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Star Trek: Pick A Plot
Vinnie_333 writes "This article on the New York Times sounds out on the often repetitive plots of the 10 Star Trek films to date (this include ST: Nemesis, coming soon). It refers to the film franchise as '10 films with 5 plots' and lays them all out in front of you. This does have a ring of truth. As a fan of Sci Fi (but not particularly Star Truck), I have to admit that there are only so many unique plots out there, and most of them have been well used by HG Well's time. Star Trek is, after all, a genre franchise and the story lines are held back by certain restrictions of the genre." I personally would pay Berman/Braga et al $20 if they never have a holodeck or time-travel-based plot ever again.
when you have such great acting?
Ahhh yess, the obligatory sigh oh, did you say sig?
As a fan of Sci Fi (but not particularly Star Truck),
How old are you? Munging up the names of something you don't like is something I did when I was 12. Come on, you guess can be a little mature, can't you?
FYI - I'm not standing up for Star Trek. I don't like it much either.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I personally would pay Berman/Braga et al $20 if they would just sit down and watch "Wrath of Kahn." Trek as it should be, and seldom is.
Not everyone deserves a 320i
I'll throw in $20 as well. Let's see if we can buy Hollywood like they buy Washington.
Well, if you really want to admit it, there are only about three plots. You have Man against Nature, Man against Man and Man against Himself.
I would suppost that Man against computer (or Superman against computer) could be any of the above.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
They need to go back to good old ship fights. Star Trek Insurrection is the example I am talking about multiple ships in combat and close quarters combat towards the end of the movie.
I read an article about TNG production a little while back. Rather than coming up with a exotic particle/lifeform/radition of the week to save the day, TNG scriptwriters would often just write in a placeholder to be replaced with a tech-adviser's technobabble at a later date.
Scripts would look as so:
GEORDI: Let's [technobabble] the main thrusters so that we can [technobabble] the Borg.
Etc...
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Not trying to flame. I used to be a big fan of the original as well as TNG. :-)
However, the plotlines in B5 were far superior to anything on StarTrek, IMHO of course.
Also, no Wesley Crusher type characters
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
If it wasn't for the predictable plots you couldn't play The Star Trek the Drinking Game.
I think some of the ST:TNG shows with the holodeck and time-travel plots were fun (e.g., when Mark Twain was a character on the show). I like them for the same reason I like the "Q" episodes. YMMV, I suppose.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
The writers of Star Trek aren't held back by anything other than their own incompetence. There are a million potential plots out there. For that matter, well-written characters and dialog can make a trite plot into a fine film.
Granted, many plots were used by Wells or Bradbury or Burroughs long ago, but if you simplify things down to that level everything starts to look the same. If you wrote a 1-paragraph summary of all of the romantic comedy films ever made, for example, it would look like this:
"Two characters who at first seem to have insurmountable differences meet and, through a series of comic moments, fall in love. A complication threatens to dash their hopes, but at the last moment everything works out."
That doesn't mean all of these films are without value. Just most of them.
It's Slashdot's evil twin... SlashNOT
Don't all the Bond movies essentially have about three or four plots? What about Police Academy? Indeed, is there any series of movies that *doesn't* have the same few plots repeated again and again?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
.. not for this drivel, at least.
5 plots? I can sum up 99% of 'em with this:
I stopped being a fan a couple years into TNG.
It just became apparent that anything the 'franchise' does is just drying to squeeze a little more milk out of the cash cow. It's hardly good science fiction anymore.
1) Big problem (alien, wormhole, time-loop, computer malfunction) presents itself.
2) Bunch of yammering and melodrama and crappy dialogue, of the hollywood breed, which they no doubt think is interesting.
3) 5 minutes into the end of the show Geordi (or whoever) goes 'I got it!' and yammers out some nonsense techno-babble which solves the problem.
They could at least throw in a bunch of cool special effects, something.
IMO the franchise has been coasting on nostalgia for years, god only knows how long it will last, though.
Thats not to say that there's much better on TV. I plan on watching Smackdown! tonight, it's as intellectual as anything else on the toob.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Hmm, and if /. has any more articles on Star Trek, it might be a good idea to have a little 'Star Trek' logo and category instead of 'Movies'....
Just my 2 cents... or 2 strips of Gold Pressed Latinum I suppose.
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
ST:whatever can have origional storylines.. I have seen many many MANY Sci-Fi movies that had great plotlines but were crippled by the fact that they were B-movies.
Space based Genre has a TON of room to move and segway into billions of plotlines...
Hell look at LEXX... I dont think that rehashed anything and can fit in the ST universe...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Some of the holodeck subplots were interesting - the notion of 'addiction' by Lieutenant Barclay in ST:TNG. Extending the technology by introducing the Doctor in Voyager seemed okay, but then extending to other "photonic life" in several different ways became strange: apparently there was some photonic life that didn't appear to require actual computers or holo-emitters (the absurd episode in which Janeway must become a B-movie queen), and then later we again see photonic beings who do require computers/holo-emitters.
Of course, the real issue is that so many sci-fi plot points are impossible under the laws of physics as they are generally known (whether we're talking about the 1960's or 2002): faster-than-light travel, time travel, transporters, warp fields, subspace communication. Breaking the rules is what enables the plots to get interesting, and of course we all hope/believe/fantasize that what we imagine might one day be possible, since any sufficiently advanced technology is magic (Clarke).
What I find most troubling are gaping inconsistencies, often made worse by implausible explanations. In one episode, the scanners can identify a single individual among billions on a planet with super-advanced technology, and then in the next they can't scan to find out what's inside a wad of Kleenex (exaggeration).
One of the absurd, and often annoying, plot devices that is also sometimes one of the more amusing, is the notion that this crew of a few hundred (really just a dozen or so people who seem to actually do everything) can invent new technologies in a few hours, with half the ship's systems disabled, while huge teams of dedicated scientists with vast resources could not accomplish such work (apparently the only major technology invented by humans but NOT invented on Enterprise or Voyager, was the non-damaging warp technology that was introduced on Voyager).
No question about it: the last episode of "Enterprise" last year took away just about everything that showed promise in the series: the notion that they were less advanced, less able, less knowledgeable than the later crews.
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
Why O Why do they not ask fans for help. Perhaps they have, but I do not remember it. Many ST fans know *everything* about the ST universe. They are usually geeks with quite informed and educated ideas about sci fi. Why not have a web page where fans can submit intelligent plots for new shows and films?
I would bet the quality would be better and the originality would increase. Of course, I would think that Rick Berman and his writers would go through and professionalize the plots from the hollywood sense. But at least the ideas and general plot would come from those who live and die by the ST world: the fans!
Perhaps I am placing too much confidence in those I've seen going to ST conventions and clubs. But then again, perhaps not. I'd personally pit them any day against a hollywood writer in coming up with original, science-based ideas.
Ok, maybe so, but the categorization sucks. You can't lump Kahn in with Sybock (a gay vulcan), and Ru'Afo (a piece of drift wood).
But what does it matter? It took voyager 7 seasons to come up with only 3 plots. In my estimation we're ahead of the game here.
I felt like the article lacked foundation. Sounds like the guy heard about a 30 second trailer that his cousin uncle saw and decided to flamebait every Star Trek fan.
He uses extremely vague suppositions to catogorize the Star Trek series and doesn't even include every movie in his 5 plot categories.
He might as well lump them all into the good versus evil category.
I would have to say that even with redundant plots, each movie was entertaining in its own rights.
This is the 10th film. 10 is even, so the film is going to be good.
Given that the TNG cast are all about ready for the knackers yard, can we presume that film 11 will be Voyager, and thus suck royally on at least two counts?
Actually there were lots of things I liked about Voyager, but they're not the things that would make a good movie. Apart from 7 of 9. And it won't be that kind of movie, I'm sure.
The Self-Made Critic has a more detailed scoring scheme for Star Trek movies in his review of Insurrection. We'll see how accurate it is after Nemesis.
--
E_NOSIG
"The crew of the Enterprise goes back to an earlier century on Earth, to make sure that history happens as it should ("S.T. IV: The Voyage Home"; "S.T. VIII: First Contact")."
This is an interesting interpretation of the Episode IV story-line. The crew did not go back in time to prevent someone from changing history as they did in VIII. Rather the crew went back in time to change history. The Borg didn't go back and kill the Whales, the humans did it all by themselves!
Anyway, I'm not sure this guy watched either movie, and some of the Star Trek movies do suck, but the plots don't over lap that much...
My other sig is extremely clever...
... it's about character. A good deal of both DS9 and TNG (arguably both really good shows, whether you like Trek or not) was about character interaction. I'll give you an example:
There's an ep of DS9 where Will Riker's duplicate (transporter accident in an ep of TNG) stole the Defiant and went off to give the Cardassians hell.
One could very easily dismiss that ep as "Oh geez, dude steals a ship, fires the guns a few times, and gives up when he's outnumbered. What an original plot. *sarcasm*"
However, that wasn't the interesting part of the episode. The interesting part was WHY Riker's duplicate did this. He was stranded alone on a planet for 8 years. When he was recovered, he couldn't live up to success that the Riker that made it off the planet enjoyed.
When you watch this ep, you're lead to believe that the Riker duplicate was going for the 'greater good' trying to uncover some Cardassian plot. What was really going on was he was hoping to quickly turn himself into a hero, even if it meant death for him.
There were other interesting details of the episode, but I just wanted to make that little point: Plot isn't everything. Here's a case where scifi gave birth to a situation not likely to happen in reality, and gave the audience an interesting glimpse into a fictional world.
Frankly, I think Enterprise would be a lot more popular if people understood this concept. The 'plot' of the episodes isn't the strong point, the development of the characters is. That's what it's all about.
Rule #1 about Star Trek time travel plots: If the crew goes back in time, it's good. If the crew is visited by someone from the future, it's bad.
:-)
Seriously, think about it. "Voyage Home", good. "Time's Arrow" (TNG, Mark Twain), ok. "Past Tense" (DS9, American ghetos in the 21st centry), good. "Tomorrow is Yesterday" (TOS, airforce thinks Enterprise is UFO), ok.
Compare those to the Voyager finale, crap. The episode where Worf's son comes back from the future to kill himself, dumb. Anything in Voyager involving the Starfleet Time Cops from the future, ugh.
The weird one is the Voyager episode where the crew is attacked by someone from the 29th century and is thrown back to 1996. It has a little of each, but in the end they kill Bill Gates, so that episode officially rocks.
Think about it, it really is true. Of course, that does not bode well for "Enterprise", as their big plot arc is all about being visited by the Voyager Time Cops over and over again. *groan*
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
holodeck, borg, holodeck, borg, aliens doing something to the crew and only seven and the doctor know whats going on, holodeck, something happens and only seven and the doctor know whats going on, holodeck....
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
quit yer karma whoring, they never have in the past. Modrators! Pay no attention to the karma whore with a reprint!
No, not the travel back to earth in the past kind. Those really suck. But I really like the paradox and causality loop kind of things. Reaction being observed before the action and throwing everyone for a loop (pardon the pun). That last episode of STTNG, I really liked. I also liked some of the Voyager ones (and Janeway saying that she swore she'd never wanted to be in one). That 'Year of Hell' was a good one, too. Time Travel can be fun, as long as it isn't going back and revisiting a known past.
Many of my favorite Star Trek episodes are the ones that take place almost entirely on the bridge - almost Shakesperean in the lack of different sets. The story is character driven, not event driven. The story becomes more about how the characters react to the situation, and how they interact with one another, and less about "Hey the Romulans just shot as us".
An earlier poster is right, plot is defined as a struggle - whether it's man vs. man, man vs. nature, or man vs. himself. While unfortunately the Next Generation did use a lot of technobabble to save the day during the plot's climax, it's mostly forgivable - For the sake of the storyline we're supposed to accept the fact that Geordi LaForge and Data are *extremely smart*... Same goes for Spock on the Original Series. Other stories where the climax was resolved a different way, like through a violent confrontation it was usually Riker and Worf (or Kirk) who kicked ass and took names. When it was a tactical battle, it was Picard (or Kirk) who used his superior strategy to save the day. When it was a medical crisis, you could count on Pulaski or Crusher to handle it. (Or Bones..) There are a finite number of ways to resolve a conflict, and Star Trek seems to use all of them - even running away and asking Q to get them the hell away from the Borg.
Other television shows, in my humble opinion, would be wise to take some cues from Star Trek and become more character driven and less event driven.
There are only a few stories to be told. One of the largest - the main story - goes something like this.
1. Hero is confronted with unbeatable challenge / unsurmountable odds.
2. Hero experiences personal growth/enlightenment
3. Hero overcomes challenge / odds.
The matrix? Star Wars? Lord of the Rings? There is nothing wrong with the recycling of ideas in film or books or anything. Its part of human nature.. there are only so many ideas.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces is a book that explores this very idea. Its worth checking out.
Or you could register for the damned thing. It's not like it's difficult.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Umberto Eco points this out in his article The Myth of Superman (I'm afraid a quick google only turned up this synopsis, not the whole text). Here are some key quotes from that link, and, I assume, the article (come on, it's been nearly six years since I've read it! :^D Maybe I did earn that B.A. degree after all...). I try to recall a few more important bits below.
...
.construct on a small scale 'analogous' models which mirror the larger one."
:^) (Last season was a dream!)
:^) Anyhow, it's no surprise Star Trek is often similar. It's part of the myth that "resonates with our archetypes". Hey, someone much smarter than me said that. Stop making fun. :^)
Traditional mythic heroes were governed by a law, therefore these heroes were predictable and held no suprises for the audience.
... and
Authors preferences are not considered when writing a novel. They are forced to write along the guidelines of a cultural model. In this case, "authors. .
Basically the deal was that if you started at A and went to B, you might pass through C or D or E but your story must end up at A again or you'll have spoiled the myth.
There's only so much a mythical figure can do (or mythos o' figures). Here are some of the more horrendous deviations from the "A leads to B leads to A again" that I can think of off-hand (a little Spidey-centric, I'm afraid):
* The brilliant folk at Marvel kill off Aunt May. (She's back now)
* The brilliant folk at Marvel decide Spider-Man is really a clone. (The clones have all disappeared now)
* The brilliant folk at DC kill off Superman and then have several return. (I think we're back to one, but I don't read Superman)
* Patrick Duffy leaves Dallas.
* Felix Lieter (sp) has his leg eaten by a shark in Licensed To Kill. (Haven't fixed that yet, but they did ditch Dalton, even if it isn't his fault that movie stunk to high heaven)
This is why, I believe, these fictional stories rarely do things that are irreversable, like have Peter Parker age [much] or main characters get married (last I looked, Marvel was still struggling with that one, even having MJ disappear). It's also why shows tend to die after the leading man & woman get romanticly involved -- see Moonlighting. Or why they die when they switch tone -- see all those Carol Burnett[-esque] episodes later on in Magnum, P.I.
So, in one sense, the reason Star Trek is always the same is the same reason everyone was on pins and needles when Diane left Cheers.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Two dudes are listening to a new Metallica album.
Dude 1: Dude, all these songs sound the same!
Dude 2: Yeah, but Dude, it's a good song!
As consumers of entertainment, we're like so many other people who have had macaroni-and-cheese. Sure, it's almost always the same, but then we could add meat, or maybe some veggie, or change the shape of the pasta...it's still Mac-and-cheese, and it's a staple.
If a writer develops something so completely new, it would be out of wack with established mythologies, motivations and have complex characters which require the viewer to be intimate with details that can only exist outside the plot and we shouldn't be surprised if 90% of the audience is going to be unmoved. Even the greek playwrights wrestled with the problem of innovation/alienation and resigning themselves to telling the same tired story again and again...because it's what the people want. If anybody wants to point a finger, the need to go to the mirror. We have a problem, and like most of them, it's us. :-)
It's not a problem with writers, or producers. They're successful if they make a good show of any genre. It's the audience that's lacking here, and like death, taxes, and teens having babies the problem is human nature...and it's just one of the salient points on which the species sucks. If we were smart, we'd be trying to have AI's invent entire fantasy worlds and giving them only the more basic rules have them create media. Of course, that's a bit too much like next-century and if it did work, the complainers in meat-space would probably kill it.
If the person who somehow got this whining on the front of slashdot would just sit down and try writing/publishing something that doesn't fit into the same tired categories, I'm sure they would have a much better understanding of the problem--rather than just come off as a complainer.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
The same is true for any branch of literature. Science fiction has a much wider range of possible plots than mainstream fiction. The point is that they don't develop these plots in any interesting way.
Look at Johnny Mnemonic. They took a pretty good short story, and made a pretty boring movie out of it. There is lots of good science fiction to make movies out of. Hollywood does not want to make movies that require people to think, which is the whole point of science fiction, not blowing stuff up.
All the plots were explored by Shakespeare... by the Bible, I've heard it all... PROVE IT!
limited imagination, if you ask me... which you didn't. For example... Stanislaus Lem's plots... try to map them to HG Wells and find yourself making quite a big stretch.
-pyrrho
Au contraire! I was afraid the holodeck would be terribly misused when they introduced it, but some of the most interesting and creative episodes involve the holodeck, albeit in the series, not the movies:
Moriarity makes the crew think they're not in the holodeck, then <spoiler deleted>
Holodeck lounge singer Vic shows Nog a reason for living
Using the holodeck to recreate testimony and look at different viewpoints
Holodeck addiction --- something that would be a real problem
Using the holodeck as a simulator, what would probably be one of its most useful uses
While they aren't always the best episodes otherwise, it's not because of the holodeck, and some are among the best...
Not 6 plots, 6 conflicts on which to base the story. Man v Man, Man v Himself, Man v Nature, with either man or the other winning, of course the concept of a 'tie' would make for 9 conflicts..
The plot is the specific details of the plot. The events, setting, resolution make up the plot.
Anyone who has taken a "hardcore writing course" (btw, thats an oxymoron) would know that.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
either because our technology is more advanced than our ethics ("S.T.: The Motion Picture")
Except that ST:TMP had nothing to do with our tech being more advanced than our ethics. ST:TMP was the fact the V'ger was lost, and came looking for its creator in order to fulfill its programming, and nobody knew what it was or how to make it happy.
Maybe the author of the original article should go back and watch TMP (painful though it might be)...
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
...that there are only five basic plots worth writing about in existence. They boil down to Romance (good person meets true love), Redemption (bad man turns good), Justice (good person is elevated), Tragedy (good person is fallen), and Quest (good person saves everything). Whether the person in question is in conflict with one other, many others, nature, or himself, they all come down to that.
So "Star Trek" tends to be formulaic. So what? So's everything else that's ever been written; it's a matter of how well it's written that draws or repels us, which is why "The Wrath of Khan" is so popular and "Generations" is less so.
However, a Romulan-based plot could be postponed in order to use John Delancy (sp?) before he gets too old. I mean, how much should an immortal, omnipotent being age? I would say not too much.
Additionally, once upon a time, I heard a vague and unreliable rumor that they were going to kill Data because Spiner decided that he was type-cast. (And I suppose being typecast as a single character that is impossible to duplicate elsewhere would be somewhat limiting ;-)
There are so many places they could go with their plot motifs (Man vs. Himself can be seen in the motif of a stranded person surving the odds and their personal self-doubt until rescued, for example.) Science fictions offers endless variety of these!
Cambellian science fiction was all about asking "What if?" Where has that gone with this franchise? Technobabble, non-sense and special effects usually. The problem Trek has been accused of often is not thinking about the consequences of certain technologies. Great examples are missed opportunities with cloaking and teleportation or explaining how the toilets on the Enterprise work (if in fact they are connected in some obscure way with the food replicator).
In stead of asking a What If question about technology we are usually instead given a song and dance routine by Data, a sexual episode between data and a real woman, a lame space battle (sit down B5 folks already) or some dumb ass plot where they come across a planet populated ONLY by Gangsters/Sou Chefs/Half Naked Californians.
Oh, and one more plot about dystopia and I will scream.
I'm not asking that they make their movies as stunningly boring as, say anything written by Robert L. Forward (*great* scientist - lousy story teller in my humble opinion). But get some real writters: David Brin, Greg Bear, Vernor Vinge even! These guys could take that Franchise where No Science Fiction Franchise has ever gone before!
Well, that's my piece. Thanks for listening.
--Peter
An exciting epic featuring all the repetitive sagas of a daily news site. Including a giant karma sucking troll as the head of the evil M$ Corporation. Featuring repeated posts from the NY Times (registry required) of the latest plot of the M$ troll to takeover the world (Killer asteroid, robbing us of music, this mysterious disease BSD that they all keep talking about.). Popular polls of where the geek masses eat, sleep, drink, and #@!%. The heroes of our film? A dynamic duo of CmdrTaco and his little buddy CowboyNeal.
I think we could develop this into one of great film franchises of history. I hear that a cadre of circus chickens are lined up to direct.
Ideas?
did it bug anyone else that voyager never did an alternate universe episode, not that it wouldn;t have been as nonsensecal as their time travel plots, but its one of those thigns that bridges the different series, like Q, a friend of mine said in the mirror universe vayger wasn;t stranded in the delta quadrant, btu it still would have been an interesting episode ps, i didn't ever watch TNG that much, did they ever do a mirror ep?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
If the four plots listed are `an exhaustive summary of what can happen in a "Star Trek" movie', why is Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country missing?
The reason why I like ToS more and more is the fact that the writers were only constricted by the Roddenberry "bible" (which at the time was quite loose and open to speculation).
The way I see it, over the years Trek writers have been slowly building a fence around themselves and now they find that they are creativly constricted.
They are trying to break out of the mold with Enterprise, but consider that they have already had a "holodeck" AND a "time travel" episode. I think they (the writers, et al) have forgotten that Trek at it's heart is about discovery, adventure and humanity.
crazy dynamite monkey
i heard they're looking to cast jake loyd as ender, imo too old, to blonde, and almost as whiney and annoying as luke and wesley
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The same thing can be said about Shakespeare, so therefore he must be an awful writer. In fact, it's even worse than Star Trek--he only has three plots!
- Tragedy: Someone has a flaw that ultimately leads to their demise.
- Comedy: misunderstandings and odd characters combine. Hilarity ensues.
- Histories: An elaboration and dramatization of historical events and people.
Wow. Shakespeare sucks.
They'll watch it because they want to see Picard, Worf, Data and Troi again.
-- SIGFPE
The only ones to get your cryptic reference are those born to laugh at tornados.
Was(!Was)
Scooby Doo: I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those lousy kids and their dog!
Friends: 20-something "hipster" losers make sarcastic comments
Every other sitcom: See "friends"
If you want originality you gotta start watching cartoon network. I'm serious. Esp. the Adult Swim (both the Anime and 'funny' incarnations)
Aqua Team Hunger Force Assemble!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
yes i contradicted myself by slamming scooby doo and praising cartoon network in the same post
so i'll take the liberty of flaming myself.
I hope he can see this, because I'm doing it as hard as i can. (Moonenite - Aqua Team Hunger Force)
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
...for Star Trek XI: The Tribbles Strike Back.
It's time they stopped milking this dead cow and let it rest. With the exception of II, IV and VI, they all sucked. One great movie, two resaonably good mivies and seven pieces of festing dog vomit. That's one screwed up track record.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Christ, I just watch them for the explosions and sassy ladies.
And, of course, the opening credits.
If MacGuyver and the A-Team didn't build some really cool piece of machinery from Duct tape and a few pipes every episode, or someone didn't didn't get screwed on the Soap Operas would anybody watch it? I think those are the things people tune in for.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Gene L Coon is why the first series was so good. Look at the first three seasons of Next Generation if you don't beleive me.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
He takes a ship out with a training crew, doesn't follow Mr. Savik (Kirstie Allie's) advice about raising deflectors when the Grissom doesn't respond and gets the guts tore out of the Enterprise. We then find that the Federation has some kind of gadget they shouldn't be messing with, and the designer is the progeny of Kirks chronic "fooling-around" having caught up with him, who is as bloody-minded as the old-man Kirk himself. And to straighten out the whole mess, Kirk ends up sacrificing his best friend Spock.
This thing with Kahn is sort of like Bush and Saddam -- we know that Kahn is crazy, but if you think about it, Kahn has some legitimate grievances that Kirk has on his conscience.
There is no other Star Trek that gives that level of character development to either Kirk or Kirk's nemesis.
On the subject of the decline of Trek, the technobable bugs me the worst -- I saw this promo piece with Levar Burton explaining that they write "technobable" as a line in the script to call on a consultant to fill something in.
Classic Trek didn't have techno-babble. Enterprise would get enveloped with some kind of multi-color thing, Kirk would bark "Spock, what is that?" and Spock would stare into his science station Tektronix terminal hood and say "I don't know, it isn't registering on our sensors." Compared to NG, Classic Trek was high concept -- they wouldn't try to explain it like one shouldn't try to explain the Monolith in 2001.
Great. Now I've got to get vomit out of this keyboard.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
You wouldn't happen to know who it was who advised the writers of Voyager that:
- having the ship run smack into the "event horizon" of a black hole, then
- cracking it like an egg, followed by
- 'reflections' off the 'event horizons inner surface' as they attempted to escape
was a good idea? Youch.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Here's a new story that Star Trek could try.
Some drunken Finn posted this on alt.stupidity many years back. It is hilarious (for its stupidity) and worth a read.
DAMN YOU PIRARD -- the script
How on earth did a six foot fly come to be living in a twelve foot cube in the down below?
Fly? That was a praying manis, man. No doubt related to Zorak.
That's a story line I'd like to see.
I'd like to see how he ended up not living in his cube Down Below.
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
The last four seasons of DS9 were of the same quality as B5. They both did have one episode stories, but they both had a very thick red line going through it so which took you back to previous episodes and made it possible to see three, four episodes in a row (it happens, okay :-) without getting bored because there is progress in the story instead of restarting it all over each time.
To me, the last four seasons of DS9 were the best series of the whole ST collection.
bash$
...producers had to 'shush' the actors every time they came on stage...
This is true. I hope I don't ruin anyone's good time, but those doors were opened by a SFX guy, who sat on an upturned bucket behind the set wall, pulling on a cable. (In the second season, the advanced technology of a wooden handle was added!)
Imagine the sound a sliding glass door makes when the track is rusty, and you know what those doors sounded like...a far cry from the pleasant "woosh!" we hear on TV.
Watch TNG, and you'll see that actors RARELY speak while doors are closing behind them. Sometimes you'll see an actor walk into a room (usually the transporter room) and you'll hear the doors close while they're speaking, but you won't see them. This happened because that rusty door noise was replaced with the happy "woosh!" sound in post production.
Interesting side-effect of this for me is that even in real life, I rarely talk while a door is closing behind me. It just became a habit to wait.
2. Why do they make the ugliest characters evil? I'd like to see some character interaction and consistent development with some butt-ugly insects or 30 feet giants to be direct allies with the good guys. I keep thinking that real aliens would probably take all shapes and sizes, from massively huge or small and don't necessarily always take a humanoid size.
3. Why is it that Picard always tried to play the high ground on the fact that humans had gotten past many of their deficiencies? One of the things that I liked best about Kirk was that he willing to embrace humanity with its character flaws - he said something in "A Taste of Armageddon" to the effect that "yes, we're killers, but the important thing is that we're not going to kill today". I think it'll take more than a few centuries to evolve past our basic human deficiencies.
4. Why don't they have major characters die on a rotating basis and constantly develop the more ancillary characters? Whenever a conflict in an episode arises that puts a major character at risk, I don't always like the fact that I already know that that character is going to make it out fine. (Tashia Yar and Jadzia Dax not withstanding, but then you always know it before the fact because they announce it in the previews!)
5. Why is it that whenever a crew member falls in love with someone that's not in the main storyline, they never seem to bother to develop it? The person that they're involved with always leaves, gets transferred to another starbase/facility, or dies at the end of the episode. There have been times that I would have really liked to have seen some of the relationships develop further.
I think I'm one of the rare few that thought that Deep Space Nine was great. I _loved_ it when Sisko actually hit Q!
I think B5 had a lot of these qualities too, and is still my favorite SciFi show to date..
.. either you have to blow up the stupid fucking death star/control ship or not.
Read this for more in depth analysis.
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Fellowship of the Ring made a major (in my opinion) blunder by NOT being marketed explicitly as the first in a three part series. Heck, even the title was a problem. Note you called it "LOTR" not "FOTR". That's how the movie was marketed. The movie we watched is not LOTR. It's a third of LOTR, of course, and in my opinion shouldn't have been named the way it was. There were a lot of people not familiar with the book who were dissapointed in the "ending" of the movie. I think they would have liked it better if they had known not to expect a wrap-up. (Notice how much people liked Empire Strikes Back even though it doesn't have a nicely wrapped-up ending. It's because they all knew going in to it that there was more to come in the future.)
LOTR:FOTR had the same mistake Star Wars IV made. It should have been "A New Hope: (Star Wars Episode IV)" rather than the other way around, and this movie should have been "Fellowship of the Ring: (Lord of the Rings part 1)" instead of the other way around (and they didn't even mention that it was a "part 1" anywhere in the title, which I think also would have helped a lot.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Right, but next time it's about Microsoft opening the Windows source.
I took the plunge a few years ago and now read it every day and enjoy doing that very much. It's not like they need your personal information. If you're paranoid, just lie.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
"Star Trek is, after all, a genre franchise and the story lines are held back by certain restrictions of the genre."
I find this to be pure non-sense. Why should a genre be held back by strict rules? Of course, fantasy and science fiction and the likes are inspired by a certain train of thoughts, but that does not mean the imagination should stop at certain bounds; on the contrary, one should always explore new shores and invade them. Complete originality nowadays is hard to come by, but we can always try-- without betraying the genre.
And the Giant Goatseman that ate Cincinnati is brought to you by the Jim Henson company...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Did you notice, however, that every epic star trek movie produced in the TNG series (including the show finale) is about time? Its almost as though its written for aging baby boomers filled with regrets.
[anomoly of the year] causes [time event of the year] which forces Captian Picard to save everyone by risking his own life, and possibly the lives of his crew.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
I think what also helped was that Khan was someone you could really fear. He was highly intelligent and completely ruthless. You hear about how he tortured the people on the science station while looking for Genesis and you actually are forced to watch as he torments Chekov and the Reliant's captain by putting ugly creatures in their ears! But he's not just some lunatic -- he's a very capable villain. He hatches a plan to attack the Enterprise with their sheilds down! Good lord. True, Kirk was stupid for ignoring regulations but Khan really deserves credit for doing the unbelievable. Never before had we seen a starship get hit with their shields down!
A good villain is essential in an action movie. Otherwise, it's just a joke.
GMD
watch this
Plot is like the picture frame. A frame is something that all pictures need to some degree, but a beautiful frame with a black velvet Elvis painting isn't going into the Louvre any time soon. Conversely, the most beautiful, insightful, imaginative painting in the world isn't going to suffer much in a weak frame. The picture makes the frame, the frame accents the picture.
This is forgotten all too much in all forms of storytelling, most notably movies. Repeat after me. Plot is the picture frame. Take a look at the most recent Star Wars movies. What could be a Tolkien-esque epic tale of the rise and fall of empires, people, relationships, ends up being a b-movie with flat characters, starring the computer generated imagery. The plot is so intricate, so twisted, so melodramatic, and overcompensating of a weak painting that is falls as flat as pastel sailboats hung above the couch.
It's the characters stupid.
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
I like your suggestion and I also feel that the fans could write some incredible stories. But I think that B&B would view accepting fan scripts as "asking for help" or as proof that they can't write a good story. Remember, these guys are Hollywood producers -- a group not generally known for being humble and thoughtful. Can you imagine how pathetic they would look if a script written by "some guy in Oklahoma" ended up being far superior to the ones written by them, "the professionals"?
It's too bad that B&B don't let other people do the writing. They could concentrate on doing what they like and are good at. But Hollywood is full of people who can't write worth shit (Lucas, Devlin/Emmerich, etc.) and yet still tarnish their movies because they refuse to give up any kind of control.
Some day in the near future, the fans will be able to make their own movies with decent effects and their own plots. Then the Hollywood big-wigs will have to adapt their approach.
GMD
P.S.: To the guy who mentioned that Berman claims Star Trek accepts fan scripts: I strongly suspect that's when Roddenberry was still alive. I doubt B&B are continuing that practice.
watch this
Bart: Hey, I know it was great, but what right do you have to complain?
CBG: As a loyal viewer, I feel they owe me.
Bart: What? They're giving you thousands of hours of entertainment for
free. What could they possibly owe you? If anything, you owe
them.
CBG: [pauses] Worst episode ever.
Your insight that Star Trek is a compilation of short stories is telling.
B5's great advantage was its use of a single story arc that played out over the course of several seasons. Within that arc were, of course, sub-arcs and standalone epsiodes, but the context of the show was established by that one large arc. This single fact gave the writers (more properly, the writer) great scope for plot and character development.
A novel, in other words.
Star Trek has never given itself that much freedom. Even Voyager, which launched as if it had an interesting long-range story to work with, found itself bogged down with the holodeck and villian-of-the-week. The conclusion of the series especially demonstrated the writers lack of vision and imagination.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
"Whether it's the best scifi or the lousiest isn't important, if you enjoy watching it."
You make a very good point.
However, the reason I made the post that I did (vs. stating essentially what you said) is that half of enjoying a show involves understanding what to appreciate about it.
I thought Austin Powers was stupid until I watched it with my cousin. Turns out the movie wasn't stupid at all, it was just that I went at it with the wrong attitude.
It's for that reason I don't waste much time reading articles that point out the flaws of any given movie. So what? I mean it's fun to see silly mistakes ("How could you accellerate the motorcycle while your right hand was busy firing a gun?), it's another to point out not so obvious stuff about a movie and blow it out of proportion.
Anybody remember that transparent aluminum story a while back? Not surprising, a bunch of people talked about Star Trek IV. One guy nitpicked a detail so harshly that he claimed it ruined the movie for him. I think that example illustrates both your point and mine. How can ya enjoy it if you don't know how to appreciate it? That's why I don't make fun of opera even though I can't stand listening to it.
The episode was "Darmok", with Paul Winfield as the alien captain.
"Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra".
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
That was Scotty.
"A keyboard? How quaint."
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Star Trek appeals to many, myself included, because it postulates that the future of humanity is positive, and that the future will play out on a grand scale. Star Trek tells out that we are not tethered to our planet, that we can resolve the problems we've created on Earth and find our true destiny among the stars.
This should give the writers, et al, a field of equal scope and scale. They have been offered the opportunity to create science fiction on a grand scale. Sadly, they usually just create reruns.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Of topic, but...
It's a great surprise to me, that after 200+ years of space travel, the federation (or any other race for that matter) have learned to BUCKLE UP during battle when you know if your ship gets hit someone will go flying in a spectacular manner.
They have less complexity than your average 1800's cannon battle. And seem to occur at about the same relative ranges between ships.
;- )
Well, shooting battle scenes using scale models is hard to do, now that they got computer animation we might get a bit more complexity.
No release of active diffusive substances
Two things: 1)Space is HUGE, so diffuse substance get thin fast, and 2)They did, tachyon grids to catch romulans crossing the neutral zone border.
no "warping of space" to defocus/redirect laser/phaser shots.
Come on! They use that in EVERY SINGLE SHOW, they call them SHIELDS! Geez!
No sensor confusion technology.
What? They didn't do enough cloaking ship shows for you?
And there was a TNG show were they fooled the other ship's computer in showing recorded sensor readings as true. + There's the Picard maneuver.
No use of space time delay
Again: Picard maneuver.
The moon is 1 second away. The sun is 8 minutes away. The sun could blow up now we would not see it for 8 minutes. So any time the say "opps" there goes the star/planet they should have to wait 8 minutes (or other time) to see/feel it.
Well, if they were looking at it with they're bare eyes they would, but they have that nifty subspace FTL sensor technology ya know...
No use of gravity well orbital mechanics.
And I suppose Joe Sixpack would go "W00t! ch3ck 0ut th4t l33t us3 0f gravity well orbital blablabla"? Come on! They have to dumb this down to the american viewing public's level! I'm amazed they get away with mentioning anything except nascar or pro wrestling!
Still some of the worst gravity well/ non-Newtonian physics based "space" environments. You can classify it as "fantasy" as it certainly is not based on physics as we know it.
No, it is based on the Star Trek hypotethical future physics (anything with the word "warp" in it is non-newtonian).
And most of all, its TV physics. TV has an alternate set of rules: Every explosion is a gas explosion (looks better), things in space make sounds, if you look at something with binoculars you can hear the background noises, etc.
This whining is of the same level of "Star Trek is l4m3 because all their aliens are humanoids!". Well, find some non humanoid actors and then they'll hire them. Its a tv show filmed in the real world by real people with a limited (if big) budget. They have technical issues wich they cannot get around.
You can't take the sky from me...
I think they aught to put the Federation and Starfleet on the backburner and focus on other races. In particular, they should make a movie about a Klingon Opera. We've been wondering for about 20 years now what made the Klingons look human in Kirk's day.
How about Paramount makes a movie that answers that question in Picard/Sisko/Janeway's day, and answers it as a Klingon Opera? The whole movie could be subtitled with a whole new genre of music like we've never heard before. It would foreshadow future seasons in "Enterprise", yet it wouldn't give everything away because it would give the answers in the way Klingons understand; if the human audience watching the movie wants to understand the spoilers, you'll have to watch closely. As a twist, they could have Klingons playing non-Klingon parts; imagine Alexander Roshenko playing Commander Tucker, and Belana Tores playing T'Pal! But the real kicker is that it could show one of the first Daxes. They wouldn't hire Ezry to play the part because the character would be very different. They wouldn't even have to SAY it's Dax; they could show the cast mingle with the on-screen audience after the opera ends, and one of the audience would be Ezry Dax meeting the woman/man who played the part of Dax 1, talking about her memories of those events hundreds of years ago. A Klingon Opera about the past could have some very subtle references and implications, yet be great to watch for newcomers because it would be just so exotic.
Being entirely on a stage with no CGI, it would cost very little to film, yet it would be a strikingly unique Star Trek movie. It would be completely different from the other Star Trek movies, yet it would be closer to the canon than most Trek movies because it would be all about pulling disparate plot threads together.
The most convincing portrayal of the ultimate in virtual reality with the "holodeck"
About the same time TNG started taking off, Marvel Comics X-Men's Danger Room was approaching the same levels of fictional self-realism. Due to alien technology obtained by Professor Xavier, the Danger Room became more of an immersive virtual-reality world, like the holodeck. Did the two develop independantly? Did they influence eachother. I bet neither Marvel nor Paramount will say. An interesting difference between the two is that, while the Danger Room was often a crucial setting, it was almost never the antagonist of the story like the holodeck was in so many Trek episodes.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
The plot, after all, is simply the behavior of the characters. If the characters are believable, well-formed, and evoke enough of the reader's or viewer's interest and emotions, then the author doesn't need to rely on plot pyrotechnics to sustain interest. The characters become real, and we want to see what happens to them
A prime Star Trek example is Spock.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
This is news?
I got completely fed up with Voyager when I noticed them using terms from modern science wrong in a way that nobody with a basic undergraduate science education could miss.
I noticed during a few years when everything was "fractal" on Trek. Fractal this and fractal that. It was as if fractals were a central technology to them.
Then again, who knows what the future will use. Edison ignored some semiconductor properties that turned out to be key to modern computers.
I am sure no matter how hard they try, today's technobabble will sound dated many decades from now.
Table-ized A.I.
Who... Needs... A... Plot...
When... You... Have... Such... Great... Acting...
I live in a giant bucket.
The original Tasha Yar was indeed killed on Vagra II by Armus (aka "the Exxon Monster"). ("Skin of Evil") The alternate Tasha Yar went back in time with the crew of the Enterprise-C ("Yesterday's Enterprise"), where they rendered assistance to the Klingons in the Romulan attack at Narendra III. The Enterprise-C was destroyed, but Yar was captured alive and taken to a Romulan prison camp. A Romulan commander took a liking to her, and made her his consort. She bore him a daughter, Sela. Later, Yar tried to escape from the prison camp, carrying Sela. Sela, not understanding, cried out for the guards, and Yar was executed as a result. Sela later became a commander herself, and was behind the aid supplied to the Duras family faction during the Klingon civil war ("Redemption"), as well as the failed Romulan plot to invade Vulcan under the guise of a "peace mission" ("Unification").
Clear? I thought not. This is the most whacked-out time travel plot in the Trek universe. You are not expected to understand this. :-)
Be who you are...and be it in style!
This reminds me of a time on the set, when we were filming "Datalore."
Brent was going through his lines, playing both Data and Lore, and he noticed that Data was given a line where he was using a contraction.
Brent called the director, first AD, and script supervisor over, and asked them to clarify Brent's understanding that Data did not use contractions.
The phone calls began, and went all the way to Gene's office, before the answer came back, "Data should not use contractions, ever."
This ended up being a plot point later in the show, as Lore's use of something like "Isn't" or "Wouldn't" or "Bitch Ass Monkey Mouth" revealed his true identity.
Funny..I just thought it was cool that you didn't use any contractions in your Data lines...and that sparked this memory that is 14 years old.
How many Star Wars movies had this plot: A jedi, too young to have earned the faith and respect of the established, goes on an epic adventure where, against all odds, he overcomes himself and accomplishes a great and improbable deed. AT LEAST two; to some degree, five.
How many James Bond movies had this plot: A rich villain comes up with a clever plan to rule one of the world's key industries and build a evil empire with the fortune this brings him. A romancing british secret agent attempts to foil his plan, gets caught, but miraculously escapes, going on to defeat the bad guy and romance one of his chicks.
My point is: do we complain? No, we would be stupid if we didn't see it coming. (Or, we might be a culture-section writer at the NYT who's out of ideas.) We're not there for a super plot. We're there because we enjoy the franchise, and we enjoy it BECAUSE of the archetypical plots.
The only problem with that is that when Star Wars originally came out, it wasn't called Episode IV at all. It was simply called Star Wars. The rest of the title came later, after the studio agreed to make the rest of them.
The problem is they weren't done the way they said they were. If the prophets were truely non-linear, the first episode of DS9 would have been 15 minutes long, and consisted of Sisko entering the wormhole, the prophets saying "Yeah, yeah Sisko, we like baseball too. You can use the wormhole. The Cardassians are coming, go defend your station.", and then him going back to the station.
hehe, check out the "New Frontier" series of books by Peter David. Not only is it a great series, 12 books strong, but it has one character who strangely resembles the original "Number One", Nurse Chapel, Lwaxana Troi, and happens to sound like the TNG computer voice... She's apparently an immortal, who keeps changing around her life when it becomes convenient...
It's not canon, but it's a good explaination. (:
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
OTOH, I believe that Fleming was probably the first British author to use this device to associate the character deliberately with a certain lifestyle.
"Random rich guy", played by Ed Bagley Jr., who is a major computer mogul who supposedly created the "modern" (1996) computer revolution using stolen future technology and was completely convinced that he was doing the best thing for mankind, even if he had to crush the little people (Voyager crew, various 1996-era friends of theirs) to do it.
:-)
Sounds like Bill Gates to me.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
Star Trek exists as a metaphor for what we are today, and for what we are not.
Gene Roddenberry's original pitch for Star Trek was "Wagon Train to the stars" (Wagon Train being the name of a popular Western TV series of the time).
It's not a metaphor - it doesn't have any meaning. It's just a TV show.
"Information wants to be paid"
Will you stop being so incredibly cynical? Jokes can easily be broken down into a few categories (body-related, sex-related, puns and unexpected situations, plus a few I can't come up with now). Does that mean that all jokes have been told? No, it doesn't.
A joke is funny when it has some poorly defined qualities like 'edge', 'progression towards unexpected climax', 'relevant reference frame' and such.
IMHO, most Science Fiction (and a lot of Hollywood produce for that matter) is of extremely poor quality. It's all a big wank-fest in effects and big name actors. On occation, the system works, but there's a lot of really bad episodes and movies. For good science fiction, see "The 5th Element" and "Minority Report". For good drama, see "Magnolia" or "Life is Beautiful" - or "Traffic" for that matter.
I used to watch Babylon 5, but I've decided it's more exciting to play Deus Ex, and the plot in Deus Ex is actually superior (altough I think it still has a way to go).
Can someone explain to me in simple terms why they like Star Trek?
Stop the brainwash
Our repair android is having a TECH problem in his positronic brain, and our engineer's VISOR is growing out of fashion.
Unfortunately, the problem with our TECH won't be in time for Star Trek 10. Since we have bad luck with odd movies, expect an entirely new script with Star Trek 12: Epsilon Quadrant*.
* (For the ig'nant: How many quadrants are there in a whole? What letter of the greek alphabet is "epsilon"? Good lad!)
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Let's face it, the Franchise takes it for granted that hyper-zealous fans are going to keep coming, no matter what they do. So why bother doing any actual creative work?
What's really annoying about _all_ the Star Trek stories-to-date is that they are still revolve around the goody-two-shoes in Starfleet!
The Star Trek universe has a LOT of worlds & people who aren't in Starfleet. It would be interesting to see what kind of stories you could get out of a cast of non-Starfleet characters (maybe a poor merchant ship struggling to make a profit on the boundaries of the Federation, for instance).
(* when they don't even bother to check and see if what they're saying makes sense WRT what we know today- it's just inexcusable. *)
Surely some pedantic Trek fan somewhere must keep a list of the technobable dialog. Perhaps we can review it to see if there is a pattern to the good and the bad.
The simplest way out IMO is to talk about processes that are beyond our current knowledge or vague. For example, "subspace echogram" (from another post). The techniques of the quantum world are still largely unexplored, and "echogram" can be a lot of things in a lot of different frequencies (or some kind of quantum vibration yet discovered.)
One thing about the particle physics world is that the deeper you go, the more layers you find. Thus, they can make up babble about undiscovered layers. Caveat: if you use speculative stuff, like String Theory, then it will look bad if later disproven. Thus, stick with divisions of more agreed-upon particles, such as "sub-quark disturbance normalizers" or something, rather than "sub-string dist.....".
"Normalize" is good because it can also mean a lot of things because it generally refers to fitting/comparing against some accepted standard, which the dialog speaker does not have to specify. (If they don't wear it out, like "realign".)
I would prefer vague rather than something which sounds like they grabbed a buzzword off the latest IT or science trade mag. These are often the same thing, but it sounds less fad-grabbing if they ignore the trade mags. IOW, it dates the episode if they pick a given year's buzzwords to mirror.)
Table-ized A.I.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
But why wasn't it just called "A New Hope", leaving off the "Star Wars" instead of calling it "Star Wars" leaving off the "A New Hope"?
That's my point. If you are going to have both the title of the series and the title of the one part you are viewing now, put the title of the part you are looking at now FIRST. On the other hand, if you are only going to have one title - use the title of the part you are actually seeing, not the title that you meant for the whole series.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Does the moon orbit the earth or the sun? If you take an orbit over the pole of a planet, you will not orbit it, but you will orbit the sun it orbits.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
He put just the title of the whole series because he wasn't sure he was going to be able to do the rest of the series.
The crew of the Enterprise goes back to an earlier century on Earth, to make sure that history happens as it should ("S.T. IV: The Voyage Home")
I'm sorry, but was this some unreleased "director's cut" I was unaware of?
They go back in time, but it didn't have anything to do with making sure that history wasn't changed..
Generations didn't have anything about a megalomaniac wanting to seize the power of life itself, he just wanted to get back to his happy place..
(Amazing Quantum Man has already touched on the TMP "tech more advanced than ethichs", so I'll leave that out)
I think the article author needs to actually WATCH some of these films, before writing about them.
I'm fully aware that he didn't know if he would get to do the series - which is why he should NOT have used the title for the whole series to name just one movie.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
It was the actual Riker who showed up in Voyager. Q whisked him away to testify on behalf of another Q. The Riker twin appeared only in the TNG episode where they discovered him, and in the DS9 episode where he stole the Defiant. He was supposedly locked in a Cardassian prision after that.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade