All Things Star Trek — Page 40

SilverWook said:

Tobar said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

As I've already said, a simple thing such as painting an actor's face red and giving him orange contacts would have satisfied me.

 So then....what's the complaint?

 That's they way they all became the Brady Bunch?

 Star Trek:The Brady Generation.

Make it happen Paramount!

TNG had a few good stories but they were rare treats (like good RTD penned episodes of Doctor Who).

On the whole it was soap story strand A, techno babble story strand B the two mix near the end and are rarely if ever referenced again.

The TNG films are pretty much the same but kinkier and with trailer friendly Arnieisms ("Lock and Load").

I've been re-watching Farcape recently and not one episode is dull (it is all kinky but that not a bad thing) and the best episodes knock anything ever done by Star Trek out of the park.

Shaka! When the walls fell.

Bingo when the washbot went ¡BANG!

Warbler said:

DuracellEnergizer said:In the end, though, when you get right down to it, I could have lived with the lame rubber forehead aliens if the writers had at least come up with a better explanation for their existence other than the stupid pseudoscientific "ancient rubber forehead aliens seeded the galaxy with DNA designed to evolve into more rubber forehead aliens" crap.

was it really crap?

To me, yes.

Perhaps it reminds me too much of the Ancient crap from Stargate SG-1, another show I've come to have many issues with, perhaps too many years of buying into creationist mumbo-jumbo has left a bad taste for anything that reeks of pseudoscience in my mouth, or perhaps I just don't like the idea that the ST Universe really is inhabited almost wholey by rubber forehead aliens. Whatever the case may be, I utterly loathe "The Chase" and it's explanation behind humanoid species. 

other than the spats between Spock and Bones what great political,religious, philosophical, etc debates did the main characters in TOS get into?

It's been almost an entire year since I watched TOS, so you'll forgive me if I can't recall any major examples -- if there are any -- at the moment.

Regardless, my main argument isn't even that TOS did focus on such debates. My argument is that TNG -- which ostensibly was supposed to build upon and expand the universe created in TOS -- should have dealt with such issues.

I don't think the just because the main characters don't get into these debates with each other means than you can't have a great show. They did get into these kinds of debates with non-main characters in TNG.

I still would have prefered to have seen some significant ideological diversity amongst the various members of crew.

 

DrCrowTStarwars said:

TNG and TOS were set up to explore SCi-Fi ideas and a lot of that technobabble you complain about has a basis in real science and that was the point of the show a lot of weeks. They would take something that was a theory at the time and expand upon it.

Oh, please. Most of that technobabble is pseudoscientific hogwash with as much basis in real science as Young Earth Creationism. Besides, the people-that-be have gone on record stating that all the technobabble in TNG was added to the script merely to pad the story out so that they could have an episode that ran a full hour.

gosh, you let every little thing bother you.

The technobabble is the greatest issue I have with TNG, and that is because it is so outrageously bad and incredibly overused in virtually every single episode. If there wasn't so much of it, I wouldn't bitch about it.

DS9, I would agree does seem to be more your cup of tea. But the TOS? That doesn't seem to be something for you.

I like the characters, I like the themes, and I admire how the creators were able to create a universe that felt so very large and wonderous despite the numerous technical limitations they had to deal with.

TheBoost said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

DrCrowTStarwars said:

What proof do you have that making aliens that didn't look at all human was a choice for TNG. They had to use the makeup people they had and they didn't have an unlimited budget as you admit.

In the end, though, when you get right down to it, I could have lived with the lame rubber forehead aliens if the writers had at least come up with a better explanation for their existence other than the stupid pseudoscientific "ancient rubber forehead aliens seeded the galaxy with DNA designed to evolve into more rubber forehead aliens" crap.

Why need an explanation at all? It is what it is.

You're absolutely right. The human and rubber forehead aliens didn't need to be explained at all; I could have been happy assuming that there weren't as many of them as TOS and TNG seemed to imply, that there were many more exotic alien species running around the ST Universe that just simply never made an appearance on-screen.

The TNG writers thought otherwise, though, and chose instead to explain something that didn't need an explanation in the worst way possible.

DrCrowTStarwars said:

why does TNG have to explain anything and TOS and DS9 had those same aliens so why do they get a pass.

Because TOS and DS9 had enough good characterization and writing to compensate for those same aliens.

Tobar said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

As I've already said, a simple thing such as painting an actor's face red and giving him orange contacts would have satisfied me.

So then....what's the complaint?

I am capable of recognizing and appreciating these designs. It still doesn't wash the bad taste of seeing the other 99% of the Star Trek aliens as humans with baboon asses for foreheads out of my mouth.

And anyway, when you get right down to it, the human/rubber forehead aliens are only one aspect of TNG I have an issue with. On its own, its only a minor annoyance. When combined with all the other aspects I dislike about TNG -- the unnecessary technobabble, the inconsistant characterization and writing, the pretentious utopianism, etc. -- that's when it becomes incredibly unpalatable to me.

Overall, if you want to know exactly how I feel about TNG, it's this -- the show is 50% good, 50% crap; whichever half -- good or bad -- that overshadows the other varies from episode to episode.

I liked the TNG episode set on the nudist volleyball theme planet.

SilverWook said:

Even bad TNG is better than most other tv shows. How can you not get a good laugh out of the crew de-evolving episode?

Or how about the one with the good Dr. Crusher writhing in orgasmic bliss as a "ghost" enters her body? My personal favorite "bad" episode. ;)

 I know I'm a minority here but I LOVE these 2 episodes :-)

I'm largely indifferent to the devolving episode, myself.

What happened to this thread I don't even.

I know I may be alone in this(In fact I am pretty sure I am)but I like the episode The Magnificent Farangi.  Seeing those guys try to step up and be the heroes for an episode always puts a smile on my face and the bit where they go all Weekend at Bernies is just great if you ask me.

I know this episodes isn't most people's cup of tea but I love it.

I'm a huge TNG fan (nostalgia goggles firmly in place) but the devolving episode has always been one where, once I remember that's the one I'm watching, I skip to the next episode. Same thing with the one where everyone got polywater poisoning and Wesley had to save the day somehow, and the one where they went to the Blaxploitation planet and the guy kidnapped Tasha to be his love slave.

The only thing that bothers me about TOS is the pacing. Everything else, like the 'lame' alien designs and visual effects are an artifact of the era; they were cutting edge effects in the 60's, but haven't aged well. Rather like going back and playing the PSX era Final Fantasies and remembering how my child-brain was blown by the FMV sequences in VII.

Even with inflation, the budget for each TOS episode was less than half of the budget for each TNG episode, and even in the better-funded TNG era the make-up and costume departments could only afford to make less than 10 aliens total to represent an entire species. Hence why the Enterprise so rarely encounters alien vessels as large as itself, why the same species show up so often, and why so many were rubber forehead aliens with uninteresting gray clothes. (Enterprise had an estimated budget of about $4 million per episode--my guess is it was a money laundering front.)

Sadako said:

I'm a huge TNG fan (nostalgia goggles firmly in place) but the devolving episode has always been one where, once I remember that's the one I'm watching, I skip to the next episode. 

I've never grasped how this show doesn't even show a grade school level understanding of evolution/Natural Selection, although to be fair, that's oddly common in sci-fi.

I will say this for those things. The idea that humans evolved into them makes me laugh but other then that they do look pretty amazing. If they had just been some random alien creature of the week i don't think anyone would be laughing at them. My hat goes off to the special effects people who didn't let the fact that it was a bad story stop them from doing something that I think looks pretty impressive on a TV show budget.

I just started watching SF Debris' reviews of Star Trek Voyager this weekend and all I can say is I love his take on Captain Janeway.

"Then we will just sweep out the shuttle and send in the next poor bastard!"

:)