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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2017 14:10:50 GMT -5
Totally agree. Plus one is several TV series & Movies. The other only has the Movies. and two highly successful animated series on television. One thing that bothered me about Trek looking at it in hindsight is that for a highly progressive vision of the future, it still focuses on entire races as "the enemy" with the design of the Klingons hearkening to the Yellow Threat Fu Manchu look (much like early depictions of Ming in the Flash Gordon serials) making them come off as a bit of that Yellow Menace Peril trope while the Romulans and the Neutral Zone hit a little too close to Red Menace demilitarized zone/eastern bock buffer nations idea in a not so subtle way. For a progressive inclusive vision of the future, there is still a lot of "us and them" and "that race doesn't accept our ideology as a whole so the whole race is the enemy" messages in there. Some have pointed to the lack of a Vader-like villain, and that's fine, but when you promote a race as a villain it's a little problematic for me, and it's not something unique to TOS. I did not know about Star Wars cartoons. I agree with your points about ST & races being enemies. ST held up a mirror to our current times & projected it into the future to tell stories to make us think about our current society's values, etc. TOS was intended to be a reflection of the Cold War (Klingons & Romulans). Look at the TNG. The Federation had made peace with the Klingons. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 29, 2017 14:42:04 GMT -5
Totally agree. Plus one is several TV series & Movies. The other only has the Movies. and two highly successful animated series on television. And the Ewoks and Droids cartoons. And a Holiday Special.  |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2017 14:43:26 GMT -5
and two highly successful animated series on television. And the Ewoks and Droids cartoons. And a Holiday Special. You might be hurting your argument bringing up the Holiday Special....  -M |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 29, 2017 14:45:11 GMT -5
And the Ewoks and Droids cartoons. And a Holiday Special. You might be hurting your argument bringing up the Holiday Special.... -M Wookiee porn, coked up Princess Leia and a singing Bea Arthur for the win!  |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 29, 2017 15:21:28 GMT -5
and two highly successful animated series on television. And the Ewoks and Droids cartoons. And a Holiday Special.
For all those who thought Jar Jar Binks was a fluke... |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 29, 2017 15:22:33 GMT -5
and two highly successful animated series on television. And the Ewoks and Droids cartoons. And a Holiday Special. And two live action Ewok TV movies!!! Suddenly, Star Trek Voyager doesn't look so bad... |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2017 15:26:26 GMT -5
And the Ewoks and Droids cartoons. And a Holiday Special. And two live action Ewok TV movies!!! Suddenly, Star Trek Voyager doesn't look so bad... I guess the difference is the Ewoks and Holiday special were aimed at kids, so you expect a certain level of insipidness and ham-fisted acting in those types of shows because that's what Hollywood does in kids programming, but when a show is aimed at an adult audience like Voyager... -M |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2017 15:30:27 GMT -5
And the Ewoks and Droids cartoons. And a Holiday Special. And two live action Ewok TV movies!!! Suddenly, Star Trek Voyager doesn't look so bad... Yeah but that Rod Stewart Faith of the Heart theme song from Enterprise tips the scales back to Star Wars. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 29, 2017 15:32:35 GMT -5
And two live action Ewok TV movies!!! Suddenly, Star Trek Voyager doesn't look so bad... Yeah but that Rod Stewart Faith of the Heart theme song from Enterprise tips the scales back to Star Wars. Thank heaven, I didn't watch Enterprise... I gave up the TV shows when DS9 concluded. I hear it was pretty... well... not great. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Mar 29, 2017 15:39:43 GMT -5
The proliferation of single culture planets in the Star Trek universe has always bothered me, too, but I get why they do that. When you're dealing in broad political or sociological allegory, you don't want to dilute your message in peripheral complexities. It confuses the simpler minded audience members. I don't ead them, but I would hope the various novels by Peter David and others take advantage of the prose format to let in a little nuance to the depictions of the various alien cultures.
Cei-U!
Or am I giving them too much credit?
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 29, 2017 19:14:42 GMT -5
I was thinking the Borg from STNG was the top threat. Every episode with them was a winner. Like many themes/stories/ideas in TNG, the Borg were amazing at first, but really got overused and depowered over time. They are clearly the closest to Vader visually, but if you want an arch nemesis, it's Q. Hmm, I don't think I ever saw a Borg episode that was bad. |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Mar 29, 2017 21:23:27 GMT -5
Like many themes/stories/ideas in TNG, the Borg were amazing at first, but really got overused and depowered over time. They are clearly the closest to Vader visually, but if you want an arch nemesis, it's Q. Hmm, I don't think I ever saw a Borg episode that was bad. Did you watch Voyager? |
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Post by shaxper on Mar 29, 2017 21:47:23 GMT -5
Trek, at it's heart, was about ideas, ethics, morality, philosophy, and social justice. Star Wars, at its heart, was a canned Joseph Cambell adventure with some great visuals and special effects. Neither were really about space, and that makes the two very difficult to compare. If you care more about action and excitement, you're a Star Wars fan. If you care more about ideas, you're a Star Trek fan. If you care more about memorable characters, you could be either.
And, for what it's worth, both franchises have their hits and misses. Star Wars episodes 1-3 and the Holiday Special never should have happened. Star Trek 5 and the Next Gen films never should have happened. While I dislike Voyager and Enterprise, neither are embarrassments to the franchise. They're just...adequate, as are the Star Wars animated projects.
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Post by berkley on Mar 29, 2017 23:16:09 GMT -5
Like many themes/stories/ideas in TNG, the Borg were amazing at first, but really got overused and depowered over time. They are clearly the closest to Vader visually, but if you want an arch nemesis, it's Q. Hmm, I don't think I ever saw a Borg episode that was bad. I believe there was one where they captured a young Borg and kind of adopted him, or something like that? I had already stopped watching the series at this point so never saw the episode, just heard about it, but it sounded like a bad idea to me. |
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Post by Confessor on Mar 30, 2017 2:55:04 GMT -5
Trek, at it's heart, was about ideas, ethics, morality, philosophy, and social justice. Star Wars, at its heart, was a canned Joseph Cambell adventure with some great visuals and special effects. Neither were really about space, and that makes the two very difficult to compare. If you care more about action and excitement, you're a Star Wars fan. If you care more about ideas, you're a Star Trek fan. If you care more about memorable characters, you could be either. I really disagree with parts of this. Star Wars has never just been about action and great visuals. At its heart, it has also always been about the triumph of the human spirit over technology, with elements of philosophy thrown in as well. Star Wars is NOT all surface and no depth. The best of those films has real heart. I also reject the idea behind the part I bolded; I'm definitely not someone who is a fan of action films. I like films that stimulate me intellectually and philosophically, and Star Wars certainly can do that. Star Wars is fast paced and action packed, yes, but there's a lot more to it than that. |
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