What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Tallguy]

The show fails to explain how they're getting to all the different planets.

No it doesn't. They're at sublight. I'm sure if they could have afforded zero-g they wouldn't have had artificial gravity either.

Now how you have "dozens of planets with hundreds of moons" all habitable, terraformed or not? That's something else.

Again, Star Trek thinks that if you lose power you can fall into a sun in a matter of hours. Or fall past the moon and crash into San Fransisco in a matter of minutes. So cut Firefly some time/speed/and distance slack.

 

[FredH]

Haha, nothing you need to be sorry for, I don't feel disparaged by what you said. I don't know if I would call it bad writing (I'm guessing that's the part that led to this apology) though... Maybe I would! Inara's fate in the planned season two, for example... No matter how well written, there is something cheap and very of it's time about it, doing that in order to motivate change in the male lead.

Yeah, that would have been an unfortunate and wtf way to go. But as I see it, Serenity by itself is a pretty great wrapup for the series.

 

[B.J.]

I suppose my controversial opinion of the day is going to be that I don't watch Star Trek, or indeed any sci-fi, for the science.

Some people care about that. Good for them! I mean that sincerely. I know there have been many real-life scientists inspired by Trek and I think that's great. I also think that if you're watching shows like Trek or Firefly (which I liked but didn't love) looking for hard sci-fi, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. It's just never been what they're about.

The Expanse has a reputation for being relatively scientifically accurate, though of course I'm not equipped to judge.

I only have a problem when they wander into the uncanny valley of science. Warp drive, artificial gravity, phasers, etc are all completely fictional, so I have no problem when they just make stuff up, even if it sometimes contradicts itself. When they start talking about real stuff, but are a bit off-target in their understanding, that's where it's an issue for me. The nature of dark matter and VOY having to "mine" deuterium are two that immediately come to mind. *Insert gif of "That's not how any of this works!"*

 

[Tallguy]

I just saw a DC comics video and one commenter complained about "that's not how bazookas work". Another poster tried to play the "This is a universe with Superman".

There are obviously a lot of things we don't know about super powered Kryptonians. But there is a lot that we DO know about bazookas.

We might not know much about warp drive but presumably orbital mechanics still work the same.

OTOH, I'm sure there are episodes of, say, Columbo that have exactly the same understanding of a bazooka (and certainly a gun with a suppressor or "silencer") that the Batman cartoon does.

 

[XCV330]

I just saw a DC comics video and one commenter complained about "that's not how bazookas work". Another poster tried to play the "This is a universe with Superman".

There are obviously a lot of things we don't know about super powered Kryptonians. But there is a lot that we DO know about bazookas.

We might not know much about warp drive but presumably orbital mechanics still work the same.

OTOH, I'm sure there are episodes of, say, Columbo that have exactly the same understanding of a bazooka (and certainly a gun with a suppressor or "silencer") that the Batman cartoon does.

And then it has to be taken into account when TOS came out. NASA was still flying Gemini flights and working out orbital rendezvous, refueling, etc.The only non-telescope images of another world anyone had came from Mariner the year before and they were grainy. Star Trek was never going to be hard SF, thank God, but even on what it could get right, there just wasn't going to be enough writers up to date to get things right.

So things like standard orbit persist. And it works alright. Ok.. so Starfleet has this basic orbit inclination and altitude they tend to prefer for reasons. I can get that. I'm not crazy that every single world has 1G, but then two out of three worlds in Sol's "goldilocks zone" basically do too, so maybe I shouldn't judge it too harshly.

A few years later we get an amazingly accurate spaceflight movie, Marooned, but it wouldn't have worked for TV, especially not space opera or space western. Rarely do westerns deal with reality either. Horses seldom run out of gas, revolvers hold 20 rounds, and a shotgun blast has the kinetic force of a semi truck.

 

[Set Harth]

No it doesn't.

This was before "they're all in the same system", so yes it did require an explanation.

 

[Tallguy]

This was before "they're all in the same system", so yes it did require an explanation.

The very first words people heard on September 20th, 2022: "After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and hundreds of new Earths were terraformed and colonized."

 

[The Salt Umpire]

We were sharing an inside joke.

That's what bullies like to say.

 

[Set Harth]

The very first words people heard on September 20th, 2022: "After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and hundreds of new Earths were terraformed and colonized."

nope...

the very first words people heard were in THE TRAIN JOB

 

[Tallguy]

nope...

the very first words people heard were in THE TRAIN JOB

Ahhh. Are you watching the DVDs?

On broadcast television (and currently on Hulu) at the start of the first few episodes (including The Train Job) Shepard Book gave an intro. Here's the whole thing:

After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and hundreds of new Earths were terraformed and colonized. The central planets formed the Alliance and decided all the planets had to join under their rule.

There was some disagreement on that point.

After the War, many of the Independents who had fought and lost drifted to the edges of the system, far from Alliance control.

Out here, people struggled to get by with the most basic technologies; a ship would bring you work, a gun would help you keep it.

A captain's goal was simple: find a crew, find a job, keep flying.

Later this was changed to Mal giving the intro, and then Mal did a second, more upbeat version.

I always hated that those intros were removed from the official DVDs. I kept my, um, Browncoat DVDs for just that reason. Oh, and it had the original (real) version of Objects in Space that was never no way no how intended to come AFTER the three unaired episodes.

How's that trombone sounding now?

 

[Tuskin38]

My controversial opinion? Picard season 3 is the worst season of the Kurtzman era.

 

[Tuskin38]

I always hated that those intros were removed from the official DVDs.

I don’t. The intro was meant for when people were watching it week to weeks, or popping in during the middle of the season.

And the episode order on the DVD is the order the creators intended it to air.

But Fox for some reason decided to mess that up.

 

[Firebird]

My controversial opinion? Picard season 3 is the worst season of the Kurtzman era.

Season 2 takes that crown for me because the story arc and motivations are just so terrible, but season 3 isn’t far behind. It’s so shallow and underbaked.

 

[fireproof78]

My controversial opinion? Picard season 3 is the worst season of the Kurtzman era.

Getting the thread on track

 

[XCV330]

My controversial opinion? Picard season 3 is the worst season of the Kurtzman era.

its a toss-up between two and three for me. Both are bad for wildly different things, but I will probably lean to 3 being the worst. 3 just disregards the last two. It might as well be a reboot, and not a very good one.

 

[1001001]

Season 2 takes that crown for me because the story arc and motivations are just so terrible, but season 3 isn’t far behind. It’s so shallow and underbaked.

Yeah they both sucked.

3 maybe slightly less than 2.

 

[Campe]

I think season 2 had an interesting concept. Its execution was definitely half baked.

Season 3 was just half baked.

 

[XCV330]

I wanted desperately to like Season 2. I just wanted season 3 to end.

 

[jamesteakirk]

I only have a problem when they wander into the uncanny valley of science. Warp drive, artificial gravity, phasers, etc are all completely fictional, so I have no problem when they just make stuff up, even if it sometimes contradicts itself. When they start talking about real stuff, but are a bit off-target in their understanding, that's where it's an issue for me. The nature of dark matter and VOY having to "mine" deuterium are two that immediately come to mind. *Insert gif of "That's not how any of this works!"*

It’s all make-believe. I have no issues with any of it. It’s just time-wasting entertainment. Meaningless. Not to be taken seriously. It is to laugh.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

It’s all make-believe. I have no issues with any of it. It’s just time-wasting entertainment. Meaningless. Not to be taken seriously. It is to laugh.

Sounds like a sub-optimal way to appreciate fiction.