Is it just me, or is star trek going the wrong way?

[LunaticBurnout 0]

So, I wrote this as a response to another post, but after putting so much effort and thought into it I wanted to make a thread around the thought and see what other people might have to say about it.

So here goes...

I wish I could fly through space and explore all the unknown worlds out there, that's why I love star trek! I think they did a good job until they started trying to veer away from the motif set forth by FOUR fully successful and incredibly popular series (TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager) What I love the most about the first four series is that they were always exploring new worlds and seeing new things in the universe while they simultaneously told a story arc and it seemed like the writers were genuinely trying to stretch the limits of what people would imagine is possible to exist out among the stars, it made it a truly unique work of video-graphic art.

I also love how they portrayed humanities future potential in a very positive light, world peace, no more need for currency within our own species, scientific idealism, peaceful cooperation and exploration with the species we meet. Its a refreshing change from the millions of sci-fi stories that believe we are a hopeless species who will only end up killing anything intelligent we find out there. It seems that most authors believe humanity is much closer to the alternate negative dimensions version of events rather than the altruistic peaceful society that The Federation stands for. That's just depressing. If that's true we don't deserve to continue as a species, so I prefer to hope that Star Trek will be a good example of how humanity can still choose to show their best side and save not only our world but ourselves and our future.

I tolerated their experiments in the star trek enterprise even though the time travel was horribly convoluted and made little sense, they even ignored previously established super powerful beings for the convenience of forcing their story arc to exist mostly because I liked how they did do a bit of exploring and random adventuring or encountering random ships of unknown aliens unlike anything imagined in previous series.

However after that it seemed like they went all out sell out and tried to change the show to imitate the most popular mainstream counter parts such as "The Expanse"  which seemed to be in direct competition with ST Discovery or it seems like Picard is a direct counterpart to the Mandalorian, as if their trying to make the new series about Picard as rough and gritty as the new series about the Mandalorian. Come on can't we please just have our series back? I don't care if "new viewers" like it, what about the already established fan base? Are we such worthless pushovers that they think we'll just throw our money at them no matter what they put the star trek logo on?

I'm sick of it, I'm about ready not to watch any new star trek series ever again, the last 3.5 series they came out with were basically a middle finger to the fans (because enterprise was half okay) they have all but said  "...you know what, we hate our fan base and want a new one..." . It would be like if they took family guy and redrew it and rewrote it to imitate the Simpsons from now on, sure it might still be an okay, but it definitely wouldn't be family guy anymore it would just be another show imitating something higher up in the "pop culture food chain".  They even specifically said that they wanted to "Bring it to a new generation" which actually translated from PR double talk means "turning a classic into some desperate corporate shill scheme to get the wealthiest dumbest largest fan-base possible" so yeah, thanks for ruining something I used to be excited about.

Stop trying to make it into something its not. Star trek was always like us nerds at school, it was never the most trendy with the "popular kids" and it looked different than the other shows even of the same genre, but it always seemed to be more aware of where we were and where we, for better or worse, could one day be. If you've ever seen a friend try to force another friend to try to be something they're not then you know that its not right and its a bad idea! ^_^

 

EDIT ADDITION:
Now to be clear, these would be perfectly good TV shows, if they weren't supposed to embody the spirit of their predecessors, just take the Star Trek name off them and no one would even realize they were Star Trek, and they could have their own style and story arc and not have to worry about living up to Gene Roddenberry's original vision.

Edited October 9, 2020 by LunaticBurnout
clarity and spelling/grammer

[Mr.Picard 12]

It all comes down to a simple thing: Don't like, don't watch. If you don't like the current direction the Trek franchise is moving into, just re-watch the old shows and ignore the new ones. No amount of complaining about (the rather questionable term) "Gene's vision" is going to "bring good old Star Trek" back.

[xenexian 2]

Very interesting post.  To be fair, Gene's Roddenberry's vision was always and will be, nothing more than a "hope" for the future.  Gene's vision of humanity which consists of almost zero conflict and cooperation has no basis in the real world.  Human nature, at it's most basic, is nothing to crow about.  As Quark once said, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, Humans can be the most wonderful species of the universe but take away our comforts, and we are no better than the beasts.  Instinctually, we as a species, are no better than anything else on the planet.  Take away anything that we feel we need and we become vicious, hostile and dangerous to the point that nothing matters except us.  Maybe ST needs to more like BSG, showing humans for what we are in spite of our technological advances.  As much as I love ST, the idea that we can resolve anything peacefully and without conflict has no basis in any world, real or imagined.  Show the underside, admit that we don't always get along but try to uphold the ideals is more interesting then what is sometime presented.  Section  31 may finally present the dark underbelly of what the Federation actually is, noble and honorable but also dark, deceitful and conniving.   Coming closer to actual human drama may be what ST really needs then the constant fluff and feel good conclusions we usually see (see DS9-In the Pale Moonlight to get a glimpse).  I'll continue to hope that humankind will evolve into what we see, but I'm not holding my breath.  Until then, ST will still be a beacon of hope and for the future and I will always enjoy whatever is give to me but I also understand, like a bedtime story, it's only happily ever after in an imagined world.  What was Star Trek can never be sustained, human nature won't allow it.