Star Trek fans

[privatehudson]

Yeah, real depth Sorry, but that just doesn't do it for me

 

[Bozo Erectus]

I thought the aliens looked pretty cheesy.

I thought the make-up was one of their strengths. The lizard guy from Bab5 was impressive looking, although the Londo guy with the big hair was annoying and the make-up was stupid. The Aliens with the porcelain sticking out of their heads were kind of interesting. At least the make-up crew on Bab5 resisted the Trek cop-out of just putting little brow ridges on people and calling them aliens.

 

[BassDude726]

I never said the aliens from Trek weren't cheesy... they're probably more cheesy. But I generally don't like TV shows that try to incorporate heavily made-up alien characters because the budgets are generally too low to pull it off successfully.

 

[privatehudson]

I personally think concentrating on things like makeup and the like detracts heavily from what sucessful recent Sci Fi and especially B5 set out to achieve. As JMS said in an interview once, too many US TV bosses felt that if you merely put some big explosions and fancy ships/aliens into a programme you'd get the sci-fi community straight off, so much of the sci-fi before recent Trek and B5 basically never got out of just being cheap and visually decent but basically a pile of steaming horse manure in terms of logic and decent storyline. Personally I think B5 blows Trek away in both of those, even though some of Trek does get away from the problem well.

The makeup issue should be only a small part of what makes those aliens believable, if they're essentially just humans with a neat facial difference and a different langauge then it won't work. I'm not saying the Trek aliens are, but what I believe B5 did well in a lot of respects was to give each of the main aliens depth and a great deal of difference from Humans, their own religions, their own beliefs and views on anything and so on.

Furthermore on the issue of believability, B5 did go a great deal towards making both the core characters and Humans overall much more balanced. There's places in B5 were you wonder just if the characters are really doing *good* and just whether what they are prepared to do is any different from their enemies that they claim to be *evil*. JMS was very good at twisting characters and races around during the seasons so that people don't get complacent with them. Though I've not seen all of Trek this seems to be something to me that is lacking somewhat, things are much too clear cut and black and white IMO.

 

[Gr3yL3gion]

Like the movie, not into the series.

 

[Colonel]

i will try not to pre judge this show while makeing fun of it

i have seen one of episode of each one the old ones TNG DS9 and that really bad crap now

the only problem i have with other then all that technological bs (its so fake as humans have no realistic understanding of anything in the shows) is that in every episode of each one is that at the end they solve there problem by the end of each episode the one thing i saw one that new reincarnation of crap they have now i like the first half of there intro with the old wooden ship thing up until they get to the space ship thing

 

[Smellincoffee]

Well, generally, the problem is solved in all serialized TV shows at the end of the show, unless it happens to be a two-parter. DS9 was unique, though,in that some of the problems were never resolved. You'd solve the main problem , but there was this other moral stuff that happened as a result of it. (Such as "In the Pale Moonlight".)

 

[privatehudson]

That's one more thing B5 did do well, many of the one line remarks, tidbits of info and events in season one resonate into the latter seasons. To take an example, many of the questions brought up in one of the season one episode "Babylon Squared" are not really adressed properly until the middle of season 3.

 

[BassDude726]

I think the worst thing that Trek did was making the aliens parallel to cultures on Earth. As far as I can tell: Klingons = 1945 Japanese, Romulans = Soviet Russians, Cardassian/Bajoran conflict = Israel/Palestine, etc.

 

[anarchywrksbest]

Yeah, real depth Sorry, but that just doesn't do it for me

We saw an emotionless machine become human! I call that deep.

 

[Mise]

I think the worst thing that Trek did was making the aliens parallel to cultures on Earth. As far as I can tell: Klingons = 1945 Japanese, Romulans = Soviet Russians, Cardassian/Bajoran conflict = Israel/Palestine, etc.

Odd, I always thought it was:
Federation = Marxists (they had no currency for crying out loud!)
Klingon = Post WWII USA ("we go make war for honour")
Ferengi = Capitalists (or industrial revolution capitalism)
Romulan = Post WWII Western Europe (cynical, always waits for someone else to make the first move)
Cardassian/Bajoran conflict = fictitious scenario (I didn't see any parallels with Israel)

I'd say that the races in star trek more resemble different aspects of humanity, rather than different cultures throughout the world.

 

[privatehudson]

(sorry to hark back to B5 but it is relevant to the above honest! Don't ban me!)

One of the things JMS mentioned in the same article I mentioned above was that people tend to read into Sci-Fi or indeed any work far too much, when sometimes there is no need to. He also remarks that each person is likely to relate to a Sci-Fi series depending on their prior knowledge and experiences. Anyone watching B5 for example could say that it mirrors LOTR with Rangers (in both), enigmatic guides to the main heroes (vorlons/Gandalf), mostly never seen, never spoke of, been asleep for millenia enemies (Shadows/Sauron) and two races uniting at their darkest hours (Humans and Minbari/Humans and Elves) amongst many other things. Another might link it back to Arthur and his Knights (indeed this happens in the series itself one time!)

The point really though is that quite often the work is not done to mirror conciously a previous work, Trek and B5 are stories in their own right, and whilst they may mirror some other works superficially, that often says more about who's watching the series than the writers intentions. That kinda links to one other aspect in that often B5 and Trek have similar episodes, usually the DS9 variant of course. One person commented that a set of headgear an Alien wore in B5 looked similar to one in DS9, and said that B5 lacked inventiveness. JMS happened to point out that the inspiration for both, or at least his came from african headress.

So we should be wary IMO of suggesting either B5 or Trek is copying or reflecting RL or indeed anything too much. Often it is no more than a passing resembelance, or a homage. Allowing ourselves to get bogged down in comparisons only detracts from the quality of the series in it's own right.

We saw an emotionless machine become human! I call that deep.

Sorry, but I expect characters (and by extension organisations) with flaws and problems, black and white within them, the power to do good or to do bad, the capacity to go wrong in a major way, the ability to change and adapt, a change in cast a little more often.... If it suits you fair enough, it sure didn't suit me though

 

[Smellincoffee]

Ferengi is taken from some Arabic word for westerner. They're supposed to be represenative of us at our worst.

From some interviews I've read, the Klingons are supposed to be Russia. Romulans started out as China (Shinzon being named Shinzon was supposed to be a nod toward that). The Cardassian/Bajoran thing could be Germany/France or Germany/Jews, I think. That's just supposition, though.