I've heard a few people complain already and seem to recall reading a couple of stories about people who already have bad things to say about our new show. There aren't enough white people, the main character is black, the main character is a woman, not enough men, not enough white people, the ship doesn't look like other Starfleet ships, the Klingons look weird, etc. I'm curious if anyone on Steemit that feels this way would be interested in a discussion about it.
To me, Star Trek has always been sort of a hope for the future. Hope that someday people will get past minor differences like race, gender, beliefs, sexual orientation, etc and just see each other as beings worthy of at the very least a minimum level of respect and freedom. I imagine if/when we someday come into contact with alien beings and they are similar enough to us to communicate we would have to reevaluate how different we really are from other humans. Sure, some of us may look different or think differently but that doesn't take away their value.
Having characters that aren't white men really isn't all that implausible. If you think about it, in the Federation there are hundreds of worlds with hundreds of non-humanoid species. Once those species begin to intermingle the number of humans, men, and white men will be diluted with the vast diversity the federation offers. Personally, I'm a big fan of DS9. I wouldn't like it any more or any less if the Captain had been a white male. Avery Brooks wasn't super popular at first either but now can you imagine the Emissary as anyone else? The stories were deep, the characters were very well developed, and the story arc was something that was much larger than other TV shows at the time. Rather than resetting the universe every hour there were long term consequences to everything. Discovery is supposed to be a lot like that and I'm excited.
The ships do look a little different but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I love the look of the Starfleet vessels but this is sometime between Enterprise and TOS. The ships look cool and we've only seen a few.
Klingons at first were unrecognizable and I get why some people may not like that. I love traditional Klingons and think the depth of that species is part of what makes Star Trek so great. Maybe these Klingons are augments, maybe they aren't but it really doesn't matter. I kind of hope that these are a different race of Klingon. In the other series all members of a different species (save a few like Bajoran) had the same haircut, looked more or less the same, had the same culture. I'm hoping that these Klingons may be something different and the original Klingons still exist. I'd like to see more creativity when it comes to aliens.
Overall, I'm super excited about this show and can't wait to love it like I love the other series. Please feel free to correct me or tell me I'm wrong. I enjoy chatting/debating about Star Trek and would like to hear other viewpoints on the subject.
Qapla'
Jolan Tru
Live Long and Prosper