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What's the worst canon decision in the history of Trek?

for me, the worst canon decision was to make DSC a visual reboot. It should always have been set in the future.
I really disagree with that, the visual reboot wasn't just a good decision it was a necessity, modern Star Trek must not look like TOS unless it wants to be a parody people laugh at. Even TNG and DS9 look dated at this point in some ways, their desktop computers may have looked futuristic in the early 90s, writing this post on a MacBook Air makes me giggle at the thought of those clunky things or their padds which seemed to have the ability to store one book each.
Setting Discovery further down the timeline wouldn't have solved the problem, it would have sidestepped it unless someone else eventually dealt with it. You can't just move every new Star Trek series into the next on screen century to update the look, at some point you have to admit that the fictional 23rd and 24th centuries created decades ago just don't cut it anymore visually.

And this isn't new, TMP did a visual reboot in 1979. People like to bring up "They did a refit of the ship" as a justification as if that explains why everything from the sets, to the costumes, hair, make up, Klingons etc. changed so significantly. Updating the look was necessary then and it's even more necessary now.

A truly bad decision is the prime directive as it was portrayed in TNG and later. A callous, disgusting, immoral policy that made the main characters look like sociopaths.
The best example of this is TNGs Homeward, an entire civilization is about to be wiped out, the Enterprise crew is like "to bad, so sad ... we're just going to pick up Worf's brother and watch the others die". The planet dies and then it's discovered that Nikolai actually saved some people by beaming them into the holodeck ... we all know the story.
The disgusting thing is how Picard acts (the others too but Picard is the worst), I wanted to punch him in his arrogant face. First he acts like Nikolai is wrong for saving innocent people's lives, then when this one guy discovers the truth and kills himself Picard has the nerve to blame Nikolai, WTF? Since when does Picard give a single shit about any of their lives, he was perfectly fine letting everyone currently in the holodeck die a few days before. Nikolai tried to save him, sadly it didn't work in his case but the alternative was him being dead anyway ... so what's the point of Picard's "He's dead because of you" speech, I wanted to reach into the screen and slap Picard silly.

Or Pen Pals, Data plays Sarjenka's message and Picard says something like "How dare you make me listen to a little girls cries for help?!", then they do the patented *beep boop* button pressing and the entire planet is saved in what feels like a few hours at most.

In Star Trek into Darkness Kirk is literally blamed for contaminating the people's culture by letting them see the Enterprise and all I could think was "The culture that wouldn't exist anymore if it wasn't for Kirk?", if Kirk hadn't done what he did there wouldn't be an uncontaminated culture there's be no culture at all.
And what's even the big deal about them seeing the Enterprise, a few hundred years later all that's left of that story is most likely a mythological beast with a really flat head rising from the ocean.
 
I really disagree with that, the visual reboot wasn't just a good decision it was a necessity, modern Star Trek must not look like TOS unless it wants to be a parody people laugh at. Even TNG and DS9 look dated at this point in some ways, their desktop computers may have looked futuristic in the early 90s, writing this post on a MacBook Air makes me giggle at the thought of those clunky things or their padds which seemed to have the ability to store one book each.
Setting Discovery further down the timeline wouldn't have solved the problem, it would have sidestepped it unless someone else eventually dealt with it. You can't just move every new Star Trek series into the next on screen century to update the look, at some point you have to admit that the fictional 23rd and 24th centuries created decades ago just don't cut it anymore visually.

And this isn't new, TMP did a visual reboot in 1979. People like to bring up "They did a refit of the ship" as a justification as if that explains why everything from the sets, to the costumes, hair, make up, Klingons etc. changed so significantly. Updating the look was necessary then and it's even more necessary now.

A truly bad decision is the prime directive as it was portrayed in TNG and later. A callous, disgusting, immoral policy that made the main characters look like sociopaths.
The best example of this is TNGs Homeward, an entire civilization is about to be wiped out, the Enterprise crew is like "to bad, so sad ... we're just going to pick up Worf's brother and watch the others die". The planet dies and then it's discovered that Nikolai actually saved some people by beaming them into the holodeck ... we all know the story.
The disgusting thing is how Picard acts (the others too but Picard is the worst), I wanted to punch him in his arrogant face. First he acts like Nikolai is wrong for saving innocent people's lives, then when this one guy discovers the truth and kills himself Picard has the nerve to blame Nikolai, WTF? Since when does Picard give a single shit about any of their lives, he was perfectly fine letting everyone currently in the holodeck die a few days before. Nikolai tried to save him, sadly it didn't work in his case but the alternative was him being dead anyway ... so what's the point of Picard's "He's dead because of you" speech, I wanted to reach into the screen and slap Picard silly.

Or Pen Pals, Data plays Sarjenka's message and Picard says something like "How dare you make me listen to a little girls cries for help?!", then they do the patented *beep boop* button pressing and the entire planet is saved in what feels like a few hours at most.

In Star Trek into Darkness Kirk is literally blamed for contaminating the people's culture by letting them see the Enterprise and all I could think was "The culture that wouldn't exist anymore if it wasn't for Kirk?", if Kirk hadn't done what he did there wouldn't be an uncontaminated culture there's be no culture at all.
And what's even the big deal about them seeing the Enterprise, a few hundred years later all that's left of that story is most likely a mythological beast with a really flat head rising from the ocean.

Yes, when it comes to the prime directive Picard often sounds like an imbecile. What did he say about the society contained in a bubble? "We may have been just as bad as the catastrophe that would have wiped out this entire society" or something to that effect.

"AS BAD"!!! what an ass! I mean even if their society doesn't survive, at least they live, they can go somewhere else, that's a great deal better than being DEAD!!! So how can he say that they are "just as bad"?

That's just insane.
 
Agreed on TOS-R. It was this weird halfway revisionist thing, unsatisfying as an update (Discovery went all in, for example) or a recreation in HD. I wish they'd just made exact copies of the 17 (or however many there were) original shots like Star Trek Continues did early on, with a CG model scaled to the size of the original studio miniature. And no weird faceless officers in the windows.
I would have found that far more satisfactory, yeah. That approach would have hewed much closer to the idea of remastering than what we got which was in some cases outright reimagining.

That's not to disparage the idea of reimagining the look of TOS on other shows like DISCO; that's a separate issue. My remarks here about reimagining being inappropriate relate to efforts to restore and preserve TOS itself for posterity.
 
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truly bad decision is the prime directive as it was portrayed in TNG and later. A callous, disgusting, immoral policy that made the main characters look like sociopaths.
The best example of this is TNGs Homeward, an entire civilization is about to be wiped out, the Enterprise crew is like "to bad, so sad ... we're just going to pick up Worf's brother and watch the others die". The planet dies and then it's discovered that Nikolai actually saved some people by beaming them into the holodeck ... we all know the story.
The disgusting thing is how Picard acts (the others too but Picard is the worst), I wanted to punch him in his arrogant face. First he acts like Nikolai is wrong for saving innocent people's lives, then when this one guy discovers the truth and kills himself Picard has the nerve to blame Nikolai, WTF? Since when does Picard give a single shit about any of their lives, he was perfectly fine letting everyone currently in the holodeck die a few days before. Nikolai tried to save him, sadly it didn't work in his case but the alternative was him being dead anyway ... so what's the point of Picard's "He's dead because of you" speech, I wanted to reach into the screen and slap Picard silly.

While I complete agree, this also seems like a character assassination of our bald Brit, done strictly for the sake of creating conflict. Of course we all know that if Nikolai had not been there, Picard would have consulted Starfleet, and when they told him to let it be, he would have said "I'm about to commit a direct violation of our orders. You wanna protest, so it now." Data would have said... you know the rest. Then Picard loads Enterprise to the gills with Borellians and warps toward the best new home he can find. Then Starfleet realizes they were being dickheads and Picard DOESN'T end up doing a 5 to 7 stretch in gorgeous New Zealand.


Yes, when it comes to the prime directive Picard often sounds like an imbecile. What did he say about the society contained in a bubble? "We may have been just as bad as the catastrophe that would have wiped out this entire society" or something to that effect.

"AS BAD"!!! what an ass! I mean even if their society doesn't survive, at least they live, they can go somewhere else, that's a great deal better than being DEAD!!! So how can he say that they are "just as bad"?

That's just insane.

You're right as well, alive certainly beats the alternative. However, I think that Picard was referring to their culture, which was annihilated by the experience. Arguably, though, if the Masterpiece Society's culture was that fragile, maybe it was inevitable that it would crumble.
 
A truly bad decision is the prime directive as it was portrayed in TNG and later. A callous, disgusting, immoral policy that made the main characters look like sociopaths.
The TNG and JJVerse writers were sociopaths to change the PD into a sit back and watch people die policy. I hope they retcon that crap in SNW.
 
While I complete agree, this also seems like a character assassination of our bald Brit, done strictly for the sake of creating conflict.

Well, there is this snippet of dialog at the end of the ep:

CRUSHER: Are you saying you're sorry we saved the Boraalans?
PICARD: No, of course not. Our plan for them worked out well. <....>

So my headcanon is that Picard felt bound by his oath to the PD, but that he was secretly glad that Nicolai forced his hand, doing the thing he wanted to do but felt he could not do.
 
For original (aka TOS-ENT) Trek, I thought that the Warp 5 speed limit was horrendously stupid, and a lazy writing tool. But, since DS9 and VOY completely ignored it (not even mentioning it), at least it only effected the last few seasons of TNG.

If we're talking about Current Trek, then the "anyone can be a Trill host" thing has the "advantage" of being both stupid and continuity breaking with TNG/DS9, but I think its slightly beaten out by

A sad, basically magical, psychic child being able to disable dilithium galaxy wide
 
For original (aka TOS-ENT) Trek, I thought that the Warp 5 speed limit was horrendously stupid, and a lazy writing tool. But, since DS9 and VOY completely ignored it (not even mentioning it), at least it only effected the last few seasons of TNG.

If we're talking about Current Trek, then the "anyone can be a Trill host" thing has the "advantage" of being both stupid and continuity breaking with TNG/DS9, but I think its slightly beaten out by

A sad, basically magical, psychic child being able to disable dilithium galaxy wide
I don't think Warp 5 was the top limit in TOS.
 
Well, in TFF they get to the center of the galaxy in a few hours. That means they could have made the trip from the delta quadrant to home in a couple of days.:D
Explictly stating warp speeds and distances may be their worst decision. I realise they wanted to sell technical manuals and they need those details but even a quick comparison shows TOS reaching the galaxy's rim and centre which would have been half of Voyager's lifelong journey. And then when modern Trek goes back to those earlier anything-goes speeds fans are in uproar.
 
Worst Canon Decision in Star Trek?
When Picard in the TNG pilot episode defended Humanity to Q, with the argument:
'Well, Humans are Perfect now...'

Scott
 
Worst Canon Decision in Star Trek?
When Picard in the TNG pilot episode defended Humanity to Q, with the argument:
'Well, Humans are Perfect now...'

Scott

There is plenty of wrong with Picard. Like when he berates Data for having revived three people from the twentieth century. Although I can understand why. Some of the things Picard says and does, by twentieth-twenty-first century standards make him a monster. On top of it, watch millions of people die and do nothing when he has the means to save them.
 
Explictly stating warp speeds and distances may be their worst decision. I realise they wanted to sell technical manuals and they need those details but even a quick comparison shows TOS reaching the galaxy's rim and centre which would have been half of Voyager's lifelong journey. And then when modern Trek goes back to those earlier anything-goes speeds fans are in uproar.
How dare you change something so arbitrary as fictional speeds and distances!?
 
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