Sir, this is the most succinct summary of Star Trek I have ever seen. And I have seen everything Star Trek. Especially i liked the well-put definition of 'Woke.' The whole script was tightly written.
Funny how the patriarchy has warped the definition of woke for their own purposes and insist that their definition is the "true" definition. What is it about you guys that give you this privilege? (We may never figure it out) Anyway TOS was woke. DS9 decidedly woke. Discovery is shyte, that is all.
That is so perfect that Star Trek has always been progressive, but most definitely not woke. I’d go further, in that classic trek certainly had a progressive bias, but it always presented a balanced argument. With McCoy presenting the liberal perspective, Spock the conservative, and Kirk listening to both and making an executive decision. TNG pushed the ideology towards the liberal, but still balanced, and DS9 so perfectly presents a pragmatic perspective, where you do what must be done to survive, as it’s a choice between doing something unsavory, or extinction. Modern wokeness is cosplay liberalism at best, where they act on manufactured outrage, at least partially to belong to a group, yet they don’t have the understanding to comprehend the real issues they’re supposedly fighting for .
I'll concur; it's a well-said explanation of the contrast between _TOS's_ liberal nature and _Discovery/Picard's_ oikophobia and intolerance for disagreement.
My StarkTrek is TNG. If I had to think about why it works, it’s that it basically follows the rules of a dad film in space (and people love dad films) - A reverence for authority but a suspicion of the system - cleverness as virtue - willing but not inclined toward violence - a bias towards action and away passivity - responsibility and doing the work - respect for honorable adversaries - the clarity of a personal code - appreciation of silence (think of all the ponderous looking out the window at spaces scenes) - spaces to do leisurely but manly things (holodeck) - appreciation of engineering (trek loves to explain how things work) and esoterica (trek loves beautiful old collectibles) - respectability and keeping up appearances (everything is clean, uniforms are always crisp, no one is ever drunk, anything lewd takes place off screen. I think there’s a reason why Khan looked like a dirty hippie)
Except it's wrong, progressivism IS woke just in a much quieter way, it was ALWAYS pushing the idea of diluting culture and identities in favor of welding them together with an almost fetishized foreign culture/identity. It's entire reason for existing is to destroy what has come before. You're essentially arguing that socialism isn't communism simply because it isn't a political ideology but an economic model even though socialism no matter the form ALWAYS leads to communism without fail
@@TheHighSpaceWizard John Wick went downhill hard after the first movie to the point where it immediately lost all its charm and became more of the same schlock. It started as a semi-realistic and grounded story just about a dude avenging his dog. Turned into this massive convoluted story of super heroes with magic technology. If anything John Wick perfectly summarizes the biggest flaw of the current era. If they do manage to accidentally produce something good they will inevitably milk it until its lost everything which made it good to begin with. Since they never understood what made it good; thus proving it's quality purely accidental.
Try The Orville. It is an homage to Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off. The humor tones down as it goes and I think it reaches what you are looking for by the middle of the first season.
Just recently discovered this channel and it has quickly become a favorite. I really enjoy your talks and perspectives on things I'd never considered, or putting to words the intangible. This video is a perfect example of that, I absolutely love how you frame Star Trek as a past progressive voice struggling to adjust to a modern political landscape yet clinging to an old facade. Anyways man, just wanna say I'm definitely a fan and I look forward to more videos!
Thank you for encapsulating my thoughts on every ST reboot post Voyager. The "saint Michael" line was spot on. The core problem, however, is that ST-TOS was the product of cultural optimism and this is not an optimistic age. We live in a dying empire and all SF produced in this environment will reflect that. Perhaps something better will emerge from chinese or african writers?
Possibly somewhere else in the world will give us that new optimistic sci-fi. So far what I've seen coming out of China has been grim, but who knows? Of course I haven't given up on the West lifting its gaze from the ground just yet.
@@feralhistorian I wish I could share your optimism but it's clear to me that we are over. An overextended neo-empire, dying on the hill of "rules based order," never examining how that was created entirely for its own benefit. As you pointed out, at least the draka were honest with themselves.
"we live in a dying empire" You don't know the first thing about empires it would seem. We have JUST finished our infancy as an empire, to say that it's overwith is like leaving a football game after the first quarter and saying which team has already won, it's just objectively false by every metric and ignores the very idea of empire itself for an honestly pathetic fatalistic perception. Pedowood can only roll in this stagnation for so long, hell you already see their hold slipping with the advent of netflix/amazon/etc branching out to television and films that are of varying quality but all far more satisfying than the garbage they spit out in California. "Chinese" nope absolute garbage in almost every way possible, almost none of them actually know how to properly write and the ones that do are too mentally fixated on the nightmare of a nation they live in to write anything that isn't dystopia. "Africa", oh you are a funny man
Have you tried watching The Orville? It started out as a tribute/parody of Star Trek but over the course of its run to date metamorphosed somewhat into a sort of spiritual inheritor of the Star trek mantle, including some surprisingly dramatic and effective episodes that seek to address significant social issues of the day while maintaining a broadly optimistic outlook on human potential as a species.
The Orville premiering in close proximity to Discovery gave a nice contrast between a spiritual successor to Next Gen and Discovery's attempt to subvert it.
Fun fact, Seth McFarlane actually wanted to make straight Star Trek but couldn't get the rights. Then he attempted to make "not Star Trek" i.e. The Orville but because everyone saw him as funny Family Guy man the studio basically forced him to make it a parody.
I'm gonna recommend The Orville to you. It leans to much into the comedy at first being more a parody but by the end of season 1 it found it's voice and only got better from there.
Super happy to have a new video from you this week! When you didnt post something last week I had a momentary painc attack. "Oh no, what happend to my favortive para-socal relationship"
Oh, just want to add that ST:TOS setting was really loosey-goosey, and to some extent that move from exploring the high frontier into we are the Federation of Planets, which arguably is more likely to be a Confederation with planetary laws and customs foremost.
I believe I know what's wrong/missing from modern trek. DS9's episode "The Darkness and the Light" follows Kira (pregnant) as she's trying to catch and stop a cardassian who's murdering members of her former rebel cell. The cardassian (Prin) is revealed not to be one of the oppressors, but rather a civilian who was disfigured in a rebel bombing that Kira orchestrated. Kira pleads with her executioner-to-be to spare her child, which the cardassian accepts only to be tricked and killed by Kira. It is honestly very hard not to empathize with Prin. The episode ends with Kira monologueing some bullshit about the light and the dark and everyone just moves on with no real reflection. DS9, like TNG, VOY and later ENT are filled with these sacharin moments of "aha! progressivism saves the day again!" but it only somewhat detracts from the horrible, gritty stories Trek likes to do sometimes. In modern trek however (excluding satires like TLD) the modern iteration of progressivism abhores any portrail of the ugly and the despicable. Villians lack all humanity (literally monster lizards as the Gorn) and are so one dimensional they become abstract representations of "bad" concepts (I bet the writers think this is genius). Discovery and to a large part SNW try to constantly emulate old trek's gravitas, moral complexity and story weight only to fail completely because they refuse to indulge in the truly horrible parts of humanity. Even in the satirical lower decks, the Tuwix episode side-steps truly solving the moral dillema by simply stating "oh that's not life anymore, it's just a blob :) COMMENCE EXECUTION" which would be a cop-out if it wasn't satire.
'The Darkness and the Light' is my favourite DS9 episode and I totally agree with what you've said. This goes very well with the Episode 'Duet' Both have some great points during their back-and-forth. There were some terrific actors whose performances really connect, regulars and guests alike. Their voices and physicalities emote so much. I loved episode that really engaged with moral arguments, making the viewer search their moral core rather than having the answer forced on us. I love episodes like TNG's 'The Hunted' and 'I Borg' 'Repentance' is probably my favourite Voyager episode It's a different show, but I love things like Law and Order. I said the same thing on a similar discussion, I love the morally grey questions where you feel like you would do anything to see the criminal (who is guilty) convicted. But the more you think about what would be at stake for the innocent people in a similar situation, it chills you to the bone. That is people exercising their moral cores. Also different, Tron: Legacy. Clu is shown to be ruthless and a combination of some of the worst dictators in history, but with the context around it and only 3 words... you feel sorry for him.
I'm on the younger side, but I grew up with Trek as well. This was before streaming, so my dad had the movies and a few episodes on tape, but the ability to sit down and get the whole Trek experience in a few days just wasn't there (the DVD box sets either weren't out yet or were just too expensive). I spent a lot of my teenage years reading up on Trek trivia and reading exhaustive essays on minutiae and lots of little things even the average Trek fan would think is a little too obsessive. As I got older and became an adult and really took the time to watch every show all the way through, I found that I had grown out of it. I still appreciate the parts of the show I like, especially TOS and the accompanying movies. But as an adult there's something about Trek, especially TNG and Voyager, that just feels really juvenile and childish. Maybe its the cynicism of growing up, but it feels more like the series was based on a really questionable premise to begin with. Roddenberry was a drugged out hippie who got up to some really crazy stuff, and the whole counterculture movement of the 60s while it made some good progress in the first few years I think has matured into an unmitigated social disaster today. Trek is very much a product of its time like that, even well into TNG since Roddenberry was still at the helm and held a lot of influence in the series. People call Star Wars "science fantasy" and to be honest I don't really view Trek any differently as an adult. it doesn't have mystical trappings like Wars does but it is often very silly and quite guilty of depicting what amounts to literal magic, I don't care what Clarke has to say about it. The "science" in the show is a lot of vague guesswork that only occasionally touches on real world ideas, with the technobabble growing more out of control as the series got older. Its a different kind of fantasy, one based on the American mythology of things like the old west, the triumph of democracy in the modern age, and the indomitable strength of scientific thought. And I can enjoy a good fantasy story. But its still fantasy. Its not really a glimpse of the future, especially now. Its more like a look back at the past.
At its core Trek has always been a story that neo-liberalism tells itself. All the narratives of social progressivism and technology as a solution projected forward like a carrot in front of a donkey. And like the neo-liberalism it reflects, some of it is/was good stuff. But some of it doesn't deserve to be taken anywhere near as seriously as it often is.
I'm not sure I'd describe Gene as a hippie, however much he may have sympathized with them. Dude was a WWII vet. I tend to agree that _Trek,_ like _Star Wars,_ is more science fantasy than straight sci-fi. Yes, they were famous and inspired a bunch of stuff... including the Alcubierre Warp Drive (strictly a theoretical construct that requires things that may not exist in this universe) which doesn't quite work the way the one in the show does, for all that internet pedants have latched onto it.
You are younger so it is understandable that you are giving up. Quantum science is steadily unlocking Trek tech, like the flip phone. Partial use of Trek tech created Microsoft and Apple tech. The Trek energy economy can manifest through quantum fusion.
Agreed but that's what happened to most of the sixties counter-culture. I was waiting for you to bring up "The Orrville" which in my opinion is truer to trek than new trek is.
60's counter culture was a plague in almost every way but it wasn't even really counter culture since every facet of it you can find was in one way or another started by communists or european infiltrators
Agreed, even about enjoying Lower Decks more than any other modern Trek. You might as well have fun with it. I've been asking myself about that new story for a long time, even attempting to write it myself more than once. The problem is that, well, we know the cycle: the establishment has problems, the rebellious upstarts express themselves and take power, they become the new establishment, rinse and repeat. Even figuring out what the current core values we should adhere to is, that's trickier than it sounds, because you need both teamwork and individualism, you need both incentive to succeed and the security of care if you fail, and these conflict with each other in practice. I think it's a little too easy these days to be cynical about establishment, any establishment, and I'm tempted to make a recommendation: watch Farscape. That's really just about a family of castoffs caught in a galactic mess with no clear ideological leanings at all, but it's also a great show. But I also don't think you can separate people from a desire to be able to trust the system, if only because they're lazy and want the tough questions to be answered for them. Someone will craft a new truth.
The pilot episode was good, and then it threw that out the window to play social commentary instead of a good story. After the first season it ran out of ideas and started making stuff up on the fly and you can tell
Regarding what you said at the end, the closest thing I can think of in modern times is Iain Banks' Culture series, but that involves humanity basically becoming pets of hyperintelligent AIs. Which would send a rather mixed message in today's climate. Either that, or some of the so-called "hopepunk" kid/YA shows of recent years like Steven Universe and the new She-Ra, which try to bring back a more feel-good "let's try to talk things out!" attitude to conflict resolution, with violence treated as a distasteful last resort.
I've only read a couple of the Culture books so far, but it strikes me as a sugar-coated dystopia in the making. The kind of civilization that collapses when the Minds break, leave, or decide they don't want to be bothered with us, and we end up living in something like Dune or 40K.
@@feralhistorian Yeah, I agree. The Culture is more of a thought experiment than a proposal. Although the chaos demon in me kinda wishes Amazon or Netflix would make an adaptation, just to watch the resulting drama.
Star Wars, Star Trek and Doctor Who; all deader than A line flares with pockets at the knees. Thank goodness they find it impossible to reboot Babylon 5, and they seem to have forgotten Blakes 7 for now.
Who was always garbage, the english masquerading as benevolent overlords of righteousness for the rest of the galaxy and just like the insult to reality that is trek always finding a nonviolent solution. It was dead as a doornail which is why it ended to begin with, bringing it back was hubris to the highest possible degree and only had one direction it could go and that was the toilet. The english are the center of nothing not even their own culture anymore, it was doomed to devolve
I think the most surreal aspect of your video is the ending to it, what's the closet thing we have to Trek that embodies it's ideals better than what's out there. Oddly enough I'd say the Space Cruiser Yamato revival/remake that came out in the 2010's. While primarily a war story it also oddly acts as a massive critique about duties, heritages, and what the inheritance of empire truly means right down to familiar relationships. From Desslar the kid who wasn't supposed to be an inheritor to an interstellar throne built on the backs of two dead empires, the Iscandarians that developed a path of materialist enlightenment that secretly turned out to be more destructive than expected, humanity starting to get out into the stars and then not getting that vast picture and the age of the dark forest they bumbled into, The Comet Empire being a race of living walking terminator weapons filled with pointless destructive emotional regret because they were too good at killing but driven mad by their leader with the worst case of romantic oneitis. The through line is you've got Kodai, who starts of as a young semi hothead man who wants to avenge what he thinks is the death of his older brother (whose sacrifice may have saved more than what was left of the EDF in their battle with Gamalon), to a leader of men who literally semi went through hell and back in the process. And yet throughout that semi run on sentence, through all of semi spoilers the Yamato revival constantly has that running theme of going through extreme events and constantly pulling out hope no matter the odds or sacrifice. Everytime we think there's someone or something that's the "last of their race" it turns out that's never truly the case. When the odds are hopeless the team built out of the stress gets together with several other generational members and they pull through. Which I think is something that's not only highly stoic in our current age of intergenerational and post colonial strife, but it's far more rewarding and meaningful in a post DS9 Trek World, where such themes have been thrown into the garbage bin with 2010's era Trek.
One of the things that really surprised me with the _Space Battleship Yamato_ remake was that they used all the original mecha and character designs. It's a very unique vibe seeing 70s designs animated in that crisp, modern, computer-assisted method. Not that the designs were the only throwbacks; the whole thing 'hit' better for me because it didn't lean as hard on the then-modern tropes of the genre, preferring to be more faithful to the original vision.
Sir, you are a scholar! Your words speak truth. Lower decks and Strange New Worlds for todays era are needed more than Discovery (it is a dumpster fire). But why no mention of Enterprise in this lineup? You have in a previous episode. Please keep doing what you are doing, your work is fantastic!
Another episode that made me think. I like the reframing of ST as progressive because it was counter-culture and that woke is when society makes counter-culture an agenda to be pushed, which is the antithesis of what a counter-culture movement is. Lots to mull over that point.
I do appreciate this video. I can't say I was ever a Star Trek fan, I grew up on Star Wars first and foremost. When I did see Star Trek later in life, it suffered in comparison. But seeing how it developed (Space Communism and Feminism ruining....well, everything...) the Original Series seems like a paragon of entertainment.
as a writer producer myself but not on such a grand scale as Star Trek, many of us have noticed that Mr. Roddenberry's rather utopian view of the future created a deficit of interesting exciting and entertaining storylines. A boring universe where you have to constantly rely on bumping into new aliens to carry an idea or a story along. Life on earth is just about perfect with almost no disease, friction over wages taxes technology problems, marriage divorce children etc. etc. but that's the way he wanted it.
Boomer Trek is funniest (Herbert!); DS9 is peak GenX (Gul Dukat did nothing wrong); Zoomer Trek...dunno, don't care, didn't watch because...zoomers wouldn't know an original idea if it crawled out of their bottle of Xanax.
DS9 was no different than TNG, bommer tier idealism shoved down your throat in various color forms with it's blue goateed leader making sure to touch every possible cultureal ideal he could think of and then shitting on it. Gul Dukat was a strawman caricature that belonged on a saturday morning cartoon run, Michael Eddington is the only character they created that was ever worth a shit, and they tried to make him evil
There is a big difference between Deep Space 9 and other Star Trek shows though. Most Star Trek shows feature the big galaxy ships on the cutting edge of the Federation doing the big political moves. It's the view of the Federation from the highway as everything its built up wizzes past the window at warp speed. Meanwhile DS9 stops and takes a look at a single area which the other shows left behind a long time ago. Picard of TNG can exist in the same universe as Sisko's DS9. Picard of TNG cannot exist in the same universe as Picard from Picard.
DS9 is my favourite Star Trek and Sisko is my favourite Captain. He has many qualities that make him my favourite but part of the fact the DS9 was stationary was the ability to put down roots as a family man.
Also in an another note what do you think about AI and us becoming cyborgs what if the alternate is us becoming bioborgs to survive and thrive in outer space in this universe
I grew up with Star Trek, but haven't been able to really enjoy it since I realized, somewhere in the middle of Voyager's run, just how formulaic the writing was. And once I saw it, I couldn't un-see it - it ruined almost all of Voyager for me, as well as most of TNG, and even some episodes of TOS and DS9 (it didn't help that the writers straight-up recycled plots from series to series, and even from episode to episode within series). It also didn't help that I have enough science background to recognize that fans gushing about how "Star Trek is _real_ science fiction, unlike the 'space fantasy' of certain _other_ franchises" are not just violently off-putting, but also *completely full of crap.* But that's a problem with Trekkies, not with Trek proper.
Another great video again. I don't always 100% see eye to eye with you. But I always find your point of view challenging and intelligent. I've never had an issue with wokeness, just figuring it to be a phrase conservatives use against anyone who suggests they act with a little more empathy. But I thought your progressive vs woke point was an interesting take I'll have to think on more.
It's always great to have things presented in interesting ways. I follow several content creators who challenge actual political subjects or analyse the political edge of entertainment. I agree with a lot of what they say but not always. People have the open minds to have their own minds.
I'm looking into possibly doing an audiobook version. Whether I'll do it all or bring on some good voice actors I know to do characters is one of many questions. It's all very speculative right now.
Picard season 3 was excellent as well, it's the closest thing I've seen in Star Trek to capturing the same tone (as well as purpose) as the old TOS films. First two seasons are complete garbage however, but season 3 requires almost no knowledge of the previous seasons (there are massive events and important characters that don't even get referred to).
Well, as The Motion Picture is my favourite Star Trek movie of them all (and of Mike from Redlettermedia btw) i guess i am that pretentious undergrad ;-)
@@feralhistorian btw, if you ask me what has been the best of NuTrek recently its actually the very underrated Star Trek Prodigy. Yes, the kids Show from Nikelodeon. Its a cartoon like lower decks but doesnt have this cynical parody aspect like it and actually comes very close to the frontier vibe of the old Shows like TOS and TNG. I recommend to check it out in case you have not seen it.
so serious question have you watched The Orville and what do you think in regards to picking up the Star Trek troch? It is certainly a show trying to be TNG.
My wife and I watched both the Orville and Discovery when they premiered in close proximity. We both agreed that Orville, far more than Discovery, was the heir to Next Gen. In a broader sense, I think it's a sign of Star Trek having become less an IP and more an aesthetic. Anything that has a crew wearing colorful space pajamas getting in adventures on a starship is "Star trek" even if it has nothing to do lore-wise with any actual Star Trek show or movie.
@@feralhistorian Around the turning of the 2000's with WotC 3e D&D/Star Wars came out. As teenagers during the 1980's & 90's we just liked WEG Star Wars gaming mechanics over Fasa Star Trek. But we still ran imperials like Picard's bridge crew. My gaming shop was converting WEG d6 dice pool Star Wars into Star Trek DS9 Dominion War play throughs. Another Syfy show at the times was " Far Scape." where a space faring empire had generational military carriers. Bit grimdark, and flipping the Star War themes a bit. My gaming shops ran generational ship like they were TNG/DS9 starfleet officers. Other than " Hunt of Red October," there were not too many navy war movies that shown bridge combat. " Moons of Jupiter " was another fun game. Something about a retired admiral taking naps on the bridge, issues no orders and offer a couple of suggestion. Part of the day he lectures teenagers and junior n/co on a vary of topics. They are the ship's grandfather/mother type, born, live, and will die on ship. 2.) One thing I seen people argue/debate over the years about DS9 Jake Sisko, brave enough to pull someone out of a radiation fire filled maintenance tube, but runs scare coward from mortar concussion blasts. Shell shock air pressure sound wave rippling through your brain & whole does trigger fight or flight to different levels.
I've never been able to get into Stargate Universe. The tone is so different from SG-1 (or even Atlantis) and it was trying for the BSG personal drama angle that felt a little forced. I've only seen 4-5 episodes of it and it just didn't click for me. Perhaps I'll give it another chance at some point. It seems really polarizing. I've known people that loved SGU and insist that any future Stargate should pick up from there, and other people that despise that show. It doesn't seem to spark an "it was alright" reaction in anybody.
@@feralhistorian oh the tone was changed to depict what if the wrong people was thrust into the fire would they surcome to our pretty differences or band together just like the movie Armageddon “the wrong stuff”. I like to think when the chips are down deep down people will choose to cooperate n figure things out for the survival of the group…
I appreciate the progressive vs woke analysis: the fact that major institutions back wokeness implies that they have something to gain from it and not to our benefit as it their nature 😅
Roddenberry's ideas about life we're wrong. In accurate. He was an old-school liberal Marxist who is willing to back up his idea with lethal force which he did during World War II and as a motorcycle cop in Los Angeles. A red marine if you will. When we were kids watching Star Trek we liked the spaceships and the ray guns and monsters and paid no attention to all the preachy bullshit. And when we got older we stopped watching these shows. The people that liked him a lot were basically comic book guy from the Simpsons. If you want mature storylines read all of Shakespeare. Lots of writers try to use so-called science fiction as a vehicle to promote their leftist ideology, from the Day the Earth stood still to Star Trek. If I had the political and financial power to do it I would give all of you a new Star Trek that I bet you would end up liking and it would be a lot more popular and honest. There is no such thing as universal human equality. Nothing like that exists in the world of physics in this universe financially theologically politically genetically. The have Nots want what the haves ... have. nothing new about this and I have already made a TV show about this very theme. Have fun, enjoyed your show. You are a very good presenter and did a great job speaking in front of the camera and remembering what you were saying. Very hard to do. My compliments
Equality is by definition unequal and unfair. If you give every person 1 equal vote, you give the delinquent waste-of-space an equal voice to that of a soldier sacrificing his life to protect the system, to that of the fireman who is willing to sacrifice himself to save others, and equal to the farmer or small business owner who is putting it all on the line to carve out an independent place for himself. If your society is 50% rural and 50% urban. And you practice "1 person 1 vote". In political power, the system is actually going to be closer to 20% power to the rural half of the population and 80% power to the urban half of the population. If you put up an advertisement in the middle of the urban street, millions of people will see it. Put up that same sign out in Nebraska, and only a couple dozen people will see it. This allows for a far greater level of political mobilization to the urban population. The urban population can strike, shutting down the factory. They can take to the streets, shutting down entire blocks or perhaps the entire city. The politicians are in the city, and so they will see the swarm of people, and jump to the obvious conclusion that these people represent the will of the entire people. While the rural people have no such power. A farmer can't strike. He can't just sit down and stop working. The farmer has no labor unions he can organize with. And so, Universal Suffrage is one of the most unequal and most unfair systems you can have. Equality was always a lie. But with mob rule, the demagogues have a lot of power. And they have no intentions of giving it up. Fun fact: If I remember correctly, the German Empire knew about the unfair reality of a "1 person 1 vote" system. And so for their Parliament, they split it between rural seats and urban seats. Securing a solid representation for the rural peoples in their legislature. But then we got WW1 and the German revolution if 1918-1919. And any hopes for good European politics died.
@@Hugebull yes that as well put. And that's why we have to have an electoral college or else the big cities will call all the shots and they knew that back in the 18th century. In fact it is absolutely vital.
@@randelbrooks Too bad little of the intended Electoral College remains. Now most of the Electors are required to vote what they are told to vote, or they have to vote alongside the Popular Vote of the State. And the 17th Amendment destroyed the Senate entirely. The United States was founded to be a Republic, a perfect mixture of Autocracy, Oligarchy, and Democracy. But over time, it has now been reduced to a Democracy. Little of the intended Republican institutions remain, sadly.
Star Trek Discovery is making Star Trek more like Warhammer 40K. Klingons are the orks. Vulcans and romulans are the Eldar and the Dark Eldar. The ferengi are the squats or space dwarfs.
Never really watched Star Trek personally outside a couple episodes with my grandpa like the clunky fight scene with the lizard man. However what comes to mind personally when I hear optimistic sci fi willing to call out societies problem would have to be the anime Gurren Lagann. The overall focus on the greatness of the human spirit paired with the initially post apocalyptic setting full of broken groups of humans all with their own problems self imposed and not. ((Spoiler Warning)) That ultimately culminates in the indomitable human spirit eclipsing the size of the universe and humanity beating a cruel and angry god of similar proportion. Then after all is said and done the new human civilization sends out rockets to go explore the universe and meet aliens.
If we take the Federation, and by extension Starfleet, as the view of what Humanity should be from Star Trek then its very much the opposite of woke. Its a meritocracy where a space isn't reserved for you based on group. The Enterprise doesn't have a Vulcan, or Klingon, or Android aboard because it fills a quota but because they were the best. Where technology has advanced far enough (thanks in part to a greedy capitalist named Zefram Cochrane) that the means of production (means of replication?) can now exist in every home, and with functionally infinite power anyone can participate in the market or society as they wish.
One of the things that I've noticed while growing older is the urge to feel nostalgia for all things past. Except I find that nostalgia becoming problematic. Yearning for all things old and despising the new. I find that this nostalgia problem not only plagues me but the world at large. We've given up on new ideas and decided to take comfort in our old stories and old glories. Old star trek would not stand a chance in that sort of mindset. It would be too strange too radical for our tastes.. We could not embrace it.
Your description of woke is a little incomplete, but perhaps that's for another video. In short, woke isn't establishment, Woke with a capital W is establishment. The establishment incorporates everything successful into itself, even if that thing is merely successful at attacking the establishment. The result is a body-horror version of wokeness that it wears like a mask made from your own face. It's more or less the same monster underneath, only now you can't call it x-ist while it's subjugating you.
The Establishment certainly co-opts anything useful. Whatever name one applies at any given time, I'm in favor of treating every individual with dignity and respect as an individual; and opposed to any ideology that treats individuals as class or race representatives and ranks them accordingly.
@@feralhistorian Agreed. While there's an argument to be made for the utility of an inverted hierarchy like intersectionality in addressing the multilayered harms caused by its progenitor hierarchy, one must be careful not to become hierarchical in the process.
There's like three versions of 'woke' in media at this point. The regular woke of progressive creatives simply incorporating multiple peoples and viewpoints. The political propaganda tool of the left-leanings parties to present themselves as paragons of progress whilst not actually doing a lot to fight for it. And woke as an insult used by politicians and their followers on the right to paint any diverse media as following the agenda of the aforementioned parties, in an attempt to tear down the progress that their opposition party doesn't bother to actually uphold.
I was enjoying this and agreeing, up until the point you veered off into a rant about 'woke'. If I want to hear that, there's a million other channels who specialise in it
You're seriously going to tell me that old Trek wasn't preachy? Do I have to bring up "Let that be your Last Battlefield"? Or "Patterns of Force"? Or any of the dozen others that went fully ham-handed in their preachiness? Trek has always been preachy, weird, and conflicted in its attitudes towards hegemony and power. It was always both part of the establishment and the counter-culture. Only now, many of the elements that were once counter-cultural have become mainstream. And don't let yourself get caught up on "woke". That's just the conservatives appropriating and demonizing an existing term from the counter-culture to weaponize it against the counter-culture. ("Woke", meaning being aware of the system you live in, has been used by black Americans for some time. It even had it's own counter-commentary in the "hotep") Look at the patterns, they do it all the time as a tool to push back against progressive thought. 30 years ago it was "Politically Correct." Once they think they've defanged Woke they'll move onto something else, as they've always done. I think DEI was next in line for a while. Don't be a sucker for conservative discourse-shaping. You're smarter than that. A final, unrelated note - Lower Decks does something that's been tried and failed at multiple times by American TV: To create a truly American version of Red Dwarf. They just finally stumbled on the idea that the key to make a show about idiots thrown into classic sci-fi scenarios work for Americans was to throw hyper-competent idiots into sci-fi scenarios in a known universe.
"Conservatives" have lost every battle in America for the past 200 years. "Political Correctness" stopped being a term because it became the new normal. "Woke" will stop being used once all it entails has become the new norm. "Conservatives" haven't shaped any discourse for over a century. Blaming the voiceless and the powerless is a pretty cruel thing to do. I've always found it odd to claim that anything that is shown on TV can be classified as "Counterculture". The show was funded by the establishment, and it was aired by the establishment. Had Star Trek been banned by the State, and episodes on VHS tapes had to be smuggled through the country to be viewed illegally. Then yea, sure. Counterculture. But it was shown on national television...
You're absolutely right about woke/dei/etc just being a modern version of the 'PC' complaints, just more inflamed because the internet and discourse has become more inflamed. Also I love your Lower Decks/Red Dwarf comparison, that's such a great observation.
![[UA] NAVI vs MOUZ | BO5 | IEM Rio 2024](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/CMBYk0cbGoA/mqdefault.jpg)
Sir, this is the most succinct summary of Star Trek I have ever seen. And I have seen everything Star Trek. Especially i liked the well-put definition of 'Woke.' The whole script was tightly written.
I came here to say the same thing and couldn't have said it better. A very succinct presentation.
Funny how the patriarchy has warped the definition of woke for their own purposes and insist that their definition is the "true" definition.
What is it about you guys that give you this privilege? (We may never figure it out)
Anyway TOS was woke.
DS9 decidedly woke.
Discovery is shyte, that is all.
That is so perfect that Star Trek has always been progressive, but most definitely not woke. I’d go further, in that classic trek certainly had a progressive bias, but it always presented a balanced argument. With McCoy presenting the liberal perspective, Spock the conservative, and Kirk listening to both and making an executive decision. TNG pushed the ideology towards the liberal, but still balanced, and DS9 so perfectly presents a pragmatic perspective, where you do what must be done to survive, as it’s a choice between doing something unsavory, or extinction.
Modern wokeness is cosplay liberalism at best, where they act on manufactured outrage, at least partially to belong to a group, yet they don’t have the understanding to comprehend the real issues they’re supposedly fighting for .
I'll concur; it's a well-said explanation of the contrast between _TOS's_ liberal nature and _Discovery/Picard's_ oikophobia and intolerance for disagreement.
I'm just starting to watch your videos and I hope you never stop making them
I LOVE his videos! I agree! Don't stop!
Couldn't get the picture in Detroit because there was.....trouble? :D
Nicely done.
@feralhistorian can you review axanar? So far?
@@darthjekyll3648 I haven't watched any of Axanar, aside from one of the promos. I'll check it out though.
My StarkTrek is TNG. If I had to think about why it works, it’s that it basically follows the rules of a dad film in space (and people love dad films)
- A reverence for authority but a suspicion of the system
- cleverness as virtue
- willing but not inclined toward violence
- a bias towards action and away passivity
- responsibility and doing the work
- respect for honorable adversaries
- the clarity of a personal code
- appreciation of silence (think of all the ponderous looking out the window at spaces scenes)
- spaces to do leisurely but manly things (holodeck)
- appreciation of engineering (trek loves to explain how things work)
and esoterica (trek loves beautiful old collectibles)
- respectability and keeping up appearances (everything is clean, uniforms are always crisp, no one is ever drunk, anything lewd takes place off screen. I think there’s a reason why Khan looked like a dirty hippie)
That is the best explanation of progressive vs woke I have heard.
Except it's wrong, progressivism IS woke just in a much quieter way, it was ALWAYS pushing the idea of diluting culture and identities in favor of welding them together with an almost fetishized foreign culture/identity. It's entire reason for existing is to destroy what has come before. You're essentially arguing that socialism isn't communism simply because it isn't a political ideology but an economic model even though socialism no matter the form ALWAYS leads to communism without fail
I grew up with the TOS movies/TNG. I feel like the '90s was the golden era of Trek.
Same here.
Anything pre-2010's was the golden era for everything... at least compared to the rusted era we're in.
@@grimjoker5572 I would argue that action movies have gotten better. John Wick anyone?
@@TheHighSpaceWizard
John Wick went downhill hard after the first movie to the point where it immediately lost all its charm and became more of the same schlock. It started as a semi-realistic and grounded story just about a dude avenging his dog. Turned into this massive convoluted story of super heroes with magic technology.
If anything John Wick perfectly summarizes the biggest flaw of the current era. If they do manage to accidentally produce something good they will inevitably milk it until its lost everything which made it good to begin with. Since they never understood what made it good; thus proving it's quality purely accidental.
@@grimjoker5572 an interesting take, but I can't say that I agree. Thank you for sharing.
Try The Orville. It is an homage to Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off. The humor tones down as it goes and I think it reaches what you are looking for by the middle of the first season.
Just recently discovered this channel and it has quickly become a favorite. I really enjoy your talks and perspectives on things I'd never considered, or putting to words the intangible. This video is a perfect example of that, I absolutely love how you frame Star Trek as a past progressive voice struggling to adjust to a modern political landscape yet clinging to an old facade. Anyways man, just wanna say I'm definitely a fan and I look forward to more videos!
The animated Trek of the early 70's was excellent too.
True, if you don't mind the animation budget being about three dollars.
Thank you for encapsulating my thoughts on every ST reboot post Voyager. The "saint Michael" line was spot on. The core problem, however, is that ST-TOS was the product of cultural optimism and this is not an optimistic age. We live in a dying empire and all SF produced in this environment will reflect that. Perhaps something better will emerge from chinese or african writers?
Possibly somewhere else in the world will give us that new optimistic sci-fi. So far what I've seen coming out of China has been grim, but who knows?
Of course I haven't given up on the West lifting its gaze from the ground just yet.
@@feralhistorian I wish I could share your optimism but it's clear to me that we are over. An overextended neo-empire, dying on the hill of "rules based order," never examining how that was created entirely for its own benefit.
As you pointed out, at least the draka were honest with themselves.
"we live in a dying empire" You don't know the first thing about empires it would seem. We have JUST finished our infancy as an empire, to say that it's overwith is like leaving a football game after the first quarter and saying which team has already won, it's just objectively false by every metric and ignores the very idea of empire itself for an honestly pathetic fatalistic perception. Pedowood can only roll in this stagnation for so long, hell you already see their hold slipping with the advent of netflix/amazon/etc branching out to television and films that are of varying quality but all far more satisfying than the garbage they spit out in California. "Chinese" nope absolute garbage in almost every way possible, almost none of them actually know how to properly write and the ones that do are too mentally fixated on the nightmare of a nation they live in to write anything that isn't dystopia. "Africa", oh you are a funny man
Have you tried watching The Orville? It started out as a tribute/parody of Star Trek but over the course of its run to date metamorphosed somewhat into a sort of spiritual inheritor of the Star trek mantle, including some surprisingly dramatic and effective episodes that seek to address significant social issues of the day while maintaining a broadly optimistic outlook on human potential as a species.
The Orville premiering in close proximity to Discovery gave a nice contrast between a spiritual successor to Next Gen and Discovery's attempt to subvert it.
Fun fact, Seth McFarlane actually wanted to make straight Star Trek but couldn't get the rights. Then he attempted to make "not Star Trek" i.e. The Orville but because everyone saw him as funny Family Guy man the studio basically forced him to make it a parody.
I'm gonna recommend The Orville to you. It leans to much into the comedy at first being more a parody but by the end of season 1 it found it's voice and only got better from there.
Super happy to have a new video from you this week! When you didnt post something last week I had a momentary painc attack. "Oh no, what happend to my favortive para-socal relationship"
Always a good day when we get a feral historian video! Keep up the good work man!
Oh, just want to add that ST:TOS setting was really loosey-goosey, and to some extent that move from exploring the high frontier into we are the Federation of Planets, which arguably is more likely to be a Confederation with planetary laws and customs foremost.
odd channel, feels fresh. I like it. keep these coming.
I believe I know what's wrong/missing from modern trek.
DS9's episode "The Darkness and the Light" follows Kira (pregnant) as she's trying to catch and stop a cardassian who's murdering members of her former rebel cell. The cardassian (Prin) is revealed not to be one of the oppressors, but rather a civilian who was disfigured in a rebel bombing that Kira orchestrated. Kira pleads with her executioner-to-be to spare her child, which the cardassian accepts only to be tricked and killed by Kira. It is honestly very hard not to empathize with Prin.
The episode ends with Kira monologueing some bullshit about the light and the dark and everyone just moves on with no real reflection. DS9, like TNG, VOY and later ENT are filled with these sacharin moments of "aha! progressivism saves the day again!" but it only somewhat detracts from the horrible, gritty stories Trek likes to do sometimes.
In modern trek however (excluding satires like TLD) the modern iteration of progressivism abhores any portrail of the ugly and the despicable. Villians lack all humanity (literally monster lizards as the Gorn) and are so one dimensional they become abstract representations of "bad" concepts (I bet the writers think this is genius). Discovery and to a large part SNW try to constantly emulate old trek's gravitas, moral complexity and story weight only to fail completely because they refuse to indulge in the truly horrible parts of humanity.
Even in the satirical lower decks, the Tuwix episode side-steps truly solving the moral dillema by simply stating "oh that's not life anymore, it's just a blob :) COMMENCE EXECUTION" which would be a cop-out if it wasn't satire.
'The Darkness and the Light' is my favourite DS9 episode and I totally agree with what you've said. This goes very well with the Episode 'Duet'
Both have some great points during their back-and-forth. There were some terrific actors whose performances really connect, regulars and guests alike. Their voices and physicalities emote so much. I loved episode that really engaged with moral arguments, making the viewer search their moral core rather than having the answer forced on us.
I love episodes like TNG's 'The Hunted' and 'I Borg'
'Repentance' is probably my favourite Voyager episode
It's a different show, but I love things like Law and Order. I said the same thing on a similar discussion, I love the morally grey questions where you feel like you would do anything to see the criminal (who is guilty) convicted. But the more you think about what would be at stake for the innocent people in a similar situation, it chills you to the bone. That is people exercising their moral cores.
Also different, Tron: Legacy. Clu is shown to be ruthless and a combination of some of the worst dictators in history, but with the context around it and only 3 words... you feel sorry for him.
Very well said. DOKTOR G'HUL APPROVES.
I'm on the younger side, but I grew up with Trek as well. This was before streaming, so my dad had the movies and a few episodes on tape, but the ability to sit down and get the whole Trek experience in a few days just wasn't there (the DVD box sets either weren't out yet or were just too expensive). I spent a lot of my teenage years reading up on Trek trivia and reading exhaustive essays on minutiae and lots of little things even the average Trek fan would think is a little too obsessive. As I got older and became an adult and really took the time to watch every show all the way through, I found that I had grown out of it.
I still appreciate the parts of the show I like, especially TOS and the accompanying movies. But as an adult there's something about Trek, especially TNG and Voyager, that just feels really juvenile and childish. Maybe its the cynicism of growing up, but it feels more like the series was based on a really questionable premise to begin with. Roddenberry was a drugged out hippie who got up to some really crazy stuff, and the whole counterculture movement of the 60s while it made some good progress in the first few years I think has matured into an unmitigated social disaster today. Trek is very much a product of its time like that, even well into TNG since Roddenberry was still at the helm and held a lot of influence in the series.
People call Star Wars "science fantasy" and to be honest I don't really view Trek any differently as an adult. it doesn't have mystical trappings like Wars does but it is often very silly and quite guilty of depicting what amounts to literal magic, I don't care what Clarke has to say about it. The "science" in the show is a lot of vague guesswork that only occasionally touches on real world ideas, with the technobabble growing more out of control as the series got older. Its a different kind of fantasy, one based on the American mythology of things like the old west, the triumph of democracy in the modern age, and the indomitable strength of scientific thought. And I can enjoy a good fantasy story.
But its still fantasy. Its not really a glimpse of the future, especially now. Its more like a look back at the past.
At its core Trek has always been a story that neo-liberalism tells itself. All the narratives of social progressivism and technology as a solution projected forward like a carrot in front of a donkey.
And like the neo-liberalism it reflects, some of it is/was good stuff. But some of it doesn't deserve to be taken anywhere near as seriously as it often is.
I'm not sure I'd describe Gene as a hippie, however much he may have sympathized with them. Dude was a WWII vet.
I tend to agree that _Trek,_ like _Star Wars,_ is more science fantasy than straight sci-fi. Yes, they were famous and inspired a bunch of stuff... including the Alcubierre Warp Drive (strictly a theoretical construct that requires things that may not exist in this universe) which doesn't quite work the way the one in the show does, for all that internet pedants have latched onto it.
You are younger so it is understandable that you are giving up. Quantum science is steadily unlocking Trek tech, like the flip phone. Partial use of Trek tech created Microsoft and Apple tech. The Trek energy economy can manifest through quantum fusion.
@@davedsilva Fusion is a meme and frankly I've seen no proof quantum isn't one too. Older people are sometimes too easily impressed.
"it's dead, Feral"
A wise man once said 'Let's make sure history never forgets the name Enterprise.'
Agreed but that's what happened to most of the sixties counter-culture.
I was waiting for you to bring up "The Orrville" which in my opinion is truer to trek than new trek is.
Orville, Absolutely. It's like '90s Trek with jokes, some of the episodes would have made good Trek if played straight.
60's counter culture was a plague in almost every way but it wasn't even really counter culture since every facet of it you can find was in one way or another started by communists or european infiltrators
Babe wake up, new feral historian 😮
Agreed, even about enjoying Lower Decks more than any other modern Trek. You might as well have fun with it.
I've been asking myself about that new story for a long time, even attempting to write it myself more than once. The problem is that, well, we know the cycle: the establishment has problems, the rebellious upstarts express themselves and take power, they become the new establishment, rinse and repeat. Even figuring out what the current core values we should adhere to is, that's trickier than it sounds, because you need both teamwork and individualism, you need both incentive to succeed and the security of care if you fail, and these conflict with each other in practice.
I think it's a little too easy these days to be cynical about establishment, any establishment, and I'm tempted to make a recommendation: watch Farscape. That's really just about a family of castoffs caught in a galactic mess with no clear ideological leanings at all, but it's also a great show. But I also don't think you can separate people from a desire to be able to trust the system, if only because they're lazy and want the tough questions to be answered for them. Someone will craft a new truth.
Excellent channel
given the portfolio of your movies which I really like I would like to see your thoughts on The Expanse series.
I've been meaning to watch that again. I have some thoughts but some refining and verifying is in order.
The pilot episode was good, and then it threw that out the window to play social commentary instead of a good story. After the first season it ran out of ideas and started making stuff up on the fly and you can tell
while listening to this guy's insightful commentary, I can't help but want a shirt like his, and not know what the hell it is.
Regarding what you said at the end, the closest thing I can think of in modern times is Iain Banks' Culture series, but that involves humanity basically becoming pets of hyperintelligent AIs. Which would send a rather mixed message in today's climate.
Either that, or some of the so-called "hopepunk" kid/YA shows of recent years like Steven Universe and the new She-Ra, which try to bring back a more feel-good "let's try to talk things out!" attitude to conflict resolution, with violence treated as a distasteful last resort.
I've only read a couple of the Culture books so far, but it strikes me as a sugar-coated dystopia in the making. The kind of civilization that collapses when the Minds break, leave, or decide they don't want to be bothered with us, and we end up living in something like Dune or 40K.
@@feralhistorian Yeah, I agree. The Culture is more of a thought experiment than a proposal.
Although the chaos demon in me kinda wishes Amazon or Netflix would make an adaptation, just to watch the resulting drama.
Steven Universe is brainwashing child grooming garbage
Star Wars, Star Trek and Doctor Who; all deader than A line flares with pockets at the knees. Thank goodness they find it impossible to reboot Babylon 5, and they seem to have forgotten Blakes 7 for now.
I keep hearing stories about JMS helming a _B5_ reboot...
Shhhh... Don't give them ideas.
Who was always garbage, the english masquerading as benevolent overlords of righteousness for the rest of the galaxy and just like the insult to reality that is trek always finding a nonviolent solution. It was dead as a doornail which is why it ended to begin with, bringing it back was hubris to the highest possible degree and only had one direction it could go and that was the toilet. The english are the center of nothing not even their own culture anymore, it was doomed to devolve
I think the most surreal aspect of your video is the ending to it, what's the closet thing we have to Trek that embodies it's ideals better than what's out there. Oddly enough I'd say the Space Cruiser Yamato revival/remake that came out in the 2010's. While primarily a war story it also oddly acts as a massive critique about duties, heritages, and what the inheritance of empire truly means right down to familiar relationships. From Desslar the kid who wasn't supposed to be an inheritor to an interstellar throne built on the backs of two dead empires, the Iscandarians that developed a path of materialist enlightenment that secretly turned out to be more destructive than expected, humanity starting to get out into the stars and then not getting that vast picture and the age of the dark forest they bumbled into, The Comet Empire being a race of living walking terminator weapons filled with pointless destructive emotional regret because they were too good at killing but driven mad by their leader with the worst case of romantic oneitis. The through line is you've got Kodai, who starts of as a young semi hothead man who wants to avenge what he thinks is the death of his older brother (whose sacrifice may have saved more than what was left of the EDF in their battle with Gamalon), to a leader of men who literally semi went through hell and back in the process.
And yet throughout that semi run on sentence, through all of semi spoilers the Yamato revival constantly has that running theme of going through extreme events and constantly pulling out hope no matter the odds or sacrifice. Everytime we think there's someone or something that's the "last of their race" it turns out that's never truly the case. When the odds are hopeless the team built out of the stress gets together with several other generational members and they pull through. Which I think is something that's not only highly stoic in our current age of intergenerational and post colonial strife, but it's far more rewarding and meaningful in a post DS9 Trek World, where such themes have been thrown into the garbage bin with 2010's era Trek.
One of the things that really surprised me with the _Space Battleship Yamato_ remake was that they used all the original mecha and character designs. It's a very unique vibe seeing 70s designs animated in that crisp, modern, computer-assisted method.
Not that the designs were the only throwbacks; the whole thing 'hit' better for me because it didn't lean as hard on the then-modern tropes of the genre, preferring to be more faithful to the original vision.
I watched your Star Trek videos. I’m extremely impressed. But I must say I don’t know if your leaning towards the left or right in politics 😂
Sir, you are a scholar! Your words speak truth. Lower decks and Strange New Worlds for todays era are needed more than Discovery (it is a dumpster fire). But why no mention of Enterprise in this lineup? You have in a previous episode.
Please keep doing what you are doing, your work is fantastic!
There was a very brief mention of Enterprise here, but it really deserves its own video. There's a lot I liked about Enterprise.
@@feralhistorian Enterprise had so much going for it! I look forward to your next installment.
Another episode that made me think. I like the reframing of ST as progressive because it was counter-culture and that woke is when society makes counter-culture an agenda to be pushed, which is the antithesis of what a counter-culture movement is. Lots to mull over that point.
10 years a minute, better make it count
Gotta be honest, negative comments about the original series movies, and positive comments about lower decks and SNW was hard to sit through.
I do appreciate this video.
I can't say I was ever a Star Trek fan, I grew up on Star Wars first and foremost. When I did see Star Trek later in life, it suffered in comparison. But seeing how it developed (Space Communism and Feminism ruining....well, everything...) the Original Series seems like a paragon of entertainment.
As we Brits used to say… Spot On!
as a writer producer myself but not on such a grand scale as Star Trek, many of us have noticed that Mr. Roddenberry's rather utopian view of the future created a deficit of interesting exciting and entertaining storylines. A boring universe where you have to constantly rely on bumping into new aliens to carry an idea or a story along. Life on earth is just about perfect with almost no disease, friction over wages taxes technology problems, marriage divorce children etc. etc. but that's the way he wanted it.
Well, storys on earth are rare
Boomer Trek is funniest (Herbert!); DS9 is peak GenX (Gul Dukat did nothing wrong); Zoomer Trek...dunno, don't care, didn't watch because...zoomers wouldn't know an original idea if it crawled out of their bottle of Xanax.
… _Comfort Women._
It's not the Zoomers fault that damn near no one is willing to offer them something new.
DS9 was no different than TNG, bommer tier idealism shoved down your throat in various color forms with it's blue goateed leader making sure to touch every possible cultureal ideal he could think of and then shitting on it. Gul Dukat was a strawman caricature that belonged on a saturday morning cartoon run, Michael Eddington is the only character they created that was ever worth a shit, and they tried to make him evil
There is a big difference between Deep Space 9 and other Star Trek shows though.
Most Star Trek shows feature the big galaxy ships on the cutting edge of the Federation doing the big political moves. It's the view of the Federation from the highway as everything its built up wizzes past the window at warp speed. Meanwhile DS9 stops and takes a look at a single area which the other shows left behind a long time ago.
Picard of TNG can exist in the same universe as Sisko's DS9. Picard of TNG cannot exist in the same universe as Picard from Picard.
DS9 is my favourite Star Trek and Sisko is my favourite Captain. He has many qualities that make him my favourite but part of the fact the DS9 was stationary was the ability to put down roots as a family man.
Also in an another note what do you think about AI and us becoming cyborgs what if the alternate is us becoming bioborgs to survive and thrive in outer space in this universe
I grew up with Star Trek, but haven't been able to really enjoy it since I realized, somewhere in the middle of Voyager's run, just how formulaic the writing was. And once I saw it, I couldn't un-see it - it ruined almost all of Voyager for me, as well as most of TNG, and even some episodes of TOS and DS9 (it didn't help that the writers straight-up recycled plots from series to series, and even from episode to episode within series).
It also didn't help that I have enough science background to recognize that fans gushing about how "Star Trek is _real_ science fiction, unlike the 'space fantasy' of certain _other_ franchises" are not just violently off-putting, but also *completely full of crap.* But that's a problem with Trekkies, not with Trek proper.
Another great video again. I don't always 100% see eye to eye with you. But I always find your point of view challenging and intelligent.
I've never had an issue with wokeness, just figuring it to be a phrase conservatives use against anyone who suggests they act with a little more empathy.
But I thought your progressive vs woke point was an interesting take I'll have to think on more.
It's always great to have things presented in interesting ways. I follow several content creators who challenge actual political subjects or analyse the political edge of entertainment. I agree with a lot of what they say but not always. People have the open minds to have their own minds.
Sadly you are right...
Are you going to do the narration for Ninti's Gate audiobook?
I'm looking into possibly doing an audiobook version. Whether I'll do it all or bring on some good voice actors I know to do characters is one of many questions. It's all very speculative right now.
Any chance we could get some commentary on Dune?
Odds are very high.
Yeah, my star trek is not being made anymore. But that's ok, as finality is what brings me joy.
Picard season 3 was excellent as well, it's the closest thing I've seen in Star Trek to capturing the same tone (as well as purpose) as the old TOS films. First two seasons are complete garbage however, but season 3 requires almost no knowledge of the previous seasons (there are massive events and important characters that don't even get referred to).
I was pleasantly surprised with season 3. It wasn't perfect, but it did a lot of things right. Especially in contrast to the bloody awful season 2.
Well, as The Motion Picture is my favourite Star Trek movie of them all (and of Mike from Redlettermedia btw) i guess i am that pretentious undergrad ;-)
I watch TMP once every decade or so. Of course, I've watched Star Trek V a few times too.
@@feralhistorian btw, if you ask me what has been the best of NuTrek recently its actually the very underrated Star Trek Prodigy. Yes, the kids Show from Nikelodeon. Its a cartoon like lower decks but doesnt have this cynical parody aspect like it and actually comes very close to the frontier vibe of the old Shows like TOS and TNG. I recommend to check it out in case you have not seen it.
Honestly I completely dismissed Prodigy but It's been mentioned positively a couple times now so I'll give it a look.
so serious question have you watched The Orville and what do you think in regards to picking up the Star Trek troch? It is certainly a show trying to be TNG.
My wife and I watched both the Orville and Discovery when they premiered in close proximity. We both agreed that Orville, far more than Discovery, was the heir to Next Gen.
In a broader sense, I think it's a sign of Star Trek having become less an IP and more an aesthetic. Anything that has a crew wearing colorful space pajamas getting in adventures on a starship is "Star trek" even if it has nothing to do lore-wise with any actual Star Trek show or movie.
@@feralhistorian Around the turning of the 2000's with WotC 3e D&D/Star Wars came out.
As teenagers during the 1980's & 90's we just liked WEG Star Wars gaming mechanics over Fasa Star Trek.
But we still ran imperials like Picard's bridge crew.
My gaming shop was converting WEG d6 dice pool Star Wars into Star Trek DS9 Dominion War play throughs.
Another Syfy show at the times was " Far Scape." where a space faring empire had generational military carriers. Bit grimdark, and flipping the Star War themes a bit.
My gaming shops ran generational ship like they were TNG/DS9 starfleet officers. Other than " Hunt of Red October," there were not too many navy war movies that shown bridge combat. " Moons of Jupiter " was another fun game.
Something about a retired admiral taking naps on the bridge, issues no orders and offer a couple of suggestion. Part of the day he lectures teenagers and junior n/co on a vary of topics. They are the ship's grandfather/mother type, born, live, and will die on ship.
2.) One thing I seen people argue/debate over the years about DS9 Jake Sisko, brave enough to pull someone out of a radiation fire filled maintenance tube, but runs scare coward from mortar concussion blasts. Shell shock air pressure sound wave rippling through your brain & whole does trigger fight or flight to different levels.
It is the order of things.
Sir what do you think of stargate universe… I need to know its an thing of mine
I've never been able to get into Stargate Universe. The tone is so different from SG-1 (or even Atlantis) and it was trying for the BSG personal drama angle that felt a little forced. I've only seen 4-5 episodes of it and it just didn't click for me. Perhaps I'll give it another chance at some point.
It seems really polarizing. I've known people that loved SGU and insist that any future Stargate should pick up from there, and other people that despise that show. It doesn't seem to spark an "it was alright" reaction in anybody.
@@feralhistorian oh the tone was changed to depict what if the wrong people was thrust into the fire would they surcome to our pretty differences or band together just like the movie Armageddon “the wrong stuff”. I like to think when the chips are down deep down people will choose to cooperate n figure things out for the survival of the group…
It remind me of that one scene in the matrix 2 I think after Morpheus’s speech addressing the people in the cave the raw action celebration
Agreed
I appreciate the progressive vs woke analysis: the fact that major institutions back wokeness implies that they have something to gain from it and not to our benefit as it their nature 😅
Star Trek has allways been progressive, the only Problem is that New Trek "progresses" in the oposite direction.
Roddenberry's ideas about life we're wrong. In accurate. He was an old-school liberal Marxist who is willing to back up his idea with lethal force which he did during World War II and as a motorcycle cop in Los Angeles. A red marine if you will. When we were kids watching Star Trek we liked the spaceships and the ray guns and monsters and paid no attention to all the preachy bullshit. And when we got older we stopped watching these shows. The people that liked him a lot were basically comic book guy from the Simpsons. If you want mature storylines read all of Shakespeare. Lots of writers try to use so-called science fiction as a vehicle to promote their leftist ideology, from the Day the Earth stood still to Star Trek.
If I had the political and financial power to do it I would give all of you a new Star Trek that I bet you would end up liking and it would be a lot more popular and honest.
There is no such thing as universal human equality. Nothing like that exists in the world of physics in this universe financially theologically politically genetically. The have Nots want what the haves ... have. nothing new about this and I have already made a TV show about this very theme.
Have fun, enjoyed your show. You are a very good presenter and did a great job speaking in front of the camera and remembering what you were saying. Very hard to do. My compliments
Equality is by definition unequal and unfair. If you give every person 1 equal vote, you give the delinquent waste-of-space an equal voice to that of a soldier sacrificing his life to protect the system, to that of the fireman who is willing to sacrifice himself to save others, and equal to the farmer or small business owner who is putting it all on the line to carve out an independent place for himself.
If your society is 50% rural and 50% urban. And you practice "1 person 1 vote". In political power, the system is actually going to be closer to 20% power to the rural half of the population and 80% power to the urban half of the population.
If you put up an advertisement in the middle of the urban street, millions of people will see it.
Put up that same sign out in Nebraska, and only a couple dozen people will see it.
This allows for a far greater level of political mobilization to the urban population.
The urban population can strike, shutting down the factory. They can take to the streets, shutting down entire blocks or perhaps the entire city.
The politicians are in the city, and so they will see the swarm of people, and jump to the obvious conclusion that these people represent the will of the entire people.
While the rural people have no such power. A farmer can't strike. He can't just sit down and stop working. The farmer has no labor unions he can organize with.
And so, Universal Suffrage is one of the most unequal and most unfair systems you can have.
Equality was always a lie.
But with mob rule, the demagogues have a lot of power. And they have no intentions of giving it up.
Fun fact:
If I remember correctly, the German Empire knew about the unfair reality of a "1 person 1 vote" system.
And so for their Parliament, they split it between rural seats and urban seats. Securing a solid representation for the rural peoples in their legislature.
But then we got WW1 and the German revolution if 1918-1919. And any hopes for good European politics died.
@@Hugebull yes that as well put. And that's why we have to have an electoral college or else the big cities will call all the shots and they knew that back in the 18th century. In fact it is absolutely vital.
@@randelbrooks Too bad little of the intended Electoral College remains. Now most of the Electors are required to vote what they are told to vote, or they have to vote alongside the Popular Vote of the State.
And the 17th Amendment destroyed the Senate entirely.
The United States was founded to be a Republic, a perfect mixture of Autocracy, Oligarchy, and Democracy. But over time, it has now been reduced to a Democracy. Little of the intended Republican institutions remain, sadly.
Star Trek Discovery is making Star Trek more like Warhammer 40K. Klingons are the orks. Vulcans and romulans are the Eldar and the Dark Eldar. The ferengi are the squats or space dwarfs.
Never really watched Star Trek personally outside a couple episodes with my grandpa like the clunky fight scene with the lizard man.
However what comes to mind personally when I hear optimistic sci fi willing to call out societies problem would have to be the anime Gurren Lagann. The overall focus on the greatness of the human spirit paired with the initially post apocalyptic setting full of broken groups of humans all with their own problems self imposed and not.
((Spoiler Warning))
That ultimately culminates in the indomitable human spirit eclipsing the size of the universe and humanity beating a cruel and angry god of similar proportion. Then after all is said and done the new human civilization sends out rockets to go explore the universe and meet aliens.
I've never heard of Gurren Lagann. I'll have to check that out.
No quote today
If Roddenberry were still alive, he'd shocked how "woke culture" highjacked his progressivism.
Dont trust lt cmd Eddington from DS9. He is just angry at Federation
If we take the Federation, and by extension Starfleet, as the view of what Humanity should be from Star Trek then its very much the opposite of woke.
Its a meritocracy where a space isn't reserved for you based on group. The Enterprise doesn't have a Vulcan, or Klingon, or Android aboard because it fills a quota but because they were the best. Where technology has advanced far enough (thanks in part to a greedy capitalist named Zefram Cochrane) that the means of production (means of replication?) can now exist in every home, and with functionally infinite power anyone can participate in the market or society as they wish.
what about star trek prodigy?
I have not looked at Prodigy.
One of the things that I've noticed while growing older is the urge to feel nostalgia for all things past.
Except I find that nostalgia becoming problematic. Yearning for all things old and despising the new.
I find that this nostalgia problem not only plagues me but the world at large.
We've given up on new ideas and decided to take comfort in our old stories and old glories.
Old star trek would not stand a chance in that sort of mindset. It would be too strange too radical for our tastes..
We could not embrace it.
In all, I never liked Trek call it a premonition that it would be used by the left for control and self-aggrandizement.
Your description of woke is a little incomplete, but perhaps that's for another video. In short, woke isn't establishment, Woke with a capital W is establishment. The establishment incorporates everything successful into itself, even if that thing is merely successful at attacking the establishment. The result is a body-horror version of wokeness that it wears like a mask made from your own face. It's more or less the same monster underneath, only now you can't call it x-ist while it's subjugating you.
The Establishment certainly co-opts anything useful. Whatever name one applies at any given time, I'm in favor of treating every individual with dignity and respect as an individual; and opposed to any ideology that treats individuals as class or race representatives and ranks them accordingly.
@@feralhistorian Agreed. While there's an argument to be made for the utility of an inverted hierarchy like intersectionality in addressing the multilayered harms caused by its progenitor hierarchy, one must be careful not to become hierarchical in the process.
There's like three versions of 'woke' in media at this point. The regular woke of progressive creatives simply incorporating multiple peoples and viewpoints. The political propaganda tool of the left-leanings parties to present themselves as paragons of progress whilst not actually doing a lot to fight for it. And woke as an insult used by politicians and their followers on the right to paint any diverse media as following the agenda of the aforementioned parties, in an attempt to tear down the progress that their opposition party doesn't bother to actually uphold.
I was enjoying this and agreeing, up until the point you veered off into a rant about 'woke'. If I want to hear that, there's a million other channels who specialise in it
Is that really what you think Woke is? Like Seriously?
You're seriously going to tell me that old Trek wasn't preachy? Do I have to bring up "Let that be your Last Battlefield"? Or "Patterns of Force"? Or any of the dozen others that went fully ham-handed in their preachiness? Trek has always been preachy, weird, and conflicted in its attitudes towards hegemony and power. It was always both part of the establishment and the counter-culture. Only now, many of the elements that were once counter-cultural have become mainstream.
And don't let yourself get caught up on "woke". That's just the conservatives appropriating and demonizing an existing term from the counter-culture to weaponize it against the counter-culture. ("Woke", meaning being aware of the system you live in, has been used by black Americans for some time. It even had it's own counter-commentary in the "hotep") Look at the patterns, they do it all the time as a tool to push back against progressive thought. 30 years ago it was "Politically Correct." Once they think they've defanged Woke they'll move onto something else, as they've always done. I think DEI was next in line for a while. Don't be a sucker for conservative discourse-shaping. You're smarter than that.
A final, unrelated note - Lower Decks does something that's been tried and failed at multiple times by American TV: To create a truly American version of Red Dwarf. They just finally stumbled on the idea that the key to make a show about idiots thrown into classic sci-fi scenarios work for Americans was to throw hyper-competent idiots into sci-fi scenarios in a known universe.
"Conservatives" have lost every battle in America for the past 200 years. "Political Correctness" stopped being a term because it became the new normal. "Woke" will stop being used once all it entails has become the new norm.
"Conservatives" haven't shaped any discourse for over a century. Blaming the voiceless and the powerless is a pretty cruel thing to do.
I've always found it odd to claim that anything that is shown on TV can be classified as "Counterculture".
The show was funded by the establishment, and it was aired by the establishment.
Had Star Trek been banned by the State, and episodes on VHS tapes had to be smuggled through the country to be viewed illegally. Then yea, sure. Counterculture.
But it was shown on national television...
You're absolutely right about woke/dei/etc just being a modern version of the 'PC' complaints, just more inflamed because the internet and discourse has become more inflamed. Also I love your Lower Decks/Red Dwarf comparison, that's such a great observation.