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What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

Given the structure of Vulcan society, their marriages have to be arranged by some process that operates on a level other than love/affection because the alternative would mean a species that's supposed to suppress emotion having to make a choice about mating based on emotion.

But surely marrying for reasons other than love is less logical than marrying for love, so in that case Vulcans should marry exclusively for love regardless of social or familial obligations...

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Am I the only one who's always felt the NCC-1701D is much too fat? It's like a top-heavy Power Mac.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a Power Mac that looks like a Galaxy-class starship...

I quite like that the Enterprise-D has a disproportionately large saucer. It shows a change in focus from the 23rd century to make the ship more centred around its crew and that it was a place to live as well as just work. From the front it almost looks like an enormous gliding aerofoil. If anything I think the secondary hull should have been slimmed down a bit, the sides are slightly too convex.

It's interesting to me that I defend the Galaxy-class design now because I used to not like it at all. She was frumpy, and bulky, and lumbering, with unflattering angles. But the more I read about the thought Andrew Probert put into the design – about why the saucer was wider than it was long, or why the shuttlebay is at the top of the saucer instead of at the back of the secondary hull, or why the nacelle pylons sweep forwards instead of backwards, or all the other sundry details – it really began to make sense. (Probert's preferred design was slightly different from the final version we see on screen, but he was overruled by Roddenberry when it came to things like putting the bridge back on top of the saucer.) But as I got older I saw multiple CGI artists recreating the ship and lighting it better and using a more dynamic camera than the show's original model shots could ever hope to match, which showed much more grace to the ship; and I realised that when I heard the words "Star Trek" or "USS Enterprise", she's the ship I pictured. Not the TOS Constitution-class in all its geometric simplicity; not the refit Constitution-class with its sweeping minimalist lines and art deco styling; not the Enterprise-E with its oddly soulless designed-by-committee blandly corporate attractiveness. For better or worse the Enterprise-D is THE Enterprise for me.

The Picard season 3 writers agree with you. "All we have left are the fat ones."

I disagree. She's not the instant classic that the original or the (swoon) refit are. But she's gorgeous.

She is!

If anything, I think the F is the "fat one", not the D.

I entirely agree, it looks like a fat affronted duck. The Odyssey-class never suited being an Enterprise in my opinion. Its canonisation in Picard was a dreadful mistake, they should have just used the E instead.
 
It's interesting to me that I defend the Galaxy-class design now because I used to not like it at all. She was frumpy, and bulky, and lumbering, with unflattering angles. But the more I read about the thought Andrew Probert put into the design – about why the saucer was wider than it was long, or why the shuttlebay is at the top of the saucer instead of at the back of the secondary hull, or why the nacelle pylons sweep forwards instead of backwards, or all the other sundry details – it really began to make sense. (Probert's preferred design was slightly different from the final version we see on screen, but he was overruled by Roddenberry when it came to things like putting the bridge back on top of the saucer.)
Where did you read his details? I would be curious to hear his thought process. Might change my mind.
they should have just used the E instead.
Agreed.
 
Where did you read his details? I would be curious to hear his thought process. Might change my mind.

There's lots of interviews he's given over the years that go into various details, I don't know if they've all ever been grouped in one place... which is a shame, because it would be a treasure trove. Some of it was captured in the first issue of the Eaglemoss "Build the Enterprise-D" partwork; some of it is summarised in the "Designing the Next Generation Enterprise" article at Forgotten Trek; some of it is in various interviews in podcasts or Youtube videos like Trek Yards or Ship-Talking; some of it was in various Star Trek Magazine issues from the 90s that I remember poring over at the time but don't have any more.

Hope that helps, I know I'm being frustratingly vague here but there really is no single resource I can point to. The Eaglemoss partwork is well worth downloading/reading, it does a really good job of collecting a lot of the early design work into one place. I love the stuff about the internal layout too, about why the bridge layout is very atypical for a Starfleet ship and that Probert wanted the bridge to be part of a submerged "command complex" that featured its own transporter room and shuttlebay.
 
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I love Simon's Scotty, but oof! I don't think I'd compare like that - I thought they both were awesome. Did you have a problem with Urban's McCoy or do you just think his performance was over-celebrated?

Urban's McCoy is like Pine's Kirk – they're playing caricatures, the popular perceptions of those characters without the actual depth and complexity they had in the show. He gives a fine performance of a one-note perpetually angry misanthropic McCoy, but he has none of the heart or wit of DeForest Kelley's version.
 
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Urban is the only one to directly channel his predecessor for so much of his performance. If that was the goal, then he did it well. But as no one else did it to that degree, it doesn’t seem to have been a directorial imperative.

My own controversial opinion is (today at any rate, could change by next Tuesday;) ) there are more good odd numbered Trek films than even numbers in the first ten.

(ducks and runs):shifty::lol:
 
Given the structure of Vulcan society, their marriages have to be arranged by some process that operates on a level other than love/affection because the alternative would mean a species that's supposed to suppress emotion having to make a choice about mating based on emotion.

I mean, first off, I'm not persuaded that the majority of Vulcan marriages are arranged. I think there's a strong possibility that this is only practiced by a minority of Vulcan families, particularly the descendants of old Vulcan aristocracy.

I also think that, between "Amok Time," Tuvok and his wife, T'Pol/Koss/Trip, and now SNW, it's pretty clear that Vulcan culture is more tolerant of love as an emotion that binds couples than it is of emotions in other contexts.

Am I the only one who's always felt the NCC-1701D is much too fat? It's like a top-heavy Power Mac.

I love it. To me, the Galaxy class looks stately and majestic.

The Picard season 3 writers agree with you. "All we have left are the fat ones."

Nah, the PIC S3 writers don't agree! The the point of that scene was that that bartender was being a jerk and we should find her annoying for it. The PIC S3 writers set her up for us to root against her.

I entirely agree, it looks like a fat affronted duck. The Odyssey-class never suited being an Enterprise in my opinion. Its canonisation in Picard was a dreadful mistake, they should have just used the E instead.

It also just didn't make sense emotionally. We're gonna introduce this new Enterprise that we the audience have no emotional connection to unless we've been playing a video game, and then we're gonna destroy it five minutes later? They should have just had Shelby commanding the Enterprise-E -- a ship we have an emotional connection to. Then it gets taken over by the Borg (again!) and destroyed, and that will create a stronger sense of danger and therefore a stronger sense of relief when the Enterprse-D returns.
 
I mean, first off, I'm not persuaded that the majority of Vulcan marriages are arranged. I think there's a strong possibility that this is only practiced by a minority of Vulcan families, particularly the descendants of old Vulcan aristocracy.

I also think that, between "Amok Time," Tuvok and his wife, T'Pol/Koss/Trip, and now SNW, it's pretty clear that Vulcan culture is more tolerant of love as an emotion that binds couples than it is of emotions in other contexts.

You're taking away part of what gives them that mystique.
 
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