The first two seasons of TNG are also more like this. Might be a reason I also like them more than most.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
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The first two seasons of TNG are also more like this. Might be a reason I also like them more than most.
Huh. I didn't know that. Damn shame.
I always just assumed he was your spirit guide…
I mean, he seemed to get along with J. Michael Straczynski well enough. He worked on all five seasons of Babylon 5, and he was one of the few to write scripts for the final season other than JMS himself.
And the late Peter David and Harlan seemed to have a really solid friendship. Harlan was even the best man at David's wedding.
But, also, he did also really seem to like being an insufferable curmudgeon.
Space Opera was a thing long before Star Trek was a gleam in Gene Roddenberry's eye,
No, Starfleet policy is pretty clear cut on the matter of murder, even if it aligns with another culture's beliefs. In Amok Time when Spock believed he killed Kirk, he was going to surrender to Starfleet and accept court martial and prison time for it, even though it was sanctioned on Vulcan as part of a ponn farr ritual. The difference in times like Tacking Into the Wind, individual officers make judgment calls whether to adhere to these policies or not.
I doubt Sisko told Admiral Ross or anyone that he nudged Worf into killing Gowron. And in the case of the Romulans, the only thing Command authorized was using a fake holorecording to make the Romulans believe the Dominion were planning an attack. They certainly didn't condone Vreenak's murder, and I'm pretty sure Sisko never admitted his role in that to them.
It would seem that the worst transgression that Worf committed in "Reunion," as far as Starfleet was concerned, was going AWOL. As far as the Klingon High Council was concerned, Worf committed no offense whatsoever.
So while I no longer have my copy of the 1988 Rocketeer collection from Eclipse Comics that Ellison wrote the intro for, I did manage to find a reminiscence of Ellison I co-wrote in 2018 on the occasion of his passing. And as luck would have it, I quoted from his mention of Spielberg in that intro:
“Spielberg and his clone-children […] filling every corner of the frame with little in-jokes and blatant references to the sci-fi crap that impressed them when they were ten years old, so distracting that you aren’t supposed to notice that the movie center-screen is full of holes and has an empty soul.”
To the best of my memory, Ellison never mentioned Raiders of the Lost Ark by name in that intro. He honestly could've just as easily been talking about E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Temple of Doom, or even 1941. And the mention of Spielberg's "clone children" means he could've been referring to Joe Dante or Robert Zemeckis just as much as Spielberg.
And even if Ellison did like Raiders at first and later changed his mind about it, so what? Is that not allowed? Does his opinion of a movie have to stay the same until the end of time? I know I've certainly changed my mind about stuff over the decades. The movies I thought were profound at 16 seem rather trite to me now.
Yeah, Ellison was upfront and critical about the stuff he disliked. But he was also effusive with praise for the stuff he did like. And personally, I think that means his opinions meant more, not less. His praise was more valuable because he didn't dole it out that freely. I personally don't entirely trust people who like everything.
I have a feeling that Ellison was well aware that that was his reputation, and he enjoyed playing the part or exaggerating his dislike for something occasionally.
How about in Worf's case?
He literally killed a candidate (Duras) who challenged Gowron for the High Chancellor Position, granted it was out of revenge for his Mate K'Ehleyr.
He eventually killed Gowron for risking the entire Dominion War due to his personal Politics in seeking Glory and risking unnecessary pointless missions to make Martok look stupid and risk losing the entire Dominion War.
Both cases, he got away w/o punishment from the StarFleet/UFP side, despite what his superiors & upper brass knew what he was going to do.
Ellison did have an openly dismissive view of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
I did find it surprising that Ellison voiced the very annoying version of the B5 computer in one episode, and was the voice of the Zooty machine. He also appeared in person as a Psi Cop, but that one honestly doesn't surprise me.
Worf did not "get away without punishment" for killing Duras. Picard still chewed him out and put a reprimand in his file. That's still punishment. Granted, that's an extremely light punishment for killing someone, but it's still punishment.
I already explained the situation when he killed Gowron in this thread so I'm not sure why you're asking about that again.
That's a slap on the wrist, and you know it.
Didn't see the second part.
Worf was basically
As a kid I didn't know what to make of him. I'd sneak copies of Dangerous Visions into my room to read from the library because my mom had started policing what I read. I felt like a rebel reading that New Wave SF shlock, and all the anectdotes about him made him seem like a hero. Then I started reading "Harlan Ellison's Watching" his movie review section in F&SF magazine and instantly didn't like him.
It was ok that he hated SpaceBalls. I'm sure it was too highbrow for him. It wasn't ok how he tore into Mel Brooks. Then again maybe he just needed something to fill the pages and didn't really have much of a feeling about it one way or another.
He could be a real piece of shit. Groping Connie Willis's breast while the crowd laughed would be career ending for anyone else but his was already over and people worshipped him like a god.
And yes he was at Selma (and wouldn't let you forget it) and did all these great things. And yes he rode the coattails of the Sinatra incident. People are complicated. I just kind of wish the cult of personality about him would die out.
I love his writing. Jefty is Five is one of the best short stories ever written. Angry Candy is right up there too. Twilight Zone never got better than Paladin of the Lost Hour. But.. then there's the person.
As a kid I didn't know what to make of him. I'd sneak copies of Dangerous Visions into my room to read from the library because my mom had started policing what I read. I felt like a rebel reading that New Wave SF shlock, and all the anectdotes about him made him seem like a hero. Then I started reading "Harlan Ellison's Watching" his movie review section in F&SF magazine and instantly didn't like him.
It was ok that he hated SpaceBalls. I'm sure it was too highbrow for him. It wasn't ok how he tore into Mel Brooks. Then again maybe he just needed something to fill the pages and didn't really have much of a feeling about it one way or another.
He could be a real piece of shit. Groping Connie Willis's breast while the crowd laughed would be career ending for anyone else but his was already over and people worshipped him like a god.
And yes he was at Selma (and wouldn't let you forget it) and did all these great things. And yes he rode the coattails of the Sinatra incident. People are complicated. I just kind of wish the cult of personality about him would die out.
I would have to sit and watch 'A Boy and His Dog' with the commentary track on, but I know that Director L.Q. Jones, damns Harlan with faint praise, saying that they got along, but he couldn't finish the script in a satisfactory way, and L.Q. finally had to take it away from him and just start filming.
Harlan hated L.Q. for a while for the changes he made to the source material, but, later, came to understand it couldn't have been done any better given the budget and time constraints L.Q. was under trying to get the movie shot, edited and into theaters.
Harlan hated L.Q. for a while for the changes he made to the source material, but, later, came to understand it couldn't have been done any better given the budget and time constraints L.Q. was under trying to get the movie shot, edited and into theaters.
It's pretty typical of Star Trek that punishments are extremely inconsistent in their application. Does not mean there isn't rule against it.
It's too bad he's factually wrong about the film. Go Laraine.
A slap on the wrist is still a form of punishment.
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