Look I'm not a trekkie. I watched my first Star Trek series five years ago as an adult. I know of a single other person IRL who watches Star Trek and they use it as sleep therapy. I don't care about the minutiae of canon. But this is straight up evil: the foundational fact of Picard s2 seems to be that humankind has two paths ahead of it. On one hand it can go to space and find a magical microbe that literally solve all of it's problems. If not then it becomes a genocidal space empire.
Trek canon on how exactly humanity built an utopia is somewhat vague, I guess? Priorities really do seem to change with each generation of writers. Vulcan solidarity reflect the quasi religious beliefs in alien saviors that rose up strong in the last century. WW3 and the eugenics wars are deep seated in the post WW2 psyche. Enterprise reminds us humans (and vulcans!) didn't have replicators when they eliminated poverty. DS9 was certain to make it about a political struggle. Sure, it was naive about it. The Bell episodes seem to think the internet would eventually unleash a torrent of regenerative empathy across humanity and boy did that idea crash and burn. But the end of the literal concentration camps was still triggered by actual resistance.
Oh, sure you might say: what about the mirror episodes? Those hit different. The parallel universe is about a campy cartoonish sort of evil and silly personality switcheroos. It's not supposed to be a critique of our actual human society. Picard is. People say that the writers of newer Star Trek don't 'get it'. Like, they don't realize Star Trek is supposed to be optimistic. They do. They've decided that is too naive about it, that they must make room for current issues like the climate collapse, but the way they've done so reflects their own worldview. A sort of ideology where, should effective altruism fail, then the only way forward is hyper fascism. The optimism of 'New Trek' is thus: there is nothing we can do on Earth but we can find salvation in space, either in the form of literal magic or new others to kill.
What the hell happened in the last decades that an egalitarian utopia is more 'pie in the sky' today than it was at the height of the cold war?
Why new Trek has a less optimistic tone is because it has finally become a product. Of course Star Trek was always meant to sell toys, but at the end of the day there was always some weirdo involved who gave a shit about "Gene's vision." or whatever.
That doesn't apply anymore. This line of Trek was initially kicked off by Les Moonves, a man who absolutely hated Star Trek and gave us the quote about Trump being bad for Americans but great for CBS.
I think Red Letter Media coined the current strategy as something like "Star Trek by algorithm," and that feels fair. All of the new shows fall into this, but Picard is a perfect example. The incest Romulans existed to appeal to folks coming off game of thrones. The non-binary and queer representation is often just there as window dressing, hoping to bait a audience of Tumblr gif makers that they missed.
Also Patrick Stewart absolutely hates Star Trek. He's a very nice man, who has done a lot cool things, but he does not watch this shit. He spent nearly a decade playing Picard as a man who reasons himself out of trouble only to demand he get guns and race cars in the movies, because he didn't like playing the character.
I think Red Letter Media coined the current strategy as something like “Star Trek by algorithm,” and that feels fair.
LMAO it is more obvious than that, when they try to put references it is almost like watching the result of some intern googling "TNG top 10 facts" or something.
Fucking 10 forward...What the fuck is 10 forward? Deck 10, Forward section . Nah of course not it is the name of the fucking street obviously, I mean we must get that nostalgia, how about fucking origin story nobody could possibly care about(and also factually wrong).
I can easily imagine how it went:
Dipshit intern: "Ok they asked me to research the name of this bar, ok GOOGLE give me "TNG bar"
Google: "Ten Forward was the name of the crew lounge aboard the Galaxy-class USS Enterprise-D..."
Dipshit intern: "Fuck this shit too long, ok I get the gist of it, it is the name of the bar. Easy, next they asked me to research something about some android and his father... Ok Google give me "TNG Android father""
I didn't do a great job of it, but their argument is more about the product of Star Trek as a whole. They want to deluge us with product (there's more Trek being developed now than ever before) until something sticks and buys you into the franchise.
Strange New Worlds is this for me; a TOS reboot with a lot of smart changes that reignite my nostalgia for watching the old movies on VHS. If I were less weary (and not a pirate), this could be an effective gateway into the larger project.
They don't give a shit what I or anyone thinks of Michael Burnham or Guinean; they want to go back to when people bought Star Trek branded ornaments at the Hallmark store and they believe they can force it to happen.
until something sticks and buys you into the franchise.
oh fuck the comedy cartoon worked with me what do i do
Enjoy it for what it is, don't be suckered into watching the bad shit. It's also a terribly flawed business model that'll burn out when people get bored.
Lower Decks is and Strange New Worlds have both been absolutely fantastic. Disco might be good by now but it lost me already and Picard was a trash heap from the start.
What the hell happened in the last decades that an egalitarian utopia is more ‘pie in the sky’ today than it was at the height of the cold war?
the USSR collapsed
(I know most of modern trek occurs after, but the writers of TNG/DS9 are certainly more informed by the world before)
I think it's the war on terror, actually.
The impact of the USSR as an alternative to the imperial core is undeniable. It definitely affected the policies of wealth distribution in Europe, Japan and elsewhere. But, you know, there was always the care to make it seem like the US was a champion of righteousness then. But I mean something more than propaganda. I mean the kind of bright eyed optimism about the american project that only a cynic can hold onto today.
Star Trek TOS has this episode where Kirk frees an alien race and nonsensically reads the declaration of independence. All men were created equal ladilaa etc. It's a funny scene because the aliens didn't even have a culture outside of their enslavement. They were genetically and environmentally engineered from the start to serve as slaves to a computer. As a non american I can sorta imagine someone in 196X seeing the american project as by default something that contributes good things to the future. It's part and parcel of the trek optimism, together with all the other cultural trends of those times from sexual liberation to social democracy or socialism.
9/11 and the wars waged thereafter is what breaks that camel's back, IMO. It takes a true weirdo to grow up in this world and think that the US isn't a cynical geopolitical actor.
Kinda, but late DS9 and Voyager also leaned into grand stories of war and started "deconstructing" the utopia of Star Trek TNG.
But indeed, it was not how Star Trek was back then for the most part. Even Enterprise, with its underrated (but horny) seasons 1 and 2 and the Space 9/11 + Space Cold War arcs (S3, S4) didn't reach for "this better world we came up with in 1966 and expanded in 1987? Nah, it actually sucks and it is going to suck because humans evil/enemies at the gates."
Picard is a terrible fucking show that I couldn't make it through the first season of. It turned Picard into a gullible coward who abandons billions to a horrible death because he just gives up and is easily outwitted by everyone around him. Not to mention the way they just kinda forget the episode about how making a slave race of androids would be bad because it's unethical.
On top of that, the writing is just plain terrible. What kind of Romulans teleport into a room so they can kill a dude with a knife (very messy, lots of evidence) and throw a bag over someone's head instead of directly transporting their target into a sealed, doorless, windowless room on their ship?
Awful fucking series. Avoid it. Ignore it.
What the hell happened in the last decades that an egalitarian utopia is more ‘pie in the sky’ today than it was at the height of the cold war?
Capitalism won.
Capitalism won then continued to decline while remaining the only option we'll entertain. It's not hard to imagine why a Star Trek written now is more bleak than one written primarily in the late 80s and 90s.
Picard S1 was a direct result of the bending backwards necessary to bring Patrick Stewart back. Then add the fact PS himself was obsessed with Brexit and by extension the writers had to make it about Trump/US politics.
I dropped it half way through S1 so I can't comment on S2 finer plot points, but the RLM reviews are unforgiving and hilarious at the same time, nothing beats wearing an actual clown costume on the last episode.
I think they touch on all the foundational problems pretty well. I often add that PS involvement with Trek was a mistake even during the TNG movie era, I'd recommend googling for Michael Pillar's insurrection book. PS was already adamant that the TV show was "dead" and movie TNG was meant to be something else entirely.
So while I absolutely hate Kurtzman and his crew for being the epitome of fail upwards bastards who are so creatively bankrupt they can't help but to be nothing but grifters, they are not in fact the first ones to tarnish Trek.
If anything Kurtzman had a mandate to "sell" trek to the modern liberal millennial streaming audience. I've seen people IRL laughing at Quark, a lot of people out there are not willing to go back to practical makeup alien of the week kind of old Trek. Rebooting DS9 exactly as it ended 20 years ago would not in fact be anything but an extremely niche success. I get it. It is why Discovery absolutely had to be redesigned etc.
But there is no longer a respect for Trek as an IP with any meaning, it is just another franchise for these writers to earn their screen credit and move on. Surely it is also symptom of the larger problems in modern Hollywood.
Good post with lots of my points put more succinctly.
If anything Kurtzman had a mandate to “sell” trek to the modern liberal millennial streaming audience.
When New Star Trek does something right it's a by-product of this goal, not because there's an overarching vision. Rodenberry was a flawed man with many incoherent views, but his goal was always to stay true to "Us but better" and he actively sabotaged efforts that got in the way. Even after he got shit-canned from TNG this vision was still taken seriously as fundamental to why the show worked, and the writing staff would actively sabotage efforts to drift from this. No one (at the higher levels) gives a shit about any of this. CBS/Paramount/Whoever wanted a Marvel franchise.
And yeah, Star Trek fans have a real problem with thinking Patrick Stewart is Jean Luc Picard. He's a nice guy and a fantastic actor, but he's also a rather unimaginative dullard with bad taste that does not understand the franchise.
You got to remember the Trump Factor. He was president when it was coming out so the writers thought it was really important that the show reiterate yet again that, yes orange man is in fact bad. All the fascist space empire shit is just them being like "THIS is what it will BE LIKE if you don't VOTE against DONALD TRUMP."
What the hell happened in the last decades that an egalitarian utopia is more ‘pie in the sky’ today than it was at the height of the cold war?
The illegal dissolution of the USSR
That's what I was gonna say too, lol, it was literally the fact that the USSR existed and showed that we can in fact come together in solidarity to over come the capitalist-imperialist machine.
S2 of Picard is some of the worst trek writing to ever have been created. It is uniquely bad in ways that other new trek are not. The TNG cast have had so many 'farewells' and they just get worse each time. Maybe it'll get better in S3, but I really doubt it.
I'm just expecting Gates McFadden with a cyborg arm to shoot mooks with a phaser minigun because that's the writers' conception of a Strong Female Character
Ugh. Shitheads believing that everyone else is secretly a shithead too is just fucking fuck afufkfadiahgghkl;qregkl;hjqewdfhjkl;defqwgjkl;heqwdfgjkl;
Look I’m not a trekkie. I watched my first Star Trek series five years ago as an adult. I know of a single other person IRL who watches Star Trek and they use it as sleep therapy. I don’t care about the minutiae of canon. But this is straight up evil: the foundational fact of Picard s2 seems to be that humankind has two paths ahead of it. On one hand it can go to space and find a magical microbe that literally solve all of it’s problems. If not then it becomes a genocidal space empire.
feel like if he really wanted to write grimdark fiction he could have just written a warhammer 40k show.
The optimism of ‘New Trek’ is thus: there is nothing we can do on Earth but we can find salvation in space, either in the form of literal magic or new others to kill.
This is so how I see US culture on foreign policy since Viet Nam. Basically, we have no say in how our nation runs in any capacity and everything is getting worse, horrible even, so we hope that some other country can succeed where we failed. Of course, the agents of that change in other nations are the self same ones that engineered our enslavement so....I just don't get all the Ukraine/Afghanistan/Libya/Hong Kong thing, we're the baddies guys. Phooey.
So this new trek drivel is just codifying that trend.
What the hell happened in the last decades that an egalitarian utopia is more ‘pie in the sky’ today than it was at the height of the cold war?
I think its worth recalling that Communism was, at its heart, a Utopian project. And Americans were no less immune to the allure of Utopianism than their Russian or Chinese peers. The American media simply harnessed the belief in a Utopian future and projected it 300 years forward in time on their own terms.
Star Trek was an Obama kind of Utopianism - the end result of a Long Arc of History - that denied anyone living in the current moment the possibility of living to see a coalition of liberal scientists traversing the cosmos. You weren't allowed to believe in better things tomorrow. You just had to have faith that the Liberal Project would bare fruit centuries from now.
But the poverty/crime wave of the 80s and the market crash of the 00s and the rising tide of fascism in the last decade demolished the idea of a Liberal Great Society. The collapse of the USSR destroyed the counter-narrative of a foreign Utopia we had to compete against. In its place, we've been plagued by Communism's Ghost - the Dystopian fantasy that warns against ever trying to build a better world. Modern Russia, complete with its ugly wars and cartoonish dictator, is the fruit of the failed Communist experiment. Modern China, with its soulless brainwashed hordes working menial factor jobs and beholden to their Social Credit Scores, is the promise of authoritarian communism that modern leftists gullibly endorse.
Now Star Trek writers are raised to believe in the inherent impossibility of the Utopian experiments of the past. So they're forced to rewrite the heroes of the 60s and 80s as Randian Ubermensch who defied an incompetent global dictatorship, rather than valiant loyalists embodying the goals of a perfected social order.
Incidentally, The Orville defied the odds and perpetuated the optimistic underpinnings of Star Trek. Particularly in Season 3, they showcase the Evil Aliens as perpetrators of modern American fascist and paleo-conservative ideologues, while the Human-centric alliance prosper precisely by rejecting reactionary thinking and embracing a socialist understanding of the world. S3E10, in particular, articulates a Utopian vision that is the consequence of historical materialist social action. It rejects technocracy as a path to prosperity, even so far as to call it a poisoned pill that enables the worst impulses of bad actors.
Modern China, with its soulless brainwashed hordes working menial factor jobs and beholden to their Social Credit Scores, is the promise of authoritarian communism that modern leftists gullibly endorse.
:countdown:
I'm not sure that Zif is necessarily presenting his own opinions on the matter here.
I guess I might be misreading it, it's worded ambiguously IMO. This could easily just be a Trot/LeftCom take.
Was intended as hyperbole built on Western anti-comm tropes.
But PPB is still absolutely the appropriate response.
go to space and find a magical microbe that literally solve all of it’s problems
This element of season 2 really pissed me off, implying that climate change can be solved not by pulling together and fundementally changing our social and economic systems (and maybe a bit of Vulcan terraforming technology once we've made first contact) but by finding a magic space microbe on Europa is the most bazingabrained shit I've ever heard.
It's why I made the post. People rightly shit on Picard in general. RLM does a good job at it. But this is an angle that I don't see anywhere else.
Yeah, the RLM coverage was mostly funny and good but did occasionally dip into "Nutrek exists because people nowadays are too stupid for good Star Trek" which is an L in my opinion
you know i actually come at it from a different angle. sure, you can an argument in the sense of 'old trek wasn't made for the capeshit zeitgeist' or maybe even 'well, trek was always niche and if you actively hate it while trying to promote it to new audiences you end up with capeshit'. however 'people are too stupid for trek' is a bit masturbatory. im a dumbass. my brain hasn't been elevated because i know what the deflector disk is for.
i just like bajorans and romulans man.
Also thar somehow we're sending manned missions to a fucking moon of Jupiter in a year
