Im always rather disappointed with this claim as doh, star trek is woke, it always was and nobody has complained about that part.
When people complain about the woke part they complain about that star trek WAS woke and intelligent, yet now just pretends to be woke and hangs it like dangling keys in front of us to hide the fact that it’s become so absolutely shit.
Seriously, every criticism I’ve seen about it (and also every criticism I’ve lobbed at it) always gets “rebuked” with “you just hate woke!”
No I don’t no we don’t. I’m love the progressivism of old trek. I hate nu trek because it’s empty vapid drek that just tries to cram a much “woke” in there not to be woke but just to hide the smell of shit.
Nu trek is awful.
People have been raving about brave new worlds but those same people were raving about the mental anguish that is discovery and cringe Picard. I’m a huge star trek fan, been so for 30 years, but after Picard S3 I simply stopped. I watched trek at least once a week for decades, buy I haven’t watched anything trek ever since Picard ended. That’s how off putting Picard was as a show.l, it managed to ruin TNG for me.
I know this will be down voted and people will just continue to say I am anti woke, that I love trumpmor whatever, even though none of that comes close to reality but nu trek fans have been… Different? Star trek fans were actually progressive and trying to make the world a better place. Ever since nu trek its been “think like us or fuck off”
I’m so done with star trek. Long live the Orville!
You like Orville but not Strange New Worlds or Lower Decks??? Also puzzling you gave up after Picard S3, that was the only decent part of the whole show. Felt like an extra season of TNG.
Haven’t watched strange new worlds. Everyone and their mother hyped discovery, and not only was it toe curling cringy bad, it was toxic. Had nothing to do with star trek.
Then there was Picard. Yay, the crew comes back toge… O wait. 3 godawful seasons where they managed to ruin Picard, then Q, then the entire TNG cast. The last season of Picard was based on a mind bogglingly dumb premise, characters were all different (as per usual in the Picard show). Watching Beverly go from risking her life and disobeying a direct order in order to save a victim to being a cold and efficient killernis just… Uugghh. The shape shifters have been turned into drek, manage to ruin that too, and well, the Borg was already castrated by Voyager, but that show at least still gave a damn. New trek does not.
After that Picard s3 I was done. No more. I used to watch trek at least once per week, haven’t watched anything anymore ever since Picard.
Now everyone is raving about strange new worlds, and I’m not going to do it. I watched the Orville instead and LOVE it, adore it, it’s the new star trek. Too bad it seems to have died an early dead, especially with Covid. Oh well.
Eithe
If it wasn’t clear, the part about toxicity is about the fandom. Star Trek fandom has become quite toxic but quite in the opposite of what you’d think.
If you say that discovery is godawful (it is) then you’re immediately antieoke and *phobic
I’m neither. I just don’t want to watch a show that places virtue signalling above actually being a good show.
I also want a fandom that is honest enough to see that any post enterprise trek is NOT the same writing/acting/progressive quality as pre all that.
I’ve said this multiple times, on Reddit and Lemmy and so far most responses are “you’re a Nazi” or something in that direction
Oh no, I agree with that part. But Star Trek overall is still better than The Orville. Lower Decks is real and it is delightful.
The crossover episode with Strange New Worlds was my favorite episode of any Star Trek since TNG.
Same!
“For all I knew, you were dead, or stuck in a dystopian San Francisco in the middle of a riot!”
“Have you noticed that their references are weirdly specific?”
“Indeed.”
I like to think that 112 years later, Spock found out about Sisko’s trip and thought to himself, “Ah. That explains it.”
No, they alternated.
Sometimes they did proper scifi.
Sometimes they did politics.
I’m in it for the scifi mself.
Sometimes they did proper scifi.
Sometimes they did politics.
Sometimes they did Space Wizards and sometimes they did Politics and sometimes they did both.
But the harder they leaned into actual Science Fiction the more they inevitably tackled the socio-economic ramifications of those technologies and discoveries. Legal Theories like The Prime Directive and social experiments like The Kobayashi Maru training exercise and the very depiction of aliens - the ultra-logical Vulcans who constantly resist their base emotional instincts, the war-loving Klingons, the xenophobic Romulans, the problem of domesticating an invasive species like the Tribbles - all convey political attitudes and ideologies.
This is inescapable. You can’t create good apolitical Sci-Fi. Presenting the idea of a futuristic society without exploring the consequences of your modernizations is cowardly and boring.
Your assertion that any sci-fi at all isn’t political is a particularly bold one.
But it’s a fascinating thought, so I’m going on an unrequested quest:
Here’s my attempt at “let’s name a hard science fiction that isn’t making a political statement”.
Perhaps…
- “Frankenstein” is about grave robbing and biology horror and in no way an analogy for mistreatment of neurodivergent individuals.
- “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” is about a cool submarine and not about an ultra rich man’s extreme rejection of modern societal norms bending the world of those around him.
- “The Martian” was about the cold hard science of a man surviving on Mars, and not all about humanity briefly overcoming our national rivalries to do the human thing and being one person home safely.
- “The Robot” is just about a time traveling robot, and not a sad prediction of mankind’s likelihood to erradicate ourselves leaving only our automation to remember us by.
- “Bicentenial Man” is about robotics advances and has nothing to do with marginalized people fighting to have their human rights acknowledged.
- “The Expanse” is just about how dangerous space is, and not at all about how humanity tends to break off into adversarial groups.
- “Snow piercer” is about a cool train in the cold.
Okay, now I’m not even trying anymore, lol. (Snow piercer is blatantly deeply political, no matter how much I love the cool science train.)
I’m coming up short, arguing myself out of my best ideas, so far.
Hang on, I’ve got two:
- “Around the world in 80 days” is arguably at least slightly more about globe trotting and less about putting up with a rich employer’s bullshit.
- “Journey to the Center of the Earth” is mostly about cool caves and dinosaurs?!
I should reread these two, but I don’t remember many political messages.
(Edit. I bet someone is going to point out the political messages I missed in 80 Days and Journey. Considering how political I remember 20,000 Leagues being, I wonder if I just misremember the other two…)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=QFspemhHmsw A Critique of Star Trek Discovery — Part 1 #RIPStarTrek
This whole essay is worth listening to, but 15:46-30:33 in particular gets at the heart of a big reason why classic Trek rocks and why nuTrek is shit.
Lower Decks remains very good. CBS has tried to pivot Star Trek from Sci-Fi to Space Adventure, and that’s been ugly. But not every series they’ve spun out took that tone.
Also Orville - particularly the latest season - has been incredible. Everything Star Trek is supposed to be.
Also Orville - particularly the latest season - has been incredible. Everything Star Trek is supposed to be.
That show surprised the hell out of me, especially because the first season has more of Seth’s typical touch, but then he drops some of the silliness and dives right into being a Trek replacement. It feels like every episode or two has some powerful commentary and things don’t always go the way you think they should because situations are more complex than simply right-or-wrong… Like old Trek.
OP what do you think of Discovery?
I ask this because 9/10 times someone talks about how Star Trek was “always woke”, they are usually just salty people don’t like Discovery and trying to pretend that most people who criticized it were bigots.
The other 1/10 times it’s someone who doesn’t even watch Star Trek trying to hijack the sub to push a bunch of performative culture war nonsense. However that usually involves a Tumblr post implying the Klingons were socially progressive because of how Kor treated Jadzia Dax.
how Kor treated Jadzia Dax.
For anyone who wasn’t there, this moment was revolutionary, at the time.
“What should I even say if my friend comes out to me as Transgender?!” wasn’t something everyone knew an answer to.
Having any character (Klingon or otherwise) handle learning that their friend’s gender has changed, and react in a healthy way, on screen, on prime time television, was an important positive moment for a lot of clueless future-ally scifi fans.
You cant take the actions of one Klingon and assume that describes the behavior of the species. That’s racist.
In the defense of people who constantly post the meme, they’ve never given enough thought to Star Trek to consider that some random Tumblr screen grab isn’t accurate.
I’m always stunned how many people on this subreddit come off as vocally progressive, but don’t bother actually watching the show. I guess that would take a modicum of effort.
they’ve never given enough thought to Star Trek to consider that some random Tumblr screen grab isn’t accurate.
I don’t know if it’s perfectly captioned, but I clearly remember that moment in DS9 when Dax’s old war buddy reacts to her gender and name change with a repeated big hug and corrected name…so… I’m not sure what we’re getting at here?
Guaranteed if original Star Trek came out today, it would be decried as “woke” and “DEI” and there would be outrage over it from the usual culture warriors.
Counterpoint: As long as they consider the women “hot” they will accept them as part of the franchise.
Nichelle Nichols I think was probably hot enough to not draw their ire.
Those culture warriors are somehow always okay with women they view as “fuckable.” Women only have value in their eyes if they want to sleep with them by their looks alone.
Just out of curiosity, what do you think is more progressive: a spaceship where all female crew is forced to wear miniskirts, a bridge crew that has exactly one woman, the part in the pilot where “Orion sex slaves” are introduced in the horniest possible way, or the married producer who was cheating on his wife with the only two relevant female cast members?
The 1960s was a long time ago. While there are a lot of TOS that aged very well, the idea that the show would be decried as woke is straight up delusional.
Cow pies. “Original Star Trek” clearly referred to TOS.
If OC meant a modern rendition of classic trek, they wouldn’t be speaking in hypotheticals. They’d just refer to SNW by name.
Okay, I’ve finally looked up what DEI means… Diversity, equity, and inclusion are things people are berated for??
Yeah, I’ve heard it called “Didn’t Earn It” and the idea is that people are given preferential treatment in job or services based on their ethnicity and not their qualification. As with all things the truth is somewhere in the middle.
DEI is the current iteration of affirmative action, that’s all.
The problem with DEI is that it’s an imperfect solution that only came about because racists and other bigots couldn’t behave themselves. Forcing the hiring of specific demographics isn’t going to result in the best possible outcomes in every case but those groups also need opportunities even though they’ve been systemically given worse educations and have been generally shat upon. Removing race we’d also probably hire the white man more often but not because they’re inately better, but rather because they are simply more likely to be able to afford to have pretty looking resumés compared to disadvantaged minorities.
We wouldn’t need DEI in the first fucking place except people like an old boss, who saw an immigrant classmate of mine’s resumé come up and because of his African last name said “no thanks I want to keep jobs in Canada”, need to be forced to do the right thing. They create the problem and throw temper tantrums when we try to fix it. These people are obstacles and it’s getting tiring.
TL;DR: They feel as if they have a point because DEI can result in a more qualified person being turned away, which I get feels unfair. However, they refuse to acknowledge the fact that said person was only more qualified because we make it so difficult for minorities to fucking do anything. I’m getting so sick of right-wing bullshit.
Also, DEI is trying to diversify the points of view in the workplace. Homogeny of thought is NOT better when it comes to problem solving. Varied voices can create amazing solutions to problems one didn’t know really existed. If allowed, it builds creativity.
It’s not what DEI means. It’s about what it stands for.
Conservatives don’t want to be told to treat people with decency. They want to treat however the fuck they want, and then tell you that you aren’t treating them decently.
It’s about wielding power.
YES, it’s insane. It’s like saying “be a decent person” and people going “Fuck you, commie bastards, I do what I want.”
From 2020 on we’ve seen that telling people “hey wear the most basic of facemasks when you’re out in public because the morgues are running out of space all over” causes them to start screaming at the Walmart greeters and throwing tantrums like children. We are still stupid apes in a lot of ways
The outrage the far-right spun over DEI is by trying to portray it as hiring vastly underqualified applicants simply because of their belonging to an underrepresented group (often even being portrayed as vastly underqualified because of their race as white supremacist rhetoric). Of course in reality this wasn’t true and it was just a foghorn for racism/an ethnic slur, but that’s how it started.
