Anyone Else Feel Bad for Remmick?

Discussion in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' started by Kirk1980, Jun 10, 2013.

  1. Kirk1980

    Kirk1980 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    First, we're made to hate this guy and then...well...

    Turns out to be a good guy in the end... and then he gets blown up a few episodes later!

    I mean, I even got a little misty-eyed when he talked about his evaluation of the Enterprise crew.
     
  2. JirinPanthosa

    JirinPanthosa Admiral Admiral

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    I feel bad about his ultimate fate, but don't feel particularly bad based on his first appearance.

    Hostile interrogations probably weren't the most effective way to find a conspiracy on the Enterprise if there was one. Despite the part at the end, he wouldn't have behaved that way if he didn't get a kick out of it.
     
  3. Kirk1980

    Kirk1980 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Or unless he was ordered to. I'm pretty sure that was part of the Admiral's directive based on the conversation he had with Picard afterward.
     
  4. Blackhorse47

    Blackhorse47 Ensign Newbie

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    I've never understood whether we're supposed to believe he's been compromised the first time we meet him. If he has, the first story is an odd one indeed and if he hasn't, the backstory of how the insecty things made him the alien leader is an odd one too.
     
  5. Dukhat

    Dukhat Admiral Admiral

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    He's not supposed to be compromised the first time, because that story had nothing to do with the insecty things. It was supposed to be about a serious rebellion in Starfleet, without alien interference. The bug angle came later when Roddenberry didn't like the idea of renegade Starfleet officers. Which is too bad, because that would have been a much better story.
     
  6. Kevman7987

    Kevman7987 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    And then when the bugs got too insecty and weird, they were replaced with the Borg.
     
  7. Use of Time

    Use of Time Commodore Commodore

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    Nah, his demeanor in the first episode would have given me some red flags about this guy. If he talked to people who outranked him the way we saw in the episode, just imagine how he would treat those he would be placed in charge of. Probably why Picard just stared at him when he made that request to join the Enterprise.
     
  8. Captain Clark Terrell

    Captain Clark Terrell Commodore Commodore

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    I suspect that episodes like "The Pegasus" and the entire Section 31 storyline would never have come to fruition had Roddenberry lived long enough to see them. The same is probably true of the Maquis. Each these concepts flew in the face of Roddenberry's Federation utopia.

    --Sran
     
  9. Use of Time

    Use of Time Commodore Commodore

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    And that is probably a good thing.
     
  10. Dukhat

    Dukhat Admiral Admiral

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    Even if Roddenberry were still alive today, it wouldn't have mattered. He'd been effectively blackballed since the third season of TNG.
     
  11. Crazyewok

    Crazyewok Vice Admiral Admiral

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    And thats why by the time of TNG he was Hack who didnt know a good story if it came up and bit him in the bum.
     
  12. Mojochi

    Mojochi Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I do think it's sad. I can see how his initial meeting could have been a hard job to do if he was directed to conduct things as they were conducted, and it's undoubtedly rough how it all ended for him

    Certainly there are jobs as an officer that require handling people in ways which don't endear them to you, despite what kind of person you really are at heart. The whole Jellico thing I've been babbling about in the other thread comes to mind too

    I kind of do feel the same way about Remmick. He was just doing his job, carrying out his ugly, uncompromising orders. Not every investigator who works at Internals Affairs is a dick, but they all get to wear a dick's uniform
     
  13. R. Star

    R. Star Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Remmick may have been a jerk or he may have just been following orders. Either way, getting eaten from the inside out by a giant alien slug thing is a sad fate. Not even counting the head blowing up thing, he had to be dead as a person already.
     
  14. Captain Clark Terrell

    Captain Clark Terrell Commodore Commodore

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    I don't disagree. The quality of The Next Generation improved significantly once he was pushed into a background role.

    Fortunately for us. The Next Generation's first two seasons were mediocre compared to what the series would later become as Gene was pushed aside.

    To be fair, he was not in good health by the time TNG reached its third year. It's fortunate for everyone that he had no creative control of the series beyond season two.

    --Sran
     
  15. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The cute and somewhat Roddenberrian thing about "Coming of Age" is that when Remmick drops the Internal Affairs act and says that he'd consider it a privilege to serve on the Enterprise, it very much looks as if our heroes would actually welcome him there. Sure, Picard at first gives the stereotypical icy silence combined with The Look (TM), but he gets over it, and in the very next sentence says he's not holding the events against Remmick.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  16. Mojochi

    Mojochi Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yup, & I think that was kind of the point, that they're evolved enough to get it, & not hold it against him, & I also appreciate Remmick's rather meek way of stating it, as if he knew his current role might not present him well in that regard
     
  17. Captain Clark Terrell

    Captain Clark Terrell Commodore Commodore

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    I'm sure Picard also appreciated that Remmick performed his duties well. Internal Affairs is antagonistic by nature, and if Remmick made people uncomfortable by conducting his investigation, he was doing his job exactly as he was supposed to, something that wouldn't be lost on Picard.

    --Sran
     
  18. Hober Mallow

    Hober Mallow Commodore Commodore

    Did I feel bad for Remmick? No, I laughed my ass off when his head exploded.

    Does that make me a bad person?
     
  19. Captain Clark Terrell

    Captain Clark Terrell Commodore Commodore

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    No. The way that scene was handled is somewhat humorous. Remmick didn't just die. His skin was burned away by the phaser blasts to show his skeleton before his head exploded, leaving behind a headless corpse with a huge hole in his chest.

    --Sran
     
  20. JirinPanthosa

    JirinPanthosa Admiral Admiral

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    To be fair to Roddenberry, I think the real magic of Star Trek came when the writers took his utopia and applied their own opinion of human reality to it.

    Remmick was ordered to find something wrong on the Enterprise. The technique he applied to following those orders were all him. He was a 'Scott the Dick', a 'Jeremy Jamm', a 'Shooter McGraw'. A beaurocrat who is arbitrarily hostile for no reason. Every show's got 'em.