Worst Star Trek Moment of All Time (for me)

[Praetor]

HRHTheKING said:

intrinsical said:
For me, its the introduction of the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact. The movie single-handedly turned the Borg from an alien collective into "The Borg Empire". Nothing much separates the Romulan, Klingon and Borg empires. What's next? Starfleet Captains negotiating/allying with the Borg? Oh wait, those things happened!

That's a good point. I tend to feel the same way. The Borg Queen kinda made sense given their "insect" nature. However, the downfall of the Borg creatively IMO started with "I, Borg" on TNG with the introduction of Hugh. It got worse with "Descent", then VOY just flushed everything down the toilet with overusing the Borg and the addition of Seven Of Porn.

The Borg were best as a faceless relentless enemy. They peaked with BoBW.

Agreed. I think the concept of the Queen is workable, and could have been used to 're-fang' the Borg, and temporarily was in 'First Contact' to some extent, but on 'Voyager' it was mishandled and the Borg were drained of whatever remaining threat they had. I think the Queen should have been characterized more as the embodiment of the collective individuality of the Borg, which is how I always rationalized her having emotions and will, and as the explanation behind her 'I bring order to chaos' line.

 

[Cyke101]

Actually, I have two moments, one that leads to the other: The dune buggy ride in Nemesis. Not only was it severely inconsistent with just the ideology of Trek (among other things), but things started to go downhill from there. THEN, because of the dune buggy ride, they come across... B-4! An idea played out so often not just in Trek, but in all of fiction as well (take your pick: Shakespeare? soap opera? comic book? Farrelly brothers movie?)! YARGH. Complaints about special effects are one thing, but what really grinds my gears are just very sloppy samples of writing here and there, because ultimately, the entire narrative suffers (and boy, did it suffer).

I mean, Final Frontier I could sorta-semi forgive because, when I was six, it was my first exposure to Trek and I've never looked back since. And yes, as time went on, I can be honest with the craptacular way the movie was written, shot, and made, but at least it had heart.

 

[Cyke101]

I agree 100%. It was TMP and the Enterprise in TMP that got me interested in Star Trek and everything I've seen since I've compared back to TMP and nothing comes close.

The one thing I wish other movies did was to just be about exploration, like so much of the TV shows. There's always some sort of conflict going on, which is fine and good but it doesn't have the crew actually boldly going where no man has gone before (except for V, and I've already voiced my complaints about that movie).

The fact that, in TMP, the crew dove into the heart of their then-greatest enemy SIMPLY to know more about an unknown lifeform (besides, y'know, saving the world), really struck me as very appealing and very metaphysical in a 2001: A Space Odyssey kind of way. And while I'm aware that TMP was trying to mimic that movie (and pretty much failed in that regard), it does mean that the long, drawn out shots within the cloud give a great idea of the scale and majesty with which the original crew was working with.

So chalk me up as a fan of TMP as well as far as those 'extraneous' scenes went. There have been better Trek movies after TMP, but TMP did have the biggest scale to work with ever, with possibly the most cinematic feel in the series.

 

[USS Valkyrie]

Aside from the cerebral feel of the movie, and the fact that someone evolves at the end, I didn't really see a connection with TMP and 2001. I think that 2001 may have been an inspiration to a degree, but I also feel that everything great throughout history always has an inspiration behind it. I know that most of you would rank TMP among TFF, but to me it requires an ability to appreciate aesthetics for prolonged periods of time. The movie flowed great to me. Even the Special Extended Version was marvel to behold IMHO. I whole heartedly agree that the constant conflict in the Trek movies tends to get a little redundant and detracts from the cenematic feel. The only movie, however, out of the lot that was a balance of conflict and exploration was First Contact, IMHO.

 

[aridas sofia]

By the time they destroyed the Enterprise, it already had stopped being Star Trek for me. I just discounted what I saw it as well-funded fan fic.

 

[Cyke101]

USS Valkyrie said:
Aside from the cerebral feel of the movie, and the fact that someone evolves at the end, I didn't really see a connection with TMP and 2001.

Isn't THAT the connection?

Kidding, kidding.

 

[siskokid888]

[quote
I was actually practicing enormous self-restraint when I wrote those words, so kindly excuse me if I disregard your objections concerning my lack of deference when analyzing the celluloid excretions of two Hollywood parasites.

TGT

[/QUOTE]

Preach, TGT, Preach brother!

Anyway, other then the entire vulgarity that is ST5, the worst moment is:

"Manual Control!"

W....T....F??????????????????????????????????

 

[Supervisor 194]

Worst moment for me is Data's death in NEM: where there should have been great emotion--Data FINALLY realizes his lifelong ambition to be human--there is instead, nothing.

 

[ClayinCA]

nx1701g said:
Star Trek IV: I'm sorry I just don't like this film. The DVD is still in the shrink wrap.

OK, this is something I just don't understand. I'm not casting aspersions on your character, nx1701g, I'm really just asking a question: if you don't like the movie Star Trek IV, then why oh why did you give Paramount money for it? I used to have this argument all the time with an ex-girlfriend, who hated any Trek books written by Gene DeWeese...yet continued to buy all of them, just because it said Star Trek on the cover. My argument was (and is, I suppose), why would you reward Paramount/Pocket Books by giving them your money for a product you don't like? I mean, I hated Star Trek Insurrection when I saw it in the theatre, so I didn't buy the VHS or the DVD (which is the best thing about having no numbers on the TNG films: there's no odd-looking numerical gap on my shelf!)...

Again, I'm not criticizing you (I don't want to get into even the appearance of a flame war) - I've just heard statements like this before, and I'm really hoping someone can explain it to me.

 

[SiorX]

I put it down to a sort of fannish OCD. I'm the same way myself. I mean, I absolutely hated, f'rinstance, the seventh season of Buffy, but not to own it when I own all the others would just be unthinkable.

It's sort of... gestalt. There are parts you love, so you buy them. There are parts you do not love at all, but because you love the whole in its entirety - because you love, say 'Next Gen' as a gestalt entity - you buy them too (hopefully on vastly reduced sale).

 

[Kegek]

I see ClayinCA's point, though, SiorX. A TNG fan could find redeeming virtue even in a lackluster season - say, buying S2 for 'The Measure of a Man' and 'Q Who?', or S7 for 'All Good Things'.

What if it was being released individually, episode by episode? Would you shell out the hard earned lucre for 'Shades of Grey'?

These days, I buy a lot of stuff, but I'm fairly neurotically picky about it. It's possibly why I never buy TV shows anymore, even ones I really like.

 

[SiorX]

Oh I see ClayinCA's point too. It's an utterly unredeemable impulse sometimes.

If they were selling episode by episode? Well, it would depend on the price. If they were charging too much per episode, I wouldn't buy the set to begin with, unless it was a show where I was only interested in owning a handful of seperate episodes, which is a different sort of fangirling.

But if they were selling Next Gen for, say, a quid an episode, and I'd decided to buy my way through season one and two already, then yeah I probably would pick up SoG for the sake of having the complete set.

I know it feeds into the worst stereotypes of fans as mindless consumers, and it's not to say that I'd buy a thing just because it's got 'Trek' written on it, but when it comes to 'canon' then provided I felt the price was reasonable and not extortionate, I'd probably privilege completion over dislike for a given episode.

Oh dear. It still doesn't sound any better when I spend paragraphs attempting to rationalise it, does it? I guess it's a good thing I'm pretty.

 

[FalTorPan]

Manticore said:
I think that a joystick makes sense, especially for all of the maneuvers that we see Starfleet ships managing to pull off.

I like the idea of a user interface for maneuvers that consists of more than a backlit, touch-sensitive data display. On the other hand, it is not possible to fully control all the movements of a space vehicle with only a single joystick.

 

[greenmystik]

Have you seen all the buttons and gizmos on joysticks these days??? I think it's semi-plausible, still a bit of bad writing though.

 

[HRHTheKING]

When the "whale probe" visited Earth, I can understand it wanted to communicate with the humpbacks, but was it really necessary to cripple Federation starships and a spacedock and to cause atmospheric disaster on the planet?

 

[Peach Wookiee]

If you've read the novelization, apparently the probe got really, really mad because the humpbacks were gone. It wanted to purge the planet...

 

[Cyke101]

Holly Wookiee said:
If you've read the novelization, apparently the probe got really, really mad because the humpbacks were gone. It wanted to purge the planet...

I haven't read the novelization, so I just took it to mean that the probe was operating on a level it was used to, and didn't know that it was being so destructive and draining. Like, if we humans used a bullhorn to communicate and there was a poor ant nearby, we probably wouldn't think twice about the harm we would be causing it.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

^Very true... There is apparently a translation of the whale song TPTB thought of using, too, and the probe asked, "Where were you guys?"

 

[siskokid888]

greenmystik said:
Have you seen all the buttons and gizmos on joysticks these days??? I think it's semi-plausible, still a bit of bad writing though.

While it's true about the joysticks, to me the silliest part is what could he do with the joystick that couldn't be done by pushing buttons on the console? It just, to me, is completly ridiculous.

 

[RyanKCR]

siskokid888 said:

greenmystik said:
Have you seen all the buttons and gizmos on joysticks these days??? I think it's semi-plausible, still a bit of bad writing though.

While it's true about the joysticks, to me the silliest part is what could he do with the joystick that couldn't be done by pushing buttons on the console? It just, to me, is completly ridiculous.

I think I know why it was done. A joystick just feels right instead of just hitting buttons on a keypad. To see what I mean get a copy (if available anywhere) of Disney's miniseries Earth Star Voyager. They have to, at one point, navigate a junk field of moving debris and there is no joystick or similar just a keyboard and it feels all wrong. How do you quickly change direction by punching vectors on a keyboard?

Now suck a big post and small joystick was ridiculous. Should have just popped up from the console.