Here's another one: antimatter-based weapons yielding less power than modern-day thermonukes, or even chemical explosives. Or, in Kir'Shara, less than a falling rock.
Things I Hate About Star Trek
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What about someone from any real part of England? I mean come on, we never got anything that wasn't Queen's English. Horrible. Reed was a complete mug, sorry to say so. And a geordie character would be great. Or mancunian. Perhaps even cockney. Anything real.
Good gracious!
Good gracious!
What about someone from any real part of England? I mean come on, we never got anything that wasn't Queen's English. Horrible. Reed was a complete mug, sorry to say so. And a geordie character would be great. Or mancunian. Perhaps even cockney. Anything real.
Good gracious!
Someone with a real English accent? A true Cockney on the Enterprise? Whom would you suggest for the role, a certain D Dyer perhaps?
Indeed my good chum! It can become quite vexing to say the lest!
(see, we would all sound like complete and utter muppets if we actually talked like that)
I can't wait to see the first geordie Starfleet captain!
You sillyhead, we already had a geordi Starfleet captain!
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/f/fe/Geordi_La_Forge,_Timeless.jpg
What about someone from any real part of England? I mean come on, we never got anything that wasn't Queen's English. Horrible. Reed was a complete mug, sorry to say so. And a geordie character would be great. Or mancunian. Perhaps even cockney. Anything real.
Good gracious!
Someone with a real English accent? A true Cockney on the Enterprise? Whom would you suggest for the role, a certain D Dyer perhaps?
Oops, is it that obvious?
Well, most girls (other than myself) aren't that into him, but I wouldn't mind seeing him around. That would be a laugh. Plus he's a real looker. The Football Factory in space. Brilliant.
Who needs posh people anyway? Muppets.
Was O'Brien "too posh"? Or since he's Irish, doesn't he count as "Brit"? Not being sarcastic here, just trying to learn a little bit about an Earth culture.
At least he didn't sound like he went to Oxford.
I can see your confusion. No, O'brien was not too posh in fact he was a salt of the earth Dubliner.
And O'Brien doesn't count as a Brit and would not identify as one. He is a Irish citizen from the Republic of Ireland (the south).
The buggers from the six countries in the North DO identify themselves as Brits or at least the Ulster Unionists(descendants of Protestant settlers from Scotland and England) do.
So Miles o' Brien is an Irishman not a Britisher (or limey as you yanks like to call us
). CommanderRaytas and myself where discussing stereotypical English accents on American TV.
And Cyke101? I was expecting a bad pun but damn, man.
^ Oh, I understood the "stereotypical accents" part - hence my reference to Oxford. It is just the "Brit" part that always confuses me. And I have to say I get different answers sometimes depending on who answers the question. The problem for me is that as far as I know, and I'd be glad to find out I was wrong, there is no generally accepted way to refer to someone who is a native of the United Kingdom since you can't call everybody British or, even worse, English. Tricky.
But now that you've brought up accents, why is there only one American accent used in Trek? There are dozens of accents in this country of mine: Even though Praetor and I have never met, I'd bet money that I don't sound any more like Praetor than O'Brien sounds like Bashir. And yet, aside from McCoy's occasional moments of mint julip sippin' Southernness and Trip's "hillbilly" accent, the Trek characters of North American origin all sound like they work for network TV. Euw. Are we to assume that all regional accents have disappeared? If so, that's just as bad as all those posh British accents you guys are decrying. Where are the Upper Midwestern accents, the New York accents, the Chicago accents, the Cajun accents? It makes Trek sound so bl-a-a-a-a-a-n-d.
But now that you've brought up accents, why is there only one American accent used in Trek? There are dozens of accents in this country of mine: Even though Praetor and I have never met, I'd bet money that I don't sound any more like Praetor than O'Brien sounds like Bashir. And yet, aside from McCoy's occasional moments of mint julip sippin' Southernness and Trip's "hillbilly" accent, the Trek characters of North American origin all sound like they work for network TV. Euw. Are we to assume that all regional accents have disappeared? If so, that's just as bad as all those posh British accents you guys are decrying. Where are the Upper Midwestern accents, the New York accents, the Chicago accents, the Cajun accents? It makes Trek sound so bl-a-a-a-a-a-n-d.
Good point, I can't gauge US accents that well but one thing that annoys me is the 'good ole boy' thing that American Southerners are lumped with. fortunately Charles Tucker kinda subverts this crass stereotype (except for the whole 'trip' thing).
As for the correct mode of address for the denizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
A bunch of gits of course!
(seriously I think Brits might be okay, at least for this forum where you can't tell whether someone is from England, Wales, Scotland or NI. It's easier to write and not too contentious.)
Yeah, on network TV, unlike the actual Southern U.S., all Southern accents are pretty much alike, and all Southerners are either Scarlet O'Hara-type aristocrats or they sound like moonshiners. DeForest Kelly was apparently born in Atlanta, Georgia, but I have to say that even his accent sounded fake-o. I wonder if he tried to do his real accent but TPTB insisted on a stereotypical one?
I'm a sucker for accents - I've seldom met one that I didn't like. (The exception is the Southern California "Valley" accent, which I truly dislike even though - or perhaps because? - I'm originally from SoCal, though not the Valley.) So a broader variety of accents on Trek would have been great - they kept implying and even saying that crew members come from everywhere, and what better way to demonstrate that than with accents?
I remember a time or two on TNG they had an engineer or something from India, I believe it was, and dang - he sounded Indian! It was a very nice little touch, I thought.
"Bunch of gits" --
I'm a sucker for accents - I've seldom met one that I didn't like. (The exception is the Southern California "Valley" accent, which I truly dislike even though - or perhaps because? - I'm originally from SoCal, though not the Valley.) So a broader variety of accents on Trek would have been great - they kept implying and even saying that crew members come from everywhere, and what better way to demonstrate that than with accents?
I remember a time or two on TNG they had an engineer or something from India, I believe it was, and dang - he sounded Indian! It was a very nice little touch, I thought.
"Bunch of gits" --
JustKate, well said on all the U.S. accent assessment.
Trip's accent always bugged me. Even though Florida is in the most Southern part of the country, Florida is culturally miles apart from the rest of the South, so it was always strange to me that he sounded like he did - or that he was a stereotypical 'Southern cat-feesher.' I know a good few people who sound something like him and live here in North Carolina, but I do not. I have a rather 'neutral' accent (probably from watching too much TV as a kid) and have been told by many different people that they could not guess where I was from based on my accent. Therefore, that kind of accent stereotyping is rather annoying to me.
And Reed was something of a disappointment too... for that matter so was Hoshi. I didn't want her to speak in a bad, clipped, stereotypical accent, being a linguist and all, but it seemed like they were all a bunch of homogenized stereotypes we might have found in the 24th century.
Rant over.
Oh, and from what I recall, the Writer's Bible for TOS specified that McCoy's Southern accent only shine through when he was irritated, FWIW. I bet he did to a mostly 'stereotypical' accent at the producers' suggestion.
Trip's accent always bugged me. Even though Florida is in the most Southern part of the country, Florida is culturally miles apart from the rest of the South, so it was always strange to me that he sounded like he did - or that he was a stereotypical 'Southern cat-feesher.' I know a good few people who sound something like him and live here in North Carolina, but I do not. I have a rather 'neutral' accent (probably from watching too much TV as a kid) and have been told by many different people that they could not guess where I was from based on my accent. Therefore, that kind of accent stereotyping is rather annoying to me.
And Reed was something of a disappointment too... for that matter so was Hoshi. I didn't want her to speak in a bad, clipped, stereotypical accent, being a linguist and all, but it seemed like they were all a bunch of homogenized stereotypes we might have found in the 24th century.
Rant over.
Oh, and from what I recall, the Writer's Bible for TOS specified that McCoy's Southern accent only shine through when he was irritated, FWIW. I bet he did to a mostly 'stereotypical' accent at the producers' suggestion.
The four most interesting accents where (in no particular order)
Jeffery Combs: a soft almost Irish lilt (particularly when speaking Dominionese) and a mild diction that somehow worked to highlight the ruthless of the characters he portrayed .
Casey Brigg's: I understand that he's an Ohioan (from the State of Ohio) and I'm not sure if it's a typical mid western accent but the way he moderated his voice and the certain emphasis at the end of each sentence. Made listening to Damar a sheer delight. The speech at the end of 'changing face of evil' is a brilliant example.
Rene Auberjonis: A master piece in gravely voice acting. The voice really matched the character.
Marc Alaimo: Long over enunciated diction and a smooth if somewhat ponderous speech pattern. Great for making Dukat sound like the self important egoist that he really was.
Jeffery Combs: a soft almost Irish lilt (particularly when speaking Dominionese) and a mild diction that somehow worked to highlight the ruthless of the characters he portrayed .
Casey Brigg's: I understand that he's an Ohioan (from the State of Ohio) and I'm not sure if it's a typical mid western accent but the way he moderated his voice and the certain emphasis at the end of each sentence. Made listening to Damar a sheer delight. The speech at the end of 'changing face of evil' is a brilliant example.
Rene Auberjonis: A master piece in gravely voice acting. The voice really matched the character.
Marc Alaimo: Long over enunciated diction and a smooth if somewhat ponderous speech pattern. Great for making Dukat sound like the self important egoist that he really was.
Native Floridians nowadays can actually have an extremely strong accent - very, very, very Southern - kind of Mississipian Gulf Coast-ish, to my inexpert ear. I don't know it well enough to recognize and pinpoint it on hearing it, but Trip's sounded pretty good to me. More authentic than McCoy's, for example.
Oh, I bet I-I-I-I-I could
- but that's because I have a lot of Southern relatives, so my ear is attuned to even traces of accent. I can even pick up my mother's Texas accent, and she left Texas for California when she was 8.Thor Damar said:
Hmmmm, I don't remember Brigg's accent...but then, there are at least three distinct accents in Indiana (which is right next to Ohio), so I wouldn't be too surprised to find something similar in our neighbor to the east.
So, just to drag myself back on topic, this does suggest something else to add to our list - something that's been alluded to, but (unless I've missed it) not explicitly stated: I really dislike the blandness of so many of the Trek humans. Humans aren't dull, so why were so many of them dull in Trek? There are many exceptions, of course, but golly, they sure sounded bland.
^ That last paragraph? Absolute truth IMHO. One thing that we humans are not is dull, heck we're so bloody imaginative that we inverted boredom!
The mainstream Humans were too dull and self righteous and the MU humans were stupid, cruel and greedy with no redeeming qualities (with the exception of Smiley).
Mind you Terran might be a better name for ourselves if we ever meet other sentient beings out there.
Friendly but with a take no BS attitude
The mainstream Humans were too dull and self righteous and the MU humans were stupid, cruel and greedy with no redeeming qualities (with the exception of Smiley).
Mind you Terran might be a better name for ourselves if we ever meet other sentient beings out there.
Friendly but with a take no BS attitude
What I hate most about Star Trek: that it's not on TV right NOW!NOW! NOW! NOW!
...and when it's on TV, sure, I hate the smug superior Feds, the holosuite cliches, the bad/boring/awful romances (weekly or ongoing), the way the hew-mons are all stiff and evolved and the most boring people in the show, the lack of follow-up to interesting ideas that I want more of, bad guest stars, overly cutesy and self-indulgent nonsense involving Las Vegas, obviously re-used scripts, technobabble, no more DS9 stories, shields down to X%, the Borg being turned into pathetic jokes, transporters being blamed for everything, "godlike" aliens, convenient ion storms, pretty much all time travel episodes, no more Trip Tucker stories, overly cutesy and self-indulgent nonsense involving baseball, glaring continuity errors caused by lazy-ass writers, aliens with big heads wearing gowns (okay when Trek did it but Stargate just ran it right the frak into the ground), technobabble!!!, aliens who act all boring and stilted (the Cardies were never boring, so there's no excuse!), those idiotic Moe Howard haircuts they inflict the poor, suffering Vulcans, Melvin Belli in a mu-mu, Starfleet officers who forget they are supposed to be fighting a war, technobabble!!!!, and Barbies of Borg wearing catsuits.
Temis the Vorta here covers about all the bases.
I guess I have nothing to add to this thread except to add my votes for hating latter-day Borg, Q, Klingon drivel, monolithic alien cultures that take would be ridiculously racist exoticism if ever transposed onto any human culture, the absurd ship/regular cast member in danger---->out of danger episodes (You'd think after seven seasons that on one or two of those occasions, someone would have actually ended up dead/comatose/vaporized/whatever---->i do see a strange honesty to skin of evil now on second though, much as that episode sucked), also TIME TRAVEL, especially to 19th century, 20th century, 21st century, 23rd century earth, etc. etc. this stuff hardly bears repeating.
Thor Damar said:Mind you Terran might be a better name for ourselves if we ever meet other sentient beings out there.
Friendly but with a take no BS attitude
I've always really liked "Terran." In the old days of scifi, back when the men had adventures in space and women either stayed home or just stood around looking pretty, we humans were called "Earthmen," and I think "Terran" would have been a great non-gender-specific substitute. Who can I write to to get that change implemented? (I'm kidding, but I wish I weren't!)
Thor Damar said:
A lot of the regulars became interesting...but they sure didn't start that way, and precious few of the guests became so, alas.
Oh, which brings up another addition to our list: Terran stuff often looked bland, too. The clothing was bland (a total yawnfest - it's a very sad thing when the most colorful things most people wore were their uniforms), the interiors of the ships were bland (there were some terrific exteriors, of course), the space stations were bland, and you never saw anybody having a really riotous good time. What's the deal with that?
Edit: My theory, which I have no data to support so perhaps "theory" isn't the right word, is that the developers of Trek were trying so hard not to look like 1950s scifi that they allowed their sense of style to become constipated. There's got to be something between Flash Gordon and muted pastels, for goodness' sake.
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What about Earthling? very gender neutral.
Errr...
"Man" is gender neutral, at least when its used to refer to all human beings. There was never a good reason for TNG to use the term "One" in its place but for a funny 90's sense of "PC".
The terms Terran and Earthling strike me as homeworld specific, fine for those humans from Earth or its Solar System not so much for those born on far off colonies. Mankind will simply do.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/man
Etymology:
English, from Old English man, mon human being, male human; akin to Old High German man human being, Sanskrit manu
Date:
before 12th century
As for the topic at hand. Nitpicky Trek fans, cookie cutter Star Trek stories that don't break their own self limiting restrictions to tell better stories, and I note when they do attempt to break their own box its makes Trek fans very uncomfortable.
Sharr
"Man" is gender neutral, at least when its used to refer to all human beings. There was never a good reason for TNG to use the term "One" in its place but for a funny 90's sense of "PC".
The terms Terran and Earthling strike me as homeworld specific, fine for those humans from Earth or its Solar System not so much for those born on far off colonies. Mankind will simply do.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/man
Etymology:
English, from Old English man, mon human being, male human; akin to Old High German man human being, Sanskrit manu
Date:
before 12th century
As for the topic at hand. Nitpicky Trek fans, cookie cutter Star Trek stories that don't break their own self limiting restrictions to tell better stories, and I note when they do attempt to break their own box its makes Trek fans very uncomfortable.
Sharr
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