Star Trek: Classic or Dud?

Never watched the original series much (wasn't alive at the time of the originals, don't recall seeing the reruns), but became a fan of the movies when they started. Fell into things fully when TNG began (watched from the first episode to the last) and still followed those films, though after starting with both Deep Space Nine and Voyager I gave them up fully in late 1995 and never looked back. Have a couple of the, ahem, 'technical manuals' around the place but that's about it -- the other books I've avoided. Have no costumes, have always avoided any kind of conventions general or specific, take cruel pleasure in laughing at Shatner's follies in the fifth movie, as should we all (the fake MST version is the only one to see, frankly).

Unsurprisingly, Picard is my fave (I was actually a Patrick Stewart fan already), but both Avery Brooks and Kate Mulgrew did excellent jobs in their Sisko and Janeway roles. Scott Bakula as Archer just scares me as a concept. TNG cast my favorite ensemble bunch, though I will give it up (oh yes) for George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, DeForest Kelley, Leonard Nimoy, Terri Farrell, Alexander Siddiq, Rene Auberjonois, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran and Robert Picardo. Data ist rad. And so forth.

note: star trek: the motion picture looked awful. but all the ones after that were awesome. how much cooler would next generation have been if they had those burgundy uniforms? kirk looked like the motherfucker in EVERY MOVIE wearing that shit.

ned: you think picard is tougher than picard. what. the. fuck. did you see wrath of khan? did you see that shit? he fucking kicked khan's fucking vinyl-chested ass. 'oh, yeah, you have genesis, khan but you don't have me. if you want me, you're going to have to come down here. you're GOING to HAVE to COME DOWN HERE!!!@#@@!$#'. you can say ANYTHING ELSE about kirk vs. picard, picard is smarter and more civil and professional or whatever the fuck, but nobody in their right fucking mind would say that he's tougher than motherfucking kirk. i am actually literally angry about this, so i need to calm down now. christ, i'm such a trekkie.

I thought it was Riker who had the twin. ;-)

that riker transporter twin episode is some stupid shit though.

original series: chekov...maybe, but that's stretching it. he kicks ass in the movies, he's just sort of useless on the show. but the original cast (chekov being a second series addition) is flawless.

next generation: RIKER RIKER RIKER, troi, that doctor who replaced crusher for one year, yar, data (come on, admit it. he's a super-advanced andriod and he can't understand common phrases? he thinks a 'lemon' is a literal lemon for god's sake. i'm sure the writers kissed each other for how fucking cute that was. anyway mudd's women were way smarter). and WESLEY. geordie would get on my nerves if he were played by anyone but le var burton, but he's a childhood icon and can therefore do no wrong.

deep space nine: the only memorable character besides the captain (who is cool) is quark the ferengi (who is also cool). but the rest aren't even fleshed-out enough to annoy me. wait, no, the short-haired chick with the ridges on her nose aggravates the piss out of me. and the doctor, god.

voyager: it has an indian. and an asian guy. and a black vulcan. and the captain is a woman. only as annoying as that new ghostbusters cartoon where one of the ghostbusters was in a wheelchair. like, what the hell?

evidence that kirk is the best captain: all series after that have had kirk ripoffs that are nowhere as good as kirk because they are not as cool as the godly shatner. like riker, or that really forgettable womanizer guy from voyager. i mean, what the hell, don't you just want to punch riker in the face? does anyone not want to? anyone?

All-time favorite episode is "Charlie X," where the Enterprise picks up some teenaged human waif from a planet, who then runs around the ship melting off the faces through telekinesis (?) of various crew members whenever he's teased or horny. What teenager couldn't identify with that?

I remembered TNG being great when I was 12, but I watched a few of them more recently and they were AWFUL, even the later ones. I think I might have quite liked Deep Space Nine later on, when they started having season-long story arcs, but I never saw enough of them to make sense of what was going on.

How come most of the crew are American yet NONE of them are chronically obese? (except Scotty who's - ahem - ""Scottish"")

In the 60s it was a bizarre mix of US military 'might is right' fascism and Hippy-dippy, 'why can't all nations hold hands?' idealism (though still managing to be sexist ~ Uhura the Captains secretary and Yoaman Rand (is that right) the Captains bit of [onboard] fluff. AND THATS IT SISTERS!)

It should have ended there as it ran out of ideas and people stopped watching it. But OH NO, they had to bring it back in the 80s with over-long, plodding bore-a-thon 'Next Generation' episodes that tapped into the touchy-feely / inner-child / New-Age nonsense that was on the go at the time. I mean - Counsellor Troi = WHY? She even sits on the bridge next to the Captain!! the message is in the 25th Century a bloody social worker is one of the most important jobs on a space ship.

But it was all so clinical and corperate and soul-less, advocating Pro-conformity and how you should be a good citizen. And too much sanctimonious liberal finger-wagging for my liking.

And it starred Whoopi Goldberg.

And how come all the baddies end up as the Federation's (UGH!) freind, taking tokenistic jobs as Navigators etc?

And why was it always so fucking BORING?

Another Star Trek I had over the other incarnations -- BETTER BACKGROUND MUSIC! Esp. that duh-dum-duh-dum-DUH-DUM-duh-dum theme whenever Kirk's ass was in deep ship.

On the other hand, Troi's mother was AWESOME.

And the original ST's music was Varese-influenced, hey? Hmmmm ... never knew that! Maybe I should go over to that "Who Opened Your Ears" thread in ILM and change an answer or two of mine :-)

Troi's mom was cooler than Troi, not more attractive! Aigh, my eyes!

troi: not attractive.

crusher: nuh-uh.

troi's mom: uh.

that guy who was troi's mom's butler or something and was the guy who played lurch in the addams family movies: mrowr.

question: who liked first contact? it was like a next generation episode, only like, cool. plus, supercool supporting cast with alfre woodard and the farmer guy from babe.

someone start a star wars thread so i can bitch about how much that sucks except for empire strikes back.

hey i just remembered something else i liked in next generation, although it's from that bastard movie where kirk dies (falling off a walkway! the fuck? he's saved the universe like two hundred times and he falls of a walkway and dies? fuck). um anyway, i liked when data said 'shit'.

Andrew L has not mentioned his great expertness in this area, for some reason. I know about it because I very briefly worked under him on a Star Trek magazine!

i feel like the temporal cold war *could* have been good, maybe? but it never made any sense! why does silik sometimes help the humans and sometimes attack them? who is his boss, the mysterious future guy who can't actually time travel but can nevertheless fuck with silik's genetic enhancements? feel like it simply never went anywhere before petering out

imo the SNW ep with la'an and alternate-kirk going back to toronto did that sort of thing much better

also that voyager ep with bruce mcgill

oh raffi

https://i.postimg.cc/zXMkqcMt/bafkreihqiazkskrbfg4wxh2w36kla76rt2f2pdgwnmyohccuywi2z33yzi.jpg

(still better than the other raffi tho)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0sjDkoNgfY

Academy premiere is free on YouTube (at least in the US).

‘Arry Potter you’re an Ensign

Ok that was actually really good!

These are a fucking trip:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsNOqjr2meCbx6zlXTT3yw5z8-Ln1A8s-

Fixed link with the - at the end

What is this? Is it the Trek equivalent of one of those "Jimi and Kurt, jamming in the afterlife" Facebook posts?

I liked the grimy shot of robots cleaning the old Enterprise off the planet floor

They're more official than random slop, and instead of being purely gen AI, they use real actors wearing "digital prosthetics" to look like 90s Shatner.

Wonder what it even takes to get licensing from Paramount after Axanar.

Ah, that sight has a whole bunch of stuff related to The Roddenberry Archive.

yes this was produced by the roddenberry archive and and Shatner and Nimoy's estate were involved. I think it was primarily made as a demo of the OTOY digital technology.

as far as the story motivation, they felt it was lame that Spock died offscreen in Beyond (which I never watched) and the idea is that this would take place after Kirk's death in Generations in an afterlife where timelines are nebulous. I think it succeeds and is quite touching.

Do I want a LeCreuset Galileo shuttlecraft casserole? OF COURSE I DO

https://www.lecreuset.com/featured-collections/star-trek-collection

OMG, OMFG, YES.

I like Spock ear mugs too lol

The communicator grater is a little much though lol tbh

Aside from the price, the thing that gives me pause about the casserole is that I already have two (boring) ones already, and where I put the new one? I don't exactly have a shuttle bay handy.

The shuttle should have been a butter dish.

About to finish my first watch of all of DS9. What should I watch next?

I have already watched TOS, TNG, Voyager, and much of Enterprise fwiw

Sounds like you're pretty well prepared for Lower Decks!

who dares to recommend 21st-c trek to table?

a) unreservedly yes lower decks!

b) would still recommend discovery s01-s03 (although the klingon scenes are so slow; a misstep)

c) never watch section 31 unless you are high and have been dared to do so for (significant) money

d) i remember essentially nothing about picard apart from endless isa brioneses and orla brady being the most beautiful romulan in the galaxy. probably just as well; i don't think it was good

e) s02 of strange new worlds is fantastic; s01 is solid; the others have their highlights

f) i actually like the (kelvin timeline) movies; they make no sense at all plot-wise and are clearly built for hollywood action but chris pine is good as kirk (and really looks quite like shatner when spock is choking him out in the first one)

g) appreciate how in each of the kelvin movies 1) kirk takes a beating, 2) someone *sprints* through the corridors of the enterprise, 3) there's a scene of civilians panic-running out of an institutional structure

h) didn't really like quinto as spock in the kelvin movies. ethan peck as young spock (discovery s02; snw) is fantastic tho imo

probably just as well; i don't think it was good

memories are returning to me

apologies for not noting that santiago cabrera is also absurdly hot; still a bad series

the use of todd stashwick as captain ian shaw was *terrible*. dude invited two starfleet legends into his lightless quarters for dinner only to repeatedly shit on them (and JAZZ)? come on

also raffi sucks and is boring (if, nevertheless, a large step up from chakotay for seven)

so many bad attempted pairings, but seven-chakotay is even worse than

• * kes-neelix (narrowly)
• * kira-odo
• * torres-paris
• * troi-worf
• * bashir-anyone not o'brien/garak (i don't even mean this in a fanfic way! bashir was an obnoxious creepy child for much of the series; who else was actually interested?)
• * burnham-tyler/voq ffs
• * troi-riker (their entire thing was exhausting and pointless although i thought the actress who played their daughter in that one episode of picard was fantastic)
• * uhura-spock (kelvin timeline): i'm not against it per se but there was no effort to make it make sense
• * kirk-marcus: lol
• * khan-marla mcgivers: a) marla turns traitor because khan essentially rapes her; b) khan becomes insane because she died
• * unnamed romulan commander-spock: 60 years later i still wish spock had gotten some there
• * mariner-boimler: o no

sorry obviously the khan shit is the worst (even if not presented as such in the series)

Section 31 it is then

seriously tho, thanks mookie for the rundown

Yeah I think Mookie gives solid advice on all fronts

My two cents on Disco is that it's terrible in several distinct ways over the course of its run.

The first season it was very clearly trying to be the Game of Thrones of Trek, and the level of violence put me off in a way that Trek never has before or since.

After that it gets cringe in its sentimentality, while also having inept storytelling (both within an episode and over a season).

but the informal crew shirts (DISCO / VERY) were good

I'd easily put Lower Decks alongside DS9, TNG and TOS as one of the best Treks.

Yeah I’m on my 3rd rewatch, it’s great

favorite moment of all the kelvin movies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb7kAEW7TRQ

sorry, really dumb question: why are they “Kelvin” movies? why do call them that?

because in star trek (2009) the above-mentioned nero came out of a wormhole, into (his) past and destroyed the uss kelvin ft. george kirk, which created a 'divergent timeline'

it's a handwavey (but good!) excuse for being able to flout 'canon'.

evidently ppl trying to write the next james bond are dying for something similar

There's supposed to be some rights-based separation between those movies and the TV shows because paramount owned the TV show but not the movies or something but there's been explicit callbacks to things invented by the movies (like Romulus exploding thus Picard's captain-save-a-Romulan schtick in Picard) so I'm not sure how bright those lines are.

Huh! I guess I’m not out in these nerd streets like you guys :)

Though tbf Mr Veg was like well yeah of course they’re called that so it’s just me I guess

I didn’t know anyone cared THAT much about those movies & JJ’s timey wimey bullshit to classify them in that way. I figured they were just their own thing who cares

More fool me lmao

I figured they were just their own thing who cares

sweet antipodean child <3

I had skipped the first reboot movie and then a lark went to theater to watch the one with Kahn (Into Darkness, I think?). There’s a point where the crew is really stumped about how to handle Kahn and one of them says “there’s one person we can ask” and they call up Leonard Nimoy and I about fell out of my chair laughing. I didn’t understand this was a whole plot point in the first movie.

God that movie was so dire

can't really blame cumbatch; he did everything he was asked to do

but what i mainly remember is this classic soap-opera scene where he explains his motives while facing away from anyone who could conceivably hear him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D221A8qsKtI

(fast forward to 2:40)

also admiral marcus just constantly sonning kirk

see also scotty constantly lassie-ing jayla in the third one (and he has no excuse, as simon pegg co-wrote the script)

bring back editors for literally everything

i felt bad for spock that he (canonically!) dies in abrams useless spin-off universe

i do like pine as kirk though! and the first one's fun

Pine >> SNW Kirk
SNW Spock >>>>>>> Zachary Quinto

"because in star trek (2009) the above-mentioned nero came out of a wormhole, into (his) past and destroyed the uss kelvin ft. george kirk, which created a 'divergent timeline'"

You know, until this moment I assumed that it was called the Kelvin timeline because the films were written by a man called Kelvin. You learn something every day.

John Kelvin, or something.

But no, they were written by Roberto Orci. He died! I didn't know that either. In 2025, of kidney disease, at the age of 51.