Star Trek random thoughts

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finarvyn said:
I saw the crossover episode last night with my wife, and then we decided to try out episode #1 of Lower Decks. It was okay but I'm not sure if I'm really into comedy Trek. We can't decide if we want to continue with Lower Decks or not, so I'm not sure what to advise you. Strange New Worlds is fantastic IMO, however, so I definitely suggest watching that! :grin:
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The problem with Lower Decks for me, was the amount of violence as comedy. The fact that Mariner drunkenly assaulted Boimler and no one questions it. Being drunk on duty ALONE would get a reprimanded in Star Fleet, which is a lot less punitive than real world Navy. But even they wouldn't accept the injuring of a fellow officer with a lethal weapon, and that's not comedy!

Don't get me wrong, Star Trek has had a LOT of humour and fun in it! "Sir, I must protest! I am NOT a merry man!"

Or from A Piece of The Action (1968)

Spock [balking at the prospect of another ride in a car with Kirk at the wheel]: Captain, must we?

Capt. Kirk: It's faster than walking.

Spock: But not as safe.

Capt. Kirk: Are you afraid of cars?

Spock: Not at all, Captain. It's your DRIVING that alarms me.

See? Trek ALWAYS had comedy! And it doesn't need to make fun of itself to do it.
 
Agemegos said:
Vulcans are interfertile with humans and Romulans.
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Vulcans and Romulans are supposed to be the same species, aren't they? Despite Roms having a bit of a head ridge and Vulcans not, but whatever.
finarvyn said:
I wouldn't put too much stock in any information gleaned from the Blish books. Even though they were done in the 1970's, it would appear that often Blish was working from an early draft or something like that, because often his stories were nothing like the actual episodes.
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I am sure this is fair warning if you are bothered about canon, but I'm not really.

I like the idea of Klingons as transplanted humans, looking like the guys from the music vid up-thread!

I would take it further and make all the forehead-ridge "aliens" just transplanted humans. Including the Vulcans (and therefore Romulans). So getting away from the nonsense of having a billions-years-old Galaxy suddenly throwing up hundreds of physically almost identical species (more similar to each other than, say, dogs), at a tech level within a few centuries of each other. (Not sure if there is an official in-universe explanation for this.)

Proper aliens stay in: e.g. the Tholians and whoever the whale-probe guys were. And are all the weirder.

Do that with 80s movies-era chrome, and we are looking at a reboot I could really get behind...
 
finarvyn said:
I saw the crossover episode last night with my wife, and then we decided to try out episode #1 of Lower Decks. It was okay but I'm not sure if I'm really into comedy Trek. We can't decide if we want to continue with Lower Decks or not, so I'm not sure what to advise you. Strange New Worlds is fantastic IMO, however, so I definitely suggest watching that! :grin:
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Rebuttal, Star Trek IV is one of the finest Star Trek films.
 
I haven't watched Lower Decks, so I can't comment on it. I'll just say that good comedy in Trek is usually character-based. The exchange between Kirk and Spock that C Chris Brady quoted is funny, but it is also a completely believable exchange between those characters. Star Trek IV is similar because the comedy comes from the crew of the Enterprise simply being themselves in '80s San Francisco. Comedy is a natural part of interpersonal interaction, and it would be weird if Star Trek didn't have any comedy. Done properly, comedy pulls you deeper into the story and its characters rather than pulling you out.

It's only a problem when writers come up with a joke first then bend the characters to fit the joke.
 
Baulderstone said:
I haven't watched Lower Decks, so I can't comment on it. I'll just say that good comedy in Trek is usually character-based. The exchange between Kirk and Spock that C Chris Brady quoted is funny, but it is also a completely believable exchange between those characters. Star Trek IV is similar because the comedy comes from the crew of the Enterprise simply being themselves in '80s San Francisco. Comedy is a natural part of interpersonal interaction, and it would be weird if Star Trek didn't have any comedy. Done properly, comedy pulls you deeper into the story and its characters rather than pulling you out.

It's only a problem when writers come up with a joke first then bend the characters to fit the joke.
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EXACTLY! That to me is the best form of humour to be used in a science fiction or fantasy setting.
 
Voros said:
I haven't been watching The Lower Decks cartoon although I heard good things but the recent crossover episode with Strange New Worlds was fun and clever, I guess I should dip in and check it out?
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I really like it, but I can see how it might not be to everyone's tastes. It's a fan's love letter to Star Trek, with all sorts of easter eggs and in-jokes - but not so many that my kids, who don't really know Star Trek had any problem following it.
 
Cessna said:
I really like it, but I can see how it might not be to everyone's tastes. It's a fan's love letter to Star Trek, with all sorts of easter eggs and in-jokes - but not so many that my kids, who don't really know Star Trek had any problem following it.
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I don't think mocking Trek and it's tropes is a 'love letter'. I just think it's malicious and disingenuous.

However, you're free to enjoy it, I have no right to tell anyone how to think, so please don't think that I am. It's not my intention.
 
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home always felt a bit weak to me. I enjoyed it. I got it on VHS as soon as I could and watched it into the ground. But I was disappointed when I first saw it in theaters back in 86, and I legit enjoy Star Trek V: The Final Frontier more.

Then again, I love The Motion Picture.

As for Lower Decks... It's OK. It's not my thing, but I'll watch it occasionally. As I type this, I haven't watched the SNW crossover. I like SNW a lot, though. It has been mostly interesting the new directions they've been spinning things.
 
Both Trek-IV and A Piece of the Action are excellent examples of how Star Trek uses humor in its episodes. I have zero problem with that. Lower Levels, however is designed to be "comedy Star Trek" (very different from the animated series from the 1970's) and from my partial viewing appears to be all slapstick and potty-humor variety comedy. I'm not sure if I'm ready for that.
 
finarvyn said:
Both Trek-IV and A Piece of the Action are excellent examples of how Star Trek uses humor in its episodes. I have zero problem with that. Lower Levels, however is designed to be "comedy Star Trek" (very different from the animated series from the 1970's) and from my partial viewing appears to be all slapstick and potty-humor variety comedy. I'm not sure if I'm ready for that.
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You are right about Lower Decks, that is exactly all it is about. Or so the first season was to me.
 
Chris Brady said:
I don't think mocking Trek and it's tropes is a 'love letter'. I just think it's malicious and disingenuous.

However, you're free to enjoy it, I have no right to tell anyone how to think, so please don't think that I am. It's not my intention.
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I don't think it's malicious; at least, it doesn't read like that at all.

It points out the silly unintended consequences of Star Trek and jokes about them.
 
Cessna said:
I don't think it's malicious; at least, it doesn't read like that at all.

It points out the silly unintended consequences of Star Trek and jokes about them.
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All I remember that the 'Second Contact' thing they tried to pull in the first episode completely did not understand what that would entail.

A first contact is the meeting and potential conflicts that might arise.

The second would be an INCREDIBLY LONG process of boring for television of negotiations and trade agreements. Of 'boardroom' meetings. Not some idiotic smuggling stunt that misunderstood the soul of what Star Trek was about.

It was at that moment I realized that the Rick and Morty guy had never watched Star Trek and/or bothered to understand it. I watched the rest hoping against hope.

In MY opinion.
 
Yeah, we need to treat Star Trek with the serious gravitas it has always had.

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Gabriel said:
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home always felt a bit weak to me. I enjoyed it. I got it on VHS as soon as I could and watched it into the ground. But I was disappointed when I first saw it in theaters back in 86, and I legit enjoy Star Trek V: The Final Frontier more.
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You're fired...

Gabriel said:
Then again, I love The Motion Picture.
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... Out of a cannon.
 
Chris Brady said:
Yes, because a single episode defines the entire series...
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Just off the top of my head:

Mudd's Women
Trouble With Tribbles
The Way to Eden
Shore Leave
Q-Pid
A Fistful of Datas
Bride of Chaotica
Profit and Lace
Little Green Men

I can list funny and/or cringeworthy Star Trek episodes (or parts of episodes) all day long. The fact is that it's always been uneven in tone; sometimes it's serious, sometimes it's played for camp or laughs, and sometimes it's just "WTF?"

It's hard to go back and look at the old episodes objectively, as we've seen them so many times. But the fact is that there's always been weird, funny stuff in there. Lower Decks takes this and runs with it, and I don't have a problem with that.
 
James Gillen said:
Well, Disco has plenty of violence but not much comedy. In fact that might help.

JG
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There was one episode where the main character get truth serumed and she immediately starts smacking friends and allies around for doing even slightly annoying or inconvenient things. It wasn't played for laughs exactly, but definitely treated as light-hearted and trivial, but I thought it was gross. Strong Debra Barone energy there.
 
Cessna said:
I so wanted to like that show, but it just kept getting worse and worse as it went along.

The Modiphius book for it is excellent, though. Even if you don't like Disco it's very good as a pre-TOS setting sourcebook.
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Thanks for the tip. I've decided to focus on the TOS era when it comes to my Star Trek role playing and I hadn't really put much thought into buying the Discovery book, but now I'll take another look at the thing. :smile:
 
finarvyn said:
I wouldn't put too much stock in any information gleaned from the Blish books. Even though they were done in the 1970's, it would appear that often Blish was working from an early draft or something like that, because often his stories were nothing like the actual episodes.

I wish that someone would go back and re-do those books, only in episode order (the Blish ones were random, I assume starting with favorites first?) and fill in information to tie them all together. Sort of like what Alan Dean Foster did with the animated series in the "Log" books. Some of the Log book stories took a 25-minute animated episode and made it a mini-novel.
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Blish was a great sf writer who in my understanding was in the depths of poverty and crippling alcoholism when he wrote the Trek books so I imagine they're far from his best or most carefully crafted work!
 
Cessna said:
I so wanted to like that show, but it just kept getting worse and worse as it went along.
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That show was really disappointing. If it had just been bad, well so be it. The problem is that it had its moments, which kept teasing me into hoping it had finally turned the corner and was going to be good from there. For example, in one episode they're on Discovery's derelict twin sister ship with a terrifying alien stalking everyone- that was really cool. The next episode was a huge letdown. Later, there was a really nice touch where the ruler of the Orion crime syndicate seemed to be interested in negotiating with the Federation in good faith, and even showed some statesman-like qualities. Next episode she's a mustache-twirling cartoon villain again. That show had too few moments of inspiration and too little nerve. It was mostly unadventurous, banal droning. I stuck with it while it was on Netflix, because I have Netflix and it was Trek, but I wasn't going to follow it to Paramount or whatever it ended up on because it just wasn't worth the money or bother.
 
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Voros said:
Blish was a great sf writer who in my understanding was in the depths of poverty and crippling alcoholism when he wrote the Trek books so I imagine they're far from his best or most carefully crafted work!
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I didn't mean to trash Blish over these because I know he has a great SF background, but they are very strange and often seem nothing like the actual episodes. That was why I suggested someone do a proper novelization of them. Something where one might say, "yeah, I think I saw that one." :grin:

I didn't know anything about his struggles at the time. :sad:
 
When writing Masters of the Universe fanfic in the late 90s/early 2000s, Gul Dukat was my mental model for a lot of King Hiss' character. :smile:
 
FWIW, there's a new Star Trek related Kickstarter campaign, for a film visiting the various locations Star Trek has been filmed at between 1964 and 2023. It's by the hosts of the Inglorious Treksperts podcast, including Mark Altman.

 
finarvyn said:
I wouldn't put too much stock in any information gleaned from the Blish books. Even though they were done in the 1970's, it would appear that often Blish was working from an early draft or something like that, because often his stories were nothing like the actual episodes.
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Voros said:
Blish was a great sf writer who in my understanding was in the depths of poverty and crippling alcoholism when he wrote the Trek books so I imagine they're far from his best or most carefully crafted work!
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If Wikipedia is to be trusted, Blish was working from early versions of the scripts and in fact had never seen an episode of Star Trek when he wrote 1-3 of the series. He also was personally no fan of Trek. Some of the adaptations in the later volumes (7+) were actually done in collaboration with his wife and mother-in-law.
 
Wow, I just realized.

So many of the Starfleet captains in the ST universe come from rural backgrounds. How many captains, or above, can you name that are city-bred?
 
Moracai said:
Wow, I just realized.

So many of the Starfleet captains in the ST universe come from rural backgrounds. How many captains, or above, can you name that are city-bred?
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Interesting observation. Over on Babylon 5, you have Sheridan, who is from Kansas. Sinclair was born on Mars, which could be considered rural.

Getting back to Star Trek, Captain Sulu is from San Francisco.
 
Jonathan Archer was born in northern New York state, but spent most of his life in San Francisco prior to Enterprise.
 
Lofgeornost said:
Janeway was born in Bloomington, Indiana, where there is now a statue to her. I guess she grew up on a farm, though, if Memory Alpha is to be trusted.

View attachment 65513
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I initially assumed this was photoshopped, but... no. I wonder if it will still be there in 2336.

Anyway, Scotty is from Aberdeen. Not sure if he ever made Captain, though. Maybe not because there's no monument.
 
Triumvir said:
I initially assumed this was photoshopped, but... no. I wonder if it will still be there in 2336.

Anyway, Scotty is from Aberdeen. Not sure if he ever made Captain, though. Maybe not because there's no monument.
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Yeah, if I'm ever in Bloomington I'll have to look for it.

Memory Alpha says that Scotty did reach the rank of captain, but he was not a command officer.
 
Christopher Pike is/was/will be from Mojave, CA. Currently it's an unicorporated spot with only about 5,000 residents, but in the future it is supposed to be a bigger metropolis with 50 miles of parkland around it.
 
Every now and again I think about the Star Trek/Green Lantern crossover.

“We’re the same rank,” Air Force Captain Hal Jordan says to goddamn ship Captain James Kirk.

To this day I still don’t know if that was deliberate on the writer’s part, Making Hal an asshole… or if the writer just doesn’t understand that an AF Captain and Navy Captain aren’t even close to the same rank.

Salute the Colonel, flyboy.
 
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