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What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

Do people really still think it's controversial and edgy to claim The Orville is Star Trek?
Some.

To anyone with a mental age higher than ten, it's merely dull and repetitive.
It was clear that Seth MacFarlane patterned Orville's general core after TNG's vision of the future. I think he even mentioned that in some of the early interviews he did, thinking about "if I got a chance to run Star Trek, without it being Trek, how would I do it?" kind-of thing. I got the impression that most folks agreed that S1 was awesome. They didn't take themselves too seriously, they had good stories, snappy writing and cool characters. It even moved the needle on the Trek side when they (sloppily) tried to emulate this formula in DSC. The "Linus Sneeze" turbolift scene from the S2 premiere (that made it in literally every single trailer before S2 came out) was one of those ham-handed attempts that seemed to come out of nowhere if one wasn't paying attention. While certainly a funny scene, the parallels were painfully obvious and glaring.

Then Orville's S2 dropped, and all of a sudden it wasn't quite as "fun" anymore (that dreaded "F" word in sci-fi fandom that somehow diminishes a property's value in some people's eyes). They started smugly judging other species they come across, just like Picard, with all their "evolved sensibilities" bullshit - especially when dealing with the Krill and trying to get them into an alliance against the Kaylons (ummm... wasn't that originally "Cylons"?). "You people foolishly worship some false god (I mean, aren't they all, right?) so you just really aren't worth our time. ARM WEAPONS!" They just couldn't help themselves to fall into that same self-important rut. S3 was even worse, IMO.

So, great idea, but the people who ran it were just way too full of themselves. So yeah, hardly any difference between the two, in the end. Not controversial at all.
 
No. Search the 1000 threads on the subject.
Hell, it's about the 20th time it's been brought up in this thread alone. Minimum.

The rebuttal, in brief..

  • It has rank structure and hierarchy identical to real world Naval institutions.
  • It has a chain of command, duty stations and the authority to use force when necessary.
  • It has codes of conduct.
  • It has court martials
  • It's ships are heavily armed.
  • Finally, and this is crucial - it fights wars.
The reason that Picard, and perhaps other officers like him, did not see Starfleet as a military organization could very well come down to the fact that he came up through the ranks during an era of unparalleled peace. Peace with the Klingons and Romulan isolation. The Cardassians were certainly a bit of a nuisance, but at that time conflicts were isolated to the border regions of the two powers. The Borg and the Dominion were decades away. It would be only natural for Picard to hold that kind of conceit about the organization that he served (some might even say that it was one among many). On the other hand, both Kirk and Sisko very clearly identified themselves as soldiers.
 
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I always think of my wife's family. Her parents had two daughters. Her father's brother had a son, but her uncle had changed his name during WWII so it didn't sound Italian. So the original family name is dead. :(
Sorry for the tangent. I just find this stuff interesting.
You are forgiven, don't do it again..... Next time 'there will be blood'
 
Star Trek lost it's one chance of being edgy and cool when Enterprise rejected the idea of having hip musical acts every week. What where they thinking! Nothing would have been more cool then watching the crew enjoying the music of NIckleback in the mess hall.
 
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