quote:the rules may be very different for Starfleet treatment of Starfleet officers on a Starfleet ship out in space.
Zathras agrees with sentiment that Zathras likes. There is symmetry.
I agree with "rules may be different". It's like Jack Ryan foregoing the Geneva Convention and calmly putting seven bullets into the KGB-agent on the Red October (sure he may have had live wires, but man that was cold).
MM:
quote:But that mind rape scene was really creepy. I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of the things that Roddenberry was most pissed about
I'm gonna play Spock's Advocate here and say that the scene carries tremendous dramatic value and potent character progression. The "gloves off" atmosphere also helps revitalize what had been a very lukewarm, lackluster streak of movies script-wise (IV, V).
This "arm wrestle" mind meld was also a bit of fan service, in the "I didn't know he could do that" category, almost similar to Superman getting shot in the eye.
Registered: Aug 1999
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quote:Originally posted by shikaru808: Jason: Perhaps being in the military has given me a "whatever it takes" attitude. Truth be told, I really do see your points in the whole matter. No matter how you spin it, it wasn't right.
But frankly, at what point does holding the moral high ground justify the loss of life of potentially billions of people? It may not have been okay, but it was definitely neccessary IMHO.
What the point of TOS if they dont do what's morally right? Without that moral elevation, it's just a WWII submarine movie.
Moral ambiguities work great on DS9...with TOS, not so much. Rather than showcasing the character's realism, it diminishes them- like seeing Superman roast someone with heat vision- it's beneath what the character would ever consider as a means to an end.
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
So you're saying that if old TOS Spock was put in that situation he would let the war happen just to protect a traitorous Vulcan's innermost thoughts and fears from being exposed? I would think that he would do the logical decision, the one that was shown on screen
Roddenberry not liking STVI is definitely no surprise though. Not very utopian.
-------------------- "Its coming on. I just saw the wall move..."
Registered: Feb 2008
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posted
The good old "needs of the many" definitely is in Spock's favor. The key difference, though, was that Spock volunteered for the job in TWOK, whereas his meld with Valeris was definitely nonconsensual.
I think the debate arises not from the fact that it's the wrong decision, but because the ramifications are rather glossed over in the movie.
And the sad thing is, like many other "enhanced" interrogations, it was all for nothing anyway; Valeris didn't know what they needed to know. So they had to call Sulu anyway.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
Exactly- the ends did not justify the means- Sok raped her and for nothing. In TOS, they'd have made that a plot point about the dangers of becoming what you fight against or how you should really take a victim someplace private before raping them- the bridge is no place for such nonsense.
And the overall theme of the Trek movies remains "violence solves everything"....well except TMP which just goes on and on and on untill you fall asleep or hit fast forward thinking "Why the hell did I buy this movie anyway?"
And of course, they did not show any aftermath of STVI- a sweeping investigation into who knew what and who Cartwright's accompices were- surely far more people were involved than we saw onscreen.
Registered: Aug 2002
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
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posted
Well, the Trek movies wouldn't be very interesting if they were about exploring some gaseous anomaly while talking about their feelings would they?
Let's face it, we want our Trek movies with scenes of the Enterprise blasting away at some unrepentant baddie.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Valeris was sorta unrepentant...though the blasting...well, maybe back in Spock's quarters between scenes.
STVI needed James Hong and Kurt Russell.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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