Star Trek: *hits blunt* The higher, the fewerrrrrr

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Star Trek: *hits blunt* The higher, the fewerrrrrr

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

FlamingLiberal posted:

Just making sure you don�t have a bad case of Trek Brain

TNG�s greatest failing was its lack of gay characters for sure though. Trans people basically didn�t exist in media much at that point either so if Berman didn�t want to put gay characters on the show I guarantee he wouldn�t even think about trans ones

Even if the whole Trill species is a potential Trans allegory

right, but the point I'm making is that stories can be awkward/problematic/not have aged well for alluding to/containing those elements, even if they're not explicitly including characters of those marginalized groups. The Dauphin isn't a trans story. It's not a Trill story. It's not the one about Riker and a third gender sex slave. It's a story about Wesley's first crush and the way they punched that up with sci-fi elements for Star Trek makes it really awkward for trans people, even if they didn't mean it to.

Part of talking about older cultural texts is recognizing that they often say more about the culture of the time than was really apparent at the time, so criticizing them requires putting them back in their context to situate them correctly. (new historicism bithces) It doesn't mean Star Trek is wrong or bad, it just means we need to be insightful and thoughtful about it.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2020 16:41

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 03:55

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

SlothfulCobra posted:

What bugs me about Star Trek Romance is how it's always going to be over by the end of the episode, so either it turns out they're a villain, or they die, or they tragically are forced apart, or they part on good terms and say they'll call but they never do. It's disappointing. There's something that feels bitter about it, or like all the proclamations of love are shallow, either on the part of the character or on the part of the writer.

TNG tried its hand at a few multi-episode romances, but not very well either. In theory there's some romantic tension between Riker and Troi, but they're introduced as exes ans don't seem particularly connected to eachother except for occasionally getting really weird when the other gets into something serious. Worf met a woman and proposed to her, only for her to break up with him and leave, and when she comes back, well she's gotta die and transfer over to the other kind of ill-fated romance.

In theory, DS9 does better with its long-term romances, except even without the episodic restriction, by the end of the series you still end with each of those romances having been driven apart by circumstances or death. Quark is actually one of the most normal-seeming romances where he got married to a woman in an obviously dysfunctional relationship that still managed to end on friendly terms and they still talk enough for Worf to be a massive weirdo about it.

The one exception is O'Brien, who wasn't really much of a character before he got married, so the writers don't feel compelled to explore his romantic potential. It's just an established part of his character. The whole thing isn't exclusive to Star Trek either, it's just a whole thing where drama writers generally really love writing the courting phase of a romance, but really hate writing the settling down phase, and they'll always try wriggling out of it unless they're really forced to stick with it.

What do you think of Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres, then?

# ¿ Jul 27, 2020 22:13

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Zaroff posted:

At least he got to tell them to gently caress off when they wanted to have a leprechaun in If Wishes Were Horses!

Although we did dodge one bullet - Garrett Wang wanted to do an Irish accent in the Fair Haven episodes but was thankfully vetoed. If his previous �impersonations� are anything to go by, we dodged a very racist bullet.

is a korean man impersonating an irish man racist, or just payback

# ¿ Jul 28, 2020 14:22

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

CPColin posted:

It depends. If presumed-Korean-based-on-name Harry Kim is doing the impersonation, then yes. If actual-Taiwanese-descent Garret Wang is doing the impersonation, then also yes, but for a few extra reasons.

Welp I�m a loving idiot

# ¿ Jul 28, 2020 16:46

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Just colonize the early fps thread to be about Elite Force, Klingon Honor Guard, and TekWar.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2020 14:46

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Sash! posted:

This thread got me to waste like $80 in real American dollars basically chasing electronic baseball cards.

oh was this for the attack wing gacha game youtube keeps showing me ads for where starfleet captains accept mercenary contracts to kill klingons in the neutral zone in dumbass ships that don't even have warp nacelles

# ¿ Aug 5, 2020 05:03

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Arivia posted:

oh was this for the attack wing gacha game youtube keeps showing me ads for where starfleet captains accept mercenary contracts to kill klingons in the neutral zone in dumbass ships that don't even have warp nacelles

I rewatched the ad to be sure and yes, their example Federation ship has no warp nacelles. it seems to have the back END of a warp nacelle as the back of the secondary hull. starships don't work like that and my brain hurts now

# ¿ Aug 5, 2020 07:09

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Angry Salami posted:

It's kinda funny that Theiss had the whole theory that an outfit was sexier if it looked like it was going to fall off, but then when TNG-era Trek wanted a sexy costume, it kept going with catsuits that weren't coming off without a few hours preparation.

didn't theiss do costume design for at least the first part of TNG anyway?

# ¿ Aug 8, 2020 16:08

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

nine-gear crow posted:

Depending on the day, the �scuttle the ship and then argue the �greater good� to your superiors� gambit either gets you kicked out of Starfleet or promoted to admiral right on the spot.

so the actual test is to figure out how to get a good grade from the examiner. makes sense!

# ¿ Aug 11, 2021 21:44

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

I�m really good at leaving my watches in the worst place possible. I�m rewatching TNG for the first time since I was a little kid and picking it up after a break my next episode was Up the Long Ladder. Yuck!

# ¿ Aug 19, 2021 08:30

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Arivia posted:

I�m really good at leaving my watches in the worst place possible. I�m rewatching TNG for the first time since I was a little kid and picking it up after a break my next episode was Up the Long Ladder. Yuck!

Okay I got to The Emissary and honestly K'Ehleyr may be my favourite guest star on star trek ever.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2021 22:45

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Tighclops posted:

I'm not saying it was high art but Star Trek generally had just a touch more going on than the average episode of SVU or poo poo like Knight Rider. (and I like Knight Rider.) I don't think it's fair to characterize it as just another empty network TV show.

I will say that when they market the show as if it's a Serious Prestige Drama with Things to Say and then they crap out a thing where everyone's an abusive idiot that commits war crimes and then pivot to a bunch of ludicrous fanservice after their initial plan invited a massive backlash it's a bad look

The funny thing is that SVU is actually supposed to be Serious Drama with a Thing To Say Every Episode - that's the essence of the "ripped from the headlines" structure. Does it deliver? Rarely, and in increasingly smaller amounts over the show's lifetime. But the decline of L&O as Serious Moral Drama is pretty similar to Star Trek itself, honestly.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2021 06:33

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

For some reason I have this idea in my head that Brent Spiner turned out to be a jerk and/or a chud over the last while. Is that incorrect?

# ¿ Aug 21, 2021 20:34

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

HD DAD posted:

Spiner honestly seems like the most �normal dude� of the TNG cast, maybe holding that rank with Sirtis. He�s just got an abrasive and dry sense of humor that can rub people the wrong way, I suspect. But he always comes off as 100% genuine.

Okay! I'm glad to hear that I was wrong, and I think what I did hear or read before can definitely fit abrasive humour being misreported.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2021 22:54

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Boxturret posted:

Is that just America? I'm in Canada and am half way through TNG...do I need to speed up the pace a lot?

There�s no listing for any of it leaving in Canada, I just checked.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2021 06:01

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Tighclops posted:

I would un ironically live this

sorry, i have to go home at 9, mom says

# ¿ Sep 8, 2021 20:01

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Night is a high point as well. I really liked 11:59 when I saw it back during the original run but it�s probably gone extremely sour over time.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2021 04:55

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

curiousTerminal posted:

Night is good, 11:59 is an episode that you will either despise with every cell in your body, or you'll enjoy as a quiet, no-stakes episode. I think it's a little dull, but otherwise not terribly offensive.

The low stakes pastoral romantic drama is fun, but I think the end of history/celebrating the big anniversary and humanity�s inevitable benevolent turn to the stars elements ring really, really hollow right now. I feel it being painfully naive.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2021 05:59

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Owlbear Camus posted:

I have not. Anything like Iain Banks? Love that dude RIP

kinda but also totally different. he literally writes books around the scenarios you're talking about - death of entropy and the last star in the universe, etc. check out the manifold trilogy in particular, it's three different "endings" to the entropy problem.

also, isn't dyson spheres + the death of stars a thing in STO with one of their super extra new enemy groups?

# ¿ Sep 13, 2021 18:32

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

someone in my graduate program has a cat named michael burnham. her ex worked on discovery and named the cat, apparently.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2021 21:53

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Note about watching B5 for Michael O�Hare: he leaves the main cast at the end of Season 1, but returns and completes a VERY good arc for his character midway through Season 3. Don�t worry about being left hanging on his very good performance.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2021 06:47

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Paper Lion posted:

i want to bring up a thought i have had kicking around in my head for a few years and see if anyone agrees or disagrees and have an actual discussion about it. the thought is: a major broad thesis of 90s trek is that terrorism is a morally neutral action. it comes up in all the series, is examined in each of them numerous times, and though the show rarely comes down on one side or the other of if it's good or not, nearly every character involved in a terrorism themed episode or even just conversation seems to at a minimum acknowledge that it's a viable option in a vacuum. working under the assumption that the federation represents an idealized form of the 90s neoliberal imperialist apparatus of a US led nato (something i think many would agree with), what do you think it says that so many characters, be they members of the federation, allies, or enemies, all seem to come to this conclusion? was this the writers working through their anxieties about imminent and seemingly unavoidable future terrorism against their hegemony, a behind the times retroactive attempt to justify the behaviours of US backed "freedom fighters" from the 80s, or something else?

I was looking at the memory alpha article on Home Ground last night and the writers' takes were pretty universally "we meant to say something but we ended up saying nothing and on an issue like terrorism that's pretty lovely"

also, if i wanted some real juicy behind the scenes histories of the various series, what are some good books to get? mostly looking for stuff like the above, with people involved going "production on this episode sucked, this one was great" etc, just without some hagiographic take on Roddenberry

# ¿ Sep 19, 2021 20:50

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

nine-gear crow posted:

11:59 is like a weird Hallmark movie about the destructiveness of gentrification, only to take a literal last minute swerve and end on the message of "Actually, gentrification is pretty cool."

I think they meant "aspiration to a better future in the stars" instead of gentrification, but yeah.

It is actually a Star Trek episode theme-wise, it fits pretty well with the Earth parts of say, First Contact and does have a moral dilemma and all that, but it's very different about that.

So it's weird, not bad.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2021 19:47

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

punishedkissinger posted:

is it just a voyager thing where the thrusters and impulse engines are different things?

Nah, I've heard it watching TNG. Picard fired the thrusters to slingshot the Enterprise in Booby Trap, for example.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2021 04:18

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Paper Lion posted:

i think the idea is that voyager is 2 busted ships kludged together or something so it has nonstandard hardware on it and that might part of it. not that this ever really comes up in the show much because voyagers writing

the neural gel packs caught a cold again and now we don't have any gravity, what do we do captain

# ¿ Sep 23, 2021 04:24

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

McSpanky posted:

Because it's probably the coolest bit of incidental technobabble ever, next to the FTL computers.

Please explain.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2021 13:26

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Angry Salami posted:

A lot of the 90s novels were clearly being rushed out with writers only being given vague outlines as to what was coming up - I remember the first few Voyager novels all referred to the Doctor as "Doctor Zimmerman", and one of the early DS9 novels had a plot that relied on the idea that ships needed special shielding to go through the wormhole or their engines would destabilize it. In both cases, these were ideas that were part of the show's original pitch, but were dropped by the time it made it to air.

(For that matter, there was a Babylon 5 novel from the same era where bad editing meant Sheridan was referred to as Sinclair for half a paragraph - obviously they'd just done a find and replace when the cast changed...)

oh THAT's why i remember the Doctor as Doctor Zimmerman, thank you!

# ¿ Sep 28, 2021 07:18

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

They had that scene in, what, the second or third episode, where they did the 'forensic scan' or whatever and I remember thinking "oh this must be a sop to the olds who are addicted to NCIS or whatever"

TNG has one in The Vengeance Factor, but at least then Data goes "I can have the computer make an educated guess as to what is in the missing data" so they explicitly note it's not there in the original photograph.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2021 22:15

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

SlothfulCobra posted:

That also explains why all the human cast is aggressively American except for the one shady brit who still grumbles about yanks somehow. There's one guy who grew up in space, but that doesn't come up much, and he doesn't seem to be as comfy in a more regionalized accent as the rest.

Also they sure do talk about the chef a lot for a character who doesn't appear on the show. He may even have more characterization than some of the bridge crew so far.

Oh wow, never thought I'd see an eyeballs in the dark bit on a live action show.

The chef appears in the very last episode. Some people think it is the stupidest reveal ever, some people the best, some people argue about the in-narrative suspension of disbelief and destroy the fun. it's riker

# ¿ Oct 1, 2021 05:15

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Paper Lion posted:

all trek was scheduled to leave netflix in most regions to be consolidated onto paramount+ as of october 1. not the UK though afaik, so you can still vpn there for it. a bunch of regions lost the rights to it that dont have access to paramount+ though so lol, congrats on the further pushing of people to piracy due to stupid copyright law

It�s still on Netflix in Canada too.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2021 09:11

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Spacebump posted:

I did not realize that about Uhura, maybe because I've never seen TOS. I don't know how I missed that about Picard. I just assumed he lived in France and the European Alliance was similar to the European Union.

That's awesome. Thank you for the info.

There's an episode where Uhura gets mind wiped and basically has to relearn everything from childhood on - Nichelle Nichols fought for Uhura to speak Swahili in this scene, as it would have been her character's mother tongue, instead of English.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2021 20:21

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

tonight

i, a star trek fan for at least 25 years, am finally watching yesterday's enterprise for the first time

# ¿ Oct 4, 2021 20:00

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

At risk of opening a can of worms, what�s the problem with RLM? YouTube recommended them to me to go with my TNG watching and it�s been good? Half in the bag doesn�t do much for me, but Best of the Worst is fun and I�m enjoying the TNG reviews.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2021 01:21

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Kibayasu posted:

It�s okay.

It was real real good. Kinda funny Tasha got her best episode after leaving the main cast though.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2021 05:49

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

nine-gear crow posted:

About that: the President of the Federation in Disco is a Cardassian/Bajoran/Human hybrid.

that must have been one really awkward threesome

# ¿ Oct 10, 2021 22:08

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

StashAugustine posted:

"Child of a Cardassian orphan who integrated into the Federation" would actually be a really cool idea for a character

this feels like worf, but for a tng-ish series set after the dominion war in that "former enemies now friends" way.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2021 04:07

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

MikeJF posted:

The next trek should have a Klingon crewmember who's a california surfer bro and is all like 'chill brahhhhhhh all good'.

�Why�d you join Starfleet?�
�There is a legend the crew of the Enterprise once surfed the biggest wave ever at Yorktown Station. I intend to beat their record.�

# ¿ Oct 11, 2021 10:57

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Arglebargle III posted:

Impulse engines often get eliminated because they don't have time and details won't really show up on SD anyway.

what? the big orange/red blocks are one of the most noticeable parts of a starship when watching star trek in SD

# ¿ Oct 16, 2021 02:27

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Ur Getting Fatter posted:

Knowing what I now know about Roddenberry, there 100% is an alternate version of this jazz bar scene where Picard and Riker gently caress holodeck AI girl.

Assuming you mean Minuet, that actress went on to a long career as one of the resident forensic psychs on Law & Order. She was even their first rape victim. YAAAAAAAY

# ¿ Oct 19, 2021 01:50

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 03:55

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:

I have this exact tape. When I was a kid, a family friend found out that I liked Star Trek so they gifted me this tape, not aware that it's a catastrophically bad episode. I keep it as sort of an ironic memento.

my big star trek memento is one of those posterboard plaques of a tng cast shot with portrait insets, it is ridiculously 90s and i am holding onto it until i have a good nerd room to hang it on some day

# ¿ Oct 19, 2021 03:15

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