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Little things in Trek that just bug you...

I think Spock is written to be too powerful. He's like a golden age era Superman in that he can do whatever the plot needs him to do.
I think this is a misconception on some peoples part, Spock's shown to make his fair share of mistakes, screw things up, and to harbor false beliefs at times.

Spock (one example) frying the warp drive, instead of letting Scott perform a needed procedure first.
I wish somebody would write a story some day that explains WTF Beverly did with that ugly cloth she bought on Farpoint Station.
Beverly used the ugly cloth to produce all the ugly civilian clothing seen in TNG.

Better use of an episode: Picard meets someone from the 20th century and does NOT start lecturing them on
I kind of like Picard's more bombastic moments. Picard is usually on the ball, but his brain farts when it comes to people from the past and their cultures shows that Picard can sometimes be a utter and complete fool.

It lowers Picard down to the level of being a real Human being, similar to his initial difficulties with children, befuddlement around Troi's mother, or having Admiral Nechayev treat him like something she needs to scrap off the bottom of her shoe.

Picard in fact isn't a superior evolved being, he just thinks he is.
It may be your belief that there is a god. Keep in mind that your belief is not universally held, either in RL or in Star Trek.
Of course neither is the belief that there is no God or otherwise supernatural beings or experiences.

And while admittedly not not universally held, those with a pro/positive position on the matter and those neutral on the subject fair out number those with a anti/negative position. Speaking of present day Humans.

Janeway was open minded enough to venture at one point into Chakotay's spiritual beliefs. While it's unclear if she continued or not, she obviously didn't knee jerk dismiss Chakotay's beliefs out of some personal doctrine.
But it certainly doesn't make sense that you have a ship with 400 people and the exact same people go on away missions, over and over again
It does from a certain way of looking at it.

The ship basically has a fairly small core of highly train personnel who undertake the "up front" aspects of the missions (usually represented by the principal actors). These personnel are often higher in rank. If something happens to them, they're replaced (example Yar).

The idea is that your best most talented people aren't "preserved" aboard the ship.

The majority of the people on the ship are there to support and back-up this core group, and those whose primary job is to maintain and operate the ship itself.

Occasionally, a support individual will show promise and be elevated to the core group (example Worf). Also the core group will attach narrow subject specialty personnel when needed (example security).

Consider a police department, there are patrol personnel and people who maintain the vehicles or do administrative. But there are also detectives who are higher trained and experienced, and handle more advanced activities. Detectives are higher in rank.
It's a post-scarcity future. I'd like to think that we're down from eight-hour shifts to only six hours, but YMMV on whether that's too utopian.
Perhaps in the utopian future, people on the ship only report for their duty shift when they feel like it, and this is why there are so many people on board. It provides for a better chance that at least some people will show up.

You know, if they want to.
 
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Gotta admit, it's feeling more Star Wars now than Trek. If I wanted the former, I'd watch that instead.

It feels nothing like Star Wars.

Star Wars is a fantasy movie series that takes place in space, with laser swords, epic /operatic happenings and mystical jumbo-jumbo. It has no connection to us or our future.

Star Trek is a sci-fi-lite concept that is an outer space action/adventure show about future humans and their place in space as they meet and interact with other cultures.

Zero connection. Zero similar feel, unless the fact that both have ships in space make them feel the same. And that's a trait they've shared since the beginning.
 
Of course neither is the belief that there is no God or otherwise supernatural beings or experiences.
I'm aware of that, and I will just say this: I'm not interested in talking to anyone who tries to tell me that my lack of belief in any supernatural being is a "belief" in itself. Atheism is not a religion.

And while admittedly not not universally held, those with a pro/positive position on the matter and those neutral on the subject fair out number those with a anti/negative position. Speaking of present day Humans.
Uh-huh... and you would know this how?

Janeway was open minded enough to venture at one point into Chakotay's spiritual beliefs. While it's unclear if she continued or not, she obviously didn't knee jerk dismiss Chakotay's beliefs out of some personal doctrine.
That's Janeway's choice. It wouldn't be my choice, but then it wouldn't have bothered me as much about Chakotay if they'd done better research instead of throwing a dozen different and incompatible native religions into a blender and decided that the resulting mess would be his belief system.
 
One thing that bothers me in the Trek universe is how friggin small the population of colony worlds are. Usually they are depicted as having somewhere between a few hundred and a few tens of thousands of inhabitants. This could perhaps be excused as being due the various ships being active on the fringes of the Federation, except that colonies on Voyager tended to be shown as having a very low population as well. One would presume the Federation had the heavy lifting capability to move millions of people off planet, and that natural population growth would result in some human (or Vulcan, whatever) colonies with tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of inhabitants.

It's arguably worse for the non-human powers like the Klingons, Cardaasians, Romulans, and Ferengi. 95% of the time, you would think that no planets existed in their states other than the homeworld. The writers in general seem to never quite get their heads around the truly awesome scope of the galaxy.
 
Tom Paris overuses the phrases "a dozen starships" and especially "a half-dozen starships." Say 12 or 6 or fricking use some other numbers of ships too.
 
Uh-huh... and you would know this how?
Numerous readily available surveys. How Humanity sorts ourselves out (present day) on this subject is well documented and understood.
One thing that bothers me in the Trek universe is how friggin small the population of colony worlds are.
A version of this is how few members the federation has, give how much of the galaxy it occupies.

TOS (and DIS?) do it better by not going into the number of members, or how physically large a area the federation exists in.
 
Numerous readily available surveys. How Humanity sorts ourselves out (present day) on this subject is well documented and understood.
I would argue this with you, but it would derail the topic. Needless to say I don't agree with you.
 
Nor i with you, isn't that the way of things?

We've heard of species with religion, and sometimes don't know one way or the other

have we ever (no doubt) heard of a majority anti_religion species?
 
It feels nothing like Star Wars.

Star Wars is a fantasy movie series that takes place in space, with laser swords, epic /operatic happenings and mystical jumbo-jumbo. It has no connection to us or our future.

Star Trek is a sci-fi-lite concept that is an outer space action/adventure show about future humans and their place in space as they meet and interact with other cultures.

Zero connection. Zero similar feel, unless the fact that both have ships in space make them feel the same. And that's a trait they've shared since the beginning.

The Trek I like is more about diplomacy and space politics with scifi action as a last resort.

Star Wars I know is a lot of space battles for excitement, which there's nothing wrong with that, but that was always one of the biggest distinctions between them. Science Fiction vs Science Fantasy.

And I'm talking about Trek post JJ Abrams. Ever seen this by chance?

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Pretty much explains it better than I could.
 
This is something that has always annoyed me. When someone doesn't finish a meal. Where there's a scene and they get up from the table and a whole plate of food is left.
 
This is something that has always annoyed me. When someone doesn't finish a meal. Where there's a scene and they get up from the table and a whole plate of food is left.
Star Trek isn't the only show by far. It happens even when eating is important to the character and plot.

There are a couple of scenes in The Handmaid's Tale when Offred is either thought to be pregnant or really is pregnant. The Martha (cook/housemaid) sets a nice breakfast in front of her and she's told to eat every bite. Then along comes Serena, before Offred has a chance to take a single bite or sip of juice and tells her to get her cloak because they're going somewhere.

Weird behavior for someone so desperate for her Handmaid to have a baby, that she won't let her even finish a meal.
 
This is something that has always annoyed me. When someone doesn't finish a meal. Where there's a scene and they get up from the table and a whole plate of food is left.

This bothers me as well. One example would be in the second season of "Fear of the Walking Dead" where the mean hostage lady won't let the daughter finish her steak and even tosses it I recall correctly. That's the one where she was held up in the boat on a dock. Also the cliche line of "I lost my appetite." Anytime someone does something gross or says something mean someone all of sudden stops feeling hungry. Not in my experience. When your hungry your hungry.

Jason
 
-Not bringing back the parasites from TNG's Conspiracy

-The Enterprise E not showing up during the Dominion War

-Always wondering if Voyager was going the right way or if they could have saved years off their mission had they gone the other way

-The Music of Trek for the most part was not good

-Scotty being responsible for the Tribble Genocide (It ruined Trouble with Tribbles for me)

-No Q Movie

-Spock's reunification efforts not being carried further by DS9 (Hey, we could have gotten Nimoy to play a big role in DS9 if he was willing)

-We will probably never get another Xindi Arc or appearence
 
The Trek I like is more about diplomacy and space politics with scifi action as a last resort.

Star Wars I know is a lot of space battles for excitement, which there's nothing wrong with that, but that was always one of the biggest distinctions between them. Science Fiction vs Science Fantasy.

And I'm talking about Trek post JJ Abrams. Ever seen this by chance?

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Pretty much explains it better than I could.

I've watched them many times. Love redlettermedia.

Diplomacy and space politics is furthest from my mind when I watch Star Trek. If I want to fall asleep, there are other means besides watching Picard in the conference room pontificating about evolved humanity and how the Tholians and Breen figure into the grand Alpha Quadrant scheme. Someone fucking shoot me haha!

So that explains our disconnect I think.

Star Trek "Post JJ Abrams" is pretty much the only reason I'm watching again. The TNG and VOY era got so boring, antiseptic and repetitive that it eventually became very unengaging. Even as a life-long fan, I pretty much abandoned ship despite great efforts. When the 2009 film came out, I honestly felt like I was watching real honest Star Trek for the first time since TUC in 1991 instead of some board room drama set in space.

But just because something is action/adventure and set in space doesn't mean it's automatically Star Wars. Besides, on that logic, I'd argue that it was SW that aped Star Trek. The original Star Trek (which is by far still the best) was a fun action/adventure show with fisticuffs and ripped shirts and blood and grit with some good heart and sci-fi thrown in. It wasn't until Next Gen that the pretentious "this is about something IMPORTANT" attitude set in...and it was a far more dull and inert experience as a result. Nothing used to make me want to turn the TV off more than when a Romulan ship is pounding the Enterprise and Picard would calmly say "No no Mr. Worf...let's see where this all goes" because apparently "action = dumb/immature!!!" Ugh fuck me. I want my blood to pump and my eyes to widen. I don't want my heart rate to slow and my eyelids droop.

Not saying I don't like TNG (or even VOY, which I'm happily watching right now on Netflix)...but those shows are pale by comparison because of their sometimes emphasis on "diplomacy and space politics," IMHO. And, if I look at it quite honestly, even when they are doing the stuff that's supposed to be "deep" and "important..." they rarely do it very well or effectively. I'd say there are some rare exceptions (Inner Light, Darmok, Duet, The Visitor), but more often than not it's pretty run-of-the-mill stuff admittedly.

So to each their own I guess...I'm happy with the state of things now. It matches what I want out of the franchise perfectly. Looking forward to DSC S2 and the potential for another JJ movie helmed by QT.

But, before anyone gets insulted...there's 750+ hours of Star Trek. It's great because there's something for everyone in there. It's a massively diverse property. It's one of the reasons it's great...because it CAN do hard science-fiction, politics, comedy, adventure, mystery, and action all rather successfully.
 
But just because something is action/adventure and set in space doesn't mean it's automatically Star Wars. Besides, on that logic, I'd argue that it was SW that aped Star Trek. The original Star Trek (which is by far still the best) was a fun action/adventure show with fisticuffs

Occasionally.

and ripped shirts and blood and grit

Quite rarely.

It wasn't until Next Gen that the pretentious "this is about something IMPORTANT" attitude set in...and it was a far more dull and inert experience as a result.

Not a lot of fighting, quite a lot of ethical dilemma in popular episodes "The City on the Edge of Forever" or "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "The Conscience of the King", "Court Martial", "This Side of Paradise". I think the original and TNG were both mixes of adventure and drama, the former leaning more to adventure and the latter more to drama but not that different. I would also say that while TUC had some action it wasn't an action movie as the Star Wars or Abrams films are (especially as its message was much less bellicose).
 
The fact that Data needs to remind us every time he says something that he's a machine by not doing contractions... I mean he can learn French for no apparent reason (since it's allegedly a dead language by then) but can't learn how to use stupid contractions? How coherent is that?
 
Captain, I do not understand your issue with this. It is a clever contrivance to give the character a distinctive identity and spoken cadence. He is a now a classic character, partially due to this affect ;)

The fact that Data needs to remind us every time he says something that he's a machine by not doing contractions... I mean he can learn French for no apparent reason (since it's allegedly a dead language by then) but can't learn how to use stupid contractions? How coherent is that?
 
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The choice to use Ferren SFX vs the 'B' team at ILM for ST V who was busy with IJLC I believe. This has always bothered me, and certainly did not help elevate an already problematic script. Ralph Winter has acknowledged it was primarily his call, and those grossly substandard effects really torpedoed any chance of success for that film, IMO.
 
The fact that Data needs to remind us every time he says something that he's a machine by not doing contractions... I mean he can learn French for no apparent reason (since it's allegedly a dead language by then) but can't learn how to use stupid contractions? How coherent is that?

It allows us to tell the difference between Data and Lore.

:lol:
 
Star Wars is a fantasy movie series that takes place in space, with laser swords, epic /operatic happenings and mystical jumbo-jumbo. It has no connection to us or our future.
Star Trek is more space fantasy than science fiction.

Takes place in a universe where beings from different species can have children together. The children have traits from both parent, instead of simply not being conceived, or dying quickly. I don't recall Star Wars doing this (I might have missed it).

Trek has space weapon that apparent make noises in a vacuum, and you can see the beams even though there's no atmosphere to scatter the light photons.

Trek has mystical mumbo-jumbo beings with mind reading abilities and others who can work magic by simply snapping their fingers.

Trek has techno-babble. What is a isoton any way?

Trek has a incredible amount of time travel.

Trek has multiple alternate universes.

Between Star Trek and Star Wars, which is more of a "science fiction" story? It's pretty much 'Wars.

Personally I like Trek more than War (also like), but I not blind to the greater fantasy aspects of Trek.
 
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