Yes the technology is dated somewhat but how many other close to 50 year old shows can still be competitive with the newer shows especially with the updates. I prefer TOS, mainly though not solely for reasons stated earlier today on this thread. The original series had The Shat. Star Trek in any form without The Shat is an inferior product. The issue is settled, the thread can be locked.
I never watched DS9 after the boring first couple seasons, and so never saw the Dominion War that everyone says is so good. DS9 is better than either, though. Cafe Society. Also, Patrick Stewart played Picard as a Shakespeare play and did try to show that he was a very capable and intellectual leader who would think and talk his way out of problems William Shatner played Captain Kirk as a brash, rarely make a mistake gung ho captain who rarely lost a battle Different perspectives and both of them have their own points that are enjoyable to watch.
TOS, as much as Gene tried to be progressive was still sexist towards women. While some fans would say some of the storylines were preachy or hokey, at its best TNG shed some of the stuffiness of The Original Series and exercised candor on topics wherever prudent. While it lacked big moments like "the first interracial kiss", it also didn't have to make fanfare about having people of color serve aboard the Enterprise.
It could also have episodes that focused specifically on depression, personal identity, and mental health, which have become bigger talking points today. The Star Trek franchise has always used the sci-fi genre to tell morality plays, managing to slip the quandaries of humankind into storylines involving cloning, stolen technology, and time travel.
Nowhere was this better captured than in TOS. It presented scenarios that made audiences ponder morally ambiguous questions, such as if Kirk fell in love with a woman from the past, who would one day lead a political resistance that would cause the deaths of thousands, would he save her life because it served his own needs, or release her to her destiny of dying in a motor accident?
From updating the LCARS system to be touch screen across every console and terminal, to delivering new concepts like the holodeck, the Borg cubes, and a shiny new Enterprise, the special effects for Next Gen blow The Original Series out of the stars. Even with its own budget constraints, TNG blended miniatures and early CGI to make some truly astounding set pieces and space sequences, This is in addition to the great prop and makeup department that greatly improved the look of the various alien species that the crew of the Enterprise encountered.
It's difficult for anyone that grew up on Next Generation to understand the inspirational effect The Original Series had on television audiences.
It galvanized not just science-fiction fans, but people around the world to come together and build a better tomorrow. By making interracial couples and crews common place, it showed that humanity could accomplish great things if it got past its focus on skin color.
It posited that humanity could do away with famine and war by focusing its energies on the exploration of space. TNG would never be able to capture that sense of wonder because by the time it arrived, TOS had already boldly gone where no one had gone before. Its characters were more flawed, more fallible, and less "iconic" to the point of little deviation from their central characterization.
Like a precursor to shows like Game of Thrones, TNG took Star Trek's episodic, self-contained stories and broadened its scope, allowing for serial style formatting that let its characters feel the ramifications of certain storylines throughout several seasons, such as when Picard was abducted by the Borg. NEXT: Marvel vs. Crusher talks. Deanna makes a self-evident statement.
Worf glowers and says a couple of words at most. On a creaky bridge, Picard faces off against the evil Dr. At a later point, in an identically framed shot, Kirk faces off against the evil Dr. And the audience cheers. Picard might be a greater leader—but Kirk is a greater hero.
Defeat the Federation. Destroy the Enterprise. Humiliate, defeat, and kill James T. In Generations , the villain wants to go to a happy place where he can live in pleasant fantasy for ever and ever and ever…. You could kick the snot out of them. You could render them utterly lifeless, kill every crewmember aboard. And the ships remained in one piece. The method in which we were visually informed that the ship was injured was priceless: the optical was tilted so that the ship hung in space at a degree angle.
It was a ludicrous concept. If a starship was destroyed, it was with an objective. One was blown up to put the Doomsday Machine down for the count. Another was detonated for the purpose of wiping out a Klingon raiding party. Throughout the history of Next Gen , however, the Enterprise D , along with her crew, was blown up—what— times? They were caught in time warps where they blew up. They were caught in time warps where they watched themselves blow up.
There was an episode where an Enterprise from another dimension blew up. In one episode, they hauled out Enterprise s from the past, present and future and blew them up. The Enterprise in The Wrath of Khan got clobbered, but held together effortlessly. In Generations , the only characters who got to have much to do were the captain and the science officer.
In the world of Generations , discussions between the doctor and non-human science officer about humankind would lead either nowhere or, most recently, to a sight gag. In Generations , we see the latest incarnation of that mindset. Instead he has to manufacture a saccharine Christmas eve, with wife and children garbed in 19th century ensemble.
And that was just off the top of his head. Actually, a terrific opportunity was missed, as several people have suggested. Imagine the heart-rending good-bye scene we could have had in that fantasy scenario.
As a result, the relationships are somewhat skewed. With Kirk everything was a two-way street. Picard, fittingly French, is a cul de sac. What do you think of me?
Kirk, in moments of grief, looks if his heart has been cut out. Picard, in moments of grief, sobs briefly but then goes on to discuss the lineage of his family name and ponder his place in the cosmic scheme of things.
Ponder indeed. More like ponderous. Picard and the Enteprise D might have more humans—but Kirk and the original Enterprise had more humanity. I think the reason they blew up more ships in TNG was because the effects technology had progressed to the point where they could make it look sufficiently cool.
Michael P. Or Geordi and Wesley slugging it out with Lieutenant Korax and a dozen other Klingonese troopers because Korax called the Enterprise a garbage scow. For the originals, you had Harlan Ellison. Robert Bloch. Real SF writers. Throw in a couple good tales from Fontana and Gerrold. For Next Gen, you had…who?
Next Gen felt like Cheers in Space sometimes. It was comfortable. Where was the exploration? Like my mom said on more than one occasion, they never left the ship. Kirk said once that risk was their business. After the first season, Next Gen had some cool stories, but there was no sense of risk, of wonder most times. No sense of scale. The ship got big, the galaxy got small.
When I wrote the script for what ended up as Dearly Departed, I wanted to do one thing that the original series did well. I wanted the characters to get into a situation that IS scary.
But more, I wanted a Strange New World. I wanted to show a New Civilization. I wanted weird. I wanted scary. Still do. But show me something NEW. Show me a combination of the Samurai code with Mafia influence taking over a solar system to send out hot women to start an empire. Well, that was due to a basic decision about the roles of the Enterprise. In TOS, it was one of twelve ships of its class and Kirk was just another top-level captain OK, the coolest of all such, but still….
It had a five year mission to get out there and explore, seek out, etc. To go where no one had gone before well, except for all the various new civilizations and entities they encountered out there.
Being its captain was the peak position prior to being taken out of ship command, and being assigned to it was a high honor. They did explore. They responded to calls of distress and they went looking for trouble more than a few times. Also, the original crew did its share of VIP shuttling as well. As to staying in Fed Space… Yeah, well, Fed space was bigger by then. I had an idea for another spinoff, involving Capt. Morgan Bateman and the crew of the U.
Give Kelsey Grammer his own series playing the fish-outta-water captain, and give him and his crew the crap jobs that nobody thinks are important. Let him get up to his eyebrows in trouble every week. TNG is long gone. And Bulldog shoulda been spun off before Generations got made. Sean, they had some other big names that worked on Trek in the first two seasons as well. In fact, I think that was all of them. No Sturgeon, no Bixby. No Bloch.
We got him and Peter for B5, along with Neil Gaiman. So I think we Babylonians win on points. I was beat! Still, I hang my hang my head in shame…. Valid points. I remember the folly of getting into an online argument with a fellow espousing the superiority of Trek Tech against all others.
I think most of his comparisons are still well made. It was the characters. Picard is a Gentleman. Kirk is a Guy. That emotional detachment really exemplifies Picard. With Kirk on the other hand, I could definitely picture him playing poker with the guys, even bringing along a bottle of Romulan ale and keeping an extra ace up his sleeve just to annoy Spock.
Just about every script had to be stuffed with nonsensical techno-babble thart really served no dramatic purpose whatsoever.
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