Not one villain in particular but I really liked how the Packleds were the main antagonists for a while in Lower Decks, the idea that they're really dumb and incompetent yet somehow became a legit threat until they pretty much screwed themselves over was hilarious.
Comment has been collapsed.
That was an amazing fleshing out of their species, agreed.
Comment has been collapsed.
I haven't watched it but always like to see things expanded upon like they did with the Ferengi in DS9.
Comment has been collapsed.
They were in TNG as well and I believe they only act dumb . They were good at getting people to not see them as a threat and taking them by surprise and taking their technology. I mean they would have to be somewhat intelligent to be able to use that stolen technology.
Comment has been collapsed.
In LD they're shown to be cunning as a group but pretty dumb individually, also that the only real reason why they get away with their shenanigans is that they're absurdly resilient and can survive their abundant fuck ups. A very unorthodox "villain" race which makes them very entertaining to watch.
Comment has been collapsed.
Data is a main character and certainly one of my favorites. A supporting character would be someone like Guinan who just pops in now and then to further the plot or share some backstory.
Comment has been collapsed.
im sticking with my answer, he is in the other shows
he could live forever and we need more data
not what we got in new star trek shows that were garbage with amazing cinematic effects
lower decks is solid tho
Comment has been collapsed.
I never said anything about changing your answer, I'm just saying he's not actually support cast. He's front and center on pretty much every episode. I mean I guess in the respect that he's not the actual captain you could look at that as support? I just always looked at Star Trek as having a main cast, the bridge crew, and supporting cast, everyone else.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thats it, Lower Decks is where Q belongs. He was a misplaced original Lower Decks character that traveled back in time to TNG era thanks to his reality bending multidimensional shenanigans- so being ignored so much in his original universe he went searching for someone so serious he wouldnt laugh to his face, landing on Picard.
Thats it. I found the correct proper canon lore that finally makes sense of Q.
Thats my official head canon now.
I will pretend its the official canon from now on.
Comment has been collapsed.
Q is wonderful but he's not really a villain. Lore would be a good example of a true villain from TNG.
Comment has been collapsed.
He's devious and amoral and unreliable and irresponsible and definitely not to be trusted. - Picard
why i like him is cause the growth as a character over time.
he goes from dicking around killing things at random to here baby sit my kid.
Comment has been collapsed.
I can't think of a favorite villain off the top of my head since I don't really remember liking any of them, especially Q. Maybe the Talosians from the original pilot. For supporting character, I think I would have to go with Data.
Comment has been collapsed.
Data is actually a main role as he is present in almost every episode and if he were in a Fallout game would be tagged as essential. I mean hell they actually "killed" him and yet he does come back. A supporting character would be like Chief O'Brien during TNG but he becomes a main role in DS9. Data is a great character though and he has a lot of development.
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't know why, but when I read "supporting characters", I immediately though of people playing supporting roles to the captain, so we couldn't choose Kirk or Picard (I have only seen the first 2 series and the movies). I guess all the ones I was thinking of would be main characters and that makes choosing a supporting character really difficult because I can't remember many of them. Would that time traveler guy that shows up in a few episodes of TNG count? Not sure if he would be my favorite if I did a bunch of research, but he was interesting, especially towards the end when Wesley comes back.
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh yea, anyone outside of a main role is support. Even most villains could be looked at as supporting roles.
Comment has been collapsed.
I have no opinion as I only watched 5 episodes of TNG so far. It's not great yet but I enjoy it enough and heard the first two seasons aren't the best.
Yeah, that's it...just wanted to say that :D
Comment has been collapsed.
TNG is VERY underwhelming in season 1 but it really starts to shine in season 2 and by season 3 is a very solid show.
Comment has been collapsed.
THE BORG. Data.
I like most trek villains ive seen (but i havent watched all of star trek). Khan and those ilusionist big brained guys (Taloisans, thanks google) left a mark.
Despite digging the Borg i dont have as a strong positive feeling to then as i have a negative feeling for Q.
I can kinda appreciate Q for some amusing episodes, being unexpected, i confess i felt some(just some, just a little) nostalgia when he poped up on the Picard series... but that was nostalgia talking, seeing more of the old usual faces... because the villain and concept itself always irked me.
Q to me have holes and worldbuilding issues. Such an advanced race would have a much much bigger impact; Something so godlike and so freaking old could be mad, insane... but Q comes across to me as petty, overly frivolous, even childish, and that never felt like a good pairing for that background and those powers.
Then the 'powers' i always felt were waaay too much- and this comes from someone who loves the concept of 'sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'... but id argue theres some limits, or idk setting fittingness. Maybe in another scifi setting something like Q would fly better for me then in Star Trek
Idk i feel something similar could be achieved with ilusions like Taloisans, virtual reality- but the lore implies he can change even the laws of physics, other dimension involved... Idk, didnt fit my taste. Its a pet peeve of mine.
Am i nerding too much about complaining about Q?
To hell with it, im a nerd, thats my main pet peeve, i agree everyone have their tastes and its nice if you like Q but i still stand he doenst really fit and i will die on that hill and i will fight for it
Not really really fight, i always avoided fights.... i willl... i will post another lenghty post about it!
Sorry, i needed to get that out of my system. Been awhile since someone or something triggered my Q red button.
But i like the actor and was glad he was on Picard. But i would rather he be a cameo as another character not freaking Q.
Have i mentioned i dont like Q?
Comment has been collapsed.
Q isn't actually a villain but he certainly interferes a lot. And the Q occupy another dimension so whatever laws apply to us wouldn't apply to them. Other species we see from other dimensions in he shows are also well beyond our own power. Such as the Borg actually being preyed upon and in fear of those guys from fuidic space. There are some others that pop up as well. I remember there was one that was pulling people into another dimension and disecting them, they were insectoid and made clicking noises. The crew all got together and had collective flashbacks of what was going on.
The Q and a particular Q make a good anti-hero or protagonist. I enjoyed seeing him again in Picard and seeing how everything played out.
Comment has been collapsed.
I kinda of agree in parts. Btw the other overpowered beings make more sense to me then how Q was done yyou know?
And to elaborate a little bit in the kind of holes i perceive in Q- being from another dimension/reality with different rules then our own its all fine. But traveling to another reality- what, carrying another reality physics laws with oneself? THAT doenst make sense.
Its like saying someone coming from a universe with no gravity where most life forms fly/float around because they evolved to, idk, pull/push from magnetic fields coming to our universe would be flying around. How it should be in scifi is precisely exploring that kind of scenario to its ultimate consequences in a what if that existed- and in the example they would be grounded, maybe even have very hard trouble moving on their own with weaker bodies that never had to fight G force- but they would likely mess up all eletronics because of their craze buffed magnetic field manipulation
'I can change all matter in my own universe, therefore i can do so in yours! Obviously' - Q probably in some discarded script, that amongst other things was too much on the nose with the characters inherent flaws.
Being more specific my main pet peeve is scifi nerding- a highly inteligent, very dangerous, misterious and yes even powerful playful and machiavelian character is very fun. My issue is all the underlying lore. Q to me feel almost as out of place and as if a freaking wizard with a pet dragon and a pointy hat appeared in star trek, teleporting and turning people into frogs left and right.
You see in his reality what us humans wrote as 'magic' is very much in the reach of their science and evolution- and they bioengineered thenselves with said magic so they could project that out of their fingers, and also with their specialized multi-tool weapons that look kinda like a wand, and the 7 pointed thing in the top isnt a star, its 7 antenas that capture the 7 energy fluxes that permeate his universe.
And then they were so advanced with such magic that a huge systems wide security system was created that prevented people from using weapons, killing- so old and so powerful later civilzations couldnt just dispell. So they now have near a milenia of technical developments under that- and thats why all nations in his universe weaponize metamorphosis. Rather then kill their enemies they disable then- for capture, or to let then likely die to the elements, thus not commiting the magically punished crime of murder (killing beyond self sutenance).
See its all explained! Another universe, other laws... Yet dont make this damn wizard fitting in star trek does it? Nor explain why his magic would work in our universe...
Thats my Q issue.
I have a Q issue lol
PS, edit: Also space wizards fit more in star wars
Edit 2: i feel i could bash on Qs canon for hours or days without getting bored lol
Comment has been collapsed.
The thing is that if something from another dimension can interact with our dimension it would be sufficiently advanced well beyond us. We are just scratching the surface of our own dimensions. There was also at least one instance of a lifeform from a lower dimension where the Enterprise was stuck in a swarm of 2 dimensional life forms being pulled into a cosmic string. They weren't even aware of the Enterprise but they were exerting a great deal of power that the Enterprise could not even overcome. So yes perceivably there are lots of regular creatures in other dimensions that would just fall apart in our own but they wouldn't have sufficient technology to do so. There was also the notion of different phases explored, there could be all sorts of life occupying the same space yet out of phase with each other. Some life could even exist in an inverse timeline or their forward progression would be going back in time for us. How much of this stuff could actually be real? Who knows.
Comment has been collapsed.
Idk how much of it could be real but i how much i wish Replicators and Trasnporter were viable...
...and preferably developed during my lifetime...
...and affordable enougth it wouldnt be exclusive to the rich...
Dammit, thats too many crazy wishs stacked
Okay i can settle with a Holodeck.
Comment has been collapsed.
Holograms are already out there, I'm sure something along the lines of a Holodeck could be very plausible in the next 50 years. But holograms with substance that could kill you without safety protocols in place? Not likely. I'm not sure you can actually give a Hologram substance while obeying Laws of Science and Math as we know them.
Comment has been collapsed.
So glad to find someone to keep me company on the Q hate wagon.
Comment has been collapsed.
We may be quite but we are many.
Idk why but i have the feeling were on the right side of history or something. Like idk, millenia for now evolved humans into historical media would be like 'wtf is this Q' and it will be aking to 50s and earlier scifi to us now. Star trek is already silly enought on the borderline, starting at the 60s (like space elves), Q in a sense follows on that tradition.
Comment has been collapsed.
lmao yeah tv archeologists will be like "this documentary tells us so much about life in the 20th century... we just can't figure that Q thing out though... seems over the top really"
Comment has been collapsed.
I’ve got agree Roth Gul Dukat as best villain. I’ve tried thinking of s better one, and I just can’t.
And even though DS9 isn’t my favorite series, I think Garak is a great supporting character.
Comment has been collapsed.
Garak was wonderful, they really had a lot of good characters on DS9. Quark was a great supporting character as well! Garak's father was a pretty decent villain as well. The last season of DS9 was a real letdown. It's like they were in a rush to just sweep it under the rug. They put so much development into the Jadzia and Worf relationship then kill her right after they get married due to some personal crap between her actor and one of the producers. Then they bring in Ezri on the next episode and try to play some love interest between her and Worf. At least Kai Wen gets what's coming to her.
Comment has been collapsed.
I consider quark a main character.
I forgot about Louise fletcher as Kai Winn, I might have to change my answer for best villain
Comment has been collapsed.
She was a great villain, possibly too much so. Gul Dukat seemed to have at least some redeeming qualities but Kai Winn was all about greed and power at everyone else's expense. They tried to dispel that in the very end when she sacrificed herself to try to help "The Sisko" but instead of shedding a tear I laughed because she deserved to die a lot sooner IMO
Comment has been collapsed.
She’s a great villain becuase she exemplifies the inherent evil of holier-than-thou pious people who let rigid dogma get in the way of being good
Comment has been collapsed.
I don’t know why people complain about season 6 of DS9 - it was a great season finale
Comment has been collapsed.
6 was good up until they killed Jadzia due to personal drama but 7 was all around terrible. There are some good parts but mostly it's just not anywhere as good as the other seasons and the whole 20 minute montage was silly.
Comment has been collapsed.
Lore and Data. You can tell TNG was my favourite :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Lore really was the perfect opposite to Data. B4 was also a good middle piece that most people seem to forget.
Brent Spiner did really well with those roles.
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm a huge Next Gen fan, but with the exception of Data, over time all of my favorite characters became Ferengi and Cardassian. Dukat is definitely the best villain, and Garak is my favorite side character. Garak and Quark's back-and-forth's are legendary. Special nod to Nog.
Comment has been collapsed.
Don't forget Garak and Bashir, they had a lot of good interactions as well. In fact Garak had a lot of good story and interactions with different people.
Comment has been collapsed.
Already mentioned a couple of times, but clearly Gul Dukat!
DS9 is actually the first ST show I binged - after that I went back to the others... well still am in the process, but yeah.
So while I always liked 7of9 and yes, basically the whole Voyager Crew, Jadzia Dax will always be my Fav char. She is still support, right? xD
Actually the whole Trill/Symbiont thing spoke to me and all the Dax Versions were intriguing!
Comment has been collapsed.
Anyone that pops up in most episodes in a main character. This paints pretty much all bridge crew but since DS9 doesn't have a bridge for most of the show it's Sisko, Dax, Bashir, O'Brien, Kira, Odo and Worf when he arrives. Quark is kind of in there as well but even though he's almost always around he usually doesn't get a lot of time in the spotlight.
I never really liked Jadzia, she just had far too many character flaws and made a lot of poor decisions.
Comment has been collapsed.
I can accept this. Both her being a main character as well as you not liking her xD
Comment has been collapsed.
+1 for Gul Dukat, to me he's a prime example of the care that DS9 writers took with their characters & stories. He was never allowed to be "just" a villain, he was more multifaceted than that; he's a soldier, patriot, loving father, tyrant, leader, zealot and yes, a murderer , a truly gestalt character that was recognisably & sometimes painfully flawed, but always true to himself.
Honourable mentions to two other DS9 characters Weyoun (his obsequiousness & subtle cruelty was always a joy to watch) & Kai Winn, another multifaceted character was more than just an obstacle for the characters to navigate around, it would be too easy to dismiss her as a villain, rather a complicated antagonist (the relationship with Kira is an interesting example, up to a certain point they both had the same life experiences & trials but ended up taking divergent paths, perhaps only to realise that despite that maybe they weren't that different in the end?).
And of course Khan (pronounced KHHHHAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!! of course), the one and only ( Sorry Benedict Cumberbatch 😢 Unrelated side rant - how could the 3 reboot movies get such great actors to play the villains and yet so utterly waste their potential 🤔 Eric Bana's grief stricken Romulan could have been so much more, BC was actually hampered by being Khan when he could have been a better standalone character railing against the grey menace of Section 31 and Idris Elba ends up being a cardboard cutout villain only till the end when he's unexpectedly given real depth, an origin & motivation that should have come earlier)
In terms of races/organisations, if I had more time I could probably come up with more but the one that sticks out are the Borg (at least before the last couple of years of Voyager). They were truly chilling in their prime, but imo Voyager ended up neutering & mocking them cough Endgame cough. Honourable mention to the Breen, at least until Discovery imo mucked it up. Honestly, of you're going to literally take the mask off of one of the most enigmatic races in middle era Star Trek, then at least make it memorable 🤦♂️ .
Supporting characters are again too much for me to pick through in my lunch break but the one who really sticks out is Garak (guess my fav show 😄). He was never one thing or the other, always the puzzle wrapped in an enigma, even in the end you could never say he was definitively one thing (i.e. the liberating "hero" of Cardassia at the end versus the assassin of In the Pale Moonlight). More honourable mentions to the O'Brien/Bashir relationship that I always enjoyed watching esp in the episode Hippocratic Oath, there was something genuine about how two decidedly different people could still forge an odd couple friendship. Quark always brought a smile, another character who wasn't allowed to be just a caricature.
Sorry for the long rant post. There so much Star Trek it's hard to narrow down in a hurry. There's literally so much to think on that front. Q was always fun and a great foil to Picard. Sisko's father was always a good, "normal" person breath of fresh air to cut through the high end sci-fi stuff. There are more obviously. Hard for me to pick, I've been a life long Star Trek fan since seeing ST4 in '86 as a kid, there's alot to go through in my head, even if the new stuff is mostly paywalled for me for now.
Comment has been collapsed.
There really is a wonderful and large universe of content to dig through. It did not take much to choose my top picks though. Not only were both characters really well written but they had great actors playing them.
Discovery was ok but to me it just seemed like the people behind it were more about pushing agendas than Star Trek and they did not just crap on the Breen, they crapped on Klingons as well. There was no need to remake the Klingons.
Picard was good but short and honestly came about 10 years too late. I love Sir Patrick Stewart but he's just too old to get it done now.
Strange New Worlds is the Star Trek we all need in my opinion. It's got a good story and good cast and there's no agenda being pushed that I can see.
As a side note did you realize they casted Kirk because the person playing Pike died?
Comment has been collapsed.
Discovery is such a mixed bag for me, wildly uneven even at the best of times (1st season especially ), hell sometimes even within the same episode. Good production values and cast and I know it had a lot on its shoulders to prove Trek could work in the streaming era but still could be disappointing at times. And now that I recently saw the last series I still can't say whether it really took advantage of its ball-sy choice at the end of S2 to leap forward 900 years, a story idea that while it had been thrown about for about 15 years I never thought the powers that be would actually go out on a limb for. S3 gave me hope but S5 really disappointed me. Poor final episode too imo.
Only seen half of S1 Picard, it just wasn't what I thought it was going to be (I would have preferred a quiet, character based exploration of the character once he leaves starfleet. Instead we got Borg. Again with the Borg. Sorry if I sound salty but the end of Voyager did the Borg in for me). S2 has time travel, another ST bugbear that I'm also a bit sick of (thanks S1-3 of Enterprise) (I know what some people must think, what kind of ST fan are you 🤪 but despite what many think time travel isn't a central part of ST, despite some of its best stories featuring it; it just got so overused by the end of Voyager, and then they crafted a prequel show around it.) So I'm not racing to watch it but I will one day. I find it humourous though that S3 became it's most critically & viewed season by basically becoming full nostalgia as practically TNG's 8th season 😄.
Like you I really like SNW, binged S1 with a colleague when she stumped up for Paramount+ for a month, looking forward to S2 when we do the same in the future. I can kinda go without the ongoing season long storyline as long as the writing otherwise is good and I found it was. Even going full horror in that second last ep with the Gorn. I really like the presentation of the Pike character, easily what made all the timey wimey of Discovery S2 bearable (I don't usually go for nostalgia but even I had a little squeal when they went to Talos IV for one episode 😄 though the Talosians didn't seem right for some reason).
Comment has been collapsed.
S2 has time travel, another ST bugbear that I'm also a bit sick of
S2 was one of the victims of Covid, sadly. They started on something entirely different and had to wrap up the writing and production on the double for contractual reasons so they ended up using that old time travel chestnut to minimize production costs. It was a shit show.
Season 3 was just fanservice wrapped around a ludicrous attempt to pass on the Picard name to another character to try and keep it going past the point Stewart wouldn't.
Comment has been collapsed.
That explains it a bit more. I still feel it suffers from what alot of the streaming era shows have as a recurring problem, the lack of overarching vision for what these shows are to actually be about (Lower Decks is possibly an exception, SNW possibly as well but I've only read spoilers for S2). The frequent changes to production staff behind the scenes really doesn't help either.
I don't necessarily mean season long stories like Discovery but just the idea that there's an ultimate point to the story they want to tell and the episodes (stand-alone or not) all move towards that end purpose. Discovery feels horribly disjointed when looking back from the end. I still don't really see what the point of Picard actually is, except for......more Picard 🤷♂️. As a one series thing I thought it might be nice to tie up the loose ends of the character in a way Nemesis never did but it doesn't seem to be that. I know S2 ties things up with Q - and Wesley Crusher for some gods unknown reason 🤦♂️ but S3 in particular just seems to be testing the water for the idea of a "legacy" ST series, in the same way Discovery S2 dangled the idea of SNW.
I'm not actually opposed to the idea of a "legacy" show per se but it has to ultimately be about something other than fanservice & nostalgia (looking at you Discovery S1/2). Right now I don't know if the powers that be have that kind of bravery or vision in them, especially in this new viewer-pays system where nostalgia obviously sells 🤷♂️.
Comment has been collapsed.
I totally agree. As much as I love Picard, I felt cheated at the end of season 1. Not that I wanted him to die really but it felt like they went with the "hey how about instead of tying things up, we make mooooore of this??" and the way they did it was out of left field even for Star Trek, not to mention rushed.
I'm not actually opposed to the idea of a "legacy" show per se but it has to ultimately be about something other than fanservice
Won't happen. From now on it's fanservice all the way. That's what you get when Picard season 3 get all the gang back together, does nothing of any worth with it, and still gets raving fans drooling all over it.
Comment has been collapsed.
To be honest you brought up another of my issues with ST (I might be a fan but that doesn't mean I can't see ST's problems! cough cough technobabble cough cough); it's writers need to start being narratively brave enough to actually let characters die when the story calls for it, not just start the clock waiting for them to come back from the dead one way or another. It's long become a trope for the show, if not borderline meme, Spock should have been the one and only exception.
I mean Nemesis is hardly my favourite movie but if Data had to die, I felt ok with the way it went down. He died not because the computer in his head told him so but because Picard was his friend, in that moment I feel Data achieved the humanity he'd always sought, Pinocchio became a real boy. Having him return in other forms - not once but twice! - just cheapens that act of sacrifice. As you said though, I'm well aware that I'm no longer the target audience.
Comment has been collapsed.
Data will live forever. Brent Spiner is too much of a nice guy I guess. They just won't do any project without him.
And for all its flaws, Nemesis really wrapped up the narrative of STNG about identity in a lovely way with the ending. So yeah flashbacks should really be all that we have left of Data
Comment has been collapsed.
Time travel is a very complex theory. The was people perceive and portray it is completely impossible, this isn't even a debate it just is not possible. Time also does not go in one straight linear path like a not of people seem to think. There are, with almost certainty, lifeforms that live in an inverse flow of time to what we experience. However we have no way of interacting with them if they do and I'm not certain it would ever be possible to interact with or even perceive them with any level of technology. The rest pretty much boils down to whether you believe in god or not. Either there is some cosmic entity keeping everything on one single rail and everything everyone does is all predestined or the multiverse exists with countless universes. So even if at some point somehow someone were able to flip the way they experience time and slowly crawl backwards we would not see them unless they reversed again. Even then if they did anything contrary it would just create another divergent universe so there is no "fixing" or "altering" time.
It's all theoretical and to my knowledge there is no way to actually prove any of it, even time travel being impossible. I think it was theorized that time travel would take more energy than exists in a single universe and how would you harvest, store and utilize all of that energy anyway?
Comment has been collapsed.
It's pretty complex, even the smartest people leave it as a question mark (apart from the wild idea that you could theoretically use the time dilation of a black hole to emerge at a previous point in time, if you could actually reach escape velocity, freaky). I prefer the Back to the Future time travel myself but if it's a good story I'll go with it. I mean as a viewer/fan I've already bought into the "fiction" part of sci-fi, what with the FTL travel, aliens, space wibbly wobblies and Spock's Brain. ST has never really settled on one time travel trope or another, esp if you include TOS. I just wish it was used more carefully, selectively.
In service of a good idea or theme it works well (City on the Edge of Forever, ST4, All Good Things, DS9s The Visitor, Voyager's Timeless are some of the better ones where I feel it worked). I'm not a grouch either, I know it can be used for some fun (STFC, DS9s Tribble episode is just pure unashamed fun/escapism, so much better than Voyager's anniversary episode). And frankly if I want adventures with time travel most of the time, I'll just watch Doctor Who.
My issue is when time travel is used as an end goal in itself rather than a plot device. It's a largely my biggest issue with S1-3 of Enterprise. Bad enough a show being wrapped around time travel interference to begin with but for me worse that it was the kind of time travel that removes agency from the characters & stories. If everything is set in stone, "the way things are meant to be" as was often said, well there really isn't much point to any of the actions of the characters or the trials they endure because your told everything will work out in the end. It's a shame because it could have been a better show without the time travel (though I admit my own bias might be at play here, I let my imagination run away with me before I saw it and imagined a rather different kind of show). It's a shame that when the show was allowed to breathe it basically became a fan's show (not a bad thing but it could have been more).
Comment has been collapsed.
I agree Enterprise could have been a lot better, in fact I think it very nearly killed the franchise. Personally I thought it was decent and still better than Discovery. I don't really dissect shows, I just try to enjoy them as they are. Otherwise I never could have enjoyed most shows like TWD and GoT. I mean it's impossible for something the size of a dragon to get airborne, even if it had hollow bones which clearly they didn't. And zombies? lol
Anyway I'm happy we have SNW for now and hopefully we continue to get Star Trek content in the future. Sadly SNW has already broken into the time paradox thing with captain Pike witnessing what happens to him and having to choose what to do about it.
Comment has been collapsed.
I expected the world of Enterprise to be a bit less perfect, bit less fully formed ST, with everyone in it trying to ignore the elephant in the room of how a century earlier the human race blew itself to hell, "don't mention the war" kind of vibe. But plot aside I did like a fair bit about it, I liked the designs and stuff and some of the smaller stories. Scott Bakula had me from the start but he was let down by the material ultimately. S4 really showed signs of what the show could have been but it was too late; poor final episode too, Trip's death was a bit forced/cheap imo 🤷♂️ .
I was initially disappointed that Discovery did the whole "you've got this nice comfy chair to look forward to" reveal because ultimately it was unnecessary - anyone could have done that particular plot aspect - it just seemed to be done for nostalgia's sake. That said SNW's S1 final did at least do something interesting with it, if not audacious for reimagining one of TOS' best episodes. I felt there was a line drawn under it when he vaguely accepted whatever will happen but who knows what the writers will do in the future. Personally I'd rather not see "it" happen, just let him fly off somewhere and we can draw our own conclusions.
As for what comes in the future show-wise I just hope there's thought put into it. A Starfleet academy show sounds..... interesting I suppose. I won't say no to more Michelle Yeoh chewing up the scenery. It won't happen but I'd love an X-era show (don't know if it's still called that, post ST6 but before TNG, I'm a sucker for the production design of the late motion picture era). And if I don't like it there's always 50+ years of other content to watch 😄.
Comment has been collapsed.
My issue is when time travel is used as an end goal in itself rather than a plot device
That happens a lot unfortunately. It's an easy gimmick and most people will just accept it "oh it's time travel" as a solution/reason for anything.
Comment has been collapsed.
There are, with almost certainty, lifeforms that live in an inverse flow of time to what we experience
That sounds so very Star Trek ;)
I think it was theorized that time travel would take more energy than exists in a single universe and how would you harvest, store and utilize all of that energy anyway?
The problem I have with theoretical physics is that... well, it's theoretical. We can only theorize on what we know, or have theorized in the past. Everything that is mundane today has been thought of as impossible at some point in humanity's history. New technologies made new discoveries possible and guess what? The impossible became a function of time, means and creativity, like most things.
it was theorized that time travel would take more energy than exists in a single universe and how would you harvest, store and utilize all of that energy anyway?
Ask the best scientist of the 18th century about nuclear power and see what they say. Impossible! ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
That's a bit different. We can actually quantify energy now and at least estimate how much of it exists in our universe. There are mechanics we still don't fully understand and some I am sure we are not even aware of but sending anything physical back in time just breaks fundamental laws as we know it. That's not even a maybe, it's just a flat no. With some inverse time flow there is a maybe but for us time flows in one direction even if it doesn't on the cosmological scale. Now sending consciousness through time, I really don't know. Maybe someday we will be able to send our consciousness through space and time and even enter other bodies. Who knows? I just don't see sending star ships through time though or moving faster than light.
And to be honest I don't see us doing much of anything as far as space is concerned in the next hundred years or well beyond. We have had access to space for over 60 years now and what have we done? It is not a technology thing or a resource thing. It's a power thing. There are more than enough resources out there to refuel and resupply any space venture. We can manufacture plating that can withstand debris impact. It will take a long time to get anywhere? So what, there are people willing to spend their lives in that pursuit. It would be too hard to maintain control once people start leaving Earth. It would be too hard to maintain warehouses full of gold, diamonds and other "rare" resources. We have to move beyond this greed driven power scheme before we can ever advance as a species and take on space travel.
Comment has been collapsed.
but sending anything physical back in time just breaks fundamental laws as we know it.
That's only because we have no idea how time travel would work. Maybe there will be a discovery that allows us to fold time on itself and bring time to something instead of sending something in time. The point is we don't know and as you are right, it breaks fundamental laws "as we know them", which proves my point. We don't even know what we don't know.
We have to move beyond this greed driven power scheme before we can ever advance as a species and take on space travel.
I believe that was the whole idea behind the origin of Star Trek. Humanity finally getting over itself and using its time and power to explore the universe instead of waging war on itself, keeping its own in shackles for money and trying to feed itself.
Comment has been collapsed.
I can wrap my mind around most things but temporal mechanics is so alien. We know at least something marginal about every other thing that we know of but time is like a blank board. We can't actually quantify it. We can take a recording but we aren't actually measuring time itself, just what occurred during a section of time. It has no discernable mass or energy or anything at all other than somehow existing. Without time life would not exist and without time nothing else matters. You could have all the ingredients for life but without time nothing would happen. There are some theories about it such as that time began at the instant of the creation of the universe or that time existed before then but which is true can't be ascertained because as I said time is not truly quantifiable. We can trace back the origins of the universe by using CMB and pretty accurately guess how old the universe is.
Another fascinating thing is the faster you move, the slower time moves for you or time dilation.
Right now I am looking at how law of energy conservation could be partly false due to the ever expanding universe. Is energy constantly being created at the universe expands?
I mean on a cosmic scale we may as well be infants or possibly embryos.
I thirst for knowledge even if I can't really understand it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Another fascinating thing is the faster you move, the slower time moves for you or time dilation.
I know, right? It's fascinating. Maybe that's because we understand so little about it that it's so intriguing.
Right now I am looking at how law of energy conservation could be partly false due to the ever expanding universe. Is energy constantly being created at the universe expands?
I think it is fair to say that the more we know, the less we know, and that's a good thing because humanity likes challenges so we need to keep digging and asking questions without answers. When you start looking at cosmology, you see the terms "the known universe" a lot and that's humbling. We know so little about what surrounds us, even as we discover more about it, we realize there is so much we still don't know about it.
Some people find it scary. I find it brilliant.
Comment has been collapsed.
Bringing back khan without the backstory was pointless. There’s no conflict, no history, no reason for why he might be villainous, just a stock character.
It’s the problem with creativity by committre
Comment has been collapsed.
Agreed. Hell's, there's even a part in the movie where Khan does his emphatic reveal to Kirk & Spock and they're just.....who? 🤦♂️ .
Now as a otherwise honourable new character who had been used, twisted & lied to by a dubious institution like Section 31 (I'm thinking more so the S31 from DS9), there's a bit of motivation for some "relatable/understandable "villainy . Just a waste really. I feel it's reflective of the reboots as a whole, fine production values and very flashy but lacking in genuine substance. I don't mind them but wouldn't be terribly upset if there wasn't another one.
Comment has been collapsed.
The new(?) movies are fine action “sci-fi”, but totally miss the point of what Star Trek is.
It’s revealing that two out of three of the recent Star trek series and two out of three of the Star Wars reboot were by JJ Abrams. They should be very different, but he approached them the same way, and rather than honing in on what makes each of those special, instead those series were adapted to his style.
Comment has been collapsed.
At the risk of upsetting the cult of JJ I'd have to agree. He's got a fine visual eye, very stylish and flash but so many of his movies often end up lacking in substance beyond surface impressions. He's often said he grew up watching ST...well he and I must have been watching different shows. And your point about SW brings me to another feeling I've had about them; like the sequel trilogy it's hard to pin down what the ultimate point of the reboot movies has actually been, apart from making money. Does there need to be a wider point? Perhaps not but conversely it's not an argument for their existence either.
Now I'm not totally unfair, I realise it couldn't be easy to compress decades of character development, camaraderie, plots, lore, tech & fan service into a 2hr+ feature film (which despite some great ones I freely admit the film format has never been ST's forte) AND at the same time make it palatable (and profitable) for the attention-span-of-a-goldfish-iPhone/TikTok-generation modern audience. It was complicated imo by the need to shoehorn them into wider ST by the timey wimey alternate timeline/fanservice schtick rather than just be upfront (and perhaps braver story wise) and say it's a full remake/reimagining in the vein of BSG.
(I'm not oblivious thought to the fact that the financial success of the reboots films is pretty much the only reason there's fresh ST content being made now, I doubt CBS or Paramount would have taken a punt on the streaming format without the fact that enough people largely turned up for those movies).
Comment has been collapsed.
Timing is everything. The reboot movies came with big budget stylish action was in vogue and TV was mainly moving toward prestige drama.
The new tv shows came out during the streaming wars when studios all were jumping into the arena and starved for content - Star Trek was the centerpiece and biggest draw for paramount+
Comment has been collapsed.
Man I loved TNG. I liked DS9 a lot also. Voyager... just no. And I never got into the original series much, but I did like the movies.
Gul Dukat is definitely the best Star Trek villain, or at least the one villain that got some actual character development.
My favorite supporting character... maybe Reg Barclay? I love Dwight Schultz.
Unrelated to your question, but I was just thinking about TNG the other day, specifically the episode Darmok. I was always fascinated by the alien language in that episode.
Comment has been collapsed.
Venus and Serena at Wimbledon, when the balls fell.
And Lieutenant Broccoli was yet another good supporting character. There are quite a lot of them.
Comment has been collapsed.
Have you seen the Honest Trailer for TNG? It is awesome.
Comment has been collapsed.
OMG after all this time I never noticed the thing Riker does when sitting down 😱, now seen, can't be unseen 😄. Cheers for the vid, so funny but also so true, in a nice way!
Comment has been collapsed.
lol I just watched all 7 seasons in 7 minutes, what an honest representation
Comment has been collapsed.
It's such a good episode. Scifi at its best. Not about explosions or all-powerful aliens having a laugh (yes I hate Q) but about the essence of humanity through a metaphor. Actually several levels of metaphor.
Comment has been collapsed.
I have to agree that as a single character Gul Dukat was a fantastic villain. He was a wonderful foil for Sisko and a perfect example of what megalomania can wreak on someone's psyche.
Favourite supporting character is much harder, especially because it depends on the series, but I'm going to cheat a bit and say...Jeffrey
Combs ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
Brunt and Weyoun were both very enjoyable characters.
Comment has been collapsed.
I can see Scotty, he wasn't bridge crew so he certainly didn't get as much screen time as the rest. I liked when they found him in the transporter buffer after 60 years.
Comment has been collapsed.
Lwaxana wasn't a supporting character. More a recurring one. Majel Barrett was really great in that part.
I liked that they have a female Number One in SNW as an homage to Barrett's character in the pilot that almost was for TOS.
Do movies count? Because my favorite villain has to be Shinzon from Nemesis. I know the movie is not to everyone's liking but the character just epitomizes the essence of TNG for me.
Also awwww I wish I could have a puppy that cute!
Comment has been collapsed.
I think she fits the definition.
A supporting character is a character in a narrative that is not the focus of the primary storyline, but is important to the plot/protagonist.
She had some important bits not only in TNG but DS9 as well where she helped the plot/story. She certainly could have been replaced by any number of people in those efforts but I'm glad they created and used the character.
I'm not sure too many people realize that was Tom Hardy's first main role and he did pretty good.
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh I'm not disputing the character at all. I love her and the episodes she is in, not to mention the acting. I just think that most people are mentioning main cast supporting characters when you meant recurring ones like Guinan
I'm not sure too many people realize that was Tom Hardy's first main role and he did pretty good.
He is excellent in the part and it's not an easy character. Plus he has to stand out next to heavyweight like Ron Perlman and Stewart.
Comment has been collapsed.
My favorite star trek episodes were those with SHRAN the ANDORIAN...
Comment has been collapsed.
I've never been much into the series, to be honest. I've seen all movies. Including the one with Khan, in the first five ones (2nd?). There, Khan was good, but not totally convincing to me, although I have no problems with Ricardo Montalban's performance, he was passionate and I think he was a good choice. The problem was with the character's dialogues and script. I watch a lot of old scifi so it's not that I think the movie is "old", it's just that those movies felt like stretching one episode into a movie length. Happens the same with some of the Generations ones.
In Star Trek: Generations (1994) Soran (Malcom McDowell) was a great villain IMHO. I also prefer Piccard over Kurk. Kerk. Whatever name Bill's character was.
But my fav is Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) from Start Trek: Into Darkness. He drives the entire movie and it is my favourite movie of all of them, after a great reboot we get a great sequel? Quite low probabilities there, it's Hollywood...
I also like Data but I agree it's a main character, not a support character. As support character, Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood) again from the new movies, is good both as a character, where he is placed, and the actor's performance. I think it would be cheating saying that alternate/old Spock (Nimoy) is also a great character, too bad he died before the third movie. But it's like Spielberg said when producers told him to cast Charlton Heston as chief Brody in Jaws - everyone for the beginning would know the shark would have no chances and there wouldn't be much terror. (I recommend you to watch any making-of documentary of Jaws, they're amazing). And adding Nimoy as support character against others would be unfair.
Comment has been collapsed.
The villain in generations was well played and just like Dukat had redeeming qualities , he wasn't just pure evil.
Benedict is an actual actor much like Patrick, which is very different from a typical movie star. They do quite well with their roles.
Comment has been collapsed.
Apollo from the TOS episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?" was a great villain. Highly recommend watching that episode even if you aren't a fan of TOS.
Best support character has got to be Guinan from TNG. She had so many good story arcs, and stabbing Q in the hand with a fork had me laughing for hours.
Comment has been collapsed.
The Ferengi from TNG were so 1 dimensional but DS9 really made them quite interesting. Quark was a close second to Lwaxana for me. He really came through on a lot of episodes, like when he carried that transmitter to the top of the freezing cold mountain to save himself and Odo.
Comment has been collapsed.
I haven't watched everything yet (TOS/TAS, TNG, almost all of DS9 + the start of VOY), but all I can say at this moment: I agree with OP, Gul Dukat. He's by far (from what I've seen) the most fleshed out and genuinely flawed, complicated and interesting.
I can't really remember any actual villains from Enterprise right now....
Discovery I stopped watching (though I'll revisit it later probably), but I could even argue Michael is the villain, lmao. (Also, does she get paid in minutes or in the amount of time spent crying on video?).
I really like Q as a character. Wouldn't say he's a villain... Which leaves my second pick tribbles The Founders, I think. That part of DS9 with the constant threat of shapeshifters being anyone and anywhere for sure felt like the most dangerous situation.
Comment has been collapsed.
I was thinking up something for a little social communication and this came to mind.
After some thought I think my favorite villain is Gul Dukat. My favorite supporting character is Lwaxana Troi.
How about something cute for attention?
Comment has been collapsed.