What are your opinions regarding Star Trek that are, shall we say, unorthodox?

[CoveTom]

Yeah, I’m with Tuvok on this one.

I have emotional attachments to people, not things.

Anyway, it’s not a big deal to me. Enjoy it however you like.

I agree with you that people should enjoy the show however they like.

I think the point there, though, was that you had commented it was on the viewer, not the show, and I don't think that's true. I can't speak much for the streaming-era shows, save for Picard, but all the "traditional TV" shows very clearly showed the ships as being things that were treated as characters and that the crew had emotional attachments to. Janeway said so directly, as has been quoted here. Remember "Hello, ship" from Sisko? And that was literally the entire point of the travel pod sequence in TMP that started this discussion.

My point is that you can have a different perspective and not feel the same way, and that's fine. But the shows themselves very clearly treat the ships as characters.

 

[Farscape One]

I agree with you that people should enjoy the show however they like.

I think the point there, though, was that you had commented it was on the viewer, not the show, and I don't think that's true. I can't speak much for the streaming-era shows, save for Picard, but all the "traditional TV" shows very clearly showed the ships as being things that were treated as characters and that the crew had emotional attachments to. Janeway said so directly, as has been quoted here. Remember "Hello, ship" from Sisko? And that was literally the entire point of the travel pod sequence in TMP that started this discussion.

My point is that you can have a different perspective and not feel the same way, and that's fine. But the shows themselves very clearly treat the ships as characters.

Exactly. The classic era shows very much treated the hero ships as characters, so it was most certainly NOT on the viewer. Now, if the viewer couldn't or wouldn't see that... okay, no problem, that's on them.

No one needs any shrinkspeak to explain why people feel a connection to something.

 

[fireproof78]

one needs any shrinkspeak to explain why people feel a connection to something.

I do. It's a perspective I struggle to understand so people explaining it is helpful to me.

My point is that you can have a different perspective and not feel the same way, and that's fine. But the shows themselves very clearly treat the ships as characters.

Which doesn't make less strange to me but I'm glad people like it.

 

[CoveTom]

FWIW, I was reading the thread about the rediscovered original 32" model of the TOS Enterprise, and there was a new video about it released just today posted there, and Rod Roddenberry actually comments on how his father always said the ship was a character. I have embedded the video with it queued up to the relevant portion.

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Again, folks can disagree, and that's fine. I'm not trying to be argumentative. However, that was what Gene Roddenberry himself thought all the way back to TOS.

 

[fireproof78]

Genuine question: how does treating a ship as a character make a difference? It still serves the same purpose and acts as a setting for the story. Does the Friends apartment or Central Perk be treated similarly?

This is why it's so hard to paras for me. It's this weird ambiguity that gets applied unevenly.

 

[1001001]

No one needs any shrinkspeak to explain why people feel a connection to something.

I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had been appointed to be everyone’s spokesperson on the matter.

I speak the way I speak. And your constant “shrink” bashing is getting tiresome.

If people think the ship is a “character” so be it. More power to them.

I don’t.

 

[CoveTom]

If people think the ship is a “character” so be it. More power to them.

I don’t.

In fairness, the Enterprise-D has more personality than Beverly Crusher.

 

[Farscape One]

I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had been appointed to be everyone’s spokesperson on the matter.

I speak the way I speak. And your constant “shrink” bashing is getting tiresome.

If people think the ship is a “character” so be it. More power to them.

I don’t.

I never said I was appointed anything.

 

[Richard Baker]

Not so much a character to me, but there are some ships that are just there and some ships I really care what happens to them. It does not matter how long they are on screen or how pivotal they are.

 

[XCV330]

If you take a ship as the craft of many people that went into the building of it, the sum and mean of the things its crew has done and will do, then yes ships have personalities, even if its mechanical in nature. If we allow for sentience as a property of matter I don’t really have to concern myself with this. It is a thing and it does things and has a story. A jellyfish has no brain and probably acts mostly no differently from a billion other jellyfish but it has an inherent life of its own and it will react just a tad bit differently.

Space shuttle Columbia used to be called “The Penguin” by Cape pad rats because she was black and white and did not want to fly. The first to fly in space, Columbia had subtle differences from the rest of the fleet, was heavier and more problematic. But when she started to break up over America , telemetry showed her manouvering thrusters were firing constantly doing its job trying to make it back to Earth until the very end. No it wasn’t a living thing, just some 1970s hardware and a lot of code, but I’ll just remain convinced she or it had a personality

 

[Citiprime]

Genuine question: how does treating a ship as a character make a difference? It still serves the same purpose and acts as a setting for the story. Does the Friends apartment or Central Perk be treated similarly?

Invert your question. If instead of having "Setting As Character," it's the opposite.

It would be something that's either static or dead, and has no relevance where it could be interchangeable with any other nondescript place (i.e., this is a city, this is a town, this is a forest).

But if the setting has its own vibe, quirks, backstory, history, then it becomes character-like. A city has culture, which can define a "personality" for the area (e.g., Baltimore within The Wire). That means a setting can have its own feel and vibe that makes it different from others, just like a person. And just like an actual person (or character), it's also subject to change.

Throughout Star Trek, the Enterprise's evolution, triumphs, and even its destruction are treated with as much emotional weight as the journeys of flesh-and-blood crew members.

 

[TheAdmiralty]

Genuine question: how does treating a ship as a character make a difference? It still serves the same purpose and acts as a setting for the story. Does the Friends apartment or Central Perk be treated similarly?

This is why it's so hard to paras for me. It's this weird ambiguity that gets applied unevenly.

Not familiar with Friends but people definitely do this with sitcom houses where the set is well designed and feels like a lived in house and not just a set. The Cheers bar is a great example as well. The TOS Enterprise and Enterprise D did this very well whereas the later ships didn't and felt more sterile. As I noted the sound is a big part of this, the "crickets" on the TOS bridge, the "woosh" of the TNG warp core, exc. Makes it feel like a real place the way certain rooms sound a certain way in real life.

 

[fireproof78]

Invert your question. If instead of having "Setting As Character," it's the opposite.

It would be something that's either static or dead, and has no relevance where it could be interchangeable with any other nondescript place (i.e., this is a city, this is a town, this is a forest).

But if the setting has its own vibe, quirks, backstory, history, then it becomes character-like. A city has culture, which can define a "personality" for the area (e.g., Baltimore within The Wire). That means a setting can have its own feel and vibe that makes it different from others, just like a person. And just like an actual person (or character), it's also subject to change.

Throughout Star Trek, the Enterprise's evolution, triumphs, and even its destruction are treated with as much emotional weight as the journeys of flesh-and-blood crew members.

Ok then. I guess I don't find a vibe to be a character but I'm slowly getting the sense. It's still an object but has special meaning and unique characteristics.

That a show treats it like a character does not make it so.

Not familiar with Friends but people definitely do this with sitcom houses where the set is well designed and feels like a lived in house and not just a set. The Cheers bar is a great example as well. The TOS Enterprise and Enterprise D did this very well whereas the later ships didn't and felt more sterile. As I noted the sound is a big part of this, the "crickets" on the TOS bridge, the "woosh" of the TNG warp core, exc. Makes it feel like a real place the way certain rooms sound a certain way in real life.

Again, the jump from vibe to character is hard to me

 

[FredH]

Thank you. There may be other certain ships that might qualify, but none are from the George Lucas pantheon.

Well, there is one…

 

[Set Harth]

Well, there is one…

Someone had to say it!

 

[Nyotarules]

Kirk's married to his job.

Kirk is a tragic hero

 

[Nyotarules]

View attachment 54077
cause I'm not calling this boat Rodney

"Historically, pink was widely considered a masculine, assertive color for boys, while blue was delicate and dainty for girls. This norm was established in the early 20th century but reversed after World War II when mass marketers and retailers popularized the modern "pink for girls, blue for boys" conventions."
Call the boat Rodney, Richard or Roger. The colour gender issue is made up rubbish to make money and we the consumers fell for it.

 

[Nyotarules]

She certainly was. She brought our crew, and us, to the various places where they explored and did amazing things. She carried and protected them every second, from hostile attacks to radiation to simply the vacuum of space.

Without her, we wouldn't have any of the adventures we love seeing.

Of course you would, it would be a different ship with a different name. If every season the TOS or TNG crew was exploring on a different ship, the adventures would still be the same.

 

[Nyotarules]

FWIW, I was reading the thread about the rediscovered original 32" model of the TOS Enterprise, and there was a new video about it released just today posted there, and Rod Roddenberry actually comments on how his father always said the ship was a character. I have embedded the video with it queued up to the relevant portion.

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Again, folks can disagree, and that's fine. I'm not trying to be argumentative. However, that was what Gene Roddenberry himself thought all the way back to TOS.

It's the unorthodox opinions thread, its not be an argument and no one should be offended by anyone's response as long as said response is not insulting to another poster.

 

[XCV330]

"Historically, pink was widely considered a masculine, assertive color for boys, while blue was delicate and dainty for girls. This norm was established in the early 20th century but reversed after World War II when mass marketers and retailers popularized the modern "pink for girls, blue for boys" conventions."
Call the boat Rodney, Richard or Roger. The colour gender issue is made up rubbish to make money and we the consumers fell for it.

ok humor , it is a difficult concept

Let me rephrase: the kayak kinda looks like a vulva. Let me preempt the next one: Not every vulva. Just that giant pink kayak person’s vulva and you can call it Rodney or Nefertiti or kayak or just stick another misericorde in a thread