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author: admin
generator: pandoc
title: Warp Drivel
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admin
2013-10-27T08:41:28+00:00
A very fitting pun for what is being done to the Star Trek franchise
lately. In this post, I'd like to echo the sentiments of old-school
trekkies about this J. J. Abrams 'era' of Star Trek.
For some reference, read this very well-written Gameological Society
[article](http://gameological.com/2013/05/review-star-trek-the-video-game/)Â about
the new Star Trek game that has just been released. For some
entertaining listening, the reader should also direct their attention to
second part of ContinueCast's [podcast discussion of Knights of the Old
Republic
II](http://continuecast.podomatic.com/entry/2013-04-28T13_23_19-07_00),
where they express some mixed feelings about the changes made to the
execution of Star Trek media.
Both of the sources seem to agree that Star Trek has been subject to
more mainstream Hollywood production values. This is alarming, given
what the series was meant to mean. Star Trek was meant to represent a
social ideal of overcoming social conflicts through communication and
shared understandings. This common core message was conveyed in both
implicit and explicit ways throughout all of its media (TV, movies, even
games) until recently, and one of the concrete things that it achieved
throughout all this time was character *growth* and *development*. The
original Star Trek ethic for character development is the complete
inverse of franchises like *Seinfeld*, where characters are never meant
to grow or change, existing *exogenously*--Star Trek characters
developed through *endogenisation*, by learning through making mistakes
and coming to understand the reason *why* things are the way they are.
This is why characters like Commander Data, Seven-of-Nine, and Mister
Spock are absolutely critical elements of the series, they provide a
kind of blank slate from which to build upon rationalist humanist
ideals. They provide a kind of relief against which the contradictions
of humanity and can explored and explained.
What the contemporary iteration of Star Trek has done is refocused the
franchise on the age-old hero genre. The complex web of personal
relationships upon which the traditional Star Trek formula subsisted has
been done away with, and instead the (no less traditional) Hollywood
formula involving the defeat of a great obstacle has been foisted on the
franchise in its stead. Two arguments can be made at this point, and I
think both of them are equally pursuasive:
1. Star Trek, as a series, was better off under its old formula;
2. The old Star Trek formula, for all its flaws, is objectively better
than the 'hero-questing' one now being saddled on it.
Heroes may grow and learn under the hero-questing formula (i.e. Star
Wars), but they always grow in the same direction--towards enormous
power and wisdom. The humanist Star Trek formula never demanded
ubermenschian qualities from its characters, it only asked them to
perform the most comprehensive self-reflection they could manage, and I
think this rewarded the viewer with a far deeper, and more fulfilling
entertainment experience.