What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Ray Hardgrit]

My controversial opinion about bringing old characters back is that it's awesome and they should keep doing it... as long as they don't kill them off. That's the important part: no killing off characters. They shouldn't torture them and pull out their eyes either.


Okay they can kill off Nick Locarno if they absolutely have to.

 

[BillJ]

My controversial opinion about bringing old characters back is that it's awesome and they should keep doing it... as long as they don't kill them off. That's the important part: no killing off characters. They shouldn't torture them and pull out their eyes either.

I'd prefer they be kept in a vault, and brought out for special stories that actually mean something. Rather than just being splooged onscreen for short term gain.

 

[cooleddie74]

The best ever use by any later Trek series or film of a Legacy character was all the way back in 1987.

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[BillJ]

The best ever use by any later Trek series or film of a Legacy character was all the way back in 1987.

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It is just tough to judge CBS Trek on its own merits, because it has never flown without the nostalgia net being within arm's range.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

That wasn't really nostalgia though, that was a crossover. They made two more TOS movies after that, three if you count Generations.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Yeah, "Edward" is one of the best Short Treks, but parts of it are best ignored in the way the absolute goofiest parts of a LD episode should be ignored as rigid canon.

Tribbles are truly the greatest Inadvertant Ecological Weapon ever devised.

Imagine going to a enemies planet spread tribbles all over their planet.

Watch them multiply out of control and eat up the ecology like what we saw in PRO.

You can deny enemies the use of entire planets for little opportunity cost.

 

[BillJ]

Tribbles are truly the greatest Inadvertant Ecological Weapon ever devised.

Imagine going to a enemies planet spread tribbles all over their planet.

Watch them multiply out of control and eat up the ecology like what we saw in PRO.

You can deny enemies the use of entire planets for little opportunity cost.

You are really on about Tribbles as an ecological weapon.

 

[Tallguy]

If you say so. If something ended for me over 20 years ago, I certainly wouldn't spend my time talking about it on internet message boards. That sounds less like a hobby and more like an unhealthy obsession to me. I'm moving on from this conversation.

Oh, I don't know. Even if I hated all of modern Star Trek (I certainly don't) I still wouldn't shut up about old Star Trek.

Technically Amanda is seen in TFF, but it's a flashback scene where a younger actress plays her in childbirth.

Fair.

You are really on about Tribbles as an ecological weapon.

It's essentially the plot of More Tribbles, More Troubles.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

You are really on about Tribbles as an ecological weapon.

Think about how easy it is to execute:
1) Have Genetically Modified Tribbles ready to disperse and held in a stasis/containment field or transporter pattern buffer so they can't move around.
2) Fly to target planet
3) Beam them around to the surface where you want them to infect
4) Fly Away and watch them cause massive ecological devastation to the planet.

Star Trek: Prodigy showed what us what happens when Tribbles run out of control.

It's VERY scary.

It's essentially the plot of More Tribbles, More Troubles.

More like the plot from the episode "A Tribble Called Quest"

Those Klingon Genetically Modified Tribbles have Teeth, they BITE!

 

[evilchumlee]

Starfleet Academy is look forward looking ground in both terms of continuity and content, so I'm not sure how that applies. I will grant that Picard seasons 2 and especially 3 went overboard on the nostalgia, but I'm not going to condemn the entire current output of the franchise on that.

Picard went heavy on the nostalgia, but it was also kind of the point? We were specifically revisiting a character from a previous show, it was basically custom-built for a nostalgia show.

I think Discovery tended to be a worse culprit but in a different way. Discovery was banking on nostalgia to get people in, "It's the 23rd century!", "SPOCK!", etc. but like, also went out of its way to change everything so it's like... all the nostalgia with none of the nostalgia...

Otherwise, for me complaints of "fan service" in modern Trek tend to just boil down to people complaining that they're putting Star Trek in their Star Trek. The more history a franchise has to draw from, they're more they're going to draw from and expand it. Seems pretty basic to me. At this point, to my mind the overuse of the phrase "fan service" has put it in the same category as the phrase "canon violation".

I find the concept of people being against "fan service" to be somewhat bizarre. I think you put it well, "How dare they put in Star Trek in my Star Trek!" Like... that's why i'm watching this. I want my Star Trek to have Star Trek stuff in it.

"Fan service" seems to be... a production... giving fans... things they want to see. Why is this bad?!

 

[Lord Garth]

My Star Trek was over twenty years ago.

I thought you were a fan of the Kelvin Films. The last of which came out in 2016. Or has there been a retcon, so now you're not?

 

[XCV330]

Discovery should have had ugly old ships.. Kelvins and Hermes, and Daedalus types. Shenzhou was ok.. it was banged up enough and was supposed to be atmospheric. The rest show a design language that are jarring as they seem to come out of nowhere and things like them don't show up again until Enterprise E.

It's the exact reason that the Kelvin works so well at the beginning of the 09 movie. The audience knows what star trek ships look like, and Kelvin looks like that, but older, especially inside. The design language holds together. SNW Enterprise, despite some glowing bits, again works, except for the most fandamentalist TOS fanatic.

 

[Lord Garth]

Picard went heavy on the nostalgia, but it was also kind of the point? We were specifically revisiting a character from a previous show, it was basically custom-built for a nostalgia show.

Agreed.

I think Discovery tended to be a worse culprit but in a different way. Discovery was banking on nostalgia to get people in, "It's the 23rd century!", "SPOCK!", etc. but like, also went out of its way to change everything so it's like... all the nostalgia with none of the nostalgia...

They wanted to create a new version of the 23rd Century but, for some reason, *cough*CBS*cough*, they had to say it was Prime. I understand they were calling it that for whatever reason. But I, as a viewer, just treat it like a third timeline.

I had to be quiet about that on here for a while though because too many other people here would think that would've meant I didn't like the show, which isn't true. If not for Picard, Discovery would be my favorite New Trek. In fact, I'd say I liked DSC more than most of them did.

 

[fireproof78]

giving fans... things they want to see. Why is this bad?!

It's not bad.

It's not all I want and being told you must feel something because it's that guy from that thing I know appears on screen is damn frustrating.

Like, I'm sorry that I want characters and story first. I don't just want to be told "here you go little fan. Here's a treat." It feels condescending as I'll get out some times.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I find the concept of people being against "fan service" to be somewhat bizarre. I think you put it well, "How dare they put in Star Trek in my Star Trek!" Like... that's why i'm watching this. I want my Star Trek to have Star Trek stuff in it.

"Fan service" seems to be... a production... giving fans... things they want to see. Why is this bad?!

I guess it's subjective. How much you put in, when, how obvious it is, which things you include and where, the proportion, whether it helps or hinders the story you put it in.

You may love a particular food like chocolate, but not in everything you eat, smell, wear, etc. has to have chocolate in it. You may love dogs, but if every gift people buy you is dog-themed, eventually, you want something else.

At some point, you want to be surprised by new things, find different things to also like, different places to explore that don't all look the same, try something else for a change, even if you go back to the old thing again sometimes. If nothing else, you appreciate what you get a break from.

It's the whole idea of Star Trek - going to new places and finding both old and new things.

 

[Farscape One]

It is just tough to judge CBS Trek on its own merits, because it has never flown without the nostalgia net being within arm's range.

I think you make a good point about the reliance of legacy STAR TREK.

While I enjoy more of the references and some of the nostalgia than others here, I do agree the era should have started off without feeling the need to tether it completely to the past.

The most notable example for what I am saying is DISCO: making Burnham Spock's adoptive sister. That never sat right with me, not because it was out of nowhere (because we have Sybok that set the precedence), but because it telegraphed to the audience that we HAVE to care about her because she is tied so directly to Spock, who is arguably the face of the entire franchise. That told me the producers didn't believe in the show, or the lead, enough to be able to stand on its own.

It's one thing to have an unnamed character who is obviously McCoy appear in a single scene in the pilot of TNG, but it's quite another to have the LEAD character of the series be directly tied to Spock and Sarek and have both characters on as recurring characters for two seasons. (Sarek for both, Spock for season 2.)

There's passing the torch or paying homage to the past, and then there's relying on the past to draw people in. DISCO was very clearly the latter.

 

[XCV330]

It would have been a braver thing for Discovery to have never had Burnham be related to Spock, but we wouldn't have SNW now. People who don't like DISCO but enjoy SNW can just think of DISCO season 2 as Season 0 of SNW.

 

[fireproof78]

Burnham being related to Spock never bothered me because that's not why I cared about the character.

 

[Lord Garth]

For me, personally, Burnham having a connection to Spock was an afterthought. What got me invested in Burnham's character was she messes up big time and has to go on a redemptive path for the rest of the season. Then, after that, showing how she slowly becomes Captain, then actually is Captain. Her relationship with Book, the strains that relationship was put through, her friendships with Saru and Tilly, and how she rose up in the 32nd Century and worked for Vance, Kovich, and Rillak.

I think she shouldn't have been part of Spock's family but not for the same reason as other people here. Not, "Oh no! It's Spock's foster-sister!" More like she's way too emotional to have been raised by Vulcans for as long as she was. The way the character was portrayed didn't match the background.

But I still liked the character. If I didn't like the character, then no connection to Spock would've made me like her. I never went, "Oh my God! Burnham's awesome because she's Spock's foster-sister! Spock!"

 

[Farscape One]

It would have been a braver thing for Discovery to have never had Burnham be related to Spock, but we wouldn't have SNW now. People who don't like DISCO but enjoy SNW can just think of DISCO season 2 as Season 0 of SNW.

Considering the era DISCO season 1 and 2 was, SNW still could have happened. They could also have simply made her a close friend of Spock, and that would have changed very little, if anything, of the show. (We would not get "Lethe", though, which is the only really good episode of sesson 1.)