I’ve got a busy, messy morning of bottle washing ahead of me — the first fly lab of the semester is on Thursday, so I’ve got to get that teaching lab in shape. The flies are ready to go, but the glassware? Nope.
So I’m going to leave you with something important to wrangle over: Stephen Miller thinks Star Trek is too woke and wants to put 94 year old William Shatner in charge of the new show. Way to go, presidential advisor: you are stupid and wrong, and you propose a stupid solution to your imaginary problem. That is so perfectly Trumpian.
I’m going to mostly agree with this video — Star Trek has always been idealistic, to a sometimes corny degree. That’s why people watched it.
But I also kind of hope it happens. I was a huge fan of the original Star Trek, and I used to beg my parents to let me stay up late to watch it. I was 12 years old. As I got older, my taste changed, and I wanted something better — The Expanse was probably my ideal for a while (in spite of the magic engines that propelled the whole show), but I don’t even want that to continue on. New ideas are good! Star Trek has been in a rut of familiarity for 60 years. I didn’t even care much for Star Trek the Next Generation, not because it was different, but because it wasn’t different enough.
It’s been running on dual fumes from two sources: people like comfortable familiarity and will complain about any change, and in case you haven’t noticed, capitalism loves a profit-making franchise, and will keep shoveling cash at a reliable series, even if it is getting creaky and as crotchety as William Shatner. I watched about 20 minutes of the latest iteration, Star Fleet Academy before giving up. It has the good idea of galaxy-wide collapse of the old Federation, making it a total reboot…but then I could tell they were using it to reconstruct the same old framework, as if total societal collapse wouldn’t be interesting unless it was about restoring the old story.
Miller is a fool who is wrong about everything, but I think demolishing Star Trek, as his ideas would accomplish, has some virtues. Move on, please.
Related: I see HBO has created a new spin-off of Game of Thrones, a prequel set 100 years before the events in that catastrophically ended original series. Once again, capitalism wants its cash cow back. I’m not tempted to watch even a minute of that.
Also, at the end of the above video, they give a Hero of the Week award to the citizens of Minnesota. I’m one of those citizens! Thanks, I’ll wear the badge with pride and use the cash award to heat my house. There is a cash award, I assume?
I actually hate-binged Picard just to marvel at how awful it was. I know, a low point even for me.
I liked TNG, TOS was a bit old and, well, theatrical… for my taste. Of the later shows I agree with you that The Expanse was pretty awesome.
Thanks for the reminder. Time to queue up a re-watch of the best Star Trek movie: Galaxy Quest.
Good idea. Captain Kirk would have decked Miller by now.
Miller might want to watch his step. I seem to recall during Trump’s first disaster seeing Shatner on the Kimmel or Colbert show taking digs at Dumb Donnie in a dramatic reading of sorts. So Shatner running a new Trek series might be even more woke than the past.
You’re right about how the money-czars want to keep milking cash from a franchise.
But it’s also artistically challenging to have an “end” to a work. Whether it’s a piece of music, a play, a movie, a book, or a TV series: ideally, there is wonderful, engaging stuff going on, then NOTHING, forever after that.
Some authors faced that directly: Mark Twain, in “Tom Sawyer”, frex. Some with a satisfying but bittersweet coda: Calvin & Hobbes. But those are things that are under the control of a single artist, not some moguls that will either cut off a production for “reasons”, or extend it beyond where it should be brought to a conclusion.
Rather like life itself.
PZ,
I don’t know for sure, but I think the new A Game of Thrones series is based on work my George RR Martin:
“The Hedge Knight is a prequel novella by George R. R. Martin, part of the “Dunk and Egg” series, set 90 years before A Song of Ice and Fire, following the adventures of the hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg, as they navigate a tourney at Ashford, leading to a conflict with a prince and a trial by combat. It was first published in the anthology Legends in 1998 and has since been adapted into a graphic novel. ”
So, the new series could very well be based on Martin’s work, and not just slopped together to make money.
First episode was yesterday, I am going to check it out.
I agree that “Star Trek” needs to die, simply because it’s served its purpose in its time and there’s really no point in keeping it going so far past its time. But it’s already fading away with no help from any idiot Trumpanzees, thankyouverymuch.
And I’m not sure where Miller gets the idea that William Shatner would give us a less-woke Trek — he’s the guy who made sure that interracial kiss made it to the final cut. Miller may be thinking of Shatner’s kinda-buffoonish-but-not-evil character in “Boston Legal.” Either that, or he’s harking all the way back to Shatner’s flaming racist demagogue in “Shame”…
Do you think Martin isn’t slopping stuff together to make money?
It’s dead, Jim! Star Trek is beyond even the use of the Vulcan mind meld to resurrect. The producers have sucked it dry until only the husk remains, essentially becoming a Weekend at Bernie’s affair. The more they try to revive it, the more difficult it becomes to remember how exceptional it once was. For god’s sakes, let it go!
The story the new “Game of Thrones” series is based on was supposedly written more than two decades ago. It is possible that Martin rewrote it a bit, but it is likely more “selling stuff for money” than “slopping stuff together for money”. Quite possibly selling something that wouldn’t have been considered without his name on it, but not actually ‘new’ stuff.
I actually liked the first episode of Starfleet Academy.
It’s probably the only episode I’ll ever see since it was put on PlutoTV yesterday when I just happened to be watching and thus saw it, because I’m absolutely not going to give any money to Paramount.
But I’ve also liked Star Trek Lower Decks. Haven’t bothered with Picard or Discovery at all.
Really, I’m over grimdark sci-fi that’s just a bunch of assholes backstabbing each other, if I want to see that all I have to do is check the news. I’d like to see more optimistic looks at the future. But I don’t think we’re going to get that from Starfleet Academy given Paramount’s willing capitulation to Trump. They’re going to censor all the LGBTQ content, remove anything that could be construed as political commentary (or else turn it into “why conservatism is right,” and otherwise neuter the show, I’m sure.
Deep Space Nine was always my favourite…
This is worth watching: Star Trek is Propaganda