Wonderful, almost forgot about that.
Should novels set in the JJVerse rectify the film's plot holes?
- Thread starter EJA
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Wonderful, almost forgot about that.
Most of the comments in TOS were about Spock. The only positive generalization about Vulcans I can think of is the "Vulcans can't lie" line, but we all know how that turned out.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
JarodRussell
Solok was a racist aka he believed the vulcans are clearly superior to humans by any criteria - physical, mental, etc. That racism motivated his demonstrations of vulcan 'superiority' JarodRussel. And his hobby of writing essays declaring vulcan superiority.
The baseball game was his version of a reminder of this fact he believed in to Sisko. A confirmation of his racism.
When Sisko was not humiliated Solok failed to achieve his purpose. He only showed that vulcans have, on average, greater strength; he failed to show that logic is better than emotions - he was proven wrong, which led him to lose composure.
Your analogy with Christopher is a straw-man argument.
I'm sure Christopher has better arguments to support his points than a ridiculous baseball game to prove vulcans are unquivocally better in any important respect.
But you agree with Solok, don't you:
"Well, the Vulcans ARE superior, both physically and mentally."
Well, you're wrong, too:
'So, your argument has become - vulcans are racists, but they are right to be racists because thay're superior according to any criterion worth mentioning.
I agree that many vulcans are racists; I disagree that vulcans are superior:
Physically, they're stronger - on average. Still, by the 24th century - or even now - that hardly counts as superiority by any criterion worth mentioning. Bears are hardly humanity's superiors.
Mentally, they can do x operations per second. Well, a pocket calculator can do the same. Is it superior to a human mind?
What about the rest - about what really matters? The vulcan passive mentality 'if the chance is low enough don't even try' proved inferior again and again to the human 'never say never approach'.
Vulcans needed 1000 years to rise from the ashes of their wars and reach the stars. Humans did the same in a 100 years.
With all their logic, vulcans have been warring with neighbouring species (andorians, etc) for centuries when humans came. Humans brought these antagonistic species together in a prosperous alliance almost instantly.
More often than not, vulcans prove themselves to be arrogant or even racist. NOT a 'superior' state of mind.
And I could go on.'
"Why did I never complain about the Vulcan racism before? What kind of question is that? Because I simply didn't bother to do it before? "
You never complained about vulcan racism before because you never noticed it before - your first posts in this thread make clear that you found the vulcan racism from Star trek XI as contradicting the previous portrayal of vulcans - what were you saying ~they live the IDIC
?
Solok was a racist aka he believed the vulcans are clearly superior to humans by any criteria - physical, mental, etc. That racism motivated his demonstrations of vulcan 'superiority' JarodRussel. And his hobby of writing essays declaring vulcan superiority.
The baseball game was his version of a reminder of this fact he believed in to Sisko. A confirmation of his racism.
When Sisko was not humiliated Solok failed to achieve his purpose. He only showed that vulcans have, on average, greater strength; he failed to show that logic is better than emotions - he was proven wrong, which led him to lose composure.
Your analogy with Christopher is a straw-man argument.
I'm sure Christopher has better arguments to support his points than a ridiculous baseball game to prove vulcans are unquivocally better in any important respect.
But you agree with Solok, don't you:
"Well, the Vulcans ARE superior, both physically and mentally."
Well, you're wrong, too:
'So, your argument has become - vulcans are racists, but they are right to be racists because thay're superior according to any criterion worth mentioning.
I agree that many vulcans are racists; I disagree that vulcans are superior:
Physically, they're stronger - on average. Still, by the 24th century - or even now - that hardly counts as superiority by any criterion worth mentioning. Bears are hardly humanity's superiors.
Mentally, they can do x operations per second. Well, a pocket calculator can do the same. Is it superior to a human mind?
What about the rest - about what really matters? The vulcan passive mentality 'if the chance is low enough don't even try' proved inferior again and again to the human 'never say never approach'.
Vulcans needed 1000 years to rise from the ashes of their wars and reach the stars. Humans did the same in a 100 years.
With all their logic, vulcans have been warring with neighbouring species (andorians, etc) for centuries when humans came. Humans brought these antagonistic species together in a prosperous alliance almost instantly.
More often than not, vulcans prove themselves to be arrogant or even racist. NOT a 'superior' state of mind.
And I could go on.'
"Why did I never complain about the Vulcan racism before? What kind of question is that? Because I simply didn't bother to do it before? "
You never complained about vulcan racism before because you never noticed it before - your first posts in this thread make clear that you found the vulcan racism from Star trek XI as contradicting the previous portrayal of vulcans - what were you saying ~they live the IDIC
?
You still didn't get it. The point of the Baseball game was to show that Vulcans were superior in Sisko's beloved game, IN THIS HUMAN GAME. It was not about showing superiority of Vulcans in EVERY respect.
Oh now you are telling me what I am thinking?
I think my first posts on this subjects make clear that I never liked the racist portrayal of Vulcans, since I find it hard to swallow that their philosophy fits together with blatant racism. And my firsts posts should have made clear that I already didn't like it in TAS.
But since you know me better than I do...
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
JarodRussell
"Oh now you are telling me what I am thinking?"
No, JarodRussell; you told me - and everyone else - what you were thinking regarding the vulcans; you never noticed they were portrayed as racists and had to be shown clear examples to the conntrary.
As for the rest - Still trying to rewrite Solok's motives in 'take me out to the holosuite', I see.
"Oh now you are telling me what I am thinking?
"No, JarodRussell; you told me - and everyone else - what you were thinking regarding the vulcans; you never noticed they were portrayed as racists and had to be shown clear examples to the conntrary.
As for the rest - Still trying to rewrite Solok's motives in 'take me out to the holosuite', I see.
I am somehow reminded of all the trench warfares you had with other posters in this forum, in which you (almost every time) told others what they think.
I said they have the IDIC, and that I think racism doesn't fit into it. Then Christopher asked if I ever saw TAS: Yesteryear. Yes, in that episode there are racist Vulcans. But what the hell does that change about the point "they have the IDIC philosophy and should not be racists"? Then we started talking about Solok, and I said multiple times now why I think he is not being racist, he is just being annoyingly logical.
I said they have the IDIC, and that I think racism doesn't fit into it. Then Christopher asked if I ever saw TAS: Yesteryear. Yes, in that episode there are racist Vulcans. But what the hell does that change about the point "they have the IDIC philosophy and should not be racists"? Then we started talking about Solok, and I said multiple times now why I think he is not being racist, he is just being annoyingly logical.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
"Trench warfares"? It happened on a few occasions, yes
. The other posters would say something, and a few posts later they would say they always claimed the contrary. And they would proceed with convoluted explanations that never managed to be quite convincing.
I always found these blatant inconsistencies irritating.
As for the rest - I see you're repeating yourself. Much as I already repeated my counterarguments.
And that's precisely the point. Just like in the novel "1984", one thing is said publicly while the opposite is actually occurring.
But IDIC as a lofty goal or philosophy is still worth pursuing; whether one actually achieves it is another thing.
Is it worth pointing out that IDIC was not made a part of the Vulcan culture until season three, and then primarily as a way for Roddenberry to sell pendants?
Racism doesn't fit into the ideals of the United States either, but there are still American racists. There is no society where everyone lives up to their ideals equally well.
The topic of this thread is perceived "plot holes" in ST XI. You seemed to treat it as a plot hole for the movie to portray Spock's schoolmates engaged in racist bullying. I pointed out that the exact same thing was depicted in "Yesteryear." You concede that it does happen in "Yesteryear." Therefore, it is not a plot hole, a continuity error, or some radical revisionism on the part of the filmmakers; if anything, it is a very faithful homage to D. C. Fontana's worldbuilding for the Vulcan culture. I fail to see why assertions about what "should" be in the abstract should override hard data about what actually is.
To be fair, though, Desilu/Paramount and Lincoln Enterprises had supposedly received a lot of requests from people wanting to buy "something Vulcan", and there wasn't really anything suitably worth mining from the first two seasons. On reflection, they probably needed to have Sarek, Amanda, T'Pau or T'Pring wear a significantly unusual piece of jewelry in their appearances.
With Roddenberry having taken a very large step away from TOS in Season Three, it's interesting that he was still able to push for the inclusion of an IDIC pendant in a Season Three episode.
You can't blame him for attempting to answer fan requests. My favourite is Bjo Trimble's anecdote about a very serious letter that came in pleading for "a signed photo of the USS Enterprise", so someone at Lincoln quickly autographed a starship still, "Love from the USS Enterprise" and posted it off.
Not "someone", Bjo herself signed that pic. She recounts that tidbit in "On the Good Ship Enterprise". And while I'm being nitpicky, the inscription read "Best Wishes, U.S.S. Enterprise".
The pic is in Susan Sackett's "Letters to Star Trek".
The pic is in Susan Sackett's "Letters to Star Trek".
Well, I knew if I attributed the signing to Bjo herself, someone would have come onboard to say it was John's idea.
"Someone" was surely true enough for the point of my anecdote.
While the design has been seen other places in the franchise, isn't the episode that introduced IDIC the only canonical reference to the abbreviation or the full phrase? It amazes me that some fans consider it the grand message of Star Trek or the bedrock of their fandom when it has so little use in the shows and movies.
"Is There In Truth No Beauty?"
TAS mentions IDIC in "The Infinite Vulcan".
Sarek of Vulcan (voice of Mark Lenard) discusses IDIC with "friend Roddenberry" on a track of the LP "Inside Star Trek", a recording that immortalizes much of the content of GR's university appearances over the years.
Much of GR's future philosophies weren't formalized until the 70s. Years of being asked to "explain" Star Trek, a dead TV series that continued to build its ratings and fanbase throughout the 70s in syndication, will do that to you.
Why bother locking it? If people are still interested in what's being discussed, why stop it?
Why lock it? The Anti's, also, find another thread to spout their hate, might as well keep it in a place where we know it is. They will just open another one that is roughly the same thing in another thread.