I can’t think of anything more pathetically Star Trek than using the franchises first ‘fuck’ for a nerd getting excited about science. Like… come on. That’s PERFECT!
I still maintain that a Quentin Tarantino Trek likely would have been the greatest Trek film ever made (not a high bar though). Come on, imagine Inglourious Basterds set during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. But the rights holders have always been Trek’s biggest enemy because for the most part they just want to make something safe that will get people viewing, when what’s great about Trek is how expansive the universe is and how much room there is to tell stories of every kind. Literature about the far future, whose entire point is how expansive and diverse that far future could be, shouldn’t be so stylistically narrow that people get their knickers in a twist when Picard swears. But since it is, we can never have something as good or even just interesting as Quentin Tarantino Trek.
I enjoy the Tarantino films, but I don’t want them anywhere near Star Trek.
I really dislike what’s happening with ST lately; what was in my childhood a hopeful message for how much humanity could achieve when we finally get our shit together, is now just another action movie / drama template. Government bad, corruption everywhere, war for the sake of war, etc.
I’m certain Tarantino would double down on that and I just don’t want it.
That is to say, is the deconstructing work made by someone who gets the message of the work being deconstructed or not.
Omniman is a complex look at the stated origin of Superman being sent to earth, and the paternalistic nature of what exactly Jor’El wished for Clark to do with the benefits of Earth’s environment, and also a look at how even despite that, Superman would have been capable of learning to be a true hero without that guiding hand of a human upbringing, and that some of his spark isn’t nature or nurture but just that drop of empathy it takes to make someone see helping others as worth it for its own sake.
Homelander is a wankfest about how bad superhero comics are written by a guy who wrote an entire series about how he believes everyone secretly wants to be a murder rapist and is just “brainwashed by societal bullshit” to not acknowledge it.
So I agree mostly, but classic Trek also had plenty of looking at the present and past showing how bad things were/are/can be. It’s a hopeful message in that we can change and solve problems, but it doesn’t totally ignore issues either.
I do agree the drama and action is a negative for it though. Some amount of its fine, but ST is about considering our reality through the lense of sci-fi and aliens, not just brainless entertainment. Star Wars already exists in that market. ST needs to do what it does well and not worry about trying to be as big as Star Wars. Endless growth is only going to kill the franchise.
Government bad, corruption everywhere, war for the sake of war, etc.
I’m certain Tarantino would double down on that and I just don’t want it.
Tarantino is kind of a bellwether for the mostly apolitical right-wing (but non-fascist) middle-class majority of the US population, the movie “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” convinced me of that. It also convinced me that Tarantino himself has lost the plot, or actually never really had it. He reminds me a bit of Beavis and Butthead, kind of just watching movies and TV all the time, sorting everything into the binary categories “cool” or “sucks”, except he actually goes out and makes films that glorify all he thinks is “cool” which happens to be a cross-section of all media that glorifies violence and toxic masculinity.
So he likes Star Trek. Congratulations Tarantino, your “geek” bona-fides are authentic, but like the rest of the right-wing (non-fascist) middle-class majority, you really have no fucking clue and don’t care about the political origins of Star Trek and are just itching to erase them so you can make it into another “cool” movie that glorifies violence and toxic masculinity. You can fuck right off, Tarantino.
you keep using these words but they don't mean what you think they mean.. People who are right wing support fascism. Full stop. They don't have to mean to, but they actively do, and what I assume is an attempt to spare their feelings (though the reason doesn't really matter) is just more confirmation for their cognitive dissonance that they're not doing anything wrong.
I very much agree with everything else you said, but I can't grasp why you would make the extra effort to pander to them like that, it's bizarre.
People who are right wing support fascism. Full stop.
I very much agree with everything else you said, but I can’t grasp why you would make the extra effort to pander to them like that, it’s bizarre.
You are right, and I also agree with you, so let me just clarify… there is a difference between people who unconsciously support fascism merely because they are apolitical, and people who are very deliberately fascist, as in enthusiastic supporters of the Republican party.
Most fans of US movies are indifferent, and do not think of themselves as political beings. They think of themselves as just “ordinary.” Like a fish not knowing what water is, “ordinary” for an average US citizen is about as close to fascism as a person can possibly be without enthusiastically actively waving around swastikas – but there is still a difference between “ordinary” apolitical people like Tarantino and all of his fans who think of him as edgy, and someone actively wishing to purge the world of all non-white people. That is what I mean by “right wing” and not fascist.
I think it is important to draw that distinction because I don’t like blaming apolitical people for being the victims of US mainstream cinema brainwashing.
Ok, so you're not talking about right wing people then (or more accurately - conservatives), you're talking about centrists and liberals (who are not left wing) (edit to add: while claiming to be "apolitical", looks like Tarantino has donated to the DNC in the past, so that tracks).
I know that's uncomfortable to hear, but it's the truth, and to those willing to sit with that discomfort and challenge their bias, I recommend taking the time to read this and this.
Show me a moderate Democrat in the US and I’ll show you a moderate right winger in the world. From a world perspective, the US hasn’t had a left leaning president in the last 30 years or more. The US lost its left at some point, and advocating for sensible policies became its new left. Outside looking in, Bernie is a centrist or at most left-of-center.
So if your reference is the full spectrum, the majority of the US population is right wing, a good portion of it radicalized fascists. Now if your reference is the severely skewed Overton window of the US, then yeah, all right wingers are fascists.
It apparently would have been a direct follow-up to “A Piece of the Action”, the gangster planet episode. Which is probably the one Star Trek plot that would make sense for Tarantino.
I see TNG with mostly 2D characters where the Federation and its ideals are the main driving force of the plots. When they deviate from that is when you get bad episodes (cough Sub Rosa cough). The characters had to shed some of their depth and become idealized for message to shine through.
On DS9, you have a gritty view of a frontier without the influence of the Federation. The evolution of the characters and how they react to the changing reality around them is the center stage, and for that you need 3D, flawed characters to build development arcs upon.
Then on DSC you have perfect 2D characters in a corrupt world and the show is about Michael Burnham but she’s also perfect and I can’t see what message they’re trying to send.
I think DS9 set a precedent that was bad for the franchise, but I don’t hate it; the show felt like it understood its roots. I took DS9 as a way to explore how federation values addressed a galaxy not quite there yet.
It didn’t diminish the hopeful future by saying that “actually the federation is evil" it just said “listen, we still have work to do”.
Watching Cisco wrestle internally with reconciling who he knew he was supposed to be while the galaxy tested that was at least interesting on an intellectual level.
I think that bit of nuance got lost though, so I do kinda wish it had never happened.
I kinda feel like I just don’t have the heart for ST anymore. Picard was the final nail in the coffin, I am all out of trust for the modern generation of writers.
I’ll just watch TNG through every couple of years and be happy in my bubble.
For me, I feel like we’ve had so much ‘positive utopia’ Trek, that more of the same just gets a bit boring. There’s also the fact that life today is different compared to when Trek first aired. We’re more aware of some of those sharper edges and want to see them represented in media.
From a practical standpoint, there’s also ‘we can, so we do’. When Trek aired on regular TV, you couldn’t drop an F-bomb, much less show actual gritty stuff. With streaming, there’s no reason to hold back. Which gives writers more room to explore.
Lucky they made DS9 before TNG had even finished, then.
We didn’t really get more of the TNG side of things with the TNG movies. Then they moved on to JJA Star Trek, which wasn’t much of anything, not dark, not utopian, just references.
While Discovery was in part based around rescuing an ultra-fascist from another universe.
It took bringing back Picard himself to approach doing what they once did decades ago. And I guess not let the actor have too much say over the script, if that’s what messed up the movies.
While Discovery was in part based around rescuing an ultra-fscist from another universe
You mean part of a single episode. Saving her was never planned in the first place and was even a surprise to the character in the moment. when she comes back she actively fucks everything up and is constantly at odds with everyone. So no part of it was based around her at all. Unless you’re talking about the season 3 two partner in which case it’s two episodes but that’s still very distinctly not the entire show. It’s also AGGRESSIVELY Star Trek to help others you have differences with. Starfleet goes out of its way to do that constantly in TNG even if it might put them at risk too.
Not to mention the fact you say after TNG that the older style was dead as if Voyager doesn’t exist. Then you mention Picard bringing back the old style which is an utter lie. Picard was willing to execute a prisoner. The first two seasons are nothing remotely like TNG and the third season is an even further detraction. Doesn’t mean it’s bad but it is aggressively different.
Gettin real tired of y’all just blatantly lying because you don’t like a thing and wanna slander it.
No. They kept her around like she wasn’t someone who should be imprisoned for life, far removed from any position where she could manipulate others.
Which is a different complaint. Your initial problem was saying it was “based around her.” This isn’t. She’s a side character. But let us address your complaint then, shall we? She commited no crimes in Federation space. None. Not a single one. She was brought, against her will, from the place she was from into the Prime universe. What you’re asking for is to hold her guilty under Federation law when no crimes were ever committed in Federation space or against Federations persons. In fact, she actively helped Starfleet in multiple occasions. When she arrived in the Prime Universe she was imprisoned and while having issues with that, she didn’t fight back. She understood the situation that she was in a new world with new rules. The Federation doesn’t imprison people for doing things in their own space, nevermind when it’s a different universe altogether.
If they wanted to help others, there was a universe full of people more deserving. Two, even.
Both are capable as were proven throughout Season 1, 2 and 3.
Yep.
Then nothing you say can be taken seriously if you are willing to outright ignore, and admit you’re ignoring, things that don’t fit into your invented narrative.
Have fun with that. I’ve got far better things to do with my time than engage with arguments made with such bad faith and dripping with such bitterness.
Seriously, because she’s from a different universe, her actions of committing genocide and torture across any number of star systems are irrelevant?
If Starfleet doesn’t care what people do “in their own space”, how could they ever have a problem with anything? Just declare yourself a ruler, obviously democracy doesn’t play into it, and you decide what you can do anywhere you are.
Because you can only tell so many stories when literally all of your characters are required to be so narrow and flat it becomes a matter of debate and discussion when they do or say anything that would make them seem like real people.
Exactly. There is painfully little character development done throughout TNG. At the end of the final season the characters are still basically the same person who they were at the start. Picard is a little softer, Data is a little closer to being a person, Worf is still just Worf, Geordi is arguably a creepier person, Riker did not change like at all either, Deanna and Beverly also didn’t get development so much as a wardrobe. Basically the person with the most character development was Yar who died and then got resurrected through time shenanigans before forced into sexual slavery to a Romulan until she died. That’s not exactly… impressive. I love TNG and I love all the stories and the morals it tells but in todays TV atmosphere it is impossible to properly replicate that. Even SNW keeps a consistent plot throughout all the episodes and limits it to half of what TNG was dropping per year.
Then you look at Deep Space 9. This show is constantly praised by people left right and center. Why? Character development, a consistent plot, a serialized story and consequences that carry over from episode to episode instead of being immediately forgotten or relegated to a simple reference with a background prop. It is insane to me that so many people hate the newer Trek iterations for being “too dark” and “focusing too much on story” when that’s just Deep Space 9. An incredibly dark show that covers some seriously heavy subject material and has a consistent story that affects everything else around it.
As a longtime Trek fan, I’m certainly in favor of it. There’s plenty of things to work with; things implied but never really shown. Which is why I also liked more recent Trek projects like Strange New Worlds and Picard. They have a bit more grit to them.
Tarantino’s trek would not have been for everyone… but it certainly would’ve been a massive hit. Even if you hate his other work, you can’t help but be intrigued.
With Tarantino you’re also guaranteed to have a well-crafted product. It would never be a shallow cash-grab like certain other movies in the franchise.
Either talk about the plot, set a production date or stop writing these nothing articles.
I mean, no duh Tarantino would do a Trek movie that has lots of blood. To be familiar with his name is to know that's his style. Just tired of years teasing how great something WOULD'VE BEEN but not saying why.
I feel like in the best case it would have been a catastrophe that somehow manages to fall together in a way that actually works, and in the worst case it would have just been bad to the point of being offensively bad, appealing to neither regular filmgoers whole also pissing off established fans.
… But it also feels like giving a chainsaw to a bear: You know whatever’s gonna happen you’re not gonna like, but also you kinda want to do it just to see what it is.
I love Tarantino films; major fan. But I don’t think he’s capable of nuance or subtext, both of which are heavily used in the franchise. I would also abhor a “hard R” Star Trek film. It would be right up there with the Kelvin films. There’s no way in hell the fan base would allow something like that to be canonized. The only alternative I could see is if it involved time travel and all of the "hard R"s were from humans from the past.
Counterpoint: with some subject matter, you don’t need nuance or subtext. Hence why IB remains, in my opinion, his greatest work. It’s one of the few subjects where you don’t need nuance so the good technical aspects of his filmmaking doesn’t just wash out in all the blood and gore. All you have to do is cook up a story in the Trek universe where his filmmaking style would be an asset (hint: have the story revolve around killing fascists), don’t give him complete control, and make him work in tandem with Star Trek old hands like Brannon Braga or Jonathan Frakes and I honestly think you’d end up with something good.
Personally, I think Star Trek is good enough that it deserves more and more interesting film treatments than it’s gotten. Tarantino Trek would upset a lot of people just because it wasn’t an anodyne feel-good PG movie, but if it was good, we could end up with other, better directors doing even more interesting things with Trek.
Star Trek itself often has nuance that’s about as subtle as being hit in the face with a brick. Need I remind everyone about Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, TOS S3E15.
FWIW, I recall an interview with Tarantino on YouTube somewhere in which Trek came up, and he was asked to name one of his favourite episodes.
To my surprise he named Yesterdays enterprise. He genuinely seemed to love it and remembered a lot of details about the plot. The other he mentioned is city on the edge of forever.
So while many might react to the idea of an R rated Tarantino Trek film negatively, I’d be quietly optimistic that he has good taste in Trek and would have a good core of a premise and story. I suspect he’d also handle the characters well, knowing how to balance campiness, seriousness and comedy.
It’s from 2015. Go to 3.47 for the relevant section. Interestingly, rewatching it, the prompt of the conversation was “what Star Wars movie would you like to do” and Tarantino responds with he’d rather do a Trek film.
And to further my point, he’s main point is that so many good episodes from Trek, especially the original series, could be made into movies.
City on the Edge of Forever is the best TOS episode in my opinion, and surpasses 90% or more of all Star Trek across all the series.
It’s good to know he knows his Star Trek. But I still wouldn’t want a Tarantino Trek movie — unless, of course, Avery Brooks reprises his role and recites Ezekiel 25:17 and has a phaser with Bad Motherfucker etched on it. That’s a Trek movie I’d watch.
