Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

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The Romulan Republic
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Gandalf wrote:
Q99 wrote:
Joun_Lord wrote:Also going to really suck if Discovery fails and people try to blame racist idiots for its failure rather then it possibly sucking so nobody learns from any possible mistakes like reboot Ghostbusters.
The reaction to the Reboot Ghostbusters really poisoned the well- because while it was a flawed movie, it also had some good stuff and a lot of people loved that we had an ensemble women *action* movie cast that had parts that really worked, like Holtzman, and the invention of new ghostbusting weapons was a good concept even if it ended up relatively minor in terms of story impact. The villain's form was just a boring Staypuff marshmellow redux and they should've been more creative, but he was better than the skeezy guy in GB2 (btw, I rate GB-reboot above GB-2). But bring up the good parts and it's 'you're just reacting to the bigots.' The whole thing really jammed the discussion of the movie period, whether talking good or bad.
Largely this.

I thought that the new GB wasn't a perfect film, but I rate it as one of my five favourite films of 2016. It was a fun and silly piece, which was all that it promised to be. I say that and I'm not even in the target audience. My wife absolutely loved it.

I guess between this and Clinton 2016, the big lesson of the year was to keep angry white guys appeased.
Eh, the main lessons I'd take from Clinton are "Don't run unlikeable candidates for President" and "Beware of Putin". :wink:

But yeah, their is a contingent of insecure white men who feel that anything less than complete white male dominance is them being oppressed and subjugated, who will whine any time a woman or minority is allowed to accomplish anything.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

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Q99 wrote:I mean, by action, the original ones were action too, just not like martial arts actions or such. This one was a bit more cinematic action and I can get not liking that, though I think it's fairly inevitable with the change in the times that things would step up to a degree.

The weapons played up the development-as-inventors angle too, which I liked. The first GB, they just had all the gear ready from the getgo, Egon and Ray did it all offscreen. This one, they didn't even have the capacity to capture ghosts at first, which is great when they can't yet *prove* ghosts, it was just theories they'd written down but not put into practice. Then they learn to trap, clumsily at first, then they get new stuff... even if one trimmed out the more advanced weaponry, that's a good concept.
I don't mind the action being a bit more cinematic because yeah, the original was just 4 dudes standing around. That could be boring, not really sell well with the times. Though one can argue 4 dudes (or 4 chicks) standing around is part of the point of Ghostbusters. They aren't superheroes or gymnasts or anything that should lead them to jumping around like Yoda in the Prequels, they are 3 out of shape scientists and their black friend (poor Winston and Patty, though I'll admit they were probably my favorite parts of the movies because of how they were more normal then the brainy scientists and actually reacted like you'd expect people to do).

I also didn't mind them showing their work but my main problem was them creating weapon in the first place. I'm not anti-gun, don't get me wrong on that, but the Ghostbusters should no more be using guns then a dog catcher. I did like them showing them learning how to use the equipment even if I kinda also hated how slapsticky it got. Did it a little overboard as they did with some of the comedy, too often everyone was trying to be the Venkman and some of the jokes were just terrible like the wonton "jokes". I think the movie worked best when each character was trying to act more unique and actually had some decent material to work with.

The concert scene with the bat demon ghost thing, that was excellent. Great comedy, great acting, every character acted how you'd expect I think. If the rest of the movie was like that I think people would be debating Ghostbusters old vs new and how each team would do in the others respective scenario rather then doing a post-mortem autopsy.
Q99 wrote:Blacklash almost feels like the wrong word because it was all happening before the movie came out! Pre-backlash? Forelash? The sexist brigade came out guns blazing from the first trailer, got the defenders on edge, and that dominated the narrative to the release and then some. Even the reviews trying to address the merits normally spent a paragraph or two talking about that!
To be fair to the reboot, there was sexist backlash even before the first trailer. There was some people who were bitching about how it was not going to be funny because women aren't funny and other bullshit crap that is crap. Now I think most of the complaints weren't sexist, I think alot was it smacked of a lazy move with the gender swapping just being a lazy gimmick but there was still sexism. When the trailer itself came out I am positive most of the complaints were just how shit the trailer was, how confusing it was on whether it was a reboot or sequel, and how the Fallout Boy song kinda sucked badly. There was sexism still but alot of the sexism complaints was overblown, even inaccurate. Like James Rofle's kinda odd "No review, I Refuse" being called sexist when it was anything but. Fanboyish as all hell and probably a bit odd to non-nerds but not sexist.

It certainly dominated the narrative to the release and to infinity and beyond, not question of that. Though I think Sony and Feig helped fan the flames and some people with agendas (on both sides) have a vested interest in the narrative continuing.
Q99 wrote:In the case of Star Trek, I think it's big enough that we don't have to worry about those aspects drowning out the narrative- I mean, Trek's got the history of it, and literally is a show about diversity.

Oh yea, and being active, Trek doesn't have quite the same level of expectations. Like, there's a fair amount riding on it that people want better Trek, but this isn't a thirty-years-later revival, this is a one-year-after-the-last-movie thing. It doesn't have to restart trek or live up to the best of Trek off the bat to succeed.

Heck, let's face it, we kinda expect weak first seasons from Trek, don't we? Last good first season was maybe the Animated series.... so if the characters are good and we get some good episodes in the mix I expect people will expect it to pick up.
I hope we don't have to worry about racist bastard or bastards willing to use racist bastards as an excuse to not fall on their sword and admit they made a mistake. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm more then enough of a Star Trek fanboy to want Discovery to succeed and restart tv Trek.

And thats kinda the problem with Discovery, while the movies have been moderately successful and still pretty current with Beyond coming out only a short time ago the "Kelvin" universe was only created because the last tv series's and movies based on them killed Trek harder then watching a naked Donald Trump twerking would kill arousal. The movies beyond confusing some casual viewers have nothing to do with the Discovery, the series will have to stand on its own right now and do so while still carrying around the baggage of Voyager, Enterprise, and the movies. It will have to win back viewers burned by those things while still appealing to casual viewers so it can remain financially successful.

And with its distribution platform it already has an uphill battle. I don't know if Discovery will be given the opportunity to have a weak first and second season like alot of Trek should it require it.
Q99 wrote:Eh, opening weekends are more about the marketing than the quality, quality is more a 'how well it holds' thing (See: Batman vs Superman, or Jurassic Park Lost World which dropped like a rock after a record opening, or Prometheus). So they do have a point that the attacks probably did hurt it a fair amount. Not that it was ever going to get super hype, but exaggerated toxicity does drag anything down.

Boot that crapstorm away, and it'd probably be a, "Some people liked it, some didn't, middling performance, makes it's money back but doesn't get a sequel," thing.
Ghostbusters 2016 actually had a strong opening even if it was second to Secret Life of Pets but petered out quickly. The controversy didn't actually seem to effect it, what seemed to was some of the more negative and meh reviews after the opening. The movie just didn't have alot of steam, it wasn't good or bad enough to justify the controversy and to put asses in seats.

Yeah, take away the controversy it'd probably just be described as a forgettable movie that didn't do so hot at the box office, didn't even break even and lost millions but probably eventually made its money back in DVD sales.
Q99 wrote:Both did pretty well in ratings really, especially at first, and they did well enough that Enterprise got made, so... the answer should be no, because that wouldn't make sense, but the answer is yes, because they had a black man and a woman.
I could be wrong but I think both had somewhat lower ratings then TNG and didn't get quite the well received critical praise. They weren't failures but certainly weren't huge hits, did poorly enough that we are unlikely to see HD releases of the two series because the cost was deemed not worth it to convert them. Hence why I wondered if back in the day, or even now, people tried to blame the less then ideal performance on having a minority and female lead.

Of course I'd think any attempts to link racism or sexism to those two series ratings and reception would fall flat considering the white male led (and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying having a white male lead helped or hurt Ent anymore then not having one hurt or helped DS9 or Voy, can't really blame the cast considering pretty much everyone is other things performed well, Scott Bakula in particular is a excellent actor and actually has me watching a NCIS series right now) Enterprise did even worse but I would exactly expect a rational argument from racists and sexists and agenda driven people.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

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Q99 wrote:Yea. Enterprise honestly bugged me with how relatively-white it was.
Does this speak more to the show or to your being uncomfortable with a show having a cast that's "relatively white"?


Frankly, I don't care what race the cast is, as long as they are good actors and play the part well. What stuck out to me about the trailer is that a) it didn't feature the hero ship, b) it featured a pretty stereotypical alien, (the one who said "I'm bred for this" or something similar), c) that it looked more like the JJ 'verse than the Prime 'verse, and d) that the Shenzhou (named after a Chinese city) had an asian captain. And before anyone calls me racist regarding d, my issue wasn't that the captain was asian, it was that they gave her a ship with a specifically asian name.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

Post by mr friendly guy »

biostem wrote:
Q99 wrote:
Frankly, I don't care what race the cast is, as long as they are good actors and play the part well. What stuck out to me about the trailer is that a) it didn't feature the hero ship, b) it featured a pretty stereotypical alien, (the one who said "I'm bred for this" or something similar), c) that it looked more like the JJ 'verse than the Prime 'verse, and d) that the Shenzhou (named after a Chinese city) had an asian captain. And before anyone calls me racist regarding d, my issue wasn't that the captain was asian, it was that they gave her a ship with a specifically asian name.
As opposed to an American captain (played by a Canadian of course) captaining a ship with the same name as previous US aircraft carriers.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

Post by mr friendly guy »

Just going on the naming of Shenzhou, Shenzhou is also the name of a spacecraft launched by the Chinese and an asteroid was named in honour of that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhou_(spacecraft)

Shenzhou city is also a city in China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhou_City

The spacecraft's name is written 神舟 and pronounced Shén Zhōu, while the city is written 深州 and spoken differently (with different intonations) as Shēnzhōu. So the first syllable is spoken with a higher intonation in Mandarin for the shuttle.

The ship may very well be named after earlier ships of exploration, rather than a Chinese city per se, like Discovery was also a space shuttle as well as sharing the names with earlier sailing ships. So in universe it may very well be they name starships after earlier ships or spacecraft and it just so happens an Asian captain is running the show on the Shenzhou.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

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biostem wrote: Does this speak more to the show or to your being uncomfortable with a show having a cast that's "relatively white"?
I mean, it speaks to my experiences and what I expect. It doesn't mean bad, but I'm more comfortable with/prefer diverse casts, especially in things known for diverse casts.

I don't know if it's cause or effect, but I tend to associate diverse casts with better storytelling. A lot of writers tend to go with 'white = default,' so when they're writing they're just 'ok, this is default' and I end up not getting as attached to the characters.

Of course there's tons of exceptions, but that's what my experiences say. I found the Ent cast the least-interesting of them and I kinda feel it's related.
Frankly, I don't care what race the cast is, as long as they are good actors and play the part well. What stuck out to me about the trailer is that a) it didn't feature the hero ship, b) it featured a pretty stereotypical alien, (the one who said "I'm bred for this" or something similar), c) that it looked more like the JJ 'verse than the Prime 'verse, and d) that the Shenzhou (named after a Chinese city) had an asian captain. And before anyone calls me racist regarding d, my issue wasn't that the captain was asian, it was that they gave her a ship with a specifically asian name.
B) Oh yea, that guy was weird. "Bred to detect death"? Why would you make that a sapient being?

Fair point on D).
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

Post by biostem »

I mean, it speaks to my experiences and what I expect. It doesn't mean bad, but I'm more comfortable with/prefer diverse casts, especially in things known for diverse casts.

I don't know if it's cause or effect, but I tend to associate diverse casts with better storytelling. A lot of writers tend to go with 'white = default,' so when they're writing they're just 'ok, this is default' and I end up not getting as attached to the characters.

Of course there's tons of exceptions, but that's what my experiences say. I found the Ent cast the least-interesting of them and I kinda feel it's related.
Well, like I pointed out in my item a), we haven't seen the hero ship or its crew yet. Maybe its crew will have a different makeup. Given the production trouble I've heard about, (I recommend watching Midnight's Edge's video on the subject, on Youtube), maybe the first few episodes will NOT introduce the Discovery, for this specific reason...
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

Post by amigocabal »

mr friendly guy wrote: 2017-05-25 01:41am Not sure if this should go into sci fi or into OT, but damn its funny.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/white-g ... ek-series/
‘White genocide in space’: Racist fans seethe at diversity in new ‘Star Trek’ series

The new series Star Trek Discovery stars Asian actress Michelle Yeoh as the ship’s captain and black actress Sonequa Martin-Green as her first officer — and this has caused some Trekkies to fret about the lack of white men in charge.

While the overall reaction to the new Star Trek trailer has been positive — although there are the usual complaints from Star Trek fans about continuity errors — one group of fans is particularly upset about the show’s diverse cast of characters.

As both Heat Street and Daily Kos point out, the series’ YouTube page has been bombarded by comments labeling the show a “SJW” plot aimed at shoving “political correctness,” “forced diversity,” and even “cultural Marxism” down viewers’ throats.

Additionally, some angry Twitter users have even proclaimed that the show’s diverse cast is evidence of a “white genocide” conspiracy aimed at eliminating the white race from the face of the Earth.

Read some of the top angry reactions from fans below.
LubertDas @lubertdas
Star Trek Discovery: The only white males are a Vulcan a-hole and a wimpy helmsman. This show appears to be fully SJW converged.
9:42 AM - 18 May 2017 · Mundelein, IL

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Bro Rabbit @BrurRabbit
Star Trek introduces #WhiteGenocide in space... as if "diversity" could make it to space
CBS upcoming "Star Trek Discovery" only one white cast member & surprise-he's gay! Another #SJW failure, like Marvel Comics. #WhiteGenocide pic.twitter.com/1ng1HW3L53

— Conscious Celt (@ConsciousCelt) May 18, 2017
David Laettner @DavidLaettner
Star Trek: Discovery
moar liek
Star Trek: muh forced Diversity
8:06 PM - 19 May 2017
TheMadScientist @ThMadScientist
Star Trek Discovery. Another prequel no one asked for lacquered in feminist political correctness & shit writing
Michael Burns @ooohouchburn
Star Trek Discovery aka "SJW The Next Generation" Trailer Drops. Seems BLM made the trailer...
Joshua @joshua8598
@startrekcbs @SonequaMG Star Trek Discovery of feminism edition? I LOVED captain Janeway but please don't ruin Star Trek with tons of political correctness@
Next they will have a Japanese man and an African American actress on Trek. What an outrage.

By the way, Michelle Yeoh kicks arse in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and as a Bond Girl, while the Alt Rights kick arse in defending people who advocate child rape. Hmm. I know which one I would rather have on my side.
Well, given a planet with seven billion people, there are bound to be a handful of crackpots.

Chinese people as Starfleet officers should not be shocking, given the popul;ation as well as the fact rhat China is a prosperous land at the time.

Still, this does beg the question of why some of them call it white genocide. Calling casting non-white actors in a TV show "white genocide" completely unmoors the term from any reasonable definition.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Their is no "reasonable definition", in my experience, and if you think that there is, I'm 90% of the way toward concluding that you yourself are a closet white supremacist/white nationalist.

I mean, yes, theoretically, you could have a campaign to exterminate or enslave white people, and that could be called "white genocide". But that's not how the term is ever actually used (because, in this part of the world at least, nothing remotely like that is happening or likely to happen soon).

In my experience, its a term used by white supremacists to claim that any spread of minority culture, success for minorities, or interracial relationships (because, you know, the "pure" white race are disappearing) constitute the destruction of the white race.

Basically: "Brown people aren't being completely subjugated beneath us? We're the real victims!" Dialed up to eleven.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

Post by Solauren »

So let's see....

Series: Commanding Officer, Executive Officer
TOS: White Human Male, White Alien Male who got visual comparisons to Satan. Command crew racially diverse, including having Asian male in command at times, featured TV's first interacial kiss.
TNG: White Human Male, White Human male. Command crew not as diverse visually, but included a alien played by a black actor, two women instead of one (that could actually order the Captain around for medical reasons), a Blind Guy, an an android
DS9: Black Human Male, White Alien Female. Species diverse command crew (does White/Black etc even apply to a Ferengi or Changeling?)
VOY: White Human Female, Native American Human Male. Command Crew fairly diverse.
ENT: White Human Male, White Alien Female (same species as the original XO), Command crew racially diverse.

Yeah, clearly this racial diversity and 'women can be in command' is something new! SJW RAR!

Odds are, it's a bunch of younger males who's shit isn't put up with in real life anymore, so they vent on the 'net.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Yeah. Its insecure man-children who are terrified at the idea that other people might actually matter, take it for granted that they should be dominant, and see anything else as them being "persecuted".

Though I'll note that of your above list of Captains and XOs, out of five prior series and ten characters in those roles, six were white males. Which is a much higher ratio of white men than the actual percentage of the population they represent (among humans, anyway). Not what we'd expect if the Federation were really a fully egalitarian society. And it wasn't until the third series that either post was filled by someone other than a white man (incidentally, I wonder how much whining their was back in the day, when DS9 broke the pattern and filled both those slots with someone other than a white man)?

Add the Animated Series in, and it gets even more skewed, since TAS is just a rehash of TOS.

Edit: I'm also not inclined to give them points for Chakotay, given how the character was handled. And nationality-wise, people of American background are vastly over-represented.

And, while it does not have the same real-world implications, the lack of alien captains, and the disproportionate number of humans in Starfleet, does not show the Federation in-universe in a very good light.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

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The Romulan Republic wrote: 2017-07-19 04:52pm And, while it does not have the same real-world implications, the lack of alien captains, and the disproportionate number of humans in Starfleet, does not show the Federation in-universe in a very good light.
Actually, we've seen a reasonable mix of species, genders, and skin colors as background or minor characters within Star fleet.

We can forgive apparent human-centralism as combination of market appeal/expediency.

I mean, sure, on paper, following the adventures of an all Klingon-crew sounds awesome, but that suck up a lot of resources for costuming and the like.
And let's face facts, only the Trekkie fan-boys would want to watch more then a few episodes of that.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

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We've also heard of Andorian ships and Vulcan ships entirely crewed from those species I believe.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

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NecronLord wrote: 2017-07-20 04:40am We've also heard of Andorian ships and Vulcan ships entirely crewed from those species I believe.
I don't recall mentions of ships with exclusively andorian crews but there's at least 1 ship we know had primarly vulcan crew the Intrepid from TOS IIRC, well it was in TOS but I can't recall the ship name for certain atm.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

Post by Crazedwraith »

The other all-Vulcan ship was the T'Kumbra in Ds9, Captained by that racist Vulcan guy in the Baseball episode.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

Post by Lord Revan »

Crazedwraith wrote: 2017-07-20 07:26am The other all-Vulcan ship was the T'Kumbra in Ds9, Captained by that racist Vulcan guy in the Baseball episode.
didn't want to mention that as I wasn't sure if it was "all-vulcan" or simply that captain was a vulcan, it's been a while since I last saw any DS9 episodes in full.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

Post by FireNexus »

Crazedwraith wrote: 2017-07-20 07:26am The other all-Vulcan ship was the T'Kumbra in Ds9, Captained by that racist Vulcan guy in the Baseball episode.
I mean, is it racist if the vulcans are actually superior? They're stronger, faster, more durable, more intelligent, more diligent, they have magical powers, they were on the galactic stage for hundreds of years prior to humanity (at least). They jack off over how great the vulcans are all the time and then cop out by making humans their equals for no logical reason. The humans should have remained a Vulcan client state forever, by all rights.
I had a Bill Maher quote here. But fuck him for his white privelegy "joke".

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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

Post by Joun_Lord »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2017-07-19 04:52pmAnd, while it does not have the same real-world implications, the lack of alien captains, and the disproportionate number of humans in Starfleet, does not show the Federation in-universe in a very good light.
You have to look at it both from an in universe perspective and one outside. In Starfleet as mentioned by others there certainly seems to be some evidence of mostly or entirely same species crews on some ships. There is probably good reasons, especially in the more militaristic TOS era. Having a single species crew means that the entire crews air, gravity, and nutritional needs are the same. Having accommodations for a bunch of species might not be something Starfleet wants to invest in on their vessels that are more or less military vessels and like most military vessels have the bare minimum of creature comforts. Spock probably only got a pass because he was half human, is better at handling a human environment then other Vulcans. The later luxury liner approach of the TNG era would probably spare no expense in making everyone comfortable, hell I remember something about water tubes running through the ENT-D for aquatic lifeforms and dolphins for navigation.

For fairly private species like the Vulcans or species with customs considering less then ideal like a lack of bathing (Klingons), nasty dietary habits (Klingons), and a general douchebag attitude where fights start regularly (again with the Klingons) having a mix crew might be a bad idea. Vulcans don't want to air their dirty laundry about Pon'Farr or deal with emotional people too much. A Klingon Starfleet crew might be hazardous for non-Klingons, especially some blue shirt scientist. Riker did okay during a crew exchange but he's far more Klingon like then some dweeb studying space fungus.

Also you have to remember Starfleet was born out of a human institution, founded by humans and headquartered on Earth. While its open to non-humans of course the cultural inertia to join might take time. Vulcans, Andorians, Tellerites, and what have you had their own versions of Starfleet that may or may not still be their own separate organizations many of which are probably far older then Starfleet. Why join the human descended Starfleet when you can join your own peoples big space ship gang. I think by the TNG era those attitudes started changing but even then Starfleet was primarily human.

Out of universe, having a bunch of aliens until probably relatively recently was expensive and time consuming. You need either specialized prosthetic or CGI to make aliens. Both things to even pass on tv are going to be pricey. And the more screen time its given the more any flaws are going to be obvious. The lead, as the Captain usually is, is going to be in front of the camera the most and thus get the most scrutiny.

I think you have to look at Starfleet like the Rebellion of Star Wars. Just because the Rebellion was mostly white humans especially in ANH doesn't mean they were racist (despite what some internet commenters and EU authors might imply), just means we are seeing some narrow slice of a massive organization that has some good reasons both in universe and out. In universe as far as I remember the Yavin 4 group was mostly Alderaanian supplemented by defectors from the Empire.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

Post by Lord Revan »

I having a large number of aliens is still quite expensive IIRC and also time consuming. Also there's the issue that if the alien in question is a main cast member humans (who obviously make up bulk of the audience) will have to be able to read the alien's body language, well either that or you have to have alien character constantly spelling out how they feel either thru over the top emotional reactions or simply telling the audience. Having a non-emotional character will be hard to depict without making it seem that it's non-emotional because the actor is not capable of convincingly depict emotions or just bored.

Note that Spock was not even close to "non-emotional" and even Data displayed a degree of emotional reactions before installing the emotion-chip, as T'pol or Tuvok they're not so much non-emotional as "stuck up jerks" and at times suffer from the "actor sounds/looks bored" issue (possibly because the actors were bored).
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

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Solauren wrote: 2017-07-19 09:59pm
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2017-07-19 04:52pm And, while it does not have the same real-world implications, the lack of alien captains, and the disproportionate number of humans in Starfleet, does not show the Federation in-universe in a very good light.
Actually, we've seen a reasonable mix of species, genders, and skin colors as background or minor characters within Star fleet.
Half-human when you have dozens of member civilizations is still pretty human-dominated.

And the top command slots have been very human-dominated, and even somewhat (albeit to a lesser extent) white man-dominated and American-dominated.
We can forgive apparent human-centralism as combination of market appeal/expediency.

I mean, sure, on paper, following the adventures of an all Klingon-crew sounds awesome, but that suck up a lot of resources for costuming and the like.
Klingons are more make-up intensive than some, though. Vulcans aren't exactly that big a make-up job. Or Bajorans. At least, not going by their appearances.
And let's face facts, only the Trekkie fan-boys would want to watch more then a few episodes of that.
I don't know about that. I think people will watch it if its well-written, competently directed, and has good actors.

There's this idea, I think, to the effect that people won't watch a show unless the characters are/look human. I could offer a number of examples to challenge that, however. Watership Down (which did have a film adaptation) comes to mind, as does Avatar (okay, the lead was technically human, but that changed over the course of the film, and half the cast were blue aliens with tails, who looked only vaguely human-like).

Not sure the all-alien crews really off-set that, either. If anything, that comes off as segregationist, unless maybe if the individual planetary/system governments retain their own local forces in addition to Starfleet.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

Post by Elheru Aran »

To nitpick a bit: Avatar was ridiculously expensive, IIRC, one of the most expensive movies produced in recent history. Part of that was the heavily effects-intensive production, to be sure... apart from the humans and the motion-capture it was almost entirely CGI, done at a high, expensive level. Nonetheless, it's not something that would have flown on TV. Even Game of Thrones, a show with a near-movie-level budget, keeps their craziest amount of effects to just a couple or three episodes a season, when they pull out the dragons or the White Walkers.

The honest fact of the matter is that unless the setting or the plot mandates it, such as Worf being a main character in TNG and DS9, television studios are not going to much bother with stuff that requires a lot of expensive effects. That includes costuming/makeup as much as it does CGI, since you're basically paying an actor to sit a couple hours in a chair BEFORE they even start acting! Not counting however many pulls of a life-cast rubber forehead it takes to make sure you have enough bits for as long as production takes.

To be fair if you have a character that appears frequently, such as Worf or say Quark, I imagine the cost of the makeup and appliances gets defrayed over time, and the makeup artists get really good at slapping on the appliances and blending them in... but it's still a time and money sink that can only work for established shows and reliable characters. If Worf had turned out to be unpopular in the first or second season of TNG, they wouldn't have had any compunction about dropping him and slotting in a different character.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

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the thing is that it's less "looks/is human" and more "can emote in a way that humans can easily understand", the na'vi were close enough humans that you could read their emotions without issues. There's a reason the most "alien" looking non-human characters on the protagonist side tend to be in genres that don't rely on the visuals to tell the story (novels or radio shows).

That's why you rarely see really alien looking aliens as protagonists even in animation works.

This could also be an in-universe reason, rather then forcing each crew member to learn what ever minor ticks certain species for example lets use Xindi-insectoids that essentially look like bipedal ants with only 4 limbs, so that there wasn't undue stress within the crew, from crewman 1 just not getting the body language of crewman 2. You got remember that a big part of how normal humans communicate is thru body language. mindless integration isn't always a good thing, segregation is only a bad thing when it's done for bigoted reasons rather to avoid reasonble stress.


After all having different male and female toilets in technically gender segregation but it's done for a good reason and it's less about silencing the female voice and more about avoiding undue stress and conflict.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

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You know, we need more really alien aliens in fiction. Especially with how advanced even TV CG has gotten lately.
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

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The Romulan Republic wrote: 2017-07-20 09:16pm You know, we need more really alien aliens in fiction. Especially with how advanced even TV CG has gotten lately.
Like something inspired by HP Lovecraft?
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Re: Star Trek discovery triggers alt right

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Like anything that isn't obviously an expy for humans or a particular subset of humanity.

Sure, you can go the Lovecraft route. But I was thinking less "horror" or "cosmic-level threat" and more just... alien.
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