Futurama is More Realistic than Star Trek

One Small Step

Back in 1999, when we were all partying like that’s what year it was, a scrappy little cartoon came out from artist Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons. Groening followed his smashing success of The Simpsons, a commentary on The Nuclear Family, by presenting us with his stylized version of the future. This future included talking toasters, walking soda machines, Horrible Gelatinous Blob, evil giant brains and even a few mad scientists. In this future Groening pokes fun at the basic, sometimes constant, frustrations of living on (and around) Earth while also making fun of it. This cartoon is called Futurama and it is wonderful.

I want to preface this with the fact that Star Trek: The Next Generation was largely my only friend growing up. I can get weepy when I recall the companionship that I felt watching those characters grow and evolve on the screen every week. There was also a great deal of nachos. Having said all this I’ll make my point: I find Futurama a more believable version of the future than Star Trek.

Brent Spiner got a great deal of screen time playing his entire 'family'

The Star Trek world is well known for presenting a future that can be somewhat sterile. Indeed the future in Star Trek has been tamed with subservient computers that feature the sexy voice of important widows. We have bathroom sinks that slide open upon request and trickle small water features that have optimum lighting effects and no discernible flushing sounds. Later, holographic doctors heal patients and press for equality with other sentient beings. A live action Pinocchio story is lived out by an android yearning to be more than merely the sum of his bill of materials. But with short hairdos and enthusiastically well rounded individuals that play instruments, dance in theater productions and otherwise gallivant through space and time all the while fulfilling their enlistment to Starfleet, who wouldn’t want to be man?

I don't buy this

Roddenberry promised us a glorious future of unity and civility. There was even tea – Earl Grey – and it was hot. Space gigolos flew from sector to sector spreading the seeds of humanity, democracy and hierarchical command structures. All of mankind’s problems vanished once we learned the ability to create matter from energy. All world hunger was solved and peace reined supreme. Planets would unite into a single government as a crucial step to joining the Federation of Planets. Sexy(?) white men would conquer women of all races and solve complex diplomatic issues all while wearing boots. Fabulous. No one argues this.

Matt Groening brought us a more far-out future, but one that I feel is much more believable. In the pilot episode of Futurama, we see people in line to use an automated suicide booth. There we meet a robot that also wants to end it all. This suicide booth is programmed with a cheerful, even perky voice that asks “quick and painless or slow and horrible?” After this an attempt is then made to up sell having your eyes gauged out with a melon baller for $10 more. Not only are the people lining up to commit suicide, but our machines are right there beside us in our depression and lunacy. A company has capitalized on it all and there are even add-ons to raise their bottom line. Isn’t the free market grand?

Woo!

The future does include sliding doors that operate with a “swoosh” sound but these do tend to go awry and catch the traveler on the head when one stops to marvel at them. Eventually the audience is allowed to see this same robot even become a human being. Promptly he becomes disgustingly obese, then goes on a massive one week binge and dies just before being capriciously awarded a Nobel Prize for chemistry. Like they just give those to people. Oh yeah.

The beverage of the Futurama is the canned excretion from a giant space worm. It’s marketing simply says “Slurm: It’s Highly Addictive!” I find the truthiness of this statement refreshing. Slurm is highly additive and so is Tea. Other products available in vending machines include actual vials of crack, though like their non-robotic counterparts they cannot be counted on to “not hold out on you.” Here one could say Groening is showing us that the future doesn’t hold a large amount of promise in regards to mankind’s more basal issues – just that in the future it will be automated and often poorly so.

And which one of them rocked your world?

Speaking of space gigolos, nobody detests the caricature of barrel-chested machismo that was Captain James T. Kirk as portrayed by William Shatner in the original Star Trek more than I. I will say though that he was undeniably enjoyed by so very many since the show’s debut in 1966 and the series went on to spawn an entire franchise, though I think there was more to it then just Kirk. Or Spock. Or McCoy. Or even Uhura. I have to stop listing.* But one of the best features of Futurama is Zapp Brannigan: a doughy, blonde, blowhard who leans on his subordinate and wrecks every ship he commands. His ego is as large as his velour skirt bottom is small. He chases women endlessly and makes war at any chance he can get. It’s a treat to see him chasing tail in space and leaving a trail of disaster behind him every where he goes. I find this to be a more accurate representation of how men will act in space when given the flagship of an entire Democratic Order of Planets.

What say you? How do you envision the future of mankind in space?

Futurama photos courtesy of Fox. Star Trek images courtesy of Paramount Studios.

* Definitely it was Sulu. Shirtless and brandishing a sword.

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