That philosophizes, that (dare I say) makes you a better person.
They don't make 'em like this anymore.

Yes, yes, I know all the bad stuff about Star Trek. It's atheist, anti-religion, Gene Roddenberry was a perv, etc.
But it's still "light years" ahead of anything they've made in the past 25 years.

Good sci-fi is primarily philosophical, which is why I enjoyed (classic) sci-fi books as a kid, and movies when I was older. The more they make you think, the better.



The part where Q lists the decisive moments in Picard's original life -- that is my favorite part.

There are many heresies in science fiction. The worst is where they get into a machine and end up somewhere else and off they go. Now whatever about the body, it assumes body and soul are inseparable. 

I was thinking about the topic of "why should a Trad watch something fantastical like Star Trek TNG in 2025?"

You really have to take it more of a fantasy than something realistic or scientific per se. I guess the thing with Science-Fiction is that they make it more or less believable. Sci-fi has hard "rules" rather than fantasy where it's all just the writer's imagination, and there's no hard system of science at play.

If you "just" pretend that God doesn't exist, we're all living on spinning wobbling balls in "outer space", and that we evolved by blind chance (which most of the world believes today, for example) then Star Trek is actually internally consistent. Consider it a "thought experiment". What would be the result if these things were true? What *problems* do you have in Star Trek's universe? (such as all the aliens being "humanoid" or more or less human shaped).
They had one episode that explained this: some ancient alien "seeded" our part of the galaxy, which resulted in so many species that basically looked like those humanoid aliens.

I guess what I'm saying is that Star Trek is like "considering an idea without immediately accepting or rejecting it". You're not absorbing the whole thing and making it part of you; you're keeping the whole thing in your mental "holding area" or "quarantine room". You can't watch it like it's true, the Gospel, etc. You should watch it like a proposition, basically you "suspend disbelief" and just watch the show, which gives you various food for thought. You might enjoy the good characters, the interaction between the characters, the exciting, interesting, and thought-provoking plots or themes, etc.

For sci-fi, the setting of outer space (etc.) is supposed to be just a DEVICE or setting for the author to explore deep, human, psychological themes. If a work of art is good, it will teach you something about human nature. Star Trek might be fantastical, but it was quite realistic about many of its philosophical themes and reflecting human nature. (the episode of the Metamorph comes to mind: a woman who is extremely malleable at first, but after a few days "imprints" on a certain man and becomes the perfect woman for him alone, and then ought to be with him basically until death. That is basically how women work! just not quite so dramatic.)

I bring up Star Trek TNG because I consider the 90's to be peak cinema :) In other words, you HAD good writing, good actors, good plots, etc. back then. Without that, sci-fi would be so much garbage. I'm biased, but I also think there's a lot of truth to the fact that they don't make em like this anymore.

I always liked StarTrek, but when I think about Kyiv I prefer to watch Mayberry.

That philosophizes, that (dare I say) makes you a better person.
They don't make 'em like this anymore.

Yes, yes, I know all the bad stuff about Star Trek. It's atheist, anti-religion, Gene Roddenberry was a perv, etc.
But it's still "light years" ahead of anything they've made in the past 25 years.

Good sci-fi is primarily philosophical, which is why I enjoyed (classic) sci-fi books as a kid, and movies when I was older. The more they make you think, the better.



The part where Q lists the decisive moments in Picard's original life -- that is my favorite part.

I enjoyed Stargate.