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[DeafTourette]

I know many of us are Trekkies and love the old school stuff... Some of y'all don't like the new stuff like Discovery and Lower Decks. I do! But this isn't about new vs old.

What does Star Trek mean to you?

For me, I love how aspirational ST is! It's a vision of the future where we are truly free to be who we are meant to be. You want to be an archaeologist? You can! You want to be an independent explorer? You can! You want to create art for the sake of it? You can! You can do all these things, including joining StarFleet!

ST, as a show, has always looked at the future through lense of the present (I might be wording that backward but work with me here) in seeing xenophobia, racism, crime, authoritarianism, war, meeting foreign powers, etc and offering differing ways to solve them.... Maybe not by the ways they do in the show but at least give us ideas. And that the ideas we have of bettering ourselves is the way forward.

The aliens and the crews of the ships /space stations are US... All the conflicts, all the divisions , all the victories... All the lessons they learn to better themselves and achieve something greater together... That's HUMANITY as a whole... What we can aspire to achieve TOGETHER!

Two quotes resonate so much with me, of what Star Trek is all about:

The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.

For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. *That* is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence.

 

[Kenpachii]

Exploration.

 

[Methos#1975]

It really doesn't mean anything to me in the sense you are asking for. Instead for me it's personal. My mom loved Star Trek TOS and watched it religiously so it became my door to scifi. I watch it now simply because of that factor.

 

[Kadve]

Series that's always crap for the first two seasons or so. Don't know how they keep manage to do it.

 

[Laptop1991]

Well i grew up watching TOS and the films in the 70's and into the 80's as a kid and then became a fan of TNG and DS9 as a young man so for me it was great science fiction shows especially on tv with really good stories and characters, it didn't have the impact of the original Star Wars in 77, which i remember queuing for hours to see as a kid, but it was easier to see and a lot more of it, i watch them still from time to time, not a fan of the modern ones really, the story telling of Gene Roddenberry has long gone sadly.

 

[ForAcademicPurposes]

 

[Con_Z_ǝdʇ]

 

[GeekyDad]

...Two quotes resonate so much with me, of what Star Trek is all about:

"The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."

Yeah, that was definitely the reason I continued on with the New Generation, as it seemed even more focused on that idea.

But politics was still a huge element, especially of the movies of the original cast.

That being said, I think personal exploration was always at the forefront. And it was done in ways that were just so relatable and thought-provoking.

 

[Randall365]

Inter-generational appeal, by offering a view of a future that everyone could view with interest. Enough drama to keep you engaged, but not too much that kids couldn’t watch it too. Family viewing.

It was always hit and miss though - the original TV series aged quickly, the movies were pretty good though. TNG was excellent - the series that came after were disappointing, but I always gave them a chance. The new movies with Chris Pine gave new life to it all.

Star Trek Discovery is utter bullshit and probably killed it for me. I stuck with it for two series. It’s a shame really, as the couple episodes of Brave New Worlds I saw were really good - but you can’t really trust them not to ruin that one too.

I saw an interview with a show runner saying that they were having to separate the ‘toxic fandom’ and once they were bored with Star Trek they would quit immediately. What a contrast with Roddenbury and his vision. I guess a similar thing happened when Lucas sold to Disney.

 

[willothedog]

 

[WhiteWaterM00se]

I hated Star Trek as a kid, and now I have come to appreciate it for what it is. DS9 and most of Next Generation are two of arguably the top 100 shows all time, maybe even both in top 50.

I really liked the first two seasons of Lower Decks, as I found it an Interesting addition to the Trek Universe.

Strange New Worlds and Discovery both started strong and then faded some.

 

[Wildebeest]

A bunch of hammy actors in weird costumes acting out short stories from when science fiction was booming and not a dead pastiche genre. What it ended up being is superficially more "serious" looking and has more "political", "military" or "dramatic" content, but is ultimately boring and pointless. I think deep space nine seriously shat the whole bed for the entire franchise, making the series too much about soap opera personal conflicts and war.

 

[FunkMiller]

Nothing made after 2010 (except Picard season 3)

 

[ÆMNE22A!C]

I've only watched TNG.

Like it a lot

Wish I'd met Marina Siris in my early twenties and both fell in love which each other and ended up marrying her.

She's more or less my perfect woman

And yes ofcourse I don't know what her personality is and spare me the movie where she's almost naked or something. I watch RLM

Edit: Never had much with the other shows or movies.

Although, I think it in TWoK where they put the slimey things that go into their ears. I was around 5 and I'll never forget that scene. Scarred me for life

 

[BlackTron]

Wish I'd met Marina Siris in my early twenties and both fell in love which each other and ended up marrying her.

She's more or less my perfect woman

As long as you know she was wearing a wig.

Anyway I've only seen TNG, the Abrams movie and a tiny amount of the original show. My take? The OG is too dated for me and the movie completely lost what made TNG, which is basically Aesop's Fables in space. The real point was the meaning behind the stories; space offered an infinite blank slate to write them with. I thought the show was great, and focusing on this depth covered up its blemishes of bad SFX and corny costumes.

That movie was Trek put first through a Star Wars filter and then a JJ Abrams one. No depth left, just pew pew and get excited bc memberberries when a guy you know shows up. By the book

 

[winjer]

I love 90s Star Trek. TNG, Voyager and DS9.
Yes, there are some problems, and some episodes are a bit lacking. But when it's good, it's really good.

I also have saw the original series and Enterprise, and enjoyed them, but not as much.
I haven't seen Discovery and Picard, mostly because I heard a lot of bad things about it.

 

[ÆMNE22A!C]

As long as you know she was wearing a wig.

Her hair is one of the reasons i felt attracted to her; love long dark full curly hair on my women.

 

[Ulysses 31]

Exploration and seeking cooperation and mutual understanding with other species.

 

[Zathalus]

It means discovery and exploration of both the cosmos and the human condition.

As for the shows themselves, I've liked everything bar Picard Season 2 and Discovery. Strange New Worlds is good, and Lower Decks is the best Trek since DS9.

 

[jason10mm]

For me Trek is both a sci-fi story (space ships, alien factions, phasers, teleporters, reverse polarized deflector shields) and an allegorical device to hold up current human delimmas and failings to a possible idealized outcome.

What a lot of more modern versions lack, for me, is a central team of competent people who are individually interesting and flawed, but each reflect an aspect of a perfect person, so when they are together the synergy is unstoppable. I feel the shows started leaning in on too much internal conflict to a point where it was all about intercrew drama and not about putting the federation against an alien culture to prove a point.

 

[John Bilbo]

I've just recently started watching TNG. I think the show is written with an ultra positive prospect regarding the future. I find it refreshing.

What if the most brilliant minds get to do the best work they possibly can? How would a future like that look?

I think the show also tackles some cosmic horror themes when it comes to entities like Q. But the way the show handles those themes is entirely different than let's say Ridley Scott's Alien. It's very neat!

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

Well, my name is Kirk.

My father is an avid Trekkie.

It's means everything and nothing at all.

 

[Daneel Elijah]

I read a few things about it, but never really saw the series. Only the Abrams films. I consider it like always sunny. A precursor that allowed other series to exist. For me Stargate SG1.

 

[Husky]

For me, I love how aspirational ST is! It's a vision of the future where we are truly free to be who we are meant to be. You want to be an archaeologist? You can! You want to be an independent explorer? You can! You want to create art for the sake of it? You can! You can do all these things, including joining StarFleet!

This sort of aligns with one of my favorite things about Star Trek. I think as long as we have somewhere new to run away to, we're able to pursue freedom. In Star Trek, those who want to leave can fly away, and form distant settlements seemingly unregulated by Starfleet or the Federation.
I've been watching through the series for a couple years now, and just finally finished Enterprise. My favorite episodes provide thought experiments, or explore weird Twilight Zone scenarios. I also like the fun character-driven episodes. I've never been a fan of the action-oriented plotlines, I just find those boring in Star Trek. I don't have high hopes for new Trek, but I keep wondering if they'll at least tell better serialized stories.

 

[Clear]

Was great once, but turned to complete shit over time by those who only saw the franchise as vehicle for their own enrichment/furtherance of their beliefs.

It's dead, Jim.

 

[DeafTourette]

Was great once, but turned to complete shit over time by those who only saw the franchise as vehicle for their own enrichment/furtherance of their beliefs.

It's dead, Jim.

So, when it was great ... What did it mean to you? In your heart of hearts?

 

[Clear]

So, when it was great ... What did it mean to you? In your heart of hearts?

Original Trek to the 4th movie was great. TNG was good, but a mixed bag. Decline started with DS9 and since then there's been too much trash to care anymore, even if there's been isolated spots of quality.

 

[ÆMNE22A!C]

Gfy Gerard

 

[dispensergoinup]

My favorite era was STNG, DS9, even some of Voyager and Enterprise.

To me those always meant hope and looking to the future for understanding and giving meaning to life.

The new shows do not give me that at all, it's bleak and depressing with too much focus on single characters and not the crew's journey as a whole. Adding to that none of them are really likeable.

This is from what I have seen so far of Discovery (haven't looked into Picard).

Strange New Worlds got me for a bit but I think I'm just done with Trek for a while.

 

[ÆMNE22A!C]

Waarom lach je ouwe

 

[Bloobs]

 

[Muffdraul]

When I was a little kid, Star Trek was the only sci fi game in town. It was canceled right after I was born, but syndicated reruns were on every Sunday night. Then Space 1999 arrived, but I felt like I was the only one that watched it. Then Star Wars hit.

It all started with Star Trek for me, but I've never been the least bit interested in anything after the OG TV series.

 

[DeafTourette]

Original Trek to the 4th movie was great. TNG was good, but a mixed bag. Decline started with DS9 and since then there's been too much trash to care anymore, even if there's been isolated spots of quality.

I didn't ask "how do you critique Star Trek" ... I asked what it meant to you... Like what I posted and some others posted.

 

[mitch1971]

Yes, I get the irony.

 

[Rat Rage]

The movies 1 to 6 are legitimately great!

 

[gaming_again]

Star Trek is the thread that runs throughout my life:

• Watching ToS on Friday nights as one of my earliest memories.
• Seeing Star Trek VI at a cinema on a ferry with my dad.
• Coming home from school and begging my mum to let me drag my TV from my room to the kitchen so I could watch TNG while I had dinner.
• Watching the double run starting from 00:00 on Sky at my friends house on a school night.
• Stoned out of my mind at uni introducing my skeptical housemate to TNG and him becoming a major trekkie.
• Watching six episode sessions of DS9 at uni on Sunday mornings/afternoons, again stoned out of my mind.
• Being there for me during my first proper breakup.
• Being there for me when I lay in bed for weeks being incredibly ill.
• Being there for me when I lived abroad for years and experienced crippling loneliness at times.
• Sending me to sleep on a laptop screen for two decades until my wife moved in with me (lol).

The only other TV shows that compare are Frasier and Seinfeld. Modern Trek makes me angry and upset. It's been vandalised.

 

[Clear]

I didn't ask "how do you critique Star Trek" ... I asked what it meant to you... Like what I posted and some others posted.

Serious SF handled in an entertaining manner by placing a focus on likeable, relatable characters. The magic was the interplay between Kirk, Spock and McCoy, ably supported by a great supporting cast.

Basically, original Trek was lightning-in-a-bottle. They got lucky with such a charismatic cast and had access to, and the interest of really good legit writers. Even as early as season 3 of the series things were slipping because with Roddenberry pushed out and Fred Freiberger in, episodes that were intended to be comic were forced to be treated straight.

Philosophically its simple, optimistic pro-Humanism was always tremendously appealing to me, because it was fundamentally used as emotional tone-centre. There was no contradiction between its progressive ideas and Shatner's Kirk tom-catting about the galaxy.

It was emotionally utopian, whereas later shows lean hard towards a more ideological take on utopianism.

I loved the show, went to numerous cons. Met most of the original cast and show-runners. I WAS a Trekker.

Then the greedy fucks at Paramount ruined it with excessive profiteering, and since the ideologues jumped on the bandwagon I've grown to actively hate what its become.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Nothing. Everything.

 

[DeafTourette]

Serious SF handled in an entertaining manner by placing a focus on likeable, relatable characters. The magic was the interplay between Kirk, Spock and McCoy, ably supported by a great supporting cast.

Basically, original Trek was lightning-in-a-bottle. They got lucky with such a charismatic cast and had access to, and the interest of really good legit writers. Even as early as season 3 of the series things were slipping because with Roddenberry pushed out and Fred Freiberger in, episodes that were intended to be comic were forced to be treated straight.

Philosophically its simple, optimistic pro-Humanism was always tremendously appealing to me, because it was fundamentally used as emotional tone-centre. There was no contradiction between its progressive ideas and Shatner's Kirk tom-catting about the galaxy.

It was emotionally utopian, whereas later shows lean hard towards a more ideological take on utopianism.

I loved the show, went to numerous cons. Met most of the original cast and show-runners. I WAS a Trekker.

Then the greedy fucks at Paramount ruined it with excessive profiteering, and since the ideologues jumped on the bandwagon I've grown to actively hate what its become.

I appreciate your post brother

 

[AJUMP23]

sci fi stories and characters.

when the walls fell

 

[CGNoire]

A Deeply Needed Optimistic View of the Future.

In the early 90s all my favorite films where dystopian in nature Terminator,Aliens, Robcop, Cyborg... it was so refreshing to spend an hour a week with the TNG crew and spend time in a future that was a tad less cynical. It created a nice balance for me.

Also TNG had the best casting of any show Ive ever seen. Everyone but maybe wesley fit so well together.

 

[The Incarnation]

Michael Burnham.

That's all.

 

[NecrosaroIII]

My wife really likes Star Trek. When we got together, she made me watch DS9 and Voyager. It's something I enjoy sharing with her, even though CBS is bound and determined to kill it

 

[Pegasus Actual]

It used to mean a lot to me. Now it's mostly a hate-watch. I hate that those in control of the franchise and most of the fandom are pretty much ResetERA types... and DeafTourette you still haven't explained to me why mister deaf guy is such a big fan of the shitty songs in that trash-tier SNW musical. I am assuming it's because you can't actually hear them and so you just assume they're good because the cast seems to be having fun or something.

Okay with that rant out of the way... ya know.. when that one dude from RedLetterMedia talks about what makes TNG great... it's basically that.

Star Wars was awesome, but then I discovered TNG and then I rented some TOS movies... then I figured out where to catch TOS reruns at 1am and DS9 came on the air.... So it was like yeah, Star Wars is cool and all, but it's for stupid people, or well maybe not just stupid people... it was for everyone... but now there was sci-fi out there that wasn't cartoony and actually made you think.

Also I love the iconic ship designs. Nothing like the Enterprise-D on TV... I mean just look at the visual CGI vomit that was Babylon 5 (cool show in its own right but hey it ain't no Star Trek).

 

[gaming_again]

A Deeply Needed Optimistic View of the Future.

In the early 90s all my favorite films where dystopian in nature Terminator,Aliens, Robcop, Cyborg... it was so refreshing to spend an hour a week with the TNG crew and spend time in a future that was a tad less cynical. It created a nice balance for me.

Also TNG had the best casting of any show Ive ever seen. Everyone but maybe wesley fit so well together.

I think Wesley was well cast too. Nobody in his position was going to be cool and confident. Or maybe I just can't look at TNG objectively.

 

[CGNoire]

I think Wesley was well cast too. Nobody in his position was going to be cool and confident. Or maybe I just can't look at TNG objectively.

He lacked charisma.

 

[Artoris]

I've only watched TNG.

Like it a lot

Wish I'd met Marina Siris in my early twenties and both fell in love which each other and ended up marrying her.

She's more or less my perfect woman

And yes ofcourse I don't know what her personality is and spare me the movie where she's almost naked or something. I watch RLM

Edit: Never had much with the other shows or movies.

Although, I think it in TWoK where they put the slimey things that go into their ears. I was around 5 and I'll never forget that scene. Scarred me for life

I think Jolene Blalock is better looking than Marina Siris

 

[ElRenoRaven]

For me it was always hope. You had humanity who for the most part set aside it's desire for money, it's desire to wage wars, and just wanted to explore and grow in knowledge. I always wanted to see a future like that. Sadly I'll never see that in my lifetime.

 

[jufonuk]

Escapism. Hope. Memories my dad was a Trekkie and so am i so I feel good knowing it’s something we share. I can watch next gen and imagine my dad watching it.

Also Troi was a fox

 

[jason10mm]

It used to mean a lot to me. Now it's mostly a hate-watch. I hate that those in control of the franchise and most of the fandom are pretty much ResetERA types... and DeafTourette you still haven't explained to me why mister deaf guy is such a big fan of the shitty songs in that trash-tier SNW musical. I am assuming it's because you can't actually hear them and so you just assume they're good because the cast seems to be having fun or something.

Dude, way outta line.

Besides, have you heard Kirk and Spock sing? It's pretty clear that in the future autotune has so ruined man's ability to carry a note. SNW was just being true to the lore. Only Rikers skill with the sax survives.