trek's "pure" scifi

[RobertScorpio]

Star trek has that stigma, always will, of being scifi fluff (which is fine with me). But if you had to give three examples of Star Trek (any era) where the episode/movie is scif at it's purest best..what would they be???

Rob
Scorpio

 

[RyanKCR]

Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Frame of Mind
The Thaw

 

[GodThingFormerly]

If by "pure sci-fi" you mean plots that cannot be meaningfully translated to a contemporary drama setting, then:

* The Cage.
* The Changeling.
* The Immunity Syndrome.
* Return to Tomorrow.
* The Ultimate Computer.

No, I listed three episodes.

TGT

 

[Red Ranger]

If by "pure sci-fi" you mean plots that cannot be meaningfully translated to a contemporary drama setting, then:

* The Cage.
* The Changeling.
* The Immunity Syndrome.
* Return to Tomorrow.
* The Ultimate Computer.

No, I listed three episodes.

TGT

THERE . . . ARE . . . FIVE . . . EPISODES! -- RR

 

[JNG]

Time Squared
Q Who?
The Inner Light

 

[Forbin]

Measure of a Man
The Visitor
The Ultimate Computer

 

[RobertScorpio]

If by "pure sci-fi" you mean plots that cannot be meaningfully translated to a contemporary drama setting, then:

* The Cage.
* The Changeling.
* The Immunity Syndrome.
* Return to Tomorrow.
* The Ultimate Computer.

No, I listed three episodes.

TGT

Intersting..your picks all come from TOS...and its a good list too...

Rob

 

[Forbin]

Intersting..your picks all come from TOS.

Think of whom you speak!

 

[SonicRanger]

Although not many fans like it, TNG's "The Royale" is closer to classic sci-fi like The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits than almost any other episode.

 

[Admiral2]

Yeah, I'm sorry, but the concepts of "pure sci-fi" and "Star Trek" stopped sharing the same neighborhood after the first season of TOS. Therefore I offer:

The Corbomite Maneuver
What Are Little Girls Made Of?
Balance Of Terror

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yeah, I'm sorry, but the concepts of "pure sci-fi" and "Star Trek" stopped sharing the same neighborhood after the first season of TOS. Therefore I offer:

The Corbomite Maneuver
What Are Little Girls Made Of?
Balance Of Terror

Ever see any WWII set submarine films?

 

[Markas]

Pure scifi, I'm not so sure, but here are my choices:

The Changeling
The Tholian Web
The Immunity Syndrome

 

[Dane_Whitman]

Ever see any WWII set submarine films?

Agreed, Balance of Terror can hardly be considered 'hard' or 'pure' scifi. It's a submarine war drama.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture
The Measure of a Man (TNG)
Blink of an Eye (VOY)

That's science fiction in the truest sense of the word to me.

 

[Nebusj]

If by "pure sci-fi" you mean plots that cannot be meaningfully translated to a contemporary drama setting, then:

* The Changeling.

Now hold on there. Unstoppable killer wanders in, pauses only briefly because in a case of mistaken identity he thinks Our Hero is his father, and is destroyed when he's helpless in a moment of confusion when the mistake is revealed to him?

That's, like, at least twenty spaghetti westerns waiting to happen.

 

[xortex]

Star trek has that stigma, always will, of being scifi fluff (which is fine with me). But if you had to give three examples of Star Trek (any era) where the episode/movie is scif at it's purest best..what would they be???

Rob
Scorpio

The Return of the Archons
Doomsday machine
The Royale

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Now hold on there. Unstoppable killer wanders in, pauses only briefly because in a case of mistaken identity he thinks Our Hero is his father, and is destroyed when he's helpless in a moment of confusion when the mistake is revealed to him?

That's, like, at least twenty spaghetti westerns waiting to happen.

I can visualize it right now: While riding to apprehend some greasy desperado who has just robbed the local pony express, a handsome county sheriff finds himself involved in a horrific head-on collision with a mule upon which snoozes a grizzled gold prospector, and the only conceivable hope of mutual survival for the two mangled, dying accident victims so far from professional medical assistance is to sew their few remaining intact limbs, organs and brain hemispheres together using the sheriff's Bowie knife as a needle, the intestines of their dead equines as surgical thread and the prospector's prized bottle of Kentucky sour mash as anesthetic/disinfectant... Holy fudge, this baby just writes itself! You may consider my entry of The Changeling unreservedly withdrawn.

TGT

 

[JoeZhang]

Measure of a Man (what is life?)

em...er..em..

 

[Admiral2]

Yeah, I'm sorry, but the concepts of "pure sci-fi" and "Star Trek" stopped sharing the same neighborhood after the first season of TOS. Therefore I offer:

The Corbomite Maneuver
What Are Little s Made Of?
Balance Of Terror

Ever see any WWII set submarine films?

As a matter of fact, The Enemy Below is one of my favorite WWII movies.

I picked BoT because, unlike most of you here, my defintion of pure sci-fi doesn't include 20th century space probes evolving into superbeings (Changeling and ST:TMP), super ESPERs (Gary Mitchell and the Talosians) or anything else I would consider epic sci-fi. To me, pure sci-fi is about the characters using technology derived from current day scientific knowledge (spacecraft, robotics, directed energy weapons, etc...)

But you don't like my choice. Fine. I'll replace it with:

A Taste Of Armageddon

Happy?

 

[JoeZhang]

To me, pure sci-fi is about the characters using technology derived from current day scientific knowledge (spacecraft, robotics, directed energy weapons, etc...)

This is where we differ the technology itself is unimportant to me in the science fiction I enjoy, it's the impact on humanity or the individual that makes something sci-fi to me.

Take directed energy weapons, they just represent a special effect to replace a missile, their usage in star trek is just the same as in a western, they don't generally represent fundamental change or scientific thinking, they just provide a veneer of science Phaser = pistol, Communicator = radio.

With a few exceptions, Star Trek isn't really interested in the ramification of progress, it just happens in the background.

The transporter is an example of this - in Star Trek, it's usage is just a way of cutting budget. A sci-fi story about a transporter would explore issues like the nation state (do identities blur when you can live on one side of the world and work on the other, does easy availability lead to overcrowding in pleasant areas and rich countries?), the family (does the extended family really become extended?) and so on.

A measure of man is I think the best example of Sci-fi in that vein because it's not a story about a android, it's a story about life and values and worth. Is Data a person? what is a person?

That's not to say I don't enjoy the other types of sci-fi stories just that I wouldn't think of them as "pure" sci-fi.

 

[Vonstadt]

Yeah, I'm sorry, but the concepts of "pure sci-fi" and "Star Trek" stopped sharing the same neighborhood after the first season of TOS. Therefore I offer:

The Corbomite Maneuver
What Are Little s Made Of?
Balance Of Terror

Ever see any WWII set submarine films?

As a matter of fact, The Enemy Below is one of my favorite WWII movies.

I picked BoT because, unlike most of you here, my defintion of pure sci-fi doesn't include 20th century space probes evolving into superbeings (Changeling and ST:TMP), super ESPERs (Gary Mitchell and the Talosians) or anything else I would consider epic sci-fi. To me, pure sci-fi is about the characters using technology derived from current day scientific knowledge (spacecraft, robotics, directed energy weapons, etc...)

But you don't like my choice. Fine. I'll replace it with:

A Taste Of Armageddon

Happy?

I actually like all four of your choices