Comment on Why do they turn Federation into a dystopia?
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 2 days agoIt just feels wrong. It’s like having superman act like homelander. Even if the message is “things shouldn’t be this way”, you are tarnishing a symbol of hope and optimism. People like Star Trek, especially these days, because it gives them hope of a better future, beyond the struggles and corruption of modern society; where justice isn’t just an abstract concept that has to be fought for every day. Where competence and intelligence is rewarded, and corruption and prejudice is not tolerated.
To take that and twist it by going “actually the future is shitty and still full of fascism and it will always be an uphill battle” is just soul crushing.
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 2 days ago
Personally, I think the message of “things could be fine without struggle or setbacks” would go up like a lead balloon in the year 2026 (or really, any year since at least 2014, probably much earlier). I don’t see anything inspirational or hopeful when it seems like pure fantasy.
UltraMagnus@startrek.website 1 day ago
Strangely, I find old Star Trek more comforting in times like these. Though perhaps that’s the nostalgia talking
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 1 day ago
I get that - if not nostalgia, certainly familiarity goes a long way.
angrystego@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Well, I get you. I’m personally the oposite though: I need pure fantasy to give me hope, to set the ideal to strive for.
Akuchimoya@startrek.website 1 day ago
I understand where you’re coming from, but, to put it plainly, this show is not meant for you. Media reflects the times; Enterprise is the way it was because of 9/11. Academy is for the young people of today have grown up in and are facing an increasingly bleak and hostile future. They will have to fight for a better future, because the one that is being handed to them is a dumpster fire. A show that shows them a better future is attainable and models how to do it is what they need, not a fantasy that is unobtainable.
angrystego@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Well, yep, that’s kind of what op is talking about. Star Trek used to scratch a certain itch for people like me in a way other media rarely did. There are people like me in younger generations as well. I feel like the approach you’re talking about is not uncommon for other series/films, while the idealistic approach is super rare or non-existing now. Therefore I find it a pity.
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 2 days ago
A goal to work toward. A hope that if we keep fighting, there will eventually be a future where people don’t have to fight. That there is a path toward humanity reaching it’s peak, rather than an endless sisyphian struggle until our extinction.
It’s not “things could be fine without struggle or setbacks”, Star Trek makes it VERY clear that it was not a smooth and easy path toward fully automated gay space communism. It’s history of humanity is riddled with wars and uprisings and cultural slides backwards. But there is the idea that there could be a better future someday. Where greed and inequality are almost foreign concepts in society. Where science and reason finally win out against superstition and ignorance.
It may be a fantasy, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hold onto a belief that things will not always just continue to be shitty forever. Never forget the words that can make a happy man’s joy turn to ash, or a sad man’s misery into hope:
This too shall pass.
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 2 days ago
Neither does Star Trek. But neither the franchise nor I are so naive that we think that there’s a “mission accomplished” state in which bad things don’t happen any more.