Are We All Too Cynical for Star Trek?
The franchise’s evolution since the 1960s reflects disconcerting trends in American society.
Came across this article, and it's a very interesting take on how Star Trek has changed with the times, and how modern audiences seem to have a harder time trusting institutions or imagining Trek's utopia.
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A good article that I unfortunately can’t read much of due to a pay wall.
I think my main question would be: so I wasn’t around in the 1960s… but I can’t imagine the average Star Trek viewer was sitting around thinking “yep, that’s what real life is going to be like” in the future, even with a somewhat more optimistic culture.
I think Star Trek is more aspirational. It aspires to have this society where most everyone is very professional, very intelligent, very emotionally controlled and empathetic, etc. The newer seasons seem to miss some of this especially on that professionalism front. The kind of “British stiff upper lip” stereotype. It’s harder to imagine this utopia future without a significant change in how everyone acts and talks in their day to day lives, and modern Star Trek doesn’t really capture that latter part (imo). It makes it feel like society just kind of “stumbled into” a utopian society
Modern Trek has no actual vision; it has nostalgia. Which is a terrible substitute it frankly is the opposite in many ways.
Modern Trek (by which I mean SNW) is very very close to being good to me. Something about the dialogue just throws me off though, along with the hour long episodes not really suiting the subgenre imo.
I think people are genuinely trying to make SNW good, just kind of a lightning in a bottle scenario
Yes, I wholly agree. I still think that the show is still firmly rooted in nostalgia not in making a new attempt to outline a future.
Look, it's Kirk's brother's roommate's boyfriend from that one background scene in that one episode! . Modern star wars has the same problem of making an entire universe seem so small. Makes me appreciate the bold choice that was Voyager: tossing them far away from anything familiar and any cameos (not that we didn't get them but they had to be more creative within the premise, aka tuvok on sulu's Excelsior )
Yeah, both are clear examples of the money people overfitting to a data set. They did a poll about what people like about star trek wars and made movies include that, the issue they assumed it meant put the exact same thing in the new movies.
The newer seasons seem to miss some of this especially on that professionalism front. The kind of “British stiff upper lip” stereotype.
This presumes that that sort of stoicism is particularly aspirational or healthy, and I don't think there's anything close to universal consensus on that one.
I think something that gets missed in discussions of "utopia" is that it's not real. Utopia is not attainable, because there is no universal definition of what that would look like. It exists as a dream of the future, but that's all.
At least to me, I find it pretty aspirational. But I can see how others would differ on that regard.
Regardless, I appreciate that this is still seen through a few different lenses. The Klingon for example are like... notably emotional. A Klingon being quick to anger is one of their defining traits. Yet they're still very "respectful" in their own way, with that code of honor being very key to their society.
Yeah, there's a singular implied "universal morality" throughout Star Trek of accepting diversity and learning to not impose on other civilizations or each other on the basis of one's biological differences or culture, even for Klingons! I'd say the rest is hard to define and subjective, as @ValueSubtracted@startrek.website said above, but post-scarcity and free agency in life to follow your passions has to be pretty close!
learning to not impose on other civilizations
And even this is the central conflict of many TNG episodes - it's a little more indirect, but the eternal question of "how do we navigate the Prime Directive" is essentially a conflict between the characters and Starfleet (it's their rule, after all).
Ah damn, sorry about the paywall. It let me hit "continue reading" on mobile, but I know sometimes these types of sites can be inconsistent.
It's all good! I appreciate you posting, and I understand that websites like that need to get money from somewhere.