Aren't you worried about new villians being boring like V'ger/Son'ya?

[Hober Mallow]

Re: Aren't you worried about new villians being boring like V'ger/Son'

I'd like Trek to go back to it's roots of exploring the unknown. I've had my fill of evil villain(TM)s.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: Aren't you worried about new villians being boring like V'ger/Son'

When has Star Trek ever been about "exploring the unknown?" This is one of the most persistent myths about Star Trek, and mystifying because it's easily countered just by watching a movie or episode and thinking about the plot.

Here's how the episodes go:

Enterprise crew scans a nebula (exploring the unknown) for about five seconds at the beginning just to remind the audience that these people have boring day jobs. Then the Klingons attack. Or someone gets a virus that makes them wacky. Or someone has a personal crisis.

The conflict in the episode is never about "exploring the unknown," it's always about some antagonist causing a problem, whether the antagonist is humanoid, virus, or personal demons. Sometimes exploration bumps them up against this antagonist, and sometimes there are other reasons, but the antagonist is the necessary part of the formula and the exploration is not.

If the frustration here is about the obviousness of the overt villain - and yeah it's overused and not always very interesting - then let's go for the personal-demons route. They seem to be setting this up anyway, pushing Spock into an emotionally violent place that Spock Prime never had to deal with. But that's getting even further away from the exploring-the-unknown aspect.

 

[Myasishchev]

Re: Aren't you worried about new villians being boring like V'ger/Son'

When has Star Trek ever been about "exploring the unknown?" This is one of the most persistent myths about Star Trek, and mystifying because it's easily countered just by watching a movie or episode and thinking about the plot.

Here's how the episodes go:

Enterprise crew scans a nebula (exploring the unknown) for about five seconds at the beginning just to remind the audience that these people have boring day jobs. Then the Klingons attack. Or someone gets a virus that makes them wacky. Or someone has a personal crisis.

The conflict in the episode is never about "exploring the unknown," it's always about some antagonist causing a problem, whether the antagonist is humanoid, virus, or personal demons. Sometimes exploration bumps them up against this antagonist, and sometimes there are other reasons, but the antagonist is the necessary part of the formula and the exploration is not.

Brilliantly put.

If the frustration here is about the obviousness of the overt villain - and yeah it's overused and not always very interesting - then let's go for the personal-demons route. They seem to be setting this up anyway, pushing Spock into an emotionally violent place that Spock Prime never had to deal with. But that's getting even further away from the exploring-the-unknown aspect.

I can say that I'm a bit tired of psychotic revenge trips... they want to replicate TWOK, but it doesn't really work, because they fail to provide the good reasons that Khan and his people had. Shinzon needs no explication. It's easier to believe that Nero was pissed at Spock, even though the causal connection between Romulus blowing up and Spock's actions is totally nonexistent, but it's harder to believe that he would hold the grudge for 25 years or that his crew would follow him for that length of time wholeheartedly.

 

[msbae]

Re: Aren't you worried about new villians being boring like V'ger/Son'

How about a villain that isn't totally evil and/or might be misunderstood? How often have we seen that in Trek?

 

[ALF]

Re: Aren't you worried about new villians being boring like V'ger/Son'

There is this neat little Star Trek paperback I have in storage and I can't remember the name for the life of me, but it was someone's thesis and it explored TNG in great detail and all the overarching themes within the series. It's cover is silver with black text, published in the late 90s or early 00s. The ____ Of Star Trek or something.

One of the main points it made about the episodes is that in general, most of the Star Trek episodes were a about being stuck in some sort of trap and escaping the trap would climax the story and they would merrily go on their way before the credits rolls.

This seemed to be a reasonably apt conclusion from TOS through Enterprise.

Off topic, there also were some theories about the entire crew came from incomplete, broken or dysfunctional families (issues with Riker's dad, Picard's brother/father) and they were generally unable to have children of their own (Picard never fathered, Data's daughter died, Troi's son ceased to exist, Worf was estranged from his son, Geordi couldn't even hold down a steady girlfriend).

Anyway, interesting was the point driven that Star Trek had more to do with escaping traps than exploring strange new worlds or seeking out new life and new civilizations.

 

[Deckerd]

Re: Aren't you worried about new villians being boring like V'ger/Son'

Who could have guessed that space was filled with so many hostile people and so many dangerous, near fatal, traps?

 

[Mirren Audax]

Re: Aren't you worried about new villians being boring like V'ger/Son'

Vejur wasn't a 'villian', it was a big machine that was merely misunderstood. The Son'a on the other hand were a pretty half-hearted bunch who had cool starships.

 

[Myasishchev]

Re: Aren't you worried about new villians being boring like V'ger/Son'

How about a villain that isn't totally evil and/or might be misunderstood? How often have we seen that in Trek?

Sybok.

I liked him.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Re: Aren't you worried about new villians being boring like V'ger/Son'

Who could have guessed that space was filled with so many hostile people and so many dangerous, near fatal, traps?

Admiral Ackbar?

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

Re: Aren't you worried about new villians being boring like V'ger/Son'

For all the people complaining about Star Trek not being about exploring 'strange new worlds' and 'exploration' -- It's still a TV and film series. People joke about having to sit through boring slideshows of travels taken by their relatives; it would be hard to tell a story just with that. We can't have 30 minutes of an episode of Picard looking at the viewscreen going, "God, those are some beautiful mountains," while Data and the crew read off random geometric numbers. That wouldn't be a TV show...That would be some sort of ambient thing you watch like a fish bowl.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

Re: Aren't you worried about new villians being boring like V'ger/Son'

Who could have guessed that space was filled with so many hostile people and so many dangerous, near fatal, traps?

Admiral Ackbar?

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

Re: Aren't you worried about new villians being boring like V'ger/Son'

If they do a villain plot-line again I doubt the motivation; revenge, will be repeated when there are plenty of other motives for villains, greed, lust, envy, pride, fear, leading to conquest, piracy, terrorism, political intrigue, etc. Their are a lot of motives to choose from and I believe that Star Trek will demonstrate that again under Orci and Kertzman's writing.