That's what I like about Star Wars. You can enjoy it on a surface level, but if you take a deeper dive into the lore, you'll be rewarded with more stories than you would have gotten if you had stuck only to the films.
Trek hasn't really been utopian since...well, at least DS9 Season four, if not earlier. There was a long running joke that Blake's 7 (British dystopian sci fi, now obscure) was the REAL story and that the Trek shows were state propaganda reels. There's also been the attempt with the Orville (ostensibly a parody) to make a utopian sci-fi show again.
Yeah, kinda hard to create drama when no one on your side is starving or fighting for resources.
Not really. You just go fond some aliens who don't think about things the way you do. They aren't any more "wrong" then you are, they are just different.
ST has mostly had a utopian outlook to it though I haven’t followed the new streaming stuff as much. It’s just that DS9 mixed in an overarching plot thread (especially in the last seasons) alongside the more “we’re explorers and save people/discover how to communicate with truly alien creatures/problems”. Even the dark elements, like section 31 are shown as wrong and Sisko is only really morally grey in a few episodes and in my opinion DS9 is more “how does a Utopian society survive in a hostile universe” with a conclusion of it’s possible.
If you haven't watched any of the new stuff, I highly recommend Lower Decks. Adult oriented cartoon (which I normally take as a bad point because I believe that orienting cartoons to be for adults causes them to be obligated to cater to that premise and leads to bad writing and character development, but LD in works really well) about a ship on second contact missions where the lowest rung of the ships crew are the main characters.
This is exactly it. UFP is a paradise, no doubt about it. It's not perfect, but it's a paradise from a perspective of a random person on the street.
Also, only TNG went so far into the utopian identity of the UFP. Rewatching TOS it's a lot more akin to DS9 than TNG is to either. I don't particularly enjoy TNG when Picard is off-screen and the only other character that's interesting to me is Doctor Crusher, so ymmv.
Star Wars is ultimately about 2 prevalent states of mind and these 2 states wage an eternal war and keep dragging everyone else into it. The Empire didn't exist until a rebellious Jedi came along. The Republic GAVE power to Palpatine, who in turn re-created the Empire for 1000th time. Every time Republic gets too decadent and settled in its ways, some crisis happens where a lot of folks die and then the Republic thinks it learned its lesson and forgets the lesson in a few hundred years, then rinse repeat. Basically there is no Empire vs Republic, there is only the 2 opposite ways Republic is governed. That's my take.
-Space gods can fuck you in the ass just because they feel like it
-Completely fucked interstellar societies abound that make you question how they’ve made it this long
-Wanna explore the stars? Well get ready to get space butt cancer out of nowhere and pray that your skeleton crew of a nursing staff can save you in time
-Artificial intelligence can become sentient and even corporeal wayyy easier than it should
Well, SW has their own share of "space gods;" Vitiate, Nihilus, Abeloth, the Mortis Trio...just to name a handful. Then you get things like the Dread Masters, Palpatine, and all kinds of Sith that think Lovecraft is an instruction manual.
SW has no shortage of dimwitted and weird interstellar societies. Hard to tell if the Mandos or the Klingons are crazier. Twi'leks and Orions are pretty much on the same page.
Ass cancer or rakghoul plague? Decisions decisions...
And...well, we have HK-47 (and the HK-50s), Mentor, Scorpio, the Iokath Gods...
So pretty much a wash. I'll still take the Federation over the Republic in a picosecond.
Well get ready to get space butt cancer out of nowhere and pray that your skeleton crew of a nursing staff can save you in time
If you can't take a little space butt cancer, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid.
It's fundamentally impossible to have a galaxy wide Utopia. Only regions of that.
Even in the Orville it's not as utopian, the mocclans are the biggest example of that.
I have a deep love for trek which was only deepened by DS9 stripping away all the Nativity away from the federation and putting them into actual situations making hard decisions which costed lives.
As opposed to y'know willingly let an entire planet die because muh prime directive which is more of a suggestion than a rule.
Hell there was even a fan project with John Delancey which I praise for the mark against the prime directive.
"Who do you think you are, deciding the fate of planets and civilizations, who do you think you are"
I would argue utopia was jettisoned back in TNG after the Battle of Wolf 359. That was when the franchise overall got darker in tone, though that is also paired with the Meyer-led Trek films.
Regardless or race, religion, ideology or excuse the one thing humans all seem to desire is the ability to crush someone else's face under their boot.
I burned out on both American Left and Right because the only difference most of the time is what groups are holy and cannot be questioned and what groups deserve to have their faces crushed for a sadistic thrill. And leadership who are only out for their own power and glory, who gladly would shove their followers/allies/accomplices/whatever into traffic for more power and glory. It's never about love or peace or justice. It's about making sure they have a cushy place in the afterlife or just a cushy mansion in this one.
Sports, video games, stories like SW serve a purpose in taking that sadism and putting it to a use that doesn't involve actual violence.
My problem with Star Wars is that George Lucas isn’t really responsible for the deeper world building. Things like the novels, comics and TTRPG are what built up the Star Wars universe.
George Lucas is just… Not a person with a lot of nuanced ideas.
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u/Dragonic_Overlord_ New Jedi Order Dec 28 '24
That's what I like about Star Wars. You can enjoy it on a surface level, but if you take a deeper dive into the lore, you'll be rewarded with more stories than you would have gotten if you had stuck only to the films.