Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

[asalaw]

Just for the record, as far as I'm aware, that's not true. Roddenberry made it up to make himself look better. The real issue was casting his mistress in a lead role. For reasons of both acting quality, and the production difficulties that their breaking up would cause. He got away with Chapel because she could be removed from the show easily. He could have recast #1 but chose not to.

Interesting—I didn’t know that. But it’s definitely in keeping with his personality. He wound up putting Majel up in an apartment close to the studio. I’ve never seen word on where he had his trysts with the other TOS actresses (though he used to meet Nichelle in his office), or where he cheated on Majel with Susan Sackett, or where… you get the point.

In fact, I think it’s fair to say that when it comes to feet of clay, GR’s were the clayest and the feetiest.

 

[asalaw]

[SNIP]
STAR TREK told viewers TO think. NuTREK tells viewers WHAT to think. Until it became mired in stupidity and agenda, STAR TREK was a massive international and generational success. Now, it's arguably less than a joke. It's a non-starter, with no cultural impact and no appreciable fanbase or merchandise.
[SNIP]

This is an incredibly important point. Being “provocative” used to mean provoking the audience to think about the issues you’ve raised and to discuss them. Now it just means calling anyone who doesn’t like some aspect of your show a racist, as Disney just did to Star Wars fans. Many commentators (even Chato, to his credit) have called Disney out for being so stupid as to attack their own fan base. In the case of Disney, though, the fish rots from the head, and what they need is a CEO who’s more like Reed Hastings and less like the tool they’re now stuck with.

 

[pengbuzz]

This is an incredibly important point. Being “provocative” used to mean provoking the audience to think about the issues you’ve raised and to discuss them. Now it just means calling anyone who doesn’t like some aspect of your show a racist, as Disney just did to Star Wars fans. Many commentators (even Chato, to his credit) have called Disney out for being so stupid as to attack their own fan base. In the case of Disney, though, the fish rots from the head, and what they need is a CEO who’s more like Reed Hastings and less like the tool they’re now stuck with.

I'm afraid at the rate they're going, Disney will self-destruct long before that happens. They have major issues now that they're no longer an autonomous entity and are split between two counties.

 

[Gregatron]

This is an incredibly important point. Being “provocative” used to mean provoking the audience to think about the issues you’ve raised and to discuss them. Now it just means calling anyone who doesn’t like some aspect of your show a racist, as Disney just did to Star Wars fans.

...and is STILL doing, by the way. Using identity politics as a shield for a bad product and attacking the fans is now standard procedure for the corporations and activist hacks who have hijacked these properties.

Which is why I will not support them, and will continue to call them out. It's evil.

 

[Gregatron]

That’s true enough, and I certainly would never accuse TOS, for instance, of being consistent in quality. But I’m hardly obligated to continue to spend any time indulging the opinions of someone who holds himself out as an experienced creative pro on the one hand, while uncritically accepting clearly bad material on the other. Chato can have any opinion he wants, but that doesn’t obligate me to refrain from disagreeing, nor bar me from calling his creative judgment into question for legitimate reasons, or even to keep watching his videos.

Of course.

Anyway, my point is that, while it's hard to always be stone-cold objective, now we're at a point where everything is extremes, with no middleground. Either a Polyanna attitude, or the exact opposite. Ardent defenders vs. ardent detractors. Unstoppable force vs. immovable object.

TOS is my favorite show of all time, but the third season sucks, and I have a strange sort of cognitive dissonance in regards to it. But, like bad pizza, it's still good, y'know? Every single episode has something of value in it, even the worst of the worst, although if I would shed no tears if the whole season disappeared from existence.

NuTREK, on the other hand, gets an Automatic Fail, despite any positives, simply because of the sheer lack of respect and total disregard for characters and canon.


It's like watching a beautiful house get demolished, and a strip club erected in its place. The strip club may have nice window drapery, but that's well beside the point, now, isn't it?

 

[Gregatron]

But TOS also gave us horribly written female characters like Marla McGivers, Mira Romaine, and Janice Lester. It did very well with the Romulan Commander, Number One, Areel Shaw, and Ann Mullhall, but let’s not pretend that it didn’t have its shameful moments. Number One was stricken from the show because of network objections to a woman in a command position, which brings me to my point—the Sixties, and the old-school liberalism that was arising back then, pale in comparison to the “social justice” or “woke” movements of today. Saying that TOS’s IDIC values are similar—or even comparable—to the social and political radicalism of today is nonsense. Even old-school liberals like Joe Rogan, Bill Mahr, and Tulsi Gabbard have sharply criticized today’s SJWs, and been viciously attacked for it. Yet I’m sure all of them would be very comfortable with TOS’s finer moments. By the same token, even a firm conservative would have no objection to Number One today.

Just one example of the gulf between then and now: in The Savage Curtain, Lincoln uses an antiquated word to describe Uhura. Then he catches himself and apologizes to her. But she says no apology is necessary, because “we’ve learned not to fear words.” Contrast that with today’s “cancel culture,” in which people lose their livelihoods for merely expressing unpopular opinions, or the radicals’ outright hysteria over the notion of diversity of opinion and free expression being allowed on social media, and you’ll see my point.

In fact, there’s an argument to be made that today’s SJW phenomenon is the polar opposite of the ideals of the IDIC, since “infinite diversity” necessarily includes diversity of opinion—and that’s the one thing that today’s “tolerant” SJWs have shown they will not tolerate. It necessarily includes a willingness to engage with wholly different cultures—yet today’s SJWs are incredibly hostile to the cultural values of fully half the country.

I don’t buy for a moment that even GR’s relatively bohemian worldview would have much of a home with today’s radicals.

Absolutely.

Although I wouldn't go so far as to say that McGivers was badly written--it's not necessarily unrealistic or sexist for her to have a character flaw which puts her under Khan's charismatic spell. Lester is perhaps by far the worst and most sexist character in all of TOS, though.

Number One is a great character, but Roddenberry did indeed shift the blame for her removal to the supposedly sexist "test audience" and NBC, rather than the fact that NBC quite rightly objected to his mistress playing the role.

Also, as I've noted previously, Roddenberry and TREK were not espousing some kind of Socialist/Communist utopia, as people with agendas have misleadingly said. The Federation was an ideal to aspire to, without getting into the nitty-gritty of how that society would work.


And I've often thought of that Lincoln/Uhura scene, over the past few years. Today's society clearly has yet to learn not to fear words. I also think of that scene in relation to the story of Walter Mosely, who quit the STD writers' room because of such nonsense.

Opinion | Why I Quit the Writers’ Room (Published 2019)

The worst thing you can do to citizens of a democracy is silence them.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Gregatron]

Interesting—I didn’t know that. But it’s definitely in keeping with his personality. He wound up putting Majel up in an apartment close to the studio. I’ve never seen word on where he had his trysts with the other TOS actresses (though he used to meet Nichelle in his office), or where he cheated on Majel with Susan Sackett, or where… you get the point.

In fact, I think it’s fair to say that when it comes to feet of clay, GR’s were the clayest and the feetiest.

Yeah, once you start digging into the underbelly of the show, there's a lot of skeezy stuff.

Of course, the difference is that these people did their jobs like professionals, and didn't shout their agendas and their politics from the rooftops. The dirty laundry and whatnot was kept private. They just wanted to make the best product they could and draw in the biggest audience they could. It was a JOB, not a holy mission or a hustle.

 

[Lightning]

I'm afraid at the rate they're going, Disney will self-destruct long before that happens. They have major issues now that they're no longer an autonomous entity and are split between two counties.

There's no way that actually takes effect. They put the dissolution a year away for a reason. That reason being so they can quietly drop it after the courts rule the law illegal. The Governor already scored his political points, it would actually be counter productive for him at this point to actually go through with it, considering what a disaster it would be for those countries.

 

[Cephus]

I'm afraid at the rate they're going, Disney will self-destruct long before that happens. They have major issues now that they're no longer an autonomous entity and are split between two counties.

That's not how Hollywood works anymore. They don't want you to think, they want you to obey. It isn't putting intriguing ideas up on screen and expecting the audience to go an work it out for themselves. Now, it's just dragging people around by the nose, giving you the take-away they want you to have because everything is driven by agenda, not intellect. They have no respect for the audience whatsoever. It's just "do what we tell you to do."

 

[asalaw]

Absolutely.

Although I wouldn't go so far as to say that McGivers was badly written--it's not necessarily unrealistic or sexist for her to have a character flaw which puts her under Khan's charismatic spell. Lester is perhaps by far the worst and most sexist character in all of TOS, though.

Number One is a great character, but Roddenberry did indeed shift the blame for her removal to the supposedly sexist "test audience" and NBC, rather than the fact that NBC quite rightly objected to his mistress playing the role.

Also, as I've noted previously, Roddenberry and TREK were not espousing some kind of Socialist/Communist utopia, as people with agendas have misleadingly said. The Federation was an ideal to aspire to, without getting into the nitty-gritty of how that society would work.


And I've often thought of that Lincoln/Uhura scene, over the past few years. Today's society clearly has yet to learn not to fear words. I also think of that scene in relation to the story of Walter Mosely, who quit the STD writers' room because of such nonsense.

Opinion | Why I Quit the Writers’ Room (Published 2019)

The worst thing you can do to citizens of a democracy is silence them.

www.nytimes.com

Yeah, I hear ya about Marla, but I disagree. I just can’t believe that someone who went through Starfleet Academy and made the cut as an officer on the Enterprise would be so incredibly weak-willed.

I like my Academy women to come off more like Phoenix in Top Gun: Maverick. With every word she says, everything she does, every crease on her uniform, I believe she’s a Naval Academy graduate and Top Gun pilot, especially those times when she goes toe-to-toe with Hangman. There’s some excellent character writing in that movie and I highly recommend it.

If they’d made Marla some sort of civilian adjunct historian on the Enterprise instead of an officer, I’d still find her contemptible, but at least I’d have an easier time believing in her authenticity.

 

[Picard102]

It's funny to see people complain that Star Trek has a point of view "now", when it always did.
It was never subtle, plenty controversial for the time, and always "woke", "PC" or whatever pejorative at the time people used to describe their own views being on the opposite end of it.

 

[asalaw]

There's no way that actually takes effect. They put the dissolution a year away for a reason. That reason being so they can quietly drop it after the courts rule the law illegal. The Governor already scored his political points, it would actually be counter productive for him at this point to actually go through with it, considering what a disaster it would be for those countries.

That’s entirely possible, even likely, but that’s far from being Disney’s biggest problem right now. Attendance is off, word-of-mouth on their new premium Star Wars guest experience is terrible (as is the reaction to the stratospheric price tag), their programming and marketing decisions are alienating one of their most important fan bases, and last but definitely not least, their stock is tanking. And the Star Wars fan base being angry is far from a trivial problem—they still have to recoup a major part of the $4.6B they paid for Lucasfilm, and they’re not acting as though they care. But that fan base is money, and they’re not just leaving it on the table, they’re pitching it out the door.

Faced with a similar issue and a 30% decline in stock value (and massive subscriber loss), Reed Hastings has acted quickly and decisively to stanch the hemorrhage at Netflix. The jury’s still out on whether it’ll do any good, but he hasn’t taken the typical wokie route, which is to double down on failure. He’s swept a scythe through their bloated animation studio, cancelled their most offensive “woke” content, and warned the SJWs in his employ that if they have a problem with diversity of programming, they can go be in somebody else’s employ.

Maybe it’ll work and maybe it won’t, but it’s a decision tree that’s rationally related to the causes of Netflix’s problems.

 

[Gregatron]

Yeah, I hear ya about Marla, but I disagree. I just can’t believe that someone who went through Starfleet Academy and made the cut as an officer on the Enterprise would be so incredibly weak-willed.

I like my Academy women to come off more like Phoenix in Top Gun: Maverick. With every word she says, everything she does, every crease on her uniform, I believe she’s a Naval Academy graduate and Top Gun pilot, especially those times when she goes toe-to-toe with Hangman. There’s some excellent character writing in that movie and I highly recommend it.

If they’d made Marla some sort of civilian adjunct historian on the Enterprise instead of an officer, I’d still find her contemptible, but at least I’d have an easier time believing in her authenticity.

I see where you’re coming from, but my impression was that McGivers was one of those people who got through the Academy and then found herself relegated to low-level bookwork, without much in the way of actual field experience and whatnot. Kirk even calls her out for her landing party performance, after all. And, more importantly, people are people, and love can indeed drive people crazy and make them throw away careers, marriages, and even their lives. I’ve seen things like that happen.


See, these are the kind of discussions and debates—on the finer points of characters and stories—that we TREK fans should be having.

 

[asalaw]

I see where you’re coming from, but my impression was that McGivers was one of those people who got through the Academy and then found herself relegated to low-level bookwork, without much in the way of actual field experience and whatnot. Kirk even calls her out for her landing party performance, after all. And, more importantly, people are people, and love can indeed drive people crazy and make them throw away careers, marriages, and even their lives. I’ve seen things like that happen.


See, these are the kind of discussions and debates—on the finer points of characters and stories—that we TREK fans should be having.

On that we agree.

 

[Picard102]

the Star Wars fan base being angry is far from a trivial problem

Star Wars isn't going under because a segment of older fans are upset. It's doing very well for Disney, and the prognostications of its demise are very premature.

 

[asalaw]

Star Wars isn't going under because a segment of older fans are upset. It's doing very well for Disney, and the prognostications of its demise are very premature.

Oh, yeah, Disney’s doing juuuust fiiine….

 

[Picard102]

They're still pulling in 60 Billion a year in earnings. Net income was up 169% yoy.

 

[asalaw]

They're still pulling in 60 Billion a year in earnings. Net income was up 169% yoy.

And yet they’ve lost almost half their stock value…

 

[pengbuzz]

Oh, yeah, Disney’s doing juuuust fiiine….

View attachment 1583851

Yup... looks like they're going to be okey-dokey alright.

 

[Picard102]

And yet they’ve lost almost half their stock value…

Stock value isn't married to a company's profitability. Surely people would have figured that out after last years meme stocks.