Poll Pike vs Lorca

[Rahul]

But then the fan absurdity that you can't be grey in the Trek universe without being a MU duplicate turned out to be true, and I lost interest in the character. He ceased to be compelling and much of the misdirect from earlier started not to make sense (why was Lorca so bravely mission orientated in the PU if his goal was to get home and take the Empire?). I don't mind a twist, but I hate being lied to by a writer to make a misdirect work, and that's how I feel Lorca went down. Plus, the stupid burned.

To be honest - he ceased to be an interesting "grey" character at the moment he left a civlian prisoner in an ISIS-inspired torture hell behind, only because that civilian might have ratted out his fellow prisoners to escape torture. AND on top of that, that everybody was okay with his cover story of "he blow up his old ship and killed his entire crew to 'spare' them from Klingon prison".

At that point, all nuance and interesting grey morality was already gone, and he was a straight up evil badguy. And the baffling part was - a lot of viewers didn't even seem to mind. Same how now with Georgiou, who personally ordered genocide, torture and mass murder, hand-picked people she would actually eat, and gloat about all of that in her victims faces. And yet, people are okay with that, because she's funny and snarky and wears a leather-tight catsuit.

That being said - the "fan assertion" that morally complex characters in Trek aren't possible is first of all completely wrong, and second not even a "fan" assertion. Cpt. Jellico from "Chains of Command" was an extremely multi-layered personality. And Starfleet had straight up badguys and moles in it's admirality - "The undiscovered country" anyone?

The assertion that Lorca "could" have been an interesting character without that twist is just patently false - he already was a one-dimensionel caricature before that. People just didn't wanted to see that.

 

[cultcross]

that civilian might have ratted out

Well, did rat out. Mudd was a massive liability in any escape attempt.

everybody was okay with his cover story of "he blow up his old ship and killed his entire crew to 'spare' them from Klingon prison".

At that point, all nuance and interesting grey morality was already gone, and he was a straight up evil badguy.

And Picard shot his own crewmember to stop them being assimilated, because he thought that the crewmember would prefer death. That sort of making decisions for crew isn't that new on Trek, sadly. Destroying the ship to prevent capture by Klingons? Not outside the realm of what we've seen Trek captains do, but definitely on the edge. I'd hoped we were going to address it somehow, prior to the Stupidity Reveal.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Lorca might be one of the greatest wastes of talent in TV history.

 

[valkyrie013]

I like Lorca, but Pike all the way..
Why? He's superman! Let me explain..
He's not strong or bulliet proof, he's an "Ideal" Superman is the best of us, the one that will do the right thing, even though everyone else goes the other way, being good, optomistic, he sets a bar that others strive for, Thats what I think of Pike, He was the Rock of the second season.
He was compared to Captain America in an earlier post, also an "Ideal" Why in "Civil War" i back Captain instead of Iron man ( because Tony himself wanted to be reigned in, to be put under control because of HIS many screwups and personal lapses.. Captain was like, nope, don't need a comitee to tell me to do a good thing..)

Pike was a good guy that inspired others to do there best and push there boundries.. thats a good leader and captain.

 

[Jayson1]

Somehow the Pike vs Lorca debate feels alot like the Picard vs Jellico debate. It basically comes down to what kind of leadership I think people think works best and what kind is more fun to watch on tv or in a movie. You could argue that Pike is the better leader but Lorca is more fun to actually watch.

Jason

 

[Alan Roi]

I like Lorca, but Pike all the way..
Why? He's superman! Let me explain..
He's not strong or bulliet proof, he's an "Ideal" Superman is the best of us, the one that will do the right thing, even though everyone else goes the other way, being good, optomistic, he sets a bar that others strive for, Thats what I think of Pike, He was the Rock of the second season.
He was compared to Captain America in an earlier post, also an "Ideal" Why in "Civil War" i back Captain instead of Iron man ( because Tony himself wanted to be reigned in, to be put under control because of HIS many screwups and personal lapses.. Captain was like, nope, don't need a comitee to tell me to do a good thing..)

Pike was a good guy that inspired others to do there best and push there boundries.. thats a good leader and captain.

Actually Tony wanted *everyone else, but him* to be reined in and put under control because of HIS many screwups and personal lapses because that was the actual problem he was hiding behind the accords to accomplish, as Cap suspected and Tony proved.

The fact that Pike himself isn't strong or bulletproof is actually another problem because Star Fleet command shouldn't want the captains in your fleet compulsively acting to sacrifice themselves at every possible opportunity. There job is to command, not get themselves killed needlessly (as Pike has almost done at least 3 times this season).

 

[XCV330]

voted Pike because Pike exemplifies all the higher aspirations of Star Trek.
and it would be great to have a captain like that if you were on a starship.

But..

In a time of war, you need a Lorca. You can't have a bratty crew speaking out of turn, questioning orders constantly, having tantrums. You need results. Pike did as well as he did with Discovery, partly by his own merits, but also because had a crew hand picked by Lorca, trained and tempered. No one likes the drill instructor, but they might owe their life to him.

 

[BillJ]

To me, Lorca lost 75% of his appeal the moment it was revealed he only had different values from Starfleet because he was from the MU.

But he's still Jason Isaacs, and the man can chew some serious scenery.

 

[XCV330]

But he's still Jason Isaacs, and the man can chew some serious scenery.

And we were never left knowing just HOW different Prime Lorca is from his doppelganger. My hope for Discovery is that one day we find out. He was close enough that he fooled Adm. Cornwell who presumably knew him as well as anyone might.

 

[BillJ]

And we were never left knowing just HOW different Prime Lorca is from his doppelganger. My hope for Discovery is that one day we find out. He was close enough that he fooled Adm. Cornwell who presumably knew him as well as anyone might.

I imagine he is a close approximation of Mirror Lorca. Which has me hoping we get to see him again down the road, whether in Discovery or one of the other shows.

 

[XCV330]

I imagine he is a close approximation of Mirror Lorca. Which has me hoping we get to see him again down the road, whether in Discovery or one of the other shows.

Would be interesting to see how the Empress handles seeing Lorca, knowing what she knows about him and the other version being her nemesis.

 

[zar]

To be honest - he ceased to be an interesting "grey" character at the moment he left a civlian prisoner in an ISIS-inspired torture hell behind, only because that civilian might have ratted out his fellow prisoners to escape torture. AND on top of that, that everybody was okay with his cover story of "he blow up his old ship and killed his entire crew to 'spare' them from Klingon prison".

At that point, all nuance and interesting grey morality was already gone, and he was a straight up evil badguy. And the baffling part was - a lot of viewers didn't even seem to mind. Same how now with Georgiou, who personally ordered genocide, torture and mass murder, hand-picked people she would actually eat, and gloat about all of that in her victims faces. And yet, people are okay with that, because she's funny and snarky and wears a leather-tight catsuit.

That being said - the "fan assertion" that morally complex characters in Trek aren't possible is first of all completely wrong, and second not even a "fan" assertion. Cpt. Jellico from "Chains of Command" was an extremely multi-layered personality. And Starfleet had straight up badguys and moles in it's admirality - "The undiscovered country" anyone?

The assertion that Lorca "could" have been an interesting character without that twist is just patently false - he already was a one-dimensionel caricature before that. People just didn't wanted to see that.

I agree that the "twist" didn't suddenly turn the character upside-down, because he was always "dark gray" at best. I think some viewers gave him more slack than he deserved.

But since when was "everybody okay" with him? Almost the entire crew seemed to hate working for him from the start. His ex-girlfriend saw that he was broken. I also don't see why being worse than gray means he can't be interesting. It's not as if such people are unheard of in reality. In fact, I'd say he's proven to be interesting by the very fact that your post about how immoral he was is controversial.

Cpt. Jellico from "Chains of Command" was an extremely multi-layered personality.

I should point out that that personality is remarkably familiar.

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[Rainard Fox]

Pike did as well as he did with Discovery, partly by his own merits, but also because had a crew hand picked by Lorca, trained and tempered. No one likes the drill instructor, but they might owe their life to him.

What do you mean "trained and tempered"? When Pike came aboard, Discovery's crew seems mostly corrupted. Nobody observes subordination, Saru disputes orders, ensign Tilly is chattering with senior officers, Michael behaves as upstart, lectures to captain, ignores orders. Connolly became corrupted in this atmosphere in minutes. That time we have not seen Tyler yet with his new black badge and ambitions. Lorca's legacy: everyone acts on his own as guerrilla, may be every one acts effectively or not, but alone.
They were not a team, they didn't use team advantages. Pike made them a team.

 

[thribs]

Lorca easily. He reminded me so much of Calhoun. Such a shame they had to do that to him.

 

[ITDUDE]

Lorca wouldn't have sent an Admiral to die. There are literal actual redshirts on his ship. Any one of them could have pressed the manual control. Poor asset management

 

[XCV330]

Lorca wouldn't have sent an Admiral to die.

Oh not only would he, but he did. Lorca will do whatever is best for Lorca and how lorca defines his mission.

 

[PhotoBoy]

Before the time crystal I’d have probably called it a draw, but seeing Pike carrying on putting one foot in front of the other knowing what he knows about his future makes him so much more interesting to me. I really hope if there’s a Pike spin off show we see him grappling with that knowledge.

 

[Claudia]

Actually Tony wanted *everyone else, but him* to be reined in and put under control because of HIS many screwups and personal lapses because that was the actual problem he was hiding behind the accords to accomplish, as Cap suspected and Tony proved.

You must have seen different movies than I.

Spoiler: Civil War - as that's off-topic here ;)

Look at Iron Man (1) - the first press conference after Tony's return from Afghanistan was about accountability and he shut down SI's weapons' production.

Tony wasn't hiding behind the Accords in Civil War, he just continued with the theme of accountability: Did anyone of the involved Avengers take responsibility for what happened in Lagos? Or in Bucharest? Or Berlin/Leipzig? To wave around Captain America as the paragon of virtue is ridiculous. One man's decision of what's right and/or wrong is better than a UN commitee's? Granted, it's going to be bogged down by politics... but who says that that one man would have all the information to arrive at a morally justified position? And why should a group that includes morally shady characters (Natasha, Wanda, Barton) be the beacon of justice and morality for the whole world?

And let's not forget that everything that happens in CW (except for Lagos) is out of the (understandable but selfish) wish to save Steve's buddy and the consequence of lying to another so-called friend who offered ways out of the situation at every turn and ultimately has to watch the murder of his parents with the murderer right in front of him - regardless of whether said person is actually accountable due to brain-washing which would be a question for a court trial. The "evil" accords were just a convenient justification for running amok and taking the law into his own hands.

But of course, Tony's the root of the problem...

 

[Alan Roi]

You must have seen different movies than I.

Spoiler: Civil War - as that's off-topic here ;)

Look at Iron Man (1) - the first press conference after Tony's return from Afghanistan was about accountability and he shut down SI's weapons' production.

Tony wasn't hiding behind the Accords in Civil War, he just continued with the theme of accountability: Did anyone of the involved Avengers take responsibility for what happened in Lagos? Or in Bucharest? Or Berlin/Leipzig? To wave around Captain America as the paragon of virtue is ridiculous. One man's decision of what's right and/or wrong is better than a UN commitee's? Granted, it's going to be bogged down by politics... but who says that that one man would have all the information to arrive at a morally justified position? And why should a group that includes morally shady characters (Natasha, Wanda, Barton) be the beacon of justice and morality for the whole world?

And let's not forget that everything that happens in CW (except for Lagos) is out of the (understandable but selfish) wish to save Steve's buddy and the consequence of lying to another so-called friend who offered ways out of the situation at every turn and ultimately has to watch the murder of his parents with the murderer right in front of him - regardless of whether said person is actually accountable due to brain-washing which would be a question for a court trial. The "evil" accords were just a convenient justification for running amok and taking the law into his own hands.

But of course, Tony's the root of the problem...

Tony imprisoned Wanda, without even telling her. How are his actions there not a problem? Tony brought Peter Parker across international borders and put him to work as a child soldier without a word to his legal guardian. How are his actions there not a problem? Even when he agreed with Cap that Bucky wasn't responsible for his actions, he still tried to murder him. How are his actions there not a problem? Ultron was created by, guess who, Tony. How are his actions there not a problem? Lastly, how many lives did Wanda save by pulling the bomb out of the market? And that's the problem? I'm not saying there was an upside to the accords, even if their should have been safeguards, Tony put himself in a position where he had 100% oversight over the others and ensured there was practically 0% oversight over his actions as we saw, no matter how Tony bungled things, he got to do what he wanted..

 

[Sir Anthony Eden]

This is a hard one for me.

Lorca was awesome, because he was just so unexpected and so different from what we've typically seen. He was mysterious and your eyes were locked on him whenever he was on the screen. He was one of the things that really made Season One.

On the other side, you've got Pike, who is completely different from Lorca, but no less captivating. The thing that makes Pike great is that he IS the typical Star Trek captain, but he pulls it off in a very nuanced and captivating way so as to make it fresh and new while not breaking expectations.

Also...they're both played by fantastic performers who have completely owned the role.

I agree with this really. Two great actors, two very different but astonishingly good performances, they made huge contributions to their seasons.