3 ms·

I don't think I can reason about real-world applications for a show's themes without considering the real world. That's the topic of discussion here. One of the

by mkr-hn 5y ago

I don't think I can reason about real-world applications for a show's themes without considering the real world. That's the topic of discussion here. One of the actors in TOS was a closeted gay man who spent part of his childhood in a Japanese internment camp. Gene Roddenberry was an idealist. His utopia was nonsense. Berman was annoying to work with[0], but his version of Trek was more realistic without losing the optimism and turning grimdark. Roddenberry's utopia needed a genocide and apocalyptic world war to wipe out all the difficult problems getting from A to B. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeSz2gW8IsE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeSz2gW8IsE

Ericson2314 5y ago
I don't think we are really disagreeing? I think pre-1968 if there were fan theories by that point, they wouldn't have been so drawn to calling out some optimism that doesn't make sense. But I really haven't watched enough Star Trek let alone caught up with fan theories to carry this further :). Did George Takei get casted thinking "fuck this bullshit, I'm going to subtlety undermine the nonsense utopia with my acting?" Or was the pain and skepticism of cold war rhetoric more a subconscious war of vacillating between hope for the future, and skepticism that "United Space Ship" and "United States Ship" had enough distance between them? I don't think many people were on that former level, say, pre-1968 at least.