There is nothing thought provoking or original about Discovery. The show is like that person you meet who, after a few minutes of talking politics, you pretty much know everything they are going to say. They offer nothing new or insightful and the conversation becomes boring.
Exactly. It had one almost-decent idea, I think, in Adira and Gray. The problem is it had nothing interesting to say or do with that unusual premise, and the characters were/are insufferable and shallow, and it wrote one of them out of the show because it had no idea how to actually make use of the setup. The rest, as you say, is just bumper sticker crap.
@@TheLittlePlatoon Insufferable and shallow might be the only two words anyone needs to describe the show at this point. I hate being that negative, but I am just so disappointed in what Star Trek has become.
I realised the other day that the main reason why wokeness and old Trek's philosophy are different, is because wokeness focuses on revenge. Characters in old Trek could and did become involved in wars with various species; but once the war was over, the emphasis went back to diplomacy, restitution, and rehabilitation as quickly as possible. Eventually, a previously very antagonistic species might even join the Federation. By contrast, woke people respond to anyone who disagrees with them by either telling them that they are looking forward to when they die, or by trying to cancel them. Cancellation is, in reality, the plausibly deniable goal of destroying a person's life in every non-lethal way possible, with the hope that eventually they will be persuaded to commit suicide, so that the people who engaged in said cancellation can tell themselves that they are still pacifists. Roddenberry was about eventual symbiotic assimilation of perceived opposition; wokeness is about the summary obliteration of it.
@@O1OO1O1 Eh, not exactly... when Trump promoted the poke a lot of his supporters vehemently opposed him to his face at CPAC 2021. That's not a cult. The reason people voted for Trump was not because of Trump it was because he was an outsider of the politics and felt what many of the right wanted for the US. Secure the border and be America First. In fact, many of the Bernie supporters ended up voting for Trump because Bernie had some of those same values.
I literally said exactly what you said: that old trek TRANSCENDS politics. Some Twitter bot raged at me for saying that and said "There's no such thing as transcending politics". That's how zombified these people are. All that matters is their forceful politics. Essentially, they are political rapists.
They’ve completely forgotten that there’s a difference between being political and being party-political. There’s a vast difference between saying “racism is bad and its legacy is complicated” and saying “Stacey Abrams should be God-King of Earth”.
Old Star Trek was political, but politics was much different then. It was political in keeping with Ghandi or MLK regarding civil rights by demonstrating the absurdity of some racial stereotypes and conventional norms. It was political by espousing Ideas of socialism that seemed to work out in the future. Star Trek's world was a nirvana without poverty, starvation, illiteracy, or wars, on Earth a least. Star Trek was a meritocracy and there was universal education along with medical care for all. This was all looking into a crystal ball to see the future if we could all just get with the Socialist program. In this way, Star Trek was political.
I appreciate your channel and its rational analyses of Star Trek. I'm American and consider myself liberal by an older definition. I grew up on TNG and DS9. I count Star Trek among some of the more profound influences to who I am now as a person. I find new Trek heart-breakingly unwatchable. Thank you for articulating the 'why' far better than I ever could.
I just want to say, Im a libertarian conservative, and I applaud your post. A true liberal wouldn’t do what these producers are doing. Liberalism meant free speech, pro-choice, anti-war (thats a big one for me) and equality for EVERYONE. Your post is inspiring because there are liberals who feel as you do, bit are afraid to speak out. What have we come to? These people are pro segregation, anti-man, pro-war (never thought Id see Democrats start a war with Russia, but Donald Trump, the most evil man in history keep his word and keep us out of war). Logic, humanity and common sense have gone bye-bye. You and I probably would right now politically vote different, but you and I could join forces in my living room, have a cup of Earl Grey together, and watch Star Trek because that future, deep down is what we want. Badly. Not this dystopian nightmare. Hats off to you! You have boldly gone where few have gone before, and I too, would not be the man I am today if it wasn’t for Star Trek. It taught us to love each other. New Trek wants us to hate each other. Is that Star Trek? Right now, Star Trek is LYING TO US.
@@TheLittlePlatoon I agree with you BOTH. I enjoy his critique of star trek. It's pretty clear and sometimes I agree with him a lot on how these (un) leftist anti-progresives are. They are simply fascist and are on the same coin as their counter parts. Why, as this guy has pointed out, disagreeing with either group gets the same response. I agree on that much with this bloke
For anyone who doesn't know the Abraham Lincoln reference, there's an eoisode where he shows up (I don't know how, don't care) and he remarks about Uhura being on the bridge crew, and he says something like "What a lovely negress, and serving on the bridge..." and he kind of catches himself and apologizes immediately, saying he knows it's now an offensive term. She was confused as to why he was apologizing, and when she gets it, she laughs and says they don't even care about terms like that anymore, it's just so far in the past and now discrimination is between species (Klingon, etc).
At Lincoln's time, that was an accepted term. Im not defending the term, it was unacceptable at the time the episode was created, but reflected back on how times had dramatically changed...that was the purpose of using the word. Also, Lincoln was never from the old Deep South, he was from the cental US, having left his state of birth, Kentuckey (mid Eastern US, indeed part of the South, but not terribly deep...it borders the Northern state of Ohio, after all) and moved to Illinois where he grew up. He was a product of his times, was not outright for ending slavery until forced to, and used the language, where "negress," no matter how offensive in the 1960's or today, would be a polite term.
@@susansokoloski2233 _it was unacceptable at the time the episode was created_ But in reality it's how Lincoln would have spoken. Either we want historical accuracy from characters or we don't. The earth continued to spin on it's access, the seasons came and went, and no one was harmed by the exchange. This falls into the category that you can't call your bedroom a "Master Bedroom" because "master implies there are slaves". it's inane. We're letting people IQ's of 90 define the culture.
I’m not the type prone to talking to the TV, but when the shuttle door opened after a second of thinking “Wait… is that…?” I literally shouted “OH, COME ON!” at the screen in astounded disbelief.
That was the only episode of the show that I watched. I had the same reaction. I thought Stacey Abrams was gone for good and the doors opened as they said the President of Earth. I was shocked and bewildered by that sinister grin she was sporting. I heard some voice saying "I'm back" from another movie, maybe Independence Day. I noticed a distinct lack of testosterone throughout the show and how many of these powerful women were still in high-heel shoes. I call them torture boots. I would have thought that women of the future would have been comfortable wearing sensible shoes like every man on earth wears since the invention of shoes. If my shoes hurt my feet, they go for a ride. Well, it is all fantasy after all.
12:29 Orwell explained it perfectly: it's called "doublethink." The ability to contradict yourself without acknowledging--consciously or unconsciously--that you have done so.
3:59 "Old Trek's goal was always to assert our common humanity." 🖖 10:09 "[Old Trek] accepted that there are morals and values common to all humanity .... This universalism is why Old Trek is so fondly remembered now by people of all political and party affiliations." 🖖
Clearly I'm utterly mal-informed. I had no idea who she was when I watched the episode. But this didn't stop me retching over her character in the show and the speech she gave at the end. Having been educated to the point where I now know who she is, her inclusion feels all the more distasteful, and counter-productive.
They could not have made a stronger statement to more than half the potential viewers that this show is not made for them, though after four seasons, most people could have few doubts in that department.
More than half, I’d say, given it includes a great many people who might otherwise lean Left but who remember when that didn’t involve supporting race-grifting con-artists. And it includes most people who used to watch Star Trek for the lessons it taught and appreciated that it wasn’t just a big-budget campaign add for this or that political party.
@@TheLittlePlatoon race grifting is One thing but these writers with ... leave out a GOOD story with character with nothing to do but exist...why even with that? Another point of agreement!
The advantages of not being American. Since I don't know who the hell that woman is, the first thing I thought when I saw her was: Oh, so that's the president of the terrestrial isolationists who starved one of their solar colonies to death.
True. The side that claims to be universalist and inclusive is ironically the one pretending that the US and it's professional grifters are known and relevant to the whole world, that there is nothing beyond America. I'd say to just imagine she's, like, Jeremy Corbyn, but I don't think that's fair to Corbyn.
As a Mexican I can tell George Takey and the other STD stooges that I neither care for US politics nor they have any right to impose whoever that lady is on me, much less as "President of Earth".
This is something I think everyone gets wrong, and I wish they would stop... There's a difference between moral and political. Star trek has always been moral, and thats always leaned liberal. But it's never been overtly political. That's why tng never did an episode where an overt Gingrich stand in tried to impeach the Federation president b/c he got a handy from an orion slave girl.
I object to this cameo firstly on an artistic level. Its unimaginative in the extreme and one of the major reasons I dislike Discovery so intensely. Original Trek (defined as Trek produced between 1966 and 2005), even at its worst was more creative in using allegory and sci fi to comment on contemporary issues. It espoused secular humanism rather than any "right/left" ideology. This however feels lazy, condescending and transparent and gives me a sick, queasy feeling in my lower intestines. Sincerely, an Australian atheist :-)
I can say that I respect the idea of being object coming from atheism. But the woke crap is absolutely evil. -Some random Bible believing Christian. :-)
Abrams and other demagogues need to stay well from acting roles. This reflects poorly on a series as the relevance of these people fade or is discovered they are flawed... sometimes deeply so. Another point of agreement! My word!😎
@James Patrik The Abrams cameo is surely vile, but the narrator prating about 'the woke left' when there's nothing left wing about STD's misandrist, anti-white racist, anti-egalitarian posing, is offensive. Abrams is just one more corrupt hack affiliated with the largely far right Democrat party, which only represents its vicious donor-owners.
I personally thought it was pretty funny. As of the air date of this episode, she hadn't won an election past the GA legislature, and here on this show she's President of the Planet Earth. But I was also like, "oh no they didn't" lol
I always enjoy your patient explanation of the proper meaning of "liberal" for my compatriots on our side of the pond. As an old fart I can recall when such reminders wouldn't have been necessary any more than the explanation of why the US is a republic rather than a democracy. Sigh. Back when Old Trek was the only Trek it had a recurring theme that we could learn from the past and use communication to reach mutual understanding and compromise. New Trek seems to have settled on a theme of the good guys winning or having already won because of their inherent moral superiority. I do not see this change as an improvement.
It's not. It's for people who, as we've seen in real life during the COVID pandemic, believe in dominance and authoritarianism as a vehicle for equality. It's a very strange version of collectivism for the rich and privileged, which seems to have been spread--like a virus--by people who want to control and monetise such people. And it's maintained by narcissists and opportunists who exploit and adapt that as a camouflage, for their own benefit. Actually educated people with life experience don't fall for such nonsense.
The right here in America has made "liberal" an ugly word. They are not even conservative but radical, reactionary, obsessed with sex preferences to even getting arrested for... Certain types of acts. As if our police could use another excuse to bother citizens
@@yurikendal4868 A liberal in the classic sense (or the US left of 50 years ago) would be appalled by social media's speech codes or the FBI raiding journalist's homes. Today's left seems to think a Ministry of Truth is long overdue. Go figure. As to the right seeking the criminalization of sexual preferences I have no idea what you're referring to. But then I don't read the Guardian very often so I may have missed something.
If there was ever a show right here, right now that had the power and message to UNITE ALL OF US, its Star Trek. Specifically, NEW Star Trek. Instead, the producers have used their money and power to force their modern day politics right down the throats of viewers. Stacy Abrams being the Federation President was a disgraceful political stunt that used Star Trek to promote a specific political candidate for a political party. What if Ron DeSantis was cast as the President? That would also be a bad idea, because its too close to home. As if Abrams being the boss f everything isnt enough, it had to be ANOTHER woman in power. Look at that bridge. Where are all the guys? Straight white males? Is there suddenly a shortage? EQUALITY means EQUALITY. Balance it out. Basically modern Trek is saying that in THIS future, men are all cucks, women are in charge of everything, and marxist leftist Democrats (apparently the Democrat party is alive and well in the 23rd century) rule the galaxy. This betrays EVERYTHING Star Trek was founded on. Having Stacy Abrams play the Fed President was a middle finger to half the country, and it was done with malicious intent, make no mistake. “If you aren’t a woke racist , heterophobic marxist, this show isnt for you. Well, I’ve got an audacious idea for you Alex Kurtzman: You want to honor Gene Roddeberry? You want this new Trek to be as bold as the original? Put a Russian back on the bridge right now, knowing whats going on in Ukraine. THAT would be true Star Trek. And no dialogue about his/her Russian heritage because it would be irrelevant at that time. Just have them BE THERE. Thats enough. But instead, you bigots hijacked Star Trek as a political tool to rile up your violent, rioting marxist extremist buddies, while turning your backs on TRUE liberal and conservative fans who PAY YOUR F*CKING SALARY. I am a man of peace, but I hope Secret Hideout goes bankrupt, Kurtzman is disgraced, and someone who will HONOR Star Trek is brought in to fix this mess!
@@Fridaey13txhOktober I get it. But hey, I was trying to be a uniter, trying to send some type of peace message while reminding the producers what Trek is REALLY about. But you are right in that they dont really want freedom of thought.
I remember on forever knight, one of the vampires was talking about giving a man the immortality of the vampires. When he was about to do it, he felt this man's evil should never be amplified. The man was Hitler. I feel giving Stacey the role of president of the earth would be the same thing. Some people shouldn't have power.
I really don’t think there’s any harm in having Stacey Abrams “weigh” in on issues every now and then. If we’re too picky, Discovery will be crushed under the weight of its fifteen fans’ expectations.
Here is what Dean Russel wrote in 1955: _Many of us call ourselves “liberals.” And it is true that the word “liberal” once described persons who respected the individual and feared the use of mass compulsions. But the leftists have now corrupted that once-proud term to identify themselves and their program of more government ownership of property and more controls over persons. As a result, those of us who believe in freedom must explain that when we call ourselves liberals, we mean liberals in the uncorrupted classical sense. At best, this is awkward and subject to misunderstanding._ _Here is a suggestion: Let those of us who love liberty trade-mark and reserve for our own use the good and honorable word “libertarian_
There is a BBC news article on the DS9 Ep; Far Beyond the Stars - They interviewed Hassler-Forest (A Proffesor in Media and Pop Culture" who said in the interview to the BBC; ""I find Discovery kind of insufferable," Hassler-Forest admits. “Because it sometimes feels more like a TED talk about social injustice. But Far Beyond the Stars is a rare episode that is so compelling because it’s about the historical legacy and the complexities of racial politics."".
It’s maddening, isn’t it. People will attack critics of NuTrek on the grounds that “they just don’t like seeing diverse people/tackling injustice,” ignoring that a huge number of Old Trek fans liked Old Trek because it did precisely these things, but did them better.
It's always kind of rubbed me the wrong way when Sisko came off sounding like a woke racist in Season 7's "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang" going off on the fictional setting of Vic Fontain's 1962 holo program. Granted Cassidy Yates response in the same seen sets him straight, it was still borderline "wokeness" that someone in the 24th century and part of a diverse, multicultural, intergalactic, democratic federation of Planets and 400 years removed from the 1960 civil rights movement in the United States of America would act so ignorant and hateful as if racism between "white humans" and "Black humans" still existed. As much as Sisko's attitude bothers me in that episode, I can grant it a pass because of Season 6's "Far Beyond The Stars" that episode is what explains his character when that moment comes in "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang". Having never experienced racism from other humans, Sisko's experience as Benny Russell in the 1950s essentially de-evolved him. All his life, Earth has effectively been without distinctions of individual countries, ethnicities, or cultures separating one human from the other, but exposure to life in the 1950's and seeing humans separate and stratify themselves by race planted the seed of racism in his head and he was unable to unsee the cruelty humans are capable of doing to each other. Too many on the far-left focus on Sisko's words as reinforcement of their own racist attitudes and act as if nothing has changed since the 1960s, and the completely ignore Cassidy's words that sets Ben straight: "We are no longer bound by any limitations, except the ones we impose on ourselves."
I think you're reading too much into this; Stacey Abrams is just a massive (and I do mean MASSIVE) Trek fan. She always says "May the Force be with you," at events.
Been following US politics & been a Star Trek fan for 20 years - Stacy Abrams should never have appeared in the show. I'm sure there was a heated debate in the writers room about this, but ultimately it is so on the nose it's absurd. The fact that Chekov was russian or Sulu was japanese (appart from one famous scene with a sword) never was a basis for a plot, it was just natural. "Nu Trek" resembles a comic strip in which a 200 pound blue haired lesbian sjw activist sits down at a diner, is offended that there are "only" 5 different dishes of bacon & eggs and then screams at the staff "DIVERSITY!".
I absolutely agree. I was gravely outraged that Discovery did this and lost any faith in the show. My reason for this came to a number of reasons. 1. By allowing an actual politician on a Star Trek shows that the show favors a certain political party. 2. It opens the doors to having numerous politicians appear in any future shows or series. 3. Sure, you can enjoy having Democrats on Star Trek right now, but in the future, it can be other political party members because the ideologies changes. For example, Trump has cameoed in movies before. How would you feel about having him show up in Star Trek? No, don't want to have him there? It's too late. You've opened the door to make that happen, and it would be unfair to deny other politicians the right to show up in Star Trek because it would be unfair and completely biased to deny that.
I was so shocked they did that . I was talking with someone yesterday i explained actor's or Hollywood told you too vote regardless of whom you vote for , now they tell you whom to vote for . ( which makes it propaganda). Fear not still listening your not suppressed just yet
Star Trek has historically approached political issues from a philosophical perspective. Politics, in and of itself is the dichotomy of Right and Left in whatsoever terms one views those outdated concepts. This is as inadequate way to address those issues as they automatically invoke tribalism. The manner in which Star Trek addressed these issues was allegorical, allowing us to distance ourselves personally from the issues and attempt to view them passively and impartially.
It is disheartening to see George Takei's expression of schadenfreude towards the Republicans, there. I won't try and claim that I never experience that emotion myself, but I do try and resist it, because it is both practically destructive, and spiritually dangerous. I would have at least hoped that Takei would try and set a more positive example for fans; but as we've recently seen with Sir Patrick Stuart, it is not just the old message that has been corrupted with time. Sadly, at least some of the old actors themselves seem to have been.
Oh, Takei is pure poison. I follow him on Facebook. There aren’t that many people who are so very bitter, petty, hypocritical, wrongheaded and so proud of all these things.
I saw a disturbing video on the new trek show ( strange new world's) the guy in the video said that fans of old trek ( including himself) should just except and approve of canon changes or plot holes , bad writing ect because its not made for us its made for a new audience ( younger) if you aren't making a show for its fans why bother ? And if the new fand dont know the canon then why bother changing it ? you can make it in a modern fashion with whatever questionable goal but atill respect its canon . And of course all criticism of the show or his words are considered hate speech. ( typical)
It’s nonsense. I wasn’t even 10 when the Star Wars prequels were released. They were the films made for “my generation”. Like a lot of people of my generation, I have fond memories of them, despite their billions of flaws. But also like many in my generation, the original trilogy is my favourite - because it wasn’t made with a generation in mind, it was made to tell a great story. Ditto Lord of the Rings. Corporates have this weird obsession with capturing momentary audiences, and seem not to understand that you’ll get a much bigger audience - including the next generation - by telling timeless stories.
@@TheLittlePlatoon exactly, i started watching trek as tng was starting but i loved tos and later show . And the same with star wars, i saw ot first, read the books loved the pt ( despite its flaws ) ect yet hate the sequels, what changed ? Not us
There was plenty of BAD social and political commentary in older trek as well-though I'm going to point out a difference. There's plenty of episodes of TNG and DS9 that were extremely pandering to an issue of the moment and inserted hamfisted, on-the-nose social messages with rather lame allegories. One of these I could point out is TNG: Forces of Nature, where the Enterprise learns that Warp Drive Technology is destroying space (through some nebulous means). It's very directly an allegory for internal combustion engines damaging the ozone layer. Which is still dated since, at that time, environmental messaging was more concerned with maintaining the atmosphere than worrying about greenhouse gas effects. It's an episode that has many problems, it shallowly addresses an issue, and it attempts to pretend it's going to shake up the status quo of the series but this episodes get blatantly ignored. There's a handwave in some of the expanded literature that Star Trek engineers just fixed the warp engine problem so it no longer does any damage, off screen, and every warp engine then operates completely fine with no consequences. But at the end of the day, it's just a bad episode. That episode is far divorced from the point of the show. If you don't like it, you still had consistent characters behaving with consistent motivations, so you could tune in again next week and see the next episode and still be invested in the show. Nobody had to be transformed into a different character in order to address a relevant social message, and then turned into a different character the next week when it was no longer relevant. You didn't get dragged down by everything that had to happen to shoehorn in a specific message. The show didn't exist just to make a pointless environmentalist allegory, it was just a random little adventure among the many adventures the Enterprise had. In contrast, NuTrek's entire existence seems to be hinged on making social commentary. That the message IS the point, and not just something you can glean from it while enjoying the story. If you think the message itself is shitty, or if you even agree with it but dislike the way the show is handling it, then the show is excluding you. The show has to bend every element of the plot, characterization, and world-building in order to make their social and political commentary. There's basically no story that divorces itself from the limited subset of social messages that NuTrek is capable of addressing, so once they lose you, you're staying lost.
You may not be the biggest Star Trek fan, but you both understand and articulate the issues with modern Star Trek better than almost anyone. Thanks for putting into words the feelings of many of us.
Thanks for the kind comment! It’s been a great excuse to start delving into it in a bit more detail. I now know a little more of what I’ve been missing.
I just realized something ironic thanks to the image of the writing team holding signs saying "Seeking asylum is not illegal" (14:29) and it reminded me of the episode where they evacuated that prison. Its an episode I love to harp on about for how hamfisted and self-righteous it is. Stupidity of releasing prisoners you know nothing about which may or may not contain serial killer psychopaths without any checking for said serial killers aside, the "speech" at the end stuck with me. We are clearly supposed to dislike the leader of that planet, after all he was administrating a regime that arrested everyone who stole a loaf of bread for life, but his point of not wanting criminals released among his people was reasonable, even if it was clearly worded like some racist outburst (WE WILL NOT SHARE SPACE WITH BLACK PEOPLE!"). But then Michael Burnham gives him the dressing down of the century that basically amounts to "Youre a fucking lowly refugee, let me remind you that you and your people will be met with absolute scorn and disdain for how your justice system worked, so you better lick those Federations boots for being alive at all!" Man, such respectful treatment of refugees. Do these writers even understand their own political message? Or are they too busy rubbing in that this political message is morally superior to everything else?
Yeah, it only works if everyone else treats "refugees" as poorly as he allegedly did. The Federation of ye olden times was generous to a fault, so that guy should have no fear. The speech should have been "You are now a refugee, and I think you will be surprised at how different your treatment will be compared to what happened here" instead of the implied threat; open hand versus closed fist. But who are we kidding? We know these people love the closed fist.
The level of wit, cultural awareness, erudition and scholarship (not to mention humility and attentiveness shown in their feedback to comments) is as astonishing as it is delightful. The fact that the verbal essays are recited with the gloss of Her Majesty's posh Inperial accent only adds to their splendour-- there is no shame in indulging in *worthy* clichés I can (and do) listen to these guys all day!
I remember how in Star Trek VI, Kirk was very vocal about his hatred of the Klingons, of course not to their faces. But the minute Gowron's ship was attacked, he himself went aboard to help. Despite everything, Kirk led his crew and ship to ensure that peace between the Klingons and Federation would happen when it was the best time to enact his revenge on the Klingons for the death of his son and decades of rivalry when that empire was on its knees. Imagine if NuTrek writers were tasked with realizing the premise of that movie: that your greatest enemies are on their knees and suing for peace. What would these spiritual heirs of Robespierre do, you think?
Actually it was Gorkon's ship at the time(Gowron came to power decades later), but otherwise you are 100% correct. And furthermore, the reception between the Klingon delegates & the crew of the Enterprise started off quite cordially, with the latter being reasonably respectful to the Klingon delegates(especially Gorkon) until General Chang started to provoke Kirk repeatedly, and only then things actually turned sour. Such a nuance is so important as it foreshadows that Chang, despite his initial flattery of Kirk and apparently loyalty to Gorkon, is in fact planning both men's downfall and the ringleader that sabotages the eventual Khitomer Accords, and above all he is a master strategist of what is already a warrior race, in fact even better than Khan. That kind of detail & complexity is something NuTrek(especially KurtzTrek) hasn't been able to replicate fully.
iirc, Gene Roddenberry was opposed to screenwriter/director Nicholas Meyer's intent to portray the Federation's - and especially Kirk's - hatred of the Klingon race, as it went against his core philosophy for the show, i.e. that 23rd Century humanity - and especially Kirk - would be better than that. Meyer won, obviously, but only because Roddenberry was at death's door.
A show that aims to divide and "piss off all the right people"... The sadness watching this abomination play out is hard to put in words. JUNE 2 - THE ORVILLE SEASON 3 - RELEASE
Picard season 2 episode 4 just went on the offensive for the progressive left by referring to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) as “assholes,” blaming homelessness on everybody except the homeless, making it about race, and implying that those who don’t agree are filled with hate. It feels like I’m mourning a friend. 😔
I watched the first two seasons of Discovery consciously ignoring the overt messaging, because there were enough parts to like (for me): Saru, Michelle Yeoh, Captain Pike, Tilly, Engineer, bridge crew... I was willing to dismiss its canonically incompetent philosophy, politics and military interactions as par for the course of "modern" discourse. Star Trek is the show that might have enabled some positive perspectives, and I felt that there were some reasonable, subtle attempts at this in seasons 1&2, even as "Space Messiah" levelled up. Interim realizations and discoveries such as this illusion-breaking cameo, have removed the show and its siblings from my set of interests. "Old Trek?" Isn't it curious how accepting a label for one thing automatically assigns an unwarranted or unwanted label to pre-existing one? Like colour/gender/political/deprecating labels automatically assign a label to people who did not, and generally do not, use such labels to identify themselves?
I started watching the second season of Discovery a few days ago to get back story on Pike before watching SNW. For the most part I've enjoyed season 2 and 3 for the action but noticed Stacey Abrams would be on an upcoming episode. This really puts a spotlight on their political biases which I wanted to just sort of tune out. Now I don't feel like watching the rest of the series.
This may be one of the best arguments that you have ever presented. To be clear, I am Canadian (waits 5 seconds for laughter and jokes) and typically I vote for the socialist/democrats (NDP)... I find this cameo deplorable and would not be voting in a campaign featuring her after this if I lived in her district... Cheers to you Little Platoon for another well thought out piece 💖👍
I'm not sure I have ever heard anyone-- much less a brit-- so perfectly state the fundamentals of American politics as it relates to, of all things, Star Trek. I'm not trying to fanboi, but I was enthralled the entire time.
It certainly changed my mind. It changed it from excited for a new Star Trek to finally done hoping any of my favourite old franchises can ever be revived with passion, dignity and skill.
By the way, America is not a Democracy, Little Platoon. We are a Constitutional Republic. Trump didn't "try to overthrow democracy". We have processes already in place that he used to attempt to make a case, which went largely unheard of due to our compromised justice system currently.
Liked and subscribed. JFWIW, it is the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, that says, "All men are created equal (and are) endowed with certain unalienable rights . . . among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." The Constitution does guarantee all citizens, "Equal protection of the laws."
@@odysseusrex5908 Hardly, I do actually know the difference (having read both). They contain some of the most important words ever committed to paper! I’m probably more familiar with the Constitution than I am Magna Carta.
I started watching Discovery because I'd seen a lot of criticism and I wanted to make up my own mind. After a few episodes I discovered I didn't hate it. It was entertaining and I could see definite echoes of Star Trek in it, so I held on to my Paramount Plus subscription and watched the third season. In that season came the first undeniable, unacceptable moment. It was where Adira Tal (Blu del Barrio) declared she wanted to be referred to as they/them. All of a sudden, in a moment where two 23rd century characters were speaking to a character from the 32nd century, the writers decided to remind me that I was just watching three actors from the 21st century make a point about the current year. I groaned audibly. I gave the rest of the season a chance and watched to the end. The Stacy Abrams appearance was the second undeniable, unacceptable moment, coming at the end of what I thought was a pretty good season. But again, after a transcendent moment of discovery and the resolution of another "end of the galaxy" plot, the writers pulled me back to the 21st century to remind me that the only election Stacy Abrams can win is a millenium away in a fictional universe, and how that to them is a bad thing. I'll watch the fifth season, probably once all the episodes are out so I can subscribe, shotgun the season and unsubscribe. I fully expect one and possibly two undeniable, unacceptable moments. But then it will be done, and I can wait and hope that upcoming series do away with what Discovery embraced.
Having just discovered this channel from within the US , and this being recommended (by the algorithm) more older content of the channel this video showed up today June 14 2022. So I was curious , because well I don’t watch Discovery as I’m an original Trekkie (from the dead space before the motion picture) and saw from the pilot episode that Discovery was shit and didn’t watch anything beyond that. Seeing occasional reviews of seasons or commentary by other sci-fi and film critics seems to confirm that first impression. But way drew me in was that it caused me to think “who the hell is Ms Abrams?” and why should I care if she is in a cameo. She isn’t relevant to the majority of the country I assumed , given living around Seattle I’d never heard or read of her in the very politicized local newspaper. Now seeing she used to be a regional politician in the Georgia state house , it’s clear she is irrelevant to almost all of the USA. Georgia voters may cars as she runs for Governor in that state. Well now I know one more thing. I still don’t care who she is; I like most of the country, don’t live in Georgia And Paramount and Star Trek have indeed lost their collective minds and should be sent home as they are clearly angry drunk. There is beating a dead horse , but what paramount is doing to the old trek horse with that baseball bat now is repulsive and borders on a crime against humanity.
She is more important than that, although not for the reasons she thinks, because she is a leading figure in the drive to basically eliminate all voter ID laws, any sort of check on our elections; we already have decades of proven fraud, thousands of proven cases just in the last 20 years (proven in court, I mean), and god knows how much we miss. Even in the Democratic primaries this past election, tens of thousands of votes mysteriously went missing for months. And she leads the charge to destroy any remaining restrictions. And many people support her and her cause. Elections are worthless if anyone can vote multiple times, fill out other people's ballots, make fake ballots, and never get caught because there's just no safeguard.
I always differentiate between political as a concept in theory and applied politics in todays practice. A dystopia movie, for example, is often political in showing conflict between security and freedom. Or another example: war movies about ancient empires as Rome are obviously political about Roman society. But they have no bearing on our society, thus I wouldn't call them 'political'. But if either of the two movies introduced a orange fat looking villain with a blonde wig who used to be a former merchant turned politician talking about how we need borders and foreigners are bad, then we obviously have a political movie, because of its meta commentary.
I agree. He needs to separate the two semantically, somehow. I'd say Star Trek used to be about ethics, not politics; in theory, ethics informs politics, and politics reflects ethics, but they are not the same--pure ethics doesn't have the dirty maneuvering and partisanship and emotional manipulation.
I'd argue that old Trek was not "political" because I'd limit "political" to be a matter of, well, "politics"; winning elections, passing bills, partisan hackery, etc. A political show would tackle whether to use method A or method B to deal with poverty, or issues like criminal justice reform, or corruption. Old Trek should be described as being about ethics or morality or philosophy. Yes, these things inform and shape politics, to a degree, but they are not the same thing; simply showing us a future of universal equality is not the same thing as advocating for the "Murder All Racists" bill or candidate or whatever. It may offend the Neo-Nazis who do openly oppose such a future, but it doesn't actually lecture them on it; this simply IS the setting of Star Trek, it's a story of "What if this is the future?" regardless of whether or not you like that future. But also, obviously, very few people are actually offended at the future shown in old Trek; it is as close to a universal ideal as any future on screen has ever been. And further, old Trek really avoided politics in the sense that it never laid out more than a handful of rules contained in the "Federation Charter" and such, never dealt much with elections, never explained the structure of the Federation government (or earth's internal government), rarely dealt with political leaders (and if it it did, it wasn't about them winning re-election or passing a specific bill). I know this is semantics, arguably, but I fear that agreeing that Star Trek has always been "political" in this sense is ceding too much to the Twitter monkeys. It's obvious that these 2 things are different, and different words are therefore appropriate to keep them separate, whichever words you choose.
You may not be a Republican….and you may not even vote for a Republican….but from what I can tell, you are a conservative in the modern sense. And in my opinion, that is a very good thing. Conserving the good stuff? What’s wrong with that? Nothing, I say. Edit: Whoops. You make a good point about the terms we use for political groups. You are “conservative” in the common American sense.
I would argue that this is not a cameo - Christian Slater had a cameo in the Undiscovered Country - a few moments of screen time and a line or two. I would say that they cast Abrams in the role (which makes it even worse, IMHO, given all your issues with what they did.). Keep up the good work! Real art needs real criticism and honesty.
Welcome to american politics. If you dont believe in A, you automatically agree with B. Injection of a political figure such as this is disgusting and insulting...
I gave up on STD after season 1, but the biggest difference between it and past Trek was that past Trek would use good writing and allegory to address contemporary issues, but that's not good enough to current Trek writers. They put the politics first and the good writing never, because the message is their goal and not as a guide to tell a good story. Classic Trek, or even TNG-ENT Trek, was never about "pissing off Republicans" it was about making interesting science fiction, and that is why I don't watch any of the current Trek, even SNW which I hear isn't that bad, but I just can't bother anymore. It's all tainted. Post ENT Trek does not exist for me.
Well done on mostly keeping things neutral, Little Platoon. I stopped Discovery mid-season 3 due to the saccharine and vacuous nature of it and the inimical level of current day politics in it. I then saw the commercial for the black cow president, and never looked back
I remember a Midnight's Edge video that claimed that after Netflix threw Discovery to the thrash, Kurtzman and co. tried to get money for the final season (which eventually became the 4th and 5th) and some of the contributors were "self-appointed philanthropes who made politically motivated donations without expecting any kind of financial return". I think we can now confirm who that "philanthrope" was...
I would say the biggest issue with having Stacey Abrams in an episode of Star Trek was short sighted because she really kind of dropped out of the news since maybe 2020. I haven't heard or seen her anywhere and the DNC is not talking about her anymore. She was kind of a flash in the pan back in 2018/2019, she isn't really relevant in 2024 and hasn't been for several years.
Thank you for clearing up who she is. Being from Blighty I had no idea who she was. I’m also glad that whilst calling out her questionable things you also called out the questionable things that Mr Trump has said before. Great video, nicely well balanced.
I view it as this... Stacey is a Star Trek fan, she got a role for a Star Trek character, attaching all her real world baggage onto her character is kinda asinine.
Don't agree with everything here, but I greatly appreciate the balanced viewpoint in this video. Sometimes I think it's good to get an outside perspective on our politics since we can get so over "party-political" as you call it, that we can't see the forest for the trees. I also did vote for Trump, doesn't mean I liked the man, but the 4 years he was in office, most (not all, mind you) of his actions benefited Americans. That being said, I would be pissed if he was cameoed in a Trek series as a political endorsement. (Setting aside that he is a lousy actor, obnoxiously loud, ego centric, and that his skin color would just not look right with Disco's terrible blue lighting. I'm not going to even mention the hair.)
6:25 I'm glad this got mentioned because it's something that very rarely does but IS important. A lot of people like to undermine things like the constitution, the concept of the free market, classical liberalism/libertarianism (they are functionally the same thing, if you dislike the term liberal you're thinking of modern/post-modern liberalism; most modern conservatives are actually classical liberals. There are exceptions of course, but most every conservative I've met has been closer to libertarian than anything else) by saying "yeah and they were written by slave holders". Which 1 : no not all of them where 2 : even those who did own slaves were economically compelled to since, well, otherwise how the fuck are you not going to be run out of business? 3 : even those who did own slaves did not necessarily aprove of slavery and the harm it brought and finally 4 : even if we accept your premise; the reason slavery did get banned is because people recognized the hypocrisy between those two convictions. Slavery was banned BECAUSE those "slave holders" (again, taking it as a given) wrote the words "all men are created equal". These principles which you are so quick to dismiss because they were written by supposed slave holders are the very principles which damn slavery in the first place. If all men are not created equal, if the sins of the father do carry as sins of the son, if you truly can be condemned because of your past, if you do not have basic freedoms as human rights, if you do not believe in freedom of speech, right to bare arms, etc., how would you have overturned slavery? Because you think it's wrong? Okay, why? You've given no fundamental values as to why. If you believe all men are created equal, if you believe every one has rights, and if you believe the government cannot act against those rights and, in fact, has an obligation to protect them if - and only if - the individual is not willingly conceding them (i.e. : you concede your own right to freedom of speech in the name of social niceness, you concede your own right to life by smoking, etc. Concession of rights is, itself, a fundamental right. There *_is_* a grey area here, but it's about 587 miles away from where we are right now) then slavery is, by nature, something the government has a duty to prevent. These values which so many claim were put forth by slaver holders and dismiss, are the very values which lend themselves to the abolition of slavery.
I believe the next time the Trek convention comes to Indianapolis I may go there and burn my star fleet uniform while wearing my red MAGA hat. I have lost all respect for Star Trek.
My dad loved Star Trek. We watched The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and a little Voyager together. I tried to get into this show but I couldn't make it passed the first 10 minutes. Star Wars has suffered the same, maybe to the same embarrassing extent but I'm not an expert on this stuff, I just know it hurts to see the stuff I love turned into shit. Thanks for the video.
The Little platoon. You want to know why we call liberal socialist and communist? It's because the liberal World tolerates them way too much and they have a common sympathy with them. For example you have people in both the labour party in Great Britain and in the Democratic Party (representative Maxine Waters) calling to take over the banks after the 2008 financial crash plus you had an opposition leader Jeremy corbyn who is a self-proclaimed socialist who tried to pull his party into a more socialist directions and call for nationalization in that country. When we hear liberal people who called for the increase of government and the nationalization of some industries yes they deserve the labels socialists and Communists because that's what they are doing.
Aye, the conservative party here (US) is "classic liberalism" -- I have to work hard to keep track of parties in other countries like Australia and in South America where the names are often nominally the opposite for the same thing.
Part of it is, to be sure. It’s the Republican Party’s founding. But the US conservative movement has always been this massive mix of various (and often contradictory) inputs, from European-style Tories to the Religious Right to conservative communitarianism, libertarianism, and the old classical liberalism. Fusionism, under Bill Buckley and his cohort, brought many of these things together into the Republican Party. Necessary for it to win power, but also why it’s so hard to pin it down ideologically today.
A Trek channel once decried how awful it was that conservatives like Star Trek. Truly sad. I consider myself a Whig who caucuses with the Democrats, conservative in out look but supports largely liberal policies based on my philosophies. in other words, a messy, contradictory human.
I can't think of a more clear admission that they WANT enemies, they only EXIST with enemies, with dragons to slay--their opponents must always remain opponents, must always be monsters, so they can crusade against them, without pity or mercy or remorse. Their entire existence is as antithesis to the barbarians beyond the gates, negative instead of positive, which ironically makes it impossible for me to believe they are legitimately Star Trek fans themselves, as I can think of no greater opposite to it.
This kind of stunt casting Star Trek doesn’t need. My husband usually does reviews on Discovery, but he hasn’t watched it in a while because it’s gotten so cringe-inducing. As for myself, I watch just for maybe 2 or 3 reasons: Doug Jones as Saru (about the only decent actor in the main cast); actor Kenneth Mitchell, who has portrayed various Kling-orcs and the Emerald Chain scientist Aurellio, and who has ALS; and Grudge, because I love cats. Other than that, I could care less about Discovery. In fact, I just about threw something when they had the temerity to use the Guardian of Forever in an episode. I might eventually post a video with my thoughts on this train wreck of a series on my husband’s channel, but we shall see.
@@TheLittlePlatoon Why don’t you poke your head in on one of his fan film watch parties? He does them about every Monday night, although it might be a little bit late for you because of the time difference. I mean, if you want to show up and can manage it (we’re on Mountain Time in Colorado), we’d love to have you.
I want to come back on what you said about hope, since this is according to my personal and very subjective experience one of the biggest differences between society today and society in the 60ties and 70 ties when I grew up. It was the time of the student movement, sexual liberation, the Hippies and a time of profound societal change for many large groups of people. My mom born in 1939 ha d still to have a permit signed by her father and later her husband in order to take on a job. I am only alive because I came along 2 years before the pill. These profound changes and the Wirtschaftswunder led to a feeling of fresh start, more freedom and hope in the young generation. The war was over and we thought against all historical evidence never to come back again Hope for a better world, a world without war, violence and social injustice. A youth believing that they , by participating in the political discosure could change the world towards the better and live happy and fillfilled lives. And up to a certain point it did work at least in the so called first world countries. Comparing the social climate of my adolescence, where the old startrek was born and situation of society today , we live in a world which in large parts has lost this hope or applied it to ridicolous concepts mainly of social identity and narcicistic navle gazing. Most young people feel impotent and helpless faced with the enormous problems our world faces today and the lack of real change of what we once hoped parliamentary democracy could bring to the world. Wokeism is as far as I understand it a coping strategy to live with fear of the future and desperation of the presence by creating an artificial rainbow positiv thinking new age kind of world kind of Barbie world. All of it is colorful and pretty but also artificial and empty. The coorporate payed and contolled monoparties who rule most of our so called democracies today make no real difference for the people who are young today and face or negate a bleak furure. Value has become net worth and virtue as Elon Musk famously said has become the perception of it ,while acting evil. Ironically he is the one perfecting the best example of acting in this way. This led to a deeply divided society where one part called ironically the left dreams about the rainbow and unicorn colored woke Dystopia we see in the new starwars, egocentric and with a tabu of the finiteness of life. The other part of society and of the young think getting back to the idealized world of the American dream and the world of the fifties of last century is the answer, without being aware how much repression and narrow minded lives and art and culture this entailed. I have no answer and there is right and wrong on both sides of the cultural divide. I only still have hope, because even the smallest person can change the course of the future.
Trek is not about taking a stance, it's about posing a question. Sometimes a moral one, or an ethical one, or a about method. Characters disagree, take sides, but ultimately find a middle ground forward. Its about the best and worst of what we as a species can be. Political lines matter not, but moral and ethical lines do. Modern Trek has forgotten this. Only the animated series seem to remember that's the mission, probably because the executives skim over it more viewing animation as lesser. It's a tragedy what has befallen live-action Trek.
See, I much prefer the older star treks but I still enjoy watching these newer ones. It serves 2 purposes, too entertains me. And it shows me what these young people are not thinking or miss thinking. Evil walks amongst us...
The show is simply trash and unwatchable. Usually I just roll my eyes and sometimes fall asleep out of boredom but the end of that show pissed me off. It was a slap in the face with a sledgehammer to half of ST fans. I'm done with STD.
People who go out of their way to applaud Abrams for being on Star Trek are just showing that they consider politics and television as entertainment and not actually representing reality.
There is nothing thought provoking or original about Discovery. The show is like that person you meet who, after a few minutes of talking politics, you pretty much know everything they are going to say. They offer nothing new or insightful and the conversation becomes boring.
Exactly. It had one almost-decent idea, I think, in Adira and Gray. The problem is it had nothing interesting to say or do with that unusual premise, and the characters were/are insufferable and shallow, and it wrote one of them out of the show because it had no idea how to actually make use of the setup. The rest, as you say, is just bumper sticker crap.
@@TheLittlePlatoon Insufferable and shallow might be the only two words anyone needs to describe the show at this point. I hate being that negative, but I am just so disappointed in what Star Trek has become.
They Also plagiarize ideas like crazy
So, an NPC?
I realised the other day that the main reason why wokeness and old Trek's philosophy are different, is because wokeness focuses on revenge. Characters in old Trek could and did become involved in wars with various species; but once the war was over, the emphasis went back to diplomacy, restitution, and rehabilitation as quickly as possible. Eventually, a previously very antagonistic species might even join the Federation.
By contrast, woke people respond to anyone who disagrees with them by either telling them that they are looking forward to when they die, or by trying to cancel them. Cancellation is, in reality, the plausibly deniable goal of destroying a person's life in every non-lethal way possible, with the hope that eventually they will be persuaded to commit suicide, so that the people who engaged in said cancellation can tell themselves that they are still pacifists.
Roddenberry was about eventual symbiotic assimilation of perceived opposition; wokeness is about the summary obliteration of it.
That’s a very good summary!
But "why are they woke?" is a good question. The answer is the same as "why do people support Trump?"
@@O1OO1O1 Eh, not exactly... when Trump promoted the poke a lot of his supporters vehemently opposed him to his face at CPAC 2021. That's not a cult. The reason people voted for Trump was not because of Trump it was because he was an outsider of the politics and felt what many of the right wanted for the US. Secure the border and be America First. In fact, many of the Bernie supporters ended up voting for Trump because Bernie had some of those same values.
@@blackonblack...9244 words matter. Trump voter =/= Trump supporter
No one has been canceled. It is a nonexistent problem.
I literally said exactly what you said: that old trek TRANSCENDS politics. Some Twitter bot raged at me for saying that and said "There's no such thing as transcending politics".
That's how zombified these people are. All that matters is their forceful politics. Essentially, they are political rapists.
They’ve completely forgotten that there’s a difference between being political and being party-political. There’s a vast difference between saying “racism is bad and its legacy is complicated” and saying “Stacey Abrams should be God-King of Earth”.
Old Star Trek was political, but politics was much different then. It was political in keeping with Ghandi or MLK regarding civil rights by demonstrating the absurdity of some racial stereotypes and conventional norms. It was political by espousing Ideas of socialism that seemed to work out in the future. Star Trek's world was a nirvana without poverty, starvation, illiteracy, or wars, on Earth a least. Star Trek was a meritocracy and there was universal education along with medical care for all. This was all looking into a crystal ball to see the future if we could all just get with the Socialist program. In this way, Star Trek was political.
Old trek was always progressive and definitely political. What shows were you watching?
Shhh bot, you clearly didn't watch the video or listen to his words
Politics are the Idol gods of our age
There is a big difference between "Having a political message" and "Endorsing a political candidate".
make this into a rubber stamp so we can just stamp trash like this and leave it to be ignored forever
I appreciate your channel and its rational analyses of Star Trek. I'm American and consider myself liberal by an older definition. I grew up on TNG and DS9. I count Star Trek among some of the more profound influences to who I am now as a person.
I find new Trek heart-breakingly unwatchable. Thank you for articulating the 'why' far better than I ever could.
Thanks for the kind words!
I just want to say, Im a libertarian conservative, and I applaud your post. A true liberal wouldn’t do what these producers are doing. Liberalism meant free speech, pro-choice, anti-war (thats a big one for me) and equality for EVERYONE. Your post is inspiring because there are liberals who feel as you do, bit are afraid to speak out. What have we come to? These people are pro segregation, anti-man, pro-war (never thought Id see Democrats start a war with Russia, but Donald Trump, the most evil man in history keep his word and keep us out of war). Logic, humanity and common sense have gone bye-bye. You and I probably would right now politically vote different, but you and I could join forces in my living room, have a cup of Earl Grey together, and watch Star Trek because that future, deep down is what we want. Badly. Not this dystopian nightmare. Hats off to you! You have boldly gone where few have gone before, and I too, would not be the man I am today if it wasn’t for Star Trek. It taught us to love each other. New Trek wants us to hate each other. Is that Star Trek? Right now, Star Trek is LYING TO US.
@@TheLittlePlatoon I agree with you BOTH. I enjoy his critique of star trek. It's pretty clear and sometimes I agree with him a lot on how these (un) leftist anti-progresives are. They are simply fascist and are on the same coin as their counter parts. Why, as this guy has pointed out, disagreeing with either group gets the same response. I agree on that much with this bloke
"heart-breakingly unwatchable"... Yes, exactly that.
For anyone who doesn't know the Abraham Lincoln reference, there's an eoisode where he shows up (I don't know how, don't care) and he remarks about Uhura being on the bridge crew, and he says something like "What a lovely negress, and serving on the bridge..." and he kind of catches himself and apologizes immediately, saying he knows it's now an offensive term.
She was confused as to why he was apologizing, and when she gets it, she laughs and says they don't even care about terms like that anymore, it's just so far in the past and now discrimination is between species (Klingon, etc).
See Uhura had forgiven and forgotten; woke never do either.
At Lincoln's time, that was an accepted term. Im not defending the term, it was unacceptable at the time the episode was created, but reflected back on how times had dramatically changed...that was the purpose of using the word. Also, Lincoln was never from the old Deep South, he was from the cental US, having left his state of birth, Kentuckey (mid Eastern US, indeed part of the South, but not terribly deep...it borders the Northern state of Ohio, after all) and moved to Illinois where he grew up. He was a product of his times, was not outright for ending slavery until forced to, and used the language, where "negress," no matter how offensive in the 1960's or today, would be a polite term.
@@susansokoloski2233 _it was unacceptable at the time the episode was created_
But in reality it's how Lincoln would have spoken. Either we want historical accuracy from characters or we don't. The earth continued to spin on it's access, the seasons came and went, and no one was harmed by the exchange.
This falls into the category that you can't call your bedroom a "Master Bedroom" because "master implies there are slaves". it's inane. We're letting people IQ's of 90 define the culture.
Going by genetic distance, negroes are a different species from Europeans. It's just not PC to say it
I’m not the type prone to talking to the TV, but when the shuttle door opened after a second of thinking “Wait… is that…?” I literally shouted “OH, COME ON!” at the screen in astounded disbelief.
That was the only episode of the show that I watched. I had the same reaction. I thought Stacey Abrams was gone for good and the doors opened as they said the President of Earth. I was shocked and bewildered by that sinister grin she was sporting. I heard some voice saying "I'm back" from another movie, maybe Independence Day. I noticed a distinct lack of testosterone throughout the show and how many of these powerful women were still in high-heel shoes. I call them torture boots. I would have thought that women of the future would have been comfortable wearing sensible shoes like every man on earth wears since the invention of shoes. If my shoes hurt my feet, they go for a ride. Well, it is all fantasy after all.
12:29 Orwell explained it perfectly: it's called "doublethink." The ability to contradict yourself without acknowledging--consciously or unconsciously--that you have done so.
3:59 "Old Trek's goal was always to assert our common humanity."
🖖
10:09 "[Old Trek] accepted that there are morals and values common to all humanity .... This universalism is why Old Trek is so fondly remembered now by people of all political and party affiliations."
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Clearly I'm utterly mal-informed. I had no idea who she was when I watched the episode. But this didn't stop me retching over her character in the show and the speech she gave at the end. Having been educated to the point where I now know who she is, her inclusion feels all the more distasteful, and counter-productive.
They could not have made a stronger statement to more than half the potential viewers that this show is not made for them, though after four seasons, most people could have few doubts in that department.
More than half, I’d say, given it includes a great many people who might otherwise lean Left but who remember when that didn’t involve supporting race-grifting con-artists. And it includes most people who used to watch Star Trek for the lessons it taught and appreciated that it wasn’t just a big-budget campaign add for this or that political party.
@@TheLittlePlatoon I really hadn't thought that they stoop this low. It's no different then using any other demagogue
@@TheLittlePlatoon race grifting is One thing but these writers with ... leave out a GOOD story with character with nothing to do but exist...why even with that? Another point of agreement!
Few doubts indeed, but to those of us that needed a shotgun blast to the face to make it obvious, there it is.
The advantages of not being American. Since I don't know who the hell that woman is, the first thing I thought when I saw her was: Oh, so that's the president of the terrestrial isolationists who starved one of their solar colonies to death.
True. The side that claims to be universalist and inclusive is ironically the one pretending that the US and it's professional grifters are known and relevant to the whole world, that there is nothing beyond America. I'd say to just imagine she's, like, Jeremy Corbyn, but I don't think that's fair to Corbyn.
As a Mexican I can tell George Takey and the other STD stooges that I neither care for US politics nor they have any right to impose whoever that lady is on me, much less as "President of Earth".
This is something I think everyone gets wrong, and I wish they would stop...
There's a difference between moral and political. Star trek has always been moral, and thats always leaned liberal. But it's never been overtly political.
That's why tng never did an episode where an overt Gingrich stand in tried to impeach the Federation president b/c he got a handy from an orion slave girl.
Good point
Too many people believe that history began with what they had for breakfast this morning
I object to this cameo firstly on an artistic level. Its unimaginative in the extreme and one of the major reasons I dislike Discovery so intensely. Original Trek (defined as Trek produced between 1966 and 2005), even at its worst was more creative in using allegory and sci fi to comment on contemporary issues. It espoused secular humanism rather than any "right/left" ideology. This however feels lazy, condescending and transparent and gives me a sick, queasy feeling in my lower intestines. Sincerely, an Australian atheist :-)
I can say that I respect the idea of being object coming from atheism. But the woke crap is absolutely evil.
-Some random Bible believing Christian. :-)
Abrams and other demagogues need to stay well from acting roles. This reflects poorly on a series as the relevance of these people fade or is discovered they are flawed... sometimes deeply so. Another point of agreement! My word!😎
@James Patrik The Abrams cameo is surely vile, but the narrator prating about 'the woke left' when there's nothing left wing about STD's misandrist, anti-white racist, anti-egalitarian posing, is offensive. Abrams is just one more corrupt hack affiliated with the largely far right Democrat party, which only represents its vicious donor-owners.
Can't thank Mauler enough for introducing the toxic brood to this glorious channel. Another big W for the long man
I personally thought it was pretty funny. As of the air date of this episode, she hadn't won an election past the GA legislature, and here on this show she's President of the Planet Earth. But I was also like, "oh no they didn't" lol
Oh, it was definitely funny.
I am a republican and I would be upset if they put desantis in there too. Keep politics as an abstract .
I always enjoy your patient explanation of the proper meaning of "liberal" for my compatriots on our side of the pond. As an old fart I can recall when such reminders wouldn't have been necessary any more than the explanation of why the US is a republic rather than a democracy. Sigh.
Back when Old Trek was the only Trek it had a recurring theme that we could learn from the past and use communication to reach mutual understanding and compromise. New Trek seems to have settled on a theme of the good guys winning or having already won because of their inherent moral superiority. I do not see this change as an improvement.
It's not. It's for people who, as we've seen in real life during the COVID pandemic, believe in dominance and authoritarianism as a vehicle for equality. It's a very strange version of collectivism for the rich and privileged, which seems to have been spread--like a virus--by people who want to control and monetise such people. And it's maintained by narcissists and opportunists who exploit and adapt that as a camouflage, for their own benefit.
Actually educated people with life experience don't fall for such nonsense.
@@O1OO1O1 Not equality. Equity. The collectivism that on the left is all about equity. Lifting themselves up while pushing others down.
The right here in America has made "liberal" an ugly word. They are not even conservative but radical, reactionary, obsessed with sex preferences to even getting arrested for... Certain types of acts. As if our police could use another excuse to bother citizens
@@yurikendal4868 A liberal in the classic sense (or the US left of 50 years ago) would be appalled by social media's speech codes or the FBI raiding journalist's homes. Today's left seems to think a Ministry of Truth is long overdue. Go figure. As to the right seeking the criminalization of sexual preferences I have no idea what you're referring to. But then I don't read the Guardian very often so I may have missed something.
If there was ever a show right here, right now that had the power and message to UNITE ALL OF US, its Star Trek. Specifically, NEW Star Trek. Instead, the producers have used their money and power to force their modern day politics right down the throats of viewers. Stacy Abrams being the Federation President was a disgraceful political stunt that used Star Trek to promote a specific political candidate for a political party. What if Ron DeSantis was cast as the President? That would also be a bad idea, because its too close to home. As if Abrams being the boss f everything isnt enough, it had to be ANOTHER woman in power. Look at that bridge. Where are all the guys? Straight white males? Is there suddenly a shortage? EQUALITY means EQUALITY. Balance it out. Basically modern Trek is saying that in THIS future, men are all cucks, women are in charge of everything, and marxist leftist Democrats (apparently the Democrat party is alive and well in the 23rd century) rule the galaxy. This betrays EVERYTHING Star Trek was founded on. Having Stacy Abrams play the Fed President was a middle finger to half the country, and it was done with malicious intent, make no mistake. “If you aren’t a woke racist , heterophobic marxist, this show isnt for you. Well, I’ve got an audacious idea for you Alex Kurtzman: You want to honor Gene Roddeberry? You want this new Trek to be as bold as the original? Put a Russian back on the bridge right now, knowing whats going on in Ukraine. THAT would be true Star Trek. And no dialogue about his/her Russian heritage because it would be irrelevant at that time. Just have them BE THERE. Thats enough. But instead, you bigots hijacked Star Trek as a political tool to rile up your violent, rioting marxist extremist buddies, while turning your backs on TRUE liberal and conservative fans who PAY YOUR F*CKING SALARY. I am a man of peace, but I hope Secret Hideout goes bankrupt, Kurtzman is disgraced, and someone who will HONOR Star Trek is brought in to fix this mess!
"UNITE ALL OF US"
Don't want to be united with the likes of Kurtzman and the mindless creatures that enjoy this show. At all.
In their utopian future, there ARE no straight white men. Only POCs have inherent value.
@@Fridaey13txhOktober I get it. But hey, I was trying to be a uniter, trying to send some type of peace message while reminding the producers what Trek is REALLY about. But you are right in that they dont really want freedom of thought.
hell yeah
Desantis wouldnt be believable as a president though.
I remember on forever knight, one of the vampires was talking about giving a man the immortality of the vampires. When he was about to do it, he felt this man's evil should never be amplified. The man was Hitler. I feel giving Stacey the role of president of the earth would be the same thing. Some people shouldn't have power.
I would say the same thing about having any politician as president of the earth. That also goes for Hillary and Trump.
I really don’t think there’s any harm in having Stacey Abrams “weigh” in on issues every now and then. If we’re too picky, Discovery will be crushed under the weight of its fifteen fans’ expectations.
When Federation President Abrams won with 115% of the vote, that was the day everything changed forever.
Here is what Dean Russel wrote in 1955:
_Many of us call ourselves “liberals.” And it is true that the word “liberal” once described persons who respected the individual and feared the use of mass compulsions. But the leftists have now corrupted that once-proud term to identify themselves and their program of more government ownership of property and more controls over persons. As a result, those of us who believe in freedom must explain that when we call ourselves liberals, we mean liberals in the uncorrupted classical sense. At best, this is awkward and subject to misunderstanding._
_Here is a suggestion: Let those of us who love liberty trade-mark and reserve for our own use the good and honorable word “libertarian_
Libertarianism is a psyop to paralyze, weaken resistance to the agenda.
There is a BBC news article on the DS9 Ep; Far Beyond the Stars - They interviewed Hassler-Forest (A Proffesor in Media and Pop Culture" who said in the interview to the BBC; ""I find Discovery kind of insufferable," Hassler-Forest admits. “Because it sometimes feels more like a TED talk about social injustice. But Far Beyond the Stars is a rare episode that is so compelling because it’s about the historical legacy and the complexities of racial politics."".
It’s maddening, isn’t it. People will attack critics of NuTrek on the grounds that “they just don’t like seeing diverse people/tackling injustice,” ignoring that a huge number of Old Trek fans liked Old Trek because it did precisely these things, but did them better.
It's always kind of rubbed me the wrong way when Sisko came off sounding like a woke racist in Season 7's "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang" going off on the fictional setting of Vic Fontain's 1962 holo program. Granted Cassidy Yates response in the same seen sets him straight, it was still borderline "wokeness" that someone in the 24th century and part of a diverse, multicultural, intergalactic, democratic federation of Planets and 400 years removed from the 1960 civil rights movement in the United States of America would act so ignorant and hateful as if racism between "white humans" and "Black humans" still existed. As much as Sisko's attitude bothers me in that episode, I can grant it a pass because of Season 6's "Far Beyond The Stars" that episode is what explains his character when that moment comes in "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang".
Having never experienced racism from other humans, Sisko's experience as Benny Russell in the 1950s essentially de-evolved him. All his life, Earth has effectively been without distinctions of individual countries, ethnicities, or cultures separating one human from the other, but exposure to life in the 1950's and seeing humans separate and stratify themselves by race planted the seed of racism in his head and he was unable to unsee the cruelty humans are capable of doing to each other. Too many on the far-left focus on Sisko's words as reinforcement of their own racist attitudes and act as if nothing has changed since the 1960s, and the completely ignore Cassidy's words that sets Ben straight: "We are no longer bound by any limitations, except the ones we impose on ourselves."
I think you're reading too much into this; Stacey Abrams is just a massive (and I do mean MASSIVE) Trek fan. She always says "May the Force be with you," at events.
Lol that's slick I see what did
Stacy abrams is the last person that should be in the show
Been following US politics & been a Star Trek fan for 20 years - Stacy Abrams should never have appeared in the show. I'm sure there was a heated debate in the writers room about this, but ultimately it is so on the nose it's absurd. The fact that Chekov was russian or Sulu was japanese (appart from one famous scene with a sword) never was a basis for a plot, it was just natural.
"Nu Trek" resembles a comic strip in which a 200 pound blue haired lesbian sjw activist sits down at a diner, is offended that there are "only" 5 different dishes of bacon & eggs and then screams at the staff "DIVERSITY!".
Hey now, you really should have put a spoiler warning before giving away plot details for season 5!
I absolutely agree. I was gravely outraged that Discovery did this and lost any faith in the show. My reason for this came to a number of reasons.
1. By allowing an actual politician on a Star Trek shows that the show favors a certain political party.
2. It opens the doors to having numerous politicians appear in any future shows or series.
3. Sure, you can enjoy having Democrats on Star Trek right now, but in the future, it can be other political party members because the ideologies changes. For example, Trump has cameoed in movies before. How would you feel about having him show up in Star Trek? No, don't want to have him there? It's too late. You've opened the door to make that happen, and it would be unfair to deny other politicians the right to show up in Star Trek because it would be unfair and completely biased to deny that.
Since Discovery is NOT Star Trek and has no idea what Star Trek should be let George Santos appear. Who cares?
I was so shocked they did that . I was talking with someone yesterday i explained actor's or Hollywood told you too vote regardless of whom you vote for , now they tell you whom to vote for . ( which makes it propaganda). Fear not still listening your not suppressed just yet
Star Trek has historically approached political issues from a philosophical perspective. Politics, in and of itself is the dichotomy of Right and Left in whatsoever terms one views those outdated concepts. This is as inadequate way to address those issues as they automatically invoke tribalism. The manner in which Star Trek addressed these issues was allegorical, allowing us to distance ourselves personally from the issues and attempt to view them passively and impartially.
It is disheartening to see George Takei's expression of schadenfreude towards the Republicans, there. I won't try and claim that I never experience that emotion myself, but I do try and resist it, because it is both practically destructive, and spiritually dangerous. I would have at least hoped that Takei would try and set a more positive example for fans; but as we've recently seen with Sir Patrick Stuart, it is not just the old message that has been corrupted with time. Sadly, at least some of the old actors themselves seem to have been.
Oh, Takei is pure poison. I follow him on Facebook. There aren’t that many people who are so very bitter, petty, hypocritical, wrongheaded and so proud of all these things.
I saw a disturbing video on the new trek show ( strange new world's) the guy in the video said that fans of old trek ( including himself) should just except and approve of canon changes or plot holes , bad writing ect because its not made for us its made for a new audience ( younger) if you aren't making a show for its fans why bother ? And if the new fand dont know the canon then why bother changing it ? you can make it in a modern fashion with whatever questionable goal but atill respect its canon . And of course all criticism of the show or his words are considered hate speech. ( typical)
It’s nonsense. I wasn’t even 10 when the Star Wars prequels were released. They were the films made for “my generation”. Like a lot of people of my generation, I have fond memories of them, despite their billions of flaws. But also like many in my generation, the original trilogy is my favourite - because it wasn’t made with a generation in mind, it was made to tell a great story. Ditto Lord of the Rings. Corporates have this weird obsession with capturing momentary audiences, and seem not to understand that you’ll get a much bigger audience - including the next generation - by telling timeless stories.
@@TheLittlePlatoon exactly, i started watching trek as tng was starting but i loved tos and later show . And the same with star wars, i saw ot first, read the books loved the pt ( despite its flaws ) ect yet hate the sequels, what changed ? Not us
The president of earth..... I knew before 100%, that it had to be a big black mama. LoL
I think they are going to find their viewership way down this time.
Old Trek was a middle ground and about escapism.
Leave it to Stacy to ruin it..for everybody
Stacey Abrams getting crushed in the last election gave me hope for humanity.
There was plenty of BAD social and political commentary in older trek as well-though I'm going to point out a difference. There's plenty of episodes of TNG and DS9 that were extremely pandering to an issue of the moment and inserted hamfisted, on-the-nose social messages with rather lame allegories. One of these I could point out is TNG: Forces of Nature, where the Enterprise learns that Warp Drive Technology is destroying space (through some nebulous means). It's very directly an allegory for internal combustion engines damaging the ozone layer. Which is still dated since, at that time, environmental messaging was more concerned with maintaining the atmosphere than worrying about greenhouse gas effects.
It's an episode that has many problems, it shallowly addresses an issue, and it attempts to pretend it's going to shake up the status quo of the series but this episodes get blatantly ignored. There's a handwave in some of the expanded literature that Star Trek engineers just fixed the warp engine problem so it no longer does any damage, off screen, and every warp engine then operates completely fine with no consequences.
But at the end of the day, it's just a bad episode. That episode is far divorced from the point of the show. If you don't like it, you still had consistent characters behaving with consistent motivations, so you could tune in again next week and see the next episode and still be invested in the show. Nobody had to be transformed into a different character in order to address a relevant social message, and then turned into a different character the next week when it was no longer relevant. You didn't get dragged down by everything that had to happen to shoehorn in a specific message. The show didn't exist just to make a pointless environmentalist allegory, it was just a random little adventure among the many adventures the Enterprise had.
In contrast, NuTrek's entire existence seems to be hinged on making social commentary. That the message IS the point, and not just something you can glean from it while enjoying the story. If you think the message itself is shitty, or if you even agree with it but dislike the way the show is handling it, then the show is excluding you. The show has to bend every element of the plot, characterization, and world-building in order to make their social and political commentary. There's basically no story that divorces itself from the limited subset of social messages that NuTrek is capable of addressing, so once they lose you, you're staying lost.
You may not be the biggest Star Trek fan, but you both understand and articulate the issues with modern Star Trek better than almost anyone. Thanks for putting into words the feelings of many of us.
Thanks for the kind comment! It’s been a great excuse to start delving into it in a bit more detail. I now know a little more of what I’ve been missing.
I just realized something ironic thanks to the image of the writing team holding signs saying "Seeking asylum is not illegal" (14:29) and it reminded me of the episode where they evacuated that prison. Its an episode I love to harp on about for how hamfisted and self-righteous it is. Stupidity of releasing prisoners you know nothing about which may or may not contain serial killer psychopaths without any checking for said serial killers aside, the "speech" at the end stuck with me.
We are clearly supposed to dislike the leader of that planet, after all he was administrating a regime that arrested everyone who stole a loaf of bread for life, but his point of not wanting criminals released among his people was reasonable, even if it was clearly worded like some racist outburst (WE WILL NOT SHARE SPACE WITH BLACK PEOPLE!").
But then Michael Burnham gives him the dressing down of the century that basically amounts to "Youre a fucking lowly refugee, let me remind you that you and your people will be met with absolute scorn and disdain for how your justice system worked, so you better lick those Federations boots for being alive at all!"
Man, such respectful treatment of refugees. Do these writers even understand their own political message? Or are they too busy rubbing in that this political message is morally superior to everything else?
Yeah, it only works if everyone else treats "refugees" as poorly as he allegedly did. The Federation of ye olden times was generous to a fault, so that guy should have no fear. The speech should have been "You are now a refugee, and I think you will be surprised at how different your treatment will be compared to what happened here" instead of the implied threat; open hand versus closed fist. But who are we kidding? We know these people love the closed fist.
The level of wit, cultural awareness, erudition and scholarship (not to mention humility and attentiveness shown in their feedback to comments) is as astonishing as it is delightful. The fact that the verbal essays are recited with the gloss of Her Majesty's posh Inperial accent only adds to their splendour-- there is no shame in indulging in *worthy* clichés
I can (and do) listen to these guys all day!
Far too kind, but we’ll take it!
I remember how in Star Trek VI, Kirk was very vocal about his hatred of the Klingons, of course not to their faces.
But the minute Gowron's ship was attacked, he himself went aboard to help. Despite everything, Kirk led his crew and ship to ensure that peace between the Klingons and Federation would happen when it was the best time to enact his revenge on the Klingons for the death of his son and decades of rivalry when that empire was on its knees.
Imagine if NuTrek writers were tasked with realizing the premise of that movie: that your greatest enemies are on their knees and suing for peace.
What would these spiritual heirs of Robespierre do, you think?
Actually it was Gorkon's ship at the time(Gowron came to power decades later), but otherwise you are 100% correct.
And furthermore, the reception between the Klingon delegates & the crew of the Enterprise started off quite cordially, with the latter being reasonably respectful to the Klingon delegates(especially Gorkon) until General Chang started to provoke Kirk repeatedly, and only then things actually turned sour. Such a nuance is so important as it foreshadows that Chang, despite his initial flattery of Kirk and apparently loyalty to Gorkon, is in fact planning both men's downfall and the ringleader that sabotages the eventual Khitomer Accords, and above all he is a master strategist of what is already a warrior race, in fact even better than Khan. That kind of detail & complexity is something NuTrek(especially KurtzTrek) hasn't been able to replicate fully.
iirc, Gene Roddenberry was opposed to screenwriter/director Nicholas Meyer's intent to portray the Federation's - and especially Kirk's - hatred of the Klingon race, as it went against his core philosophy for the show, i.e. that 23rd Century humanity - and especially Kirk - would be better than that. Meyer won, obviously, but only because Roddenberry was at death's door.
A show that aims to divide and "piss off all the right people"...
The sadness watching this abomination play out is hard to put in words.
JUNE 2 - THE ORVILLE SEASON 3 - RELEASE
Joke's on them, I have no idea who that is. My only reaction was a distracted "Ah, a fat black woman, of course."
Picard season 2 episode 4 just went on the offensive for the progressive left by referring to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) as “assholes,” blaming homelessness on everybody except the homeless, making it about race, and implying that those who don’t agree are filled with hate. It feels like I’m mourning a friend. 😔
I watched the first two seasons of Discovery consciously ignoring the overt messaging, because there were enough parts to like (for me): Saru, Michelle Yeoh, Captain Pike, Tilly, Engineer, bridge crew...
I was willing to dismiss its canonically incompetent philosophy, politics and military interactions as par for the course of "modern" discourse. Star Trek is the show that might have enabled some positive perspectives, and I felt that there were some reasonable, subtle attempts at this in seasons 1&2, even as "Space Messiah" levelled up.
Interim realizations and discoveries such as this illusion-breaking cameo, have removed the show and its siblings from my set of interests.
"Old Trek?" Isn't it curious how accepting a label for one thing automatically assigns an unwarranted or unwanted label to pre-existing one? Like colour/gender/political/deprecating labels automatically assign a label to people who did not, and generally do not, use such labels to identify themselves?
I started watching the second season of Discovery a few days ago to get back story on Pike before watching SNW. For the most part I've enjoyed season 2 and 3 for the action but noticed Stacey Abrams would be on an upcoming episode. This really puts a spotlight on their political biases which I wanted to just sort of tune out. Now I don't feel like watching the rest of the series.
Good choice
Thank you for articulating this most important analysis..
Thanks for the kind comment!
This may be one of the best arguments that you have ever presented. To be clear, I am Canadian (waits 5 seconds for laughter and jokes) and typically I vote for the socialist/democrats (NDP)...
I find this cameo deplorable and would not be voting in a campaign featuring her after this if I lived in her district...
Cheers to you Little Platoon for another well thought out piece 💖👍
I'm not sure I have ever heard anyone-- much less a brit-- so perfectly state the fundamentals of American politics as it relates to, of all things, Star Trek. I'm not trying to fanboi, but I was enthralled the entire time.
It certainly changed my mind.
It changed it from excited for a new Star Trek to finally done hoping any of my favourite old franchises can ever be revived with passion, dignity and skill.
By the way, America is not a Democracy, Little Platoon. We are a Constitutional Republic. Trump didn't "try to overthrow democracy". We have processes already in place that he used to attempt to make a case, which went largely unheard of due to our compromised justice system currently.
Well, that just demonstrates what a fu country the usa is.
Liked and subscribed. JFWIW, it is the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, that says, "All men are created equal (and are) endowed with certain unalienable rights . . . among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." The Constitution does guarantee all citizens, "Equal protection of the laws."
Indeed it is, that was a scripting error!
@@TheLittlePlatoon Forgivable from your side of the pond. I have encountered teachers over here who also confuse the two.
@@odysseusrex5908 Hardly, I do actually know the difference (having read both). They contain some of the most important words ever committed to paper! I’m probably more familiar with the Constitution than I am Magna Carta.
@@TheLittlePlatoon Good for you! I still forgive the error coming from you far more readily than I do from an American middle school principal.
Star Trek Discovery is a dumpster fire, a disgrace to Star Trek
Jabba the Hutt has a sex change....
I started watching Discovery because I'd seen a lot of criticism and I wanted to make up my own mind. After a few episodes I discovered I didn't hate it. It was entertaining and I could see definite echoes of Star Trek in it, so I held on to my Paramount Plus subscription and watched the third season.
In that season came the first undeniable, unacceptable moment. It was where Adira Tal (Blu del Barrio) declared she wanted to be referred to as they/them. All of a sudden, in a moment where two 23rd century characters were speaking to a character from the 32nd century, the writers decided to remind me that I was just watching three actors from the 21st century make a point about the current year. I groaned audibly. I gave the rest of the season a chance and watched to the end.
The Stacy Abrams appearance was the second undeniable, unacceptable moment, coming at the end of what I thought was a pretty good season. But again, after a transcendent moment of discovery and the resolution of another "end of the galaxy" plot, the writers pulled me back to the 21st century to remind me that the only election Stacy Abrams can win is a millenium away in a fictional universe, and how that to them is a bad thing.
I'll watch the fifth season, probably once all the episodes are out so I can subscribe, shotgun the season and unsubscribe. I fully expect one and possibly two undeniable, unacceptable moments. But then it will be done, and I can wait and hope that upcoming series do away with what Discovery embraced.
I never watched it because I'm not paying for another package to watch 20+ shows.
Having just discovered this channel from within the US , and this being recommended (by the algorithm) more older content of the channel this video showed up today June 14 2022.
So I was curious , because well I don’t watch Discovery as I’m an original Trekkie (from the dead space before the motion picture) and saw from the pilot episode that Discovery was shit and didn’t watch anything beyond that. Seeing occasional reviews of seasons or commentary by other sci-fi and film critics seems to confirm that first impression.
But way drew me in was that it caused me to think “who the hell is Ms Abrams?” and why should I care if she is in a cameo. She isn’t relevant to the majority of the country I assumed , given living around Seattle I’d never heard or read of her in the very politicized local newspaper. Now seeing she used to be a regional politician in the Georgia state house , it’s clear she is irrelevant to almost all of the USA. Georgia voters may cars as she runs for Governor in that state.
Well now I know one more thing. I still don’t care who she is; I like most of the country, don’t live in Georgia And Paramount and Star Trek have indeed lost their collective minds and should be sent home as they are clearly angry drunk.
There is beating a dead horse , but what paramount is doing to the old trek horse with that baseball bat now is repulsive and borders on a crime against humanity.
She is more important than that, although not for the reasons she thinks, because she is a leading figure in the drive to basically eliminate all voter ID laws, any sort of check on our elections; we already have decades of proven fraud, thousands of proven cases just in the last 20 years (proven in court, I mean), and god knows how much we miss. Even in the Democratic primaries this past election, tens of thousands of votes mysteriously went missing for months. And she leads the charge to destroy any remaining restrictions. And many people support her and her cause. Elections are worthless if anyone can vote multiple times, fill out other people's ballots, make fake ballots, and never get caught because there's just no safeguard.
I always differentiate between political as a concept in theory and applied politics in todays practice. A dystopia movie, for example, is often political in showing conflict between security and freedom. Or another example: war movies about ancient empires as Rome are obviously political about Roman society. But they have no bearing on our society, thus I wouldn't call them 'political'.
But if either of the two movies introduced a orange fat looking villain with a blonde wig who used to be a former merchant turned politician talking about how we need borders and foreigners are bad, then we obviously have a political movie, because of its meta commentary.
I agree. He needs to separate the two semantically, somehow. I'd say Star Trek used to be about ethics, not politics; in theory, ethics informs politics, and politics reflects ethics, but they are not the same--pure ethics doesn't have the dirty maneuvering and partisanship and emotional manipulation.
I grew up watching The Next Generation… and I’m glad I got to vote against the president of earth in this election cycle.
I'd argue that old Trek was not "political" because I'd limit "political" to be a matter of, well, "politics"; winning elections, passing bills, partisan hackery, etc. A political show would tackle whether to use method A or method B to deal with poverty, or issues like criminal justice reform, or corruption. Old Trek should be described as being about ethics or morality or philosophy. Yes, these things inform and shape politics, to a degree, but they are not the same thing; simply showing us a future of universal equality is not the same thing as advocating for the "Murder All Racists" bill or candidate or whatever. It may offend the Neo-Nazis who do openly oppose such a future, but it doesn't actually lecture them on it; this simply IS the setting of Star Trek, it's a story of "What if this is the future?" regardless of whether or not you like that future. But also, obviously, very few people are actually offended at the future shown in old Trek; it is as close to a universal ideal as any future on screen has ever been. And further, old Trek really avoided politics in the sense that it never laid out more than a handful of rules contained in the "Federation Charter" and such, never dealt much with elections, never explained the structure of the Federation government (or earth's internal government), rarely dealt with political leaders (and if it it did, it wasn't about them winning re-election or passing a specific bill).
I know this is semantics, arguably, but I fear that agreeing that Star Trek has always been "political" in this sense is ceding too much to the Twitter monkeys. It's obvious that these 2 things are different, and different words are therefore appropriate to keep them separate, whichever words you choose.
Space whales confirmed.
You may not be a Republican….and you may not even vote for a Republican….but from what I can tell, you are a conservative in the modern sense. And in my opinion, that is a very good thing. Conserving the good stuff? What’s wrong with that? Nothing, I say.
Edit: Whoops. You make a good point about the terms we use for political groups. You are “conservative” in the common American sense.
I would argue that this is not a cameo - Christian Slater had a cameo in the Undiscovered Country - a few moments of screen time and a line or two. I would say that they cast Abrams in the role (which makes it even worse, IMHO, given all your issues with what they did.).
Keep up the good work! Real art needs real criticism and honesty.
Welcome to american politics. If you dont believe in A, you automatically agree with B. Injection of a political figure such as this is disgusting and insulting...
For anyone wondering, Stacey Abrams is a US politician for the left/ liberal party.
Soon as I seen that iRL Angry Bird pop up on screen my eyes rolled so hard they got stuck for 5mins 🙄
I gave up on STD after season 1, but the biggest difference between it and past Trek was that past Trek would use good writing and allegory to address contemporary issues, but that's not good enough to current Trek writers. They put the politics first and the good writing never, because the message is their goal and not as a guide to tell a good story.
Classic Trek, or even TNG-ENT Trek, was never about "pissing off Republicans" it was about making interesting science fiction, and that is why I don't watch any of the current Trek, even SNW which I hear isn't that bad, but I just can't bother anymore. It's all tainted. Post ENT Trek does not exist for me.
Well done on mostly keeping things neutral, Little Platoon. I stopped Discovery mid-season 3 due to the saccharine and vacuous nature of it and the inimical level of current day politics in it. I then saw the commercial for the black cow president, and never looked back
I remember a Midnight's Edge video that claimed that after Netflix threw Discovery to the thrash, Kurtzman and co. tried to get money for the final season (which eventually became the 4th and 5th) and some of the contributors were "self-appointed philanthropes who made politically motivated donations without expecting any kind of financial return". I think we can now confirm who that "philanthrope" was...
Everyone who has anything to do with that show should be fired into the Sun.
I would say the biggest issue with having Stacey Abrams in an episode of Star Trek was short sighted because she really kind of dropped out of the news since maybe 2020. I haven't heard or seen her anywhere and the DNC is not talking about her anymore. She was kind of a flash in the pan back in 2018/2019, she isn't really relevant in 2024 and hasn't been for several years.
Exactly 😂
Thank you for clearing up who she is. Being from Blighty I had no idea who she was. I’m also glad that whilst calling out her questionable things you also called out the questionable things that Mr Trump has said before.
Great video, nicely well balanced.
Thanks for the kind comment!
I view it as this... Stacey is a Star Trek fan, she got a role for a Star Trek character, attaching all her real world baggage onto her character is kinda asinine.
Don't agree with everything here, but I greatly appreciate the balanced viewpoint in this video. Sometimes I think it's good to get an outside perspective on our politics since we can get so over "party-political" as you call it, that we can't see the forest for the trees.
I also did vote for Trump, doesn't mean I liked the man, but the 4 years he was in office, most (not all, mind you) of his actions benefited Americans. That being said, I would be pissed if he was cameoed in a Trek series as a political endorsement. (Setting aside that he is a lousy actor, obnoxiously loud, ego centric, and that his skin color would just not look right with Disco's terrible blue lighting. I'm not going to even mention the hair.)
6:25 I'm glad this got mentioned because it's something that very rarely does but IS important. A lot of people like to undermine things like the constitution, the concept of the free market, classical liberalism/libertarianism (they are functionally the same thing, if you dislike the term liberal you're thinking of modern/post-modern liberalism; most modern conservatives are actually classical liberals. There are exceptions of course, but most every conservative I've met has been closer to libertarian than anything else) by saying "yeah and they were written by slave holders". Which 1 : no not all of them where 2 : even those who did own slaves were economically compelled to since, well, otherwise how the fuck are you not going to be run out of business? 3 : even those who did own slaves did not necessarily aprove of slavery and the harm it brought and finally 4 : even if we accept your premise; the reason slavery did get banned is because people recognized the hypocrisy between those two convictions. Slavery was banned BECAUSE those "slave holders" (again, taking it as a given) wrote the words "all men are created equal". These principles which you are so quick to dismiss because they were written by supposed slave holders are the very principles which damn slavery in the first place.
If all men are not created equal, if the sins of the father do carry as sins of the son, if you truly can be condemned because of your past, if you do not have basic freedoms as human rights, if you do not believe in freedom of speech, right to bare arms, etc., how would you have overturned slavery? Because you think it's wrong? Okay, why? You've given no fundamental values as to why. If you believe all men are created equal, if you believe every one has rights, and if you believe the government cannot act against those rights and, in fact, has an obligation to protect them if - and only if - the individual is not willingly conceding them (i.e. : you concede your own right to freedom of speech in the name of social niceness, you concede your own right to life by smoking, etc. Concession of rights is, itself, a fundamental right. There *_is_* a grey area here, but it's about 587 miles away from where we are right now) then slavery is, by nature, something the government has a duty to prevent.
These values which so many claim were put forth by slaver holders and dismiss, are the very values which lend themselves to the abolition of slavery.
Star Trek lost me when they went the way of the left SJW
I believe the next time the Trek convention comes to Indianapolis I may go there and burn my star fleet uniform while wearing my red MAGA hat. I have lost all respect for Star Trek.
Your self-immolation will be an inspiration to millions.
My dad loved Star Trek. We watched The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and a little Voyager together. I tried to get into this show but I couldn't make it passed the first 10 minutes. Star Wars has suffered the same, maybe to the same embarrassing extent but I'm not an expert on this stuff, I just know it hurts to see the stuff I love turned into shit. Thanks for the video.
When you have way to much time on your hands😅
I think its time to stop referring to Star Trek Discovery as STD and start referring to it as Star Trek DNC.
The Little platoon. You want to know why we call liberal socialist and communist? It's because the liberal World tolerates them way too much and they have a common sympathy with them. For example you have people in both the labour party in Great Britain and in the Democratic Party (representative Maxine Waters) calling to take over the banks after the 2008 financial crash plus you had an opposition leader Jeremy corbyn who is a self-proclaimed socialist who tried to pull his party into a more socialist directions and call for nationalization in that country.
When we hear liberal people who called for the increase of government and the nationalization of some industries yes they deserve the labels socialists and Communists because that's what they are doing.
Criticism and thoughtful analysis are rare birds in today's world. It's a shame so few are interested in them.
They really should have used Dr Maggie . A genuine scientist who would have fit the roll perfectly .
Aye, the conservative party here (US) is "classic liberalism" -- I have to work hard to keep track of parties in other countries like Australia and in South America where the names are often nominally the opposite for the same thing.
Part of it is, to be sure. It’s the Republican Party’s founding. But the US conservative movement has always been this massive mix of various (and often contradictory) inputs, from European-style Tories to the Religious Right to conservative communitarianism, libertarianism, and the old classical liberalism. Fusionism, under Bill Buckley and his cohort, brought many of these things together into the Republican Party. Necessary for it to win power, but also why it’s so hard to pin it down ideologically today.
I can hear The Great Bird of the Galaxy (Gene Roddenberry), screaming from his ashes in Space!
A Trek channel once decried how awful it was that conservatives like Star Trek. Truly sad. I consider myself a Whig who caucuses with the Democrats, conservative in out look but supports largely liberal policies based on my philosophies. in other words, a messy, contradictory human.
I can't think of a more clear admission that they WANT enemies, they only EXIST with enemies, with dragons to slay--their opponents must always remain opponents, must always be monsters, so they can crusade against them, without pity or mercy or remorse. Their entire existence is as antithesis to the barbarians beyond the gates, negative instead of positive, which ironically makes it impossible for me to believe they are legitimately Star Trek fans themselves, as I can think of no greater opposite to it.
You did bro, you won youtube.
This kind of stunt casting Star Trek doesn’t need. My husband usually does reviews on Discovery, but he hasn’t watched it in a while because it’s gotten so cringe-inducing. As for myself, I watch just for maybe 2 or 3 reasons: Doug Jones as Saru (about the only decent actor in the main cast); actor Kenneth Mitchell, who has portrayed various Kling-orcs and the Emerald Chain scientist Aurellio, and who has ALS; and Grudge, because I love cats. Other than that, I could care less about Discovery. In fact, I just about threw something when they had the temerity to use the Guardian of Forever in an episode. I might eventually post a video with my thoughts on this train wreck of a series on my husband’s channel, but we shall see.
Thanks for the comment! What’s the channel name?
@@TheLittlePlatoon Captain Robert April. I'm not quite ready to do one on my channel yet, so I do mine on his when I can.
@@StephS40 Many thanks! It appears we’ve already subscribed.
@@TheLittlePlatoon Why don’t you poke your head in on one of his fan film watch parties? He does them about every Monday night, although it might be a little bit late for you because of the time difference. I mean, if you want to show up and can manage it (we’re on Mountain Time in Colorado), we’d love to have you.
I want to come back on what you said about hope, since this is according to my personal and very subjective experience one of the biggest differences between society today and society in the 60ties and 70 ties when I grew up. It was the time of the student movement, sexual liberation, the Hippies and a time of profound societal change for many large groups of people. My mom born in 1939 ha d still to have a permit signed by her father and later her husband in order to take on a job. I am only alive because I came along 2 years before the pill. These profound changes and the Wirtschaftswunder led to a feeling of fresh start, more freedom and hope in the young generation. The war was over and we thought against all historical evidence never to come back again Hope for a better world, a world without war, violence and social injustice. A youth believing that they , by participating in the political discosure could change the world towards the better and live happy and fillfilled lives. And up to a certain point it did work at least in the so called first world countries.
Comparing the social climate of my adolescence, where the old startrek was born and situation of society today , we live in a world which in large parts has lost this hope or applied it to ridicolous concepts mainly of social identity and narcicistic navle gazing. Most young people feel impotent and helpless faced with the enormous problems our world faces today and the lack of real change of what we once hoped parliamentary democracy could bring to the world. Wokeism is as far as I understand it a coping strategy to live with fear of the future and desperation of the presence by creating an artificial rainbow positiv thinking new age kind of world kind of Barbie world. All of it is colorful and pretty but also artificial and empty. The coorporate payed and contolled monoparties who rule most of our so called democracies today make no real difference for the people who are young today and face or negate a bleak furure. Value has become net worth and virtue as Elon Musk famously said has become the perception of it ,while acting evil. Ironically he is the one perfecting the best example of acting in this way. This led to a deeply divided society where one part called ironically the left dreams about the rainbow and unicorn colored woke Dystopia we see in the new starwars, egocentric and with a tabu of the finiteness of life. The other part of society and of the young think getting back to the idealized world of the American dream and the world of the fifties of last century is the answer, without being aware how much repression and narrow minded lives and art and culture this entailed. I have no answer and there is right and wrong on both sides of the cultural divide. I only still have hope, because even the smallest person can change the course of the future.
I'm a very progressive Democrat and I think the cameo is ridiculous. You're right. It's turning into factionalism
And as I'm watching this I'm seeing a commercial for Picard on Paramount Plus. How poetic.
Trek is not about taking a stance, it's about posing a question. Sometimes a moral one, or an ethical one, or a about method. Characters disagree, take sides, but ultimately find a middle ground forward. Its about the best and worst of what we as a species can be. Political lines matter not, but moral and ethical lines do. Modern Trek has forgotten this. Only the animated series seem to remember that's the mission, probably because the executives skim over it more viewing animation as lesser. It's a tragedy what has befallen live-action Trek.
She makes me miss Patrice O'Neil
LMFAO
See, I much prefer the older star treks but I still enjoy watching these newer ones. It serves 2 purposes, too entertains me. And it shows me what these young people are not thinking or miss thinking. Evil walks amongst us...
It’s come to a point where I don’t even care what you say, I love the way you say it.
This is most well done video on the entirety of RUclips. Hope your channel continues to explode.
The show is simply trash and unwatchable. Usually I just roll my eyes and sometimes fall asleep out of boredom but the end of that show pissed me off. It was a slap in the face with a sledgehammer to half of ST fans. I'm done with STD.
People who go out of their way to applaud Abrams for being on Star Trek are just showing that they consider politics and television as entertainment and not actually representing reality.