Be a fan. Listen to commentaries. A post-economic future was Roddenberry’s concept — and a deeply cherished one at that.

I am a fan—of the original.

I also read Das Kapital. It goes against human nature and doesn’t work. It is a load of crap.

So, if anyone calls the original series cheesy again, they’ll have to answer to me!;)

Be a fan. Listen to commentaries. A post-economic future was Roddenberry’s concept — and a deeply cherished one at that.

#98

Be a human. Learn things. Read Das Kapital. Find the reality outside of your head.

Actually, you said it with more eloquence than I did. I was toying with the idea of using the word “communism” in my original post, but I thought too many people might just protest me expressing my using the word.

I just want to go on the record as saying that I can’t fault the writers on everything. Ronald Moore has done great work and I respect him as a writer and creator and for showing many differing points of view–and he never says that anyone is right or wrong. This is very smart way to do a show, in my opinion. Some have said he states who is right in spite of what he says; but I actually think that the viewer is the one who sees what they want and interprets it all in their own mind. Again, I digress.

I should also go on record as saying that there are a few episodes of TNG that are good. But too many of them have the aren’t we superior? We have no poor, no hungry. We have no war. We explore and never invade. Unless if it’s your emotions because we have a woman who will read your every thought without giving you a heads up. And I’ll be honest, I like a good fight scene. There were far too few. The only character I thought was really interesting was the Chief and they did little on him on TNG. The DS9 was less sunshine and aint we better than you. The only thing I did not like about that show was when they focused too much on the comical Quark. Voyager….I didn’t see many of those. I liked Enterprise because they got closer to the focus of three main characters (the Captain, Trip and the Vulcan) which was a lot more like TOS, but there still were hints of preaching to the audience–especially in the first season. I didn’t mind the war episodes, myself, over all. I did not like the time traveller issues causing the war. I much rather it have been some race just hit Earth. I did not care for the overly simplistic way it was resolved. I also think it would have been far wiser if it was not done so much in a way to reflect 9/11. I say this because when they did that season, so close to 9/11, it seemed to be too close to the time we were in and it honestly kind of trivialized things. I think it would have been wiser to wait for that story, change the attackers to Romulans and had the Romulan–Earth War done in an interesting way that did not feel so much like a reflection of September 11th for a season finale.

However, I think as the time goes by, that that season may prove to be easier to watch and enjoy when a newer generation sees them and doesn’t realize they were talking about 9/11. But I did like Enterprise and I don’t mind retcons, so maybe that’s part of the reason why I liked that show.

By contrast, there’s lots of negotiation in TNG and the females are MUMS (middle-aged upwardly mobile Starfleet) professional officers; the men are metrosexuals and their slogan is “can’t we all just get along?”. For comic relief they had two token retrosexuals (throwbacks), Riker and Whorf.

Can you picture a female officer in TNG running off with Khan the way it happenend in TOS? Can you picture Spock being kidnapped by an effeminate con man and ordered to run around naked in the captor’s ship the way Data was? I don’t think so.

Their “cashless, moneyless” society sounds suspiciously like universal communism–all wealth has now been eliminated, and they really do live “from each according to his means, to each according to his needs”. Talk about missing human nature by a mile! Because regardless of money, all things and ideas have their own value relative to others, and cannot be had without providing something of like value in exchange. Money is just the civilized way to do that. Marx was wrong.

I agree completely, that 90+% of movies get the military wrong. The uniform is wrong, the behavior is wrong, the way they talk is wrong, the worldview is wrong, etc. but what can you expect from non-military minded college grads with movie degrees?

And that was the basic difference between TOS and TNG…TOS was written and acted by lots of people from the WWII generation, like James Doohan who was wounded in the Normandy invasion, and it’s philosophy was like the Corps of Exloration, or the military outposts in Antarctica. TNG was more of “the tenured college professor and a bunch of graduate students go off to explore the galaxy”.

I guess my bias is obvious. But I did like TNG. If only TOS had had the budget and production values of TNG! And the best TNG movie (1st Contact, a.k.a. “the wrath of borg”) had primarily TOS values: improvise, adapt, overcome–peace thru superior firepower.

Someone said that the haircuts did not come until the Wrath of Kahn. That’s why all the men on TOS had the pointy sideburns and no man had long hair in TOS. They didn’t show them as military like as, say, the new Battlestar Galactica or Aliens (they botched their potrayal of Marines in Aliens, in my honest opinion. Apone has Army stripes on his sleeve–and he’s a Marine! The rank shows that he’s an E-7. Yet everyone calls him “sarge.” Gunny would be the right thing. Call a Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt “Sarge” and he’ll set you right. They all wear Army covers too. Man, Aliens botched it. I love the movie, but as a stickler for detail it still bugs the hell out of me. They also call them “soldiers.” Soldiers! They’re Marines…..not soldiers!) But I digress—I’m good for that if you haven’t noticed.

They carry torpedoes and phasers. In a recent episode of TOS on T.V. Land, Scotty made the comment that the Enterprise had enough power to destroy a planet. Does this sound like a exploratory civilian group to anyone? Not me. Who would give civilians this weaponry and expect them all to play by the laws?

The Next Generation seemed to have made some changes on the military aspect, I guess. Or at least one writer did. Someone quoted someone (Picard?)from TNG as saying they were primarily a group for exploration. But TNG had, in my opinion, a lot of unrealistic ideas like no poverty and, if I recall right, no form of pay. Sounds nice on paper, and I would love it if it were a realistic goal, but that doesn’t take human nature into consideration. If there was no poverty and everyone had everything they could ever want, why do anything? Just stay home and have fun in your holodeck. If there is no pay, why is there a chain of command? Do enlisted men get something less than officers?

Maybe there was a writer on the TNG who thought this up, but they did not think it through. DS9 certainly had a military feel more than TNG, so I can only assume that at least one TNG writer did not think it through. Nor did they pay attention to TOS and their mention of credits for payment, etc. But like I said, TNG was always too optimistic and snooty to me.