I belong to the Star Trek Generation

[james_s]

They're modeled on capitalism to the extreme. Personally I see nothing wrong with capitalism and the desire to pursue profit, but when it is taken too far and profit is placed above all else then you have a problem.

I'm sure one could find stereotypes of any number of races/cultures in the alien races of Star Trek. Even if one is not deliberately modeling a species after a race of humans, none of us have been raised in a vacuum completely unaware of the racial and cultural stereotypes that exist.

[djos]

At least in DS9 where they are much more prevalent, I took the Ferengi race as a parody of our obsession with capitalism. Their entire society openly worships capitalism and the pursuit of profits above all else.

Indeed, they are imo the worst elements of capitalism and neoliberalism rolled into one "race". On the other hand the federation is very reminiscent of a social-democratic philosophy.

[rfeecs]

Did the Star Trek communicator really inspire the cell phone?

There are tons of articles that claim Martin Cooper, "Father of the cell phone", was inspired to create a handheld personal mobile phone after seeing Star Trek.

Then there's Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Cooper_(inventor)

By the early 1970s, Cooper headed up Motorola's communications systems division.[7] Here he conceived of the first portable cellular phone in 1973 and led the 10-year process of bringing it to market.[5] Car phones had been in limited use in large U.S. cities since the 1930s but Cooper defied the industry's narrow vision of car phones and championed cellular telephony for personal, portable communications.[15] Cooper knew that people needed the freedom of anytime, anywhere telephony. He knew the cellular phone should be a "personal telephone – something that would represent an individual so you could assign a number; not to a place, not to a desk, not to a home, but to a person." [7] While it has been stated Cooper's vision for the handheld device was inspired by Captain James T. Kirk using his Communicator on the television show Star Trek,[16] Cooper himself later refuted this, stating that his actual inspiration was Dick Tracy's wrist radio.[17]

And there's this:
https://youtu.be/wN-_VA5HFwM

OK, after exhaustive research, I have the definitive answer.  The cell phone was NOT inspired by the Star Trek communicator.  The previous video was set up by William Shatner and actually started that whole myth.  In this video, Martin Cooper explains that.  He says the inspiration was indeed Dick Tracy:

https://youtu.be/Xi5-CyFAoWY?t=1409

[Rick Law]

Why were Klingons human in ST and like Worf in TNG?

...
...
These are of course my observerations and I have nothing to back it up:
Federation -
   Federation=us (the writer's own): USA, Western-Europe... we, in our own views are of course the good guys.
Klingons -
  looks like they are trying to portrait Soviet Empire (TNG was 1980 and it was still Soviet Union then).
Ferengi -
  I think they are trying to use Chinese as the archetype.
Romulans -
   Romulans are clearly fashioned after the Roman empire, not a present day thing but everyone knows about the Roman Empire so it is easy to write in as the "wild card" enemy yet-unknown.

So, if I am right, their portrayal Klingons/Ferengi will change with our world view today - if they are to make another series of StarTrek.

The Ferangi aliens were the negative stereo type of Indian people. Super cheap, always trying to con the other species because they think they are smarter then them, and they are the same color, at least on my TV. And non stop haggling.
...
...

Actually, the Ferangi were supposedly Jewish, at least according to someone who claims to have worked on TNG production staff. I guess they *do* sort of kind of look like those horribly racist Nazi caricatures of Jews (the ones where they look evil, have huge noses and are holding bags of money). And most of the actors that played Ferangi *were* Jewish, but...

I don't buy it. There's no way they could get away with something so blatantly racist and nobody at the network caught on. That said, I do find it interesting that different people see different races in the Ferangi (Chinese, Indian, Jews, etc).

In reality, the Ferangi aren't modeled after a particular race, instead they're modeled on an economic system: Capitalism. They're meant to show what the never ending pursuit of profits turns a society into.

I think you guys are on to something here.

I was mistakenly using geopolitical landscape of 2000 and not TNG's time frame which was 1980's.  Chinese (officially) cannot be capitalistic in 1980's.  It was not until Deng took over and consolidated that later they became capitalistic.  So, Ferangi could not have been stereotype of Chinese badly done.

I don't think even Hollywood is crazy enough to be that antisemitic.  I don't think 1980's Hollywood writers would have seen India as up-and-raising power - BRIC is a 2000's geopolitical buzz word.

So, I now believe Ferangi was probably bad stereotype of capitalist gone wild.

At least in DS9 where they are much more prevalent, I took the Ferengi race as a parody of our obsession with capitalism. Their entire society openly worships capitalism and the pursuit of profits above all else.

DS9 doesn't make it as StarTrek in my mind.  It doesn't go anywhere.  How can you be trekking standing still.  Prior to DS9 airing, I read about it being just a space station, I never tuned in.

Voyager on the other hand qualifies as trekking.  On average, I think it was about as good as TNG.  TNG's bad episodes is worst than Voyager's bad ones, but Voyager's best episodes is no where near as good as TNG's best episodes.

Off-air, Voyager's actresses got into far more trouble than TNG's.  Jennifer Lien (playing the super-fast growing adult-little girl Kes) crossed the line with DUI, then appeared to clean herself up for a few years, and then something much much worst: evading/resisting arrest, reckless endangerment, aggravated assault, ending (I hope) with exposing herself to little kids.  How sad!  I do hope she turns back.  She was somewhat attractive looking back when she was on the show.  Her mug-shot shows a person hardly resembles "Kes" in appearance even considering the years in between.
_{http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/jennifer-lien-arrested-star-trek-voyager-1201594328/}

[james_s]

DS9 doesn't make it as StarTrek in my mind.  It doesn't go anywhere.  How can you be trekking standing still.  Prior to DS9 airing, I read about it being just a space station, I never tuned in.

How can you comment on something you never watched? I was skeptical but over time it has grown on me. Sure it's primarily not flying around on a starship but it's a spinoff in the same universe with a number of the same cast members, and they do visit other places. In TNG most of the scenes could just as easily be on a station as on a starship anyway, they're mostly interior shots and you'd never know if you weren't told.

[Rick Law]

DS9 doesn't make it as StarTrek in my mind.  It doesn't go anywhere.  How can you be trekking standing still.  Prior to DS9 airing, I read about it being just a space station, I never tuned in.

How can you comment on something you never watched? I was skeptical but over time it has grown on me. Sure it's primarily not flying around on a starship but it's a spinoff in the same universe with a number of the same cast members, and they do visit other places. In TNG most of the scenes could just as easily be on a station as on a starship anyway, they're mostly interior shots and you'd never know if you weren't told.

re: "How can you comment on something you never watched?"

My comment was "DS9 doesn't make it as StarTrek in my mind.  It doesn't go anywhere.  How can you be trekking standing still. ..."

Trek by definition means:
1. a slow or arduous journey
2. to journey on foot, especially to hike through mountainous areas.
_{The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.}

Since DS9 being a space station, they are stationary (in orbit, but not going anywhere).  So by definition DS9 could not be trekking.  With Trek missing from Star Trek, I therefore did not consider them a real Star Trek show.

[djos]

re: "How can you comment on something you never watched?"

Trek by definition means:
1. a slow or arduous journey
2. to journey on foot, especially to hike through mountainous areas.
_{The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.}

Since DS9 being a space station, they are stationary (in orbit, but not going anywhere).  So by definition DS9 could not be trekking.  With Trek missing from Star Trek, I therefore did not consider them a real Star Trek show.

You've clearly never watched it because they go trekking through the wormhole, to Bajor etc on a frequent basis

[Rick Law]

re: "How can you comment on something you never watched?"

Trek by definition means:
1. a slow or arduous journey
2. to journey on foot, especially to hike through mountainous areas.
_{The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.}

Since DS9 being a space station, they are stationary (in orbit, but not going anywhere).  So by definition DS9 could not be trekking.  With Trek missing from Star Trek, I therefore did not consider them a real Star Trek show.

You've clearly never watched it because they go trekking through the wormhole, to Bajor etc on a frequent basis

I said "I never tuned in" so clearly I have never watched it.

A space station is not trekking to different places on their power or by their will as trekking would be.  I watch star trek to see the trekking.

[tpowell1830]

I watched DS9 a few times, maybe a dozen, on and off over time. I thought it was more of a drama than an adventure show, such as Star Trek. The sense of adventure was not there, for me. I am not into dramas as much as adventure and trekking as Rick Law puts it.

Some could argue that TNG or ST was dramatic often and I agree, but they were more adventurous in my eyes than dramatic. Where DS9 was more dramatic than adventurous.

"Jim, I'm only a country doctor, I can't produce miracles!"
"Captain, she can't take anymore. I'm givin' 'er all shes got!"

[djos]

re: "How can you comment on something you never watched?"

Trek by definition means:
1. a slow or arduous journey
2. to journey on foot, especially to hike through mountainous areas.
_{The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.}

Since DS9 being a space station, they are stationary (in orbit, but not going anywhere).  So by definition DS9 could not be trekking.  With Trek missing from Star Trek, I therefore did not consider them a real Star Trek show.

You've clearly never watched it because they go trekking through the wormhole, to Bajor etc on a frequent basis

I said "I never tuned in" so clearly I have never watched it.

A space station is not trekking to different places on their power or by their will as trekking would be.  I watch star trek to see the trekking.

The Space Station was merely the base of operations, sure they spent a lot of time there but they also spent a lot of time elsewhere too.

[james_s]

Well if you've never watched it then your opinion of it is irrelevant IMO, and frankly I think you're being pedantic about the name. Granted DS9 is not as good as TOS or TNG but it's still quite good, and they do quite a lot of "trekking" despite the namesake being a stationary base. Numerous episodes take place aboard the Defiant, others aboard various alien ships, there is nearly as much "space action" as in the other series. In TNG the ship goes to the action, in DS9 it's more often that the action comes to the "ship", which in space could be argued to be the same thing. I'm not going to try to force you to like it, I'm not even going to force you to watch it, but it's a bit pointless to state an opinion about something you've never seen and clearly know little about.

[Rick Law]

Well if you've never watched it then your opinion of it is irrelevant IMO, and frankly I think you're being pedantic about the name.
...

Let me try to communicate more clearly.

I said nothing about the show other than I didn't watch it because from news article I learned the shows setting is not on trekking equipment.  So to me it is not a trekking show. (no warp engine, no "to go where no man have gone before", ... ...)

Now if you think it is a good show, I will take your word for it - after all, I did not watch it and thus have no judgement on it.  I merely stated that when I want to see exploration, I rather the explorer be exploring at will with some kind of self-powered motion.

That's all.  Respectfully, I will no longer discuss DS9.

I'd rather talk about Janeway vs Picard or Galaxy class ship vs the others.

[tpowell1830]

Haven't heard anyone mention star trek enterprise. Any fans of that series? I watched it some when I stayed with my brother awhile in 2005. I didn't get into it too much, but it was not bad. It was supposed to have taken place in a time period before TOS.

[djos]

Haven't heard anyone mention star trek enterprise. Any fans of that series? I watched it some when I stayed with my brother awhile in 2005. I didn't get into it too much, but it was not bad. It was supposed to have taken place in a time period before TOS.

I didn't mind it, the last season was quite excellent after a rubbish S3 and average S2.

[tpowell1830]

I didn't mind it, the last season was quite excellent after a rubbish S3 and average S2.

I will have to hunt down the full series and watch from beginning.

[Rick Law]

I didn't mind it, the last season was quite excellent after a rubbish S3 and average S2.

I will have to hunt down the full series and watch from beginning.

Netflix streaming has Star Trek Enterprise, Season 1 to 4.