We sound ancient and immovable.
Stewart is moving forward and we're stuck in the boots he was wearing on TNG.
This is NewTrek. It's gonna remind us of the problems we watch ST to escape.
Old man yells at cloud time.
Haha I'd like to believe I'm adaptable and not becoming a curmudgeon, but I dunno. I just feel like if you're gonna change or add to something, its essence needs to be preserved or you've created something else entirely and may as well not even use the name. Problem with new Trek is, not only is it not ST, it doesn't even seem to do well whatever it's aiming to achieve. The people making it now have created a veneer of depth but it's actually not that deep.
They also fundamentally don't understand ST. This is a minor example, but the workers on Mars. They're imitating the way blue collar workers talk
now, but that doesn't work in ST. Even the replicator makes a "ding" sound like an
old microwave or oven timer, and that's basically the whole show--a lack of understanding of the universe.
They're also reusing ST: VI's plot with the Romulans, except they forgot the Romulans have an entire Empire and that the way they handled a similar situation in ST: VI was MUCH more thoughtful while still being intriguing and exciting.
Also drives me nuts that they're seemingly ignoring DS9 entirely just like the crappy TNG movies did. All of the major powers had taken heavy losses in the Dominion War, the Cardassians especially. This would be a fantastic time to see the state of the quadrant during the rebuilding process after everyone has had time to lick their wounds, lots of potential for ST kinda themes to be explored while accompanying Picard on his personal journey. Imagine the potential in seeing the state of politics in the quadrant after a war that incurred massive losses and forced all the major powers to work together. When DS9 ended, all the major powers in the quadrant were allies.
If they wanted to go darker, they could take the baton from DS9, and we could see the quadrant be more paranoid and militarized after being pulverized by the Dominion and Borg. You could still adhere to ST's central themes that way, and Picard would be dismayed by the whole situation.
Nah tho. The Federation is racist and xenophobic, Picard is inept, the Romulans have a Borg cube, no mention of the entire quadrant almost being wiped out by the Dominion, no mention of the delta or gamma quadrants which added massively to the universe. Oh. Okay. New Trek doesn't want to go beyond Borg, Romulans, Klingons, things people who have only a passing knowledge will recognize because they're from the two most popular, iconic shows, TOS & TNG. That's what makes me think it's just a money grab.
Old Trek explored political themes using different races/worlds as stand ins and metaphors for current world problems while still adhering to the principles that humanity had advanced beyond our current issues. There's no nuance here, it's all on-the-nose and poorly crafted.
/Rant from an old(ish) Trek fan
