Star Trek Picard and Trek Taking on Modern Politics

[Yukaphile]

Me from reading through this whole thread:

My impression is that STP is largely mediocre, which is a step up past what I'd expected, and what's come before, so I will credit it that. But it sounds like we still don't have very competent writers at the helm. Is it still Kurtzman? I mean, my God, Kurtzman is SOOOOOO not the man to be showrunner, if it is. He deflected criticism in '09 (which again, seems to be how DISCO and then STP was built off) over Federation advertisements by saying the Federation has just nationalized the companies as a Communist state. Dafuk? The language really does upset me. Let's make a few notes. Data used the word "oh shit!" once, and in a movie, which was trying to be more "big-budget action" type stuff, which First Contact eventually did. Three F-bombs? REALLY?! Why the hell... context really IS the issue.

That's my big problem. It's another in a long line of grimdark, and that's just driving away too many fans in these cases. You can blame a lot, late stage capitalism, corporate greed, incompetent writers, but in either respect, it is killing geek culture. Stuff like Babylon 5 and Stargate will still be talked about decades from now. Not so much, imo, with what we've got in recent years. And I find it kinda sad a leftist like Mecha82 is going after people like ABS and clearspira because they're disappointed, treating it like fan entitlement, when it's that we've been so beaten up by life at this point, we need less of this, and more of what "used" to make the world great – not what Trump says would, but those actual qualities that are just being devoured by obsessive consumption, rising depression, loss of hope, Internet spreading chaos, and all the ills of a post-modern world. We want optimism on screen, because more and more it's being sucked out of our lives, our work environment, our homes, our communities. Now it seems the last place for joy is gone too. That's why there's rising depression. It's why they so cling tightly to Japanese anime culture. It's something the Japanese understand: In a society steeped with misery and hate, give people more things to focus on that makes them happy. I also would contend, Mecha82, the "reactionaries" you cite are not what you think. There's a difference being right-of-center critics who are part of fandom and those who are part of the electorate. Those I talk to on Discord, hang around with in my circles, are not. They dislike Biden. Hell, it's why Trump so briefly united dumb people. We HATE the world we're living in, we're hurting, and for that, we blame Bush and Clinton, what must seem like two regimes, so that "we need something new, somebody who never held office before!" The logic is sound. Just not with this man.

Now for the individual replies.

@Excalibur Hey, reading the wiki is a step up, at least! If that's actually true. Lucasfilm couldn't even do that.

@clearspira Yeah, gotta focus on race over gender equality, eh? (What you were criticizing, not you.)

My final concluding thoughts. I think most sterile business suits writing for visual sci-fi now have the wrong idea. I think that they should leave the old franchises alone, and if they REALLY want grimdark, begin adapting 40K to the screen. And never fret, fellow Trek fans. The layout to Trek is such that it would be entirely too easy to hit the reset button, just go to another parallel timeline like the kind seen from "Parallels," and boom. You could say anything made past 2009 is a parallel timeline, too. And even if it's following previously seen events, they just happened similar in another universe. Very easy to do so. Not so much with how Lucasfilm is handling the "space wizards." No, we can't have parallel universes, but time travel has to be used to save Filoni's pet wet-dream character. I'm just glad B5 is done, and that if it's to come back, and ruined this way (imagine Sheridan being made into a grimdark broken savior?), JMS will not be involved.

[Yukaphile]

Really sad. I still remember the epic speech Sheridan gave when they stormed Earth at the end of the civil war.

"We are here on the authority of a multi-planetary force that can no longer stand by and watch one of their greatest allies falling into darkness and despair."

Why the HELL don't we have heroes like this anymore?! SMH

[Zargon]

Picard is not ''grimdark'', it's more of just shady. Picard falls from the hero and hides........it's a version of Achilles in his Tent.

The space Vegas and the Riker/Troi episode are excellent. Sure the show had a messy, slow start....and some pointless filler...and it bit on whinny cry babies....but the last couple epsiodes should be good.

[Deledrius]

Picard is not ''grimdark''

Yes, it is. Every act of hope is met with death. Suicide attempts and duplicity abound, there is no one out there trying to save people from horrible things except Picard, an old man who no one believes in. Xenophobia won, and is still the law of the land. No one trusts, because those who do are met with betrayal. The compassionate are berated by hypocrites who benefit from their sacrifices.

That's literally what "grimdark" means as a setting.

[Al-1701]

"Xenophobia" did not win. Prejudice between the Federation and Romulans won which is far from xenophobia. These two powers haven't trusted each other for centuries. And the ban on Synthes after the Mars incident, as I've said many times, is no different from the ban on genetic engineering after the Eugenics Wars. Xenophobia would mean the Federation would have the same policy towards all other powers which we have not seen.

There is duplicity abound because Romulans are involved and duplicity is the name of their game. All Romulan episodes have oozed duplicity, and this just so happens to be a series of Romulan episodes.

The suicide attempt was to save the others, so that falls more in line with a noble sacrifice.

Picard is trying to save one particular person from horrible things. We're not seeing what's happening in the rest of the galaxy. And, again, our crew standing up against convenient politics has been a staple of Trek. It's just Picard is leading a ragtag crew of misfits on a freighter and not a full crew on the Federation flagship. And because they're misfits, they're naturally leery of Picard's idealism.

[Yukaphile]

I dunno, it seems like after Nu-BSG, everyone wants to be grimdark. Or how Game of Thrones is grimdark. That's trendy. Or am I wrong?

[Al-1701]

Machiavellian settings seem to be in vogue for all genres of drama this past decade. It's probably because BSG (I'll call the original Battlestar for the distinction) and Game of Thrones were the cultural phenomena they were. Everyone jumps on what is popular.

And Picard (f-bombs aside) is nowhere near as dour as those two series. It's more "The Undiscovered Country" level.

[Yukaphile]

Well, I never liked Star Trek VI. That said, from all accounts, everything I hear paints this as a worthy successor sequel to TNG. Even so, I think what's throwing most people is the fact that... this seems inconsistent to the past. I mean, at the HEIGHT of the Dominion War, how does Picard react? Well, he's an action hero. The only time he ever shows any kinda emotional reaction is when he rants about the Borg. That is entirely the fault of the creative team at the time, since it's more logical for F-bombs and this kinda grimdark setting to take place at that time, not after it. Even so, I feel it could perhaps be a matter of interpretation. Consistency is in the eye of the beholder, after all. The F-bombs are what get me raging, though. Since again, that should have happened in the Dominion War, not here.

[Worffan101]

STP is not *bad* per se, just frustratingly inconsistent. There'll be a scene or an episode that's frankly brilliant in terms of character, acting, directing, and/or sci-fi worldbuilding, and then there'll be one that's either blandly mediocre or total dogshit. Only Picard, Seven, Elnor, Hugh, and to some extent Rios have really clicked with me so far, too, and the hints as to the larger plot aren't leading in a way I like.

Also, there's *two* minor characters that the show has brutally killed off now for basically no reason, they tortured and killed Icheb ON-SCREEN solely to give Seven something to cry over (a storytelling device that I DESPISE, if you're going to torture an established character you had BETTER make the torture and recovery from it part of that character's ongoing story, that's just basic respect for your characters), and they murdered Hugh to provide an excuse for Seven to return to the story after they put her on a bus, which is flatly bullshit and a waste of a perfectly good character.

It's really annoying because parts of the show are inarguably brilliant, like Troi's line about her deceased super-speshul kid making up his own homeworld because he was born in space, or the entire Picard-as-a-pirate bit (complete with bad fake French accent), and others are face-palmingly frustrating.

Still miles better than STD though.

[Yukaphile]

As I'd said before this even began, this strikes me as their first genuine attempt to do a show in the TNG era, since claims that DISCO is part of the Prime Timeline was just a not-so-shrewd-from-people-who-think-it's-very-shrewd marketing tactic. So of course even to my amateur's eye, it's gonna be better.