Agreed. People should dislike modern Star Trek for it’s bad writing, not because it’s progressive.
It's sad that people completely misunderstand what Star Trek is about.
Submitted 3 weeks ago by daggermoon@piefed.world to startrek@startrek.website
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Comments
gurty@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Glytch@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Trek writing has never been consistently good. Half of TOS is unwatchably bad. TNG sucks until Riker gets more hair. DS9 sucks until Sisko gets less hair. Voyager’s all over the place (even though it’s my favorite). Enterprise is mostly bad. Only the even numbered TOS movies are good. Only the first two TNG movies are good.
I say this with a genuine love of Star Trek, but the quality of the writing has varied greatly over each individual series.
GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
As a Star Wars nerd, I feel this so intensely. It sucks when you love the setting, but the actual writing is a crapshoot.
ContriteErudite@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Season three TNG is peak Star Trek. That said, and at the risk of being flayed by the Star Trek community at large, I think DS9 was the best series, taken as a whole.
BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Star Trek writing just depends on making sure the main characters have exactly the right hairstyle. They tried real hard to find it in Discovery, maybe with a few more seasons we would have got there.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The best progressive writing Trek did was when they addressed a social issue by having the actors pretend it wasn’t an issue at all.
Uhura was a bridge officer who was a black woman, and nobody cared or even noticed because in-universe there was nothing special about that.
Kirk@startrek.website 2 weeks ago
I like how in Discovery a character came out as non-binary and everyone is like “ok cool” and that was that and it was never brought up again (because why would it be)?
You can tell by the absolute meltdown conservative spaces had about that five second clip that it was absolutely the right thing to do.
encelado748@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
The best progressive writing Trek did was when they addressed a social issue by having the actors pretend it wasn’t an issue at all.
Is Jay-Den being gay not exactly that? Nobody cares in universe. But somewhat it is a big thing for a lot of people for no reason at all.
JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I mostly agree, but with shows like Starfleet Academy, the writing is bad in part because of the forced inclusive themes. You’re broadly correct: these could be handled with tact for a better show. I still think these themes are handled best when they give the audience room to consider nuanced and complex ideas. Don’t shoot me, but instead of a classic New Generation episode I’m going cite an episode of The Orville - “About a Girl”. Bortus and Klyden have a baby, who is born female. They try to argue that she should be allowed to remain female, but ultimately the court rules that she undergo the Moclan gender reassignment procedure.
This touches on contemporary issues but also doesn’t present the situation as “this side is 100% right, and this side is literally Hitler.” The audience is actually left wondering, where does this sit in the contemporary debate? If a child is born one sex, should they be given the right to remain as that sex? Or should a court be allowed to step in and reassign sex? The episode also brilliantly explores the difficult dynamic between Bortus and Klyden, and doesn’t portray one as a cartoon villain and the other as a male Mary Sue.
This is where New Trek fails horrible. Zero nuance. Everything is presented in the first 10 seconds as “this is good, this is bad. Accept the message we are feeding you are you are a bad person.” That’s not Star Trek. Most importantly, that’s not interesting. It’s not good storytelling. It might appeal to people who really like circlejerking about that particular issue, but that’s a minority of people.
Kirk@startrek.website 2 weeks ago
That’s a lot of words to not provide a single example from a show of what makes “forced inclusion” different than “inclusion”
encelado748@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Can you give me a practical example of Starfleet Academy lacking the kind of nuance you would like to see?
GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I appreciate you referencing the Orville’s most pivotal episode. And honestly, the twist involving Klyden’s reasoning for reassigning Topa, as a trans sci-fi nerd, broke my heart.
moopet@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I agree completely with your point about the Orville. It was really well done.
I don’t agree with your assessment of New Trek, however. I know it’s all very variable and I don’t want to generalise, but even if we accept this:
Everything is presented in the first 10 seconds as “this is good, this is bad. Accept the message we are feeding you are you are a bad person.”
Then, I have to point out the obvious: if it’s so lacking in nuance, then yes, if you don’t accept it you are a bad person. For example, if it’s saying, “gay people are ok and normal”, there’s no subtlety to that because it’s not something anyone in the future will hopefully give a shit about. And if someone in their society did, then yes, they would be in the wrong. 100%.
encelado748@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Discovery writing is all over the place I agree, but Starfleet Academy writing does not look that bad to me. What is so much worse then previous trek? If we do not cherry pick the best of the past against the worst of the new, writing is better or on the same level of what we saw before.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
This summarizes everything wrong with Trek:
Why is she running a ship like she’s in a vegan cafe in Portland? Why does she need glasses hundreds of years in the future?
What happens to all the straight people in the future? a killer virus?
Soleos@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
What’s the primary romantic relationship in that show again?
ConstantPain@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah, nothing is organic. Feels like it’s not normal to the characters too, because they have to keep explaining it to themselves.
The message is not the issue, the inability of the writers to insert it in the story is.
CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I find the actual problems they face to be more organic than other series, there’s always at least a semi-good reason why the threat of the week is occuring rather than something stupid like flying through enemy territory with no shields or someone rando just beaming out your ships main computer being a huge weakness that no one ever thought might be a problem.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
i was pointing it out alot on nutrek videos, some people dont believe its bad writing lol. have you seen them act lately, or the writing. its wierd how kurtzman sees the live action as transformer style/copaganda of nutrek but with the animated is more in line with old trek.
resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
“When did Star Trek get so woke?” — My idiot former boss.
daggermoon@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
Back in 1965.
Hupf@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Only 37 years to go.
Nierninwa@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I believe it was also an old Shatner tweet (well, if memory serves, he technically asked when it got political) Surprised to see this shift from him. It’s a welcome one but I’m still not sure if I should trust this.
LillyPip@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
The new trek was cancelled because some people hated it and had outside influence.
So thanks, those of us who liked it don’t get any more of what we lifted because a few dicks had outsized influence.
I don’t get to enjoy something because you didn’t like it. Thanks.
You could have just not watched it, but instead you had to ruin it for me too.
Fuck you. We all need to stop watching these fuckwits who think they know more than us. Unsubscribe from these channels. Stop watching them. They’re ruining our ability to watch things.
homes@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
The show felt unfocused and confused. The characters, like the storylines, were kinda all over the place and didn’t really seem to know where they were going. It had a lot of potential, but it never really seem to come together.
grue@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It was the first season (and only 10 episodes in, at that, because TV production is stupid these days).
Imagine if you could only judge, say, TNG on the first 10 episodes.
LillyPip@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
All new Trek series feel unfocused and confused in their first season. Watch the first season of TNG or DS9 and tell me it was tight. Every Trek is kind of a mess at first.
RamenJunkie@midwest.social 2 weeks ago
They DESPERATELY needed more episodes. Like they had this whole War College thing (don’t get me started on the stupid name), and then suddenly it was just kind of gone.
Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
The new show was cancelled because not enough people watched it.
“Outsized influence” my ass.
Money talks. You think if the show hit the top ten in the streaming Nielsen stats that they’d cancel it because some people “didn’t like it”? Get real.
People are allowed to like something. People are allowed to dislike something. If enough people like it, the show gets enough viewers to continue. If not. It doesn’t.
People who don’t like it aren’t obligated to watch it just to prevent it from being cancelled for your sake.
Herr_S_aus_H@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
This is the one thing I will never understand. If you don’t like something just ignore it. If you think you are in the position that your opinion matters in any way you can declare why you don’t like something once and then move on. All those grifters and their brainless drones consume stuff they don’t like willingly and regularly. People who are of sound mind don’t do something like this.
Skv@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Only happens when said grifters are trying to be online entertainers and can’t manage to scrape enough proper shit to present and discuss since bashing something new repeatedly gets noticed much better.
daggermoon@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
Sorry, what happened?
kieron115@startrek.website 2 weeks ago
i’m pretty sure it’s because they tried to make degrassi in space.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
academy? kurtzman ruined every trek he showrunned, if they dint figure it out with STD, SNW, AND picard they arnt going to with academy. they are running out of Ideas for a trek show.
orlyowl@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
The gender episode was so ahead of its time. It introduced some ideas that I didn’t even know there were concepts for.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
the gender ran across 4 series. DS9 had jadzia(other host) preferred women and shes a women still with those feelings, and another where a female dominant race from the gamma quadrant fled DS9 through the wormhomle, and a similar one on enterprise show(where the explosion disaster caused by the suliban), Genderless insectoid Xindi.
Nutrek through kurtzman isnt very good and not very subtle with exposing mysogyny/genderphobia .
BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Hey see - that wonderful thing in the past is similar in way to the dogshit we produce now. Therfore the problem is you!
DaGreenGobbo@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
“You said ‘class warfare’ twice.” “He likes class warfare.”
Mohamed@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
A few years back, I was speaking to a roommate. I complained that the (then) new Star Trek had forced diversity. He immediately shut me down, “Star Trek has ALWAYS been like that”. He was a huge fan of Star Trek
NutWrench@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Star Trek (TOS) never needed to BE about diversity, because it was set in a utopian future where racism, and sexism weren’t problems anymore. You had an entire multi-racial cast on the bridge of a starship so just from THAT you knew that racism wasn’t a problem in the future. There was no more war, poverty, disease or crime. Conflict only came from humanity’s meetings with alien races.
TOS Star Trek never needed to beat you over the head every 5 minutes with how gay someone was because that wasn’t a problem in the 23rd century. Nobody gave a shit.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Now don’t get me wrong, I think the best way for Trek to handle queer issues is to just put queer people on the bridge. A gay Riker equivalent or a trans woman who talks about her past with the same discomfort but honesty as how Picard talks about his is what I want. And in that vein I’m still on my first watch of TNG and it’ll be a while before I get to nutrek.
But I’m not going to pretend that to a certain portion of the population TOS wasn’t seen as being overly preachy on race. But seeing as I haven’t gotten to TOS yet either, I will say that in modern day I do think TNG was a bit preachy about disability and I’m glad they were.
Kirk@startrek.website 2 weeks ago
Are you one of those people who believes Discovery had a coming out as nonbinary plot
BogeyTheSwear@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Why would you even complain about that in the first place?
People tend to think that “forced diversity” is something being pushed from the top, but the people who own Hollywood are literally paying money to the right wing who limits diversity.
My personal belief is that there are simply a lot of homosexuals and trans people in the art world. Whether it be make up artists, actors or screenwriters, i think aaaaall of this is a lot more normal amongst creatives than it is among the regular population.
So obviously, its gonna show up more in movies and shows, than in real life. Because the people making the art knows these actual people.
People tend to forget when watching a movie, that just like when looking at a painting, they are in fact watching someone else art, and they are welcome to just not look at it, or find artists that more aligned with their bigoted views.
hypockets@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
As a person of color I can tell you that white liberals limit diversity more than white conservatives.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
yup its literally hollywood execs, doing rainbow/ diversity" capitalism , cons think its an agenda by hollywood which are traditionally right wing pushing it as we must include gays, womens, pocs as the forefront of movies and show to show society “they arnt racist”, they only care because most viewers are left leaning , right wingers dont watch anything but copaganda type shows. you can tell hollywood is still pretty racist since they barely represent asians other than stereotypes. shang chi wasnt groundbreaking for asians , maybe for SImu liu, its stereotyping because he barely had any roles after that.
hypockets@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
Except people weren’t complaining about forced diversity, which is also known as “representation”.
UltraMagnus@startrek.website 2 weeks ago
Exactly. Star Trek takes place in utopia - and the creators’ version of utopia is one with equality, freedom, and respect for all. If someone’s version of utopia doesn’t align with this, I think that says a lot more about them than it does about how “woke” Star Trek is
CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Their utopia also highly resembles communism as a classless, stateless society
LillyPip@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Yeah, and it shows how hard it is to build a utopia even when intentionally trying to remove class and when oligarchies are motivated to prevent that, and in a post-scarcity reality, which we don’t yet have.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
i think what got thier panties in a wad was STD, because it had a certain demographic playing lead roles over men. then it became DOCTOR WHO, whittaker and then ncuti(but him mostly)
mactan@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
shat is part of the problem, outspoken anti-trans
MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
He is.
Doesn’t mean we can’t take him out of context and use his words to advocate for more than just the things he thinks they advocate.
He has it right here. That he doesn’t fully know that is his problem.
kieron115@startrek.website 2 weeks ago
I’m not defending him, but let’s be honest with ourselves here. He was born nearly a decade before World War II. It’s amazing that he’s this progressive. Credit where credit is due.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
He’s such a straight white cis man! (Apparently that’s a slur to him.)
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
How dare you use the Star Wars term!
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
In the early iterations of the 1960s smash hit Star Trek, audiences were shocked and titillated to see a white male officer in a romantic relationship with a black woman officer.
This continues to be shocking today, as modern audiences are not ready to see any (fully clothed) woman in any form of Sci-Fi media doing anything at all.
etherphon@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
I didn’t personally care for it but I realized it wasn’t exactly for me so whatevs, just because there is a show in same universe as the other imaginary space shows I watch that I don’t like I realize I can just watch something else because I’m an adult (surely lol). It’s a damn shame scifi is full of such small minded persons, I certainly know scifi fandom has had a lot of problems in the past but things seemed to be improving, though I suspect this is more of a loud minority situation, unfortunately the loud minority are billionaires.
the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The worst part (in my opinion) is that if I criticize star trek academy a lot of folks assume I’m some hate filled right wing chud because of all the extremely bad faith criticisms by hate filled right wing chuds.
When in reality I just think it’s poorly written and very self congratulatory, just like Discovery and Picard were.
jj4211@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The thing was in TOS that kiss, in-universe, was no biggie. In DS9 with all the gender and sexuality shifts in the Trill scenario, it again just ‘was’. When it was a big deal, it was some alien culture being backwards and the Federation being an example of doing it right.
STD was oddly self-congratulatory. “First ever non-binary character in trek!” they proclaim as people were able to respond with just so many examples of previous non-binary characters. The character despite being a human, being on Earth, had to make a big deal of “coming out” and a big outpouring of support in-universe to balance out the trepidation of coming out. Which should have just been a very mundane scenario, you want the character to be non-binary, fine, they are, people will be respectful but it will be a boring mundane fact rather than some big deal.
Yes, there are those that are flipping out over too much representation that are done consistently with star trek. Probably the most fair point was that someone probably wouldn’t be out of shape, but by that logic, Picard shouldn’t have been bald, so…
MoogleMaestro@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Good shit to him. He’s 100% right here.
minorkeys@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The science fiction and adventure part of the show is absolute garbage. If it has been good, people would be able to have their cookie while being lectured to about what they should believe.
AlreadyDefederated@midwest.social 2 weeks ago
From what I’ve heard, Shatner is normally pretty right-wing about issues. Maybe fiscally, but not socially. Maybe I’m misremembering, or conflating his character on Boston Legal.
I guess it shows people can be complex.
Gullible@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Isn’t shatner maga scum?
WandowsVista@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
is it true that the kiss was originally supposed to be between Spock and Uhura, but Shatner refused to be upstaged so he had them rewrite it to be with him?
either way, good point, somewhat problematic author.
broken clocks, eh?
MrEff@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
My biggest complaint about academy is the same as everyone, poor writing. But since everyone also wants to bring up the ‘woke’ panic as well being why it’s so bad, I disagree. It isn’t the package that is bad, it’s the packaging.
Don’t give ‘the Gay™ character’. Give me a good character who is gay.
Why are you forcing me to care about a character because they are gay? What a wasted opportunity. You had a not so subtle anti-archetype klingon who had the heavy handed writing of being into science, medicine, and openly gay and intentionally written to be anything a klingon is not. What shitty writing. They had all the opportunities to make me love the character for who they were, their personality, their true choices and internal struggles, and make me care about them as a whole person that happened to be gay because that is who they are. Make me love their choices about being gay, not tell me I should love them because they are gay.
More than that, the previous iterations of trek they knew how to do it right. Most people bring up DS9 because it was done so well. We loved the characters for who they were, and who they were happened to be gay. Academy told us to love them because they were gay, and just happened to also be a character.
saltesc@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I wouldn’t say woke is against norms, rather against traditionalism. Traditionalism itself is often abnormal, even within its own culture.
DataCrime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Startrek XXX… I had a different joke in mind but now I just want Startrek 10 the movie staring Vin Diesel 😎
Etterra@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
You gave us a glimmer of hope Captain o7
RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Uh…yeah…no shit?
StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
It’s a silver lining to see Shatner using his platform for the greater good.
DickFiasco@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Yeah, I always thought he was kind of a douche, but I guess his heart is in the right place.
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
I think Shatner is complicated because (a) he’s 95 years old, and can’t be expected to be fully “in touch,” and (b) has definitely had some questionable people handling his social media over the years.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah, it’s shatner so you expect him to be crass, and you forget he was the first star trek captain. and agreed with the ideas being shown on screen (unlike, IDK, Barclay’s actor)
fixmycode@feddit.cl 3 weeks ago
just, don’t ask him how many horses he has
TachyonTele@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Yeah. I wish people like him, sulu, and stephen king would abandon it already though.
grue@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Looking at the downvotes, I don’t think anybody realized you meant “abandon Xitter,” not “abandon using their platform for the greater good.”
Cossty@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I recently learned that Shatner and Takei don’t actually use social media and all the posts you see from them are just some employees that were instructed to speak in their style.
StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 2 weeks ago
It’s possible on a regular basis.
However, as with other high profile accounts, one expects that messages that are high profile would be cleared with the person under whose name the official account is made.
daggermoon@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
I do recall an interview with Brent Spiner where he said something to that effect. I figured he (William Shatner) wrote some of them. I forgot about that.
cygnathreadbare@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
I really dislike Takei’s one (Jay Kuo) because of how shamelessly he uses it to promote his own substack sometimes… and because of a specific substack post of his where he said “oh no it’s so bad Arizona got abortion banned… but there’s a silver lining, maybe they’ll learn to vote blue the next time” or some shit like that.
+3M people losing their body autonomy and the first thing you think is “hey this can be a good thing for our campaign”?? fucking ghoul…