What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Lord Garth]

I think my most controversial Star Trek opinion has to be:

Everything made before 1989 – The Original Series, The Animated Series, TNG seasons one and two, and all movies before Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country – are only "broad strokes canon". It more-or-less happened, ish, but specific details are not shown accurately, and problematic lines, scenes, performances, characters, effects, designs, etc can be safely ignored.

Yes, I'm afraid that means I regard Voyager and Enterprise as "more canonical" than The Original Series.

Oh – and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier never happened at all.

As an entity in and of itself, TOS was fully-formed by the end of the first season.

As far as in terms of Star Trek: The Franchise, it's a rough draft. Which is not a knock on TOS because it wasn't written or produced with a decades-spanning franchise in mind. Even the first two seasons of TNG have some wonky ideas that they did away with later. Ferengi who supposedly eat their associates, Klingons being part of the Federation, etc.

So I would have to reluctantly agree that Star Trek: The Franchise solidified itself as what it was going to be during the third season of TNG. That's why I like that DSC jumped to the 32nd Century and shook all of that off, using The Burn as a cover.

 

[Kor]

Late to the discussion on Picard getting stabbed, but I always thought that he was incoherently "laughing" from shock or delirium or something. But I'm no expert on such matters.

Kor

 

[Vale]

That was the first and only time it happened. We saw the event twice, but it was always just the one occurrence.

Time travel, and all that.

How do we even know Q did anything at all? Might entirely have been a near-death hallucination on behalf of Picard.

 

[Brobdingnag]

Late to the discussion on Picard getting stabbed, but I always thought that he was incoherently "laughing" from shock or delirium or something. But I'm no expert on such matters.

Kor

"I think of time as a companion that stabs you in the back to make you appreciate how much better you feel when you're not stabbed in the back."

 

[dupersuper]

Yeah, In Arena. The Gorn is so strong that it can be hit by a half a ton rock thrown from quite a height and it does almost nothing to him. When he got his hands on Kirk he should have torn him to pieces like a piece of paper. The whole scene is so ridiculous, it's almost unwatchable.

To be fair, durability isn't strength.

Personally, I find the conclusion to Tapestry offensive. I mean if we saw Picard in a wheelchair and he wanted to die people would justly be up in arms and see it as an affront to handicapped people but because his reason for wanting to die is that he's "only" a lieutenant, we're supposed to think it's ok, great even? I mean how about taking it from there and seeing it as a challenge? No instead, he decides that he'd rather die than be that man! I mean doesn't he have free will? Can't he become whatever he wants? Or is it that he just can't live without the prestige and the admiration that goes with the position, IOW that he's vain as a peacock?

I always felt bad for whoever his junior astrometrics officer was after that episode. Did Picard ever tell them that he'd rather die than have their job?

That was the first and only time it happened. We saw the event twice, but it was always just the one occurrence.

Time travel, and all that.

Um, no. That's not my take away from that at all.

I thought that was totally obvious. I guess it isn't exactly that.

Yeah, I definitely always read it as shock.

Part of the whole point of "All Good Things..." was Q making sure Picard understood that in the big, bad universe out there, effect sometimes would precede cause. There's literally no reason to assume that there must have been a first time free from Q's interference.

Effect preceding cause is still the exception, not the rule. I see no reason to believe that's the case here. When Picard tells Wesley the story is he supposed to know he'd laughed because of Q? Did he forget? It's just an "It's a Wonderful Life" style trip through Picard's past.

 

[1001001]

"I think of time as a companion that stabs you in the back to make you appreciate how much better you feel when you're not stabbed in the back."

Farewell. I wish we could say "We hardly knew ye", but that wouldn't be true...

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[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Picard's always been a prima donna and a smug asshat. As much as I love "Tapestry(TNG)" his attitude at the end does bother me.

He was vain in the TNG series premiere and he's vain in PIC. The character is still a smug ass when he wants to be.

Totally. Picard always seemed above his own humanity and he saw himself above others. A starship aristocrat. It wasn't until "Family" that Picard had humanity... along with humility.

 

[cooleddie74]

Kirk might have told Q "it doesn't matter what direction my destiny would take so long as I was able to take pride in my work and my life. And that's what I want back. MY LIFE."

 

[Lord Garth]

I think people should stop using Gene's Vision as a crutch. He's been dead for 30 years. First, he can no longer speak for himself and hasn't been able to since 1991. Second, he would've changed some positions by now and taken into account what's happened in this century. A Star Trek he'd have made today would either be a reflection or reaction but, either way, it probably wouldn't be TNG Season 1.

 

[Westie1701]

I don't know if this is controversial or not, but no matter how much I liked DS9 I could never get over the feeling that Sisko was Captain Food Court and Odo was Head of Mall Security...

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I don't know if this is controversial or not, but no matter how much I liked DS9 I could never get over the feeling that Sisko was Captain Food Court and Odo was Head of Mall Security...

Perhaps it was the Promenade looming large in your thinking!

 

[cooleddie74]

Today marks 25 years since FC premiered in theaters. This might be controversial but it's still better than any of the Kelvin Timeline films and I adore Trek 2009 and Beyond.

 

[Westie1701]

Perhaps it was the Promenade looming large in your thinking!

That's kind of where I was going with that

Like Fast Times at Deep Space High, but without Phoebe Cate's boobs...

 

[Lord Garth]

An oldie but a goodie: They should just say there are three Star Trek timelines and be done with it. Arguments about visual continuity resolved on the Official Record.

The Kelvin Timeline
The Classic Timeline (mid-23rd Century looks like TOS)
The Prime Timeline (mid-23rd Century looks like SNW and the first two seasons of DSC)

 

[Jinn]

They should say Star Trek has exactly 19 timelines, without specifying which episodes go in which and watch the fandom burn

 

[FederationHistorian]

What if it was 47 timelines?

• TOS (2196-99)
• Prime (23rd century TMP to NEM)
• ENT
• Mirror Universe
• Kelvin
• Disco S1-2/SNW
• “All Good Things…”/”The Visitor”/”Endgame” late 24th/early 25th
• “Twilight”
• PIC & Disco S3
• Animated (TAS, PRO, & LD)

And then 37 others.

 

[at Quark's]

What if it was 47 timelines?

• TOS (2196-99)
• Prime (23rd century TMP to NEM)
• ENT
• Mirror Universe
• Kelvin
• Disco S1-2/SNW
• “All Good Things…”/”The Visitor”/”Endgame” late 24th/early 25th
• “Twilight”
• PIC & Disco S3
• Animated (TAS, PRO, & LD)

And then 37 others.

I simply assume every episode is in a separate universe, even if it looks like it picks up the story from an earlier episode.

That way I'll never have to explain any inconsistencies (unless they occur within the very same episode).

 

[suarezguy]

I don't much care for the subtitle The Original Series being amended to 60s Trek. I just refer to it as Star Trek.

OK to call it the original show/series, not bolded or italicized and really shouldn't even be capitalized, otherwise I hate any amended titles including 1 (at least italicized rather than not).

 

[suarezguy]

Personally, I find the conclusion to Tapestry offensive. I mean if we saw Picard in a wheelchair and he wanted to die people would justly be up in arms and see it as an affront to handicapped people but because his reason for wanting to die is that he's "only" a lieutenant, we're supposed to think it's ok, great even?

I think it was always supposed to be controversial. Though/and with "Ethics" the show already did have a (arguably offensive) right to die rather than be handicapped perspective.

I think people should stop using Gene's Vision as a crutch. He's been dead for 30 years. First, he can no longer speak for himself and hasn't been able to since 1991. Second, he would've changed some positions by now and taken into account what's happened in this century. A Star Trek he'd have made today would either be a reflection or reaction but, either way, it probably wouldn't be TNG Season 1.

Not exactly disagreeing but I think Gene and his influence doesn't get enough credit for TNG (though others, especially Justman, also contributed a lot), I think his influence on the show was mostly positive (and he did seem to at least accept the modifications Piller made).

I disagree with the idea that continuity is a big burden, obstacle to telling new stories (and/or that a reboot would at least probably lead to better stories), that it's crazy it hasn't been outright rebooted yet and a reboot is to be expected.

 

[Lord Garth]

I disagree with the idea that continuity is a big burden, obstacle to telling new stories (and/or that a reboot would at least probably lead to better stories), that it's crazy it hasn't been outright rebooted yet and a reboot is to be expected.

I like that Discovery and Picard are building upon what's come before. Lower Decks, randomly referencing things willy-nilly without adding anything, not so much. LD actually is doing what some people like to accuse DSC and PIC of doing.

In the past, meaning the mid-'00s, I did want a reboot... but the JJ Films weren't the type of reboot I had in mind. And that's not the direction TV Trek went in when it came back, and since I like what they're doing, I consider "they should do a reboot!" to be a dead issue.

The type of reboot I would've wanted, during the Bush Era, was the type JMS wanted to do for Star Trek. (link) And I liked how the reboot for BSG turned out, so I was all for that. What we eventually got with the JJ Films came across to me as like the Transformers movies, except for people who are over 25.

Getting back to BSG, I really liked that DSC Season 1 had that kind of feel to it. Sometimes I think it's too bad the BSG-type feeling was dropped afterwards to "make it feel more like Star Trek!" Not that I don't like what the show is doing now, and I've enjoyed what it's since become, but still...