I just want more Harry Kim.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
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Yeah, the USAF changed that name after it went into production.
The reasoning was dumb, but it is what it is.
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They did change some things, but there's no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater. But yes, what you say qualifies as a "Controversial Opinion".
You're probably talking to the wrong person. I also like Picard, which many would say isn't a real continuation of TNG. I actually like PIC better than TNG. That's my "Controversial Opinion".
In general: If I like what I'm watching, I overlook a lot. If I don't, I won't. I've found that's true of most people here, whether they say so or not.
Yes, this. I'm currently rewatching Voyager, just started the 3rd season in fact. It's a lot more enjoyable if you can ignore the big red reboot button and the inconsistencies between episodes. It's not my favorite Trek by any means, but I still enjoy watching it. Last time I watched it, I was too focused on what it wasn't (a reasonably consistently written show with good character development for all main characters and some character development for regular subsidiary characters, and a good mix of arc-based episodes and standalones, like Babylon 5 and DS9) to enjoy it for what it is. Or maybe I've just grown more mellow when it comes to enjoying entertainment on its own terms...
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They did change some things, but there's no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater. But yes, what you say qualifies as a "Controversial Opinion".
You're probably talking to the wrong person. I also like Picard, which many would say isn't a real continuation of TNG. I actually like PIC better than TNG. That's my "Controversial Opinion".
In general: If I like what I'm watching, I overlook a lot. If I don't, I won't. I've found that's true of most people here, whether they say so or not.
The TOS Movies are probably my favorite "phase" of the entire Star Trek franchise.
Movies 2-6 are my main attraction to TOS.
TOS and the TOS Movies are what me me fall passionately in love with Star Trek.
Well... I didn't have access to time travel so it was pretty much TOS and TAS. And get off my lawn!
Hey, you missed one!
Don't get him started.
I think II-III-IV are a great trilogy of movies that sets the tone for Star Trek being in-part about families, friendships that become as deep as family, and what that says about human nature.
If you look at II-III-IV, they basically debate the idea of "the needs of the many...," and I personally love Search For Spock.
As a kid, I accepted the idea it was part of the odd movie curse, and was kinda the boring one between II and IV. But as an adult, I realized that in a lot of ways it probably has some of the best character moments for the TOS movies.
- Wrath of Khan is Spock's sacrifice based in utilitarian Vulcan logic that his death is worth saving the "many."
- Search For Spock is Kirk and the crew inverting everything with human nobility. They are willing to sacrifice everything they have to save Spock.
Sarek : Kirk, I thank you. What you have done is...
Kirk : What I have done, I had to do.
Sarek : But at what cost? Your ship. Your son.
Kirk : If I hadn't tried, the cost would have been my soul.
Kirk : What I have done, I had to do.
Sarek : But at what cost? Your ship. Your son.
Kirk : If I hadn't tried, the cost would have been my soul.
People always seem to think Star Trek accepts the idea that “the needs of many outweighs the needs of the few, or the one,” but those 3 films as a whole argue there’s a balance and one of the most endearing examples of true friendship and “family” occurs within Trek when the characters explicitly go against that philosophy.
Amanda : Spock, does the good of the many out weigh the good of the one?
Spock : I would accept that as an axiom.
Amanda : Then you stand here alive because of a mistake made by your flawed, feeling, human friends. They have sacrificed their futures because they believed that the good of the one - you - was more important to them.
Spock : Humans make illogical decisions.
Amanda : They do, indeed.
Voyage Home is a fish out of water story, and it's accessible because of the humor derived in that and the present-day setting, but it is also rooted in these themes, and Spock realizing there's a third way between these viewpoints and finding value in the "human thing to do."
McCoy : Jim. You've got to let me go in there. Don't leave him in the hands of 20th-century medicine.
Spock : Admiral, may I suggest that Dr. McCoy is correct? We must help Chekov.
Kirk : Is that the logical thing to do, Spock?
Spock : No, but it is the human thing to do.
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Nope. It has regularly rejected that rather trite catchphrase. Kirk won't let Spock die in TOS, and when there was the chance to save him in TSFS he took it. Bashir wouldn't let Odo die and regardless of the threats from Starfleet Medical and Security he searched for the cure. Pike is unwilling to let Spock die so that he can save others.
It is, as Heinlein would note, poor math, but very human.
It's a principle that's defaulted to, with several "unless" clauses afterwards.
Although, arguably, Strange New Worlds does put a really interesting twist on that decision, and it's a contrast with Pike's horror when a similar choice is made earlier in the season.
In "Lift Us Up Where Suffering Cannot Reach," Pike is indignant when Majalis sacrifices a child for the quality of life within their society. But in "A Quality of Mercy," Pike decides that not only is his life but the lives of children/future cadets, who have no choice in the matter, are worth the sacrifice of securing a better future.
One can argue that saving the Alpha Quadrant from a decades long never-ending war is different than a planet that puts a kid in a machine so they can live in the clouds, but both are decisions where people make choices in the belief the sacrifice of some for a better world is worth it.
Hence why the episode is called, "A Quality of Mercy".
Late to the party from a few posts back, but even though I like PIC better than TNG and especially the TNG Movies, by contrast: I like TOS and the TOS Movies equally.
I wonder if Pike had a different view because he was at least able to have a choice. The child didn't while Pike, Spock and Kirk all did.
The child did have a choice. He chose faith instead of knowledge, and it cost him dearly.
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