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What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

Rewatching TNG and by the time I get to season five I seriously start skipping episodes. There are some excellent episodes in s5 onwards but the series also lost something and I’m not sure what…? Maybe the sheer lack of narrative drive or purpose outside of strictly episodic storytelling. I don’t feel the writers really thought beyond the next episode or two.
The fifth or sixth season is when most shows run out of stories. After that you start scraping the bottom of the barrel. I remember Ron Moore or Brannon Braga saying when they were breaking the story for S7's "Interface," they thought, "...We're doing a story about Geordi's mother? This show needs to die." :lol:

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Interface_(episode)#Reception
I’ve also noticed that around the time s5 began they did something to the photography. It looks like there’s a yellow/orange filter over the camera which gives everything a yellowy glow; particularly noticeable in the bridge scenes but others too. Did anyone else notice this?
Hmm. I thought the show's director of photography had moved over to DS9 around that time, but according to Memory Alpha it was still Marvin Rush, the same person working on TNG since the third season. So I don't know.
One of the things that irks me about SNW is the way they call the ship “Enterprise” rather than “the Enterprise”. It seems to be Voyager that set the trend by ditching the “the”. Why, though?
I think VOY just started doing it because the writers thought just saying "Voyager" sounded more natural than saying "The Voyager." But then they carried the habit over to ENT, and all the characters started calling the ship "Enterprise" instead of "The Enterprise," the way they did on TOS.

It drives me NUTS and throws me out of the story each and every time they do it. The same as when anyone in the SNW or TOS era calls it an "away team" instead of a landing party.
TOS did not have anything approaching "cardboard" sets, but designs--particularly for the 1701--that were advanced for their era and influenced generations of sci-fi designs. The visual strength of TOS was the reason it was so seamlessly blended into shows produced decades later, such as DS9's "Trials and Tribble-ations" and ENT's "Through a Mirror, Darkly" 2-parter.
God, that "TOS had cardboard sets!" myth needs to die already. They knew how to build sets out of wood in the 1960s. The only thing in TOS that might qualify as a cardboard set would be the munitions dump in "Errand of Mercy," which I agree did not look great.
Which do you think Star Trek: The Motion Picture looks more visually like? TOS or 2001?
2001, which was the problem. It was trying to be 2001 instead of trying to be Star Trek.
 
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As I said, it throws me out of the story every time they do it, so yes, it is a big deal for me.

I don't expect this to be a universal opinion. Your experience is not my experience.
Well, OK, but if something as small as that throws you out of the story, then maybe you just don't enjoy the story.
 
Hmm. I thought the show's director of photography had moved over to DS9 around that time, but according to Memory Alpha it was still Marvin Rush, the same person working on TNG since the third season. So I don't know.
I’d actually say that tracks, the third season photography is way more bland and overlit compared to previous seasons. Not to specifically dig on Marvin Rush, I’ve always believed that the soap opera lighting was another one of Berman’s cost-cutting measures, if everything is overlit you don’t have to screw around as much setting up for different shots.

I think VOY just started doing it because the writers thought just saying "Voyager" sounded more natural than saying "The Voyager." But then they carried the habit over to ENT, and all the characters started calling the ship "Enterprise" instead of "The Enterprise," the way they did on TOS.
Not putting a “the” in front of a ship’s name is the correct convention, so they actually were doing it wrong up to Voyager.
 
Not putting a “the” in front of a ship’s name is the correct convention, so they actually were doing it wrong up to Voyager.
Well, again, they were probably just doing whatever sounded best to the ear.

I'm surprised the TOS writers & producers would get that wrong, though, as a lot of them had real world military experience. The TNG writers & beyond did not, except for Ron Moore, who went to military school, IIRC.
 
Beyond is one of the best Star Trek movies made.
Unpopular opinion:
Beyond is one of the absolute worst Trek movies. Saying it's "beige" or "vanilla" would insult it for being too colorful or too spicy. It's not even bad, it's so unmemorable. People say "Insurrection" is just a TNG two-parter. If so, then "Beyond" is like the second act of a regular episode before anything starts to happen. It's too bland to run as background noise while doing the dishes. It's like "the silence" from Dr. Who. It's not just grey, it literally wipes your memory the second you look away from it, even if it's still running in the background. The "Battleship" to the Transformers franchise.

The only reason why Trekkies love it is because it's the first nuTrek movie where they managed to get Spock & McCoy bickering right (respectfully, instead of, you know, somebody bullying someone mentally unstable who just survived genocide), the arrival at the space station looked good, and because it isn't as audaciously stupid or offensive as it's immediate predecessor. That it felt completely flat with general audiences is rightfully deserved.
 
It's worth considering that at the time TOS's first season was being made Stanley Kubrick was filming 2001: A Space Odyssey. Look at TOS and look at 2001 and tell me which has "visual strength" and looked "advanced for their era and influenced generations of sci-fi designs". Which do you think Star Trek: The Motion Picture looks more visually like? TOS or 2001?

Yes, a movie budget like 2001 or TMP is naturally going to look better and more realistic than the TOS budget. That's why Roddenberry is referenced as saying that was basically how the Klingons (in TMP) were always supposed to look.
 
Yes, a movie budget like 2001 or TMP is naturally going to look better and more realistic than the TOS budget. That's why Roddenberry is referenced as saying that was basically how the Klingons (in TMP) were always supposed to look.
So isn't it natural that a TV series made 60 years later is also going to look better and more realistic?
 
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