Okay, you twisted my arm...
A Great Bird once said to me that when writing whatever entertainment you create, do it for the SMARTEST man in the room. Much of what has been created under the guise of Star Trek has not been very smart.
We have plenty of video games, and fiction based upon those games. We don't need high potential fiction watered down into chases and lens-flair.
I suggest Trek is high potential fiction, not as some fan-boy gibbered, but as an intelligent person seeking a little intellectual stimulation in my entertainment. This is not a snobbish attitude but the comments of a purveyor of fiction that enjoys a variety in his diet.
Star Wars provides enough fantasy and action, and Battlestar Galactica enough Chariots-of-the Gods speculation for pure melodrama. But a diet of cotton candy alone runs thin. I do not demean these works but quote what their very authors described them to be and accept them at that stated goal. I can enjoy them in that intended vein.
Trek was never everyone's cup of tea (pushing my food imagery to the limits!) but it offered what Gene Roddenberry described as the modern Greek fable; action and drama with less melodrama, comedy with less farce, and the consideration of social issues of the time without snubbing the intelligence of its audience by making absolutist conclusions. The best Trek (and not all episodes were "best" of course), suggested different viewpoints, inviting debate and intellectual consideration. They weren't reflections of a "liberal" or "conservative" perception, but a debate of a point of view, or a contrast of the two perceptions. Dressing up actors in pointed ears, beards, and forehead latex allowed for the discussion of war, race relations, and other significant human issues in a way the didn't require preaching or concrete solution-pandering. The discussion wasn't closed (or closed-minded) but encouraged the questioning and mental debate of the viewer.
I object to using a platform capable of such potential, described by its author as aspiring to that potential (during a period of time when televised entertainment was so strongly censored), as a melodramatic farce, filled with more explosions than thoughts, and characters based upon the worst reflections of human potential, instead of those striving to be the best. I don't object to fun-Trek, but I do to shallow-Trek.
Writing to the smartest person in the room requires not only intelligent, scientifically plausible, and rich, complicated storylines, but as well, material that suggests care and effort. Its hard work. It's challenging to its viewer. It also stands a real test of time, holding up over generations, since its themes are universal and extend beyond the immediate political zeitgeist, and even changes for the viewer as they age, mature and find their perceptions of the same story altered with their life experience. It's a funhouse mirror with a goal greater than fun; a goal to make thinking and reasoning a fun activity.
Issues of continuity are one way of demonstrating this. Whether certain beings look similar to previous episodes or movies, or the insignia worn on costumes reflect previously established canon, are not issues of mere nitpicking, but they suggestions of effort and detail of a writer. They reflect the quality of preparation and execution. Making the continuity sharp and consistent appeals to "the smartest man in the room," as it aids in the suspension of disbelief of that intellect. Failing to remember the main character's name every episode would reflect incredible disinterest in the care or effort of the author toward the presented material, but failing to reflect other continuity issues are just another example of sloppy workmanship, even if less extreme.
I must be reaching the limit of my space, but I wish to suggest that the problem with the recently presented incarnations of Trek are less a reflection of the inability (or insincerity) of a writer (or writers) but more a reflection of the disdain and disrespect for the "smartest man in the room," by the authors, and the presumption of those writers who they think that you are; the intellect of the person who tuned in. One could speculate that the same engine that cranks out effect-driven stories have enough disrespect for their viewers that they might even expect those viewers to pay more for their product than is reasonable to expect. They might even have so much disregard as to suggest that the fan-base that they hope would fund it should bear a greater burden than the potential customers they wish to also draw in. Such an absurdity would be reflected in producing low-brow entertainment but require the viewer to pay for a specific streaming service, even though others outside of the culture and society that spawned the industry, would get to pay less for the same storyline.
Produce low quality story-work with little regard to making the continuity and characterization tight, because you perceive the potential fan base as so desperate and stupid that they will not only pay for anything, but even pay more than their remote neighbors. The convolutions of such twisted thinking could be broken down to the simple assertion of disrespect for the material, the viewer, and in sum, even the responsibility of the entertainer for the entertained.
I prefer entertainment that respects my potential and makes at least a modest effort to challenge me toward it.
Whew! That soap box can really totter when I'm up on it...
:-}
