Woke National Review upset that Star Trek made Stacey Abrams "President of Earth"

it's a shame Abrams missed out on her chance to be in this one

 

What? People here pay for paramount plus and NOT Clutchfans?
@J.R. @Os Trigonum
What trash

 

Gene Roddenberry was "Woke" before there was such a thing. He very deliberately used current social issues as plot points in episodes such as with the first interracial kiss on TV. He had to present it as aliens were posessing Kirk and Uhura otherwise he didn't think he could get it past NBC censors at the time.

 

He was ahead of his time for social issues but he would have ordered Checkoff to blow up these garbage new Star Trek shows with some proton torpedoes
Khan would wake up in 2022 and realize he is the superior intellect like for real
It’s not fantasy island
It’s worse than gilligans island
@Os Trigonum

 

There is a long tradition of pushing for social change through Sci-Fi and all of the great sci-fi writers and series have presented social change that were tied to their times. As always though it comes down to writing and delivery.

DS9 dealt with issues of the late 90's including religious fundamentalism and even religious inspired terrorism with the Bajorans. They also dealt with issues like illegal immigration, cultural appropriation and genocide. It worked because they had good writers including Ronald D. Moore and also because they fit it into an overall story arc.

On the other hand just cramming in a message into a story leads to things like the casino planet on The Last Jedi. Putting in a ham handed message about child labor exploitation and crass consumerism added nothing to the story and came off as just clubbing the viewer's head with a social message.

In many ways the restrictions of the 60's helped Roddenberry. In the first two seasons of the TNG the writers often crammed in social messages and with poor delivery came off more as after school special moralizing than thought provoking Sci Fi.

 

Yeah but do yo watch the current garbage shows they put out now ?
Would anyone in the neutral zone even know that this episode where a politician is on the show is on the show ?

this person is way fatter than o hura

you are taking about the old school Star Trek
The stuff they put out is being watched by jar jar binks

 

Huh, I'm upset that The Simpsons made Trump president. Thank God all this is fiction.

 

There are some good ideas in Discovery but yeah...funny because the creators like to compare themselves to DS9 but DS9 wasn't serialized, it simply had an overarching plot that it would return to every few episodes.

Lower Decks actually does this.

They see to not realize what made Star Trek was learning about the crew and seeing how they dealt with different everyday issues on the ship. Everything is so grand on Discovery and when they DO tackle social issues it's way too hamfisted.

I really do have nothing but love for the cast, it's a great cast that is really being wasted on whatever it is they are doing. I don't even know or care what's going on with Picard.

It'll be interesting to see what they do with Strange New Worlds which goes back to an episodic structure. Hopefully, that feels more like Trek and maybe if it does well it'll teach Paramount that they don't have to make Star Trek something else for it to be successful.

 

Was this before or after he drowned his wife in their pool?

 

There is a story behind Uhura as the name as well..... he was very progressive, as most creative people are for some reason.

 

You hit the nail on the head with that one. When you cram something in like that it's easy to tell and it is just...it just feels odd. It doesn't feel part of the story and it, especially in a sci-fi world, can break immersion.

It would be like if suddenly Finn on Star Wars started to rant about racism. It would be completely immersion-breaking, the viewer would wonder "Why the **** is he going on about this when he's walking next to big foot? I don't get it..." you can't just transport real issues into your fantasy universe without immersing it into your universe but that isn't even the main issue with that little arc. It's hard for anyone to even care about child labor exploitation in Star Wars with all that goes on in that universe it makes sense that some planets would be horrible horrible places. There is no reason to highlight that if it's not relevant to a character's arc or takes away from the main plot. We didn't have a whole thing about the empire blowing up Alderaan, they simply did it. What else is there to really explain? They aer evil, that was to show the depths of how evil they were, nothing else needed to be added there.

The main issue with the casino planet was that it would have been fine if that was the main story. It's fine as a location and within the Star Wars universe. If they did a short Disney+ series about some minor character seeking justice on that planet, no issues, could even be a great show...but why care about it when our heroes are supposed to be saving the galaxy itself from imperial rule?

 

There is a tendency in the artist to challenge the status quo and think outside of the box. I think that is the main reason why even throughout history most artist tend to be progressive.

This is why I feel like conservatives can never truly win the culture war like they think they can (Creating content) because it's either going to be bad bland content or it'll be even more hamfisted than the 'woke' shows they cry about. Stuffing Jesus down the throat and traditional values. The best thing conservatives can do is restrict artists from not being too progressive, that's always been their main weapon against art. Controlling it. But art in any form thrives with no restriction.

It's interesting though, it's like how conservatives tend to be police officers. There are certainly occupations that attract a more left or right brain.

 

Yeah, the most interesting characters for me are Burnham and the one alien that looks different. The lead engineer was ok for the first few seasons but then fizzled out. They even killed off or shifted around the crew just to make the show "snappy". The series is stuck in a perpetual movie format (Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible) where zero development is given to everyone else other than being "good pilot" or "good security officer". Development time is given to characters that have a deliberate social message, otherwise this "good pilot/officer" has "random unheard issue/talent" to "burn half an hour"/"resolve plot point "

The trans character is polarizing in the sense that they were given screen time for their trans-ness rather than letting them develop as a fully fledged character. That character became a trope to be handled with velvet gloves (oh right they happen to be a vulnerable, but gifted orphan...say what?) and was conceived by writers who imagined what it was like but likely never experienced in reality. I'd rather the producers handle those issues like Billions where they didn't directly say the character was non-binary but displayed how the world treated them in a hyper competitive and "toxic" culture, all while preserving that person's characteristics and quality. That gave me more insight than some weird body-assignment-but-not-really arc that didn't add a single thing to the series. That's still a BFD in the future...

Picard is disappointing in a different way. The only similar thing is that the writers might be familiar with trek to do fan service, but don't love Trek to the extent of Seth McFarlane's fandom in order to put their foot down and make stories in its original spirit.

All they're doing is milking out characters/settings without giving anything new and hoping fans are compelled to watch.

 

I tried to start that but enjoyed Raised by wolves as my top sci fi show

 

It’s definitely better than the new star treks which have been reviewed as lazy and boring writing

why do you think they brought back all the old characters from next generation? Cause the new characters are very bad

that’s what the critics say

 

Money grab