You're most unpopular Trek opinions

[ktanner3]

Don't be shy. We all have them. Folks on the Trek 11 board already know of one I have. Here's mine:

1.) Gene Rodenberry got too much credit for the success of Star Trek. Gene Coon,John D Black and many of the other writers came up with many of the concepts that became popular. He was the reason the first movie was so bland and boring and fought tooth and nail to change the other superior movies.

2.) Rick Berman's flaw of "playing it safe" is a direct condition of his time working with Gene Rodenberry.

3.)Without William Shatner, the rest of the cast would have gotten more screen time and a better chance to shine the way the ensembles in the other series did. He is the worst actor ever to grace the Trek universe.

4.) The Next Generation has not aged well compared with the original show and DS9. It's characters are so P.C and snobbish that they're very hard to like those first few seasons.

5.) The first cast in "The Cage" did a fine job and it would have worked had they been given a chance to develope their characters. The TNG crew didn't exactly look strong in their pilot episode either. Troi and her whole "Pain" shtick would have been the first to go had the same standards applied in the 1980s.

 

[RyanKCR]

ST:TMP is the best movie of all 10. Nemesis was great and corrected a lot of the flaws there were in TNG. TNG was the most bland of all the seriers and only started to improve in the last couple seasons.

 

[benny]

Insurrection is not that bad of a movie. It has some gorgeous location shooting, a pretty good score and one nearly tear-inducing moment (Geordi on the hill watching the sun with Picard).

7 of 9 did more to hurt Voyager than help it. Stories which could have focused on other, less developed characters were given to her.

Ben Sisko is the best captain in any Trek series. Period. He dealt with being a god, preparing an entire planet for Federation admittance, an inter-quadrant war, keeping peace between Klingons/Romulans/Bajorans/Cardassians AND managed to raise a son.

 

[Mysterion]

1) Spock should have stayed dead after TWoK.

2) Saavik should have been the betrayer instead of Valeris in TUC.

3) DSN is the only spin-off series to truly capture the essence and spirit of TOS.

4) Patrick Stewart's acting is over-rated.

5) Avery Brook's acting is under-rated.

6) Most episodes of TNG, VOY and ENT are pretty-much interchangable from series to series despite the fact that VOY and ENT had potentially great premises that could have led to much more unique story-telling.

7) Starfleet is a military organization. A badly run military organization, but military nonetheless.

Jellico was right.

9) Riker is a putz who should have never gotten command of USS Titan after having previously turned down at least three other opportunities for command.

 

[John Picard]

Mysterion said:
1) Spock should have stayed dead after TWoK.

2) Saavik should have been the betrayer instead of Valeris in TUC.

3) DSN is the only spin-off series to truly capture the essence and spirit of TOS.

4) Patrick Stewart's acting is over-rated.

5) Avery Brook's acting is under-rated.

6) Most episodes of TNG, VOY and ENT are pretty-much interchangable from series to series despite the fact that VOY and ENT had potentially great premises that could have led to much more unique story-telling.

7) Starfleet is a military organization. A badly run military organization, but military nonetheless.

Jellico was right.

9) Riker is a putz who should have never gotten command of USS Titan after having previously turned down at least three other opportunities for command.

I heartily agree with your statements that are in boldface.

 

[TedShatner10]

- Deep Space Nine is a decent series, but is put on a pedastal that is set too high by a pro-DS9 clique in Trek BBS.

- Brannon Braga is a better writer than Jeri Taylor.

- Not every odd number Star Trek movie is neccessarily awful. Case in point: The Search for Spock.

- The first season of Enterprise was decent.

- The Next Generation at it's best is better than most of DS9 at it's best.

- The Original Series has aged very well.

- Seven of Nine and the EMH being the primary focus of the later stories was the direct result of how bland most of the other VOY characters were in the earlier seasons.

- Voyager and Enterprise received higher worldwide viewing figures than most other contemporary sci-fi/fantasy series.

- Avery Brooks is a mediocre, stagy actor.

- Brent Spiner put in consistently decent performances in the otherwise mediocre TNG movies.

- Seven and T'Pol's costumes were not especially risqué or "sickening" (except to the most genuinely sexist prude).

- The Original Series is better than TNG and other spin-offs.

- William Shatner is a decent actor.

 

[Apogeal Alpha01]

Boooo-ny said:
Insurrection is not that bad of a movie. It has some gorgeous location shooting, a pretty good score and one nearly tear-inducing moment (Geordi on the hill watching the sun with Picard).

7 of 9 did more to hurt Voyager than help it. Stories which could have focused on other, less developed characters were given to her.

Ben Sisko is the best captain in any Trek series. Period. He dealt with being a god, preparing an entire planet for Federation admittance, an inter-quadrant war, keeping peace between Klingons/Romulans/Bajorans/Cardassians AND managed to raise a son.

I don't have any unpopular opinions, or I just don't know what they are. But if these opinions are unpopular, I share them.


One just popped into my head! Star Trek Nemesis was a great movie. Seeing Riker go Rambo was cool, CGI was very cool, and it was the end of the Enterprise, the beginning of a lasting friendship between the Federation and the Romulans. Someday we'll see emerge the newborn Data into adulthood.

Enterprise was a better than decent show for most of it's run. Putting aside the "canon" fodder, most of the arguments for what the show should have been are sour grapes.

 

[Mysterion]

Thought of another one:

10) ENT would have been a better series without the totally unneccessary "temporal cold-war" nonsense.

 

[TedShatner10]

Boooo-ny said:
7 of 9 did more to hurt Voyager than help it. Stories which could have focused on other, less developed characters were given to her.

The writers had three whole seasons to develope the original characters and they mostly failed, blaming Seven for Voyager's poor character development is like blaming the plumber for the toilet backing up, although she was a victim of her own success like the EMH was (ie familiarity breeds contempt).

 

[benny]

TedShatner10 said:
The writers had three whole seasons to develope the original characters and they mostly failed, blaming Seven for Voyager's poor character development is like blaming the plumber for the toilet backing up, although she was a victim of her own success like the EMH was (ie familiarity breeds contempt).

The writers had 2 1/2 seasons, not three, if we're being technical. The first was a short season. I will blame 7 for hogging a lot of post Season 4 storylines and being thrust into gratuitous, horrible ideas (the Doctor inside Seven, Seven/Chakotay, etc.). Not the characters fault or Jeri Ryan's. It was the writers who had no concept of what they were doing.

 

[Smiley]

"Endgame" is VOY's best episode.

"Year of Hell" is decent, but it pushes the reset button at the end, so I feel that my time is mostly wasted every time I watch it.

 

[TeutonicNights]

"Let he who is without sin" was a good, enjoyable episode

 

[Kail]

ktanner3 said:
Don't be shy. We all have them. Folks on the Trek 11 board already know of one I have. Here's mine:

1.) Gene Rodenberry got too much credit for the success of Star Trek. Gene Coon,John D Black and many of the other writers came up with many of the concepts that became popular. He was the reason the first movie was so bland and boring and fought tooth and nail to change the other superior movies.

2.) Rick Berman's flaw of "playing it safe" is a direct condition of his time working with Gene Rodenberry.

3.)Without William Shatner, the rest of the cast would have gotten more screen time and a better chance to shine the way the ensembles in the other series did. He is the worst actor ever to grace the Trek universe.

4.) The Next Generation has not aged well compared with the original show and DS9. It's characters are so P.C and snobbish that they're very hard to like those first few seasons.

5.) The first cast in "The Cage" did a fine job and it would have worked had they been given a chance to develope their characters. The TNG crew didn't exactly look strong in their pilot episode either. Troi and her whole "Pain" shtick would have been the first to go had the same standards applied in the 1980s.

I don't know how unpopular these opinions are, I agree with most of them.

My most unpopular Trek opinion is that the Federation started the Dominion war. They should have stayed on their side of the wormhole.

 

[Michael]

Re: Your most unpopular Trek opinions

1. ENT's first and second season aren't that bad.
2. The third season of ENT is its best -- not the fourth.
3. The DS9 Dominion War arc wasn't that elaborate (don't get me wrong; I *LOVE* DS9! It's my favourite series, but the arc wasn't as thought-out as some want to make it.)
4. There are things to like in ST V.
5. In fact there are things to like in almost every Trek film or episode.
6. To do a prequel (or whatever they call it now) as the next Trek movie is cowardly. Good Trek should be about going forward not backwards.
7. You can't blame B&B for everything that went wrong with Star Trek.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Re: Your most unpopular Trek opinions

I have an opinion which is truly unpopular, and will probably get me stoned.

Modern Trek Lit isn't very good (and I'm being as polite as I can be) It's 10 parts soap opera to 0 parts sci-fi, bloated, excessively interconnected, every other book depends on all the others, seems required by law to tie in to every single incarnation of Star Trek, and none of it is a patch on the books that were being published twenty years ago.

 

[tomalak301]

-Rick Berman was a great Executive Producer who brought some great years to the Trek universe

-Like it or not, Berman was involved with DS9. Yeah he handed the reigns over the Ira Behr to work on Voyager but he was still somewhat involved

-The Wrath of Kahn, while a great movie, wasn't my favorite of the 10 and is overrated

-DS9 is overrated and the whole "Bastard Child" "Nobody likes us and we get ignored all the time" mentality is annoying and not true anymore. Oh, and it still is my second favorite series.

-Voyager wasn't that bad (Hey, this is probably the most unpopular opinion there is).

 

[Smiley]

Re: Your most unpopular Trek opinions

^If you stopped that sentence with "Modern Trek Lit isn't very good," then you would have expressed only an opinion. The rest is factually wrong, and I remember the thread in the Trek Lit forum where each one of those points was refuted.

 

[Kegek]

Re: Your most unpopular Trek opinions

1. "This Side of Paradise" is the best episode of the original Star Trek.

2. Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are of more or less equal quality.

3. "Counterpoint" is the best episode of Star Trek: Voyager.

4. "These Are The Voyages" was mediocre but a little touching, not terrible.

5. "The Alternative Factor" is a good episode. Yes, I think the persistent confusion of the Lazari, and the bizarre, high-concept pseudo-metaphysical war of doppelgangers is a lot of fun.

6. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the best of the ST films. Star Trek: Insurrection is the best rounded TNG film - though this is damning with faint praise.

7. Picard is better than Kirk.

8. Ezri is better than Jadzia.

9. Phlox was the most interesting character on Enterprise, not Tucker. T'Pol was a shallow, sexed-up version of Seven (and it's not like Seven was either cerebral or coy) and her relationship to Tucker was uninteresting.

10. "Virtuoso" had a genius premise. Voyager needed more opera generally.

11. Of all the romantic pairings of regulars in Star Trek, Quark/Dax (either Dax) was the best.

12. The Search for Spock is a better movie than The Voyage Home. The latter was the first film that, well, wasn't good is puting it lightly.

I am going to be shot, drawn, and quartered now, but it's been fun knowing you.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Re: Your most unpopular Trek opinions

^
Told you about the stoning...

It's all my opinion dude. And I'll keep on believing it as long as modern Trek Lit stays the way it is. Of course those *facts* will be refuted in the Trek Lit forum. It's a forum inhabited by the authors and the fans who read their work. Of course they will see the best in what they enjoy.

It won't stop me from opining otherwise. As the thread titles says. unpopular Trek opinions.

 

[Smiley]

Re: Your most unpopular Trek opinions

I'll just touch on a couple points here.

1. "Every other book depends on all the others." You can read any Trek book or story and get a complete reading experience (barring stories that actually say Book 2 of 3 or something on the cover). All of the necessary information is given within the book itself. Consider a book like The Entropy Effect. Nobody had heard of the lady from Sulu's past until that book, yet we were filled in on the relevant details. It's no different when newer Trek books reference previous books. Those past events have simply been chronicled in other books, which means that there is a sense of history and continuity that regular readers can appreciate.

2. "Seems required by law to tie in to every single incarnation of Star Trek." The authors are required by company policy not to contradict what has been shown on screen, and they choose to make use of existing elements when it makes sense. Why create a new species or character when another series has already created what is needed?