ENTERPRISE: The Star Trek Thread [Archive]

Tycho

12-06-2001, 08:58 AM

Now that I look back on it, I wished I would have collected all, or at least most of the Playmates Electronic ships.

One thing I'd really go for is a mock-up or finished proto-type (that's painted) of the Kazon Raider that fit an action figure.

I only collected Star Trek basic carded sized figures - but always imagined it would be so cool if they could have made a toy line like Star Wars.

I went so far as to design toys for them - from a full (not to scale) Defiant where you removed the top and the whole ship was the bridge playset. A similar Voyager (Doc would need his mobile emitter). And I designed a DS9 Station playset, about the size of the GI Joe Terror Dome (remember that?) The Station would only be the TOP HALF, (obviously not to scale) and would include two levels with Ops and Quark's, and on the tri-arms, horizontal spokes mind you, would have a brig for prisoners, sickbay, etc.

A Romulan Scout ship for one figure could have been done, as could have a Klingon Bird of Prey that sat one figure. A Maquis fighter (Chakotay's?) might've sat 2 figures, or 4. A Cardassian ship and Ferengi pod were possible.

And in another truly large playset, similar in size to the DS9 one I proposed, a Enterprise-D ship could be made, the whole Saucer the bridge / ready room / sickbay, and the hull engineering, shuttle bay. The whole thing boxed could be smaller than that 21st Century Toys battle tank for their 12" line.

Species 8472 could have a ship. A Borg ship like Hugh's from TNG could be made to 'stand' 4. Etc. Etc. Etc.

But I think their market research told them they were making these figures for adult collectors who never opened them.

Too bad. MAYBE they would have attracted more kids... It was a great line!

master jedi

12-06-2001, 05:04 PM

Originally posted by Wolfwood319

Did Star War fans ever get a name like Trekkies, I can't recall?
We did get a name. They even made a show about us with the same name. You all remember the show 'Freaks and Geeks'?:p

Obi-Don

12-06-2001, 08:54 PM

I have the USS Enterprise E by my bed until we got a new bedroom set and was told into the closet with that.I didn't fight it to much unless it came to the Star Wars stuff then there would be a problem. I to wished that I collected all the ships but they were really high at the time and are even higher now.Who knows if I find some at a price I can handle,I'll may try and get a few more[But don't tell my wife:D ]

JediTricks

12-07-2001, 04:12 AM

Basker, I don't agree with you about the Playmates Voyager, the folding nacelle trick requires a TON of battery power (that thing died on me like a week after I put new batteries in), and it has huge lumps under the main shuttlebay where the gearing is. The Defiant on the other hand, is nearly perfectly accurate and the nose section with the deflector pivots.

The Playmates ships were mostly fantastic stuff, they're definitely some of my favorites, but it seems like they took unnneseccary liberties at times - like the First Contact Ent E whose main shuttlebay lit up or the transforming Ent-D from "All Good Things..." that has no main impulse drive. However, compared to the Trek toys before Playmates, there's almost none and they weren't very big, so Playmates can afford to take liberties (luckily, the Insurrection Ent E fixed the shuttlebay/impulse problem).

Playmates also did a couple Shuttlecraft vehicles that held figures and a Runabout - all were pretty nice.

The box for the Ent D bridge playset, I remember it, it was nearly as big as that 21st Century Toys M3 tank - it was sarcastically big.

The ships were only around $30 when they were released, I got my Defiant for $9 when it went on clearance! I too wish I had an Excelsior and a Klingon Bird of Prey and Deep Space 9 and a few others, naturally they are the most expensive, but I have high hopes for the ships from the upcoming Art Asylum line.

LTBasker

12-07-2001, 04:30 AM

Well like I said I don't have it. ;) The only Playmates ships I had, I had to throw away because they severely smoked damaged during a house fire some years back. I only had the Ent-D, Klingon Vor'Cha and Goddard Shuttle, but now none of those 3. :(
I'd really like to get Voyager and the rest of them, but that would take alot of money. :cry:

Did your hear about the new Trek figures? Click here (http://www.americandreamcomics.com/sys-tmpl/artasylumstartrekinterview/) to see the interview AmericanDreamComics did with the company that will be doing them. Unfortunetly, the figures are going to be 7" and therefore not compatible with the regular Playmates figures. :(

Tycho

12-07-2001, 04:13 PM

Thank you for that interview Basker. It was really interesting.

I wish we could show the company that the fans want figures on scale with the last basic assortment size for Playmates. I don't know if that is a true fact, but speaking personally, I would feel I'd HAVE to collect them if they were the same size, and continualy update my Trek dioramas. It's too bad my Enterprise figures I might buy will never meet my more obscure DS9 characters like Grand Nagus Zek for playtime.

I understand why one company might want to distinguish itself from another, but there was a factor to weigh in that it could've been smart to make them the same size.

Today we have Star Wars figures that are made by HASBRO which are on scale and marginally compatible with figures made by KENNER. I only see it saving money for a company.

Art Asylum could've even bought the molds from Playmates for the Runabout, etc. and yes Tricks, I have all the ships that held the basic figures, and the playsets, I just wish they made more. Don't you? That'd been awesome!

BTW, I love my Enterprise D bridge playset! That is the way you make toys!

JediTricks

12-07-2001, 11:07 PM

Figures.com also posted news (http://209.197.117.27/databases/action.cgi?setup_file=fignews2.setup&category=actionfigures&topic=101&show_article=41) from the Asylum about the Trek license. I like the idea of the starships! I don't care if they have gimmicky interaction or not though, just so long as they exist and there are ships from all the series right away. The figure scale is too big for my tastes and it'll take a lot of convincing to get me to buy 'em at that size.

Tycho, as for the vehicles the figures could get into, I thought they did a nice job, but I didn't really want to see much more - maybe a TNG type 2 shuttlepod or a Sphinx or a Workbee, but not out-of-scale stuff. The problem was, it was SO expensive for the playsets that it became prohibitive.

JediTricks

12-07-2001, 11:41 PM

BTW, I forgot to mention, on the Enterprise episode with the comet-walk, there was a very strange thing that rewrites Trek history as well as this new show's pre-history...

The only time we've ever seen the pre-Federation Enterprise before this show was conceived was in Star Trek:The Motion Picture, where it was shown in a small picture along with the other crafts named "Enterprise". This was totally different from the shape of the NX-01 we see in the current show, but the thing of it is, the shape of that TMP "Enterprise" was the exact shape of the Vulcan ship in this ep - the ship with the giant ring around it! There's even a listing for this pre-fed Enterprise in the Star Trek Encyclopedia with a CG-rendered version of that ship (the ST Encyclopedia is way before this Enterprise show was conceived) and it looks nearly identical. Is that weird or what?

vulcantouch

12-08-2001, 12:36 AM

stick w/a classic; i've never heard any alternate term for "trekkie" that wasn't insufferably pretentious :p
tycho: i bet you could make a figure-fitting kaz raider from a kaz raider model, just fashion the top into an opening cockpit :)
playmates ships i got: cube ($10), sphere ($10), ds9 (gift), vorcha ($10; if i ever get off my can it might be fun to take out its sound fx & install em into my tmp klingon ship model, cuz i already have an mm of the vorcha but not of the tmp kbc; the cool sounds are a big reason i got these) :)
dammit, more lame trek Figures :dead: forget That, bring us some more trek Micromachine ships, dammit :frus:
"cold front" introduces the possibility that Entwerprise might actually become more than just intermittently interesting, as opposed to something that i've been half-watchin while doing something else just to get it under my belt cuz it's trek. has anyone heard about its ratings? i still say that if it does better than voy or ds9 it's pure racism & sexism, that audiences don't embrace trek unless it's got a white male top dog. after all, ds9 & voy were both way cooler than ent has Yet to get-
vt

Tycho

12-08-2001, 12:54 AM

I disagree with the last comments you made, VT. There are a lot of factors that make or break a Trek show.

DS9 was my favorite always. It had a lot going on, and the on-going war story was unparalleled in Trek history. Maybe the Temporal Cold War will attempt to recreate that type of feeling. It will be a while before we can tell if they're any good at it.

As to the Captain characters being the leads, the characters viewers watch and identify with the most each week? Maybe for some, but certainly not for all.

The character I identified most with in recent Trek shows was Tom Paris - a crew member but part of an ensemble cast, so there was much more going on to keep me hooked, than just keeping up with what Tom was doing from week to week. Sometimes he did nothing at all. Harry and Tuvok I also identified with more than many other characters. On DS9 it would be Odo and Worf, though Bashir was closest to my age (on DS9 that is).

Sisko was a single-parent and a widower, and though seriously cool, I had very little in common with him. It had nothing to do with him being a black male or not.

Janeway was a complete step away from me, but I loved learning of her adventures from week to week. Only in her decisions in the big chair did I ask "is that what I would do?" - and Tom rarely got to take command of the ship.

LTBasker

12-08-2001, 02:30 AM

Tom Paris rules. :D Who's face do you think was there before the stormtrooper got plopped on in my avatar? :rolleyes:

I think one other reason why ENT isn't very good is because it can't give you the "real-ism feel" that you got while watching TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY and watching all the ships, the reason for this is because they don't use the ol' model in front of screens trick, the Enterprise prop is all CGI. :cry:

If Asylum was watching carefully, they'd see Playmates Trek figures really started to fail in sales when they started releasing the 6" figures and those First Contact Zefram and the other peg-warmers flooded the shelves and due to their size and boringness, never sold much. Who reallys want to not be able to do a display of their Saavik figures beating up T'Pol? :crazed:

I think I read on an ST board somewhere that the first Captain of the Enterprise was Captain (something) April. :stupid:

Tycho

12-08-2001, 03:45 AM

Jonathon Archer is captain of an experimental ship of a different class than the Constitution Class than came about years later.

The first captain of the Enterprise NCC-1701 can still be Captain Robert April.

Lt. George Samuel Kirk served on that ship, before he led a team of colonists.

He had two sons. James is the younger one.

But meanwhile, Captain Christopher Pike took command of the Enterprise until he was promoted to Fleet Commodore.

James T. Kirk was then promoted to captain so he had enough pay credits for alimony to be paid to Capt. April's grand-daughter, and Pike's daughter. They sent him out in space so that he couldn't continue to bolster the earth's overpopulation.

vulcantouch

12-08-2001, 12:28 PM

the former refers to inherent merit, while the latter's a popularity yardstick. the two are not synonymous. an example of the former: Citizen Kane. example of the latter: It's a Wonderful Life :p
remember the phenom tng was? how iconic both it and tos remain in pop culture? yet neither of them were as artistically accomplished as ds9. ds9 was simply more involving, more enduring, more stylin, more Fun. but when the public (or most trekkies) think of trek they think of kirk's & picard's treks, not ds9 or voy. neither of the latter were ever widely embraced or celebrated the way tng or tos was. if Entwerprise is able to buck that trend without being a Better show than ds9 or voy, there can be only one reason for that.
i'm not sure if "identifying" with the captains is the make-or-break issue for these audiences (but if a certain skin color prevents that kind of identification, that again makes my point) so much as it is whether they buy into a certain credibility or authority from the center seatwell. kirk & bakula possess no more "credibility" or "authoritativeness" than janeway or sisko. so again, if Ent's audience success plays out as i delineated, it can only mean trekkies ain't no less prejudiced than anyone else-
vt

Tycho

12-08-2001, 08:20 PM

If you're Vulcan, I'm sure you're aware of the scientific method.

If the variable you are testing is white-male favoritism for Star Trek's center seat, all other aspects have to remain constant, right?

In other words,

you need a white female commander of an alien space station caught in the middle of the battlefield between two or more large superpowers

or

you need a black male captain with a single starship lost in deep space

or

you need a black male captain of a Federation flagship with a Klingon and Android amongst the bridge crew, etc.

Eventually Star Trek (if it endures for another 28 years - 4 shows) should tap different choices for the Captain.

an alien Captain would be the MOST controversial: a Vulcan would be the top choice, then several recurring characters such as Worf as Captain, or Nog - the first Ferengi Captain.

a new female (human) captain could be ethnic: a black captain like the one in ST:IV of the Saratoga. She also could be Mexican, an 'exotic race' like Indian (not meaning Native American), or she could be Asian (recurring character like Hoshi Sato?)

a new male captain probably should be ethnic (black - possibly, though I'm all for movies starring Avery Brooks as Sisko. However, LeVar Burton could make an interesting captain, when 'Geordie' is just a little bit older... but remember the character wants to retire and take up writing -unless the galaxy needs him) A Latino Captain would be fine and very unique if the character were significantly less-reserved than Chakotay. They would be VERY different characters. An Asian Captain could have or should be tapped while George Takei can still walk (LOL) and a Captain Sulu mini-series would likely be the first show many fans would want to see with an Asian male Captain. However, I am a Harry Kim fan and Garret Wang is more likely to be able to play an action hero type that would be identifiable with youths watching. Harry is experienced way more than Archer or Travis Mayweather, or even maybe all TNG or DS9's crew since Mr. Kim has been out there in the Delta Quadrant. His wartime experiences were not the same as a Niner's, but Voyager faced the Borg and Hirogen - pretty good for experience I think?

In other roles the First Officer has been Vulcan male, human white male, Bajoran white female, and Native American male, and finally female Vulcan. Human white female seems to be sort of untapped, and Cmdr. Shelby comes to mind. Again, a black female or Asian female is possible. How would a show go with a female Captain and a female First Officer (assume Tom Paris is still married and NOT on the ship! Same with Riker....)

The Second Officer has been a helmsman, an Ops Android, a lady scientist or a Klingon, a Vulcan tactical officer, and a human tactical officer. A male-dominated role in the analysis save for maybe Jadzia Dax - though Worf stepped on her toes a lot.

The Doctor is best off being an ethnic female for a variety. Dr. Ogawa from TNG comes to mind. Or Dr. Saalar (spelling - Susie Plakstone's 1st character on TNG).

The engineer should be Asian, due to lack of an Asian engineer in Star Trek, and the modern stereotype of Asians excelling in that field. It is at least a stereotype that is complimentary, though Star Trek has avoided casting in that direction....

Another pilot or combat officer who is female should be cast. Sort of like Tasha Yar or Jadzia Dax.

Star Trek is great at breaking the mold and showing all of us succeed in the future. This has been fun just pointing out areas Trek casting has not yet explored.

How would a ship with a predominantly female cast go over? Sort of spin it like Charlie's Angels (in the media) but write the episodes like normal Trek...

Female (black or Asian Captain), (white First Officer), an Asian-Indian princess for a Tactical Officer- she could be Deltan so she'd only look human, an Asian female doctor.

Male - Asian engineer requiring a very masculine male action hero type that asserts himself in some relationship with the female captain (Harry - an engineer?) but must also be very believably smart and scientifically capable.

Male - white (to win viewers I suppose) doing, well something...
Perhaps in a controversial role such as a Section 31 agent stranded on board. Should be a younger character who's frustrated because he has to learn to respect these women, but can't stop trying to get it on with them...(not the Captain, but does make the EXO vulnerable for conflict in the show).

What do you think? (as if we need another Star Trek show, let alone Charlie's StarFleet in space....)

LTBasker

12-09-2001, 12:11 AM

How 'bout Worf with his own series as a Captain with a type 2 Defiant or the Enterprise-F in 2400? He'd be old, yea, but it's Worf. :D

Tycho

12-09-2001, 03:47 AM

If it was a show entirely cast out of recurring characters (who would do the show in the first place) - using characters from the last 3 Treks that could possibly serve together in the same century, it would be fun to make a 'dream crew.'

Captain Riker
First Officer Worf
Tactical / 2nd Officer Tuvok
Doctor Joe Hologram
Pilot Tom Paris
Engineer B'lanna Torres-Paris
Counselor Deanna Troi

The only problem is that Tuvok and Worf are equally capable of being promoted to Captain.

LTBasker

12-09-2001, 04:22 AM

Yea that could work. I think Tuvok though would probably want to stay as a Lt. Commander so that Worf who's had more experiance in command with The Defiant and various Runabouts and also serving on the Ent-D, and E could be the Commander and Tuvok would be Security Chief. Riker's always deserved the Captain's chair, theres no doubt about that. Tom and B'ellana's baby could be a "naomi wildman" type of character. :p

Actually that whole crew listing for the next Enteprise sounds very possible. I wonder just how many fans would've rather of seen that type of series instead of Enterprise. And to think, they could've kept a tradition alive... It seems for a little while there on every new Trek series they had a character from the last series on there. McCoy was on the pilot of TNG, Picard was on the pilot of DS9, and Quark was on the pilot of VOY. Janeway or Chakotay could've been on the pilot for this one.

JediTricks

12-09-2001, 07:02 AM

According to Sci-Fi Channel, Enterprise's ratings from 11/12 to 11/18 was 4.5% HHR (that's the percentage of total TV-watching households), which isn't too shabby, as I understand it. It beat out other genre shows like Smallville, Dark Angel, Buffy, and Angel for that week, though X-files was higher with 5.9, though that was the season premiere.

I think the writing, pacing, and seettings of DS9 and Voyager have more to do with their lack of popularity as the prejudice accusation; to accuse the latter of being the primary reason for their ratings downfall is beyond oversimplification - that's not to say they may not be factors, but I simply don't think they're the primary reasons. DS9 was virtually unapproachable for many Trekkies because of its dark nature and slower storytelling style, not to mention that things STARTED negative. Voy was simply written and conceived poorly IMO, with no Federation and dull characters who didn't come into their own until season 3 or 4; not to mention the problems with the whole "anti-charismatic constant enemy" in the Kazon.

LTBasker

12-09-2001, 09:29 AM

Originally posted by JediTricks
According to Sci-Fi Channel, Enterprise's ratings from 11/12 to 11/18 was 4.5% HHR (that's the percentage of total TV-watching households), which isn't too shabby, as I understand it. It beat out other genre shows like Smallville, Dark Angel, Buffy, and Angel for that week, though X-files was higher with 5.9, though that was the season premiere.

Actually...if you think about it, that's not much of a comparison. :D

Tycho

12-09-2001, 03:17 PM

Don't get me wrong: I really like Enterprise and think it is a brilliant concept. The Trek universe is richer for it.

Captain Riker's crew that I suggested could be a conglomerate movie crew as well as a TV crew (if Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner are truly done with the roles - or if it just isn't time to let the rest of the crews 'grow up.' It's the first 3 cast members that may be the problem :

Jonathon Frakes is (am I wrong?) Creator, Executive Producer, sometimes Director, as well as Head Writer / Senior Script Editor for ROSWELL, an arguably well-rated show with constantly increasing appeal. He may be too busy, and too involved in what he's doing now. To me, these roles Frakes has are far more interesting and involved than just acting, and he has proven himself more than capable of handling them.

Michael Dorn may well be sick of 11 or 12 years of putting on the Worf make-up, no matter how much he likes the character.

I think Tim Russ had commented in an interview that it was time to do something else, maybe even more logical for his career.

As these 3 would likely be the focused-on stars of the show, they would experience intense schedules no doubt. I was just wondering how Dr. Ogawa would fit in with my dream crew, versus the Holo-Doc. She is a married professional character too, and her husband might be on board. How would all this play off Riker and his decisions he makes as Captain? Might be interesting.

Meanwhile, on Enterprise:

Capt. Archer - a little dorky, but pre-programmed to be tough when he needs to be. I think he's operating from a rule book he set up for himself, and doesn't do as much spontaneous thinking like Kirk's "I know - let's destroy a society as they've known it."

Cmdr. Tucker - a cool action hero, who might be a hot head without his training, so he always seems a little on the edge of starting a fight, but he's got good control of himself and some well-adjusted values. He's my early favorite.

T'Pol - carries with her any excuse to be a snotty b;tch but is the "reluctantly learning to accept human characters" all Star Trek shows save for TNG seemed to necessitate having (Spock, Odo, Tuvok, though one might argue the same for Worf). Data accepted humans enough to want to be one, so I'm not talking about the traditional 'outsider' character in general.

Hoshi Sato - might prove interesting, as she's the first Trek character completely scared of everything (save for maybe Neelix - but Hoshi is not a comedic character). So far though, she seems really bored on the job. Is that the actress (Linda Park) or is it the character (Hoshi that is supposed to be bored as she doesn't really want to be there)? I hope it's the latter and the character grows rather than the actress quits.

Malcolm Reed - the latest bloomer of any of the characters, he likes to blow stuff up and is likely the father of all SF security protocals. Maybe he even starts Section 31? I'd like to get inside this guy's mind a little. However, he's not Admiral Piett or General Veers - he tolerated Travis sitting in the Captain's chair and didn't reprimand him (just embarrassed him a little). [uh the Imperials keep their captains working and don't let them rest in chairs, and furthermore, if it were Piett or especially Veers, well can you say "torture and execution for insabordination?"

Travis Mayweather is cool so far and like a cross between Tom and Harry. He was really good in that show with the freight haulers fighting the Nauskicaans.

The Doc is ok - his mannerisms are either too effeminate for my tastes for a male character, or too condescending as he might feel he's so much more enlightened than humans, or T'pol as well for that matter. He is not as annoying as Neelix, but as he always seems to threaten me with going that route, I am witholding even a preliminary opinion about the doctor.

vulcantouch

12-16-2001, 12:51 PM

. . .i don't think such speculation sheds any light on the question at hand ("pure thinking doesn't concern itself with 'what might have been'" -tain to garak, andy robinson's A Stitch In Time novel :cool: ). one thing i do like about entwerp is that instead of splitting its time among Nine principle characters it wisely pared the number down to seven. w/the prev. 3 shows, esp. tng, it always seemed like there was unnecessary redundancy, and the distinguishing traits (specialty, interests, personality) of each principle could've easily been redistributed among other characters. it seemed as though the tng show intuitviely understood this, which resulted in unintentional cast attrition. too bad it didn't stop with wesley & yar, even though they were certainly the least watchable castmembers, which imo is the Real reason wes is reviled (http://salon.com/tech/feature/2001/12/12/wheaton/print.html). thankfully (& surprisingly), i recently got to revise (http://www.sirstevesguide.com/vbportal/forums/showthread.php?postid=22752#post22752) my blanket opinion of wheaton, who it turns out has actually been fightin a good fight of late (see prev link) :Pirate:

jt: "the writing, pacing, and settings of DS9 and Voyager have more to do with their lack of popularity. . . Voy was simply written and conceived poorly IMO, with no Federation'
-i dispute all those contentions; tng, with its ponderous federation setting, serves well enough as a foundation for the next 2 shows, but is not in itself as watchable. there did seem to be a pervasive problem with voy's sound mix (a key deficit for b5 as well, from what i could tell; both as opposed to ds9's more encompassing ambience, which really drew you in).

"DS9 was virtually unapproachable for many Trekkies because of its dark nature and slower storytelling style, not to mention that things STARTED negative"
-which i found a riVeTing VariaTion on rottenberry's paradigm :cool: so, i say lotta trekkies are race&gender-biased, & you say they're weenies who can't handle a bit of grimness; po-tay-to, po-tah-to ;)

"'anti-charismatic'. . . Kazon"
-anticharismatic? as in "third-worldesque backwards"? :crazed:

"dull characters who didn't come into their own until season 3 or 4"
-as opposed to tng, whose characters gelled right away? :rolleyes:
to me the litmus test of a show's progress is how many "keepers" it churns out, i.e. do i wanna retain a VTape copy of an episode to rewatch it in the future. for me, here's about how many keepers the first five seasons of each show offered:
tng: 4, 3, 5, 8, 13
ds9: 4, 13, 24, 24, 24
voy: 5, 9, 16, 16, 20
as you can see, imo both ds9 and voy got better faster, and maintained a higher final plateau than tng :)

"Enterprise's ratings from 11/12 to 11/18 was 4.5% HHR "
-ok, so what i wanna know is, is that better or worse than voy? :)
vt
np: stevie wonder, "higher ground"

LTBasker

12-16-2001, 05:09 PM

Rottenbary? I wouldn't go about saying that, without him we never would've gotten it in the first place and therefore we'd have no STMMs at all. :(

DS9 was ok, but Brooks seemed to be acting as if he were in a highschool classical play rather than a sci-fi TV show but the best part about DS9 was that it was more in sync with TNG. Berman really started warping Trek w/ VOY and w/ ENT it's so warped not even superman could even begin to bend it back into shape. VOY wasn't that bad and it was tuned in with the earlier shows but not by much, and ENT seems to be in it's own little universe with Star Trek as it's carrier.

JediTricks

12-17-2001, 12:40 AM

VT, seeing as you are primarily a DS9er more than a trekkie, I don't think you can speak for or contend with: "the writing, pacing, and settings of DS9 and Voyager have more to do with their lack of popularity. . . Voy was simply written and conceived poorly IMO, with no Federation' since you're not the average trek-watcher. Popularity comes from the largest group of people who watch, not the smaller ones. And to claim that TNG is unwatchable shows just how little of a trekkie you are, to me, TNG is the benchmark for all Trek except for TOS and movies 1-4.

As for the sound on B5, it really wasn't mixed for TV, they often pushed well past the limits of TV-broadcast sound.

"so, i say lotta trekkies are race&gender-biased, & you say they're weenies who can't handle a bit of grimness; po-tay-to, po-tah-to"
I didn't say they can't handle it and I didn't say they were "weenies", what I said is that Trekkies, the group of people which you virtually ain't, found it unapprochable because of its dark nature and its slower storytelling style - that is so far removed from your accusation of "race/gender bias" that it defies logic how you consider these 2 statements to be potato/potato.

The Kazon were as boring and ill-conceived as any alien on TOS, it had nothing to do with their "anti-Alpha Quadrant ways", in fact, they felt like they wanted to be a clone of TOS's Klingons, except without a central system of government.

I should have said "dull characters who didn't even start to come into their own until season 3 or 4", Voyager's characters didn't really come to life till the end of season 4 IMO. Don't expect your litmus test to match that of others VT, your numbers don't even come close to most of my trekkie friends who keep eps on tape (I don't keep ANY of 'em on tape).

Ent's ratings are higher than Voy's.

vulcantouch

12-18-2001, 01:04 AM

-i Knew it! i Knew it! :dead: too many of my fellow trekkies are such clueless, milquetoast Weenies. it takes cojones to look within and acquire even the most basic clarity into oneself, cojones they, for all their professed ideals, Lack :p

"to claim that TNG is unwatchable shows just how little of a trekkie you are. . . seeing as you are primarily a DS9er more than a trekkie, I don't think you can speak for or contend with. . . Trekkies, the group of people which you virtually ain't"
-funny; i always figured a Niner, i.e. someone with a strong taste for ds9 (guilty as charged :cool: ), was a Subset of trekkie, rather than a category entirely separate from it. your implication to the contrary is, i spose, an amusing, mildly proVocaTive notion (should i feel insulted at your questioning of my "trekkieness"? uh, maybe when i get around to it ;) ), but, alas, nuthin more :p

"Don't expect your litmus test to match that of others VT"
-such an expectation would not only be, i agree, foolish, but also undesirable:

"your numbers don't even come close to most of my trekkie friends . . .since you're not the average trek-watcher"
-in light of this discussion, an inadVertanT compliment if ever i heard one :D the implication of which is, alas, also based on flawed assumptions:
>that only Average trek tastes define Valid Trekdom, and;
>that one must sport average trek tastes, or be an "average trek-watcher" in order to be in a position to incisively critique average trek tastes.
i reject both assumptions. in a crowd, the taller man can see farther, over the heads of those of average height. he can see patterns by which the average-heighters congregate and interact. just because the average-heighters don't discern these patterns doesn't mean said discernments are not accurate. it doesn't mean said patterns aren't there.
i ain't tawkin bout Prevailing taste, i'm tawkin about Superior taste. matters of taste are Not entirely relative. and i, Vertical Tastemonger, have discerned and concluded that the trekkie majority not gettin on board with soulbruthah sisko or hardmama kate the way they do with crackabwahs koik, pickered or acher can only be due to their hypocritical limitations, about which they remain in denial. it's not a conclusion i enjoy coming to, but the only possible alternative- the nebulous "there's no accounting for taste"- continues to sound like hollow, defensive, unconvincing excuse-making.

"I didn't say they can't handle it and I didn't say they were 'weenies'. . . it defies logic how you consider these 2 statements to be potato/potato"
-oh Come now, after all our years of correspondence i think you Know by now when to Not take me Literally :rolleyes: i also think you know that the point i'm really driving at with my deftly-cadenced riposte is that, whether lotta my fellow trekkies are weenies who can't handle a bit of grimness Or are obliviously race-&-gender-biased, either way they're damnably flawed and limited re trek connoisseurship.
formalist aesthetic theory notwithstanding, art & audience are intricately linked. thus, an effective critique of one must often deal with both. thus, i do not hesitate to cast a merciless eye onto fellow trekkies when i think doing so helps get at a more precise view of a phenomenon that has real effects on all trekdom, as this one does: let's face it, No future trek franchise will feature anything But a white guy in charge; the paramount suits cast just as unsentimental an analytical eye upon trek business results as i do (albeit for different motives), and their future choices will reflect said ugly truths. they will come to regard the ds9/voy era as "trek's interesting, insufficiently profitable experiment". so relaaax, jt (it does sound like i've hit close to the mark, as i Do detect an unmistakable, humor-impairing defensiveness on your part, which would account for your misreading of my po-tay-to-ism, as well as your over-generalization that i claimed "tng is unwatchable" :sur: ), you can be assured that trek will never again go where no white man does not first go, and the disturbing criticism of your fellow trekkies from rogue opinion-mongers like me will fade into the past. quite simply, the issue will never have Occasion to be raised anew.

"slower storytelling style"
-plz elaborate; you mean multi-ep arcs, or within-ep plot progression? both? neither?

"felt like they wanted to be a clone of TOS's Klingons"
-indeed, but that doesn't mean they were unwatchable, just unoriginal :)

ltb: "Rottenbary? I wouldn't go about saying that"
-he's just a man, man; no less flawed and no less immune to valid criticism than lucas, berman, you, me or almighty jt ;) if callin him rottenberry helps get the ball rollin re such healthy iconoclasm, so be it :) was it mere coincidence that tng got more watchable exactly when rottenberry's health began failing, which resulted in his increasingly suspect dramatic instincts having much less grip on the show's reigns? not to me it weren't :sur:
vt
np: hardrive, "deep inside"

Emperor Howdy

12-18-2001, 01:27 AM

Well....all I gotta say is that one with the kid who does naughty things like make people's mouths disappear and ends with "I want to stay......(stay...stay...stay...stay)" was a cool episode. I also liked the "Nomad....Nomad....Nomad" droid. Oh yeah, and the episode with the green monster Kirk has to fight in the desert is a classic. Oooh...and the one where Spock and "JIM!!" fight to the death......wow.....those were the days. I never really got into those series with the chick and the black guy, though............................................ .................................................. ....:eek: DOH! :eek:

*NOTE: The previous post was only a joke. There is no need to ostracize me. I was only making light of the argument that people didn't like the newer series based on a black or female captain. I am not a racist. On the contrary, I think it would have been totally cool if that female captain had carried on Kirk's tradition of having her shirt sliced open during every fight scene!

*NOTE: The previous post was only a joke. There is no need to ostracize me. I was only making light of the fact that James T always got his shirt torn open in battle. I am not a chauvinist. Besides..she's old.

*NOTE: The previous post was only a joke. There is no need to ostracize me. I like old people. My grandmother is old. I love my grandmother.

*Note: The pre....wait.....I'm not even goin' there.

vulcantouch

12-18-2001, 01:30 AM

;)

Tycho

12-18-2001, 03:30 AM

'NINER soundoff:

Long Live the DEFIANT!

Need I say more?

JediTricks

12-18-2001, 04:08 AM

In terms of ratings, I was referring to Voys most recent season ratings, not season 1 - I don't think you can judge UPN's ratings cows based on their major season 1 hype vs. their decrepit season 6 and 7 sneezes of advertising.
-in light of this discussion, an inadVertanT compliment if ever i heard one one which is, alas, also based on flawed assumptions:
>that only Average trek tastes define Valid Trekdom, and;
>that one must sport average trek tastes, or be an "average trek-watcher" in order to be in a position to incisively critique average trek tastes.
i reject both assumptions. in a crowd, the taller man can see farther, over the heads of those of average height. he can see patterns by which the average-heighters congregate and interact. just because the average-heighters don't discern these patterns doesn't mean said discernments are not accurate. it doesn't mean said patterns aren't there.
i ain't tawkin bout Prevailing taste, i'm tawkin about Superior taste. matters of taste are Not entirely relative.Ah, but you forget the main thing, in this discussion, you are accusing the majority of Trekkies of possibly being racists/sexists, so to say that your view is superior to others, and thus theirs is the one that is flawed does not fit within the parameters of this discussion, although it is the opinion of nearly every trekkie I know that their sole opinion is superior to all others' - so in that, you are in the main group. :D

I still say that your faith in your opinion-superiority is doing a disservice to those you are maligning in this case and that this same faith in said opinion-superiority has created a tunnel-vision which gives you yourself the very prejudice you accuse other Trekkies of having - shortsightedness. I could say that I flip on a lightswitch every day and light appears, therefore the lightswitch creates the light in a room, but that statement is not only inaccurate, but also fails to take in several other factors that may account for the appearance of light in the room. Perhaps the switch only allows current to reach a lamp to activate, making the real source of the light; or perhaps the switch causes a shade on the glass roof to open to let ambient light in; or perhaps the switch does nothing and is simply thrown at the same time every day that the sun slides out from behind a building that had been previously obscuring it to cause light to enter the room's window. There are many things to take into consideration when making a statement, jumping to a conclusion based on an arrogant, short-sighted, and under-researched opinion is rarely one of those things where logic is abound.oh Come now, after all our years of correspondence i think you Know by now when to Not take me LiterallyFunny, after all these years of correspondence, I would have thought you wouldn't put words in my mouth.

I think you're limiting the audience to your poorly slanted view of them, and it is that same kind of arrogant, self-superiorized know-it-allness that leads Paramount execs to having risks like the star of a Trek show being Cmdr Sisko, a depressed black guy with a so-so career, and begging to throw said risks out the window in the fear that the audience is too _______ (fill in the blank with whatever opinionated prejudicial adjective that limits and maligns Trek and Trekkies you can think of). Too bad people like Paramount execs who are in charge of Trek can't see past the numbers and get to know what the audience REALLY is willing to accept and wants to see, but it doesn't matter, the target audience members are all only sheep with one opinion at a time, right? ("Emergency alert, sarcasm at maximum levels! She can'na take much more o' this, cap'n!")

BTW, how you can put Voy in the same category as DS9 as far as Trek risktaking is beyond me, DS9 was a great idea stolen from another great concept (Babylon 5, pitched to Paramount a few months before Paramount claimed they came up with the idea of the next Trek being about a space station with darker, edgy tones); while Voy was merely "Lost in Space" with a Trek spin. If they really thought it was a risk worth taking, they would have shelved it for 7 years and cooked up another standard show like TNG to get audiences who felt disenfranchised with Trek after DS9 back into the game.
"slower storytelling style"
-plz elaborate; you mean multi-ep arcs, or within-ep plot progression? both? neither?The latter really, plus the aforementioned "not going anywhere"-ness of life on a non-Starfleet space station."felt like they wanted to be a clone of TOS's Klingons" -indeed, but that doesn't mean they were unwatchable, just unoriginalI thought it was both, the Klingons were only entertaining in TOS (imo of course) because they were this campy bad guy race, while the Kazons had none of the campiness that made the TOS Klingons charming. Hell, even their Kazon hair was lame! :D

Tycho

12-18-2001, 12:51 PM

'Niner soundoff:

(and to get back to the discussion on hand - everyone lost me on what Lampshades and electicity in the attic has to do with this...)

DS9 was bold enough to not 'go anywhere' but instead the crew stood their ground and dealt with the consequences of their actions from one show to the next, as well as the most impressive array of secondary/recurring characters (many of them seriously dangerous villains and spies).

StarFleet and Star Trek was first premaced as space exploration. Now all of the sudden the Gamma Quadrant is opened up right before them - only the Dominion is going to put an end to their little Star Trek. Their only option? Stand their ground and fight or the only thing Captain Sisko, Commander Worf and crew will explore is death!

DS9 pushed Trek to the wall and you had to have the stomach for the fight if you were going to stay their and handle it (seasons 3 - 7).

LTBasker

12-18-2001, 12:59 PM

Originally posted by vulcantouch

ltb: "Rottenbary? I wouldn't go about saying that"
-he's just a man, man; no less flawed and no less immune to valid criticism than lucas, berman, you, me or almighty jt ;) if callin him rottenberry helps get the ball rollin re such healthy iconoclasm, so be it :) was it mere coincidence that tng got more watchable exactly when rottenberry's health began failing, which resulted in his increasingly suspect dramatic instincts having much less grip on the show's reigns? not to me it weren't :sur:
vt
np: hardrive, "deep inside"

Berman, eh? Critisize on! and on and on and on and on and on. ;)

vulcantouch

12-18-2001, 01:05 PM

-on this we easily agree :) but since agreement can get so Monotonous, let's try to put that minor agreement behind us, and instead emphasize our common disagreements:

"your faith in your opinion-superiority is doing a disservice to those you are maligning"
-the possibility of which concerns me not, cuz i seek neither to serve nor disserve Them. i seek to serve the clarity of trek perception. if casting arrogant, widely-disputed aspersions seems to help with that, i got no problem with it. clarity takes no prisoners :Pirate:

"faith in said opinion-superiority has created a tunnel-vision which gives you yourself the very prejudice you accuse other Trekkies of having - shortsightedness"
-i accuse them more of inadequate taste and insight into themselves rather than short-sightedness. at any rate, tunnel-vision and short-sightedness are two different things. and only the latter is even related to sentimental haze, which is what i adopt the tunnel-vision to effectively circumvent in this case.
prejudice, blank-slateness; short-sightedness, far-sightedness; tunnel-vision, fisheye-peripherality. all these perceptual emphases have their uses; none are inherently invalid. if one wishes to make a precise hit upon a well-hidden target, one will not succeed without using tunnel vision.

"in that, you are in the main group :D"
-indeed; but the groupins that really count are:
>who is honest with himself about the "arrogance" with which he holds his opinions; after all, clarity begins at home ;) and:
>which opinions really Are superior.
re the latter, i am content to call em as i see em, make no apologies and let time, and my astonishing reliability to date, speak for itself re my opinions :D

"the audience is too _______ (fill in the blank with whatever opinionated prejudicial adjective that limits and maligns Trek and Trekkies you can think of). . . you are accusing the majority of Trekkies of possibly being racists/sexists"
-as one with a general distaste for playin the race card, i tend to refrain from trafficking in such charged terms when they obscure rather than illuminate the issue. again, my accusation is that too many trekkies are race&gender biased in such a way that turns em off any show where a white guy ain't captain, and that their idealized, congratulatory "evolved trekkie" self-images, in which they've invested heavily, serve their ongoing denial re this.

"I could say. . . the lightswitch creates the light in a room, but that statement is not only inaccurate, but also fails to take in several other factors"
-not sure how this analogy applies, cuz no one here has yet cited a single "other factor" which even begins to convincingly explain the result. "they don't go anywhere"? "non-federation milieux"? "darker nature"? "dull characters"? "written & conceived poorly"? "slower storytelling style"? all of these ring hollow no matter how many times i hear them repeated. in addition, the last 3 apply More to tng than ds9 Or voy.

"under-researched opinion is rarely one of those things where logic is abound"
-"logic is the Beginning of wisdom, not the end" -spock to valeris, st6 :) you are free at any time to counter my mix of "under-researchedness" and intuitive, trans-logical leaps with any mixture of "adequate research" and "logic" you wish, and i will happily give serious consideration to whatever you come up with :)

"I think you're limiting the audience to your poorly slanted view of them"
-and I think it is They who have limited Themselves to my dim view of them. they remain perfectly free to surprise me at any time; it's not like I'm stoppin em :)

"Paramount execs who are in charge of Trek can't see past the numbers. . ."
-it's not an exec's Job to see past the numbers, which is his limitation but also his strength. he sticks to what he knows cold. it's the Artist's job to see past the numbers, to find a way to acheive around them. but in this context, neither artist nor exec is responsible for the numbers themselves; the audience's own limitations are.

"and get to know what the audience REALLY is willing to accept. . . the target audience members are all only sheep with one opinion at a time, right?"
-to the extent that they behave as such, You Betcha. as for the conveniently vague notion of "what the audience is Really willing to accept": "you can't judge people by what they say or think, only by what they do"- kira to ziyal, ds9's "by inferno's light" :o

"DS9 was a great idea stolen from another"
-i wouldn't know, & don't much care, cuz what i do know is that we're All thieves, and what really matters is Results- in this case, artistic result. ds9 acheived, b5 didn't.

"how you can put Voy in the same category as DS9 as far as Trek risktaking is beyond me"
-oh? i thought it obvious i refer to the risk of top-dog demography.

"Voy was merely 'Lost in Space' with a Trek spin"
-as opposed to tng, which was merely rottenberry's sleep-inducing personal wet-dream? :sur: didn't you just get done taking Me to task for My "prejudice", "opinionatedness", "disservice", "tunnel-vision" and "short-sightedness"?
you're Really contending that voy was Merely lost in space with a trek spin? really? Really? :rolleyes:

"audiences who felt disenfranchised with Trek after DS9"
-an ironic notion if ever there was one :sur:

"Klingons were only entertaining in TOS because they were this campy bad guy"
-while it's admittedly a large part of the appeal of trek in general and tos in particular, campiness ain't everything, and it ain't all there is to trek :)

"to say that your view is superior to others, and thus theirs is the one that is flawed does not fit within the parameters of this discussion. . . it is that same kind of arrogant, self-superiorized know-it-allness that leads Paramount execs to having risks. . . and (then) begging to throw said risks out the window "
-i'm afraid i don't follow either of these statements; plz clarify :)

"I would have thought you wouldn't put words in my mouth"
-"'woulda' & a nickel'll git ya a hot cuppa JACK SQUAT!" -chris farley's matt foley :D besides, i didn't put words In your mouth, i just kinda held em up Next to yer mouth :D
vt
np: vanessa daou, "taste the wine"

JediTricks

12-19-2001, 03:41 AM

Not interested, we've danced too many dances where VT doesn't listen because VT is "too superior". If VT's opinion is that DS9 and Voy had less fans primarily because Trekkies are race/gender biased without taking other issues into account, then VT is an elitist who is more than willing to make a harsh accusation, but is unwilling to look further than the snap judgement that got him there.

Enterprise needs to get some friggin' new eps under the saddle soon, I'm sick of this "December doldrums" crap that the lack of Nielsen counting causes - everything's a friggin' rerun this month!

Obi-Don

12-19-2001, 09:24 AM

Every one of the Star Trek shows had is good and bad shows,but all in all I enjoyed them all.The new show needs more EPs and badly if this one is to take off. Just when I was starting to get in to it they started showing reruns:frus: .And really most of the reruns are not really worth watching again so soon.Give us new shows.

vulcantouch

12-19-2001, 11:51 PM

one lousy, cool-losin' paragraph's the Best you got in response to my generous, rollickin reply? you havin a bad day or somethin? my np was "taste the wine", not "state mere whine" :rolleyes: no matter, i'll make the best of what's there:

"VT doesn't listen"
-all one need do is witness my tireless, point-by-point response to every pertinent comment you uttered, which is Hella more'n can be said for this last response of Yours :o or does the JicTionary define "listen" as a synonym of "concur"? :rolleyes:

"without taking other issues into account"
-don't just Say that i haven't taken other issues into account, Show that i have not done so :rolleyes:

"VT is an elitist"
-and you've a Knack for the obvious ;) alas, pointing out what i myself've already made unabashedly clear isn't much of a rebuttal.
that said: would you, like me, prefer female companionship that Is potty-trained, as opposed to Not being so? if so, Potty Callin The Crapper Brown, we're All elitists :p

"(vt) is unwilling to look further"
-i am perfectly willing to look as "far" as i deem worthwhile. it is You who is "unwilling"- namely, to go to the effort necessary to Convince me to "look further","change my mind" or whatever it is you really sought to accomplish here.
unlike me: i have no interest in changing anyone's mind. my interest is simply in presenting my position and hearing what others have to say in response. it is a test of my opinion, to see how it weathers clashes with divergent views.
the result, always interesting, can include: immediate, total subversion, which indicates unworthiness; immediate acceptance, which indicates timeliness or trendiness; initial opposition followed by gradual, nagging acceptance, which indicates vanguardism, precision and endurance; little or no response, a context-based indication; a combination of the above possibilities; or, as in this case, overpassionate, out-of-context reactions, which typically indicate more about an opinion's listener than its merit :sur:

"the snap judgement that got him there"
-damned if that don't sound like. . . like. . . a Snap Judgment of my eValuaTive process :o

"Not interested"
-"yer makin me cry" -space hippie adam (charles napier), tos' "way to eden" ;)
"not interested", "jt forfeits to vt"; po-Tay-to, po-Tah-to :D

"we've danced too many dances"
-np: yello, "the evening's young" :)
any other wallflowers out there fancy a spin on the floor with Prince Smarming? :D
vt
p.s. to ltb: "Berman, eh? Critisize on! and on and on"
-happily; you berman-haters Do seem to be enjoyin yerselves ;) alas, No berman-hater (jt included) has yet explained to me Why they hate him so much so i could join in :(

Tycho

12-20-2001, 02:56 AM

I agree with Jedi Tricks that this argument is getting old.

I started this thread to discuss Enterprise's new episodes and when December re-runs are over, I am going to start a new Enterprise thread because you both drove me nuts trying to follow your circular arguments (especially V.T. though we have the same fondness for DS9 and might do well to have a Niner thread though I have nothing to say about that show right now).

Meanwhile, let me remind you all that there are Star Wars fans than like Star Trek, and probably even more Star Trek fans that like Star Wars - let's give them an Enterprise thread they will look forward to coming in to visit each week after every NEW episode (as in hasn't aired yet).

Thanks guys. I know you'll understand.

JediTricks

12-20-2001, 11:05 AM

"one lousy, cool-losin' paragraph's the Best you got in response to my generous, rollickin reply?"
It wasn't going to be even one character, but I know how you get all antsy if your ego goes unanswered. :p

"-don't just Say that i haven't taken other issues into account, Show that i have not done so "
See the following paragraph for the evidence, you simply write off any possible "other factors" as being "hollow" seemingly on the sole basis that you're unwilling to accept them. You want others to show you the courtesy to respond seriously to your comments? Maybe you should do the same.

"-not sure how this analogy applies, cuz no one here has yet cited a single "other factor" which even begins to convincingly explain the result. "they don't go anywhere"? "non-federation milieux"? "darker nature"? "dull characters"? "written & conceived poorly"? "slower storytelling style"? all of these ring hollow no matter how many times i hear them repeated. in addition, the last 3 apply More to tng than ds9 Or voy."

You claim that these possible factors are too "hollow" for you to believe, yet this same audience who you are claiming is too shallow to accept a black man or a white woman as the star of a Trek show. So even though YOUR hollow reasoning - that one fact equals the whole story - is "how it is, someone else's comments which you see as being hollow are somehow substandard; what's that expression, "trying to have it both ways"?

Enterprise is dead for at least 2 more weeks, gotta fill this section with SOMETHING. So either we all bicker with VT who sits around printing out discussions, or we show off links to brickshelf galleries of incredible Lego customs of the NX-01.
http://brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=6463

vulcantouch

12-20-2001, 11:48 AM

-to which said argument might shake its cane at you and croak, "it beats the hell outta the alternative, you impatient young whippersnapper!" :dead: ;)

"trying to follow your circular arguments"
-trying? as in not succeeding? if so, i think i see the problem :o i'm always happy to help clarify any comprehension problems so feel free to axe :)
circular, eh? if so, maybe jt was right to compare this to a dance :) but i'm afraid i don't find your "circularity" accusation self-evident so perhaps you could elaborate. after all, simply calling an argument circular cuz you think it's circular sounds kinda. . . Circular, if i Do say so, my Dayum seff ;)

"I am going to start a new Enterprise thread. . . let's give them an Enterprise thread they will look forward to coming in to visit"
-seein as how i ain't the thread-startin police you can do what you like as far as i'm concerned; but i know i ain't the only one who continues to enjoy this thread right here, so thanx for startin it :D

jt: "you simply write off any possible 'other factors' as being 'hollow' seemingly on the sole basis that you're unwilling to accept them"
-on the contrary, i've given these other factors every chance to convince me; i now "write them off" cuz they continue to ring hollow. i spose it's My doing that they continue to? :rolleyes:
i first heard someone offer the opinion i presently advocate during ds9 season 4. at the time i considered it premature. that was 1995. how much longer am i sposed to wait before makin up my mind? :rolleyes:

"See the following paragraph for the evidence"
-that's yer evidence? all yer doin is writin off my "writin off" of them other factors. why's my "writin off" automatically less valid than yours? :rolleyes:

"'trying to have it both ways'?"
-how so? it goes without saying that my opinion is my opinion. belaboring every assertion with "in my humble opinion" is not only unnecessarily redundant and bad writing style but disingenuous, in that it attempts to imply a self-humility or self-doubt that does not exist (let's face it, we All hold our opinions decisively, confidently, "arrogantly", or we do not hold them at all). it's like using the word "arguably" (as in "tng is Arguably the best trek"); an attempt to weasel in an opinion without taking responsibility for it. that's what I call tryina have it both ways :stupid:
changing minds was never my aim. i simply seek the honest clash of divergent opinions, as i invariably find the result both entertaining and instructive. where you see mere heat, i also see light :)

"either we all bicker with VT who sits around printing out discussions, or we show off links to brickshelf galleries"
-if those be our only two options, i adVocaTe the former :D but speakin of legos, you still haven't answered my quextion (http://www.sirstevesguide.com/vbportal/forums/showthread.php?postid=24081#post24081) :sur:
vt
np: "september song"

JediTricks

12-22-2001, 11:02 AM

VT, you claim that those reasons "ring hollow", yet you yourself have admitted that the storytelling style of DS9 is darker than TNG, and "they don't go anywhere" was the staple cry of DS9-dislikers in seasons 1 and 2 since the station just sat their at the wormhole, so you can't argue that there is some validity to others' opinion there (yes, they had runabouts, but the majority of the stories were set on the station); as for "slower", while that may be your opinion that the majority is wrong and are fools for not seeing it your way, the meter of many early eps were played out slower with more political intrigue and twists and turns than TNG or TOS. As for "poorly written and poorly conceived", that was a popular opinion about Voyager, not DS9, and I'd like you to explain to me why that opinion is wrong. (I'd like you to be able to explain how any preliminary opinion based on personal reviewing of evidence is wrong without using egotistical or belittling reasoning, but that'd be impossible. :p)

"-that's yer evidence? all yer doin is writin off my "writin off" of them other factors. why's my "writin off" automatically less valid than yours?"
Because you're simply writing them off as hollow even though they're opinions of value to the majority we're talking about - I'm not asking you to be egalitarian towards anybody, but to denounce the oppinions of those you consider bourgeois without even so much as a consideration of both the fact that they are as entitled to their opinions as you are to yours and the fact that the discussion isn't about YOUR opinions, but about theirs, it makes you look as shallow as those you accuse. Thus, my opinion of your role in this discussion goes down several pegs and the comments in question appear meritless.

"-how so? it goes without saying that my opinion is my opinion..."
When you refuse others, especially a large majority of the focus of this discussion, the same courtesy, you are trying to have your say without affording that to others.

Not only that, but in specific, you are talking about an audience you are claiming that for DS9 and Voy, based on ONE piece of evidence without taking into account a large variety of other factors such as timing, quality, style, audience, company support, etc., that this audience is so shallow that they are motivated to not watch as often simply because of the race or gender of the stars of the shows, yet when you are shown opinions many of this same audience have made about these shows which are alternate reasons to not watching besides the "prejudice" charge you lay upon them, you claim those reasons to be hollow - so you accuse them of being shallow, yet if they have shallow reasons for not watching that don't jive with your theory, those reasons must be unacceptable. If your audience is so shallow that they fit your opinion of them, then hollow reasoning will fit into the patterns of their opinions and your blanket statement doesn't fit the discussion.

"i simply seek the honest clash of divergent opinions, as i invariably find the result both entertaining and instructive."
It seems different from here, and I doubt I'm alone in that view with anybody who's been reading this discussion since the first post. It seems that you want to accuse the majority of the Trek audience of fitting into a heinous profile you've concocted based solely on one factor, while simultaneously brushing off any other factors as being trivial simply because you have neither the desire nor interest in empathizing with said audience or even weighing all the factors together. You seem to prefer making a cutting, eyebrow raising statement backed with prejudice rather than even considering the possibility that your test is flawed.

"quextion"
I was talking about the regular plates with Lego studs, though I'd love to have more smooth plates too.

I will bicker no further about this issue, the data, when taken as a whole, suggests no strong conclusion of mass-prejudice as to why audiences didn't flock to DS9 or Voy that I can see; this has become the argument of what the 3 blind men describing an elephant thought they saw -- each man was shown to a different part of the elephant to feel:
- the first blind man was given only the trunk, he proclaimed that he was touching a large hose;
- the second was given only the leg, he thought he was experiencing a pillar;
- the third was given only the tail, he was sure he had a fraying rope;
Since eacy only took in part of the evidence without experiencing the entire elephant, they could not come to an agreement as to what they were in the presence of since each believed themselves to be the right simply because they didn't take in the unity that was the elephant.

vulcantouch

12-22-2001, 04:38 PM

-seein as how you've made this promise before, i'll blieve it when i see it ;)

"you yourself have admitted that the storytelling style of DS9 is darker"
-which is hardly the same thing as admitting that darker storytelling is a deficit :rolleyes:

"'they don't go anywhere' was the staple cry of DS9-dislikers. . . so you can't argue that there is (no) validity to others' opinion"
-oh, but i Can; the staple cry of audiences who rioted at the 1919 premiere of stravinsky's Rite of Spring was that it was a cacaphonous, outrageous, unartisic assault on the ears. history has shown them to be provincial middlebrows whose opinions were ultimately invalid. i make the same sort of assertion here. i claim to not only predict the long-term historical response more accurately, i also claim to understand why the present confusion exists.

"the meter of many early eps were played out slower with more political intrigue and twists and turns than TNG"
-so, you're contending that ds9's political intrigue played out more ploddingly than the utopian, antiseptic, technobabble-heavy plots of the majority of tng eps?

"As for 'poorly written and poorly conceived', that was a popular opinion about Voyager"
-popular opinion and accurate opinion are two different things, a distinction going back to my earliest assertions here. artistic merit is not a democratic matter; it is not determined by majority opinion.

"I'd like you to explain to me why that opinion is wrong"
-which would be kinda like trying to "explain" why teri hatcher's purtier than minnie driver. nonetheless, i'll attempt to do so using anti-voyers' own justifications for why they favor the white-guy treks:
>voy renewed the exploration paradigm tos and tng fans Claim to prize, in that it removed us from the increasingly-familiar alpha quadrant tng strode and re-strode with nary an objection from same fans; and
>voy developed and expanded upon the borg (tng's most resonant and popular aliens) with greater depth and complexity than tng ever approached :cool:
by contrast, tng offered memorable portrayals by stewart & spiner (even though it did take both of them about 1-2 years to really nail their characters, as opposed to voy's players, who hit their marks right off), a few dozen slammin episodes and a lot of forgettable blandness.

"I'd like you to be able to explain how any preliminary opinion based on personal reviewing of evidence is wrong without using egotistical or belittling reasoning, but that'd be impossible"
-esp. when such distinction resides all too often in the eye of the beholder; for example, could these words of yours not be considered an "egotistical or belittling" characterization of my assertions? not that it would Bother me, which is one of the differences between you & me; i keep my concerns about giving or taking offense to a bare minimum :) )

"you're simply writing them off as hollow even though they're opinions of value to the majority we're talking about. . . the discussion isn't about YOUR opinions, but about theirs"
-so "majority" opinion can never be hollow? it can never be rightfully called hollow?

"without even so much as a consideration of both the fact that they are as entitled to their opinions"
-who sed anything about not entitled?? everyone's got a perfect Right to hold any boneheaded opinion they want. how does my calling said opinions boneheaded infringe on That? :rolleyes: am i supposed to preface every statement of disagreement with a plodding, obvious and redundant "while i respect your right to your opinion i happen to disagree"? and if i don't, and the other guy runs off scared cuz i didn't follow such a childish protocol, that's somehow My fault?

"it makes you look as shallow as those you accuse"
-"looking shallow" might only concern me if i were attempting to change minds. i am not. i figure that my opinion will endure and prevail or die and be forgotten on its own merits regardless of any "lobbying" efforts on my part. my only function is to present it as clearly and competently as possible. diplomacy, much less convincing others of my "depth", doesn't enter into that.

"the comments in question appear meritless"
-geez, Tawk about writing stuff off :eek:

"When you refuse others, especially a large majority of the focus of this discussion, the same courtesy, you are trying to have your say without affording that to others"
-how exactly am i refusing others their say? i say they're bourgeois boneheads, they say i'm an elitist bonehead. we both get our say and everybody's happy :)

"brushing off any other factors as being trivial simply because you have neither the desire nor interest in empathizing with said audience or even weighing all the factors. . . you are talking about an audience. . . based on ONE piece of evidence without taking into account a large variety of other factors such as timing, quality, style, audience, company support, etc."
-again, don't Tell me i'm not taking other factors into account, Show me. Explain how "timing, quality, style, audience, company support, etc" impact the result in ways you say i'm not taking into account.

"you claim those reasons to be hollow"
-more precisely, i claim they Ring hollow which, in light of other factors, i attribute to their being unconvincing excuses motivated by a desire to preserve one's evolved trekkie self-image.

"those reasons must be unacceptable"
-"unacceptable"? i'm not sure what that would mean in this context. i'm saying they continue to ring hollow.

"If your audience is so shallow that they fit your opinion of them, then hollow reasoning will fit into the patterns of their opinions and your blanket statement doesn't fit the discussion"
-plz clarify, i don't follow :confused:

"I doubt I'm alone in that view with anybody who's been reading this discussion since the first post"
-even if majority opinion Did determine this discussion's merit, are you not being presumptive in saying "anybody" else reading it shares your opinion of it?

"rather than even considering the possibility that your test is flawed"
-how would you know what i've considered? via the use of Prejudice? :eek: because at this point i express my pov confidently, you assume i arrived at this point without considering such possibilities? or is it that i'm supposed to continue to consider such a possibility til the end of time? if the latter, not gonna happen. sooner or later the time comes for a person to make a choice, and it has, and i have. if you aim for me to remake it, you'll have to Convince me to do so.

"this has become the argument of what the 3 blind men describing an elephant"
-except that, in citing this analogy, you're implying that neither of us sees the truth; at the same time, even though neither of us see the truth, somehow i see that truth less than you do? is that not trying to have it both ways? how is it so different from the arrogance you criticize in me? :happy:

"you want to accuse"
-want's got nuthin to do with it. i'm just sayin the shoe fits.

"You seem to prefer making a cutting, eyebrow raising statement"
-prefer? it's more that i have a talent for it ;)
vt
np: deee-lite, "music selector is the soul reflector"

JediTricks

12-23-2001, 08:37 AM

"-seein as how you've made this promise before, i'll blieve it when i see it"
Whee! Ok, I'll bicker some more just for you. :p

"-which is hardly the same thing as admitting that darker storytelling is a deficit"
While you and I and Tycho may agree that the darker storytelling worked very well for DS9, that doesn't mean others did... "People are afraid of change" - James T. Kirk

""'they don't go anywhere' was the staple cry of DS9-dislikers. . . so you can't argue that there is (no) validity to others' opinion"
-oh, but i Can... i claim to not only predict the long-term historical response more accurately, i also claim to understand why the present confusion exists."
You are being too philosophical, as if the stories didn't go anywhere. The reference here isn't that the populous thought each story was a dead end, it's that the characters rarely left the station to visit strange new worlds. That is factual, the crew rarely left, and the opinion is that many people who tuned out did so because they didn't like the crew not going anywhere.

"-so, you're contending that ds9's political intrigue played out more ploddingly than the utopian, antiseptic, technobabble-heavy plots of the majority of tng eps?"
- Not "ploddingly", merely too different from what they considered Trek. I rarely hear people say that the intrigue elements of DS9 were monotonous or heavy-handed, just that it didn't fit in with their preconceived notions of what Trek should be. Good TV and good Trek are not synonymous.

"-popular opinion and accurate opinion are two different things, a distinction going back to my earliest assertions here. artistic merit is not a democratic matter; it is not determined by majority opinion."
Ah, but we're not talking about artistic quality, the focus you created has been about the populous' prejudice towards Ben Sisko and Kate Janeway specifically.

">voy renewed the exploration paradigm tos and tng fans Claim to prize, in that it removed us from the increasingly-familiar alpha quadrant tng strode and re-strode with nary an objection from same fans"
Bzzt, no, sorry, you don't get that right. You're using seasons 3 through 7 here, season 1 is the primary season that got audiences interested or disinterested. I'll even give you season 2, but there wasn't much exploration there.

">voy developed and expanded upon the borg (tng's most resonant and popular aliens) with greater depth and complexity than tng ever approached "
You are nearly the only Trek fan I know who didn't dislike how Voyager rewrote the Borg.

"by contrast, tng offered memorable portrayals by stewart & spiner (even though it did take both of them about 1-2 years to really nail their characters, as opposed to voy's players, who hit their marks right off), a few dozen slammin episodes and a lot of forgettable blandness."
Hmm, once again, your opinion is the only one in play even though you are focusing solely on the opinions of others. We are talking about the majority of watchers, not about how you perceived things. If Voy nailed their characters right off and TNG took 2 seasons to get there, then explain how Voyager's ratings declined throughout its first 2 seasons steadily in these "perfect cast" seasons while TNG rapidly rose to become the highest-rated syndicated show of all time even though the cast wasn't on the money yet. Gender bias can't possibly come into play that much because Voyager started out very strong and they had this so-called "perfect cast".

"so "majority" opinion can never be hollow? it can never be rightfully called hollow?"
Not at all, if you truly believe the majority opinion is hollow, then that's what you believe; but how can you say that they are hollow while hollow opinions are beneath them? If you truly believe them to be so hollow, then hollow reasoning should be easily ascribed to them and thus, racism and gender bias aren't the only possible hollow reasons for why they didn't watch.

"-who sed anything about not entitled?? everyone's got a perfect Right to hold any boneheaded opinion they want."
You did when you said that the reasons many claim to not like DS9 and Voy are too hollow to be acceptable alternatives to your charge of racism/sexism.

"my only function is to present it as clearly and competently as possible."
Yet when your opinion is challenged as not being complete, how can you claim it is competent without further expanding your point accurately?

"-how exactly am i refusing others their say?"
When you claimed that their reasons were too hollow to accept for why they didn't watch.

"-even if majority opinion Did determine this discussion's merit, are you not being presumptive in saying "anybody" else reading it shares your opinion of it?"
Re-read my comment in question: "I doubt I'm alone in that view with anybody who's been reading this discussion since the first post" I said I doubted I was alone with anybody who has read this, not that everybody who read this agreed with me, merely that I'm not alone in that "anybody" grouping.

"-how would you know what i've considered? via the use of Prejudice? because at this point i express my pov confidently, you assume i arrived at this point without considering such possibilities?"
Because you've been challenged in your viewpoint on this and your only response has been that other reasons for the lower ratings "ring hollow" and it MUST be racism and sexism that caused the lower ratings.

"-except that, in citing this analogy, you're implying that neither of us sees the truth"
No, what I was implying was that you refuse or are unable to see the situation as a whole, instead picking one segment and coming to a conclusion based on that. If you have seen the elephant as a whole, as the sum of the evidence, you certainly haven't given that impression here. You strut around making a judgement that most Trekkies didn't watch DS9 and Voy solely because they're racist/sexist based on the comment that the ratings for the "white man shows" are higher than the others - no other evidence has been shown. You certainly come off sounding like someone making a snap judgement rather than an informed statement to me.

I'm not saying I know the truth as it absolutely is, but I am saying that I've heard many convincing reasons for why many Trekkies I've met didn't watch Voy and/or DS9 as frequently as TNG and NONE of them came off anywhere near your analysis. Hell, many of them (before season 5 of DS9 which got too muddy with Klingon and Dominion wars) said that they'd like to see a show with Sisko as a starship captain on a Starfleet starship.

Obi-Don

12-24-2001, 07:45 AM

I for one ,not tring to jump in the middle of this,would like to say.I liked the Sisko character and most of the others from DS9 and Voy.I always look at as just another part of ST.No I didn't enjoy them as much as TNG but that was me. To me its just TV and its just a story just as is Star Wars. You have to treat it that way. Not everyone will like the same story. And for what ever the reason is thats thier opinion. I see no point in puting anyone down or forcing a arugument over a story or a Tv show. Take it as it is to You and enjoy the ride. If you don't like the story or the show.Close the book or turn the channel. But let me have the right to like or dislike.

Reading what the post are saying here,I must admit.I agree with parts both are saying and some parts I don't.And some parts just leaves me lost.

JediTricks

12-25-2001, 05:53 AM

What I think sets Voyager and DS9 apart from TNG and ENT most is the Trek patented optimism which seems lower in Voy and DS9. Ent seems to have more optimism than everything but TOS at times, although it has some grim moments too, which works on the level it is at. I think if Ent is going to go to the place I think, where the whole series culminates by the crew erasing most of their actions from history to save the cosmos, then it works well, but if it's straightforward, then I think the show needs to start slowly shrugging off some of the darker stuff as humanity heads towards TOS and TNG.

Tycho

12-25-2001, 07:10 AM

You know I liked DS9 and Voyager better than TNG, so I'm biased, but I have the right to proceed (and I don't feel like anyone's challenging that either) -

but I don't think that just because they were darker shows, that DS9 and Voyager departed from Star Trek's optimism at all.

1) Voyager is easier: in spite of being way out of Federation Space, for the most part, Capt. Janeway did not depart from StarFleet's protocals and enlightened philosophy. So much to the extent that I was relieved on a continuing basis any time Chakotay got her to bend a little and break the rules...

They showed that humanity's best (SF officers - and even Maquis with SF's guidence) could oversome impossible odds and the darkest reaches of foreign space.

2) DS9 - was obviously very bloody, cumulating in even a permanent, recurring character's mutilation (Nog) and a full-cast member's murder (Jadzia). But hey? What's so unoptomistic about that? We learned that with modern-day holographics the disabled can be fooled into liking life again, and that Bashir could finally find love with Dax, one small homicide notwithstanding.

More seriously, concerning my favorite show - Nog does persevere and overcome his handicap and go on to become a stronger SF officer. Worf learns to overcome the tragedy of the death of his wife and persevere to reclaim his Klingon heritage in the finest Klingon and SF traditions. Sisko most clearly learns there's life after loss. And in the end, Gene Roddenberry's Federation wins. Yeah, they suffered a graphically bloody war, but they won and came out stronger than before. Even so did Cardassia. I mean the war was entertaining and great for those of us digging spaceship dog-fights and all that attracts us to Star Wars, but Star Trek had a higher purpose and plotline in doing this on DS9 and as dark as it was, you might have missed the light! On my favorite Trek, it burned gloriously!

vulcantouch

12-26-2001, 02:48 PM

cmon, admit that it's as much for your own enjoyment, you're startin to get in the swing of this, which likely accounts for your latest reply being your most substantive yet, in that much of it stands well enough on its own with nary a reply from me :) as for the rest, Wheee indeed :D:

"Good TV and good Trek are not synonymous"
-an intriguing distinction; would you not say the latter is a subset of the former? or would you agree with a local film critic, who observed that when evaluating trek films it's better to ask whether it's good trek rather than whether it's a good film?
personally i see merit in both povs, and don't much mind remaining indecisive re choosing between them :)

"season 1 is the primary season that got audiences interested or disinterested"
-interesting notion, but how does it account for the 4th season spikes when ds9 bought in worf and voy brought in 7o9? how also does it explain how tng's snoozer of a 1st season didn't keep It from attaining icon status?

"You are nearly the only Trek fan I know who didn't dislike how Voyager rewrote the Borg"
-oh? remind me to introduce you to a wider VarieTy of trekkies ;)
Rewrote? "janeway Wrote the Book on the borg"- barclay, voy's "endgame" :) tng's had a coupla gripping, seminal borg eps, but cuz of budgetary restraints & the limitations of their dramatic focus, they could only scratch the borg's surface. which left lotta blank slate for voy to scribble on :)

"The reference here isn't that the populous thought each story was a dead end, it's that the characters rarely left the station to visit strange new worlds"
-you say I'M bein too philosophical? :rolleyes:

"Ah, but we're not talking about artistic quality"
-oh but we Are tawkin bout it, insofar as it continues to be cited as an excuse for popularity disparities :happy:

"We are talking about the majority of watchers, not about how you perceived things"
-that's a false dichotomy. i'm tawkin about how i perceive the majority of watchers.

"If Voy nailed their characters right off and TNG took 2 seasons to get there, then explain how Voyager's ratings declined throughout its first 2 seasons steadily in these "perfect cast" seasons while TNG rapidly rose to become the highest-rated syndicated show of all time even though the cast wasn't on the money yet"
-two words: Trekkie Slumming. trendoids find it novel to hang out for a while in milieux different from what they usually find comfortable, congratulating themselves on their open-mindedness all the while. but when the initial exotica wears off, most revert to provincialism and return to their usual tastes. trekkies are not exempt from such trendoidism.

"I'm not alone"
-so who cares if you are? or if i am? what impact has it on our accuracy? accuracy's what matters here :)

"when your opinion is challenged as not being complete, how can you claim it is competent without further expanding your point accurately?"
-i'm not claiming my opinion's "competent", i'm saying my opinion's Accurate. i'm claiming my Presentation of my opinion is competent.
i'm not sure how such an quantifiable adjective as "competent" would apply to such a intuitive area as the former. not every accusation of "ringing hollow"'s gonna lend itself to literal, methodical justification. but in no way does that necessarily impact its accuracy, nor does it infringe on another's entitlement to cite said hollow-ringing reasons. you and i are not two engineers debating how much reinforcement a bridge strut needs. "completeness" of justification doesn't enter into instinct. it is what it is, and time will bear it out, or not.

"racism and gender bias aren't the only possible hollow reasons"
-indeed, but i'm still waiting for these other, more convincing "hollow reason" explanations to be cited :)

vt: how exactly am i refusing others their say?
"you claimed that their reasons were too hollow"
vt: who sed anything about not entitled?
"You did when you said that the reasons many claim to not like DS9 and Voy are too hollow to be acceptable"
-i'm not sure what "acceptable"'s sposed to mean; "convincing" is the issue. my saying others' reasons ring hollow and unconvincing in no way constitutes an infringement of their "entitlement" to cite said reasons. they're free to cite em, i'm free to say they ring hollow, everybody's happy. no one's say is being refused.
perhaps you are confusing tolerance with ValidaTion. only the former is required here. others shouldn't need Me to validate their opinions. that's Their job.

"your only response has been that other reasons for the lower ratings 'ring hollow'"
-indeed; i've thus far seen no occasion or need for any other response :)

"I'm not saying I know the truth as it absolutely is"
-oh, but it Is your analogous implication that, even though you are a blind man, you can see that i too am a blind man like yourself, rather than an eagle-eyed bird circling around said elephant? :rolleyes:

"You strut around making a judgement"
-as do we all; might as well put a bit of swagger into that strut, so that the rest of us can have a good laugh if/when we take a fall :D

"If you have seen the elephant as a whole, as the sum of the evidence, you certainly haven't given that impression here. . . no other evidence has been shown. . . You certainly come off sounding like someone making a snap judgement rather than an informed statement"
-an admirably direct, confident statement of your opinion; i congratulate you :)

"I rarely hear people say that the intrigue elements of DS9 were monotonous or heavy-handed, just that it didn't fit in with their preconceived notions of what Trek should be. . . 'People are afraid of change' - James T. Kirk"
-tryin to make my point For me, are ye? ;)

od: "its just TV and its just a story"
-worry not: i don't think any of us are losing sight of that, even as we debate the larger issue of subtle factors that influence audience tastes.

"I see no point in puting anyone down or forcing a arugument"
-i'm not putting down anyone Specific, which y'all may not be understanding so i'll state it explicitly: i speak here in General terms, cuz i'm discussing General audience trends. i'm not accusing you, jt, tycho or any other Specific person of the unconscious racial & gender bias i contend accounts for voy's & ds9's lower acceptance. i am perfectly willing to allow for the possibility that y'all have reasons for not diggin ds9 or voy as much as whiteguy treks for reasons of taste that have Nothing to do with captain demographics, cuz i have no way of seeing into yall's hearts in so as to inform these kinds of allegations about specific individuals i've never even met ;)
large groups, however, are another story, as their net movements & behaviors follow trends and motivations which lend themselves to precise analysis. were this not so, marketing departments would have long ago been discredited as a waste of company money, rather than the coveted profit maximizers they are. likes and dislikes, and the reasons behind them, are predictable. i'm saying trekkies are not exempt from this predictability. it's why a gal like jolene blalock was picked for tpol rather than, say, heather mattarazzo.
as for "forcing" an argument, i ain't doing that either. all remain free to let me rant unopposed, agree, disagree or ignore me altogether :)

"If you don't like the story or the show.Close the book or turn the channel. But let me have the right to like or dislike"
-worry not: the present discussion doesn't even come close to infringing on such freedoms.

"some parts just leaves me lost"
-i'm always happy to clarify, quextions welcome :)
vt

JediTricks

12-27-2001, 02:42 AM

I'm currently suffering through the horrible, scream-enducing pain of an impacted molar for xmas, so I am going to ditch my usual reply style in place of one single point that I am able to focus on:

"large groups, however, are another story, as they move & behave predictably according to trends and motivations which lend themselves to precise analysis. were this not so, marketing departments would have long ago been discredited as a waste of company money, rather than the essential profit maximizers they are. likes and dislikes, and the reasons behind them, are predictable. i'm saying trekkies are not exempt from this predictability."

I believe that Trekkies are different from other groups that suffer from "mob mentality" because while Trekkies are a group, the main thing that keeps them together isn't getting together to share a common interest, that's just an afterthought to their singular trekdom, which is mostly not shared at all, or shared with a small gathering of people on rare occasions. Trekkies seem like they isolate themselves while watching Trek, and only later share with a group about their previous isolated experience. So while they are sharing the experience, it's not like a soccer game where they're sharing it in the same place at the same time in the same way, each Trekkie embarks on experiencing Trek primarily by themselves, and then get together to form a "group of loners".

Just something to think about, when Paramount was considering ideas for new Trek, many Trekkies wanted Sulu as captain of the Excelsior as the next Trek show, that's just one more thing that makes me think the "racism" charge doesn't hold true.

Obi-Don

12-27-2001, 08:19 AM

The one thing that I liked about Star Trek was that anyone could be what they wanted no matter the race or sex. I also think that is the main reason most like it. To me racism comes from the viewers and not from the shows. I know there are a few stories where this is present. But all in all,racsim is not very present in the Federation and thats what makes it great to me.

JediTricks

12-31-2001, 08:17 AM

Obi-Don, there has always been a little racism thrown into Trek, but most of it was towards races of other worlds rather than different-colored skin toned people from the same world (Roddenberry was trying to represent our modern-day world). In TOS, the racism was often a bit heavy handed in its handling, but usually treated pretty well (even in that silly 3rd season ep with the Riddler, Frank Gorshin ;)).

Obi-Don

12-31-2001, 10:39 AM

I agree,but what I liked about it was that is was shown to be wrong. Thats one of the many reason I liked and still like ST. I guess the real sad thing is you can't get a way from racism anywhere. You just have to deal with it and show people that is wrong. Hell! we are all people on this starship Earth no matter what we look like. I also feel if we could do away with all this silly hatered,we would already be out there exploring space instead of killing each other for what they look like or believe. I don't think this what GOD had in mind for us.IMO

JediTricks

01-02-2002, 10:50 PM

Hmm, according to Trek, God merely wants us to move starships closer to the galactic core. ;) But you are right I think, Trek succeeds mainly by taking those negative elements of our modern lives and showing that either we learn to put them past us or our futures will suffer.

vulcantouch

01-03-2002, 12:36 AM

and now there's word that bakula's been nominated for some people's choice award as fave tv drama perfomer on the basis of, what, all Ten hours of ent episodes that've thus far aired? am i Really sposed to believe he's That much more appealing than sisko or janeway?? :rolleyes: btw, re this topic you guys did see my #36 Humpost (http://www.sirstevesguide.com/vbportal/forums/showthread.php?postid=27041#post27041), right? good :)

"I believe that Trekkies are different from other groups"
-the very crux of our disagreement; re this matter, i do not. like many groups, trekkies profess one thing & do another :(

"they isolate themselves while watching Trek, and only later share with a group"
-not sure how this neccesarily inhibits their mob mentality, in that:
>sharing strikingly homogenous sensibilities to begin with, they will inevitably give similar reactions whether in groups or in isolation; and
>whatever singular reactions they may've had while viewing in isolation will often be subverted & replaced with the group mentality when communing w/fellow fans at a later time.

"many Trekkies wanted Sulu as captain"
-a vocal contingent might've Thought they wanted it, or might've simply enjoyed hearing themselves say they wanted it. but whether they'd want it if they'd actually Gotten it is something we'll now never know, cuz like i sez, with the results of the ds9 & voy "experiments" decisively confirmed by ent's otherwise-inexplicable higher popularity, it'll Never happen. neither sulu, nor his daughter, nor his mama'll ever sit in no trekfranchise captain's chair, cuz trekkiedom at large simply won't get behind it.
no hurry on yer reply to post 57 above jt, it can wait til yer toofus gets better ;)

od: "racism comes from the viewers"
-couldn't agree more :(
vt
np: african dream, "young & free" (eightball dub)

LTBasker

01-03-2002, 02:46 AM

Many fans may have wanted Sulu, but George Takei is too old to play that young of a Sulu and plus he probably wouldn't be interested anyways. I think I said this before but alot of fans also wanted the new series to be based on an Akira class ship... and Berman did that, except he ripped the idea and created Enterprise... Otherwise it would've Star Trek had he stuck with an Akira and placed it after Voyager. :p Personally I would've liked to of seen that and with the Delta Flyer implemented into designs for new and more reliable shuttles.

Tycho

01-03-2002, 03:03 AM

I've said this before:

Strand a black male captain in the Delta Quadrant, do another show with a white male captain stranded out there, etc. and compare them.

Or put a female (Kira now?) in charge of DS9, or make it a white male's new post, and have an occupation and an ongoing war and see what happens.

Put a black male in command of a prototype ship in the 22nd century and do another show with a woman captain in charge in that time period.

Otherwise you all are just comparing apples to .... to power tools. You all know how to do a scientific experiment. Only the variable (the captain) can change to generate comparable results that validate this argument. Otherwise you're just wasting people's time.

JediTricks

01-04-2002, 03:57 AM

Originally posted by LTBasker
Many fans may have wanted Sulu, but George Takei is too old to play that young of a Sulu and plus he probably wouldn't be interested anyways.He's not too old, look at the age Picard was supposed to be, Takei did a fantastic job in his Voyager ep as captain of the Excelsior. As for wanting it, he most certainly did and had Nimoy on his side pressing Paramount to make it happen - at one point, Berman had Nimoy banned from the lot over this.

Obi-Don

01-04-2002, 04:20 AM

Had nemoy band from the lot? Is he crazy? Mr. Nemoy is a more well known than Berman[who?] and is one of the reasons why ST took off in the first place.Not forgoing Shatner and the others.

I like the new show,don't get me wrong.But Sulu as a captain IMO would have done better.

LTBasker

01-04-2002, 05:25 AM

Ah, ok, I agree with ya on the Voyager episode, and it wouldn't of been bad seeing the beginning of the Excelsior (maybe it'd even explain in the best detail as to why the Enterprise-B and the Lakota were Excelsior variants) and hey, maybe they would've even of been able to get Tim Russ to join in. Ya know, if Rick Berman had any brains at all (and if he does they're probably dying of lonliness) he would have Enterprise on for about 3-4 seasons (2 seasons is too short, even for Enterprise) but before canceling seeing if the correct people want to do an Excelsior prequel series. I doubt it'll have a chance of happening tho. :\

Tycho

01-05-2002, 04:17 AM

I like Enterprise and think I could enjoy 7 years of it. It's a good show.

I would have liked Excelsior because Sulu is a a Classic hero of mine and he did do a great job on his Voyager episode, didn't he?

I'd like to see him as Captain, but occasionally need to pilot the ship himself, as Sulu was Classic Trek's main-man at the helm.

Meanwhile, I think they should be definitely separate shows. Sulu can't cross over to Enterprise and time-travel is used enough in all Trek shows - even a major plot point in Enterprise. Sulu isn't going to be born for probably 90 years after Captain Archer's first voyage. LOL - little Hikaru will read about each episode at Starfleet Academy.

But I first and foremost wanted the Excelsior show to still happen for justice to George Takei and his fine contributions to Trek and humanity (racial dignity causes, etc.) over the length of his celebrity status. If George wanted it, then fine: I'd support him.

Jedi Tricks was right when he invoked Picard's age in the discussion. We would have seen a more refined, enlightened (almost 24th Century) Sulu - experienced from his cowboy days on the Enterprise and disregarding orders in his earliest captaincy of the Excelsior. (Though I'm sure Capt. Sulu would only follow those orders he saw fit to - just like Kirk did as Sulu's role model).

vulcantouch

01-05-2002, 01:28 PM

it was his least convincing turn as sulu i can recall, and i've long been a fan of his no-nonsense presence & cool voice. but here he was all puffed-up and intimidated-looking. michael "kang" ansara outclassed him at every turn. maybe george should stick to simpson voicework ;)

tycho: "You all know how to do a scientific experiment"
-and apparently you know how to draw a specious, inapplicable analogy, as if this were the kind of thing we'd either "put to the scientific test" or remain forever clueless about. it is not. sometimes every what-if answer ain't there in concrete form, but that doesn't mean an intuitive leap won't yield equal results in their absence.

"Otherwise you're just wasting people's time"
-no, i'm "wasting" My time. other people "waste" their own time in choosing either to pay attention or ignore.

tycho: "I've said this before"
-as have i (1st sentence, post 34 above); Tawk about wastin time, just repeatin oursevs ;)
vt

LTBasker

01-05-2002, 02:07 PM

Since no one else said it, I will: Touche! Touche! Touche! Times how many times it's needed! :rolleyes:

Tycho

01-05-2002, 04:09 PM

Vulcantouch, I acknowledge the possiblity your arguments about the how's and why's of each shows' success or lack thereof MIGHT be true - and there is some intelligence put in making the generalities you base your arguments on (for lack of the ability to do the experiment we talked about - black male capt lost in space, white female commanding station, etc.)

But because we can't do the experiments, you can't PROVE inescapable evidence. Yes, I know "that is just what the racists would point out." It isn't fair. That's true. And since I'm a white male I MUST be a racist or something. Fine.

But I am sick and tired of the "race card" being employed by those who perceive themselves as ethnic minorities, or any kind of minority, for the purpose of self-pity or personal, racial status self-righteousness.

I am "a bleeding heart liberal" who supports some "affirmative effort" (and I've accepted being turned down for an EQUALLY QUALIFIED ethnic person for jobs already - because I was TOLD they don't look good hiring another white male - but I have limitations! I'd like innercity kids to have heroes other than sports figures, comedians, and gangsta rap stars to have as role models: people like General Powell in real life, and Captain Sisko in fiction. The job/occupations are just stereotypes, but I bet you (on an intelligent guess) if you asked a bunch of black grade school kids to name a famous black doctor, a famous black lawyer (besides Clarence Thomas), a famous black engineer, etc. - they would be hard pressed for examples. I can't name any specific caucasion ones myself, but I know "the great Scott Bakula plays a captain," so in many ways we are all victims of what sells in the media. But I have a passion for public service and I have a white-male role model that's easy to look for any year in our nation's White House. That is WHY we need to show other ethnic groups or genders in roles as important as Sisko's or Janeway's. I am just fine with that. There will be a shift in the United States population over our lifetimes where whites, especially in California where I live, are NOT the majority. Changes in leadership roles in all professions in life will reflect that. - Moreso when the majority steps up and fills those roles.

If you want racial divide "and your kind to get yours," don't worry - it'll happen and if Star Trek survives and stays a dream of all enthnicities, one day we'll be wondering who the next Token Gringo will be when they cast the 7th or 8th series. (If the concept can be recycled that long).

Meanwhile, "life is as it is" - but I've never accepted that and I personally work hard and sincerely want to make it better for all people. But [to Vulcantouch] work within your favorite group and work towards Paramount's acknowledgement rather than play the race card in a discussion group where people here want to be your friend and just share a comradery centered around each new episode (or I certainly don't mind the "Remember when...stories from the War on Deep Space Nine).

But I understand. Tom Paris is my most identifiable Star Trek character because he looks like me (moreso than just being caucasian, is around my age if I were in StarFleet, and has faults and flaws, interests and sexuality etc. just like me). If I were black, I'd say Sisko was a bit too conservative to identify with for example, and maybe Geordie would be who I'd most identify with - and do on the age level, the desire to be a professional, some of the loneliness he feels, etc. (part of Sisko's thing was he was a parent and a wartime captain. The younger Sisko with Curzon would have been fun, eh?) What I understand is that some people want to identify themselves in the characters they regard as heroes, or just "cool people" and Star Trek's largest audience I think is white males between 50 and 20, or something close to that. So the show is cast proportionately to the audience maybe - but maybe the audience would expand if the show were cast differently. But I would not argue it would then be cast "better." That is relative to who the roles go to, individually. Just like it comes down to all human beings as individuals - not their "race card."

Just be an individual here and share with fans your thoughts on Enterprise's new episodes on a weekly basis. I will start a new thread upon the release of the first new episode that gives us something to discuss. The race argument here serves no more purpose. We already realize and at least I empathize with you feeling that whatever ethnic minority you might belong to, or even just with your own 'white liberalism,' you feel audience response and casting went hand and hand to 'slow racial breakthroughs on Star Trek casting.'

Great. You made your point. What good can anyone else here do about it even if we agree with you? You got my sympathy. That's all I can give. Let's talk about something else, as the more we rehash this (and I'm sure you deserve at least 2 or 3 more rebuttals beyond THIS post of mine) - but the more I have been becoming sick of this. When the time comes to give up, people who are overwhelmed eventually do find it easy to say, "I'm a white male, I'll just look out for my own." There are days that those 'playing the race card' nearly push me to that point.

If so you'll lose the support of those like you (like-minded like me), and I'll just re-register in the Republican Party, LOL.