Has Science Fiction Gone WOKE?? Dune, Foundation, Star Trek

To answer the question, Has science fiction Gone woke we first have to ask this question. What does “Woke” even mean? I have noticed personally that there are a few different ways in which people use this word and two distinct ways I can Identify most clearly. The first is in a positive sense. In this sense, the word woke refers to a person who is aware of and resistant to the various social disparities of society. The other way I see it used in the pejorative sense, wherein wokeness is viewed as a form of virtue signaling kind of a pretentious way appearing as though you care about social issues when you really don’t.
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[@KingsandGenerals]

always has been meme.jpg

[@umegadarkstar2657]

Fancy seeing you here! I'm also subscribed to your channel!

[@MrLolguy93]

Considering it is one of the things that killed the comic industry, and now is threatening the same to the movie and video games, I beg to differ

[@cryptox826]

Kings and Generals I did not expect to see you here

[@cryptox826]

Et Leva ikr smh 🙄

[@FloridaManVal]

Wrong

[@obelix703]

While we’re on the subject of Star Trek’s breakthroughs: let’s not forget that Kirk’s superior officer in TOS was black. That doesn’t get mentioned enough.

[@thewoodweldingfabricator9300]

Yeah that wasn't a good time to have a black man in a position of authority on TV. That type of thing could get your show canceled.

[@sertaki]

@@thewoodweldingfabricator9300 Therefore having it in the show is that more powerful.

[@thewoodweldingfabricator9300]

@@sertaki exactly

[@OfficialChrissums]

@El-ahrairah wasnt that the point of the episode? Pretty sure the show was making a statement about that if i remember the episode correctly.

[@workingclassclassicalguita730]

don't forget the jew ferenge

[@GUTOG]

Wait! Quinn is being played by a black guy? This video is so woke.

[@mikeguzzetta]

Right, I thought Quinn was a doctor and a medicine woman....

[@mikeguzzetta]

@Dr Dimpy Rambo I was making a joke since whenever I hear the name Quinn, "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" always pops into my head. Your comment/question is making the assumption that "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" was rebooted; and our Quinn was playing the roll of "Michaela Quinn" originally portrayed by the British actress Jane Seymour. The answer to that would be no. Race and gender are not a culture. Furthermore, the culture that was depicted in the show was that of the mid-19th century American west. The show took place from 1867 onward. Culturally, if our Quinn was to act that part he would have had the cultural identity of a wild west pioneer. Being that this was post civil war they would probably have written the part one of two ways. Either Quinn being one of the many newly emancipated African Americans that traveled west during that time; in as such he would have had a shared cultural identity with many of the white southern settlers. Alternatively, and in my mind the more likely scenario, Quinn would have been a freedman from the north who was one of the first wave of African American's to earn a medical degree in the US.. In that instance Quinn would have a shared cultural identity with other northern settlers. This would also play well with the fact the original Quinn was from Boston. So from a cultural appropriation standpoint, this would not qualify. Now what would be an issue, Quinn would need to perform the roll in Drag in order to be a "Medicine Woman". In today's "woke" environment this would be unacceptable and the roll would need to be played by a woman or trans actress. The only alternative that would let our Quinn play the roll would be to rename the show to just Dr. Quinn and have Quinn be a male.

[@jerrysstories711]

Did you just assume Quinn's gender?

[@mikeguzzetta]

​@@jerrysstories711 The original comment above by @Anthony that started this thread is as follows "Wait! Quinn is being played by a black guy? This video is so woke." My response is based off that. Like wise I have not viewed an upload by Quinn stating that they would like to be referred in the feminine or as gender neutral. Other than that - all outward appearances signal that Quinn is a male. Quinn dresses male, has a male hair style - including visible facial hair, and Quinn has a penchant for hats that are of a style that are generally considered male fashion accessories. If I was, lets say a store clerk, and Quinn came to my station for assistance appearing as such I would acknowledge Quinn with "How may I help you Sir". The only thing that is not fully male oriented about Quinn is his name, Quinn is now-days considered a gender neutral name and is used by both males and females.

[@jbtechcon7434]

@@mikeguzzetta Good goddess, how do I get through to someone as un-woke as you? You've declared a person "male" because they chose to wear what binary gender-based society has decreed are "male hairstyles" and "male clothing". You might as well just say Quinn is male because "he" has a penis! When I read comments like yours, I want to go put some pearls on so I can clutch them! You need to woke up!

[@sangweeni304]

Sci fi has always been the least conservative form of media I’ve ever watched.

[@shang0h]

You know, after watching literal days of videos on dune, southern reach, 3 body problem, lovecraft, foundation, etc etc. Quinn has convinced me wokeness was never a problem: it was always dorkness

[@NeostormXLMAX]

What? Wtf have you been reading? If anything solarpunk or steampunk is the least ironically, sci fi is filled with ultra nationalists, for example starshiptroopers was written as a protest against nuclear disarmament to please communists, enders game is anti homo, third body is anti liberal and feminism, blindsight is anti empathy, do androids dream is anti atheist and makes an argument that robots are souless because they werent made by god, not to mention the super nihilistic or conservative views on book of the new sun, Hyperion or dune, sci fi is literally the most anti liberal media ever, even the culture series doesnt talk much about the culture itself but stars traditionalist outsiders as protagonists

[@XDspacemanJD]

“Honestly you’re all ridiculous which is why I live in another dimension” mood 😂

[@A._is_for]

I've been sent to this planet to find intelligent life, so far it's been over 30 years and I suspect it's a punishment not a mission.

[@balerionthecat5076]

I am stunned by some of the responses on here 😂😂😂 I think I need to look at other dimensions too 😂

[@JJMHigner]

Thank you! So do I. Be a person. 💓

[@guitarfan01]

@@balerionthecat5076 oh yeah, the replies on here are rather distressing

[@carlfrisen7705]

That was hilaruous haha

[@cryptox826]

“Getting views is all that matters on KZbin” Gold

[@EdgeOfEntropy17]

Actually, this is the exact opposite of what I consider "Gold." There are far more important things on KZbin than just how many views a video gets.

[@Bustermachine]

@@EdgeOfEntropy17 I mean maybe a site that was founded by guys trying to find clips of Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction was foundationally not built for deep thought?

[@EdgeOfEntropy17]

@@Bustermachine Agreed

[@jessatlife]

@@EdgeOfEntropy17 yeah, but in order for the video to matter, it has to be seen first.

[@geradbrown1663]

Thank you Quinn! Your critique of this “woke” problem helped me with this issue. As a Star Wars Fan the books, tv shows and movies have a vast array of people aliens and human together fighting against a tyrannical galactic empire. They also show the nature of teamwork, defiance and hope that evil will be conquered in the end.

[@mikesbookreviews]

I feel like The Expanse (the books and the TV series) handles these issues better than every other sci-fi series out there right now. Every fan of the genre should read 'em (and/or watch) it they haven't yet.

[@yucol5661]

What happened in the expanse?

[@barkasz6066]

@@yucol5661 The Expanse handles diversity very well. The characters are very diverse in many ways, but no one feels like they were written that way to be token representation, or for wokeness sake, nor are people ever mainly defined by their race, gender, sexuality or even political ideology. And the story itself is layered and great, pretty realistic and deals with high-concept questions.

[@tallaganda83]

It is the cream of the crop in every sense.

[@Kenny-sl6hb]

@@barkasz6066 From what I have seen in the series every character is pretty much caucasian.

[@gregoryf9299]

It’s outstanding!! Their embrace of diversity (sex, race, sexuality, etc) always just felt natural, never forced. Yes, two main characters were white males, but I’d argue the best acting and the strongest characters in the show were non-white female. One of the “Ty and that guy” series talks about their diverse casting. It’s worth a watch. The authors (who are quite involved in the show) had to fight casting teams to ensure diversity was there. Their examples were sobering and a little sad.

[@bullionsean456]

Embracing natural diversity is a noble thing. But the term "woke" being used to describe normal, everyday diversity is what I have a problem with. And there definitely is some disingenuous virtue signaling going on regarding both sides of the use of the term. It's really just the word itself that I can't stand.

[@mmedrano21]

The term “woke” was coined by those who are pushing the concept of intersectionality into the mainstream. Most of these people are Cluster B Personally Types with an axe to grind. It’s a variant of “red pilled” created by unscrupulous people with who needed their own term to describe their own enlightened movement. They are weak minded, narcissistic dolts; as are many, more if not most who think that they are “red pilled.” Most normal people just want to watch a good movie, series (or even sporting event, commercial, etc) without heavy handed political overtones that take precedence over a good script. And there is a big difference between portraying natural diversity and these idiots patronizing people.

[@thomasel9171]

it does seem derogatory, but the term woke fits, its a group of people who think they are progressive because they swing far left and buy all the lefts talking points hook line and sinker, and in doing so are often doing more damage to those things they claim to care about

[@max-cs9ko]

Problem lies when you try to impose it everywhere

[@rickwrites2612]

​​​​​​@@max-cs9ko no the problem is when conservative government makes laws against it. That is what censorship is, the government of force silencing you. Conservatives are the only source of censorship, and this should be terrifying you if you care about freedom. Right now they are banning books, what topics high school kids can write essays about, making it a crime for adults wearing an item of clothing "meant for the opposite sex" in public (like in the 1930s,), making it a crime to discuss reproductive medical issues *in private*, for children to talk about their families in school if their patents are gay, laws against bathroombuse that have been the medical norm for 50+ yrs, making it a crime for medical experts to prescribe hormones to adults, etc. Boycotting and social shunning, while sometimes annoying, is not censorship nor enforcement. It is an indication of a free society. The less authority and government a situation has, the more boycotting and social shunning are used instead of censorship and force. This is evident in every group where there is a lack of hierarchy or authoritarianism: hunter-gatherers, the Amish, anarchist co-ops, etc all use vsrious forms of boycotting, teasing, social shaming and eventually shunning, to set what is acceptable social norms and ethical behavior. The internet as a "community" without government force and a free market of ideas is no different. The only possible problem is sometimes people get a little to aggressive and jump to shunning before educating, forgetting thst not everyone has been exposed to such ethical norms. In the 80s and 90s the cancel culture norms were demonizing heavy metal, rap, video games, gay and trans ppl, black culture, D&D, any non-Christian religion, sex outside marriage etc. Now the norm is don't bully or talk shit about ppl for who they are. Big fckin improvement.

[@user-vv7tx6gd9c]

You know how many blacks and Asians and transgender and gays and whatever minority I see in my life daily? Zero. I want a propped representation of society. This is disproportionate.

[@sahardoom]

Diversity in Dune is even greater, during the funeral ceremony of Jamis someone was chanting "Ima trava okolo! I korjenja okolo" ...that would translate from croatian/serbian "There is grass around! There are roots around!" ...so some of those Fremen had Slavic ancestors from Balkan region

[@derek96720]

White diversity doesn't count to these people. Serbs get reduced to just being more white people.

[@yoshikhurazi1769]

@@derek96720 Word, we need to abolish the idea of "black" and "white" people when we're actually talking about thousands of distinct ethnic groups that have though a combination of migration, slavery, and propaganda been fooled into a sense of racial cohesion along arbitrary state borders when there really is none. It's particularly absurd when referring to Africans who are the most genetically diverse in the planet and have both short pygmies and giant Samoans reduced to the label "black" as if that's a useful description.

[@kinagrill]

@@yoshikhurazi1769 I agree. It's annoying being called 'white person'. I'm a Dane, thank you very much and naturally I would have a fairer skin color than some random african person. It's as if I picked White skincolor at birth and now must pay for it socially for being privileged for some reason.

[@THEwafell]

@@yoshikhurazi1769 You can also add a fun fact that origin of English word 'Slave' comes from medieval Latin 'Sclavus' that meant 'a Slav' (Slavic person)

[@forwhy8723]

@@kinagrill the way ya'll are desperate to be oppressed at this point must be a fetish.

[@smithblack5945]

When Star Trek had the first interracial kiss, people were complaining about it being "woke" back then too. Sci fi has a trend of being "woke" for its time.

[@morgezorge6387]

Woke describes a particular ideology, it's not just about generic equality, but identity politics, critical race theory and intersectionalism. You are treated according to your identity and the historic oppression it received. Star Trek for example always was about humanity overcoming all those identities and becoming rational individuals, who can come together and make rational judgements on shared facts.

[@LordBilliam]

Woke is the opposite of the interracial kiss. Woke is the segregation we saw in the CHAZ, it's penalising Asian college applicants based on their race. Woke and anti-racism are not the same thing.

[@MrLolguy93]

@@LordBilliam woke is basically "it's not racist if WE do it"

[@VladofWallachia]

@Alec Holland And also ripping off Mass Effect

[@AdamElteto]

No wonder Quinn's is my favorite science-fiction channel. He can explain anything and everything so well through humor and intellect without sounding sarcastic or dismissive. Furthermore, he makes the concept sci-fi fans generally believe even more widespread: science-fiction is the ultimate intellectual literary genre and has been a pioneer of ideas for ages.

[@d_prac]

Pioneering ideas and ideological propaganda are not the same thing. Modern sci fi often takes stories which encompass some of the ideals neo-Marxism espouses and inject every other modern tenet of the ideology into the media. What results is an attempted ideologically pure reproduction of the political view in its entirety. When they fail to tick a box because the producers and directors were not aware of a new mutation, they get eviscerated by their purity police despite the product still being repulsive degeneracy to ordinary audiences. I’m aware of this, you’re aware of this. The culture war is not secret and everybody knows. Some people just think pretending it’s not happening will mean they get left alone. They won’t.

[@Shan_Dalamani]

What a shame he completely misses the point at times. For instance: I've been accused of being racist for pointing out that the casting of Liet-Kynes in the Villeneuve movie is WRONG because the actress is black. I DON'T GIVE A FUCK WHAT COLOR HER SKIN IS! The point that LIET-KYNES IS SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYED BY A MAN! Oh, and for Jurgen Prochnow: Best. Duke Leto. EVER. P.S. The word you want at the beginning of your video is "incompetent." Not "Imcompetent." If that annoying machine thing is going to be part of these videos now... you've lost me. Again. No shares, no promotions, just spreading the word that there used to be good Dune channel that decided it needed a dumb sidekick. Pity that. You used to be a favorite.

[@augustaseptemberova5664]

@@Shan_Dalamani bitter much? Instead of Liet Kynes, ecologist, Judge of the Change, leader to the Fremen, parent of Chani, we now have Liet Kynes, ecologist, Judge of the Change, leader to the Fremen, parent of Chani? Absolute shocker, ruins the whole narrative /s

[@Shan_Dalamani]

@@augustaseptemberova5664 What the fuck are you even talking about? I've been pretty vocal on a number of channels, stating my opposition to genderswapping Kynes for no reason whatsoever other than the director can't wrap his mind around the idea that if he brags that he's being faithful to the book, he should actually be faithful to the book, instead of making shit up and then lying about it. There are excellent reasons why Kynes should be played by a man, but since you have already missed my point, it would be a waste of time to go over it again for you.

[@ivanvidakovic9222]

Star trek is woke horror

[@plo617]

While I agree with you that the whole woke label gets put on everything, there is certainly a heavy handedness to the way social issues are addressed in scifi today. Most of it is way too on the nose and lacks any kind of real subtlety. A good example is something like Star Trek Discovery compared to something like The Orville. Both tackle social issues. However, Discovery handles it with very broad strokes, almost as if they are about to turn to the camera and say "diversity is good". Where as the Orville handles it in a way more subtle ways. Dealing with topics like gender reassignment, sexism, racism and even diversity in clever ways that are actually very relevant, without talking down to their audience. That said, I'm also sick of everything that isn't lead by a straight White male character typically being labeled as "Woke".

[@FrostWolfPack]

I agree this the recent political events are too much right on the nose and beaten to the head. Not like the Dune and Foundation even the most Star Trek as contles others auctors how had great ideas and wision. Not like the new num nuts.

[@kallistiX1]

Disagree entirely. Star Trek was never subtle in its approach, at all. Ever. And these precise same criticism has been lobbed at every incarnation. The Star Trek was banned quite a bit in the South when it came out before being too blatant with its message. ST: TNG was accused of the same thing to point where episodes were censored in the '80s and '90s for tackling things like terrorism. They said the same for ST: DS9 and its exploration of terrorism and occupation. And, don't even get me started on Enterprise and their post -9/11 alien jihadist storyline. If you're looking for Subtly, it's not in the Great Bird's design for the Star Trek galaxy and it never was. Does it make the shows bad? No. Never. But they have always, *_always_* , been over the top morality plays hammed up by Shakesperian actors.

[@kallistiX1]

And the Orville! Lords of Kobol, Bless That Man For Trying But Gods! That show doesn't even have the ability to inhabit the scene-chewing because it's got to *_constantly_* remind you it's funny. And, don't get me wrong it really and truly can be, but for maybe let it come naturally instead of stopping the story dead to shoehorn in a joke. And Seth! I love that man and would gladly volunteer to be his piece of ass the minute he comes out but he cannot live act. It's like that cut-out of Kathy Ireland had a child with Peter Griffin.

[@pramienjager2103]

You don't realize you are the organism character do you?

[@plo617]

@@pramienjager2103 Lol, no. I've actually dealt with those types. Abrasive, rude and scream "get woke, go broke" for everything. Just because I disagree with the heavy handed storytelling direction typical in the current era of scifi, doesn't mean I'm some anti-sjw zealot. I've been subscribed to this channel for years and even defended and argued against the whole Liet Kynes "controversy" to the very people that you claim that I am.

[@georgehenes3808]

“... plus, I’m having fun now.” Brilliant.

[@rafale1981]

“I mean, are.you.kidding.me.” Love it!

[@davidjenkins5962]

Well done. That was a great way to address both sides of the ongoing polarization in our society: calmly, accurately, and without shaming.

[@theobserver3753]

@Aaron Wolfenbarger Being woke is being an idiot. Supporting shaming people is stupid and childish. It shows the lack of values, decency and maturity. That’s why the western world is crumbling. It’s full of spoiled cry babies who haven’t even considered how fortunate they are.

[@bobbiecat8000]

@@theobserver3753 you mean shaming bad, bcoz the people I like is being shamed? Heck even what you are saying now is shaming people, which only lead to profanities, your in here screaming like a little baby.

[@MonsterRain91]

He literally strawmans the opposition as a whining, inhuman orb within minute 1. Just saying. Also, pointing out and praising the fact that he did so articulately is an age old casually racist thing to say about a black person. Am I more woke than even you here? Lol

[@slboard96]

@@MonsterRain91 thats not a strawman thats accurate

[@MonsterRain91]

@@slboard96 The initial comment said it showed both sides, without shaming. Reducing opposition to a whining orb is not being fair. Also, accurate to whom? The entire opposition to his points sound like that and say those things? They’re all clones? You’re foolish if you think of things in such a nuance-free manner. It was the dictionary definition epitome of strawman. A strawman can be accurate and a few people actually be like that, but he’s painting a large, diverse group as having a limited amount of easily debunkable, whiny points. This is amateurish and clearly done in bad faith. If you disagree, that’s fine, but it would mean that you’re either being disingenuous, yourself, or there’s just no budging for you, as you’re in too deep with one ideological team and have left nuance behind long ago. Given the likelihood of both, I don’t plan to pursue this further. Your initial comment already showed your hand. Be well.

[@donbroni]

The Expanse is very woke by the positive definition of wokness and yet it somehow never feels like its pushing an ideological agenda! It is not a story of wokenes nor does it depend on telling a story through reminders of incessant virtue signalling unlike the more recent star wars and star trek media. The expanse just tells a beautiful story with culturally racially and gender diverse characters. As a mixed race man I feel very included in the universe of the Expanse and for the first time in scifi Tv Im seeing such beautiful variation of both peripheral and important characters without it feeling like im watching some diversity quota being "advertised" to me!! If Dune and the the Foundation can do what the Expanse has done, problem solved !

[@haukionkannel]

donald clark Yes, I agree, it is maybe the most woke new scifi! And I really hope to see more woke scifi like Expanse! I really enjoy that series!

[@donbroni]

@@traveler263 I think you have misunderstood me I said "unlike the new star waRs and star trek“

[@arakuss1]

I would not call expanse woke at all. The difference with Expanse is the character comes first and because the character is written well and presented in a interesting story gender and race really then don't matter. It is when you change a character and the only reason you did so was because of race or gender then continue to point it out it distracts from the real purpose of a book or movie that is story and character. Old star trek might have had a female first officer, an Asian, a black female as and so on but they still had development and story behind it. It also reflected that humans were involved and all represented. To say star trek was woke because it had such representation than than the US military is woke because almost every race in the US was represented in the service. Expanse is not at all woke it is merely has a diverse story telling point of view. Expanse sets up a world of space regionalism. Earthers, Martians, Belters, classism while race and gender is more or less ignored.

[@donbroni]

@ThisIsMyRealName were did you get itallian and german from lol hahaha so stupid

[@Reverandfatdave]

Woke is a bad way to say it because of it's connection to cancel culture. Sci-fi has always been Liberal and accepting.

[@BobExcalibur]

Well, unless you write something that is contradicts what the literary critics think its acceptable to find. You better not write Starship Troopers, you fascist.

[@Yawbus1976]

@@BobExcalibur - Or film it! Can you imagine the furore if you tried that today? I used to just like the film because it's, well, just stupid fun. Now I get to like it because it get the woke brigade all apoplectic. If there's one thing the perpetually offended do not understand, it's satire.

[@cheeseburgersuperior1874]

@ThisIsMyRealName ok fascist. I should cancel this comment by reporting it. It's good according to you.

[@Saktoth]

@@Yawbus1976 What are you talking about? The far left adores Starship Troopers, Chapo Trap House goes on non-stop about how great Starship Troopers is. Starship Troopers is an antifascist masterpiece.

[@Demagogify]

@ThisIsMyRealName Starship Troopers movie is parody of Fascism, original book is also showing dangers of Fascism. Noone in their right mind would fight against it.

[@zadkiel242]

Usually when people complain about wokeness, it's the perjorative. Diversity is one thing, but diversity at the expense of plot and character development is another thing entirely. Race and gender swapping "just because" is a one way street (you can have a black Superman, but not a Japanese Blade for example).People would be less likely to complain if it occurred for artistic reasons rather than to score points with certain groups. Not to mention a film's marketing focuses on being the first to do show something ("The first action movie to have a as a lead") at the expense of character development. Battlestar Galactica and The Expanse are very good examples of where genders and races were swapped, but the characters weren't compromised. In many ways, the characters were vastly improved over the source material. Today's diversity, for the most part, is simply a marketing tool and just serves to placate critics. I don't know if you're aware, but even Villeneuve's Dune was criticized for not having any Arabs, North Africans, or transgender people. EDIT: I remember Quinn uploaded a video rebutting the criticism of Dune because of claims that Paul is a white savior, and Quinn made very good points about it.

[@chasingvictory659]

The way I see it, if they can do it, anyone can do it. They should have to okay by their own rules. If Harry Potter had been written by a black woman and feature mostly black characters, would we be able to switch out their race for white characters? No? Then sit down and shut up.

[@nadiamond]

I think its a one way street because white people have portrayed everyone in stories up until recent history, shit they even played women in some cases in the 1800s, so to create balance, we have to kind of veer far in the other direction, and once balance is in place then we can get back to a more middle of the road stance, not too far in either direction.

[@zadkiel242]

@@nadiamond If the justification is "well they did it to us, so we're doing it back to them" then no one learned anything.. All you're doing is taking a racist system and applying it to different races every few years until it's your turn again.

[@sabinasabino141]

As a trans woman in science fiction circles, I’m pretty sure I would have heard if anyone complained about Dune not having transfolk. Like, we are pretty starved for representation, and good representation is exceedingly rare in a world that still thinks cis people playing trans people is okay. And like, I kind of get the criticism of not having anyone from middle eastern descent? Though, thinking about it just briefly, I think there are. But on the larger point of “wokeness” I’ve always found it a pretty one sided complaint. Like, when a show that basically has only white cishet people in the cast is bad, no one accuses the show of being bad because of its racial makeup, but put one black character, or a trans character, and suddenly the show is bad because of wokeness? And like, every single show that has a trans character, or a gay couple, is immediately decried as being bad because of that? I am talking mostly about stablished works that are them adapted into our current day, but I’ve seen the same type of discourse of pejorative wokeness regarding shows like Pose - which is a show about trans and gay people in ball culture in the eighties and nineties, during the AIDS epidemic. I get the criticism around tokenism, like let’s have this one marginalized character that is simply there to say that the cast of the show is diverse, but lately the trend has been moving away from that sort of representation. Marginalized people have been getting protagonist roles and stuff like that in major works. That said, we live under capitalism, and the simple reality is that more diversity is simply more appealing to a wider variety of people. So there are shameless cash grabby attempts at inclusion, but like, how else are they going to show people like me if there is no money involved? Not sure if you heard, but some people really really really hate that fact that I exist. I think the criticism around wokeness often boils downs to “I’m mad that character isn’t like me, and I am the default human being”.

[@zadkiel242]

@@sabinasabino141 I understand your view, and it has been presented many times. Let's say we took the whole system of segregation and racism but instead of getting rid of it, we simply just become racist towards other groups of people who fared better in society until everyone is equally victimized by the system. Is that a good solution? No. You don't end employment discrimination by implementing racist ideas. It doesn't work. Sadly the idea of "equality of outcome" turns into a racist and discriminatory system. History is replete with whites implementing race quotas. The only difference now is that people try to make it desirable. This whole claim of "diversity" has absolutely nothing to do with giving deserving people a chance. It has to do denying deserving people a chance to someone who fits a certain physical characteristics. The criticism that people have saying "I'm mad that the character isn't like me, and I am the default human being" is more like "I can't relate to this character at all." It happens because film studios think that as long as you see a variety of races on screen then no character development is required. Really if we want to stop all this discrimination and racism in entertainment, we need to do away with that system entirely rather than just applying it to different people.

[@michbarkc]

I can’t really care about gender or race swapping, I’m more concerned with changing themes and tone from the source. I haven’t seen anything to lead me to think Dune or Foundation are going down that path.

[@CrissCHG]

but gender or race swapping IS changing themes and tone from the source so yeah they are...

[@michbarkc]

@@CrissCHG Specific to these properties or in general? Because we won’t argue about the latter. The next phase of Marvel films is shaping up to be a disaster bigger than Disney Star Wars.

[@rickardkaufman3988]

@@CrissCHG Liet Kyne's daughter is played by Zendaya so a race swap was imminent. But as the OP said, I would like to focus on the story and delivery than the race and gender swap. I mean, Nick Fury was originally white.

[@paulmccann2162]

Race swapping is for me... But when a characters powers rely upon their sex, gender swapping can mess up the entire story. So that n dune especially, race swap .. cool... Sex swap... Bad. There are plenty of kickass women in dune already.

[@blackmonish]

@@paulmccann2162 I agree with this. I was a little upset about the change at first, simply because my favorite scene is when he is... how do I put this without spoilers.. "talking to his father," because, while I could see a guy or gal experiencing that same moment, I don't see a gal responding the same way. But then I realized that this awesome director is not going to make the same mistake as David Lynch, so most likely that scene won't have an inner monologue (and physical speech in that moment would be impossible)- so I'm ultimately fine with this particular change. But yes I agree with your statement good sir (now, I apologize for the length of this message, the rest of it will be separated, in case you do not agree with it, I would not want idiots to associate you with the opinions of a stranger... because the internet is full of adult toddlers and, like part of that super long name of that "The Chariot" song, "sometimes, this includes me."- and if you do happen to agree, then tight! My insomnia wasn't for nothing! :D) Peoples' race, on its own, does absolutely nothing to change who they are; but one's gender does. For those who wish to be angry about this, instead of simply disagreeing; 1. It's very simple; race does nothing to affect one's brain chemistry, while being either male or female does (for example, when us guys are in the womb, the abundance of testosterone that forms actually eats away at some of the neurons connecting the right and left hemispheres of the brain, which is why girls are typically more well suited to multitasking, whereas us guys are more prone to dedicating most of our mind to one task at a time (we are dealing with the complexity of the human brain, so it obviously varies, and I believe nurture overrides a good portion of just about every category, though it is doubtful that it trumps any aspect completely- even if some aspects of our psychology lie around 90% nurture, in my opinion (ENTIRELY SUBJECTIVE OPINION). So ladies, if any of you out there want to call your ex's "brain damaged," you're technically not wrong. lol) and 2. if you are the type to be angry about such a broad statement, then you will almost certainly be the type to believe the opposite if the topic of the "subjectivity," of gender fluidity is presented.

[@usosaito.namahage]

This video was well crafted and literally points out people that get "offended" by scifi never truly understood scifi to begin with.

[@vorshack8968]

While it's true that sci-fi and fantasy has 'always been political', there is a fairly clear-cut difference between the use of allegory to examine things like society, morality, and human behavior in such a way that can then be _applied_ to contemporary issues . . . and directly/incessantly involving a show in the partisan politics of the moment to the point that it's ruined as escapism for a large portion of the audience. For example, there is a scene in Star Trek: Discovery where a male character gets blown up after mansplaining to his smarter female colleague. Is mansplaining bad? Yes. Should it be discussed? Yes, but there is no educative deconstruction of negative behavior here. Let alone a subtle or artistic one. It's just a petty indulgence for the outrage crowd. Everyone gets to see the bad behavior get punished, and pat themselves on the back for knowing what the bad behavior is. Meanwhile, anyone who isn't engaged by this bizarre new form of fan service has their sense of immersion completely disrupted. When I imagine how Next Gen would have handled this very same issue, well, Discovery is certainly woke af, but I fail to see how we've actually progressed. In other words, it's not the general message most people have a problem with, but the unskilled and repetitive manner in which it's being delivered.

[@Man_of_Tomorrow]

I've seen the new Dune and its a beautiful masterpiece. I don't like the term 'woke', but I really only have an issue when there is an obvious corporate agenda to virtue signal or to appeal to controversy. An artistic expression of diversity in a creative, meaningful way, or as a portrayal of real life, is fantastic. The 200 producers of the new Star Trek shows completely obliterating the canon to make the Federation a dismal, nihilistic system to cash in on America's contemporary social strife, ignoring the vision of the Federation as an optimistic portrayal of humanity in the future, is unforgivable. Dune is how you do it right, contemporary Star Trek is virtually everything you could do wrong. I once told a friend that I didn't like Star Trek Discovery. She said 'I appreciate how diverse it is' and my response was, 'If you value superficial diversity over any story or characters that even somewhat resemble Star Trek, then you will love Discovery'. Yes, you have a black woman lead named Michael, wonderful! Only she, and everyone else on the show is shockingly boring and unlikable... If you can't follow through and do it right, it's not an achievement for social change. Often I feel, as much as people will immediately jump to criticise a gender or racial swap, without taking the time to appreciate the impact, there is also the other side that will blindly praise superficial virtue signalling. I think both reactions are dishonest and hurtful toward creativity.

[@k4yser]

Diversity in itself is not a value. Neither good or bad. It depends if there is a reason for it and if it fits into the world they build.

[@darthmercur3067]

Dune the movie a beautiful masterpiece.....Duncan Idaho was played by aquaman 👌

[@roybattynexus6]

Pejorative woke has eaten first woke significant. Sci-fi it's always been, mostly, progressive (the first woke term). Now, using the second woke has empty real progressive meaning. Resuming we have avatars not characters with no development.

[@roybattynexus6]

@Sergio Díaz Nila agree.

[@jbtechcon7434]

Well said. It mirrors how the BLM movement for major police reform got eaten by the white-led Marxist urban terrorist uprising. When all you actually want to do is destroy, you can wear the garb of any movement you like.

[@HerveMaas]

@@jbtechcon7434 Marxist? Huh. Do you have sources for that statement? Or is it entirely anecdotal?

[@Xo-3130]

@@HerveMaas I think their mraning Anarchrist though given how shallow most of the sub urban and urbanites understanding of its you're more better off calling the radlib or wokescold. They're not actually all that good at opposing the very system itself. In fact, you could argue their fustrataruons hace less to do with the institutions of the system and more their place rekative to it. If handed power they're likely to do what the hippy boomers did and sell out their supposed beliefs.

[@gutenstagl]

@@jbtechcon7434 You live on a different planet, lolol.

[@captainjetpack]

the Trollion collective can't take how adorable Quinn is.

[@dothrakidani358]

He is super cute. be a person and we'll like you. A human person.

[@troymann5115]

"You are all ridiculous, that's why I live in another dimension". Love it!

[@marxug1]

Bless your courageous, hip-wader-wearin’ soul, Quinn. I love your channel and your sentiments!

[@theduke6174]

Basically Isaac Asimov was probably the most woke sci-fi writers of the 1950s

[@arctic_haze]

Who of the great masters of classic SF wasn't "woke"? I think only Heinlein (a libertarian) was the exception. Some of them were even communists.

[@arctic_haze]

@@banhammer3904 He was a libertarian. So rather right wing woke, if at all.

[@JeyC_]

Diversity isn't woke Forced Diversity is There's a reason why people are saying" if you want your diversity and political agendas or what not, then make your own fictional story and stop forcing your agendas into those titles and works that are already been established" It's not about the idea of diverse characters or political agenda that is woke, IT IS THE FORCING AND CHANGING of established and already existing titles to fit your narrative So no, both authors of Dune and Foundation aren't woke. Because they actually made theur own story, they didn't nade a mockery of existing ones by twisting it to fit their own political agendas

[@KevinJDildonik]

Here is the "woke" issue in a nutshell. Asimov was an amazing humanist who did a lot of work to cast humanity as a whole, where differences like race would fade away to be meaningless in the far future as barbaric anachronisms. In Foundation, people literally don't even remember why racism was ever an issue. But I guarantee if you go to the forums where especially "woke" people congregate, a good number of people will say Asimov = white = evil and problematic. Even though Asimov was Russian-Jewish which... Is that even white? There's a giant push to remove "white" writers like Asimov from sci-fi in favor of "diverse" options. Maybe you're not up on current events. Or if you're being uncharitable, you will pretend these efforts don't exist, or maybe even say Asimov is so famous it's okay if he's downrated from a few shelves here or there in the name of the cause. Somewhere out there for instance, an author is compiling a "best sci-fi" list and they're mulling over whether to include a writer like Asimov or Bradbury or pull that name, almost certainly in favor of some recent black female author for maximum woke points. Is that really progressive, or is it just cringe virtue signaling? There are valid questions to be asked here. Think this would never happen? Or it isn't mainstream? May I point you to Star Trek: Picard, which very directly tried (at times, thanks to inconsistent writing) to make Picard out to be a racist old white man. His family were awful oppressive rich people who owned old furniture... Even though the Federation doesn't have money and replicators are free so... Uhmm... Look we have a black lady talking about racism so we're woke we promise! She even vapes bro! Again, is that really progressive... Or is it just cringe, written by a room of what I would guess are almost exclusively people with a lot more privilege than most white working and lower class Americans? There are ideologues on all sides. But to pretend there are no issues worth discussing, and that your opponents are all moronic stereotypes. That doesn't help anyone. I don't call the Foundation series woke because I hate black people, I do it because I think crap like Foundation hurts the progressive cause more than it helps. Like why does the main black female also have to be a psychic? I'm betting it's so she's not jist smarter than Harry, and more important to the plot than any white man including Harry, but she's also more psychic than The Mule. Whaddya wanna bet?

[@ohauss]

@@KevinJDildonik "There's a giant push to remove "white" writers like Asimov from sci-fi in favor of "diverse" options." That statement doesn't even make sense. "Maybe you're not up on current events" Or maybe you're misrepresenting them. Saying "Hey, there are other authors, too, and maybe we should give them some space, too!" isn't "removing" anyone. And as a trained scientist, Asimov would likely be the first to give you a strapping for promoting false dichotomies and pretending statistics wasn't a thing. No, it's not a valid question to be asked whether an author will somehow disappear just because he's not included in one compilation. Especially not when it's an author that anybody with an interest in the genre knows anyway. You're the one doing gatekeeping here - you're the one who insists that people should not be allowed to broaden their horizon and other authors must not be given any kind of space at all.

[@wolf1066]

Science Fiction was always about breaking boundaries. I get quite pissed off by certain young folks screaming how all this "diversity stuff" was invented recently.

[@likeasonntagmorgen]

i have to say that i have a lot of love for Lynch's Dune. i know it plays it loose with many aspects of the book, but the art direction of that movie blows me away. nothing in sci-fi has come close to the look of that movie, it's so unique. despite all it's flaws, i find it very immersive.

[@quixotiq]

Yes it's the art direction! Sadly, Villeneuve's version looks so ...ordinary.

[@darthmercur3067]

Lynch far outperformed the new Dune.

[@RowanTE]

The best analogy to understand where 'woke' fatigue is coming from is this: imagine you're really into a style of rock music, and a friend invites you to a gig saying its the kind of music you like. You go, and the band starts but something is amiss, it turns out this is a Christian rock band. Individually the musicians are all technically really good. The band have spent a lot of money on the stage, the lights and presentation is slick and professional. But when you listen to the songs, you realise they are all cliched riffs, obvious and predictable chord progressions, the lyrics are preachy and between songs the singer is constantly banging on about Jesus and trying to get you to join their church. You're ok with Christians, you think their message at heart is decent and good, but you came to be entertained and to rock out. Pretty quickly you know that's not going to happen. Looking around you see the faithful are loving it, they don't mind the flaws in the music because they're in love with the message. You've basically just knocked down (really well I might add) the dumbest arguments against diversity in film here rather than seriously tackling the nitty gritty of 'woke' ideology or the role of cynical political activism in cinema and TV alienating existing audiences of popular franchises. I really love some 'woke' sci-fi, The Expanse was my favourite TV show for a couple of years and I would point to that as one of the best example of achieving a diverse range of characters without ever being 'preachy' or cliched about it. To return to the band analogy, it's the Christian folk in a rock band that puts the message into great songs and lets people discover that without ever getting preachy or cynical about it.

[@PetterNe]

Good comment.

[@kox7527]

The analogy doesn't make any sense because race isn't real. Its a social construct while music isn't. "Black" or "white" don't really exist, we just make arbitrary divisions on basis of skin color. A real life example of this is Obama not being black, but half-white, half-black, yet people consider him the first black president. Why? At what point does someone stop being white? In music there is a fundamental difference because frequencies exist, but there is no fundamental difference between "white" or "black" or any other race. If they change a book character from white to black, why should it matter? UNLESS their skin color is important to the plot ie. black panther. The thing is skin color rarely matters in books. Harry potter would be exactly the same if he was black, and in most sci fi skin color(in humans) would be forgotten since there were actual alien races around. Why should anyone be angry about an arbitrary non-important difference? I wouldn't get angry if an actor had locks when the book character had straight hair, because it doesn't really matter when you are telling a story.

[@RowanTE]

Race is a social construct but music isn’t? Think that through a bit more. Racial division based on skin colour is absurd, IMO and that’s just one aspect of racism but pretending there are no cultural differences tied to ethnic grouping, shared identity and historical context is also absurd. Are social constructs not real? Ask any religious person if their socially constructed beliefs are real and they will tell it’s the realest thing they know. You have completely missed my point, I agree, changing superficial aspects like gender or skin tone or hairstyle can be done well and if that’s what is upsetting a person then yeah, they are racist or a bigot, what I’m talking about is inserting political viewpoints that never existed in the original text and preferencing that political message over all other aspects of storytelling such as character development, story arc, etc. Broad universal stories that speak about the human condition are IMO what audiences enjoy, they don’t want some narrow minded ideology shoved down their neck when they go to be entertained. Woke identity politics is what is currently re-invigorating racialist thinking about people, IMO.

[@kox7527]

@@RowanTE You cant compare music to race, music may be subjective but it exists, in terms of frequency. When you break it down to the simplest form music is frequency and frequency can be defined scientifically while "White" and "black" cant be defined scientifically. The cultural differences can be vast between any 2 nations and ethnicities , and i specifically said if it is important to the story, don't change it, black panther should not be white or asian, it is imperative to his story that he is black. But in most cases it literally is not important to the story at all. And it should not matter in the casting if the race is not important in the original work. Social constructs are by definition something that doesn't objectively exist, except as a result of human interaction. With race we can prove scientifically it doesn't exist, there is no fundemental difference between white and black or asian etc... Our bones are the same, our genetic code is the same, the things that make humans us are the same. That doesn't mean there are no cultural differences between humans, but just that there is no difference race wise, we are all humans we are not "black" or "white". So while religion may be real to those who practice it, we cannot objectively prove its existence. Social constructs exist solely because people believe in them, no matter how real they objectively are. And on the last bit, politics is interwoven in every single piece of media whether we realise it or not, some more than others. Hollywood isn't really in the business of ideologies, they are just in it for the money, they are the status quo regarding everything, besides saying we should accept minorities more, because that leads to minorities watching more movies and giving them more money. Movies and shows that question our current systems don't come out of america, the last thing that hollywood wants is us questioning the system. Hollywood is as shallow as a pond but it is in my opinion good in every way that more people than ever feel represented now than at any point in history.

[@augustaseptemberova5664]

​@@RowanTE So much to unpack here: It's only "some narrow minded ideology shoved down [your] neck", if it's an ideology you don't share (yet). Roughly a century ago, a woman wearing trousers in a movie was a political message. It's not anymore. Do you get why? "audiences don't want [this] when they go to be entertained." .. speak for yourself. I do appreciate getting confronted with ideas, especially the ones that are new, alien or defiant of my own ideals, and especially especially if those are smth I might not get confronted with in my life otherwise. I don't have to agree with that new input, but it doesn help me understand other people better. Are artists and creators supposed to forego their right to freedom of speech and expression for entertainment? Is entertainment the main function of creative/artistic expression? I don't think so. Portraying political messaging as "ideology getting shoved down your neck", i.e. an act of violence against your will, is a) a dog whistle, and b) a bad hyperbole or a lie .. you're free to walk away any time, nobody is forcing you. Art, performance etc are inherently political, and many (most?) people have been enjoying entertainment that way for millenia. Just three examples off the top of my head: Ovid, Shakespeare, and .. ever heard of Jesters and Jesters' Privilege? I have great difficulty taking someone seriously who uses the expression "woke identity politics". Define "identity politics", then define "woke identity politics". I hope that in the process of looking up identity politics you'll realize that those have literally nothing to do with what you describe (changing the narrative of an original story). And frankly, I suspect you dropped "woke identity politics" as yet another dog whistle.

[@isaytheenay5961]

Star trek presented race as being irrelevant. Everyone should be judged by the contents of their character, as Martin Luther King Jr. famously said. This is the direct opposite of "woke", which asserts that almost everything about you that matters is defined by identity groups such as race.

[@Cubannerd]

"Honestly you are all ridiculous that is why I live in another dimension " you basically describe how I feel everyday.

[@Minority119]

personally I always felt that "woke" and "diverse" are differentiated entirely by intent kynes being swapped for a black girl is fine, but when they went and brought up justifications like "it fits better as a pacifist gone native" and the like and it just felt mad weird to me

[@tuckernutter]

I love how Organism is an analog for ignorance, and how you distinguished the positive and pejorative forms of "Woke", the use or misuse of language is truly on display

[@junechevalier]

It all comes down to this: diversity in worldbuilding is realistic and great, but diversity for the representation alone is often virtue signalling

[@xBINARYGODx]

Most of the time, what is the difference? In most stories, the races of the people involved matter little, so who cares if they change it around, or even add in something to make the race matter? Anyway, one person's "this is just lazy blah blah blah" is often really just "waaah, why are there blacks/gays/femoids in MY fiction".

[@junechevalier]

@@xBINARYGODx Well my standpoint comes from the writing aspect yano, the worldbuilding aspect. I mean it wouldn't be too realistic to have a desert tribe who has been around for thousands of years but they are paley whites, unless there's some magical cause or something. But yeah from a reader standpoint it doesn't matter, I don't care about it that much

[@sharp7j]

Sometimes the best actor for a job just happens to be black. Look at Jeffrey Wright playing Commissioner Gordan in the new Batman movie. Amazing casting choice cause the guy fits really well in the role, and just happens to be black.

[@junechevalier]

@@sharp7j That's good cuz that means it's not only for the sake of representation. People of color shouldn't be considered just based on their skin color alone.

[@dnjago]

BINARYGOD the difference is that you can smell the fake immidiately

[@estie_rose]

I could listen to you talk all day. Petition to start a fundraiser to get you to narrate an audiobook (preferably DUNE).

[@ChristmasLore]

Dune, Hyperion Cantos, Three Body trilogy, Foundation, etc.

[@UltraVioletKnight]

To ractionaries "woke" doesn't mean virtue signaling, it just means POC and gays existing in media

[@darkroninmarvel]

Well as someone who can't stand political correctness in any shape or form, I don't think there's a simple answer. Because if you analyze this Star trek and Dune has always been "woke" the key differences is that they used to tackle its theme in a more nuanced way that can appeal to anyone; but today's star trek threw said nuace and optimisim away, replacing it with cynicism and a "toxic" form of wokeness,while the people involved act antagonistic towards its detractors, even those who give constructive criticism. For Villeneuve's Dune it's too early to give a veredict. I have no experience with Foundation, so I'm not in the position to give a proper judgment. As for star wars, it was a story of good vs evil, the sense of adventure and its characters, people didn't had a problem with Leia being a woman, they liked her because she was cool, and I know gay people and women who were pissed with what they did to Luke in the last jedi, they related to the character and saw the last jedi as a character assassination, something which Mark Hamill's agrees. And people were pissed for Finn not because of him being black, but because he was a wasted opportunity story wise. So yeah there's no a simple yes or not answer. I think it all lies in the way you approach it. At least that's my take

[@elroliz9442]

Shut up organisim 9186

[@raptor10001]

This is definitely it...today, writers are too afraid of "presenting both sides" of any traditionally "woke" concept and end up creating something that is watered down and preachy.

[@jetfa9]

Well old starwars wasn't some sterile lab where people didn't have any sexual feelings. Han and Leia having a relationship was too sexist for today's audience I guess...**rolls eyes**

[@BobExcalibur]

@@raptor10001 Acknowledging that the people you disagree with are human and have justications for why they have come to disagree with you is "giving a platform to Hate Speech™". Its much safer to dehumanise them and depict them as extradimensional aliens who are stupid because they are stupid like a true intellectual.

[@yaddahaysmarmalite4059]

hey just remember that the term political correctness is something conservatives have twisted and applied to anyone who is their political adversary. Consider this: its politically correct for a conservative to say "don't tax the rich". In the 90s when we were developing alternative words to things like saying disabled person instead of handicapped, we were looking for "respectful" words to use. Conservatives don't like being respectful because you can't exploit people if you respect them. Conservatives most certainly have their list of terms and ideas that is "politically correct"... Like its ok to be white and march around with guns and demand to be able to go back towork. However, don't you dare be black andsay "stop killing us"; that would be politically incorrect and you will get the secret police to come down and kick your ass for it.

[@kaga13]

Kines was meant to be a stereotypical westerner according to Herbert himself, though that doesn't necessarily mean white

[@mumhustler]

It literally does.

[@mauricewalshe8234]

I got the vibe that Kynes father Pardot Kynes was sort of like the British civil service in India and had married a local and a lot did in the early days so Liet Kynes is canonically mixed race

[@Pandaemoni]

My favorite is when people complain that including a black character or a woman in a certain role is part of an effort to "destroy the legacy" of the author. People can't just disagree and have different values, it has to be that the woke creator is conspiring to invalidate a beloved author's work and/or erase it from history.

[@ChopperSouthern]

Woke? They should have put a rainbow flag on the side of the Starship Discovery, not the Federation Emblem! That's how 'woke' it is.

[@jal1656]

I do agree that the term woke is overused today, and science fiction has always pushed the boundaries seeking to challenge our beliefs and ideals. At the same time in recent years I do believe that we have seen those with power and influence on both sides of the isle attempt to use things that are popular to direct the conversation rather than influence it. In the case of the recasting in Dune I have no problem with the decision. At no point in the book was it ever indicated that the race of the character had any major impact upon their development, and as for the gender swap that to was never shown to be very important. You could argue that maybe it would change the dynamic of the relationship between the Doctor and his daughter, but we are never directly shown that relationship so that argument is a moot point. I have always loved that both science fiction and fantasy have given us the freedom to explore topics that may be difficult to examine directly, but I do believe that while doing so we should be more willing to ask questions rather than make statements.

[@ITBahren]

Science fiction has always been about pushing boundaries and all that, sure, but how is changing skin color and gender pushing boundaries or of value in any way, shape or form? The character might be very irrelevant and race and gender may not have played a role in the story whatsoever but at the same time why make those changes too? If it's not an improvement to the source material how is a different skin color and gender even a decision to make? What's the point and what does it offer? To me it just screams pandering to feminists/sjws with their minority quotas. For all that I will stand on the side that the character should look the same way as the original, especially because race and gender swapping in adaptations is happening more and more now. Started with black ariel, then people wanting a joker that wasn't a white man and a few other examples that I can't recall and now dune. I just don't see how any of this is a good thing and at this point it's undeniable the increasing push for minority representation at the cost of white men even though America is a majority white country. White people are quitting voice acting black characters or being forced to apologize for being white and even kneel in front of black people to ask for forgiveness (yes its real, there's a vid on youtube, just search white people kneel) and I think a line needs to be drawn. I don't really care about the skin color of the characters or gender but if you want a black woman in dune for whatever reason then create a good black woman character that serves the story and world in a way that adds to the overall work. This is just ridiculous and it's not about skin or gender but the principle behind the decision and what it's all leading to.

[@Gauntlet1212]

The Fremen are a patriarchy though. Like the Bene gesserit are all female. I don't want the lore changed at all and it has nothing to do with male/female. I wouldn't want a male Bene Gesserit either. If hollywood wants to adapt certain works of fiction, it should stay true to the source and if they can't they should make something new, inspired by that old work of fiction and slap a different name on it.

[@wheretheweirwoodgrows4746]

@@ITBahren notice how the studios and directors who push this pandering garbage only do it to already existing multimillion franchises and IP. I think dune will be fine it looks like deni is sticking true to core characters of the book. I think the kynes swap was for brownie points with the media. You don't want your movie with a white male lead to be cancelled on twitter before it even comes out. I love Quinn and his perspective but thinking that this pandering doesnt exist is showing a little bias. For fucks sakes it ruined star wars... and those movies wouldve been good with the same actors and everything if they wouldve told a good story. But nah rehashing the original trilogy while destroying it at the same time was a better idea for them. Lol.

[@philipbadguy3794]

@@wheretheweirwoodgrows4746 dude star wars was already trash thanks to the prequels. Disney just added on to the garbage pile that Lucas already made.

[@TheKarnophage]

The problem comes when the stories are thrown together to promote a agenda. Classic and good Science Fiction was always crafted to make the reader to think about a situation in a different way to promote the agenda. The current bad fiction uses brute force to promote a agenda not allowing the reader to think for themselves.

[@WestOfEarth]

So glad I found this channel. I know your passion is Dune, but covering all science fiction would be an excellent pursuit.

[@mertalrooth01]

And he is now doing such. :-)

[@Zeithri]

The intro made me laugh xD Loved this video. My issue with new Star Trek is that it's just not good. It's badly written. Uhura was a great character. Sisko was a great character. Bernham is a terrible character and the show focused on her entirely too much.

[@agentk1205]

Exactly. Wokeness = no substance, only rhetoric. It has nothing to do with true diversity of thought or healing racism. It only wants to divide us further.

[@ComradeCommissarYuri]

Agent K Picard season 2 set to go even more woke

[@Zeithri]

@@agentk1205 Everything is rhetoric. Don't use the word "wokeness". Just be straight forward. I am not saying Discovery was bad because "lol so woke". I'm saying it was bad because it had terrible writers.

[@madsam7582]

And to add to the bad writing, they have a big boo hoo moment for Ariam, and they want everyone to cry and have a sense of emotional impact, for a character that had about a verse of dialogue in the entire series. I was just not going to get emotional at that.

[@TheSleepyowlet]

It's because capitalism kills art. A thing that you only make to cover as many bases as possible so you can make all of the money will always be shit. It's not just bad writing, it's an intentional form of writing designed to draw in as many people as possible without also breaking the status quo and on top of that, it's _supposed_ to be generic enough so people will watch, forget, hop onto the next thing and pay for that, rinse, repeat. That's why Picard and Discovery are soulless shit. That's why corporate media will continue to be soulless shit. Because since they can rely on the internet and social media to get instant feedback, they can shape their product in the exact ways that benefit them most. That's why I _bet_ you can sing me at least one tune from an old film like, say, Indiana Jones, that's why you can do the Imperial March - but you won't be able to remember one single melody from any Marvel movie. *You're not supposed to.* Buy, Consume, Forget. Repeat. *Forever.*

[@poweroffriendship2.0]

If the Time Machine does exist, then H.G. Wells goes back in time to wonder what the future actually looks like... Afterwards, he's doesn't wanna go back.

[@j85grim4]

Your voice for the energy troll thing had me cracking up 😂. As far as "David Lynch's Dune" goes though, he was robbed of all creative control apparently throughout the entire process to the point he didn't want his name in the credits, instead he put a sydenome. So it's kind of a farce to call it his version of Dune. Still a great movie though as even Lynch at his worst is better then most directors at their best.

[@edawgrules]

Having read Dune 3 or 4 times, I don't remember Liet being specifically described as a white man. All that really mattered was that his father was an outsider to the Fremen who had become one of them after years of working with, living with and marrying one of them.

[@ecologiesofmindfulness564]

Liet Keynes race is not distinguished as Caucasian or some thing else but he’s definitely identified as a man. Of That there’s no doubt.

[@rhaenyralikesyoutube6289]

Yeah, I don't remember Liet being described as a particular race. I just remember him being Chani's father.

[@martinharris5017]

He was described as sandy-haired, bearded and male. His skin color isn't specifically mentioned but "sandy haired" suggests caucasian.

[@s-kazi940]

@@martinharris5017 Not always, my dad is sandy haired and is an Indian.

[@martinharris5017]

@@s-kazi940 Fair call, but last i checked Frank Herbert was a sandy-haired Caucasian, and he modelled Kynes after himself. One thing I'm certain of is that Kynes is a male regardless of ethnicity!

[@MrJonbon1]

I just like a good actor playing a role well unless a physical characteristic is important to the role that is impractical to be compensated by make up or CG.

[@helmsscotta]

Are you saying it's ok for non-Klingons to play Klingon roles?

[@MrJonbon1]

@@helmsscotta If the late Christopher Plumber could do it....why not

[@timucinharkonnen2699]

Exactly my thoughts. A black guy playing Macbeth wouldn't be a problem, because skincolor has no impact on the role or the story. Gender on the other hand has an impact on the role and the story. Also a black Adolf Hitler in a historical movie could be "difficult". The question is always, does it matter in order to portray the character?

[@accessyourinnerlight971]

@@timucinharkonnen2699 Actually I think it would be entirely possible and plausible to reverse gender the Scottish play, with some modifications to the text so that it makes sense. Maybe relocate it to Amazonia or something like that.. the story makes sense regardless of gender if it is done appropriately. ("If it is done appropriately", by the way, is the difference between a diverse production and a woke production.)

[@brianbrady139]

@@accessyourinnerlight971 I know they did something similar with the tempest having Helen Mirren play Prospero

[@SheydokGear]

Quinn has such a rich understanding of these books. Love your videos dude.

[@countbalerionofhousetatter2624]

You lead an interesting life. One week a malign intelligence takes over your television and forces you to rewatch ep. 8.6 of GOT, and the next an alien life-form invades your living room and does Internet-debate to you. Never a dull moment.

[@teeprice7499]

I just think that characters need to be left as they are in the books, when movies and shows are made from printed material. Liet-Kyne's only major descriptor is that he's Chani's father. The fact that Paul and Chani both lost their fathers is one of the things that brought them together.

[@blank4227]

Liet-Kynes is more than Chani's father and the people who say he isn't did not read Dune or simply favor the political implications of a black female Kynes more than they do book accuracy. Kynes was described as a blonde man with an imperial look, that's very important to his function as the secret leader of the Fremen. The Fremen are patriarchal, so their leader would definitely be a man.

[@Mutiny960]

@God Almighty 100% Untrue, See: Ghostbusters 2016.

[@Mutiny960]

@God Almighty They had problems with BOTH. To say otherwise is to ignore history. But you go ahead and do you, we're done. /MUTED. Keep talking though, show how stupid you are by replying to someone who has silenced you :)

[@teeprice7499]

@@blank4227 I had forgotten that. Thanks, just means I need to move Dune higher up on my re-read list

[@blank4227]

@@teeprice7499 all good! no shame in re-reading Dune ever :)

[@SuperPuzzler]

If you haven't gotten around to it yet, I suggest asking Rick Sanchez about improving your security systems. If anyone can help you with transdimensional security, it's him.

[@anactualbear5683]

I've always said that if someone were truly "woke" they wouldn't be using the term woke. With no particular book or media in mind, while I personally don't care about changes to characters (because it gives me a reason to see a show that isn't just the book but with less time for backstory), it is somewhat foolish to change major characters and assume it will not be polarizing. If Harry Potter were made black I could see people being upset because they've known him as a certain way for so long. Combine that with the fact that there is quite an agenda of people using race and gender as a way to diminish others, I can see people being skeptical. I just find it annoying more than anything when Hollywood tries to push some political message at the expense of the story. Speculative fiction is intended to speculate and pose questions but so often it seems like that's not why the film makers made the change. Especially because usually they come out and address it like, "here is why you need to be okay with these changes." I'm honestly okay with a character being played by whomever but would rather it not be pointed out like I'm too dumb to grasp their intended narrative. Like, if you wanna make a point, show me how to come to that conclusion on my own. For clarification I mean something like Roland in the dark tower was great and just like real life, I didn't even think about his being a different skin color than the book's cover art. At the same time, Hermione Granger being repeatedly described as one thing in books and films and then Rowling trying to claim she is actually black, and through Twitter no less (as if I accept Twitter as a legitimate form of backstory) is just eye raising.

[@Robert-hz9bj]

You see, the problem with the example you list (for example, Hermione's race), is that it undercuts your supposed point about something being "pushed at the expense of the story." You can probably find a number of specific instances in the book of Hermione's appearance being described as this or that, but can you point to any part of the story where her specific appearance has any bearing on a significant plot point?

[@anactualbear5683]

@@Robert-hz9bj that depends on your understanding of what might take a toll on the story. One of the harder jobs for a commercial author to do is get their reader to stay invested enough to finish the book. Outside of some specific situations this tends to be done by maintaining immersion for the reader so they are able to more easily suspend belief. So, when J.K. Rowling came out in a tweet to say that Hermione was not actually as pale as she had been described for so long, and did so long after the books had been published and established, then it is going to weaken the story In it's ability to maintain that immersion. In the case of the Dark Tower film, the film, while based on the books, is automatically considered to be an adaption, and so in effect is a new story (albeit one with familiarity to the books). At that point, the director can and should hire the person who best proves their ability to play the role and it does not distract from the story because as a new telling of the story, the viewer is naturally inclined to give some flexibility to the story. The people who don't give that flexibility are generally more caught up in their love for the book, which has no real bearing on if the film told a cohesive story or not. So Hermione felt like the author trying to change a book with a tweet for no real reason, leading to the understandable assumption that she was pandering. The dark tower movie just picked the actor and didn't try to convince us as if we were too dumb to be okay with the actor due to his skin.

[@DerAykac]

@@anactualbear5683 The Hermione case might be a good example, but i would rather not use Rowlings "work" to make that point. She´s a bottomles pit of "problems" in regards to this.

[@anactualbear5683]

@@DerAykac she is a bottomless pit of problems in general but while not redeeming, I don't usually ignore her positives either.

[@DerAykac]

@@anactualbear5683 As one should.

[@astrogallus]

I really love this video. People who have only read the first Dune book and think they understand the whole series are so tiresome!

[@blackmonish]

I have only read the first book, and while I have mastered all forms of knowledge in the universe.... I know I still won't fully grasp this series. lol jk But yes, I too tire of those calling this a "white savior," story. To those people, its like, "yeeeaaaahhh, you guys think you're getting a white Saladin, but he's more like a white Muhammed." (Sorry, Saladin is one of my favorite people from history; so my nerdy ass has to throw him out there when discussing someone who had strong beliefs, but didn't let devotion to ideas lead to dogmatic self-aggrandizement, under the guise of "following god."... or an "angel".... I had a very long joke about this, but I realized it was a rant 10x's longer than the subject matter; and as this faith is not Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Non-Theist Satanism (specifically "Church of Satan"), or Scientology- it is therefore not a complete joke... so I shall be kind.

[@Donkey_Glossolalia]

'Honestly you're all ridiculous, that's why I live in another dimension!' 😂😂

[@octowuss1118]

I love that SciFi and cosplay are so inclusive; it melts my old lady heart :) Can’t wait for DUNE; I love the casting

[@a.g.m8790]

Lol you don’t look old

[@kevincostello7641]

“Inclusive”

[@JJMHigner]

Love this channel. Quinn, you honor this subject like a true scholar. I appreciate that. You also call it all out so well! Thank you for that do. This is a time of great confusion and tension. A breath of fresh air here ☺

[@ChristmasLore]

At this point, it's like he's written at least 4 different PhD theses... (ASOIAF, Dune, Foundation and Hyperion)🍃

[@ZeroArmour]

Here's a funny thing about the whole "Go Woke, Get Broke" claim... The proponents of it often change what they're applying it to. If they don't like a film because of its message or cast, and fails to make back twice it's budget, they scream GWGB at the top of their lungs. If they don't like it and it's a huge success, they look of any excuse to claim it was never "Woke" to begin with... and pretend they never said it was. The recent Mario Bros movie is a prime example. They claimed it was Woke because Princess Peach isn't a helpless victim, but then it made over a billion dollars on a 100 million budget (needless to say, sequels and spin-offs are being planned), so they couldn't make the GWGB claim. Then John Leguizarno road to their rescue and complained about a lack of Latino representation in the film, allowing them to say it only succeeded because it wasn't Woke!

[@rooksgate5574]

For me the changes to Foundation (so far) move away from the narrative thread of the book in style and context. There were no fanatic terrorist attacks on Trantor. There weren't three Emperors. Synnax was a core world not a fundamentalist stronghold and Gaal was not a near-refugee from her own home. Salvor Hardin was passionately anti-violent - it was he that quoted the violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Seldon wasn't killed. These are the things I find hard to fit into my understanding and reading of Foundation. The sex and race of the characters is really irrelevant. I mean Gaal wasn't exactly a main character. So the idea to kill off Seldon and have Gaal as the inheritor of his legacy seems a bit contrived; and a significant deviation from the fiction. Which leads to the question: why? As you say, Asimov was a diverse writer. In his writing it's never the race or sex or any other identity that matters: only the intellect of the character. So why change the narrative? Was it more appealing to a wider audience to kill off the relatively distant and intellectually nuanced Hari and replace him with a younger, more vibrant character? Tough to say. But it does seem that the narrative contained in Foundation (the series) has already diverged significantly from Foundation (the novel). Perhaps it was the influence of the Mule.

[@rooksgate5574]

@@buddlos I agree there was no bearing on the story. (And I think that Asimov himself would agree the age/race/backgrounds/sexual preferences of the characters was irrelevent.) Unfortunately (for me) this adaptation moved so far from the core narrative of the novel that to call it "Foundation" was a stretch. "Inspired by Foundation" would have been more accurate. I think readers and fans of the series, if they watched the series without hearing the "Foundation" title would say: Ooh, they took the idea of Foundation and wrote this. Alas, the writers of this series had nowhere near the writing chops of the original author. It was definitely dumbed down for the audience. Shame really.

[@rooksgate5574]

@@buddlos Thanks for the genuine discourse; a pleasant change.

[@kiooo9]

@@buddlos I've just gotten through watching most of the series on Apple TV. And I thought the action was a little boring. Andover play there was a little bit too much of it. And if the show was to cut back on some of that it would definitely give us that good Star Trek the Next Generation Good vibe. I only have problems with one character. And it wasn't the color of her skin it was because when she talked she sounded like she was from our modern times a little bit too much. The African priestess girl with a shaved head and I kept thinking to myself wouldn't have been cooler if they would have actually hired somebody from like Africa like an actor or something like that. And there's multiple times when she does this where her voice is trying to do something like she's trying to give an accent and then it kind of like breaks halfway through it. That was the only character I was like oh my God

[@bheathcoat7650]

Though I probably wouldn’t agree with you on some social issues, this was a very well done video and well presented. You are right in all you presented in this video and I share you’re educated passion for Dune and Foundation. Well done

[@lelanderickson1045]

Yes! Sci-fi has ALWAYS been "woke," and I have loved that about it down to my individual molecules since I was a kid (I'm 62 now)! Keep doing what you do ever so well, @Quinn's Ideas, and let Shai-hulud take the hindmost!

[@vorshack8968]

While it's true that sci-fi and fantasy has 'always been political', there is a fairly clear-cut difference between the subtle and organic use of allegory to examine things like society, morality, and human behavior in such a way that can then be _applied_ to contemporary issues . . . and directly/incessantly involving a show in the partisan politics of the moment to the point that it's ruined as escapism for a large portion of the audience. For example, there is a scene in Star Trek: Discovery where a male character gets blown up after mansplaining to his smarter female colleague. Is mansplaining bad? Yes. Should it be discussed? Yes, but there is no educative deconstruction of negative behavior here. Let alone a subtle or artistic one. It's just a petty indulgence for the outrage crowd. Everyone gets to see the bad behavior get punished, and pat themselves on the back for knowing what the bad behavior is. Meanwhile, anyone who isn't engaged by this bizarre new form of fan service has their sense of immersion completely disrupted. When I imagine how Next Gen would have handled this very same issue, well, Discovery is certainly woke af, but I fail to see how we've actually progressed. TLDR: It's not the general message most people have a problem with, but the unskilled and repetitive manner in which it's being delivered. Implying that anyone who criticizes 'wokeness' is a troll is ignorant and dickish.

[@darthmercur3067]

Well said.

[@vorshack8968]

@@darthmercur3067 Thanks, though I would probably have to make and upload a video directly challenging him in order to get his attention.

[@austinroyce256]

Star Wars and Star Trek are objectively woke. The answers yes.

[@CortexNewsService]

They always have been. Even Star Wars. Princess Leia went against all the typical tropes of a female character. Did she need to get rescued? Yeah. But when the boys got panicked, she grabbed the blaster, opened a hole, took a few shots at the stormtroopers and basically said "Follow me, you wusses."

[@austinroyce256]

Twray1974 Chitown yeah it’s not even close to the same. I’m very socially liberal but it’s over the top, in your face lefty push is overwhelming. Being a tough and resourceful women is cool, believable and at the time very progressive. The new movies are woke first plot second and it’s killing the IP.

[@austinroyce256]

sos sos dude, seriously..... it was the biggest IP in human history and somehow has managed to piss off half it’s base. They are literally considering a ret con of the entire thing. The movies were directionless trash with battling directors. Add on top of that Kathleen Kennedy’s politics and it’s not surprising. Her and her staff are very vocal about the need to take action in the name of woke. 🙄

[@austinroyce256]

sos sos no I’m not an npc actually, Lando is and always has been one of my favorite characters in any genre. It’s actually disgusting that you immediately go to race and gender being the only reasons someone wouldn’t like it. That’s called projection. You judge people by race/gender and can’t understand others who don’t. Your sick and should see help

[@austinroyce256]

sos sos not particularly, the marvel franchise isn’t really my thing. Good for her tho? More of a sci fi guy myself. Your free to your opinion, just as I’m free to think it’s dumb as hell. Sorry if I’ve triggered you, I’ll try and keep the wrong think to a minimum lmao. Keep on that race realism path, super healthy

[@namenloss730]

Tbh, when Leto 2 says "humanity must diversify" I don't think it's' in a "racial" sense, more of a cultural and technological way. But for the "woke" thing. Startrek original series: woke in a good way, diversity in a good way. Lots of representation and inclusion with next to no preachiness. Startrek discovery: woke in a bad way. The story screeches to a halt 10 minutes for a character to go over their pronouns, the LGBTs are in their corner (weird how "interracial gay couple with an adopted non binary child" doesnt sound very organic), the blacks are separate from the others doing their own thing, etc... Nobody has personality or developpment, the actors are mostly terrible because they are there to add a pokemon... hmmm... minority to the collection not because they are relevant to the stories.

[@martinfrench4890]

Drowning in delight at both the takedown, and the deeper detail that I never knew! Thanks as always, Quinn!

[@mrquicky]

I saw it not so much as a take-down, but as an agreement with all of the precepts of the straw-man. It's true, Gaal himself, was not really integral to the story in the book. I don't know if his role was expanded in the series as I haven't seen it. To pass off the idea of woke-ness having infiltrated science fiction with nothing more than, 'is it though?' is to deny all of the star wars & Marvel female super-hero box office failures as well as the collapse of the comic book industry. It was entertaining.

[@cgreen7157]

I highly recommend reading Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. I would love your take on those books. They aren't hard sci-fi, but they go into social issues in a way that, somehow, doesn't trigger people, even the people prone to being triggered.

[@ChristmasLore]

Leave it to Daniel and Merphy. Quinn is S- tier.

[@bloodmachinebutbloodier]

isn't Brandon the one who wrote the last four WoT books after Robert Jordan died?

[@ggcmod]

So, if "diversity" has nothing new, where does fashion come from and the demand that everything be diverse?

[@noone9472]

15:25 “I have no idea how that guy keeps penetrating my teansdimentional shield device“ how exactly is he able to keep a straight face Lmao Also “troleon“ Love it.

[@matthewriffel188]

I kind of roll my eyes when I hear both ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’, as they have moved so far from any real definition and meaning, and moved more into the realm of insult or subjective description. ‘Woke’ is very much the same; it’s criticism without much meaning or a badge of honor without meaning. I kind of roll my eyes and move on when I hear it from anyone. We live in an age of buzzwords, where buzz is for significant than, well, significance. I really liked Liet-Kynes in the newer Dune, too. The relationship between mothers and their children is a prominent theme running through the novels, and I think making Liet-Kynes the mother of Chani, instead of the father for a visual adaptation, gives Villeneuve some room to draw similarities and differences with Paul and Jessica vs Chani and Liet, if he chooses to do so in part 2. And how Sharon Brewster portrayed Liet-Kynes’ ultimate demise was marvelous; it honored the source material while bringing something new and badass for a visual adaptation. I could really feel that she had great knowledge and respect for the character and Liet’s world.

[@Darksky1001able]

Idk man that sounds real suspect. I prefer the book as well as the original death. There was a reason why it happened the way it did, and i wish they would have stuck to that.

[@MsFlamingFlamer]

I never imagined all the characters in Foundation or Dune as "white" and I'm pretty sure Asimov and Herbert didn't write everyone to be white either.

[@aperson22222]

The Star Trek stuff: The black woman, Asian man, and Russian were really just bit players. Their jobs were important, but their unique areas of expertise never really came to bear on the story in an essential way, and they certainly didn’t get any character development. The first interracial kiss broadcast on American TV was on _I Love Lucy._ If you mean black/white kiss, that was between Nancy Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr on a variety show that preceded “Plato’s Stepchildren” by a year.

[@daddyquatro]

I'm sorry. Did you ever actually WATCH Star Trek TOS? Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov are bit players that never got any character development? Which universe are you living in? Could there have been more? Of course. But the show only ran for 3 seasons. 79 episodes. Half of them are crap. But the other half was some really good TV. Woke or otherwise.

[@aperson22222]

daddyquatro I’m living in the regular universe. I know it’s different in the Kelvin movies, and Sulu at least had a genuinely intriguing Mirror counterpart, but in straight-up vanilla Trek they were just extras. Sulu and Chekhov were little more than redshirts who kept surviving till they got kicked up to the bridge. In the movies they occasionally tried to give those three a little more, but it was halfhearted. Even when Sulu is the captain of a ship that’s more advanced than the _Enterprise,_ his contributions are limited to passing on one piece of information and providing Kirk with some backup firepower.

[@nuclearlefthook5008]

Race/Gender swapping is bad when it's a fantasy setting, or a specific sci-fi setting where it's a part of the lore that certain races are native/live in a certain area, or that genders are treated in a certain way. For example, a sci-fi book setting where the protagonist is a black man living in a post-apocalyptic society where women are not allowed to be warriors. The entire population of that specific society is black. The protagonist is a warrior. In a movie, if they make the character white/asian/whatever and a woman, it would completely change the original vision and setting, which is extremely disrespectful to the writer and the fans.

[@edgarreviews7408]

that opinion

[@ShadeStormXD]

the race swapping in fantasy annoys me, cus its like, these are usually pre industrial,medieval societies where groups are still mostly separated so, high level of racial integration quite literally wouldnt make sense geographically unless there a easy to access cross point(like the mediterranean). it takes me out of my immersion for the series when i have to step back and go, where did all these asians and african peoples come from, their not the majority clearly and the geographic distinctions would make it an immense change to have more than a few of each separate group to become apart of this distant world. One of my annoyances with the Netflix Witcher series but i have many others(plot changes, pacing, costumes, iconic elemtns changed from the books) typically though for any scifi futurisim series of books or a show, something like this doesnt even factor in since these scifi takes place after various postglobalization societies and have a level of integration between almost all races and peoples of a planet.

[@slboard96]

it depends on how its done and its intent. If its done to further emphasize the main themes whats the problem?

[@johnantesbergeriii4053]

There's a difference between organic diversity in a story where the story comes first, and diversity for it's own sake as a tool to virtue signal... At the expense of the story. The latter is revolting and hollow. The former is desirable.

[@ginsengaddict]

Thank you for this! Btw, also worth mentioning: Sulu wasn't just Asian, he was Japanese, and the Enterprise's *helmsman* - this was only a little over a decade after the attack on Pearl Harbour, so the idea of Japanese PILOTS specifically would have offended some people. Gene Rod went there anyway.

[@brownro214]

The attack on Pearl Harbor was in 1941. Star Trek premiered in 1966, 25 years later. I don't recall any mention of Pearl Harbor in relation to Sulu.

[@sunlocked5838]

Hell, star wars has always been political and woke. The bad guys are a genocidal military dictatorship, call their soldiers Stormtroopers, have several scenes that are basically copy and pastes from Triumph of Will, a weird obsession with some occult stuff, and imprison and discriminate against non-humans along with using them as forced labor to keep their war machine going. Like, how can the Empire be any more obvious that they're based on the Nazis?

[@TheSleepyowlet]

They're actually not lol. They're based on the Brits :D And Star Wars, by Word of God, was intended as Vietnam War criticism and a callout of American Imperialism. For once it's not the Nazis, Lucas went straight back to the source and drew from what inspired the Nazis in the first place!

[@squaeman_2644]

You're right the new star wars are "woke" they even have Tolkein black and women characters!

[@themetadaemon]

I differentiate between the "woke" of science fiction (which is genuine), and the "woke" of Hollywood (which is pandering). WE interpret the stories. Read the books.

[@cliffordhearne8230]

I always looked at the Freeman as Nomads, Children of the desert, Arabian. Good views on the 'Wokeness'. Looking so forward to both new Dune and Foundation.

[@ChristmasLore]

Isn't it obvious from the books?!🤔

[@anneprice5461]

I love watching Quinn! He is AWESOME! He gets so deep into the details of the books, and movies/tv shows. He entertains , and piques my interest. Thank you Quinn.

[@networknomad5600]

I mean, let’s not pretend like the extreme politics that have entered media TODAY are the same fair-minded progressivism that ruled the 80’s and 90’s.

[@the1tigglet]

Science Fiction hasn't gone woke, hollywood has.

[@superpheemy]

It has been a pleasure watching your channel grow and evolve. As well as witnessing you grow as a presenter and a host. You rock. Continue to use your platform and your voice to be the change we need in the world.

[@ChristmasLore]

💚🍃

[@inpusket]

So,this aged like milk,regarding the Foundation tv show. The only good change was the emperor... Every other character and storyline was butchered. They do this to shield themselves from criticism,why is that not obvious?? The Dune movie on the other hand was a cinematic masterpiece.

[@sleazypolar]

How exactly were they shielded from crticism?

[@sithlordexarkun6984]

There’s a difference between diversity and woke. Sci-fi has pretty much always been diverse, lately it has gone woke with copious amounts of virtue signaling at the cost of writing a good story, hell even a decent story but nope.

[@wisdommanari6701]

You mean bad writing?

[@sithlordexarkun6984]

Wisdom Manari' yes, what seems to be exceptionally bad writing.

[@catsthemovie4692]

So stories featuring minorites aren't allowed to have bad writing and must always be perfect. I don't see that expectation placed upon stories with majority white leads

[@wisdommanari6701]

@@sithlordexarkun6984 so is the room woke? It has bad writing in it as well. Also your lightsabre was Trash, Maul's was better 😊

[@chocolatecity7824]

Exactly batwoman can be good politics and all but the writing just sucked

[@CBSmith-js9yl]

If you want, we can go back even further than the 60s to the 30s.... 1836 Mary Griffith’s Three Hundred Years Hence has a man wake up 300 years in the future to find speeding cars, slavery is abolished, women have equal rights. Then you have Mary Shelly’s The Last Man in 1826 which was an attack on the Romantic era’s ideals. Science Fiction has ALWAYS been woke.

[@CBSmith-js9yl]

@Et Leva "social justice ideology dictate that absence of parity is inherently evil" like slavery in 1830s America? Which Mary Griffith wrote against in her scifi story. Over a century before Heinlein. At a time when a large section of the country didn't think slavery was evil. I can go further back and talk about The Mummy! A Tale of the 22nd Century by Jane Loudon in the 1820s, where again social changes were made in that story to critique the 'absence of parity' of the time. Science fiction has always been woke. don't be pedantic about the use of 'always'

[@CBSmith-js9yl]

@Et Leva "Social justice dictates that disparity against minorities is evil" yes exactly. thank you again for agreeing with me. Still don't know why you have to be so hung up on 'always' when you clearly know the context. Unless you're arguing in bad faith. in which case don't do that. I don't see how the dates really matter since you made Robert Heinlein an example back in the 50s and his novel Time Enough For Love in 1973 is something I (hope) conservatism doesn't hold in regard. Since you didn't like my other examples I also have "Man's Rights; or How Would You Like It?" by Annie Cridge in 1870 where the main character first goes to mars and sees the gender roles reversed for men and women. Men are the housekeepers, care givers and encouraged to find wives or doomed to be unfulfilled. She then goes back to Earth in the future where America became a utopia after a female president was elected and the house and senate have an exact 50/50 elected officials between men and women. I got a lot, lot more recommendations for these old timey woke scifi books if you're interested.

[@CBSmith-js9yl]

Et Leva first your saying 20th century writers count. Now you’re saying they don’t. You’re not making a lick of sense.

[@BrJPGameplay]

Spoilers for Dune Messiah and God Emperor of Dune: It's funny how Paul is so devasted by the "evil" he unleashes upon the universe that even with his amazing power he still feels powerless to save humanity and tried to firstly do a "self sacrifice", by banishing himself to the old part of Dune, thinking he was doing good, but he was just letting go of his purpose of life, while Leto II sees what his father should had become and becomes it himself to save humanity once and for all, by becoming the most horrendous creature, and not only in the physical sense, but in all of senses. Also I hope that Dune 1&2 be a banger of a success so we can see Leto II's journey, and Duncan Idaho losing his mind every 3 seconds.

[@thetimeisninefifteen]

"Woke" is not a positive or a prehistor pejorative. It is a short hand for Critical Theory, a branching philosophy with many offshoots based on pessimism and power, namely, subverting the social group that is claimed to be in power (the "oppressors") by any means. Who are the social groups in power? If you are White, heterosexual, male, or Christian, you are the group that is the oppressor, and your identity as an individual is meaningless, so it matters not what you have done or not done. Those groups do intersect, so if more than one applies to you, the level of oppression you exert with your very existence increases as well. This is why people are so upset whenever a character is race swapped, even a minor character; because it signals allegiance to this ideology that was birthed from academics such as Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, people that sought the destruction of various aspects of Western Culture through subtle and deceptive means.

[@jaydanbeyer7683]

Isn't Duncon inspired by Memnon? So the one character they could make black is casted pacific islander? Then again Dune 2020 is trying very hard to hide the Hellenic references.

[@EdwardHowellDesign]

@@jaydanbeyer7683 The Hellenic references at this point are stale and overused tropes that are far too "on the nose" to be taken seriously. Like the "Helen of Planet Troyius" or "Planets Romulus and Remus" from Star Trek. It might have been a subtle reference to old audiences, but ridiculously derivative and obvious from modern standards.

[@Kresegoth]

I'm wondering why that change was made at all? I mean - every character presented so far has been cast exceptionally well and, in my opinion, very close to the source material. So why change Liet Kynes, if the rest is so close to the book?

[@ShardsOfNarsil]

Token

[@TheBigExclusive]

You won't get an answer from Quinn.

[@zadkiel242]

I wasn't bothered by it. However this is the same reason why Hamilton has black people play historically white characters: to placate the studios and distributors. It's unfortunate that race has become a qualifier for a job. One would think that 60 years after the civil rights movement, we've moved backwards.

[@yucol5661]

@@zadkiel242 Ok but Hamilton? They did that one purpose. Like t he purpose of showing those characters as non white was for representation and breaking prejudice. That was very much not just for the producers to be happy. That choice was to the point

[@zadkiel242]

@@yucol5661 Hamilton had black cast members playing white historical figures because no one would approve having an all white cast where not one minority was present. Lin Manuel Miranda talked about the difficulties in making Hamilton because of the diversity requirements. However, let's concede for a moment that what you stated is exactly the reason why. Would race swapping historical characters for purposes of "representation and breaking prejudice" be OK if a musical was made about MLK Jr or Malcolm X and had white people play black civil rights activists? Also how does race swapping a historical figure break prejudice and provide representation? Oh wait. It doesn't. 🤷🏽

[@koii55]

As a genre defined by speculating on the possibility of humanity, it's inherently political.

[@Snowsnaype]

sci-fi has been "woke" since the inception of the genre. the best sci fi has always been about the human drama from being set in a particular world.

[@elliotyourarobot]

And highlighting social issues of the day with a progressive answer. White people accepted these ideas because they looked different then reality even though it was a reflection of it.

[@nigelrhodes4330]

It has not always been so pathetically ham fisted, transparent and preachy though :( .

[@wisdommanari6701]

@@nigelrhodes4330 oh you mean Just bad writing?

[@elliotyourarobot]

@@nigelrhodes4330 you mean doesn't confront white people openly and directly

[@nigelrhodes4330]

@@wisdommanari6701 Bad writing driven by an agenda IMO is worse than just bad writing. We can look at the current run of Dr Who as a prime example of this.

[@bikkiikun]

Science Fiction has always been woke... it just never bothered to use it as selling point. Studios, tried in the last few years, to use "woke" as a selling point, and to gloss over bad and lazy writing.

[@jessatlife]

The writer(s) may have intended for their content to be that way (progressive) because those are the ideas they believe in, and the fact that companies are using that as marketing material now, when they didn’t some decades ago, only demonstrates that times have changed, and with them the priorities and values of the media consumers. Obviously, that’s going to bring some unauthentic trash into the mix, because money.

[@theobserver3753]

Replacing characters destroys the emersion of the story. I saw a woke journalist wanting to replace James Bond with a woman. Why call the person James Bond rather than Sarah Bond or Emily Bond instead?

[@supshaw1819]

In the movies they are replacing James Bond as 007, an agent designation, with a female agent. The job is getting a new person.

[@toyotatacoma1616]

I really like the ending sentiment of this video, and I agree with most of your points, but dang the strawman ball made this hard to watch. Also, I love Lucy aired the first interracial kiss, not Star Trek.

[@Gnostic88]

That strawman ball is really the lowest common denominator. Only the dumbest detractors use those sorts of arguments. Quinn himself has called out virtue signaling in at least one vid so I know he has a limit at least.

[@Yarblocosifilitico]

There's a difference between 'woke' and 'progressive'. The former claims to empower women just by puting them there (often overpowered) while firing Gina Carano for speaking her mind.

[@slboard96]

keeping her there regardless of her poor beliefs would also mean "just putting her there"

[@Yarblocosifilitico]

@@slboard96 not if they were happy with her performance and the fans liked her character. Which is another debate. Basically she was hired for a reason and fired for nonsense. That's the problem.

[@lucavicentini795]

QUINN listen to me please... i enjoyed the 2021 dune film, but you have to bear in mind that after years of woke activism, gender swapping, star wars questionable reboot/choice and terrible netflix adaptation some of us are fed up with representation, the world is not US and some of us can understand that exist a leitmotif, a propaganda if you want, that virtue signalling weirdos and political commentary are using... and propaganda is a mortal enemy of truth... most of hate for wokism is hate for sanctimonious and explotative behaviour, as a sci fi avid reader i really appreciate your work btw, keep going!

[@nerva-]

Quinn seems to conflate "science fiction" with "hollywood adaptations of science fiction" on the question of wokeness. There's a difference between a sci-fi author's original intent being woke (or not), such as Uhura being a black officer on the bridge and Sulu being a straight Japanese male and Foundation having overwhelmingly male characters, and how Hollywood chooses to twist original works for woke reasons (or not), such as making Sulu gay, or a white male character a black female. And I take a nuanced view, that it depends on how it is handled and why it is being done. It's been 35 years since I've read Foundation, and I know the minor character you're referring to who disappears after the first chapter, and I don't really care if they race/gender swap in that case. I have more of an issue with making Sulu gay, or, hypothetically, making James Bond a woman and Clark Kent black. I also didn't like the early LotR rumors that they were considering making Arwen a member of the Fellowship so that it wouldn't be completely male. "Bad woke" to use Quinn's frame, is when such changes are made more in the interest of the social message they're trying to send (which has nothing to do with the source material's story), rather than concern for the source material. In the case of Foundation, Asimov doesn't give a reason why women would be excluded from everything, so gender-swapping a few very-minor characters to give it some realistic balance isn't a great crime against Asimov's work.

[@lcg3092]

How did he conflate those? In this video he's literally comparing the 2.

[@dalesmith3923]

Thanks. I'm older, so I didn't really get the concept of WOKE. I have also heard it as both a positive and a pejorative. I've read SciFi my entire life and do enjoy the themes you spoke of. I agree that minor characters can be of any race, gender, etc. Even some major characters, art is in the eye of the beholder. Many authors will use themselves as a model for the main protagonist, but I'd like to think that they would appreciate a different viewpoint for that character. After all, many readers also view themselves as the main protagonist, so why shouldn't there be a different viewpoint occasionally.

[@JosephAAmara]

All of your videos, particularly deep Dune dives, are excellent, but this fine work is a service to Science Fiction. Thank you.

[@SGFreund]

While I do agree that sci-fi has always been socially progressive, I hate the term "woke." "Don't be a dick" is a much better term that everyone can get behind.

[@CZpersi]

Amen!

[@Patrick77487]

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." Isaac Asimov Would someone please convey this message to inept Hollywood movie producers AND pea brain public who absorb endless movie violence as if it were nourishment.

[@BdogFinal14]

Outstanding video. Sci-fi has always been “woke”.

[@matijerzykom]

There is a difference between fiction that has themes of diversity in it and a propaganda that promotes a certain current contemporary agenda. A writer with a contemporary opinion can step outside of his views and write, nonetheless, objective - like a scientist writing a paper about a topic he might have varied opinions on. Imagine if you for example had a fantasy book series released about a huge church celebrating a crucified saviour, with every believer being shown as good and virtuous, and every non-believer being a cackling moron, either shown as evil or incompetent. Focusing very deeply to humiliate the non-believers and to show how awesome it is to be believer - even when the story doesn't make internal sense and comes out poor because of it. If someone complained saying "This is just Catholic/Christian virtue signalling", saying "Hurr durr, Lord of the Rings is also expressing Christian ideals, Tolkien was a Christian and it contains a lot of Christian themes" is missing the point. The problem isn't with one or other theme, it's with how it's presented and handled to the people. There is a difference between art and propaganda - because from art, you can get ideas that sometimes contradict what the author might wanted to put in them. Old science fiction can serve as an inspiration not just to progressively minded people, but also to conservatives, because a lot of it serves as a presentation not just of author's opinions, but a detailed description of human behaviours and actions as well as an examination of many wonderful scenarios. Modern stuff often doesn't have much depth, it has shallow, surface level messages slammed on top of poorly written and poorly executed stories. And when something like this takes place for years, it's not hard to imagine people getting defensive. If you want to take a stance on issue, don't strawman your opponents next time, or present them as ignorant morons. It really alienates potential audience.

[@Yarblocosifilitico]

very well said

[@Ζήνων-ζ1ι]

Great response. I don't think Quinn understands peoples problem with "wokeness" and modern progressivism in media. He seems like a good and reasonable guy, he just didn't do much research on this topic.

[@matijerzykom]

@@Ζήνων-ζ1ι He even gets part of it accurately in terms of what people mean to be "woke" - virtue signalling, being pretentious etc. But then he just drops it and doesn't address how people frame it using that language, just assuming it's meant to say "woke=="

[@Ζήνων-ζ1ι]

@@matijerzykom Exactly. There's a reason people had problems with netflix's The Witcher. They could have added ethnic diversity through reasonable and setting-consistent ways, like the third game did with new characters from other regions and continents showing up, but they went the "woke" route by changing established characters ethnicities. It's not just the characters looking different from the books, which is also a problem and fans have the right to complain, but that's inconsistent with the world building itself (medieval europe inspired setting) Not only that, but it completely misses the point of the Elder Races in that setting, which is racial tesion with humans and a long history of bloodshed between them, paralleling some of our real world issues. So Netflix's the Witcher is the perfect example of the soulless corporation adding "diversity" in a pretentious and empty way, for outrage and publicity.

[@jorenvanderark3567]

@@Ζήνων-ζ1ι You use witcher as an example, and to be fair its a relatively decent one. Now kindly explain the freaking meltdown the right had when The Force Awakens had a black stormtrooper turned good guy!