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Things I Hate About Star Trek

Cardies are from o hio. Ohio is allegory for cardessia.

:wtf:. I thought that Russia was the allegory for the Cardassian Union, although I do not hold to the idea of compering a trek civilization to a rel world nation.

And Cardassia Prime has never been a swing vote state for the US presidential elections.:rommie:
 
Would you really call Greek "marginal"? I don't know how many species names on Earth have Greek orgins, but the answer would be "a lot." Not as many as Latin, of course.

Less marginal than Polish or Serbo-Croat, I guess. My point is no one calls Earth "Terra."

Guys, Terra is in Latin. The Greek word would be Gaia. So, Gaians maybe? I think it sounds good ;)

Gaians sounds like a nice, friendly, but above all, alien race. If Terrans is Latin - and I bow to your superior knowledge, Iceb, then that makes it even more acceptable. Most of the species names on Earth are Latin based, so why not us?

Who knew Klingons were such Latin scholars? ;)

I don't remember Earthlings ever being used in Trek either, Decker.
 
Cardies are from ohio. Ohio is allegory for cardessia.

:wtf:. I thought that Russia was the allegory for the Cardassian Union, although I do not hold to the idea of compering a trek civilization to a rel world nation.

And Cardassia Prime has never been a swing vote state for the US presidential elections.:rommie:

I've been to Ohio...in fact, I took a short vacation there just a few weeks back. Can't say as I saw it, but maybe I was looking in the wrong place.

I don't really like the allegories, either, unless they add to the story, and the Soviet Union allegory is used so much I'd call it overused, so I don't find it particularly helpful in this case.
 
Cardies are from ohio. Ohio is allegory for cardessia.

:wtf:. I thought that Russia was the allegory for the Cardassian Union, although I do not hold to the idea of compering a trek civilization to a rel world nation.

And Cardassia Prime has never been a swing vote state for the US presidential elections.:rommie:

I've been to Ohio...in fact, I took a short vacation there just a few weeks back. Can't say as I saw it, but maybe I was looking in the wrong place.

I don't really like the allegories, either, unless they add to the story, and the Soviet Union allegory is used so much I'd call it overused, so I don't find it particularly helpful in this case.

Exactly, let the Cardassians be the Cardassians not some transplanted human culture! I despise it, The Cardassian Union as Fascist Italy?:rolleyes: Come off it
 
^ Italy? Please. I mean, sure they were fascists, but they were so inept at it. Not that there's anything to be ashamed of at not being good at fascisim. ;)
 
^ Italy? Please. I mean, sure they were fascists, but they were so inept at it. Not that there's anything to be ashamed of at not being good at fascisim. ;)

I'm proud to say that the British fascists were even more inept. The Italians where the first to popularize fascism on a national scale but they lost every war they fought.
What people mean when they compere the CU to FI is the incompetence shown by Mussolini's crowd is directly reflected in the Cardassians. To wit; not winning the war with the federation, The defeat at the hands of the Klingons and the unwise alliance with the Dominion.
It has more to do with writers fiat than any real analysis of Cardassian society.
(but I have to admit that I'm quite biased in this regard);)
 
The overuse of dramatic music, it makes everything monotonous and disassociates you from the action, you can't identify with anything because the music determines the mood for you and intrudes upon the fictional universe. For example, in TNG and TOS it was used where it counts, not so much DS9 and in Voy every episode there is way too much music. Think this would also apply to Ent. This is a major problem imo.
 
Also I completely second everything that CommanderRaytas said above. As much as I like Bashir and Reed they were too stereotypical (and posh) for my liking.

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.

Ireland is not "British." The Brits came in and conquered it by point of sword. Most of Ireland now is an independent nation. 300 years on now, the fastest way to start a barfight in Ireland is to call them "British." O'Brien would have slugged you himself.
 
Ireland is not "British." The Brits came in and conquered it by point of sword. Most of Ireland now is an independent nation. 300 years on now, the fastest way to start a barfight in Ireland is to call them "British." O'Brien would have slugged you himself.

Colm Meaney, on the other hand, is used to it, since he's frequently called the B word.
 
Also I completely second everything that CommanderRaytas said above. As much as I like Bashir and Reed they were too stereotypical (and posh) for my liking.

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.

Ireland is not "British." The Brits came in and conquered it by point of sword. Most of Ireland now is an independent nation. 300 years on now, the fastest way to start a barfight in Ireland is to call them "British." O'Brien would have slugged you himself.

QFT.

Although we do get along better as fellow Europeans.
I should also point out that I'm a Londoner of Irish descent.

Also Colin Meaney, called a Brit? By whom and why for christssake?
 
For the record, I didn't think it was proper to call O'Brien/Meaney "a Brit"! I was really wondering about British, which is (based on what Thor said a few posts back) evidentally not quit the same thing, and so I was looking for clarification. Jeez, try to gain a little cultural knowledge...;)
 
For the record, I didn't think it was proper to call O'Brien/Meaney "a Brit"! I was really wondering about British, which is (based on what Thor said a few posts back) evidentally not quit the same thing, and so I was looking for clarification. Jeez, try to gain a little cultural knowledge...;)

Forgive us please my American friend, I think over 800 years of bad blood still has it's residual aftereffects for both peoples of the Isles.

T'was not your fault;)
 
For the record, I didn't think it was proper to call O'Brien/Meaney "a Brit"! I was really wondering about British, which is (based on what Thor said a few posts back) evidentally not quit the same thing, and so I was looking for clarification. Jeez, try to gain a little cultural knowledge...;)

Forgive us please my American friend, I think over 800 years of bad blood still has it's residual aftereffects for both peoples of the Isles.

T'was not your fault;)

::whew:: Then I shan't take it personally. ;)

One of these days as my contribution to the study of Regional Insults of the English-Speaking World, I'll have to try to explain to you when it's OK for an American to refer to someone as a "Yankee" and when it's a bit questionable and when it's just downright rude. This knowledge probably won't help you in your day-to-day life, but it will demonstrate to you better than anything else I can think of that the U.K. is not alone in these things. But in the meantime, believe me, I understand the principle that sometimes Brit, etc., is OK and sometimes it most definitely is not - it's just the details that I need clarification on.
 
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Ooh, this has reminded me of additions to both the "hate" and "love" threads: I hate really obvious, in-your-face real-world cultural parallels. Somebody earlier mentioned those near-Earth alien species that simply developed along a slightly different path etc., etc., etc. - e.g., that silly TOS episode with the quasi-Romans.

Well, I dislike that quite a lot, but I also dislike it when Trek attempts to hammer it into your head that Alien X is really just like the Russians or the Chinese or whatever, particularly when they do it clumsily. (Or the Italians, in the case of Cardassia. No Cardassian was ever as inept as the Italian fascists. So they picked the wrong allies. These things happen.) Some parallels can be great...but that belongs in the other thread.
 
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^ Italy? Please. I mean, sure they were fascists, but they were so inept at it. Not that there's anything to be ashamed of at not being good at fascisim. ;)

I'm proud to say that the British fascists were even more inept.

So true. We suck at all things fanatic- except when it comes to football, that is. Football outweighs any sense of pragmatism. :p

True, we did invent hooliganism after all. Not our our proudest achievement I must say!:rommie:
 
Less marginal than Polish or Serbo-Croat, I guess. My point is no one calls Earth "Terra."

Guys, Terra is in Latin. The Greek word would be Gaia. So, Gaians maybe? I think it sounds good ;)

Gaians sounds like a nice, friendly, but above all, alien race. If Terrans is Latin - and I bow to your superior knowledge, Iceb, then that makes it even more acceptable. Most of the species names on Earth are Latin based, so why not us?

Who knew Klingons were such Latin scholars? ;)

I don't remember Earthlings ever being used in Trek either, Decker.

He is absolutely right, that was my foul-up. Don't know if it goes against my argument, though: we go from the lexicon of marginal and changed but living language to one that lives primarily through science, medicine, and the law. Res ipsa locquitor, anyone? (And yes, I realize that, in the above, at least "argument," "lexicon," "marginal," "language," "primarily," "science," "medicine," and "law" are all words with Latin roots. :p )

Hey, maybe you've never experienced Virgil until you've read him in the original Klingon.
 
TOS: I'm bumbed that the show only lasted three seasons. I know that shows focused on stars in the day, but I really would have liked to see a bit more of the secondary characters. I'm okay with the f/x, but I'd liked to have seen more money available to show off some of the stories better and less obvious reuse of stock shots and props. Too many human or humanoid aliens without any sort of rationalization. Other than those I'm cool with it.

TAS: Overidingly a skewed perspective of the show as suitable only for kids that tarnished some genuinely good stories. Canned voice work and stiff animation hurts.

TNG: From fourth season onward episode after episode of predictability and stiff, emotionally devoid characters. First two seasons were brutally clumsy in execution but rich in ideas. Also too preachy and politically correct, best represented by the eternally annoying Deanna Troi. And finally: endless techno-bullshit. Also too many humanoid aliens.

DS9: Could have been good, but overall the writing was just plain plodding and generally dull. Imaginative spark gone after the first two seasons and never to return. It simply became a latter season TNG redressed.

VOY: Promising premise horribly executed by terrible writing and one stupid idea after another. After reigning in some of the technobbable in DS9 they revelled in it in VOY. Some good actors like Robert Picardo and Kate Mulgrew totally wasted in this garbage series.

ENT: A shallow and horrible extension of VOY dressed as a dishonest TOS reboot with zero respect for previously established continuity of a series it purportedly was to respect. Perpetuated every sin ever committed in any Trek series.

The Trek movies: Pretty much all of them are really just expanded episodes but with bigger budgets for f/x to generate more merchandise. Production wise most of the films looked gaudier and worse than the TV series.
 
I hate how the Star Trek universe has to be completely, radically different from today's society

No-one has cancer. There's a magical cure for it. In fact, that goes for all illnesses. Everybody is cured for everything. And when someone DOES get sick, and they cure it, there are no after-effects of the treatment.

Voyager always seemed to stay pristine.

We never really got to understand the media

Never got to see civilian life very often.

Nobody ever went Admiral Cain on anyone's ass. I wish Janeway was more of an iron fist. Survival was their number one goal. There should have been deception and blackmail, not having barbecues and braiding each other's hair.
 
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