[chator]

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?

[Indestructible Object]

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

[RedShirtsRuS]

Originally Posted by chator

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?

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.

[DammitJim]

Originally Posted by RedShirtsRuS

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 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)?

[RedShirtsRuS]

Originally Posted by DammitJim

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)?

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.

[Q!!]

Originally Posted by DammitJim

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)?

Possible ideas. I, for one, have been curious as to how homosexuality is dealt with by other races in the ST verse. For example, how do Vulcans view it? Do they view it as illogical since since there is no procreation involved? What would be the consequences of a gay Vulcan at his/her first Pon farr and about to be wedded to his/her betrothed? (Especially, you know, with only 10,000 Vulcans left and many of them not in child bearing years.)

Just things to consider.

[chator]

Originally Posted by RedShirtsRuS

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 equality for women in TOS was considered "liberal preachy" back in the 60's too.

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.

[Samuel]

Originally Posted by RedShirtsRuS

Equality of GLBT human beings NEEDS to be depicted.

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.

[RedShirtsRuS]

Originally Posted by Samuel

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.

The Vatican changes its policies on nearly everything in their near 2 millenia history of existence.

Look what they did to Galileo in the beginning. it took them CENTURIES to apologize for what they did to him.

There's mosques/churches in Spain that that were remade over and over when Spain was conquered and reconquered by Christians and Muslims.

There's literally blatant designs that you can see in the buildings in Spain to this day that indicate that the religious buildings were made over by the conquering religious nation at the time.

And I'm pretty sure the Borg oriented episodes and First Contact dealt with the issue of religion in a sufficient way. Like any collection of thoughts and ideas religion changes over time and it assimilates the views and the shifting views into its belief system after a while. Although try getting various religious leaders to admit that and a lot of the time they'll tell you that they think nothing in their religion has never changed.

The Vatican actually does follow a Borg like pattern in the past during their rise to power. A LOT of stuff in the Catholic mythos is stuff that the Catholic Church literally assimilated from other cultures and religions. A lot of it is NOT original thought. Thomas Aquinas was quite an original thinker for his time though, I'll give them that.

Q also depicts pretty much how the God of the Old Testament acts. All powerful, but prone to the pettiest of emotions like jealousy and wrath.

Religion has been done to death in Star Trek enough in my opinion. The Borg was the best depiction of it. And the Borg have been done to death now thanks to Voyager. And Deep Space Nine also dealt with religion on several occasions.

And that one TNG episode with the aliens with no gender was GREAT and smartly written, but it's still not enough, it did feel slightly ambiguous and not forthright like it should have been.

[Botany Bay]

Originally Posted by RedShirtsRuS

And that one TNG episode with the aliens with no gender was GREAT and smartly written, but it's still not enough, it did feel slightly ambiguous and not forthright like it should have been.

I dont know. I dont think that it could carry a movie. First because it would have to be a romance story. And I am not sure people buy a ticket for a sci-fi adventure to see romance.

Then there is the problem wether its about gay victim or gay hero. Gay hero is quite pointless, because that would make the gay character a member of Starfleet or the Federation and because Federation represents utopia (or at least it used to) the homosexuality of the hero would be merely circumstantial like his haircut or eyecolor and add nothing substantial to the plot. They certainly should do it, but that would not carry the movie.

If we go for the gay victim then it must be an alien of some sort, mistreated by an alien culture. And that is not forthright enough for your taste.

Originally Posted by DammitJim

this is something I'd like JJ and Co. to deal with in a sequel. some zealot corrupting the peaceful teachings of a religion and twisting his followers to seek war on another race. Kirk must find away for the people to see the true meaning of their faith and not resort to a pro-atheist view.

So Kirk knows the true meaning of their religion. But the priests preaching war dont. Isnt that the core problem of religion, that every priest preaches to know the true meaning while no one has Gods phone number to settle it once and for all?
That is why all stories concerning religion give a secular answer in the end.