OT: Star Trek Movie (XI)

AgentZero · #1 November 14th, 2007, 01:19 AM

I do not like the clean, hopeful Star Trek. The whole, "Let's solve our problems with idealism! And technology!" attitude makes my channel-flicking finger very itchy. Well, I'm not entirely against the "let's solve our problems with technology" part, because it's sci-fi, so of course technology will play a part in it.

And coming up with some neat little gadget to solve a particular problem that we can look at and say, "Wow, that's cool," is good sci-fi technofantasy. Realigning the phase coil inductors is not.

Why not just say, "Well, Captain, what we're going to do, see, is load the magazines with bovine fecal matter, and fire it out the torpedo tubes. Oh look, the bovine fecal matter blew them up! Aren't we clever?" Because that, and realigning the phase coil inductors, is exactly the same damn thing.

Randallw · #2 November 14th, 2007, 01:39 AM

There's a Voyager epsiode where they fight the Borg. They fire the Phasers at the Borg. You know beam of light goes from Voyager to Borg ship then stays for a little bit too long. The Borg ship then pulsed back along the beam to Voyager. Cue sparks and such. Someone says

"What happened"
and 7 of 9 says
"They reversed the beam with a feed back pulse"

Is it really technobabble when that makes perfect sense? I mean the pulse goes back in the opposite direction and damages the emitters. Looks like a feedback pulse to me.

In fact it makes so much sense I would expect Star Fleet to plan against that tactic. Don't leave the Phaser beam in place so long, or use disruptors. Except that the disruptor beam would leave an ionisation trail and due to the need to align the disruptor pulse to pass through the ships shields that would leave a trail that could penetrate the shields in return.

narf poit chez BOOM · #3 November 14th, 2007, 02:01 AM

Nothing wrong with idealism. Cynicism certainly isn't going to save the world.

I know that and I'm a cynic.

Randallw · #4 November 14th, 2007, 02:33 AM

You're a cynic

I consider myself somewhat of a cynic and I always got the impression you had more faith in people than I feel I ever could. Oh well perhaps I am just more cynical, or have a different understanding of cynicism. Nevermind, I'm not in the mood lately to go on about that.

narf poit chez BOOM · #5 November 14th, 2007, 04:24 AM

That's because I'm also optimistic. I just like expressing optimism more than I like expressing cynicism.

If life angers me to the point I have to express cynicism, I tend to write out the rant, then delete it.

*Shrug* Works for me.

Randallw · #6 November 14th, 2007, 04:43 AM

Yeah I do that sometimes. I write out a long reply to something, but a minute later when I finish I can't be bothered anymore so I delete it.

I'm quick to get annoyed but even quicker to decide it's not worth bothering so I give up. Shortly after that I couldn't care less one or the other.

AgentZero · #7 November 14th, 2007, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Randallw said:

Is it really technobabble when that makes perfect sense? I mean the pulse goes back in the opposite direction and damages the emitters. Looks like a feedback pulse to me.

No, it isn't. Technobabble is, by definition, incomprehensible. If the average person can understand it, or at least get get gist of it, it isn't really technobabble. Unfortunately, it is far more common in Star Trek for them to "decouple the quantum phase arrays, and reverse the polarity of the simplex magneto-organic fields, creating a inverse phase carrier wave that will disrupt the isometric polarity of their shields."

At that point, as I said, you might as well be shooting bull**** out the torpedo tubes.

Renegade 13 · #8 November 15th, 2007, 06:08 PM

Quote:

AgentZero said:
At that point, as I said, you might as well be shooting bull**** out the torpedo tubes.

Hey that might actually be effective.

"Damn it cap'n, they're shootin'...****e at us out of their tubes!"

"Quick, take evasive action...I don't want my new paint job messed up!"

GuyOfDoom · #9 November 15th, 2007, 06:39 PM

To me it's a difference of genre. TOS was "Cowboys in Space"

After TNG they started really explaining things in pseudo-science. It fit because it was what I grew to expect.

Then you have the other sci-fi approach which is that "we have it, we just don't bother trying to justify how it works" ala Firefly, Star Wars, etc.

Atrocities · #10 November 15th, 2007, 07:11 PM

What I liked about TOS was the fact that you saw the crew interact well together. McCoy wasn't afraid to piss off Kirk, and Kirk wasn't ashamed to apologize for being a jerk. The banter between McCoy and Spock was well played. The support cast new their places in the chain of command and didn't rock the ship so to speak. The show felt more real than TNG, DS9, or Voyager.

You got a real sense of comradely with them that was present in other Star Trek shows, but in a different way.

TNG was great, but way to liberal in way to many aspects say for a few episodes like Yesterday's Enterprise and such.

DS9 was a very deeply cast oriented series and I enjoyed it very much. Sisko wasn't afraid to take action, while always worrying about the moral side of things.

Janeway was ok, but never really liked Voyager.