• @[email protected]
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    128 hours ago

    I havent gotten past the original series yet (I started with that), so far Star Trek seems like the entire point is to get into complex social and political issues that other companies would be too scared to cover.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 hours ago

      “When I have a problem that phasers can’t solve, I just kiss a beautiful alien. Then suddenly, I have a completely different problem!” - Jason Tiberius Kirk

      Edit: I may have drifted into the Kelvin timeline…

  • @grue
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    5617 hours ago

    Nichelle Nichols was at one point thinking of quitting the show but stayed because MLK Jr. himself told her how important her character was.

    • Flying SquidM
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      2915 hours ago

      And without Nichelle Nichols on Star Trek, she wouldn’t have been hired by NASA and then we wouldn’t have had Sally Ride, so she is a legitimate space hero.

    • @LovableSidekick
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      2116 hours ago

      She thought about leaving because she didn’t feel like her character got to do enough - a common sentiment of supporting actors.

      • Captain Aggravated
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        2115 hours ago

        It was TNG that really established an ensemble cast formula; TOS was Kirk-Spock-McCoy and the rest. It took TNG a couple seasons before they got the idea of a true ensemble cast where everyone gets to star in some episodes. TOS wouldn’t have had more than one episode starring Reginald Barcklay with Geordi and Dianna in supporting roles, but TNG had at least two.

        • @[email protected]
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          67 hours ago

          TOS wouldn’t have had more than one episode starring Reginald Barcklay with Geordi and Dianna in supporting roles, but TNG had at least two.

          Three, even. Horny holideck, barkley gets his groove on, and transporter cuddles.

  • @LovableSidekick
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    1716 hours ago

    Kind of yeah, but Gene Roddenberry used allegories like the half black and half white dudes who hated each other - which took more effort than having characters just walk around in the present saying, “Wow, look at all the social injustice.”

      • Captain Aggravated
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        2213 hours ago

        Roddenberry was both a genuinely progressive guy and an extremely 20th century man. “In the future we’re going to cure disease and hunger and everyone of all races and creeds will work together there’s gonna be a black woman, an asian guy, a Russian and an alien with funny ears on the bridge all working as a team and the women will all wear wrist length gogo dresses and there’s gonna be an episode where the crew is utterly baffled at the very concept of racism. We’re gonna paint some actors with half of their faces white and half of their faces black and they’re gonna be really horrible to each other and when asked why they’re gonna say “They’re white on the left side and we’re white on the right side” and it’s gonna make racism sound really dumb.”

        I struggle to have a problem with a guy whose message is “Systematic hatred is extremely bad and stupid, let’s look at sexy legs instead.”

        • @LovableSidekick
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          11 hours ago

          As transparent as Gene’s little parables were, I vastly prefer that method of social commentary over just saying “They certainly were unenlightened in the early 21st century weren’t they - shame on them!”

          • Captain Aggravated
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            410 hours ago

            I haven’t watched any Star Trek since Enterprise. Are they worse at it now? It has been a long road getting form there to here.

            • @LovableSidekick
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              16 hours ago

              IMO Picard season 1 is fantastic and season 2 has some embarrassingly awkward social justice preaching but a good story about the Borg queen. Haven’t seen season 3 or Below Decks yet.

        • @Thebeardedsinglemalt
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          110 hours ago

          Let’s talk about all the social injustice in the world while all positions of authority are held by white dudes.

          • @grue
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            78 hours ago

            He tried to put a woman in a position of authority (first officer) but the studio shot him down.

    • @[email protected]
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      7 hours ago

      cough mark of gideon cough

      Hey, i’m an old fart and guess how many times i heard people say that exact same shit about TNG? The pussy version of trek, nothing like its predecessor, all they do is talk about their emotions!

      • @LovableSidekick
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        711 hours ago

        I’m an old fart too. I had a friend who said all they did on TNG was sit up straight and say, “Engage.”

        • I Cast Fist
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          347 minutes ago

          Your friend clearly does not appreciate the Picard maneuver of straightening the shirt, or the Riker maneuver of throwing one leg over the chair to sit

    • Flying SquidM
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      915 hours ago

      Because that’s what you had to do to get past the executives and the censors in the 1960s.

      Just like how “Last Train to Clarksville” is about Vietnam.

      • @grue
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        8 hours ago

        Just like how “Last Train to Clarksville” is about Vietnam.

        TIL. That is a really subtle reference (at least from the perspective of somebody born a couple of decades after the fact, anyway).

        • Flying SquidM
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          22 hours ago

          Yeah, but the executives were terrified of any and all conflict. That’s why so many shows of that era are incredibly bland.

    • @someguy3
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      415 hours ago

      That was an allegory??? (/s)

  • @chonglibloodsport
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    4219 hours ago

    They didn’t have everything figured out back then. For one, they bullied Spock for what we could only describe today as his neurodiversity.

    • @[email protected]
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      2515 hours ago

      The message I got from McCoy was that humans got along because they found new people to be racist against instead of each other

      • Flying SquidM
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        1415 hours ago

        It helps when every other planet is a severely flawed monocolutre.

        • @[email protected]
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          15 hours ago

          And TOS/ENT in particular

          ENT gets bonus points for shran calling humans “pink skins” when Travis is right fucking there on the bridge

    • @LovableSidekick
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      McCoy called Spock “green-blooded” on multiple occasions - and once a “hobgoblin”. And I would call the Vulcan penchant for logic a cultural trait, not neurodiversity.

    • @Duamerthrax
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      And there will be things that are being created today that’s considered progressive that in 20 years, will be considered as missing the mark.

      • @chonglibloodsport
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        1319 hours ago

        Yes but that doesn’t mean we should never look back and see how far we’ve come, just as we look forward and see how far we have to go.

    • Aa!
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      1017 hours ago

      You should see the episode when a woman body swapped with Kirk, and how the Enterprise crew suspected something was wrong

      • @[email protected]
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        816 hours ago

        The one I always feel like I need to warn people about is the treatment of Rand in The Enemy Within. Particularly since that happens so early in the series.

    • @[email protected]
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      McCoy was racist as shit and would not only have been cashiered, he probably would have been charged for hate speech

  • Lad
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    6821 hours ago

    Guaranteed if original Star Trek came out today, it would be decried as “woke” and “DEI” and there would be outrage over it from the usual culture warriors.

    • @[email protected]
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      4421 hours ago

      Okay, I’ve finally looked up what DEI means… Diversity, equity, and inclusion are things people are berated for??

      • @[email protected]
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        4120 hours ago

        It’s not what DEI means. It’s about what it stands for.

        Conservatives don’t want to be told to treat people with decency. They want to treat however the fuck they want, and then tell you that you aren’t treating them decently.

        It’s about wielding power.

        • @Thebeardedsinglemalt
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          818 hours ago

          This is what they mean with those “My rights don’t end where your feelings begin” bumper stickers. The only right they’re losing is the right to being a bigoted asshole.

      • @Soup
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        1818 hours ago

        DEI is the current iteration of affirmative action, that’s all.

        The problem with DEI is that it’s an imperfect solution that only came about because racists and other bigots couldn’t behave themselves. Forcing the hiring of specific demographics isn’t going to result in the best possible outcomes in every case but those groups also need opportunities even though they’ve been systemically given worse educations and have been generally shat upon. Removing race we’d also probably hire the white man more often but not because they’re inately better, but rather because they are simply more likely to be able to afford to have pretty looking resumés compared to disadvantaged minorities.

        We wouldn’t need DEI in the first fucking place except people like an old boss, who saw an immigrant classmate of mine’s resumé come up and because of his African last name said “no thanks I want to keep jobs in Canada”, need to be forced to do the right thing. They create the problem and throw temper tantrums when we try to fix it. These people are obstacles and it’s getting tiring.

        TL;DR: They feel as if they have a point because DEI can result in a more qualified person being turned away, which I get feels unfair. However, they refuse to acknowledge the fact that said person was only more qualified because we make it so difficult for minorities to fucking do anything. I’m getting so sick of right-wing bullshit.

      • @Stovetop
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        2120 hours ago

        YES, it’s insane. It’s like saying “be a decent person” and people going “Fuck you, commie bastards, I do what I want.”

        • @FordBeeblebrox
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          From 2020 on we’ve seen that telling people “hey wear the most basic of facemasks when you’re out in public because the morgues are running out of space all over” causes them to start screaming at the Walmart greeters and throwing tantrums like children. We are still stupid apes in a lot of ways

      • TheTechnician27
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        1720 hours ago

        The outrage the far-right spun over DEI is by trying to portray it as hiring vastly underqualified applicants simply because of their belonging to an underrepresented group (often even being portrayed as vastly underqualified because of their race as white supremacist rhetoric). Of course in reality this wasn’t true and it was just a foghorn for racism/an ethnic slur, but that’s how it started.

      • @[email protected]
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        -819 hours ago

        Yeah, I’ve heard it called “Didn’t Earn It” and the idea is that people are given preferential treatment in job or services based on their ethnicity and not their qualification. As with all things the truth is somewhere in the middle.

    • Snot Flickerman
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      1321 hours ago

      Counterpoint: As long as they consider the women “hot” they will accept them as part of the franchise.

      Nichelle Nichols I think was probably hot enough to not draw their ire.

      Those culture warriors are somehow always okay with women they view as “fuckable.” Women only have value in their eyes if they want to sleep with them by their looks alone.

  • @[email protected]
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    2820 hours ago

    They were even more upfront about it in TOS for some issues too.

    I remember many instances where they say “We have women in our crew in the future.” It’s not like DISCO flaunted around saying “we don’t hate gay people in this ship.”

    Like I understand that DISCO isn’t everybody’s favorite, and sure it has some issues, but all the flak it got for being “woke” and “preachy” was weird to me.

    Part of Kirk’s whole thing was preachy speeches, and Picard had many moments too.

    • Nightwatch Admin
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      1118 hours ago

      I quite agree STD wasn’t everyone’s favourite, in any case it wasn’t mine, although I really tried. But whining about it being woke was just stupid.

    • @Solumbran
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      919 hours ago

      Saying discovery is woke with their crew split in two parts, the queer ones all packed together and then the “normal” ones, seems like a stretch.

      The gay couple basically adopts the non binary one who is in a couple with the trans one, are friends with the gay engineer, but barely even talk to the rest of the crew? Ah and sex scenes between straight people but the most the gay couple gets is sitting next to each other, brushing teeth and a small kiss (not that it’s a bad thing on its own, it forced the writing to actually show a relationship and not just a bunch of sex, which is positive)

      • @[email protected]
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        312 hours ago

        but the most the gay couple gets is sitting next to each other, brushing teeth and a small kiss

        While you’re absolutely right, I think the record should show that tooth brushing scene is one of the sexiest scenes in television history. Those two have some serious on-screen chemistry.

        • @Solumbran
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          311 hours ago

          Once again, the “don’t show too much gay” policy they seem to have forced them to show a relationship through actual intimacy, in contrast to the usual “relationship=sex” that shows usually have (which we can see with most heterosexual relationships in the same show, for example). Even the doctor that is portrayed by an actor that, let’s say, likes to show his body (most of the google results are him half naked) was not sexualized stupidly like they usually would ; a positive thing, except that it’s probably only because they don’t want to “show the gay” (Book for example is always naked and fucking).

          So yeah, taken independently it’s a better relationship image than most relationships in most shows, but in the context it’s pretty horrible.

          • @[email protected]
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            So yeah, taken independently it’s a better relationship image than most relationships in most shows, but in the context it’s pretty horrible.

            Absolutely. I think a lot of the audience realize that if they weren’t a gay couple, we would see them with their shirts off together at every opportunity.

            The silver lining is that the actors are so attractive and doing such a beautiful and convincing job, that the omission makes the show runners look prudish and silly.

      • Flying SquidM
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        515 hours ago

        That did really bother me, shoehorning all the queer people into their own little box after being far more progressive in previous seasons. Literally anyone else on the crew could have adopted Adira (who I didn’t really care much for as a character anyway, she was basically SNW Uhura but not as good an actor), but they had it be Stamets and Culber. How about making it, say, Detmer?

        • @grue
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          28 hours ago

          How about making it, say, Detmer?

          Who? You sort of trailed off there; all I’m seeing is a blank space.

          • Flying SquidM
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            12 hours ago

            How dare you talk about my pretend girlfriend like that!

    • @Sanctus
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      417 hours ago

      The only issue disco has ever actually had is their serialized episodes. People hate on the other shit cause they’re bigots. Its still good Trek. The story is just less flexible.

      • @FordBeeblebrox
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        17 hours ago

        it’s still good Trek

        Everything with Pike and crew and pretty much everyone except Michael is decent Trek. Deus ex Burnham in every century Starfleet exists in is boring as shit and the nacelles not even being attached to the ship anymore is veering into Star Wars level of nonsensical ship design.

      • @[email protected]
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        The only issue disco has ever actually had is their serialized episodes.

        And not spending enough on light bulbs in some episodes. I wondered if my TV was broken, at one point. Lol.

      • @turmacar
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        1016 hours ago

        I just wish a single ship weren’t saving the Federation/Galaxy/Multiverse every season.

        It also waffles hard between “The important part of the Federation is it’s ideals” and “Section 31 is pretty badass right?”.

        • @[email protected]
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          27 hours ago

          Have yet to see anything outside of DS9 use Section 31 well. It’s inclusion manages to turn what’s supposed to be a hopeful story of the future into just another police procedural that happens to use Star Trek™ branded props

          • @turmacar
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            27 hours ago

            Yeah it’s nuts how it went from “These are the bad guys. This is antithetical to the point of Star Trek and the Federation.” to “Secret agents in space that can just shoot ‘bad’ guys is cool though right?”

        • @[email protected]
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          311 hours ago

          Section 31 is pretty badass, right?

          I have to say, I hated that. It feels like C suite “promote our upcoming show” meddling, to me.

    • @marcos
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      420 hours ago

      It’s not like DISCO flaunted around saying “we don’t hate gay people in this ship.”

      Well, after DS 9 it would just be repetitive. Also TNG spent a few episodes on this exact point, but it wasn’t a main topic.

      But people tend to focus their complains about things being “preachy” when those things put the preach above the story-telling. DISCO absolutely had this flaw in some point or another. Never for very long, though, so it really wasn’t a main characteristic. Anyway, when a show is simply good, almost nobody gets bothered by the preaching.

    • @finitebanjo
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      27 hours ago

      I remember this exact conversation in the show, too.

      “It’s like: Who died and put Aristotle in charge?”

      Points to board “Plato.”

  • Snot Flickerman
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    21 hours ago

    Hey now hey now!

    It’s a cashless classless society, it’s about economic class justice, too!

    That part’s just more in the background.

    • @FordBeeblebrox
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      1119 hours ago

      Not for Sisko it isn’t. I wish I’d been born on the other side of the Bell riots and WW3 but at least we have cool digital watches now

      • Flying SquidM
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        615 hours ago

        We really should never have left the oceans.

      • Snot Flickerman
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        19 hours ago

        Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

        EDIT: I only noticed the username after I posted this, since it’s clear this is what you were making reference to ha

        • @FordBeeblebrox
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          517 hours ago

          I mean, my watch is pretty sweet. It’s the damn little green pieces of paper that are causing all the problems

          • OpenStars
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            212 hours ago

            Have you tried… moving them around?

            What an odd thought though, it’s not like they are the ones unhappy:-).

  • Phoenixz
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    -318 hours ago

    Im always rather disappointed with this claim as doh, star trek is woke, it always was and nobody has complained about that part.

    When people complain about the woke part they complain about that star trek WAS woke and intelligent, yet now just pretends to be woke and hangs it like dangling keys in front of us to hide the fact that it’s become so absolutely shit.

    Seriously, every criticism I’ve seen about it (and also every criticism I’ve lobbed at it) always gets “rebuked” with “you just hate woke!”

    No I don’t no we don’t. I’m love the progressivism of old trek. I hate nu trek because it’s empty vapid drek that just tries to cram a much “woke” in there not to be woke but just to hide the smell of shit.

    Nu trek is awful.

    People have been raving about brave new worlds but those same people were raving about the mental anguish that is discovery and cringe Picard. I’m a huge star trek fan, been so for 30 years, but after Picard S3 I simply stopped. I watched trek at least once a week for decades, buy I haven’t watched anything trek ever since Picard ended. That’s how off putting Picard was as a show.l, it managed to ruin TNG for me.

    I know this will be down voted and people will just continue to say I am anti woke, that I love trumpmor whatever, even though none of that comes close to reality but nu trek fans have been… Different? Star trek fans were actually progressive and trying to make the world a better place. Ever since nu trek its been “think like us or fuck off”

    I’m so done with star trek. Long live the Orville!

      • @Hackworth
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        515 hours ago

        The crossover episode with Strange New Worlds was my favorite episode of any Star Trek since TNG.

        • @[email protected]
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          Same!

          “For all I knew, you were dead, or stuck in a dystopian San Francisco in the middle of a riot!”

          “Have you noticed that their references are weirdly specific?”

          “Indeed.”

          I like to think that 112 years later, Spock found out about Sisko’s trip and thought to himself, “Ah. That explains it.”

          • @[email protected]
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            214 hours ago

            He must have been walking on eggshells all through Star Trek IV, just waiting for a riot to break out.

            • @grue
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              28 hours ago

              Nah, he was on too much LDS to care.

            • @[email protected]
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              214 hours ago

              “Could taking these whales cause a riot? Humans are notoriously prone to illogical outbursts…”

    • Electric
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      414 hours ago

      You like Orville but not Strange New Worlds or Lower Decks??? Also puzzling you gave up after Picard S3, that was the only decent part of the whole show. Felt like an extra season of TNG.