What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Oddish]

The TNG era Type-1 phaser doesn't get enough love for how portable and compact it is.

I'm surprised everybody wasn't carrying a few of those in their pockets given how often random crew members get abducted.

No kidding. I think the only person I remember who had the brains to have one handy was Wesley in "The Game", and he wasn't even planning on doing any actual fighting (he was just there to make sure no one noticed that Data wasn't flat on his face anymore).

Wrath of Khan is HUGELY overrated. It's fine but does not deserve to be up on a pedestal.

We don't put it on a pedestal... most of us just happen to really like it.

 

[dupersuper]

Alright it seems like it's come to this: DS9 characters vs Voyager characters. So the obvious matchups are:

Sisko vs Janeway
Kira vs Chakotay
O'Brien vs B'Elanna
Odo vs Tuvok
Quark vs Neelix
Bashir vs The Doctor
Jadzia vs Kim
Worf vs Seven
Ezri vs Kes
Uh, Jake vs Paris

I didn't have to think too hard to pick Kira and Quark, and to be honest I'm leaning towards DS9 with most of the others as well. Though I might pick Seven over Worf (DS9 Edition). Maybe I should've put Jake up against Seven as she's kind of like Janeway's adopted daughter.

Can we at least agree that Garak is better than Seska?

Sisko > Janeway
Kira > Chakotay
O'Brien = B'Elanna
Odo > Tuvok
Quark >> Neelix
Bashir < The Doctor
Jadzia > Kim
Worf = Seven
Ezri > Kes
Jake < Paris
Garak > Seska

Yeah. The last great ST movie was First Contact.

I don't know if it was great, but I quite liked Beyond.

 

[Trek Survivor]

Not sure how controversial, but recently rewatched The Undiscovered Country (which has always hovered at 5/6 in my movie rankings) and found it was nowhere good as I remembered. Lots of poor choices, and it has definitely slipped even further down the list.

 

[Oddish]

I have a few more match-ups...

PRIMARY VILLAINS: Dukat vs. Borg Queen - While the Queen is a decent enough primary antagonist, she doesn't have either the duration of presence or story arc of Dukat.
SECONDARY VILLAINS - Weyoun vs. ??? The next best choice for a recurring bad guy on Voyager is either Seska (who got crunched by Garak) or that Kazon guy she took up with. Weyoun beats either. And even if you disqualify Weyoun because he's technically five characters, I think tertiary antagonist Kai Winn would compare favorably as well.
TURNCOATS: Eddington vs. Jonas - Eddington was actually an ally for a time, and followed more of an arc. The most interesting part of Jonas's story actually involved Tom.
MOMS: Keiko vs. Samantha Wildman - Ensign Wildman had some good moments, but Keiko was the more developed character.
ROMANCES: Worf/Dax vs. Tom/B'Elanna - Both were pretty decent, but having Jadzia die after she and Worf were together for so short a time was just... urghhh. The Voyager duo takes it.
KIDS: Molly O'Brien vs. Naomi Wildman - Hana Hatae was incredibly cute, but Voyager just did more with Naomi.
SILENT CHARACTERS: Morn vs. Ayala - Morn got his own episode. Plus, the fact that he never shut up offscreen was a pretty good joke.
COMPUTERS: Majel Barrett vs. Majel Barrett - For some reason, this one's a tie game.

Running score:
DS9 - 12
VOY - 4
Draw - 3

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Is it controversial to say my favourite Trek movie is The Voyage Home?

Seems to get less love these days, but it’s fun from start to finish IMO. I love it.

 

[Oddish]

Then we're controversial together, because it's my number one pick as well.

 

[cooleddie74]

Sisko made the right decision in "In the Pale Moonlight(DS9)." Vreenak's assassination was pretty bad but the Alpha Quadrant losing the bloodiest war in its history to shapeshifting tyrants from the other side of the galaxy would have been infinitely worse. Sisko made his ethical and moral opposition to Garak's actions known and then promptly erased his logs.

As he should have done. There was a war to be won.

 

[Oddish]

Hardly controversial... most people I've seen agreed with Sisko's actions.

My only issue with them is why was Sisko (a station commander, a shipbuilder, and a religious icon) doing it? That's like... oh, I don't know, a chief engineer infiltrating the space mafia.

 

[Sci]

Eddington. I mean, Eddington outranked him but at least Harry wasn't a turncoat.

Eddington is a better, more interesting character than Harry precisely because he's a turncoat. Eddington has convictions so strong they drove him to betray his oath to the Federation when he felt the Federation was being unjust -- and an ego so strong that he thinks this outweighs his oath; Harry barely even seems to have deep thoughts or convictions or enough of a personality to have an ego!

Harry would be more pleasant dinner company, but Eddington is a way more interesting character to build an episode of television around.

Wrath of Khan is HUGELY overrated. It's fine but does not deserve to be up on a pedestal.

I really don't think a film that gets made fun of for Ricardo Montalban's plastic chest and Shatner shouting "KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!" is held up on as much of a pedestal as you're implying.

 

[cooleddie74]

DS9 spread out its character development to almost everyone. VOY decided to focus on just a few and it shows.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

The Wrath of Khan is that rare beast. A Trek movie that’s not only a good Trek movie, but a good movie in its own right.

I’ve no idea how I’d rank the lot of them, but a top 5 would be:

1) The Voyage Home
2) Beyond
3) The Search for Spock
4) The Wrath of Khan
5) Star Trek 09

 

[cooleddie74]

1. TMP
2. TWOK
3. TUC
4. TVH
5. TSFS
6. FC
7. Trek 2009
8. GEN
9. BEY
10. INS
11. TFF
12. STID
13. NEM

 

[F. King Daniel]

The Wrath of Khan is that rare beast. A Trek movie that’s not only a good Trek movie, but a good movie in its own right.

I don't know if it's a controversial opinion or not, but there is no difference between "a good movie" and "a good Trek movie"

 

[cooleddie74]

Yep. Trek 2009 is just a damn good movie and it still would be even if it weren't set in space.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I don't know if it's a controversial opinion or not, but there is no difference between "a good movie" and "a good Trek movie"

Maybe it’s just me? Somethings transcend their source IMO. It comes down to “would you have to see any previous Star Trek in order to be able to ‘get’ this movie?”.

I think TWOK fulfils this remit, others less so. The Search for Spock for example is so tied into the continuity of the previous film… I don’t think it could be enjoyed as a standalone film, but to a fan invested in the events of TWOK… It’s at least decent Stat Trek.

Possibly I’m not expressing myself very well.

Yep. Trek 2009 is just a damn good movie and it still would be even if it weren't set in space.

A great example of what I’m talking about and yes, a damned good movie. In my top 5 sir!

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Here's my extremely controversial Star Trek movie rankings. (Note: films I've seen more recently might have an unfair advantage.)

1. Star Trek (2009) - It's so good that I don't even care about all the dumb things that constantly happen.
   
2. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - Not quite as controversial to rank this one high.
   
3. Star Trek Beyond - Has a weirdly terrible villain but otherwise it's great.
4. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock - Might have been my introduction to Star Trek and I'll always be fond of it.
5. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - Used to be much lower because the humour was a bit cheesy for me, but it's won me over.
6. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - Used to be higher, but Chang's constant quoting gets to me now.
7. Star Trek: First Contact - Pretty watchable but not a great movie.
8. Star Trek Into Darkness - Also pretty watchable, also not great. I feel like I enjoy it a lot more than most though.
9. Star Trek: Insurrection - A definite step down from everything on the list so far.
10. Star Trek: Nemesis - It's too ridiculous to be taken seriously and too serious to be fun.
11. Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The characters are deliberately cold and the pacing is glacial.
12. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier - Looks cheap, turns the crew into traitors, and the comedy can be embarassing.
13. Star Trek: Generations - Picard's depressed all movie, Data's annoying, and it barely does anything with Kirk.

 

[Oddish]

I very much consider First Contact a Trek movie that is great BECAUSE it's a Trek movie. Worf's arrival wouldn't be half as cool if you didn't know about him being on DS9 and commanding the Defiant. And there's more great nods: Picard's Dixon Hill holonovel, Worf's cutlery, and the ever-awkward Barclay.

 

[Sci]

It's so good that I don't even care about all the dumb things that constantly happen

That kind of describes the entire Star Trek franchise, don't you think?

 

[Farscape One]

COMPUTERS: Majel Barrett vs. Majel Barrett - For some reason, this one's a tie game.

That was funny! I damn near spit out my drink when I read this.

 

[Oddish]

That was funny! I damn near spit out my drink when I read this.

Hope you didn't get any on your keyboard.