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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
- Thread starter lastmessiah
- Start date
Good grief, I can tell they are trying for a high budget version of a campy low budget 50's schlock but damn.....I fear all the issues I have with STD's migraine inducing cinematography are gonna appear in this show as well. Plots aside, I have little confidence that I will get a classic trek from this feel outside of "hey look, Uhura now has 300% more stuff to do!" .
And Pike's hair, WTF? Subliminal ads for hair gel pompadour?
And Pike's hair, WTF? Subliminal ads for hair gel pompadour?
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SpongebobSquaredance
Unconfirmed Member
It doesn't matter if you define Star Trek originally being about "universal humanistic values and enlightenment" as it falls under the exact same umbrella that today most would describe as "woke". You may have a certain definition for "woke", but what is universally accepted to be "woke" by most was included in Star Trek from the get-go: a diverse cast, LGBTQ representation, a utopian society, political themes. Hell, DS9 literally quotes Karl Marx. Whether the real definition of "woke" is a different one doesn't matter in this situation (the official definition is completely different from yours too, just to let you know). People call it "woke" out out of sheer principle. Their definition of "woke" is already made up, so whenever they see a piece of media with a diverse cast, LGBTQ representation and the likes, they will call it out for being "woke".
I'll take any bet that if the original Star Trek from the 60s would release in the todays climate it would be called out for being "woke". Even further, if Roddenberry was here today as a young and upcoming writer, he would be called out for being a SJW libtard. 100%.
Problem with modern Star Trek isn't that it is "woke" (according to the definition of "woke" most use). It's the shit tier writing.
Dr. Claus
Banned
No.
There is a difference between a progressive narrative and being “woke”. ”Woke“ is inherently not progressive, it is *regressive*. Diverse casts, representation of minorities, political themes - none of this is “woke”. Woke is simply another word for slacktivism. It is activism with zero effort, thought, or care. Done by people who care more about how they *appear* rather than genuinely push progressive concepts and ideals to make a better world.
NuTrek is not “progressive” and never has been. It is a sad series of miserable writers and actors who want to put forth the least amount of effort in order to pretend that they care because they just want to get the praise by mindless folks who don’t want to put forth the two brain cells to critically think.
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SpongebobSquaredance
Unconfirmed Member
While the bolded part might be true, it doesn't change the fact that this is what most consider to be woke, and it is what most mean when they moan about something being woke. Therefore I repeat it. People call things "woke" out out of sheer principle as they already have a clear picture in their head of what is "woke". This means whenever they see a piece of media with a diverse cast, LGBTQ representation and the likes, they will call it out for being "woke" (nothings beats a simple world view I guess) - However, whether it actually is woke, according to the official definition or your definition, doesn't matter in that situation, because, as said, they do it out of sheer principle.
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TOS certainly challenged the mainstream with a Russian character, a black woman on the bridge, and a meritocratic ideal society. But it also dealt with virtually all of its issues behind clever storytelling that never preached. You could just watch the ep with half black/half white guys arguing with half-white/half-black guys and just take it at face value. Or you could read the ethnic message there. Porblem with nu-trek, what I have watched of it, and "wokeism" is that the preachy message is front and center and there is no attempt to guise it in any fashion. There is no sci-fi or allegory or subtlety or any measure of creativity. It's just straight up activist writing and a canned "Fuck you you bigot and hate monger if you don't embrace it I hope you die!!!" response to any criticism or suggestion of disapproval.
Hell, even Orville can handle slipping in their preach just behind some legit sci-fi queries, and they are like 99% focused on the dick and fart jokes!
For me though, the real problem with STD at least is the way they shoot it and the pacing. They seem to blip past the "star trek" stuff of scientific exploration, wonder, and overcoming obstacles to instead focus on interpersonal conflict, intrapersonal whining, and lots of panning shots showing everyone smugly smiling 'cause "the right thing was just said.....we are holding for audience applause". It's just a hard show to physically watch even if the messaging was appealing to me.
Dr. Claus
Banned
No, it *isn’t* what most consider “woke”. That is your own strawman argument and ignorance pushing that onto others.
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SpongebobSquaredance
Unconfirmed Member
That perhaps that downside when things become successful and mainstream - It becomes a business, and companies are more concerned about keeping their numbers up as high as possible than actually delivering something of substance. Nu-Trek is too plain, too blunt. The writing just isn't good and I can't really get behind it. I truly believe that Roddenberry stood behind his work. I can't say the same thing about the current writers of the show.
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SpongebobSquaredance
Unconfirmed Member
Look up the definition of straw man please and then come back. On this forum alone there are countless examples of people calling XYZ woke because XYZ has a diverse cast, LGBTQ characters, etc., and not because of "slacktivist writing" (which ironically is your very own definition of woke and not the official one either, so save yourself from accusing me of a straw man argument). XYZ is called out for being woke from the very moment they see something that fits the shoe, which usually are things like a diverse cast among others. Very few bother to describe in detail what concerns them about XYZ. Blunt generalizations are simply thrown into the room with no nuance. Seen it a thousand times. Before anyone goes in-depth about the writing, themes, message, etc., XYZ is already declared to be woke. Again, out of sheer principle.
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Dr. Claus
Banned
And now you are doubling down, I am not surprised. Your sad need to make disingenuous assertions and wide spread generalizations is not a new thing, but For some reason I was hoping you would actually *learn* to do better here. Sadly that is not the case.
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SpongebobSquaredance
Unconfirmed Member
Not an assertion, that's just how it is and it is easily verifiable, but I guess you like to ignore the numerous examples of this exact thing happening across this forum, other forums, YT, twitter, reddit.
Truly ironic.
Dr. Claus
Banned
Not an assertion, that's just how it is and it is easily verifiable, but I guess you like to ignore the numerous examples of this exact thing happening across this forum, other forums, YT, twitter, reddit.
Truly ironic.
strange headache
Banned
But it does matter, because wokeism and enlightenment are two very different schools of thought. That's like saying hot-dogs and hamburgers are the same thing, because both have meat and bread.
- Enlightenment values express a sort of universalism in the sense that people are seen as having things in common upon which modern society can be founded. As such everybody is equal and has access to the same rights.
- Wokeism is the complete opposite, it highlights personal differences based on certain identity traits which are then hierarchized.
It is not relevant whether DS9 quotes Marx, this is not question of right vs. left. Enlightenment values try to transcend political divides through its universalistic approach and recognized that political opposition is a good thing because it facilitates societal progress. Wokeism in inherently political hence why it vilifies and alienates its political opposition.
It is exactly that vilification of the audience that is not working in NuTrek. Enlightenment formulated messages that would appeal to audiences as a whole by go beyond mere partisan gripes. Classic Trek addressed humanitarian issues, NuTrek is framing these universal issues as inherently identitarian, hence the reason why its messaging does not work.
NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt
Biggest Trails Stan
I was laughing at that ridiculous comment. No matter what woke is bad. And stuff like this and The Handmaids Tale and other woke shows stinks of regressive propaganda
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DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
Dang... I'm gonna miss Hemmer. :'(
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
Season 2 has begun!
Opener was solid. Very little Pike but a good episode nonetheless!
The dedication made me tear up!
Opener was solid. Very little Pike but a good episode nonetheless!
The dedication made me tear up!
GeekyDad
Member
Haven't been keeping up with this...is this meant to be a reboot of the original TV series?
And presentation aside, based on that trailer alone, this is a hard no-go for me. Hard!
ManaByte
Gold Member
Opening was shit. Boring and the Klingons shouldn’t look like that at this point. They’re still affected by the augment virus as this point in time.
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
It's a prequel to the original series. That's Pike as captain. Remember, the Enterprise was his before it was Kirk's. It feels like a TOS/TNG combo.
GeekyDad
Member
Yeah, was wondering why the grey hair, but the rest of the crew looked like the original characters (mostly). The personalities are very much not to my liking, so I'm probably gonna take a pass. I mean, fucking Spock seems ridiculously portrayed. Again, at least in that trailer.
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
The trailer is lacking context. Also remember, Spock in TOS was more emotional than movie Spock... And there's a stated reason THIS Spock (still the same one, just earlier in the timeline) is more emotional in season 2 (so far) than in TOS. And it works. The trailer lacks context, the show provides it.
DT, I'm gonna trust you on this show (and Picard S3) and fire it up in a bit. If I like it, I'll buy you a tall cold one next time I'm in Atlanta for Dragoncon. If I don't like it, I'm buying MYSELF a tall cold one and gonna drink it down, slowly and bitterly
Just something about the way they actually film these new Trek shows puts me off, hard to explain.
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
DT, I'm gonna trust you on this show (and Picard S3) and fire it up in a bit. If I like it, I'll buy you a tall cold one next time I'm in Atlanta for Dragoncon. If I don't like it, I'm buying MYSELF a tall cold one and gonna drink it down, slowly and bitterly
Just something about the way they actually film these new Trek shows puts me off, hard to explain.
I'm looking forward to it, bro. Let me know what you think!
Trogdor1123
Member
Why isn’t season 1 on paramount +? Is it somewhere else?
GeekyDad
Member
Just watched the first ep. on Prime.
And yeah, what I watched didn't need context of any kind to know, for myself, that it's not for me. Looks like a very well-made show, though.
Ballthyrm
Member
It is a little bit like humor. It is all about the execution. You can talk about any subject but you need to do it with care.
Care about the characters, care about the Story, care about the message.
The difference is that Nu-Trek only care about the message over everything else.
Here is the thing. If Nu-Trek could that, they would.
"woke" or any other sub political culture don't have any monopoly over societal issues. LGBT issues aren't owned by the woke crowd however they would like to be the moral arbiter over these issues.
When people associate issues to a political leaning over another they fundamentally don't understand how moral progress work.
Each person must come to their own understanding over each issue and you are not going to get there by shouting your own conviction at them.
The old Star Trek tried to persuade you and slowly make you realise your own attitude toward an issue they were championing and have the issue make the case for itself.
The Nu Star trek is trying (and failing) to convince you to follow a moral stand toward an issue that never get enough time to stand on its own.
So when you say "star trek" has always been woke, you could also say, the woke crowd associate nowadays with ideas that were first introduced by Star Trek to a mainstream audience.
They (the woke crowd) don't get to own Star Trek retroactively because the issue they care about were treated by Star Trek.
"Blunt generalizations are simply thrown into the room with no nuance." is a good synopsis of Nu-Trek by the way.
People use rules for thumb to reduce cognitive processing, I think it makes sense when "XYZ" has all the hallmarks of what
Dr. Claus
call "slacktivist writing" to call something "woke" as a shorthand.It is applied too liberally, maybe, then again if it hits the mark over 50% then it is still a good rule of thumb.
It is up to the creatives to not alienate some of their potential audience by virtue signalling exclusively to a subset of that audience some of the values you care about.
I think that's mostly what's being reproached most of the time.
The very act of communicating that you have 10.000 LGBTQ characters or that 50% of your staff is women can be interpreted that you put more value to this than what you are actually making.
I may share the exact same values about LGBTQ, and you may think telling this fact may signal a broader inclusivity and therefore increase your target audience but not everyone interprets the same message the same way.
We don't all follow the same train of logic or follow the same path toward the same values.
For all the talks of inclusivity, there is often none towards the diverse way of thinking.
You won't ever get to go in depth about the other things that the show may provide because you already told some your audience that they are "lesser than"
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JayK47
Member
Just started watching this series recently. I am still in Season 1. Just got done watching the episode with the transgender individual. Up until that episode I thought the series was too good to be true. But I knew it wouldn't last. Having a transgender lecture Spock on how he identifies as a Vulcan, but can be whatever he wants to be, was cringe to say the least. I'm afraid to keep watching.
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
Yet the fact she was transgender was never brought up. I didn't know she was until someone brought it up here.