William Shatner Criticizes New Star Trek Shows - and Star Wars - at Comic-Con -...
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William Shatner Criticizes New Star Trek Shows
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"William Shatner closed out the first night of San Diego Comic-Con in style — with plenty of cursing and a look back at his storied career," writes the Hollywood Reporter:
In an hourlong chat with emcee Kevin Smith, the 91-year-old actor talked about aging, space travel (both real and fictional) and his place in the pop culture consciousness....
He took time to address the importance and power of fandom to his career, and specifically to Star Trek, which 56 years ago introduced the world to James T. Kirk, his most enduring character. When asked to address the fans of that other major sci-fi franchise, Shatner quipped, "fuck Star Wars.... But not Mark Hamill."
"We love Mark Hamill," Smith agreed.
When asked by a fan if there were any new Star Trek series he thought rivaled his own, Shatner replied, "none of them."
"I got to know [creator] Gene Roddenberry in three years fairly well," said Shatner, "he'd be turning in his grave at some of this stuff...."
The article also quotes Shatner's more serious comments about his own recent trip into outer space courtesy of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin.
"I went, and I vowed that every moment that I spent in space, would not be playing around in weightlessness, but looking out the window and trying to get an impression."
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You should start taking your meds again. You mental illness has taken over again.
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Add some lens flare and some Klingons, then maybe.
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The only reason Shatner doesn't like the new series is because he isn't in them. The following audio of Shatner destroying a recording engineer never stops getting old. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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> The only reason Shatner doesn't like the new series is because he isn't in them.
I don't like the new spin offs either. I'm also not in them. Maybe you're on to something.
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It's few and far between that when I type lol I actually laugh out loud, but, anyway, lol
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Really? "Brave New World" has been much, much better than the many, partly by avoiding "Mary Sue" characters. "Lower Decks" has sometimes been priceless, and I'd expect William Shatner to appreciate the direct references to his character and some of his work. And "Orville".... has been a startling treat, taking a few years to reach the idealistic world Gene Roddenberry envisioned, but getting there i the end.
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> And "Orville"
I've told a number of people to watch Orville as it aligns more in spirit with the original Star Trek than modern Trek.
However, I didn't know Orville was associated in any form with Star Trek. In fact, I thought it was a knock-off of sorts.-
It's a homage but a different universe.
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It is a knock off / homage but there are quite a few Star Trek alumni who have directed or cameoed in it. So clearly they appreciate it for what it is.
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maybe, but some of the new stuff is fucking awful, plenty of people don't like them and I doubt they are all just jealous they are not in them.
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Cancel culture isn't a pimple on the ass of Trump cultism.
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You think the Overton window is going left? Where do you get your fucking news, Fox? We're literally on the verge of banning contraception, schools are being banned from having books that address racism or mention the existence of same-sex marriage, and women aren't getting life saving healthcare in parts of the country for fear it might violate local abortion ordinances, and you think the fucking country has gone left?
Show me one way we're more left wing than we were in the 1990s. ONE FUCKING WAY. You c
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They referred to a media release the Hochul campaign put out early Thursday, headlined: “’Big Lie’ Lee Kicks Off Statewide ‘MAGA Republican’ Bus Tour. Joined by Far-Right Extremists, ‘Rolex’ Rob Astorino, and Trump’s Chick-fil-A The spoof pointed out the date and times of Zeldin’s events to RSVP, including one “to hear Zeldin’s plans to put more guns on our streets and in our communities, ensuring New Yorkers are less safe
That constitutes "t
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That's the part I don't get. Why are people posting their weird politics on the kids' stupid apps and then getting mad that it doesn't belong?
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https://www.esquire.com/news-p... [esquire.com]
The House of Representatives just passed a bill codifying the right to access contraception by a vote of 228-195.
195 republicans voted against a bill that guarantees access to contraception. You know the thing that prevents the need for abortions?
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157 Republicans voted against it. It's also not "passed" until it passes the Senate, where it likely will not have enough Republican support to avoid a filibuster.
How many rights do Republicans have to trample upon before people finally start to realize this is exactly what that "No step on snek" flag is warning you about? I've said it before - you may not be LGBTQ+, but a government that is taking away rights should give you pause because your rights might be next.
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You are wrong. Read the text for yourself. https://www.congress.gov/bill/... [congress.gov]
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And that's why free abortion is needed.
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I live in Florida and I saw the high school kids protesting because of the recently-passed Parental Rights in Education (aka "Don't Say Gay") bill. It's absolutely not leftist propaganda, it has already affected kids and teachers because its chilling reach extends all the way through graduation. this 17-year-old [twitter.com] got doxxed, harassed and kicked out of school for speaking out against it.
What's absolute horseshit is that in 2022 a 17-year-old boy has to deal with any of this garbage. He should be enjoying h
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At least they aren't getting molested at drag shows. Unlike many churches...
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The fact that you don't recognize Jan 6 for what it was. An attempted coup, then your blind allegiance to your ideology is sad and pathetic. And even more so a sitting president attempting to delegitimize our entire democratic process and half of you fuckwits supported it. You'd rather throw democracy away then lose. You have no leg to stand and you never fucking will. GTFO.
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Only a complete moron would call Jan 6th a "coup".
1. The most-armed people in the USA are right-wingers; it's not even close. The sort of people who showed up in DC on Jan 6th 2021 are the sort of people most likely to own multiple firearms, AND the sort of people most likely to be good at using them (the sort who have guns, are comfortable using them, have ammo, and frequently use them to hunt or for target practice)... and yet the sort of people who talk on MSNBC claim these people intended to overthrow t
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The one way is gay marriage. Generally though you're right.
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"Show me one way we're more left wing than we were in the 1990s."
Legalized Pot
Gay Marriage
Me Too
BLMOh, but you only wanted one.
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Well that's four ways, but other than that can you think of any other way? That's what I thought.
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Recreational pot is legal in DC and 18 states, that's less than half. Yeah, technically you can doctor shop and claim to have some medical condition for a prescription in more states, but that's really on you for being dishonest.
A right established by the SCOTUS that is less old than the iPad, and we've already seen a half-decade of legal precedent go *poof* recently.
Neither of these things have anything to do with politically influenced policy in the USA. If you're just going to throw out random social e
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Not sexually assaulting women is left wing now? That sure explains a lot.
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You might want to actually keep up with reality. That 10 year old didn't get an abortion in Ohio because they were abortion shopping for a piece of shit who would falsify paperwork regarding the age of the rapist from 27 to 17, said rapist being mom's live in boyfriend illegal immigrant.
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Nope.
Indiana doctor who performed the abortion reported the truth.
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You got to be fucking kidding me, have you had some bad kombucha recently? How about this - Obama was opposed to same-sex marriage in 2008 and today more than half GOP supports it.
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We just had a vote on this [hrc.org]. Out of 204 Republicans, 47 voted yes; that's 23 percent. If you're getting "more than half", you might want to recheck your math.
Gay marriage is still completely a non-starter in the GOP. They're still partying like it's 1899.
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Pretty hard to be against something that makes people happy with no downside.
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I knew it wouldn't take long before someone had to play the "It's too woke" card, but have you considered the possibility of simply just not watching forms of entertainment that you don't find entertaining? I don't go on the internet and complain at every given opportunity about Honey Boo Boo, bass fishing shows, or reality courtroom dramas, because it dawned on me a long time ago that my TV can just as easily display other content.
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by NFN_NLN ( 633283 ) on Saturday July 23, 2022 @06:57PM (#62728074)
> "I got to know [creator] Gene Roddenberry in three years fairly well," said Shatner, "he'd be turning in his grave at some of this stuff...."
If Roddenberry was critical of STTNG he indeed would be rolling in his grave over the new stuff.
"Roddenberry wrote the bible for Star Trek: The Next Generation himself, and one of the more interesting sections he included was a discussion of story ideas he felt would not work. The section outlines 13 story premises that Roddenberry wanted writers to stay away from, such as too much melodrama or verging too far into fantasy instead of science fiction. Some more specific Star Trek premises included avoiding stories that broke the Prime Directive or stories that portrayed the main crew in a more militaristic role." - https://screenrant.com/star-tr... [screenrant.com]
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The first two seasons of STTNG were somewhat lame though. Some occasional good ones but most of them forgettable. It didn't really pick things up until season 3, at which point Roddenberry was already out. I think he put down a good framework but the execution was meh.
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There's a very entertaining documentary called Chaos on the Bridge [imdb.com] on getting TNG off the ground and all the friction of working with Roddenberry and his rules and ideas. He was a real character and he definitely had a vision and while he probably had issues with TNG people like often need other people to filter the visions through some reality ala George Lucas.
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Interesting, I'll try to see that. There were some things Roddenberry did that were just downright awful that other writers later spun into something really good. Like the whole Q trial thing in the first episode was just time filler because they needed a 90 minute premier episode, and he didn't even do a good job of connecting it very well with the rest of the plot, but the later writers did a lot of good stuff with the Q later on. Also his writing direction probably never would have allowed for some of th
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The ship sailed on militarism 30 years ago. And why not? Peace is a great aspiration, but...well, to quote a DIFFERENT show, sometimes peace is another name for surrender.
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It's a TV show, you can set up the premise to reward whatever philosophy you want.
Star Trek at it's best has always been about good people trying to do the right thing. It's about showing the future and society that we want to live in.
The problem is that anti-heroes and dystopianism is in vogue right now, and as a result they're dragging ST through the same. Not to mention the awful movies that are simply action blockbusters reimagining TOS absolutely no reason*.
* The reason to reimagine a franchise is when
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I grew up on the 24th century and I lived through Enterprise in college. Simple fact is, new ship, same stories does stop working after a while. Deep Space Nine did a nice job changing the formula to good effect, but it was still a hesitant, half-hearted step into serialized storytelling.
The new stuff is different, no question. Im honestly not sure what to make of DISCO although it's watchable. Picard is great nostalgia. Lower Decks seems fun although Im only a few episodes in. And Prodigy is surprisingly
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You need to read the book Redshirts too.
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IMHO, the war story arcs were the best parts of ST:V and DS9. I think Roddenberry had the same thing going on like George Lucas with Star Wars, where he created an amazing story universe, but given too much control he'd just ruin things.
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Some more specific Star Trek premises included avoiding stories that broke the Prime Directive or stories that portrayed the main crew in a more militaristic role.
Thank heaven Star Trek never had any episodes where they broke the Prime Directive!
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Hm, I think that the exploration of the flawed, sometimes necessary and sometimes evil militarism of Starfleet was incredibly engaging in DS9. TNG touched on it with the Chain of Command, and the episode where they have to go find the failed ultra-cloaking device they developed in violation of treaty with the Romulans.
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I found Discovery and Picard pretty bad even as general series but especially as Star Trek but I guess people like it? That's what I have to assume, let just keep letting Alex Kurtzman make more and more shows. It really feels like a case of studios wanting to slap a sellable label on something that probably should just be it's own thing.
The Orville is for me by far the best modern version of Star Trek happening. Star Trek definitely has a formula so they follow it, almost shamelessly at times but it works because they understand the core of why it works. It's very obvious it's made by people who grew up watching the TNG era shows (and people who worked on the shows as well).
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Discovery and Picard are tough to sit through. It just feels like they've tried to stretch a two-parter's worth of story into an entire season.
Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks are actually good. -
Well, they have millions and millions of viewers for each show, so yes. If you don't like it, that's fine, but lots and lots of people do.
Discovery is, in my opinion, the weakest of the shows, but it has its moments. And cool 32nd century ships.
Lower Decks is awesome. Simply awesome. TNG, but with a comedic edge and showing more of the non-main-crew, while still showing them.
Prodigy is something new and different, with a heavy Voyager vibe to it. It's fun to watch.
Picard is very different between S1 a-
Yeah I'm definitely not going deny I am acting curmundgeonly so it was still an honest questions.
I do appreciate a fans perspective. I was actually just thinking recently I have heard better things about Strange New Worlds so might check it out.
Picard has been a dissapointment personally for me both seasons. I know exactly what they are doing with season 3, it's shameless and it will work, I will watch it, but I have pretty low expectations and it makes me sad.
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I like Discovery. But the pacing of the show is REALLY off. They are trying to make the show using modern standard of "a season is an all connected story". And they are not very good at it. But there are still plenty of good ideas in the show and that are reasonably well executed. So I still enjoy the show.
I found Picard to be in a different category. It as the same type of issue: being "a season is an all connected story" that is not well written. But it is actually that issue on steroid. There are cool id
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Yeah at the end of the day it is just bad writing, especially with Picard which is just wasted potential and people who seem to absolutely not understand what gave the character appeal in the first place. Just feels like the writers room was people who just read the TNG cliffs notes, watched "ST:Nemesis" and went from there.
And I will be stubborn and say a key to Trek is the show being episodic. You can have running themes and run character development between episodes but Trek's core is being a vehichle
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Strange New Worlds isn't bad.I found the Orville pretty tedious early on as they tried too hard to add a comedic element to everything, but that seems to have dissipated along the way. Discovery seemed to be more about gender discovery than anything else and is just unwatchable garbage. Picard got all the right people together to do something interesting, then didn't. I don't see either of those not getting cancelled.
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I couldn't stand Discovery and Picard, and agree that The Orville is way better Trek than those two will ever be.
But "Strange New Worlds" is quite good and Trek-y! I highly recommend you give it a shot. -
Yes, Orville is much better than the current Star Trek. Even better than Picard and good as TNG.
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I personally like Prodigy and Strange New Worlds. I like Star Trek Prodigy for being an actual child-friendly series with moral, good story and likeable characters (unsure about Kate Mulgrew and a bit too much deus ex machina though), in short, a ton better than the Star Wars Kids shows.
Strange New Worlds on the other hand feels a bit like a cross over between TOS and TNG in a competent sense. Guess what, you have characters which aren't totally incompetent crybabies, psychopaths or angst filed backstabbers
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To its credit TOS did originate many of the themes but there were plenty of cringy shows that have not aged well and that includes 6 insufferable movies including Generations that was in. Its all camp with a space theme meant for entertainment purposes so no need to get all high and mighty about it...but thats what Shatner is- ego and a whore who bilks fans for the privilege of having their picture taken with him
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Every new Star Trek series is awful.
By "new" I mean created within the last ten years. Every Star Trek movie created within the last ten years also sucks. As does all the Star Wars crap created in the last ten years.
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The Orville was okay in the first couple of series but then it descended into gender politics when the Moclans showed up with their cisphobic agenda.:)
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What's wrong with shows exploring gender politics? The Moclan gender issue was set in motion from the very first episode of The Orville. It was going to be elaborated at some point.
Remember, TOS explored race relations in several episodes.
Regrettably, TNG's utter low point was "Code of Honor".
Roddenberry did okay, but could have done better. He could have rejected that TNG script and the franchise would have been better for it.
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I think there are two main dissenting camps when it comes to shows covering modern societal issues:
1. The weak minded “cant watch this because it might damage my weak mind or challenge my opinions about the world” camp, where shows which dare to cover certain topics are labelled “leftist” etc
2. The camp which is just bored of the same topic being dressed up in a slightly different story over and over, to the point where it really does start to feel like you are being beaten over the head with the underlying intent.
While the first camp is a real problem, people from camp 2 tend to simply get lumped in with camp 1 just because they arent welcoming the topic with open arms each and every time. People are allowed to get fatigued about storylines, and it shouldnt be misconstrued as being against the underlying social issues.
And there are people who will deliberately misconstrue the above in an effort to say “look, we need more exposure on this societal topic, theres still plenty of push back about it”.
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1) Instead of being balanced they are pretty imbalanced... which means... damage to their audiences.
2) They do *very* little to worldbuild or advance the plot... which means... waste of time and damage to their audience.
3) If they had 22 to 29 episodes- okay, granted. But if they have much fewer episodes, then it's a waste.
4) The writing tends to be worse and more "on the nose". The plots tend to be weaker. The solutions tend to be 'just so'.That's what I think is wrong with a series using 1 of it's 10
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The weird thing about it is how the show has taken the analogy so far that it almost seems like they're on the opposing side of the issue. Warning, spoilers follow:
The character Topa is born biologically female, which is considered a "defect" in Moclan culture. After one of her fathers (Bortus) unsuccessfully argues his case against the Moclan government to keep her unaltered, she is forced to undergo a gender reassignment surgery. Later, Topa (as a trans male) begins to realize something is wrong and ex
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Don't worry, there's a channel playing Matlock 24/7 just for you.
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ArchieBunker observed:
I see you post frequently. Most of the time it's a quip, or a humorous dig at a self-important nitwit. And it's almost always grin-inducing.
I'd like to meet you IRL. I'll bet you're a hoot...
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about the new series. I remember from, I think it was, the Captains mini-doc, that they were asking what they thought of eachothers series, and Patrick Stewart gushed about TOS, and how inspirational and influential it had been on him, etc. Then Shatner said he'd never watched an episode of TNG. He didn't indicate he ever planned to. They'd done 7 seasons and he hadn't watched a single episode.
When Shatner says he doesn't like what's in any new series, it's unlikely he's ever actually watched any of them. He's "heard stuff", and simple doesn't like that any of them exist. If he's not in it, it seems like he doesn't consider it Star Trek. -
Shatner knew Roddenberry; I did not. It's possible Shatner is accurate that Discovery and Strange New Worlds (and maybe Lower Decks) wouldn't instill pride, but it really could go either way.
Star Trek ToS was progressive for its time, but it was extremely specific, it explored contemporary controversies in a more nuanced manner, and it left the audience to ponder the question. Even if the episode had a definitive slant and conclusion, the audience still had room to ponder and as "what if". Contemporary viewers may not have agreed with what was being said, but the statements were far more palatable due to their nuance and framing.
On a recent episode of Strange New Worlds, the episode framed a society where a child was required to run some form of colony operation equipment, and there was a need for a "peaceful transition of power", as a character said before the opening credits. I could be wrong, but ToS was never quite that on-the-nose. Moreover, the governmental structure was never truly fleshed out; we had our expository representative, but there were no clear indications of elections or democracy. The child wasn't actually in a position of authority, and becoming the brain/battery/whatever of the colony computer thing caused the child to permanently merge with it until the child died. So, when the most obvious coups in the history of television writing began...it was a group of soldiers trying to protect a child, and they were obviously terrible people for trying to prevent this "peaceful transition of power".
As much as the point of the episode seemed to be "January 6th Riots Bad", the episode couldn't get out of its own way enough to make the point. If it was clear that an election took place and the existing leader didn't want to abdicate willingly, fine...but painting a group of soldiers as bad guys for their willingness to prevent what amounts to child sacrifice in a society seemingly absent of a structure reflecting direct democracy or a representative republic makes things far more ambiguous. I think it's possible Shatner's point is that Roddenberry would have taken exception to such clumsy, convoluted, and inconsistency-laden attempts at political commentary, while I think many people assume Shatner's exception to modern Trek has to do with the commentary itself.
Gene seemed to rotate the tone and content of the ToS episodes he produced a bit more than new Trek does. ToS had its social commentary, of course...but I am quite confident that we won't see Christopher Pike or Una Chin-Riley in a suit, sporting a Tommy Gun and negotiating with gangsters. Four seasons in, and Discovery has never had anything that attempted the silliness of Voyager's "Bride of Chaotica" or DS9's "The House of Quark", let alone "The Trouble with Tribbles". One could argue that Lower Decks is all silliness, and that's fine, but that's not quite a release valve. Strange New Worlds seems to be trying, but somehow it just doesn't seem to be able to stick the landing just yet. Yes, ToS had political commentary episodes, but there were also funny episodes, adventure episodes, philosophical episodes, and action episodes mixed in.
In addition to humor, ToS brought some counterbalance to how it portrayed humanity. Kirk's match with the Gorn in "Arena" ended with him receiving the approval of the Metrons when Kirk showed mercy to the Gorn. "The City on the Edge of Forever" showed a sobering choice reflecting the good of all humanity being more valuable than Kirk's feelings for Edith Keeler, again, receiving laud from the Guardian of Forever. Shifting to the movies, Star Trek III, despite its pacing issues and other faults, showed exactly how deep the crew's love for Spock ran. Did "Picard" take any time to do any of this? No, because it was too busy saying everyone was bad - Starfleet, Soong, the Romulans, the mom who turned her life around too late for her son's liking, 20th century law enforcement, 20th century citizens, 24th century Federation citizens far enough away from law enforcement...everyone except A
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If you think that episode (S1E6, Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach) is about January 6th... well, I'd say that's an interesting perspective and may be largely rooted in your own biases.
It's very clearly SNW's version of Those Who Walk Away from Omelas, an Ursula K. Le Guin short story from 1973 which examines the considerations of an explicitly complicated ethical situation.
It's a devastating story, BTW. Good read. Worth your effort.
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You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. Props for noting the UKL TWWAFO shoutout. Also worth noting is that the quality of Strange New Worlds' scripts and actual product so far roughly shadow that of the original Shatner-era series: a third are classics, a third are just so-so average, and a third are mediocre at best. Sadly, the other 2020s era series give us far less heart and craft.
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I haven't watched ToS in a long time. But I don't remember the show being particularly subtle in its reference to the cold war or the vietnam war.
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The episode with the aliens that had one half white and one half black face was mind-bogglingly on the nose. You have to remember that Star Trek came out at the height of the civil rights movement of the 60s. That episode alone let alone some of the others with just as blunt as anything else.
I think part of the problem is the people that you're often trying to reach with those sort of stories don't get subtlety or nuance. You have to bash them over the head with the themes and points. To put this in the -
It's important not to typify historical figures according to political labels from a different era. Often we find that, in addition to the unique, individual views that comprise a person, they subscribed to movements of thought that have since evolved or evaporated, which can tell us a lot about them. Understanding Roddenberry poses a challenge for almost everyone who grew up watching television, because his generation was full of social planners who deliberately replaced their own viewpoints with what they
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A Christmas Horror Story [imdb.com] from 2015. Maybe he's been in something else but I love him as the drunk DJ in this B movie. It's not great, several intertwined stories some of which make no sense, but watch it til the end and it redeems itself and every scene with Shatner is gold.
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Yep, everything after TOS was drek. 1st drek was TNG with all concerned charging around the universe in the most formidable battlewagon ever invented by humans and worrying about Wesley Crusher's identity crisis. And then things got worse.
1st 3 SW were great, I thought, 4th one was drek again with Jar Jar Binks who ruined the entire thing, and I thing 5th and 6th in line were progressively better.
Everything after that, with women in charge of combat ops or otherwise being the main protagonist, was just
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Shatner was born in 1931. He's not a Boomer.
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You lost all credibility at "whiny Boomer". Grow up punk.
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