What continuity errors are there on Voyager?

[MacLeod]

^I disagree, if you have a line saying you have no way to replace the torpedeos when they are gone. Then you need to explain or at least mention in passing that you've manged to replinish them. The exact mechanics not so much so. If that line wasn't mentioned then there is no issue. As it could have been carrying 300 warheads.

The only solution to this problem the audience would've approved of would've been them never ever being able to find torpedo replacements and never ever use any type of torpedo weapon again for the remainder of the series from that point on.

As soon as you draw attention to something you need to show/mention you have addressed/resolved the problem.

They tried that with the holodeck plot point, and the reaction they got from THAT was enough to convince them that if they had gone with "We found enough torpedo supplies to last us another 200 warheads" they'd just get disapproval for that as well.

As for Battle damage, but there was a freidly spacedock in between each instance of the ship getting damage and looking brand new the following weak. Possibly but it begins to stretch credability if it occurs too often.

We saw the logical end of the "Voyager gets damaged" type of plot in YoH. That's where that plot point inevitably leads to.

And if they just had them spend episodes smartly avoiding combat and avoiding damage so they don't need to get repairs, then it's all just "These writers are pansies, they don't have the guts to have the ship get damaged and would rather show us that the Captain is smart enough to avoid those situations."

I think you might have misunderstand my point.

If the line of dialouge re: number of torpedeo's wasn't in the episode. Then you don't have a problem. Because without that line the ship could have been carrying 300 torpedeos for all we know as an audiance.

By including that line the writers obviously wanted to draw attention to the fact that they had limited torpedeo's with no way to replace them. (I'm sure someone will be able to the quote the line exactly). Now writing 101 would say you don't mention something like that if you later on plan ignoring it when it becomes inconveniant to the story. Unless you explain at some point about how you where able to overcome the issue. Not to do so treats your audiance as idiots.

It doesn't matter which media you use to tell your story.

As for Moore's comment, It's been a while since I read it but the impression I got was your audiance is not a bunch of idiots so don't treat them as such. You can't expect them to believe that the ship would look like it had just left Utopia at the start of each new story. Beliveability is paramount. Lets say you take your car to a part of the world where spare parts are not readily availble for it, and a part breaks how do you replace it? Lets say you manage to find a part that fits/works would it look like it orignally belonged on your car colour/material etc...

 

[zar]

Looks like this is it: http://www.lcarscom.net/rdm1000118.htm

There's no mention of Year of Hell though. I'm pretty sure it was the other producers, not Moore, who wanted YoH to be a full season. But nobody ever said they wanted it to be the entire series.

These are Moore's relevant comments about taking damage and such:

The premise has a lot of possibilities. Before it aired, I was at a convention in Pasadena, and [scenic illustrator, technical consultant Rick] Sternbach and [scenic art supervisor, technical consultant Michael] Okuda were on stage, and they were answering questions from the audience about the new ship. It was all very technical, and they were talking about the fact that in the premise this ship was going to have problems. It wasn’t going to have unlimited sources of energy. It wasn’t going to have all the doodads of the Enterprise. It was going to be rougher, fending for themselves more, having to trade to get supplies that they want. That didn’t happen. It doesn’t happen at all, and it’s a lie to the audience. I think the audience intuitively knows when something is true and something is not true. VOYAGER is not true. If it were true, the ship would not look spick-and-span every week, after all these battles it goes through. How many times has the bridge been destroyed? How many shuttlecrafts have vanished, and another one just comes out of the oven? That kind of bullshitting the audience I think takes its toll. At some point the audience stops taking it seriously, because they know that this is not really the way this would happen. These people wouldn’t act like this.

I don't see anything in there about "the ship becoming hopelessly crippled and the crew's hope being destroyed".

And here are his thoughts on the reset button:

The writer-producers of VOYAGER maintain that they don’t want continuity, so people can watch the shows out of order, for example, now in five-nights-a-week syndication. Says Moore, "I’ve just never believed that argument, because it seems to me that you’re just underestimating the intelligence of the audience. You’re just saying the audience is a bunch of idiots. Who is going to be watching the show in strip syndication five nights a week? People that like that show, and presumably have watched more than one show. Got forbid the stations have to run them in order. It’s an excuse that sounds plausible but is basically a way for them not to have to care about maintaining continuity, because it is tough to maintain continuity. It’s very hard to write in continuity, because of the nature of television. You are writing ahead, and you are writing at the moment, and you are changing things in post. It’s really hard to keep all the ducks in a row, which we found at DEEP SPACE NINE. In that last ten-episode run, where it was almost completely serialized, that’s a tough act to carry off. But it’s also worth the effort, because the payoff is the world has more validity. The audience can sense there is truth in it. It’s a better show, and it will last longer as a result. If you are really just so concerned that this week’s episode won’t make sense because you didn’t see that episode three years ago, why can’t STAR TREK do like ALLY MCBEAL, or THE PRACTICE, or ER, all the big successful shows do. Put a little recap at the top of the show: ‘Previously, on STAR TREK: VOYAGER...’—even if it’s an episode from two years ago. You just quickly get the audience up to speed, because the audience is not stupid. The audience has watched television for a long time. They understand that they have missed some things, that perhaps this is a reference to a show that they didn’t see. They aren’t just going to throw up their hands and move on. If you are pre-supposing that, you are aiming towards the person that is grabbing a beer, and isn’t really paying attention, and is walking out of the room every ten minutes and coming back and sitting down; all you are going to do is dumb down the show. You are reducing it to its lowest common denominator, and what’s the point of that? What do you get out of that? You just get a so-so kind of television experience."

Anwar says Moore doesn't understand why the reset button exists. If you read the bolded section, I think it's quite clear that he understands very well. He just doesn't agree that it needs to, and I'd say he makes a decent argument for that opinion.


Looks like Anwar is just making stuff up again.

 

[Guy Gardener]

an interview from 2008...

part one.

http://trekmovie.com/2008/06/12/exclusive-interview-ron-moore-on-breaking-out-of-the-box/

part two.

http://trekmovie.com/2008/06/21/exclusive-interview-ron-moore-fighting-the-trek-cliches/

part three

http://trekmovie.com/2008/06/24/exclusive-interview-ron-moore-talks-movies-past-and-future/

It's not really as negative as people make out, if you take it all in the correct context.

12 seconds and google people.

 

[exodus]

A fair few of the critisms levelled at VOY could have been prevented by simply mentioning it an episode. The reason why some of the points aren't levelled at other shows is that the audiance is fully aware that they can just put in at a starbase and be replensihed with things like Torpedeos, put in at a dock to get battle damage repaired. Or have parts shipped to them by another Federation ship.

I'm sorry but then the audience is pretty stupid if they can't figure out that a ship that can land on a planets surface can be repaired without a starbase or that after B'Elanna is promoted to Chief Engineer that one of her featured eps. is about how she understands the in and outs of the engineering behind a torpedo.(Dreadnaut) They covered their asses again when they showed the ship repaired in "Nightingale" because they knew the audience still kept asking.
I'm not saying they didn't make mistakes along the way but I also think that after watching 7 years of TNG, that they didn't need to hold our hands to explain details we should already know. I'm not saying the show has no flaws, because it's got a few but some of these issues really don't need to be verbally explained IMO. Isn't it believed Trekkies are smart enough to work for NASA?
The real errors are the Borg Baby, why the would Tuvok & Janeway still encourage Kes to develope her powers knowing she'd use them as an excuse to come back and kill try to kill them or why the hell there's no Millennium Gate if Trek is tired directly into our universe.
Not even fanwank can explain those away.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

I don't know why anyone even comes in here and argues with the two posters who simply can't acknowledge any of Voyager's errors whatsoever. Its like throwing water into a bottomless well, its completely futile. You can provide the most convincing arguments in the universe regarding all of Voyager's continuity errors and flaws, and you STILL won't get anywhere with them as they come up with the tired, lame old comebacks like "Voyager didn't treat you like you were stupid, so it didn't tell you stuff".

I would stop trying to convince them and just be assured that the majority of reasonable people with fully functioning brains agree with you.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Permanently crippled? With no hope whatsoever?

Nobody is expressing that sentiment except you, Anwar.

Its impossible to argue with Anwar. He will endlessly resort to hyperbole and exaggeration no matter how many times you tell him how transparently stupid that is as an attempt to win an argument. And it basically renders it nearly impossible to have a decent debate at all. You're never going to convince Anwar, his opinions are firmly held in stasis and aren't going anywhere. Same goes for another couple of posters on this board. Its a waste of breath

 

[Guy Gardener]

Anwar thinks Daleks should have feet.

Everything else is rainbows.

 

[Anwar]

Permanently crippled? With no hope whatsoever?

Nobody is expressing that sentiment except you, Anwar.

Its impossible to argue with Anwar. He will endlessly resort to hyperbole and exaggeration no matter how many times you tell him how transparently stupid that is as an attempt to win an argument. And it basically renders it nearly impossible to have a decent debate at all. You're never going to convince Anwar, his opinions are firmly held in stasis and aren't going anywhere. Same goes for another couple of posters on this board. Its a waste of breath

If Moore didn't mean that, he shouldn't have used as an example an episode where the end product of VOY is the ship being hopelessly crippled and the crew's hope utterly dashed.

As for Moore's comment, It's been a while since I read it but the impression I got was your audiance is not a bunch of idiots so don't treat them as such. You can't expect them to believe that the ship would look like it had just left Utopia at the start of each new story. Beliveability is paramount. Lets say you take your car to a part of the world where spare parts are not readily availble for it, and a part breaks how do you replace it? Lets say you manage to find a part that fits/works would it look like it orignally belonged on your car colour/material etc...

Moya in Farscape always looked the same (externally) every episode despite taking damage that should leave external scarring. No one complained there.

Anwar thinks Daleks should have feet.

No, I think they should always be hovering a bit off the ground and not roll on the floor at all.

 

[zar]

I also think that after watching 7 years of TNG, that they didn't need to hold our hands to explain details we should already know.

And this is the same show that's afraid continuity will confuse everyone...

If Moore didn't mean that, he shouldn't have used as an example an episode where the end product of VOY is the ship being hopelessly crippled and the crew's hope utterly dashed.

For starters, he did not. Provide evidence that he did, or stop mentioning it.

Farscape

For the 147th time, nobody cares.

 

[exodus]

And this is the same show that's afraid continuity will confuse everyone...

Is that an official statement by those running the show?

 

[zar]

And this is the same show that's afraid continuity will confuse everyone...

Is that an official statement by those running the show?

In essence, yes it is. I'm actually somewhat shocked that you're questioning this. Are you denying that they wanted to avoid continuity between episodes so people can watch them out of order without getting confused? Is that not the decision you have been defending in countless of your posts?

And let's not forget:

I like Voyager because I can allow my mind to go on vacation and enjoy.

That's quite an opposite sentiment to "Voyager doesn't need to explain anything because its viewers are all NASA geniuses".

 

[Anwar]

For starters, he did not. Provide evidence that he did, or stop mentioning it.

He says the show should've been like YoH, and I've explained to you what the end result of YoH was.

Farscape

For the 147th time, nobody cares.

I don't care about your narrow-mindedness, Farscape is a similar enough plot that folks should complain about them doing the same thing VOY gets critiqued for. But no one does.

 

[zar]

He says the show should've been like YoH

No. See, there's the problem. He doesn't say that. He never mentioned YoH whatsoever in the interview where you claimed that he did.

Provide evidence that he did say it. Or stop mentioning it.

Farscape is a similar enough plot that folks should complain about them doing the same thing VOY gets critiqued for. But no one does.

What folks? What evidence do you have that we have even watched Farscape? I know I haven't. What evidence do you have that no one critiques Farscape?

It's simple, Anwar. Unless someone mentions their opinion of Farscape, you have no basis whatsoever for attacking that opinion, which may or may not exist in any form.

I could just as easily use the Anwarian Farscape Tactic to attack your own opinion. Like so: Anwar likes Voyager, but he doesn't like Farscape. Anwar is so inconsistent! You see the problem there? I made up the idea that you don't like Farscape, even though you never said so. It's easy to make points like this when you consider it fair game to blatantly declare what other people believe regardless of whether they gave any indication that they do, even if they've clearly stated the exact opposite opinion.

Provide evidence of our statements regarding Farscape. Or stop mentioning it.

 

[Sandoval]

Handbags at dawn in here isn't it?

 

[CaptainMatt]

I know, it's just so crazy.....

 

[Sandoval]

It's impossible to argue with Anwar

That just sounds so defeatist!

 

[CaptainMatt]

Join me and together we shall bring sanity back to the proceedings!

 

[Sandoval]

Nah, I'm not big on sanity I'm afraid.

Let the anarchy continue!

 

[CaptainMatt]

But don't you want to be in charge of the anarchy? Deep down?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Well that really depends on the nature of the factoid, doesn't it?

And it also depends on the nature of each fan. We all have our quirks and unique passions. I wanted canonised species names for all the races of the Federation we saw in ST:TMP and ST IV, but they come only from non canon sources such as wardrobe notes, press releases and roleplaying game manuals.

Other fans want conststency in stardates. Or full explanations of starship tech. Or the rules of time travel laid out. Or accurate crew and shuttle loss tallies. Or the same actor playing the same character every time (Saavik, Cretak, Tora Ziyal).

while something like the complete lack of backstory or motivation for the shadowy future guy in Enterprise is just sloppiness.

It was certainly the intention to reveal Future Guy. But fan reaction to the whole Cold War was... cold. So it ends up being a thread resolved by the licensed tie-ins. Read "Watching the Clock", I guess; I'm just about to read the crucial chapter, I believe.

It's one thing to deliberately insert mysterious elements to your story, and quite another to be too lazy to continue something you started.

It's not necessarily laziness. Sometimes it's admitting defeat.

Moya in Farscape always looked the same (externally) every episode despite taking damage that should leave external scarring. No one complained there.

Why would ST and VOY fans complain about "Farscape". You're assuming we all watched it.