The postmodern destruction of Star Trek

[@BrockSamson-i1i]

Abrahms and Kurtzman at CBS, Shaka and the walls fell

[@ianoz1]

Couldn't have put it better.

[@sharifelneklawy6916]

nothing disturbs me more about our modern world than the fact that this incredible comment only has 54 likes

[@thurin84]

klutzman, when the franchise died.

[@A-Milkdromeda-Laniakea-Hominid]

Darmok, his eyes open.

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

I’m OLD enough to remember when no one was sure if postmodernism was the dominant culture of late capitalism or pop culture code for messy looking buildings.

[@relentlessmadman]

Yeah what the hell doseit mean anyway??

[@penelopegreene]

Novels with weird endings.

[@richlisola1]

Postmodern analysis was supposed to be a niche, idiosyncratic academic exercise-Not the standard mode of analyzing all of society and reality. It was never meant to be the lens we gaze at the world with, the academics who first conceived of it never meant for that. They admit this openly.

[@penelopegreene]

I was once told Post-Modern was all history after WWII. Someone else told me Post-Modern was all history after 1960. 😆

[@penelopegreene]

@@B_Estes_Undegöetz look. That's a lot to take in, but you put in the effort. So I'll like it.

[@drewtheunspoken3988]

My biggest issue with modern Star Trek isn't anything like "woke" ideologies or, even to a degree, realism. It's that Star Trek was a reaction to a pessimistic time when the Cold War was very hot. It was about an optimistic future where we had outgrown war and moved, as a species, to a place where we could finally unite and pursue greater things. Modern Trek feels very much like that Universe sliding backwards. Maybe I've just misunderstood Star Trek all this time but these darker, violent space adventures just don't feel like Star Trek to me.

[@JustinAlexander1976]

please don't give up. Your videos are awesome! There are so few commentaries that go beyond click-bait. Your take is genuinely unique and contributing to the conversation.

[@Zoie3x8]

star trek stopped being [Star Trek] when it stopped being about a future where the core of it was 'we should always strive to be morally and socially (and perhaps also physically) better than we were (even if we sometimes fail, and have to try again)' which generally translated to a better, more hopeful future. This is why a lot of real trekkies love TNG and DS9, because those two series's iterate a lot of the dynamics of that statement.

[@iExploder]

To be fair, DS9 is great at showing the limits of the Federation when push comes to shove. It was a much less optimistic show than TNG.

[@TheLucanicLord]

* a lot

[@pickledtezcat]

One of the key aspects of modernism was utopia. The idea that there's one perfect way of living, a perfect culture that we can find and live in. If we progress enough, we can reach that perfect utopian future. Another core aspect is the meta-narrative. That we can understand all of reality in terms of a single, over riding narrative. For example, Marxism was a modernist movement. It saw the whole of reality in terms of the materialist dialectic. And this allowed it to create an idea of a communist utopia, which we could eventually reach which would solve all the problems of capitalism and thus be a perfect world for everyone. Likewise, free market capitalism and western democracy was also seen as a utopia, framed in terms of a neo-liberal capitalist meta-narrative. At the end of the cold war, it seemed like the Marxist meta-narrative had been defeated, and so naturally, we would move towards the utopia predicted by western economists... The end of history and the beginning of a society served by the invisible hand, unfettered by government interference. However, at the same moment, utopianism and meta-narratives fell out of favor as postmodernism undermined the very idea that there could be an objective singular truth. And without that singular truth, there could be no meta-narrative. And so no utopia. One person's utopian society would be another person's hell on Earth... or hell in space. Star Trek was a casualty of this transformation in popular thinking. People no longer believed in the possibility of a utopian future. What would it be like? Would it be a communist utopia? A libertarian utopia? A Christian utopia? A western utopia? A feminist Utopia? What's the meta-narrative which provides the basis for this perfect society? Would a world without money automatically become a perfect society? Would there still be social problems in such a society? What about racism? Or sexism? Or homophobia? Or religion? It seems like these aren't directly caused by money, so would they continue to be problems? How would these aspects fit into the meta-narrative. A new worldview emerged, which veered away from utopian thinking, meta-narratives and structural analysis. It sought to redefine our society's problems in terms of individualistic moral failings. People stopped thinking about the dangers of capitalism, or imperialism or despotic communist dystopias, and started fixating on "bad people" vs "innocent victims". Political discussion degraded into racial and gender essentialism. This is the bankrupt philosophy which provides the foundation for modern television. Not just Star Trek, but almost everything on our screens. People are reduced to 2d cartoon characters embodying essentialist identity traits. They stand as avatars for individualistic moral failings transformed through collective guilt into caricatures of "bad people" and "innocent victims". Each character is an archetype, who embodies the essential characteristics of their identity grouping and serves as a microcosm of social ills. And in 21st century post-modernist media, these archetypes are constantly rebooted, remixed and replayed, over and over again, telling the same stories of collective sin and collective virtue, where people are defined not by their actions, but by their essential identarian nature. Identity as destiny. There is a way out of this zombie-infested, dead-end cultural landscape. Metamodernism deals with issues of belief and personal, or collective worldviews. As the name suggests, meta-narratives are possible again. Because intersubjective truth allows us to share a similar worldview and understand the world in similar ways, by negotiating shared values and shared goals. This allows us to reach towards a better future. Not a singular utopia, but a collection of "good enough" solutions to our structural problems. It also invites us to understand the world in terms of complex systems theory. Seeing problems not as individual moral failings, but as systemic dysfunctions that emerge from a system out of balance. "Racism" is a symptom of a problem, not a cause. But this new model is still forming. And there are lots of very rich and powerful people who benefit from the post-modernist fake un-reality. They are quite happy to have citizens who focus on individual moral failings, and believe in collective guilt and essentialism, instead of asking questions about structural problems. Their media empires rest upon the idea that there is no objective truth, only the loudest voice. And they couldn't maintain their position if people weren't utterly hopeless of ever finding a "good enough" way to mitigate the many looming disasters that face us.

[@mediaversenetwork]

im with you, im 60 . been a trek fan for over 50 years. Worked on Trek in top creative positions on never greenlit products, Its all about Post modernism and echo boomer doubts vs modernism and its final affect on early gen x. Ther post material age has been post modern as all interactive interfaces like the Internet. self absorption is all the post modern can except.

[@fullmatthew]

I couldn't help but notice when you said the giant corporate media franchises are trying to "Cling On" (Klingon?) to their centralized control of media. 😂 well done, Sir.

[@nelkosme3734]

Baudrillard's quote is fully exemplified by Disco. It is visually impressive (although in monotone) but empty of meaning and authenticity. The only "achievement" is destroying the values and even characters of Star Trek (even the Federation itself and that in the most ridiculous way possible). The same applies to Picard season 1 and 2. One can only try to imagine how characters that are so focused on their emotions can function at all (a captain that cries more in an episode than my three year old granddaughter in a week).

[@Sjaddix]

What annoys me the most about Kurtzman Trek is the insistence that its canon to TOS and Peak Trek from TNG to Voyager. When its clearly not. I think if they just came out and said its a new timeline that annoy a lot of the more entrenched fans a whole lot less.

[@0xKruzr]

there is 0 reason to believe it's a new timeline that hasn't popped up in TNG or another show before.

[@chuckintexas]

Cheapning a characterization of Kirk AND the Kobiyashi Maru were what broke the illusion for _me_ . The REAST was WOKE-DOWNHILL , from there .

[@chuckintexas]

@@inkermoy - ABSOLUTELY _CORRECT_ .

[@will-vi9pk]

Or they are actually just destroying it on purpose?

[@danielmcelhatton1724]

I quite like SNW and in a way I agree. Why shoehorn in aspects like La'an Noonien Singh and the Gorn and make life difficult for themselves regarding what we knew in TOS regarding Khan and the Gorn instead of just creating something new and making it easier on everyone.

[@wingsley]

This is an interesting, and measured, analysis and commentary on what Star Trek has become. To break it down in my own terms, during the original Star Trek series episode "Court Martial", Kirk was framed and put on trial for culpable negligence. The evidence that was created to frame Kirk was computer-based and it looked like all was lost. But Kirk believed in himself, stood up for himself, talked back to his superiors and Kirk's lawyer argued that Kirk's charges were unfair because Kirk had a right to challenge the computer itself. In doing so, Kirk re-affirmed his rights and found the malicious officer who tampered with the computer to frame Kirk. The episode was a principled argument for human rights in an age dominated by technology, a timeless story that still works (and is memorable) to this day. All the while the Kirk and lawyer Samuel Cogley are stuggling to formulate an effective defense in court, Kirk is turning over the case in his mind, and his communique to the ship inspires Spock to do the same. In 1960's sci fi TV's own weird way, the combined defense of Kirk, Cogley and Spock turn the tables by using a blend of computer analysis and scientific investigation to arrive at the truth. Kirk's mixture of his firm belief in himself, his distinguished (and much-decorated) career, combined with measured and thoughtful self-doubt, sustains him through his decision to plead not-guilty and to finally confront the truth aboard his own ship. By contrast, Star Trek: Discovery's premiere, "Vulcan Hello" and "Battle at the Binary Stars", introduces Commander Michael Burnham, a struggling officer who was obviously promoted too quickly and who has no such distinguished career or decorations. Burnham is presented as desperate and fatalistic, grasping at ways to make sense of what is happening. She is unable to effectively articulate her "Vulcan Hello" rationale to her captain. She blunders during a spacewalk that results in a confrontation with an aggressive Klingon. *She mutinies against the captain by herself,* further confirming she is not up to the task. And when Starfleet reinforcements arrive to defend the Starship Shenzou, they are woefully underpowered and unprepared for a confrontation with the Klingons. The fleet blunders its way into a disastrous battle, and is devastated by the superior Klingon force. And, for Burham's inept attempt at mutiny, she is court-martialed and blamed for both the mutiny and for the Klingon victory. She has no real defense, she has nothing to say to redeem herself. She does not even have a Samuel Cogley-style lawyer present to represent her. She is sent up the river and is subject to where Starfleet's tides take her: the Starship Discovery. Discovery makes no sense, as it regularly tortures an alien animal on "black alert" in order to magically teleport the ship in an un-Star Trek manner that more effectively resembles Samantha Stevens from "Bewitched" as she rarely explains "We zonked across the atmospheric continuum". The contrast between modernist "Court Martial" and the post-modernist "Vulcan Hello" / "Battle at the Binary Stars" could not be more clear. Kirk believes he is right because he believes in himself. Kirk believes in himself because he earned the captaincy of the Starship Enterprise, a ship powered by a 1960s-optimitic vision (if vague) of science-driven generations of hard work, innovation and ambition. The Shenzou is commanded by a short-sighted captain and a blundering first officer both of whom weren't smart enough to recognize that they were in over their heads, and the story makes it obvious they didn't even know the name of the star system they were in. (In an apparent nod to the ignorance of long-forgotten "sci fi" shows, the characters of the Disco-verse seem unaware that our galaxy includes numerous binary star systems.) Burnham cannot defend her actions because she has no defense, no substantial career to give her the needed knowledge and experience, and, by extension, a Starfleet that was equally inept. The only defense left is the magical Discovery, whose pixie-dust propulsion zonks the ship to and fro (though nobody seems to have the brains to ask if it could also manage time travel to prevent the war from happening in the first place) as the only way to defeat the Klingons by repeatedly ambushing their ships and installations. (Funny that the Klingons can overwhelm an entire Federation task force, but the lone Discovery waylays the Klingons without fail.) In the end, Burham's career (what there was of it; it was obvious she was a nepo-baby, in over her head) is subject to the tides of fate, while Kirk's was based on a solid foundation of accomplishments, risk-taking and the accumulation of wisdom. In the end, despite Paramount-CBS's insistence that there is only one Star Trek and that both the original series and Discovery somehow occupy the same universe, the way the characters (and their Universe) behave gives away that this can't be so: if Michael Burnham were assigned to Kirk's Enterprise, she would never be promoted past ensign. If Kirk visited the "Disco-verse", he would be even more desperate to get back to his own Universe than his was in "Mirror, Mirror".

[@DavidDouglas-q7v]

That was remarkably insightful. Thanks!

[@Maisel9]

You're describing these two characters accurately as they are in the respective episodes, but the comparison falls apart when one considers that you're comparing a pilot episode and a character on the beginning of their journey to a character who is already in his prime and a fully self-realised commander of his vessel when we first meet him and later in season 1. Burnham gets degraded to a mere specialist for the rest of the first season, only in season 3 is she an XO again and finally in season 4 a confident and self-realised captain. (They also solve the spore drive-animal cruelty problem btw, did you even watch more than the pilot?) There's a lot more one could say about Discovery, but usually I find the criticisms of people who like it better than that of people who outright hate it, or at least have a strong dislike for whatever reasons. I think apathy would be a stronger indication of the show being a failure, but since it sparks so much hate it does seem to hit a nerve in the whole modernist-conservative vs post-modernist progressive culture war and so does transport meaning and is adding something new and noteworthy to the canon.

[@Theodorus5]

"If Kirk visited the "Disco-verse" wow...I would watch that! :)

[@Maisel9]

@@Theodorus5 Idk technically Strange New Worlds is "Disco-verse" since the new Pike and his "new-old" Enterprise were introduced in Discovery, and Kirk did come visit. Or do you mean the 32nd century, which could also be called the "Disco-verse" from season 3 onwards?

[@ianoz1]

Love what you've presented here. The true potency of Court Martial is not about Kirk's belief in himself, it's Spock's belief in him. The "cold emotionless" Vulcan, despite all the science available, concludes something is amiss because he KNOWS Kirk would be incapable of panic or negligence in a time of crisis, which compels him to dig deeper.

[@TonboIV]

The people who say that Star Trek has "gone woke" either don't know what "woke" means, or have very faulty memories of older Star Trek. It's always been woke. All that's changed in that regard is that Star Trek has moved on to exploring more contemporary social issues. The problem with new Trek isn't "wokeness". The problem is that it's shit. It's being milked to death by soulless corporations trying to maximize profit and minimize risk. It's being killed by the banality of money and the soulless money machine which even the humans who profit from it do not actually control, any more than a water molecule controls a wave. It's an emergent process that only eats. The original series barely got made in the first place. Corporate media companies didn't want it. It succeeding despite them, and the franchise continued to succeed despite the entertainment industry only because the fans were that passionate and that many, and because there was a core of people working on it who managed to make it despite the system that was trying to turn it into slop from day one. The death of Star Trek is exactly what post modern thinkers have been telling us about. The creators could only make a good show despite the money men for so long. Eventually the money men won, because money never gets tired, and now we have shit trek. You can fight entropy but you can never win. The good Star Trek is now being made by Trek fans, despite the media companies. Fan projects like Star Trek Continues, or the Orville, which is really a spiritual successor to Stark Trek, and doing what it should have been doing for the last 20 years. It's also woke as fuck and clearly understands postmodern thinking.

[@thelordakira]

old trek was pregressive, new trek is not. progressive= Libertarianism Anti censorship Will talk with everyone understands people have different opinions We point and argue to a direction the future englobing differences (to a limit) teaches looks like anyone Woke= Socialists (that they know it or not) Pro censorship Only talk with each other excommunicate any deviations Cant argue, wants everything now. authoritarians enforce ideology has identifiers/costume, special hair style, covid mask new trek is shit because of the woke. the other issue the woke have is skills, which then gives bad stories. I have seen good fun propaganda movies. but the propaganda they make is sad and insulting.

[@AllenUry]

I don't know if the issue is modernism, post-modernism, or Post Toasties, but I have long contended that 21st Century Star Trek's failures come from the fact that none of its creators have any experience with the U.S. military. STAR TREK was created by a former B-17 bomber pilot and Los Angeles police officer (Roddenberry) who understood military structure and behavior. Most of the others who worked on the original show served either in World War II, the Korean War, or were drafted into the armed forces during the 1950s. Even if they were ultimately anti-war, they instinctively understood how people behave in a hierarchy. Today's writers have no such experience, so we have subordinates constantly mouthing off to superior officers and even commanding officers not respecting the military chain of command. The result feels grossly inauthentic, even to people -- like me -- who never spent a day in uniform. And this lack of discipline creeps into every other aspect of the writing, which always defaults to individual feelings rather than "the mission."

[@magarciascomics]

Not sure if I'm getting your meaning, but are you suggesting that we need more wars so veterans from those wars can create more compelling science fiction? Because if the cost of not having to fight in wars is mediocre storytelling, that's a price I'm more than willing to pay. Sorry for the sarcasm, but this "they don't make men like they used to" rhetoric is just too reactionary to resist.

[@AllenUry]

@@magarciascomics Hardly. What I’m saying is that if you’re going to dramatize a military or quasi military organization, then you need creative input from people with experience in such organizations. This is why they have medical consultants on medical shows and law enforcement consultants on cop shows, etc. The military is an institution that has survived intact for more than 5,000 years, with or without wars. I doubt tithings will change in the next 300.

[@n.d.m.515]

On the other hand, this could be very deliberate. Just look at what @magarciascomics said on the comment section. It isn't just written by those who don't understand the military. They are written by those who oppose any and all traditional authoritative structure and morality. Most writers today are reactionary children who have never grown out of their infancy and lack emotional control. Logic to them is violence.

[@TheGreatAmphibian]

@@magarciascomics Dear God, you just said something really stupid. No, you don’t need to serve in the military to write military characters who don’t routinely commit insubordination. You shouldn’t even have to research for something this basic.

[@TheGreatAmphibian]

@@AllenUry Also wrong. Firstly, just common sense application of general knowledge would be enough to do what you are asking for. Secondly, yes, military organisations have existed for 5000 years… But not “intact” as you claim. There have been vast changes and differences over that time! For example, when was the last time a U.S. battalion was decimated..? Or allowed to elect its own officers? Have there been many floggings recently? Arguably the four most effective fighting forces in history were the Roman legions, the Mongols, the Napoleonic Royal Navy, and the WW2 Wehrmacht - and experience in one wouldn’t have helped you understand any of the others well.

[@xheralt]

Like Damien said, Jean Luc went from the modern Solomon to being the old man who needs to apologize for everything he's ever done. Something I picked up from comments downthread: I don't know why I didn't hit on the term "nepo baby" to describe Mary Sue Mikey Spock sooner -- I'm old enough to have seen the original wave of bad fan fiction on mimeograph featuring the sort of characters that named the trope, _don't even try to tell me "I don't know what a Mary Sue really is"._ Post-modernists tell us we must "value everyone's lived experience"...well, that's mine!

[@stevenserna910]

Abrams had stated that he was not a fan of Star Trek, he was a fan if Star Wars. Unfortunately, I dont think he did a very good job with either. And I'm not bashing the actors. They truly gave from what they had to work with. Its just a little disconcerting to see "Trek", and "Wars" go off on alternate tangents that seem to skew a definite in-direction. Not all the good-guys are so good, and aren't guaranteed to make it out alive. But, I guess that at least it does imitate a "life arc". I liked TNG, DS9, VOY, & ENT. They were in the Berman-verse and he swore to Roddenberry that he would keep Trek safe, but expanding. For the most part he did. But the job was more than one man could shoulder. Abrams made no promises, he's not beholden to anyone but himself and shareholders. Les Moonvies seems to be fulfilling the role of Sith Empower Palpatine. He killed Berman-verse Trek. I'm reminded of Sigourney Weaver's (Ripley) line from Aliens. Referencing the Zenomorph's behavior... "...at least they don't turn on each other over points." Where she's referring Burke's treachery. Les has, "...done sold his soul for a jelly-roll." At least, "Strange New Worlds" is interesting. I've liked Anson Mount's acting since his, "Hell on Wheels" days.

[@fullmatthew]

Kurtzman at Paramount offices, his eyes closed.

[@joeespin4377]

not "eyes closed" but "intelligence non existent" or intellect on "eternal hold"

[@thelordakira]

@@joeespin4377 Kurtzman is a Pakled

[@Shibby27ify]

The cool thing is post modernism is like an adolescent phase that heralds something better than modernism or post modernism, something more integral. We just gotta weather this postmodern nothingness and narcissism for society to truly grow up.

[@RPGmodsFan]

To me, Star Trek is about projecting an optimistic outlook on humanity's future, NOT about the dystopian future projected by JarJar Abrams and Alex KLUTZman. As a real life story, during the syndicated airing of old TOS, a police officer, after a day of seeing the worst of humanity, would love to go home and watch ST TOS, in order to keep his sanity.

[@wpatrickw2012]

To quote MST3K: “hey, it’s just a TV show and I really should relax.” 🤣

[@KatharineOsborne]

On Picard, Jean Luc becoming frail and unmoored is a VERY interesting take, and I think I a natural progression from a philosopher king in command of himself. And it's not like that arc wasn't hinted at earlier. He frequently butted heads with Starfleet command, as well as being literally taken apart and remade by the Borg. His 'command' was always meant to be challenged and deconstructed. It is however unfortunate that the Picard series just totally whiffed it in the execution.

[@DamienWalter]

Yes, I agree with you on all of this. I'm largely repeating the complaints I have heard in this essay. Picard was 70% great but the bad 30% was stinky cheese bad.

[@pauljazzman408]

It is reported that Patrick Stewart would only do Picard if there were 'No Enterprise, no uniforms' so that hamstrung it from the start until he relented in season three.

[@VaraLaFey]

He may have butted heads with Starfleet, but he was almost always right and proven to be so. He may have been possessed by the Borg, but he won and largely if not completely exorcised that demon as the series went on. Not exactly the track record of one doomed to become frail and unmoored, but no matter. Can't have heroes even in art, ya know.

[@KatharineOsborne]

@@VaraLaFey being right doesn’t mean as a character he isn’t going to struggle (conflict is the heart of any story). The mistake would have been to put Picard on a pedestal, it would have been more boring (if comforting). It also might have worked better if the POV was more subjective, drawing the audience more into what Picard was struggling with, rather than trying to hit everyone’s POVs (which can work when you have 26 episodes in a season but not so much with 10).

[@MattHabermehl]

I liked the idea of an older man looking back on his life with a combination of regret and pride. It gave Stewart some juicy acting space, and once or twice he nailed it (then other times, like when they all dressed up in disguise to go to that one bar, it was nauseating). I did love the Riker and Troi storyline, having lost their son, and how it turned Riker sour. But it wasn't until the last season that they were able to reclaim that je ne sais quois that made TNG so good.

[@ChannelWright]

Interesting fresh take. For me, this is a whole new angle! I’m going to have to look into this further.

[@Otokichi786]

Dr. Leonard McCoy: "Star Trek' is dead, folks. Move along, nothing to see here."

[@etsequentia6765]

Apparently, we have license to continue to defile, violate, disembowel and defecate on the rotting corpse. In the name of thinly vailed various political agendas, of course. And also attack, abuse and shame any fans who dare point out and object to our disrespect for the franchise and what it meant to the fans.

[@palpaladin315]

In hindsight, I feel like the thing people misses about Abrams Trek (or Kelvinverse); is the hard space aesthetic was totally gone that Roddenberry insisted upon. So it came off as more of a full on fantasy. - and this was repeated with Star Wars, they polished away all the grit. While that works for Trek, to a certain degree, it definitely doesn't for Star Wars.

[@tellyourmomisaidhi5804]

Roddenberry had this idealized version of Humans in the future. He would not have approved of DS9, its story arc (especially the Dominion War) or its setting on a station. He felt every episode could stand on its own and there were never lasting effects from one episode to the next. Ship takes heavy damage this week, poof they are in orbit of planet and all is right with the world the next episode. TOS may have been the origin of all Trek but it sure as hell was not the best trek. I cannot bring myself to sit through Disco but SNW and Lower Decks have mostly been good (I could have done without the fairy tale episode and the singing episode of SNW).

[@xheralt]

And vice versa. Ruin Johnson and Jar Jar Abrahms Star Wars-ified Trek.

[@t3h51d3w1nd3r]

If you want meta modern star trek then watch Orville. The first season is alright, maybe too much comedy but they tone it down and really find their feet in season 2, much like tng and ds9 did.

[@tomigun5180]

Yes, it's very good. It's painfully leftist, but even for a far-right person like me, is enjoyable, because it makes me think about things (and unintentionally confirms my conservative worldview, but that's another story).

[@johndawson6057]

​@@tomigun5180yes exactly. So glad to find someone else like me

[@xheralt]

The only problem is, Orville is on Fox, which I've been boycotting for the last decade because of Rupert Murdoch's use of the platform for propagandizing. So I can't watch it, however much I want to.

[@SlinkyTWF]

@@xheralt If progressive shows air on Fox, and are successful, Murdoch will make more of them, as he seems to value money above all else.

[@thelordakira]

@@SlinkyTWF at this point, i think he values any more time as the most valuable item.

[@wpatrickw2012]

My major problem with the JJ Abrams reboot was that they gave the captaincy of the Enterprise to an Academy dropout. It was an insult to intelligence of the fans.

[@lesliepark728]

The 2009 star trek reboot was my entry point to the franchise, i liked the films right enough when they came out, never understanding why the older fans hated it so much. But then when lower decks was announced i decided to binge watch the franchise from tos to present and, honestly, i get it. But i still have a soft spot for the JJ Abrahams movies, despite their flaws.

[@Redshirt434]

I despise 99% of 2009-current Star Trek. Except, chunks of Picard season 3.

[@braxxian]

No arguments there. I find. modern Trek unwatchable.

[@AshtonCoolman]

You don't like Stranger New Worlds?

[@mikeallan7740]

@@delocon No it wasn't, it was genuinely good.

[@markwilliams2620]

​@delocon If it was Membaberries it would be for we Gen Xers. We watched in our teens and twenties. You can't even get the premise of your argument correct. Try to learn as you age.

[@charlesbeckwith3578]

Give Strange New Worlds a chance. I’m a TNG/DS9 fan and I love it.

[@1simo93521]

Nu trek has amazing sets and special effects but the incompetent writing is abysmal and is ruining the whole thing. I hear the issue is that the young middle class writers have never experienced life so write the same drivel they were taught in university it's why every programme seems the same like it was written by A. I.

[@sabinegierth-waniczek4872]

IMO you make a good point. Given that Gene Roddenberry TMK was a long serving police officer during a time of turmoil and many reforms of the service, I am convinced that much of his professional and life experience found its way into his creation. I watched S1 and one or two episodes of S2 of Discovery, because I wanted to give the concept a chance, but from the ca. third ep / S1 it became a trainwreck my sense for the morbid compelled me to watch. I confess that I despise the format intensely, not least because TOS was my childhood lore, and I still love to watch it (as a physician I identify with "It's life, but not as we know it", "He's dead, Jim" and "I'm a doctor, not an [e.g. escalator]..."). Postmodernism for me is an enigma, I am a simple mind and only can rely to my gut feeling that something innocently entertaining is successively destroyed by persons who do not know and therefore do not respect what they are up against with their IMO Orwellian enthusiasm. But that's me, my opinion, most likely unpopular (the new Kobayashi Maru test, one can't win nowadays...).

[@nowhereman1046]

@@sabinegierth-waniczek4872 Gene Roddenberry wasn't just a police officer. Long before that he had joined the Civilian Pilot Training Program and then was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army Air Corp who flew B-17 bombers in World War II. Immediately post-War, he was an airline pilot for Pan American Airways. Through this time he survived three crashes as well as the horrors of war, and the slog of being a commercial aviation pilot on many routes around the world. He wasn't alone, there were many members of the Original Series cast and crew who served in the military. For example, Leonard Nimoy in the U.S. Army, and James Doohan in the 13th Field Regiment of the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division in their 22nd Field Battery and took part in D-Day. These people came with a lot of life experience that helped make what they wrote more authentic or helped others to.

[@ae9999]

love the nuance and intellectual honesty of this analysis, I was waiting nervously for the inevitable ‘and here why its all the evil feminists fault’ part of the video and was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t come!

[@etsequentia6765]

Yeah I know. The "it's all the evil selfish violent toxic cis-heteronormative misogynistic straight white male's fault" narrative makes SO much more sense, amirite?

[@davidlaurahay]

exsept it would have obviously been more truthful had he done so. But yea, you heard what you wanted to so...

[@arhicluj2008]

​@@davidlaurahay omg, how? How could have the point of this wonderful video go sooo far over your head? How can you not see how banal and shallow the blame of feminism is? The video explains postmodern though so well, the intersection with capitalism and how this is a cultural shift decades in the making. And all you can go back to is feminism bad hurr durr? Jesus Christ

[@will-vi9pk]

It's a little beyond post modernism dontcha think?

[@davidlaurahay]

@@arhicluj2008oh look, another triggered, brave basement nobody with a keyboard. No, not exactly, sht 4 brains. How about you first off, try starting with a properly constructed sentence? Then I might respond, but only after you learn basic English and perhaps check what's flying over your flat head. Until then f-ck o ff trd .

[@joebrooks4448]

Majel Roddenberry continued with Gene's SF concepts of optimistic philosophies, with Dylan Hunt in Andromeda. In the first episode, Hunt tells a Nietzchean enemy "Pessimism is not a survival trait"

[@jimmyolsenblues]

I don't think Kurtzman Trek are using writers that watched The Original Series. Just the movies.

[@DamienWalter]

That's an interesting idea. I think I agree.

[@Drforbin941]

I am a philosophy major and I do not understand your point at all.

[@DamienWalter]

I guess wasting all that money didn't help.

[@giantclam1822]

Old Trek : Great writing, not overdoing special effects ( whatever the reason). New Trek : Shit, juvenile writing, overdone special effects.

[@RubikonRubikon-f9q]

Great writing from time to time. The charm of Trek has always been to me that if its bad, its really bad and if its good, its really good. For every The Best of both worlds, you get Code of Honor

[@BGRANT777X]

The characters grey area morality started in DS9. From the start of Discovery I got the sense that the writers mined places like reddit for what people remembered fondly about star trek. Section 31, wars, long arcs, Ben sisko and his morally questionable adventures, even Dax was the cool 90s smart bi chick yet DS9 is often the favorite series of those that hate the new stuff. I loved DS9 too but it is the ideological father of the core of new start trek. Great video by the way.

[@Joe-jn5li]

dont forget the binaries of next gen or the planet where woman were in power and men the underclass. just to name a couple.

[@JoeyisDREADful]

​@@Joe-jn5li Even by Next Gen it already just wasn't as subversive, though. OS got blacked out in Southern States repeatedly because it pushed the boundaries. Next Gen and DS9 danced with wanting to do the same but then backed off to financial safety instead because they just didn't have the balls. It was not radical when Next Gen did matriarchy aliens, it wasn't so radical as to really challenge anything when they made Dax bisexual for 1 episode then never had it come up again and had her marry a man. Johnathan Frakes winning his fight to get a male actor cast for the genderless alien Riker fell for in the obvious trans allegory episode (and not ending it "conversion therapy is fine I guess") would have been radical. DS9 going through with the Garak/Bashir romance they set up, and had the actors working under the impression was coming, instead of chickening out of having to commit to a gay romance would have been radical.

[@JoeyisDREADful]

I'd argue Next Gen did ALOT of moral greyness, DS9 was just where "the point/question is the moral greyness" started. Next Gen did moral greyness as a barrier and the overarching philosophical/ideological conflict of the show. You believe in the lofty ideals of the Federation despite watching them constantly suck ass at living up to them and our heros having to navigate that the whole way. Sometimes one or more of them is on the wrong side but they never truly concede to "nessicary evil" and the point is always striving for the ideals even when in practice it's not possible for it to be totally clear cut. DS9 does alot of "What if you just HAVE to do moral greyness? What if it's all grey? WHAT IF THE SPACE NAZIS GET REDEMPTION ARCS AND THE CAPTAIN AGREES TO NESSICARY EVIL?! TREK IS DARK NOW!" which, while it gets away with it, imo, and actually doesn't *really* concede to the "nessicary evil" questions it raises in the end, it does spend the entire show entertaining them. So while great it's also alot of dumb people's favorite because "Captain tough and cool"

[@thelordakira]

no it is not at all. DSN9 it is it's own thing. Nothing related to nu trek at all.

[@thelordakira]

@@JoeyisDREADful TOS and TNG(season 1) were Rod trying to show a future utopia's. but those are unrealistic and static and boring. seasons after and DS9 went for , we strive for the utopia and reality exist lets use it.

[@gerardojg]

As always, I found your video illuminating. As a fan of Star Trek, I was surprised you left out the other two ST shows of the 90s. I would like to add that social media criticisms have an impact on the writing, IMO. It's a peculiar time in entertainment. I distinctly noticed a change in tone and direction with ST "Discovery" later seasons. Especially "Picard" S3, it gave me the "You'll get what you get and you will like it" vibe. I have a deep affection for Picard and Mr. Stewart, so I did. I do feel like social media is shaping popular entertainment in surprising ways to the detriment of corporate plans for profit.

[@travisjohnson622]

The difference betwewn DS9/Voyager trek and Kurtzmann Trek: One set of Trek went out of its way to fit in to the mold. One set went out of its way to break it and defy the image. And the sad thing is, all of this Kurtzmann stuff has been made to update the franchise and bring it into the 21st century fandom. What has ended up happening is that the older fans are being driven away. The newer fans that it was made to attract are merely casual. They will move on when the next marvel vs terminator vs star wars silly trend comes along, leaving Star Trek truly deserted and defunct.

[@darkguardian1314]

It's ruined for this series and any in the future because they have gone so far into the future that anything threatening Earth or Starfleet will be meaningless. EX: When Picard Season 3 was battling the Borg to save Starfleet, we already knew they would succeed.

[@mp-kq3vc]

"Decentralized Digital Media." I imagine some think that is this a good thing, and maybe there is some benefit. However what I mostly see is lack of fact-checking, emotional outbursts vs objective analysis, and most of all (and this is huge) a need to be "liked." I remember when needing to feel liked was laughed at as a teenager thing. Now it is considered "doing business."

[@oaklakeman]

I love your use of Star Trek music in the background

[@Ailsworth]

The first thing I always do when I find myself in agreement with someone, I distance myself from him. The thing is obvious - if one doesn't see "the message," he is not knowing what to look for, or he is pretending not to know. One cannot explain with great clarity what is going on and then deny that he knows what is going on.

[@modolief]

"The angry nerd-bro corner" ... omg, you nailed those guys! Puts things into a new perspective for me, thank you.

[@TheAutomotiveReview]

JJ Abrams and Alex Kurtzman both had no idea what Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek was created for! Abrams and Kurtzman tried to make Star Trek into a Cash Cow! The Roddenberry’s Star Trek was a vehicle to explore and tactic the sociological and physiological questions of our times cloaked in the not to distance future to make it realistic and obtainable. There is a wealth of Star Trek novels and characters from which to weave a tapestry of excellent cinematic stories. These Two Modern Day Executives were unable to materialize the full potential of the Star Trek Universe. Terry Matalas has a far better understanding of the Star Trek Universe and what the True Star Trek Fans want! Roddenberry tackled complex social concepts in a very thought provoking manner. This is what Star Trek is at it’s core a vehicle that both entertainment and thought provoking discussion of current events and issues which have plagued our civilization since the beginning of recorded history. To Erase History is to Doom Us to Constantly Repeat the Errors of our Ways! Strange New Worlds could be the launching point to return Star Trek into a vehicle for Social Discussion and Reflection.

[@SapientCephalopod]

Original Star Trek seemed to assume that there were things to be known. The new Star Trek assumes that we can't know anything except our own perspective. My take is that this is because the amount of cumulative human knowledge can no longer be known by any single human. This has always been true, but is exponentially more pronounced in the information age. There is too much knowledge for all of us to share a common reference, so the world now looks different to everyone depending on what subset of knowlege an individual internalizes.

[@Kitty-CatDaddy]

Yeah, I'm not a warrior philosopher, all I know is everything after ‘Enterprise’ sucks and I just do not watch it. It is the story tellers’ job to make the story he is telling compelling. It’s not our job to just swallow whatever they try to stuff down our throats.

[@anonygent]

*including Enterprise

[@n.d.m.515]

@@anonygent I like Enterprise and did when it was originally on television. They understood Star Trek, even if they got the lore messed up. If you don't like it that is fine. These NuTreks are just plain lacking in anything resembling what makes Star Trek any good.

[@hellacoorinna9995]

@@n.d.m.515 The only thing I like about the Abrams movies is some of the tech. The fact they use the slidey food slot, on a *solid* door in the brig. And being a movie, instead of "Rerouting the buffer junction through the nadeon particules" to beam them onto the laser-drill, they just Baumgatner onto it. Or cock-bottle onto the 'evil bad guy orbital dock'. But the '09 movie is the only one where the Big-E gets her teeth initially kicked in then comes back swinging hard and has her big-damn-gunship moment. All the others seem to have a hate-boner and she consistantly gets the crap kicked out of her without getting her 'come back swinging' moment.

[@penelopegreene]

I just hate messy buildings. I WOULD appreciate an ending to a novel that I don't need a slide rule to figure out.

[@1simo93521]

It could be that the show has been made with the idea that modern audiences are too stupid to understand complex ideas so we just get crying fits, swearing and screaming instead.

[@Izelikestea]

i am sure other people have commented this. but the orville is the perfect meta modern star trek. st prodigy is also criminally underrated.

[@vilod]

Abraham's never understood Star Trek or science fiction, for that matter.

[@RurouniKalainGaming]

Just think about a fan Creations that have been stifled by the powers that be they could have done things better. Not always of course but there are definitely cases where they could have.

[@RobertWScott523]

fascinating discussion & explains why I loathe all reboots of old franchises, thank you! personally tho, I would argue that the postmodernist angle crept in w/Wrath of Khan (I talked about this in one of my old vlogs called 'the darkest trek of all') - where the film does some sleight of hand (creating a wartime atmosphere) to divert the audience from criticizing Kirk for getting students killed rather than attending to their safety, ie- ego service over responsibility (Roddenberry didn't like this)... the result is a film that quietly threw the Kennedy era optimism of TOS under the bus to embrace more ambiguous examinations of character & uncertainty about the future. the rest of the OS cast movies then rebound between the old school modernity (best exemplified in the Voyage Home) and the postmodern (Search for Spock). TNG then swings back hard to modernist mythmaking, then DS9 (and to a lesser degree Voyager) swings back to increasingly postmodern takes (best exemplified in the DS9 ep. 'In the Pale Moonlight'). Anyway- I think the seeds of postmodernism were actually germinating there for some time, waiting for Abrams to water them & Kurtzman to harvest them.

[@edp2260]

J.J. Abrams couldn't even hold a camera steady.

[@dustinneely]

As far as I'm concerned Star Trek ended in 2005. Canon went out the window.

[@rogershore3128]

I simply don't recognise the 2009 film and beyond as Star Trek. It comes across as a parody of the show I loved......

[@samr.england613]

And they turned Scotty into a comic character. It's a shame.

[@eduardopimenta280]

I really liked J.J's Star Trek, at least the first movie, but I really disliked Discovery. It's so focused on the protagonist that we barely see the rest of the crew. I didn't even knew their names by the end of the first season.

[@ricksandstorm]

I felt the same watching TNG. The first two seasons mainly seemed to focus on just Picard, Data and Wesley.

[@Atheos-1]

@@ricksandstorm So, just using basic math, the worst two seasons of TNG were 3 times better than Disco? I agree wholeheartedly.

[@MusikCassette]

"I really liked J.J's Star Trek" Why that? that movie was garbage. I mean Disco is bad, but it does not reach the pure shittiness of JJ Abrams Movie.

[@eduardopimenta280]

@@MusikCassette I mean, for once, the theme song is awesome, made by the incredible Michael Giacchino. The actors are good, and the action sequences are pretty spot-on, specially that sword fight with Sulu and the grittiness of space battles. I also personally like that it told a story about their beginnings (I don't personally care for the sequels, for example). It's just a good action movie. He made ST into a good action movie. I know that for some it might be a detriment to the issue here, but ST historically is known to sometimes suffer from lack of rhythm and good pacing.

[@eduardopimenta280]

@nigratruo ST is great, but people tend to overstate its cleverness. I prefer the original series, for example, because it was a bit silly. The fight scenes, Kirk's love affairs, the Spock jokes, the Bones jokes. That was in the original vision of the series, much like the silliness in the original Star Wars movies. Even Next Generation with their filler episodes, Q's shenanigans and shakespearen adaptations. Of course, there were episodes with deep philosophical themes that were great, but I most remember that from late sequels like DS9 and Voyager. The series that Roddenberry was involved in was the silliest of them all.

[@richardjames6947]

Discovery is the absolute worst.

[@MattHabermehl]

I respectfully disagree (great vid btw) about any irony demonstrated by Peterson, for example. I don't think, other than being born after the modern age, that he is particularly postmodern. He has indeed said that we look at life through stories, and he's not blind to the importance of narrative and how narrative can shape culture and psychology. But just giving narrative its due is not sufficient for being postmodern. Rather, the postmodern idea is that there is nothing other than narrative; that it's narrative all the way down, so to speak. Peterson vehemently disagrees with this, as should anyone with trained philosophical scruples. As a metaphysical view it's self-contradictory. This sounds wrong, I'm sure, because the first postmodernists were trained philosophers. But they were particularly captured by the linguistic turn in philosophy, which was (truly ironically) initiated by Frege as he was trying to figure out a logic for scientific discourse.

[@DamienWalter]

What Jordan says and what Jordan is are not the same

[@MattHabermehl]

@@DamienWalter I wasn't expecting a direct reply, thank you so much for the honour. For what it's worth, I agree with your displeasure about the culture warrior persona. I think it's consistent with his philosophy (with an exception noted below), but the way he approaches it can be ugly. I do think he has heard that feedback, though, and seems (from the admittedly small data set I have) to be cleaning up his act a bit. I think he realizes that not transcending the culture war is a bad look for him and not necessary, given his core mission and his other talents. One thing that is impressive about his sober and considered philosophy is that we need left and right like we need both hemispheres of our brains. But in his culture warrior persona he seems to forget that. If I still have your attention I'd like to thank you for the actual content of your video, which is well handled and, as an ooold star trek fan, agreeable.

[@TheTransporter007]

JJ needs to hop out the gene pool.

[@karenness5588]

I felt Star Trek changing with Pickard's Enterprise. It was already relativist. I remember fuming about a young officer being chastised by his superiors for rebelling at the idea of a slave girl being used to bear the child of an elite alien that was brought on board the Enterprise. I believe there are certain universal principles, having nothing to do with the superficial detected by our senses and the idea of any being having any rights over another is something completely antithetical to those principles. Some beings definitely have more power than others, but it does not, and will never, confer a legitimate right that cannot be criticized and contested, especially by the weak.

[@robslack5468]

The answer is the animated Lowe Decks. It is very meta, embracing all eras of Trek. Cherishing and mocking in a way that celebrates the things that fans love about Trek. It had a rocky, abrasive start, but they quickly course-corrected delightfully.

[@kennethferland5579]

Lower Decks though can never be anything but parasitic to the larger Trek story and its exactly the kind of post modern superficiality which people have been railing against, it's just in a format that everyone knows is unserious humor rather then drama, if it were the future of Trek then the franchise would be better put out of it's misery.

[@commanderkruge]

Lower decks is legit fun. Star Trek, as a franchise, is big enough to handle some comedy too. And yes, I guess this whole meta angle they often use is very "postmodern" if I understood the definition of that. but that's not automatically bad to me, apparently. Self referential tongue in cheek humour is totally my thing. :) And I love that they did the Strange New Worlds crossover. .... now THERE is a Star Trek show that makes me happy. I was born in 71 and watched the original show on German TV as a kid. Strange New Worlds tickles all the right nostalgia nerves in me while at the same time being modern and fresh as well. :)

[@fuzzywzhe]

It's just a ripoff of Starship Regulars.

[@davfree9732]

If lower decks had come out during DS9 or VOY I might have been able to accept it as a meta self referential mickey take of itself... But since it came out alongside STD a rocky, abrasive start is being generous... Secret Hideout ripped the old means of Trek production apart and replaced it with 2009's action style coupled with some sickeningly bigoted accusations thrown at the Trekkies from Secret Hideout via paid for puff pieces and NuTrek Stans... The Orville hit closer to home of what Star Trek is supposed to be, one highlight being the 'planet of social media voting' that showcased the problems with social justice via what people think when exposed to information of a certain slant then asked 'thumbs up or thumbs down' like it's ancient Rome. I'm all for seeing improvements, but if that means the people who attacked fans and made bad content fail upwards to do the same thing all over again, I'll gladly kill off Trek behind the barn myself and wait for someone who gets it to come by and resurrect it. I don't want to hear Trek preaching unless they are prepared to interrogate and explore and expose the good and bad of that argument... And that's not something NuTrek and it's writers feel comfortable doing which means they are not mature/ready enough to write a Trek series. As for LD... It only got better when the producers of NuTrek backed off to focus on other shows leaving the showrunner to make what he wanted... Similar to how Picard Season 3 was a huge improvement when Matalas was given the keys to the studio while everyone else was to busy making other shows and could not contribute or pass memo's and notes. Secret Hideout is just a holding kitchen for producers to earn a paycheck while proving the old saying... To many cooks spoil the broth.

[@ArifGhostwriter]

Star Trek - Strange New Worlds - was an excellent execution of the franchise. It is/was a relief to see what they did - in stark contrast to how say Disney is torpedoing its own key IP.

[@anthrobug]

You don't save it. Paramount owns it. You create or do whatever you can to help create a new story; a new universe released as public domain that's so well fleshed out with characters, backstories, and sprinkled with technology magic, so people can start creating stories right from the start. It just takes time, hard work, and love for the subject. Or money. Or both ideally.

[@michaelpettersson4919]

And they someone will hit you with cease and desist order anyway claiming that your setting is too similar to another. Even bogus claims are costly to deal with.

[@anthrobug]

@@michaelpettersson4919 Wow, why do anything then?

[@michaelpettersson4919]

@@anthrobug That is the idea. Push out the competition.

[@Miata822]

Fascinating. I need to think about this, do more homework, then come back for a 3rd viewing.

[@nightlightabcd]

Thank god, let it die already! Can't the writers come up with something else! For the good of humanity, let Star Trek die with dignity!

[@mahatmarandy5977]

“It represented the power of the individual using technology going out into the unknown and shaping it for our own best purpose.” Where are you getting that from? Trek has *never* been about the individual. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one,” and all that. And it’s set in a military, the type of organization that is not noted for its tolerance of individuality. And despite the occasional talk of multiculturalism and valuing everyone, probably about a quarter of the planet-of-the-week episodes involve a bunch of earthlings showing up on this or that planet and explaining how the locals have been doing it wrong since time immemorial, what with their local beliefs in the supernatural or use of money or random social taboos, or what have you that don’t match with the values of the makers of the shows, and are therefore bad. Star Trek has *never* been about individuality.

[@pittycrepido]

17:41: "the great Corporate Franchises as they try to KLINGON to their Power..." I See what you did there 😂🎉

[@lancebaylis3169]

Everything in today's media landscape feels like a post-modern simulacrum of what we've enjoyed in the past. *Objectively*, Strange New Worlds is better than a lot of its Star Trek contemporaries, but the reality is that it's still essentially doing things we've already seen done better in previous Star Trek, while at the same time constantly "winking" at the audience and staying just on the line of being self-parody. Although I feel like the musical episode leaped over that line.

[@Cherokie89]

The opening season to discovery blew my tits off. It was awesome. The war, the introduction of the mysterious ship that can jump anywhere, the disgraced prisoner protagonist. I loved it

[@DamienWalter]

Somebody loves everything.

[@bradchoi9679]

As someone who has been a Trekkie since the mid-1960's, I would like to say this: Star Trek (in all its' forms) is NOT some kind of "religion" so to speak, it was created as a way for some writers, actors, and studio crew to MAKE A LIVING at their craft. No more than that. Unfortunately, as is usually the case in Hollywood, if something becomes popular, you MUST exploit the crap out of it until you have milked every last drop (or should I say 'dollar') of advertiser revenue or (now) streaming subscription out of it. To assign any more value than that to Trek is simply (and I apologize if this offends some folks) mental masturbation. I'm too old to engage in that anymore. What Trek becomes is completely up to the people that decide to produce it. Don't like it? Don't watch. Simple as that. The other side of the coin is that if Trek that you don't like keeps getting made, you may be in the minority. Sucks to come to that realization, but it is pretty much true! My two cents. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited.

[@dramaticwords]

You lost me when you said SNW was a return to traditional ST. It's nothing of the kind. Nor do I think ST will be saved by combining classic ST values with the crappy writing and inverted values of nuTRek. Frankly, I think ST will only be saved by doubling down on it's original values, as today's world desperately needs that optimistic, humanistic, vision of the future.

[@richierich8555]

I think what most people are unhappy about is that the new writers and producers changed the concept of a franchise where humanity has finally solved all their problems and moved on to the larger philosophical issues, to a franchise where humanity just takes its problems to the stars with them. If Trump can be elected president, then why should we bother giving you a positive Star Trek?

[@dennisdenise1]

I absolutely despise reboots. Nor do I like prequels. It changes the characters, it changes the history to the writer’s vision. This is not the vision the original writer. I always prefer pushing the story forward with new characters on new journeys. NO ONE can rewrite TOS, nor should they try. It’s the foundation of all Trek. Just build on it. This new Trek, it’s just so sad. Trek needs new writers that want humanity to improve upon itself. Not this constant infighting with inept stories/writing. I watched Trek as a young boy, little did I realize how it taught me to grow into a better man, a better human. I hope that one day the journey will continue.

[@apscreditcards]

You contrast the concepts of “Modern” and “Post-Modern”, and while you associate the word “WOKE” with “post-modern” (while simultaneously disparaging the word “WOKE”) you fail to use the associations I find most relevant: “MODERN Star Trek”= HOPEFUL vision of the future, while “POST- MODERN Star Trek”= DESPAIR and a dark vision of the future! What consumer of Star Trek would choose despair over hope?

[@jcoriha]

So, in other words, we need Star Trek to be more like Deep Space Nine.

[@DamienWalter]

Midway DS9 season 5 was the last time Star Trek was Star Trek. That was the 90s.

[@steveb9713]

Yes I though Picard Season 3 coincided with our current meta-modern era. It took the postmodern mistakes of season 1 and 2 and took what worked, discarded what didn’t, and brought back the modern feel and crew from the original show to create a satisfying ending, and hopefully does lead to a new show

[@vikingsoftpaw]

Star Trek is embracing the post modern anti-hero Genre.

[@thurin84]

i really wish all the post modernists would bow to the inevitable and leave all the rest of us to get on with things.

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Wait…. Rick Roderick … do you follow Douglas Lain? (they are all bloody science fiction writers the critical theorists innit.)

[@DamienWalter]

I do not. My friend tuned me onto Rick.

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

@@DamienWalter it wouldn’t be a crazy stretch seeing as Lain is a published sf author himself not that I’ve read any of his stuff. Tbh I mostly use his Adam Curtis meets Critical Theory podcasts as a sleep aid … he has a very soothing voice

[@CP-ti3rf]

Please make a video on metamodern values in storytelling.

[@Name-ps9fx]

Well....maybe because today's youth ARE primarily millenials, just like back in the early 60s the youth were primarily boomers...? The morals and values we had growing up fit very well with TOS Star Trek (keep in mind a half-human/half-Vulcan was very controversial then, just as the diverse bridge crew were! A Japanese man, a Russian, a black woman, and who knows how many guest stars), yet it also was a space-bound "Wagon Train to the Stars" and other "wild west" tropes, all in the hope it'd get enough of an audience to bring it to life! Today, boomers are rapidly aging and in 10-20 years we won't be a major influence in society...but the millenials will be! For better or worse, that's where the society is going...and if Star Trek (the franchise) wants to survive, it has to bring in the younger generations.

[@cpuuk]

I think I still suffer from blind spots on my retina from that film O_o

[@kyubre]

Well done and well said!

[@bluedotdinosaur]

Kind of predictable that at least a third of the comments can’t engage with the piece and just vent anger about certain undesirables gettin’ uppity in space.

[@MarvinNoFun]

Moral ambiguity in Star Trek started with DS9, no?

[@Trygvar13]

NuTrek does not understand what Star Trek is at all. In fact most writers nowadays do not understand what science-fiction or space opera are. What they write are just bland soap operas. The worst Deep Space 9 episodes are lightyears ahead that anything that has come out of NuTrek (Picard Season 3 excepted). And The Message is definitely something that has infected NuTrek. I believe you are confusing post-modernism and nihilism. Today's Trek is not post-modern. It is nihilistic. Previous Star Trek was post-modern.

[@reddog183]

Abrams ST all of it BS ,crap camera angles twinkley lights = BS ,Discovery slow moving pointless stories that are not TREK 1st time ever thought about turning it off.

[@robertpearson5410]

Peterson is lost in space, one of his own making. New Trek is soap opera in the TV series, action thriller in the movies.

[@4891MR]

Well, I love meta-modernism, but if it means incorporating postmodern and modern values together, then it also needs at least to include the pre-modern.

[@DamienWalter]

It does.

[@michaelpettersson4919]

Every new version of Star Trek has attracted criticism BUT usually the fandom get over that. Discovery however broke this cycle. Now it is only bad going worse.

[@commanderkruge]

Oooooh, this video was quite the nice surprise. :) Too often "NuTrek" gets criticized as "woke warfare", so the alt right has something to get angry about. They are the reason I initially skipped this here several times when it was suggested to me, but now it was playing in my queue and how delightful to see someone pointing out the actual problems that DO exist in NuTrek. So far i love to hate Disco, but none of my reasons has to do with gender, skin colour or sexual orientation of any of the characters. Heck, Stammetz (spelling?) is by far my (CIS) favourite character, I like the guy and his slowly growing family unit. More women in central roles? Women who, the horror, aren't all chosen as eye candy? Dang, yes - TV and movies need more of that. "Too few white people" in Disco? Hummm... It IS supposed to be a ship with humans from a United Earth - and to me it seems like the mix of skin tones of the humans in the show is MUCH more representative of that fact. up to Discovery the "Mix" in skin tones was quite obviously an "American" one. Disco is actually way closer to represent a global mix of people. That's one of the things Trek always was about - Mankind overcoming all of it's larger problems and learning to finally get along and work together. None of that is a problem to me. What IS the problem in abandoning all the optimism, turning a utopian future into an almost dystopian one. Having onscreen gore and splatter effects (beheadings, disembowelment) and monster torture rape scenes (during the "humanification" of the albino Klingon, forgot his name). Up to that point Trek was always something that you could show kids and that had many "moral play" episodes that were all about getting the viewer to think about moral values. The main characters in Star Trek almost always were role models. Now imagine showing Disco to kids... :D And the whole "post-modernist" angle was completely new for me, but I think I understand what is meant by it.

[@boldlypod]

Yes this. All of this here.

[@commanderkruge]

@@boldlypod Thanks. Me, I'm perfectly happy with Strange New Worlds, by the way. It feels a LOT like the original series I watched as a kid on German TV in the 70s, but with the up-to-date look (which - fair is fair - rocks in ALL of NuTrek). It's episodes show that you even can combine the "planet of the week" format in which each episode can stand on it's own with an overarching plot and have your cake and eat it too! :D Not that an overarching plot is automatically bad - that's of course nonsense. But it needs a little more preparation - for example you should know where you want the whole thing to end up BEFORE you start shooting. Perfect example for this being done right is Babylon 5 - Strazcinsky (spelling?), the series creator, had all the major plot points and developments for a five year series planned ahead, with a little jiggling room to allow for unforeseen developments (like Michael O'Hare dropping out for health reasons after season one). The series starts as episodic in season one, but even so one quickly notices that it doesn't reset after each episode, but rather stuff goes on and plot points come back and before you know it you're in "you CAN'T miss an episode, because so much stuff goes down"-Overarching arc territory. Good stuff. :)

[@stevenburton7725]

I apologize, but I have to refute your point. As soon as Star Trek became syndicated, it became mimetic (a meme). Endlessly repeating nostalgia in hopes of making Paramount an ever increasing amount of money, not only through the syndication but also through marketing toys, apparel, and more. The expansion into shows like The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager only cemented that notion, and clearly created a greater greying of morality. Cisko and Janeway were both characters who lived in the moral fringes, and generally gave orders which made their subordinates uncomfortable or were outright morally questionable. Yet this video presupposes that these were not the case, and that only the values ascribed within the Original Series were passed down. This is a subjective opinion on Star Trek, and I am sad that this was shown as being researched at all.

[@tomigun5180]

Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made.

[@spencerbookman2523]

I think any stories that incorporate modernist ideas will be rejected by those in the know as being too patriarchal, misogynist, racist, colonialist, etc, etc. This seems to be the effect of "going woke" on popular culture.

[@ernestpresents]

there comes a time when a man decides to stop chasing the dragon and let go. post modernity frees up my time and saves my money. doing, rather than watching seems more evocative.

[@elimgarak1617]

The terms OP is using are not defined until 70-80% into the video - and even then they are not well defined or discussed. Without that the essay is basically a bunch of buzzwords, equivalent to saying "Star Trek is sklurg" without saying what "sklurg" is or explaining or discussing its implications.

[@wpatrickw2012]

Anyone who complains Star Trek has become too woke, has not watched TOS and doesn’t know much about TV in the 1960s.

[@toskvision]

Excellent analysis Damien.

[@DamienWalter]

Thank you.

[@RidleyPark]

I identify as a PoMo™, and I think your critique is spot on. JBP (and Stephen Hicks) are both ill-equipped to discuss Postmodernism.

[@TheLucanicLord]

17:41 I see what you did there.

[@Fenris77]

JJ loves to overdo it. Like 800 crew and passengers would be impossible in the era where the movie is happening in. The Constitution class Enterprise had at most 400 crew members and not a dozen phase cannons but at most 4 or 5. And the less we speak of the Star Trek Discovery where apparently Vulcans did not know about human boy/girl names etc...