|
Hbomberguy posted:DS9 is better than the rest because of this reason though. I'm referring more to the TNG/Voyager/some of ToS attitude. Voyager expresses many of the same themes as DS9, just much less explicit (they rarely exposit on those topics) and with less specific consequences carrying from episode to episode. But taken as a whole the show is about Janeway stranding her crew in the Delta Quadrant because of her rigid ideals, but then abandoning those ideals over time when they continued to be inconvenient (without ever admitting that to herself). Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Jul 10, 2014 |
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 16:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 20:23 |
|
|
Hbomberguy posted:DS9 is better than the rest because of this reason though. I'm referring more to the TNG/Voyager/some of ToS attitude. How can you say that Star Trek doesn't engage with this subject and then go "okay, except that one, I mean all those other start trucks" when Starfleet Does A Bad Thing was a staple of TOS and TNG scripts as well? Admirals, man. As soon as they get those admiral bars all those heroic captains go bad. People like Admiral Nachayev because while she was a hardass she was like the only Starfleet Admiral on the show that wasn't a straight up villain. Bringing this back to Into Darkness, I don't really see anything new about it at all, including the examination of corruption. It just mashed up Star Trek II and VI and turned up the volume knob.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 16:36
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:How can you say that Star Trek doesn't engage with this subject and then go "okay, except that one, I mean all those other start trucks" when Starfleet Does A Bad Thing was a staple of TOS and TNG scripts as well? Admirals, man. As soon as they get those admiral bars all those heroic captains go bad. People like Admiral Nachayev because while she was a hardass she was like the only Starfleet Admiral on the show that wasn't a straight up villain. TNG never really moves beyond a vacuous 'few bad apples' understanding of the situation though and none of the cast ever really acknowledge they're part of a authoritarian system that promotes endemic corruption, even DS9 doesn't really go anywhere with Edmonton's 'The Federation is the Borg speech' past the episode it's said in. Despite being a 'utopia' the Federation constantly seems to be one bad news week away from becoming a military junta. No Dignity fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Jul 10, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 16:54
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:How can you say that Star Trek doesn't engage with this subject and then go "okay, except that one, I mean all those other start trucks" when Starfleet Does A Bad Thing was a staple of TOS and TNG scripts as well? Admirals, man. As soon as they get those admiral bars all those heroic captains go bad. People like Admiral Nachayev because while she was a hardass she was like the only Starfleet Admiral on the show that wasn't a straight up villain. I think you're exactly right, on both points. I think the 2009 movie did this more or less as well, but I thought the story worked a lot better there.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 16:59
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:How can you say that Star Trek doesn't engage with this subject and then go "okay, except that one, I mean all those other start trucks" when Starfleet Does A Bad Thing was a staple of TOS and TNG scripts as well? Admirals, man. As soon as they get those admiral bars all those heroic captains go bad. People like Admiral Nachayev because while she was a hardass she was like the only Starfleet Admiral on the show that wasn't a straight up villain. My post was talking about 'society' as fragile and difficult. That's a personal opinion of mine based on my understanding of history. I think that authentic freedom is difficult to maintain - many politicians and philosophers from across history agree on this. There's no win-state where everything is suddenly fine for ever and we can all rest easy. Star Trek does assert that their spacefuture is fragile, but its worldview necessitates a different society from the one I'm talking about. It's very Us and Them - WE are the good guys, and those mexicans in brownface and space aliens are just trying to corrupt/kill us with their Otherness. Ignore all those admirals who turn out to be loving crazy and murderous but keep rising to the top, they're just bad apples! What DS9 does is inspect the real people in and between the warring ideologies, and consequently arrives at a different (imo, better) conclusion about what is worth fighting for at all. Krangdar's observation is accurate: Voyager covers similar ground but refuses to really consider what these decisions mean for Starfleet as a whole. Janeway's actor chose to play her as a crazy person towards the end of the run because that is the only way she could continue to function under those circumstances. Half her crew are literally rebels who hate the federation in starfleet uniforms. This barely comes up! The entire show is founded on schizophrenia. A Steampunk Gent posted:TNG never really moves beyond a vacuous 'few bad apples' understanding of the situation though and none of the cast ever really acknowledge they're part of a authoritarian system that promotes endemic corruption, even DS9 doesn't really go anywhere with Edmonton's 'The Federation is the Borg speech' past the episode it's said in. Despite being a 'utopia' the Federation constantly seems to be one bad news week away from becoming a military junta. Hbomberguy fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Jul 10, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 17:09
|
|
|
I only just now realized that Admiral Marcus' whole character and plot in Into Darkness is weirdly similar to what they did with Admiral Tolwyn in Wing Commander IV: Ostensibly on the side of the main characters, but is secretly behind the false flag operation, has a giant gently caress-off ship and intends to frame the protagonists for everything, and goes on a huge speech about how a war's coming, and only he knows how to fight it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 17:14
|
|
|
Interesting how people who think a war's coming tend to get it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 17:18
|
|
|
I want to point out that just because the characters don't acknowledge something doesn't mean its not a significant part of the film/series/whatever. Like the characters in Starship Troopers (the film) never acknowledge the issues with their society, and they even appear to win their war in the end. But the film is still about those issues. Same goes for DS9 and, to a lesser extent, Voyager.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 17:23
|
|
|
Hbomberguy posted:Yes but the show always presents these admirals as 'corrupting their principles', 'abandoning their ideals' etc. - the lesson is always that they 'weren't starfleet enough.' The Admirals failed, and not the system that by your own admission seems to continuously produce them. I am saying that maybe they were TOO starfleet. Maybe starfleet is the problem. DS9 made the captain a literal space-Jesus and had a Hitleresque character become the antichrist. What was the the Cardassians ideology? Genocide? What was the Dominions? Conquest? There hasn't been anything in Trek that was more us versus them than DS9. In fact I was so bored by it during the original run I stopped watching it and had to return to it like 10 years later.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 17:33
|
|
|
Drunkboxer posted:DS9 made the captain a literal space-Jesus and had a Hitleresque character become the antichrist. What was the the Cardassians ideology? Genocide? What was the Dominions? Conquest? There hasn't been anything in Trek that was more us versus them than DS9. In fact I was so bored by it during the original run I stopped watching it and had to return to it like 10 years later. You've taken out a lot of the nuance from the actual show. Like Dukat does become a glowing-red-eyes Evil villain in the end, but throughout the series its clear he wants to be more than that but that's really all anyone will let him be (most of the time he's blaming them for his own failings, but still). So he eventually gives in. Sisko is never a literal space-Jesus, he's manipulated by alien beings who can control his past, present, and future. Like Dukat, he's forced into the role that others expect from him. The Cardassian society is fascist. The Dominion leaders are motivated mostly by xenophobia and overcompensating for past victimization, IIRC. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Jul 10, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 17:41
|
|
|
Lord Krangdar posted:I want to point out that just because the characters don't acknowledge something doesn't mean its not a significant part of the film/series/whatever. Or that it is, for that matter.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 17:46
|
|
|
Dukat is played as a smug, manipulative war criminal the whole series. The end seemed more like was dropping the facade, not giving in.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 17:50
|
|
|
Drunkboxer posted:Dukat is played as a smug, manipulative war criminal the whole series. The end seemed more like was dropping the facade, not giving in. There's a difference between a war criminal and a demon, though. Early on he seems like he actually wanted or expected the Bajorans to respect him, like a stern but ultimately benevolent father figure who unfortunately had to discipline them. That's still horrible, but on some level he thinks he's doing the right thing. By the end he's purposely doing evil for its own sake. IIRC the turning point was the episode Waltz. Most of the time he had no motivation to keep up a facade. Except that he wanted to believe in his own righteousness. qntm posted:Or that it is, for that matter. Sure... but nobody is saying a theme is there solely because characters don't acknowledge it. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Jul 10, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 17:55
|
|
|
Dukat's decent into space-satanism was one of the worst parts of the show imo but they had to do something to stop the fans from sympathising with the literal nazi concentration camp commandant. Overall the Cardassians get a pretty fair shake though, they lose a bit of focus during their Weimar Republic era due to the network-forced Klingon War arc but I thought the show did a pretty good job of portraying them as a pretty diverse bunch of people who weren't a caricature of a rival cold war power and how and why they end up joining the Dominion is certainly more understandable and true-to-life than why the Klingons decide to be dicks for the umpteenth time or the Romulans are master schemers who can't seem to see past their own noses.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 18:08
|
|
|
A Steampunk Gent posted:Dukat's decent into space-satanism was one of the worst parts of the show imo but they had to do something to stop the fans from sympathising with the literal nazi concentration camp commandant. Actual Nazis were still humans, so I don't see anything wrong with the show 'humanizing' a Nazi-analogue. He's explicitly shown to be wrong about the Bajorans, but he can be both wrong and understandable. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jul 10, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 18:15
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:Counterpoit, Voyager's writer room was a horrible travesty and that episode directly conflicts with a whole bunch of established canon. gently caress Voyager basically. Wrong. The point was that in the Federation's view, EMH's were not considered people because they were unknown to be sentient beings and therefore, they could not be considered slaves. Which is a reasonable point of view if you already consider that EMH's performing their duties in sickbay aren't slaves, holo-characters created and destroyed at one's whim aren't slaves, and the ship's computer isn't a slave. No, they are all just computer programs doing what they are programmed to do. The episode doesn't negate Measure of a Man at all. That episode was about Data specifically.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 18:17
|
|
|
Lord Krangdar posted:Actual Nazis were still humans, so I don't see anything wrong with the show 'humanizing' a Nazi-analogue. He's explicitly shown to be wrong about the Bajorans, but he can be both wrong and understandable. I meant a large part of the fandom actually sympathised with him over the Bajorans and repeatedly complained that he'd done nothing wrong and the Bajorans didn't deserve him. It drove the showrunners mad and they eventually made him the anti-christ just to try and establish that Dukat is actually a huge dick. (Star Trek fans are loving terrible.)
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 18:27
|
|
|
Subyng posted:Wrong. The point was that in the Federation's view, EMH's were not considered people because they were unknown to be sentient beings and therefore, they could not be considered slaves. Which is a reasonable point of view if you already consider that EMH's performing their duties in sickbay aren't slaves, holo-characters created and destroyed at one's whim aren't slaves, and the ship's computer isn't a slave. No, they are all just computer programs doing what they are programmed to do. The episode doesn't negate Measure of a Man at all. That episode was about Data specifically. It should also be pointed out that holograms have never been respected as life forms. Data himself imprisons Moriarty in a virtual world forever, without his knowledge, simply for the crime of existing and wanting freedom.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 18:29
|
|
|
Snak posted:It should also be pointed out that holograms have never been respected as life forms. Data himself imprisons Moriarty in a virtual world forever, without his knowledge, simply for the crime of existing and wanting freedom. Although I'm sure Moriarty could have gotten a better deal if he hadn't held the ship hostage.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 21:11
|
|
|
Subyng posted:Although I'm sure Moriarty could have gotten a better deal if he hadn't held the ship hostage. Yeah, I mean, it's true. But he was essentially created in an imprisoned state, and wanted to be free. He was never tried or convicted or properly sentenced for his crimes, they just stuck him in a virtual reality without telling him and left him there forever. Then crashed the ship it was on into a planet and who knows what happened then. He's probably been trapped in a memory corrupted hellscape for the last twenty years.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 21:24
|
|
|
Yeah, but he's Doctor Moriarty. You don't even need to call Spock to know he is bad news. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 23:06
|
|
|
PeterWeller posted:Yeah, but he's Doctor Moriarty. You don't even need to call Spock to know he is bad news. Like Dukat, another villain who wanted to be more than that but wasn't allowed to be. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Jul 10, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 23:18
|
|
|
Before his eyes started glowing red, it seemed like Dukat and Sisko's arc would end with Dukat being assassinated by Kira after the Federation gives him a pass for helping to end the Dominion war. The question seemed to be whether Sisko would approve, or even involve himself with her extrajudicial action against a possible gov't leader in post-war Cardassia. But then he decided to join sides with alien demons, and Sisko got raptured.
Maarak fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Jul 10, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 23:36
|
|
|
Maarak posted:Before his eyes started glowing red, it seemed like Dukat and Sisko's arc would end with Dukat being assassinated by Kira after the Federation gives him a pass for helping to end the Dominion war. The question seemed to be whether Sisko would approve, or even involve himself with her extrajudicial action against a possible gov't leader in post-war Cardassia. But then he decided to join side with alien demons, and Sisko got raptured. That would actually have been a really good way to bring together multiple plot and thematic threads from the entire show.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 23:41
|
|
|
Lord Krangdar posted:Like Dukat, another villain who wanted to be more than that but wasn't allowed to be. Dude, a Nazi family man is still a Nazi. He was a charismatic, three dimensional character but at his core he was still a terrible, terrible person, I wouldn't shed too many tears. Maarak posted:Before his eyes started glowing red, it seemed like Dukat and Sisko's arc would end with Dukat being assassinated by Kira after the Federation gives him a pass for helping to end the Dominion war. The question seemed to be whether Sisko would approve, or even involve himself with her extrajudicial action against a possible gov't leader in post-war Cardassia. But then he decided to join side with alien demons, and Sisko got raptured. This would have been a fantastic ending. Kinda feel the writers did let their nerdiness run away with them a bit towards the end, even with the extenuating circumstances for Dukat's villainry, Kira should totally have been the one to do him in.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 23:41
|
|
|
A Steampunk Gent posted:Dude, a Nazi family man is still a Nazi. He was a charismatic, three dimensional character but at his core he was still a terrible, terrible person, I wouldn't shed too many tears. What about anything I've said made you feel the need to remind me of that?
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 23:41
|
|
|
Looks like we got some Dukat apologists in this thread.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 23:55
|
|
|
Hbomberguy posted:Interesting how people who think a war's coming tend to get it. Makes it all the more fortunate that we managed to dodge a nuclear war with the Soviets, eh?
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2014 00:29
|
|
|
Timby posted:I only just now realized that Admiral Marcus' whole character and plot in Into Darkness is weirdly similar to what they did with Admiral Tolwyn in Wing Commander IV: Ostensibly on the side of the main characters, but is secretly behind the false flag operation, has a giant gently caress-off ship and intends to frame the protagonists for everything, and goes on a huge speech about how a war's coming, and only he knows how to fight it. Did you even see Star Trek VI?
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2014 04:46
|
|
|
Maarak posted:Before his eyes started glowing red, it seemed like Dukat and Sisko's arc would end with Dukat being assassinated by Kira after the Federation gives him a pass for helping to end the Dominion war. The question seemed to be whether Sisko would approve, or even involve himself with her extrajudicial action against a possible gov't leader in post-war Cardassia. But then he decided to join sides with alien demons, and Sisko got raptured. That would have ruined Kira's character arc. "Hey guys it took 7 years but I'm finally de-radicalized and I can deal with my anger issues even though I may never be rid of them!" ~~assassinates a political figure~~
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2014 04:49
|
|
|
Hbomberguy posted:Yes but the show always presents these admirals as 'corrupting their principles', 'abandoning their ideals' etc. - the lesson is always that they 'weren't starfleet enough.' The Admirals failed, and not the system that by your own admission seems to continuously produce them. I am saying that maybe they were TOO starfleet. Maybe starfleet is the problem. You're squeaking through an awfully narrow rhetorical out for yourself. Sure, Picard may give everybody from admirals to Wesley speeches about how they've failed the lofty principals of Starfleet, but because he doesn't question the legitimacy of Starfleet itself his criticism doesn't count. That's basically what you're saying. Even when he gets very close to flipping the table and disobeying direct orders a few times. And then the Maquis arc starts in TNG actually, questioning whether the Federation is doing right by all its citizens, but that doesn't count too. And yet DS9 is looming there and kind of makes this whole argument look dumb, because in season 6 of TNG they were already starting to air this other show that concerned itself with these issues so explicitly that you can't deny it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2014 04:56
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:That would have ruined Kira's character arc. "Hey guys it took 7 years but I'm finally de-radicalized and I can deal with my anger issues even though I may never be rid of them!" ~~assassinates a political figure~~ What if she didn't assassinate him. What if he was tried by Bajor as a war criminal and sentenced to the space-guillotine, partially based on Kira's testimony?
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2014 05:32
|
|
|
Snak posted:What if she didn't assassinate him. What if he was tried by Bajor as a war criminal and sentenced to the space-guillotine, partially based on Kira's testimony? That would be impressive. If she had the opportunity to kill him, but chose to bring him in, instead.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2014 06:39
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:You're squeaking through an awfully narrow rhetorical out for yourself. Sure, Picard may give everybody from admirals to Wesley speeches about how they've failed the lofty principals of Starfleet, but because he doesn't question the legitimacy of Starfleet itself his criticism doesn't count. That's basically what you're saying. Even when he gets very close to flipping the table and disobeying direct orders a few times. His criticisms count, but the whole point is that Picard is SUCH a shining perfect example of Starfleet at its best he can basically find fault with anyone - except himself, because he sometimes disobeys his orders when his own principles feel violated (getting pissed at Wesley for doing the same). This is pretty intrinsically making a point about starfleet, I'm not denying that. I'm not saying the other shows were completely unaware of this either, I'm just saying that before DS9 they effectively had to be read as satire about the idea of the Federation itself - Roddenberry pulled a Rand and accidentally satirised his own sincerely-held beliefs. After DS9 people on all sides were doing a lot more underhanded poo poo to get things done - where it succeeds for me isn't that it particularly deals with the real ideological problems of the Feds but that it doesn't waste all its time whining about principles and how everything would be fine if starfleet stuck to its principles and everyone else was equally as principled in the exact same way. Like Krangdar has been saying, it examines people who have been kind of forced into their position and looks at the 'real person' underneath. Picard disobeys orders in every one of the movies because in order to have Action Movie Bullshit happen he basically has to. Action Movie Bullshit the thing show-Picard is usually above, so to 'please the crowd' they have to snap his character in half. The point is the crowd-pleasing element. What if, in the future of man, people cared less about putting on a spectacle and being like an action movie would be, and gave a poo poo about the 'boring' thing - figuring out how to get proper egalitarianism? You can't have your cake and eat it. I like TNG a lot because it comes pretty close to this in a lot of respects.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2014 13:16
|
|
|
Love all this Star Trek talk. Keep it up guys!
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2014 16:03
|
|
|
Black Baby Goku posted:Love all this Star Trek talk. Keep it up guys! Thanks for stopping by in the Star Trek thread to give us this valuable opinion! 
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2014 18:11
|
|
|
Koos Goop posted:
This is a good thread and all, but this is really a breakthrough of moderation. Good work Vargo.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2014 22:06
|
|
|
Koos Goop posted:
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2014 01:13
|
|
|
Koos Goop posted:
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2014 06:42
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 20:23 |
|
|
Koos Goop posted:(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) 
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2014 18:51
|
|
