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from the so-many-spinoffs-I'm-getting-dizzy dept.
CBS is launching a new Star Trek series, Strange New Worlds, which will be a TOS prequel set prior to Kirk assuming command of the Enterprise. As in season 2 of Discovery, the new series will feature Anson Mount as Captain Pike, Rebecca Romjin as Number One, and Ethan Peck as Spock. Discovery has been polarizing for Star Trek fans with many fans criticizing the writing of both Discovery and Picard, saying it deviated from the defining characteristics of Star Trek. Despite the criticisms, Mount's portrayal of Pike in Discovery was generally received well. The story for the pilot will be developed by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet, the first two of which are executive producers of Discovery. Because filming of TV shows has generally been halted by COVID-19, it is not known when the series will film or premiere on CBS' streaming service.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Saturday May 16 2020, @03:05PM (4 children)
The original Babylon 5 was quite intentionally an obvious promotion of what is now being called "woke" culture:
- Major characters who aren't white (Dr Franklin, Dr Kyle before him), and lots of other not-white protagonists.
- Major characters who aren't male (Ivonova, Delenn, Lyta, Talia, Na'toth), often in roles that aren't anything resembling so-called "traditional" femininity.
- Major characters who aren't completely straight (Ivonova and Talia), even if it's more implied than shown. Gay marriage is depicted as legal and normal (Franklin and Marcus on Mars, allegedly on their honeymoon).
- All kinds of religions and cultures are depicted, generally sympathetically. Sometimes a bit more subtly, e.g. people's names in a funeral scene.
- All kinds of rhetoric and plot points about how human's diversity and community-building are their main strength.
- Pretty much all of the human villains are white guys (Clark, Bester, Edgars).
- One of the major alien cultures, the Centauri, are a pretty clear stand-in for European colonial powers, and they are not depicted as the good guys by any means.
- JMS, a guy of Jewish descent, not only had a major Jewish character (Ivonova, again), but made specific references to persecution of Jews, e.g. G'Kar explicitly comparing the occupation of Narn to the Holocaust.
If you didn't get that, you weren't paying attention to what any of the characters were saying or why they were doing what they were doing.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @06:31PM
> - Pretty much all of the human villains are white guys with English accents
FTFY
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Sunday May 17 2020, @07:07AM
I don't think the OP means the same thing as you do when you speak about "woke culture".
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday May 17 2020, @01:32PM (1 child)
Those are a bunch of really good points, but I think in that there is a larger lesson. Babylon 5 did have those elements, but it wasn't about those elements. The purpose of the story was not to rub the audience's nose in how bigoted and backward they were. In other words, it was good science fiction that imagined how different a future society could be, not a screed about how much everybody now sucks. As such, it was not "Woke" at all.
That is the difference that modern writers and producers don't get. What Babylon 5 (and many other shows, of course) did was storytelling, what modern writers and producers do is scolding. (and somehow it's a mystery to them why audiences are walking away)
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday May 18 2020, @10:21PM
... except for the whole bit where one of the characters gets recruited into a totalitarian regime, which many audience members might have fallen for. Or the many issues they had with anti-alien bigots who were basically no different from current racist bigots.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.