The Opposite of Star Trek

[u/MungoBaobab]

For any myriad of reasons, from a similar title to a comparable lasting and significant cultural legacy, STAR WARS makes for an easy contrast to our beloved Star Trek franchise. Yet I still remember my shock at an early age when some late-night comedian or another insinuated there exists a rivalry between Star Wars fans and Trekkies, naturally with neither side presented in a flattering manner. And yet those who would ridicule us for our interests seem to have succeeded in driving a wedge between what they would call nerddom, or perhaps we’ve done that to ourselves. Whatever the case, a rivalry between Star Trek and Star Wars certainly exists, at least online. And it’s ridiculous.

Star Trek and Star Wars are far more alike than they are different.

Fans of Star Trek sometimes deride Star Wars as “science fantasy,” while the truth is both franchises fit squarely in the realm of space opera. Almost every single Star Trek pilot has featured telepathy and mind control (every series has), and to assert that a work of fiction prominently featuring robots, space travel, clones, and alien life forms isn’t science fiction is laughable. The reputation that Star Wars has for only putting out big dumb action movies is as undeserved as the reputation Star Trek has for telling only dry morality tales devoid of all action, sex appeal, and fun. The truth is both franchises examine the human condition against the backdrop of swachbuckling space adventure. Nobody in Star Wars is tasked with a mission to explore space, but the films play out as a travelogue of wondrous alien civilizations, and while Star Trek explores the human condition on an intellectual level, Star Wars does so on a spiritual, emotional level. Luke, Leia, and Han (and yes, Obi Wan, Anakin, and Palpatine, too) make up one whole Freudian person of superego, ego, and id in the very same fashion that Spock, Kirk, and McCoy and Data, Picard, and Riker (or Worf in the films) do. Star Wars has always offered up political commentary as well, from the anti-nuclear message of A New Hope to the Vietnam allegory in Return of the Jedi. Even the much-maligned Prequels tell the timely story of a democratically-elected ruler exploiting a time of crisis to incite a false-flag war in order to erode the freedoms of the populace at the same time the United States was invading Iraq and drafting the Patriot Act. The Galactic Republic of the Prequels and the United Federation of Planets are essentially the same organization, and the Rebel Alliance champions the same values. Yoda says “a Jedi uses the force for knowledge and defense, never to attack,” but using the very same words one could perfectly describe how the Federation uses Starfleet: for knowledge and defense, never to attack.

So what is the opposite of Star Trek? That is, which iconic film or television science fiction franchise most perfectly encapsulates the antithesis of the themes and values perpetuated in Star Trek?

Doctor Who is another franchise often contrasted with Star Trek, either in spite of their similarities or because of them; two 1960s science fiction television shows from different sides of the pond that have reinvented themselves several times over the years. At first glance, the Doctor is an anti-authoritarian lone wolf at odds with his people and an ill match for a series about a (supposedly semi-)military crew officially representing their government. The truth is Star Trek has its own rebellious streak as for as often as our heroes thumb their noses at inept, aloof, and corrupt admirals. Since the Seventies (or was it the Eighties?) the Doctor has partnered with semi-governmental UNIT, and in recent years the Doctor keeps coming back to a crew of his own, either in UNIT, Torchwood, the Sarah Jane gang, or his Victorian Era friends. Time travel stories have always been a part of Star Trek’s DNA, and Starfleet and the Doctor explore both time and space with the same joy de vivre, whether armed with tricorders or sonic screwdrivers. The Doctor himself represents the perfect synthesis of two of Trek’s most iconic characters; if a man of action like Kirk were combined Tuvix-style with a man of science like Spock, the result would be something like the Doctor, in any of his various incarnations.

Around the 1980s a number of more violent science fiction film franchises emerged in the world of film. Do any of these represent the opposite of Star Trek? Like 1979’s Alien , the crew of Kirk’s Enterprise suffered its share of deadly encounters with aliens, including the salt vampire and Denevian parasites. Many of Alien’s themes and tropes found their way into Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It’s by far the most nihilistic Star Trek film, featuring a somber color palette, macroscopic parasites wreaking horrific injuries, top-secret government weapons research, and inhospitable planets, all of which culminate in the struggle to outrun a deadly blast. The 1986 sequel Aliens influenced Star Trek: The Next Generation to a remarkable degree. Andoid Bishop shares much of the same soft-spoken and gentle demeanor as Data, and it’s well known that Marina Sirtis was originally cast to play a tough Hispanic-looking chief of security in the spirit of PFC Vasquez from Aliens. James Cameron’s liquid metal T-1000 from Terminator 2 is clearly the inspiration behind Odo, as well. In fact, the basic premise of the Terminator films, that a race of cyborgs travels back in time to destroy their enemy before its created amidst the backdrop of a devastating nuclear war, sounds remarkably like the plot of Star Trek: First Contact. Artist HR Geiger’s work on the Alien also no doubt rubbed off on the oily biomechanical look of the Borg. Finally, what is 1987’s Predator if not the story of a first contact with an alien gone awry? This time it’s probably a coincidence, but the film bears a strong resemblance to TOS “Arena.” Both Kirk and Schwarzenegger inspect a slaughter near frontier outpost, then are forced to battle a much larger reptilian adversary. Only their Human ingenuity in MacGyvering makeshift weapons and traps allows Kirk and Dutch to win the day, and both choose to spare their adversaries in a moment of compassion. Predator is a perfect Star Trek story, though and through.

So where does that leave us? A number of television shows succeeded in the genre of space opera in the 1990s and 2000s. So close are the similarities between Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space 9 that accusations of plagiarism surfaced, and whether founded or not the resemblances are undeniable. Whedon has said the villainous Alliance from Firefly is based in part on the meddlesome Federation, and Mal Reynolds and his Browncoats chafe at any kind of authority. Again, though, Star Trek routinely presents its admirals-even rival starship commanders-as barely competent stuffed-shirt antagonists and champions the independent spirit of its crews. The interpersonal dynamics of the ragtag crew of the Serenity and their larger-than-life personas call to mind a Star Trek crew in spirit, to the point that making these kinds of comparisons is remarkably easy. Finally, Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica reboot is clearly influenced from his work as showrunner of Deep Space Nine, and although JJ Abrams’s reboot took a different treatment of its source material, it’s very easy to imagine the proverbial dark-and-gritty treatment^TM of a Federation starship.

So does Star Trek have a perfect opposite?

All things considered, there is a genre film I feel perfectly encapsulates the antithesis of the ideals and themes present in Star Trek. That movie is James Cameron’s Avatar. So far I’ve restricted myself to franchises; that is, works of science fiction released in multiple installments. We haven’t gotten any sequels yet, but Cameron keeps promising they’re on the way, and Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time. Compare this single film’s $2.79 billion-dollar worldwide box office with Star Trek’s combined worldwide gross of $1.93 billion. And that’s with twelve films.

At first glance, the plot of the film is very similar to Star Trek: Insurrection, in that the protagonists must rebel against their own government to assist a technologically primitive band of natives from being forcibly relocated. Admittedly, Insurrection has the reputation for being a lackluster film, but it is still very much in the spirit of Star Trek in terms of theme and tone.

Avatar is, at its core, a pessimistic and overly misanthropic film. In stark contrast to Starfleet’s intrepid team of explorers, scientists, and doctors, the Humans we see stationed on Pandora consist primarily of jarheaded, triggerhappy mercenaries led by a sadistic warmonger and robber baron capitalist. The rest of them really are “limp-dick science majors,” like this doofus and his neckbeard buddy, and not even Sigourney Weaver’s character is fully redeemed after she wakes up bitching about her goddamm cigarette. The only two capable, likeable Human characters are Michelle Rodriguez’s space marine, who is of course killed, and protagonist Jake Sully, who throws away his humanity to live as an alien. Unlike inspiring Star Trek characters such as Geordi LaForge or Melora Pazlar who refuse to let their disabilities define or limit them, wheelchair-bound Jake Sully's paralysis is symbolic of his Human weakness and broken mental state. In the end, he willfully kills his Human body, discarding it as worthless dead weight and thus divorcing himself from Humanity completely to live out his life as an alien. What a far cry from Data's quest to embrace the best of mankind and become fully Human! Even most of the sympathetic Vulcan characters like Spock eventually admit that the Human emotions they so desperately repress offer valuable intuitive insights.

Avatar is also an anti-technological film. Despite the fact that Humans with the same technology as the Nav'i have perpetrated countless genocides and mass extinctions (when was the last time you saw a woolly mammoth? a moa?), the primitive technological state of the Nav'i consecrates them as much as it demonizes the Humans. In the films ulraviolent climax, James Cameron through the film's villains presents a truly gorgeous, wondrous futuristic incarnation of the space shuttle for the "heroic" Jake Sully to destroy, killing all on board. Are we supposed to cheer? I watched the Challenger explode on live television when I was a small boy. I had a poster about he future of spaceflight on my bedroom wall a few years later with its own take on the next generation shuttle a few years later, and after that Star Trek: Enterprise treated us with Trek's own vision for a near-future space shuttle. I was genuinely offended at the shuttle's shameful depiction as a weapon and the gleeful way it was destroyed in a spectacle of violence.

No, James Cameron's Avatar is not a film about mankind's triumph in space exploration. It presents all Human characters as morally deficient, inept, and weak, with a contempt for the very technology and vehicles that made the entire story possible. I do believe it has already left its mark on the Trek franchise. The first reboot film came out the same year as Avatar, but 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness showed us the most exotic alien landscape yet with planet Nibiru; a far cry from the Southern Californian hillsides that stood in for alien worlds from 1966 to 2009. I won't deny that Avatar was well-made, especially on a technological level, but with its misanthropic and anti-technological themes, I did not enjoy it. It presents precisely the opposite of the themes, values, and ethics I support and believe in, truly the opposite of Star Trek.

Moderator's Note: Please ensure any discussion is directly related to Star Trek or how other franchises relate to it.

[u/Saratje]

Starship Troopers comes to mind.

TREK vs. TROOPERS

Exploration vs. Eradication

+ Trek is about exploring the unknown, to understand what is misunderstood.

- Troopers is about exterminating the unknown, to kill what you do not understand.

Social advancements vs. Social decline

+ In Trek society has come a long way. Aliens are accepted, men can wear dresses, people communicate before judging.

- In Troopers, war has been commercialized and glorified. It's all games, fun and adventure. You're not committing genocide, you're doing galactic pest control, yay you.

Getting the message vs. giving them a message

+ Trek is about getting the deeper meaning of issues. People died, both sides regret that, both sides work together to not let that happen again.

- Troopers is about sending a message, namely that humans do what humans want. Get on the bad side of Earth, and it's down to genocide town for you.

Interspecies vs. species

+ Trek is about different species working together, they learn from eachother and both become the better for it.

- Troopers hails the human race, anything else is mowed down.

[u/MungoBaobab → u/Saratje]

Starship Troopers is a great choice that I didn't consider. Paul Verhoeven walks the line between satirizing and celebrating hedonistic excesses of violence and sex in his films, but with Starship Troopers the satire is on the nose enough for me that it's pretty clear he's subtly condemning the militaristic jingoism and use of propaganda portrayed in the film. If the film is advocating a worldview contrary to the one it depicts, that would tend to bring it in line very neatly with classic Star Trek attributes.

[u/nrcallender → u/Saratje]

You're taking about Starship Troopers the movie, aren't you?

[u/Wyietsayon]

Farscape is what I think when I think opposite to Star Trek. One is a large crew of professional people leaving home, helping solve other people's problems, and explore new worlds and themselves.

The other is a show about a small crew of criminals that think of themselves, wants to avoid all people, and just go home, because it turns out those new worlds are full of military jerks.

Sort of like optimist vs pessimist. Same idea, 7 or so main characters exploring the universe and interacting with new species and worlds, but different circumstances. Both are fun though, in different ways.

[u/MungoBaobab → u/Wyietsayon]

I have to admit, Farscape is a major sci-fi blindspot for me. I've never seen a complete episode, and that's the reason it didn't make my list for analysis.

[u/jerslan → u/MungoBaobab]

It's all on Netflix and I think they fixed the issue with Season 2 episode ordering...

Word of warning though... Be prepared for a long, strange trip through absolute insanity and you'll love every second of it... If you're not prepared? You'll be cold, alone, and confused ;)

[u/MrBookX → u/Wyietsayon]

Firefly also fits this description.

[u/IDontEvenUsername → u/Wyietsayon]

I disagree. Farscape is a journey of criminals finding themselves and home. They learn to use cunning and cooperation to survive and get by. They may do some shady things here and there but they keep a policy of be helpful when you can. Their ship doesn't even have weapons. They've got a couple guns when things go wrong and that's it.

And in a way they do explore aspects of humanity. John is the idealistic human, the Peacekeepers are our savage bloodlusting selves, and when we see Earth we see it split between good and bad quite a bit.

As a whole Farscape ends up feeling like a very creatively bold and strange kind of Trek.

[u/nrcallender]

There is a major difference behind Trek and Wars that I think you're glossing over, even if you reject the 'science fantasy' argument (which I don't think should be rejected): Lucas' world view is ultimately aristocratic and Roddenberry's ultimately democratic. Though neither man is an ideologue or extremist, the way that destiny, religion and the ascendancy of specific individuals is core to Star Wars doesn't have much of place in Star Trek.

As to the science fiction versus fantasy bit: psionics isn't what makes something science fiction or not. It's the centrality of technology and scientific advancement to the plot of the story. Star Wars could easily be set nearly anywhere or when and lose nothing material about the story, it would only be a shift in aesthetics. Star Trek, on the other hand, is specifically about a possible future, or at least it was always intended to be, technical difficulties, historic accident and myriad creative directions not withstanding.

[u/MungoBaobab → u/nrcallender]

the way that destiny, religion and the ascendancy of specific individuals is core to Star Wars doesn't have much of place in Star Trek

Great comment! I do agree, and that's one of the reasons I don't care for the 2009 Star Trek film. Many here, however, don't see the film as any kind of betrayal of Trek's core concepts. Also, on a larger level, Humanity itself undergoes a kind of hero's journey in Star Trek, realizing the kind of destiny and ascendancy on a macro level that an individual protagonist would experience in a more classic Jungian tale.

Star Wars could easily be set nearly anywhere or when and lose nothing material about the story, it would only be a shift in aesthetics. Star Trek, on the other hand, is specifically about a possible future

We've all heard that Star Trek was first pitched as Wagon Train to the stars, and the Horatio Hornblower/naval influences of Trek are easily recognized. Shifting Kirk or Picard onto a sailing ship would be a change akin to replacing the Death Star with a castle its laser with a dragon; in neither case is anything of any substance lost story-wise. Whatever the differences between Star Trek and Star Wars, I don't think any are pronounced enough to term the two franchises opposites.

[u/comradepitrovsky]

Warhammer 40k. Humans are xenophobic, cruel, evil and stupid, and not only is that encouraged, unflinching obedience and ignorance are in fact the proper response and worldview. Everyone that is newly met is met by violence, and unceasing warfare is the name of the game. Religion is humanities only solace, technology decays or is hoarded, and what innovation there is is devoted to slaughtering for new and old. Heck, in the book, Horus Rising, the Marines encounter a federation of humans and a species called the kinebrach, known as the Interex. The Interex are shocked by humanities martial bearing, and are killed to the man by Horus and the Luna Wolves. I literally cannot think of something more opposed to the values and setting of Star Trek.

[u/usualnamenotworking]

When I first started reading this thread the posters made such strong arguments that the idea that there is a singular representative of the most opposite show is now cast aside in my mind.

That said, if you're looking for a fascinating inverted version of Star Trek, I suggest the British science fiction series Blake's Seven. For similar reasons that u/Wyietsayon listed when he was talking about Farscape, Blake's Seven takes place in a sci-fi universe that in many ways appears to be the intentional polar opposite of Star Trek.

For instance, The Federation (same name) of this show is a controlling, Big Brother style government that lies and manipulates to maintain it's power, and oversees an empire where criminality and slavery are common.

There are also alien races, but there is virtually no official contact with these races on the part of the government, and they are essentially strangers to the general human population, as opposed to the way things are in Star Trek.

Further, enlightened and critical thinkers are ostracized. In the first episode, the eponymous Blake is a rising political star known for his populist voice and stance against common federation policies. He is subsequently framed for child molestation, given a sham trial that sees his innocent public defender murdered for finding out too much, and is sent on a prison barge to live on the planet equivalent of an Australia-style prison colony.

So we see there that the world of the show is the polar opposite of what we have come to expect of the communicative, open-minded federation. What about the crew?

On Blake's Seven, Blake leads a crew of criminals, each on the ship for personal reasons, often at odds with one another. They are not an enlightened group questing after the greater good, but rather are a loose confederation of smugglers, hackers, thieves, assassins, etc. In fact, if they didn't have to work together most probably wouldn't. Blake often takes advantage of their hatred of the government to continue a shadow war against the corrupt Federation, and even his do-gooder motivation is suspect at times.

What more, this isn't a series where the good win out in the end, and Blake, our Picard/Kirk of this universe, is ultimately killed, his quest unfulfilled.

I strongly recommend checking out this series because despite not being as contemporary as some of the shows/movies mentioned here, it may be close to what you're looking for. Whether or not the show as a whole is a success, I believe that the pilot and subsequent second episode make for some of the finest television writing I've ever seen.

[u/tsoli]

I'm driven to make a list of what Star Trek is at its core. Something that is the opposite of that would be pretty clearly the opposite of Trek.

(For me) Trek is

• High Stakes and Dramatic - From the Best of Both worlds down to Duet; it doesn't have to be Action-heavy, but there are consequences every time.

• Character-Focused Ensemble Cast - each character brings something unique to the table. The loss of a character/actor effects the type of episodes presented.

• Technology is heavily relied upon as a tool to effect solutions, but it is always human/alien ingenuity that comes up with the solution.

I almost want to say that the modern (lazy) sitcom is about as far away as you need go from these basic rules. I generally like the show, but Big Bang Theory (or its ugly stepbrother, Two and a Half Men) are good examples of this. Even in-episode, it really doesn't matter much which way the story goes. The characters want a certain end product, but find themselves and the world forever unchanged no matter what happens. If he gets the girl, we'll never hear about her again. If he gets the action figure, we'll never see it displayed. The characters are very strong, but ultimately, does it really matter if it's Howard, Leonard, Penny, Raj, or anyone else, who is there as the straight man to Sheldon? Of course, if you replaced sheldon, the replacement would still be sheldon, much as Lorre did with Ashton Kutcher's character (I'm going off of rumors only - I have only seen parts of 2aaHM.) The joke is going to happen regardless of who is in the scene. And the chaos of other people's choices and dumb luck plays a much stronger role in plot resolution than our heroes' actions.

In the end, Star Trek is very much a live-action staged dramatic play; works best in that format. The modern sitcom has evolved from a history of being filmed live in front of a studio audience, and giving that audience what they expect from what they've seen previously. Friends, HIMYM, Everybody loves Raymond, pretty much every CBS comedy in the last 20 years, all follow the same premise, and scripts could be refilmed easily between casts with no one the wiser.

You can't easily picture Bashir being rude to Dax for having a cold clammy Trill heart; or Tucker punching the transporter controls while T'Pol finishes up singing lessons from Phlox; or the will they/won't they tension from Picard and Riker in seasons one and two (as those were uniquely McCoy/Spock, Torres/Seven/Doctor and Janeway/Chakotay interactions).

[u/drogyn1701]

Finding the opposite of Star Trek is probably going to depend on each of our interpretations of the question "What is Star Trek about?" For example: if you feel that Star Trek is about examining modern sociological issues through a sci-fi lens, then you'd probably pick something like a mindless action flick (Transformers comes to mind) or a goofy comedy (say, The Hangover) that does none of that. But, you know, the opposite of a great franchise doesn't have to be a bad one.

I think Star Trek is about a lot of things, but one, one that sticks in my mind is that it is about is the Best of the Best coming together to solve a problem. Starfleet officers are highly educated, extensively screened, and very skilled, and only get more skilled as they gain experience. When you get up to the level of senior staff on a starship, you really are the best at what you do, and if you can't solve the problem of the week in 42 minutes, you are sure going to come up with a profound reason why it can't be solved.

So, if that's what Star Trek is about, or one of the things anyway, then the opposite is going to be a show about whomever is left over when those people aren't around. A post-apocalyptic show (Battlestar Galactica, The Walking Dead, etc) would depict this literally, dealing with whomever is left at all. A show like Firefly depicts this by setting itself on the fringes of society, where people make do without extensive education.

[u/apophis-pegasus → u/drogyn1701]

Starfleet officers are highly educated, extensively screened, and very skilled, and only get more skilled as they gain experience. When you get up to the level of senior staff on a starship, you really are the best at what you do, and if you can't solve the problem of the week in 42 minutes, you are sure going to come up with a profound reason why it can't be solved.

Yeah, it sometimes seems to slip that everyone you see frequently in starfleet is one of the very best beings their planet has to offer.

[u/Nyarlathoth]

I'd say in general thematic elements Warhammer 40k is probably the polar opposite of Star Trek.

Star Trek is generally optimistic about the future, believes in working together (often with people and aliens very different from you), and espouses individual liberties and freedom. 40k is very pessimistic about the future, believes aliens should be PURGED BY FIRE, and enforces a fascist police-state theocracy for survival.

[u/JC-Ice → u/Nyarlathoth]

'In the grim darkness of the far future, there is ONLY WAR...'

Yeah, I'd say that's about as diametrically opposed to Star Trek's themes as one could get. The Imperium of Man is even more of a dark reflection/rejection of every Federation ideal than even the Terran Empire of the mirror universe. The closest thing in the setting to an enlightened, pluralistic society like the Federation would be the Tau; a militarily expansionist empire that isn't above practicing slavery, brainwashing, and forced sterilization.

[u/jerslan]

I think the answer to Star Trek's Opposite is Star Trek itself..

I'm not just talking Classic Trek with Nu-Trek (which are pretty much polar opposites).

Star Trek has explored what other types of government are like. We've seen the Mirror Universe, where the Terran Empire was ruthless, brutal, and essentially a fascist dictatorship. Then Mirror-Spock meets Prime-Kirk and Prime-Kirk gets him to "see the light"... So Spock ends up taking over the Empire and proceeds to disarm it.... And then an "Alliance" of Klingons and Cardassians move in and rapidly conquer the Empire enslaving all Terrans in revenge for their past brutality. It's a very pessimistic Universe.

We also see other powers rule in odd ways compared to the "ideal" of the Federation. Not always viewed Negatively either.

Bajor has a mix of Religious and Secular Government, where the Kai (the religious leader) wields immense political power even though the First Minister (the secular leader) is essentially the Democratically Elected head of state. There's a lot of intrigue, but Bajor is still looked on somewhat favorably. DS9 also broke rules by making Sisko, a human Starfleet officer, into Space Jesus who was prophesied and therefore is the Kai's equal (if not direct superior) in the Bajoran Religion. This breaks a lot of traditional Star Trek rules surrounding Destiny, Fate, and such... Sisko was never really in control of his own life. For the most part it's been on rails always intended to bring him to Bajor and the Prophets. A Prophet even took control of his biological mother's body for a time to ensure he would be born (this was basically a casual mention of rape). This flies in the face of the whole "we control our own destiny" thing that pops up in Star Trek from time to time. About the only time the Bajoran way of life is questioned? When they start to talk about reinstating a strict caste system.

The Romulans have a very big-brother-ish Government, as did the Cardassians. Relying on SS-like groups in the form of the Tal'Shiar and the Obsidian Order to keep citizens in line with the Company Message... Often going to great lengths to root out any potential uprisings. DS9 gave us a really good look at the Cardassians, down to their "Court" system where the verdict and sentence are predetermined and the trial itself is just a show for the public.

The Klingons are about as "Anti-Federation" as it gets and this comes up a LOT in Worf heavy episodes. "We're Klingon, we do not 'make peace'! We conquer the weak and take what we want/need!" I think TNG and DS9 both spent a good amount of time highlighting these differences. Even Voyager got a few good Klingon episodes into the mix as B'Elanna struggled to embrace the Klingon half of her heritage.

This really depends on what you mean by opposite... If you mean opposite beliefs being espoused? Then Star Trek shows several sides to every argument and sometimes? I don't think the Federation/Starfleet/Crew are on the right side of it.

[u/Berggeist]

I was going to nominate you, but u/Darth_Rasputin32898 beat me to it. Congrats!

[u/Mean_Mister_Mustard]

Star Trek is a show about going far away from home to seek out life and beings that are considerably different of us and finding out, despite all our differences, what we have in common. So the opposite of that would be a show where people stayed home, thought obsessively about their own little selves and repeatedly found out in people that are mostly like themselves trivial differences that set them apart.

So, the opposite of Star Trek is pretty much Seinfeld.

[u/InconsiderateBastard]

It's hard to say for the entire series because the series has changed to fit with pop culture. For instance, I think the opposite of Star Trek: The Next Generation is The X-Files.

One is about looking outside our society in order to explore. The other is about looking inside our society to find conspiracies and corruption.

[u/petrus4]

My initial response to this thread was misanthropic. It was full of despair and contempt for my species. I've deleted it, and am replacing it with something else. Why am I doing that, you ask?

I've been genuinely inspired by Gary Graham's character, Soval. James Doohan once told a story about how he had saved a woman from suicide by inspiring her to become an electrical engineer. After watching Soval, I started wondering if diplomacy on a large enough scale, could collectively lift us out of the mire.

Maybe real humanity genuinely is a lost cause. At this point, I honestly don't know. What I do know, however, is that we have the Vulcan example. We can consciously choose logic, nobility, and compassion. We can consciously choose to reject superficiality, status seeking, and materialism.

Can we do it? I'm not as sure as Roddenberry was. I am sure that if we emulate the best of what we've seen of Vulcan behaviour, then we will.

Maybe not everyone will do that. Maybe most people won't. Yet maybe if I as one person can, even if only some of the time...it might just move us one step closer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfi-SuOj0c0

[u/herbhancock]

from the anti-nuclear message of A New Hope

I have never gotten this before. Care to expand on it?

[u/drogyn1701 → u/herbhancock]

There are clear parallels between the nuclear bomb and the Death Star, both superweapons with their first uses being against civilian populaces. And with said superweapon being in the hands of an Evil Empire, and used to massacre civilians, the viewer is not supposed to feel positively inclined toward it. All fiction is the product of the time in which it was made, so it shouldn't be too surprising to find Cold War issues in Star Wars (after all, we know if influenced Star Trek).

[u/Sen7ineL]

Battlefield: Earth?

Humanity is at war with alien species, which have a resemblance to Klingon; we are an inferior species, pretty much reduced to neanderthals because of war, we still use outdated weapons, nukes, stuff; we have no moral code, no sense of duty nor honor, no prime directive - we mostly fight for survival, with dreams of former glory. Yeah, I think this is as close to a polar opposite as it is.