What Did You Think Of Star Trek? (Spoiler Discussion)

Vee says:

@John
You wrote, “And it isn’t like I was completely satisfied with TOS, either. I loved Spock, and he (and Uhura running around in a miniskirt – forgive me, Vee, I am but a man) made up for ‘overdramatic Bill’ Shatner.”

Don’t worry – I’m not that kind of feminist. I think appreciating a person’s physical attributes is fine. We’ve evolved to have a great interest in the opposite sex’s physical attributes. What I have a problem with is women being forced by society to emulate the ideal of a sexually attractive woman (revealing clothes, make-up, shaved legs, plucked eyebrows, pierced ears, the list goes on) in order to be recognised as women, only to be rewarded by being assumed to be sexually permissive. And by society, I don’t mean men. We do it to ourselves, too. I’m not against men finding women sexually attractive, I’m against people (note: people, not just men) ostracizing women who choose not to participate in the whole “beauty” industry, but still have hygene standards at or above those required for men.

I also have a problem with men who lie to or mislead women to get into their panties, which was pretty much my problem with Shatner’s Kirk. Fine, sleep with a lot of women, just don’t represent it as anything but casual.

I agree with you that the Eterprise opening theme rocked. I actually liked the opening sequence a lot. It was very different from anything Trek had done before and really emphasised that this was not a show about the federation. It was a show about Earth and humanity finding it’s place in the galaxy.

Oddly, I don’t really ahve a problem with things not exactly matching the published ST timeline. In my view, that was more of a guideline than gospel, and anything that was only mentioned in a line or two throughout canon can or has been changed because somebody thought of something better. It’s actually kind of like we get to see the first draft of ideas. When those ideas get fleshed out, edited, and refined later on, they’re often very different from the first draft (klingons, ferengi, trill are just a few that come to mind).

“Perhaps, as someone mentioned on here, the series ‘Enterprise’ was a result of the altered timeline events in the movie ST/’First Contact’…”

Ooo, that’s a good theory. Especially since they’ve officially jumped on board with this theory of time travel. I really want to see how they reconcile this with the clearly linear time travel of earlier Treks, though. My first thought was that they were going to say that different methods of time travel did different things, because of how they worked. How the borg time travel works into that deserves some more research in the future.

Steve says:

@ JOHN

You think that was a long post? I edited for content!

I agreed with so many comments (and disagreed with so many others) that I just decided to write my own.

Anyone who expects Star Trek to be a neat continuum of events will go insane. Look at “City on the Edge of Forever.” McCoy saves Edith Keeler and suddenly the Enterprise is gone. Didn’t spin off a new time continuum there, it affected the one we’re in. Of course, the “logical” answer is that it did, but we were observing the events in this time continuum. It makes my head hurt, but that’s why I don’t rationalize everything to the nth degree and I enjoy the show as a futuristic, optimistic series of stories that make me feel good after watching them.

@Cookie

You really don’t want to get me started on Enterprise-D, or the U.S.S. Dust-buster (formally known as Voyager) because I just didn’t like the look of the ships. And I’ve always felt that Picard’s bridge looked like an airport lounge. Look, faux wood and carpet! I expected Troi to ask if I wanted pretzels every now and again as the ship warped through long voyages. If the latter series were enjoyable for you, that’s fantastic. But for me, they disappointed (one exception: I loved the DS9 “Trials and Tribbleations” episode – true homage).

@Vee

I think the symbiotic paradigm between Spock’s two “halves” is poetic. First, he’s not “half” anything. He’s a Spock. He calls himself Vulcan, just as I call myself “American” but my ancestry is not Native American. Like all Vulcans, Spock has emotions, and being half-human neither adds nor subtracts to this. Physiologically speaking, it’s possible that certain characteristics such as brain development may have made mastering human emotions more difficult for him than a 100% Vulcan (genetically speaking) but Spock’s inner conflicts are reflective of our own battles of who we want to be versus who we are. That’s not making Spock human; it’s describing the human condition, of which Spock is a great and unique lens through which it can be viewed.

@ everyone

If you don’t recall episodes, you can watch them all for free online in HD. I think it’s just at cbs.com, but any Goggle search will turn up the appropriate site. You can learn a lot about Vulcan from the episode “All Our Yesterdays” where Spock and McCoy (and Kirk) are marooned in the past of Sarpeidon, and Spock “reverts” to Vulcans of that time and gets very belligerent toward McCoy. An excellent demonstration of an angry Spock as portrayed by Leonard Nimoy.

@ Cookie (again)

That “wee beastie” of Scotty’s sidekick was (as so many people have already noted) the Jar Jar Binks of this movie. Completely worthless except for comedic humor. If it makes a reappearance, I will be extremely disappointed.

@ everyone above who said the same thing

I loved the new warp effect. It’s the most realistic one they’ve ever shown in my opinion, never having travelled faster than light personally. In conclusion:

@ every critic

Star Trek is not perfect, but it has caused countless great things to happen in our society. People dreamed of little devices that let you communicate with an orbiting starship and thirty years later, we have them. There’s no particular reason that most mobile phones have to flip open, but the fact that many early designers were Trekkies probably plays into it. The authors of the original scripts as well as consultants to the original shows were scientific dreamers. Every great thing begins with a dream, and even if we didn’t have the “Eugenics Wars of the 1990s” (thank God for that) we’re starting to brush up against that subject as cloning and genetic modification become more actualized.

Fun discusion everyone. I have to go heal people for eight to ten hours, but I enjoy this discussion. Today’d random bit of medical advice: do not encourage your children to put light brite pegs up their nose or in their ears. They don’t enjoy having them removed.

Primum No Nocere (look it up!)

Steve

John "Kahless" Taylor says:

@Steve
I say we should nominate you for the Screen Rant Trek Award.

You have the most analytical view of Trek I have seen in a long time.

One of the things that drew me to Trek was the use of scientific theories. Even in TNG, terms like “Heisenberg Compensators” and “Dyson’s Sphere’s” were thrown around but are actual scientific theories. Also, the episode “All Our Yesterdays” spawned a book where Zarabeth had a son that for reasons that escape me at the moment was needed in the 23rd century (had something to do with the Guardian malfunctioning). Of course, the books are not canon but many are entertaining.

Vee says:

@Steve

I recognise that Spock was on the show as a tool to be used to comment on the human condition. So was Data. So were Quark and Odo. So were the Doctor and Neelix (more the Doctor than Neelix). If you’re looking at them from the point of view of a literary analysis essay, that’s really all you need to care about.

I use fictional as a tool for escapism. If you’re escaping into another world, that world has to be real for you, and it has to make sense. It has to be able to make you feel things you’re just not getting from real life. That’s why the details (and you’ll notice, not all of the details) are important to me. If it was just a show that had people on it that you admired growing up, and what’s important to you now is the effect it’s had on the world we live in, that’s fine. I recognise those things, but they’re not what’s important for me. I know I can’t really speak for the others here who care about the details, because I don’t know them, but I hope this helps you understand some of the reasons that people care so much.

I find it interesting that you would say that Spock’s not half anything. Do you know anyone who’s half asian and half black? If you do, ask them if that didn’t effect their lives and their self-image. The origins and cultures of your parents definitely influence your life. Being a child of two cultures that don’t normally mix can’t be ignored.

Ken J says:

@Vee

Go to Jamaica, or any of the islands, you’ll meet people who are half asian and half black all over the place…

Steve says:

@John

I couldn’t agree more.

Ann Crispin’s Books “Yesterday’s Son” and “Time for Yesterday” are both very good (even if they’re non-canon) books.

I also appreciate the sentiment on the nomination, but I really have enough alphabet soup after my name now, I don’t know if I can take any more

@Vee

There’s a different between escapism and obsession. Regardless of what anyone (and I include myself in this group) may wish, Star Trek is fiction. It is generally good fiction, but it remains fiction. If people enjoy the movie and go and see it again, it is successful fiction. If they base it on probable-but-not-yet-realized theories it is science fiction.

I know a lot of people who are of mixed heritage, but none of them have ever tried to dissect themselves and say “my Asian half makes me do this and my African half doesn’t want me to do that” so ethnic backgrounds, while important, form your personality, but there’s no gene that makes Asians smarter than Africans. Data was (and to me remains) a cheap rip-off of Spock, and I’m really not qualified to comment on the other series. As I said in my first post, to me, Star Trek stopped after Star Trek VI, and TNG was an interesting postulation of what might happen in the future. I never found the conflict between the characters, and Gene Roddenberry didn’t like it when his characters fought.

*Blasphemy Alert*
Gene Roddenberry was a terrible writer.

His vision for Star Trek was greatly needed, but his stories were too verbose and very boring. There are many reasons that most people don’t sit and read dictionaries for fun. As someone who lives and works in a world of “technobabble” I find escapism in the simplicity of the dilithium crystals always being the problem. If only every patient presented with a case of a sinus infection! I never had to bog down in science to enjoy TOS, and in TNG, the solutions were almost always based in science.
Someone above said something like: “The _______ needs to have _________ done to it and then _________ will solve all our problems.” That’s how I felt about TNG – and why I seldom watched it. The exchange between Scotty and La Forge in “Relics” summed it up well for me. I’m not going to quote it here for lack of time, but Scotty didn’t bother Kirk with the details, he just fixed things. La Forge wasted minutes of time each week in technobabble, which meant nothing to me as a viewer – especially one who was trying desperately to get into Medical School.

My point in all of this is that I love Star Trek (reminder, just Star Trek, nothing after it) and it absolutely functions as an escapism for me. I am not so obsessed however that I say a director “can’t do that!” because said director already has done so. Criticism is fair, and everyone is entitled to his or her opinion.

@SIN187UM

The look and feel of a ship is incredilby important. “Form follows function” is a great saying, but many people misinterpret the axiom. If the Enterprise (the original, real one) looked like a flying saucer, people would have laughed at the show. I believe “Lost in Space” tried that general approach. However, Matt Jeffries, when designing the Enterprise, did note that the audience had to have some way of connecting with what they knew. It couldn’t look like a seafaring ship. It needed to look futuristic. So he took a UFO, flattened it out a little bit, and then added the secondary hull, and the nacelles. He originally envisioned the nacelles as rockets, all of with which the original 60s audience would have been familiar, even if they didn’t know why. Many people are ignorant of the fact that Mr. Jeffries designed the Enterprise upside down, and that due to an error in photography, it was filmed “upside down” (which is right-side up to us) and everyone loved it. That being said, there’s no reason the ship couldn’t “fly” upside down in space. We find the look comforting because we’re used to it, but anyone who’s ever put together one of the toy models will tell you it’s incredibly top-heavy. That doesn’t matter though, because it looks cool, which is why looks are important, at least in my opinion.
(@Vee – this is by no means a personal attack, so please don’t take it as one)

In my job, I treat people who are half this, a quarter that, and ethnic backgrounds are important in determining risk factors for all sorts of conditions. But foolish is the physician who says, “you’re black, therefore your chest pain must be a heart attack because you have a higher incident than a white individual.” Did their dual (or triple, or quadruple) heritage affect their upbringing? Absolutely. But the postulated theory above precludes the notion that people who have a single heritage (a statistically small percentage of the population) were not also impacted by their ethnic background.

So here’s my parting speech for the day @ everyone:

Star Trek did not feature the first interracial kiss. Since this is about a science-based show, I suggest anyone interested look at the scientific breakdown. Family, Genus, Order, Phylum…. Species. We’re all human. Race is a social construction, and doesn’t exist in science. Race only exists when we make it exists – it was created as an excuse to say that one group of humans was superior or inferior to another. Anyone who wishes to dispute this would be enlightened by the book “Racism without Race,” which can be found at a library near you or on Amazon.com.

Now I must be off to the hospital. Adieu to everyone who’s still reading this, and great discussions all!

Cheers.

Vee says:

@Steve

Don’t worry, I don’t take anything as personal on a message board unless it’s as obvious as “You’re a _____!”, and I like to assume that other people don’t either. We all have different backgrounds, knowledge, and ways of thinking, so of course there are going to be times when people just don’t agree with each other’s opinions.

I’m also not sure whether that disclaimer was for the looks statement above, or the statement that ” the postulated theory above precludes the notion that people who have a single heritage (a statistically small percentage of the population) were not also impacted by their ethnic background.”

If it was the looks thing, I completely agree with you there. If it was the other, I think that Nazi Germany proves that the theory does NOT preclude the notion that people with a single ethnic heritage were impacted by it, but rather that they’re simply less conflicted about it.

Related side question: would you say that humans, klingons, vulcans, etc. are all different races or different species? With the different chemical make ups of blood, the different organs and all that, I’d have thought species, but isn’t that defined largely by an ability to reproduce? This is something that I’ve always wondered about but that I don’t have the medical knowledge to say either “It’s improbable, but possible” or (like with the galaxy-destroying supernova) “They’re just talking out of their arses”.

I’d also like to say that I feel there are different levels of escapism ranging from “I had a hard day and I don’t want to think about it for a while” to “I hate my life and I can’t stand being in it for another second.” The first requires something that can serve to distract you for a short period of time. The second requires a vividly realised world to escape into. At that second extreme, you’re right, there’s probably obsession. It’s somewhere in between that you start caring about the details.

Cookie Garris says:

@Steve

I was fully agreeing with about the Enterprise-D. And just think that was the Federation flagship. LOL! Voyager was no better. She new starship classes that were first seen in First Contact were much better.
You are so right about the technobabble. That’s a big reason the new movie is doing so well. You didn’t need a scientific dictionary to watch it.
My comparisons of Scotty’s little helper to jar-jar binks is a little off but the point I wanted to make was that it didn’t add to the story in the least and was only as you said comic relief.

SIN187UM says:

Oh and for the last time. KAL PENN IS NOT IN THE DAG BLASTED MOVIE.

The guy people are referring to is Faran Tahir – Played Middle Eastern Villain in IronMan

Played Captain Robau in this Film – NOT KAL PENN

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809752801/cast

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faran_Tahir

Vee says:

@Callisto

I think any romantic between a student and a teacher that begins while they are student and teacher is highly unethical. It’s an abuse of power. That’s why teachers get fired for it.

Now, it is unclear whether or not she was still a student (it’s especially unclear whether or not she was still a student of Spock’s) while she was on the Enterprise. My guess would be that she was still a student, though, as she hadn’t graduated and she hadn’t left. At any reputable school present-day, Spock would have been fired. Who knows, maybe he was and that was why he ended up on the Enterprise with Kirk.

SIN187UM says:

@ Andy

As long as it had heat and what not I that would be fine. Seeing how as people live in Cave Houses now.

Fury2701 says:

The Kal Penn shot is on the bridge of the Enterprise. It’s a one second reaction shot.

Now, I believe Kal is not in the credits; I think it’s an uncredited cameo.

And who ever said Kal Penn was the Kelvin’s captain?

And the Spock, Uhura thing is not a big deal. Besides, Starfleet Academy is like college, not High School. A professor wouldn’t be fired for having a relationship with a student – everyone’s an adult. We don’t even know if Uhura was on of Spock’s student’s – just that he was impressed with her work.

Steve says:

@Andy

Umm, I kind of thought the Enterprise-D looked a big eggish, but I also thought the whole ship was wasted space.

@ Ken

I agree. We had to study “form and function” during residency rotations in plastic surgery. While the first step in surgical repair is almost always function, form is very important to patients. It’s also nice to know I’m not the only one who mows my lawn like a baseball field

@SIN187UM

Personally, I would find an entire movie of watching nothing but Borg ships very boring. I also found my attempts to watch the TNG movies stymied by the ship, although admittedly the Enterprise-E was a better-looking ship than it’s whalesque predecessor. Federation starships (historically speaking) that appeared in the first six movies were a nice combination of form AND function. I think the Klingon ships did pretty well, and from what little I remember, the Romulans got quite the upgrade in TNG. If “form” didn’t matter, they’d all be zooming through space in cubes, bricks, or some other basic shape. The human mind likes symmetry, which is why every ship you see in Star Trek has at least one line of symmetry within it. There’s no “logical” reason for the Enterprise (any of them) to be split evenly into port and starboard halves. It makes a lot of sense when you’re trying to get something to float or fly (or walk, run, or jump as mammals do) but the only thing a ship needs in space is equal mass for propulsion, or adjusted propulsion to compensate for the mass. I maintain that form and function are both important in a ship if a movie-going audience is going to accept it.

@Cookie

I think your comparison between Jar Jar and Scotty’s pet toad are spot on – neither serves a useful purpose in advancing the plot line. Lucas tried to make up for it by promoting Jar Jar later in his prequels, but they gave him an obnoxious voice and a lack of ability to speak English, which I attribute to his general disdain by audiences. The little toad doesn’t say anything, and I don’t want to see a Star Trek movie that revolves around that character, either. I like my Star Trek based on Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

@Vee

Glad we’re having a civilized discussion, and I’m often purposely ambiguous in my prose. Sorry. I still don’t think that J.J. Abrahms did anything wrong by Spock’s ancestry in this movie. What Berman and company did in the spin-off franchises is unimportant to me, but feel free to discuss with others. I didn’t like any of the spin-offs, and I’m not connected to the characters. I don’t doubt your assessment of Data is quite correct, or the others. I am utterly unqualified to comment with respect to them.

@ all the Spock/Uhura critics…

They’re both legally adults. As long as there’s no conflict of interest, it doesn’t bother me. Furthermore, Kirk was most assuredly after her, and it added an interesting twist to the plot I was not expecting. This Uhura can stand on her own, and she’s fully in charge. Since nothing about their past relationship is revealed in the movie, anything about what might have happened at the Academy is utter speculation. I only know what I saw in the movie, and I found it well acted, well shot from a cinematic standpoint, and a pleasant way of showing young Kirk doesn’t *always* get his heart’s desire. It’s a lot better than the spontaneous 1-movie fling between Uhura and Scotty; would anyone care to disagree with me about that?

@Callisto

I’m certain you’re correct, but I wouldn’t define any kiss as “interractial.” I will go with “first black/white televised kiss” however, and regardless of whether it was the first or not, it was certainly met with political uproar when Star Trek tried it. Several stations in the souther United States refused to air the episode – or threatened to. According to interviews with Nichelle Nichols and William Shatner, the shot that’s actually used wasn’t even really a kiss… it’s implied, but they didn’t kiss in that take.

And finally…

Back @ Vee

I would say Vulcan’s are a different species based on the limited information provided to us. The basic definition of a species in the ability to interbreed. Since Spock is a genetic combination of Terran and Vulcan, and since (cut footage from) Star Trek II states Saavik is half Vulcan and half Romulan, then they too would be of the same species. Some authors get around this by using vague terms (ST IV: “The annihilation of the Klingon People!” I suspect that if (when) we encounter extraterrestrial life forms, we will either have to redefine taxonomy, or make modifications to the existing system. I would say all bipedal species depicted in Star Trek are of the same Kingom, Phylum, Class, and Order as humans. Family, Genus, and Species remains to be seen and would bore most viewers to tears (not to mention several medical students with whom I am acquainted).

However, I’m a doctor, not a zoological taxonomist, so I welcome correction from someone more informed on this subject than me.

Peace.

Johhny-O says:

@ Fury2701:

I agree that that young cadet was likely Kal Penn, he was after all Kumar, and John Cho (his buddy ‘Harold’, from two very popular movies) was after all Cadet Hikaru Sulu and therefore, well, why not do a cameo? They do it all the time.

I’m just surprised JJ Abrams didn’t do a cameo himself, a’la Ron Moore in the last scene of the ‘Battlestar Galactica’ 2-hour finale! And I would’ve been all for it if he had, but it was admirable that he restrained the temptation.

And as for the Spock/Uhura tryst, has anybody remembered ST/III?

Spock was way past 21 in this movie (a multiple of 7, the number of years a Vulcan male undergoes the agony of ‘Pon Farr’, the mating impulse), by then; Nero said he’d been waiting 25 years so it would be at least another 3 years before he was ready for a relationship, right?

I remember all the jokes about the Pon Farr 7-year mating ceremony of the Vulcans, after that movie – the gag was, That was why Vulcan ears were pointed, all that stuff was backed up! Hahahaha!

I doubt that, but then, I am not Vulcan.

Although, it has been a while…sometimes I FEEL like one!

JOHN

Steve says:

@Fury

We’re very verbose. Points to you for knowing the word However, I dare say we write more than one paragraph!