I know that Gene Roddenberry believed if humanity still existed 200 years in the future, and had advanced to being capable of space travel, it had to mean that we had solved the problems of war, racism, etc. or we would have destroyed ourselves or our civilization. No crime, no disease to speak of, and apparently no money-based economy either.
Kind of a stereotypical utopia where everyone sits around on clouds playing harps all day, I guess. Only not taking into account how incredibly boring that would be.
It would be valid to say that sameness and boringness was what led the real go-getters in the world out to space... because that was the only place you could find any excitement or unpredictability. I think it's no accident that TOS never showed a single scene on Earth except in time-travel episodes.
But Starfleet carries its own rigidity with it. It was OK for a couple of series, but now I'm much more interested in following somebody like Harry Mudd who isn't bound by the semi-procedural nature of a Starfleet show.
I liked TNG and Voyager, and parts of Enterprise...Star Trek characters have lost their cynicism, and are so naïve that the new character has to kill one of their own before they see them as a threat or as a bad guy/alien. I can't watch that episode of Enterprise with the borg without wanting to shoot Captain Archer and a few others...
Actually, a lot of what humanity is during the 22-23 century has a lot to do with the Vulcan and the century they spent holding Earth's hand. Humanity has progressed yes, but not just on its own which is an interesting little detail. One of the few thing added by Enterprise that i found somewhat interesting lol.
Anyway, you maybe have a somewhat cliché view of Star Trek and the Federation here guys. It's not a paradise. Replicators have changed how the economy works, making all basic things we need free yes but criminality is still a thing. Armed conflicts are still a thing. Greed still exist and there is still apparently a lot of foolish people making foolish things.
Starfleet and the federation have high standards yes. And how hard it often is to live up to those standards is a key element to many episodes.
I don't plan to watch this...I don't like Macfarlane very much at all.
Star Trek isn't a western in space. I don't care if the elevator pitch was something like Wagon Train to the Star. Have you watched Wagon Train? The two shows feel very very different from one another.
Although it is true that Star Trek is very different from all the ones after it
The frontier setting, out of communication range, needing to worry about refueling or breaking down outside of known space, exploring the new limits of where technology can take us, while mapping out and colonizing new undiscovered lands.... with the Captain dispensing frontier justice and decision making on his own whims and morals... dealing with primitive cultures and the associated stereotypes.... nope, TOS was nothing like a Western......
It wasn't. Nothing about the show played like a western, and none of them have ever been anything at all like Wagon Train. Star Trek is a show about explorers, Wagon Train isn't about explorers or exploring, and the crew of the Enterprise isn't dealing with the same kind of stuff the wagon train dealt with. I don't even remember being out of communication range ever being an issue in Star Trek, even in the show that was about that. Likewise for the refueling. You make a sci-fi space version of Wagon Train and it's not going to play anything at all like any version of Star Trek.
Mudd's Women and bartering for dilithium, being stuck out near Delta Vega needing to refuel in Where No Man Has Gone Before, finding (and abandoning) Khan in uncharted space, always running into lost spacecraft from the past that got lost out in uncharted space, or Captains that went rogue on a civilization, or left artifacts behind they shouldn't have, contaminating the society - TOS is *all about* those frontier types of stories. No one but you is talking about Wagon Train. I've never seen it, and could care less what it was like. That doesn't change the fact that TOS is clearly an action adventure, frontier show - something none of the subsequent incarnations shared.
I liked it well enough to keep watching. I liked that although it had humor and jokes, there was an actual story going on. Something fun I picked up on was in the gunfight. How they intentionally
made it the cliche of the bad guys easily picked off while none of the good guys got hurt badly. Also like how the captain cleverly defeated a heavily armed Krill by using seatbelts. I didn't mind the
effects or sets because I think they were intentionally going for the cheesy look. And in case anyone isn't aware of the name Orville, take note of the airplane model of Orville and Wilber Wright's flying
machine on the admiral's desk.
Wagon Train is the whole reason some people get this weird idea that Star Trek is like a western, because apparently when Roddenberry pitched the show to the network he pitched it as: Wagon Train to the stars. Only the show isn't actually anything at all like the western set Wagon Train. You know what, not only does Star Trek not play like a western, but the show never functioned like western shows of the time either. All those old shows like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Big Valley, Rawhide, Wanted Dead or Alive, The Rifleman, and Wagon Train would have these episodes where some Rogee Corman guy like Dennis Hopper or Bruce Dern would show up and the show would be about them and for that one episode they'd basically be the star.
What does finding Khan have to do with westerns? That's Buck Rogers ****. People waking up in different time periods is a sci-fi and fantasy convention, not a western one. It's the stuff of Hank Morgan, John Carter, and and Buck Rogers. Is it the uncharted space part? That stuff sounds more like SHE than a western.
Captains going rogue isn't a western thing. That's like a Heart of Darkness thing.
Well Kirk really didn't dispense frontier justice in reality I think he conferred with Starfleet via Admirals and Commodores more than Picard. I also think Picard broke the Prime Directive more than Kirk. Kirk gets a cowboy rep but honestly when comparing to Picard, Janeway, and Sisko he's practically a boy scout.
Of course, as an elevator pitch, the yet to be filmed STAR TREK was summed up as WAGON TRAIN in space. Has anyone besides me watched WAGON TRAIN? Of all the TV Westerns it best fits what STAR TREK was setting out to do. Almost every other Western, except HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL, was established in a set location. WAGON TRAIN wasn't nor would STAR TREK--other than the Enterprise itself which would be like the physical wagon train property. But, as with all TV series back then, each episode of STAR TREK would be a stand alone story, with just the main actors as recurring characters.
And, of course, there are hundreds of similarities between Space Operas and Westerns in general. They're both about people on the frontiers--metaphorically and literally on the border between social norms and outlaw behaviour. They both exploit a lot of the same tropes.
This is a ridciulouse discussion. Obviously, STAR TREK as a TV show did not follow the same path as the hugely popular WAGON TRAIN which ran for several seasons and survived cast changes. But it was good on Roddenberry's part to pitch his idea in those simple terms. Ultimately, the fact that STAR TREK never became a ratings hit meant that the Original Series was constantly trying to find its own niche and never became WAGON TRAIN.
When I watch the Original Series, I'm reminded of THE OUTER LIMITS. To me STAR TREK was an attempt to tell a range of different science fiction stories within an episodic TV format, with a regular cast, in the hopes of having better ratings success than the original OUTER LIMITS with its anthology format. If they had to pitch that as "WAGON TRAIN in space" then so be it.
I'm not saying it's a bad pitch, it's a great pitch, it's also just not anything like what Star Trek actually is. What I find funny about people's ideas of Star Trek being like a western, or calling it a space western is it's not an idea that's grow out of how the show actually is, it's one that's grown out of the pitch and the knowledge that the show the pitch is making reference to is a western. My guess would also be that most people that have this idea have never seen Wagon Train, and only know if is a thing that's a western because they googled it, or just saw that it was a western on TV Tropes years ago.
Lots of western tv shows had them going all over the place Gunsmoke is probably one of the few where they aren't going all over. They just didn't have them always pushing forward to a location like Wagon Train, but then that's what that whole show was about. They're always on the move in The Guns of Will Sonnett too.
I wouldn't really say there are a lot of similarities between Space Operas and Westerns. Was this even a big thing until Star Wars? Outside of like some cartoon type thing that just literally put old west cowboys on the moon or something and gave them robot horses. I mean now it's a thing you'll see a lot, but that's because Star Wars is this unavoidable influential behemoth that was made by a guy that seemed to really love western and samurai films.