least do the research before posting something like that, it would help win more people over.