Posted on 09/02/2015 5:26:11 AM PDT by DFG
Leonard Nimoys death in February brought to a close his unusual career continually playing a single role for half a century. Between 1966, when the television show Star Trek premiered, and 2013, when the movie Star Trek Into Darkness hit the screens, Nimoy portrayed the franchises beloved first officer, Mr. Spock, in two TV series and eight films.
As he acknowledged, the key to Star Treks longevity and cultural penetration was its seriousness of purpose, originally inspired by creator Gene Roddenberrys science fiction vision. Modeled on Gullivers Travels, the series was meant as an opportunity for social commentary, and it succeeded ingeniously, with episodes scripted by some of the eras finest science fiction writers. Yet the development of Star Treks moral and political tone over 50 years also traces the strange decline of American liberalism since the Kennedy era.
(Excerpt) Read more at claremont.org ...
It started out all substance without special effects. Now it’s all special effects without substance.
Modeled on Gullivers TravelsMmm, no.
It was pitched to the networks as a "Wagon Train to the stars".
Star Trek simply became too preachy over the decades. Pushing social justice became more important than entertaining folks. Star Trek: Enterprise, the most recent Trek TV series, squandered a great opportunity to return to the show’s roots. They should have went retro with the technology and scripts as the events of Enterprise were supposed to happen prior to the original series.
That said, at least they didn’t have Janeway—the worst captain in Trek history!
Sounds like Obama's America, ca. 2015.
The politics are irrelevant, because the technology allows for everyone to get all of their needs and wants created with little to no effort of their own.
Replicators. Unlimited free energy.
The only things subject to economies would be those items that were illegal.
You’d probably actually see a flourishing black market and slave trading.
Yep, Space Western. But I still love the original.
Marxism.
Or Horatio Hornblower. Not Gulliver’s Travels.
Regards,
Strange decline of American Liberalism since the Kennedy era?
Seems to me the Libs are more powerful than ever.
bump
The famous story was that when he proposed Star Trek: TNG, Gene Roddenberry’s basic concept was to push non-violence.
His writers quickly realized that a non-violent action/adventure series was quite literally impossible to write. Hence the first season and a half consisted of shows that were absolute dogs.
Then Roddenberry died, and they were able to save the show by going back to shoot-em-out scripts based on old submarine and air combat movies.
Ping.
for later
If you think Janeway was the worst Captain in Trek history, then it’s obvious you never watched Deep Space Nine, with Captain Sisko...
“In Return of the Archons, for example, Kirk and company infiltrate a theocratic world monitored and dominated by the god Landru. The natives are placid, but theirs is the mindless placidity of cattle.”
And then Hurricane Katrina happened...
But only if you had enough latinum.
That seems to be the case with movies and TV in general over the past 5 or 6 decades.
Gene Roddenberry died in 1991. He was fully involved in Star Trek until his death.
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