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Star Trek (1964) [pdf]

leethomson.myzen.co.uk

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Re: Star Trek (1964) [pdf]

#71

Post by TeMPOraL »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #56
firecall wrote: post #7

Even if you are not a fan, the PDF is a very enlightening read! "...blonde with a shape even a uniform could not hide" It's shockingly misogynistic!

Remember who the audience of the document is: powerful studio executives steeped heavily in the sexism that was the social norm for the era. They may not understand the philosophy of the series (and probably wouldn't have cared for it if they had) but they do understand that having pretty faces can improve viewer counts (not so different from today really) and they want to be certain that there's going to be ROI befo…

> in the United States Navy, women were not allowed to serve on combatant ships until 1994

Meanwhile, the audience had pleasure of dealing with a Starfleet fleet admiral Nechayev in 1992, and then rear admiral Rollman in 1993.

> having the first woman to be assigned to command a combatant ship didn't happen until 1998

By that time, captain Janeway was in the middle of the delta quadrant, stirring up trouble.

I wonder if the shows had any influence on the US Navy letting in women earlier.

Re: Star Trek (1964) [pdf]

#73

Post by concordDance »

todorus wrote: post #69
xwkd wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it misogynistic to revel in the female form?

If it exists for males to revel in? Yes, the male gaze is misogynist. I don't think that still requires explaining, it has been written about a lot.

I'm guessing the word "misogyny" doesn't mean "woman-hating" any more?

I'm which case, why is it still considered a bad thing?

Re: Star Trek (1964) [pdf]

#75

Post by todorus »

concordDance wrote: post #73
todorus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it exists for males to revel in? Yes, the male gaze is misogynist. I don't think that still requires explaining, it has been written about a lot.

I'm guessing the word "misogyny" doesn't mean "woman-hating" any more? I'm which case, why is it still considered a bad thing?

Why is it considered by others to be a bad thing, to see women as lesser and to keep them down, just because they're women?

Let me give you an easy out here, and tell you my assumptions. I am assuming it also only took you a minute to look up the definition. And after reading it, then couldn't come up for a reason for others to judge that kind of behavior.

I am kind of stumped of how to actually reply to this, to me it is just pretty obvious that any kind of prejudice or bias like that is strongly unwanted.

Re: Star Trek (1964) [pdf]

#76

Post by skerit »

soferio wrote: post #12

The very last plot idea, “infestation“, seems to predate and be kinda similar to the Alien franchise.

Seems like that's what eventually turned into the episode "The Child" of TNG. Which was earlier to be used in the never-made "Star Trek Phase 2" series a good decade earlier.

And even then, the episode only got made because there was a writers strike and they had to use scripts that were mostly finished already.

And even then the episode still sucked! It's currently ranked as the 170th episode out of a total of 176

Re: Star Trek (1964) [pdf]

#77

Post by TeMPOraL »

flomo wrote: post #63
WalterBright wrote: post #55

"eliminating the need to encumber our stories with tiresome scientific explanations" Sigh.

Maybe you are assuming it would be actually "scientific". IMO, TNG Technobabble was one of the worst elements of the later shows and inspired a legion of lukewarm nerd bullshit.

Strong disagree. Technobabble inspired a generation of STEM people, and at least early TNG, when the show had proper scientific consultation, it was a delight. Problem came with the witers' attitudes and production cheapening out - ignoring internal reference works, treating exposition as something you can stub out with a "[TECH]" placeholder, to be substituted by some word salad after the episode is already written.

In fact, I think technobabble was critical to the effect of the show getting people into science and engineering, and its omission would kill that effect - it's because it delivered a message: any problem faced can be overcome with help of science and technology. Sure, the terms were bullshit, but all this talk about nadion particle counts and how many cochranes does the subspace field measure, etc. reads as "this is all things we can investigate, understand, measure, build machines around".

This overall feeling - that there's nothing out of scope for science and engineering - is a major theme of all Trek shows, and pretty unique to Star Trek. In other works of sci-fi on TV, the writers tend to be too busy writing character stories and focusing on people to the exclusion of everything else.

(I may be biased about this, because TNG and its technobabble are what got me interested in the sciences, and is indirectly why I ended up working in software.)

Re: Star Trek (1964) [pdf]

#79

Post by jakzurr »

shadowgovt wrote: post #40
soferio wrote: post #12

The very last plot idea, “infestation“, seems to predate and be kinda similar to the Alien franchise.

It ended up manifested, sort of, in "Lights of Zetar" (or, you could make the argument, slumbered in the concept space all the way to Strange New Worlds' "All Who Wander").

"Lights of Zetar" - first episode I ever saw; don't think I was even a teenager. (Didn't always get to stay up that late.) Scared the heck out of me...

Not sure if it was really that great. Maybe because it was so dark outside that night? But yeah, wonderful memories.

Re: Star Trek (1964) [pdf]

#80

Post by jakzurr »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #77
flomo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you are assuming it would be actually "scientific". IMO, TNG Technobabble was one of the worst elements of the later shows and inspired a legion of lukewarm nerd bullshit.

Strong disagree. Technobabble inspired a generation of STEM people, and at least early TNG, when the show had proper scientific consultation, it was a delight. Problem came with the witers' attitudes and production cheapening out - ignoring internal reference works, treating exposition as something you can stub out with a "[TECH]" placeholder, to be substituted by some word salad after the episode is already written.…

This is so right. I'm biased too - saw it with so many of my STEM friends from the '70s.
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