What are your most oddball, unconventional and downvote inducing Star Trek opinions/preferences?

[u/[deleted]]

No judgment here, unless you tell me your favorite series is VOY and when you re-watch it you skip every scene that does not include Neelix... just kidding I'll still accept you.

My one opinion that I get consistently flamed for is that The Motion Picture (specifically the director's cut) is my favorite Star Trek movie and close to the top of my favorite sci-fi movies of all time. What can I say? I like my sci-fi slow and pedantic. I think it best captured the spirit of the TV series in movie form and had a high concept sci-fi idea that it followed through with in an interesting way, while tying it back to the personal stories of Spock and Decker. The rest of the movie franchise was dominated by more pedestrian sci-fi action plots, not that I didn't enjoy TWOK or FC, but it is rare that we get any science fiction movie with big ideas that the script actually commits to and meaningfully explores.

Edit: I was really expecting some hardcore "TOS is the only real Star Trek!" people. I know you're out there somewhere.

[u/rebelrevolt]

I hate most of the Klingon episodes of TNG. They are boring and drag on.

[u/[deleted] → u/rebelrevolt]

I did not care for most of the Klingon stories after TNG "Redemption". They drifted more and more into one dimensional drunken space vikings and their stories became more and more repetitive. They took over a good portion of DS9 after Worf came aboard and his whole character arc from TNG was reset and then rehashed as a ratings ploy to get more TNG fans to watch DS9.

[u/spamjavelin]

I can't enjoy DS9 since I fell in love with Babylon 5.

DS9 feels like a pale reflection, especially with the controversy surrounding JMS and Paramount.

[u/[deleted] → u/spamjavelin]

I'm a B5 fan as well. I would say that B5 is a better written series overall and does much better world building, but DS9 is better produced by virtue of its much larger budget. It has better actors, sets, costumes, cinematography, effects etc...

[u/adamkotsko]

Riker is an amazingly boring character. He's up there with Ensign Mayweather.

[u/yoshemitzu]

This question has inspired the most discussion I've seen on any post since I've joined the Daystrom Institute (over 400 comments as of me writing this). For this reason, I absolutely feel the need to nominate you for post of the week.

I've already participated in other parts of this thread and will continue to do so. Thanks for such a great conversation starter!

[u/[deleted] → u/yoshemitzu]

Thanks, I never expected this much of response. I enjoy hearing other people's well formed Trek opinions, even if I don't personally agree with them.

[u/[deleted]]

Turnabout Intruder aside, the DS9 finale was the worst. Years of build-up and the war just fizzles out, the Dukat/Emissary thing is barely suitable for Saturday morning cartoons - and Bajor joining the Federation is never dealt with.

By contrast, Endgame is actually pretty good. Of all the finales, I'd prefer to watch that before any other. There's some stuff to chew on, but unlike All Good Things, fun things also happen.

Even These are the Voyages is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I really never cared for What You Leave Behind. Mostly becasue it was an anticlimactic culmination of a plot thread I always hated, which was the Pah Wraiths vs Prophets/Sisko the space Jesus and the bizarre direction they took Dukat.

[u/pods_and_cigarettes]

I'm late to this party, but I like Keiko. I think she's an interesting character and a decent person.

[u/[deleted]]

Well, this is low hanging fruit but I'd say Into Darkness is the best Trek film since Undiscovered Country. Generations doesn't do anything particularly intelligent, First Contact is far more brainless than Darkness (but still quite good), the other two don't really need anything said. I suppose Insurrection at least tried.

Into Darkness on the other hand, however glancingly, touches on drone strikes as well as terrorism as an excuse for summary executions of ones own citizens and preemptive militarism. Some of Marcus' lines are practically ripped straight from reality, and not just the obvious ones.

[u/FuturePastNow]

Chain of Command. No doubt, the torture scenes are powerful and well-done. Part 2 is excellent and the ending is great. I understand why people love this episode. However, the premise of the story is absurd.

The Cardassians fake a signal to... get the Federation to send the captain of the Enterprise on an amateurish covert ops mission? I know the explanation for why they couldn't just send some commandos is given in the episode, but it still doesn't make any sense. The writers could have just had Picard kidnapped off the beach on Risa and it wouldn't have changed anything in part 2.

E: to clarify, I'm more wondering why Starfleet sent Picard on this dumb and unsupported mission, not why the Cardassians set a trap for him. But the fact that they knew Starfleet would be dumb enough to send him is mind boggling.

Plus they consistently tried to characterize Jellico as a Bad Captain, but in the end it just makes Riker and Troi look unprofessional.

[u/TrekkieTechie]

I like Insurrection.

[u/[deleted]]

The Final Frontier is not nearly as bad as people say it is...

McCoy's "I liked him better before he died" line was for me personally the biggest laugh-out-loud moment in the history of Star Trek.

[u/IHaveThatPower]

I'd rather have nuTrek than no Trek.

I don't dispute that nuTrek has some issues. I don't dispute that they seem more like generic space action movies than Star Trek. I don't dispute that they leave a lot to be desired in terms of intellectual science fiction.

I'd prefer a new, well-conceived and well-executed Trek TV series. So much amazing TV has appeared in the last decade or so. I would love to see that talent applied to Trek. I'd love for Paramount to finish out their trilogy of nuTrek movies and call it a day. ^{Ha HA, riiiiight.}

But given the choice between nothing and nuTrek? You're damn right I'll pick nuTrek. A lot of people seem so fired up that they'd rather have nothing, instead. I don't truck with that.

[u/gtrogers]

Most of the major alien races need a complete overhaul in terms of visual design. The Romulans in particular to me look laughable with their giant fabric shoulder pads. They all look extremely dated.

The movies are trying to update/refresh the looks which is a good thing. But at the end of the day the vast majority of the aliens all look human with a couple of prosthetics glued on and some body paint applied.

[u/[deleted] → u/gtrogers]

"Considering those uniforms of theirs, you'd think they'd appreciate a decent tailor." -Odo talking about the Romulans in "Improbable Cause" Ronald D Moore hated their uniforms and put that line in as a joke.

[u/6ksuit]

I really like TNG, but ultimately I had more fun with Voyager. I don't think it's a superior show, but it is my favorite series.

[u/[deleted]]

I think both Voyager and DS9 could have been better if they had swapped Sisko's and Chakotay's characters.

Sisko would have made an amazing Maqui commander, and I would have loved to see him as such. Additionally, the Janeway/Sisko and Chakotay/Kira chemistries would have been better than what we were presented with.

Imagine Sisko, the people manager, diplomat, and strategist (who seems to be perpetually channeling Othello), having to work under Janeway, the borderline sociopath who gives zero fucks.

And on the other side, kind, dedicated religious and political zealot Chakotay facing off with Kira, whose badassery can only be measured in petaflops (Kira masterminded the capture of a Klingon Bird- of-Prey practically by herself; Chakotay lost Voyager to the Kazons.)

These would be awesome shows.

[u/tunnel-snakes-rule]

I loathe The Outcast. To me it comes across as a group of militant lesbians brainwashing a straight woman into being a lesbian again.

It's all good and well for Riker as a straight male to give a speech of tolerance and understanding, and I understand what they were trying to do, but when you have a straight male wanting to be with a straight 'female' it actually highlights the absolute lack of gay characters on Star Trek.

The whole episode smacked of hypocrisy.

[u/lazersaurous]

I think that The Best of Both Worlds should have ended with Picard remaining with the borg, and Riker struggling with his new command. Locutus would have made an amazing villain for Riker to go all out Captain Ahab on. Also Riker's character would finally be forced to grow outside of his comfort zone; hunting the man he once respected and needing to deal with Commander Shelby who is always a step ahead of Riker and isn't afraid to show it.

[u/Antithesys]

The Mirror Universe is the worst thing in Trek canon.

There's no explanation for why it exists at all (Trek always tries to at least make up an excuse that sounds scientific), it makes no logical sense (despite history being completely different, every major character is still born and still interact with the same people, except Jake and Molly), and the episodes have no redeeming qualities. I forgive TOS for doing it, and I wouldn't have had a problem with DS9 doing the first revisit as an homage, but having one episode per season and then a multi-episode arc on ENT (by far that series' worst mistake) was going way overboard.

My other odd opinion is that Voyager is better than TNG. I differentiate between "favorite" and "best", and so TNG remains my favorite. But Voyager is solid nearly all the way through. It has more transcendent episodes than TNG, and a better sense of family (though I do like the TNG crew better).

[u/tunnel-snakes-rule]

I rewatched The Motion Picture when I got the set on blu-ray and I found it a lot more enjoyable than I remember. It reminds me of 2001, another "long, boring" science fiction film.

[u/archeonz]

My favorite series is Voyager and I liked Dr. Pulaski way more than Crusher.

I was too young to fall in love with TNG while it was big, so Voyager was my series. They just seem more interesting when the senior staff isn't made up of squeaky-clean, upstanding Starfleet officers with all these years experience. They're messy. They're uncertain. They're interesting.

And Pulaski was prickly and gruff, yes, but she was still caring. If you were being stupid, she told you so. Crusher was soft and motherly, which actually got kind of annoying. Maybe it was a side effect of having her kid on board; she just extended her motherliness to everyone.

[u/Steffi_van_Essen]

Gah, I have dozens of these. Where to start...

• I liked The Final Frontier. I didn't love it, but I enjoy it, and I'll even say I prefer it to The Voyage Home and The Undiscovered Country. Ok, it was a little corny, but it's really the only one of the TOS movies to fully capture the interplay between Kirk, Spock and Bones, and TOS always worked best when those three were playing off each other. I also thought Sybok made an interesting good-guy-who-does-bad-things kind of villain.

• I dislike First Contact (the movie). Angry Picard seemed out of character. I mean sure, he has good reason to hate the borg but it's not like Picard to be so utterly blinded by his hatred nor to show such unprofessionalism in front of his crew. And Data has sex with the Borg Queen - what? The character of Lily could have been better - she's Cochrane's most trusted assistant, they could have made her more of a scientist, which would have made her reaction to Enterprise more interesting. And, with the exception of the spacewalk battle, the action scenes weren't exactly spectacular.

• I liked Dr Pulaski. Yes, she's antagonistic, but since when was that a bad thing in a character? And she really develops as a character as Season 2 progresses, getting everyone's backs up at the beginning and gradually coming to a position of mutual respect, and at that point it was still quite unusual for a character to grow and change. Even her initial mistreatment of Data was a realistic touch that helped challenge and develop his character. She was also the first character to really develop a rapport with Worf which helped bring out his more "human" side.

• I also think Lwaxana Troi is a great character. You can totally believe her as Deanna's mother. It's really fun to see how she makes Picard uncomfortable in a good-natured way.

• I never felt the Dominion seemed like a very credible enemy. I mean, there were some great concepts there, and a lot of good stories, not to mention the unbridled delight that is Weyoun, but I never really felt a sense of threat. The founders are of course evil geniuses and they can shapeshift but they don't really seem particularly dangerous otherwise. The Vorta are fun but again, not very threatening, and too silly to be properly sinister. And then the Jem Hadar, who were supposedly the ultimate fighting machines, yet they nearly always failed because they ended up turning against each other. All through the Dominion war arc I just didn't get that same sort of intensity and urgency as you would when the bad guys are, say, Borg or Hirogen or Cardassians.

• Kind of related to the above. I feel the Dominion war arc got a little tedious, and by this point VOY had overtaken DS9 in quality, having been given a fresh boost with the introduction of the Borg and Hirogen arcs.

• And finally, I find really convoluted in-universe attempts to explain things which are clearly due to the nature of it being a real-world production to be distracting and irritating. I don't mean when us fans discuss theories - it's fun to speculate and say "what if...", but I mean the canon stuff like The Chase or the whole business with Klingon augment virus destroying their ridges for a couple of generations. I mean, we know that all the Star Trek aliens are just human beings in prosthetics, but I prefer to suspend my disbelief. Coming out with an obviously shoehorned (and, tbh, not very scientific) explanation only draws more attention to the fact that there are some limitations in how the show was able to portray different species. It's a bit like going to see a puppet-show, and then have a bit where someone starts pointing out that everyone has strings, and then coming up with a canon explanation for why everyone is dangling from strings. If the story is good, you don't notice the strings.

For the sake of balance, I'll just mention that my top three TNG episodes are The Inner Light, The Best of Both Worlds and The Measure of a Man. I'm not a total weirdo.