I was 14 when TNG started, and doing very well in school with very few friends, so you'd think Wesley was tailor made for someone like me, but I saw that he was annoying and unbelievable. If they thought young viewers would relate to him I think, in my opinion ( I feel I have to say that now thanks to the What ever happened to Short Round? thread) that they were wrong.
Yeah it's basically that he shouldn't have been working on the Enterprise, not because he's not capable but because that is not the place for a teenager. He should be with people his own age socialising and studying even if he is a genuis and then enter Starfleet in the normal way and only be on the bridge etc when he's an adult and qualified. To be honest it's not healthy, realistic or natural for him to be there. Also I am a teenager and I find him extremely annoying so if they put him in to try and attract teenagers' attention it's had the opposite effect as I grind my teeth everytime he pops up on the screen.......darn that Wesley Crusher!!! lol
Wesley Crusher is not a real person. In early seasons he was simply not a particular well written and interesting character. Hence, the majority of the viewers were not particularly fond of him.
Because he: a) cancelled his appearance at the Jacksonville, Mississippi, Star Trek convention b) used the supposed memory of his mee-ma to trick me into conceding a card game c) won a bowling game by default WHEATON!!!!!!!!!!
Welsey was annoying because he was a Gary Stu/Mary Sue/whatever. I liked Icheb and Naomi Wildman on Voyager much better. The fact that Wesley was specialspecialspecial and oh! so! smart! was just rammed down our throats ad naseum, so it's no wonder there was such a backlash. I actually feel bad for Wil Wheaton because it's not his fault; it's just the way Wesley was written. They did a much better job with Nog and Jake Sisko in terms of making teenage boys rootable characters. You didn't see Jake saving the day every five minutes or taking a station at Ops as an "acting ensign" or taking the helm of the Defiant. But I have to say, Welsey did provide a moment of unintentional hilarity when Tasha Yar gave him the "drugs are bad" speech back in season 1 (I think it was season 1). I half-expected the two of them to just completely break the fourth wall and turn to the camera: "Remember kids, when it comes to drugs, just say no!"
The idea of this kid at the navigation console of a vessel like this is just laughably stupid. Galaxy Quest made great sport of this. It is just so unrealistic. The First Duty is probably the only Wesley episode that somewhat believable. The kid who saves all the adults all the time might be fine for Disney movies aimed at kids, but it damaged TNG greatly. Star Trek, and Sci-Fi in general, are seen by many in the general public as just being kiddie shows. Wesley's presence on the bridge just reinforces that. If they wanted to put Wesley to good use, perhaps they could have written an episode where he saves all the grown ups (again) from something that Q has set up. Then Q, in his anger, could flash Wesley into space close enough to a sun that he would be burned alive, but then Q would bring him back when he was just at the brink of death and then keep repeating this cycle through all eternity. That would seem like justification for having to put up with this terrible character. On a more serious note, I agree with the previous post that points out how Wesley could have been used to remind Picard of the tragedy of Jack Crusher's death. That would be a much more interesting reason for Picard to mentor the boy instead of the whole Traveller storyline. It could have lead to some moments that would be much more touching and much more believable. The show got better when he left the show. I wonder how much better it would have been if Wheaton had left the series sooner. Maybe the oil monster could have killed him when he killed Yar!
Exactly how many times did he save the ship? Two? Three? Besides, he rarely, if ever, did it single-handedly. The number of the times he saved the ship is always greatly exaggerated. I'd say that the real problem with him was always that his duties on the show were never justified. Really, a teenager on the bridge? (My personal problem with him was that he was a teenager. I actually began to like him once he stopped being a regular character.)
I never hated Wesley, but I think the people who do recognized him as pandering. They saw him as the Mary-Sue he was intended to be.
Well, since it's fiction, they can find innumerable ways out of a predicament. And holy smokes that was a lot of smilies for something like my post!
I already answered this question in the post which you partially quoted, but I'll reiterate my reasons anyway. Wesley should be called upon for his expertise when he's needed, yes. He could sit in on the occasional senior officer meeting if his expertise is needed. But to have a teenager at every meeting and a full-time member of the bridge team? That's a step too far. Of course children are full people with full human rights. This is not about letting go of prejudices; it's about having the best person for the job. Teenagers may have the smarts but they do not have the maturity and life experiences required for senior officer duty. In regards to other races it may well be that someone who is a teenager in human years has the social, emotional and psychological maturity to do what Wesley does. As a human, however, Wesley does not. So I reiterate: it has nothing to do with prejudice. It is about having a child who is not emotionally ready to handle such a high level of responsibility being on the bridge. Because he is a teenager, and lacks social and emotional maturity due to lack of life experiences. See above.
Wesley was about 11 or 12 years old in "Encounter at Farpoint" and yet we were supposed to believe that he knew more than people with educational backgrounds that had lasted longer than he had been alive. I don't care how high his IQ is, there aren't enough waking hours in a day for him to have caught up and surpassed the engineers and scientists onboard Enterprise. I wouldn't have minded so much if he had just been a quick study and a pesky, inquisitive student. But that ain't what we got. We got a smarty pants who too frequently upstaged the adults, leaving us to wonder why he wasn't made chief engineer.
My first point was that you if someone proves that he possesses the “emotional maturity” he should be accepted, even if he is a teenager. The reason he has no place there is that he doesn't have it, not because he is a teenager. I would agree that he might have to go through extra lengths to prove it (because it's extraordinary), but that doesn't mean that the idea about a teenager there should be completely discarded. My second point is that the Klingons and the Ferengi also seem to not possess the “emotional maturity”. The first time I was watching TNG, after seening several Klingons I started to feel worried about Worf might do, especially when someone acted inappropriately (the scene on “First Contact” when Picard refused to let of the ship was the strongest in this regard). I always expecting that he wouldn't be able to restrain himself and kill someone. I accepted Nog more easily but “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River” still comes to mind.
I think he was supposed to be a bit older than that. In reality Will Wheaton was about 15 which I think was about right.