Not as fit as her daughter though. Christ, can you imagine Deanna when she's going through that thing where a Betazoid's sex drive quadruples or even more?
>>22945 Well, at least we can agree she felt better in DS9 where she served a purpose and had good chemistry. Much like the poster above you, I actually quite like her though. She feels like a real person, a big kid and hopeless romantic who is the stern silent types worst nightmare (Worf/Odo). I've known plenty of women like that, albeit it is the childless 30-50 something with unicorn shit all over the place.
I still think that it would've been better for Worf and Troi to end up together and for Mr. Woof to suffer an in-law who torments him but is good for his son. Worf in DS9 wasn't my cup of tea if I'm honest, he abandoned his kid and everything. What the fuck.
It's like they composed a list of all the things wrong with STD and decided to keep doing it. Nothing that made Star Trek good is present, you just have more dumb fight scenes and more boring characters. I don't know what I was expecting, probably explains why nobody is talking about it, "Star Trek" Picard is just bad and not even in a novel new way.
So there was a massive explosion on the roof of the Starfleet Museum involving the most famous living Starfleet Captain and the coppers just sent him home and filed a report? Seems a bit laissez-faire, even by utopian society standards. Loved that scene at the end too, where the obviously-lying Romulan bloke came across like a buck-toothed saddo and still pulled. Nothing gets you a girlfriend quicker than guilt tripping her for thinking her sibling's still alive and not taking the obvious hint she's too busy to talk to you; works every time, especially if you look like you might cry at any moment.
I still have faith in it but there were some really contrived dumb shit. The one >>23008 says stands out. It is a problem that could have so easily been avoided with very simple directorial choices, but now we just have to assume everyone in the universe is an idiot and press on like no one noticed it happened.
>>23008 Poor Louise. He cries every time he watches Picard join the poker game in All Good Things... and says watching repeats isn't the same, because "it's like being in the holodeck with the safety protocols on".
Star Trek: Picard left a bad taste in my mouth so I decided to start rewatching Enterprise. I'm certain it would've lasted for more than four seasons if they stuck with a more traditional orchestral opening theme instead of the soft rock they went for.
Fuck me. I mean, it's not amazing but it's infinitely superior.
So presumably if you can timestamp the intro sequence for each episode, and knew what you were doing, you could replace the current intro with this one?
>>23028 >So presumably if you can timestamp the intro sequence for each episode, and knew what you were doing, you could replace the current intro with this one?
You could do it with the Matroska Container's segment linking feature, but I remember it being a lot of work.
>>23026 I always thought this was the best intro Star Trek had. The soundtrack didn't fit but the video captures the essence of Star Trek as a future where everything is going to be okay well, maybe not for us given WWIII and the tyrannical rule of genetically enhanced Mexican supermen.
Visually? Yeah, I love it, especially due to ENT being the earliest instalment and Archer's dad being involved in the development of the warp drive. It's thematically perfect.
>The 79-year-old actor leans in and clasps his hands when recounting his upbringing in the North of England. He stands and paces when a subject such as Brexit or Donald Trump aggravates him
>“The Next Generation” presented a humanist future in which issues like poverty, race and class have long been sorted out, and conflicts are more often resolved through negotiation and problem-solving than at the point of a phaser pistol.
>Stewart had no desire to go there again.
>“I think what we’re trying to say is important,” he says. “The world of ‘Next Generation’ doesn’t exist anymore. It’s different. Nothing is really safe. Nothing is really secure.”
Wonderful. I've always hated the boring idealism and forward-thinking of Star Trek and thought it would be better if it focused around our immediate political problems.
TOS was forward thinking and idealistic. TNG did cover immediate political problems. The futuristic humanist element of Roddenberry's vision was all but abandoned in TNG. Stewart is a fucking idiot not even understanding the show he was in.
I'm sure I'll be challenged but I have no desire to preemptively go through every TNG episode to prove my point, there were rather a lot of them. Instead let's have would be challengers pick out a humanist episode and I'll either explain why they're wrong or present two political episodes. They'll run out of episodes before me.
Really Roddenberry's Grand Idea was mired in misunderstanding from the start. TOS was premised on perfect people being perfect, to the point where the entire Enterprise NCC-1701 crew was by definition multi-racial and multi-gender, huge back in the 60s. No mention of the Enterprise's associated faction, United Federation of Planets was present. Presumably it was forced on Rodders by the studios as a way to ground the show to the viewer, along with removing the woman and the latino. The show was supposed to be perfect people behaving perfectly, it only became a communist utopia because Rodders was forced to think up a convincing backdrop for the actions of the ship.
TOS never strove to bring up current political problems because it didn't need to, Rodders had existential ideas to deal with. God (literally every fucking episode), gods (Who Mourns For Adonais?), our relationship with god (The Squire of Gothos) and gods (Where No Man Has Gone Before), our relationship with those who saw us as gods (too many to fucking count, Miri, A Piece of the Action), our relationship with those who act like our gods and for all intents and purposes have the power of what we would call gods (The Cage, The Menagerie). Rodders really fucking loved exploring god like relationships. More importantly though and more persistently he explored the human aspect itself, emotion vs logic, compassion vs pragmatism, leadership vs anarchy, duty vs hedonism. I'm really understating how much of the human condition is explored by Rodders in TOS. It's not forward thinking humanism, it's WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE AND WHY ARE WE? I remember one episode where the crew goes a bit insane (The Naked Time) where a crew member holds a knife at his comrades and demands to know what humans are doing in space, claiming we weren't designed for it and we have no business being here.
I think the one thing Roddenberry loved more than god was psychology. All of TOS is an exploration of psychology, about a third of it has god themes in there as secondary to the psychology and the remaining two thirds are divided across various interesting subjects. I always recommend The Enemy Within to budding or aspiring Trekkies as the epitome of Roddenberry's fantastic dissection of the human mind in to its component parts as he understood them. TOS is actually a trinity of trinities and I'm going to stop there.
My overall point is Star Trek was never about whatever stupid twats say it was about. It was a psychological exploration of humanity, not a political one. Then P-Stew came along and made it all a thinly veiled analogy on the American wars of aggression or some such bullshit.
I don't mind Trek as focused on immediate political problems, it would be a novel and exciting adventure, contrary to what P-Stew believes. (I haven't seen DSC or ENT but I assume ENT was pew pew and DSC was identity politics which hardly counts.)
You're right about the thematic differences about TOS and TNG, but I personally found TNG far more interesting for exactly that reason.
Thinking about it, the explorations of psychology versus the 'space western' element in TOS never really gelled together for me as a viewer -- but I understand the action element was also kind of forced on Roddenberry.
TNG seemed more of a sincere attempt to imagine a future society, plausible in a (slightly) less abstract way. It's a setting which allows humanity to flourish, something really interesting in and of itself.
I also can't stress how important it is to have that vision broadcast in the mainstream, and how uniquely relevant that could have been for television right now. We've had years of:
- The Walking Dead and various zombie based horrors, which seems to one predicated on fear of the Other and survival at all costs in a hostile environment
- Game of Thrones, which I seems to be some sort of grand Machiavellian story about quasi-medieval politics
- The return of stories like Blade Runner, maybe one of the defining dystopian sci-fi films
- Black Mirror, which admittedly can be thematically mixed, but built its foundations on fucking terrifying and plausible ideas around technology/social developments
- Loads of young adult fiction like Hunger Games
I don't think this is what the previous poster meant, but just to point out the obvious: it's possible to tackle immediate political problems in a utopian way. If this series is going the way I think it's going, it's going to be embarrassing to look back at episodes like TNG's The Drumhead, or DS9's Past Tense and Paradise Lost.
A new Star Trek series could have provided a much needed counterpoint, provided a different perspective on political problems, offered something to aim for, all in the center stage of pop culture. And at a time when television viewers are used to heavily serialised fiction, it could have built up a very sophisticated world.
I haven't watched any of Picard, yet, but I suspect it's a missed opportunity.
That's actually the thing I dislike most about Star Trek's timeline. The idea that we need some massive setback in order to "shock" us
onto the right path seems uncharacteristically cynical. Probably just a bit of lazy writing.
I think Devil's Due is an underrated episode, about the planet that completely changed their society for the better based on a centuries-old agreement with an alien impersonating the devil, until Picard reveals her as a fraud.
I can't find a clip of it, but I love the scene where Picard points out it was their hard work and courage that created the society, not their fear of or imagined debt to "Ardra".
Pedantic note but Picard reveals her as somebody using technology to emulate powers normally attributed to deities like the devils she claimed to be. He didn't expose her as a fraud, he simply proved that she had a knowable method of expressing natural disasters and personal forms. For all we know after the Enterprise sailed off she went full on horned entity of old and collapsed the planet from within for their insolence.
You also seem to overlook the fact that what the inhabitants of the planet believed to be the literal fucking devil showing up was a bit of a shock which prompted them to do all the hard work to improve their planet. If some big red horned bloke turned up on Mount Sinai today and started bellowing at the gathered news media to sort it the fuck out, then suddenly everyone went local vegan and stopped flying abroad on holiday would you attribute that to us making the necessary changes or to the big red horned bloke shit scaring us in to improving ourselves?
Whichever way you look at it that planet rightfully belonged to Ardra, fraud or not. Contracts were signed and the Federation had no galactic police powers in that region of space during the time of the agreement, or even after the Enterprise, an exploration ship, arrived. It's entirely possible that the Federation got their way through the right of might as the Federation often did, but I want to challenge your assertion that the Federation were morally justified in their actions in this case.
I understand the point you're making, but I disagree. For one, I think it's heavily implied in the episode that Ardra had no real power beyond illusion, with the exception of the quakes being somewhat destructive. It's also implied that the planet is advanced enough technologically to defend themselves, and it was mainly a genuine belief in her supernatural ability that stopped them fighting her.
Beyond that I think the whole point of the episode is that the people on the planet realised their success was the result of their own effort, even if it was spurred on by an earlier belief in something false. They were left to their own devices for centuries, effectively with no external influence other than their own beliefs about what happened.
About the planet rightly belonging to Ardra, as I understand it, this Ardra was actually a con-artist and was likely not even the same entity they originally signed the agreement with, she just learned mythologies and exploited these beliefs. Even if that weren't true, it is not a morally defensible position to lay claim to a whole species.
The Federation being a "might is right" organisation is an interesting discussion though. I'm fairly sure the Federation was meant to have been all peaceful agreements and negotiations, unless they've rewritten the history. That's the idea I find most compelling, at least.
The might is right argument is a finicky one, it comes down to whether you have an open mind about morals or not. The Federation in TNG prided itself on making the morally right choices when measured by the 90s zeitgeist, except when it would lead to their annihilation (the blue guy who blew up an entire species for killing his lover). The problem is the future galaxy isn't and shouldn't be measured by that standard. Who are we (the 90s earth people watching) to say the contract was invalid? If it's invalid shouldn't we also be clamouring for the raid and shut down of Risa as essentially a brothel? I'm sure there were other "futuristic" moral things that slipped by because we were all too busy cheering the downfall of what we perceived to be evil, even though we didn't have the right to bring about their downfall. Similarly I'm certain (blue guy) there were morally objectionable factions we didn't bring to our zeitgeist conceived notions of justice because they would have simply blown us out of the sky.
The Q were originally designed to address this disparity between thought, right and behaviour but they got diluted as the series went on. Perhaps it was too intellectual for audiences who just wanted to see Fat Riker condemn bad men with a haughty righteous tone at the time.
Picard episode 2 is so dumb I was put off watching after 15 minutes. It is one thing to have a reveal that there is a double secret tal shiar as a bad twist, that's corny writing, but to have someone blurt it out as the first piece of dialogue of episode 2 makes me think a child wrote the story.
We then proceeded to have someone say "ha that's what we wanted you to think" and use technology that is indistinguishable from magic, and talk about wibbly wobbly timey wimey using words I understand in context that make no sense.
If I wanted that kind of lowest common denominator "the audience doesn't really care anyway" writing I'd watch Sherlock. This is not the saviour we hoped for just another dumb 24 knock off.
>The Federation being a "might is right" organisation is an interesting discussion though. I'm fairly sure the Federation was meant to have been all peaceful agreements and negotiations, unless they've rewritten the history.
DS9 explores the limits of that argument. The Maquis were Federation citizens, but their planets were handed over to the Cardassians as part of a peace treaty. Bajor wasn't *forced* to co-operate with the Federation, but they didn't have a lot of choice either; if Bajor eventually became a Federation member, they would be "freely" choosing to join under threat of Cardassian/Dominion invasion.
So I'm halfway through the second episode and the Lady-Admiral just said "fourteen species threatened to pull out of the Federation", but then heavily implied the Federation is made up of thousands of species, making the fourteen sound completely insignificant.
Writing's just so shite, it's horrible, car crash stuff, no weight.
I had a similar reaction in the crime scene where they kept on having a charter say, "doing x will be impossible" then 2 minutes later saying "I can do a super verion of X" it happens maybe 4 times in a row.
>>23073 Yeah, that too, it was so obvious it was going to play out like that as well. I wrote notes during the first episode, but for the second one the disappointment piled up so fast I didn't bother. It seems like every other scene I was laughing a little at the dogs dinner dialogue or I was able to finish a character's sentence owing to how predictable it all was. Questions: Why was Astrogirl shagging the creepy Romulan man? Why are the Federation pro-genocide now? Did Picard's dog die? Did it commit suicide to get out of this boring TV show? Did the Dominion War happen in this timeline? Hey, yeah, it did! So did everyone forget about the Romulans helping? Or that film where the Lady-Romulan was nice, did Picard not tell anyone? Is everyone acting weird and stupid because those brain worms from TNG series one finally came back? Didn't we already see what happens when Starfleet's pushed to its limits in DS9? Hmm, this mystery box is looking an awful lot like a portable toilet filled to the brim with terrible ideas, lads! I think perhaps we ought to drop it down that well in Russia that went all the way to Hell and let the Devil have it back.
That's just the crap I remember too, despite what this post suggests I'm not even that big of a Trekkie. STP is shaping up to be a bad show by any metric.
Well it was clearly going to be dumb as soon as that fuck off explosion happened and no one seems to have noticed or care. I hoped that was a single contrivance to get the plot moving turns out that was just the vanguard of contrivance.
Picard talks like a child, he is either spelling out what the plot point you are supposed to take away from the most recent incoherent dialogue, or he is asking questions in profoundly naive one dimensional ways. About the only characterisation he has is that he likes earl grey tea, but they've turned it into an obsession.
I think the best thing is just to treat this series as a continuation of the films.
As Martin Scorsese mentioned about the MCU films, they're a bit like theme park rides -- and I have a feeling that the studios working on the current wave of comic book films probably lump Star Trek and Star Wars in with those, in terms of demographics. Anything with any vaguely "nerdy" pop culture credit has and will be mined for cash. All of these films and series are starting to look and sound bizarrely similar.
The more I think about it, the more I realise that actually TNG was the exception. The organisations and economic incentives that make up the film/TV industry simply aren't geared toward making thoughtful, hopeful visions about the future of humanity, particularly ones that get into the mainstream.
DS9 has aged better than any Star Trek franchise IMO. It was way ahead of its time in having a massive ensemble cast and long multi-series plot arcs. If you enjoyed the first season, you're in for a treat - a lot of people complain that it doesn't really get going until the start of season 3, which isn't wholly unfair.
I am definitely one of the people who finds before season 3 there are a few too many lazy B-plots about Quarks latest wacky scheme. There are some great episodes and moments in there still but it definitely feels weaker overall compared to where it is going.
>>23079 It's a good thing DS9 nicked so many of J. Michael Straczynski's ideas for Babylon 5 when he pitched his show to Paramount, otherwise it might've been a pile of wank.
The actors in DS9 really elevate the show. For example, the guy who played Garak got so invested in the character that he started writing a journal from his perspective, which he eventually released as a book. The guy who played Gul Dukat talked about playing him not as a villainous antagonist for Sisko and The Good Guys to foil, but as the hero of his own story. His approach was so effective that it made the writers turn him into a cartoonish villain in season seven because Dukat was so popular.
This guy gets it. Hell, they only made the decision to set the next Trek on a space station when they heard B5 was actually going to air.
B5 was always the better of the two shows. DS9 was a fucking snooze-fest for the first two seasons. You'd watch B5 and they were setting up not one but TWO major wars, and then you'd look at DS9 and it was yet another "Constable, it's all kicking off on the Promenade!"
We were having a fun conversation at work today about what if Corrie went on a mad one, and had a year long plot arc about the bombs dropping and Ken Barlow and the gang surviving in a post nuclear Salford. Then they wrap it all up with an arc about David travelling back in time to prevent it all, thus reverting the show to the status quo as if nothing had ever happened.
Nothing about the idea of star trek is sacred now so they are honestly capable of anything. It is well within the realms of possibility by the end of this season Picard ends up on the run from the police after someone plants a dead hooker in the boot of his car to stop him getting somewhere in time to stop the bomb going off, whilst trying to attend both his wife's birthday and watch the big game with his boss at the same time with hilarious consequences.
