What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

I'd agree with you in the real world (as much as the real world can handle these sorts of things) but it was established in Future's End that 1970's Earth tech could reverse engineer 29th century tech so somewhere with 1940s tech would reasonably be expected to be able to get something out of a communicator from 200 years in the future I would think

 

I was going to mention Miles, but, technically, he did first appear on TNG.

 

I agree, and the episode even crossed my mind when I wrote the post you're replying to.

The irony is that Starling would have needed to be a transcendent genius to even only roughly understand /reverse engineer the basic principles of 29th century technology (even the shuttle came complete with accessible documentation), and that if he were a genius of that magnitude, he probably wouldn't have really needed 29th century technology to make significant breakthroughs himself and build him that business empire he did.

 

I don't think I agree with this assessment, for three reasons.

1. This future tech depends upon the results of experiments that are unknown to present-day researchers. The results of these experiments are not a priori knowable, no matter how smart you are.

2. The tech includes in its components chemical elements and other physical materials that do not exist on present-day Earth (e.g., dilithium).

3. The development of the future tech depends upon billions, possibly even trillions or more man-years of research and development. That represents an enormous of decisions. Even a super-genius is not billions or trillions times more intelligent than the people who developed the tech. So, they would get more than a leg up from having the tech to base new research upon.

 

Ah, perhaps I should have made myself more clear. I simply meant that someone, intelligent enough to reverse-engineer (even if only very rudimentary) technologies centuries beyond your own, and understand (some of) the basic principles these technologies operate on and derive your own product lines on it, based on materials that are available to you, etc. , would presumably be intelligent enough to achieve his own breakthroughs without that example tech as well - not that they could achieve the same breakthroughs. Not quite as large perhaps, but still enough to get filthily rich and build your own business empire/ monopoly around them.

 

Only thing I can think of to square the circle is that he managed to access the computer (which based on other series has no security features at all unless explicitly set up) and literally asked the computer for schematics or something and took those to be developed as the circuit board and microchip stuff could presumably be manufactured without clear understanding.

Sell partial rights to someone who was working on developing computer tech at the time who might then have a better idea on how to integrate them and do lots of small incremental jumps in tech using the ships computer as the key resource to "teach" him how each thing worked.

Still not exactly plausible but we've all suspended our disbelief for more egregious things in Trek

 

Yeah, luck is also always a factor in success.

 

Hahaha. That sounds like a great idea.
Maybe the Iotians would ask for a piece if the a tin after all.

 

*action

 

I have another controversial opinion:
I liked Star Trek V.
Not because of the plot, but because of all the small interactions between the crew.
Like when Kirk first beams up from rock climbing

KIRK: "I could use a shower."
SPOCK:"Yes."

That is something you could only say to a close friend.

 

I would agree that STAR TREK V got all the character beats perfectly. On that basis alone, it becomes one of the better movies of the entire bunch.

 

That actually seems to be a pretty common opinion in my experience.

 

V has hands down the best Kirk/Spock/Bones stuff.

Say what you will about the rest of the flick but Shatner nailed that stuff.

 

Of course I was never interested in the Kirk/Spock/McCoy relationship, so that doesn't really save Star Trek V for me.

Though I guess that by itself is a controversial opinion.

I never liked nor was I interested in the whole Kirk/Spock/McCoy "dynamic"
And TOS would have probably be a better show if Janice Rand had been the "third main character" instead of McCoy.

 

Star Trek V is way better than it’s reputation unfairly paints it. It’s definitely impacted by the writers strike, studio refusing to move the release date etc etc but it’s really rather fantastic in its character focus and it’s more subtler moments are among the movie era’s best.

 

Whatever one thinks of the rest of the movie this belongs in the pantheon of all-time greatest Trek film moments.

 

If instead of yet another god alien nonsense (how many of them had Star Trek had by that point 5? 6?) they had focused the story, somehow, on that Planet of Intergalactic Peace and Paradise City, with maybe the antagonist just being a cult leader trying to take over the place and exploiting the people there, then I think it could have been a good Star Trek movie.
(though, and I know people will disagree with me here, that horrible campfire singing scene needs to be cut as well *shudder*)

And that with the god alien maybe leads to another controversial opinion.
If a Trek episode, or movie, has the plot "they meet god but it's really an alienz" then I skip it, because I'm sick of how often the franchise re-tread that plotline.