Star Trek Social Club
r/startrek: The Next Generation
Star Trek news and discussion. No slash fic...
Maybe a little slash fic.
Rules
1 Be constructive
All posts/comments must be thoughtful and balanced.
2 Be welcoming
It is important that everyone from newbies to OG Trekkers feel welcome, no matter their gender, sexual orientation, religion or race.
3 Be truthful
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5 Spoilers
Utilize the spoiler system for any and all spoilers relating to the most recently-aired episode. There is no formal spoiler protection for episodes/films after they have been available for approximately one week.
6 Keep on-topic
All submissions must be directly about the Star Trek franchise (the shows, movies, books, etc.). Off-topic discussions are welcome at c/Quarks.
7 Meta
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Upcoming Episodes
| Date | Episode | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 02-19 | SFA 1x07 | "Ko’Zeine" |
| 02-26 | SFA 1x08 | "The Life of the Stars" |
| 03-05 | SFA 1x09 | "300th Night" |
| 03-12 | SFA 1x10 | "Rubincon" |
| TBA | SNW 4x01 | TBA |
Upcoming Trek
Strange New Worlds (TBA)
Starfleet Academy (TBA)
In Development
Untitled comedy series
Wondering where to stream a series? Check here.
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I just read up on the woke comments. What do you find so terrible there? That he writes avoiding an agenda? Or that he criticizes works that plainly have one?
It's his opinion. I don't wholly disagree with him. Science fiction often works best when they don't hang a giant lantern on what the lesson to be learned is. When the politics override good storytelling. Like in Picard S2. ICE is shit and so are climate change denial and the burning mountains around contemporary LA. But to me that came across as preachy, not a great story.
If anything you have to respect the man for not mincing his words at all. That doesn't mean I agree with him but in this outrage driven world that's almost a baller move.
I don't think he has alienated as many people as you suggest. And I haven't heard enough to be worried. He might be a prick but these two stories are not enough to build a case just yet IMO.
He's still a huge hypocrite because he's famous for a story about a human and an alien getting along, and the human putting everything on the line to save said alien. It is literally the "woke nonsense" he's bitching about. I will give this man and his work no further attention.
He is a huge hypocrite in your opinion. Which I don't find convincing.
I was letting you know how utterly unconvincing your argument is considering what I said. I don't care to convince you of anything. You can believe whatever you want, and I'm free to think of you as an idiot.
Ta-ta!
I would argue that very little good science fiction tries to have nothing to say about humanity or the human condition.
There is some very intellectual and intelligent science fiction that takes on and speculates about advanced science and mathematics concepts but these are rarely mainstream and not at all the kind of thing Weir writes.
Some science fiction can be just fun science, engineering or math speculation stories told in prose, but if doesn’t have something to say about ourselves, it’s value isn’t much more than diversion — although diversion and entertainment are valuable in themselves.
Setting aside for now Weir’s rather sour grapes criticism of Star Trek, and stipulating the fact that Star Trek has, from its earliest episodes, had a recurrent pattern of including very transparent and heavy handed allegories to current social and political situations and controversies, let’s consider the general question of what is science fiction for.
Science fiction can be and has been a means of allegorical storytelling, and of pondering the human condition at the individual and the societal level. It tells us about ourselves as much as it tells us about a broader universe.
Huxley and Orwell did this with their dystopias. However, so did hard science fiction greats like Arthur C. Clark. Childhood’s End, Rendezvous with Rama, and 2001: a Space Odyssey were as much about who we are now as what might be out there.
More literary science fiction authors explored themes in psychology and human consciousness from the mid twentieth century on, and high quality science fiction took up those questions in films like The Forbidden Planet.
I didn’t find this kind of reaching about the human condition in either of Weir’s books. I did find them fun rides, the kind of pop fiction that used to be described as “airport” novels — the kind of book people pick up in airport kiosks before a long flight, that are often make into “popcorn movies.”
The science elements in his books are ok, but not astonishing. The level is really middle school, which is why The Martian was reissued in a ‘school edition’ cleaned of the swear words. My own first contact with Weir was our youngest’s ‘school edition’. It wasn’t an overly challenging book for a bright grade 6 student.
What I found in Weir’s writing was a repeating pattern of a lone-wolf individual male hero making some incredibly daft decisions after a catastrophic event that set up his opportunity to MacGyver himself out of the situation. It’s a trope.
It’s not definitive of the genre and it’s not conducive to the ensemble problem solving needed for more complex STEM work in science fiction. And unfortunately Weir’s short fiction has shown that he hasn’t yet mastered the skill of telling stories on a broader canvas.
Fun ride episodes, shows and movies belong in Star Trek and other science fiction too. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be there. One of the franchise’s strengths has been that it can incorporate the full range of styles. But it’s never been only fun rides and individual heroism or individual MacGyvering. I think we’d see as much scathing criticism if shows tried to be just that.
But back to Weir’s attitude and tone, speaking in his moment of success.
He could have let his work speak for itself, and focused on promoting his film.
Instead he chose to prop up himself by putting down others. I don’t respect that. I don’t see that as having integrity. I see that as being a jerk, and it validates the sense that I got from his books that he doesn’t know himself how to work well with others so he doesn’t write what he doesn’t know.
He didn’t have to shoot his mouth off when baited. Instead, he chose to weigh disingenuously into the ‘culture wars’ by claiming to be above having a message.
He could have chosen at some future moment to drop a mention that he, like many writers had pitched spec scripts to the Star Trek franchise that weren’t taken up for movies or television, that weren’t seen as a fit in the strategic plan of the franchise at the time. That would have likely garnered a lot of positive interest from across the Trek fandom.
Instead, he chose to use his moment to trash the creations of others and, implicitly, the part of the fandom that those shows were written for.
He won’t be getting my money.