General Star Trek thread

When it comes to Trek movie myself, it think my "favourite" really depends on my mood. Sometimes it can be Wrath of Khan, sometimes First Contact. Sometimes it can even be Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier. (Yes…really….).

I think the only movies that never really got into that slot in my mind are Insurrection, Nemesis, and the latter 2 JJ-verse movies…both of which I have only ever watched once.

As for an overall favourite regardless of mood; it's a hard choice between Wrath of Khan and First Contact. Both work as excellent space adventure films that use Trek lore but are presented in a way so that non-Trek viewers can still understand the threats in play without watching hours TV Trek.

When I first watch Wrath of Khan many many moons ago, I had not watched Space Seed, but the movie was so well presented that I understood that Khan was intelligent, dangerous and that he hated Kirk. It was clear to follow, and easy to enjoy.

Although I was a well indoctrinated Trekkie by the time First Contact came out, I could see that they also took the time to present the horror of the Borg, so that by the time the drones were taking over the decks of the Enterprise, the viewer had enough knowledge to understand how terrifying that was.

Both films had a fantastic music score, SFX and cast. They are both fantastic Sci-fi adventure movies…that also just happen to be Star Trek.

As I've said before AMKC, if you care at all about the creativity that created Trek you wouldn't support or consume this kind of Gen-AI slop. Like before I know you mean well so don't take this as mean-spirited, but more of a cautionary tale that Trek fans should be well used to.

Gen-AI doesn't just steal from the hard work of 100s of Thousands of people without paying them…but it also normalises the idea that you don't need to put any effort into your creative works so long as you can throw a few prompts into an engine. If we keep normalising this destructive trend we may end up with whole generations of kids who never once considered taking up a pen to write their own story, a pencil to make their own art, or even an instrument to create some music.

Why bother when you can just get Gen-AI to do it for you? This is what myself and others are working hard to fight against, and I would hope that my fellow Trekkies would share some of those same values of preserving this part of our humanity in the face of a soulless digital replacment for it.

Although Ezri Dax was an ok addition to the cast, she really wasn't Jadzia. Also, one season really isn't enough time to get people invested in a character*. To their credit, they tried, but Ezri turned up after the other characters had been years together on varous adventures and through half of a War.

It's kind of telling that in "What you Leave Behind", the Flash-back sequence for each character included memories from the past 7 years, but then we get to Ezri and the flashbacks include stuff we saw only 2 episodes ago. It's petty and indefensable that Jadzia didn't feature at all in those sequences…even in the Worf flashback where she was a major element in his life on DS9.

As for Sisco fecking off on his family. Yea, that was pretty bad form, especially considering that his relationship with Jake is possibly one of the best Father/Son pairings I've ever seen on television. Jake surviving Wolf 359 with his father and both moving on in life after the loss of Jennifer is a signifigant character beat for both of them, which is why that's where we meet them in "The Emissary".

Jake at very least has grown into a man by the time we get to "What you Leave Behind". Unlike with "The Visitor" where he was still a kid and very much lost without his father, the Jake we see at the very last scene of DS9 had been through so much that you knew that he was better equipped to cope with that loss. That however does not excuse him fecking off on a pregnant Cassidy Yates. He loses a tonne of points for that one.

*(In fairness though, I should say that one season is enough time if you do it well but I don't think they really did.)