Star Trek

[Jazzman]

Ha ha! That's pretty funny.

[blueerica]

Ahh - this thread only serves to remind me of how much I hate Comcast since they removed all the science-named channels from the basic and basic HD programming (the HD doesn't have Spike, which also shows some Spike in the afternoons - not that I'm home to watch it) about a year and a half ago. I mean, seriously... I look through the guide, and there's all this Trek going on, and I CAN'T FRIGGING WATCH IT!!

When I was going to school (Round II, for those keeping track), I probably caught the majority of Voyager at least three times. It was always during my "off time" between school and work. *sigh* Thems was great relaxing moments.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Everyone seems to think that Vger was better than DS9, though I disagree. Discuss?

For me, DS9 had better plots and better acting. Vger did have the actual starship and old school set up. I did like the characters about as much as in DS9 but the plots got silly very quickly. Janeway's whispering....lordy.


ETA - love the youtubery, Alex. The camera shake put it over the top.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I rank the two nearly equally, though if forced to pick I'd take DS9, at least the first few seasons. Quark and Odo were good characters and I felt the show overall was better quality.

[Pirate Bill]

Once again, Wil Wheaton is in my head verbalizing what I can't. His review (review is SFW, but it's over at Suicide Girls which is NSFW) sums thing up perfectly for me. Not only because I agree 100%, but because I had the exact same thoughts and feelings, he just was able to put it down in words that I couldn't.

[Alex]

Can't read that from work (not going anywhere near Suicide Girls even if isn't blocked by the proxy -- which I'm not going to test) but did see his blog comments right after seeing it.

It would be interesting to see if he did a write up with one of his former hats on. For some web site he used to review episodes of Next Generation and pretty mercifully mocked all the writing and story sillinesses.

As for me, in pondering the movie over the last week, it is suprising. Yes, there was a drop in regard after the experience passed, but it hasn't continued. I'm still simultaneously remembering the fun of watching it and the stupidity of it all I was noticing while watching it. That pleases me.

Probably still won't see again for a very long time (I think Voyage home is the last movie I've seen more than once).

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Everyone seems to think that Vger was better than DS9, though I disagree. Discuss?

I never took to the characters on DS9. I tried and tried, but couldn't like most of them (exceptions were Odo and Quark -- in fact, I think the Ferengi were the best thing about the show, being such a classic Roddenberryish race who's entire point was to point out human foibles).

The soap-operaish plots also didn't work for me (I similarly faded from following Next Gen when they went on a Klingon soap opera binge for most of a season).


For Voyager, I preferred the Starship setting right from the get-go, and took a shine to most of the characters. Most especially Captain Janeway (omg, one of my occassional girl-crushes) and The Doctor. Mostly, though, and some of you will appreciate this -- I found the stories in the first couple of seasons to be very psychedelic-drug influenced.

I'm not sure if the writers were drug afficianados, and I've been wrong about that sort of thing before (turns out Pink Floyd weren't into psychedelics, they were boozers). But I could swear most of the episodes were penned by people who had done a lot of acid or mushrooms or peyote or all three at once.

Hence, loved Voyager.

[Alex]

The Star Trek writers talk about how some of the stupids were handled. Whether in cut footage or at least in their minds while writing.

My responses using the pages section headers:

Why Time Travel - The time travel part didn't actually bother me at all. It is a well established event in Star Trek. I do understand the view that a complete canon-separating reboot was a bit of a bait and switch but it doesn't bother me.

The Corvette - Glad they cut the scene that would have set it up even better. Too bad they didn't cut the entire thing.

Families on Board - This explanation helps, wish they would have made it clearer. Though it does still raise concerns about fraternization (but is part of canon; Kirk officiates a wedding between crewmembers in season one of the original series).

25 Year Wait - Does really help explain one of the bigger stupids in the movie, though it would raise another (why would the Klingons have done nothing with a ship from 180 years in the future except leave it around for escaping prisoners to steal back).

Coincidence on Hoth - Better a stupid coincidence than the mystical mumbo-jumbo they wanted. That would have been even stupider (though I suspect that iSm would have been keen on it; but we have pretty different world views).

Next on Jerry Springer - No problem at all with the Uhura/Spock relationship so no explanation needed.

Green Girll Blues - Thought this was somewhat self evidence, no reason to have wasted time on it. Played fine even if you didn't know how exactly he cheated the test.

Spock, Meet Spock - Also no problem (and also the same as how I answered someone's similar point earlier)

All Blowed Up - Stupid explanation. Why would a mining ship be designed to travel through black holes. Does this mean that Spock's was also so designed? Somehow this was all part of the plan? Also doesn't deal with any of the other black hole stupid in the movie.

Lens Flares: The Movie - Didn't bother me once I got used to it but I'm hearing from some that it gets more annoying on successive viewings.

Explosion Surfing - Their explanation of the stupid is just as stupid. Event horizons are determined entirely by gravity and spin, an explosion isn't going to change it. Unless I'm wrong but I don't think I am.

[innerSpaceman]

Why Time Travel - As stated, I found this the best reboot concept of all the many film reboots ever done. Plus, not only is time travel a Star Trek staple, so are Alternate Universes with doppelgangers of the same people (but, ya know, evil and with facial hair). This was brilliant storywise, and Treky up the ying-yang.


The Corvette - Yeah, set-up wasn't needed (though I would have geeked out to a pre-teen Carol Marcus). Any number of similar-results kid-rebel scenes would have worked ... most, I daresay, better than this one. But it was standard and easily accepted by me.


Families on Board - As Alex says, families traveling together is Star Trek canon. Um, and since voyages are so long, coupling and families are gonna happen anyway. I'm not aware of Starfleet ever forbidding it.


25 Year Wait - They should have left this scene in, or some better explanatory dialogue. It's a brilliant solution, that would have needed further tweeking to completely un-stupidify. But having the Romulans "prevented" from doing anything during the 25-year wait is an obvious fix. Though I suppose the more obvious fix is not to have the 25-year wait. Why was it necessary to the story? It could have been 25 days with the same story result.


Coincidence on Hoth - They picked the wrong stupid coincidence. It only got groanific when not one, but TWO Trek characters were on Hoth. Scotty's appearance as a stranded World's Greatest Starfleet Engineer was the more atrocious coindicence.

And yes, Alex, I like the "fate" angle, and that's just what I assumed. Though I put a little more spin to it to "justify" both Nero and new Spock making the boneheaded and nonsensical move of marooning their respective targets on some planet (much less the same one) instead of taking them prisoner and keeping them under their respective control.


Next on Jerry Springer - Yep, Uhura flirts with Spock in the early original series. I liked their new relationship better when, as in the turbolift scene, Uhura seems to be just openly and physically emphathetic to Spock ... but since the reveal of their relationship comes a bit later, I'm even cool with how the movie handled it. Can't wait for Pon Farr.


Green Girll Blues - I agree it played fine without knowing how he cheated. But since we've known he cheated since 1982, it would have been nice to show (not that the contemplated scened did) how he managed to be the only cadet ever to do so.

Yeah, yeah, there's no money and no disease, but don't tell me Trek-era earth students don't cheat!


Spock, Meet Spock - Not only is there no problem with it, I loved, loved, loved that Spock Prime told Spock the whole thing about temporal selves meeting each other resulting in universal armageddon is a stereotypical time travel canard that he Vulcan-lied about to manipulate baby Kirk.


All Blowed Up - the stupid part of the explanation is that the ship is "designed" to go through Black Holes, but the genuine part (and I thought obvious from the movie) is that Kirk had to destroy the ship that has been known to make it through Black Holes without a scratch.

The wiser thing to get around this stupidity would to suggest that ships at warp (such as both the Narada and Spock's ship) could travel through black holes. After all, warp is not simply a "speed." I don't know that it's ever been described in canon, but thinking of warp speed as some kind of generated field that bends space and time would not be too much of a stretch, and from there a field that survives another kind of space-and-time bender like a black hole might be a tad more plausible.


Lens Flares: The Movie - It didn't bother me the second time. I'll pay more attention the third.


Explosion Surfing - This is another standard Trek trope, but I've no problem with that. All sorts of things that wouldn't have any effect in zero-gravity environments somehow work like there's gravity in the Trek universe. The details of a real black-hole and warp core explosion may be even further in reality from TrekWorld norms, but the general concept has been well-established.


* * * * *

Nice of the writers to put this out there, tho. I think the complaints got more vocal once more people realized these were the hacks responsible for the Transfomers movie.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex

Explosion Surfing - This is another standard Trek trope, but I've no problem with that. All sorts of things that wouldn't have any effect in zero-gravity environments somehow work like there's gravity in the Trek universe. The details of a real black-hole and warp core explosion may be even further in reality from TrekWorld norms, but the general concept has been well-established.

Tangentially related to this was a welcome break from Trek trope...space was silent in this film! I didn't pay close attention to how consistent they were, but there were at least 2 scenes where they made a point of hitting mute on the sound track as the camera followed a subject from inside a ship to the vacuum of space.