Your favourite Trek?

Darkness · May 3, 2016

My favorite has to be DS9. Voyager was the last ST series I've seen, for the record.

Dannyalcatraz · May 3, 2016

What, no love for the cartoon?

I'm with trappedslider, FWIW- I don't have a favorite era, just favorite episodes.

I will also state that WoK was easily the best of the films- Moby Dick in space, with Shatner as the analog to titular white whale? C'MON!!! While I enjoyed some of the rest, none of the other films ever even came close for me.

Ryujin · May 3, 2016

Dannyalcatraz said:
What, no love for the cartoon?

I'm with trappedslider, FWIW- I don't have a favorite era, just favorite episodes.

I will also state that WoK was easily the best of the films- Moby Dick in space, with Shatner as the analog to titular white whale? C'MON!!! While I enjoyed some of the rest, none of the other films ever even came close for me.

Cumberbatch was a poor substitute for Montalban. Not Shakespearean enough.

MechaPilot · May 3, 2016

Ryujin said:
Cumberbatch was a poor substitute for Montalban. Not Shakespearean enough.

I don't believe Cumberbatch was supposed to be a substitute for Montalban. Montalban really played up the suave aspect of Khan. However, Cumberbatch nailed the brutal psychopathy aspect of the character in a way that Montalban never did. It also helped Montalban's portrayal that they didn't have to do the work of introducing the character in the movie: the ToS episode already gave us a great intro into who he was. By contrast, Cumberbatch's Khan was entirely unknown to the new Trek cast and had to be introduced in the film.

Ryujin · May 4, 2016

MechaPilot said:
I don't believe Cumberbatch was supposed to be a substitute for Montalban. Montalban really played up the suave aspect of Khan. However, Cumberbatch nailed the brutal psychopathy aspect of the character in a way that Montalban never did. It also helped Montalban's portrayal that they didn't have to do the work of introducing the character in the movie: the ToS episode already gave us a great intro into who he was. By contrast, Cumberbatch's Khan was entirely unknown to the new Trek cast and had to be introduced in the film.

I found his portrayal completely uncompelling, even taken completely on its own. I found his facial antics to be ridiculous and distracting. Psychopaths and sociopaths are quite frequently incredibly intelligent and charming individuals, as they actually have an understanding of what to do in order to get what they want. None of that was present.

All of that apart from how I found the movie's concept to be lazy and derivative, in a false effort at fan service.

Eltab · May 4, 2016

First book I remember, "Uhura's Song". At one point, Uhura has to convince a cat-like alien to not kill Spock because "He does too care, but not the way you expect to see".
Other books - do not remember the titles - are (1) a history of Vulcan (Diane Duane?) and (2) Amanda's death; Spock and Sarek separately read her diaries (at her request), to learn something about themselves and each other.

OS has Kirk monologues I can almost quote from memory. The mangled reading of the Constitution, and "I will not kill ... today" are fun and inspiring.

Morrus · May 4, 2016

Ryujin said:
completely uncompelling...ridiculous and distracting... lazy and derivative

No, no, tell it to us straight. How do you really feel?

I wasn't a fan of the movie either, but I don't think Cumberbatch was the problem. The rubbish plot was the problem!

Orius · May 4, 2016

MechaPilot said:
My ideal next Trek series would be something dark, like the new BSG dark, set during the Eugenics wars on Earth. They could even cap off the final episode of the series with Khan and his people going into space, to be later found by Kirk.

It wouldn't be Trek though. Optimism is part Trek's spirit, it wouldn't be Trek without it. It's a key part of the franchise, and while sometimes I think some of Roddenberry's ideals were more than just a bit out there, his whole optimistic vision isn't one of them. DS9 went darker than any other Trek did, and it managed to still be solid; but even then, there's a lot of Trek fans who didn't like it and felt it wasn't worthy of the Trek name. Something BSG dark would probably cause a big split in the fanbase.

Morrus said:
I wasn't a fan of the movie either, but I don't think Cumberbatch was the problem. The rubbish plot was the problem!

My main problem with the Abrams Trekverse is that he's doing big summer blockbuster-style action sci-fi movies. That's not the right flavor for Trek. The best Trek films - II, III, VI, First Contact - while they all had action pieces, it was the characters that made the movies. Abrams hasn't done that; the characters are mostly Flanderized with the exceptions of Spock and Uhura and maybe McCoy. Kirk's the worst offender, with the loose cannon maverick tendencies dialed way past 11; that's not the character he is in TOS. The first movie was crap, the second one was better, though really it took its best scenes from WoK.

Ryujin · May 4, 2016

Morrus said:
No, no, tell it to us straight. How do you really feel?

I wasn't a fan of the movie either, but I don't think Cumberbatch was the problem. The rubbish plot was the problem!

I rarely do otherwise and if I ever do, assume it's sarcasm

I'm quite sure that Cumberbatch wasn't the actual problem, as he's fine in pretty much everything else I've seen. That leaves direction as the cause of my issues with his performance.

Chimpy · May 4, 2016

I think the years of the end of TNG, early DS9 and early Voyager was the best time for me. These years seemed to have good stories, and the TNG actors were gelling well together and character interactions were much deeper than early TNG. I felt the later DS9 and Voyager were scraping the barrel on ideas somewhat.

Maybe because it was before my time, but TOS seems a bit bland, dull and corny, although the ideas were good.