Comment by Bender | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Bender | Hacker News Reader

The end of Star Trek is now official

Good. Let it die. It's hard for me to say where exactly Star Trek went off the rails but everything of recent has been complete trash in my opinion as a moderate Star Trek fan. Some say everything from the Kelvin timeline but I did enjoy Picard S1/S3 despite the inconsistencies. Picard season 2 should not have existed at all. Strange New Worlds is not Star Trek. The captain is basically some random masculine man that is disrespected through the entire show. He exhibits no characteristics of a Starfleet captain beyond the assign rank and uniform. Starfleet Academy is some woke fever dream that never should have been funded, again in my opinion. I believe that iteration is a mockery of the Star Trek franchise.

Current Earth politics do not belong in shows that are supposed to provide people escapism and entertainment. Sell the franchise to people that can respect the franchise, the fan base, that know the lore and that can take it seriously. These are just my opinions for whatever that is worth.

> Current Earth politics do not belong in shows

You’re really displaying some ignorance here. Star Trek has always has a political slant.

The basic premise is about a bunch of people living in a progressive sci-fi utopia with UBI. The show is constantly preaching unity and openness. It is explicitly anti-Fascist in many episodes.

It has a multiracial cast with a flamboyant “closeted” gay actor.

And most importantly, it famously had the first interracial kiss on television. The show was banned (or, more minorly, the specific episode was banned) in several places in the South because of that.

You’re really displaying some ignorance here. Star Trek has always has a political slant.

No I am not. They had politics, yes. But not anywhere to the point to breaking the audience out of escapism and mapping their politics to the politics of the time. They kept it realistic enough people could associate with it but not to the point of implementing current politics and identity politics.

The basic premise is about a bunch of people living in a progressive sci-fi utopia with UBI.

Yes. And you do realize wars and the level of dystopian hell they had to go through to reach that point right? It's not like they just decided to implement UBI. Over 600 million people died before that was realized and I am leaving out a tremendous amount of pain and suffering. It was a very long period before they entered into a post-scarcity era and even then money was still used and still a problem within some cultures that were cannon.

And most importantly, it famously had the first interracial kiss on television.

Again, I never said anything about race or gender. Woke as it is today covers many other facets including but not limited to "The Patriarchy" which they are trying to depose in Starfleet meaning they never actually watched or understood the show before they bought it.

> Again, I never said anything about race or gender.

I never said that you did. But you did propose, and you continue to double down on, the idea that the original Star Trek was not very political.

> They had politics, yes. But not anywhere to the point to breaking the audience out of escapism and mapping their politics to the politics of the time.

Yes, the interracial kiss was VERY MUCH the politics of the time. That's why it was the FIRST interracial kiss on network television, nearly 40 years after TV networks came about. That's why it was protested/banned and the episode not shown in Southern markets.

Can you give any examples of network TV that were more political than Trek?

Can you give any examples of network TV that were more political than Trek?

Lucille Ball saying the word "Pregnant" in I Love Lucy which I am sure nobody today would believe evoked shock and awe. Samantha and Darren in Bewitched having a single king sized bed in their bedroom. Until that point all married couples had multiple twin beds and were presumed to never sleep together despite somehow having children.

A key difference here is you are citing one episode. These shows we are discussing are entirely centered around modern IDPol issues. It's rammed down our throats through every episode. I will not be gas-lit. I know what I have seen and what I have experienced throughout all the generations of Star Trek and what it has devolved into. I know when I can no longer enjoy a show because it's creators are ripping me out of the experience and away from the fictional setting and I know I am not alone. I am aligned with the majority of the fans which is exactly why the show is being nuked after flushing millions down the toilet.

> [I Love Lucy, Bewitched]

These are good examples of TV pushing the envelope on societal norms, but if you are discussing "pushing a political view", they rank far below "Trek's first interracial kiss".

> A key difference here is you are citing one episode.

That's true, but...

> These shows we are discussing are entirely centered around modern IDPol issues. It's rammed down our throats through every episode.

I have not seen the new shows. I liked reconnecting with old characters in the first few episodes of Picard S1, but didn't even finish the first season.

So I can't comment on those specifically.

But, I can comment on this:

> I know when I can no longer enjoy a show because it's creators are ripping me out of the experience and away from the fictional setting

This is the EXACT SAME COMPLAINT that the people who were upset about Star Trek in the 60s had.

And it extended a lot farther than the interracial kiss. That's just a very easy and obvious landmark example to point out.

Star Trek first aired in 1966. Less than 10 years after crowds of people were held back by the National Guard, but still managed to throw rocks at and spit on little girls because of forced integration in schools.

Star Trek had a multiracial and flamboyant cast, and was frequently communicating messaging about being non-prejudiced, when the Civil Rights Act had just passed.

Trek also frequently communicated messaging about being non-interventionist and only using violence as a last resort, while the Vietnam War was ongoing and a hot-button political issue.

These were ABSOLUTELY complained about as "woke propaganda" (though not in those terms) by the conservatives of the time.

Sci-fi often makes you question modern day society, Star Trek did that in many ways

Starfleet Academy is some woke fever dream ...

This is entirely in keeping with the Star Trek tradition. It had a multiracial cast and female officers in 1966, when that was quite unusual in a TV show.

I never suggested it was about race or gender. Yes the original Star Trek had a cast member that was flamboyant in the show, gay in real life and came out before it was cool or even safe for that matter and I had nothing but respect for him at the time and now. The fans respected him without a need for pushing agendas in the show.

For me it is about the dynamics between characters and the disrespect for the uniform, disrespect for Starfleet in some odd type of defiance of perceived patriarchy. The recent shows are not Star Trek. They are trying to retcon Starfleet decorum, Starfleet regulation and that barely even begins to touch on the issues they are introducing. The writers are trying to suggest a military could operate with everyone just being cool buds a situation that would quickly devolve into utter chaos. That is not science fiction but rather fantasy fiction. The "Captain" in Academy flagrantly disrespects their own command position so hard it's just a slap in the face to the audience and the franchise. Being true to Star Trek word would have gotten back to command and she would have been removed, decommissioned and memories of Star Fleet secrets wiped from her mind a capability that both the Federation and the Romulans possessed.

> It had a multiracial cast and female officers.

True. And yet it was not woke.

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