Star Wars/Star Trek Maybe About To Be Dead. But that's okay.
"Space may be the final frontier but it's made in a Hollywood basement". Red Hot Chili Peppers
The “death” of either Star Wars or Star Trek or Star-x have been pronounce by fans every time when a disappointed instillment get release or whenever say franchise have a “jump a shark” movement. Star Trek have been pronounce “dead” by its fans many times in the franchise’s decades long history. The franchise was indeed “dead” for four years after the cancellation of Enterprise in 2005AD, after a continuous run on television for nearly a whole two decades. Of course Enterprise weren’t the only “prequel” that have been accuse of killing it’s parent franchise, the disappointment by critics and audiences of the Star Wars Prequels was consider by the most die-hard of fans to be the “death of Star Wars”.
Flash-forward, Disney, now processing Lucas Films attempts to revive Star Wars back on the big screen, not just that but turn it into a cinematic universe of not just cinnamic movies steaming shows, just like with their Marvel property. Back then it was even announce that there be a “Star Wars Movie Every year”. Despite the success of the Force Awakens and critical darlings such as the Madeiran and Andor, it appears that every release have been proven more then a let down than the pervious. With its most recent instillment Acolyte being the most controversial, and getting the most hate from fans, many to do with the political pandering by both writers and those more higher up.
Star Wars, a traditionally boy centric franchise have been given the “girl power” makeover with the “force is female” mandate, though the phase may end up being consider “transphobic” sooner or later, with even the main character of the new movies being a girl, alienating the franchise’s male centric fanbase. It didn’t help that the second film gives us a downgraded version of the male main character of the original films. It didn’t help that the actress who play “Luke but female” seem to give little charisma when performing her character, giving a whether doll performance. I have seen boomer age DMV desk workers give more charisma. Which bags us the question why should the "force” needs to be “female”? Dose every media property these days needs the “girl power makeover”? Maybe decades ago “woman hear me roar” may have been exciting and revolutionary but now its so cliche, specially after more than half a century of feminist pandering all over mass media.
To be fair that couldn’t be the soul reason why Star Wars is failing. Star Wars was once one person's vision and life experiences, may have require team of set designers and special effects artists but it was all center on one man’s version of what Star Wars should be. Disney Star Wars could have totally went the traditional route but it weren’t have been a George Lucas’s movie. Yes not everything in Star Wars was George Lucas’s decision the someway that not everything is a sole person’s decision in any movie or any artistic project that require a groups of groups of people like a studio film, actors give their own spin on their character, every set designer have his preferences, and yes not everything made or touch by Lucas have been great or good, but the idea of Star Wars must have originate somewhere or by someone for that much talent to concentrated on one project. But at least the elements that distinguish Star Wars from any other star-thing or thing-war is the unique tastes and cultural experiences of a boy from Burbank name George. Flash Gordan, Samurai films, old war movies and the experiential films of Arthur Lipsett, such niche tastes of one man is what was needed for Star Wars to be conceived in the first. Someone who’s cultural diet is nothing but “pop blockbusters Disney films ” weren’t have been able to create Star Wars, at least a Star Wars that could leave such a cultural impact on our collective mentalscape. But do our current Mono-Cultural have the soil to harvest a idea such as Star Wars? Not if there nothing to consume but this weekend’s “IP franchise film” and social media trash. Of course if there even is “this generation’s George Lucas” or even “this generation’s Spielberg” working in the industry he weren’t have the creative freedom as the former giants. Now thanks to Big H.R, everything must be examine for problematic elements, even old films that were release decades ago must be censor before being release for streaming. Even if the industry wants to make “unWOKE” films or become more “based”, things like “desperate impact” makes everything that isn’t “WOKE enough” to be illegal and creating a “hostile work environment”. Reason why “Go WOKE, Go Broke” never stopped companies from being WOKE, is that thanks to “desperate impact” and increasing enforcement of “Civil Rights Law”, only people who express Big H.R views get hire and promoted. Star Wars would have eventually become WOKE, not because of Disney or Cathine Kennedy because of the “Civil Rights” regime. Yes Star Wars did came out well over a decade after the 1964AD mandate, but since then the “Civil Rights” Regime have only grown in power and enforcement. Star Wars have gone WOKE because everything must be WOKE.
“x have always been WOKE” is becoming as much as a overused deadmeme as “Go WOKE, GO BROKE”. But compare with Star Wars, “x have always been WOKE” have a degree of truth when it comes to Star Trek. Star Trek the idea was vision from someone who like Lucas was born and raise in Southern California, and so socialize in similar ideological circles. Gene intended Star Trek to be a outlet to spread his LBJ’s Great Society era progressive values. Though Star Trek was less a creation of Roddenberry as Star Wars was of Lucas. Roddenberry didn’t invent the Klingons or have written the expocides that fans and critics consider the most good, but at least the ideology of Star Trek reflected Roddenberry’s progressive Boomer era ideas. Star Trek’s future was one where all humans have overcome their differences, it was the “post-racial” vision that was promise by the “Civil Rights” mandate of Ada Neo Mundi 19, not as a “enteral struggle session” but a actual planetary community venturing into the enteral unknown as one creed. In that imagine future, treated humans as equals it all that was needed to reach post-racial-Utopia, though women still need to wear skirts.
Flashforward to Ada Neo Mundi 42, 1987 AD, with more creative control and a whole fandom worshiping his ass, Roddenberry made a Star Trek as “WOKE” as a Star Trek can be back when Reagan is still Hamburger Country Perz.
Captain Picard, Roddenberry’s ideological avatar was a even more virtuous and confident version of Captain Kirk then Captain Kirk, so virtuous that he even manage to “keep it in his pant” while vacationing on a actual advertise Sex Planet.
Early TNG under Roddenberry was the WOKEst thing on American television, and like all “WOKE in your face” shows afterword its preaching and condescension alienated the audience. It was only after Roddenberry lost control, and when things become less WOKE that TNG got good. Though even with Roddenberry himself “off the captain’s chair” and the “Roddenberry’s box” no longer taking as gospel, Genre’s “techno progressive utopiaism” was still in the background and the center of mass of TNG and its spinoff going foreword. Being more closer in time to the “Civil Rights” mandate then now, the idea that simply “treating everyone equally” will bring “post-racialism” was still there though it may take give or take a “Atomic Horror” to get there. TNG along with the Trek Televionic Universe implied that eventually all sentient species will join the Federation, if the Federation was a stand in for “progressivism” then its “Whig History” the sci fi franchise.
Of course for Star Trek the franchise to continue, there must always be enemies to both fight and lecture at. Federation may collapse in Discovery season 3 to only reform to expand farther like some unkillable blob expanding across infinity. “Whig History” assume that you could never have enough progress like how the Federation would never have enough worlds to consume.
But what is the state of Star Trek in Ada Neo Mundi 79? Discovery was decisive among fans, Lower Decks was Star Trek if it is also Rick and Morty, lack of Star Trek on the big screen have now lasted longer than the graph between Nemesis and the Abram’s films. The fore mention series are now condemn to their last seasons. Though to call it the “Death of Star Trek as a franchise” will be a overstatement, Prodigy is still releasing new episodes, and Strange New Worlds have been approve for more seasons, but both shows seem to luck the cultural gravitas as TNG in its prime or even Voyager. People much more focus on the latest controversy from Amazon’s The Boys then anything coming from Strange New Worlds. At least during the early seasons of Discovery everyone on social media was talking about it, not so about the latest season of Captain Pike and crew. Star Trek isn’t dead, but culturally it is becoming “dead wright”.
There have been many discussions over the decades about the differences between Star Trek and Star Wars, whether if both can be class as equally as science fiction or whether if the ladder is more “space fantasy”. A clear difference is that while Star Stars is set a vague “long ago” in a imagine galaxy located in a vague “far far away”, Star Trek is impose to be our future, that why they always retconning the “Eugenics War” and other bits of its lore. If the franchise were to exist past 2063AD, and if Vulcans didn’t happen to land in Montana or the Warp Drive haven’t been invented they would find a way to retcon? But about Star Trek’s future? Would there be a Star Trek in 2063AD? Or in 2151AD? Or even in 2266AD? Here the thing, if the past of Star Trek have been always about reflecting the current values of the Hamburger Country Left, will the future Star Trek thing, if it exist reflect the values of the future Hamburger Country Left? There’s the thing, I really doubt that the Left really desire a future for humanity. Their ideology now denies biological realities of man and woman, the very logistics that create human life in the first place. The very act of procreation seem to increasingly disgusts the Left, who know celebrate self-castration over family formation. Star Trek have always been the Hamburgerian’s Left’s conception of the future, but is there a Star Trek for a Left that no longer conceive of there being a future?
This “self-righteous Nihilism” have always been in the background of Leftist’s movements. H.O.M.I(human, ontological, moral, innocence) have always been a element of radical leftists movements in the 20th century AD, specially of the self describe “liberaltarian” and “anarchic” movements. That by abolition the whatever societal structure, either be religion, police, capitalism or the family that people will liberated. Either it be the failures of the 20th century AD, or the disappointment and failure of the Occupy Movement and the political campaigns of Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, the modern Left have come to the realization, at least sub-consciously that their John Lennon’s Imagine like utopia is not going to materialized, explaining why a raising share of them are opting for the ultimate H.O.M.I, the abolition of the institution of life itself. Indeed the progressives’ “final frontier” is the end of sentient life.
If Star Trek or any other imagine future will no longer be desirable by Hamburgeriam Left that have given up on having any future, then can there ever be a “based” Star Trek?
Though one could imagine a “based” Star Wars, after all when viewing through Palpatine’s perspective, the three prequel films were the “based” thing ever release by a major American Studio. Though there could be a “based” Star Wars, “Based” Star Trek seems odd. Star Trek’s foundational ideological assume that there is no biological differences between humans and no spiritual differences among sentient species. The only species that are truly bad are either depicted as mindless or un-sentient zombies such as the Borg. When viewing the franchise as a whole, one would have the suggesting that all sentient races are destine to one day join the Diverse Liberal Federation in the someway that Whig History implied that all nations will end as Global-homo. When I say that there will never be “based” Star Trek, I not implying that Star Trek could or have be good or even great, or tell a interesting story. DS9 or even T.O.S may have some “based” movements but they all fall back on the Lib ideology and the “Whig” perspective on history. When I mean “based” Star Trek, I mean a Star Trek that is actually “truthful” to the Universe and Nature as it actually is. Enterprise’s In a Mirror, Darkly is prebaby the closet thing to a “based” Star Trek that we ever going to get, officially.
If Star Wars and Star Trek ended for real-ees this time, dose it really matter? Commercialized mega-corporate own IPs such the Star Wars and Star Trek, along Superhero franchises have been describe as the “mythology of our time”, but in doing so actually inserts the mythologies of our ancestors. No one who isn’t Christ-Chan level crazy really believes in Captain Kirk or Luke Skywalker in the same way that people once believe that King Arthur actually fright at Badan, and believe that Achilles and Hector really did fright at Troy. No one truly claim to be a descendent of a real fresh and blood Ironman, in the same way that people once presents themselves as the living descendants of a fresh and blood Gilgamesh or Hercules. No one believes in the Death Star the same way that people believe that Mosses parted the Red Sea or that Jacob struggle with Angels. People once believe that the god Thor was a real entity to sacrifice their own cattle and livestock too, but no one believes in our present world truly believes in Thor the comicbook movie IP character, not in the same way their ancestors did. Calling these mega corporate own IP fantasies “our mythology” or “our modern folk culture” is a disrespect not just to the mythologies and folk traditions of our ancestors but a disrespect to the folk traditions and mythologies still practice of still living people across the globe. Like a inversive species consuming resources and territory from the local wildlife, these mega franchise IPs have choke and starve off the local traditions and folk heroes of whatever land where Hamburger Country Culture caste its shadow. Global cultural homogamy maybe equable and inclusiveness to all, but it is in no way diverse enough to be interesting.
Maybe after the death of these mega franchises, and when the populace finally truly become “fatigue”, maybe by then people will truly return to something more truthful and spiritual than a “final frontier” made in a Hollywood computer screen.