I think the difference between most of the older trek and the newer stuff is that while they did obvious stuff like this, the most impactful social stuff they did was treat revolutionary change as boring.
TOS had a black woman bridge officer, and they didn’t make a big deal about it, because in the future there was nothing remarkable about it.
This is a really good point but I feel there is a double edged sword here. Loads of old school bigoted nerds love star trek because for whatever reason they actually don’t pick up on the compassionate, far left messaging.
It was also different when 50 years ago, a black woman as bridge officer was scandal to right wing sensationalist media.
The overt and sometimes performative progressive details that are present now push the boundaries in a similar manner to the old boring change, while being much more noticeable to the rest of the audience.
And when they did confront the issues, those issues were alien things, the federation was past all this nonsense and as you say, boring mundane stuff and the alien issues were always “oh we got over that hundreds of years ago, we learned about that in history”.
I am not an anti-woke person in the slightest, and I wouldn’t say Star Trek was ever subtle about its leftist ideals.
But it did use to present us with a more optimistic view of the future of humanity that was largely beyond the petty dramas we have today, while still leaving room for the fact that no matter how much you’ve progressed, you do always have to fight to keep the ideals and society you’ve built. Allegories for modern problems were largely relegated to interactions with humanlike alien species so that the theme of humanity itself being “better than it was” is left intact.
And it did lose a little something when the Alex Kurtzman era came along and took the federation and humanity back to the stupid ages in order to get the point across.
The scene in Picard where you have a character living in what looks like poverty despite it being a post-scarcity age, and trying to draw parallels between her and Picard, and the different classes we have today, because she lived in a trailer and he owned a vineyard, was just next-level misunderstanding the source material. Hello they don’t have capitalism, there’s no money. It was long established by this point that humans excel due to their drive to achieve, not command a salary.
It does feel like Star Trek used to be woke, but was a story from the mouths of people who had something to say, to now it’s woke, but in a very icky corporate-sterilized kinda way.
Yep. Good analysis. Probably why I haven’t been able to get along with much of the Kurtzman era Trek. I’ve started Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks and find those two to be actually watchable, but Discovery and Picard I noped out of pretty hard after around a season each, and have no desire to even start Academy.
I will die on the hill that Lower Decks is not only the only nu-trek that is actual Star Trek, but that it actually belongs up there with the actual legacy Trek shows it parodies. And it’s got plenty of gay woke stuff in it. But despite being a parody, and forgiving the very rough first season (It’s ST, hello), it’s obviously that the writers actually understand what Star Trek is.
I fear a lot of people will write it off as “Star Trek does Rick & Morty” and it’s a shame. It has a TAMARIAN bridge officer for gods sake.
And it’s got plenty of gay woke stuff in it
I would like to stress that they’re treating all the gay woke stuff as entirely normal and common, just like original trek.
On the other hand, Discovery had a painfully long and exceedingly meaningless arc about a character’s struggles with society’s views on their gender… When said society doesn’t have any negative views at all.
It felt like me gathering my family together to have a deeply emotional announcement that I always put on my left sock first.
Damn it! You’ve got me in tears!
Discovery had a painfully long and exceedingly meaningless arc about a character’s struggles with society’s views on their gender… When said society doesn’t have any negative views at all.
Who’s character arc are you talking about here? I don’t think that describes anything that happened in the show.
I know Adira was an incredibly forgettable character in probably the worst Discovery season, but Adira’s “I’m actually gender neutral” coming-out talk with Stamets half a season after they were introduced was incredibly mismatched with everything Trek.
Especially with the absolutely amazing way DS9 handled the Curzon/Jadzia thing.
Edit: to see an actually good way to handle a transition on screen, watch The Umbrella Academy.
That’s a ten second scene with no buildup or fallout (apart from everyone using the correct pronouns going forward). Adira was visibly hesitant in the moment, and you can take issue with that, but there was no extended struggle or “coming out” character arc.
There was a fair bit of build up with their boyfriend.
Especially with the absolutely amazing way DS9 handled the Curzon/Jadzia thing.
The way DS9 did the “of course they’re here and it’s no big deal because it’s the enlightened utopian future” inclusion with a character who was effectively trans was in the finest tradition of Trek, dating back to the first pilot of TOS. And you can tell there’s a “but” coming up because of the otherwise well-deserved praise that we’re heaping on here.
But “Facets.”
The episode that was based on the Sybil TV movie. The episode that made joined Trill explicitly plural. And they made a beeline for the long hackneyed “evil alter” trope that the plural community has been unfairly saddled with since 1886. As well as the “slutty alter” trope, but it was already pretty well established by that point that Curzon was a horndog.
The way DS9 did the “of course they’re here and it’s no big deal because it’s the enlightened utopian future” inclusion with a character who was effectively trans was in the finest tradition of Trek, dating back to the first pilot of TOS.
Not just that, but Jadzia was an actual character who had a personality and contributed to the show. Same for Chekhov, or Uhura, or dozens of others who were fully realized characters first and foremost.
Adira was just there, and nothing else. It felt like the entire character was just there to tick a diversity box, and nothing else.
But “Facets.”
Yeaaaaaahhhh…
Lower Decks might actually be my favorite Star Trek, period. Including DS9 and TNG.
Lower Decks relies a little too much on nostalgia and the supposed parody of older shows, and the parody often comes off as memberberries.
Lower Decks is like a love letter to Star Trek and manages to be good Trek on its own. But yeah it is derivative and nostalgic as part of its blueprint . You need the context of the existing shows for it to be as good as it is, but I can’t really discount it for that.
and manages to be good Trek on its own.
No, I don’t actually think that. While there are some gags that work on their own (like the play on prejudice with the Ferengi), there are so many more “remember that thing from TOS, TNG, TAS, etc? Here, have it again!” (like that giant spock skeleton or the Landru-episode or when Rutherford builds a Delta Flyer). And I don’t quite like that.
Contrast that with Prodigy (why does that one get to be forgotten so often though? It is really good). Janeway returns as an Emergency Command Hologram, which is a callback both to Janeway and Voyager in general and to the episode about The Doctor, when he wanted to exoand his role and als become an ECH. But they told new stories with the Janeway ECH and made her a new character of her own. Same with Chakotay, who appears later as himself (not a hologramnor some other form of copy). The same character, but new story and developement (both Janeway and Chakotay get more character developement here then in all of Voyager). Then they got Wesley Crusher back, but instead of just rehashing the annoying teenager they explore his Traveler role.
Instead of pointing at things from past shows saying “See, you liked that, didn’t you? We got that here, too!”, Prodigy expanded these characters and explored new stories. And it did that well.
Lower Decks did that, too, sometimes. Sometimes LD did make fun of older trek, saying how dumb something was, ok. But mostly the references were mere easter eggs that were there for nostalgia bait.Lower Decks actually added to the Star Trek universe in real ways. The whole idea of Second Contact vessels, Klingon non-noble culture, Ferengi TV, the Ferengi joining the Federation, Orion culture, etc. It wasn’t only references or derivative at all.
I didn’t say it added nothing. I explicitely said there is good stuff. What I do say though is that there is too much memberberries and too little new stuff.
Then they got Wesley Crusher back, but instead of just rehashing the annoying teenager they explore his Traveler role.
Which was itself memberberries. He uses Gary Seven’s office ferchrissakes.
“Memberberries” 😂 What’s that mean? I don’t want to search it bc I’d rather hear from someone who actually uses this new word I’ve never heard 💜
It’s from a Southpark epidode called “Member Berries” where they are sentient, talking berries constantly reminding people of glory past by asking “Member? Member X?”
Usually, they are remembering pop culture icons (mostly the OT Star Wars) but also political/societal things like Ronald Reagan, when “marriage was only between men and women” or “when there were no mexicans.”
By their behaviour they are constantly evoking nostalgia and because of that they’ve kinda become their own pop culture icon as a meme to describe nostalgia bait in pop culture mediaIt’s a good Southpark episode, I recommend giving it a watch.
Also: Memberberries supercut
Haahaha, that’s fantastic! Thank you for writing all that, I’ll check it out!
God that scene in Picard made me immediately stop watching the whole series. There is just no coming back from that.
The same happend for me with the opening scenes from Starfleet Academy. How the heck can you portray a utopia with an introduction that is less humane than what we have now in developed countries?!
Yeah that Picard scene alone de-canonizes the entire show. Like you can’t just casually retcon exploitative capitalism back into hundreds of years of established lore lol.
It does feel like Star Trek used to be woke, but was a story from the mouths of people who had something to say, to now it’s woke, but in a very icky corporate-sterilized kinda way.
I doubt its going to get better, considering what its parent company has become.
leaving room for the fact that no matter how much you’ve progressed, you do always have to fight to keep the ideals and society you’ve built
“Vigilance, Mr. Worf.”
Yes. Subtle, nuanced, and in no way obvious.
People who criticize new (or old) Trek for its wokeness are overwhelmingly not on this platform. People here who dislike Kurtzman-era Trek take issue with the lacklustre writing. At least, that’s my impression. I suppose it’s possible that there are a bunch of bigots commenting that I’ve blocked and/or have defederated with.
Absent that, the proliferation of these sorts of memes just strikes me as pandering, coupled with a misguided, combative defensiveness of anything that falls under the corporate-owned Trek umbrella, regardless of quality.
Lots of the new trek is really not woke enough! We are in a utopia, what is all that dystopian shit doing in the stories?!
Yeah Star Trek is being written by idiots that don’t understand how to write Star Trek. The message used to be that the social issues we have today would be alien to a future utopian society. It was the aliens had all of these social issues, but the protagonaists have moved past those issues and have to be reminded that humans had these problems in the past. It says we should stop being weird about shit so we can have cool starships.
Now it seems the future utopian society later decides they want to go back to being racist assholes again. I think the writers may have good intentions, but carelessly made a very depressing statement about how these problems will always come back and can never be overcome permanently.
Yeah, and they skipped forwards a 1000 years basically to some post-utopian-post-apocalyptic universe with “the burn”.
And it’s kinda weird for me that everything pretty much changed less in that 1000 years than it did in the few centuries from our time to the 24th century. And that people like Tilly have no problems going about and even being professors.
Give back space-utopia with story’s about plane regular starship missions intercut with some very basic personal life storyline and then have something go wrong with the regular. mission and have that intertwine with the b-storyline about the personal thing at the end and eveyone learns something and is nice to each other.
SNW is soooooo superior to Discovery and Academy. Although I do like that the Doc’s back and it’s not as bad as Discovery, but…
Me and my partner hate discovery, and its not because its woke, that half the reason ST is good, but because its crewed argumentative children who are too busy going to discos to tackle the real business of star fleet.
Embarrassing writting and its doesn’t respect its viewers at all.
They think it’s only woke now because they’re only looking for it now.
Previously, it all flew right over their heads.
It doesn’t help that a lot of it is simply so out of date now, that it’s considered the norm now.
We don’t exactly think all that much of Picard being bald, or Janeway being Captain of the Voyager. For us now, they’re normal, ordinary things.
Whereas back in the day, it was an unusual choice. There were many jokes about it being natural the Voyager would get into a space accident on its first voyage, because Janeway was in command, for example.
I’m convinced that the people complaining of Star Trek being woke are bots and Heritage Foundation trolls.
Being woke was a part of old trek, being woke is all of new trek.
Maybe it’s just all you look for in new trek?
It’s the entire point of every episode. Kurtzman literally said that was the point. There’s sometimes a bit of tech fiction and a bit of politics, a bit of action, but those parts are superficial, extremely poor quality, have very little screen time and are always subservient to the social and personal issues plots that the episodes were written to be about. Only you know why you fail to acknowledge this. Again, the showrunners explicitly stated this is the goal. You’re saying they failed to do what they intended?
I don’t know if it was only a part. The world has moved on from the day, so a lot of what would have been in-your-face bleeding-edge progressivism back then no longer is.
The women could wear miniskirts. No-one was smoking. Uhura (African American) was not a maid or cook, but a well-respected competent peer, along with Chekhov (Soviet Russian), Sulu (Japanese), and McCoy (Caucasian American).
We may not think much of it now, and in the miniskirt case, think poorly of it, but back in the day, they were bleeding-edge social stances.
The stances weren’t the main story of every episode. They were just part of the world that were occasionally the focus. That ain’t what new trek is. The stances are the main stories and the rest of the world is occasionally the focus.
Old Trek was woke on the left side. New Trek is woke on the right side, obviously inferior to even the most simple minded.
