No offence, but I often have the feeling that you sometimes present your opinions on Kes as facts and then dismiss any opinion that doesn't match yours in a way that sometimes comes off as rather aggressive to me. Maybe the intent is not there and that's just how I interpret it, after all, it's very difficult to judge someone's intent over the internet where mimic and tone of voice are not available, but it does come across like that to me.
And stuff like that tends to invite people to bite back in kind.
What? Moi? Aggressive?
Honestly, you should have seen me or read my posts in the early 2000's.
I was very nasty then, which I actually regret.
But I learned a lesson then. Today I actually try not to be aggressive even if it's difficult because I constantly have to debate from a struggling position.
I constantly have to defend a destroyed character against people who do all they can to pour salt in the wounds and all my attempts to come up with any defence for that character and with solutions to the damage of that character are met with ridicule, stupid comments and by throwing
that episode and "canon" into my face.
Even in real life, I do have a temper and when I'm met with contempt, ridicule and nasty behavior, I strike back. Twice as hard!
But doing the same thing here would only get me warned and even more so I try to avoid that.
As I have said, I've learned my lessons.
And I do actually accept other opinions if they are presented in a cordial way. I'm always ready for a friendly debate which you can see in some of my posts, even in this thread.
Honestly, I have no hope to see Kes back in any movie or book. Considering the current trend in movies, TV-series and books, the result would only be further destruction of the character. I just wish that they could erase the events in
that episode in some way.
And I really would love to have a conversation with Berman and Braga about that episode.
I mean, no anger, no outbursts, no screaming, no vitriolic comments (unless they start with such things), just a conversation over a nice cup of coffee at some nice café where i simply would ask them:
"What in the world what you thinking?"
And:
"How can we solve this?"
I agree. Fury made little sense with what we saw of Kes at the end of The Gift
No, it was downright character destruction and it was totally unnecessary to bring back the character only to destroy her.
Now that would have been an excellent episode! I retract my statement earlier about not wanting a return episode. If it was made as an episode where Kes defends the Voyager against Suspiria like this, I'd love it
This makes me think another possibility would have been to have her return for the finale and have her be the one who gets Voyager home.
Exactly what I had wanted instead of that hopeless mess called
Endgame.
Still I feel we were really robbed of a friendship between Kes and Seven. It would have been so much more wholesome than the My Fair Lady pastiche thing with the Doctor where he simultaneously thinks of her as a sort of daughter and is kinda into her while she is oblivious...yuk!
I really think those two characters would have worked well together. Judging form her character ins seasons 1-3 Kes would have been the first to accept Seven, and the first to defend her against any suspicion or prejudice by the crew.
I really agree on that one.
Apparently a bit of an unpopular opinion, but I was always a fan of Kes. Now I don’t like everything about the character — the 9-year lifespan was ill-conceived and only leads to unpleasant implications, and I felt the writers quickly lost interest in the character and never really figured out how to best incorporate her in stories — but I liked how she played off the other characters (most importantly the Doctor and Janeway), how she was curious about the universe, but wasn’t overly naive or childish, how she was warm and caring, but also had a sense of self-determination and would speak up if she felt someone was treated unfairly. I liked her look, her voice and how Jennifer Lien, through an often understated but also authentic performance, made her come to life. I also usually enjoyed the few episodes that featured her as the main character.
Exactly what I like about the character too.
And conceptually, while the short Ocampan lifespan didn’t make much sense to me from a logical point of view, the premise of having the opportunity to witness someone go through all stages of life — and even possibly die — during the run of the show, was fascinating to me, but I don’t think they ever really figured out what to do with it. And while I think it ultimately was a wrong decision to write her out of the show instead of finding ways to best write for the character, I’m not someone to dwell on this kind of stuff. I was miffed to see her go, but it was what it was.
Not exactly what I like to see. From my childhood to now, there have been a mean streak of death in the family and circle of friends and I'm sick and tired of it which is a reason why I avoid such scenarios as "entertainment"
And the nine-year lifespan was downrigt silly and obstructive to the character. A species with such a short life-span would never develope into more than primates.
As for the way they brought her back in “Fury”, I’m going to copy/paste something I said just a few weeks ago in another thread when this popped up: No-one has to like “Fury” and it’s certainly not my favorite episode, but lets not misrepresent what actually happens in it. I don’t see the character assassination that some claim the episode is guilty of. And I don’t think I ever really understood what’s supposedly so incredibly bad about “Fury”. It’s not particularly special, but it’s a perfectly entertaining hour of Voyager. The whole concept of time traveling back to the beginning of the show is pretty cool and I would argue that Kes suffering from some form of Ocampan dementia is interesting, even if admittedly not realized to my full satisfaction.
I’ve worked with old people suffering from dementia and it’s absolutely a condition that can completely change someone’s character and behavior. It’s particularly hard for the family members of that person who have to witness this change and that person disappearing, So if anything, having Kes go through some version of that is actually pretty apt and sorry, I just can’t view the episode as all bad because of that.
If anything, the episode is when they finally deliver on the original premise of a character with such a limited lifespan. When they thought up the premise for Kes the idea was to show how someone like that would go through all stages of life in the span of the show’s run. Having written out the character in “The Gift” they avoided ever having to show Kes getting really old and suffering from what that entails. “Fury” at least gives us something to make true on the premise.
I have to disagree here. I see nothing positive or entertaining with that piece of crap episode. It should be wiped out forever.
And as I wrote above, due to circumstances in my life, I can live without aging, ailing, dementia and such when it comes to entertainment because we have more than enough with such things in the Gray Universe as it is. And when such things are included in an episode where a good character and favorite is deliberately destroyed, it only makes me wanna puke or throw out the TV which I was about to do when I had watched that episode. Only sheer concern of the innocent people on the street below prevented me from doing it.
And because the end of the episodes is usually misrepresented or misremembered: they absolutely do revert Kes back to her old self in the end, making her remember that the crew of the Voyager were actually her friends and that they only ever helped her. It ends with Janeway offering her to stay on the ship, but she refuses and flies off to the Ocampa homeworld instead, having one last warm goodbye with Neelix in the transporter room.
I have to disagree here too. Thanks to Jennifer Lien she wasn't killed off, something the kind and benevolent people in charge had planned but the alternative wasn't better. She was turned into a pathetic old wreck who set of to Ocampa in a shuttle with no hope of reaching it alive. Mind you, it had taken Voyager six years to travel that distance in a space filled with hostile species like the Borg, the Voth, the Hirogen, the Vidiians and the Kazon among others. I can't understand how they came up with that scenario, but of course the whole episode was crap so I'm not surprised that the "alternate end" was crap too.
While my feelings toward Fury are not that strong as Lynx's, and I think it can be salvaged, But I think that such a drastic change in a charatcer should be better explained.
Besides, Kes returning to Voyager to fight off some greater threat like Suspiria sounds like a much better idea. We can even have such greater threat pose as Kes for a time.
Also, Fury made a huge mess in the timeline. At the very least it should not be a time travel episode.
Honestly, I find it very difficult, almost impossible to salvage that episode.
The only way would be to replace "Kes" with Suspiria all through the episode.
People say that Kes is a human 20 year old. Is there anything in the series that actually points to that, beyond fansplanations to try to eliminate the ick factor of her and Neelix?
She looks like a 20-year old, acts like a 20-year old, behave like a 20-year old and thinks like a 20-year old.
Her way of solving problems by attacking them from another angle which we saw in episodes like Jetrel and The Swarm would be impossible for a small child.
You mean other than the fact that she obviously doesn’t behave like a human two-year old?
Or even look like one!
No, but she could have been a mature human 12 or 13 year old. She was clearly running away from home in "Caretaker", and found a "nice" older man to take her away from her home. Something that happens all too often in real life.
The more one thinks about it, the more "ick" becomes.
I don't want to be rude here but I do find your opinion here a bit narrow-minded, all from a numbers perspective.
As I wrote above, Kes was the equivalent of a 20-year old person. She looks like a 20-year old, acts like a 20-year old, behave like a 20-year old, thinks like a 20-year old and save problems like an adult.
Why are people so obsessed with these numbers?
I mean, Kes behaves and looks like a 20 year old human. She may be a bit naive, but there are naive people on Earth of all ages.
Besides, while I understand that some people may not like Kes/Neelix, I advise to separate realtionship (whcih ended some tie before Kes left and wasn;t really mentioned all that often after Season 2 epsidoe "Partitution") and the charatcer. For me, it greatly improved my opinion on Kes (anbd also, separating Worf from his relationship with Jadzia greatly improved my opinion on Worf, for other example).
Honestly, I found both Troi and Leeta, sometimes even Ezri Dax more naive than Kes in many ways, although I must state that relly like those characters too.
There is no main character in TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY I dislike.
Because numbers are generally how we define things like laws and legal status.
My complaints aren't directed at Jennifer Lien, but at the creators and writers. She did the best she could with some pretty poor material.
Yes, which is OK from a human standard.
But we are dealing with aliens here who must be regarded from another perspective.
As for your comments about Lien and the writers, i actually agree. If I had been in charge of the show, I would never have came up with that nine-year lifespan or the "one-child syndrome" and I would have dissolved the Kes-Neelix relationship in the middle of season 2, shortly after
Parturition.
But then in a better way than what happened in the otherwise excellent
Warlord. I would have like to see the breakup taking place during two-three episodes in season 2.
When it comes to the character, I would have focused on her personality, her will to learn and explore, her way to solve problems by attacking them from another angle, her curiosity, determination, courage and all that.
Interesting. I genuinely never felt they wrote or portrayed her as anything other than someone at roughly the age Jennifer Lien was when they cast her, which was early twenties. Other than the “running away from home” you already mentioned (which I would argue was more like satisfying an adult desire of exploring the world outside and not being confined to live underground), do you have a particular scene or moment in mind where she seemed like a 12 or 13 year old to you?
True!
Because in the real world it’s simply impossible that a human being could mature into a young adult in only two years and there isn’t anything in Voyager suggesting what’s different about Ocampa physiology that would somehow magically make up for all those years of physical and mental development that turn people into adults.
Yes! As I wrote before, a species with such short life-span would never develope into more than primates.
All I can do is think to the TOS episode, "Conscious of the King". In which a mid-30's Kirk tries to seduce what is an 18 year old woman, to get the information he wants.
As much as I generally like the episode, one cannot escape the "ick" factor of his actions.
Well, old Kirk took the chance and no one blames him!
But I can see your point.
Current day law. Which is not prepared to deal with aliens. i mean, under current legal status, alien would be considered animals! But it's not what I am here to discuss.
Star Trek law would havge to be diffrent. I mean, if they were like today, 18 years old Vulcan would be consodered mature (not that it really matters, at least not for renlationships, as Vulcans practice arranged marriages so consent really is not relevent for them. And I don;t like them for that. But again, I digress).
Look at Sarek. Didn't he marry a human woman who was much, much younger than him.
She largely seemed very naive, outside of her scenes with the Doctor. I think the writers simply didn't know what to do with the character.
As I wrote above, I didn't find her naive. I found both Troi and Leeta, sometimes even Ezri Dax more naive than Kes in many ways. But they were good characters too.
Problem being, it is still a 20th century American audience watching your program.
In that case, they should have thought about the nine -year lifespan and what it could make people think and never came up with that.
They were desperate to do something different from other Trek, and didn't think through the possible audience reaction.
The problem with Voyager are the writers. They managed to mess up a lot of things, like the nine-year lifespan, the one-child syndrome, just because "oh, we have never had that before".
Not to mention the whole thing with the torpedoes and shuttles who were supposed to be limited but weren't!
But those writers never made any attempt to solve such things. It was all "Oh, never mind. The viewers won't notice.
But the viewers
did notice and it made the show and those in charge of it look.ridiculous.
Honestly, take away the weird 9-year lifespan thing, and you basically just have a generic alien woman who joined the Voyager crew. She would have been no different than Neelix; Delta Quadrant aliens who are trying to find a place on the ship. Neelix became the cook, and Kes became a nurse. In that regard, the characters worked. But someone decided that Kes needed to have this extra layer of alien-ness despite it not really making a whole lot of sense logically. And that's where the issue arises where there's a sense that other characters (Neelix, Tom) basically took advantage of an extremely underage girl when there was absolutely nothing about Kes that gave that impression. Quite the contrary; she acted like a normal 20-something woman even though she was biologically only 2 years old. So one wonders just why it was necessary to create this awkward aspect to her character that was ultimately unnecessary.
Does any of that preclude having a 9-year lifespan? She couldn't have had some 'inner power' at 21 (the age Lien was when VOY started)?
I actually have to agree when it comes to your comments about the lifespan here.
What the writers should have focused on was her personality, her will to learn and explore, her way to solve problems by attacking them from another angle, her curiosity, determination, courage and all that.
no, she does not have to have such a short lifespan in order to gave such powers. As i said, I don;t like this aspect of her charatcer. she short lifespan was a mistake, in my opinion.
Correct!
