What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Tallguy]

for years i watched a dvd with those scenes in, and i swear even the vhs copy i had did
so for twenty, twenty five years i watched it that way.
and then i was at my friend's house, watching TUC either because it happened to be on or through one of the services, i forgot. and they weren't there. and i was baffled, and had to explain to my friend that odo is supposed to be there!

I think I felt the same way watching Star Trek: The Motion Picture on laserdisc the first time. It was the first time in at least 10 years that I hadn't seen the Special Longer Version. For it's understandable flaws that had just become TMP for me. (And lots of other people.)

OTOH, the "director's cut" of The Wrath of Khan has always made my skin crawl. (I love it when they label something a director's cut and even the director says "No no. My cut was in the cinemas.)

 

[suarezguy]

"Suggestions, Admiral?" "Prayer, Mr. Saavik. The Klingons don't take prisoners."

I like that there's some ambiguity in the line delivery pray because they don't take prisoners or pray that they don't take prisoners that would be worse, the latter probably wasn't intended but still can work.

If factions of both the Klingons and the Federation are in cahoots to sabotage the peace process then why have it be a FAKE Klingon? Are they not good snipers? The only way this works is if West (not North, cleeeeever) is SEEN but not CAUGHT. Why is it West himself and not a lackey?

I like it shows that they could, were working together to extent but in order to/also try to make each other look bad overall. And it feels balanced in that Chang had been the overall villain including in those scenes but not excessive balance of one (two) human assassins near the Enterprise against the Klingon leader and one Klingon assassin in the final location against the Federation leader (though apparently Klingon assassin in the latter), it's also decent little twist in the Klingon looking so villainous in preparing for the assassination, that he seemed villainous and trying to look real/more villainous and was but not quite as it first appeared.

 

[gomtuu20]

I think seasons 3 and 4 (really starting with the last episode of season 2) of Enterprise are nearly as good as any other Star Trek series in their prime. I don't include the dismal series finalé in that, but you know what I mean.

I think TOS' "Spock's Brain" is watchable, even though it is stupid. The first part of the episode is not bad as an episode. The drama of which planet to search, the concept of the men living above the surface while the women live below- all of that has the makings of a mediocre episode. It had potential. It's when Spock's body is beamed down to the planet with a a little headpiece and is being controlled by a little remote control, the average viewer loses his/her suspension of disbelief immediately. It's just so stupid. My argument is that from that point forward, the episode becomes a full on comedy. Even the actors (Shatner in particular) seem to have a hard time taking it seriously. In fact, even the script seems to change, with little jokes about delightful pleasures and the character demonstrating how she fainted when she was stunned by a phaser. Hilarious! Don't get me wrong, I am not claiming that this is a good episode. It's an embarrassment. I'm just saying that if you take it as a comedy after Spock's body beams down to the planet, it is watchable as a comedy. It is not without some redeeming qualities. "And The Children Shall Lead", on the other hand, has not redeeming qualities and is unwatchable.

 

[Attentive Senpai]

Huboy.

I think the Mirror Universe has been stretched way too thin. It's fun as a one-off counterfactual, but trying to treat it as its own self-contained setting ruins the campiness that made it fun in TOS. It should've appeared once and once only. It didn't need to be more than it was.

I think TMP was good, even with the excruciatingly long pan shots.

 

[Dukhat]

I assume you refer to this:

I guess. I don't have my copy of the novel handy, but I recall at least two or three instances where this subject was addressed in the book. I thought I even recalled the words 'tear ducts' used, but my memory might be faulty in that regard.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

What if instead, the mirror universe had been an isolated mirror planet/solar system of Earth/Sol system in the same reality where parallel development included parallel people who hadn't gone space-faring yet, including an all-human Spock?

 

[Firebird]

OTOH, the "director's cut" of The Wrath of Khan has always made my skin crawl. (I love it when they label something a director's cut and even the director says "No no. My cut was in the cinemas.)

I thought Meyer was involved with the version of WOK they originally put together for the 2003 special edition DVD?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The delivery in many of the shots particular to the TWOK DE is markedly inferior to what's replaced in the theatrical edition. The words lame and lackluster come to mind. It's not e.g. Butrick's fault; those takes simply should have remained on the cutting room floor.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

I also found that the cinematography of The Prisoner to hold similar production values to Trek, Mission Impossible and other shows and movies of that time. Kind of added an (unintentional?) creepiness to the atmosphere of a given episode. Moody lighting, scrim work and reaction snap-zooms were hallmarks of 60’s film production.

The interesting thing about The Prisoner, if you read any of the Behind the Scenes books, is that all of the Portmeirion footage with Patrick McGoohan was shot in one big block at the beginning of filming, then interspersed throughout the episodes.

Any pickup shots that were filmed later were with a second unit crew and McGoohan's stunt double/stand in.

Additional shots that required McGoohan to be in the Village were done in the studio with photographs of Portmeirion in the background.

Once you know what to look for, it's pretty easy to spot the difference between the location and studio footage and McGoohan and the stand in.

 

[Tallguy]

I thought Meyer was involved with the version of WOK they originally put together for the 2003 special edition DVD?

He was. But it might even be on the commentary where he notes that his cut was the theatrical and while this was done by him that he doesn't consider it THE cut. He's of the "Once you let it out in the wild it isn't yours anymore" school. I don't recall if he mentioned a bearded filmmaker from Modesto or not.

If it's not on the commentary then he said it in an interview that I read or heard.

The interesting thing about The Prisoner, if you read any of the Behind the Scenes books, is that all of the Portmeirion footage with Patrick McGoohan was shot in one big block at the beginning of filming, then interspersed throughout the episodes.

Any pickup shots that were filmed later were with a second unit crew and McGoohan's stunt double/stand in.

Additional shots that required McGoohan to be in the Village were done in the studio with photographs of Portmeirion in the background.

Once you know what to look for, it's pretty easy to spot the difference between the location and studio footage and McGoohan and the stand in.

I just watched a YouTube video where they claimed that the U.S. "showed it out of order", messing up the meticulously created continuity. B.S. McGoohan himself never agreed on what was the "right" order, other than what was first and what was last. (Although the U.S. run did cut a few episodes.)

 

[DarrenTR1970]

I just watched a YouTube video where they claimed that the U.S. "showed it out of order", messing up the meticulously created continuity. B.S. McGoohan himself never agreed on what was the "right" order, other than what was first and what was last. (Although the U.S. run did cut a few episodes.)

True.

I watched a YouTube video of an interview with McGoohan, which is the source of the fabled "Seven episodes that really count", and McGoohan neither confirms or denies the seven episodes that the interviewer mentions; only saying that Arrival is first and Once Upon A Time and Fall Out should be the last two.​

 

[Maurice]

I guess. I don't have my copy of the novel handy, but I recall at least two or three instances where this subject was addressed in the book. I thought I even recalled the words 'tear ducts' used, but my memory might be faulty in that regard.

I have an OCR of the book and searched for tear, cry, duct, anatomy, etc. Weep was the only word that turned up anything. But maybe he used some wording I'm not coming up with.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Try apparatus, equipped, or anatomy.

 

[B.J.]

I think the Mirror Universe has been stretched way too thin. It's fun as a one-off counterfactual, but trying to treat it as its own self-contained setting ruins the campiness that made it fun in TOS. It should've appeared once and once only. It didn't need to be more than it was.

Partially agreed. Although personally,

Spoiler: DSC Season 1 spoilers

seeing Burnham take the ISS Shenzhou's captain's chair at the end of "Despite Yourself"

was honestly chilling!

 

[cooleddie74]

It was good in one episode of TOS, one of DS9 and two of ENT.

And that's pretty much it.

 

[Sketcher]

Gonna be a bit disappointed if SNW never does anything with the mirror universe. It doesn't need to be connected to the prime timeline, just a self-contained episode of everyone acting crazy and evil. Maybe telling the tale of how Kirk killed Pike to take command of the Enterprise.

 

[Tallguy]

Gonna be a bit disappointed if SNW never does anything with the mirror universe. It doesn't need to be connected to the prime timeline, just a self-contained episode of everyone acting crazy and evil. Maybe telling the tale of how Kirk killed Pike to take command of the Enterprise.

What do you THINK the puppet episode is going to be?

 

[fireproof78]

Partially agreed. Although personally,

Spoiler: DSC Season 1 spoilers

seeing Burnham take the ISS Shenzhou's captain's chair at the end of "Despite Yourself"

was honestly chilling!

Discovery fir the best job with the Mirror Universe outside of the original Mirror Mirror story.

 

[Turtletrekker]

It was good in one episode of TOS, one of DS9 and two of ENT.

And that's pretty much it.

The ENT eps were "meh", and only salvaged by the recreation of the TOS sets. I agree that Crossover was a good ep (with diminishing returns thereafter) but frankly I think Discovery season 1 did the best version of the mirror universe outside of Mirror Mirror.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

The ENT eps were "meh", and only salvaged by the recreation of the TOS sets. I agree that Crossover was a good ep (with diminishing returns thereafter) but frankly I think Discovery season 1 did the best version of the mirror universe outside of Mirror Mirror.

Agreed.

I wish DSC hadn't gone full ham with Lorca and Georgiou, but that first episode about having to believably learn to fit in in such an awful world was easily the best use of the MU since the original.

And the ENT eps were most definitely the worst.