I'm not sure what arguments you are talking about so I can't respond to that.
That said, of all those things Rafi is the one that made no sense. It's Earth. Described numerous times, including in slightly derogatory fashion in DS9 on a few occasions, as a post-scarcity paradise. The whole "now I'm stuck int he desert getting by on scraps" thing was pretty silly.
I actually thought Raffi's home was a pretty good reflection of what it would be like if you had all the food, water, shelter, and healthcare you needed to live, but had mental and emotional needs that could no longer be met because of your circumstance. No one would starve to death in the Star Trek universe, but that doesn't mean you could never feel loneliness.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
I'm not sure what arguments you are talking about so I can't respond to that.
That said, of all those things Rafi is the one that made no sense. It's Earth. Described numerous times, including in slightly derogatory fashion in DS9 on a few occasions, as a post-scarcity paradise. The whole "now I'm stuck int he desert getting by on scraps" thing was pretty silly.
I actually thought Raffi's home was a pretty good reflection of what it would be like if you had all the food, water, shelter, and healthcare you needed to live, but had mental and emotional needs that could no longer be met because of your circumstance. No one would starve to death in the Star Trek universe, but that doesn't mean you could never feel loneliness.
Rafi feeling left behind and fucked over by losing her career felt fine. But they were like heavily pushing on the "she's experiencing actual deprivation" thing with where and how she lives. Especially with the whole "I'm stuck out here in the desert" thing.
0
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure what arguments you are talking about so I can't respond to that.
That said, of all those things Rafi is the one that made no sense. It's Earth. Described numerous times, including in slightly derogatory fashion in DS9 on a few occasions, as a post-scarcity paradise. The whole "now I'm stuck int he desert getting by on scraps" thing was pretty silly.
I actually thought Raffi's home was a pretty good reflection of what it would be like if you had all the food, water, shelter, and healthcare you needed to live, but had mental and emotional needs that could no longer be met because of your circumstance. No one would starve to death in the Star Trek universe, but that doesn't mean you could never feel loneliness.
Rafi feeling left behind and fucked over by losing her career felt fine. But they were like heavily pushing on the "she's experiencing actual deprivation" thing with where and how she lives. Especially with the whole "I'm stuck out here in the desert" thing.
I mean, there is a huge difference between Raffi's shack and Picard's family vineyard. Federation society means you'll always have a place to live, but that doesn't mean it'll be a mansion. Star Trek isn't The Culture, they don't build plates for people to live on and have drones to build you any sort of house* your heart desires. So there is some kinds of deprivation in Star Trek, just not the kinds that will kill you.
*Though given that in our modern world, they've found a way to take 3d printers and "print houses", I would expect there would be replicators large enough to build houses. But maybe a writer could make the in-universe excuse that the technology can't quite handle something that big, just as you can't replicate an entire starship.
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Yeah I'm annoyed at how people in this thread talk about what real trek is when what they mean is "TNG, specifically", because that was the series they grew up on.
I get the same feel from people talking about how the new Star Wars films "aren't Star Wars."
Star Trek is a big ol' setting and I like seeing it get explored for all the rich potential of that universe instead of "always this one particular kind of Starfleet cast."
I would get your point, if anybody actually was saying "Star Trek is this particular series". Seeing as I haven't read anything like that as people regularly use a variety of Trek material for reference as to what makes good Star Trek, I have no idea what you have to be annoyed about on this front.
No one is saying it in words, but any time someone brings up a counter-argument to "since when is Star Trek about this?!", it never counts because of some reason or other.
Example: "Why is Picard about edge cases and border communities, Star Trek wasn't about that!" Well, actually the entirety of DS9 was exactly about that.
Since when is Picard about edge cases and border communities?
Edge cases:
1. The entire character arcs of Raffi, Rios, and Seven.
2. Hugh's storyline on the Artifact.
Border communities:
1. The entire Romulan diaspora, which is a focus for at least half the season.
2. The treatment of Ex-Bs aboard the Artifact and in the wider galaxy.
3. The fears of the synths vis a vis organics, and the Zhat Vash efforts to exterminate them.
I would not describe any of those things as edge cases or border communities but yeah, the show is definitely about most of those things.
If I was describing what Picard was about in broad terms I'd say it's much more a Big Existential Threat and Big Core Idea show. The Mass Effect 3 vibes are super super strong for various reasons.
I'm not sure what arguments you are talking about so I can't respond to that.
That said, of all those things Rafi is the one that made no sense. It's Earth. Described numerous times, including in slightly derogatory fashion in DS9 on a few occasions, as a post-scarcity paradise. The whole "now I'm stuck int he desert getting by on scraps" thing was pretty silly.
I actually thought Raffi's home was a pretty good reflection of what it would be like if you had all the food, water, shelter, and healthcare you needed to live, but had mental and emotional needs that could no longer be met because of your circumstance. No one would starve to death in the Star Trek universe, but that doesn't mean you could never feel loneliness.
Rafi feeling left behind and fucked over by losing her career felt fine. But they were like heavily pushing on the "she's experiencing actual deprivation" thing with where and how she lives. Especially with the whole "I'm stuck out here in the desert" thing.
I mean, there is a huge difference between Raffi's shack and Picard's family vineyard. Federation society means you'll always have a place to live, but that doesn't mean it'll be a mansion. Star Trek isn't The Culture, they don't build plates for people to live on and have drones to build you any sort of house your heart desires. So there is some kinds of deprivation in Star Trek, just not the kinds that will kill you.
That's not really how it's ever been described before though. That was kind of a big plot point in DS9 even.
+1
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure what arguments you are talking about so I can't respond to that.
That said, of all those things Rafi is the one that made no sense. It's Earth. Described numerous times, including in slightly derogatory fashion in DS9 on a few occasions, as a post-scarcity paradise. The whole "now I'm stuck int he desert getting by on scraps" thing was pretty silly.
I actually thought Raffi's home was a pretty good reflection of what it would be like if you had all the food, water, shelter, and healthcare you needed to live, but had mental and emotional needs that could no longer be met because of your circumstance. No one would starve to death in the Star Trek universe, but that doesn't mean you could never feel loneliness.
Rafi feeling left behind and fucked over by losing her career felt fine. But they were like heavily pushing on the "she's experiencing actual deprivation" thing with where and how she lives. Especially with the whole "I'm stuck out here in the desert" thing.
I mean, there is a huge difference between Raffi's shack and Picard's family vineyard. Federation society means you'll always have a place to live, but that doesn't mean it'll be a mansion. Star Trek isn't The Culture, they don't build plates for people to live on and have drones to build you any sort of house your heart desires. So there is some kinds of deprivation in Star Trek, just not the kinds that will kill you.
That's not really how it's ever been described before though. That was kind of a big plot point in DS9 even.
I'm not sure what plot point you mean, but the first one that comes up is that the Maquis worked hard to make their land livable, then Star Fleet gave that land to the Cardassians, and the Maquis ended up fighting (to the death) over that specific land, so it kind of leans into what I'm talking about. Not necessarily that land is scarce or anything, they could live anywhere, but that you can't just have the home you made on one world be transported exactly as it was and recreated on another planet, Star Trek technology thus far has not worked that way.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
0
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Yeah I'm annoyed at how people in this thread talk about what real trek is when what they mean is "TNG, specifically", because that was the series they grew up on.
I get the same feel from people talking about how the new Star Wars films "aren't Star Wars."
Star Trek is a big ol' setting and I like seeing it get explored for all the rich potential of that universe instead of "always this one particular kind of Starfleet cast."
I would get your point, if anybody actually was saying "Star Trek is this particular series". Seeing as I haven't read anything like that as people regularly use a variety of Trek material for reference as to what makes good Star Trek, I have no idea what you have to be annoyed about on this front.
No one is saying it in words, but any time someone brings up a counter-argument to "since when is Star Trek about this?!", it never counts because of some reason or other.
Example: "Why is Picard about edge cases and border communities, Star Trek wasn't about that!" Well, actually the entirety of DS9 was exactly about that.
Since when is Picard about edge cases and border communities?
Edge cases:
1. The entire character arcs of Raffi, Rios, and Seven.
2. Hugh's storyline on the Artifact.
Border communities:
1. The entire Romulan diaspora, which is a focus for at least half the season.
2. The treatment of Ex-Bs aboard the Artifact and in the wider galaxy.
3. The fears of the synths vis a vis organics, and the Zhat Vash efforts to exterminate them.
I would not describe any of those things as edge cases or border communities but yeah, the show is definitely about most of those things.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't describe them that way, it's what they are.
If I was describing what Picard was about in broad terms I'd say it's much more a Big Existential Threat and Big Core Idea show. The Mass Effect 3 vibes are super super strong for various reasons.
Mass Effect vibes, yes, not just 3. Mass Effect is also often set in border communities and deals with edge cases.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
I'm not sure what arguments you are talking about so I can't respond to that.
That said, of all those things Rafi is the one that made no sense. It's Earth. Described numerous times, including in slightly derogatory fashion in DS9 on a few occasions, as a post-scarcity paradise. The whole "now I'm stuck int he desert getting by on scraps" thing was pretty silly.
I actually thought Raffi's home was a pretty good reflection of what it would be like if you had all the food, water, shelter, and healthcare you needed to live, but had mental and emotional needs that could no longer be met because of your circumstance. No one would starve to death in the Star Trek universe, but that doesn't mean you could never feel loneliness.
Rafi feeling left behind and fucked over by losing her career felt fine. But they were like heavily pushing on the "she's experiencing actual deprivation" thing with where and how she lives. Especially with the whole "I'm stuck out here in the desert" thing.
I mean, there is a huge difference between Raffi's shack and Picard's family vineyard. Federation society means you'll always have a place to live, but that doesn't mean it'll be a mansion. Star Trek isn't The Culture, they don't build plates for people to live on and have drones to build you any sort of house your heart desires. So there is some kinds of deprivation in Star Trek, just not the kinds that will kill you.
That's not really how it's ever been described before though. That was kind of a big plot point in DS9 even.
I'm not sure what plot point you mean, but the first one that comes up is that the Maquis worked hard to make their land livable, then Star Fleet gave that land to the Cardassians, and the Maquis ended up fighting (to the death) over that specific land, so it kind of leans into what I'm talking about. Not necessarily that land is scarce or anything, they could live anywhere, but that you can't just have the home you made on one world be transported exactly as it was and recreated on another planet, Star Trek technology thus far has not worked that way.
The Maquis and colonists in general live out on the edge of the Federation where it's always been clear you can't necessarily get everything. Rafi lives on Earth. It's a big difference. As I said, DS9 is real explicit about that difference. I believe multiple times.
I love the fact, that they are throwing up so many shows to see what sticks. Thats the beauty of todays TV/streaming landscape. I dont have to like everything out there and I can choose what to watch. Just because I am a Star Trek fan doesn't mean I HAVE to watch everything they put out.
So why are we endlessly debating about what is and isn't Trek and constantly snipe at each other over what went on inside the heads of producers on shows 20-30 years ago, when today is something completely different?
I'm a big fan of "the aging hero beats his sword into ploughshares and retires to his farm, until some village kids are taken and he has to set out One Last Time" stories, though that wasn't really what Picard was in the end
Honestly, I would have been happy if he stuck to the vineyard for most of the season
Also, does anyone know where I can watch that price is right series, I am hooked
All Trek less than 20 years old is hated. All Trek more than 20 years old is great--because we only care about the parts that were good.
That's why you're starting to see people say good things about Enterprise, which is crossing that line as we speak.
And the fandom reacts to any news with derision and suspicion, fueled by an internet culture that thrives off absolute negativity. But that's just modern fandom in general.
I'm old enough to remember when TNG wasn't "real" Trek, Picard was a wuss compared to Kirk, and Data was just a lame knockoff of Spock.
Also when DS9 was about "boldly staying"/"going nowhere", and what's with the weird guy made out of jello? (He's no Data or Spock, that's for sure.)
I love Odo but it's pretty hilarious to watch especially the first couple of seasons and see how gratuitously they're like LOOK KIDS IT'S MORPHING LIKE IN THE RECENT BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE TERMINATOR 2
I'm old enough to remember when TNG wasn't "real" Trek, Picard was a wuss compared to Kirk, and Data was just a lame knockoff of Spock.
Also when DS9 was about "boldly staying"/"going nowhere", and what's with the weird guy made out of jello? (He's no Data or Spock, that's for sure.)
I love Odo but it's pretty hilarious to watch especially the first couple of seasons and see how gratuitously they're like LOOK KIDS IT'S MORPHING LIKE IN THE RECENT BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE TERMINATOR 2
I'd never thought of that connection, but you're spot on.
I'm old enough to remember when TNG wasn't "real" Trek, Picard was a wuss compared to Kirk, and Data was just a lame knockoff of Spock.
Also when DS9 was about "boldly staying"/"going nowhere", and what's with the weird guy made out of jello? (He's no Data or Spock, that's for sure.)
I love Odo but it's pretty hilarious to watch especially the first couple of seasons and see how gratuitously they're like LOOK KIDS IT'S MORPHING LIKE IN THE RECENT BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE TERMINATOR 2
I'd never thought of that connection, but you're spot on.
Speaking of unexpected connections, I was today years old when I realised that Tamlyn Tomita played both Commodore Oh in Picard and Laurel Takashima, the original first officer in Babylon 5. Nice to see people get pulled back into the big sci-fi shows.
She's in the desert alone because she allowed a conspiracy theory (which did end up to be true) to take over her life at the cost of everything else. I don't even think she's stuck out there so much as she put herself there to lick her wounds and do a lot of drugs for awhile. She fully expected people like Jean Luc to come rescue her before too long, but they didn't. And the years went by and she got more bitter and more disillusioned with Star Fleet and people like "JL."
Anyway my point is she's self exiled out there in depression-land and blaming everyone else for it. The physical location and quality of the housing is a result of, not a cause of that.
+14
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I'm old enough to remember when TNG wasn't "real" Trek, Picard was a wuss compared to Kirk, and Data was just a lame knockoff of Spock.
Also when DS9 was about "boldly staying"/"going nowhere", and what's with the weird guy made out of jello? (He's no Data or Spock, that's for sure.)
I love Odo but it's pretty hilarious to watch especially the first couple of seasons and see how gratuitously they're like LOOK KIDS IT'S MORPHING LIKE IN THE RECENT BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE TERMINATOR 2
I'd never thought of that connection, but you're spot on.
This is less evident now in the age of streaming, but they were very up-front and in-your-face with it at the time. Odo's morphing got mentioned in every article and interview about the show and the "next week on" preview would always have a shot of him doing it.
It wasn't just DS9, though. It was in the zeitgeist. TV, commercials, everything. There were a couple years there in the early 1990s where you couldn't take a shit without morphing into a silver ball and flying away on a skateboard.
+8
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
It wasn't just DS9, though. It was in the zeitgeist. TV, commercials, everything. There were a couple years there in the early 1990s where you couldn't take a shit without morphing into a silver ball and flying away on a skateboard.
This, by the way, kind of speaks to what I think of as Real Star Trek.
Trek has always had an element of showmanship to it, of doing things to get butts into seats. Sometimes that means putting sexy people (mostly, though not always, women) into skimpy or skintight outfits, sometimes it means riding a trend hard and having hippies on your spaceship or making your entire movie look like "2001" or showing off your cool new blobby early CGI effect, sometimes it means celebrity cameos, sometimes it means big twist cliffhangers.
Not only is that fine - you do have to get butts into seats or you don't have a show no more - sometimes it's often led to the best parts of the show! Odo 100% was a zeitgeisty morphing-is-cool character. Seven of Nine 100% was a sex appeal catsuit lady. Guinan was 100% "oh shit a famous movie star wants to be on our show, think of something quick." They just didn't stop there.
To me, Real Star Trek is when you have three elements:
1) That entertaining exterior, however you get there (sex, action, etc).
2) Rock-solid craftsmanship. Characters who feel likeable and fleshed-out, plots that hold water, editing that doesn't dizzy and confuse.
3) A set of pretty radical, challenging core values (such as, but not limited to, "violence is a failure state," "people and institutions can be better," "you can have meaning and dignity in life without having to fight every day to survive").
If you take any of those elements away, you've got something that maybe has the Star Trek Multi-Platform Fully Leveraged Global Transmedia Brand on it, but isn't gonna be something I'm interested in. Discovery and Picard, for instance, largely failed step 1 for me: I found them boring!
Lower Decks, by contrast, at least has my provisional interest because "having jokes" is to me not very different from 'having morphing" or "having stacked lady."
I'm old enough to remember when TNG wasn't "real" Trek, Picard was a wuss compared to Kirk, and Data was just a lame knockoff of Spock.
Also when DS9 was about "boldly staying"/"going nowhere", and what's with the weird guy made out of jello? (He's no Data or Spock, that's for sure.)
I love Odo but it's pretty hilarious to watch especially the first couple of seasons and see how gratuitously they're like LOOK KIDS IT'S MORPHING LIKE IN THE RECENT BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE TERMINATOR 2
I'd never thought of that connection, but you're spot on.
This is less evident now in the age of streaming, but they were very up-front and in-your-face with it at the time. Odo's morphing got mentioned in every article and interview about the show and the "next week on" preview would always have a shot of him doing it.
It wasn't just DS9, though. It was in the zeitgeist. TV, commercials, everything. There were a couple years there in the early 1990s where you couldn't take a shit without morphing into a silver ball and flying away on a skateboard.
Neat. In the early-mid 90s, if it wasn't Trek* or Power Rangers, I basically didn't notice. I think Titanic was the first non-SF thing I really got into.
*And I mean TNG. I remember my mom put on the DS9 premiere and it flew so far over my head it could've been an airplane.
0
MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
No one puts 6 series from the same property into production who isn't desperate to make a dime off said property. This is no different then Disney with Star Wars, except a little stranger because it's not like they just bought the thing. Aggressively try and monetize the property. Full speed ahead, greenlight everything. And streaming has lowered the bar towards turning shit into a TV series. Which we are seeing all over the place with various streaming platforms.
At peak 90s Trek, I'd say almost certainly the height of Trek's mainstream cultural cache, they had like 2 things in production at the same time.
Maybe three, counting movies? Pretty sure there were at least a couple movies done while TNG/DS9 or DS9/Voyager were still on. But never this bizarre level of desperation in trying to get traction on something.
I'm not bothered by trying a bunch of new Trek things, but I'm plenty irritated that they have such little confidence in anything they're putting out that they're just putting out a shitload of stuff. On top of that, somebody pointed out in the last thread that the only thing they seem to not be trying is to just make a damned Trek show that works like regular Star Trek. Voyager was terrible because it was terrible and Enterprise tanked because it tried to do the same overdramatic one-upmanship crap as Discovery; it had nothing to with the format and everything to do with showmakers who thought they knew better than making a Trek show like Star Trek.
Something as hokey and campy as SG-1ran for ten freaking years by playing to the strengths of their formula instead of fighting them, and it only got really awful around the last season (which was, big surprise, the same time scifi was trying to spin off multiple more "serious" SG shows). It doesn't take billion-dollar budgets to make this stuff work, just stop fighting what works instead of thinking "different" equals "better".
"Voyager was terrible because it was terrible" isn't particularly helpful or compelling, but I'd point out that DS9 did a multi season arc covering a war whose loss would have meant massive genocide if not extinction for every spacefaring civilization in the alpha quadrant and we don't ever seem to use that as an explanation of why DS9 was bad. (Probably because DS9 was Good)
Enterprise wasn't bad because they lifted the stakes too high, it was bad because most of the main cast of characters were shallowly written and poorly acted. Like ugh them trying to finally do something with Mayweather in the last season and it was just an absolute trainwreck.
I think the description of CBS trying to "make another MCU" is very apt, though.
It wasn't just DS9, though. It was in the zeitgeist. TV, commercials, everything. There were a couple years there in the early 1990s where you couldn't take a shit without morphing into a silver ball and flying away on a skateboard.
This, by the way, kind of speaks to what I think of as Real Star Trek.
Trek has always had an element of showmanship to it, of doing things to get butts into seats. Sometimes that means putting sexy people (mostly, though not always, women) into skimpy or skintight outfits, sometimes it means riding a trend hard and having hippies on your spaceship or making your entire movie look like "2001" or showing off your cool new blobby early CGI effect, sometimes it means celebrity cameos, sometimes it means big twist cliffhangers.
Not only is that fine - you do have to get butts into seats or you don't have a show no more - sometimes it's often led to the best parts of the show! Odo 100% was a zeitgeisty morphing-is-cool character. Seven of Nine 100% was a sex appeal catsuit lady. Guinan was 100% "oh shit a famous movie star wants to be on our show, think of something quick." They just didn't stop there.
To me, Real Star Trek is when you have three elements:
1) That entertaining exterior, however you get there (sex, action, etc).
2) Rock-solid craftsmanship. Characters who feel likeable and fleshed-out, plots that hold water, editing that doesn't dizzy and confuse.
3) A set of pretty radical, challenging core values (such as, but not limited to, "violence is a failure state," "people and institutions can be better," "you can have meaning and dignity in life without having to fight every day to survive").
If you take any of those elements away, you've got something that maybe has the Star Trek Multi-Platform Fully Leveraged Global Transmedia Brand on it, but isn't gonna be something I'm interested in. Discovery and Picard, for instance, largely failed step 1 for me: I found them boring!
Lower Decks, by contrast, at least has my provisional interest because "having jokes" is to me not very different from 'having morphing" or "having stacked lady."
I think that a significant area where they're blowing it of late is with #3. "Challenging core values" has become "something to fight people in space battles about," and that's definitely bleed-in from the MCU and Hollywood generally.
Auralynx on
+9
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
edited July 2020
On an unrelated but very cool note, last week Modiphius (the developers/publishers of the Star Trek Adventures tabletop RPG) announced a new Klingon Core Rulebook - in other words, not just a supplement, but the full game rules but tweaked to play Klingon crews. They also patched and updated several of the rules so it's almost a 1.5 edition now.
No one puts 6 series from the same property into production who isn't desperate to make a dime off said property. This is no different then Disney with Star Wars, except a little stranger because it's not like they just bought the thing. Aggressively try and monetize the property. Full speed ahead, greenlight everything. And streaming has lowered the bar towards turning shit into a TV series. Which we are seeing all over the place with various streaming platforms.
At peak 90s Trek, I'd say almost certainly the height of Trek's mainstream cultural cache, they had like 2 things in production at the same time.
Maybe three, counting movies? Pretty sure there were at least a couple movies done while TNG/DS9 or DS9/Voyager were still on. But never this bizarre level of desperation in trying to get traction on something.
I'm not bothered by trying a bunch of new Trek things, but I'm plenty irritated that they have such little confidence in anything they're putting out that they're just putting out a shitload of stuff. On top of that, somebody pointed out in the last thread that the only thing they seem to not be trying is to just make a damned Trek show that works like regular Star Trek. Voyager was terrible because it was terrible and Enterprise tanked because it tried to do the same overdramatic one-upmanship crap as Discovery; it had nothing to with the format and everything to do with showmakers who thought they knew better than making a Trek show like Star Trek.
Something as hokey and campy as SG-1ran for ten freaking years by playing to the strengths of their formula instead of fighting them, and it only got really awful around the last season (which was, big surprise, the same time scifi was trying to spin off multiple more "serious" SG shows). It doesn't take billion-dollar budgets to make this stuff work, just stop fighting what works instead of thinking "different" equals "better".
I think the description of CBS trying to "make another MCU" is very apt, though.
I don't think so. While CBS is making a lot of Trek, there's no apparent effort to connect it all like the MCU or its copycats.
Picard doesn't reference Discovery at all and, given Discovery's second season, it's very possible Strange New Worlds won't either. It remains to be seen how closely tied Lower Deck will be to the rest of the franchise--my guess is not very. Section 31 seems like a direct spin-off from Discovery, but we'll see how much that matters. DS9 is technically a direct spin-off of TNG, but you can count the number of times that matters on one hand.
Speaking of, half of DS9 deals with a galactic conflict that culminates in a war that leaves half of Starfleet dead, multiple worlds in ruins, and radically alters the balance of power in two quadrants. It gets throwaway lines in Voyager and the TNG films. Trek has never had real arc-welding or crossovers outside its EU, and I don't think that'll necessarily change under Kurtzman.
0
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
It wasn't just DS9, though. It was in the zeitgeist. TV, commercials, everything. There were a couple years there in the early 1990s where you couldn't take a shit without morphing into a silver ball and flying away on a skateboard.
This, by the way, kind of speaks to what I think of as Real Star Trek.
Trek has always had an element of showmanship to it, of doing things to get butts into seats. Sometimes that means putting sexy people (mostly, though not always, women) into skimpy or skintight outfits, sometimes it means riding a trend hard and having hippies on your spaceship or making your entire movie look like "2001" or showing off your cool new blobby early CGI effect, sometimes it means celebrity cameos, sometimes it means big twist cliffhangers.
Not only is that fine - you do have to get butts into seats or you don't have a show no more - sometimes it's often led to the best parts of the show! Odo 100% was a zeitgeisty morphing-is-cool character. Seven of Nine 100% was a sex appeal catsuit lady. Guinan was 100% "oh shit a famous movie star wants to be on our show, think of something quick." They just didn't stop there.
To me, Real Star Trek is when you have three elements:
1) That entertaining exterior, however you get there (sex, action, etc).
2) Rock-solid craftsmanship. Characters who feel likeable and fleshed-out, plots that hold water, editing that doesn't dizzy and confuse.
3) A set of pretty radical, challenging core values (such as, but not limited to, "violence is a failure state," "people and institutions can be better," "you can have meaning and dignity in life without having to fight every day to survive").
If you take any of those elements away, you've got something that maybe has the Star Trek Multi-Platform Fully Leveraged Global Transmedia Brand on it, but isn't gonna be something I'm interested in. Discovery and Picard, for instance, largely failed step 1 for me: I found them boring!
Lower Decks, by contrast, at least has my provisional interest because "having jokes" is to me not very different from 'having morphing" or "having stacked lady."
I think that a significant area where they're blowing it of late is with #3. "Challenging core values" has become "something to fight people in space battles about," and that's definitely bleed-in from the MCU and Hollywood generally.
I can't speak to Picard because I tapped out after 4 or 5 episodes, but Discovery is...it's complicated. The characters assert their values as strongly as in any Trek ever, which is why I fundamentally disagree with Grease-Covered Generic Youtuber #23 going "bluuuuuh, everyone in the show is so dark and cynical, bluuuuuh." They super aren't! They talk about idealism and science and hope all the time! Possibly too much!
The problem is that the actual plot never follows through and, indeed, always ends up in a giant apocalyptic space battle because of ???reasons???.
And then the space battle is also boring and badly-edited. So not only am I not getting what I wanted, I'm getting bait-and-switched badly. I asked for a Reuben and got a well-done steak.
+8
AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
It wasn't just DS9, though. It was in the zeitgeist. TV, commercials, everything. There were a couple years there in the early 1990s where you couldn't take a shit without morphing into a silver ball and flying away on a skateboard.
This, by the way, kind of speaks to what I think of as Real Star Trek.
Trek has always had an element of showmanship to it, of doing things to get butts into seats. Sometimes that means putting sexy people (mostly, though not always, women) into skimpy or skintight outfits, sometimes it means riding a trend hard and having hippies on your spaceship or making your entire movie look like "2001" or showing off your cool new blobby early CGI effect, sometimes it means celebrity cameos, sometimes it means big twist cliffhangers.
Not only is that fine - you do have to get butts into seats or you don't have a show no more - sometimes it's often led to the best parts of the show! Odo 100% was a zeitgeisty morphing-is-cool character. Seven of Nine 100% was a sex appeal catsuit lady. Guinan was 100% "oh shit a famous movie star wants to be on our show, think of something quick." They just didn't stop there.
To me, Real Star Trek is when you have three elements:
1) That entertaining exterior, however you get there (sex, action, etc).
2) Rock-solid craftsmanship. Characters who feel likeable and fleshed-out, plots that hold water, editing that doesn't dizzy and confuse.
3) A set of pretty radical, challenging core values (such as, but not limited to, "violence is a failure state," "people and institutions can be better," "you can have meaning and dignity in life without having to fight every day to survive").
If you take any of those elements away, you've got something that maybe has the Star Trek Multi-Platform Fully Leveraged Global Transmedia Brand on it, but isn't gonna be something I'm interested in. Discovery and Picard, for instance, largely failed step 1 for me: I found them boring!
Lower Decks, by contrast, at least has my provisional interest because "having jokes" is to me not very different from 'having morphing" or "having stacked lady."
I think that a significant area where they're blowing it of late is with #3. "Challenging core values" has become "something to fight people in space battles about," and that's definitely bleed-in from the MCU and Hollywood generally.
I can't speak to Picard because I tapped out after 4 or 5 episodes, but Discovery is...it's complicated. The characters assert their values as strongly as in any Trek ever, which is why I fundamentally disagree with Grease-Covered Generic Youtuber #23 going "bluuuuuh, everyone in the show is so dark and cynical, bluuuuuh." They super aren't! They talk about idealism and science and hope all the time! Possibly too much!
The problem is that the actual plot never follows through and, indeed, always ends up in a giant apocalyptic space battle because of ???reasons???.
And then the space battle is also boring and badly-edited. So not only am I not getting what I wanted, I'm getting bait-and-switched badly. I asked for a Reuben and got a well-done steak.
Right. It's Video Game Dialogue now, instead of a thing the author was thinking about and writing around in putting the episode together. They know they have to acknowledge the history / DNA of speculative sci-fi but they don't know how to do it effectively anymore because Big Set Piece Battle / SFX Budget overshadows the whole thing.
I'm not bothered by trying a bunch of new Trek things, but I'm plenty irritated that they have such little confidence in anything they're putting out that they're just putting out a shitload of stuff. On top of that, somebody pointed out in the last thread that the only thing they seem to not be trying is to just make a damned Trek show that works like regular Star Trek. Voyager was terrible because it was terrible and Enterprise tanked because it tried to do the same overdramatic one-upmanship crap as Discovery; it had nothing to with the format and everything to do with showmakers who thought they knew better than making a Trek show like Star Trek.
Hard disagree. Voyager was terrible precisely because it fled from its own premise at almost every turn in favor of being The Next Generation-lite. That's where all the “wasted potential” talk that surrounds Voyager comes from. Enterprise made a big deal upfront about how there were no shields to raise, but ended up using “polarize the hull plating” to mean the exact same damn thing.
Better acting and writing could’ve made enjoyable shows in spite of those shortcomings, sure. But the inverse is also true: if either of those shows had stuck to their conceptual guns, some wooden performances and occasional leaden dialogue could’ve been excused.
She's in the desert alone because she allowed a conspiracy theory (which did end up to be true) to take over her life at the cost of everything else. I don't even think she's stuck out there so much as she put herself there to lick her wounds and do a lot of drugs for awhile. She fully expected people like Jean Luc to come rescue her before too long, but they didn't. And the years went by and she got more bitter and more disillusioned with Star Fleet and people like "JL."
Anyway my point is she's self exiled out there in depression-land and blaming everyone else for it. The physical location and quality of the housing is a result of, not a cause of that.
I can't pull the episode up directly anymore but that's absolutely not the impression one gets from the scene imo.
She complains about how he got to retire to a Chateau in the country while she's stuck in a hovel. The entire thing is framed as this is what she got. Not by choice, but because unlike Picard she doesn't have means to fall back on. It's entirely antithetical to what Earth has always been portrayed as.
But it is straight out of a much more standard non-utopian style of setup. Which is what it feels like.
I'm old enough to remember when TNG wasn't "real" Trek, Picard was a wuss compared to Kirk, and Data was just a lame knockoff of Spock.
Also when DS9 was about "boldly staying"/"going nowhere", and what's with the weird guy made out of jello? (He's no Data or Spock, that's for sure.)
I love Odo but it's pretty hilarious to watch especially the first couple of seasons and see how gratuitously they're like LOOK KIDS IT'S MORPHING LIKE IN THE RECENT BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE TERMINATOR 2
jesus please don't remind me - there was a period of about 2-3 years after that movie where literally everything was morphing this and morphing that, not just movies and TV shows (Mighty MORPHING Power Rangers came out 2 years after T2), even commercials got into the act
madparrot on
+6
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
She's in the desert alone because she allowed a conspiracy theory (which did end up to be true) to take over her life at the cost of everything else. I don't even think she's stuck out there so much as she put herself there to lick her wounds and do a lot of drugs for awhile. She fully expected people like Jean Luc to come rescue her before too long, but they didn't. And the years went by and she got more bitter and more disillusioned with Star Fleet and people like "JL."
Anyway my point is she's self exiled out there in depression-land and blaming everyone else for it. The physical location and quality of the housing is a result of, not a cause of that.
I can't pull the episode up directly anymore but that's absolutely not the impression one gets from the scene imo.
She complains about how he got to retire to a Chateau in the country while she's stuck in a hovel. The entire thing is framed as this is what she got. Not by choice, but because unlike Picard she doesn't have means to fall back on. It's entirely antithetical to what Earth has always been portrayed as.
But it is straight out of a much more standard non-utopian style of setup. Which is what it feels like.
Yeah. I'd like to believe that Raffi's living situation is essentially voluntary (inasmuch as it's an outcome of her not-great mental state, anyway) and it's an easy case to make but the actual scene on actual film does not do enough to make that case.
Which is part of why so many people - even people who otherwise like the show! - keep coming away from Picard feeling like it's doing some other sci-fi thing.
+2
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I'm old enough to remember when TNG wasn't "real" Trek, Picard was a wuss compared to Kirk, and Data was just a lame knockoff of Spock.
Also when DS9 was about "boldly staying"/"going nowhere", and what's with the weird guy made out of jello? (He's no Data or Spock, that's for sure.)
I love Odo but it's pretty hilarious to watch especially the first couple of seasons and see how gratuitously they're like LOOK KIDS IT'S MORPHING LIKE IN THE RECENT BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE TERMINATOR 2
jesus please don't remind me - there was a period of about 2-3 years after that movie where literally everything was morphing this and morphing that, not just movies and TV shows (Mighty MORPHING Power Rangers came out 2 years after T2), even commercials got into the act
I personally spent five days morphed into a skateboard in the summer of 1991
She's in the desert alone because she allowed a conspiracy theory (which did end up to be true) to take over her life at the cost of everything else. I don't even think she's stuck out there so much as she put herself there to lick her wounds and do a lot of drugs for awhile. She fully expected people like Jean Luc to come rescue her before too long, but they didn't. And the years went by and she got more bitter and more disillusioned with Star Fleet and people like "JL."
Anyway my point is she's self exiled out there in depression-land and blaming everyone else for it. The physical location and quality of the housing is a result of, not a cause of that.
I can't pull the episode up directly anymore but that's absolutely not the impression one gets from the scene imo.
She complains about how he got to retire to a Chateau in the country while she's stuck in a hovel. The entire thing is framed as this is what she got. Not by choice, but because unlike Picard she doesn't have means to fall back on. It's entirely antithetical to what Earth has always been portrayed as.
But it is straight out of a much more standard non-utopian style of setup. Which is what it feels like.
I think either interpretation is reasonable. Part of the problem is similar to the rest of Picard's writing; they put the Raffi piece on the board, give just enough background information to drive the character's actions, but hand wave any details that justify those actions because there's just no time or budget! (The Rios holograms are another example of this.) The writing is so obviously causal in this regard -Picard needs to build a team, but there needs to be drama about this = Raffi needs to be mad at him for reasons that are never fully explained. All we know is what we saw in the scenes with the two of them after he walks away from Star Fleet, which isn't much.
I find it stranger that there are still deserts like that. With all that fancy technology I'd expect someone to build a city there.
Between the massive death of the late 20th/early 21st Centuries in Star trek (eugenics wars and the nuclear war/post-atomic horror get most of the attention, but TOS also mentioned an ecoterrorist attacks between the two wars that killed millions and TNG referenced several other serious conflicts before and after WWIII like the Irish war and the destruction of France, and Voyager confirms that The Big One completely wiped out Southern California at some point) and colonization, Earth's population in Star Trek is 4.2 billion in 2370. There's fifty million on the moon and several hundred million throughout the rest of the system, then a number of the early colonies like Alpha Centauri and Vega had populations of hundreds of millions or billions.
Basically, Earth doesn't need to be any more urbanized than it already is, and a decent number of cities probably never got rebuilt to their pre-WWIII sizes. And without heavy agriculture it's natural environments are well maintained and as restored as they probably ever could be after the wars.
Hevach on
+6
HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
Voyager was mostly terrible because that cast had some pretty lackluster chemistry. That's a fixable problem, but not an easy one, especially given the premise of the show.
Yeah I'm annoyed at how people in this thread talk about what real trek is when what they mean is "TNG, specifically", because that was the series they grew up on.
but nobody here does that, at least that I can recall
That's why you're starting to see people say good things about Enterprise, which is crossing that line as we speak.
this is patently false and i would say most fans who kept watching season 3 of enterprise, and especially season 4, would say "hey this is good now" at the time of air, I know I certainly did and we discussed it at length at the time.
Somehow I just discovered the existence of Lower Decks and what it looks like.
I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
0
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
There's a scene in "The Cage" that takes place in a memory of Pike's childhood in the blooming forest of the Mojave. Five or ten years earlier, Frank Herbert was up in Oregon getting inspired to write Dune by studying the USDA's attempt to halt the growth of the Oregon sand dunes by planting grasses to affix the soil.
That was a very 1960s, atomic age, can-do attitude. "In the future we'll have fixed the problem of deserts!"
In part because of the ecological thinking that Dune inspired, we've begun to have a more holistic attitude about these things and ask ourselves if deserts aren't a necessary part of a healthy ecosystem. You can see that in TNG with how incredibly careful and reluctant the characters are to upset any kind of natural state of affairs (like in "Home Soil" from S1, where we learn that terraforming is expressly forbidden on all but the most lifeless worlds). So it makes sense to me that there's a desert for Raffi to live in, that part of the scene doesn't bother me at all.
However, I'm loving the concept of the NA/EU dominated government we see in the show running the replicators overtime to make the entire Earth the climate of San Francisco. No need to thank us for freeing you from seasons, everyone.
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I actually thought Raffi's home was a pretty good reflection of what it would be like if you had all the food, water, shelter, and healthcare you needed to live, but had mental and emotional needs that could no longer be met because of your circumstance. No one would starve to death in the Star Trek universe, but that doesn't mean you could never feel loneliness.
Rafi feeling left behind and fucked over by losing her career felt fine. But they were like heavily pushing on the "she's experiencing actual deprivation" thing with where and how she lives. Especially with the whole "I'm stuck out here in the desert" thing.
I mean, there is a huge difference between Raffi's shack and Picard's family vineyard. Federation society means you'll always have a place to live, but that doesn't mean it'll be a mansion. Star Trek isn't The Culture, they don't build plates for people to live on and have drones to build you any sort of house* your heart desires. So there is some kinds of deprivation in Star Trek, just not the kinds that will kill you.
*Though given that in our modern world, they've found a way to take 3d printers and "print houses", I would expect there would be replicators large enough to build houses. But maybe a writer could make the in-universe excuse that the technology can't quite handle something that big, just as you can't replicate an entire starship.
I would not describe any of those things as edge cases or border communities but yeah, the show is definitely about most of those things.
If I was describing what Picard was about in broad terms I'd say it's much more a Big Existential Threat and Big Core Idea show. The Mass Effect 3 vibes are super super strong for various reasons.
That's not really how it's ever been described before though. That was kind of a big plot point in DS9 even.
I'm not sure what plot point you mean, but the first one that comes up is that the Maquis worked hard to make their land livable, then Star Fleet gave that land to the Cardassians, and the Maquis ended up fighting (to the death) over that specific land, so it kind of leans into what I'm talking about. Not necessarily that land is scarce or anything, they could live anywhere, but that you can't just have the home you made on one world be transported exactly as it was and recreated on another planet, Star Trek technology thus far has not worked that way.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't describe them that way, it's what they are.
Mass Effect vibes, yes, not just 3. Mass Effect is also often set in border communities and deals with edge cases.
The Maquis and colonists in general live out on the edge of the Federation where it's always been clear you can't necessarily get everything. Rafi lives on Earth. It's a big difference. As I said, DS9 is real explicit about that difference. I believe multiple times.
So why are we endlessly debating about what is and isn't Trek and constantly snipe at each other over what went on inside the heads of producers on shows 20-30 years ago, when today is something completely different?
Honestly, I would have been happy if he stuck to the vineyard for most of the season
Also, does anyone know where I can watch that price is right series, I am hooked
That's why you're starting to see people say good things about Enterprise, which is crossing that line as we speak.
And the fandom reacts to any news with derision and suspicion, fueled by an internet culture that thrives off absolute negativity. But that's just modern fandom in general.
As soon as you mentioned it, I had to listen to it. Those are the Rules.
ETA: @Quantum Tiger , think it's here.
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I love Odo but it's pretty hilarious to watch especially the first couple of seasons and see how gratuitously they're like LOOK KIDS IT'S MORPHING LIKE IN THE RECENT BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE TERMINATOR 2
I'd never thought of that connection, but you're spot on.
Speaking of unexpected connections, I was today years old when I realised that Tamlyn Tomita played both Commodore Oh in Picard and Laurel Takashima, the original first officer in Babylon 5. Nice to see people get pulled back into the big sci-fi shows.
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Anyway my point is she's self exiled out there in depression-land and blaming everyone else for it. The physical location and quality of the housing is a result of, not a cause of that.
This is less evident now in the age of streaming, but they were very up-front and in-your-face with it at the time. Odo's morphing got mentioned in every article and interview about the show and the "next week on" preview would always have a shot of him doing it.
It wasn't just DS9, though. It was in the zeitgeist. TV, commercials, everything. There were a couple years there in the early 1990s where you couldn't take a shit without morphing into a silver ball and flying away on a skateboard.
This, by the way, kind of speaks to what I think of as Real Star Trek.
Trek has always had an element of showmanship to it, of doing things to get butts into seats. Sometimes that means putting sexy people (mostly, though not always, women) into skimpy or skintight outfits, sometimes it means riding a trend hard and having hippies on your spaceship or making your entire movie look like "2001" or showing off your cool new blobby early CGI effect, sometimes it means celebrity cameos, sometimes it means big twist cliffhangers.
Not only is that fine - you do have to get butts into seats or you don't have a show no more - sometimes it's often led to the best parts of the show! Odo 100% was a zeitgeisty morphing-is-cool character. Seven of Nine 100% was a sex appeal catsuit lady. Guinan was 100% "oh shit a famous movie star wants to be on our show, think of something quick." They just didn't stop there.
To me, Real Star Trek is when you have three elements:
1) That entertaining exterior, however you get there (sex, action, etc).
2) Rock-solid craftsmanship. Characters who feel likeable and fleshed-out, plots that hold water, editing that doesn't dizzy and confuse.
3) A set of pretty radical, challenging core values (such as, but not limited to, "violence is a failure state," "people and institutions can be better," "you can have meaning and dignity in life without having to fight every day to survive").
If you take any of those elements away, you've got something that maybe has the Star Trek Multi-Platform Fully Leveraged Global Transmedia Brand on it, but isn't gonna be something I'm interested in. Discovery and Picard, for instance, largely failed step 1 for me: I found them boring!
Lower Decks, by contrast, at least has my provisional interest because "having jokes" is to me not very different from 'having morphing" or "having stacked lady."
Neat. In the early-mid 90s, if it wasn't Trek* or Power Rangers, I basically didn't notice. I think Titanic was the first non-SF thing I really got into.
*And I mean TNG. I remember my mom put on the DS9 premiere and it flew so far over my head it could've been an airplane.
"Voyager was terrible because it was terrible" isn't particularly helpful or compelling, but I'd point out that DS9 did a multi season arc covering a war whose loss would have meant massive genocide if not extinction for every spacefaring civilization in the alpha quadrant and we don't ever seem to use that as an explanation of why DS9 was bad. (Probably because DS9 was Good)
Enterprise wasn't bad because they lifted the stakes too high, it was bad because most of the main cast of characters were shallowly written and poorly acted. Like ugh them trying to finally do something with Mayweather in the last season and it was just an absolute trainwreck.
I think the description of CBS trying to "make another MCU" is very apt, though.
I think that a significant area where they're blowing it of late is with #3. "Challenging core values" has become "something to fight people in space battles about," and that's definitely bleed-in from the MCU and Hollywood generally.
Even better, you can preorder it at DriveThruRPG and download the beta version of the PDF right now.
I've read it and it's good stuff. The rules updates are great. They totally overhauled the XP system and it's so much better now.
I don't think so. While CBS is making a lot of Trek, there's no apparent effort to connect it all like the MCU or its copycats.
Picard doesn't reference Discovery at all and, given Discovery's second season, it's very possible Strange New Worlds won't either. It remains to be seen how closely tied Lower Deck will be to the rest of the franchise--my guess is not very. Section 31 seems like a direct spin-off from Discovery, but we'll see how much that matters. DS9 is technically a direct spin-off of TNG, but you can count the number of times that matters on one hand.
Speaking of, half of DS9 deals with a galactic conflict that culminates in a war that leaves half of Starfleet dead, multiple worlds in ruins, and radically alters the balance of power in two quadrants. It gets throwaway lines in Voyager and the TNG films. Trek has never had real arc-welding or crossovers outside its EU, and I don't think that'll necessarily change under Kurtzman.
I can't speak to Picard because I tapped out after 4 or 5 episodes, but Discovery is...it's complicated. The characters assert their values as strongly as in any Trek ever, which is why I fundamentally disagree with Grease-Covered Generic Youtuber #23 going "bluuuuuh, everyone in the show is so dark and cynical, bluuuuuh." They super aren't! They talk about idealism and science and hope all the time! Possibly too much!
The problem is that the actual plot never follows through and, indeed, always ends up in a giant apocalyptic space battle because of ???reasons???.
And then the space battle is also boring and badly-edited. So not only am I not getting what I wanted, I'm getting bait-and-switched badly. I asked for a Reuben and got a well-done steak.
Right. It's Video Game Dialogue now, instead of a thing the author was thinking about and writing around in putting the episode together. They know they have to acknowledge the history / DNA of speculative sci-fi but they don't know how to do it effectively anymore because Big Set Piece Battle / SFX Budget overshadows the whole thing.
Hard disagree. Voyager was terrible precisely because it fled from its own premise at almost every turn in favor of being The Next Generation-lite. That's where all the “wasted potential” talk that surrounds Voyager comes from. Enterprise made a big deal upfront about how there were no shields to raise, but ended up using “polarize the hull plating” to mean the exact same damn thing.
Better acting and writing could’ve made enjoyable shows in spite of those shortcomings, sure. But the inverse is also true: if either of those shows had stuck to their conceptual guns, some wooden performances and occasional leaden dialogue could’ve been excused.
I can't pull the episode up directly anymore but that's absolutely not the impression one gets from the scene imo.
But it is straight out of a much more standard non-utopian style of setup. Which is what it feels like.
jesus please don't remind me - there was a period of about 2-3 years after that movie where literally everything was morphing this and morphing that, not just movies and TV shows (Mighty MORPHING Power Rangers came out 2 years after T2), even commercials got into the act
Yeah. I'd like to believe that Raffi's living situation is essentially voluntary (inasmuch as it's an outcome of her not-great mental state, anyway) and it's an easy case to make but the actual scene on actual film does not do enough to make that case.
Which is part of why so many people - even people who otherwise like the show! - keep coming away from Picard feeling like it's doing some other sci-fi thing.
I personally spent five days morphed into a skateboard in the summer of 1991
I think either interpretation is reasonable. Part of the problem is similar to the rest of Picard's writing; they put the Raffi piece on the board, give just enough background information to drive the character's actions, but hand wave any details that justify those actions because there's just no time or budget! (The Rios holograms are another example of this.) The writing is so obviously causal in this regard -Picard needs to build a team, but there needs to be drama about this = Raffi needs to be mad at him for reasons that are never fully explained. All we know is what we saw in the scenes with the two of them after he walks away from Star Fleet, which isn't much.
God damn it
i'm the basketball
Between the massive death of the late 20th/early 21st Centuries in Star trek (eugenics wars and the nuclear war/post-atomic horror get most of the attention, but TOS also mentioned an ecoterrorist attacks between the two wars that killed millions and TNG referenced several other serious conflicts before and after WWIII like the Irish war and the destruction of France, and Voyager confirms that The Big One completely wiped out Southern California at some point) and colonization, Earth's population in Star Trek is 4.2 billion in 2370. There's fifty million on the moon and several hundred million throughout the rest of the system, then a number of the early colonies like Alpha Centauri and Vega had populations of hundreds of millions or billions.
Basically, Earth doesn't need to be any more urbanized than it already is, and a decent number of cities probably never got rebuilt to their pre-WWIII sizes. And without heavy agriculture it's natural environments are well maintained and as restored as they probably ever could be after the wars.
edit - speaking of takes but nobody here does that, at least that I can recall
edit 2 - so many takes this is patently false and i would say most fans who kept watching season 3 of enterprise, and especially season 4, would say "hey this is good now" at the time of air, I know I certainly did and we discussed it at length at the time.
That was a very 1960s, atomic age, can-do attitude. "In the future we'll have fixed the problem of deserts!"
In part because of the ecological thinking that Dune inspired, we've begun to have a more holistic attitude about these things and ask ourselves if deserts aren't a necessary part of a healthy ecosystem. You can see that in TNG with how incredibly careful and reluctant the characters are to upset any kind of natural state of affairs (like in "Home Soil" from S1, where we learn that terraforming is expressly forbidden on all but the most lifeless worlds). So it makes sense to me that there's a desert for Raffi to live in, that part of the scene doesn't bother me at all.