Ok, I have read through all of the avaiable posting so far, and all of you have a part of the whole. And some of you are probibly not noticing that you are agreeing with each other, so I will try to put it all together. Since you all seem to be tossing Star Wars & Star Trek around I will use them for my discussion. Star Trek, written by the late Gene Rodenbery, was writen in the middle to late 60''s. This was a time of great racial & social differences. This was also a time of war and hostilites. The Klingons were addmitedly a portrail of the Russians with a couplign of Fudal Japan Honor structure (addmited by Rodenberry himself some years ago). But as a writer he needed to find a way to relate this unknown to viewers watching their TV''s. To give them something to relate to. And if you look at he main characters of the show itself, not even its alines, there were many thick sterotypes. Kirk, the headstrong, hot blooded, brash, young american who thinks he can do anything. Sulu, the Asian pilot, who in one episode they showed affinity to martial arts when bridge members were going mad. MaCoy, the older, patient southern doctor. Uhura, the black female communications officer/singer. Scotty (Sterotypical Scottish name, that even in a way makes fun of the people) the sterotypical enginer. Chekov, the weapons expert with a thick russian expert who continually said that his people invented, and created everything, making fun of how the Russians during some time periods educated their people to believe such things. Star Trek was founded on the platform of racial differences and sterotypes, with that said, look where it is today. 9 movies, 30 years of off/on TV shows. Because people who sat down to watch the show, immediatly recognized the sterotypes, and could, in there own way relate to the characters. Even Spock, The unemotional highly advanced above humans, with mental and psionic powers fits some sterotypes about aliens. Once a writer uses this technique to build out a standard, they then can break this standard as a plot point to increase intrest. Star Trek NG is a perfect example of this with a Klingon rased by Humans that eventually molds his human upbringing with his Klingon background to create a hybrid set of belief''s. Personaly, Warf and the end of NG, and during DS9 was a much more interesting character than day one of NG. Data was an example of playing off of a possible sterotype of Artifical Intelligence. Also he is an example of the computer/information age effecting the writing. I also would like to point out that in the original movie, there were tons of sterotypes used. The empire was a sterotypical Nazi regime down the the costumes, they were the master race. Droids could even been seen as a salve race. But these things are all left up to interpretaion. The fact that some of you are so passionate about these issues and that you recognize them in the movies, is just what the writer wanted. Now you have been sucked in, and they are making money off of your interest from tickets purchased, ratings genreated from watching the shows (and the advertisements) and the books you buy. It is a proven fact the almost everything you look at in the media can in one way or another be viewed as a racial or societal sterotype, but then again, the breaking of those sterotypes when you least expect it is what ends up sucking you into the writers world. Thanks for the ears, please feel free to attack/support/deny/agree to anything I have had to say, the discussion is what counts.