Interesting to see a young James McAvoy if nothing else.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
- Start date
He was in the sequels, but not SyFy's original with William Hurt as Duke Leto.
Wait, Leto as in Dune?
I haven't seen the mini-series. I remember the Dino Di Laurentiis film, though. lmao A young(ish) Patrick Stewart starred in it, I recall. You almost had to read the books just to know what the hell was going on. Love how they tried to jam the first three books into the prologue.
*plants a thumper, runs away*
This is controversial these days I suppose..
Vulcans *suppress* emotion/passions, deep
down... they're neither devoid of emotion like
robots, nor just keeping a straight face, which
believe it or not, are the two debate positions I
hear among young fans.
------------------
In the 60s, psychological concepts were in the
air, real psychology, not lightweight pop
psychology. They could expect some viewers
to pick up on what they were doing. Newer
viewers might not even know about supression
of ideas, feelings, or memories, and how much
a person can push things under.
------------------
This includes love/lust/sex. Their supression of
all feeling, to prevent the initially very violent
nature of Vulcans from recurring, wouldn't
leave out the most tumultuoius of passions, that
probably leads to more murders than any
other. This created the question of how they
could reproduce, leading to the pon farr idea.
There's no possible other reason for introducing
such a thing.
----------------------------
The new shows are made by people, and for
people, who grew up with later versions of
Trek, where writers never re-explained what
Vulcans were in depth, assuming we all knew
already... and Vulcans rarely figured into plots.
Eventually there was Tuvok, but the
supression of emotion wasn't referred to much.
A viewer could easily get the idea that Vulcans
were just sort of "stiff" and liked logic... making
them like so many other lightweight, generic TV
aliens, like Teal'c from Stargate... whom we
know is alien, why? Because he speaks in a
very dignified way...
------------------
I hear the Abrams movies had Spock and
Uhura dating. He said, cluelessly, that the no
sex for Vulcans thing in TOS was the prudism of
the times... humans were very sexual in TOS. I
mean, Kirk... SNW had Spock in a romantic/sex
scene in episode one.
-----------------
Whether Vulcans' extreme supression can
possibly be healthy, and not traumatic and
damaging, is questionable. But it's still a great
concept that they explored well, in TOS. Many
episodes lose most of their depth and resonance,
if you're unaware of the concept... like This Side
of Paradise.
Vulcans *suppress* emotion/passions, deep
down... they're neither devoid of emotion like
robots, nor just keeping a straight face, which
believe it or not, are the two debate positions I
hear among young fans.
------------------
In the 60s, psychological concepts were in the
air, real psychology, not lightweight pop
psychology. They could expect some viewers
to pick up on what they were doing. Newer
viewers might not even know about supression
of ideas, feelings, or memories, and how much
a person can push things under.
------------------
This includes love/lust/sex. Their supression of
all feeling, to prevent the initially very violent
nature of Vulcans from recurring, wouldn't
leave out the most tumultuoius of passions, that
probably leads to more murders than any
other. This created the question of how they
could reproduce, leading to the pon farr idea.
There's no possible other reason for introducing
such a thing.
----------------------------
The new shows are made by people, and for
people, who grew up with later versions of
Trek, where writers never re-explained what
Vulcans were in depth, assuming we all knew
already... and Vulcans rarely figured into plots.
Eventually there was Tuvok, but the
supression of emotion wasn't referred to much.
A viewer could easily get the idea that Vulcans
were just sort of "stiff" and liked logic... making
them like so many other lightweight, generic TV
aliens, like Teal'c from Stargate... whom we
know is alien, why? Because he speaks in a
very dignified way...
------------------
I hear the Abrams movies had Spock and
Uhura dating. He said, cluelessly, that the no
sex for Vulcans thing in TOS was the prudism of
the times... humans were very sexual in TOS. I
mean, Kirk... SNW had Spock in a romantic/sex
scene in episode one.
-----------------
Whether Vulcans' extreme supression can
possibly be healthy, and not traumatic and
damaging, is questionable. But it's still a great
concept that they explored well, in TOS. Many
episodes lose most of their depth and resonance,
if you're unaware of the concept... like This Side
of Paradise.
I've seen most SNW episodes, but not all of them. And of the ones I've seen, I've only watched them once. But I don't think it's been established on that series that Vulcans are devoid of emotion. I don't think it's ever actually said in the Abrams Films either.
Though I will agree there's an assumption that people were more familiar with TOS than they actually were. Things were either forgotten, misremembered, exaggerated, or distorted. In both fandom and pop culture.
JJ Abrams was really a Star Wars fan. Akiva Goldsman, the Showrunner for SNW, was born in 1962. Definitely not a Millennial. I don't think it's a stretch to say he actually really is a TOS Fan. When he found out the original setting for Discovery (during its first two seasons) was 10 years before TOS, his first thought was, "Where's Pike?" Though I do think the target audience is people who didn't grow up with TOS and who want a 21st Century version of it. I won't argue with that point.
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Vulcans are at their best when it's clear they are straining to maintain their composure. Nimoy plays Spock so well when he is at the limit of his tolerances.
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Yeah, he's mentioned being a fan and it was a "refuge" from a turbulent childhood while growing up.
The other show runner, Henry Alonzo Meyers was born in 1972, so also not a Millennial.
Mark Lenard is the quintessential Vulcan for me. Cold. Logical. But so full of emotion it hurts as a viewer that he’s suppressing it so much.
I don't know what you're trying to say. SNW established in episode 1 that Vulcans are apparently very emotional, in the romantic scene. Whether you keep a straight face or not, romance/love/sex are emotional... One thing I'm afraid of is that people have come to view sex as just "getting off" (like the scifi fans who think robot sex would be preferable to sex between people) to the point where emotionlessness and sex seem to go together for them. So routinely sexually active Vulcans make sense to them...
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What do you mean by "devoid of emotion"? Suppression of emotion, and having no emotion to begin with, are two very different things.
------------
I should add that I've just seen the first 3 episodes of SNW, during their free month. That ep 1 scene told me a lot... and I've just seen 3 or so Discoveries.
--------------
Of course Abrams is no millennia l, but I was thinking of TV. In Abrams, h e had no interest in Trek and no particular respect for it when offered the job. He had to ask his Trek fan pals, who told him Trek is good because of Kirk's struggles with the issue of command... Anyway, I figure any show is largely made by people in their 30s, aside from those at the very top. I don't know if I'm right. That would mean millennials.
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He was only "full of emotion" when a disease made him unable to suppress, in "Sarek", TNG.
When we watch TOS, we often suspect that there might be more emotion, closer to the surface, than Vulcans care to admit. But it's going way too far to believe that the Vulcan claim of being without emotion is just a claim. Psychological repression is a powerful thing. He's locked much of the emotion into a tiny room in the basement, but it won't be completely contained. Human characters keep reading human emotion into Vulcans' words and actions, and the latter keep having to explain patiently that it's not appropriate to.
Hard disagree. In Journey to Babel, the love he has for Amanda is palpable. Just very, very subtly played.
The same in the Search for Spock. By Mark Lenard's intense performance in his scene at Kirk's apartment, it was obvious "his logic was uncertain where his son was concerned."
I think you also get a good sense of repressed Vulcanism from Tuvok, basically in any chosen interaction he has with Neelix.
I think Tuvok pretty much constantly wants to tell Neelix to fuck off. He never does though.
I think Tuvok pretty much constantly wants to tell Neelix to fuck off. He never does though.
I was reading your original post about what you think are the two main arguing points between young fans, how you said the show was made by people like those, and so I put two and two together.
There was also some skimming of your post because of the way it's structured, it looks like what I'd normally see in a poem or lyrics in a song. It was also late at night.
Ironically, you've probably seen more of SNW than I have.
I’ve been around mentally ill long enough to know that any deviance can become pathological with impetus, and when it becomes pathological, it expresses changes at the genomic level, altering DNA. Do this over enough generations, and you will have bred a psychopathy akin to sociopathy and the results will be no different than living in a prison long-term. Doesn’t matter that the impetus may be survival, the changes occur regardless.
Perhaps, then, the Vulcan rituals like ponn farr are meant more to restore and pull back from that edge of madness and to keep on the side of sanity as a form of psychic pressure release.
Perhaps, then, the Vulcan rituals like ponn farr are meant more to restore and pull back from that edge of madness and to keep on the side of sanity as a form of psychic pressure release.
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