What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
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? Klingons are all about aesthetics! The outfits, the trefoil, the crazy dark beauty of a lot of their weapons and architecture, opera & ritual, etc…
In the “having Star Trek at all” sense, in a way we’re lucky that Gene Roddenberry created it in the 1960s. If he were first doing all that today and was otherwise the same guy, I unfortunately wouldn’t be utterly shocked if some extracurricular activity or other were to bring him down, and this new TV series project of his with him.
If Gene had lived long enough, #metoo would have destroyed him.
QO’NOS VERSUS THE CRAB MONSTERS
That's the 1960's for ya...
My head cannon was that Klingons are going down an evolutionary dead--end...stabbing cats.
TOS-Movie/TNG-Discovery appearance due to mutations from atomic wars...FALLOUT style....Disco timeline being in the PICARD era.
Disco Klingons venerate their dead being fewer in numbers...no longer thinking the body a shell.
Were I to retcon Doctor Who, the actor of the next Regen cycle should be older than the previous actor. Different species, gender, all fine --but mortality remains, however long the Doctors live.
are you kind of like a Tamarian except you speak only in personal-head-cannon-fanfic?
I have four opinions. Not sure if they are controversial or not...
1. Televised Star Trek (and any future films) are not likely to ever go back to being a morality play like TOS or TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT were. I honestly think that style of Star Trek is (unfortunately) done and not likely to ever return. At best, we may get moments that superficially touch on modern-day political or social events, but it won't be the focus. It will be used as window dressing for the greater focus of the sci-fi action portion of the plot. That's not to say the older Treks did not have a similar dynamic but it was flipped. The philosophy or morality play was usually the stronger focus with some sci-fi action that could be shoehorned in (no doubt because the budget and they were restricted to using matte paintings and miniature ships earlier on).
2. Immortality or longer life spans should be the norm for humans. I know they implied humans do have longer life spans via McCoy being over 100 years old and still kicking, but he really is the only human example of it. Surely by the 23rd century, dying of old age is a thing of the past? If science says that immortality is impossible for us as species, then at the very least - it is suspect we still die around 80-90 years old.
I feel like that is considered too "alien" for modern sci-fi viewers and they won't connect with the characters if they're living to be 500 years old. Just seems odd considering how advanced the rest of the technology in Trek is.
3. Time to retire "warp" travel. The shows (TNG, VOY, DISCO) and STIII (transwarp) have shown us there are dozens of other ways to travel across the galaxy faster than light. I get it - warp drive is iconic and removing it may make it feel less like Trek, but it really is archaic even within the standards of the established universe.
4. The holodeck/holosuite ended up being a bad idea for a number of reasons and has not aged well for me. It is an immoral and evil tool that went from an interesting high concept in science fiction to an annoying MacGuffin to have episodes off of the ship/station sets. An excuse to travel to fictional times in human history or fantasies without time travel or some spatial anomaly or some alien messing with the crew's head.
Reason 1: It's out of date
1. Televised Star Trek (and any future films) are not likely to ever go back to being a morality play like TOS or TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT were. I honestly think that style of Star Trek is (unfortunately) done and not likely to ever return. At best, we may get moments that superficially touch on modern-day political or social events, but it won't be the focus. It will be used as window dressing for the greater focus of the sci-fi action portion of the plot. That's not to say the older Treks did not have a similar dynamic but it was flipped. The philosophy or morality play was usually the stronger focus with some sci-fi action that could be shoehorned in (no doubt because the budget and they were restricted to using matte paintings and miniature ships earlier on).
2. Immortality or longer life spans should be the norm for humans. I know they implied humans do have longer life spans via McCoy being over 100 years old and still kicking, but he really is the only human example of it. Surely by the 23rd century, dying of old age is a thing of the past? If science says that immortality is impossible for us as species, then at the very least - it is suspect we still die around 80-90 years old.
I feel like that is considered too "alien" for modern sci-fi viewers and they won't connect with the characters if they're living to be 500 years old. Just seems odd considering how advanced the rest of the technology in Trek is.
3. Time to retire "warp" travel. The shows (TNG, VOY, DISCO) and STIII (transwarp) have shown us there are dozens of other ways to travel across the galaxy faster than light. I get it - warp drive is iconic and removing it may make it feel less like Trek, but it really is archaic even within the standards of the established universe.
4. The holodeck/holosuite ended up being a bad idea for a number of reasons and has not aged well for me. It is an immoral and evil tool that went from an interesting high concept in science fiction to an annoying MacGuffin to have episodes off of the ship/station sets. An excuse to travel to fictional times in human history or fantasies without time travel or some spatial anomaly or some alien messing with the crew's head.
Reason 1: It's out of date
- I remember when SNW had a primitive version of the holodeck and there was push back on it because it was first established in TNG. While that did annoy me too, I feel like the onus is on TNG for establishing it as something "new" in the 24th century. I honestly think we'll get some version of the holodeck in THIS century in real life. Advancements in VR aren't rapid but they are there. I get Trek can get away with saying the 21st century was set back due to WWIII but all that means is the holodeck should have been "new" during ENT-era. The idea that the holodeck would not be invented as we know it until TNG has not aged well at all.
- Considering the repeated plots of crew members getting trapped in the holodeck and fighting for their lives - it was dumb that they kept them on the ships for recreational use.
- For a Federation that praises itself for diversity of thought and not wanting to do harm - the holodeck was one of the biggest examples of harm on sentient life.
- VOY already showed that "photonic" aliens exist. Was that the first time anyone in the vast UFP encountered such entities? That alone should have ended the practice.
- Then there was Moriarty and the EMH and Vic Fontaine that all showed signs of sentience. In a multiverse like Star Trek that teaches life can come in so many different forms (usually humanoid due to budgetary restraints), why was is it so hard to believe that holograms were people too?
- The implications of their sentience is dire considering that organic beings have "relations" with holograms (Quark's programs) or playfully kill them (Worf with his training program or Bashir/O'Brien reenacting the Alamo). They literally did an entire episode where the Doctor is kidnapped by holograms that were just hunted and murdered over and over by Hirogen and they're aware of it. It's an absolute nightmare scenario and would normally be a Black Mirror episode (from the hologram's perspective)
Kirk when the second five year mission ended. Slash, when the actors sued. Mary Sue when the fans freaked out.
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TNG didn't really establish holodeck technology as 'new'. It merely established TNG's version of the tech as an impressive leap forward and more flexible and convincing than ever before. The implication was always that prior gen holotech existed even if we didn't know for how long or exactly what it was or wasn't capale of doing.
Exactly. There was supposed to be a three dimensional compartment supporting the concept of the later 'Holodeck'.
Allen Dean Foster in of his novels, based on TAS, indicated that by using the main computer, a truly 'sentient' character could be created. But it would take most of its processing capabilities just to do this. Which tells exactly how much computational power thr main computer has.
Do we have a statistic on how much computational power it takes to make a sentient being?
I had no idea it was so precise.6,000 isoteraquads!
It's more if you want to include a sense of humor and social etiquette.
Even with other ways, why would they just throw out warp?
Are all holograms sentient lifeforms? Or is it just something they can become sometimes?
I remember when TNG started a lot of us thought “warp” was short for “transwarp” - because we naturally assumed ships would be faster one hundred years later, and why would they drop something just introduced in the movies as the latest and greatest?Even with other ways, why would they just throw out warp?
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