Succinctly explain why the gazelle speech was infamously bad

[number6]

Again, you seem to think that "gazelle" and "Africa" are the key points. They're not. The setting is not important.

You misunderstand. You keep saying, "But that's not the main point." Yes. It's not the main point. However, it's the lead in (meaning it sets up the main point) and few can identify with it.

It would've been better not to talk about it.

I would have used a bike or a horse analogy

I actually agree. We can identify with it and it still is a decent analogy.

Uh, no it it merely sets the scene, not the point. The point is set up by what the gazelle calf did after being born. That you get hung up by the setting and the animal being "foreign" just boggles my mind. This is Star Trek! Humans from around the globe and humanoids from across the Galaxy. Infinite Diversity In Infinite Combinations. And you need it to be set in your backyard so you can get it?

I'm still not seeing an analogy. Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't an analogy compare rather than contrast something?

It's not analogy. It's metaphor.

 

[Captain X]

I would have used a bike or a horse analogy, personally.

How exactly would that work given what Archer was trying to get a across?

That if you fall off you get back on again instead of just giving up. Would've been a better point to make instead of "stumbling along the way" I think, given his audience and what they were saying.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I would have used a bike or a horse analogy, personally.

How exactly would that work given what Archer was trying to get a across?

That if you fall off you get back on again instead of just giving up. Would've been a better point to make instead of "stumbling along the way" I think, given his audience and what they were saying.

I was thinking you meant using the bike or horse instead of a gazelle.

 

[Captain X]

I don't think I've ever heard of a bike giving birth before.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I don't think I've ever heard of a bike giving birth before.

Then where do tricycles come from?

 

[commodore64]

It's not analogy. It's metaphor.

Thank you! Like the signature by the way.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Don't think its a metaphor either. A metaphor shows how two things are similar in one way, not different.

 

[Nebusj]

beating a dead horse:

In your own words, and at most a paragraph or two, succinctly explain why the "Gazelle speech" from the season 2 premiere was "infamously bad", in the manner you would to someone who hasn't seen the series.

``Well, you Vulcans are saying we humans shouldn't be allowed out in space because we spend a long time making a lot of stupid mistakes before we can do the simplest things. So let me explain at length how humans take a long time making a lot of stupid mistakes before we can do the simplest things. Oh, and while you're particularly upset about our blundering idiocy killing three thousand people, I'm not going to talk about the evidence showing we were framed as, apparently, part of a plan to get our deep-space mission cancelled.''

I don't want Jonathan Archer on my defense team if I'm ever accused of mass murder.

 

[Gregsmack]

Don't think its a metaphor either. A metaphor shows how two things are similar in one way, not different.

It's nothing. It's an anecdote and it succeeds only in saying that humans aren't really all that fast learners. I imagine the speech coming from a third party to the Vulcans in hopes of generating an understanding of human learning curves instead of coming from a human himself. It's not a demeaning speech, but it's not flattering either and it's certainly not something you bombastically say to someone you're trying to impress.

The speech isn't inherently bad, but what makes it completely stupid as all shit is the source its coming from.

 

[THE_FETT]

It's not an analogy or a metaphor, it's a simile.

 

[Gregsmack]

^ No, it isn't. He distinctly says humans AREN'T like gazelles.

 

[Lady Conqueror]

I always took the gazelle speech as being written badly on purpose. Trek has a long history of pompous bad speeches followed by whoever is being speechified too looking suitably chastised afterwards. Instead, Archer gives a lame speech and everybody literally rolls their eyes at him and T'Pol has to jump in and save the day.

Seemed to me like B&B were poking fun at a Trek cliche and that's how I took it.

 

[Captain X]

Having one person suck at something so another can jump in and help out is the Trek cliche. And since ENT was supposed to be all about doing things differently, breaking from cliche would have been a nice way of accomplishing that. But since B&B didn't take their own shows seriously, I guess that was asking too much from them.

 

[THE_FETT]

^ No, it isn't. He distinctly says humans AREN'T like gazelles.

I was referring to the people discussing what "it's like" indicates, which is a simile. Archer was using dissimile.

 

[SFRabid]

Had James T. Kirk given the exact same speech in a TOS episode, I'm quite certain that many viewers would be perfectly okay with it--although, admittedly, the diction would be different.

As with many elements of ENT, a sizable chunk of fandom came in deciding it would be bad in advance; and so, to them, it was.

(Now, "Marauders"? That was bad. The gazelle speech, not so much.)

Kirk would have spent his time in a tent with the first female guide he came across and would have cared less if the lion ate the gazelle.

 

[Gregsmack]

^ No, it isn't. He distinctly says humans AREN'T like gazelles.

I was referring to the people discussing what "it's like" indicates, which is a simile. Archer was using dissimile.

My bad then. Sorry man

 

[Nerys Myk]

Had James T. Kirk given the exact same speech in a TOS episode, I'm quite certain that many viewers would be perfectly okay with it--although, admittedly, the diction would be different.

As with many elements of ENT, a sizable chunk of fandom came in deciding it would be bad in advance; and so, to them, it was.

(Now, "Marauders"? That was bad. The gazelle speech, not so much.)

Kirk would have spent his time in a tent with the first female guide he came across and would have cared less if the lion ate the gazelle.

The Gazelle was probably having Kirk's baby.

 

[Danoz]

I dare say I found the speech forgettable... because I forgot about it lol. I had to look it up but I vaguely remember him giving an impassioned speech (but not about the gazelle). So, it wasn't groundbreaking, but it definitely fit with Archer's naive and passionate character-type. I can't say it bothers me that much.

P.S. -- Oops, sorry to revive such an old thread. Somebody mentioned the "gazelle" speech in another thread and I googled it... haha

 

[Admiral Shran]

HOLY THREAD RESURRECTION, BATMAN!!!!!

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

...The rest is silence.