Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

[BIG BILL HELL'S]

I liked Deanna Troi as a character, perhaps just largely because Marina Sirtis had nice tits and looked good in the Starfleet uniform, but they had absolutely no idea what to do with the character.

Honestly, they should have made her the wise Latina bartender instead of fucking Whoopi Goldberg.

I realize that I'm tilting into the wind on this, but I fucking hated Guinan. Whoopi isn't that intelligent in real life, nor can she act well enough to pull it off.

If you really want to see her tits, she did a few movies before getting cast in TNG where she's topless.

I think she even said in an interview that TNG saved her from having to show her tits for the rest of the career. If you ask me, that's Sirtis' only talent anyway.

Mike talks about this in a RLM video, I think A Very Cannon Christmas?

 

[White Devil]

Honestly, they should have made her the wise Latina bartender instead of fucking Whoopi Goldberg.

I realize that I'm tilting into the wind on this, but I fucking hated Guinan. Whoopi isn't that intelligent in real life, nor can she act well enough to pull it off.


Mike talks about this in a RLM video, I think A Very Cannon Christmas?

I don't watch RLM, I actually value my time.

That being said, you're right about the bartender thing. I can see Sirtis being more cut out for that than fucking Sister Act.

 

[Captain Syrup]

I fucking hated Guinan.

Keiko levels of "meh." She is used sparingly, and has some funny moments with Data. ("The Offspring", "Time's Arrow.")

I'm more alarmed by how hard the writers shipped Picard and Guinan. Patrick! Get out of there before she makes you do a minstrel show!

 

[Tasty Tatty]

Troi being useless is just the writers being lazy. They could have written her wanting to be a bridge officer since season 3 or 4 and have Disaster being her first real test. Things she went through, like The Loss, could have given her a motivation to upgrade her skills earlier and be more than an empath.

 

[kaien]

If you really want to see her tits, she did a few movies before getting cast in TNG where she's topless.

I think she even said in an interview that TNG saved her from having to show her tits for the rest of the career. If you ask me, that's Sirtis' only talent anyway.

It's odd, because when she's giving interviews as herself she's pretty witty and funny.

There's a great documentary called Electric Boogaloo about the history of the Cannon Films B-movie factory in the '80s, and Sirtis has a couple good bits in there talking about just how bad it could get working for Michael Winner.

 

[AnOminous]

I think she even said in an interview that TNG saved her from having to show her tits for the rest of the career.

That uniform more or less did put boobies on display.

 

[Calandrino]

Voyager's problem was always it never living up to its potential.

This seems to be a truism but I always took it that VOY was set up to be exactly what it was: an alien-of-the-week show that could ignore DS9's ongoing plot. I can't believe any of the writers sincerely expected the Starfleet-Maquis conflict to be a thing. Incidentally, can we take a moment to laugh at the idea of impoverished settlers who live in a warzone and adamantly refuse to emigrate to a post-scarcity paradise that welcomes them with open arms? They used this idea a lot so I guess it used to be considered insightful social commentary somehow.

 

[Captain Syrup]

They used this idea a lot so I guess it used to be considered insightful social commentary somehow.

It was supposed to be a clumsy allegory for Native Americans.

Then it became a story arc spanning three series, for some reason.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

This seems to be a truism but I always took it that VOY was set up to be exactly what it was: an alien-of-the-week show that could ignore DS9's ongoing plot. I can't believe any of the writers sincerely expected the Starfleet-Maquis conflict to be a thing. Incidentally, can we take a moment to laugh at the idea of impoverished settlers who live in a warzone and adamantly refuse to emigrate to a post-scarcity paradise that welcomes them with open arms? They used this idea a lot so I guess it used to be considered insightful social commentary somehow.

As we see later in For the Uniform, real vegetables are superior to replicated ones. And in general, humans colonize everywhere because Earth is too boring and IMO, is so utterly disconnected from reality that anyone who wants freedom is encouraged to leave.

 

[Captain Syrup]

humans colonize everywhere because Earth is too boring and IMO, is so utterly disconnected from reality that anyone who wants freedom is encouraged to leave.

That might have been an interesting thing to explore. It's hypocritical of the Federation to set limits on where the frontier is.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

That might have been an interesting thing to explore. It's hypocritical of the Federation to set limits on where the frontier is.

The Maquis are less than the sum of their parts. There is some good stuff. Eddington being the obvious one. Torres being wracked with survivor's guilt; that's another. In general, though, people were afraid to critique the Federation. Most of the people involved with TOS were still kicking and outspoken in interviews about how much the newer shows suck.

Maxwell is exactly right; people on Earth simply cannot conceive of problems, much less life-threatening ones. Thus, they make all sorts of agreements that show advancements to peace, but don't actually resolve conflicts on the scene.

This kind of narrative flaw was not in TOS either. Earth did get attacked once because the humpback whales were the only ones who had access to the car fob. Also, given how entire colonies could get wiped out by disease or a giant cone, people on Earth at least heard the news. It's in TNG when the Federation became oblivious.

 

[WhatIsThePunchline]

Troi being useless is just the writers being lazy. They could have written her wanting to be a bridge officer since season 3 or 4 and have Disaster being her first real test. Things she went through, like The Loss, could have given her a motivation to upgrade her skills earlier and be more than an empath.

Troi being useless is mostly from scifidebris pointing out her empathic powers are weak, which is true. But narratively she's plenty useful. Just as a councilor. It's always funny seeing her interact with Picard in private because she always starts to push his buttons. There is a bunch of fun scenes between her and Data. And she helps make Riker a little less pointless.

I think the second reason people think she's superflous is she doesn't really have any good character focused episodes; most Troi episodes are really episodes about her mom. It's a bit like an inverted Worf. Worf has great character focused episodes, but outside of that he just gets his ass handed to him and his suggestions to murder everything denied. Troi got shit for character episodes but outside of that she does a lot to keep shit together.

She is a bit wasted potential, but not by much. I'll take her above not just Wesley or Guinan but also over Crusher any day of the week. Hell arguable she fares better than Riker.

 

[UnKillFill]

Here's a fun game we can all play...

Change one thing about each TNG movie to make them better. I'll start:

Generations- The obvious answer is, "Don't kill Kirk, and specifically don't make him die like a bitch." But I'll even go a step further...
Don't even make this stupid movie in the first place. (That's a cheat, sorry. But I already gave the non cheat answer...)

First Contact- Put Sisko on the Defiant with Worf. As much as I love DS9, Sisko NEVER got any comeuppance against the Borg, who killed his wife, and he really should have. He literally helped design the ship that was supposed to be a Borg-killer. (It was the Defiant of you were curious.) He totally should have been aboard it when it was actually used against them. And the rest of the movie would have been better with him there as well.

Insurrection-Make the Baku the bad guys, because they already were. (And it goes without saying, don't make the TNG crew support them just because Picard wanted to get his geriatric dick wet from some centuries old hippie bitch.) That doesn't even invalidate the central conflict of the movie. The Federation wants the fountain of youth, because they're in the middle of the Dominion war, and could use the medical help... and the Baku are assholes who perched there and they don't want to share. Hell, have the Baku ally with the Dominion. (Because the immortal Founders don't even need a fountain of youth to begin with.)

Nemesis- Swap out Shinzon for Sela. The story would immediately have had that emotional impact that they were looking for with a clone of Picard. We never even found out what happened to Sela.
I'm going to be greedy and take 2. The Remans were also unnecessary, swap them for a purely Romulan faction that supported Sela. This probably still would have still been a bad movie... Nemesis probably needs more than just a change or two to make it ok. but I did my best.

I look forward to seeing everyone else here play this game...

 

[Newman's Lovechild]

Actually, what do you guys think about the TNG movies?

They're all mediocre movies, although I have a soft spot for First Contact. First Contact was the closest to being good

/discussion

I hated the idea of the Borg Queen as soon as I heard about it. It got even worse when she turned out to be some kind of horny spinster. The chilling thing about the Borg was exactly what Q offered up: you can't outfight them, you can't outrun them, you can't negotiate with them. They're one vast, faceless, gestalt being made of zombie cyborgs, driven and calculating, but also emotionless and kind of mindless. Very instinctual, like a swarm of army ants.
Then in one fell swoop they were given a face, that of a moustache-twirling Ayesha ripoff subject to flattery and bamboozlement, and made into her slaves. I don't know about anyone else, but for me it killed the concept and the threat of the Borg.

Needless to say, Voyager didn't improve on her.

The only rival to that level of a sucky, pointless thing appearing out of the blue, was the Remans.

 

[raider of the lost wifi]

Where TOS felt like we were watching old friends, TNG felt like those awkward corporate retreats where everyone is failing to pretend they're having a great time. Most of the bad guys sucked too, from hambone Malcolm McDowell to the plastic surgery guy, to Picard's non-identical clone. The Borg Queen was alright I guess, but in service of a plot that was just a dumber version of BOBW.

Don't forget about the one where they save the whales to prevent that giant whale probe cylinder from fucking up earth's wifi and power systems even aboard the orbiting starships.

 

[kaien]

Don't forget about the one where they save the whales to prevent that giant whale probe cylinder from fucking up earth's wifi and power systems even aboard the orbiting starships.

I've encountered interesting reactions to Voyage Home from hardcore trekkers who hate the fact that it's got so much comedy. A fellow once explained that he was offended to see the Enterprise crew made into "figures of fun."

Star Trek VI might be my low-key favorite of the TOS pictures just because I find the structure interesting. It's like a five-genre mashup that manages to hang together as a coherent picture: space opera, political thriller, prison break, Agatha Christie whodunit, Cold War allegory message movie. It handled the notion of the crew getting old and riding off into the sunset in a way that the TNG pictures never did, or tried to do and did badly. And if Ricardo Montalban hadn't given us the all-time ultimate scenery-chewing villain in Wrath of Khan, I think Christopher Plummer would get a lot more props for a great performance as General Chang.

 

[raider of the lost wifi]

I've encountered interesting reactions to Voyage Home from hardcore trekkers who hate the fact that it's got so much comedy. A fellow once explained that he was offended to see the Enterprise crew made into "figures of fun."

Star Trek VI might be my low-key favorite of the TOS pictures just because I find the structure interesting. It's like a five-genre mashup that manages to hang together as a coherent picture: space opera, political thriller, prison break, Agatha Christie whodunit, Cold War allegory message movie. It handled the notion of the crew getting old and riding off into the sunset in a way that the TNG pictures never did, or tried to do and did badly. And if Ricardo Montalban hadn't given us the all-time ultimate scenery-chewing villain in Wrath of Khan, I think Christopher Plummer would get a lot more props for a great performance as General Chang.

I did not really think that highly of khan. He just wasn't that memorable to me and I cannot understand the cult following around him. Was not a bad villain at all. He came across as a super meth addict with a cult following similar to that one episode of TOS where the enterprise gets hijacked by some dangerhairs and the leader makes some retarded decisions but no one cares and they get them all killed or seriously hurt.

 

[Jesus Goldstein]

Insurrection-Make the Baku the bad guys, because they already were. (And it goes without saying, don't make the TNG crew support them just because Picard wanted to get his geriatric dick wet from some centuries old hippie bitch.) That doesn't even invalidate the central conflict of the movie. The Federation wants the fountain of youth, because they're in the middle of the Dominion war, and could use the medical help... and the Baku are assholes who perched there and they don't want to share. Hell, have the Baku ally with the Dominion. (Because the immortal Founders don't even need a fountain of youth to begin with.)

Michael Piller’s Fade In is an interesting behind the scenes view of the development of Insurrection. He basically started with a couple of ideas and scenes in mind (Picard vs. the Federation, aging and the fountain of youth) and tried to construct a script around them. I don’t think there was ever a good idea to begin with, but it’s interesting to see how the script developed and had to be changed as he played his ideas off of Berman and ran up against budget issues and input from Stewart.

I hated the idea of the Borg Queen as soon as I heard about it. It got even worse when she turned out to be some kind of horny spinster. The chilling thing about the Borg was exactly what Q offered up: you can't outfight them, you can't outrun them, you can't negotiate with them. They're one vast, faceless, gestalt being made of zombie cyborgs, driven and calculating, but also emotionless and kind of mindless. Very instinctual, like a swarm of army ants.
Then in one fell swoop they were given a face, that of a moustache-twirling Ayesha ripoff subject to flattery and bamboozlement, and made into her slaves. I don't know about anyone else, but for me it killed the concept and the threat of the Borg.

I can’t remember where, but I thought I read (maybe in Piller’s book) that the script writers introduced the Borg Queen because they felt they needed a villain that the cast could interact with and trade lines with.

 

[kaien]

I can’t remember where, but I thought I read (maybe in Piller’s book) that the script writers introduced the Borg Queen because they felt they needed a villain that the cast could interact with and trade lines with.

Yeah, that was the problem they solved by Borging Picard in Best of Both Worlds. But you can only pull off that particular stunt once.

 

[Standardized Profile]

I didn't have a problem with the Borg Queen in First Contact. It's the homunculus of their collective consciousness, an emergent property of the group-mind that gives it executive functionality so it isn't a schizophrenic mess all the time. It appeared symbolically in Picard-Locutus's mind as a queen, then physically instantiated itself using that same symbol, but only when the Borg had set up shop on Picard's new ship. The Queen exists because something like it must exist within the Borg psyche, and because the Borg were trying to get their hooks back in Picard.

The Queen became a problem when the writers decided she was an independent actor within and distinct from the Collective. She should never have been in Voyager, except perhaps as a lingering influence in Seven's mind. Instead, she's reduced to an ineffective commander watching events on her TV screen and giving orders to the drones, like any cheap villain. "You think in such three-dimensional terms. How small you've become."