Cough cough Star Trek 2009
Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x02 - "Wedding Bell Blues"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
What? JJ Kirk SUCCESSFULY won the "no Win" scenario in the Simulator...
Hedonistic Abrams Filth.
People don't like nepotism?
Never said it was objectively a bad episode, just the worst episode. And it's okay for people to dislike it, they're not necessarily against the concept of fun, it just didn't work for everyone.
I hear nephews are a big fan of it.
Star Trek fans are known to have a bias against fun.
I would use Star Trek 09's IMDb score to prove that Trek fans actually do like fun, but I know you will simply ignore it.
Thing is, that video is based on how a notable percentage of Trek fandom actually were acting in spring 2009, and indeed the Star Trek forum they show a screencap from is done very much in the same style that Trek BBS was laid out as at the time.
Yup. Friends of mine did a podcast over the film. One was the die hard Trekkie of the group and couldn't contain his frustration through the conversation over all the things they were wrong.
I agree with this. All the opportunity for character growth is removed. Spock was clearly never going to force Christine to marry him against her will but he's never given the opportunity to grapple with the implications and how he feels about things. We're never even sure as the audience whether this is what Spock actually wants or what Trelane thinks he wants. Spock's been skittish about marrying T'Pring so is he saying that he would absolutely marry her (after all of 3 dates) if he could? Does he want a future with a human women and the potential of 1/4 Vulcan children? If he really would want to marry her then that would recontextualise TOS as it's certainly not a crush or even just a relationship anymore. Instead it relies on Spock making a 'noble sacrifice' but not forcing someone to marry you against their will is a pretty basic level of being a decent person and we already knew this about Spock.
Christine had even less opportunity for character growth. She doesn't have any agency in the episode which I find so frustrating. It bring me back to to the worst parts of TOS. She's not thoughtful enough to question the fantasy and no-one seems to expect her to work it out despite being very intelligent. She becomes a prize that Korby has to win back and she dutifully returns to him once he's done so. We don't get to better understand the place she's in emotionally through this episode which seems to be important if this is a Christine focused episode. How is she feeling and reacting after Boimler? We've focused on the Spock aspects of Boimler's speech but there are career implications as well. He didn't know her and he knew everyone else. This seems to suggest that she won't make a contribution of any noteworthy significance in history. That's a huge hit to self-confidence - especially for an extremely career focused person. I could believe that she's responded to that news by throwing herself into her relationship with Korby. He offers a scientific future and opportunity to make a huge noteworthy contribution while providing an escape from the apparently hopeless relationship with Spock. Is this behind her decision? This would have been better to explore than a fantasy.
Overall, I also find fantasy episodes really frustrating when the audience knows that it's an illusion and the characters don't. You spend the whole time waiting for them to know what you already know rather than watching the episode unfold. I also didn't think that Spock's heartbreak and Christine brutually cold behaviour were a great foundation for comedy. You feel so sad for Spock, who's laughing?
Fun must be structured and carefully curated so that it may be experienced to its full potential but not be a hinderance to anything else.
God, I remember my early hope, circa "Context is for Kings," that Discovery might turn out to be that. The science ship filled with classified labs all doing weird shit was a perfect setup.
I was so psyched out about "Sliders on a starship" once it was shown the spore drive connected not just every point in space, but every point in time, across all multiverses.
Really wanted DISCO to become a Flying Dutchmen, forever bouncing between alternate realities, and never quite finding the proper one.
A classic case of reacting to excess attention paid to a sibling. I almost expected hearing him say 'Mom always liked you best' in the movie.
