I don't know about BillJ, but both of those things are shit, and you adequately pointed out several of the reasons why. (Though that is still a tiny fraction of the reasons, but that is understandable, there is so many reasons why ENT and ID suck.)
Yeah, I don't like them either. But I'm trying to apply
BillJ's opinions of DSC to how they would translate to those.
I might as well dig up my own opinion of STID at the time. I don't have anything vintage for what I said about ENT.
Okay, this is what I said about
Star Trek Into Darkness on
May 22, 2013 on Jammer's Review Site...
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I liked the 2009 film. Not so much "Star Trek Into Darkness". It had too many plot holes.
These were the problems I had with STID:
1. Why would Admiral Marcus need to revive Khan to figure out how to fight the Klingons? It would be like someone today reviving Napoleon to figure out how to fight the North Koreans. Second of all, Starfleet has had 100 years to prepare for the Klingons by this point. The two sides have always been portrayed as powers of equal strength. The Klingons are a threat, but they're not an overwhelming one. Humanity also seems savage and primitive enough that they don't need Khan's insights. The humans in the Abrams films, unlike the Roddenberry series, would fit right into today's world.
2. Khan would never allow himself to become a pawn of Starfleet or Section 31. He'd never save Kirk from the Klingons. And he's not really that ruthless in this film. He should've killed Kirk right before beaming his corpse back to the Enterprise or fatally wounded him at least so he'd be dying and in as much pain as possible even as he intended to destroy the Enterprise. He does horrible things but he himself doesn't act villainous enough. The original Khan, as well as Kruge in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock", were much more black-hatted, which is what Khan should be.
3. The movie was supposed to show Kirk becoming more mature and growing into an adult. When he's repeatedly punching Khan, he's acting like a 15-year-old. When he constantly turns his head whenever a woman walks by, he's acting like a 14-year-old. When he's having a threesome, it's like a teenage boy's fantasy. I see nothing in the film that shows he became more mature. All I see is a kid who had a bad experience and a rough mission, then made a good speech at the end. He's not an adult. He's still reckless. He's still immature. I don't think this is the type of Captain you want to send out on a five-year mission into the unknown. Is this who the Admiralty wants representing the Federation? The only rationale I can think of is to get Kirk out of the way. It would make more sense to have him in Federation space, thinking outside the box to solve unconventional local problems where he can be of help and they can keep an eye on him.
4. Spock is much too emotional. Spock shouldn't be yelling "KHAAAANNN!!!" and going crazy while fighting him. Spock shouldn't be jealous when Dr. Marcus is assigned as Science Officer and, yes, he was jealous. Spock wouldn't give Pike lip.
5. The treatment of Doctor Marcus is extremely sexist. She undresses while Kirk is in the same room and the only reason is to show a shot of her in her underwear. When she screams after Admiral Marcus is killed, it's like something from out of a '50s B-movie. They can't even stay away from the sex jokes while McCoy is down with her while they perform "surgery" on the torpedo.
6. Why would Khan's blood restore anything to life? They don't even try to explain it. It's just magic blood that can somehow reanimate every cell in your body. Does that mean Khan could be immortal? Not that the film is even smart enough or aware enough to pose the question.
7. While we're at it, there's an entire ethical dilemma that's not even touched upon. Now that the location of the Botany Bay is known, should these escaped supermen and superwomen stand trial? I'm surprised they were all just left in suspended animation but that could've been mitigated if there was at least a discussion about what should be done with them. But why ponder those types of questions when they'd take up too much time that would be better spent on chase scenes and explosions?
8. There's absolutely no comparison between the scene when Spock was dying in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" and the reverse scene in "Star Trek Into Darkness".
9. When Spock is fighting Khan on Earth, it feels more like "The Matrix" than "Star Trek". And why just beam down Uhura to let Spock know not to kill Khan? Maybe Uhura is the only one who can get through to Spock quickly enough but she's Communications Officer. There should be at least one Security Officer as well.
10. Why would that officer toward the beginning of "Into Darkness" blow up a building just because Khan/Harrison saved his daughter? Seems like an extreme thing to agree to.
11. Starfleet has sensors, ships in orbit have sensors, spacedock has sensors. Why did it take Kirk to figure out that "Harrison" was about to attack where the briefing was being held?
12. This is last because I realized as I was watching that this was the least of the film's problems: if you're going to cast someone to play Khan, it should either be a Hispanic actor, like Ricardo Montalban was, or an Indian. The fact that a 1967 episode and a 1982 film are more diverse than a 2013 film is inexcusable. This is not to slight Benedict Cumberbatch but I think he was miscast, unless they had him just be John Harrison. On that note: I understand that Khan went by a false identity but, if you're going to have the false identity, why not go the rest of the way and have McCoy or Khan himself mention that he was surgically altered?
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Some of my opinions and stances have probably changed. Not everything is going to be 100% the same after five years, but you guys can be the judge of
Lord Garth 2013 vs.
Lord Garth 2018 and if
my criticisms of
Into Darkness are unfair in light of how much I've defended
Discovery.
I have no problem comparing my Past Self to my Present Self to see if I hold up to scrutiny or not, and will own up to where I don't.
If I had something of what I posted about ENT in the early-2000s, I'd post something like that too. Unfortunately, everything old on TrekBBS has been pruned and I didn't save files of any of what I said. So anything I'd say now would be filtered through a 2018 lens and not my pure, unadulterated 2001 opinion.
EDIT:
Summer and Fall of 2010 is the earliest I could find for anything I said about ENT. It’s not 2001, but it’ll have to do.
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I need a break from some things and I want to talk some major, hardcore Trek. I've barely seen ENT, so I'm thinking about giving it another chance.
[…]
I started with "Broken Bow". I got a kick out of seeing Mark Moses play Archer's father. All I could think of was Duck Phillips from
Mad Men. I watched "Broken Bow" with the commentary on. I can see what Rick Berman and Brannon Braga were going for now. They even acknowledged ENT wasn't everyone's "cup of tea" but they were going for something different. Yes, I was one of the people who didn't think they made it different enough. It helps to understand the thought process behind what went into making ENT, so the commentary was insightful.
"Fight or Flight" made the best use of the 22nd Century timeframe between Hoshi's uneasiness with being in space and the lack of ability to communicate with with aliens. I enjoyed this episode in 2001 as well.
"Strange New Worlds" was a good episode as well. I don't have much to say about it.
If I recall, it was "The Andorian Incident" that turned me off of ENT. The ending rubbed me the wrong way at the time, I was burned out on Star Trek, I was working at night (and attending college during the day), so I set the VCR to record the series after making sure to be home for the first two episodes. Then I stopped even taping it.
I just got finished re-watching "The Andorian Incident" for the first time since it aired nine years ago. Good episode. What rubbed me the wrong way in '01 was Archer turning over the research data to the Andorians. It came across to me as biting the hand that fed them, but since humans aren't on the best terms with Vulcans and wouldn't like being things hidden from them, Archer having T'Pol hand over the tricorder makes sense. It was a tough call but the right one considering that Archer realized he had taken a series of beatings for nothing.
It seems clear to me now that I was burned out on Trek, being 22 at the time I was too easily influenced by what others were saying, and no one was persuading me about the quality of the series in the forum of old. In the heat a flame wars, which I wanted to avoid as much as possible, it's so easy to use a stick that people forget there are carrots out there too. In any case, I was way too close to be objective and now that there's been a distance in time and perspective, I can see the series for what it is.
I've now seen up through "Shuttlepod One". I remember a thread from way back when asking if "Stinky" was a reference to the TrekBBS poster
Mr. Stinky Pants. I have a hard time believing the writers would read TrekBBS or, if they did, that they'd follow it closely enough to know who members are, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't give me a brief pause. "Shuttlepod One" was a very down-to-"space" episode. When Trip and Reed were talking about how to spend their final days, it reminded me a bit of the film
Stranded (2001) when an Earth ship in the near-future crash-lands on Mars and the crew has to figure out how to survive long enough for help to arrive.
"Shadows of P'Jem" was an intriguing sequel to "The Andorian Incident" is actually what I thought "Breaking the Ice" was going to be.
My favorite episodes so far are "Silent Enemy", "Breaking the Ice", "Fight or Flight", and "Fortunate Son".
The weakest episode, which still wasn't a bad episode, is "Terra Nova".
I'm glad "Sleeping Dogs" made clear the Klingons in this series were not going to be the ones in TNG and beyond no matter what Archer would try to come up with to reason with them.
If Earth becomes closer to Andoria, following the events of "P'Jem" and TAI, I wonder how the Vulcans will react...
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After that first batch of episodes, I binged the rest around the week of Christmas 2010 on a defunct website called Watch Trek. So there. That's as early as I could get.
DOUBLE-EDIT: Two more old posts of mine and I’m done.
This is from
May 11, 2011…
ENT, which I've now seen most of, was somewhat interesting in the first season, very bland in the second, had some good episodes in the third but there are several parts I couldn't take seriously, and the fourth season was the series finally taking itself seriously as a prequel. I was interested in what happened, even if soemtimes it was like fitting a square peg into a circle. So this was an unjumping, but it was too little, too late.
And this is what I said on
January 1, 2012 foreshadowing what I’d think of
Discovery…
This is something I would look foward to watching. A Star Trek on AMC would be great, and it would benefit from having a 13-episode season. Varied characters, more challenging material, and being able to take risks, either storywise or artistically, that a family show or expensive blockbusters couldn't.
