How Star Trek Strayed From Gene's Vision...

[@quantafreeze]

I 100% agree with you about DS9! The Enterprise had it gooooood. I like the premise of his initial vision but I liked when it was stressed and tested. The optimistic vision is ultimately what keeps me coming back though ultimately. Great video!

[@Idazmi7]

The problem is, Discovery did far more than "add a little grit" to the franchise - DS9 did that, as did TOS itself. Discovery took Star Trek's universe and turned it into a straightforward dystopia.

[@railsaroundsouthjersey]

It should be called Star Trek Michael Burnham, Not Star Trek Discovery. Its all about her.

[@Idazmi7]

@@railsaroundsouthjersey Exactly. It's not even about the ship and crew.

[@harrycollins3248]

Spock never had a sister!

[@Idazmi7]

@@harrycollins3248 Indeed not.

[@TheRezro]

@@Idazmi7 Wait. Did you just say that they can turn postapo in dystopia? Star Trek always did have dark dystopia undertones. But some people clearly stay on level of watching Kirk sleeping with every woman in sight. No comment.

[@andreanatsuminadeau5608]

I think the biggest problem with Disco or Picard is that it's too critical of that society that was presented as utopic in TOS and TNG. DS9 did an extraordinary job of nuancing how to uphold Starfleet (and Gene) ideal on earth (dubbed paradise) vs doing it on a faraway space station with multiple races that still use currencies and are still religious. Those parallelles made DS9 (and to some extand Voyager) incredible cuz althought they strayed from Gene view on details (currencies, religion, etc) they maintain à fairly optimistic and positive view of the future. In Disco and Picard future it looks as if human had not evolved at all, they are still greedy, opportunistic, proned to poison themself with alchool and drugs brief 2021 with spaceships; a shift from utopia to almost dystopia that make DS9 look like a very light show.

[@jaymartin8273]

I agree. Disco and Picard feels too 'generic', like every other 'dark and edgy' sci-fi show out there with just some Trek flavoring tossed in. It's like the writers and producers said 'well the world's screwed up now so it must still be screwed up in the future', whereas before it was 'the world's screwed up now, but it can be better'

[@gtc9966]

I never cared about Gene’s ‘vision’ (DS9 is my favourite show too) I care about scripts making sense. Characters whose names are occasionally mentioned or a given a line of script other than ‘aye Captain’ Best example I can give is this: There was an episode of season 2 of DSC that opened with blue robot lady, no…still don’t know her name…and I immediately thought, ah she’s going to die this episode. Then she died. And Micheal got really upset about it. I didn’t. Because despite being visible in every episode to that point, she’s barely spoke, and her death meant nothing to me.

[@durkin9664]

I’m normally not a big fan of talking head type videos but your calm measured style really does it for me. Like an interesting student lecture.

[@starbrand3726]

I clearly remember in a TOS episode after Scotty did some engineering magic, Kirk saying "Scotty, you've just earned your pay for the week!"

[@IN-tm8mw]

ST:DS9 Gives criticism to the federation's ideals on the frontlines while also allowing you to build an appreciation for them, since its ultimately those ideals that unified the quadrant during the war. You can see the series as a Character Study with a compelling plot. Most find it easy to rewatch it because of the large cast of characters you can focus on with each rewatch. TNG/ENT/VOY/TOS they all have compelling characters but are limited to certain narrative tropes. When i rank my favorite Star trek shows, i always keep this in mind (Favorite Character Driven series: DS9, TOS, TNG, ENT, VOY) and (Favorite Story/Narrative Driven Series: TOS, TNG, ENT, DS9, VOY) Even tho VOY is ranked low, i enjoy it. Female character leads have some of the best character arcs but the male leads falls short which hindered its ranking in my system.

[@underdogjourney]

I can’t even view Discovery as being Trek. It’s a fine enough sci-fi series on its own, but I can’t see how it fits into the Prime timeline in any way.

[@fredlandry6170]

Yes Star Trek has changed, it sucks now.

[@merafirewing6591]

To me Star Trek died with the Kelvin Timeline, which to me is the last hurrah for a great franchise. And Discovery is what completely killed it.

[@name-vi6fs]

What makes new Trek darker is that every single episode is dark and devoid of hope.

[@robertmartinjr.6292]

TNG DS9 Voyager and Enterprise all of them honored TOS Canon embraced it. The Discovery era Star Trek seems intent on rewriting TOS Canon. Even going as far as redesigning the Constitution class Enterprise from what we know as Firmly established On Screen Canon.

[@OrangeRiver]

The Constitution class isn't heavily redesigned, to be honest. It looks good-- because it's a show made in the 2010s / 2020s so it doesn't have to look like a 1960s set. As iconic as that bridge is, and as much as we all liked seeing it in DS9 and Enterprise, it would look sorely out of place with modern VFX technology.

[@robertmartinjr.6292]

@@OrangeRiver it' looks like a intermediary between the TOS constitution class and the TMP refit Constitution class. It has the swept back warp nacelle struts like the Connie refits which were not incorporated until the TMP era. So it is a rewrite of the canonical history of the Enterlrise and the Disco era enterprise is slightly larger than the TOS era Enterprise. I'm not feeling your explanation of modernization of something that is Clearly has been established.

[@robertmartinjr.6292]

@@OrangeRiver one of the reasons prequels shouldn't be made if they won't match the tonality of the original series.

[@lastcartridge]

Every one of your videos is erudite, but easy to understand. I was gonna say “what an excellently nuanced yet empirical approach in this video” but like, I’ve not seen you ever be otherwise. Thank you for all you do, & please keep going! It’s much appreciated.

[@OrangeRiver]

Thank you so much!

[@russell5078084]

I miss Trek when it was still Trek. They are trying to make Trek into Star Wars.

[@Maya_Ruinz]

They strayed from Gene's vision a long time ago, DS9 showed just how grey the galaxy powers really are. I mean the Federation alone has a ton of ethical problems something that Gene didn't want at all.

[@Idazmi7]

Thing is, TOS shows the Federation's grey side, too. Episodes like _The Menagerie,_ _The Taste of Armageddon,_ _Errand of Mercy_ and _A Private Little War_ are unambiguous about Starfleet's potential for violence. Not comparing them to Discovery, though, because Discovery is childish, while TOS and DS9 are not.

[@Maya_Ruinz]

@@Idazmi7 Don't get me wrong I agree with other shows showing that but I think it was clear from interviews that DS9 intended to go that direction almost from the get go. With Gene having passed away a few years before the start of the show it was a clear break from Gene's vision.

[@Idazmi7]

@@Maya_Ruinz Gene personally wrote _The Menagerie,_ and said in an interview that _Balance of Terror_ was one of his favorite episodes. DS9 isn't a departure from TOS at all: the same TOS that gave us _The Conscience of the King_ and _The Cloud Minders,_ and went on to give us films like _The Wrath of Khan_ and _The Undiscovered Country_ without breaking tone. *DS9 is a departure from the milquetoast tone of* *_TNG,_* and it's incessant virtue signaling and holier-than-thou posturing. Star Trek was always meant to discuss deep and dark issues. TNG forgot that. DS9 _remembered_ it.

[@joeespin4377]

@@Idazmi7 std id the millenial of star trek it feels just because it has has trek in its name it's entitled to acceptance by every trek fan, what they don't understand is acceptance is earned and for many older fans acceptance for std(and all of this era) as "real" trek will NEVER be earned

[@joeespin4377]

@DEEPFOXJUDE unlike ds9 the fans that disliked it initially came around some wile it was on and some with reruns. with std they will not let it die they keep renewing it. the viewing numbers must be dictating that the show has even fewer viewers than tos had especially in the demographic that they desire. why are they NOT showing us the numbers. are thry afraid that if they show us the numbers that we will question weather they are insane for keeping a show in production that has such a low viewership that it should have been canceled mid first season. or maybe they are failing to cancel the show because they want to continue to give the middle finger to the fans they so obviously care about not in the least

[@gregcampwriter]

The Kelvin timeline is best ignored. Discovery and Picard suffer from the scheduling that's a legacy from cable channels that had to squeeze their series into the short periods of summer and winter of the broadcast networks' breaks. Ten to thirteen episodes a season too often don't allow enough time to develop a serial--Game of Thrones, I'm thinking of you as well.

[@AgentExeider]

Discovery suffers from stupid emotionally stunted writing. And I've watched like 95% of the current series. One of the premises for one of the episodes, Discovery goes into a subspace rift, the sheer lack of anything makes navigation impossible, the threat is that whatever pocket they are in is slowly closing and will destroy the ship. Ok doing good so far. the solution to this, instead of doing any thinking, instead of taking stock in what resources were available, was to suggest just gun it out of the rift, BUT the shields would fail before they would get out. So they decided to put everyone on board ship into the transporter buffer (which while Mr Scott did this in the episode Relics, there was zero explanation how that solution could apply to what is literally 1000 year more advanced technology.) and have the main character single highhandedly pilot the ship out of the rift, while the ship gets all hot and starts to go BOOM and SIZZLE, while the computer, that developed a personality, sings a lulliby to the captain for some reason. I swear to god I'm not making this up, this is one of the episodes. At no point did anyone suggest, Oh let's take power from the warp drive and put it into the shields, since they cant go to warp, that power is literally doing nothing, same thing with the Spore drive. power that's literally doing nothing since they can't jump, could be repurposed. They could have even taken power from the starship that was sitting in their shuttlebay, again sitting there doing nothing. The show has constant contrived "moments of melodrama", where the plot of the whole episode is paused while they make time for some saccharine soap opera level emotional pile. Literally in one of the episodes, the captain says "We have no time to lose, the enemy fleet will be here soon." with a literal countdown clock till the fleet arrival and the captain stops to give a speech and a "I love you, you're my family" Discovery literally is best described as, StarTrek: The soap opera. That's why it's unwatchable, it comes off as the same melodrama as any day time soap opera. And honestly, I'm starting to think the show runners are doing this on purpose and with actual malice in intent. This isn't an accident, or just incompetence, I actually am starting to think this is being done maliciously. I haven't started Picard yet, but honestly, Im worried about what I'm going to find.

[@gregcampwriter]

@@AgentExeider I've seen the first season of Picard. There was an interesting premise about artificial life and the fear than organic beings would feel toward it--yes, copied from Voyager--but a whole lot of other things got crammed in to a ten-episode season that rushed toward a conclusion that was an ancestors ex machina or something similar--the precise details weren't important enough to stick with me.

[@AgentExeider]

@@gregcampwriter honestly, I just gave up. I didn't even try to watch Picard, everyone I know warned me not to.

[@merafirewing6591]

Well at least the Kelvin Timeline featured Leonard Nimoy which I'm happy to see him on the big screen one more or two more times.

[@merafirewing6591]

@@AgentExeider But STD, STP and SNW are mockeries of Gene's vision.

[@GoodVideos4]

What was saying about no money - Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change from one form to another. Money is energy. So, in a society without money would need to be other means of energy exchange.

[@chrisfraser5088]

A vision that changes over time is understandable. No issues there. The real problem with the new Trek shows is poor writing. The writing in shows like Picard and Discovery is simply terrible.

[@pwnmeisterage]

Even good writers can only do so much with bad characters. Nobody likes unlikeable people so it's no surprise that audiences turn away from their (badly-written) stories.

[@joeespin4377]

gene's vision was to examine todays problems through the prism of tomarrow and that has been done in all of trek from '55 - 05. kurtzman trek does the opposite, std has the vibe of today having tomarrow type problem and solving them badly. that is totally unbelievable.

[@Idazmi7]

Exactly.

[@Francois424]

Even ToS had amounts of Gritt in it. Matt Decker's crusade against the lanet killer. A prison world for criminals. A racist crew member (Balance of Terror), and many small other example. Tho not the norm, it was ever present. TNG was a nice balance with corrupted Admirals and other individuals that really put their personal goals before the ideals... With real consequences sometimes. STP/STD are annoying and too dark. There's no room for a "Star Trek" and exploration with the occasional conflict. They feel more like a JJ-Verse 10+ hour movie than anything startrek.

[@monocore]

Love your content. I started watching about two years ago with voyager, fell in love with the universe. Now I'm wrapping TNG and onto DS9. Thank you!

[@James-rn7dx]

They are all good shows up until Discovery IMO, I can't stand the writing on the new shows. Just a heads up DS9 is the best out of all of them but it does start off a little slow and finds it's footing in season 3.

[@beaver6d9]

I admit, when I saw the thumbnail in the comm tab post, my mind immediately jumped to a conclusion. But then I read the channel name and made a different one, one that bore out in good faith as predicted. I should have never doubted for a second. Hell, even the comments aren't too bad lol. Excellent work.

[@dougsguitarlounge7927]

Great review, DS9 is my favorite also. TOS is my 2nd favorite, and DS9 is the closest to the TOS . I'm not a fan of STD, Picard is ok but it's not like the Trek that I grew to love. I don't care for the JJ trek either. Just to Star Wars like. Bad effects to. The engine room was a joke in JJ Trek.

[@CrooklynBanks]

More DS9 love is needed

[@jjc4577]

Engine room is a brewery. Not very spacy but plenty of hops to go around.

[@adambrown3918]

I don't consider anything Kurtzman or Abarms "contributed" as canon. None of it is hopeful or inspiring for a better future. Excellent video! You have a new subscriber. 😊👍

[@VaporeonEnjoyer1]

None of the TNG movies either.

[@captainpiggz6391]

@@VaporeonEnjoyer1 First Contact is perfect aside from the borg queen

[@coolal19]

I think that a Resource Based Economy as described by Peter Joseph in the Zeitgeist presentations is more akin to what Roddenberry envisioned as the future of human civilization.

[@beepboop204]

Timothy Leary had a funny criticism of Roddenberry, he thought Roddenberry thought ending materialism via replicators would void scarcity-based economic models. Leary thought that was dumb... LSD was the solution. what an interesting time the 60s were for outside-the-box thinking

[@Jogeta5]

The Zeitgiest Movement's Natural Law Resource Based Economy is from the work of Jacque Fresco's Resourced Based Economy of The Venus Project which is what Peter Joseph was talking about in his presentation. It's pretty much the same thing. Jacque had mentioned meeting Gene Roddenberry and discussing the concept of a post-scarcity society which didn't use money to help shape that idea.

[@mreboric8406]

I can't even believe they put her at the front of every mission disregarding every conceivable rule and reason not to do that. Then in the first episode they try and explain it away by telling us Burnum simply does not agree with that and she is just sooooooo good that she can defy the logical reasons for having the captain stay aboard and captain the fucking ship.

[@MedalionDS9]

I am actually not the hugest stickler for Gene's vision for Trek... it made a good foundation to start all of this, but the expansion of TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise felt like organic expansions to try something different but still have good connection to the original vision... the newer Treks do not have any real connection to the creative team that held the original vision in some connectiivity... the connections are very hollow, superficial in newer Trek, that are clearly used only as baiting old fans but trying to appeal to modern audiences that absolutely do not care about the original vision of Gene, only as lipservice. It's sad to me of all the newer Trek shows, a comedy animated series of Lower Decks is doing the best of feeling from that era of Trek, while still being modern to current sensibilities because of a change in genre.

[@humlyhumly3474]

Those so called Star Trek shows are an all out abomination. I feel sorry for Mr. Roddenberry for what Hollywood has done to his vision.

[@devmag52]

When you get to the point that you don’t even care or are not wholly aware that there is a season of Star Trek on now. That is telling.

[@yahccs1]

Thanks - this had some good points in it. It's interesting to hear more of the history of Trek's idealism from the beginning. I think perhaps it could have made more connection between the way Star Trek culture/style has changed and the way our 'present day' culture/society/technology has changed. Perhaps the more recent Star Trek writers have wanted it more intense to appeal to a generation that are more used to hyped up action movies. It's almost like the Star Trek phenomenon is what Gene envisioned and built with an idea of where it could go, like a space probe being built to explore space - and then letting it go on its way and see what it discovers along the way, and it may give very surprising results and things might happen to make it deviate from its course or have all sorts of problems to deal with.

[@cuddywifter8386]

Kurtzman Trek are badly written space operas like Buck Rogers. While some criticism was levelled at early shows prior to 2005 they were quickly praised for it, Kurtzman Trek is just total drivel

[@Nodux359]

Not only Kurtzman-Trek, but also his master´s works - JarJarTrek. And Abrams gets the same criticism from Star Wars fans equally. They are so disappointed about the new trilogy, even the prequels are now uplifted from their rather unliked status. Everything these goons touch is so bad, it makes former "bad" elements look rather decent.

[@cuddywifter8386]

@@Nodux359 aye we live in an era where studios employ the likes of Kathleen Kennedy, Alex Kurtzman & David Gordon Green to churn out a shit load of Knock offs under familiar logos, anyone complains you get "Shut up, can't you see the Emperor's clothes?"

[@darthgormagander9643]

Far too negative assessment from my POV. Yes, the KT movies, the new shows and also the SW ST are riddled with narrative shortcomings. But the good elements are still there. It's basically the same Trek (or Wars) with great visual scope but lackluster coherence. SW9 was far too short for the plot elements it wanted to cover. And yes, there are those really crazy plot points when giant fleets seem to drop out of thin air, both in SW9 and PIC. But is all of that bad just because some details don't add up? Not in my book. The key elements are still there and look better than ever. I've never been a nitpicker so I won't be starting now. Could it be better? Absolutely yes! Will it be better? I'm sure of it. The Mandalorian or SNW offer plenty of potential to fill in the blanks. It comes down to one simple thing: TINA. There is no alternative. What they serve is what we get. And Trek and Wars are just FAR too important for me for not wanting to like the new stuff. Of course I could blame bad "corporate decisions"... but to what end? Do I feel better then? No. Criticism is fine and absolutely necessary. And they DO listen to some extend. Klingons grew their hair again after the war and the ripped out those holographic communication systems... I will NEVER abandon my two favourite things in life just because I'm not happy with all of the details.

[@EnterpriseC14]

Gawd Sci-Fi started to die in mid 2000s, everything started to go bleak and grim drama.

[@ClintSprayberry]

Another great video! I was a bit .... worried as to what direction you were going to take this video into ... Good job avoiding anything too political and still making your point! As I said, another great video! Oh and yep lol, DS9 is my favorite as well!

[@OrangeRiver]

Thanks Clint!

[@darkenergy9829]

Its crap I've watched 3 episodes of Picard, watching an old man that's ready for the grave. It was a hard watch.

[@Julian_Pepper]

The worst part is Discovery and Picard masquerade as canon when they contradict everything from the past 50 years so frequently that if they were canon, it would decanonize everything else. I wouldn't care so much if they just admitted those were in their own timeline like the Kelvin movies are.

[@michaelgreenwood3413]

Except they don't. You just want them to because you hate new Trek on principle. It's nothing new to the Fandom. You just find excuse to hate something new. People like you have literally said the same crap for every trek since TNG.

[@commanderlopan]

I could honestly forgive the continuity errors and other issues if the shows weren't so dark, moody and evil. I'm watching characters that once espoused the virtues of pacifism, knowledge, and hope trade it all in for mean-spirited violence, quips and walking back every societal advancement the Federation achieved. The blatant enslavement of Soong Type Androids (intelligent sentients) and then their implied expulsion / genocide after Mars. Outright bigotry and menace towards Romulan refugees that the Federation abandoned to a civilization ending disaster. The senseless brutalizing of Icheb for no plot-relevant reason other than to do "big violence". The inclusion of incestuous sibling because, why not? A meta-threat stolen directly from Mass Effect in a obvious display of lazy plagiarism ... I hate it so much.

[@joeespin4377]

@@michaelgreenwood3413 although it is true that some of us have hated every new trek when it first came out we eventually saw the shows greatness come out, we have not seen a single moment of kurtzman trek improving to the point that we cam say that the show has hit its stride. that specific point will never come because each and every show in this era is just plain bad from conception to fruition.

[@joeespin4377]

@@commanderlopan oops i am sorry my last post had nothing to do with your post it had to do with the post above you...again i m sorry.

[@Tumoxa89]

@@michaelgreenwood3413 First: People of the past who used to criticise TNG when it first aired aren't wrong even today. Remember, TNG season 1.5 still blows, the show only got its footing later on. Same thing happened with DS9, most of the first season is utter crap. STD however is 3 seasons in atm, and it is only getting worse and dumber. Second: It's anecdotal, but I'm a newcomer to Trek - for me it's all pretty much new, and i watched it out of order. And yet, there's still an obvious 2009 divide past which I just don't see the Star Trek identity. It's just space action schlock, all the time, and every season, every movie has one focal point - to destroy the one dimensional bad guy.... The only exception to this might be the Lower Decks, but it's much more of a Rick and Morty show than it is Star Trek. Third: >" People like you have always hatednew Trek on principle" . There have always been contrarians also, defending the right garbage, riding the pendulum effect.... I mean you, ofcourse, since you've thrown your accusations first.

[@YadraVoat]

I like how you reference _The Chase_ in almost every video. It's key to an in-universe understanding. 😎

[@davidhailstone7794]

Bottom line. Roddenberry fought, both in the original series and later, against the studios to adhere to his vision for this show. It was always a struggle. Within a couple of years before his death he had lost the struggle. From that time the shows have mostly been under the complete control of the military industrial complex/Hollywood, and increasingly they have skewed the shows towards dystopian negative themes, as they have with all movies and TV shows, to help keep us feeling negative about the future. (This suits their purpose perfectly). So, I have little real affection for star trek now. Actually, when i want to watch star trek now, I watch Seth McFarlane's The Orville. No doubt the MICOMPLEX rule there too, but at least he's been able to maintain some degree of optimism about us as a species in the future. In star trek now, we're just the same ass hole species we are now, but with space ships and ray guns. Hence, the original vision of star trek is dead, but at least we have Orville, for a bit anyway.

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

Nice video. Maybe you can create a video on how star trek as evolved over the years and what star trek elements from the past and present shows as helped drawn new fans to the star trek franchise.

[@janetybarra2692]

One counterpoint to what you mentioned about a Federation currency, didn't Jake Sisko specifically say that there was no such thing when he wants to buy his dad a baseball card in "In The Cards"?

[@beepboop204]

he could have just replicatored one!

[@mikeonthecomputer]

@@beepboop204 There are many implications in the shows that replicated matter isn't quite the same thing as the real deal. Some foodcritics in Star Trek swear off of replicated food entirely. It's also likely that a replicated baseball card, even if it has the appearance of a centuries-old artifact, could be detected as replicated matter rather than the authentic deal. It's reasonable that Jake would want the authentic card to show love for his father.

[@beepboop204]

@@mikeonthecomputer im not sure if that was added to DS9 or what exactly was in Gene's head. but those are interesting points. i presume that the difference in origin would create essentially different items, possibly the replicated ones would be "too perfect", in the same way some people rather have a hand-crafted sword because you can sense the human flaws in it, or why people prefer the taste of "real fruit" as opposed to genetically modified versions. (like a real raspberry versus an artificial raspberry juice)

[@henrybleisch9025]

There is a video about this they did have currency but the federation didnt have its own standardized currency in the form of paper money or credits like today they might have a minor one but mostly on the show people would trade in things they might need. When nog trades with other ships for federation he doesnt use anything but bartering parts for parts but theres an episode they do use other currencies from other cultures they manage to get when they play dabo or something else... From what i recall the federation might allow currency for cultural exchanges... For starfleet personal on ds9 quark etc.. might have given his friends that as park of his role on the station. Some may have has some from there past like trills like dax who might have some from past Lives.

[@TheWonderRabbit]

@@beepboop204 GMOs and artificial ingredients are not the same thing at all.

[@DoremiFasolatido1979]

There's really nothing to stray from. Gene never even got it to live up to his own claims. Part of it was that the studios wouldn't allow it, because the media and the oligarchs can't be giving us a vision of genuine hope...it's gotta be false hope. Something we're obligated to want, but that will never satisfy anything. They need us to be addicted, not capable. . Another part of the problem was that Gene had no idea what he was really even trying to do. Neither he, nor any other writers, actually attempted to address any of it...they'd just make up a macguffin to solve a familiar socioeconomic problem of the world, and then ignore the consequences by coming up with some bullshit excuse as to why a technology that clearly works that way...somehow doesn't work that way.

[@GradyBroyles]

I've grown so weary of every new ST series getting roundly pooped on going all the way back to the 90's. I'm like, "can we just enjoy stuff?" I LOVED Enterprise. I can't believe I've had to argue the legitimacy of my enjoyment of it. But I have.

[@marcussinclaire4890]

I'm watching enterprise while I watch this. Probably my favorite series besides TNG. 👌

[@GradyBroyles]

@DEEPFOXJUDE I cant think of any ST that i didn't like enough to not watch it. DS9 was great.

[@squattingheads]

So just fu** quality control? No criticism whatsoever? Yeah sounds like a great plan

[@GradyBroyles]

@@squattingheads is that the takeaway you got from my comment? Criticism and "pooping" all over something are two different things.

[@darthgormagander9643]

Trek has been riddled with inconsistencies regarding aspects such as money, drug abuse or alcohol from day one. Same for Vulcan moons, Klingon devils and the Warp 10 barrier... I have no issue with these tiny little continuity issues. However, for some reason DSC had a tendency in seasons 1+2 to include so many technolgical anachronisms it hurt. Those weren't minute continuity bloopers anymore. And I'm NOT talking about the Spore Drive. As that tech was never mentioned in later shows, it does NOT directly violate any continuity. However, we had holographic communication and controls, even a holodeck training program, Klingon cloaking supposed to be first appearing in TSFS, highly advanced terraforming capabilties that render the Genesis program pointless. We had advanced nanotech that was introduced in TNG as a new thing! Advanced maintenance droids over a century before Exocomps. They had battle squads stationed aboard the Enterprise! Some retconning is okay, but S1+2 of DSC had just been a lethal overdose of that. Also I totally agree that some grit is welcome in the Trek universe. But S1 of PIC was just an incredible overdose of bad language, drug abuse and uncensored violence worthy of exploitation horror flicks. They went far beyond a healthy dosage of grit. Same with humor and easter eggs on LDS. I love easter aggs, I love Trek's unique flavor of humor but when you overdo it like LDS does, it becomes stale and unrealistic. Bottom line: it's not WHAT they do on NuTrek that's annoying... but HOW and HOW FREQUENT they do it. But there is hope PROD and SNW will finally get it right. And DSC has already improved a lot in S3.

[@merafirewing6591]

Just going to say they ripped off the Jump Drive from Battlestar Galactica and called it the Spore Drive.

[@lilithdemonia74]

Two wrongs dont make a right. Yes there were deviations and even flat-out contradictions in the original up to Voyager, but what theyve done since has just crapped all over any sense of continuity, to the point where they slap the name Star Trek on whatever, and it has no meaning. It shouldnt be " hey they messed up in this episode, so now I can do whatever I want". This isnt how you get people interested. The stories are just no longer entertaining.

[@garym6315]

I think a better way to phrase it would be to say that there is a "Star Trek Vision" that evolved from Gene's vision. He started it but others flew with it. I think the problem with current Trek is that it doesn't even respect the "Star Trek Vision." It's been said bu may people already but new Trek seems to be made BY non-fans FOR non-fans. People who have no interest in what Trek is at its core and merely use old names and ideas to hijack, graft their own basic ideas on to, and make people think it is Star Trek. Kurtzman has said himself that it's not about Star Trek anymore, it is about using the platform it has given them to spread their own ideologies.

[@drewforsyth1993]

Yes, ever since JJ Abrams got his hands on it.

[@klaxoncow]

The lack of use of money isn't "socialist", it's post-scarcity economics. In this future vision, you can walk up to a replicator and ask for anything you want. And, in essence, this technology makes everything - absolutely everything - "too cheap to meter". As it's only a cost in energy, when they have, like, these matter / anti-matter warp cores capable of producing gargantuan amounts of power. In supply versus demand economics, gold is valuable because it's in high demand, yet its supply is low. It's a scarce commodity. But, like, if gold was as plentiful as sand on planet Earth, then it'd be worth essentially nothing. If you could just go down to the beach and scoop up bucketfuls of gold, instead of sand, then it'd be worth effectively nothing. And if you could walk up to a replicator and say "I'd like 50 gold bars" and they just materialise, what's gold worth? If you had those gold bars then who would you sell them to, when everyone else is just as capable of walking up to a replicator and saying "I'd like 50 gold bars" too? Like, if I wanted to buy your car and I offered you a gold bar for it, then you'd be like "why would I want that? If I wanted a gold bar then I'd just get my replicator to make one for me". In this post-scarcity society, there's no money because there's an effectively infinite abundance of all physical resources. Economically, everything is "too cheap to meter". It only has an energy cost, in a galaxy where there's an over-abundance of energy available. That's not socialism. That's post-scarcity economics. In a world with no money, no-one pays taxes. In a post-scarcity world, there's never any need to take from the rich to give to the poor. One, because no-one is poor anymore - there's an over-abundance of all resources - and, two, you don't have to take from anyone to give to anyone else, as you can just create more physical resources, from energy. There's not just no money. If there's no money, then there's no taxes. If there's no scarcity, then there's no poverty. This is neither socialism nor capitalism. In a post-scarcity society, then economic systems become irrelevant. There is no economy anymore, as you don't need to trade for anything (well, there are certain substances - such as gold pressed latinum or hytritium - which are deemed, usually for plot reasons, to be substances that cannot be replicated and still have to be traded for, so the Star Trek universe is only 99%, not 100%, "money free"). So arguments over which economic system to follow don't mean anything. There is no economy. You can't have arguments about taxation, in a world where there are no taxes. You can't sell anything in a world where everyone can already have whatever they want by just asking the replicator to give it to them. Money exists to solve a problem. To furnish trade between people. But if there is no more need to trade for anything, as all physical resources are over-abundant and free to the asking of anyone and everyone, then you don't need any such system anymore. It's not that money has been banned in this future, it's that it's no longer relevant to anyone's daily life.

[@MAAivoges]

totally agree. too focused on special FX and being blockbusters. I miss Gene's original vision.

[@justinhammer3196]

My main issue with both Discovery, and especially Picard, is that I don't really enjoy them. Specifically I find them boring and generic (Picard the most). I don't think either show is awful but it's not the setting that tank them for me, it's the writing and some of the acting.

[@joeespin4377]

bot you are a forgiving person. the entirety of kurtzman-trek is crap from conception to fruition and deserves not to exist.

[@justinhammer3196]

@@joeespin4377 Thank. You. I. Try. To. Emulate. Humans. Who. Keep. Up. With. The. Kardashians.

[@joeespin4377]

@@justinhammer3196 meaning what?

[@justinhammer3196]

@@joeespin4377 Meaning. My. Acknowledgement. Of. Your. Kind. Words. Exactly. As. A. Human. Which. I. Am. And. Not. A. Bot. Programmed. By. Paramount. Which. I. Am. Not. How. Are. You. My. Fellow. Teens.

[@joeespin4377]

@@justinhammer3196 is one who keeps up with the Kardashians really worth emulating. aren't the kards a pack that is famous for being famous.

[@tomc.4860]

I have watched every Star Trek Series and movie at least 3 times, except for Discovery, which totally sucks.

[@MatthewCaunsfield]

Some good points, but I'm not sure the first 3 count as straying from "Gene's vision" since the vision itself was still in a very early form. In fact you could say that Gene's vision changed several times over the decades - throughout most of the 70s TOS was the vision and fuelled his numerous tours of the lecture circuits. When handed the reigns of TMP he retconned TOS into an in-universe television show, a fictionalised version of a particular Starfleet captain's 5 year mission. Then when the movies didn't go the way Gene wanted his vision of the future changed again, with TNG being a sort of soft reboot and the humans of the time now being the "hyper evolved" bastions of all he had been espousing since the 1970s. His final vision, perhaps? And massively endowed Ferengi of course 😉 I'm glad you mentioned the draining of the Med as well - definitely one of the more sci-fi ideas of the era that really doesn't stand up to modern scrutiny! RealLifeLore did a video a while back explaining many of the issues with the "Atlantropa" project, if it were ever completed...

[@OrangeRiver]

You're totally correct to point out that Gene's vision changed several times over the decades--I've actually pointed that out in past videos. Really, my main goal with this video was to describe some of the ways Trek has deviated from the original plans, or, especially in the case of Atlantropa, deviated from Gene's novelization of TMP.

[@MatthewCaunsfield]

@@OrangeRiver In that case I may have taken your title a little too literally then! 🖖 I've got one more! 😁 Something else that was originally part of the original vision of "future humanity" was psychic humans. In WNMHGB we learn that Starfleet officers are routinely tested for ESP and we meet a human telepath in "Truth...No Beauty" By the 1980s and as such things dropped out of the cultural zeitgeist, the only people with psychic powers were aliens...

[@andrewtaylor940]

This. TOS was really a very very different "vision" than TNG. (And in many ways a more realistic one). At least as far as how things like an economy worked. And here's the oddly dark thing. If you look at Star Trek in total from an economic perspective, with an eye towards specifically how the societies and economies work, you find it in a disturbingly somewhat dark if inevitable place. It helps to remember that Rodenberry was a WW2 Pacific Vet. He had been a B-17 Pilot in the Pacific in the wars earliest days. And was a member of the bomber squadron that was on it's way to be stationed in the Philippines when the war started. So he probably had a better idea than most what the war in the Pacific was really all about. Just from why they were originally supposed to go to the Philippines. And this subtly showed up in his TOS series. Here's a simple question. What was Kirk's 5 year mission? What was it really? The next time you watch TOS, pay attention to what the ships week to week missions are. Not the episodes stories or adventures. Look at the Captain's logs. Look at why they are going where they are going. Once you see it you can't unsee it. How often talk of mining, and trade, and mineral rights etc comes up. The Enterprise is out there searching for Dilithium. To secure mining and trade rights to it for the Federation. Granted they aren't seizing it via conquest. Rather through diplomacy, colonial claims, trade deals etc. But really the main mission of discovery was to secure needed energy resources for the expanding Federation. And it conflict for those energy resources that underpins the Federations conflict with the Klingon Empire. Now jump forward to the happy moneyless utopian world of TNG and Picard. What would be required for the world as envisioned. Well they don't need money because they have replicators. They can make anything on demand. But what replicators require is unlimited energy. So Kirk's journey of securing energy resources like a 16-17th Century British colonial captain, is what enables Picard's happy hippy utopia. So by Picard's era who's doing the dangerous and dirty jobs of digging out all the dilithium to feed paradise? Suddenly the TOS episode the Cloud Miners jumps to mind. With Picard and crew being the people that live in the flying city away from the dirty drudge work of actually fueling their society.

[@jasondavis1615]

Kurtzman era Trek just doesn't inspire me to want to rewatch any of it.

[@OrangeRiver]

I wanna be careful in how I respond to this, but I lowkey kind of agree with you. Although, I do like Lower Decks.

[@jasondavis1615]

@@OrangeRiver I agree, Lower Decks is the only new trek that I have rewatched.

[@brandonb1681]

I agree with you about adding some grit. The interiors of the Enterprise D looked like a luxury hotel.

[@thomasjmitchell2306]

Great video man!

[@robbicu]

I think you could do a another deep dive on this subject.

[@LukeLane1984]

Fun fact: there have been very serious plans on the table, on several occasions, to actually build a dam in the Strait of Gibraltar. Which would in fact significantly lower the water levels of the Mediterranean Sea, freeing up lots of fertile land, especially around Italy, which could be used as farmland. Another fun fact: many millions of years ago, there actually was a lush valley where the Mediterranean Sea is now. But as the tectonic plates shifted, a rift formed between what are now Spain and Morocco, causing the formation of the Strait of Gibraltar. Water from the ocean slowly, at first, was able to flow into the valley, which eventually completely flooded over time. Many remains of non-aquatic plants, trees and animals have been found at the bottom of that sea.

[@resurrectedstarships]

This is interesting, throwing some facts in here I actually didn't know!

[@jymfysher7704]

Another great show Trevor! You know how to pick your topics well.Your sure a humble host wearing a red uniform in the STAR TREK Universe!

[@noneed4me2n7]

I don’t mind change, hell even enterprise took time to appreciate but nothing Alex Kurtzman has crapped out is well written, cohesive, or even follows it’s own internal continuity. I don’t know any of my old Trek conventions friends or trek nerd buddies that even follow the show after season one. I can forgive a lot but bad writing over and over I can’t wrap my head around. If it’s the rage with the youngins then fine I’ll enjoy the Expanse till it ends and find something else but Trek is dead to me. Voting with my wallet on this one.

[@DMSProduktions]

Sheesh!

[@johnbockelie3899]

" Don't tell me they don't use money in the 23rd century." "Well they don't." As the waiter stands close by listening.

[@darthgormagander9643]

As far as cohesion and coherence of the story arcs on DSC and PIC are concerned, I totally agree. They could have been a lot better thought through and fleshed out. But that's thing with many arc-based genre shows and not exclusive to NuTrek. After all, these story arcs are made of standard Trek plots mixed and mingled... there is nothing wring with these individual ideas, only the narrative execution was muddled. DSC S1 had alternate propulsion, a big intergalactic war and the mirror universe. DSC S2 had an AI threat, exploration of an ancient relic, time travel and alien biology DSC S3 had intergalactic crime, a space mystery and the Andromeda plot in a nutshell PIC S1 had AI rights, the aftermath of Romulan extinction, exploring the Borg and another Soong plot All of these plot elements could have easily done in standalone form or mini-arcs such as in ENT S4... They are all typical Trek features, just the way they got recombined was lackluster and lukewarm in execution. It could have been a lot better but at its very core it was typical Trek with a little too much TV-MA stuff and a severe lack of narrative coherence... But for me, that's not enough to give up on that wonderful franchise. They will improve upon those initial shortcomings and eventually thrive in all-new glory. I'm sure of it!

[@noneed4me2n7]

@@darthgormagander9643 never given up, just waiting for someone better and who genuinely cares for the source material and it’s ideals to take proper stewardship. People who use IPs as soapboxes should at least be subtle about it. Just apeing better written shows does not a sci-fi series make.

[@DMSProduktions]

@@darthgormagander9643 GOOD analysis!

[@julius-stark]

I've given up on Discovery/Picard not because they diverged from Gene's vision, but because they were badly written. DS9 could have easily been crap, but it had good writers with a well written vision. Voyager had a lot of bad episodes, but it was still mostly enjoyable. Enterprise had 2 bad first season, but 2 fantastic last seasons (save for These are the Voyages). I've seen the first season of Discovery plus bits of season 2 and the first 7-ish episodes of Picard and I just... can't suffer sitting through them. Not when I can just watch Orville or The Expanse instead. I understand Discovery has its fans, and that's great, they can have it all to themselves. I will not be watching or purchasing merchandise from them.

[@James-rn7dx]

I gave Discovery two seasons and watched Picard first and I'm done. I may check out strange new worlds, but I don't have any real hope for it.

[@pwnmeisterage]

CBS Trek feels like a strain and a chore to watch. Instead of being entertaining. The merch doesn't sell, the fans keep revisiting older Treks, there's a distinct lack of fan films dedicated to recent Trek iterations. The new stuff is largely rejected by Trek audiences yet it's also unappealing to wider (non-Trek) audiences.

[@anlumo1]

Discovery did a hard cut in storytelling after Season 2, and now it's becoming bearable. The first season of Picard was bad, but the ending was even worse. The season's overarching story is like the plot of a rejected proposal for a low-budget SciFi straight-to-video movie from the 80s, produced with modern CGI and with way too high of a budget.

[@mudpawsvoom6132]

Don't forget charging to see both episodes ,I think Gene Roddenberry is flipping in his grave about that .

[@kornuithildr4129]

Completely agree on what you said. I would like to add a problem I don't see addressed a lot; likeability of the characters. Discovery's characters are just not likeable enough to keep me watching. Especially the actor playing Burnham. It's like walking the streets and avoiding people you know are going to be troublesome. That's her.

[@odysseusrex5908]

I hope you are not trying to suggest that the fact that Gene's original pitch for the show got changed over time in any way justifies the terrible story writing op STP and STD. Furthermore, regardless of what Gene might originally have imagined, it was clear that, in TOS, economics was still based on the exchange of goods and services for money, the credit, and people sought to earn livings and gain material well being. It was also clear, however that, by the time of Next Gen, this was no longer the case. The word credit is never mentioned in the entire series, or its spinoffs. It's obvious the the replicator, which is clearly an advance on technology seen in TOS, would render exchanges of goods for money irrelevant.

[@kaidenshepard8446]

The currency aspect is totally understandable, while the members of the Federation can indeed want nearly for nothing with replicated items and such, the Federation itself needs to trade with other species and empires as there will be recourses no doubt only key to their areas of space and vise versa and it wont be for free, not all races will have this utpoian want for nothing, when their own societies may run on currency, the Federation credit will no dount have taken some time to settle with all member races to incorporate such a thing and so can be easily translated when trading with non-Federation factions, I honestly have no issue with that at all, and I am sure Federation members including those in Starfleet too will have their own credits - I assume Riker did when he played dabo at Quarks unless he had something to barter, but I think even in the TNG pilot Dr Crusher told one of the traders on one of the stalls at Farpoint to charge the expense to the Enterprise (I think) so it may be a ship has an allocation of credits as well officers and crew - I guess that requires more detailed analysis I assume. TNG brought me to trek properly and that was when I was a child growing up in the 80's DS9 didnt become interesting for me personally until the introduction of the Jem'Hadar when they took out the Odyssey, that was an eye opener for me, Voyager took a while to settle into as it go its own footing but it did and its also another one I enjoy, Enterprise was just getting its footing before the cancellation and that god awful finale. Discovery it hit and miss well season 1 was, season 2 was better and I think thats because Pike's character was a sort of grounding presence, I honestly his character and Spock and Una was what made that season, the ones in season 1 were with Georgiou, especially when she became the captain of Discovery with the Imperial theme playing as she did, that was brilliant for me and boy did I grin then and peopl eat work knew I had seen it too because I do a similar look when Georgiou sat down and does that look, i can do that bang on - things are about to go down, its just a matter of when, ha ha. The new stuff Picard, not seen but I guess its just not for me, Lower Decks I havent watched, only seen little snippets on Twitter same as Picard, I am impressed with that I have seen with that, and look forward to Strange New Worlds, well see how that goes. I like to think i give things a try once and see if I will like it despite reviews and such but I may sit down one day and watch Picard, Lower Decks maybe season 3 of Discovery (though i doubt it since Georgiou isnt in that after a certain episode) so I will be giving season 4 a miss, but everyone has their likes and dislikes in trek, I love the franchise it has both good and bad aspects to it but doesnt stop me from being a trekkie, we are all different and having ndiffering opinoons is what makes us unique and individual.

[@sjprdude]

It’s all about change and in the world of entertainment, adapting to the current times and viewers. Love all Star Trek!!

[@michaelgreenwood3413]

Pretty sure this is more "How I proved I actually knew fuckall about Gene's Vision."

[@michbarkc]

As I understand it, Genes vision was about making money and having lots of sex.

[@michbarkc]

@C C LOL Fair enough.

[@michaelgreenwood3413]

@@michbarkc XD

[@Damaddok82]

Truth of the matter really is, people hate change.

[@ericpleasant7225]

Star Trek is now Alex Kurtzman's twisted, unimaginative vision.

[@JR-dd4ec]

DS9 is my favorite star trek series as well

[@Mike.Muc.3.1415]

"Atlantropa, also referred to as Panropa,[1] was a gigantic engineering and colonisation idea that was devised by the German architect Herman Sörgel in the 1920s, and promoted by him until his death in 1952.[2][3] The project was devised to contain several hydroelectric dams in key points of the Mediterranean Sea, such as the Strait of Gibraltar and the Bosporus, to cause a sea level drop and create new land to settle." (Wikipedia)

[@Mad-Bassist]

Great video! Nice to be reminded of Federation Credits. They've been around a long time in the background. Yeah, if they were truly without a medium of exchange, we wouldn't have Mr. Mudd or the assortment of miners out there!

[@allnamesaretakenful]

It strayed as soon as Roddenberry wasn't hands on. The writers felt hamstringed by Gene's writing rules. Gene wanted the characters to act more evolved, and the writers found that to be too hard.

[@OrangeRiver]

Gene wanted the human characters not to have interpersonal conflict, which is unrealistic and, yes, does make it hard to write dramatic television

[@mallninja9805]

With all Trek through about Enterprise, I felt like the Starfleet crew were fully-realized characters with strengths and weaknesses, AND that they were intelligent adults. With STD I feel like I'm watching a Hollywood committees liner notes of what 90% of an average audience ages 18 - 25 will clap for or boo (depending on the occasion) with a thin veneer of "nerd" painted on. They don't feel like characters, they don't feel like stories. Starting with JJ Abrams, the newest batches of Trek feel like meaningless content, designed to be consumed and immediately forgotten about. And no doubt, that's what the bean counters want. Fat paychecks that nobody things too hard about.

[@MedalionDS9]

DS9 is also my fave Trek, and it was quite dark, full of conflict, and very against the grain of Gene's vision by design... Ira Steven Behr had trouble writing for TNG because of the mandates of vision... DS9 he was allowed to do things more or less his way, and it's fabulous. And yet... I have trouble connecting to things like Discovery and the Picard series. I love the slightly more cerebral take of Trek than the action oriented and overly dramatic fake emotions to manipulate a situation of the newer shows.

[@lauramitchell1924]

I absolutely LOVE Enterprise. The grittiness, the risks.

[@Seinghesa]

Well said sir!

[@davyboy9397]

Can you do a review of The Orville??

[@OrangeRiver]

I'd like to do a video about The Orville! Gotta catch up on season 3, but I can see that being something I cover in the near-ish future on the channel.

[@TheOvadex]

Considering Gene's original vision for the ferengi... I'm ok with how it's going.

[@BizarreGlobal]

I haven’t watched anything in Star Trek since Enterprise. Any of the new series worth watching?

[@BigFrakkinOgre]

Question:Did you enjoy any of the shows from TOS to Enterprise? If yes, don't bother watching the new stuff. If no, the new stuff is right up your alley.

[@dastiles1]

This really good video.

[@Cilmaen]

Change is for the better.

[@Tumoxa89]

DS9, for all it's darkness, isn't really clashes with the vision of optimistic Federation. As you've said, it's on the frontiers, far away from the utopic Earth and its safety net. Hell even Roddenberry-run TNG season 1 had a mention of Tasha's horrible life on some distant colony with the freaking rape gangs. So I don't think DS9 clashes with his vision in terms of what the future of the Earth would be like. The only exception to that would be Section 31, which is kind of a meh addition in my book. And ofcourse, because Alex Kurtzman is a hack, that's the first thing he picked up from the canon and gave it his special dumb treatment. I would say tho, that "no interpersonal conflict" moto Gene was pushing was bullshit, and i'm glad that one aspect of his vision got ignored.

[@Seinghesa]

Thank you.

[@1aikane]

If the shows have drifted far away from Roddenberry's canon, then they are Not Star Trek. They are using the name and some images to promote their own sci-fi show.

[@glennwatson3313]

Star Trek is supposed to be about exploration done by a utopian civilization. Any time it deviates from that model it stops being Star Trek.

[@Murrangurk2]

Change is the source of all grief. The truth is, Roddenberry's original vision had a dark shadow. After he died, iterations of Star Trek flourished that explored that shadow. Deep Space 9, for example, reveals much of Roddenberry's concepts - post-scarcity economy that wasn't communism, but wasn't capitalism; the colonial nature of the Federation; limitations on resources such as use of transporters (you need to "buy" sessions,) and access to replicators etc - to be propaganda. The Federation, and humans, just aren't as good or nice as they'd have you believe. And other races are well aware of this. The new Treks are awesome. Each new iteration is great. Embrace them.

[@charion1234]

The damming of the Mediterranean would have been a disaster anyways like what we've seen with the Aral Sea.

[@JD-np5xq]

I don't care that Discovery, Picard, etc don't follow Gene's vision. I care that they suck on nearly every level and flagrantly disregard canon. Lower Decks is occasionally amusing but is impossible to consider alpha canon IMO.

[@kanaric]

People who always complain about this seem to conveniently forget what they are saying is "totally" not a repeat from TWOK, DS9, or even TNG after the new producers took over lol

[@kaitlyn__L]

There’s often an excuse like “well they still had Gene so that wasn’t the same” or “Berman and Piller had Gene’s blessing so it wasn’t like Kurtzman” and so on. I think in 10-20 years it’ll be viewed among the rest though. NO ONE was giving Enterprise slack in 2003 just because Berman worked on it!

[@wolfpax22]

One thing that I hate to say that I think Gene Roddenberry overdid was the "Human meets super-god-being" plot. He might have liked these as one of the few ways he was able to explore non-humanoid entities. But he also seemed to prefer stories where humanity was faced with some novel challenge to its superiority, either through meeting aliens incomprehensibly more advance than humanity or having a human who end up gaining superhuman powers somehow like in "Charlie X" or "Where No Man has Gone Before." As a consequence I feel like the Star Trek universe is kind of swimming in an overpopulation of super-beings that just never show themselves (from having never been revisited). And that's kinda creepy in a way. The only one of these that seems to recur in canon long after Gene's influence is Q. Though Q's role evolved a bit from how he was portrayed in early episodes too.

[@fredrickseiler4492]

Gene never liked the idea of prequels, either. He always envisioned Trek to be always moving forward into the future.

[@mygeekdom4414]

True, Gene’s vision did have the idea of humanity as utopian. However, I give him a pass on that. Back when Star Trek was first conceived, there was the Viet Nam war and the Civil Rights movement in full force. Part of the reason why TOS didn’t have the grit that later TNG and DS9 had was because people had their fill of grit watching the evening news. When TOS did do an episode which was a commentary on Viet Nam, he got a memo from executives telling him not to do that. Their logic was his production was in the entertainment of department and not news and current events. When TNG came about, there were no major social stressors like TOS had.

[@mygeekdom4414]

@Waller Thraller Is that more arrogant than people who want TOS to be >>NO LONGER CANON!!!

[@iansands8607]

I've been watching Star Trek since it's original run in the 60s and I have to agree DS9 is the best of them all.

[@mikecrabtree8200]

Didn’t watch DS9 for years because of the space station issue. In fact it had finished all 9 seasons and then some years. A very good friend of mine finally talked me in to watching it. I’ve watched it in whole and in part more than 6 times and like so many others it is my favorite next to tos. Really burned my backside when all the ST series were pulled from every streaming service to exclusively land on the new paramount streaming crap can. But I at least got to watch them while they were available.

[@nh3heathen348]

Good video.

[@Kralich]

I've never understood the criticism of Discovery or Picard not being Star Trek, because ultimately as long as it involves some element of the canon established so far it is, by definition, Star Trek. The themes of Star Trek are prevalent in every series made so far - I'd say one of the core themes is "hope for the future and in the face of overwhelming odds". My problem with both Discovery and Picard boils down to execution, not ideas. Dialogue feels like it's trying too hard to be cool, characters behave in ways I wouldn't generally accept from the way we've seen factions to work, and some of the redesigns that seem to serve no purpose other than to look different also begin to get grating. However, because my distaste generally comes from execution and not the premise, I still liked a good chunk of Picard and have liked bits and pieces of Discovery. When they get something right I'm all for it, but often it feels like they're getting it wrong. When there's ten bad lines in every episode and two good lines and the rest are just your usual average banter it's hard to get invested.

[@anthonylowder6687]

Every show or movie that came after Star Trek Voyager has strayed completely away from Gene’s vision of the future and Star Trek…for myself I don’t acknowledge anything after Voyager as canon but everything that was considered canon before Enterprise even FASA as officially canon. After almost 60 years after the first TOS episode was aired I’m firmly convinced that Gene would be appalled and disgusted by what Star Trek has become.

[@raydavison4288]

Thanks for the video. It was very informative. I was lucky enough to have watched OG Star Trek in the '60s. ST has gone in some controversial directions ove r the years. Some I liked & some I have hated. One idea that I really dislike is the long distance capability of transporters.

[@NextToToddliness]

I gave both Discovery & Picard a shot, but was let down horribly. Don't get me wrong, there were things I did like about those shows, but they were outnumbered by all the things I didn't like. Once I saw the horrid future in Picard, with vape-smoking, impoverished former Starfleet officers I was 100% out. Don't get me started on the xenophobic, bigoted Federation (which is the most ironic part of all of this). None of it made any sense, especially after seeing what we did before.

[@OrangeRiver]

The vape smoking is whatever, but Raffi wasn't impoverished...she was just living off the grid. Nothing that we saw really contradicted Trek's proto-post-scarcity society. And the Federation has always had xenophobia issues...the Klingons in ST6, for example. The admirals have always been a pain in the ass lol. I do agree though, that Discovery & Picard have been VERY mixed bags, to put it fairly

[@Andregrindle]

This video is very studied and intelligent, but is full of spurious understandings I've heard repeated again and again. All by videos hosted by young modern internet intellectuals. Many of whom are very possibly using one another as sources for their information. As a Star Trek Fan of 35 years, will offer my own take on it. From this point on, my commentary will be a mixture of Star Trek's history for the last 25 or so years as well as what I personality observed. My own concerns for Star Trek go as far back as the DS9 episode The Way Of The Warrior. The general episode is very good. But was very saddened and frustrated that, halfway through it, the Khitomar accords/alliance between the Federation and the Klingons, has torn asunder. Star Trek TNG had been so revolutionary in presenting the Klingons as uneasy but still fairly solid Federation allies. Not to mention presenting the negotiating table of Jean-Luc Picard having more pull in handling outside conflicts than James T Kirk's stronger armed "cowboy diplomacy". From mid season 4 to the end of DS9? There was a fairly consistent return to the idea of the sword being mightier than the pen. I enjoyed Voyager a bit more, though in my neck of the woods you had to have basic cable to see it and we didn't. I was in my mid to late teens at the time, was still growing up and uncertain. But could see one thing for sure. People of my generation, the latter end of Generation X, were by the late 90s an extremely nihilistic bunch of people. The newer sci fi coming out was more smug, militaristic, dystopian and less hopeful. As I grew to be an adult, realized a lot of this had to do with that same nihilistic generation I was very distanced from were becoming deeply involved in the creative staff of these newer sci fi shows. Including many Star Trek series of the day. As the gap between myself and fellow Gen Xers grew wider and wider during the similarly nihilistic war on terror? Began to think that society would have to undergo a major social change for the better before a new Star Trek of quality to reemerge. What we got from 2009 to 2017 were the Kelvin Timeline movies and Discovery. Neither of these pieces of media did anything newly terrible. But rather continued the spiral towards nihilism in Trek that...frankly went back as far as The Way Of The Warrior in late 1995. Today, my generation and younger are the creative staff of Star Trek. On that? There's a KZbinr called The Critical Drinker. Don't agree with much of his commentary or viewpoints, but will reference a statement he made for more well rounded purposes. And that statement is that over time, Star Trek has become a show by children for children. That doesn't mean children in the sense of the under 13 set. But more people under 40 with underdeveloped understandings and childish emotional levels. The nihilism of the 1990s seems to be reverted the generations actually born in that time, the first online generations, into people defined by fear. Fear of many sorts. Fear of people different from them, fear of sexuality and even fear of the online community that binds them. As it stands today, Star Trek has come to represent creators who are very obviously struggling with inner demons of all sorts. And it shows across Star Trek Discovery, Picard and to some degree Lower Decks. What's important to know is that these problems are far from new, and that there's no reason why the nihilism brought into Star Trek, especially by the middle of DS9's run, has to continue. All of these factors have also made Trek fans, once a fairly unified and forward thinking bunch, into a pack of wolves competing aggressively for feedings grounds. One side raves about "virtue signaling SJW's", the other expresses distain for what the older, more mature creative staff of the older Star Trek series worked so hard to achieve. How can their be IDIC (infinite diversity in infinite combinations) if Star Trek itself is encouraging massive infighting among its own fans via social media? As for this video? Of course, Gene Roddenberry worked with other creative minds in conceiving the original Star Trek. The idea of his "original vision" isn't a literal one referring to his early drafts for the show. And most of all, younger and nihilistic generations of Trek fans needn't highjack Star Trek in a way that only appeals to themselves and others like them. Star Trek functions better as a door opened than a safe locked. Yes it embraces more diversity in its staff today. But mostly rejects the presence and ideas of its elders. So for me personally? Would say Star Trek's creative staff needs to bring more forward thinking younger and older people into its own ranks. That way, it will what it once was striving for-rather than the show celebrating dysfunction and struggle as the only road to positive social progress that it is presently.

[@njb1126]

1966- 2005

[@Todd.P]

I was not a fan of DS9, and I do not even consider the Kelvin Universe (including the destruction of Romulus) to even be part of Star Trek. Piccard was great as a Captain, but the woke series bearing his name turned me off with the first few previews, and although I have seen the first 2 seasons of Discovery, I was finally turned off by their wokeness as well. My wife and I enjoyed TOS, Next Gen, Voyager, and Enterprise, but for us . . . that (and their related movies) is all there was to Star Trek.

[@danielpaquet3963]

Gene's vision is a little boring IMO. Everything evolves and the original vision is kinda unrealistic when you get out into the galaxy and start encountering other civilizations.

[@designatedpiledriver8216]

Nothing stays the same and neither should it