My major problem with time travel in Star Trek is it all seems to revolve around major turning points in the galaxy and on Earth... It just defeats the purpose of humans struggling, surviving and becoming better people if they always accomplish their goals with interference from the future.
Things I Do Not Want To See In A New Star Trek Series
- Thread starter Knight Templar
- Start date
I'm not sure. That applies to "First Contact" and "Yesterday's Enterprise" and those DS9 eps about the homeless sanctuaries, I guess. But my impression is that most trips to the past involve the crews trying very hard not to interfere with the natural progression of events--or, at most, borrowing a humpback whale or two. And I'm not sure having sex with Mariette Hartley in an ice cave counts as an historic event for anyone except Spock!
Heck, the most celebrated time-travel ep, "City on the Edge of Forever", is all about letting the tragedies of the past unfold without "interference from the future."
I honestly can't recall that many eps in which Starfleet went back in time to help primitive humans build the pyramids or discover dilithium or end racism or anything like that.
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How about giving the formula for transparent aluminum to "some guy" in 1986?
Scotty, at least in the film, had no real idea who he was. Although iirc, in the novel/early script Scotty recognized him as the actual inventor. Now that had to have had some impact on the past. First, you're introducing a important commercial product years before it was suppose to appear. Second, you're undercutting the actual inventor, who might have used that discovery to springboard other later discoveries.
Did Henry Starling's gift of future technology effectively prevent the contributions of people like Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, and Paul Allen?
I don't want to see a long drawn out beginning. Most science fiction shows today are in trouble because they just take forever to explain what is what. Therefor losing new audiences who's attention spans have shrunk to two seconds.
Depending on the era of the next series, I don't think much as to be explained about Trek: we're here, we go out there, sit back and enjoy
Okay, that was fudging things, but we have no idea what the long-term impact of that was.
It's not like they've ever gone back in time to undo the Eugenics Wars or something. The bit with the transparent aluminum was just a bit of collateral damage while trying to save the future from a whale-loving probe!
I don't want to see Remans in any more Trek series or movies ever again. Romulans don't need and never needed canon fodder to defend or fight for the Empire, and If I want to see something that looks like Nosferatu, I'll get the movie Nosferatu and watch it.
I think most of my "Do not Want to see in the New Star Trek" list would be about character. . . I don't want "The Big Three and the Seven Dwarves in space" . . .
I think every character should have relationships with the other characters, and not only have a life outside of their job description, but if they are there, they should have a reason to be there. . . No more: "Hailing Frequencies open" or "I feel it's angry, Captain" or The blind guy is driving the ship joke that got old real fast.
I think it is time to retire the "alien character who is held up as a mirror to humanity" character. . .why can't the humans be held up as our own mirror? And it really became a crutch in later shows.
I definitely don't need to hear a character "speechifying" the moral of the story. . .real people rarely speechify at each other. . . and I'm an adult, I can figure out the moral of a story on my own, thank you very much. . .
Things that happen, or lessons learned in one episode should matter or illuminate the characters in later episode (no character "reset button"). . . if a person has an allergic reaction on some away mission, at least show them getting shots the next time they go off ship. . .
I think DS9 was the Star Trek that developed its characters the best, but even it didn't really do it well until there started to be an arc based series. . . In my opinion, an example of a show with characters done right from the start would be Firefly. . . we learned more about all 9 of those characters in 14 episodes than we ever learned about Crusher, Troi, Riker, Merriweather, Hoshi, Sulu, Uhura, Scotty, Kes, Chacotay, Neelix, Kim. . . hell, we don't even really learn as much about Kirk, Spock and McCoy in the TOS as we learn about Jayne and what motivates him. . . I want characters who are more than character traits and catch phrases (yes, I'm looking at Spock and McCoy, here). . . On Firefly, even the least developed characters (Book and Inara) had hints dropped about why they were there on the ship, and an implicit promise to develop their stories more. . .
Good storytelling is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS about the characters. . .get them right, and it doesn't matter if they do time travel or have aliens-of-the-week, or God-like creatures, etc. . .
~FS
I think every character should have relationships with the other characters, and not only have a life outside of their job description, but if they are there, they should have a reason to be there. . . No more: "Hailing Frequencies open" or "I feel it's angry, Captain" or The blind guy is driving the ship joke that got old real fast.
I think it is time to retire the "alien character who is held up as a mirror to humanity" character. . .why can't the humans be held up as our own mirror? And it really became a crutch in later shows.
I definitely don't need to hear a character "speechifying" the moral of the story. . .real people rarely speechify at each other. . . and I'm an adult, I can figure out the moral of a story on my own, thank you very much. . .
Things that happen, or lessons learned in one episode should matter or illuminate the characters in later episode (no character "reset button"). . . if a person has an allergic reaction on some away mission, at least show them getting shots the next time they go off ship. . .
I think DS9 was the Star Trek that developed its characters the best, but even it didn't really do it well until there started to be an arc based series. . . In my opinion, an example of a show with characters done right from the start would be Firefly. . . we learned more about all 9 of those characters in 14 episodes than we ever learned about Crusher, Troi, Riker, Merriweather, Hoshi, Sulu, Uhura, Scotty, Kes, Chacotay, Neelix, Kim. . . hell, we don't even really learn as much about Kirk, Spock and McCoy in the TOS as we learn about Jayne and what motivates him. . . I want characters who are more than character traits and catch phrases (yes, I'm looking at Spock and McCoy, here). . . On Firefly, even the least developed characters (Book and Inara) had hints dropped about why they were there on the ship, and an implicit promise to develop their stories more. . .
Good storytelling is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS about the characters. . .get them right, and it doesn't matter if they do time travel or have aliens-of-the-week, or God-like creatures, etc. . .
~FS
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And people rarely listen to other people on the Internet, which goes to show how effective that technique really is. . .
~FS
More like the Big Three and the "Gang of Four." The "seven" would have included the Big Three.
We now return you to your thread...
Depends on the size of the cast. . . and how they are used. . . 9 or 10 characters is not unheard of. . . look at DS9
~FS
Okay, that was fudging things, but we have no idea what the long-term impact of that was.
It's not like they've ever gone back in time to undo the Eugenics Wars or something. The bit with the transparent aluminum was just a bit of collateral damage while trying to save the future from a whale-loving probe!
Obviously the Eugenics War never happened. Or may Henry Starling's dabbling with time have something to do with it?
How about giving the formula for transparent aluminum to "some guy" in 1986?
Okay, that was fudging things, but we have no idea what the long-term impact of that was.
It's not like they've ever gone back in time to undo the Eugenics Wars or something. The bit with the transparent aluminum was just a bit of collateral damage while trying to save the future from a whale-loving probe!
Obviously the Eugenics War never happened. Or may Henry Starling's dabbling with time have something to do with it?
Nah, it happened. Americans were just paying too much attention to Monica Lewinsky, Tonya Harding, and the O. J. Simpson trial to notice . . . .
I wouldn't say all holodeck eps were rubbish. And as it's sci-fi, then time travel lends to it, as do artificial intelligence.
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