Posted by Timofnine:
I just re-watched Star Trek III, and after seeing Sareks behaviour in this movie you can see that he is acting almost exactly like the Vulcan's as depicted in Enterprise.
He is logical - yet still traces of emotion manage to get through.
Before the mind meld with Kirk, we see anger (through a slightly raised voice) and despair - Sarek speaks just like Soval would in a 'heated' conversation.
I think that people's opinion's of Vulcan's being totaly flat toned in expression comes from Voyager and TPTB's depiction of Tuvok. But what people need to remember is that Tuvok had an individual personality and his species should not be stereotyped by his behaviour. - I'm sure that there are many different extremes in Vulcan behaviour, and the Vulcan's that we see on screen prove this. If we can have extreme's in other races - why not Vulcan's?
Think of the depiction of Vulcan's in that quite forgetteble DS9 episode where a Vulcan crew is playing baseball against the stations crew. The Vulcan's believe that they are superior to human's and even they show some emotion through their cool exterior (Hardcore DS9 fan's would never admit this though!)
It seem's like that Enterprises Vulcan's are being bashed just for the sake of bashing - they are depicted more unconventionaly then usual but why is this a bad thing? Their species is just being fleshed out more and we are meeting more of them - each one an individual with a different personality.
Another thing to consider is that prehaps not all Vulcan's reach Kolinar (the time when all emotion is shed) - prehaps Vulcan's who do not achieve this are always slightly more emotional in their mannerisms.
As for the mind meld issues brought up by the show recently - could Saavik meld? Could Valeris? Why is it so hard to believe that it is only a minority that can meld? Before Enterprise we had only seen a handfull of Vulcan's perform this act, OK they happened to be the main characters but we still only saw a minority of the Vulcan's that we have seen actually meld.
I think that it will be a very interesting arc seeing how the Vulcan's slowly learn to accept something that goes against the very core of their Logic - at the time melds could be seen as very 'emotional' and intimate - two things that the Vulcan's reject. Why would they want to embrace this act with open arms?
I think that the main problem that B&B are facing is a backlash from fan's not because they have ruined continuity - but because they have ruined fan's preconception's, stereotypes and fan-fiction.
The actor who played Tuvok based his characterisation on what he grew up with, watching Leonard on TOS. He was aiming to imiatate the only example he had.
It was a good attempt.
Star Trek lore has NEVER implied that all Vulcans go thru Kohlinar training.
It's never been implied they all supress their emotions very well or are always "good people".
Stonn and T'Pring are examples, as is the apparently customary expression "I beg forgiveness", something said when there IS an emotional slip.
As for melding, as we've recently seen with T'Pol and Sato and during the Romulan remote control episode, the Vulcans have recently begun (Enterprise era) to admit that they ALL have telepathic abilities.
They've been supressing them and denying them, but they ARE there.
As can be seen in the TOS episode where a ship with an entirely Vulcan crew is destroyed, the effect of their deaths hit Spock a good distance away. Something like that can hardly be called "rare".
Saavik was not Vulcan. She was apparently half Vulcan and half Romulan (who it seems have somehow LOST those abilities), and was always struggling to achieve a Vulcan-like persona after having had a very bad start in life.
I've always felt the differences we see in her between ST2 and ST3 (aside from her FACE changing
) were due to her mentor and guide being DEAD, and her now feeling the need to supress her emotions and strive to be "the perfect Vulcan" all the more.
Valeris? I see nothing to suggest she didn't have the same abilities, but as we know from the novels (quasi-canon), she was a child when her parents died, and she was raised by a non-Vulcan caretaker. She no doubt had never been "properly trained" (as T'Pol described herself), and thus was unable to resist Spock's meld in ST6.
We do notice that both Vulcans shown in VOYAGER simply took their telepathic abilities in stride, as normal.
I suspect those abilities are NOT rare or present in only part of the population. Even in Enterprise, the statement has been made that "Vulcans are telepathic" and when another Vulcan who was a "secret melder" offered to join with T'Pol in a meld, she didn't say anything to suggest such a thing had never, ever been heard of before.
It seems it was known to be a possibility, but looked down on and supressed as part of a mishandling of Surak's teachings.
No. Vulcans are a telepathic race. No doubt abilities vary due to personal makeup AND due to training (just as humans vary in natural abilities and how we use what we are born with and also can improve some things due to training).
This is still fully supported, even with Enterprise being canon.
I just think Manny and what he's done this year has set things back on course, due to B&B leaving it all a little murky and even giving some misimpressions that
could be easilly used to think standing continuity has been violated.
Again, Manny rescued us from that, and things are back on course now.
We just need three more years of such corrections, is all, to make sure all is well.
Whoa! Even threads can rise from the dead! 
