Trek's lowest moment

[-Brett-]

I remember some Ex-Army guys getting massively PO'ed when Picard called the American Army Uniform Q called a "costume".

If any of us saw the way French Aristocrats dressed about 200 years ago, I'm pretty sure we'd think of them as bizarre costumes too.

It seems like it's only the 20th century that's not allowed to be disrespected.

Yep. I was going to mention that, too.

It's not just some obscure example buried deep in the first season somewhere. It happens right out of the gate, in the first few minutes of "Encounter at Farpoint". People aren't misremembering anything. From the episode:

Again, if common Joe ran into someone dressed up like a French Aristocrat from the 1700s, would he think "Wow, that's cool!" or would he think "Wow, what a weird costume..."?

Folks in the 24th Century are under no obligation to worship the 20th Century and think everything we did was awesome or everything we wore was great. It's fully possible they will look back at our clothing and think, by their standards, that it was all bizarre.

If common Joe found himself transported in time to 18th century France, he'd probably be smart to keep his comments about "silly costumes" to himself.

The century the show is set in hardly matters. It was made in the 20th century, for a 20th century audience. I can certainly see why service men/women might have been irritated by that line.

 

[Anwar]

If common Joe found himself transported in time to 18th century France, he'd probably be smart to keep his comments about "silly costumes" to himself.

The century the show is set in hardly matters. It was made in the 20th century, for a 20th century audience. I can certainly see why service men/women might have been irritated by that line.

I'm talking about if a guy from the 18th Century appeared in our time and a common joe ran into him, he'd probably think "Whoa, that is some whacked-up stuff they wore."

That Picard does not immediately bow down and worship something a 20th Century person wore (A Military Uniform) shows that the writers thought about it and realized that a guy from 400 years in the future might NOT love everything about our century.

If folks were offended, well it's their problem for being so hyper-sensitive and so 20th century.

 

[OpenMaw]

I'm talking about if a guy from the 18th Century appeared in our time and a common joe ran into him, he'd probably think "Whoa, that is some whacked-up stuff they wore."

Only if this hypothetical person is completely ignorant of history, and/or has no appreciation for it. We know Picard does have an appreciation for history in many forms, including war history of other races The Promellian Battlecruiser in TNG is one example. His rather anachronistic patriotism for France is another.

That Picard does not immediately bow down and worship something a 20th Century person wore (A Military Uniform) shows that the writers thought about it and realized that a guy from 400 years in the future might NOT love everything about our century.

If folks were offended, well it's their problem for being so hyper-sensitive and so 20th century.

We're supposed to believe that the people of the 24th Century are so far more enlightened, and yet repeated examples, including this very one, demonstrate why they are not. They were pompous, arrogant, and grating in early TNG. There's a reason that by season 3 things changed. When one directly insults, offends, and talks down to ones own audience, one tends to alienate them.

Also, this attitude of "if you're offended, deal with it" is a disturbing and recurring sentiment i'm seeing more and more of. While I agree if something is not to your liking, or bothers you when it comes to entertainment, one should exercise the right to change the channel...

...I also feel that depending on exactly what we're talking about, nobody should feel compelled to stay silent, or have their opinion belittled. If members of the military were insulted by Picard's remarks, then they have every right to state their opinions and be heard. Afterall, it is their uniform and ultimately what it represents, that is being disrespected.

The scene was making commentary on the cold war. Fine, fair enough, but i'd point to an episode like "A Private Little War" Which at least tried to analyse the bigger picture and give both the characters and the audience something to mull over, instead of "It is the future. We rock, you suck." Which is what it does with each one of the outfits Q parades in. Each era is slammed in a wholesale and simplistic fashion. Picard has no objectivity about any of it.

Even, say, McCoy's "It's a miracle these people ever got out of the 20th Century" remark from ST IV does not jab at anyone in particular. It doesn't lay the blame strongly at the feet of one group, or one mentality. It's a witty one liner that remarks on life overall in the 20th Century. Which you could liken to going back to a pre-industrial, pre-indoor plumbing era and saying "Good God how did we get from this to where we are now?" It's not an indictment of one group as some kind of symbol of everything wrong with a certain time or place.


Star Trek had many low points, even in the original series there were scenes/episodes that leave a rather uncomfortable feeling.

One that always seemed a bit disconcerting to me was in the very first pilot. When Pike and Boyce are talking about Pike's future. The rather casual reference to an intergalactic slave trade, and worst of all Pike considering being involved in it. That has to be one of those things that would be later retconned in Gene's mind.

 

[Anwar]

I'm talking about if a guy from the 18th Century appeared in our time and a common joe ran into him, he'd probably think "Whoa, that is some whacked-up stuff they wore."

Only if this hypothetical person is completely ignorant of history, and/or has no appreciation for it.

Which, knowing the Common Joe, he probably wouldn't.

Folks are always going to see themselves as superior to their past counterparts. That's just how things are. It's a rare guy who'd look back to the Medieval Period and think "Yeah, we're worthless compared to their greatness."

We know Picard does have an appreciation for history in many forms, including war history of other races The Promellian Battlecruiser in TNG is one example. His rather anachronistic patriotism for France is another.

Which still doesn't mean he'd have automatic utter respect for the 20th Century. After all, we're the bunch that ultimately led to WWIII and the near annihilation of mankind.

We're supposed to believe that the people of the 24th Century are so far more enlightened, and yet repeated examples, including this very one, demonstrate why they are not. They were pompous, arrogant, and grating in early TNG. There's a reason that by season 3 things changed. When one directly insults, offends, and talks down to ones own audience, one tends to alienate them.

So the writers should have taken the cheap, lazy way out and made the 24th Century exactly like the 20th?

If members of the military were insulted by Picard's remarks, then they have every right to state their opinions and be heard. Afterall, it is their uniform and ultimately what it represents, that is being disrespected.

And if any of those same Military people ever in their lives laughed at pictures of what people dressed like or acted like 300 years ago, they should be okay with that and not stop to think that maybe those ancient people wouldn't like being disrespected that way? It goes both ways.

Which at least tried to analyse the bigger picture and give both the characters and the audience something to mull over, instead of "It is the future. We rock, you suck." Which is what it does with each one of the outfits Q parades in. Each era is slammed in a wholesale and simplistic fashion. Picard has no objectivity about any of it.

TOS didn't analyze the bigger picture, it just blatantly mentioned that this stuff happened before and absolutely no progress had been made towards any solutions. They were saying "It is the future, we still suck as much as we always did and we likely will always suck so don't bother trying not to suck because it's inevitable that you will."

Even, say, McCoy's "It's a miracle these people ever got out of the 20th Century" remark from ST IV does not jab at anyone in particular. It doesn't lay the blame strongly at the feet of one group, or one mentality. It's a witty one liner that remarks on life overall in the 20th Century.

I'd say it's more double standard that McCoy could get away with that. If, say, Crusher was in his place she'd be condemned for saying that.

 

[cal_nevari]

Part of me would say the ST 5 movie. Part of me would say 'right now, this moment' because there is no Star Trek television series in production, and I could care less about more movies at this point.

 

[intrinsical]

Stock screaming Khannnnnnnnnnnn!

 

[Delta Vega]

These are the Voyages. After three seasons of showing us how bad they are as writers, B&B finally let someone else spend a whole season bringing Trek up out of the muck and actually making it worth watching again... and then yoinked the rug right out from under us with arguably the, poorly written, poorly conceived and most generally insulting Trek episode in Trek history.

I feel your pain, but really ?

Is TATV worse than say "A Piece of the Action" ?

I`m not sure it is.

 

[Gov Kodos]

These are the Voyages. After three seasons of showing us how bad they are as writers, B&B finally let someone else spend a whole season bringing Trek up out of the muck and actually making it worth watching again... and then yoinked the rug right out from under us with arguably the, poorly written, poorly conceived and most generally insulting Trek episode in Trek history.

I feel your pain, but really ?

Is TATV worse than say "A Piece of the Action" ?

Yes.

 

[Forbin]

These are the Voyages. After three seasons of showing us how bad they are as writers, B&B finally let someone else spend a whole season bringing Trek up out of the muck and actually making it worth watching again... and then yoinked the rug right out from under us with arguably the, poorly written, poorly conceived and most generally insulting Trek episode in Trek history.

I feel your pain, but really ?

Is TATV worse than say "A Piece of the Action" ?

I`m not sure it is.

I'm sure! PotA may have been a bad ep, but it was clearly written tongue-in-cheek, as a comedic episode that didn't really work. But at the root it still had the "heart" that the Big Three brought to every episode.

TatV was poorly written by bad writers with bad ideas.
The plot wasn't even about the show it was an episode of - it was essentially a "deleted scene" from a TNG episode. It in fact lessened that decent TNG episode and insulted the character of Will Riker by suggesting that he would be stupid enough to leave a critical situation for 40 minutes to playact in a holo story, and that he was so emotionally weak that he'd need such a vehicle to make a crucial decision.

TatV also insulted Enterprise fans by making the "big finale" about a different show; it insulted TNG fans by suggesting this crap happened during the very good "Pegasus". It insulted Riker fans by making him look like a wuss and an idiot; it insulted Trip Tucker fans by wasting his life. It insulted people with brains by suggesting the entire crew of the NX-01 was in exactly the same rank and position for 10 years. It made Frakes and Sirtis look bad, pretending they were their younger selves when they could barely squeeze into the uniforms.

Heck, Piece of the Action may have been dumb but it wasn't insulting. TatV seems to be saying "Fuck you, Enterprise fans, we the writers liked TNG better. And we still can't write for shit, but here's a farewell buttfuck for ya!"

Jolene got it right in her farewell statement.

 

[bbjeg]

Stock screaming Khannnnnnnnnnnn!

I'm sure you meant Spock and I wasn't a fan either.

 

[The Old Mixer]

His rather anachronistic patriotism for France is another.

That could be at least half the reason for Picard's attitude right there. This was Crappy Season 1 Picard...a strong actor playing a weakly-written character...with his occasional display of French national pride. He no doubt would have thought that the only truly handsome uniforms of that period were worn by the French military....

Even, say, McCoy's "It's a miracle these people ever got out of the 20th Century" remark from ST IV does not jab at anyone in particular. It doesn't lay the blame strongly at the feet of one group, or one mentality. It's a witty one liner that remarks on life overall in the 20th Century. Which you could liken to going back to a pre-industrial, pre-indoor plumbing era and saying "Good God how did we get from this to where we are now?" It's not an indictment of one group as some kind of symbol of everything wrong with a certain time or place.

A more relevant example from that film would be how vocally appalled McCoy was at the state of 20th century medicine. Should real life doctors have taken offense at that?

 

[Greg Cox]

Pakleds.

You are mean. Pakleds are smart. They go fast.

 

[2takesfrakes]

A more relevant example from that film would be how vocally appalled McCoy was at the state of 20th century medicine. Should real life doctors have taken offense at that?

STAR TREK 4's old man humour was too banal to be taken offense to by anyone. This movie has no teeth with which to bite. Even the naming of the whales has to do with a vaudevillian act that would've been forgotten all about, except for entertainment and history buffs. And, let's face it, the "Save the Whales" theme is corny, no matter what era VOYAGE HOME was made in. As to the specific "charge" of McCoy against how "primative" medicine was, it's always striving to become less invasive. I suspect that most doctors would've probably agreed that modern medicine still had a long way to go.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

Although--all of NuTrek is close up for a tie. Just two hideous, predictable, clunky, unthinking non-Trek-spirit actioners from start to finish. Blech. For the worst moments, either the stupid, absolutely NOT exciting, boringly overlong, Matrix-like space dive to the Vengeance, or Carol Marcus stripping for blatant fanservice.

All right, genius, who could do a better set of movies? I want a ton of names, and you better hope that they can stand my scrutiny test.

 

[Anwar]

A more relevant example from that film would be how vocally appalled McCoy was at the state of 20th century medicine. Should real life doctors have taken offense at that?

STAR TREK 4's old man humour was too banal to be taken offense to by anyone. This movie has no teeth with which to bite. Even the naming of the whales has to do with a vaudevillian act that would've been forgotten all about, except for entertainment and history buffs. And, let's face it, the "Save the Whales" theme is corny, no matter what era VOYAGE HOME was made in. As to the specific "charge" of McCoy against how "primative" medicine was, it's always striving to become less invasive. I suspect that most doctors would've probably agreed that modern medicine still had a long way to go.

So TVH got away with it because it treated everything like a joke whereas TNG was insulting because it did things seriously?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Using humor to take the sting out of negative criticism is a time-honored way to go easy on your audience. It helps not to be hypocritical, too. McCoy didn't drill holes in Chekov's head, but Picard was standing there in uniform (a uniform, incidentally, with its own sort of gratuitousness) while he was criticizing uniforms from another time period.

 

[Jonas Grumby]

A more relevant example from that film would be how vocally appalled McCoy was at the state of 20th century medicine. Should real life doctors have taken offense at that?

There's a big difference between saying to your audience, "future tech is so advanced it makes modern-day tech seem out-dated," and saying to them, "our future humans are so evolved they make all of modern-day humanity look like disgusting, amoral, prejudiced pieces of shit."

 

[Anwar]

Using humor to take the sting out of negative criticism is a time-honored way to go easy on your audience. It helps not to be hypocritical, too. McCoy didn't drill holes in Chekov's head, but Picard was standing there in uniform (a uniform, incidentally, with its own sort of gratuitousness) while he was criticizing uniforms from another time period.

And most likely a real life soldier from today would look at the kind of things a French Aristocrat wore back then and think "Heh, look at what the stupid surrender frogs used to dress like!" without thinking that maybe someone in the future will think the same of him too.

There's a big difference between saying to your audience, "future tech is so advanced it makes modern-day tech seem out-dated," and saying to them, "our future humans are so evolved they make all of modern-day humanity look like disgusting, amoral, prejudiced pieces of shit."

So folks can't take criticism anymore and have to be reassured that they are the utter apex of human social development because it's insulting to not be considered such at all times?

I'm sure that most people today probably DO think that their ancestors were "disgusting, amoral prejudiced pieces of shit" so it's in line with humans that people from the future will think the same of us.

Can't handle that? Well you probably didn't take into consideration when you thought the same of your own ancestors.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Using humor to take the sting out of negative criticism is a time-honored way to go easy on your audience. It helps not to be hypocritical, too. McCoy didn't drill holes in Chekov's head, but Picard was standing there in uniform (a uniform, incidentally, with its own sort of gratuitousness) while he was criticizing uniforms from another time period.

And most likely a real life soldier from today would look at the kind of things a French Aristocrat wore back then and think "Heh, look at what the stupid surrender frogs used to dress like!" without thinking that maybe someone in the future will think the same of him too.

That sounds like a prejudiced opinion that I think should be taken up with people who actually think or say such things, instead of insinuating, no sorry, I mean explicitly asserting, without any actual evidence that so-and-so people "most likely" think this-and-that.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Using humor to take the sting out of negative criticism is a time-honored way to go easy on your audience. It helps not to be hypocritical, too. McCoy didn't drill holes in Chekov's head, but Picard was standing there in uniform (a uniform, incidentally, with its own sort of gratuitousness) while he was criticizing uniforms from another time period.

And most likely a real life soldier from today would look at the kind of things a French Aristocrat wore back then and think "Heh, look at what the stupid surrender frogs used to dress like!" without thinking that maybe someone in the future will think the same of him too.

That sounds like a prejudiced opinion that I think should be taken up with people who actually think or say such things, instead of insinuating, no sorry, I mean explicitly asserting, without any actual evidence that so-and-so people "most likely" think this-and-that.

That kind of "prejudice" happens fairly often on the Amazing Race . No need to time travel to see it.