Weirdest and must unusual opinions you have heard others say about Star Trek?

[Jayson1]

For me I think it comes down to my late grandma. She and my Grandpa were familiar with "TOS" and even "TNG" partly because I liked it but I take she had no idea about "DS9." I think she asked me about it once and for some reason she thought "DS9" or what she must have seen of it from seeing me watch it was she thought it was all taking place on another part of the Enterprise from "TNG." Kind of like in the lower decks or something.

Jason

 

[Doom Shepherd]

"Canon and continuity matter." - Especially when coming from a TOS-maniac.

 

[suarezguy]

The idea that Star Trek and Star Wars and relatedly Roddenberry and Lucas were pretty indistinguishable, pretty much doing the same thing.

Just unusual, someone who's favorite show was the original series followed by Voyager and with DS9 his least favorite (and also liking the last two seasons of Enterprise less than the first two).

 

[Phil123]

Someone once told me they preferred Star Wars because it was more political. Not sure what they were on about!!

 

[The Wormhole]

Someone once told me they preferred Star Wars because it was more political. Not sure what they were on about!!

Star Wars is more political, the Prequels alone are proof of that.

 

[Jedi_Master]

"It's not for nerds"
"It's just as popular as Star Wars"

 

[Forbin]

I was watching TOS with my grandfather when I was in my teens. Picture a thinner Archie Bunker with glasses for Grampy's attitude. He was an old guy from Da Bronx, and hated everybody and everything different than him. Anyhoo, we're watching TOS reruns (can't remember what ep, or what was happening onscreen), and suddenly he blurts "Dat dare, John, is whatyacall yer IMPOSSIBLE!"

Still not sure if he was referring to the science, or to people of various ethnicities working happily together.

 

[Phil123]

Star Wars is more political, the Prequels alone are proof of that.

I disagree. The prequels more so but this comment was made in rearguards to the originals.

Star Wars does deal with a political struggle (the rise and fall of fascism/empire), but in very broad terms. Star Trek on the other hand continually explores deeply political issues. Political concepts are debated and poured over. Examples that spring to mind are:

Journey to Babel - delegates from different societies with different types of relationships
Let That be your Last Battlefield - racism
Justice - how much respect should the laws and beliefs of other cultures be given?
Symbiosis - where to start! Ethics everywhere. The nature of the drug supply problem, plus how much should we (Starfleet) get involved
Measure of a Man - human/android rights. It's basically Amistad in space.
Suddenly Human - the rights of a child to determine their destiny vs. that of their biological family
The Drumhead - MacArthy style witch hunts based on one's backgroud
The Defector - clue is in the name
Unification - an ambassador working to bring together two peoples who were once one.

The list goes on and that's before you get to Deep Space Nine, where it might be easier to list the episodes that were not political in nature.

 

[Michael]

Weirdest opinion about Star Trek? Easily this.

 

[urbandefault]

"It's our future."

 

[The Wormhole]

I disagree. The prequels more so but this comment was made in rearguards to the originals.

Star Wars does deal with a political struggle (the rise and fall of fascism/empire), but in very broad terms. Star Trek on the other hand continually explores deeply political issues. Political concepts are debated and poured over. Examples that spring to mind are:

Journey to Babel - delegates from different societies with different types of relationships
Let That be your Last Battlefield - racism
Justice - how much respect should the laws and beliefs of other cultures be given?
Symbiosis - where to start! Ethics everywhere. The nature of the drug supply problem, plus how much should we (Starfleet) get involved
Measure of a Man - human/android rights. It's basically Amistad in space.
Suddenly Human - the rights of a child to determine their destiny vs. that of their biological family
The Drumhead - MacArthy style witch hunts based on one's backgroud
The Defector - clue is in the name
Unification - an ambassador working to bring together two peoples who were once one.

The list goes on and that's before you get to Deep Space Nine, where it might be easier to list the episodes that were not political in nature.

Some of those episodes you're seeing things that aren't there. There's nothing deep or intellectual going on in Justice. Justice is more or less that closest we'll get to seeing Roddenberry's ideas of a nudist paradise society on screen with the trope of an advanced life form playing god mixed in.

 

[velour]

A friend of mine told me that he wished the Star Trek franchise had began with TMP instead of with the TOS series. He wished that TOS (the series) never happened.

He was so completely bothered by the TOS 60s aesthetic. To him, the TOS uniforms and the ship and console designs didn't look futuristic at all. It looked cartoonish to him.

I asked him, "But what did you think about the stories?" He just couldn't look past the TOS aesthetic in order to take in the stories. Of course, I then asked him why he didn't wish the franchise had started with TNG rather than TOS. His answer was that, at least, TMP (and the other TOS movies) had a futuristic look. His opinion of TOS was almost completely defined by the aesthetic.

 

[Six of Twelve]

A friend of mine told me that he wished the Star Trek franchise had began with TMP instead of with the TOS series. He wished that TOS (the series) never happened.

He was so completely bothered by the TOS 60s aesthetic. To him, the TOS uniforms and the ship and console designs didn't look futuristic at all. It looked cartoonish to him.

I asked him, "But what did you think about the stories?" He just couldn't look past the TOS aesthetic in order to take in the stories. Of course, I then asked him why he didn't wish the franchise had started with TNG rather than TOS. His answer was that, at least, TMP (and the other TOS movies) had a futuristic look. His opinion of TOS was almost completely defined by the aesthetic.

Back when TOS was first being run, it didn't look dated to those of us who lived in the 60s. But, yes, it looks terribly dated to us now, and clashes with Enterprise, that looks ahead of TOS, rather than 100 years before. But TOS did have some good story lines, despite the ridiculous looking sets, silly uniforms, smooth headed Klingons, etc. One must simply ignore that and suspend disbelief in order to enjoy it.

 

[mlbach]

A friend asked me why I liked ST so much. This was even before the original Star Wars movie. I said one reason was because human survival was a given. To my chagrin I had to explain what I meant.

 

[Greg Cox]

The original Entertainment Weekly review of VOYAGER described it as a "time-travel" series. This baffled me until I realized that the reviewer thought that light-years were a measure of time, not distance, and had therefore misunderstood all the dialogue about Voyager being umpteen light-years from home!

 

[scotpens]

The original Entertainment Weekly review of VOYAGER described it as a "time-travel" series. This baffled me until I realized that the reviewer thought that light-years were a measure of time, not distance, and had therefore misunderstood all the dialogue about Voyager being umpteen light-years from home!

Ugh. That kind of ignorance makes me want to punch somebody. It's like the writers who casually throw around words like "intergalactic" without having a clue as to what a galaxy is.

 

[F. King Daniel]

When people start rolling about how it's a blueprint for our future, that the science was accurate and use the words, "Roddenberry's vision"

 

[Forbin]

Ugh. That kind of ignorance makes me want to punch somebody. It's like the writers who casually throw around words like "intergalactic" without having a clue as to what a galaxy is.

Yes! Yes! Thank you!! Every time I hear some announcer say "The intergalactic adventures of..." I scream at the TV "Look at a damn science book! Look at a dictionary!!" It's a major pet peeve for me.

 

[suarezguy]

use the words, "Roddenberry's vision"

Well he did create two of the most popular series and casts and the other writer-producers of the latter (at least Berman and Piller) agree both that he had a very definite idea of what the future was like and that they generally tried to follow it before and after he passed away (they did move somewhat away, not by a whole lot, in DS9, while Behr seems to agree there was a vision but he intentionally tried to distance the show from it).

 

[mlbach]

Intergalactic is a cool word. Intragalactic doesn't have the same ring to it. And there were a couple stories that featured aliens from another galaxy (Catspaw. for one), so some of their adventures were intergalactic.