Much of the burg lore is great. I don't like the writers never left Picard alone about that after bobw
Rant about the Borg Queen
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Your line "How many times can you beat an unbeatable enemy before that enemy becomes not that scary." struck me as both true and funny. That's what I was reacting to.
Which films are Dog Shit? Only TNG outside of FC. Anyway, I think she took away from the mysteriousness of the Borg though she is a good movie villain, I guess. Plus, she is slimy. I mean her skin. Yuck.
Yeah, the Queen is a double-edged sword.
On one hand, she provides a locus of focus of sorts, even if it's contraindicated to the purpose of the Borg. And yet, the Borg probably groupthinked her into existence as a result of all those pesky skirmishes against Picard and crew: Q introduced the humans to them, they were intrigued, they wanted a human emissary to mass assimilation - which failed, then found shiny new ways to adapt from there. Probably due to the events of "I, Borg" where the idea that a glorified MC Escher painting would have them all collectively die from confusion until Hugh taught them how he was brought to everyone by the letter "U" and the number "free", even though those (likely) would have been excised fairly quickly as those are eliminated from their subjugated drones. So after the Collective breaking down, another drone had a bright idea, chose someone, and *pop* there's Queen B.
On the other hand, Queen B does demystify the Borg, though part of me thinks she's just Borg evolution and adaptation. Like a system queue monitor to prevent the sort of logic loop that the Escher idea would or introducing personality had actually done, and Alice Krieg and Suzanna Thompson both embraced the role in all 5000 times they played her...
In their defenses, GEN and INS did try to return to TNG's roots, even if (a) GEN was horribly rushed and (b) INS's earlier draft is far more compelling than what eventually got filmed.
NEM has grown on me a lot, but the TNG era was still out of steam, and ending with a bunch of mishmashed mush about Romulans and clones and failed experiments and a half-baked revenge plot that doesn't add up. Especially with no Q around. Stuart Baird was an inspired choice, given his credits before and since, even if a couple scenes don't quite fit -- and most of those issues are due to the script and scene logistics, not direction, like the good looking but needlessly contrived dune buggy chase that doesn't work at all. (Contrived isn't synonymous with "won't work", but with all the sensor equipment and more maneuverable vehicles to use, the dune buggy doesn't even allow suspension of disbelief when we saw a cute little vehicle put-putted by Data in the previous flick, which has a full weapons array and far more maneuverability... the buggy jump into a... you guessed it... shuttlecraft only emphasizes the script's shortcomings, despite looking great. But looks aren't everything if the script is half-baked, like the dough I've left out on the counter for 3 weeks now and has lots of ants crawling on it, eww...)
I don't know. My Dad told me people generally think the movies are garbage and because he has both way more Internet access than me and was around when both TNG and the earlier movies came out. I took his word that that was the general opinion of the fandom. Is it not?
No.I don't know. My Dad told me people generally think the movies are garbage and because he has both way more Internet access than me and was around when both TNG and the earlier movies came out. I took his word that that was the general opinion of the fandom. Is it not?
One thing I learned from reading TV-Newspapers and the internet: Even if - and I stress the "if" here massively - everyone and their mum said, that a movie was bad (or good), one should take a look at it and make up ones own opinion.I don't know. My Dad told me people generally think the movies are garbage and because he has both way more Internet access than me and was around when both TNG and the earlier movies came out. I took his word that that was the general opinion of the fandom. Is it not?
Plus: Just because your dad told you, that "people" thought, these movies are garbage, doesn't mean, that they are. @StarTrek1701 pointed it out nicely. I mean, you'll find people, who'll go on and on about how bad some of the TNG-Movies were (or some of the Star Trek Movies in general), but - at least I gotta say: I never stumbled upon a really bad Trek-Film.
And concerning "what people say" - eh...
Here's an essay, I wrote nearly 10 years ago, dealing with that topic.
Tarantino and Bay - two sides of the same coin?
Published: Dec 4, 2014
Where is the difference between Quentin Tarantino and Michael Bay?
Let me tell you a little story.
"You should watch 'Reservoir Dogs' - it's cool, the writing's intelligent, and it has a kick-ass-soundtrack." That was the consensus in my class back in '08. The movie was praised by my teacher of journalism. Okay, when we first met and he noticed, I would be a fan of the German cabarett-artist Urban Priol and his writings, he recommended the book "QQ" by Max Goldt, as it would be similar to Priol, so I bought that and almost threw it out of the window after reading the first three stories. Similarities to Priol? My Ass.
The book, he recommended to us, to read it in class, was "Faserland" (no - it is no spelling-error) by Christian Kracht - which is basically a pretty bland, boring, ceaseless drivel of "stuff happening" and even the protagonist is bored out of his skull.
He recommended "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" 1,2 and Century - so I bought them and… I know I'm in the minority here, I prefer the movie adaptation. I know - sue me.
So, I should've known, what way I was heading, when I - back in '11 - sat down, watched 'Reservoir Dogs' on the WDR - which is the "Westdeutsche Rundfunk", a german television- and radio-station - but I thought "Well, maybe this time, he is right? Plus - the movie is recommended by everyone and their mother around the internet, it is praised to no ends, so why would it be bad?"
Yeah - let me put it this way: To me the movie is bad. And that has nothing to do with "wanting to be an iconoclast" or "an annoying armchair-critic" or "an idiot" or whatever Tarantino-Defenders can use as arguments to invalidate my point of view - at least in their eyes - to me, this movie and "Pulp Fiction" are the reasons, why I noticed, that there is little to no difference between QT and Michael Bay.
Before you want to hang me from the nearest tree, dear reader, just cease a minute and think about it.
Both directors and producers have a plethora of gimmicks, that they use.
Both use scantily clad women to capture the males view, both use very crude scenes and sceneries - the difference is the story-telling. Bays movies are relatively straight-forward, progressing in a logical way (a leads to be leads to c), while in Pulp Fiction the story can be viewed as a chaotic mess, that you need more than one time to sit through in order to completely understand it.
And the intellectuals (or those, who are thinking, that they are intellectual) are saying, that that is a good thing.
Now - I'm a down to earth, simple German guy, who has people, he cares about, has stuff, he wants to do and when I watch TV or DVD or read a book or a fanfiction or so - I want to be captured in this world, that they are building in their work of fiction, but most of all, I want to get the quintessence of what is happening on screen on the first or second run. When this source of entertainment is getting my attention, then I can re-watch it and try to find out if there is more than meets the eye, I can try to find little easter-eggs and stuff like that … but - as I pointed out - that is only working for me, if I find the source of entertainment exactly that - entertaining.
Basically, what I don't want, is a director basically forcing me, to watch the movie a couple of times again, in order to get the story. Case in point: Pulp Fiction.
As I already pointed out, the storyline is a complete and utter mess - so you have three options.
Option A) You take a notebook and write down the chapter-titles in order to figure out the timeline.
Option B) and C) are basically the same - it's giving up, saying "Okay, this is happening" and either sit back and just let light and sound soothe you in (Option B) or turning the movie of and doing other stuff (Option C).
There is an Option B+ there - you let the movie do his own thing, shut your brain of and later on google the plot-line of Pulp Fiction, hoping that some poor schmuck with too much time at his hands sat there and tried to figure out the plotline of Pulp Fiction.
Which essentially should not be necessary - after all, this is just a movie, not a book, that you must've read for school, something like "Kabale und Liebe" (Intrigue and Love) from Schiller, "a midsummer night's dream" from Shakespeare or "Le prof" (The teacher) - which is an instalment of "banlieu tendre", a french comic series.
To me - and I am a very simple plant (to paraphrase German cabaret-artist and comedian Jochen Malmsheimer) - the decision, if a movie is good, bad or just relatively watchable, should be made via just one time you watched the movie. If the movie is good, great you can rewatch it as much as you like, if a movie is bad, great, because you have waaaaaaaay to much stuff to do in real life, if a movie is watchable - okay, why not.
But this classification should be done in just one sit-through.
Pulp Fiction does not allow this - I watched the movie one time, thought "What the frak?" and was done with it - but then people say "Oh, you just don't get it - you have to re-watch it in order to appreciate it."
Bon. Bien sure. Natürlich. Of Course.
I'm just thinking, what people would say, if they'd hate , e.g. "Transformers" and I would say "You just don't get it - you have to re-watch it in order to really appreciate it"?
Probably something like "Buzz off."
Welcome to the Berman era of Star Trek, where the most advertised female characters usually wore tight one-piece or "cat-suits". That's how evolved this era of Trek was...you were just supposed to pretend actresses were not cast to sell their bodies first, acting ability sometime later.
Whaaa—?
The TOS movies are perhaps my favourite series of movies. TNG and Kelvin movies not so much. Maybe that’s where the controversy lies.
I don't get how adding the Queen takes away from the Borg. They're still space zombies, still a single hive mind consciousness out to consume whole civilizations. The Borg Queen was written to be an individual, not the embodiment. Was she there from the beginning, or did the need for a Queen come later? We don't know. Going off FC, Voyager, and Picard; my take on the Queen is that she's essentially a means to bring order to chaos, an administrator, an overseer, something to that effect.Watched First Contact fairly recently, and I have a few questions, mainly about the Borg Queen. I'm aware the general consensus among the fandom is that the Trek movies are dogsh*t but I can't help but wonder some of the decisions made her. Mainly, the concept of the Borg as a whole is changed entirely by the existence of the Queen. Before the Queen, the Borg were a unique entity, something that doesn't form naturally on Earth. Something completely alien. One being with a unified consciousness. I'm getting mildly carried away, but you get the point. Add in the Borg Queen, and now they're just... bees. Or ants, I guess. My point being that the Borg Queen takes the Borg from a hive mind system that's completely unnatural to just a colony, something that we've all seen mirrored on Earth. Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but I think the Borg would have been much better off without addition of the Queen.
When you think about it, same sort of goes for Locutus. Not the bees thing, but the fact that any Borg being an individual, such as Locutus, sort of makes the Borg into one big contradiction of themselves. I know Locutus is supposed to be the collection of the Borg's voices to connect with other races or whatever, but the Borg already have a collection of their voices, that being, THEIR VOICES! I don't have as big a problem with Locutus as I do with the Borg Queen, though.
Oh, well. I'll stop yapping now.
Adding the Queen, do the Borg behave differently than they did on TNG?
'Insurrection' had some great Data moments when he bonded with that kid. But the floatation devise scene was not a fave, though. That was the first time I realized I did not have a sense humor. F Murray Abraham had my interest in the trailers being an 'Amadeus' fan, it's a shame really.
For most of those questions I'm pretty happy with the answers offered by the Destiny trilogy of novels, and I don't care how much the franchise may have invalidated them canonically.
That said, I always figured the Borg created (or assimilated) her, not that she created them. Though it's certainly possible she was the original scientist who pushed things too far or such.
The way Jurati psychoanalyzes the Queen in Picard S2 makes it sound like she created them. How that would work, I don't know. She said she was a little girl when she became Borg, but maybe she was used by a civilization that was proto-Borg in a sense (already experimenting with cybernetics, species designations, etc.) and she was a lonely girl or something with a Gears of War Queen Myrrah situation, eventually taking over.
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