What Issues should TrekXII Deal with?
 

Star Trek TOS: Offered a kind of escapism for its audience in the 60s, as well as hope for the future, a future devoid of racism, sexism, and war. What issues do you feel Trek hasn't addressed or needs to become cutting edge again, without being liberal preachy?

-The Environment
-Politics
-Famine
-Disease
-Ethnic Displacement
-Cultural diversity

Equality of GLBT human beings NEEDS to be depicted.

Call that "liberal preachy" if you want, I'm pretty sure depicting equality for african americans and depicting equality for women in TOS was considered "liberal preachy" back in the 60's too.

do you mean they encounter a race where homosexuality is a crime (or some such) or that there should be an Enterprise crewmember(s) that are homosexual it's just treated matter of factly (like the background alien characters were treated as natural as though their roles could easily have been played as humans)?

Oh, I can see people storm this thread allready with all sorts of complaints. You know, movies shouldnt have an agenda or a mesage because message is bad. Yadda, yadda....

So, IF the next movie would feel to deal with real world issues then I think it should deal with important issues. And because Trek is still an american franchise it certainly should deal with it from an american perspective. So, what are the most urgent socio-political topics at the moment?

BIGOTRY
FEAR
IGNORANCE
SELFRIGHTEOUSNES

That's a good one. But i think it has to be done tastefully, not Kirk beds bi-sexual alien, or Sulu has a guy-on-guy love scene. Would Jon Cho approve?

As for other issues, I wonder why they didn't make this movie more issue oriented, they certainly could have. For example, instead of having Vulcan destroyed from the inside out by a planet destroying "DeathStar" Romulan ship from the future, why not have Vulcan facing an ecological-environmental crisis due to desertification? I know, what's more exciting, Kirk saving the universe from a Doomsday Romulan vessel, or Spock teaching Vulcan farmers the proper methods of farming? But the issue potential of having Vulcan die slowly due to "illogical" decisions by elders is more compelling than having it implode in one scene.

an american franchise.... from an american perspective, eh??
then those last four words are indeed fitting!!!

Uhm... what?! I dont know how you understood it. I was talking about issues. Wouldnt you say those issues are urgent?

That sounds fine. I'm hoping for a slightly more upfront approach, maybe shake a fist at "don't ask don't tell" in the US military by depicting out of the closet homosexuals fighting alongside heterosexuals in a battle or something. The out of the closet homosexual would need to be introduced as a character before the battle takes place though.

Simple stuff like that. I think could work.

Botany Bay is also correct, those are the most pressing issues of our time. They always have been actually. The hatred just shifted from african americans and women to gay people. Things haven't changed as much as we think they have.

Wasnt there a TNG episode that dealt with an alien who was androgynous? I dont mean a trill.

As for an issue, its part of another thread but different Earth religions. Surely the Vatican and Mecca must still be around. Unless maybe they were nuked. Personally I think its a much bigger issue than GLBT considering the many wars that have been fought over religion. Not to mention the inqusisions. We're not going to have for example the conflict between christianity and islam that has been raging for a couple thousand years evaporate so quickly.