Off-topic, but what are you referring to when it comes to Nimoy?
Bashir's genetic modification: yes or no?
- Thread starter DevilEyes
- Start date
I think it's a reference to the "Spock had a nervous breakdown" back-story that GR introduced for TMP, Nimoy thought it was junk.
I thought it was pretty awesome, especially in retrospect.
Like when Bashir shot Garak in the holodeck in OMB, we can assume he knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going to hit him.
Or the whole thing with getting that one question in the exam wrong. Before, we had to beleve he failed the question because he was afraid of being the best, now it makes much more sense.
And the Darts thing works well, too. Even when he was not in the mood, he could always be "just good enough" to keep the game going, without Miles complainng he wasn't trying.
So yeah, it was excellent as it turned out imo.
Like when Bashir shot Garak in the holodeck in OMB, we can assume he knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going to hit him.
Or the whole thing with getting that one question in the exam wrong. Before, we had to beleve he failed the question because he was afraid of being the best, now it makes much more sense.
And the Darts thing works well, too. Even when he was not in the mood, he could always be "just good enough" to keep the game going, without Miles complainng he wasn't trying.
So yeah, it was excellent as it turned out imo.
That's one (I don't think that was necessarily a bad idea, though). The examples I was thinking of, even if they are kind of hazy in my memory, are the things about Spock that are now considered iconic, like the nerve pinch and the finger-touch kiss thing, amongst other things. These are directly attributable to Nimoy himself, not to any writer or producer, and I think he had to argue with people to get the nerve pinch in.
A good non-Trek example is Harrison Ford saying screw it and gunning down the Arab swordsman in Raiders instead of shooting for hours to get the fight scene in the script on film. Even if it was basically only because his tummy hurt, ultimately, it was a much better movie moment than some forgettable fight.
Seems very few people are aware of the reality that some of the most talented and gifted people in the world can also be some of the most insecure people, constantly worried that someone will "find them out", and that maybe, as a human being, they won't measure up. That's especially true if one has whole areas of their lives (in Bashir's case, family and women) where they feel a vacuum, unfulfilled needs. Do you know of how many times i've heard of academic overachievers having emotional breakdowns, turning suddnly violent (even committing murder) or committing suicide?
well, i don't like space seed and wok too much for their overacting, but aren't they universally regarded as the best epsiode and movie in star trek history? enterprise did it just brilliantly, also because it did much for the canon (including the episodes where the klingons experiment with genetic engineering). i thought that montalban portrayed the capable, overambitious and vicious villain not too well, but the actors in enterprise certainly managed it.
RobertScorpio
Pariah
Yeah...I agree. Space Seed is a good episode, and one fan poll after another usually puts KHAN at number one. But, heck, we are all allowed our own opinions but in this case? IMO..the majority has it right,when considering seed/Khan..
rob
I thought it was a good storyline but I really don't think they did that much with it. It could have been so much more but outside of those Jack Pack episode, Bashir's genetic engineering wasn't really a factor in anything.
RobertScorpio
Pariah
Good point...I thought the episode, Bashir I presume, had a great message in it. Very soon, here in reality, parents are going to be able to tailor make their offspring...I think this episode was very topical and had a great message about how far parents will go to ensure the success of their children...
Rob
Rob
^Whereas the Augment arc from Enterprise is a tale about how they'll kill your ass, if you do.
Yeah, Montalban as Khan is amazing, but any third dimension there is entirely Montalban's doing. Other than Bashir they really went out of their way to portray the biologically engineered more inhuman than most of the aliens we deal with.
Yeah, Montalban as Khan is amazing, but any third dimension there is entirely Montalban's doing. Other than Bashir they really went out of their way to portray the biologically engineered more inhuman than most of the aliens we deal with.
I watched Space Seed for the first time in a while the other day and was struck by a couple of things.
Montalban as Khan in the original episode is all kinds of awesome, and really his original performance is pretty far removed from the bluster of his reprisal of the role in TWOK. The original Khan has a sleek, cool efficiency about him. He comes across as magnetic and powerful.
The second thing I realized is that we are definitely going to see Khan in the Abrams' Trek sequel. This character, as originally conceived, has everything you could possibly want in a movie antagonist: he's charismatic, brilliant, physically strong, arrogant, honorable in a twisted sort of way. As Scotty and Kirk explain to Spock: we can admire and oppose him. There's no way Abrams and Co. are going to be able to pass up doing a revamped version of this character.
Back on topic, I find it a bit odd that Trek's genetically enhanced humans are either pathological or disturbed in some way (Bashir being the notable exception). It wouldn't surprise me if genetic tampering may end up having some drawbacks, but only drawbacks? I doubt it.
^Indeed. As I've said before, if they're so concerned about aggression, why not, you know, make them unaggressive? If you understand the human genome well enough to genetically engineer intelligence, of all things, which has no locus on any particular gene (as opposed to, say, red hair), you have enough understanding to dictate personality traits.
For one alternative, stop making Augments with Y chromosomes. Not to say that women can be neither ambitious nor violent, but the sociopathic aggression characteristic of Khan's and Soong's run of Augments is a lot less likely in a pure female population.
Heck, if you're that bad at it, you could just stop messing with genes that express personality and intellectual qualities altogether. I strongly doubt that right-side-of-the-bell-curve physical attributes are going to dictate egomaniacal supervillainy. They don't in the 50% of the current human population that has them already.
For one alternative, stop making Augments with Y chromosomes. Not to say that women can be neither ambitious nor violent, but the sociopathic aggression characteristic of Khan's and Soong's run of Augments is a lot less likely in a pure female population.
Heck, if you're that bad at it, you could just stop messing with genes that express personality and intellectual qualities altogether. I strongly doubt that right-side-of-the-bell-curve physical attributes are going to dictate egomaniacal supervillainy. They don't in the 50% of the current human population that has them already.
And this is where the quotes originally come from: UGO interview with Alexander Siddig
I liked it. We got the Jack Pack (who I loved) and some nice character moments for Bashir out of it. I also liked seeing something of his parents.
Blowing his lines on purpose? Wow, I never noticed any difference in his performance. And I really liked Bashir, that isn't an insult. Sounds like he may be exaggerating a bit.
Blowing his lines on purpose? Wow, I never noticed any difference in his performance. And I really liked Bashir, that isn't an insult. Sounds like he may be exaggerating a bit.
RobertScorpio
Pariah
If he 'blew' his lines in those episodes he sites, then he should have blown them all the time. Because I think they contain some of his best performances. Was he blowing his lines in that episode where his 'changeling' duplicate tries to blow up the wormhole? If not, then yikes, I'm not sure what to think because that episode was horrible...and Bashir was the main reason IMO
Rob
Rob
I liked what it did to Bashir as a character, it was more character development than many of the other characters got. But the execution was flawed, and especially the follow-through of the whole thing.
But overall I give it a "yes".
But overall I give it a "yes".
RobertScorpio
Pariah
Well, its just as I said earlier. Siddig is just going through the phase they all go through. Eventually he's going to come out and say "Actuallly, I loved those episodes.." and he will embrace it. Leonard took nearly 30 years to come around.
Rob
Rob
You know, having read the entire original UGO interview, Siddig does come off as a bit childish.
I agree, the TOS and ENT episodes were far too one-dimensional in their portrayal of the Augments. Though we might say that they don't necessarily portray the Augments as genetically destined to be "evil" - Khan's bunch on TOS consisted only of his followers, and ENT's Augments had no contact with other humans or any other people apart from their "father" Soong, and we could blame their upbringing for their ideas of superiority - those episodes still leave a bitter taste, as they don't show any Augments who aren't violent and bent on world domination (apart from the one who was "defective", i.e. the same as "normal" humans), and (in case of TOS) seem to imply that no single Augment survived the Eugenics Wars and went on to live a life on Earth (or at least they ignore the issue and leave people to make such an assumption), which lends itself to the racist conclusion that all Augments are "born (created) evil". Such a portrayal would be unacceptable for any other race, but since the Augments are "unnatural", this is supposed to be OK? But DS9 made a point that the Jem'Hadar - whose entire race is genetically engineered - are individuals with personalities and morality code, rather than mindless butchers, and we got Vortas minds of his own, too.
This aspect is really the reason why the Augment arc is one of my least favorite in season of ENT. I agree that DS9 did it much better than TOS and ENT, in a more complex way, dealing with some issues that the other shows just ignored.
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