Favorite Shows and Movies!

[InfiniteDoors]

From TOS all the way to Strange New Worlds, come and discuss your favorite Trek!

Edited August 15, 2022 by InfiniteDoors

[extantsrevenge]

I love Star Trek, I'm a fan of it even longer than of Star Wars. I watched the TOS together with my parents and brother when I was little in the 80ties and I have not stopped watching Star Trek ever since.

 

TOS is simply amazing and so are TNG and DS9. Voyager and Enterprise are also good, but not as goos as the other 3.

 

Love the movies too. My favorits are Star Trek 2, 6, 4 & 8.

 

I finally want a BD releases of DS9, Voyager and Enterprise, why can't they give us these 😥

[Veum]

🥤🤠 I enjoy ALL the Star Trek series’ and movies. 

 

I think I enjoy Star Trek: Enterprise the most though! 🙌

 

I also enjoy seeing the Romulan homeworld Romulus!! 

 

Wouldn’t mind a tie-in with the Stargate series, another one I need to watch more of!

[InfiniteDoors]

I've only been watching Star Trek for a couple years, but damn if it isn't the best thing ever! DS9 is my favorite of the original 5, and coincidentally I've got proof right now!

[Veum]

 

https://youtu.be/rwRjc2vH4Uw

[InfiniteDoors]

1 minute ago, Veum said:

 

https://youtu.be/rwRjc2vH4Uw

When I first watched ENT, I legit laughed out loud at the theme music. I thought it was the stupidest thing ever. Then after a few episodes, I started singing along ironically. Now I genuinely love it, and think it fits pretty well. It's very American though, but so is this show in particular.

 

I always skip the S3/S4 remix though, they absolutely butchered it.

[extantsrevenge]

On 2/10/2022 at 4:56 PM, InfiniteDoors said:

When I first watched ENT, I legit laughed out loud at the theme music. I thought it was the stupidest thing ever. Then after a few episodes, I started singing along ironically. Now I genuinely love it, and think it fits pretty well. It's very American though, but so is this show in particular.

🤣 I had the same experience. First episode I was "What the hell is that" and then after a few episodes my brother and I started humming the song and waving our arms around to make it fun, it worked 😄

 

I'm currently rewatching DS9 sadly on DVD 😭, I want a BD release so bad. Getting close to the end of season 4 at the moment.

[InfiniteDoors]

7 hours ago, extantsrevenge said:

I'm currently rewatching DS9 sadly on DVD 😭, I want a BD release so bad. Getting close to the end of season 4 at the moment.

I'm also rewatching DS9! Feels good to rewatch the best Trek again and again 👍

[CryoSteel]

I've been toying around with a list for a couple of days now (slotting First Contact and Undiscovered Country was more challenging than I care to admit). You won't see the newest shows on my rankings, since I haven't been able to get into them. 

 

Shows:

 

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Original Series

Star Trek: Voyager

Enterprise

 

Movies

 

Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country

Star Trek: First Contact

Star Trek: The Voyage Home

Star Trek: The Search for Spock

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Star Trek: Generations

Star Trek: Beyond

Star Trek: The Final Frontier

Star Trek (2009)

Star Trek: Insurrection

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Star Trek: Nemesis

 

 

[InfiniteDoors]

For shows, I would have to go:

1. Deep Space Nine

2. The Next Generation

3. Voyager

4. Enterprise

5. The Original Series

TOS is only at the bottom because at that point, it's a numbers game for good episodes. But I love each and every one of these shows. Then for the new stuff, I'd say:

6. Prodigy

7. Strange New Worlds

8. Discovery

9. Lower Decks

10. Picard

I genuinely like Prodigy, SNW is okay, Disco has gotten less bad, I don't like that LD is supposed to be canon, and Picard is just pure crap.

 

I can't rank all of the movies, it's been a while since I've seen them all. I'll just say that from each era, my favorites are probably The Undiscovered Country/The Voyage Home, First Contact, and Beyond.

[CryoSteel]

21 hours ago, InfiniteDoors said:

For shows, I would have to go:

1. Deep Space Nine

2. The Next Generation

3. Voyager

4. Enterprise

5. The Original Series

TOS is only at the bottom because at that point, it's a numbers game for good episodes. But I love each and every one of these shows. 

 

 

That's fair. For me, Voyager suffers from being too episodic, which is why it's a touch lower on my list. 

 

21 hours ago, InfiniteDoors said:

Then for the new stuff, I'd say:

6. Prodigy

7. Strange New Worlds

8. Discovery

9. Lower Decks

10. Picard

I genuinely like Prodigy, SNW is okay, Disco has gotten less bad, I don't like that LD is supposed to be canon, and Picard is just pure crap.

 

I'm actually shocked by how much I detest Picard, considering Terry Matalas was involved with Season 2. 12 Monkeys, which he also worked as showrunner on, is gold standard TV. 

[InfiniteDoors]

3 hours ago, CryoSteel said:

I'm actually shocked by how much I detest Picard, considering Terry Matalas was involved with Season 2. 12 Monkeys, which he also worked as showrunner on, is gold standard TV. 

I keep hearing that he only focused on the first two episodes of Season 2 before turning his full attention to Season 3, to explain why everything was so bad. Even if that were true, it's a terrible excuse. Hire someone else for S2 if Matalas couldnt be arsed to do his damn job.

[CryoSteel]

On 7/4/2022 at 2:12 PM, InfiniteDoors said:

I keep hearing that he only focused on the first two episodes of Season 2 before turning his full attention to Season 3, to explain why everything was so bad. Even if that were true, it's a terrible excuse. Hire someone else for S2 if Matalas couldnt be arsed to do his damn job.

 

I don't know about that, but I wasn't really impressed with any part of the season. Still... the difference between 12 Monkeys (easily one of my top five favorite shows) and Picard is night and day. It's not like he doesn't know how to run an intricately crafted show. Just leaves me feeling disappointed. 

[InfiniteDoors]

1 hour ago, CryoSteel said:

It's not like he doesn't know how to run an intricately crafted show.

It's too late for any real course correction, but how about they just don't even bother trying a complex, super deep show? It's pretty clear at this point that they're unable to do it.

[hansreinhardt]

Been thinking a lot lately about how I would rank the films. It’s so tough but below is what I came up with. My favorite of the lot is The Motion Picture (theatrical cut), followed by The Undiscovered Country. However what I would consider to be a perfect Star Trek film is the common answer:

 

 

The Wrath of Khan

First Contact

The Undiscovered Country

The Voyage Home

The Motion Picture

The Search for Spock

Insurrection

Beyond

Generations

Final Frontier

Trek ‘09

Into Darkness

Nemesis

 

[InfiniteDoors]

28 minutes ago, hansreinhardt said:

Been thinking a lot lately about how I would rank the films. It’s so tough but below is what I came up with. My favorite of the lot is The Motion Picture (theatrical cut), followed by The Undiscovered Country. However what I would consider to be a perfect Star Trek film is the common answer:

 

 

The Wrath of Khan

First Contact

The Undiscovered Country

The Voyage Home

The Motion Picture

The Search for Spock

Insurrection

Beyond

Generations

Final Frontier

Trek ‘09

Into Darkness

Nemesis

 

I can't respect any man who has Insurrection that high. Please leave.

[InfiniteDoors]

All kidding aside, not a bad list. I really need to rewatch the movies, especially after having gone through the first 5 shows like a million times already. I'm sure I would appreciate Final Frontier a lot more a second time around. But if I had to rank them, I'd probably say

1. Undiscovered Country

2. Wrath of Khan

3. Search for Spock

4. Voyage Home

5. The Motion Picture

6. Beyond

7. 09

8. First Contact

9. Into Darkness

10. Final Frontier

11. Insurrection

12. Generations

13. Nemesis

At a certain point, it's not about how much I enjoy the movie or think how good it is, but how much I respect it.

[hansreinhardt]

5 minutes ago, InfiniteDoors said:

I can't respect any man who has Insurrection that high. Please leave.

[hansreinhardt]

17 minutes ago, InfiniteDoors said:

All kidding aside, not a bad list. I really need to rewatch the movies, especially after having gone through the first 5 shows like a million times already. I'm sure I would appreciate Final Frontier a lot more a second time around. But if I had to rank them, I'd probably say

1. Undiscovered Country

2. Wrath of Khan

3. Search for Spock

4. Voyage Home

5. The Motion Picture

6. Beyond

7. 09

8. First Contact

9. Into Darkness

10. Final Frontier

11. Insurrection

12. Generations

13. Nemesis

At a certain point, it's not about how much I enjoy the movie or think how good it is, but how much I respect it.

Looks like we’ve got TMP and Nemesis in the same spot! 
 

 

I feel like I’m watching TNG when I watch Insurrection. I love the feeling of watching that show, so it just translates really well for me.

 

What’s your take on FC?
 

I used to have TUC as number one, that movie is pretty damn near a masterpiece. But then Nichelle Nichols said Uhura would know enough Klingon to speak it herself, instead of the silly book translator scene. I used to love that scene but now it’s ruined and I can’t unsee it. 
 

Glad to see the love for Beyond in your ranking too, it felt to me like the Kelvin crew finally got an original story—was so refreshing! 

Edited February 27 by hansreinhardt

[InfiniteDoors]

14 hours ago, hansreinhardt said:

I feel like I’m watching TNG when I watch Insurrection. I love the feeling of watching that show, so it just translates really well for me.

It feels very much like bad Season 7 episode to me. Which it kind of is, it's basically Journey's End (and a dash of Who Watches the Watchers, a top 5 episode). The Ba'ku are lame, Ru'afo is lame, the action feels cheap (especially compared to FC), it's weird how it does and doesn't connect to the Dominion War, the holoship is stupid. But Crusher's and Troi's boobs firmed up, so it's not all bad 😑

 

14 hours ago, hansreinhardt said:

What’s your take on FC?

I love the First Contact stuff with Cochrane. I hate the rest of the movie.

I, Borg is a fantastic episode, but it's also the beginning of the end for the Borg. It helped them go from an unstoppable force of nature to stupid zombies controlled by a mustache-twirling villain. First Contact did irreparable damage to the Borg, and Voyager doubles down real hard (even though Seven of Nine is one of my favorite characters).

Head canon the existence of the Queen all you want, explain how she makes total sense, but it doesn't change the fact that she was a terrible idea. For some reason she's very hammy, she's unnecessarily sexy, and her plan is dumb.

Picard is really angry in the movie. It's... not without warrant, we saw him break down in Family about being turned into Locutus and used to kill. But I'm too aware of the fact they're playing up his rage because it's a movie, and movies need bigger everything than television. It's also a little incongruous with how he acts in I, Borg and Descent, and even Picard Season 1 but whatever.

The were going to destroy the Defiant if Behr didn't object to it. That would've been unforgivable.

The Enterprise episode that follows up on the Borg left behind in the past was actually kind of neat. Wasn't needed at all, but Enterprise did have a bad habit of retconning here and there. Although it sort of explains how the Hansens heard of the Borg before Q Who. Oh and the opening of In a Mirror, Darkly is just *chef's kiss*

 

14 hours ago, hansreinhardt said:

I used to have TUC as number one, that movie is pretty damn near a masterpiece. But then Nichelle Nichols said Uhura would know enough Klingon to speak it herself, instead of the silly book translator scene. I used to love that scene but now it’s ruined and I can’t unsee it. 

Uhura's mind was blanked by Nomad and she had to relearn everything, chalk it up to that if it makes you feel better.

 

14 hours ago, hansreinhardt said:

Glad to see the love for Beyond in your ranking too, it felt to me like the Kelvin crew finally got an original story—was so refreshing! 

It was pretty good, the only thing is that the villain is insanely weak. There's just one scene to set up his motivation, and it was exposition via video logs.

Edited February 27 by InfiniteDoors
Kept saying "I, Hugh" instead of "I, Borg"

[hansreinhardt]

10 hours ago, InfiniteDoors said:

I love the First Contact stuff with Cochrane. I hate the rest of the movie.

I, Hugh is a fantastic episode, but it's also the beginning of the end for the Borg. It helped them go from an unstoppable force of nature to stupid zombies controlled by a mustache-twirling villain. First Contact did irreparable damage to the Borg, and Voyager doubles down real hard (even though Seven of Nine is one of my favorite characters).

Head canon the existence of the Queen all you want, explain how she makes total sense, but it doesn't change the fact that she was a terrible idea. For some reason she's very hammy, she's unnecessarily sexy, and her plan is dumb.

 

This is an interesting take—thanks for sharing. I didn't have an issue with the Borg Queen but after reading your comments, I do get it. It doesn't really make sense within the historical context of the Borg, and it does sort of cheapen them. I like her as a character but I see your point. For me, the bigger sin is Voyager bringing the Queen back—why would the Borg have multiple Queens? Especially when it randomly fluctuates between Susanna Thompson and Alice Krige... we already saw the Krige queen die in FC, why bring her back for Endgame? 

 

10 hours ago, InfiniteDoors said:

Picard is really angry in the movie.

 

I thought that part worked, he was put in this dire situation with a past threat all over again, and on top of that, the Borg capturing one of his friends really sent him. I feel like we see the evolution of that anger over the course of the film, so it felt organic to me. But yeah, given the context of seven seasons of TNG, seeing Picard yell at Lily is still pretty shocking.

 

I really don't love how the TNG films treat Picard as a faux action hero. He isn't Kirk. They should've let Frakes and Dorn do more of that stuff. McFadden too. 

 

10 hours ago, InfiniteDoors said:

The were going to destroy the Defiant if Behr didn't object to it. That would've been unforgivable.

 

Thank goodness for Ira Steven Behr, seriously. Speaking of DS9, it kills me that no one even mentions Worf's dead wife in Insurrection. Like you said, it's so oddly disconnected from the world building of DS9. Piller was literally given a free pass for Worf character development, but instead they're back to making fun of Worf. 

 

That scene where he's late to his shift and Picard makes a joke—"I don't know how they do it on DS9, but on the Enterprise we arrive for our shift on time." Worf could've been like "yeah, well I'm sorry, I'm in a dark place because my WIFE DIED LESS THAN A YEAR AGO, GUY." 

 

Edited February 27 by hansreinhardt

[InfiniteDoors]

2 hours ago, hansreinhardt said:

This is an interesting take—thanks for sharing. I didn't have an issue with the Borg Queen but after reading your comments, I do get it. It doesn't really make sense within the historical context of the Borg, and it does sort of cheapen them. I like her as a character but I see your point.

I've always thought the depiction of the Borg in Q Who was absolutely terrifying. The Enterprise was completely helpless, and without Picard groveling to Q, they would've been finished right then and there. The wording is a little vague and easy to spin in future showings—which they did—but the intent of both the dialogue referring to the Borg, and the actions of the Borg, very clearly show that they don't care in the slightest about lifeforms. They were only interested in the technology. 

That's why in Best of Both Worlds, it's surprising that they want Picard. The whole point of turning him into Locutus is to facilitate their introduction to Earth, to the Federation's society, where their culture will adapt to service the Borg's. But after TNG all the Borg want to do is just assimilate everyone they come across, unless you're completely worthless like the Kazon (that was a good joke). The existence of Locutus makes less and less sense the more we see the Borg, especially with a Queen.

I, Borg shows that without the collective bending a drone to its will, said drone can break free and become an individual. Not regain its humanity (or soul, if non-human), because at this point in the franchise, the Borg is not comprised of assimilated individuals. Hugh is not human—They never say what species he is, because he wasn't assimilated. He was born, then enhanced. Anyway, the episode goes on, Picard realizes that genocide is bad, and Hugh chooses to go back to the Collective to protect Geordi, his friend. Picard believes that perhaps Hugh's newfound individuality can spread throughout the Borg, and help others break free. This should have been the last time we saw the Borg, a nice coda to their story. 

But no, we got Descent instead. Descent turns the Borg into Lore's goons, because Hugh's return did set them free, but made them directionless. I think this episode set the stage for the Queen, that individual drones can be subsumed by a strong will, shape them into a Collective. Other than that, it's not really a Borg episode. The only good thing about Descent was the poker game between Data, Isaac Newton, Einstein and Stephen Hawking as himself. 

Then the rest is history: First Contact and Voyager establish that the Borg loves assimilating lifeforms, they seek perfection, the stupid idea that "the Borg gain knowledge through assimilation. What they can't assimilate, they can't understand", and the ultimate insult: Janeway, B'Elanna and Tuvok let themselves get assimilated, but they did something to let them maintain their free will, thereby destroying any remaining danger the Borg presented. By Endgame, they've been so completely and utterly defanged, it's embarrassing.

3 hours ago, hansreinhardt said:

For me, the bigger sin is Voyager bringing the Queen back—why would the Borg have multiple Queens? Especially when it randomly fluctuates between Susanna Thompson and Alice Krige... we already saw the Krige queen die in FC, why bring her back for Endgame?

I think the implication is that they're all the same Queen, regardless of actress. You think in such three-dimensional terms. How small you've become.

 

3 hours ago, hansreinhardt said:

Thank goodness for Ira Steven Behr, seriously. Speaking of DS9, it kills me that no one even mentions Worf's dead wife in Insurrection. Like you said, it's so oddly disconnected from the world building of DS9. Piller was literally given a free pass for Worf character development, but instead they're back to making fun of Worf. 

 

That scene where he's late to his shift and Picard makes a joke—"I don't know how they do it on DS9, but on the Enterprise we arrive for our shift on time." Worf could've been like "yeah, well I'm sorry, I'm in a dark place because my WIFE DIED LESS THAN A YEAR AGO, GUY." 

I understand the logic behind not directly connecting Insurrection to DS9, it's the same problem that Star Wars and the MCU face: the general audience will not watch everything. 

People like you and me, who watched everything, will bemoan the fact that the movies all but ignored DS9 and the Dominion War. But to Joe Schmoe, who only watched TNG (the most popular of 90s Trek), he wouldn't understand what's going on if they did. "What's the Dominion? Wait, there's a huge war going on? AND the Romulans are our allies? Huh? Worf got married and then his wife died? Who the hell is Sisko? What's a Prophet?" And the list goes on. Now, that's how studios see everyone, not giving them the benefit of the doubt. And sure, on average people are dumb. You might say "But Insurrection introduced new species anyway, why not use the Jem'Hadar and Vorta and Founders instead?" Well, once you establish that they are part of a bigger plot happening on a different show, you might feel like you're lost and without real context. This is where modern Disney fails really badly. 

With the advent of Disney Plus, we've gotten a ton of shows that tie into the MCU and Star Wars. On paper, they're all of equal importance, nothing overshadows anything else, otherwise why bother watching the shows? In execution, the movies sort of ignore the shows, at least the MCU movies do. Multiverse of Madness, The Marvels, Quantumania, they all have characters and plot elements from WandaVision, Ms. Marvel and Loki respectively. But they kind of sort of make the movies without really needing to watch the shows, so that the feeling of being lost is minimized as much as possible. But if you didn not watch the shows, you still get questions like "Why is Wanda evil, and since when did she have kids? Who is Monica and why should I care? Who is Kamala and why should I care? Why are there a million billion Kangs in this post-credit scene?" You would have these types of questions even before D+ if you didn't watch all the movies, but it's worse than ever now. 

The same thing is happening with Star Wars, but in reverse. The shows are more important than the movies now. With the failure of the sequels, and as the love for the prequels grows more and more, things like the Clone Wars cartoon is now essential viewing, and Ahsoka is a hugely important character. The Mandalorian is the most popular thing they have right now, and he's getting his own movie. Andor is a masterpiece of a show, and is legitimately too good for Star Wars, but is surprisingly very unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Probably because it's a prequel to a prequel. Boba Fett sucked big time, but almost half of his show was hijacked by the Mandalorian, functioning as Season 2.5. It's there that Mando and Grogu are reunited, if you only watch the Mandalorian then you'll be totally confused as to when that happened.

Going back to Star Trek and Insurrection, the movie can't have something important happen that affects the story of the Dominion War,  because people who watch DS9 but not Insurrection will be confused. It would also beg the question of why the DS9 crew isn't in the movie, or why the TNG crew doesn't show up on DS9.

 

Wow I talked way more than I intended to.

[hansreinhardt]

56 minutes ago, InfiniteDoors said:

I've always thought the depiction of the Borg in Q Who was absolutely terrifying. The Enterprise was completely helpless, and without Picard groveling to Q, they would've been finished right then and there. The wording is a little vague and easy to spin in future showings—which they did—but the intent of both the dialogue referring to the Borg, and the actions of the Borg, very clearly show that they don't care in the slightest about lifeforms. They were only interested in the technology. 

That's why in Best of Both Worlds, it's surprising that they want Picard. The whole point of turning him into Locutus is to facilitate their introduction to Earth, to the Federation's society, where their culture will adapt to service the Borg's. But after TNG all the Borg want to do is just assimilate everyone they come across, unless you're completely worthless like the Kazon (that was a good joke). The existence of Locutus makes less and less sense the more we see the Borg, especially with a Queen.

I, Borg shows that without the collective bending a drone to its will, said drone can break free and become an individual. Not regain its humanity (or soul, if non-human), because at this point in the franchise, the Borg is not comprised of assimilated individuals. Hugh is not human—They never say what species he is, because he wasn't assimilated. He was born, then enhanced. Anyway, the episode goes on, Picard realizes that genocide is bad, and Hugh chooses to go back to the Collective to protect Geordi, his friend. Picard believes that perhaps Hugh's newfound individuality can spread throughout the Borg, and help others break free. This should have been the last time we saw the Borg, a nice coda to their story. 

But no, we got Descent instead. Descent turns the Borg into Lore's goons, because Hugh's return did set them free, but made them directionless. I think this episode set the stage for the Queen, that individual drones can be subsumed by a strong will, shape them into a Collective. Other than that, it's not really a Borg episode. The only good thing about Descent was the poker game between Data, Isaac Newton, Einstein and Stephen Hawking as himself. 

Then the rest is history: First Contact and Voyager establish that the Borg loves assimilating lifeforms, they seek perfection, the stupid idea that "the Borg gain knowledge through assimilation. What they can't assimilate, they can't understand", and the ultimate insult: Janeway, B'Elanna and Tuvok let themselves get assimilated, but they did something to let them maintain their free will, thereby destroying any remaining danger the Borg presented. By Endgame, they've been so completely and utterly defanged, it's embarrassing.

I think the implication is that they're all the same Queen, regardless of actress. You think in such three-dimensional terms. How small you've become.

 

I understand the logic behind not directly connecting Insurrection to DS9, it's the same problem that Star Wars and the MCU face: the general audience will not watch everything. 

People like you and me, who watched everything, will bemoan the fact that the movies all but ignored DS9 and the Dominion War. But to Joe Schmoe, who only watched TNG (the most popular of 90s Trek), he wouldn't understand what's going on if they did. "What's the Dominion? Wait, there's a huge war going on? AND the Romulans are our allies? Huh? Worf got married and then his wife died? Who the hell is Sisko? What's a Prophet?" And the list goes on. Now, that's how studios see everyone, not giving them the benefit of the doubt. And sure, on average people are dumb. You might say "But Insurrection introduced new species anyway, why not use the Jem'Hadar and Vorta and Founders instead?" Well, once you establish that they are part of a bigger plot happening on a different show, you might feel like you're lost and without real context. This is where modern Disney fails really badly. 

With the advent of Disney Plus, we've gotten a ton of shows that tie into the MCU and Star Wars. On paper, they're all of equal importance, nothing overshadows anything else, otherwise why bother watching the shows? In execution, the movies sort of ignore the shows, at least the MCU movies do. Multiverse of Madness, The Marvels, Quantumania, they all have characters and plot elements from WandaVision, Ms. Marvel and Loki respectively. But they kind of sort of make the movies without really needing to watch the shows, so that the feeling of being lost is minimized as much as possible. But if you didn not watch the shows, you still get questions like "Why is Wanda evil, and since when did she have kids? Who is Monica and why should I care? Who is Kamala and why should I care? Why are there a million billion Kangs in this post-credit scene?" You would have these types of questions even before D+ if you didn't watch all the movies, but it's worse than ever now. 

The same thing is happening with Star Wars, but in reverse. The shows are more important than the movies now. With the failure of the sequels, and as the love for the prequels grows more and more, things like the Clone Wars cartoon is now essential viewing, and Ahsoka is a hugely important character. The Mandalorian is the most popular thing they have right now, and he's getting his own movie. Andor is a masterpiece of a show, and is legitimately too good for Star Wars, but is surprisingly very unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Probably because it's a prequel to a prequel. Boba Fett sucked big time, but almost half of his show was hijacked by the Mandalorian, functioning as Season 2.5. It's there that Mando and Grogu are reunited, if you only watch the Mandalorian then you'll be totally confused as to when that happened.

Going back to Star Trek and Insurrection, the movie can't have something important happen that affects the story of the Dominion War,  because people who watch DS9 but not Insurrection will be confused. It would also beg the question of why the DS9 crew isn't in the movie, or why the TNG crew doesn't show up on DS9.

 

Wow I talked way more than I intended to.

 

 

Thanks for ruining First Contact for me.

 

(kidding)

 

This response brings much glory to the house of InfiniteDoors, I love it. I agree with you on "Q Who"—that was such a great setup for the Borg, and they were truly terrifying in that episode. Some excellent points you've made here. I first saw TNG and VOY when my age was measured in a single digit, and a lot of these plot points I really just took at face value at the time. So breaking it down the way you've done, I've never really thought about it like that before. Thanks for the revelatory interpretation. Now I feel it's a shame they didn't hold steady with the "Q Who" take on the Borg. 

 

Honestly I'm blown away that they intended the Borg Queen to be a single character. Memory Alpha seems to back you up so that must be their intention. I've spent literally decades thinking there were multiple incarnations of the Queen. Now that I know differently... the notion that they're all one and the same really aggravates me. Again, why keep bringing that character back, especially after First Contact? How does she keep surviving? Why was she present at the Battle of Sector 001 in the first place? So many more questions now. 

 

RE: Insurrection—I figured that was the case, in that they felt DS9 references would alienate the average viewer. Even so, they couldn't have left the Quark scene at the very end? The main plot was already done at that point, so what's the harm of an easter egg tossed in the mix? Dumb. These producers and studio suits need to stop underestimating their audiences. Even if the casual viewer doesn't know who Quark is, it's still something fun that the average viewer should be able to appreciate if executed correctly. 

 

I've long felt that Paramount needs to do two things: stop trying to make Star Trek films for the average moviegoer, and stop trying to recycle TWOK. Trek's never going to be Marvel at the end of the day. There must be a way that a Trek film can cater to both audiences without lobotomizing the plot. As long as it's got good character development, a nice mix of comedy/drama/action, and an interesting mystery or problem to overcome, I think audiences would gravitate towards it. Stories can acknowledge the larger universe and history of Trek, but still work standalone. But maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part! 

 

Edited February 27 by hansreinhardt

[hansreinhardt]

Now here's how I think I'd rank the shows... The Next Generation is my favorite, but DS9's a straight up masterpiece. Voyager was my favorite as a kid, but now that I'm older I have a hard time looking past some of its flaws (for example, Year of Hell really should've been an entire season, as originally planned)

 

Continually blown away by Strange New Worlds. It's perfectly cast, and hearkens back to the episodic storytelling that worked so well in TOS and TNG. Absolutely love it. That musical episode still lives in my head rent free, and I don't typically like musicals. 

• Deep Space Nine
• The Next Generation
• Strange New Worlds
• Picard (S3)
• Voyager
• Lower Decks
• Enterprise
• The Original Series
• Picard (S1-S2)
• Discovery
• The Animated Series

I'm really not sure where to rank Prodigy—I haven't finished it yet.

 

Edited February 27 by hansreinhardt

[InfiniteDoors]

1 hour ago, hansreinhardt said:

Thanks for ruining First Contact for me.

 

That's what I do, baby

 

1 hour ago, hansreinhardt said:

This response brings much glory to the house of InfiniteDoors, I love it. I agree with you on "Q Who"—that was such a great setup for the Borg, and they were truly terrifying in that episode. Some excellent points you've made here. I first saw TNG and VOY when my age was measured in a single digit, and a lot of these plot points I really just took at face value at the time. So breaking it down the way you've done, I've never really thought about it like that before. Thanks for the revelatory interpretation. Now I feel it's a shame they didn't hold steady with the "Q Who" take on the Borg. 

The direction they took the Borg isn't the worst thing ever, it's just less frightening, and that's a natural consequence of bringing back the Borg again and again. If they stayed exactly the same as in Q Who, the writers would have a big problem: if they're always unstoppable, then the Enterprise will always have to run away, or pull something stupid out of their ass, or just get blowed up and end the show. So then you need to make them less powerful, chip away at their mystique by fleshing them out more, slowly and surely make them more and more like just another enemy of the week. Not intentionally water them down, but that is bound to happen the more they're trotted out. The same thing happened to Q, he kind of overstayed his welcome on TNG (not counting All Good Things of course). He didn't really work on DS9, so they had the common sense to not being him back. And then they went way too far with the Q Continuum on Voyager. At this point, Janeway has a stronger connection to Q and the Borg than Picard does.

 

1 hour ago, hansreinhardt said:

Honestly I'm blown away that they intended the Borg Queen to be a single character. Memory Alpha seems to back you up so that must be their intention. I've spent literally decades thinking there were multiple incarnations of the Queen. Now that I know differently... the notion that they're all one and the same really aggravates me. Again, why keep bringing that character back, especially after First Contact? How does she keep surviving? Why was she present at the Battle of Sector 001 in the first place? So many more questions now. 

This is just my interpretation, but I think it's more like the Queen herself is a consciousness that can inhabit designated vessels (like the one in FC). That way, when her current body is destroyed, she just zips over to another one (Susanna Thompson in Voyager). This is sort of supported in Picard S2, where she's all loopy and discombobulated in the Confederation timeline, but is back to normal when they go to the 21st century.

 

1 hour ago, hansreinhardt said:

RE: Insurrection—I figured that was the case, in that they felt DS9 references would alienate the average viewer. Even so, they couldn't have left the Quark scene at the very end? The main plot was already done at that point, so what's the harm of an easter egg tossed in the mix? Dumb. These producers and studio suits need to stop underestimating their audiences. Even if the casual viewer doesn't know who Quark is, it's still something fun that the average viewer should be able to appreciate if executed correctly. 

 

I've long felt that Paramount needs to do two things: stop trying to make Star Trek films for the average moviegoer, and stop trying to recycle TWOK. Trek's never going to be Marvel at the end of the day. There must be a way that a Trek film can cater to both audiences without lobotomizing the plot. As long as it's got good character development, a nice mix of comedy/drama/action, and an interesting mystery or problem to overcome, I think audiences would gravitate towards it. Stories can acknowledge the larger universe and history of Trek, but still work standalone. But maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part! 

If they stopped making Trek films for the average moviegoer, TMP would've been the first and only Trek movie. Or Trek thing, period. As bad as TWOK's lessons have been taken, the movie was exactly what Trek needed: a nice kick in the ass. But I do agree, stop catering to the dummies. JJ Abrams set a terrible precedent for modern Trek, that everything needs to be bigger, faster, flashier. I'm not saying I want the cheapness and pacing of TOS, but there's a good middle ground. However, this upcoming Section 31 movie is NOT it. That's another thing whose lessons were taken the wrong way, Section 31. But that's another rambling post...