So name a Star Trek moment that you just didn't "get".
- Thread starter enterprisecvn65
- Start date
It does?
Not!
The Voyager episode "Flashback". An attempt to tie in a Voyager episode with TUC and it fails miserably. They couldn't even keep continuity with Lt. Commander Dmitri Valtane's. How does Dmitri Valtane "die" in "Flashback" but is seen smiling on the Excelsior at the end of TUC?
It's not like Brannon Braga didn't have a beaten path to follow and yet somehow they still messed things up. Explains most of ENT I suppose.
It's not like Brannon Braga didn't have a beaten path to follow and yet somehow they still messed things up. Explains most of ENT I suppose.
Flashback is such a spectacular missed opportunity. I mean, Trials and Tribble-ations is blatant fan-service, but it is superbly executed and thoughtful.
Flashback is just a lazy by-the-numbers exercise. It's not really celebrating the thirtieth anniversary if you are only setting the clock back five years of real time.
Easy: Tuvok's memory was faulty. Valtane only dies in Tuvok's flashback; just assume that wasn't accurate. Memories sometimes aren't.
Too bad they didn't find a way to do that A Piece of the Action sequel they originally were going to do on DS9 for the 25th Anniversary instead of Trials and Tribble-ations.
I never understood why the series' always had the ships in orbit with the planet to port or starboard; never with the dorsal or ventral sensor domes facing the planets.
I don't get why Kirk gave firearms to the hill-people in "A Private Little War". What a terrible decision.
It was the only thing that would keep the hill people from getting wiped out by the villagers. The non-interference directive didn't apply since the villagers were being aided by the Klingons.
Not!
How do you figure? In STID, Pike is killed relatively quickly. A burst of weapons fire and he falls dead within a minute. That's a far more merciful way to go than wasting away in a wheelchair, like his prime counterpart did, unable to move or communicate. That's a slow, torturous death. It's just sheer luck that the Talosians came along...
Beats being zapped by delta radiation . . .
Not!
How do you figure? In STID, Pike is killed relatively quickly. A burst of weapons fire and he falls dead within a minute. That's a far more merciful way to go than wasting away in a wheelchair, like his prime counterpart did, unable to move or communicate. That's a slow, torturous death. It's just sheer luck that the Talosians came along...
But they did.
^ Of course, but nobody knew at the time that they would. If the Talosians had NOT taken Pike to live with them, he would have been condemned to decades of life without life - an agonizing existence where he couldn't move or do anything at all. Now tell me, how is that more merciful than being shot and instantly killed?
If you want to compare Pike's fate between the two timelines you have to compare the entirety of it, not just the part that suits your purpose. Between Pike being dead and Pike living with the Talosians, the latter is by far preferable. In fact I bet there are a lot of valid people who'd gladly live with the Talosians rather than continue with the life they have now.
No, actually, you don't. We are not talking about Pike's fate. Best to start with that.
Greg Cox only said that being shot beats being zapped by delta rays. Meaning, when that happens to ANYONE. He did not say "Pike turned out better after being shot", he just says "It beats getting zapped by delta rays".
He wasn't talking about Pike's specific circumstances, just in a more general sense. Anyone who is shot point-blank with massive amounts of gunfire will be killed on the spot; but anyone who is blasted with delta rays will become an immobile living corpse. Pike's own story, of course, turned out much different. Pike was lucky. But another character who'd received the same amount of radiation would not be so lucky.
You seem to be suggesting that anyone who gets zapped with delta rays will be picked up by the Talosians and taken to live with them. Obviously that did not, and could not, happen.
Here's something I don't "get" at all.
So Generations was a mess in general, most of which it can be explained by it being a rush job to get the Generations franchise off to a film start as soon as possible and no real thought given to the overall story and how to fit Kirk into it in a meaningful way. So I let all the things I don't "get" about it go because I know the reality of the making of it.
BUT.........Here's one thing I don't "get" at all about it.
So TNG spent 7 seasons building William Riker into one of the most brave, capable and finest officers in starfleet. Not just among first officers, but ALL officers. He's a guy who was offered his own command as early as season three (hell it took Spock something like 15 years to get his own command, even though he wasn't in starfleet the whole time) and only his attachment to Picard and his general happiness on the Enterprise kept from becoming a captain at a rather young age (That and Frakes not wanting to leave the show of course).
He's a guy who used daring and brilliant tactics to beat the borg when it looked like they were unstoppable. He also took command of the Enterprise on several other occasions and did so with the complete confidence of Picard and always commanded with authority, capability and intelligence.
He's also a guy that, when not in direct command of Enterprise, was also involved in many situations that required high levels of intelligence, originally and strength to successfully win and/or survive.
And he's also mentioned several times as the best pilot aboard the Enterprise and one of the best in the whole fleet.
So after seven years Riker is a character who is viewed as pretty much the equal of Kirk and Picard, despite his lower rank.
So in Generations he encounters the Duras BOP and seems his old self as they stand off. But when the BOP fires and hits the Enterprise through their shields....suddenly, after years of facing extremely dangerous situations with courage, intelligence and strength and figuring out how to beat the danger, he turns COMPLETELY stupid and weak.
The Riker in TNG would probably first ordered the shields to be rotated to stop the Klingon weapons, which was pretty SOP since "Both Worlds" and then he would order the Enterprise to open with all weapons knowing the ship's considerable firepower advantage would probably very quickly overwhelm the shields of an obsolete BOP and destroy.
OR he could immediately jump to warp speed, knowing that the safety of the ship and its crew takes priority over Picard and Picard would want it that way. Get far enough away to regroup, figure out a course of action and return. Of course I realize this is maybe not possible given that in the TNG era the warp drive almost always fails when the ship is first hit.
Instead, in a very panicked voice he orders "Get us out of here"....no course, or speed or any specifics, just get us out of here. He didn't order "Get us out of here when he was face to face with a Borg cube, in fact he was ready to order a Kamikaze jump to warp to collide with the cube as a last effort to stop it.
Also he has DEANNA take the helm. I'm not sure but I think I can think of one episode near the end of TNG's run where Deanna was putting in some practice time at the helm to become qualified....maybe. At any rate she would have minimal experience, yet Riker orders to the helm when the normal helmsman is blown away......Wouldn't it make more sense for Riker himself, ONE OF THE BEST PILOTS IN STARFLEET, to take the helm. If your response is "Well he had to stay and give orders"....the bridge is not that big I'm sure Riker could shout orders while at the helm and they'd be heard and hopefully Data and Worf and whoever would have enough sense to come to him at the helm with whatever info/plan they had and Riker could give the go ahead while piloting the ship. I don't think a guy who has trained as long and hard as Riker and been in many life and death situations before would be unable to do a little multi tasking and drive and give orders simultaneously.
So Deanna takes over and proceeds to do the worst thing possible. When engaged in combat. if you choose to fight, you generally want to have your strongest position facing the enemy, which from everything we've seen in Star Trek is when the front of the ship is facing the enemy. Apparently fighting wasn't an option though as the Enterprise fired one phaser shot and decided it was useless and needed to run.
So if you run you want to do so in a way that keeps you as small a target as possible and not expose your most vulnerable side. So the best course of action would have to punch it up to full impulse and head straight towards the BOP, pass it, and keep on going as fast as possible. This keeps your profile as small as possible lets you get a head start on speed and may even have the effect of screwing up their targeting so they can't fire while you're coming at them. Also the BOP now has to turn around, which usually is done slowly, and get up to speed to catch an Enterprise that is already close to full impulse.....so that may give the Enterprise the opportunity to escape.
Instead Riker pretty does every possible thing wrong. Besides not firing back, knowing he had a huge firepower advantage and changing the shield frequency the Enterprise now turns slowly around, exposing it's broadside in the process and giving the BOP a much bigger target to hit and then tries to run away...but in order to do so it has to now fire up its impulse engines, because it couldn't gain speed while turning around, and basically allows the BOP to match speed instead of having to catch up if the Enterprise had just blasted towards the BOP. Also now the Enterprise has its stern exposed which has, oh I don't know, THE WARP ENGINES on it which have been shown time and time again to be a very vulnerable spot on TNG. Oh and the Enterprise isn't even bothering to fire at the BOP with it's stern weapons as it runs......Apparently Riker thought "What the hell is the point....an obsolete BOP with it's shields up simply can't be beat by a ship roughly 10 times as powerful."
Only the fact that Worf knows some obscure piece of info about why that model BOP was retired, and Data being able to figure out a way to make it into an advantage, saves the crew from getting killed, although the Enterprise is lost as a result.
Can't blame too much of this on Deanna as Riker gave the very vague order "Get us out of orbit" with no directions as to what to specifically do, so Deanna or if the original helm officer was still alive (I forget exactly at what point he's killed) does what Riker orders, only in the worst way possible.
Also if Riker was manning the helm he might have had the knowledge and experience to keep the saucer section from being sucked into the planet's gravity pull when the stardrive section exploded. But Deanna with her limited experience wasn't able to do much.
So in one scene Big, strong, brave, cool headed, intelligent, experienced, gotten out of many worse situations before, Will Riker, becomes someone who panics and becomes completely incompetent and does pretty much everything wrong when something bad unexpectedly happens.
This is even more baffling when you look at Trek actors responses to things their characters were scripted to do. Shatner usually made sure the script made him look like the greatest captain ever and would nix anything that indicated otherwise. Nimoy had episodes where he'd get angry when the script had Spock doing something he thought was Un Spock line. Takei threw an absolute hissy fit when his scene in TWOK of Kirk informing him he would be captain of the Excelsior was cut, convinced Shatner had something to do with it and acting like he was denied command of a real ship, until TUC, instead of a fictional one.
Meanwhile Generations has a scene that says to Frakes "OK you're in command and an obsolete BOP uses Geordi's visor to find your shield freq and attack. Now even though you've spent the past 7 years coming off as a strong, intelligent and highly competent officer...one of the best in the fleet, you're going to pretty much panic, give no real commands to help the situation other than "Get us out of orbit" and only some obscure thing with Data and Worf allows you to survive....oh but BTW the star drive section is destroyed and the Saucer crashes and is irreparable....all under your command.
Either Frakes is a really good sport who just said "Ok sure". Or he didn't have a clue how bad this scene made his character look. Or he realized he couldn't do anything about it.
All I can tell you is Shatner or Nimoy NEVER would have tolerated a scene that put their characters in such a bad light.
So Generations was a mess in general, most of which it can be explained by it being a rush job to get the Generations franchise off to a film start as soon as possible and no real thought given to the overall story and how to fit Kirk into it in a meaningful way. So I let all the things I don't "get" about it go because I know the reality of the making of it.
BUT.........Here's one thing I don't "get" at all about it.
So TNG spent 7 seasons building William Riker into one of the most brave, capable and finest officers in starfleet. Not just among first officers, but ALL officers. He's a guy who was offered his own command as early as season three (hell it took Spock something like 15 years to get his own command, even though he wasn't in starfleet the whole time) and only his attachment to Picard and his general happiness on the Enterprise kept from becoming a captain at a rather young age (That and Frakes not wanting to leave the show of course).
He's a guy who used daring and brilliant tactics to beat the borg when it looked like they were unstoppable. He also took command of the Enterprise on several other occasions and did so with the complete confidence of Picard and always commanded with authority, capability and intelligence.
He's also a guy that, when not in direct command of Enterprise, was also involved in many situations that required high levels of intelligence, originally and strength to successfully win and/or survive.
And he's also mentioned several times as the best pilot aboard the Enterprise and one of the best in the whole fleet.
So after seven years Riker is a character who is viewed as pretty much the equal of Kirk and Picard, despite his lower rank.
So in Generations he encounters the Duras BOP and seems his old self as they stand off. But when the BOP fires and hits the Enterprise through their shields....suddenly, after years of facing extremely dangerous situations with courage, intelligence and strength and figuring out how to beat the danger, he turns COMPLETELY stupid and weak.
The Riker in TNG would probably first ordered the shields to be rotated to stop the Klingon weapons, which was pretty SOP since "Both Worlds" and then he would order the Enterprise to open with all weapons knowing the ship's considerable firepower advantage would probably very quickly overwhelm the shields of an obsolete BOP and destroy.
OR he could immediately jump to warp speed, knowing that the safety of the ship and its crew takes priority over Picard and Picard would want it that way. Get far enough away to regroup, figure out a course of action and return. Of course I realize this is maybe not possible given that in the TNG era the warp drive almost always fails when the ship is first hit.
Instead, in a very panicked voice he orders "Get us out of here"....no course, or speed or any specifics, just get us out of here. He didn't order "Get us out of here when he was face to face with a Borg cube, in fact he was ready to order a Kamikaze jump to warp to collide with the cube as a last effort to stop it.
Also he has DEANNA take the helm. I'm not sure but I think I can think of one episode near the end of TNG's run where Deanna was putting in some practice time at the helm to become qualified....maybe. At any rate she would have minimal experience, yet Riker orders to the helm when the normal helmsman is blown away......Wouldn't it make more sense for Riker himself, ONE OF THE BEST PILOTS IN STARFLEET, to take the helm. If your response is "Well he had to stay and give orders"....the bridge is not that big I'm sure Riker could shout orders while at the helm and they'd be heard and hopefully Data and Worf and whoever would have enough sense to come to him at the helm with whatever info/plan they had and Riker could give the go ahead while piloting the ship. I don't think a guy who has trained as long and hard as Riker and been in many life and death situations before would be unable to do a little multi tasking and drive and give orders simultaneously.
So Deanna takes over and proceeds to do the worst thing possible. When engaged in combat. if you choose to fight, you generally want to have your strongest position facing the enemy, which from everything we've seen in Star Trek is when the front of the ship is facing the enemy. Apparently fighting wasn't an option though as the Enterprise fired one phaser shot and decided it was useless and needed to run.
So if you run you want to do so in a way that keeps you as small a target as possible and not expose your most vulnerable side. So the best course of action would have to punch it up to full impulse and head straight towards the BOP, pass it, and keep on going as fast as possible. This keeps your profile as small as possible lets you get a head start on speed and may even have the effect of screwing up their targeting so they can't fire while you're coming at them. Also the BOP now has to turn around, which usually is done slowly, and get up to speed to catch an Enterprise that is already close to full impulse.....so that may give the Enterprise the opportunity to escape.
Instead Riker pretty does every possible thing wrong. Besides not firing back, knowing he had a huge firepower advantage and changing the shield frequency the Enterprise now turns slowly around, exposing it's broadside in the process and giving the BOP a much bigger target to hit and then tries to run away...but in order to do so it has to now fire up its impulse engines, because it couldn't gain speed while turning around, and basically allows the BOP to match speed instead of having to catch up if the Enterprise had just blasted towards the BOP. Also now the Enterprise has its stern exposed which has, oh I don't know, THE WARP ENGINES on it which have been shown time and time again to be a very vulnerable spot on TNG. Oh and the Enterprise isn't even bothering to fire at the BOP with it's stern weapons as it runs......Apparently Riker thought "What the hell is the point....an obsolete BOP with it's shields up simply can't be beat by a ship roughly 10 times as powerful."
Only the fact that Worf knows some obscure piece of info about why that model BOP was retired, and Data being able to figure out a way to make it into an advantage, saves the crew from getting killed, although the Enterprise is lost as a result.
Can't blame too much of this on Deanna as Riker gave the very vague order "Get us out of orbit" with no directions as to what to specifically do, so Deanna or if the original helm officer was still alive (I forget exactly at what point he's killed) does what Riker orders, only in the worst way possible.
Also if Riker was manning the helm he might have had the knowledge and experience to keep the saucer section from being sucked into the planet's gravity pull when the stardrive section exploded. But Deanna with her limited experience wasn't able to do much.
So in one scene Big, strong, brave, cool headed, intelligent, experienced, gotten out of many worse situations before, Will Riker, becomes someone who panics and becomes completely incompetent and does pretty much everything wrong when something bad unexpectedly happens.
This is even more baffling when you look at Trek actors responses to things their characters were scripted to do. Shatner usually made sure the script made him look like the greatest captain ever and would nix anything that indicated otherwise. Nimoy had episodes where he'd get angry when the script had Spock doing something he thought was Un Spock line. Takei threw an absolute hissy fit when his scene in TWOK of Kirk informing him he would be captain of the Excelsior was cut, convinced Shatner had something to do with it and acting like he was denied command of a real ship, until TUC, instead of a fictional one.
Meanwhile Generations has a scene that says to Frakes "OK you're in command and an obsolete BOP uses Geordi's visor to find your shield freq and attack. Now even though you've spent the past 7 years coming off as a strong, intelligent and highly competent officer...one of the best in the fleet, you're going to pretty much panic, give no real commands to help the situation other than "Get us out of orbit" and only some obscure thing with Data and Worf allows you to survive....oh but BTW the star drive section is destroyed and the Saucer crashes and is irreparable....all under your command.
Either Frakes is a really good sport who just said "Ok sure". Or he didn't have a clue how bad this scene made his character look. Or he realized he couldn't do anything about it.
All I can tell you is Shatner or Nimoy NEVER would have tolerated a scene that put their characters in such a bad light.
There was inconsistancy in TOS on that as well - if you remember "The Cloud Minders" Spock freely discusses Pon Farr with Droxine, someone he never met before.
I never got the "argument" between McCoy and Spock over the Genesis device in STWOK. Spock simply explains how the machine would work, when McCoy goes apesh*t and says he was talking about "universal armeggeddon"(he wasn't) and then starts calling Spock various racist names, for no apparent reason. McCoy comes off as either crazy, drunk, or both, and the whole scene seems forced.
I agree, it feels like they removed parts of that scene that would have explained whatever happened there. They did the same with Nero. I am told that there was initially some explanations as to his obsession with Spock and to see him suffer, but these explanations were cut out from... the final cut.
That's true.
Of course McCoy was talking about universal Armageddon. Anyone paying attention to what he was saying could have easily anticipated the Klingon's reaction in STIII & STIV, which was something that therefore Spock was obviously blind to, at least right then. Spock not appreciating the emotional reactions that beings would have to the creation of such a device was clearly what set McCoy off.
enterprisecvn65, you are right on target with that, its one of the most ridiculous scenes in Trekdom. Earlier in the film, Picard actually states "they are trying to figure out how an old Bird of Prey can tackle the Federation flagship"! Even after taking the initial torpedo hits, the Ents weapons were obviously still online, as they were able to fire phasers. If they cut lose with all available phasers and photon torpedoes, the BOP was toast. Its an assinine scene, simply thrown in to crash the Enterprise.
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