this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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A lot of this has started as a counter to the crappy reboots of favourite geeky franchises. Some call it "woke" and I'm not getting into that debate.
But it's reality that a lot of these reboots or sequels - Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Terminator, Indiana Jones etc, do go against the nature of the originals in many respects.
So you'll get people talk about it, and well, those who shout the loudest are heard the most.
I used to watch to some of those guys you mention, when they were still fresh and talking only about the media. But eventually they 1) kept repeating the same points over and over and over, 2) went on to only bitch without any real constructive input (e.g. even refusing to watch the shows but making 15 videos anyway), 3) keep adding their political agenda, which is exactly what they criticise the media for.
Mind you, there are left wingers reviewing geeky stuff which are just as annoying, and have just as little to say. Can't remember who is that Trek person on YT that keeps inserting his political bits, but I also stopped watching. If I wanna hear about politics, I'll watch a channel dedicated to that and not some random ass that watches movies.
I agree actually. The fact is I still prefer The Orville over even SNW because I feel The Orville is more in keeping with that TNG style I love so much. I never found people hating reboots toxic, its associating phantom communist agendas to them that's the toxic bullshit.
I actually found Orville to be just as annoying as some reboots. I liked it at first, but lost my appetite with the trans court episode, and definitely quit at the suicide episode. It's impossibly preachy at times, and I'm not here for literal ethics lessons.
I was very hesitant to start SNW, but I quite like it. The annoying part about it is that it recycles storylines and beats from previous treks. But that's a Trek trope in on itself, and I guess it works for people who haven't watched Trek, so it functions as a modern reboot. People were hesitant to accept TNG as well.
Also its court episode (which is where I'm at atm), while preachy, wasn't as preachy as Orville's. I hope they got the messaging out of their system and can get back to just exploring space.
Star Trek was always preachy though, the fact that NuTrek has nothing to say is something that turns me off from it. Also SNW is poorly named, theres almost no "strange new worlds" its all just Earth like planets with humans on it. The Orville actually has a fair share of "strange new worlds" and a better visual style, and better writing, etc.
It has been, but not to this degree I feel. And when it was, it could at least occasionally be great at it, especially DS9. Or they could make an organic story around it. Or if nothing else, it could at least be amusingly dumb. The modern era is just "sit down you dummies, today's lesson is about X" and it's just an hour about how horrible/awesome that thing is.
As I said, SNW really does rehash old storylines and beats. Ya know, "if you try to save your crewmatss from this religious artefact, it will be an act lf war!" and "we're not so different after all, you weird weak emotional human and I, the commander of a bloodthirsty army who's gonna kill me in a few seconds" and "oh hey we conveniently time travelled into the past into the exact time where my skills will be useful and area where I can find friends" stuff.
Everything we've seen 5 times before... But I've been watching SNW with someone who's never seen Trek before and they're liking it. When I look at it like that, yea it mostly works.
Actually I guess you're right now that I think about it, NuTrek does preach occasionally in a really dumb way, and often the wrong message IMO.
Yeah that's why I sometimes wish I haven't seen every 700 or so Trek episodes out there, because SNW would be far better then. Admittedly it's also a problem with The Orville as well, because they also rehashed and straight up ripped off old Trek episodes in an inferior way, but did enough original (for TV anyway) and interesting things for me to forgive this.