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Because the vision is different between the shows. TOS was about believability, believability, research, science-fiction writers. How would a real naval captain behave, that was the question?
The movies took the naval, militaristic parallel to an extreme. Early TNG was about this fantasy universe where everything is ideal and the humans have evolved and strive for bettering themselves. Is that the vision of Star Trek? Or is it perhaps the DS9 version, where the former is being mocked by Quark, by O'Brien, sometimes by Sisko?
I'm arguing that if people can't see these visions then they aren't looking closely enough. These shows were made with different visions by different executive producers. So, should we make everything as believable as was TOS? Or should we tend towards a mishmash of visions? Or should each show be analyzed independently?
posted
I could as well say that Star Wars is a run-of-the-mill fairy-tale with a simplistic and now completely exhausted good-vs.-evil ideology, using nothing but cliches rehashed from other fiction to relay its message as far as there is one at all and that the sci-fi aspect is only marginal and only formal. I could form for myself an opinion like that, but I don't do that because I have respect for the people who are fond of Star Wars and for anyone who has a hobby that enriches his life. And why should I? I simply don't need a justification for watching or appreciating anything. But if people like Wong, who give a damn on other people's opinions or ways of life, come along and spread huge amounts of their poisonous propaganda I have all the right to reject that *without giving any reasons*. I don't need to defend myself here and I will not further do that.
Boris: I don't mind that you have chosen (in the whole sci-fi discussion) a position of a critical and (over-) accurate observer who does get involved into certain issues, but has always the comfortable option to retreat as your preferences are not so definite. You are simply beyond a point where you may be attacked, and I should stop trying that.
It may be okay for you that you appreciate some parts of Wong's site and dislike some others. But I for myself would be ashamed and horrified to be listed as contributor on Mike Wong's site.
-------------------- Bernd Schneider
Registered: Mar 1999
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If this is what happens when someone "twists" science for their own means and puts it on a Web site, don't anyone ever, ever, ever mention the TimeCube around this group...
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Well, Timecube is always good for a laugh. But there is no comparison between this utter nonsense which is obviously written by a complete moron (or someone who just pretends to be one to get loads of visitors) and SD.net where Wong has turned scientific debates (or what he thinks is scientific and is a debate) into a form of art.
I would wish to read some less self-complacent comments, even if they are directed against me.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Bernd, if you associate yourself too much with the Star Trek vision, people might become worried that you don't have a taste for good writing, even if you do criticize some of it. Would you like to be associated with Gene Roddenberry? I suppose yes. But if you were a writer in Hollywood, other writers might become worried about your attitude toward intellectual property, wondering if you like people misusing you?
Do you know what kind of person Roddenberry was in real life? Have you read "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story" by Bob Justman and Herb Solow, "City on the Edge of Forever" by Harlan Ellison, or "Roddenberry: The Man and the Myth Behind Star Trek" (have only looked through it, but it deals with the same issues). How many writers have been hurt because he was loose about who did what on Star Trek, taking the credit for creating everything? He's lost a great number of friends over the years. He was a guy who's nice and polite in person, who sparked Star Trek, but also let a number of other people make it into what it became, and then took credit for their work.
If you're not in favor of Roddenberry, would you like to be associated with Harlan Ellison, writer of one of the best Star Trek episodes ever written, who hates him for spreading misinformation about the rewrites of "The City on the Edge of Forever", who looks at TNG seriously and says what it is compared to what TOS was? The guy who yells at everyone, loves to argue, who said that "one isn't entitled to an opinion, but rather an informed opinion." He tears apart people's writing in creative writing courses, and praises what he sees as good because he has a passion for good writing, even if he admits knowing little about other things.
What about Ron D. Moore, who also wrote a bunch of great DS9 shows, but posted the series of opinionated, one-sided interviews you so much dislike?
I'm sorry, but one doesn't create works of art by being tolerant of other people's opinions, always looking for a quick consensus. All of the abovementioned individuals were responsible for some of the best of what we've seen onscreen. Perhaps there are other Trek issues you cannot let pass just like that, such as web design, drawing schematics, or identifying Wolf 359 ships. I have a passion for good writing and good television, and see these forums as a place to voice creative criticisms and think of ways to improve the show by taking it as literally as TOS.
I see Mike Wong trying the same (he is a fan of TOS and lists Star Trek II as one of his favorite movies), which is why I support parts of his site while I find others completely weird, annoying and irrelevant. I've supported your site heavily because I've seen you have a passion for detail and good execution, and because your voice is being heard by some creative people on Star Trek.
Mike Wong has chosen to attack Star Trek and defend Star Wars because he honestly doesn't like what he sees in today's Trek, using an extremely annoying style. He's being objective in the narrow sense of deriving conclusions from what he sees onscreen without any preconceived visions of it.
Perhaps I really should put up my own website about this, but it would owe a lot to annoying people with something good to say.
posted
What is the goal here? This reminds me of the thing about who has the better invisible deity/friend....
I think I am going to move along.... nothing to see here....
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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I hate Wong with a strong passion, and like Bernd, wanted to puke the first time I visited SD.net. The mere mention of his name annoys me far more than Lambchop Play-along and Barney put together.
What's the point of this thread again?
-------------------- "God's in his heaven. All's right with the world."
Registered: Apr 2001
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I'm not saying that Roddenyberry was god and that there is only one true Star Trek. I only don't like if evidence is fabricated, misinterpreted, misused to prove something the way "revelation journalism" does. Books that strive to destroy the myths of, let's say JFK or Princess Di are extremely popular. In this respect, also the books written by former writers (I'm only familiar with the one by Justman/Solow) have to be treated with care - although I don't say they belong into exactly this category. I'm sure you are aware that most people have a personal gripe, want to become famous or just make a good bargain if they strive to disillusion people about something popular.
To continue with Ron D. Moore, as you say it is opinionated, and that's all I have to know. It's a personal view, and it doesn't really change how I see the show. The other way round, if Braga praises his own work in every respect, he can't convince me either that some shows I didn't like were great.
quote: I have a passion for good writing and good television, and see these forums as a place to voice creative criticisms and think of ways to improve the show by taking it as literally as TOS.
I'm glad that we basically agree in this point. Of course, I am not the creative type which I freely admit. I couldn't write an episode. If you want to build upon TOS and create a new show with the old spirit, good luck.
quote:I see Mike Wong trying the same (he is a fan of TOS and lists Star Trek II as one of his favorite movies), which is why I support parts of his site while I find others completely weird, annoying and irrelevant. I've supported your site heavily because I've seen you have a passion for detail and good execution, and because your voice is being heard by some creative people on Star Trek.
I am grateful for the support you have provided and also for some controversial but fruitful discussions (not necessarily this one). But as the years have passed, I have developed a slightly different and better defined view of everything. And I am grateful to people like Mike Wong who have shown me what not to do! So today I draw very clear lines between fact and fiction, Star Trek and other fiction, canon and conjecture, etc. Agreed, it's a mainstream way (although people did complain about my alleged obsession with details(!), or the lack of general information on my site, or even my arrogance), but I'm quite content with the very open and pleasant form.
quote:Mike Wong has chosen to attack Star Trek and defend Star Wars because he honestly doesn't like what he sees in today's Trek, using an extremely annoying style. He's being objective in the narrow sense of deriving conclusions from what he sees onscreen without any preconceived visions of it.
He may be objective, but at most within the scope of a single sentence. And I don't need to comment that Mike Wong should mean that all "honestly". If he did, he would be psychopath.
quote:Perhaps I really should put up my own website about this, but it would owe a lot to annoying people with something good to say.
If you put on a website what you have just outlined, I am sure I will dislike it. Do that, and you have taken the first step to becoming just like Wong. Sorry, Boris, but if you are seeking trouble instead of consensus about something we only have as a hobby, then you should re-assess if you are still doing that for fun or if you want to evangelize the unaware crowd with your truth. I can predict that the people who love Trek will avoid you and that you would get a clientele instead that made you blush.
-------------------- Bernd Schneider
Registered: Mar 1999
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I just noticed a parallel between me and George Bush in that we both suddenly bring up with force an idea to fight someone, which could have been done long before. And the UN doesn't really care. Never mind... It's late here...
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote: Because the vision is different between the shows. TOS was about believability, believability, research, science-fiction writers. How would a real naval captain behave, that was the question?
The hard core believability, believability of children who shake their hands and make magic things appear? The believability of having gods walking around? The believability of there being 50 billion planets which have evolved almost "just like Earth"? The believability of the Captain, First Office and CMO hurling themselves into unnecessary danger week after week?
Sorry, but TOS was as much about "Ooh, look! Magical floating thingie" as TNG was, and had a good dose of the "humans are a lot better now than they used to be". Or did you ignore all the dialogue in "Tomorrow is Yesterday"?
quote: One could argue that one could've made interesting stories in the old format likewise, but that's a creative choice, a kind of risk that Babylon 5 is taking all the time. JMS loves to set up seemingly simplistic stories and then turn everything upside down precisely by putting together the little background details that were never meant to be seen closely. And then if you go back and rewatch the original episodes, you can see the clues that led to the drastic shift.
You keep talking about B5 is the present tense; "a kind of rish that B5 is taking all the time". You do know that it finished half a decade ago? And you do know that the final season was really, really, really shit?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: You keep talking about B5 is the present tense; "a kind of rish (sic.) that B5 is taking all the time". You do know that it finished half a decade ago? And you do know that the final season was really, really, really shit?
I'm not sure if that helps your point, I mean if ST can't keep up with a show that finished half a decade ago, how can it possibly be taking us where "no one has gone before"? Obviously it isn't taking creative risks which is especially sad given your second point...
Wheras ST has no major financial limitations on what it can bring to the screen, B5 was at risk of being cancelled at the end of its fourth season. Thats why all major plot lines were accelerated and essentially completed with the end of the fourth season. (Note the conspicuous lack of a fourth season cliffhanger and the prescence of a "reverse retrospective" for lack of a better word)
I consider it a miracle that the fifth season of B5 was as good as it was given that JMS had to scratch around for material to fill a whole season when he was dealling with a "finished" story.
As for risk-taking, note that in that very season there was a whole episode, enjoyable mind you, that flipped everything around and looked at the Psi Corps in a favourable light. In ST terms (given that ST has at least four times as much material), that would be like spending four episodes trying to convince the audience that the Borg are right....and partially succeeding.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Let's not drag this off into a pro-anti B5 debate eh? I liked the show. I loved the show. Season 5 was, bar one or two episodes, complete wank.
Also, the financial situation of B5 was not necessarily seperate from the type of show that it was. The argument "imagine if it had Trek's budget" doesn't hold up, because there's a chance that B5 would have had exactly the same viewing figures that it got anyway, and thus wouldn't have [i] deserved Trek's budget.
On the thread subject, let's pick an example where Wong appears to have altered the figures in order to make himself right.
What follows relate to hull strengths. Obviously ST hulls crumple into dust if they are sneezed upon, and SW hulls can withstand GOD HIMSELF!
quote:In the DS9 episode "The Jem'Hadar", the USS Odyssey was destroyed after an exchange of fire which lasted for less than 30 seconds, as seen in this Divx5 video clip. As it turned to flee, a Jem'Hadar fighter (which can be generously approximated as a 100 metre diameter, 25 metre high saucer) with a mass of perhaps 10,000 tons deliberately rammed the Odyssey at a velocity of roughly 600 m/s (it took 5 frames at 30 fps to cover its own length onscreen as it entered the frame). If we generously assume that it accelerated to 1 km/s by the time of impact, its kinetic energy would have been roughly 5E12 J (1.2 kilotons), and its momentum would have been roughly 1E10 kg�m/s (less than 1% of the TESB asteroid's momentum).
The Odyssey was so heavily damaged by the impact that the entire deflector array was destroyed and the plunging fighter smashed its way into the primary hull, thus destroying the entire forward area and leaving multiple decks exposed to space (it goes without saying that a warp core breach followed almost immediately afterwards). The duration of the impact was roughly 2 frames at 30 fps (0.07 seconds), so the reaction force would have been roughly 1.4E11 N (less than 1/400 of the TESB asteroid's impact force). Of course, the reflexive Trekkie response to this incident will be to find an excuse to dismiss it, so they might argue that the ship had suffered prior damage, so all onboard systems should be presumed non-functional (funny how they dismiss that possibility for the TESB asteroid, eh?). However, that would be ignoring the real point, which is that this incident conclusively demonstrated that the ship's physical structure cannot withstand that much force, and since its physical structure ultimately must absorb an impact regardless of whether it comes to its shields or its hull, this gives us an idea of the ship's general resistance to impact (a point hammered home by lethal 1 km/s ramming attacks against fully shielded Klingon cruisers in "Tears of the Prophets" and "All That You Leave Behind").
Counter argument by Guardian 2000 (who posts here, I believe):
quote:After assuming that a downloaded clip of the special effects of that episode was representing the total time of the battle (hence that silly "30 seconds" comment), he gives the Jem'Hadar fighter an estimated size and estimated mass. What goes unmentioned is that the density he uses for the Jem'Hadar fighter is 50 kg/m3, or 5% of water's density! He does make up for this a bit by "generously" quadrupling the actual speed of the Jem'Hadar fighter.
Suspicious, no? (No, for those who stopped caring).
And to be fare to Bernd here, this isn't about SW vs ST. That argument is, quite rightly, boring. It's about, in a large sense, how having a web-site and using complicated maths is a great way of getting anyone to believe whatever you want.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Good god... what is the point of a frame-by-frame analysis with the intention of determining real-life physics of a specific situation? IT IS A FUCKING TELEVISION SHOW. (Or a movie.) In the vast majority of the scenes, the visuals are created with the intention of LOOKING COOL. They're supposed to ENTERTAIN.
Now yes, Bernd and others (myself included) do try frame-by-frame analyses on occasion -- but these are all intended to discuss ideas that are relative to Trek, like comparing starship lengths or something. We're not trying to determine the speed of a phaser!
I think that this, more than anything else, indicates the poor attitudes behind a site like SD.net. The fact that such anal analyses are performed simply to prove that Wars is kewler than Trek. And the fact that there are scientific errors (like the density issue above) does not improve the situation any.
Is it simply that Wong and his gang must prove that Trek is inferior in order to enjoy Wars more?
quote:From Wong's front page: Although the site has some facetious overtones, it is still nonetheless an academic discussion of Star Wars, Star Trek, and real science. It is intended to entertain but also to educate and to encourage scholarly debate.
I would like to ask: What the heck does "real science" have to do with "science fiction"? And if that site is an example of scholarly debate, then I'd be terrified of seeing their idea of a full-blown uneducated rant.
-------------------- “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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Mike Wong's insistance of using real science to infer things about fiction is like the social contract in government. By attempting to analyze things, you are tacitly saying that the things you're analyzing are coherent and consistent; else there would be no point in analyzing it. You have to assume that things make some sort of sense before you start work. If we say, "anything goes," then why do we try to figure out the right size of the Defiant? We do so because we willingly suspend our disbelief in the existence of the Defiant and pretend, for the sake of analysis, that is is real. There is a real Defiant, and we can figure out how long it is by comparing it with other real objects of known lengths. Naturally, nobody believes this, but for the duration of a discussion, it is implied.
Why do we stop at that level? Mike Wong argues that if you assume that things can be analyzed on a basic level then there is no logical reason why more detailed analysis isn't also appropriate. It is, in his mind, hypocritical to say, "Some things merit detailed analysis but some things do not." Particularly if the analysis is for the purpose of comparing two things that are otherwise impossible to compare. You have to have an objective standard for comparison in that whole silly game, or else there's nothing to discuss.
Mike Wong's way of doing things, when stripped of his insulting style, has it's merits. The discussions that we have (again, ignoring stylistic differences) are the same sorts of things that Wong discusses on his site, but to a much lesser level of detail. The only difference is that most of us only suspend our disbelief so far... we agree that the effects model makers added interesting details to their models, for instance, but we know that they aren't careful enough to get every shot accurate. I think it is important to seperate Wong's style from his substance. Even if his substance takes analysis to an extreme most disagree with, there is nothing inherently "wrong" with doing his so, if that's what gives him his jollies.
There were times when I get that detailed, but I usually tired of it quickly and return to the broader issues. Now, while I enjoy reading some of Wong's site for the same reasons Boris does, my own take on things is diametrically opposed. I am all about creator intent nowadays, and I contend that behind-the-scenes information is more important than canon, not less, especially when there's a debatable issue like the Defiant's length. And it doesn't stop at creator intent. Take the original Enterprise, for example. I figure she had to have visible RCS ports, docking hatches, phaser emitters, and torpedo tubes. In my personal universe she did. It makes sense to me, and that's most important. But that's just me, and if I were in a debate or something I wouldn't pretend it was fact.
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