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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 3, 2015 10:41:26 GMT -5
I really need to get back to my DS9 watching...
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Post by dupersuper on Dec 3, 2015 11:32:59 GMT -5
So I've been in a Trek mood as of late and can't decide what I want to watch. I'm thinking I'm in the mood for simplicity and nostalgia -- TOS or TNG. Any suggestions? All five series are on Netflix so you could easily go for any of them. As for what fits the holiday season the best, I would go with TNG personally. Star Trek: Generations would make the perfect Christmas movie.  Merry Xmas: enjoy the death of a childhood hero! |
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Post by dupersuper on Dec 3, 2015 11:34:06 GMT -5
Star Trek: Generations would make the perfect Christmas movie. I choose to believe the Next Gen movies never happened, personally. Otherwise, yes, that would be a good choice. I do vaguely recall a TOS episode where Kirk was concerned about whether or not his crew would get real turkeys cooked for Christmas or something. It was a throwaway line that I last heard YEARS ago, but does anyone know what I'm talking about? That doesn't ring a bell, but I remember Kirk hooking up with some one at a Xmas party in Dagger of the Mind...possibly even named Doctor Noel. |
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Post by dupersuper on Dec 3, 2015 11:44:52 GMT -5
I haven't really watched any Star Trek after TNG. When DS9 first came out, I gave the first few episodes a shot but didn't bother following it. After my TNG re-watch I may go back and try to give the series another try. It doesn't win you over all at once, but by Season 3, it's pretty much the best Trek series ever. I still prefer TNG in some respects, but in others DS9 is clearly superior. Yeah: I consider TOS, TNG and DS9 the best Treks, and Voy., Ent. and TAS...also Trek...technically. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 3, 2015 12:48:13 GMT -5
It doesn't win you over all at once, but by Season 3, it's pretty much the best Trek series ever. I still prefer TNG in some respects, but in others DS9 is clearly superior. Yeah: I consider TOS, TNG and DS9 the best Treks, and Voy., Ent. and TAS...also Trek...technically. I want to like TOS more than I actually do. I think it comes from growing up on TNG. TOS feels "cartoony" by comparison. I struggle to take it seriously. By that same logic, if the new Trek series takes off, kids growing up on that show are going to laugh their butts off at TNG. The show has not aged well at all, just like its predecessor. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 3, 2015 12:49:00 GMT -5
I choose to believe the Next Gen movies never happened, personally. Otherwise, yes, that would be a good choice. I do vaguely recall a TOS episode where Kirk was concerned about whether or not his crew would get real turkeys cooked for Christmas or something. It was a throwaway line that I last heard YEARS ago, but does anyone know what I'm talking about? That doesn't ring a bell, but I remember Kirk hooking up with some one at a Xmas party in Dagger of the Mind...possibly even named Doctor Noel. Yep. I recall that one. |
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Post by Randle-El on Dec 4, 2015 0:15:46 GMT -5
Everyone in Star Trek wears universal translators in their ears. It translates most languages into English and vice versa. In Deep Space Nine there was an episode where Quark's translator broke and it was revealed that he never knew a word of English and no one could understand him and he couldn't understand them until it was fixed. Some languages take longer for the translators to work, and in the case of Darmok the translators were shown to function too literally. Was that ever established to be the case outside of DS9? Because that doesn't quite work to explain things. There were at least a couple of episodes of TNG that dealt with the Prime Directive and pre-warp civilization encounters. Those episodes show Riker going undercover and communicating with the natives without any problems, and I'm pretty sure none of the natives had universal translators. Riker could have been speaking their language, but I find that to be unlikely given that it would have been near impossible for him to gain sufficient fluency to pass as a native without suspicion. And in one of the episodes, Riker gets injured and is taken to a hospital where they determine that he has been surgically altered to pass as a native. If their examination was that thorough, then surely they would have asked about the curious device found embedded in his ear -- especially when they did the same about the phaser he was carrying. Then there's all the Klingon episodes, where they are shown alternating between English and the Klingon language. |
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Post by dupersuper on Dec 9, 2015 19:32:13 GMT -5
Everyone in Star Trek wears universal translators in their ears. It translates most languages into English and vice versa. In Deep Space Nine there was an episode where Quark's translator broke and it was revealed that he never knew a word of English and no one could understand him and he couldn't understand them until it was fixed. Some languages take longer for the translators to work, and in the case of Darmok the translators were shown to function too literally. Was that ever established to be the case outside of DS9? Because that doesn't quite work to explain things. There were at least a couple of episodes of TNG that dealt with the Prime Directive and pre-warp civilization encounters. Those episodes show Riker going undercover and communicating with the natives without any problems, and I'm pretty sure none of the natives had universal translators. Riker could have been speaking their language, but I find that to be unlikely given that it would have been near impossible for him to gain sufficient fluency to pass as a native without suspicion. And in one of the episodes, Riker gets injured and is taken to a hospital where they determine that he has been surgically altered to pass as a native. If their examination was that thorough, then surely they would have asked about the curious device found embedded in his ear -- especially when they did the same about the phaser he was carrying. Then there's all the Klingon episodes, where they are shown alternating between English and the Klingon language. The natives don't: Riker does. Once Quark, Nog and Rom got theirs working again, they could communicate with 1947 humans without injecting them with translators of their own: only 1 person needs to have it. I guess it's really small (nanotech?) and likely designed not to be detected. |
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Post by SJNeal on Dec 11, 2015 14:07:37 GMT -5
How the hell have I missed this thread for over a year?!   Anyway, LOVE me some Trek! I discovered ST shortly after comic books, and both have had a life-long impact on me. I started with TNG early in season 4, and was hooked. I set up the VCR to record reruns that aired at odd hours, and within a couple years had caught up with all the episodes. When DS9 began, I had a hard time getting into it; the first two seasons were a little slow and my 10 yr old self just couldn't get into it. I'd stopped watching altogether by the time season 3 began, but gave it another shot when Worf joined the cast. It's now my favorite series, with TNG riiiight behind it. I still don't understand all the hate VOY gets. My experience with it was similar to that of DS9 - started from the premiere but gradually fell off. I came back toward the end of it's 4th season, after being won over by all the Seven of Nine hype. I quite liked it up until season 7, where it felt like they had completely ran out of ideas and were just coasting until the inevitable return home. Watching it now, it definitely doesn't hold up as well as TNG and DS9 (thanks mostly to weak writing in the later years), and the only aspect I genuinely hate is Neelix *cringe*.  While I was quite aware of TOS from the beginning, I dismissed it as hokey and dated, never making an attempt to watch it until about 10 yrs ago. Unfortunately it's still hokey and dated. I appreciate its cultural significance, but I really agree with those that think it gets undo credit. Roddenberry was just struggling to make ends meet, and didn't become this "visionary" until the fans told him he was years and years later. Most of his visionary ideals manifested in TNG's early seasons. All IMHO, of course.  |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Dec 11, 2015 14:51:18 GMT -5
How the hell have I missed this thread for over a year?! Anyway, LOVE me some Trek! I discovered ST shortly after comic books, and both have had a life-long impact on me. I started with TNG early in season 4, and was hooked. I set up the VCR to record reruns that aired at odd hours, and within a couple years had caught up with all the episodes. When DS9 began, I had a hard time getting into it; the first two seasons were a little slow and my 10 yr old self just couldn't get into it. I'd stopped watching altogether by the time season 3 began, but gave it another shot when Worf joined the cast. It's now my favorite series, with TNG riiiight behind it. I still don't understand all the hate VOY gets. My experience with it was similar to that of DS9 - started from the premiere but gradually fell off. I came back toward the end of it's 4th season, after being won over by all the Seven of Nine hype. I quite liked it up until season 7, where it felt like they had completely ran out of ideas and were just coasting until the inevitable return home. Watching it now, it definitely doesn't hold up as well as TNG and DS9 (thanks mostly to weak writing in the later years), and the only aspect I genuinely hate is Neeliz *cringe*. While I was quite aware of TOS from the beginning, I dismissed it as hokey and dated, never making an attempt to watch it until about 10 yrs ago. Unfortunately it's still hokey and dated. I appreciate its cultural significance, but I really agree with those that think it gets undo credit. Roddenberry was just struggling to make ends meet, and didn't become this "visionary" until the fans told him he was years and years later. Most of his visionary ideals manifested in TNG's early seasons. All IMHO, of course. I respectfully disagree about the original series. Looking at it now, it may seem hokey and dated, but if you'd seen it anywhere near when it first came on, it easily blew away anything sci-fi that was being done on TV. And the plots were dealing with subjects that were not even considered for mainstream TV shows. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, these were shoulders that the later series, as good as they were, all stood on. |
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Post by SJNeal on Dec 11, 2015 15:55:34 GMT -5
How the hell have I missed this thread for over a year?! Anyway, LOVE me some Trek! I discovered ST shortly after comic books, and both have had a life-long impact on me. I started with TNG early in season 4, and was hooked. I set up the VCR to record reruns that aired at odd hours, and within a couple years had caught up with all the episodes. When DS9 began, I had a hard time getting into it; the first two seasons were a little slow and my 10 yr old self just couldn't get into it. I'd stopped watching altogether by the time season 3 began, but gave it another shot when Worf joined the cast. It's now my favorite series, with TNG riiiight behind it. I still don't understand all the hate VOY gets. My experience with it was similar to that of DS9 - started from the premiere but gradually fell off. I came back toward the end of it's 4th season, after being won over by all the Seven of Nine hype. I quite liked it up until season 7, where it felt like they had completely ran out of ideas and were just coasting until the inevitable return home. Watching it now, it definitely doesn't hold up as well as TNG and DS9 (thanks mostly to weak writing in the later years), and the only aspect I genuinely hate is Neeliz *cringe*. While I was quite aware of TOS from the beginning, I dismissed it as hokey and dated, never making an attempt to watch it until about 10 yrs ago. Unfortunately it's still hokey and dated. I appreciate its cultural significance, but I really agree with those that think it gets undo credit. Roddenberry was just struggling to make ends meet, and didn't become this "visionary" until the fans told him he was years and years later. Most of his visionary ideals manifested in TNG's early seasons. All IMHO, of course. I respectfully disagree about the original series. Looking at it now, it may seem hokey and dated, but if you'd seen it anywhere near when it first came on, it easily blew away anything sci-fi that was being done on TV. And the plots were dealing with subjects that were not even considered for mainstream TV shows. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, these were shoulders that the later series, as good as they were, all stood on. I do give TOS it's due simply because, as you said, it's what the franchise was built upon. And I quite like the movies (except The Final Frontier). |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 11, 2015 16:46:51 GMT -5
I still don't understand all the hate VOY gets. My experience with it was similar to that of DS9 - started from the premiere but gradually fell off. I came back toward the end of it's 4th season, after being won over by all the Seven of Nine hype. I quite liked it up until season 7, where it felt like they had completely ran out of ideas and were just coasting until the inevitable return home. Watching it now, it definitely doesn't hold up as well as TNG and DS9 (thanks mostly to weak writing in the later years), and the only aspect I genuinely hate is Neelix *cringe*. While I was quite aware of TOS from the beginning, I dismissed it as hokey and dated, never making an attempt to watch it until about 10 yrs ago. Unfortunately it's still hokey and dated. I appreciate its cultural significance, but I really agree with those that think it gets undo credit. Roddenberry was just struggling to make ends meet, and didn't become this "visionary" until the fans told him he was years and years later. Most of his visionary ideals manifested in TNG's early seasons. All IMHO, of course. I can't presume to speak for everyone who dislikes Voyager, but for my part the problem was neither the cast nor the overall concept: it was the same problem I have with all of Doctor Doom's master plans. In several episodes, Voyager discovers some way to hasten the journey home, some accident occurs that forces the crew to be heroic for a while and delays the return, and on the next episode... everything has been forgotten. The science was also extremely wonky, even for a Star Trek show. The "quick evolution" plot that transformed Janeway and Paris into newts made no sense at all; that's absolutely not how evolution functions. It's impossible to determine what man's future form will be. As for the original series, I still consider most of its episodes superior to the modern ones; the visual effects might have been archaic, but sometimes that worked for the best! I particularly like the way when the Enterprise pursued an enemy ship, you'd often see nothing on the viewscreen, or sometimes you'd just see a tiny light. That's actually far more realistic than the modern Trek's CGI where spaceships are tailing each other like WWII fighters... at the speed they move, these things should be thousands of kilometers from each other! |
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Post by Randle-El on Dec 11, 2015 23:22:38 GMT -5
So here's a question that's been lingering in my mind that I'd like to pose.
Why do we accept "racist" comments and portrayals in Star Trek and other space opera fiction that would be considered offensive in real life?
I've often noticed that characters often make comments about alien species that seem to be highly stereotypical or downright racist, and alien cultures are often portrayed as being simplistic and one-dimensional -- e.g., the greedy Ferengi, the proud warrior Klingons, the purely logical Vulcans, etc. Considering the humanistic and liberal bent of Gene Roddenberry, why is that such characterizations are acceptable and more nuanced portrayals of various alien cultures are not more commonplace? Why do we never hear characters calling one another out whenever a passing comment is made that, in our culture, would be considered offensive?
Granted that these are *fictional* races, so I'm not suggesting that we should *actually* take offense at such comments. But I wonder if such portrayals reveal how much we still project our own very real stereotypes onto fictional beings. What's the difference between saying "Those Asians sure are good at math!" and "Those Zakdorn sure are good at Strategema!"
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Post by SJNeal on Dec 12, 2015 18:43:29 GMT -5
^ ^ ^
I may or may not be following, but I've always thought that the purpose of the clearly stereotypical portrayals of many alien species was to serve as a kind of reflector of our own predjudice...?
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 12, 2015 20:24:13 GMT -5
^ ^ ^ I may or may not be following, but I've always thought that the purpose of the clearly stereotypical portrayals of many alien species was to serve as a kind of reflector of our own predjudice...? In most cases, yes, but I always found it strange how DS9 was dominated by two completely conflicting Jewish stereotypes. The similarities of the Bajorans and Cardassians to Jews and Germans was clearly intended, but the Ferengi seemed more inadvertent. |
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