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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsGene Roddenberry's vision vs. New Trek
This is partly in response to an earlier post asking whether we would watch a proposed reboot of the original series. Thom Hartmann is one of the people who understood Gene and his vision of the future: If Gene Roddenberry is right.
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Thom gets it. The producers and writers of the two Trek movie 'reboots' didn't, and I'm certain the producers of the proposed CBS series don't.
Nothing that resembles Gene's humanistic vision would be allowed on TV screens today. What we would get would be a militarized Starfleet, a lot of technobabble and, of course, great special effects; perfect for the action figure market.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)One thing I never got in the Star Trek universe was the economy without money.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Money
LongTomH
(8,636 posts).....that could meet any need. A lot of what they were implying was Gene's reaction to late 20th Century materialism.
Frank Cannon
(7,570 posts)There is no scarcity in a time when, thanks to warp drive, anyone can go just about anywhere and do anything they want or find anything they need.
The crew of the Enterprise are all very self-actualized. They don't have to worry about what (or if) they're going to eat today or how they're going to pay their medical bills. I think Gene Roddenberry thought that would be a great state for us all to get to, and he was right.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)hunter
(38,312 posts)We'd start with something like a minimum income which would represent a "share" in the overall economy. In effect everyone would become a "trust fund" kid simply because they are human. This income would provide a very basic standard of living -- healthy food, appropriate medical care, safe comfortable shelter, free education, and many forms of entertainment and recreation with negligible or even positive environmental impacts.
We'd aim for an economy that is not measured by any single metric of "money." Money would be allowed to exist, even various forms of money, Gold, BitCoins, dollars, what-not, but it would would no longer be the primary means of directing or measuring economic activity.
Currently "economic productivity" is measured in dollars, but this "productivity" is destroying the environment which supports humans, and forcing people to live and die in deplorable conditions, which means it's not truly any sort of "productivity" at all.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)LongTomH
(8,636 posts)From the beginning, meaning the original series, Gene wanted Trek to deal with serious issues, all in the context of a future society that had learned from its mistakes.
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That humanistic, optimistic view of the future is what makes Trek unique in the annals of television entertainment. Gene actually saw us continuing to progress, albeit with interruptions (the Eugenics Wars, World Wars).
I continue to want to scream when someone tries to tell me that other SF series (Babylon 5, Battlestar) were Trek's successor. Babylon 5 was based, even from the design level, as a tiered society, with a 'down-below' for the lower classes. Battlestar Galactica? That was a militaristic, violent society, with no ties to any human future. Actually, it's supposed to be somewhere in our past. Yes, both series did, sometimes use scripts based on existing social problems, transposed to their universe; but, that doesn't really change what their societies represented, extensions of our own, sometimes of our worst traits.
If you're still struggling with Trek and its deeper meanings, may I recommend: Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore, or library.
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)Was that he was hung up on the Enterprise meets God trope. The Enterprise meets someone who claims to be God, or a god or the Devil, or a devil, or some being looking for their Creator, or some being with "supernatural" powers. This allowed him to oh-so cleverly (sarcasm) comment on illogical, and irrationality of religious belief. In other words he was proselyting (yes I used that word deliberately) for Atheism.
That trope really sucked with ST:TMP. All the bullshit involved with the making of that film, especially how he fucked over British screenwriters Chris Bryant's and Allan Scott's Planet of the Titans script, and all Roddenberry did was recycle ST:TOS "The Changeling" into Earth IIs "Robots Return" into Star Trek Phase IIs "In they Image" into TMP.
Star Trek really didn't take off again until he was removed from full creative control. In fact, IMO, the best Star Trek EVER made was the The Wrath of Khan, and that was so because Roddenberry was forced to keep his hands off.
Of course when he created TNG there he was again with his petulant god shtick with "Q".
I liked the fact that after he was dead, they basically took his Atheism and threw it out the window. Practically every race and civilization EXCEPT Earth humans had a religious faith, and devoted a great deal of effort to it. And they were the technological and sociological equal of Earth Humans. So it made Earth Humans look like the oddballs in a galaxy of believers. I bet Roddenberry would have hated DS9 with it's explicit religious themes, and outright godheads.
Roddenberry was like George Lucas. They both had great ideas, but when they both had total and direct control over their creation, they screwed it up.