So what do you guys like about Star Trek?

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 12:04 am

No amount of good acting by Patrick Stewart can save the train wreck script and bone-headed cinematography of Nemesis though

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Wesley Street · Post by **Wesley Street** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 1:24 pm

Stewart appeared to be very, very tired in Nemesis.

I, a huge ST geek for 20+ years, actually skipped it in the theater. When I caught it on DVD my initial thought was, "Other than the actors, were there any actual Star Trek people involved in this production?"

The problem with Enterprise is that the alternate opening credits where everything is warlike is the highlight of the entire show. That was literally their best joke and their most engaging plotline. And it's basically just "What if we all wore black hats and chewed the scenery for a bit?"

I enjoyed it as an origin story for the Mirror Universe and as an exercise in seeing how the writers could cram as much ST:TOS continuity into it. So not only did you have the Mirror Universe but you had Enterprise actors wearing TOS costumes and marching around re-creations of sets from the 1960s, complete with blinking switches and colored mood lighting. Plus, CGI Gorn. It was awesome in how completely jarring it was.

fixed broken quote tag --Z

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 1:33 pm

Maxus wrote: Patrick Stewart is one of the reasons I ever watched Star Trek as a kid. I like Captain Picard.

I never really liked the TNG crew at all. They seemed completely fucking incompetent. It was like Wesley or Data was going to solve every problem and typically Wesley would try to tell Riker or Picard and they'd be all "STFU Kid!" And take the rest of the fucking episode figuring out what Wesley already figured out.

Picard's answer to every problem was to call a meeting, even if it was in the middle of combat... The guy really felt like he wasn't a decision maker at all.

Wesley Street · Post by **Wesley Street** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 4:49 pm

Wesley's Boy Genius quality was nerfed in the third season when he simply became the de facto helmsman.

TNG didn't really kick into gear until the third season. The first two seasons involved weeding out Roddenberry's more painful ideas: unisex skirt uniforms, kids running around in the Engineering section, etc. At some point in the third season, Picard became more of a captain and less of a CEO.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 6:25 pm

Wesley Street wrote:unisex skirt uniforms

*shudder*

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 9:16 pm

I like the TOS, DS9, and even the VOY crews.

TNG's crew mostly leaves me cold. I dislike both of the Crushers, Troi, Worf, and Riker. Geordi is mostly a non-entity. Data is a great character, Picard is good. I must have seen the wrong episodes because Wesley is nowhere near as annoying to me as the TNG fanbase says. But then again I don't find that Jar-Jar is the anti-Christ either or is even the worst character in the Star Wars franchise.

For the record, I think that VOY actually has the second-best crew if you ignore Neelix, it's just that the potential was completely wasted by bad writing. If VOY had DS9 or TNG's stable of writers the show could've been amazing. But instead it's a fucking waste.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 10:23 pm

Voyager has two good characters. The Doctor and the Borg Chick. They are both very charismatic actors and they both had some good character development thrown on them. Everyone else on that entire ship is a lame non-entity who would be better replaced with any of their opposite number from any other series (Enterprise does not count because it is anathema).


Voyager Character	TOS	TNG	DS9
Janeway	Kirk	Picard	Sisko
Chakotay	Spock	Riker	Kira
Tuvok	Chekov	Worf	Odo
Torres	Scotty	LaForge	O'Brien
Paris	Sulu	Data	Dax
Neelix	Uhura	Troi	Quark

It's harsh but true. While you can make a strong argument that all of the shows would have been improved by 7 of 9 or The Doctor, all the standard crew positions were held by inferior substitutes. The left hand column is the worst. Across the board and without exception. Often by a wide wide margin.

-Username17

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 11:23 pm

Wesley Street wrote:Stewart appeared to be very, very tired in Nemesis.

To quote one of the snarkiest reviews of Nemesis, he was probably thinking "Thank God I signed up for X-men".

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Tue Jun 22, 2010 3:14 am

Somebody please fix their quotes. :/

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Jun 22, 2010 3:51 am

FrankTrollman wrote: It's harsh but true. While you can make a strong argument that all of the shows would have been improved by 7 of 9 or The Doctor, all the standard crew positions were held by inferior substitutes. The left hand column is the worst. Across the board and without exception. Often by a wide wide margin.

-Username17

Tuvok is a better character than Chekov and Worf. Torres is better than Monty by default and better than a spineless milksop like LaForge, a man who even got made fun of in Boondocks.

Chakotay sucks, mostly because the character didn't try, but he's still a better character than Riker who is a classic example of a failed Mary Sue. Tuvok and Chakotay could've been badass, but they were spoiled by bad writing.

I guess I just don't care for the TNG cast.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jun 22, 2010 5:02 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
Tuvok is a better character than Chekov and Worf. Torres is better than Monty by default and better than a spineless milksop like LaForge, a man who even got made fun of in Boondocks.

Chakotay sucks, mostly because the character didn't try, but he's still a better character than Riker who is a classic example of a failed Mary Sue. Tuvok and Chakotay could've been badass, but they were spoiled by bad writing.

I guess I just don't care for the TNG cast.

No fucking way. Let's start by comparing a good Geordi LaForge episode like Relics to... absolutely any Torres episode ever made. There's just no comparison. Torres is a shitty character.

Now let's do the same for Tuvok, Can you think of any episodes which show Tuvok in a positive or even interesting light? No. You can't. Because he's a shitty character. Meanwhile compare to a decent Worf episode like Parallels or a decent Chekhov episode like Spectre of the Gun.

Finally, you don't have to like Riker, a number of people didn't like him, especially in the early seasons. I could have a discussion about his importance as a foil character and his utility in demonstrating a continuity with th two fisted nature of TOS, but it's not even necessary. He even has a TV Trope named after him. But seriously? Chakotay? Chakotay has Maori Tatttoos on his face and Native American sorcery for no fucking reason. He's offensive. Your show seriously gets negative points for Chaktay.

-Username17

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Jun 22, 2010 5:13 am

I liked the cast in TNG, Wesley and Troi being the only ones I didn't really care for. As for Voyager, I probably watched more of that than I rightfully should have, considering the writing. The Doctor was awesome, and I really liked Neelix; he pulled off the fish-out-of-water outsider fairly well, and his best episode was the one where he came back from death. The rest of Voyager...meh. Seven of Nine was downright annoying & overused.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Jun 22, 2010 5:15 am

I wouldn't even have put Torres on the list, honestly.

-Crissa

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Tue Jun 22, 2010 5:35 am

Shouldn't it be Tuvok = Data and Paris = Worf?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jun 22, 2010 6:08 am

Zinegata wrote:Shouldn't it be Tuvok = Data and Paris = Worf?

No. Because Tuvok is Security, like Work. While Data is an Operations officer.

-Username17

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Tue Jun 22, 2010 8:23 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
Zinegata wrote:Shouldn't it be Tuvok = Data and Paris = Worf?
No. Because Tuvok is Security, like Work. While Data is an Operations officer.

-Username17

I was actually responding to Lago's post. You're comparing characters based on their jobs. But that's not their role.

Really, for comparison it should be Spock -> Data -> Odo -> Tuvok. In this regard Tuvok failed miserably and got progressively written out and replaced by Seven of Nine and the Doctor, who occupy the "Emotionless being trying to be human" schtick that's present in every Star Trek show (and who's almost always the most popular character).

Tuvok, if anything, should really be compared to Wesley. A failed character eventually given a smaller role.

The 'action guy' transitions from Worf -> Kira (fails, but that's ok because she's better as Sisko's foil anyway) -> Worf again -> Paris. For TOS Kirk carries the Action Guy role on top of being the Captain.

Personally, I think Seven/Doctor is a decent successor to Data, Odo, and Spock. Not better, but good enough not to make me dislike either.

Tom Paris was also pretty okay as the "action guy". Much less annoyingly angsty as Worf can get, while not being reknowned for getting tossed around by the newest big bad.

Also, Star Trek has always been pretty racially offensive, even if it's a rather unconscious racism.

Every race in the galaxy follows some sort of stereotype except humans. Klingons are space viking idiots. Ferengi are capitalist bastards. Cardassians are treacherous bastards. And so on. The only way for an alien character to escape these stereotypes is to have contact with humans. Which, if I one replaced Klingons/Ferengi/Cardassians with Germans/Indians/Whatever, honestly reeks of White Man's Burden.

Humans are special and it's up to us to teach the unwashed alien masses how to think independently. And that kind of thinking honestly sucks and has to go (which is also why Mass Effect is so refreshing).

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Tue Jun 22, 2010 9:48 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote: Tuvok is a better character than Chekov and Worf. Torres is better than Monty by default and better than a spineless milksop like LaForge, a man who even got made fun of in Boondocks.

Yeah, Chekov did basically nothing except mix up Ws and Vs. Worf didn't really get good until he joined DS9, where they really started to make him badass. He sucked on TNG. LaForge was bland as hell. Though I liked Scotty. I'd take him over Torres.

Chakotay sucks, mostly because the character didn't try, but he's still a better character than Riker who is a classic example of a failed Mary Sue. Tuvok and Chakotay could've been badass, but they were spoiled by bad writing.

I thought Tuvok did a decent job. I mean he was kind of bland, but he was supposed to be that way since he was a Vulcan.

Chakotay was bland as fuck though, and easily the worst of the 1st officers by a large margin. Riker was actually pretty badass in a few episodes, like the one where Picard gets assimilated. I can't remember Chakotay ever doing anything awesome.

And yeah, I never cared for the TNG crew either.

I didn't really find Janeway that terrible of a character, it was mostly just that they made her do so much stupid stuff, so I blame the writers for her. Overall though, I'd probably rather have her as a captain than Picard, since like Janeway actually had some balls to do stuff instead of calling a fucking meeting every 5 seconds like Picard did. I mean Patrick Stewart is a way better actor than whoever played Janeway, but the command style of Picard just annoyed the hell out of me to the point that watching him do anything reminded me more of Spaceballs than any legitimate commander.

I remember one episode where the ship is infected with a rapidly spreading illness and Picard gets infected and has to turn command over to LaForge. He doesn't give LaForge any kind of advice about like what to do about the emergency or contingency plans in case it gets worse. No, instead he tells him to make sure he keeps up to date on his log entries. Seriously, wtf? You've got an epidemic going on, and you're worried about keeping up log entries? I mean I can understand they're trying to establish that Picard is this by the book stuffy old captain, but lets show some real leadership and give some helpful instructions to a guy not really used to commanding a starship.

Fucking Picard.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Tue Jun 22, 2010 10:20 am

Janeway's problem is that she vascillates between being Lawful Good to being Chaotic Neutral. She's upholding the Prime Directive in one episode and nuking people the next.

And yet she never seems to be bothered by the inconsistencies (or even consequences) of her actions. Which, in the real world, would make her either make her very weird or a Stepford smiling basket case.

Picard was actually fairly consistent and diplomatic - which is what TNG is about. While I'm not a huge fan of a show revolving around diplomacy, I can certainly respect Stewart and the TNG writers for at least keeping things mainly consistent.

Funnily, they made Janeway an Admiral in Nemesis, while Picard remains a Captain. Maybe after a couple of wars the Federation decided it was better to have Admirals who weren't such Prime Directive stick in the muds? It's worth noting that one of the primary antagonists in Insurrection is also a Federation admiral who's flouting the Prime Directive.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Tue Jun 22, 2010 10:49 am

Zinegata wrote: Funnily, they made Janeway an Admiral in Nemesis, while Picard remains a Captain. Maybe after a couple of wars the Federation decided it was better to have Admirals who weren't such Prime Directive stick in the muds? It's worth noting that one of the primary antagonists in Insurrection is also a Federation admiral who's flouting the Prime Directive.

Well Janeway actually had some like leadership skills. Sure, she was inconsistent as fuck in her decisions, but she actually made them.

Picard was pretty much a diplomat. Not a starship captain. And while I think he was a good diplomat, he's really not the kind of person I'd want to count on when the phasers start firing. I've seen episodes where the Romulans surprise attack him and he totally doesn't even return fire. At all.

Kirk, Janeway or Sisko would be all too happy to blow their asses out of space.

Wesley Street · Post by **Wesley Street** » Tue Jun 22, 2010 12:45 pm

The effectiveness of a Star Trek character is based on three points:
1. quality of writing
2. the performer's acting chops
3. how effectively the character fits one of the standard Trek Archetypes; as follows...

The Leader: Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer
The Lady Killer: Kirk, Riker, Bashir, Paris, Tucker
The Babe: Uhura, Troi, Dax, Kes/7-of-9, T'Pol
The "Alien": Spock, Data, Odo, 7-of-9, T'Pol
The Warrior: Sulu, Worf, Sisko, Torres, Reed
The Folksy Everyman: McCoy, Riker, Quark, Neelix, Phlox
The Nerd/Mechanic: Scotty, LaForge, O'Brien, Kim, Sato
The Kid: Chekov, Wesley, Jake, Kes, Mayweather

Kirk filled so many roles, it's no wonder he was so popular.

If a Trek character doesn't fit into one of those molds, the writing sucks, or the actor can't act, it's sunk.

Other than being the person to go to when someone gets sick, Gates McFadden's Dr. Crusher had no other role than to be Picard's love interest. McFadden's not a bad actress but her character didn't do anything interesting. When the writers tried to turn her from a staff officer to a line officer it was eye-rolling.

Yar was more interesting as a corpse. Denise Crosby can't act either and her role in "Yesterday's Enterprise" was the most interesting thing the character ever did.

Chakotay was a stereotypical Amerind. He was the rebel leader but always deferred to Janeway so he wasn't a particularly effective as a counterpoint to the prim and proper "Starfleet" way. He might have been an effective bad boy if Paris hadn't grabbed that bit.

Tuvok was a potted plant. Torres was the angry one so he couldn't serve as The Warrior. The only way to make a Vulcan security officer work would to portray him as a martial artist monk type but the writers didn't bother giving him any action scenes other than button pressing. He was Black Spock in the background, there to provide more ethnic diversity.

With Jennifer Lien's departure (and I don't blame her) Jeri Ryan was brought in to sex up VOY even more as a naughty librarian. The producers didn't even bother giving her a uniform, just a sexy catsuit, even though all of the outlaw Maquis crew wore the standard jumper. I found that mildly offensive and it continued with T'Pol in ENT.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Aug 01, 2010 6:34 pm

Wesley Street wrote: Chakotay was a stereotypical Amerind. He was the rebel leader but always deferred to Janeway so he wasn't a particularly effective as a counterpoint to the prim and proper "Starfleet" way. He might have been an effective bad boy if Paris hadn't grabbed that bit.

Ugh, Chakotay seems to be getting worse as time goes on. Like they crank up his Native American-ness for no reason other than to substitute for character development.

The character could've been extremely badass. I guess that's why I liked him (and Tuvok for the matter), more for his potential than for what actually came of him. But he hit the ground like a bag of pureed tomatoes.

I was sort of charmed by Voyager's So Bad It's Good quality at first, but the luster is starting to wear off and it's becoming irritating. They have so many good ideas on this show but they could never pull them off. I totally see why Richard Berman and Brannon Braga get cursed out by the fanbase by now. Though I think Jeri Taylor shares some responsibility, too.

K · Post by K » Sun Aug 01, 2010 8:01 pm

Wesley Street wrote: With Jennifer Lien's departure (and I don't blame her) Jeri Ryan was brought in to sex up VOY even more as a naughty librarian. The producers didn't even bother giving her a uniform, just a sexy catsuit, even though all of the outlaw Maquis crew wore the standard jumper. I found that mildly offensive and it continued with T'Pol in ENT.

People focus on her hotness as the reason she revitalized Voyager, but they always overlook the fact that she provided an opposing viewpoint to Federation ethics and ideas. The fact that she did so while looking wicked hot and being a genius with all forms of tech is just a bonus. The bartender on TNG was next to useless, and ended up being one of the better characters because she actually had something to say about people in general.

I mean, the "good" characters in the series bring a different viewpoint. Spock and Data are not great characters because they are super smart, but because they both look at humanity from the cold view of logic (one disdainfully, and one from envy).

The original series got it's "other viewpoint" quota filled by having blacks and Asians and foreigners. When the other series failed to make memorable characters, it was because we've come a long way in race and cultural relations in the last forty years so an interracial kiss isn't a TV milestone. Being a non-white male does not make it easier to write critiques about human nature, which is the bread and butter of Star Trek as a franchise.

This is why someone like Kira is a great character (she used to be a rebel and brings that to the table), and Tuvok sucks monkey ballz (he's a Vulcan, but as a Vulcan he never actually says anything about humanity despite his race, even though he could).

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Aug 02, 2010 5:06 am

K wrote: People focus on her hotness as the reason she revitalized Voyager, but they always overlook the fact that she provided an opposing viewpoint to Federation ethics and ideas. The fact that she did so while looking wicked hot and being a genius with all forms of tech is just a bonus. The bartender on TNG was next to useless, and ended up being one of the better characters because she actually had something to say about people in general.

Yeah, Seven had a unique perspective and Jeri Ryan actually had some good acting skills too, if you actually paid attention to what she was saying instead of her boobs.

Her and the Doctor were definitely the best acting talent on the show.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Mon Aug 02, 2010 12:43 pm

I think K nailed it.

Also, I distinctly recall Seven being the only one to call out Janeway on her inconsistent decisions. And ended up doing babysitter duty as punishment for questioning her Captain

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Absentminded_Wizard · Tue Aug 03, 2010 10:31 am

RandomCasualty2 wrote: Yeah, Seven had a unique perspective and Jeri Ryan actually had some good acting skills too, if you actually paid attention to what she was saying instead of her boobs.

Hey, some of us can multitask and pay attention to both.

On topic: My theory about Tuvok is that his character failed because he was the only pure Vulcan character in ST lore who wasn't either trying to be/understand humans or trying to get it on with one or more humans. He was supposed to be happy being 100% logical all the time, making him hard to write for humans who can't relate to this mindset.