It really was obnoxiously enjoyable; In the words of Aurelio Voltaire, “Someone tell me why I love this film so fucking much”. It wasn’t golden era new gen philosophy trek, let alone the heights the series hit during the “Suck it Straczynski, we can write überplot too” era of DS9, but it was far, far from the depths that Final Frontier and generations took the series. Imo, it was a lot more coherent than Nemisis and had way better characterization of the villains than Insurrection, the two most “action trek” of the films. It was never going to be Khan (ranking among the most influential science fiction media period), but I don’t think anyone intended it to be.
… the rest of the trilogy though, hot fucking garbage. The kirk motorcycle fight is pure power-cringe, and JJ should be executed for the whole “Bumblesnatch as Khan” fiasco.
But - the only reason we never got that motorcycle fight earlier with Shatner was lack of budget.
It doesn’t fit the tone of orignal Trek because original Trek couldn’t afford it, not because original Trek would not have sunk that low, if it could have. Haha.
Was it though? I could see it if you changed the audio track to a language you don’t understand, because it does have a lot going for it; the production design and costumes, set design and construction are all outstanding, sound design is still some of the best there’s ever been (especially when it came to modernizing legacy sfx), obviously the vfx and novel approaches to cinematography (yes, including the lens flares) are all great, etc etc.
But literally every last thing about the story is stream of consciousness, fever dream nonsense, which in any other franchise might be forgiven, but for Star Trek of all things to have such boneheaded threads of anti-science magical thinking, noxious xenophobia and childish cruelty is unforgivable. It’s a top to bottom garbage script, ironically produced with one of the most talented film crews in sci-fi movie history, which for my money anyway, makes it even more tragic and hard to enjoy.
It wasn’t a good Star Trek story, but it was a good spectacle. The whole thing was basically nostalgia with little else, between the brain worms, Spock, Romulans, Kirk being made Captain with the crew, etc.
The only thing it was really missing was the Borg and Dominion.
But I’d argue that spectacle was what Star Trek needed at the time, to make a casual audience want to watch more of the actual Star Trek, and bring it back to the cultural fore.
At that point in the 2000s, Star Trek basically had the reputation that it was a boring TV show for nerds, where you’d be watching people sit around and talk politics for an hour, over panning shots of planets and the Enterprise.
Star Trek of all things to have such boneheaded threads of anti-science magical thinking, noxious xenophobia and childish cruelty is unforgivable.
I don’t know if that’s necessarily true, since even the TV shows have had the Federation express those viewpoints before, with little to object against them.
If Data or the EMH MK. I were human, their treatment at the hands of Starfleet would be plainly unconscionable. Admiral Satie shows that anti-Romulan sentiment is still alive and well within the Federation, enough that she could tap it for her crusade without much pushback. Former Borg drones, like Picard, or current ones, like Hugh, are also treated with considerable hostility, even if they aren’t being actively hostile.
The bigger issue that is that neither show nor film really tap into those problems within the Federation in any significant way. Data, the EMH, and the crewman Satie accused got by because they had friends amongst the crew of the Enterprise/Voyager who stood up for them, and supported them. But the wider problems in Starfleet aren’t touched upon. As “Author, Author” touches on, they’re treated as one-off incidents, rather than highlighting underlying problems in the Federation that need addressing.
I cannot see the Federation, after a devastating strike during the Klingon war, capturing a Klingon, then promptly ordering the creation and release of a bioweapon that deliberately targets Klingon genetics; to be released to spread amongst the population to wipe them out.
And yet after Wolf 359, that was exactly what was ordered to be done with Hugh. We know that it likely wouldn’t have worked, given that they accidentally infected Hugh with individuality, and the Collective eventually cut his cube off after the episode, but the intent was for Geordi to create a memetic virus that would target the visual processing of Borg drones and kill them all that way.
But literally every last thing about the story is stream of consciousness, fever dream nonsense, which in any other franchise might be forgiven, but for Star Trek of all things to have such boneheaded threads of anti-science magical thinking, noxious xenophobia and childish cruelty is unforgivable.
Yeah no I totally agree, Final Frontier really is just the worst.
Edit: Yeah I totally get it, I reflexively downvote any reminder that ST:V is canon too.
(lmao why is that image so huge)
But it’s also really going to be hard to argue that ST:V isn’t as-bad-or-worse on pretty much every item (except scope, god beats black hole gun every time) compared to ST:09. 09 wasn’t a great star trek movie, but it was generally mindless fun and it revived interest in the series so we could get good stuff from STD and NSW (and great stuff from LD).
Oh for sure. The contrast between how the respective plots treat the Narn vs. the Bajorans alone sets B5 ahead. But it’s understandable for there to be a much more focused (and thus deeper) narrative when you don’t have to integrate the work of 98 different writers while trying to develop your characters/plot (and also Harlan Ellison just -hanging out- in your writers room probably doesn’t hurt…)
I wasn’t even thinking about the Narn and Bajorans. But yes, that was also handled way better.
I was rather thinking about the Captain and him being a religious figure. I felt they just did it because B5 had it with the Minbari and human souls melting and Captain Sinclaires role. I feel they didn’t know what to do with Sisko apart from him having that religious role with the Bajorans.
Yeah I’ve always felt that the Sisko as messianic figure aspect was… idk. A little bit too conceptual for what star trek is structured to deliver, the fan backlash that forced all the bottle episodes in later seasons is evidence enough of that. It really was tragically under explored.
I have seen it described that “B5 is to Star Trek what Star Trek is to Star Wars” and I think that’s a pretty fair assessment. In star wars, the aliens and culture are just deep enough that the plot can float in it without dragging the bottom. In Trek, the plot is deep enough that instead, the aliens and culture float on it. And in Babylon 5, the aliens and culture have bathrooms and the plot works outwards from thereare the plot.
(There’s so many things I could go on about that I’ve cut down for brevity reasons - The G’kar/Londo vs. Quark/Odo relationships, that Sherridan as the messianic figure was from the less advanced culture instead of playing into the “enlightened liberator viewed as the chosen one” trope like with Sisko, the emphasis on the Captain’s role as a diplomat rather than space administrator, the sacrifice of earth because the scope of the Shadow War was so much larger than the concerns of a single race that Clark simply couldn’t be a priority vs. the whole maquis thing (which I did think was very good in DS9 to be clear), everything with the psicorps, that the resolution of the existential threat comes not from martial prowess or military strategy but bloodsoaked negotiation, Zathrus, the list goes on for way longer than I want to admit)
Babylon 5 was neat conceptually and I like the aliens, but the main cast and writing come off as very copaganda-forward in a way that DS9 managed to avoid.
… Huh. I can totally respect your having an opinion counter to my own, I truly don’t understand how you arrived at it in this case. Have you seen the whole show?
I used to watch it in the 90s when it was airing, and I’ve made a few attempts at a rewatch in recent years, but I’ve never gotten all the way through episode by episode. It feels too much like a cop show in space to keep my interest for more than a few episodes at a time, and I usually just decide I’d rather watch DS9.
Indispensable for a 90s SciFi Channel playlist though. Grab a few originals, add some B movies and MST3K, throw in a few hundred 90s ads and set the whole thing on random. Beautiful.
DS9 felt more like the narrative itself was more sympathetic to rebellion and antiauthoritarian sentiments. B5 seemed more focused on order and law. You have that in DS9 too with the likes of Odo and Worf, but you have a lot of counterbalance with much of the rest of the cast.
It really was obnoxiously enjoyable; In the words of Aurelio Voltaire, “Someone tell me why I love this film so fucking much”. It wasn’t golden era new gen philosophy trek, let alone the heights the series hit during the “Suck it Straczynski, we can write überplot too” era of DS9, but it was far, far from the depths that Final Frontier
and generationstook the series. Imo, it was a lot more coherent than Nemisis and had way better characterization of the villains than Insurrection, the two most “action trek” of the films. It was never going to be Khan (ranking among the most influential science fiction media period), but I don’t think anyone intended it to be.… the rest of the trilogy though, hot fucking garbage. The kirk motorcycle fight is pure power-cringe, and JJ should be executed for the whole “Bumblesnatch as Khan” fiasco.
Absolutely, yes - it was silly.
But - the only reason we never got that motorcycle fight earlier with Shatner was lack of budget.
It doesn’t fit the tone of orignal Trek because original Trek couldn’t afford it, not because original Trek would not have sunk that low, if it could have. Haha.
Was it though? I could see it if you changed the audio track to a language you don’t understand, because it does have a lot going for it; the production design and costumes, set design and construction are all outstanding, sound design is still some of the best there’s ever been (especially when it came to modernizing legacy sfx), obviously the vfx and novel approaches to cinematography (yes, including the lens flares) are all great, etc etc.
But literally every last thing about the story is stream of consciousness, fever dream nonsense, which in any other franchise might be forgiven, but for Star Trek of all things to have such boneheaded threads of anti-science magical thinking, noxious xenophobia and childish cruelty is unforgivable. It’s a top to bottom garbage script, ironically produced with one of the most talented film crews in sci-fi movie history, which for my money anyway, makes it even more tragic and hard to enjoy.
It wasn’t a good Star Trek story, but it was a good spectacle. The whole thing was basically nostalgia with little else, between the brain worms, Spock, Romulans, Kirk being made Captain with the crew, etc.
The only thing it was really missing was the Borg and Dominion.
But I’d argue that spectacle was what Star Trek needed at the time, to make a casual audience want to watch more of the actual Star Trek, and bring it back to the cultural fore.
At that point in the 2000s, Star Trek basically had the reputation that it was a boring TV show for nerds, where you’d be watching people sit around and talk politics for an hour, over panning shots of planets and the Enterprise.
I don’t know if that’s necessarily true, since even the TV shows have had the Federation express those viewpoints before, with little to object against them.
If Data or the EMH MK. I were human, their treatment at the hands of Starfleet would be plainly unconscionable. Admiral Satie shows that anti-Romulan sentiment is still alive and well within the Federation, enough that she could tap it for her crusade without much pushback. Former Borg drones, like Picard, or current ones, like Hugh, are also treated with considerable hostility, even if they aren’t being actively hostile.
The bigger issue that is that neither show nor film really tap into those problems within the Federation in any significant way. Data, the EMH, and the crewman Satie accused got by because they had friends amongst the crew of the Enterprise/Voyager who stood up for them, and supported them. But the wider problems in Starfleet aren’t touched upon. As “Author, Author” touches on, they’re treated as one-off incidents, rather than highlighting underlying problems in the Federation that need addressing.
I cannot see the Federation, after a devastating strike during the Klingon war, capturing a Klingon, then promptly ordering the creation and release of a bioweapon that deliberately targets Klingon genetics; to be released to spread amongst the population to wipe them out.
And yet after Wolf 359, that was exactly what was ordered to be done with Hugh. We know that it likely wouldn’t have worked, given that they accidentally infected Hugh with individuality, and the Collective eventually cut his cube off after the episode, but the intent was for Geordi to create a memetic virus that would target the visual processing of Borg drones and kill them all that way.
Yeah no I totally agree, Final Frontier really is just the worst.
Edit: Yeah I totally get it, I reflexively downvote any reminder that ST:V is canon too.
(lmao why is that image so huge)
But it’s also really going to be hard to argue that ST:V isn’t as-bad-or-worse on pretty much every item (except scope, god beats black hole gun every time) compared to ST:09. 09 wasn’t a great star trek movie, but it was generally mindless fun and it revived interest in the series so we could get good stuff from STD and NSW (and great stuff from LD).
deleted by creator
I have to say I like B5 a lot better than whatever it was they tried with that on DS9.
Oh for sure. The contrast between how the respective plots treat the Narn vs. the Bajorans alone sets B5 ahead. But it’s understandable for there to be a much more focused (and thus deeper) narrative when you don’t have to integrate the work of 98 different writers while trying to develop your characters/plot (and also Harlan Ellison just -hanging out- in your writers room probably doesn’t hurt…)
I wasn’t even thinking about the Narn and Bajorans. But yes, that was also handled way better.
I was rather thinking about the Captain and him being a religious figure. I felt they just did it because B5 had it with the Minbari and human souls melting and Captain Sinclaires role. I feel they didn’t know what to do with Sisko apart from him having that religious role with the Bajorans.
Yeah I’ve always felt that the Sisko as messianic figure aspect was… idk. A little bit too conceptual for what star trek is structured to deliver, the fan backlash that forced all the bottle episodes in later seasons is evidence enough of that. It really was tragically under explored.
I have seen it described that “B5 is to Star Trek what Star Trek is to Star Wars” and I think that’s a pretty fair assessment. In star wars, the aliens and culture are just deep enough that the plot can float in it without dragging the bottom. In Trek, the plot is deep enough that instead, the aliens and culture float on it. And in Babylon 5, the aliens and culture
have bathrooms and the plot works outwards from thereare the plot.(There’s so many things I could go on about that I’ve cut down for brevity reasons - The G’kar/Londo vs. Quark/Odo relationships, that Sherridan as the messianic figure was from the less advanced culture instead of playing into the “enlightened liberator viewed as the chosen one” trope like with Sisko, the emphasis on the Captain’s role as a diplomat rather than space administrator, the sacrifice of earth because the scope of the Shadow War was so much larger than the concerns of a single race that Clark simply couldn’t be a priority vs. the whole maquis thing (which I did think was very good in DS9 to be clear), everything with the psicorps, that the resolution of the existential threat comes not from martial prowess or military strategy but bloodsoaked negotiation, Zathrus, the list goes on for way longer than I want to admit)
Okay, okay, I’ll just watch B5 yet again. No need to press me so hard for it, jeez. 😋
Babylon 5 was neat conceptually and I like the aliens, but the main cast and writing come off as very copaganda-forward in a way that DS9 managed to avoid.
… Huh. I can totally respect your having an opinion counter to my own, I truly don’t understand how you arrived at it in this case. Have you seen the whole show?
I used to watch it in the 90s when it was airing, and I’ve made a few attempts at a rewatch in recent years, but I’ve never gotten all the way through episode by episode. It feels too much like a cop show in space to keep my interest for more than a few episodes at a time, and I usually just decide I’d rather watch DS9.
Indispensable for a 90s SciFi Channel playlist though. Grab a few originals, add some B movies and MST3K, throw in a few hundred 90s ads and set the whole thing on random. Beautiful.
DS9 felt more like the narrative itself was more sympathetic to rebellion and antiauthoritarian sentiments. B5 seemed more focused on order and law. You have that in DS9 too with the likes of Odo and Worf, but you have a lot of counterbalance with much of the rest of the cast.