Rant of the Month
Why Star Trek Sucks I love science fiction.
I love stories of alien invasions, encounters, and distopian futures.
I love speculative stories about the future use of emerging technologies.
I enjoy reading intelligent and thought-provoking stories designed to make
me think about the moral and ethical implicationsof technology. I even
enjoy the occaisional Bug-eyed-monster story, just for fun. The best
science fiction movies, in my opinion, are The Andromeda Strain,
Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Aliens, and maybe Jurassic Park. Why I love
these movies above all other science fiction is that they have just the
right blend of special effects, drama, but most importantly (and probably
LEAST so in Terminator 2), they ask us to ponder, if just for a moment, the
implications of our actions, the ethical use of developing or hypothetical
technology, or how we feel about balancing our fear of the unknown with the
moral and ethical descisions that might arise from a hypothetical situation.
The Trek Universe
Star Trek, especially the newest incarnations, is void of all of the things
that make for entertaining, adult-minded science fiction. The NextGeneration,
Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, have a sort of juvenile mindset to them.
Instead of having people do exactly what they normally would do as humans,
the Trek Universe has people behaving as though there are strict rules about
everything that prevent a person from even considering self-preservation or
self-indulgence as a primary motivator. The entire world that the Star Trek
Universe has created is bogus and lacking color. Take, for example, the fact
that nobody in the Star TrekUniverse listens to rock music. The one episode
where a character did listento rock, he was discouraged by the characters,
and the alien Rock'N'Roll was excessively dissonant. How can a future exist
where 100 years of music is erased from history? The only music people
listen to on Star Trek is Classical and a non-descript "space jazz" kind of
music. You'd think that inthe future, there would be a bigger variety of
musical styles, since musical styles never really die, they develop.
Easy on your mind
The intellectual arena in Star Trek never seems to go beyond High School
Sophmore level. Take, as evidence, the fact that we only hear Shakespeare
in the literary references of the characters. We never hear references
to Satre, Nietsche, Voltaire, Locke, or other more interesting literary and
philosophical giants. I mean -- who the hell would believe that an alien from
another planet would casually quote Shakepeare like an English-speaking earth
person? Aren't there alien philosophers who can come up with words of wisdom
once in a while? I just cannot believe a shakespeare-spouting Klingon in the
24th century, unless he grew up going to high school in Cleveland, Ohio. The
views on politics in Star Trek stories are shallow at best. There is always a
clear distinction between good and evil -- never any gray areas. The right
answer to every political and social dilemma encountered seems to be that
Starfleet is always right. Trek's psychology is juvenile, too. I find it hard
to believe that the technological future society of Star Trek could be so
into kooky New Age pop-psychology, that it would have a psychic stationed on
every spaceship as a counselor. Deanna Troi is the stupidest character I have
seen on Trek -- her whole purpose is to state the obvious. We see a scowling
alien screaming over the viewscreen, and Troi predictably babbles "I sense
hostility in him!" A Character holds back a few tears or talks kind-of
choked up, and Troi says "I sense sadness..." Get a clue!
Star Trek's Society
Starfleet is an incredibly unlikely and silly organization -- a socialist
quasi-military goverment that seems to be in charge of everything; they seem to
be in charge of commerce, government, arts, culture, the military, and the media.
When was the last time the crew on a Star Trek ship watched an entertainment-
oriented television-like program, or a movie? Evangelistic, The Federation goes
across the universe and tries to make all the aliens follow the one, true way of
the Earthmen. The altruism that starfleet embraces is absurd. Who would believe
that people would be willing to sacrifice their lives rather than intervene in
the development of a more primitive alien culture, even if by accident? There are
several episodes where the crew is trying hard not to intervene with a developing
alien civilization, and they face a tough choice between destroying the ship
willfully. Are these people for real? The federation instills this horrible
altruism into it's people in the worst ways. We have episodes where characters
turn down incredible gifts -- Jeordi turns down sight just to snub a superior
being, Picard and Kirk turn down paradise in "Generations" just to save a
primitive planet, and in another episode, Picard turns down being able to revise
major events in his life for the better just to prove to "Q" that he can't be made
Unlikely Civilizations
Never mind Starfleet -- what about the kooky alien cultures that exist around
Starfleet? We have the Klingons, equally on par with the federation technologically,
yet ruled by a singular fuedal warlord society. They can create impressive starships
that are a match for the Federation, yet they know nothing of personal hygene or
dental care. They know computers, but seem to have no patience to deal with any
technology or people -- which would be neccesary for technological development.
Klingons seem more prone to smashing computer screens in frustration, rather than
being capable of making them or programming them. Never mind the federation or the
Klingons -- what about all the other alien worlds that exist in the Trek Universe?
They are all the same! Every worldthat the Federation comes across is run by a single
world government, with a homogenous culture. Every alien culture dresses in mis-matched
period costume parts from Earth cultures. They all speak English, except when it's
important to the plot that don't. In nearly every case, The alien cultures are inferior
to the Federation, and the federation has to come in and teach them how to do things
the right way. It's as if the Earth's Federation isthe only culture/government/organization
in the whole Trek universe that has both oars in the water and has no problems. Even
when they tried to have episodes showing flaws in the Federation, they just couldn't
do it convincingly.
Blinded to Science
Star Trek science is occaisionally silly. Take for example the almost total acceptence of
mind-brain duality, and the use of technology to capture a person's essence into a
computer's memory chip, and back into another body. This kind of fantasy technology ignores what we know about the brain -- about how it is the physical connections
between neurons and groups of neurons which make us who we are. Star Trek
wholeheartedly accepts the superstitious as fact, and designs episodes around strange
new-age concpets which are not scientific at all. They also have a habit of forgetting about technology that is well established in other episodes.
In one episode, Riker gets attacked by a virus that renders him unconscious, and his
nervous system is affected. In previous episodes, they established that they could use the
transporters to filter out alien organisms, and beam them out. But they suddenly forgot
how to do this, and inserted these big, long probes into his brain! I've seen that plot
before... The most annoying thing about Trek, however is it's strict adherence to well-
established cliches and formula plots. Hardly ever innovative, Trek follows cliches and
formulas so strictly that one can actually predict the outcome of the episode with only 5 or 10 minutes into the episode. You always know that by the end of the episode, all characters will be back to normal, and nobody will suffer any permanent effects from whatever transpired during the episode (this is always
true, unless there is a planned major cast revision). Whenever there is a major cast revision,
they predictably have a "going away" episode where the whole episode's plot revolves around the
fact that the character is leaving. Wessley Crusher, Quark, "Q", and other assorted characters
who appear frequently will always initiate problems for everyone else to solve. Cliches that
annoy the hell out of me are those horrible "Evil Twin" episodes. You always know that when a
look-alike or twin of a charactercomes onto the scene, that they will cause trouble. The evil
twin episode is simply the most over-used and predictable plot element ever done. Then there's
those alternate universe episodes, which are similar to the evil twin episodes, but instead of
one character being subjected to the arrival of their evil twin, the whole cast and crew of
the ship has evil twins to deal with from another dimension. Time travel episodes are boring
you always know that by the end of the episode, all history will be fixed, and no after-effects
will remain, like things being slightly and unnoticeably different. The worst offense to my
intelligence, though, is the "Season's end summing up" episode, where it's either Christmas
or a birthday, and everyone gathers to pay homage to a character or to past events, or a
character is wounded and having flashbacks. These episodes have only one purpose -- to finish
off the season without shooting more footage. They simply show a bunch of clips from old
episodes and tie them together with some kind of central theme. It's just dull, boring, and
cliched.
Star Trek Geeks: Unwanted Children
What discussion about Star Trek would be complete without mentioning themost horrid by-product
of the multimillion dollar marketing franchise -- The Geeks who worship the show. I used to
think Scifi Conventions were neat getaways where you could forget everything and just be a kid
again. But after a while, the pathetic Trek Geeks really get to you. I've seen some pretty
bad droolers in my day. I met these fat pukes once, who dressed likeKlingons, and had memorized
the Klingon dictionary so that they spoke fluent Klingonese. What a waste of time! There are
plenty of pathetic losers spending their last few dollars on overpriced Trek toys, even
forsaking their rent just to own a plastic phaser that some model-bulder made for $15 worth of
materials, or a $40 tape of Star Trek bloopers. I even met one guy who had a Star Trek 2: The
Wrath of Kahn federation uniform professionally made for him -- and it cost over $200 to make!
It can get so bad that there are even people referred to as "Trek Nazis" -- people who think
that Star Trek is the only science fiction worthy of being experienced. These Trek Nazis are
known for their heavy-handed and exclusionary approach to running conventions, and have been
known to bar people from conventions for wearing non-Star Trek related costumes, or bar dealers
from selling non-Star Trek related items. Fortunately, I don't think this kind of Trek Nazism
is widespread.
So in closing...I used to like Trek
I enjoyed only 3 of the 6 movies, namely 1, 2, and 4. I love the increasing tackiness and
out-of-date-ness of the original series, because it's good for laughs, But TNG, DS9, and Voyager
are just crud. Theyare big-budget, glitzy, but intellectually shallow, like most TV scifi. They
all suffer from bad writing, lack of insight, and a childish understandingof science, philosophy,
and human nature. They are shallow - never exploring the real implications of the issues they
explore. I think even comedy showslike the BBC's Red Dwarf have more insight and imagination,
not to mention a better grasp of people. I just wish people would stop worshipping Trek as some
kind of superior show. It isn't. It's got good effects, that's for sure, but you'd think that
in the 90's, with more information on science available, more good philosophy to kick around,
and lots of hot issues to discuss concerning technology, it would be possible for Trek's
creators to rise above the dreck of other science fiction TV shows. It has spawned a whole s
ociety of degenerate, unclean, geeks who worship it with a zeal not unlike the Spanish
Inquisition, and who spend their life-savings on crap associated with the show. I can't wait
for it to go off the air.
