William Shatner Criticizes New Star Trek Shows - and Star Wars - at Comic-Con (hollywoodreporter.com) 213
"William Shatner closed out the first night of San Diego Comic-Con in style — with plenty of cursing and a look back at his storied career," writes the Hollywood Reporter:
In an hourlong chat with emcee Kevin Smith, the 91-year-old actor talked about aging, space travel (both real and fictional) and his place in the pop culture consciousness....
He took time to address the importance and power of fandom to his career, and specifically to Star Trek, which 56 years ago introduced the world to James T. Kirk, his most enduring character. When asked to address the fans of that other major sci-fi franchise, Shatner quipped, "fuck Star Wars.... But not Mark Hamill."
"We love Mark Hamill," Smith agreed.
When asked by a fan if there were any new Star Trek series he thought rivaled his own, Shatner replied, "none of them."
"I got to know [creator] Gene Roddenberry in three years fairly well," said Shatner, "he'd be turning in his grave at some of this stuff...."
The article also quotes Shatner's more serious comments about his own recent trip into outer space courtesy of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin.
"I went, and I vowed that every moment that I spent in space, would not be playing around in weightlessness, but looking out the window and trying to get an impression."
He took time to address the importance and power of fandom to his career, and specifically to Star Trek, which 56 years ago introduced the world to James T. Kirk, his most enduring character. When asked to address the fans of that other major sci-fi franchise, Shatner quipped, "fuck Star Wars.... But not Mark Hamill."
"We love Mark Hamill," Smith agreed.
When asked by a fan if there were any new Star Trek series he thought rivaled his own, Shatner replied, "none of them."
"I got to know [creator] Gene Roddenberry in three years fairly well," said Shatner, "he'd be turning in his grave at some of this stuff...."
The article also quotes Shatner's more serious comments about his own recent trip into outer space courtesy of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin.
"I went, and I vowed that every moment that I spent in space, would not be playing around in weightlessness, but looking out the window and trying to get an impression."
Shatner's attitude (Score:5, Funny)
The only reason Shatner doesn't like the new series is because he isn't in them. The following audio of Shatner destroying a recording engineer never stops getting old. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:Shatner's attitude (Score:5, Funny)
> The only reason Shatner doesn't like the new series is because he isn't in them.
I don't like the new spin offs either. I'm also not in them. Maybe you're on to something.
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It's few and far between that when I type lol I actually laugh out loud, but, anyway, lol
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Really? "Brave New World" has been much, much better than the many, partly by avoiding "Mary Sue" characters. "Lower Decks" has sometimes been priceless, and I'd expect William Shatner to appreciate the direct references to his character and some of his work. And "Orville".... has been a startling treat, taking a few years to reach the idealistic world Gene Roddenberry envisioned, but getting there i the end.
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> And "Orville"
I've told a number of people to watch Orville as it aligns more in spirit with the original Star Trek than modern Trek.
However, I didn't know Orville was associated in any form with Star Trek. In fact, I thought it was a knock-off of sorts.
Re: Shatner's attitude (Score:3)
It's a homage but a different universe.
Re: Shatner's attitude (Score:3)
Orville (Score:3)
Orville is a better Star Trek than *any* of the spinoffs.
It's like Star Trek might have been if not just Kirk but *everyone* was incompetent and putting the ship and universe in mortal danger on a regular basis . . .
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Or is that some kind of reference on how "we're controlled through the things we enjoy"?
SNW had the most consistently higher quality 1st season of any Trek that I've seen so far. But that doesn't mean that much within the context of Trek, since the 1st seasons have always been rather mixed bags.
TOS might be an exception there, because there weren't that many seasons, because the seasons had a lot of episodes in them, and because it was the first so it got to set the bar that everythin
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The only Star Trek era that I liked was the Picard-Sisko era and then lost interest mid-way through Voyager. I ascribe it to a generational thing just as I like 80s and 90s music more than contemporary tunes. You are right, I too am not in Star Trek post-Shatner and I wasn't born during the Shatner era.
Re:Shatner's attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
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Discovery has mostly been pretty good. It got a lot of flack because it was the first of the new series and did something a bit different to previous Trek series. Season 3 was a bit of a dud too, but season 4 was much improved. It still has pacing issues but is otherwise a fine addition to the Trek universe.
Some people complained that it's too "in your face". I guess if you liked the rather bland TNG era stuff then literally 30 seconds of talking about being non-binary throughout all four seasons might come
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Well, the the most recurring criticism, aside from bad writing and pissing on the lore, is that they try to push wokeism down your throat.
So you being you, it's not exactly surprising to see you stand in defense of it.
I just don't know what to do with your endorsement other than shrugging and saying "Well, d'uh."
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If you don't like what you call wokism then you must have hated TOS as well. And bits of DS9, like one of its most recognised and awarded episodes Far Beyond The Stars.
I think there is a whole generation who grew up with TNG and Voyager, the most bland and inoffensive Trek shows ever made. Don't get me wrong, I like TNG and Voyager is... adequate, but if you don't like the more spicy Trek shows you don't need to complain about them, you can just watch re-runs.
As for "pissing on the lore", one of the critici
Re: Shatner's attitude (Score:2)
I don't care about "wokism." Being woke just means you give a shit and that's good.
My problem with Discovery is it sucks.
Also "too obsessed with canon"?! Maybe too obsessed with crapping on the canon...
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Can you give an example of crapping on canon?
I've heard Spock's sister as an example, but they already have him a brother... It was all wrapped up neatly anyway.
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I can give a few.
The destruction of Romulus (Yes I know this started with the movie, but that rewrote the whole TOS timeline.) Most of the resulting things of this event means that for me at least none of the new shows can be considered canon. Basically anything that's a result of this overwrites the original canon.
The Klingons, just like everything about them.
The "Borg Origin"
The tone of the show and the portrayal of the Federation being vastly different than in Kirk's time.
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The destruction of Romulus was after the end of TNG. It changed nothing in the TOS era, it just created a new timeline branch that is separate, movie only. In the prime timeline TOS is how it happened.
The Klingons already changed between TOS and TNG during the original movie era. It's a bit late to be demanding consistency now.
Voyager ruined the Borg.
We hardly saw the Federation in TOS so there wasn't much of a tone. They used tapes for data storage in that show too, so I guess any tech post invention of th
Re: Shatner's attitude (Score:4, Insightful)
The fox/oan/newsmax crowd are not generally woke...
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You have to remember the context. The studio nixed the idea of a woman as second in command, so having one on the bridge at all, especially a black woman, was pretty radical and boundary pushing at the time.
Yeah it wasn't exactly subtle, and a lot of stuff was told through alien allegory rather than involving humans. But for the time it was quite a thing. A couple of decades after Japanese Americans were being put in camps, they had one on the bridge, next to a Russian at the height of the cold war.
I suppos
Re: Shatner's attitude (Score:3)
Star Trek has always been "woke".
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No, it has never been woke.
Woke puts the individual and his or her feelings above all else, even science.
Star Trek has always been about merit. You wear the uniform, the assumption is you have earned it. You have the pips, the assumption is you have earned it and as such, your race, skin color or sex is irrelevant. You are capable of your job.
At no point in actual Trek did anyone ever throw a hissy fit until they got what they wanted. Each and every problem was met with tenacity to solve the issue by the gu
Re: Shatner's attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's this "woke" thing to even assume that Uhura could have gotten the position on merit. Since absolutely no Black woman, irrespective of her merit, was permitted a position like that when the show aired, on the assumption they could not do the job.
TOS said, "In the future, these people will be found in the highest circles: Black women in line of command of mighty ships, White men will salute them and say 'Yes, sir' when they speak. Black computer designers will design computers that are smarter than Kirk; Black admirals will give him orders." All of that unthinkable in the US Navy at the time, without any review of the merits of the policy.
At the time the show was made, the Black women were doing the calculations for John Glenn, and he didn't touch his controls until she signed off, like the movie showed. But they had no status, modest pay, had zero people reporting to them.
At the time of the show, women had served with distinction in the US Navy in many roles, but never commanded a male. I doubt that was for lack of merit. Challenged to improve things, most male executives had a very, ummmm.. sleepy, no-hurry, not-a-big-deal attitude to it all. The show just showed what it would look like, and tried to wake them up.
If they had already been awake, they would have long been making strenuous efforts to end the waste of valuable personnel, stop the prejudice that was cutting their available pool of officer candidates in HALF.
Crucially, the services showed no internal enthusiasm for reform, had to have it forced upon them by politicians. If they'd been concerned with "merit" they would have been appalled that sailors and ships were at risk, commanded by officers below the standards that could have been attained with a full candidate pool to choose from.
Waking up people to these you'd-think-obvious wastes, these extreme inefficiencies, is like trying to wake up somebody after nine drinks: they fall asleep again the moment you stop shaking. We've been at it for decades, and that show was definitely an early effort at it.
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I don't mind much of the new shows.
Discovery started off badly, and its odd focus really persisted. But it basically fell to the Star Trek curse - seasons 1 and 2 of any new show are generally terrible because no one knows which direction to go in and how the viewers would resonate with it. By season 3 everything is worked out and it's actually really good. This is true for practically all Star Trek series, even the classics. TNG and DS9 were complete messes until season 3. Enterprise went from dismal to gr
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Next season SNW us doing a crossover with Lower Decks. Really looking forward to that.
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To be fair I've not met Star Trek fans who like the news series either. Given that I'm sure Shatner wouldn't want to be in them.
Gene Roddenberry (Score:5, Interesting)
> "I got to know [creator] Gene Roddenberry in three years fairly well," said Shatner, "he'd be turning in his grave at some of this stuff...."
If Roddenberry was critical of STTNG he indeed would be rolling in his grave over the new stuff.
"Roddenberry wrote the bible for Star Trek: The Next Generation himself, and one of the more interesting sections he included was a discussion of story ideas he felt would not work. The section outlines 13 story premises that Roddenberry wanted writers to stay away from, such as too much melodrama or verging too far into fantasy instead of science fiction. Some more specific Star Trek premises included avoiding stories that broke the Prime Directive or stories that portrayed the main crew in a more militaristic role." - https://screenrant.com/star-tr... [screenrant.com]
Re: Gene Roddenberry (Score:3)
The first two seasons of STTNG were somewhat lame though. Some occasional good ones but most of them forgettable. It didn't really pick things up until season 3, at which point Roddenberry was already out. I think he put down a good framework but the execution was meh.
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There's a very entertaining documentary called Chaos on the Bridge [imdb.com] on getting TNG off the ground and all the friction of working with Roddenberry and his rules and ideas. He was a real character and he definitely had a vision and while he probably had issues with TNG people like often need other people to filter the visions through some reality ala George Lucas.
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Interesting, I'll try to see that. There were some things Roddenberry did that were just downright awful that other writers later spun into something really good. Like the whole Q trial thing in the first episode was just time filler because they needed a 90 minute premier episode, and he didn't even do a good job of connecting it very well with the rest of the plot, but the later writers did a lot of good stuff with the Q later on. Also his writing direction probably never would have allowed for some of th
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Well, if you look at any long running show, the first and sometimes also the second season are always a bit ... lackluster. It's when writers as well as actors are still trying to figure out the show and the characters.
You also couldn't really make episodes that deal with the depth of inter-character development and the details of a character's background in an early season because audience wouldn't approve. Would you want to see the show about Riker and his dad in season 1 before you even know anything abo
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The first two seasons had a lot of different writers involved, so they were very inconsistent in terms of characterisation and even basic stuff like how the ship and the universe worked. Season 3 and beyond had more stable writing teams and more editorial control.
That's why characters act weird, and why ideas like Picard being a huge fan of 1930s detective holodeck sims never get mentioned again.
Re: Gene Roddenberry (Score:2)
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The ship sailed on militarism 30 years ago. And why not? Peace is a great aspiration, but...well, to quote a DIFFERENT show, sometimes peace is another name for surrender.
It's a TV show, you can set up the premise to reward whatever philosophy you want.
Star Trek at it's best has always been about good people trying to do the right thing. It's about showing the future and society that we want to live in.
The problem is that anti-heroes and dystopianism is in vogue right now, and as a result they're dragging ST through the same. Not to mention the awful movies that are simply action blockbusters reimagining TOS absolutely no reason*.
* The reason to reimagine a franchise is when
Re: Gene Roddenberry (Score:2)
Re: Gene Roddenberry (Score:2)
You need to read the book Redshirts too.
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Some more specific Star Trek premises included avoiding stories that broke the Prime Directive or stories that portrayed the main crew in a more militaristic role."
IMHO, the war story arcs were the best parts of ST:V and DS9. I think Roddenberry had the same thing going on like George Lucas with Star Wars, where he created an amazing story universe, but given too much control he'd just ruin things.
Re:Gene Roddenberry (Score:5, Funny)
Some more specific Star Trek premises included avoiding stories that broke the Prime Directive or stories that portrayed the main crew in a more militaristic role.
Thank heaven Star Trek never had any episodes where they broke the Prime Directive!
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Hm, I think that the exploration of the flawed, sometimes necessary and sometimes evil militarism of Starfleet was incredibly engaging in DS9. TNG touched on it with the Chain of Command, and the episode where they have to go find the failed ultra-cloaking device they developed in violation of treaty with the Romulans.
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Roddenberry was disappointed at how tame TNG era Trek became. He wanted it to be a lot bolder, featuring gay grew members, and having Risa be an orgy planet. Seriously, when Captain's Holiday and Risa were first pitched to him, he said it was fine but they needed to have orgies going on in the background with the implication that Picard was just taking a break from one.
They dropped some of his other ideas pretty quickly too, like having men in skirts for the first couple of episodes.
Also, check out the orig
Do people watch new Trek? (Score:5, Insightful)
I found Discovery and Picard pretty bad even as general series but especially as Star Trek but I guess people like it? That's what I have to assume, let just keep letting Alex Kurtzman make more and more shows. It really feels like a case of studios wanting to slap a sellable label on something that probably should just be it's own thing.
The Orville is for me by far the best modern version of Star Trek happening. Star Trek definitely has a formula so they follow it, almost shamelessly at times but it works because they understand the core of why it works. It's very obvious it's made by people who grew up watching the TNG era shows (and people who worked on the shows as well).
Re:Do people watch new Trek? (Score:4, Interesting)
Discovery is, in my opinion, the weakest of the shows, but it has its moments. And cool 32nd century ships.
Lower Decks is awesome. Simply awesome. TNG, but with a comedic edge and showing more of the non-main-crew, while still showing them.
Prodigy is something new and different, with a heavy Voyager vibe to it. It's fun to watch.
Picard is very different between S1 and S2. While not what I wanted, it's fun to watch. S3 looks like TNG S8.
Strange New Worlds is TOS with Pike instead of Kirk, and other different, and very compelling, crewmembers. It's very similar to The Orville, but its S1 is funnier than The Orville S3, which is much more serious and less funny at all.
The Orville, while not "Trek" is the closest you'll get to TNG right now.
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Yeah I'm definitely not going deny I am acting curmundgeonly so it was still an honest questions.
I do appreciate a fans perspective. I was actually just thinking recently I have heard better things about Strange New Worlds so might check it out.
Picard has been a dissapointment personally for me both seasons. I know exactly what they are doing with season 3, it's shameless and it will work, I will watch it, but I have pretty low expectations and it makes me sad.
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I found Discovery and Picard pretty bad even as general series but especially as Star Trek but I guess people like it?
I like Discovery. But the pacing of the show is REALLY off. They are trying to make the show using modern standard of "a season is an all connected story". And they are not very good at it. But there are still plenty of good ideas in the show and that are reasonably well executed. So I still enjoy the show.
I found Picard to be in a different category. It as the same type of issue: being "a season is an all connected story" that is not well written. But it is actually that issue on steroid. There are cool id
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Yeah at the end of the day it is just bad writing, especially with Picard which is just wasted potential and people who seem to absolutely not understand what gave the character appeal in the first place. Just feels like the writers room was people who just read the TNG cliffs notes, watched "ST:Nemesis" and went from there.
And I will be stubborn and say a key to Trek is the show being episodic. You can have running themes and run character development between episodes but Trek's core is being a vehichle
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Strange New Worlds isn't bad.I found the Orville pretty tedious early on as they tried too hard to add a comedic element to everything, but that seems to have dissipated along the way. Discovery seemed to be more about gender discovery than anything else and is just unwatchable garbage. Picard got all the right people together to do something interesting, then didn't. I don't see either of those not getting cancelled.
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But "Strange New Worlds" is quite good and Trek-y! I highly recommend you give it a shot.
Orville. (Score:3)
Yes, Orville is much better than the current Star Trek. Even better than Picard and good as TNG.
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>It really feels like a case of studios wanting to slap a sellable label on something that probably should just be it's own thing.
Yeah, that's a recurring theme. Whether it's writers writing the show they really wanted to make, instead of the franchise, or people using it as a vehicle for politics - often a bit of both. It's particularly weird to have gone overboard with progressive politics given how earlier incarnations handled similar topics but with subtly and nuance. Even the TNG episode in which Pi
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The Orville is on the cusp of being great. Season 3 is a dramatic improvement over the earlier ones, where they mostly just recycled well worn Trek plots or other standard sci-fi tropes. Season 3 is starting to make The Orville into its own thing, rather than just being a Trek knock-off or parody.
Most importantly, The Orville is now willing to take a moral stand. Previously it was a lot like TNG era Trek, where they would encounter moral dilemmas but they would usually get resolved by some external developm
lol troll (Score:2)
Because my opinion is different from some dildo with modpoints I'm a troll, yay
The Orville is written like shit, and acted like shit. There is exactly one person on the show who can act, which makes everyone else look like an even shittier actor. There is no one on the show who can write. The show is either endless boring dialogue, or endless action scene with no dialogue. They even gave it an extra-long intro so they wouldn't have to write as much, presumably because they know they can't.
The Orville would
Prodigy, SNW, Lower Decks (Score:2)
I personally like Prodigy and Strange New Worlds. I like Star Trek Prodigy for being an actual child-friendly series with moral, good story and likeable characters (unsure about Kate Mulgrew and a bit too much deus ex machina though), in short, a ton better than the Star Wars Kids shows.
Strange New Worlds on the other hand feels a bit like a cross over between TOS and TNG in a competent sense. Guess what, you have characters which aren't totally incompetent crybabies, psychopaths or angst filed backstabbers
Shatner is right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Every new Star Trek series is awful.
By "new" I mean created within the last ten years. Every Star Trek movie created within the last ten years also sucks. As does all the Star Wars crap created in the last ten years.
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The Orville was okay in the first couple of series but then it descended into gender politics when the Moclans showed up with their cisphobic agenda. :)
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What's wrong with shows exploring gender politics? The Moclan gender issue was set in motion from the very first episode of The Orville. It was going to be elaborated at some point.
Remember, TOS explored race relations in several episodes.
Regrettably, TNG's utter low point was "Code of Honor".
Roddenberry did okay, but could have done better. He could have rejected that TNG script and the franchise would have been better for it.
Re:Shatner is right. (Score:5, Informative)
I think there are two main dissenting camps when it comes to shows covering modern societal issues:
1. The weak minded “cant watch this because it might damage my weak mind or challenge my opinions about the world” camp, where shows which dare to cover certain topics are labelled “leftist” etc
2. The camp which is just bored of the same topic being dressed up in a slightly different story over and over, to the point where it really does start to feel like you are being beaten over the head with the underlying intent.
While the first camp is a real problem, people from camp 2 tend to simply get lumped in with camp 1 just because they arent welcoming the topic with open arms each and every time. People are allowed to get fatigued about storylines, and it shouldnt be misconstrued as being against the underlying social issues.
And there are people who will deliberately misconstrue the above in an effort to say “look, we need more exposure on this societal topic, theres still plenty of push back about it”.
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The Critical Drinker nails it:
Why Modern Movies Suck - They're Written By Children
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ92cggLMx8
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I think the problem is "sales pitch vs. product". They sold a Star Trek show and we got a gender politics show. Both may be worthwhile entertainment, but it wasn't exactly what you were expecting.
If you went to a restaurant, ordered a burger and got a pizza, you will likely not be a happy customer. Even if the pizza is good.
The difference to the old show is that there were gender issues in an episode, it wasn't the main focus of the show. It was an episode where it was highlighted and those were also some o
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The Orville was okay in the first couple of series but then it descended into gender politics when the Moclans showed up with their cisphobic agenda. :)
The weird thing about it is how the show has taken the analogy so far that it almost seems like they're on the opposing side of the issue. Warning, spoilers follow:
The character Topa is born biologically female, which is considered a "defect" in Moclan culture. After one of her fathers (Bortus) unsuccessfully argues his case against the Moclan government to keep her unaltered, she is forced to undergo a gender reassignment surgery. Later, Topa (as a trans male) begins to realize something is wrong and ex
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The Orville is not a part of the Star Trek universe.
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Every new Star Trek series is awful, period. At least according to some fans. They railed against TNG when it was first announced. Very upset that none of the original cast were in it, that the ship was completely different, the captain didn't go on away missions, Klingons were allies instead of foes, no Vulcans in the main cast but this knock-off android guy instead...
And the first season or two of TNG were mostly pretty bad. At the time we were just happy to be getting something new, but a lot of it reall
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ArchieBunker observed:
Don't worry, there's a channel playing Matlock 24/7 just for you.
I see you post frequently. Most of the time it's a quip, or a humorous dig at a self-important nitwit. And it's almost always grin-inducing.
I'd like to meet you IRL. I'll bet you're a hoot ...
Shatner has always been an ass (Score:4, Interesting)
When Shatner says he doesn't like what's in any new series, it's unlikely he's ever actually watched any of them. He's "heard stuff", and simple doesn't like that any of them exist. If he's not in it, it seems like he doesn't consider it Star Trek.
I Genuinely Don't Know (Score:3, Interesting)
Shatner knew Roddenberry; I did not. It's possible Shatner is accurate that Discovery and Strange New Worlds (and maybe Lower Decks) wouldn't instill pride, but it really could go either way.
Star Trek ToS was progressive for its time, but it was extremely specific, it explored contemporary controversies in a more nuanced manner, and it left the audience to ponder the question. Even if the episode had a definitive slant and conclusion, the audience still had room to ponder and as "what if". Contemporary viewers may not have agreed with what was being said, but the statements were far more palatable due to their nuance and framing.
On a recent episode of Strange New Worlds, the episode framed a society where a child was required to run some form of colony operation equipment, and there was a need for a "peaceful transition of power", as a character said before the opening credits. I could be wrong, but ToS was never quite that on-the-nose. Moreover, the governmental structure was never truly fleshed out; we had our expository representative, but there were no clear indications of elections or democracy. The child wasn't actually in a position of authority, and becoming the brain/battery/whatever of the colony computer thing caused the child to permanently merge with it until the child died. So, when the most obvious coups in the history of television writing began...it was a group of soldiers trying to protect a child, and they were obviously terrible people for trying to prevent this "peaceful transition of power".
As much as the point of the episode seemed to be "January 6th Riots Bad", the episode couldn't get out of its own way enough to make the point. If it was clear that an election took place and the existing leader didn't want to abdicate willingly, fine...but painting a group of soldiers as bad guys for their willingness to prevent what amounts to child sacrifice in a society seemingly absent of a structure reflecting direct democracy or a representative republic makes things far more ambiguous. I think it's possible Shatner's point is that Roddenberry would have taken exception to such clumsy, convoluted, and inconsistency-laden attempts at political commentary, while I think many people assume Shatner's exception to modern Trek has to do with the commentary itself.
Gene seemed to rotate the tone and content of the ToS episodes he produced a bit more than new Trek does. ToS had its social commentary, of course...but I am quite confident that we won't see Christopher Pike or Una Chin-Riley in a suit, sporting a Tommy Gun and negotiating with gangsters. Four seasons in, and Discovery has never had anything that attempted the silliness of Voyager's "Bride of Chaotica" or DS9's "The House of Quark", let alone "The Trouble with Tribbles". One could argue that Lower Decks is all silliness, and that's fine, but that's not quite a release valve. Strange New Worlds seems to be trying, but somehow it just doesn't seem to be able to stick the landing just yet. Yes, ToS had political commentary episodes, but there were also funny episodes, adventure episodes, philosophical episodes, and action episodes mixed in.
In addition to humor, ToS brought some counterbalance to how it portrayed humanity. Kirk's match with the Gorn in "Arena" ended with him receiving the approval of the Metrons when Kirk showed mercy to the Gorn. "The City on the Edge of Forever" showed a sobering choice reflecting the good of all humanity being more valuable than Kirk's feelings for Edith Keeler, again, receiving laud from the Guardian of Forever. Shifting to the movies, Star Trek III, despite its pacing issues and other faults, showed exactly how deep the crew's love for Spock ran. Did "Picard" take any time to do any of this? No, because it was too busy saying everyone was bad - Starfleet, Soong, the Romulans, the mom who turned her life around too late for her son's liking, 20th century law enforcement, 20th century citizens, 24th century Federation citizens far enough away from law enforcement...everyone except A
Re:I Genuinely Don't Know (Score:5, Insightful)
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I could be wrong, but ToS was never quite that on-the-nose.
I haven't watched ToS in a long time. But I don't remember the show being particularly subtle in its reference to the cold war or the vietnam war.
You're wrong (Score:3)
I think part of the problem is the people that you're often trying to reach with those sort of stories don't get subtlety or nuance. You have to bash them over the head with the themes and points. To put this in the
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I was in full agreement up until you linked to those YouTube videos. The first one is comparing TNG to a Short Trek, which was very much the B writing team and intended to be funny. It's not like TNG didn't have its share to extremely unfortunate episodes either, like the first season one with what the pitch described as a "1940s style African colonial world".
As for sentient machines, it's implied in the episode that they sentient in the way Data is. They are simpler copies, inferior to Soong type android,
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Even if the episode had a definitive slant and conclusion, the audience still had room to ponder and as "what if". Contemporary viewers may not have agreed with what was being said, but the statements were far more palatable due to their nuance and framing.
That was down to the studio, not Roddenberry. He wanted to go much further. He wanted the second in command to be a woman (the original Number One from the pilot episode), but the studio nixed it. If you read the behind the scenes stuff for many of the most allegorical TOS episodes, the writers and Roddenberry always want to be more explicit and have a more definitive outcome, with the crew (usually Kirk) taking the moral high ground.
I think you are getting confused with Strange New Worlds though. Those are
Shatner's best modern movie is (Score:2)
A Christmas Horror Story [imdb.com] from 2015. Maybe he's been in something else but I love him as the drunk DJ in this B movie. It's not great, several intertwined stories some of which make no sense, but watch it til the end and it redeems itself and every scene with Shatner is gold.
Not enough ham for his taste (Score:2)
I guess.
Re: Fuck you money (Score:2)
The one way is gay marriage. Generally though you're right.
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"Show me one way we're more left wing than we were in the 1990s."
Legalized Pot
Gay Marriage
Me Too
BLM
Oh, but you only wanted one.
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Well that's four ways, but other than that can you think of any other way? That's what I thought.
Re:Fuck you money (Score:4, Insightful)
Me Too
Oh, but you only wanted one.
Not sexually assaulting women is left wing now? That sure explains a lot.
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Not sexually assaulting women is left wing now? That sure explains a lot.
Conservatives think everyone needs Jesus to keep them from raping women for the same reason they need Jesus to keep them from raping women, lack of empathy.
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To be fair we decided that women shouldn't have rights over their bodily autonomy, so that counts for at least 5. You're going to have to add more to push the scales back to the left.
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To be fair, that's not what was decided. It was decided that individual states should have a say. And FWIW, I'm pro choice.
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Not just gay marriage, homosexuality was illegal in the 1960s. The UK legalized it in the late 60s after TOS had been cancelled, and in the US sodomy was still illegal in Texas until 2008.
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, the TOS episode featuring a race of half black, half white people involved in a race war, was made before a lot of the key civil rights legislation was passed.
TOS really was incredibly far ahead of its time, even when the studio was doing its best to prevent it.
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You might want to actually keep up with reality. That 10 year old didn't get an abortion in Ohio because they were abortion shopping for a piece of shit who would falsify paperwork regarding the age of the rapist from 27 to 17, said rapist being mom's live in boyfriend illegal immigrant.
Re:Fuck you money (Score:5, Informative)
Pure bullshit. Prove me wrong.
https://www.esquire.com/news-p... [esquire.com]
The House of Representatives just passed a bill codifying the right to access contraception by a vote of 228-195.
195 republicans voted against a bill that guarantees access to contraception. You know the thing that prevents the need for abortions?
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Reddit is very interesting right now. Lots of conservatives who can't understand why Republicans didn't vote for the bill, given that contraception prevents abortions.
I think they are slowly waking up to the fact that it was never about saving unborn children, it was about control and Great Replacement nonsense.
Re: Fuck you money (Score:2)
And that's why free abortion is needed.
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There is a reason why people vote against bills - they are often filled with unacceptable junk unrelated to the stated purpose.
This is one of those bills.
In contrast the bill for gay marriage was direct and narrowly focused and passed easily.
You are wrong. Read the text for yourself. https://www.congress.gov/bill/... [congress.gov]
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I have to ask: Do you honestly believe that horseshit or are you just trying to find someone stupid enough to believe it?
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That's the part I don't get. Why are people posting their weird politics on the kids' stupid apps and then getting mad that it doesn't belong?
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The governor of New York just directed people to her Republican opponent's campaign events, telling them to harass him -- and he was promptly attacked. Did Twitter block her for that?
In contrast, Twitter is bannng people from calling out groomer-tupe behavior in brainwashing schoolchildren.
They referred to a media release the Hochul campaign put out early Thursday, headlined: “’Big Lie’ Lee Kicks Off Statewide ‘MAGA Republican’ Bus Tour. Joined by Far-Right Extremists, ‘Rolex’ Rob Astorino, and Trump’s Chick-fil-A The spoof pointed out the date and times of Zeldin’s events to RSVP, including one “to hear Zeldin’s plans to put more guns on our streets and in our communities, ensuring New Yorkers are less safe
That constitutes "t
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Where's your database of non-republican groomers? How do you know it's "most" (>50%) if you don't cite crime statistics? "I didn't see a list on dailykos so it doesn't exist?"
If you believe the list is incomplete, that's a fair accusation, if true. But that list includes both registered democrats and republicans, it's not a list of republican groomers. In fact, it's a list of politician sex offenders on both sides of the aisle.
Can you come up with any examples of democrat sex offenders who are not on the list, and should be? Or any examples of republicans who are on the list, but shouldn't? Or are you just engaging in Ad Hominem?
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How about this - Obama was opposed to same-sex marriage in 2008 and today more than half GOP supports it.
We just had a vote on this [hrc.org]. Out of 204 Republicans, 47 voted yes; that's 23 percent. If you're getting "more than half", you might want to recheck your math.
Gay marriage is still completely a non-starter in the GOP. They're still partying like it's 1899.
Re: Fuck you money (Score:2)
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Well, you forgot the imaginary buddy of the religious nutters, they consider that downside relevant.
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Re: Fuck you money (Score:2)
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Cancel culture isn't a pimple on the ass of Trump cultism.
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Shatner was born in 1931. He's not a Boomer.
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You lost all credibility at "whiny Boomer". Grow up punk.