Slashdot Mirror
Spock and the Legacy of Star Trek
StartsWithABang writes While the nerd/geek world mourns the death of Leonard Nimoy in its own way, it's important to remember the legacy that Star Trek — and that Spock and alien characters like him — left on our world. Unlike any other series, Star Trek used a futuristic, nearly utopian world to explore our own moral battles and failings, and yet somehow always managed to weave in an optimism about humanity and our future. This is something, the author argues, that is sorely missing from the new J.J. Abrams movies.
long and prosper .. sniff
Only the vessel for him carried by Leonard Nimoy has passed on, but as long as he's remembered he's not truly dead.
The Original Series did a lot within the frame of that series to actually poke at contemporary issues about racism and other things. It was not so much about the science as it was about studies on humanitarian issues.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I'm sorry capt'n , I can't make the movie any darker! But seriously, its a good point raised ... why is darker always better?
RIP
The Game Star Trek Online, on thursday they are gonna have an update that add's a memorial for him on vulcan.
The reason TOS had such an optimistic viewpoint is because it's creator, Gene Roddenberry believed firmly that in the future, Mankind would get beyond the childish violence. You youngsters also need to remember that the TOS was shot at the height of the Hippy/Flower Power movement.
Gene was still around for TNG but passed in 1991 before DS9 (1993) & it shows in the subject matter & tone. DS9 becoming much darker than the previous series for example.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
a fine craft, acting. it must take a lot of skill to deceive so many. or are we all that gullible? so much hard work and toiling at the soil.
"why so serious?"
"because i'm tryin to shoot up this bit of heroin so i can play pretend some more."
at least one bio on IMDB has a quote from a popular actor stating he loved acting because he loved to lie.
so farewell, shadows and dust.
That's exactly why I don't like the new version!
It's a fucking shame, really... The US has very few optimistic shows that actually dare deal with hard questions and then they go and butcher one of the few they have.
I do recognize the point that most Star Trek movies had more action than philosophy because a series lends itself better for such things... So my question is basically: Where is this decade's Star Trek series?
Screw your hippie Federation utopia! I'm running away to join the Dominion. All glory to the Founders! May their victory over solids bring peace and long life to all.
We've grown up. We have seen what the future brings, and it's not good. No starships, no utopia: just misery and strife. Roddenberry was a deluded fool and his followers are a gullible bunch of retards.
Conflict makes for better movies than optimism.
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
The "author" is, of course, the submitter, one of those people who refers himself in the third person.
Do you know if they're planning a tribute to Nimoy is some episodes?
Except the Muslims and the Mexicans and the Cubans and anyone who tries to tamper with MAH MEDI-CARE. I will contribute to the landslide election of any candidate who builds a fence on every border, especially Florida. Arm the COAST GARD with NOOCLEAR WAPONS and keep the darkies OUT.
A cardboard spaceship, with a Canadian ham-actor and bad scripts that influenced 12year olds who had never seen anything like it.
That's about it.
Star Trek gave us a future to shoot for. Lenoard Nimoy just acted in the TV Show. Gene Roddenberry had an optimistic future about Humanity, that really, we could all get along with each other, and use science, reason, and education to solve our problems. There are a few notable flaws with this way of thinking.
Where are the Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindu, Sikhs, Jains, etc etc. The answer is: They don't exist. In the universe of Star Trek, there are no gods, only creatures we don't understand. Some friendly, some hostile we must overcome by intellect or force. All Humans in Star Trek are a kind of Secular Agnostic Deist. Nobody fights wars over the stuff we fight over because we are seen of one of Billions of Species spread all over this universe in a vast cosmos. This would result in social upheaval, mass hysteria, and suicides, and homicides at first as there are people so indoctrinated in these cults, that the shattering shift in reality would be unreal.
Another thing that makes the Star Trek Universe "Possible" we don't have is Matter Replication and Transmutation. We know enough to take any given source atoms and convert them to any given destination atoms with minimal effort. All thats needed is electricity to power the machines. This would result in the collapse of Capitalism as we know it. A kind of Socialism would take its place.
The last thing that would make Roddenberry's Future possible is Anti-matter Fusion and Fission. This would provide us with nearly limitless power generation capabilities. Its also extremely dangerous and can lead to a large scale ka-boom
Earth's Government in Star Trek is a unified secular government with a guaranteed Charter of rights. All three Abrahamic religions would flip their shit. As a government like this is described as being despised by the religions as a sign of the Apocalypse. The reason is with with a "Government of Planet Earth and all Terran Colonies" all laws would need to be based in reason and have a rational justification for existing and secular purpose. Equality and Egalitarianism would be necessary for this to work, and the Majority of religions are completely contrary to this concept. So, basically, for a Future like Star Trek to work, the heritage of our ancestors has to die.
Right, it's all well and good that there was utopian optimism in the 1960's. Instead of naive, I'd say anyone supporting that mindset now was willfully ignoring reality
And the spammed website being unreadable saves me reading the hipsteriffic drivel. Thanks, spammer.
One thing people seem to have forgotten is that the original Star Trek was a load of crap. Poor scripts, poor direction and some really bad acting. I had personally forgotten just how bad, until I started watching them recently. Then again, I was fairly young when they were first aired.
I enjoyed the FIRST of the new Star Trek movies, it was a good popcorn flick and I was satisfied how they handled the trek universe for the most part, regardless of the lack of utopian optomism. The second movie though, not so good most of the way through, but when they re-did "that scene" - wow.
WOW Holy shit, they brought out an inner Trek Nerd I didn't even know existed in me. That was insulting as fuck. The most touching scene in the history of Star Trek, re-hashed as an homage? Fuck off.
Ultimately though the article summary is correct, there's this innocent wonder, optomism and good in the vast majority of Star Trek, particularly ToS and TNG which is just doesn't exist in most other movies or TV shows. It's sorely lacking in the world.
I've always been a cynical bastard who loves to hate on things, loves a dark theme but it's so over done now, SO over done. It's sad that it's refreshing to see people with clear, honest, straight up good values.
I'm not a big fan of the Marvel movies (they aren't terrible) but I really like Captain America. If you told me 15 years ago, I'd like Captain America, I wouldn't believe you. I'd say "that's lame" "he's a dork" "who cares". But now? In the society we're all living in? Captain America is refreshingly good and nice, it's great. (This is also why the original 1977 Superman is a masterpiece, it's an archive of a time long gone where good was good because it's right)
I fear that with the death of Gene Roddenberry and the worlds ever intense focus on money, which while always existing, has become sharpened the last decade or two, you're just not going to see a classic return to original, cheesy, fun Star Trek. It has to have an edge to appeal to the mainstream. Maybe some tits or a fistfight or someone lying or cheating or bullshit drama. /the norm/ someone is going to be a piece of shit with all these complexities in a TV show, cheating / lying / playing games / one upping people is normal behaviour on standard television :/
In TnG when someone cheated or did something bad, it was addressed, it was weird, they investigated, found why the person was sad / angry / hateful and they fixed it because it's not productive, it's not good to be like that. Nowadays as per
ToS and TnG might be utopian and cheesy but it's in a good way. I laugh with them and I laugh at them and when I laugh at them, I don't dislike it. I just go "oh Star Trek" and keep on watching. Unfortunately for most people, that shit won't play anymore. The people who respect that kind of television are few and far between now.
As for Nimoy, RIP indeed :( RIP - if I can give you all one piece of advice, go read his timeline of tweets for the last couple of years, he'll tell you one critical thing. STOP.SMOKING.NOW
RIP Spock and RIP good values in television and movies, arguably, RIP Star Trek
I think the optimism is sorely lacking in AbramsTrek because of several reasons. Most people have already touched on his deficiencies in storytelling, but I think there might be another reason that gets comparatively little attention.
We must remember that by the standards of today a lot of nerds would sneer at Gene Roddenberry for being an "SJW". Since Abrams has already thrown out the old nerds with his take on Khan, he cannot afford to rile up the very vocal minority that might take umbrage at Roddenberry's push for equality and inclusion.
It's speculation, and I don't afford it more credibility than mere possibility, but I do think it is possible that Abrams or someone in the studio marketing department might have been thinking on those lines, even if unconsciously.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
"Star Trek used a futuristic, nearly utopian world to explore our own moral battles and failings, and yet somehow always managed to weave in an optimism about humanity and our future. This is something, the author argues, that is sorely missing from the new J.J. Abrams movies."
The problem with the Abrams Star Trek movies, is they're not really Star Trek movies. They do contain a Starship called Enterprise and the crew are called Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Bones, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov. But the core has been excised and they've been rendered for a generic audience. You can tell Abrams doesn't trust his audience to engage with the characters, hence the reason the plot races at breakneck speed from one spectular effects/action sequence to the next. Take 'Star Trek Into Darkness' for instance. This just from the opening sequence, Enterprise underwater, volcano exploding, natives attacking and so on.
The Abrams movies are action movie fluff. Nothing more, nothing less. The characters are "Star Trek" in name only, and an insult to every single Star Trek series or movie that came before them.
The first of Abrams movies, I thought "Well, it's just a start. They've got to get their legs under them."
But when Kirk lost the Enterprise and then gained it back in less than 10 minutes in the second movie, I shut it off. I've never watched it. I refuse to watch such an insulting piece of drek that thinks someone is going to be given a trillion dollar starship just because they asked after having had it taken away for breaking the law.
I presume there is going to be another Abrams movie soon enough. I won't bother watching that, either.
Watching the Abrams movies is like watching the first three "Star Wars" movies after having seen the original trilogy. It's painful. It's insulting. It's degrading. And it feels like it's marketed to pre-teens, not people who think.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
So thats why he was so pissed off. His parents wanted him to be a good klingon lawyer but he ended up wearing cheap clothes and being the foil for a bunch of ungrateful mensch!
Don't watch Star Trek much any more.
I'm writing my autobiography, it will be a collection of Slashdot quips assembled in a nosql database with a Visual Basic front end. I'm gonna call it Mod THIS!
Nimoy picked the split finger gesture after seeing it in synagog. He got everyone to pass along Jewish blessings to each other.
is "pew pew pew" BOOOM CRASH "pew pew pew"
"leave me behind, save yourselves"
pew pew pew
Its fucking GI Joe with spaceships.
... they buried him in a photon torpedo-shaped casket, wearing a black robe.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
I think TOS was a product of its time. it was developed in 64 and first aired in 66-67 season. By 64 the Civil rights movement was well under way. In May 64 Johnson gave the first Great Society Speech at Athens Ohio. Then, the summer of 64 was when Chaney, Goodman and Scherner were killed. Also, the problems with colonization in Africa and South East Asia were recoginized and lead to the formation of the Prime Directive (I'm looking for more sources on that). One thing I always laugh about it how people say things will be in the future. One thing the future won't be is any particular way, the future will (hopefully) last a long time and there will be lots of change, so there is plenty of time for lots of predictions to come true. If the Star Trek franchise rigidly applied elements from TOS to later series it would have been pretty boring. One humorus (IMO) side note about Spock. Star Trke Enterprise, S2E2 had TPol and 2 other vulcans go to late 1950s united states and were stuck there. they had some postitive interactions with humans so one of the vulcans decided to stay and TPol reported he was killed. I always thought they should have gone a little futher with that plot and had the vulcan (Mestral) go to California and become involved in acting. I tried to explain this to some other trekkies but they didn't see the humor in it.
...so now I'm patiently waiting for the inevitable yet predictable response.
The Utopian future where technology solves our issues, is so 1960's and not modern anymore. Thus Treks vision is outdated. Can we get past racism? and we can probably get past a few of our artificially imposed issues. But to get this Utopian future (Or any Utopian Future) You need a massive buy in from a huge majority (I say over 90%), who are willing to have the same goal.
A common problem that we have, we think, if everyone thinks about the issues the same way that I have then we will be so much better off. But that is the issue, not everyone will see things that same way, and will have different views, and they will be just as insistent that there way is just as good if not better then yours.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The sad loss of a beloved actor shouldn't be a springboard for fanboy hate of J.J. Abrams.
For what it's worth, I think the writers and the actors in the Abrams' movies really get Star Trek. Maybe not so much the director, whose lack of affection for the franchise shows. But even though the aesthetics may not be very Trek, the fundamental Trek ethos that Leonard Nimoy was so essential to establishing was there in the scripts and performances. And that ethos is still something worth studying.
We have managed to turn "diversity" into an hollow slogan; a catchphrase that represents a kind of bean counting of superficial categories. I remember one startup environmental organization I worked for where we had just hired a young man from Mexico City. The founder, an unquestionably brilliant man, was literally rubbing his hands together in glee as he toted up his diversity: one latino male, one asian male (me), one black (African) female, four caucasian females and three caucasian males. And I was thinking, "Yeah, but except for me everyone comes from the same graduate program in environmental studies you founded." What's more except for him and me they all came from the same comfortable middle to upper-middle class background -- people who never had to worry about money. Groupthink was a huge problem, but nobody else saw that until the day they suddenly realized they weren't going to be able to make payroll. Maybe a business major or two on the payroll would have been a good idea...
Star Trek shows a cast of characters who may all have gone to the same school, but think radically different from each other. Nonetheless they manage to work together and are better, more capable people because of that. That's what diversity is really about: working with people who have different viewpoints and attitudes.. Kirk and Spock are the the toughest nuts to crack, because they both have a tendency toward arrogant, even smug confidence in their own judgment. Trust me, you wouldn't want to work for either of these two characters if they didn't have each other.
Aristotle posited three levels of friendship, that of convenience, of pleasure, and of virtue. In the virtuous friendship, your friend is "a second self" -- that is you pursue his welfare as an intrinsic rather than an instrumental good, just as you pursue your own welfare. He valued virtuous friendship even above justice, because it holds society together in ways that even justice cannot. But he missed another point which the Kirk/Spock friendship illustrates: a friend is a doorway into a better appreciation of objective reality. You cannot dismiss the viewpoint of "second self" as easily as you would someone else's opinions.
So again from what it's worth the writers of the Abrams reboot movies really understand this virtuous friendship dynamic, and especially do a nice job with the humorous touches. The overall stories were a bit mediocre, but the character based stuff was top-notch and true to the spirit of TOS.
To bring this back to Leonard Nimoy, others deserve some credit in creating Spock -- the writers, directors and of course Gene Roddenberry. But Nimoy's performance is what brought Spock to life. It's one of those instances of theatrical magic where an actor becomes the character, and banishes any awareness that you're watching someone playing a role. That's a big part of what makes Spock so relatable.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
However briefly, I think it's worth pointing out that the Star Trek: Enterprise series made a sincere effort to capture the optimism and pioneering character of TOS. When I heard that a prequel series was in the works, I had great hopes, but they were conditioned by the dismal DS9 and Voyager shows. I was completely blown away by the shows opening segment, where they give a visual history of the space program from its earliest beginnings, and then splice in new, imaginary spaceships and events to take it into the future. Imagine what this show would have been like if they had taken that same level of creativity into the plot lines! They could easily have, on a continuing basis, sprinkled in cameo appearances who are the grandparents of people in TOS. Instead of repeating plots that were nearly identical to those in TOS and TNG, they could have shown events that would ultimately create the circumstances that lead to those later shows. They could have made awesome shows laying the groundwork for everything that happened in TOS, and they blew it. Crikes, how they blew it! After 9/11 happened, they chose to fling aside everything that was interesting about the show and pursue a tissue-paper thin war propaganda mission that followed almost verbatim everything that I hated about what was going on in the real world back then.
Somebody missed an episode. Black left side or right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_That_Be_Your_Last_Battlefield
ToS was all about addressing the problematic issues of the day, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, sometimes metaphorically, sometimes in combination. This did happen in other series, although not as often, but sometimes quite well, stimulating a lot of thought and potential insight.
Too bad Voyager and the Maki storyline was so early on. Could have used that perspective before starting all these fucking wars.
One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.
They had Star Trek brand... and you could say that the cast was nicely picked.
Aaaand that's it.
They failed in everything else.
From basic Star Trek technology (imagine the next Star Wars movie where Jedi prefer blasters), basic science, logic, story structure... Even characters.
E.g. Spock is not logical and detached - he is passive-aggressive to full on aggressive hostile. Constantly.
He's half-Klingon, barely managing not to rip everyone's heads off and feast on their insides, not a calm, logical Vulcan.
They made a sly Scotty into a bumbling nerdy idiot.
Sulu and Chekov... they have no character.
McCoy was boiled down to a frowny face.
They made Uhura into a love interest bimbo.
And Kirk... He's simply a fratboy dickhead now.
Shatner's Kirk did used to get his shirt off a lot, but he was still a cerebral character.
All of them were. Star Trek was always ultimately about the triumph of the mind - not brute force.
The old scenes of Spock saving the Enterprise in Wrath of Khan vs. Kirk doing the same in Jar Jar's Trek 2: Trek Darker illustrate that very well.
Spock is clearly out of strength and running on will power to complete the task.
Kirk is jumping up and down and kicking the core to make it work.
Brute, mindless force replaced determination and will power.
And then they shit on the entire universe by curing death with magic blood.
And they have portable teleporters that can beam people across the galaxy from Earth all the way to Qo'noS.
Why bother with ships then? In a movie whose big plot point is a secret MegaBig spaceship.
You know... Like the last time on Jar Jar Trek.
Which copied that last Trek movie. About the TNG crew and Romulans. And their big world destroying ship.
Remember how that movie had the captain of the Enterprise driving around in the desert... which is how Jar Jar Trek starts.
And how the captain gets captured... and then someone has to jump through space to the MegaBig ship to save him.
Jar Jar is that kid who comes out of the theater after watching Wrath of Khan all excited about how it was awesome when they "killed those bad guys".
He lacks the capacity to grasp what the show is about - but he likes explosions and shiny.
He's Michael Bay without the looks and confidence to be a complete over the top dick.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
36 of D.
The problem with new Trek isn't JJ Abrams. It's us. The future painted by Star Trek in the 1960's isn't quite so distant any more. It's actually a little quaint. The "ethnic crewmen" are no longer awkward stereotypes. They are real people viewed much more as equals and just plain mundane.
The Scottish engineer is actually a real geeky Scot.
The Asian is more than a smiling cheerful guy.
The Russian is actually from Leningrad and actually sounds like someone who could be Spock's protoge.
The black girl comes off as more than just a switchboard operator.
Most of the tech of the old show seems dated so they find the need to make it all look even snazzier.
We are past most of the little details and the big details are taken for granted.
The future arrived. The bar is higher now. The remarkable has become the mundane.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I was (and remain) a huge fan of ST:TOS. That said, i fail to see the series as depicting a utopia. Despite the international (and outernational) cast, the setting is one of typical European-style exploration/colonization, with armed crews aboard heavily armed ships imposing their will on those subjects who's culture is deemed to be inferior (on numerous occasions, Kirk acted against the Prime Directive that purportedly protected against this). Hostility (typically promulgated by nefarious aliens, but also arising from unintended actions, primitive Vulcan rights, etc.) is depicted far more often than peaceful coexistence (presumably to advance compelling story lines).
Admittedly, the series lacked the dystopian elements that disturbingly have predominated in science fiction movies for the past 50 years (have always wondered about that - presumably ushered in by the cold-war nuclear era?)...
I am not a number - I am a free man!
Every bit you can get closer to reality is what tends to separate better SF from worse SF. I look around me, and I see very little reason for optimism. I see no reason for optimism in ST:TOS, either, it was sort of invasive. ST:TOS was a litany of "everything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and the expendables (red shirts) are gonna die. ST:TNG, the same, except also, if IRL you appeared in Playboy, you're gonna die. ST:STE was dark as hell (and frankly, with that huge story arc, for me, the most enjoyable, despite what I perceived as a rather wooden captain in the first few episodes. Hoshi, Phlox, Trip and T'Pal made up for that, and then some.)
So. He may be right -- optimism is missing -- but I see it as a feature, not a bug. I look forward to the possibility of more of the franchise.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Are not about the art of science fiction.
But the art of entertainment (resulting in ticket sales).
Hence much of the conflict between Star Trek (art of) and Star Wars (entertainment). Thus, JJ will do great in ep. 7.
The difference between Gene Roddenberry Star Trek and most any other is that Gene was a philosopher. Within his shows, he debated questions like:
-What is the nature of good? ("Savage Curtain")
-Racism ("Let that be your last Battlefield")
The best Science Fiction is just window dressing for philosophical debate. Unfortunately, most sci-fi dismisses the debate aspect and focuses almost entirely on the window dressing.
Jews In Spaaaaaaace!
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
Once you're created a GUI interface using Visual Basic, see if you can track an IP address. Then put it in the "cloud!"
STTNG: Wesley Crusher. Q was a bit silly mostly.
Voyager: Nelix. Janeway was super captain, over compensating a bit for female role. Over usage of the holodeck bit.
DS9: Nog/Jake. Sisko's over acting. The whole wormhole aliens religious arc.
Enterprise: Was a bit actiony for a show about exploration. Lacked some depth.
Honorable mention: Both doctors on Voyager and Enterprise, seemed to start off rocky but sort of grew on you over time.
All of them with perhaps the exception of Enterprise seemed to require 1) a comic relief person, and 2) some youth for younger viewers I guess. By Enterprise I guess they figured we're all grown up now and don't require it anymore. Even when younger I found the two aspects annoying.
Also STTNG had a few episodes where there writers basically phoned it in and ran re-runs.
All that said, I've watched all the episodes several times over each, and would welcome another Star Trek. There is not enough science fiction big production tv shows out there anymore. The last really being BSG which was years ago now.
StartsWithaBang, I couldn't agree with you more. While I enjoyed the new movies with their sense of humour and amazing graphics, I truly miss the optimism that permeated TOS. I think of the technology arose after they inspired young inventors; and I hope that our future economy will also be inspired by the Star Trek economy -- apparently free market yet equitable.
do u know if the movie company will make the new star trek movie shortly?
please send the answer to my blog http://arraziibrahim.com