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The General Star Trek Thread of Earl Grey Tea, Baseball, and KHHHAAAANNNN

I really like this design, it could be because 2009 was what got me into star trek to begin with I guess.

Enterprise_2009-1_1756x988_1b8957a4-be68-4f6f-9879-6d2095c2804e.jpg

Anyways watching more Voyager and the holodeck was a mistake, I honestly can't remember any really good holodeck episodes with the exception of "Our Man Bashir,"

Oh and the Delta Quadrant doesn't feel so distant when you've got a bunch of aliens visiting earth all the time.

I'm starting to understand when people say Enterprise did Voyager better than Voyager lol
 
The JJ Enterprise looks great, ya'll are crazy

For real.
Fun fact that a lot of people don't realize: Following the battle with the Vengeance, this Enterprise received a notable refit before the events of Beyond. The connection between the hulls was changed and the engines and struts were replaced, along with other minor upgrades like additional phaser banks.

C28nGLs.jpg


LVsTe7O.jpg


From a side view I like Beyond, but from any other angle I prefer the first version. Beyond's nacelles were too small and close together for my taste. I preferred their 'ample' appearance.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
I think my favorite Enterprise design is TOS thanks to those nacelles. I just love that pulsing orange glow with the rainbow sparkles inside. It's so fun to look at.
If it weren't for the nacelles, the refit Enterprise would be #1. Love the shape and all the hull detail of that one, but the nacelles don't have anything going on toward the front anymore. Dat pearlescent aztec pattern.
I think the Kelvin timeline Enterprise actually takes the #2 spot because it's like a cross between those two designs.

Sentimentally though my #1 would be the E-D. That's the one I grew up watching.



Dude what are you doing right now, come on. Just say you don't like it, there's no need to be absurd.

Eh, it does look like someone just did a mediocre job redrawing the refit Enterprise, and I was pretty talented by age ten...
 

Cheerilee

Member
Dude what are you doing right now, come on. Just say you don't like it, there's no need to be absurd.

I think he meant that the JJ Enterprise redesign reminds him of the kind of million dollar logo redesigns corporations frequently engage in, and that those corporate logo redesigns (not the JJ Enterprise redesign) are usually downgrades that could be drawn better by a 10 year old.

He was pointing out the specific kind of corporate redesign that the JJ redesign feels like, not saying that a 10 year old has better modelling skills than ILM.
 
So tonight I subject myself to Star Trek: Insurrection....I got plenty of beer to get me through the movie.


Also I finally saw the famous episode threshold, yeah I get the hate lol

How do we evolve to some simple amphibian? And also didn't the excelsior have Transwarp back in Search for Spock? Now it's some impossible theory? (much like traveling faster than light...and yet...)

Anyways the episode was good up until that part...
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
So tonight I subject myself to Star Trek: Insurrection....I got plenty of beer to get me through the movie.


Also I finally saw the famous episode threshold, yeah I get the hate lol

How do we evolve to some simple amphibian? And also didn't the excelsior have Transwarp back in Search for Spock? Now it's some impossible theory? (much like traveling faster than light...and yet...)

Anyways the episode was good up until that part...

The "fanon" thing is that the warp scale was refactored in the 24th century so that 10 is the limit, like the speed of light.

In TOS they throw out numbers like warp 15 all the time.
 

Cheerilee

Member
So tonight I subject myself to Star Trek: Insurrection....I got plenty of beer to get me through the movie.


Also I finally saw the famous episode threshold, yeah I get the hate lol

How do we evolve to some simple amphibian? And also didn't the excelsior have Transwarp back in Search for Spock? Now it's some impossible theory? (much like traveling faster than light...and yet...)

Anyways the episode was good up until that part...

Because it's always fun, here's Chuck from SFDebris reviewing Threshold.
http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v832.php
 

Fuchsdh

Member
My favorite observation from that review is that the drive works, and they can navigate with it. They could have gone home right then and just have Doc tell starfleet how to de-amphibian them
Yeah, that's one of those spots where the non-serialized nature leads to weird plot holes.

There's a similar issue with the slipstream drive from "Timeless". The drive is simply too unstable to make the trip all the way back to the Alpha Quadrant, but it still speeds up their progress dramatically. Why they couldn't do shorter bursts of the drive instead of trying to go home in one shot is never explained (instead of throwing out something like "the warp core is cumulatively damaged by slipstream jumps" or something like that.)
 

Effect

Member
So are there any particular stores one should go to in order buy various Trek ships models or general items for display or even to play around with? Haven't looked at any of this in a long time. I remember having toy phasers from both the TOS films and TNG along with a model of the Enterprise E that made sounds when you pressed the buttons. Think they're all in a plastic bin stored away and they were gotten from Toys R Us around the time. Looking for some things of higher quality now though if they're available.
 

Calabi

Member
I've just been watching the Voyager series and have noticed the patterns and stupidity. Captain Janeway being really disappointed in her crew members like their misbehaving little children. The constant getting imprisoned and convicted of crimes they didn't commit. And that Warp 10 episode. The general stupidity throughout the series is kind of annoying me. Like lets do that thing that keeps getting us into trouble and Neelix even calls it out in one of the earlier episodes.
 
Man...Insurrection is so so bad, Worf going through puberty...Data and the Kid, Riker and Troi, Picard and his hormones...Crusher going all action star. The stupid manual control....CGI that got worse and worse as the movie went along.

It's still as terrible as I thought it was 20 years ago.


The "fanon" thing is that the warp scale was refactored in the 24th century so that 10 is the limit, like the speed of light.

In TOS they throw out numbers like warp 15 all the time.

So best left ignored lol

Because it's always fun, here's Chuck from SFDebris reviewing Threshold.
http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v832.php

wow that was great lol and yeah just highlights how horrible that episode was and everything about it.

My favorite observation from that review is that the drive works, and they can navigate with it. They could have gone home right then and just have Doc tell starfleet how to de-amphibian them

Yeah they took the stupidity up to 11 on this one
 

maharg

idspispopd
The "fanon" thing is that the warp scale was refactored in the 24th century so that 10 is the limit, like the speed of light.

In TOS they throw out numbers like warp 15 all the time.

This is actually explained in the TNG tech manual, so it's not exactly fanon even if it's not exactly canon.
 

Meowster

Member
My boyfriend sat me down the other day to watch Star Trek Voyager together (we've watched most of Deep Space Nine and a decent amount of The Next Generation before in the past) only he started it right when Seven joined. I've seen the first few episodes before in the past so I knew the story. Anyways, almost finished with Season 4 and I love the relationship between Janeway and Seven. Really sucks to hear that they didn't get along well personally but that probably is what made their character's arguments so real and impactful.
 

DBT85

Member
My boyfriend sat me down the other day to watch Star Trek Voyager together (we've watched most of Deep Space Nine and a decent amount of The Next Generation before in the past) only he started it right when Seven joined. I've seen the first few episodes before in the past so I knew the story. Anyways, almost finished with Season 4 and I love the relationship between Janeway and Seven. Really sucks to hear that they didn't get along well personally but that probably is what made their character's arguments so real and impactful.

If you watch the first 3 seasons it's easy to see why Mulgrew was pissed. She was proud to be a female captain on a show that wasn't using sexy to get attention, and then they brought Ryan in in a frankly ridiculous (and yet amazing) outfit. She handled it terribly though.

The jump from 1-3 to 4 was quite jarring.
 

Sephzilla

Member
Janeway not accepting Q's offer to go back to the Alpha Quadrant is one of those moments that makes me realize that she's an awful person who puts her own personal morality over common sense and the safety of her crew.
 
Janeway not accepting Q's offer to go back to the Alpha Quadrant is one of those moments that makes me realize that she's an awful person who puts her own personal morality over common sense and the safety of her crew.

Yup, having her stick so closely to her morals and "Federation protocol" is getting annoying. I get why this was important when they first got lost but even Archer started getting his hands dirty when things became dire. I gained respect for him when he ended up stealing those ship parts from those friendly aliens.
 

Sotha_Sil

Member
Yup, having her stick so closely to her morals and "Federation protocol" is getting annoying. I get why this was important when they first got lost but even Archer started getting his hands dirty when things became dire. I gained respect for him when he ended up stealing those ship parts from those friendly aliens.

If you're talking about the episode I think you are, the actor for Gul Damar is the alien captain. I always enjoy seeing ST actors get guest roles.
 

Sephzilla

Member
Yup, having her stick so closely to her morals and "Federation protocol" is getting annoying. I get why this was important when they first got lost but even Archer started getting his hands dirty when things became dire. I gained respect for him when he ended up stealing those ship parts from those friendly aliens.

If you're talking about the episode I think you are, there's an argument to be made that by getting involved Janeway might have actually been breaking the prime directive (which isn't a big deal for Janeway). There's evidence to support the idea that taking Q's offer was in fact the right thing to do.

God, Janeway is such an awful character. She's borderline immersion breaking for me because a character like her realistically should have never made it to the captains chair
 
If you're talking about the episode I think you are, there's an argument to be made that by getting involved Janeway might have actually been breaking the prime directive (which isn't a big deal for Janeway). There's evidence to support the idea that taking Q's offer was in fact the right thing to do.

God, Janeway is such an awful character. She's borderline immersion breaking for me because a character like her realistically should have never made it to the captains chair

Yeah that's the one and the entire time I'm thinking...why is she getting involved? Take his offer and get the fuck home smh (Of course that would mean the end of the show but that speaks to the poor writing)
 

Sephzilla

Member
Yeah that's the one and the entire time I'm thinking...why is she getting involved? Take his offer and get the fuck home smh (Of course that would mean the end of the show but that speaks to the poor writing)

And hindsight is 20/20 but the long term ramifications of Janeway not taking that offer could have left the galaxy off in a worse state. Like, if the Borg survive the events of the Voyager finale, now they jump forward a few decades technologically because of what Future Janeway did. Shit that wouldn't have happened had Janeway done the right thing and got the fuck home right away.
 

Cheerilee

Member
And hindsight is 20/20 but the long term ramifications of Janeway not taking that offer could have left the galaxy off in a worse state. Like, if the Borg survive the events of the Voyager finale, now they jump forward a few decades technologically because of what Future Janeway did. Shit that wouldn't have happened had Janeway done the right thing and got the fuck home right away.

The Borg have time travel technology, and no stupid Temporal Prime Directive preventing them from abusing it. How is the entire universe not Borg already?
 
They really should have kept time travel out of Star Trek as much as possible, no matter how careful you are it opens a ton of problems.

Agreed. I remember seeing First Contact and thinking things like "Why not travel back in time first, then warp to Earth unopposed?" and "Why not just send another ship a week earlier and again and again until one strikes gold?"
 

Sephzilla

Member
My headcanon is that The Borg achieved time travel simply for the purpose of proving they could do it in order to have the knowledge and possibly to prevent it from being used against them. But didn't use it because it didn't actively help their quest for perfection. Alternatively maybe with their collective hive mind they're actually able to calculate the effects of paradoxes and realize that doing something like time traveling back and assimilating 18 century Earth would ultimately prevent the Federation from forming which thus would prevent The Borg from ever learning about Earth in the first place and thus losing the benefits of the knowledge gained from assimilating the Federation.

*head explodes*
 
My headcanon is that The Borg achieved time travel simply for the purpose of proving they could do it in order to have the knowledge and possibly to prevent it from being used against them. But didn't use it because it didn't actively help their quest for perfection. Alternatively maybe with their collective hive mind they're actually able to calculate the effects of paradoxes and realize that doing something like time traveling back and assimilating 18 century Earth would ultimately prevent the Federation from forming which thus would prevent The Borg from ever learning about Earth in the first place and thus losing the benefits of the knowledge gained from assimilating the Federation.

*head explodes*

T I M E P A R A D O X
 

Man God

Non-Canon Member
Janeway's big problem is the same problem with Trek in general, well at least before the very end of Enterprise in that the show was episodic and post TOS produced with syndication in mind (Voyager and Enterprise would air on only one network primarily but still didn't escape this) and thus they didn't pay enough attention to having a proper continuity between the dozens of writers on how a character should act. I mean I don't know if such a job was really possible and the actor's tried their best to keep things going but it makes a lot of them come off as manic.

Also Janeway doesn't do a ton of Prime Directive breaking. Hell if she had she'd have gotten home sooner for the most part.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Janeway's big problem is the same problem with Trek in general, well at least before the very end of Enterprise in that the show was episodic and post TOS produced with syndication in mind (Voyager and Enterprise would air on only one network primarily but still didn't escape this) and thus they didn't pay enough attention to having a proper continuity between the dozens of writers on how a character should act. I mean I don't know if such a job was really possible and the actor's tried their best to keep things going but it makes a lot of them come off as manic.

Also Janeway doesn't do a ton of Prime Directive breaking. Hell if she had she'd have gotten home sooner for the most part.

Yep. I think even if the show was overall better, Voyager would still be the red-headed stepchild of the 90s shows because it's become very archaic to a segment of modern audiences. You could probably come up with 9-13 decent to great episodes of Voyager each season and cut the other half of it and wind up with a much better show, but the systemic problems with its structure would remain.
 
So tonight I finish the TNG movies with Star Trek: Nemesis....can't be as bad as Insurrection.

Next week I might do an all day marathon of 2009, ID and Beyond since it's my first weekend of summer break.
 

teiresias

Member
I'd put Nemesis in the "fine concept, poor execution" category. Nothing could have saved Insurrection.

Nemesis as a concept could have delved into some interesting political territory that it basically just uses for exposition, rather than the whole ridiculous Picard-clone stupidity. I've always said they should have brought in Sela as the antagonist even given the question whether Denise Crosby could have sold it (doubtful, but it's not like the film could get much worse anyway) and done a similar political tale as was done in Undiscovered Country to mirror the close outs of the two franchises, especially given this is the last thing ever made in the TNG era.
 
Nemesis as a concept could have delved into some interesting political territory that it basically just uses for exposition, rather than the whole ridiculous Picard-clone stupidity. I've always said they should have brought in Sela as the antagonist even given the question whether Denise Crosby could have sold it (doubtful, but it's not like the film could get much worse anyway) and done a similar political tale as was done in Undiscovered Country to mirror the close outs of the two franchises, especially given this is the last thing ever made in the TNG era.

I do agree somewhat but two things to consider.

1. This wasn't intended to be the final TNG movie when they went in. The studio sold it as such during the promotional period.

2. Rick Berman was obsessed with trying to ape WoK. Which is why FC/Insurrection/Nemesis were all sold as "TNG's WoK" It was kind of pathetic.

It's really sad too. TNG had the better crew and yet they got the worst of the movies.
 

Cheerilee

Member
I'd put Nemesis in the "fine concept, poor execution" category. Nothing could have saved Insurrection.

IMO, the biggest flaw of the TNG movies was that the executives (and some of the actors) wanted to make Hollywood action movies (like Patrick Stewart literally wanting to play Bruce Willis/John McClane from Die Hard) while they were a group entirely unsuited to executing that kind of a movie.

Michael Piller saw that and tried to steer Insurrection back towards being a really great two-part episode of Next Generation, but he underestimated the strength of the misguided course that the TNG movies were dead set upon.

IMO, Insurrection was the only TNG movie with a chance to rise above mediocrity (although it crashed and burned because fixing the TNG movies was a hopeless endeavor).
 
IMO, the biggest flaw of the TNG movies was that the executives (and some of the actors) wanted to make Hollywood action movies (like Patrick Stewart literally wanting to play Bruce Willis/John McClane from Die Hard) while they were a group entirely unsuited to executing that kind of a movie.

Michael Piller saw that and tried to steer Insurrection back towards being a really great two-part episode of Next Generation, but he underestimated the strength of the misguided course that the TNG movies were dead set upon.

IMO, Insurrection was the only TNG movie with a chance to rise above mediocrity (although it crashed and burned because fixing the TNG movies was a hopeless endeavor).

Yup. Generations could have been better too if they had at least waited a year before filming instead of going in straight after "All Good Things..." Would have given them time to write a better story for it.
 
The Borg have time travel technology, and no stupid Temporal Prime Directive preventing them from abusing it. How is the entire universe not Borg already?

Because the Borg have something even stupider than the Temporal Prime Directive: The We-Only-Assimilate-Species-That-Advance-Us-Technologically Directive.
 
Because the Borg have something even stupider than the Temporal Prime Directive: The We-Only-Assimilate-Species-That-Advance-Us-Technologically Directive.

How is that stupid? That's been there MO since day one. It's one of the things that many of the writers have gotten wrong about the borg since pretty much FC/Voyager. They're not out there to conquer the galaxy in some sort of meglo-maniacal way. If you go back and watch "Q Who" they don't even care about assimilating other creatures, just technology (something that writers retconned out after BoBW sadly). What would assimilating lower species offer them? There's nothing that say assimilating a bronze age species give them unless the planet they were on had some rich source of material. In which case they'd probably just obliterate the species living there (assuming that would even be necessary)
 
I'd put Nemesis in the "fine concept, poor execution" category. Nothing could have saved Insurrection.

I agree with this,

the idea could have worked out if they put more thought into it but by the 3rd act it was just an action movie with terrible action (except for the space fighting which was cool)

Also did Picard just kill anyone in the front decks? Or would it be assumed since everyone was at battle stations that the forward section of the ship would be empty?

The ending with Picard just staying there looking at his dead clone instead of trying to stop the machine....he still had over a minute to try to do something but instead he just stands there....

And Data sacrificing himself had no meaning since you knew they had another "Data" on board.

Oh and the dune buggy...

Overall it was pretty bad, maybe if they had that Betazed wedding it might have improved it lol

They really could have done something better with the Romulans. I feel that they are so underrepresented in Star Trek, especially given how close they are to the Federation and how they are related to Vulcans.

Honestly I think Generations is my favorite TNG movie lol
 

Cheerilee

Member
They really could have done something better with the Romulans. I feel that they are so underrepresented in Star Trek, especially given how close they are to the Federation and how they are related to Vulcans.

Amusingly, Michael Pillar initially wrote the Romulans into Insurrection.

Rick Berman via Michael Piller said:
"It's all too political," he said. "There are politics in Picard's back story. Politics between the Romulans and the Federation. Duffy's motivations are political. Who cares?"

Patrick Stewart via Michael Piller said:
"I think what dismays me most about the story is the dredging up of the Romulans - a race already unexciting in TNG - as the bad guys. It is revisionist and backward looking in a most disappointing way. After the Borg - the Romulans? Oh my."
Pillar was forced to change the Romulans into the Son'a (among many, many other changes he was forced to make, because apparently the writer is the least important part of a Hollywood movie).

And then for the very next movie (after a broken Pillar walked away from the franchise in disgust), someone decided it would be a great idea to go with Romulans in Nemesis.
 

teiresias

Member
Insurrection is just so bad, so so so so so so so soooooooooo bad. The movie even LOOKS bad and cheap, which is amazing since Frakes made First Contact look really good and greater than its budget.

It's amusing, but I remember seeing a video of Frakes and Sirtis at a Con and they brought up/lamented about how the 2009 film had a bigger budget than all of the TNG films combined. It really all came down to marketing too since I don't think anyone in the cast of 2009 had really high hollywood star draw power at the time (and none of them still have any really).

It's just annoying that all of the lore and political history of the TNG is sitting there languishing for yet another prequel series (that I'll never see because who is going to be pay for streaming it? honestly?).
 
Insurrection is just so bad, so so so so so so so soooooooooo bad. The movie even LOOKS bad and cheap, which is amazing since Frakes made First Contact look really good and greater than its budget.

It's amusing, but I remember seeing a video of Frakes and Sirtis at a Con and they brought up/lamented about how the 2009 film had a bigger budget than all of the TNG films combined. It really all came down to marketing too since I don't think anyone in the cast of 2009 had really high hollywood star draw power at the time (and none of them still have any really).

It's just annoying that all of the lore and political history of the TNG is sitting there languishing for yet another prequel trilogy (that I'll never see because who is going to be pay for streaming it? honestly?).

Yeah the last 3rd looks so terrible, like they ran out of money. It's sad they couldn't even muster a single good movie from the TNG era.

Amusingly, Michael Pillar initially wrote the Romulans into Insurrection.




Pillar was forced to change the Romulans into the Son'a (among many, many other changes he was forced to make, because apparently the writer is the least important part of a Hollywood movie).

And then for the very next movie (after a broken Pillar walked away from the franchise in disgust), someone decided it would be a great idea to go with Romulans in Nemesis.


Well that sucks to hear :/ And now Discovery is back to TOS era so forget Romulans showing up.
 
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