So name a Star Trek moment that you just didn't "get".

[tharpdevenport]

Doesn't matter if she lost all that, she should have formal training and still be able to perform the job, no matter how her level of confidence. People grow a pair and continue on in far, far emotionally devistating scenarios. If she had no training, how'd she even get the job?

 

[kirkfan]

Doesn't matter if she lost all that, she should have formal training and still be able to perform the job, no matter how her level of confidence. People grow a pair and continue on in far, far emotionally devistating scenarios. If she had no training, how'd she even get the job?

It's like asking someone who's been riding the elevator for years to climb up the stairs. It's got to be exhausting the first few times.

 

[Taelon]

So you don't think going blind or deaf is a crippling disability?

 

[Shawnster]

Doesn't matter if she lost all that, she should have formal training and still be able to perform the job, no matter how her level of confidence. People grow a pair and continue on in far, far emotionally devistating scenarios. If she had no training, how'd she even get the job?

She just wasn't that good at her job without her abilities.

 

[Taelon]

She was, even though she lost her ability to sense emotions, she was still spot on with her assessment that her client hadn't got over her husband's death.

 

[Kevman7987]

So you don't think going blind or deaf is a crippling disability?

Not if everyone else is already deaf or blind.

 

[Greg Cox]

Especially when the novels often don't coincide with what actually got shown in the movie, because these authors decide to put their own stamp on it, so as not to feel like hired hands, I guess, or whatever. "I am an Artist ..." yeah, well ...

Or, more often than not, the novelizer is working from an early draft of the script that may vary significantly from the final movie.

It's not about the author's ego. It's about about writing a 300-page description of a movie that you haven't seen yet, based on an early version of script and maybe a handful of stills and pre-production sketches. And trying to flesh a 120-page script out to novel-length by filling in some of the blanks.

Inevitably, there are going to be discrepancies between the novelization and the movie, but it's not about being "an Artist" or anything. It's just the nature of the beast.

Funny story: when I novelized DAREDEVIL, the filmmakers added a last-minute sex scene that wasn't in the script, so it didn't end up in my book. I later got a grateful letter from a Concerned Mom who thanked me for having the good taste and decency to leave the sex scene out of the novelization.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that I would've included it if anybody had told me about it!

 

[FredH]

My "huh" moments are mostly just moral disagreements with the show: things like Riker murdering a child through inaction to make a point in "Hide and Q"; he, Geordi and Pulsaski killing their already-separated clones in "Up the Long Ladder"; or of course, Picard letting a planet fry in "Homeward" so as not to interfere with the future it won't have. Or for that matter, the entire essentially pro-terrorism thread running through DS9's latter seasons, basically from "Defiant" onwards.

 

[2takesfrakes]

It's not about the author's ego. It's about about writing a 300-page description of a movie that you haven't seen yet, based on an early version of script and maybe a handful of stills and pre-production sketches. And trying to flesh a 120-page script out to novel-length by filling in some of the blanks.

 

[Greg Cox]

It's not about the author's ego. It's about about writing a 300-page description of a movie that you haven't seen yet, based on an early version of script and maybe a handful of stills and pre-production sketches. And trying to flesh a 120-page script out to novel-length by filling in some of the blanks.

No problem. I find a lot of people are startled to find out that the novelizations are almost always written before the author sees the actual movie. And there are always a few surprises when you finally get a chance to see the finished product.

"Hey, nobody told me that character was a woman! She was a man in the script!"

 

[kirkfan]

Doesn't matter if she lost all that, she should have formal training and still be able to perform the job, no matter how her level of confidence. People grow a pair and continue on in far, far emotionally devistating scenarios. If she had no training, how'd she even get the job?

She just wasn't that good at her job without her abilities.

I think, you might be on to something there.

 

[TE Williams]

I do not get all the Spock's Pon farr problem.

In Amok time, one learns that a Vulcan needs to have sex with that specific person (+ mind meld), or he dies. And later, we see one does not have to have sex at all, he can fight to death and be killed, or he can kill someone. Aaaand, then we see the defeated person does not even have to be dead, it just should seem so. And the person who he had mind meld with, was T'Pau.

So, why it was such a problem? It seems he just needed some vigorous physical activity. And mind meld with someone.

The answer to this one is simple and enlightening.

Vulcans--in general--are closed-minded and irrational people, capable of great dishonesty both to themselves and others. They repeatedly and consistently lie about their emotions, and they repeatedly lie about not lying. When it comes to sexuality, their duplicity knows no bounds.

There is a cloud of misinformation about Vulcan sexuality that confuses not only Human observers, but even misleads individual Vulcans unless it is debunked by a knowledgeable elder who is willing to bear the embarrassment of explaining it. They seem to allow this subject to be a huge blind spot both individually and as a culture.

Tuvok admits in "VOY: Blood Fever" that there is nothing rational about Vulcan sexuality. The fact that the Doctor's holo-treatment works--which seems to be just advanced masturbation--demonstrates that even in the late 24th Century, this deliberate irrationality persists.

• Don't believe anything a Vulcan tells you about Pon Farr.
• Don't assume a Vulcan even knows the facts about Pon Farr themselves.
• Don't be surprised when Vulcan "popular wisdom" on this topic seems to vary from person to person, or century to century.

 

[kirkfan]

So you don't think going blind or deaf is a crippling disability?

Not if everyone else is already deaf or blind.

Exactly!

 

[tharpdevenport]

I don't get why Geordi made a joke he did one time early on.

The punchline: "The clown can stay, but the Ferengi in the gorilla suit has to go"


That joke always bothered me, from the first time I heard it.

Just over 300 years ago that joke would have been told like this: "The clown can stay, but the negro in the gorilla suit has to go"


It just seems like a bad joke for him, or quite frankly any Starfleet officer on the Flagship of the Federation, to make.

 

[kirkfan]

I don't get why Geordi made a joke he did one time early on.

The punchline: "The clown can stay, but the Ferengi in the gorilla suit has to go"


That joke always bothered me, from the first time I heard it.

Just over 300 years ago that joke would have been told like this: "The clown can stay, but the negro in the gorilla suit has to go"


It just seems like a bad joke for him, or quite frankly any Starfleet officer on the Flagship of the Federation, to make.

I had no idea it was based on a real joke. Sometimes these punchlines are written without anything in mind.

 

[Dales]

I do not get all the Spock's Pon farr problem.

In Amok time, one learns that a Vulcan needs to have sex with that specific person (+ mind meld), or he dies. And later, we see one does not have to have sex at all, he can fight to death and be killed, or he can kill someone. Aaaand, then we see the defeated person does not even have to be dead, it just should seem so. And the person who he had mind meld with, was T'Pau.

So, why it was such a problem? It seems he just needed some vigorous physical activity. And mind meld with someone.

The answer to this one is simple and enlightening.

Vulcans--in general--are closed-minded and irrational people, capable of great dishonesty both to themselves and others. They repeatedly and consistently lie about their emotions, and they repeatedly lie about not lying. When it comes to sexuality, their duplicity knows no bounds.

There is a cloud of misinformation about Vulcan sexuality that confuses not only Human observers, but even misleads individual Vulcans unless it is debunked by a knowledgeable elder who is willing to bear the embarrassment of explaining it. They seem to allow this subject to be a huge blind spot both individually and as a culture.

Tuvok admits in "VOY: Blood Fever" that there is nothing rational about Vulcan sexuality. The fact that the Doctor's holo-treatment works--which seems to be just advanced masturbation--demonstrates that even in the late 24th Century, this deliberate irrationality persists.

• Don't believe anything a Vulcan tells you about Pon Farr.
• Don't assume a Vulcan even knows the facts about Pon Farr themselves.
• Don't be surprised when Vulcan "popular wisdom" on this topic seems to vary from person to person, or century to century.

that sounds like one big huge dishonesty from Vulcans. I personally never got the pon farr thing. I got how Vulcans are embarrassed about it but the concept of how they must have sex once very 7 years was weird. I know some Vulcan don't wait till 7 years to have sex , but still...

 

[Orphalesion]

No problem. I find a lot of people are startled to find out that the novelizations are almost always written before the author sees the actual movie. And there are always a few surprises when you finally get a chance to see the finished product.

"Hey, nobody told me that character was a woman! She was a man in the script!"

I have actually known that for a while. It's a really interesting process.

Please don't believe that I meant to belittle novelizations or the expanded universe, I was just saying that a movie should stand on its own. Especially since novelizations, sadly, tend to go out of print rather quickly.
Often, however it is a way to find out about things that were dropped in the movie. Sadly the only example I can think of right now is the fate of one of the kids in Beyond Thunderdome, who's death scene was removed from the movie, but there are certainly more such bits.

 

[borgboy]

Two different topics here...

On the subject of Troi's loss of empathic abilities, by the end of the episode she was doing her job well again before her abilities returned. She required an adjustment period, that doesn't seem all that bad or surprising to me.

I really hated how Tuvok got past Pon Farr with a holosuite visit. That really cheapens any potential drama set past that point with Pon Farr if it's that easily resolved. I've read that the actor refused for his character to cheat on his wife - who was never actually on the show - so it limited what the writers could do there. In hindsight, they could've had Tuvok going into Pon Farr in the finale to heighten the drama of getting home soon instead of inventing a new disease for him to have.

TE Williams, your summary of what we know about Pon Farr was informative and thought provoking. The fact that Pon Farr can be resolved in several ways that shouldn't have to end with anyone dead or lives ruined just demonstrates how illogical the Vulcan are about their own sexuality, which does still make Vulcan sexuality an interesting topic.

It's worth pointing out that in the New Frontier novels Selar has a homosexual brother who is said not to go thru Pon Farr. The Vanguard novels have the lesbian T'Prynn who does go thru Pon Farr. That suggests that possibly gay male Vulcans go thru Pon Farr while gay females do. Or possibly Selar's brother is just an anomaly.

 

[Greg Cox]

No problem. I find a lot of people are startled to find out that the novelizations are almost always written before the author sees the actual movie. And there are always a few surprises when you finally get a chance to see the finished product.

"Hey, nobody told me that character was a woman! She was a man in the script!"

I have actually known that for a while. It's a really interesting process.

Please don't believe that I meant to belittle novelizations or the expanded universe, I was just saying that a movie should stand on its own. Especially since novelizations, sadly, tend to go out of print rather quickly.
Often, however it is a way to find out about things that were dropped in the movie. Sadly the only example I can think of right now is the fate of one of the kids in Beyond Thunderdome, who's death scene was removed from the movie, but there are certainly more such bits.

Absolutely. You shouldn't have to read the the novelizations, or the press materials, or the movie website, or the comic book tie-ins, to understand the actual movie or TV show.

In the books, we have room to flesh things out a bit and maybe spend more time on exposition, but the movies need to stand on their own.

On other hand, one of my editors had the theory that the more confusing the movie, the better the novelization sold!

 

[kirkfan]

I think Voyager overdid the pon far bit a little, by the end of the series it had gotten kinda old.


By the time ENT came along it had gotten from a mystery nobody knew a damn thing about not even McCoy to something they discussed casually during dinner or at a night club, yet it was supposed to be the PRE-quel of TOS...