Single worst scene in the first ten movies

[Marsden]

Breaking off from the worst acting job, what is the worst scene as depicted in the first ten movies. Mention deleted scenes if you want, but they were deleted for a reason. I think some should have been kept and some others deleted.

My first choice is the transporter killing Xon and the other officer in TMP.

1. It's 98.57 %* pointless to the plot.

2. It's ugly, especially in a G movie. That deserves a WTF right there.

3. It hurt the whole damn concept of Star Trek as a whole because tell me when they don't use a transporter.

Plus the fact that the damn thing is always putting people back to the previous version of them either to make them big again, young again, mushing both halves back together, you name it, but this time it was accidentally set on "Elephant Man" Yeah, Right!

I'm sure there are plenty of others, TFF and Insurrection must be a treasure troves, but compared to those movies, nothing slapped me in the face like this scene from TMP.


* over 70% of all statistics are made up.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

Worf and Picard singing that song from HMS Pinafore. It was just gratuitous and stupid. We've seen 7 seasons of TNG we know Picard likes the classics including Gilbert and Sullivan, we don't need to see it demonstrated again for the umpteenth time. Plus having Worf along to sing it was just another notch in the downfall of Worf as a serious, but occassional humorous, character in the show, to straight comic relief.

Hell even "Row Row Row your boat I could at least tolerate on a minimal level because they were trying to bond, get Spock to lighten up and they were all half in the bag anyway.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

Breaking off from the worst acting job, what is the worst scene as depicted in the first ten movies. Mention deleted scenes if you want, but they were deleted for a reason. I think some should have been kept and some others deleted.

My first choice is the transporter killing Xon and the other officer in TMP.

1. It's 98.57 %* pointless to the plot.

2. It's ugly, especially in a G movie. That deserves a WTF right there.

3. It hurt the whole damn concept of Star Trek as a whole because tell me when they don't use a transporter.

Plus the fact that the damn thing is always putting people back to the previous version of them either to make them big again, young again, mushing both halves back together, you name it, but this time it was accidentally set on "Elephant Man" Yeah, Right!

I'm sure there are plenty of others, TFF and Insurrection must be a treasure troves, but compared to those movies, nothing slapped me in the face like this scene from TMP.


* over 70% of all statistics are made up.

Actually I think his name was Sonak or something close to it. Xon was going to be the Vulcan character in the new Star Trek series in the 70's that never got off the ground. I think the guy who was going to play Xon was the male officer at the Episilon 9 or 7 (I forget the number) space station that got destroyed by V'ger. So in a way Xon did die in the film too, just not in the transporter accident.

 

[Marsden]

You're right about the name. But you know the scene. I forgot they renamed him Sonak.

 

[Cyke101]

Worf and Picard singing that song from HMS Pinafore. It was just gratuitous and stupid. We've seen 7 seasons of TNG we know Picard likes the classics including Gilbert and Sullivan, we don't need to see it demonstrated again for the umpteenth time. Plus having Worf along to sing it was just another notch in the downfall of Worf as a serious, but occassional humorous, character in the show, to straight comic relief.

Beat me to it -- to me this is the top of the list -- but Insurrection for me had three more bad scenes:

-when Picard's girlfriend is badly hurt and clearly in agony, Picard tries to give her a pep talk by telling her to "live in the moment." That moment is pain, dude.

-there's nothing wrong per se with the Riker Maneuver, but when he gives the command to LaForge to dump the core, and LaForge responds, "I already did," it just reeked of cheesey pretend-action, trying to match some perceived snarky badassness of First Contact. Even the music was unnecessarily cliche'd.

-the final showdown between Picard and Ruafo, with the blue screen that ...remained blue. Which is odd considering the original plan was to show a background, and the invisibility effects at the beginning with Data were pretty neat.

Honorable mention:
-Worf breaking his phaser rifle. Surely weapons of the future are made of sterner stuff? It shouldn't matter if Worf has superstrength -- he has limits that should fall under hardware. Plus, guns still jam in the future, apparently.

 

[Kirby]

"Computer, engage manual steering column!"
Pointless, stupid, and completely against anything we've seen in Star Trek.

 

[Melakon]

2. It's ugly, especially in a G movie. That deserves a WTF right there.

Off-topic: Before the ratings system was established in 1968, a 15-year-old boy (me) went to a major motion picture presented in Cinerama (Hawaii, 1966, with Julie Andrews), and there was a scene with dozens of topless native girls greeting the Christian missionaries. But because it was the first moment I was actually paying attention to the film, the church group I was with suddenly decided it was time to leave. WTF.

 

[HarryM]

I think they killed Sonak to give them a reason for needing Spock to show up. The alternative would be to have no assigned Science Officer (unlikely), have the existing one be incompetent or not up to the task (on the Enterprise?!), have Sonak decide not to take his post (highly illogical) or get rid of Sonak some other way. I guess he could have gotten sick or something, but that seems a bit underwhelming.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

Worf and Picard singing that song from HMS Pinafore. It was just gratuitous and stupid. We've seen 7 seasons of TNG we know Picard likes the classics including Gilbert and Sullivan, we don't need to see it demonstrated again for the umpteenth time. Plus having Worf along to sing it was just another notch in the downfall of Worf as a serious, but occassional humorous, character in the show, to straight comic relief.

Beat me to it -- to me this is the top of the list -- but Insurrection for me had three more bad scenes:

-when Picard's girlfriend is badly hurt and clearly in agony, Picard tries to give her a pep talk by telling her to "live in the moment." That moment is pain, dude.

-there's nothing wrong per se with the Riker Maneuver, but when he gives the command to LaForge to dump the core, and LaForge responds, "I already did," it just reeked of cheesey pretend-action, trying to match some perceived snarky badassness of First Contact. Even the music was unnecessarily cliche'd.

-the final showdown between Picard and Ruafo, with the blue screen that ...remained blue. Which is odd considering the original plan was to show a background, and the invisibility effects at the beginning with Data were pretty neat.

Honorable mention:
-Worf breaking his phaser rifle. Surely weapons of the future are made of sterner stuff? It shouldn't matter if Worf has superstrength -- he has limits that should fall under hardware. Plus, guns still jam in the future, apparently.

Must have been made by the same guys who designed the Vietnam era M-16.

What made the signing worse for me was the song they chose i believe it was "a British tarn " I've never seen HMS Pinafore, I'm not a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan but I remember in raiders of the lost ark that after sala says goodbye to Indy and Marion he's clearly sad to say good bye but he walks away singing the first verse of that song, in a great deep voice, to show his joy that life goes on before he joins a group of his pals in the background. I thought it was a well acted and touching moment.
Then nemesis messes it up by reminding us Picard loves classics for the billionth time in the most corny way.

 

[Jedi_Master]

"Computer, engage manual steering column!"
Pointless, stupid.

Amen. This was what immediately came to mind when I saw the thread title.
The scene is compounded by the Trill officer giving Riker the sexy eyes... "Oooh... that guy knows how to drive a stick".

 

[T'Girl]

I think they killed Sonak to give them a reason for needing Spock to show up

Another alternative would be Sonak wasn't going to be availible until the Enterprise's previously scheduled completion and departure, and wasn't even in the system when the early launch was decided upon.

I find it odd that only Sonak (other than the Captain) was going to know how to operate the science console.

 

[MacLeod]

"Computer, engage manual steering column!"
Pointless, stupid.

Amen. This was what immediately came to mind when I saw the thread title.
The scene is compounded by the Trill officer giving Riker the sexy eyes... "Oooh... that guy knows how to drive a stick".

Yep that was one dire scene, considering we had already seen them used buttons to fly the ship manually in episodes. And besides wouldn't you need two control inputs to control a craft in a 3D space, up-down, left right, forward-backward.

 

[Cyke101]

"Computer, engage manual steering column!"
Pointless, stupid.

Amen. This was what immediately came to mind when I saw the thread title.
The scene is compounded by the Trill officer giving Riker the sexy eyes... "Oooh... that guy knows how to drive a stick".

Yep that was one dire scene, considering we had already seen them used buttons to fly the ship manually in episodes. And besides wouldn't you need two control inputs to control a craft in a 3D space, up-down, left right, forward-backward.

I don't mind the concept of the joystick as much BUT earlier in the movie, we saw two shuttles pulling off a complex series of maneuvers, all by computer panel. To me that just incriminates the joystick scene even more as unnecessary. (and surely a joystick would be more useful for a smaller craft than a gigantic starship).

 

[BillJ]

3. It hurt the whole damn concept of Star Trek as a whole because tell me when they don't use a transporter.

I don't see how? We've had cars and planes for nearly a century and still have some damned ugly accidents with them. This just shows the transporter is still a dangerous piece of tech.

Single worst scene: Kirk hugging Spock in The Final Frontier.

 

[Saul]

Worst: Reusing the Klingon Bird of Prey explosion from Star Trek VI for VII.
I'd let the TV show get away with that. I even have no problem with there been no spread of torpedoes. But that explosion reuse screams lazy, don't give a shit attitude of all involved with it.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Amen. This was what immediately came to mind when I saw the thread title.
The scene is compounded by the Trill officer giving Riker the sexy eyes... "Oooh... that guy knows how to drive a stick".

Yep that was one dire scene, considering we had already seen them used buttons to fly the ship manually in episodes. And besides wouldn't you need two control inputs to control a craft in a 3D space, up-down, left right, forward-backward.

I don't mind the concept of the joystick as much BUT earlier in the movie, we saw two shuttles pulling off a complex series of maneuvers, all by computer panel. To me that just incriminates the joystick scene even more as unnecessary. (and surely a joystick would be more useful for a smaller craft than a gigantic starship).

Under what circumstances would we believe that a 24th century starship would have a direct mechanical linkage from a steering device to the maneuvering engines?
Therefore, it's a useless tool and a stupid scene. The fact they used a 10 dollar joystick from Radio Shack doesn't help.

 

[Cyke101]

Yep that was one dire scene, considering we had already seen them used buttons to fly the ship manually in episodes. And besides wouldn't you need two control inputs to control a craft in a 3D space, up-down, left right, forward-backward.

I don't mind the concept of the joystick as much BUT earlier in the movie, we saw two shuttles pulling off a complex series of maneuvers, all by computer panel. To me that just incriminates the joystick scene even more as unnecessary. (and surely a joystick would be more useful for a smaller craft than a gigantic starship).

Under what circumstances would we believe that a 24th century starship would have a direct mechanical linkage from a steering device to the maneuvering engines?
Therefore, it's a useless tool and a stupid scene. The fact they used a 10 dollar joystick from Radio Shack doesn't help.

I'd imagine only for extreme damage to maneuvering computers and controls in situations where you'd need exact movement, like on current spacecraft -- if I'm not mistaken, the joystick to, say, dock a craft onto a space station is a separate joystick from the one used to pilot the craft. But that battle in Insurrection didn't indicate that it was necessary by any means. We saw the larger, slower E-D do a similar roll to escape the Dyson Sphere, and that was by computer panel.

So the nature of the joystick, I'm not all that concerned about. The way it was used? Most definitely. And yes, the way it was shown (the aforementioned manual controls on current spacecraft looks much better than the movie's Radio Shack joystick).

It goes back to the Trek trope of everything being controlled by computers -- until they're not. But again, nothing in the movie indicated that was the case anyway, which to me is what makes it pointless.

 

[GNDN18]

TFF: the turboshaft scene. Rocket boots, decks numbered upside down, 78 decks … and counting!

 

[enterprisecvn65]

TFF: the turboshaft scene. Rocket boots, decks numbered upside down, 78 decks … and counting!

It really is incredible that not a single person caught that mistake in editing. I noticed it the first time I saw the film. It really couldn't have been more obvious.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Worst scene: a freaking dune buggy in the 24th century.

As if there were not a universe of bad scenes in TNG movies to select, in comes...a dune buggy.