While Patrick Stewart is now as strongly associated with Star Trek as William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, his casting as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation raised some eyebrows in 1987 because… he didn’t have a full head of hair. When a reporter commented that, “Surely they would have cured baldness by the 24th century,” series creator Gene Roddenberry responded, “In the 24th century, they wouldn’t care.”

Roddenberry died in 1991, but if he was still alive, he’d probably have a similar response to the criticisms leveled by Elon Musk, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and others against Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, which premiered on Paramount Plus on Jan. 15. “Turns out they banned Ozempic and LASIK in the future lol” the world’s richest man commented on X in response to a clip showing Captain Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter) wearing reading glasses and standing alongside first officer Lura Thok (Gina Yashere) and Lt. Rork (Tricia Black) on the bridge of the U.S.S. Athena. The series has also been review bombed for being too “woke.”

But Star Trek has always been woke. When the original series launched in 1967, in the midst of the Cold War and the American civil rights movement, the idea of a crew that included a Black woman and a Russian man represented a radical vision of the future. Beyond breaking barriers with the first interracial kiss on television, Star Trek regularly mocked intolerance with episodes like “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” in which depicted a war between people who divide themselves based on which side of their face is black and which side is white.

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[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 48 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Star Trek depicted the first interracial kiss on American television. Once again the chuds are blind to history, and I suspect it’s mostly willfully.

[–] Marshezezz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 2 months ago

It’s always willful

[–] breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's hard to say because the chuds are also extraordinarily stupid.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

Some of them, others are just twisted and ugly, especially their leaders

[–] Tahl_eN@lemmy.world 34 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Kirk needing reading glasses was a minor plot point that spanned a couple of the movies. Do these idiots even watch?

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 13 points 2 months ago

They don't need to be fans to shit on it, in fact it helps not to be!

[–] Ghyste@sh.itjust.works 29 points 2 months ago

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

glaxy brain musk's comments don't even have anything to do with wokeness, they are just superficial bullying and nitpicking.

Maybe Thok's health is perfectly fine for a Klingon-gem haddar hybrid.

Maybe Rork (who is not fully human) has a complication that makes lasik an unnecessary risk for her. Like the fact that she's 400+ years old; people do still age and die in the 29th century.

[–] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 months ago

lasik an unnecessary risk for her

LASIK is an unnecessary risk for anybody. I've seen people become blind because they fuck up the surgery. It's not as standardized a procedure as they make it out to be.

[–] Ilandar@lemmy.today 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

“Turns out they banned Ozempic and LASIK in the future lol” the world’s richest man commented on X in response to a clip showing Captain Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter) wearing reading glasses and standing alongside first officer Lura Thok (Gina Yashere) and Lt. Rork (Tricia Black) on the bridge of the U.S.S. Athena.

Can someone who has watched Star Trek explain what this means? I assume one of the characters was fat...? But isn't Elon Musk fat?

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

In the latest show two of the characters are overweight.

One is a basically a college professor so it makes sense. The other is supposed to be this warrior character who sort of pretends to be a drill sgt at times.

While their comments are so nasty and just more of the same miserable shit this administration spews out, the show is absurd in its casting.

One of the main characters is a computer hacker who has been in and out of prisons his whole life and has the sculpted body of an Olympic swimmer.

I didn’t catch one of the characters wearing glasses but the Holly Hunter character is semi race that lives for hundreds of years and likes to read paper books.

I have seen both of the episodes of the show and it is realy bad. These guys comments are just more of the asshole things that they do.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 points 2 months ago

Critics not having any sort of media literacy would noy surprise me at all, and would explain why they have some of the shittiest opinions on media so often.

[–] veeesix@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 months ago

“Turns out they banned Ozempic and LASIK in the future lol” the world’s richest man commented […]

Subtle

[–] RedGreenBlue@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago

I didn't like recent star treks pessimism and shity portrayal of the federation. But if these idiots don't like this one; maybe I will. I'll give it a go.

[–] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 months ago

he’d probably have a similar response to the criticisms leveled by Elon Musk, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and others against Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

So, why are we writing articles about these fucktards again? These aren't "Star Trek's worst critics". They aren't critics at all. They are trolls, baiting shit-for-brains "games journalists" like Polygon to propagate their agenda.

Congratulations, dumbasses! You did it! You pushed Elon's and Stephen Fucking Miller's agenda again!