Your Weird Trek Assumptions

[Ceridwen]

This thread was inspired by a completely random memory I had this morning. I first got into Star Trek when I was thirteen years old, in 1998. That year I borrowed the first six Star Trek movies from the library, one after the other, and when my uncle (who was an old school fan) heard I was getting into it he sent me a VHS tape he had put together full of what were, in his mind, the best episodes of the original series.

I knew about The Next Generation and the other spin-offs. It was the '90s, you couldn't not (I had gotten an issue of Disney Adventures Magazine in, I think, '93 that was all about the show). Insurrection wasn't out yet, First Contact was still a big deal (at least to me) as it was being hyped on VHS and DVD in rental stores.

Here's where the weird assumption comes in: Until I finally got around to watching the thing, based solely on the commercials for the home video releases, I thought for sure that First Contact was a remake of the Borg episodes of The Next Generation (which I had not seen yet, I had only read and heard about them). I could not tell you why I thought this, what previous media consumption led me down this thought path, only that, in 1998, I would have been adamant that was the case.

I am pretty sure I saw Insurrection in a movie theater in late '98 or early '99, and I don't remember if I rented First Contact before or after that, but I wasn't walking around with this assumption for too terribly long in the grand scheme of things.

Still... Weird.

Anyway! Did you ever make any weird assumptions like this about Star Trek? Maybe your youthful brain was working overtime, or you just misheard a line that didn't get clarified for you until reading a book or watching with captions on...

 

[Vger23]

There’s a shot in TWOK where the Enterprise launches Spock’s torpedo tube coffin into space. And then, behind it, the sun rises right in line with the torpedo path.

When I was really little, I thought the Enterprise was launching a torpedo to ignite the sun.

 

[Warp Core Breach]

I suppose this one is fairly common, but when I was about 7 or 8 years old and first saw The Menagerie I thought the flashbacks actually came from a series 13 years previously that I had somehow missed. Did not compute. It also took me several viewings to figure out Number One was the same actress who played Nurse Chapel.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I used to imagine all the cast and crew got on with each other very well behind the scenes in all the shows… Yeah, that was wrong.

Props to them all though. TOS, DS9, VOY and all. In the majority of cases the hostility some actors felt towards one another never shows.

 

[Ceridwen]

In the majority of cases the hostility some actors felt towards one another never shows.

I was legitimately surprised, years later, to learn about the working relationship that Kate Mulgrew and Jeri Ryan had. I love their on-screen relationship, never had a clue there was tension behind the scenes.

 

[Warp Core Breach]

I used to imagine all the cast and crew got on with each other very well behind the scenes in all the shows… Yeah, that was wrong.

Props to them all though. TOS, DS9, VOY and all. In the majority of cases the hostility some actors felt towards one another never shows.

Out of everything, the TNG cast is the one that seems most like family to each other. It's pretty interesting to watch them interact on panels and podcasts and such, they've just been friends for nearly 40 years for the most part.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I was legitimately surprised, years later, to learn about the working relationship that Kate Mulgrew and Jeri Ryan had. I love their on-screen relationship, never had a clue there was tension behind the scenes.

I think it’s a strong example of what I mentioned above.

Once you know about it as well it adds another level of tension on a rewatch.

 

[Ceridwen]

There’s a shot in TWOK where the Enterprise launches Spock’s torpedo tube coffin into space. And then, behind it, the sun rises right in line with the torpedo path.

When I was really little, I thought the Enterprise was launching a torpedo to ignite the sun.

It's a fair point of confusion, as a kid or an adult. After all, the sun kinda comes out of nowhere.

You've just spent a whole movie being told about a new kind of torpedo that can do incredible things. I can follow the little kid logic there.

 

[Greg Cox]

Not quite the same thing, but, as a kid back in the sixties, I used to worry about a fly getting into the transporter beam with Captain Kirk.

Because of the Vincent Price movie.

 

[Set Harth]

Now you've got me worried about it.

 

[The Wormhole]

Not really Trek related per se, but back when I was a really young child, I think Star Trek was one of the first live action shows I watched. I was confused about what the term "live action" meant and actually thought it was being broadcast live, even reruns.

To be clear, I'm not saying I believed everything was actually happening like in Galaxy Quest. I did understand it was fiction. I thought it was basically like a play, and the actors got together in a studio to broadcast their performance for the night, and reruns were them putting another performance of an older episode. It genuinely confused me how the TOS actors were able to make themselves look so much younger for their reruns compared to the movies, while I also wondered when first season TNG episodes were running in the weekday syndication how Riker was able to grow his beard back so quickly when the new episode aired on Saturday.

Indeed, I remember I was watching a new TNG episode when it aired with my uncle and I actually asked about Riker regrowing his beard during a commercial break, and he was all "you know this isn't actually happening, right?" I explained that I knew it was fiction but I thought it was like a play. He just sighed and said "there's no way I'll be able to explain this before the show comes back from commercial."

 

[drt]

when I was a kid i was convinced the bridge was on the bottom of the saucer, no idea why, maybe because that’s where the phasers originated? I’m not sure how I figured it out, maybe getting the blueprints in 1975 or maybe the establishing zoom-in shot from “The Menagerie”

my kid self did appreciate that Shenzhou had that it in that location

 

[The Salt Umpire]

Not quite the same thing, but, as a kid back in the sixties, I used to worry about a fly getting into the transporter beam with Captain Kirk.

Because of the Vincent Price movie.

How do transporters rematerialize without The Fly errors? What's in the air into which the person begins to form and what happens to it?

 

[Sketcher]

Child me could not compute that TMP Kirk and TOS Kirk were played by the same actor. It was the toupee.

 

[Shawnster]

The entire saucer was the bridge and the monitor displays above each station were the saucer windows.

Harry Mudd kept his wife in a closet.

 

[F. King Daniel]

There’s a shot in TWOK where the Enterprise launches Spock’s torpedo tube coffin into space. And then, behind it, the sun rises right in line with the torpedo path.

When I was really little, I thought the Enterprise was launching a torpedo to ignite the sun.

When I first watched Star Trek as a child of 6, it was The Next Generation. I remember thinking they were being ultra dramatic by having the ship repeatedly explode in the introduction, not realising it was supposed to be a jump to warp speed

Child me could not compute that TMP Kirk and TOS Kirk were played by the same actor. It was the toupee.

I remember thinking Scotty was recast for the classic movies, and Riker in TNG season 2. Facial hair = recast and trying to hide it. To child me, at least.

 

[FredH]

There’s a shot in TWOK where the Enterprise launches Spock’s torpedo tube coffin into space. And then, behind it, the sun rises right in line with the torpedo path.

When I was really little, I thought the Enterprise was launching a torpedo to ignite the sun.

When I first saw that, I at first thought for a few moments that that was Spock’s torpedo-coffin, exploding in final glory.

 

[FredH]

Out of everything, the TNG cast is the one that seems most like family to each other. It's pretty interesting to watch them interact on panels and podcasts and such, they've just been friends for nearly 40 years for the most part.

Even more so because, for so many years, the TOS cast seemed to publicly pretend to be like that (until they stopped). Whereas with TNG it really does seem to have been genuine.

 

[Ceridwen]

Child me could not compute that TMP Kirk and TOS Kirk were played by the same actor. It was the toupee.

I had a similar problem with Han Solo between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Like, I knew the credits said he was still Harrison Ford, but he looked so different to me.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Not really Trek related per se, but back when I was a really young child, I think Star Trek was one of the first live action shows I watched. I was confused about what the term "live action" meant and actually thought it was being broadcast live, even reruns.

To be clear, I'm not saying I believed everything was actually happening like in Galaxy Quest. I did understand it was fiction. I thought it was basically like a play, and the actors got together in a studio to broadcast their performance for the night, and reruns were them putting another performance of an older episode. It genuinely confused me how the TOS actors were able to make themselves look so much younger for their reruns compared to the movies, while I also wondered when first season TNG episodes were running in the weekday syndication how Riker was able to grow his beard back so quickly when the new episode aired on Saturday.

Indeed, I remember I was watching a new TNG episode when it aired with my uncle and I actually asked about Riker regrowing his beard during a commercial break, and he was all "you know this isn't actually happening, right?" I explained that I knew it was fiction but I thought it was like a play. He just sighed and said "there's no way I'll be able to explain this before the show comes back from commercial."

Just to say, laugh emoji because of the way you told a good tale, not because I think what you said was stupid.

It’s actually very sweet you thought that way. It’s lovely to be young and dumb innocent.