Vladd67
Stake Holder
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- Jun 10, 2007
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Section 31 series?
- Thread starter Vladd67
- Start date
I guess it just reflects the darker times we live in now and the rise of the 'Superhero' movie. At the moment people only see things in black and white, good and evil. The superhero ethos is a subversive ethos. The superhero is often a normal guy working underground to change a corrupt system. Extraordinary events/times/circumstances demand extraordinary measures/men/actions. They are giving people what they want to see.
When the Section 31 episodes first aired, there were a clear majority of posts that said that this was the end of Star Trek as we know it and that this was totally contrary to Gene Roddenberry's vision. And people refused to watch Deep Space Nine for the same reason, preferring the future described in The Next Generation. Today, I doubt we will see many complaints about this. In fact, I seriously doubt that either Star Trek or The Next Generation could get made if it was pitched today, with its upbeat view of an almost perfect future society, a Utopian Federation, and Gene Roddenberry's rule to only show main characters in a positive light.
However, this is very much a case of the chicken and the egg.
It's clear that when Rodenberry wrote the first Star trek series, its sense of optimism for the future reflected the same optimism in the minds of many people. However, by writing such stories, that optimism was communicated to the people who watched it, along with people who watched or read similarly hopeful science fiction in other shows and books.
I can hardly pretend that a movement towards darker stories on screen and paper made our own future dark but I do believe that such a trend "prepares" us all to be more pessimistic about the future and thus not to be surprised by some of the things that happen, and not to try so hard to stop them.
You may consider darker fiction to be more realistic, but I think that it also hardens us to the things it portrays, and stops us getting so upset about them, eventually creating a slightly darker reality as well.
Personally I miss the optimistic visions Roddenberry and others gave us.
It's clear that when Rodenberry wrote the first Star trek series, its sense of optimism for the future reflected the same optimism in the minds of many people. However, by writing such stories, that optimism was communicated to the people who watched it, along with people who watched or read similarly hopeful science fiction in other shows and books.
I can hardly pretend that a movement towards darker stories on screen and paper made our own future dark but I do believe that such a trend "prepares" us all to be more pessimistic about the future and thus not to be surprised by some of the things that happen, and not to try so hard to stop them.
You may consider darker fiction to be more realistic, but I think that it also hardens us to the things it portrays, and stops us getting so upset about them, eventually creating a slightly darker reality as well.
Personally I miss the optimistic visions Roddenberry and others gave us.
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