Unpopular Trek Opinions — What Are Yours?

[Shazam!]

So was it Lucas's original intent from the beginning to create a prequel series? No.

Haven't you just disagreed with yourself here?

I don't necessarily disagree with the idea of jumping into a TV series mid-way through, but I can't see how it's in any way comparable with watching Star Wars IV before the prequels.

 

[Luther Sloan]

Shazam:

I honestly don't know how to comment to that.
But hey, it's cool man. I am walking a fine line with my personal viewpoint on this matter, anyways.

I sometimes have very odd theories. As I am sure many other folks do, as well.

Peace brother.

 

[baxart]

TNG turned Klingons into leather-clad, stupid, drunken, headbangers. These morons belonged more in Twisted Sister videos (And I honestly expected Dee Snider to play a Klingon - he had the right build, hair and look), rather than commanding, much less trying to repair, starships.

TNG's & DS9's first two seasons are practically unwatchable.

The Ent D, inside and out, looks like a cruise ship.

Tasha Yar could have been an interesting character if she'd been written better.

Time Travel as a plot device in Trek is WAY overdone and should be banned for the next 20 years.

The next Trek TV series should be CGI, done by Pixar, with story direction by Allen Dean Foster.

Star Trek: Phase 2 should be officially acknowledged and fully sanctioned and funded by Paramount.

Paramount should support the fan base by having annual fan film contests with cash prizes.

 

[Cmdr Sho]

i have only one opinion,

1. wearing a starfleet uniform once a week.


this does not bode well with others here....

 

[RandyS]

I love Star Trek: Generations

I see no problem here, so do I. In fact, the only annoying part of that movie was the pointless destruction of the Enterprise-D. Other than that, fine film.

 

[caisson2delta]

Many great points and opinions, that I also hold, have been mentioned already.
some of the main ones:
1. I hated Tasha Yar, but thought Sela's character was wonderful.
2. I loved Enterprise and thought it was fantastic. I never thought the ship was to advanced tooking.
3. I think STIV was very overrated, probably the worst film of the franchise.
4. Riker was a tool.

 

[USS Triumphant]

However, was their enough pre-established back story information to do a prequel series? Yes.

Does the prequel trilogy bear much resemblance to what most fans believed that pre-established back story (based on comics and novels and the Journal of the Whills and the original script and the radio plays) to be? No.

Should it have? Oh HELL yes.

"Anni, you're breaking my heart."

Damn you, George Lucas.

Tasha Yar could have been an interesting character if she'd been written better.

Not to nitpick, but isn't this true of ANY uninteresting character?

Time Travel as a plot device in Trek is WAY overdone and should be banned for the next 20 years.

But how would you even know if the ban worked? After all, if you're witnessing time travel right now, the person actually doing it may be from 25 years in the future, which is after your hypothetical ban.

4. Riker was a tool.

YES!

 

[Lily_Teller]

I also liked Dr. Pulaski. Besides, Diana Muldaur was a good actress.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

I want to write a sequel to "Catspaw."

This one wins the thread!

Sure does!

 

[Tora Ziyal]

29. Porthos should have had an episode where the entire crew depended on him for their very survival. Perhaps everyone gotten shrunken down in size and they had to use Porthos in order to get to a certain part of the ship to help save the day.

Sounds good to me!

 

[baxart]

29. Porthos should have had an episode where the entire crew depended on him for their very survival. Perhaps everyone gotten shrunken down in size and they had to use Porthos in order to get to a certain part of the ship to help save the day.

Sounds good to me!

I heard they actually turned down a number of scripts with the "Porthos saves the day" plots.

 

[DevilEyes]

In fairness, the Episode IV: A New Hope bit was added for the 1981 re-release.

Shazam:

Yes this is true.

In fact, George Lucas originally wrote a movie storyline that was intended to be just one movie (Which was released in 1977). However, once he began writing the screenplay for the movie, it got to be too long, so he decided to break it into multiple films (3, representing the original 3 Star Wars movies). He completed the screenplay for just the first, and completed the film. However, in the meantime he had to develop a story line to explain the history of the characters in the movie. It wasn't really his intent to make movies out of the backstory, but it provided a history of the fictional worlds that he had created to explain how the circumstances in the story came to be. After the success of the first film, Lucas considered converting his backstory into more films. So after a short period of four years, he established the original Star Wars as the fourth chapter in 1981 and eventually produced the three prequel films many years later.

So was it Lucas's original intent from the beginning to create a prequel series? No.

However, was their enough pre-established back story information to do a prequel series? Yes.

Did it seem natural within the story that there might have been some prequel story or story lines to tell? Yes.

Was the re-wording of the 1st Star Wars (in the opening crawl) as the 4th chapter established early enough (as if it was supposed to be there)? Yes. I believe four years is a short enough time to establish new rules for a fictional universe.

Although Lucas didn't intend to make the prequels from the very beginning. Things flowed together naturally enough (in the early years of Star Wars) as if the prequels were supposed to be a part of the saga, though.

I mean, if he decided putting chapter numbers into the original trilogy after it was totally completed... then it would have been a bit after the fact. However, seeing he established the numbering of the chapters close enough to Empire Strikes Back's release, it helped redefine or fine tune the original story early enough at the beginning of the Star Wars saga (as if it was originally supposed to be there).

I mean, the numbering of Star Wars was kind of like a work in progress, for me. At least that's my take on it, anyways.

In other words, it was by a lucky coincidence that he had the stones already set into place for a prequel series (even though it was not originally conceived of at the very beginning).

I mean, does it really matter if he thought of making a prequel series a few years later or at the very beginning?

For me, there is no difference and the result is still the same. Whether Lucas intended to create a prequel series or not; the stones were already laid out and it was quickly established for us to expect a possible prequel series some time in the future if things went well.

That was not the point (though I don't blame you if you've forgotten by now why this discussion started in the first place). The point was that watching Star Wars (A New Hope), The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi without having previously watched the SW prequels is DEFINITELY NOT the same or in any way similar to watching DS9 from season 3 finale.

Watching the original trilogy first without having watched The Phantom Menace, The Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith is actually more akin to watching Battlestar Galactica first without having seen Caprica. (Except that Caprica doesn't suck.)

 

[Diddle]

I hate Deanna Troi, more than any other character from any series ever. (All series that I ever watched, I mean it. Ever.)

I don't care about Spock or any other Vulcan whatsoever, besides Vorik and TOS Sarek.

The whole Klingon concept of Honor bores me to no end.

I don't think Data is all that great of a character.

I think most of TNG plots were terrible, even though it's still my favorite series.

I think Garak is overrated. (I did loved him first I watched DS9, but then he just meh'd me)

I think Barclay is much more interesting than more than a half of the TNG's main cast.

I find Worf 80% of the time just comic relief and the other 20% he's either being way too awesome, or way too annoying.

I find every Q episode to be particularly bad exactly because Q alone is my favorite character.

Ezri's character was terrible, but I sort of like the way the Natalie(?)-what's here name- portraits her.

I think Weyoun is cooler than the whole DS9's main cast combined. Twice.

 

[Danny99]

3. Utopia bores me. If I could go back in time, I'd do my damnedest to try to convince the TNG writing staff how the whole "Federation as Utopia" and "moneyless economy" ideas of S1 are so bad for storytelling that, regardless of their source, they need to be ejected.

I agree with this statement.

Any good dramatic series needs conflict. DS9 had it the best example of dramatic Trek. During the war, the Starfleet officers had to choose between their morals and complete annihilation.

No one (or almost no one) wants to watch a show where everything is perfect and characters laud their morals over the viewer.

 

[RobertScorpio]

3. Utopia bores me. If I could go back in time, I'd do my damnedest to try to convince the TNG writing staff how the whole "Federation as Utopia" and "moneyless economy" ideas of S1 are so bad for storytelling that, regardless of their source, they need to be ejected.

I agree with this statement.

Any good dramatic series needs conflict. DS9 had it the best example of dramatic Trek. During the war, the Starfleet officers had to choose between their morals and complete annihilation.

No one (or almost no one) wants to watch a show where everything is perfect and characters laud their morals over the viewer.

I don't agree with this at all. If you want a crappy Earth future, there are plenty of scifi books/movies that depict just that.

Not too many of them depict a future that is bright. And that bright future TOS depicts is one of the reasons sited time after time by fans of the original show as to why they liked it. Its probably the reason why after all these spinoffs TOS is still the most recognized of all the other shows combined..its not even close.

Count me in that catagory.

But I can understand those who don't like that utopian aspect of the show.

Rob

 

[The Wormhole]

"Bright future" is not the same as "utopia." You can depict a future where Earth is a united world and the capital of the galaxy's largest interstellar alliance, and that's optimistic enough. You don't need to go ahead and make it a picture-perfect utopian paradise.

But since that has been established, the idea can still be workable. Earth itself can be utopia, but the rest of the galaxy can be hell. Indeed, even TNG seemed to depict this, with every Starfleet ship that wasn't the Enterprise ending up damaged and or gettng its crew killed.

 

[Penta]

But since that has been established, the idea can still be workable. Earth itself can be utopia, but the rest of the galaxy can be hell. Indeed, even TNG seemed to depict this, with every Starfleet ship that wasn't the Enterprise ending up damaged and or gettng its crew killed.

I'm not so sure re TNG. And besides, most of the ship damage that did happen took place on the extreme frontiers or beyond it.

The way I see it, though...That isn't what was even implied, Wormhole, at least not by the TV series. It wasn't just Earth that was utopia, it was the whole Federation (with the exception of Turkana IV that was never explained, or I think waved off as not being part of the UFP anymore), the whole human species.

Which to me kills off so many good potential storylines. It's just plain boring that there's no darkness. There's no struggle.

"But they do struggle...struggle to improve themselves!"? Pah. That's new-age BS, not something you can build dramatic stories on.

TNG asked us to believe that in no more than 80 years, in less than one human lifespan using TNG's own numbers, human nature was almost totally changed. I choked on that, as I suspect others have, as well.

I had hoped it was an early-TNG artifact, Gene Roddenberry being old and doddering...But then it shows up again in DS9, however jokingly, and again in FC.

And I just despair, because it sucks a lot of the fun potential out of the Trek universe. There's a lot of fun to be had with aliens, yes...But some of the most fun, to me, happens when the aliens aren't in the room. When it's humans, dealing with human problems.

I don't mind optimism. The thought of a United Earth and mankind actually exploring space at FTL speeds? That's optimism, to me. (The former far more than the latter, actually, because the former is so hard for someone who's thought about it to believe.)

What TNG posited...Actually, more like forced down our throats...wasn't optimism, it was delusion.

 

[Luther Sloan]

DE:

Uh, whatever you want to believe. Hey, that's your opinion and that's totally cool with me.

Let's just say it's my "Unpopular Star Wars Opinion" and leave it at that.

I heard they actually turned down a number of scripts with the "Porthos saves the day" plots.

Baxart:

Dog gone it.

 

[22 Stars]

And More...

15. Star Trek 4, the one with the whales, was a light hearted fun little film and is better than all of the TNG movies put together.

I agree. So does my mom. That's three of us, at least.

Count me in!

 

[Kpnuts]

- I find Yesterday's Enterprise to be over-rated and boring
- I like TNG: "Masks"
- I thought the visual effects in Nemesis were the worst of any TNG movie
- I like Enterprise season 2