gehenna: @finewine that line was changed in the late 80s for Star Trek The Next Generation. Get over it.

Jeez - it is an opinion not a slit your wrists

It's an outdated and dumb opinion, you shared it so don't be surprised at the replies.

FineWine:

 

Now I am not a Trekkie but they have changed the words of the theme song. "Where No Man Has Gone Before" to "Where No One Has Gone Before".

 

This is PC madness. It sort of indicates that prior to Captain James T. Kirk there was no misogyny and in the time of the famous Captain there was. This pre Captain James T. Kirk series they even have Lt Uhura, African American female, which was quite TV ground breaking in the original series, so why change the themes words.

 

Just wrong. Who produced this show to allow just a grievous change?

 

I agree with the other commenters - what a weird thing to get upset about. The fact is, language changes, and I'm not sure if you realise this, but although the original series was set in the 23rd century, it was actually filmed in the mid-1960s. At that time it was accepted that "man" sometimes meant "a male" and sometimes was a gender-neutral term standing in for "mankind" - ie. all of humanity. 

Obviously this can lead to confusion when the standard word for an adult male can mean either "male"/"male and female", and "an individual"/"all people" depending on context. (Possibly why Armstrong muffed his scripted "One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind" line).

Unsurprisingly, when people were surveyed on the use of "man" in its "mankind" meaning, they found that instead of thinking of term being gender-neutral, they found that the vast majority of readers envisaged solely men.

Thus as Gene Roddenberry was, in your words "PC", and envisioned an inclusive future, they made the simple change in the following Star Trek series to instead use the phrase "where no one has gone before" - an easy change to make that doesn't change the line's rhythm, and doesn't implicitly exclude half of humanity.

The fact is that the culture at the time of filming definitely impacted what happened in the original series: this prequel series is based on the original Star Trek pilot episode "The Cage", which didn't yet have Uhura but did have the second in command poisition being held by a woman. In what even Leonard Nimoy described as “sexual inequality”, NBC changed that before the first broadcast episode because they didn’t think anyone would believe that a woman would be second in command of a starship.

As far as the original series Lt Uhura character goes, that too was affected by the culture of the time: unfortunately the most ground-breaking thing about having her on the Enterprise was simply her presence as a black woman in a non-subservient position, rather than her character's actions or responsibilities. eg when all the other deck officers are stuck on a planet in "Catspaw", they put a random minor Lieutenant character in charge of the ship rather than having Uhura command, and after originally wearing the executive officer/department head yellow uniform in the series, she was quickly changed to the lower-status red one. 

NBC also wasn't keen airing the first ever kiss between a fictional white man and black woman on American television in "Plato's Stepchildren", so requested an alternative non-kiss take, which Shatner and Nichols ruined by deliberately flubbing all non-kiss versions. 

The fact is, Nichols was so frustrated by her character's limitations that she handed in her notice at the end of the first season before Martin Luther King convinced her that Uhura was a vital role for people across the country to see black people being treated as equals. 

FineWine:

 

Now I am not a Trekkie but they have changed the words of the theme song. "Where No Man Has Gone Before" to "Where No One Has Gone Before".

 

This is PC madness. It sort of indicates that prior to Captain James T. Kirk there was no misogyny and in the time of the famous Captain there was. This pre Captain James T. Kirk series they even have Lt Uhura, African American female, which was quite TV ground breaking in the original series, so why change the themes words.

 

Just wrong. Who produced this show to allow just a grievous change?

 

Well, I am someone that holds the opposite view.  

As someone  that does not hold the same binary view of the world that ones post seems to indicate.  I find it refreshing to see the rest of us were given some thought in the theme tune.

Just watched ep 4 this morning, I'm very sold on this series so far, its great

Enjoying SNW's so far, has a nice episodic feel to it like SNG. Nice to see the SNW crew getting their own genuine story time, my major gripe about Discovery is it's 99% a Cpt Burnham show. Also Cpt Pike has the personality of a mouldy old spud!

SNW started broadcasting free-to-air on TVNZ 2 this afternoon at 15:55.  So I can watch without ads by getting MythTV to skip them.

Kookoo: This is definitely getting better. The only thing that worries me about it at the moment is that I keep getting Arivda ads on TVNZ OnDemand. :D Just how old do they think the average Star Trek fan is?!

It’s ondemand, its signed up to Google and a bunch of other cookie providers, so unless you’re  blocking a bunch of things, they will probably know a little bit about where you’ve been before...  there probably isn’t an “average fan” any more... it’s all personalised 

wellygary:

Kookoo: This is definitely getting better. The only thing that worries me about it at the moment is that I keep getting Arivda ads on TVNZ OnDemand. :D Just how old do they think the average Star Trek fan is?!

 

It’s ondemand, its signed up to Google and a bunch of other cookie providers, so unless you’re  blocking a bunch of things, they will probably know a little bit about where you’ve been before...  there probably isn’t an “average fan” any more... it’s all personalised 

Kookoo: One thing I don't recommend is reflecting on an episode. Because once you start thinking through it you realise just how badly written this show is, and that really takes away from your ability to enjoy it.

Its Star Trek not Shakespeare :).

Just enjoy it in all its crazy awesomeness,

SNW has great pace, and doesn't really give you much time to think about it while its happening,  which is exactly what "take me on a ride" TV should do...

wellygary:

 

Kookoo: One thing I don't recommend is reflecting on an episode. Because once you start thinking through it you realise just how badly written this show is, and that really takes away from your ability to enjoy it.

 

Its Star Trek not Shakespeare :).

 

Just enjoy it in all its crazy awesomeness,

 

SNW has great pace, and doesn't really give you much time to think about it while its happening,  which is exactly what "take me on a ride" TV should do...

 

That's why it's much closer to what the original series was like, before TNG and Sir Patrick Stewart brought Shakespeare into the Star Trek park.