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Film Theory Tackles Trek, Poorly

CABAL

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You may be familiar with the Game Theory and Film Theory videos by Matthew Patrick, or MatPat, on YouTube. The theories tend to be pretty out there, but they are usually surprisingly well researched and can get you to reconsider assumptions about your favorite game or movie. Not this time. Hang on to your top hat because this one's a doozy. Spoilers for Star Trek Beyond. Apparently there's a spoiler warning in the video, but I didn't notice it.


I can't even begin to list everything wrong in this video.
 

Chiletrek

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Hello:
Someone I know sent me a link to that video but I didn't watch it because of the spoilers (yes, there was a warning that lasted for like half a second). But I know him and his total dislike for Star Trek, so a list of the wrong things about that video would surely come in handy :D .
 

CABAL

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so a list of the wrong things about that video would surely come in handy :D .
Well, if you insist...

1) Despite claiming the Federation is fascist, he does not actually know what fascism is and conflates it with communism and Nazism.

2) He is incapable of distinguishing between Starfleet and the Federation, believing that Starfleet runs everything.
2a) He believes that Starfleet controls all interplanetary and interstellar travel within the Federation, ignoring all the civilian vessels on the show.
2b) He believes that Starfleet completely controls all production and manufacturing.
2c) He believes that all forms of communication are controlled and monitored by Starfleet.
2d) He does not understand the difference between military issued communicators and personal communication devices and believes that Starfleet owns and controls all civilian communicators.

3) He does not know what a court-martial is, how it is different from a civilian court, or that courts-martial are only used for members of the military.

4) He believes that the Federation is run by some form of dictator (probably an admiral) rather than a democratically elected president.

5) He does not understand that the Federation has a post-scarcity economy.
5a) He does not understand what a post-scarcity economy is.
5b) He believes that the Federation government completely controls a limited flow of goods and resources, doling them out to citizens like a totalitarian communist state.
5c) He claims that all economic policies that are not capitalism are inherently evil or at least intended to control the population.
5d) He believes that not having an economy based on money is intrinsically wrong.

6) He confuses the description of the Enterprise's five year mission from the intro for the Starfleet and Federation mission statement.
6a) Basically, this means that he believes the entire purpose of the Federation itself is to explore the stars and discover new stuff rather than being just one task of Starfleet that the Enterprise is specializing in.
6b) He does not realize that Starfleet is tasked with several other objectives, such as border patrol, search and rescue, etc.

7) He claims that all exploration in history has been to find new resources and that any time explorers encountered a new civilization, the nation backing them made goal number one conquering them, even though both assertions are easily disproven, and that therefor the exploration carried out by Starfleet can only be to discover new resources to exploit and new worlds to subjugate.

8) He does not seem to be aware of the entry process for prospective Federation member worlds and seems to be under the impression that all member worlds were coerced into joining in some manner.

9) He is not familiar with the Prime Directive or that it precludes interference with the inner workings of other governments.

10) He does not understand that the crews of the show follow a military hierarchy and that the captain throwing a crew member in the brig or confining them to quarters is not a violation of their rights.

11) He does not understand that the Federation has not been founded yet during ENT or that ENT's Earth Starfleet is not the same as the Federation Starfleet.

12) He posits that the Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians are merely defending themselves against an expansionist, fascist, conquering Federation, despite mountains of evidence that the Romulan and Cardassian governments are actually totalitarian fascist states and that the Klingon government is a self proclaimed and proud conquering empire with a feudal system for its government, while also ignoring that the Federation has never been the aggressor in conflicts with these factions.

13) He believes that the phrase, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few," is textbook fascist thinking, that the sentiment is not shared by other philosophies, and that the claim itself is not just wrong, but he also implies that believing in the sentiment behind it, and by extension altruism itself, is wrong on a moral level.

14) He contradicts himself several times throughout the video.

There might be more issues that I can't remember, too.
 

dvatreknerd314

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Based on your criticisms Cabal, it seems this guy bases his opinion on nothing more than the JJ-verse films. Considering the Federation was described as a "humanitarian armada" rather than a government in the first video, some of the conclusions this guy came to aren't at all surprising.
 

CABAL

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I just remembered another one.

15) He believes that Section 31 is an official part of the government with governmental oversight, not a rogue faction within Starfleet.
15a) He believes that all actions taken by Section 31 are not only legal under Federation law, but also have the support of the Federation government. This includes
the terrorist actions undertaken by Khan and Marcus.

Based on your criticisms Cabal, it seems this guy bases his opinion on nothing more than the JJ-verse films.
What's really weird is that he claims to have watched every series and movie and frequently brings up stuff from the original timeline, specifically criticizing a court-martial from TOS (because, like I said, he doesn't understand how a court-martial differs from a civilian court). It's like he did the research, but ignored or threw out anything that didn't support his claim.
 

Chiletrek

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Hello:
Cabal, thank you very much for taking all the time to write that list, it surely should remain as evidence of someone that knows about Star Trek, not like that guy that can make a video just to create some polemic and gain views, viewers and money.
 
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