Areas where you'd respectfully disagree with Chuck

[FaxModem1]

How something's portrayed isn't necessarily how it'll turn out to be, so from that point of view I don't find Trek's view very convincing. As I said earlier Wall-E's strikes me as more accurate. Mentioning things like polio is a distraction too - after all, no-one would claim that there are still some things everyone would like to see the back of - some gone, like polio, others not yet but let's hope that they will be one day.

Maybe this high tech world is the best for you but I firmly believe that once you've eliminated most of the real day to day nasties, so you're not forced to deal with being a medieval peasant, Victorian factory worker, high chance of dying in your earlier years (and taking your mother out with you), and so on (and all of them are still real issues in parts of the world) the genuine hardships are done, and the benefits of further change become much more a matter of opinion and what suits the individual best (even then you can still find exceptions). That's fine, just as long as people don't take an automatic "this is better, you're wrong if you say otherwise" view (trying to avoid getting sidetracked into arguing "I like this because" here! Although the whole thing has gone off-topic). I will say though that what I regard as the most positive changes in my lifetime have been social, not technological - the increasing lack of acceptance of racism, homophobia etc.

Hey, if you want to live in a cabin in the woods and howl at the moon, be my guest, I have found that economic security and technological benefits of modern or future society outweigh that, but again,that's my personal position on the matter.

[SlackerinDeNile]

FaxModem1, that would be fantastic, if more people in this society could actually partake in those qualities.
You can't blame people for wanting to do the thing you just disparaged if they want to get away from a largely and increasingly unequal and unfair society.

Even if we lived in a universe like Trek's, I believe that lifestyle should be up to them, I'm not going to get into the issue of whether or not it should be forced upon their children or other relatives.

[Karha of Honor]

How something's portrayed isn't necessarily how it'll turn out to be, so from that point of view I don't find Trek's view very convincing. As I said earlier Wall-E's strikes me as more accurate. Mentioning things like polio is a distraction too - after all, no-one would claim that there are still some things everyone would like to see the back of - some gone, like polio, others not yet but let's hope that they will be one day.

Maybe this high tech world is the best for you but I firmly believe that once you've eliminated most of the real day to day nasties, so you're not forced to deal with being a medieval peasant, Victorian factory worker, high chance of dying in your earlier years (and taking your mother out with you), and so on (and all of them are still real issues in parts of the world) the genuine hardships are done, and the benefits of further change become much more a matter of opinion and what suits the individual best (even then you can still find exceptions). That's fine, just as long as people don't take an automatic "this is better, you're wrong if you say otherwise" view (trying to avoid getting sidetracked into arguing "I like this because" here! Although the whole thing has gone off-topic). I will say though that what I regard as the most positive changes in my lifetime have been social, not technological - the increasing lack of acceptance of racism, homophobia etc.

Hey, if you want to live in a cabin in the woods and howl at the moon, be my guest, I have found that economic security and technological benefits of modern or future society outweigh that, but again,that's my personal position on the matter.

You did not experience future society yet. 2010 was full Internet optimism for the left for example, now that did a 180.

[CMWaters]

I know I'm in the minority for this...but I like the tour around the Enterprise from The Motion Picture. Putting myself in the mindset that they were jumping from the 60s version of the ship to this to show it off. Plus, the theme that would become the theme to Next Generation is always great.

And I don't know how Chuck feels either way, but I thought Ilia was pretty, even with the bald head.

[rickgriffin]

There's a lot of little things I disagree with Chuck about but a recurring one that came to mind recently is: Pulaski is not even in the top ten most annoying TNG characters. I always found, say, Alexander worse, and Chuck doesn't complain about the kid nearly as much.

Which is not to say I disagree with his points; she's acerbic. Which I absolutely understand as their attempt to give some more life to the role replacing McCoy from TOS, and they kinda missed the mark. Not the least reason is that McCoy would prod Spock all the time, so they tried to mimic that by having Pulaski prod Data all the time . . . but Data is not Spock. He literally does not have emotions, and in fact makes attempts to seek out emotions, as opposed to Spock's attempts to mask them. So instead of casting Pulaski's niche within the crew, it's yet another throwback to TOS that doesn't fit the current cast (and given how Data ACTUALLY is written, occasionally backfires)

But does that make her awful? Much more rarely than Chuck seems to think, IMO.

[Robovski]

I know I'm in the minority for this...but I like the tour around the Enterprise from The Motion Picture. Putting myself in the mindset that they were jumping from the 60s version of the ship to this to show it off. Plus, the theme that would become the theme to Next Generation is always great.

I agree. The ship tour is meant to be fanservice, fanservice that has not aged well as newer fans are awash in Star Trek and sci-fi spaceships. I still like it, but I can kick back and chill while we tour the ship with Scotty and Kirk. But then, I was a kid when it first came out.

[MerelyAFan]

I regard Search for Spock in somewhat higher regard than Chuck does as the lack of scope doesn't quite bother me all that much, and see the quality of it feeling like a two parter of the series rather than a film as not nearly as much of a detriment. A flawed film, but with some a fairly underrated performances and what feels like the last film of the original cast with a script that didn't feel the need to have scenes where it made them the butt of the joke

I'm also very eh on Masks rather than outright disliking it. A dubious script at points and the mask scene with Data and Picard is laughable, but I dig the weirdness of it the story at points and character stuff Spiner gets to do has its moments.

[Darth Wedgius]

I would not have disregarded the mind-rapey aspects of "The Inner Light" as easily, but I think I'm a crowd of one in that regard. I compare it to the TNG episode "Violations" more than Voyager's "Memorial."

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

Re: the ship tour in TMP, I like the scene, but I've never had a problem with longer scenes or movies. The ship looks great, but most importantly Goldsmith's score is just fantastic. I also think the scene might be more palatable in the Director's Cut.

Re: Neelix and other hated characters. Neelix isn't always insufferable, but I don't mind the running gag.

Re: Luddites, or space Amish. I live next to a fairly large Mennonite community, and a fair number of them drive buggies or ride bikes everywhere. There are those who make that choice because they think it best suits the life they want to live, and accept without judgment that other Mennonites and "Englishers" are going to choose differently. Then there are the hypocritical ones that will get on their moral high horse about the evils of technology (when they aren't hitching rides that is).

The Baku fall into the second category, and I think that's what really sets Chuck off. The Baku are so smarmy about the way they live that it's hard not to hate them. There's a case to be made that they have a point, but the Baku make it an all or nothing proposition, and as Chuck points out in his review, Insurrection paints a dishonest picture of what (primitive) rural life entails.

I think I'm also slightly less high on Farscape than Chuck is.

It's interesting you should say that, it seems to have a very 'love it or hate it' reception among us sci-fi and space opera geeks.
I like it as much as Chuck does but there are many elements of it I don't like such as some of the characters, how loud and over the top it could get, the constantly shifting tone, from wacky humour to razor sharp edginess, often in the same episode.

Yeah, I like the show and think it has some terrific drama. Even some of the wackier episodes are great. But a good portion of it gets too silly for me, and sometimes I think the balance of humor and drama are off.

To be honest and to risk being heretical, I feel the same about Firefly. It's a great show, but the constant Whedonisms and snark from everyone don't always work for me.

[Yukaphile]

I seriously disagreed with Chuck's assertion that fans were pleased to see the sequel trilogy being announced. There were, and still are a lot of fans, a minority compared to the average moviegoer sure, but still a sizable chunk of outraged people furious that Disney rebooted the old EU in the process. Seriously, just google in "Legends EU Lucasfilm billboard" to get an idea what I mean.