Star Trek: stuff that grinds my gears...

Treadwell said:
Braga and Moore have said they actually put that scene in themselves in order to entice Shatner.
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It's real easy to tell when a story is written for the character, or the actor. Compare Ron Moore's TNG episode "Relics" to "Generations". There is a lot of respect and understanding towards Scotty's character. Not only does he recite some of his memorable encounters from the original series, he also reflects on where he is in life and how out of place he is with newer technology. It gives him something new to do without being out of character.

I don't care what the apologists for Generations say, Kirk's #1 desire has always been commanding a starship. When he gets promoted to Admiral and given an office job, he always finds ways to get back his command back whether through a crises that he thinks only he can handle or at the insistent of his friends. When he's sitting on that captain's chair, that's where he wants to be. What kills me is that the opening of Generations uses this as an actual set up with Kirk looking longingly at the Captain's chair of the Enterprise B and having to resist the urge to take command when Captain Harriman leaves the bridge. This is a set up that has no pay off because we're lead to believe that Kirk's number one fantasy is to live in a cabin up in the mountains with a woman we've never heard of and ride horses. Christopher Pike had more connection to horses than Kirk did!
 
But didn't Kirk think he was in heaven when he was in the Nexus?

Speaking of that, Guinan existed in the Nexus, and another version outside, does anyone think there might be another Kirk and Picard still in there?
 
glunark said:
Speaking of that, Guinan existed in the Nexus, and another version outside, does anyone think there might be another Kirk and Picard still in there?
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Or weirder yet, when Picard and Kirk go back together to face Soran, does that mean that there is another Picard there as well? Or does the Nexus replace what was there with the current version of you? Maybe Picard killed his younger self offscreen before going to the bridge where Soran was.
 
What got me in Generations is that Picard went into the Nexus and dragged Kirk out of it just so that he could get into a fist fight with Sorran. You go through all that trouble to get one of the legends of Stafleet, someone who is arguably the best starship captain the Federation and Starfleet has ever had and all you need him for is to punch the bad guy, now if that's not lazy writing I don't know what is.
 
This is from the beginning of the thread. I can overlook and/or come to terms with a lot of story items, but Generations just makes me boil...

Mara Jade's Father said:
When it comes to "grinding my gears" in the Trek verse, Generations is a big issue with me. Now I can understand some Trek movies just are not good but that happens with any multi movie franchise. I can live with that. I also do not get wrapped up in the technology or time travel issues. I just write it off as technology that exists that we in our era do not fully understand so if it works out a certain way, it's not bad writing, it's our lack of understanding, I just accept that it works.

I do agree on the point about the obvious ploy to destroy the Enterprise D for the sake of bringing a new ship into the franchise. The destruction of the ENT-D bothered me more walking out of the theater than Kirk's death. The ENT-D deserved better.

But to my big issue,,, It's about a poor choice that just does not make any sense except to twist and pull the story into a certain direction.

If you are stuck in the ribbon and have the ability to travel to any time and any place so that you can keep and event from happening, why would you choose to go back to a mere few minutes in a situation that makes you still fight it out. Why not go back in time a week, call you brother, warn him about the fire. Then when you first see Soran, just throw him in the brig, stun his ass, whatever. Done and done.
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Riceball said:
What got me in Generations is that Picard went into the Nexus and dragged Kirk out of it just so that he could get into a fist fight with Sorran. You go through all that trouble to get one of the legends of Stafleet, someone who is arguably the best starship captain the Federation and Starfleet has ever had and all you need him for is to punch the bad guy, now if that's not lazy writing I don't know what is.
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When it comes to the actual production, action sells better than words. Imagine being a top billed actor like Shatner and reading a script where the biggest action set-piece pretty much limits your character to sitting on a chair giving out orders. That was the case for Star Trek II when Kirk and Khan had their final confrontation fought in the Mutara Nebula. To the actors, they're literally just sitting or walking around. Of course once the film is edited, had it's special effects produced and music composed, that scene became one of the most iconic action scenes in the whole franchise. Again, actors just sitting. Now compare that kind of action to a script where the writers say you and the bad guy will have a "in your face" battle to the death over the fate of the whole galaxy. That sounds a lot more fun since they're literally in on the action and the work they'll be doing will probably be more exciting. Problem is that sense of fun and excitement will not always translate in the final product. Sometimes this kind action works in Star Trek (Kirk vs. Spock in Amok Time, Kirk vs Kruge in Star Trek III), but a lot of times it doesn't (Picard vs. anyone in the movies, NuSpock vs. NuKhan).

It's always surprised me how Patrick Stewart, an actor who loves Shakespeare so much that he'll dawn bad makeup just to be in a scene where Data is re-enacting Shakespeare that doesn't even involve Picard playing a part (TNG "The Defector") wanted Picard to have more of an action hero role. Consider Star Trek First Contact. Which is the scene that most viewers remember him by? The conference room with Lily where he loses his cool, or where he's swinging on Borg tubes in the film's climax? Well, for Patrick it wasn't the former because after taking on a producer's role for the later films, he demanded Picard have more action hero moments. In Insurrection, it was silly. In Nemesis, it was embarrassing. The dune buggy scene was bad and pointless, but that moment where Picard blows his way through the Scimitar bridge door "Cool Aid Man" style is all that was needed to know that EVERYONE was out of touch.

So yeah. William Shatner probably wouldn't have done Generations if they didn't give Kirk some real action. It's something I understand, but I totally disagree with.
 
Jeyl said:
When it comes to the actual production, action sells better than words. Imagine being a top billed actor like Shatner and reading a script where the biggest action set-piece pretty much limits your character to sitting on a chair giving out orders. That was the case for Star Trek II when Kirk and Khan had their final confrontation fought in the Mutara Nebula. To the actors, they're literally just sitting or walking around. Of course once the film is edited, had it's special effects produced and music composed, that scene became one of the most iconic action scenes in the whole franchise. Again, actors just sitting. Now compare that kind of action to a script where the writers say you and the bad guy will have a "in your face" battle to the death over the fate of the whole galaxy. That sounds a lot more fun since they're literally in on the action and the work they'll be doing will probably be more exciting. Problem is that sense of fun and excitement will not always translate in the final product. Sometimes this kind action works in Star Trek (Kirk vs. Spock in Amok Time, Kirk vs Kruge in Star Trek III), but a lot of times it doesn't (Picard vs. anyone in the movies, NuSpock vs. NuKhan).

It's always surprised me how Patrick Stewart, an actor who loves Shakespeare so much that he'll dawn bad makeup just to be in a scene where Data is re-enacting Shakespeare that doesn't even involve Picard playing a part (TNG "The Defector") wanted Picard to have more of an action hero role. Consider Star Trek First Contact. Which is the scene that most viewers remember him by? The conference room with Lily where he loses his cool, or where he's swinging on Borg tubes in the film's climax? Well, for Patrick it wasn't the former because after taking on a producer's role for the later films, he demanded Picard have more action hero moments. In Insurrection, it was silly. In Nemesis, it was embarrassing. The dune buggy scene was bad and pointless, but that moment where Picard blows his way through the Scimitar bridge door "Cool Aid Man" style is all that was needed to know that EVERYONE was out of touch.

So yeah. William Shatner probably wouldn't have done Generations if they didn't give Kirk some real action. It's something I understand, but I totally disagree with.
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I understand that too, my beef wasn't so much that Kirk had to fight it out with Sorran, it was just that Picard specifically went and got Kirk for who he is and all he used him for was to beat up Sorran. To me what was lazy was that the writer's couldn't have written a better way of getting Kirk into the action, there could have been any number of throw away lines to explain why Kirk was reduced to doing something that any 20 year old red shirt (or gold in the case of TNG) could have done just as easily, probably more easily since they would decades younger than Kirk and in their prime to boot.
 
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I blame every fanboy who bombarded actors and crew at every Star Trek convention from 1987 to 1994 who asked, "Are Picard and Kirk ever going to be together on screen because that would be cool?" Just because you can make it happen, doesn't make it a good idea.
 
Mara Jade's Father said:
I blame every fanboy who bombarded actors and crew at every Star Trek convention from 1987 to 1994 who asked, "Are Picard and Kirk ever going to be together on screen because that would be cool?" Just because you can make it happen, doesn't make it a good idea.
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Now that's just wrong. You can't blame the fans for expressing ideas and then blame them for a product they didn't even make. That's like blaming fans for Star Trek 5 when all they did was ask for another Star Trek movie. And besides, why shouldn't a "Kirk meets Picard" story work? Deep Space Nine had Kirk and Sisko meet and that episode is critically praised.
 
The Picard Maneuver.

From the distances shown in the episode it just wouldn't have worked, it takes a second for light to reach us from the moon, at the distance the stargazer was the false image should have vanished almost immediately.
 
Mara Jade's Father said:
From what I understand, it's the sensors that are confused and pick up two ships for an instant.
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You are correct. When the Stargazer arrived in its new position, the Feregni ship was still receiving data based upon its previous position. The ship was not sensing the Stargazer in its new position, but the Ferengi saw it with their eyes. Since it happened so fast, the Ferengi ship had no chance to react and the ship fired on the previous position.
 
BD Jones said:
You are correct. When the Stargazer arrived in its new position, the Feregni ship was still receiving data based upon its previous position. The ship was not sensing the Stargazer in its new position, but the Ferengi saw it with their eyes. Since it happened so fast, the Ferengi ship had no chance to react and the ship fired on the previous position.
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That's what I thought. They were just seeing it visually in two spots because it moved so fast. I actually watched that a few weeks back.
 
It could also be considered that from inside the ship, you are not actually looking at the other ship with your naked eye. You are watching via a view screen. The view screen itself can be considered a type of sensor or part of a sensor related system. Therefore the maneuver may have caused a type of lag which caused the visual detection of two ships when in actuality there was only one.
 
All of you talking about the naked eye are missing the point of what I just said.

If you can even see something the size of a ship with the naked eye, it is not far away.

A 747 seven miles up looks like a dot to us, but if it warped to ten feet in front of us, that dot would disappear in a tiny fraction of a second.

And if the ferengi sensors cant detect objects that are moving faster than the speed of light, they must plough into things all the time when they go to warp themselves.
 
Well, while not all that well represented on screen, keep in mind that high warp is thousands of times the speed of light. Theoretically, it should work... But would occur much more quickly than they appeared on screen.
 
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