Love Is Stronger Than Death - Paul Tillich
Due to what I can only assume is a terrible misuse of network executive mishandling of justice, the local channel that has been showing TNG has unexpectedly stopped showing Trek, and instead showing several episodes of MASH instead. Therefore, we have been making do with my DVD of Voyager season 1, one episode each weeknight.
Yesterday was "The Cloud" ("There's coffee in that nebula!"), which has lots of wonderful dialogue, including a clever joke by Neelix on the many anomolies they find. Tonight's episode was "Eye of the Needle," which I only had a vauge recollection of a wormhole because I hadn't seen it in a long time.
My loyal readership (hi, Betsy!) is quite aware that I am a nerd, so I have no problem admitting that I love Voyager - the characters, the exploration, everything - and this episode was quite emotional because, even though I obviously knew that they weren't going to get home through the wormhole, the crew saw things much differently. And then, knowing they were still facing a 70 year journey, they just wanted to pass on messages via the Romulan scientist to their loved ones back home.
The Romulan scientist was himself something of an anomoly because, while the Romulans usually portrayed in the Trekverse are warlike (don't even THINK about going in, near, around, by, above, below, or anywhere even slightly close to the Neutral Zone!), this particular scientist (I just looked up his name, Telek R'Mor) was willing to help the Voyager crew, who were, as representatives of Starfleet and the Federation, his enemies. What was even more unusual was that Telek R'Mor had a family, missed his daughter who he hadn't seen, and was completely loyal to the Romulan empire and his own government - and those qualities didn't contradict one another. He was a good Romulan and a good person and he and the Voyager crew related to one another as fellow sentient beings who understood being lonely out in space and missing loved ones back home.
The original plan was for the crew to evacuate to the Romulan ship back in the Alpha quadrant, but then (spoiler alert!) it's discovered that Telek R'Mor is from 20 years in the past, so the crew can't get home, but Janeway is able to give him the flash drive with their messages to Starfleet, which he promises to deliver in 20 years.
It's the culmination of intergallactic goodwill, tolerance, being able to reach out to others with friendship instead of war - and then Tuvok looks up Telek R'Mor on the computer database and finds that he died 4 years previously and was thus unable to send the messages. It's heartbreaking to watch, but it reinforced something that I have always loved about Trek and Voyager in particular: the characters are all very likable, good, kind, decent people who value and respect one another and it's a world where doing the right thing is almost taken for granted.
To me, Trek represents the ideal world we should all be striving for, especially since this world (and American culture in particular) glorifies violence and callous disregard for others, where many people think that owning a gun is more important than others' right to basic healthcare, where morality seems to mean "Is this person exactly like me in looks, thoughts, and beliefs?" instead of "Am I treating this person with the decency and respect with which I would like to be treated?" - in this world, it's nice to have an alternative, to see what the best of humanity could be if we tried.
The "good Romulan," who is different, yet has the same hopes and dreams as us (and how often do people separate ourselves into Us and Them?), could be seen as a metaphor for enlightened thinking and how we treat each other. So much war, hatred, intolerance, and prejudice asises simply because Group A has decided that Group B is different, strange, evil. Perhaps some members of Group B committed a horrible act, but to demonize every member of Group B only perpetuates the cycle of violence. And the ones who will suffer most are the good and kind members of Group B who are looked upon with suspicion for only that reason.
The dualistic dichotomy of Us vs Them will only lead to destruction of everyone. If there is only Us, then the "good Romulan" is not an anomoly or an oxymoron, but an inevitability.
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Saturday, 3 September 2011
A few thoughts on TNG (Wesley is annoying)
Every weeknight for the past few years, one of the local television channels has been showing episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. My roommate and I have a tradition of watching them, geeking out over dilithium crystals or Picard's melodious voice (his words just sound so PRETTY!) and occasionally laughing at the sheer 80s-ness of it all. (For both personal and aesthetic reasons, I prefer the look of Voyager and DS9, but that is a story for another day.)
All of which to say that I have been wanting to rant about Wesley Crusher for the past several months now.
The most annoying part of the characterization of Wesley is that there was potential for a well-written character. The Crusher family backstory - Wesley's father's death, his mother's medical career in Starfleet, and their stay on the Enterprise - could have been an interesting and nuanced contrast to the lives of the bridge officers who, for the most part, do not have immediate family members aboard the ship. And although there are other families with children on the Enterprise due to one or both parents' careers, they aren't prominently featured like the main officers are. With Wesley, the writers had the opportunity to explore the concept of what it must be like for a child to grow up on a starship and how that would affect everything from that child's perception of "home" to the family dynamic and interpersonal relations.
Unfortunately, what actually happened was the creation of Wesley Crusher, the one-note character we all love to hate. Wesley is perfect. He's not just smart, but (at age 15) he knows more than career officers and diplomats. His science projects create new life forms. And, as anyone who has ever watched the first season of TNG knows, "Wesley saves the ship" is a common theme throughout many episodes.
There are many, many problems with the way Wesley's character is presented, the first of which is the complete and utter disregard for any semblance of reality or even consist ant world building. It's believable, and I would argue that it is almost predictable, that Wesley would be very intelligent. Having two parents in Starfleet would obviously give him a lot of firsthand knowledge about many different facets of science, engineering, history, various planets and their cultures, and it's clear that his family values knowledge and educational achievement.
In early 21st century Earth, Wesley would probably be considered very highly intelligent, especially for his age. However, this is the Trekverse, the fictional 24th centurey where humans have perfected themselves, eliminated poverty and war on Earth, and who now explore the universe. I believe that in this utopian environment, there would be any number of highly intelligent young people with a thirst for knowledge and a curiosity about the universe in all discovered and undiscovered dimensions.
It's never explained why or how Wesley is better than everyone else, but the writers (or maybe just Roddenberry) spend lots of time making sure that we don't forget that fact. Whenever he is featured prominently in an episode, everyone goes out of their way to tell us how special Wesley is and any character who disagrees with him is proven to be wrong. In case the message of Wesley Is Better Than You weren't clear enough, the events of Where No One Has Gone Before happen.
Early on (still only 6 episodes in), Wesley saves the ship and then the entity known as "the Traveler" appears for two reasons: to see if humanity is ready to experience the universe where thought/time/space are one reality and where thought becomes reality, and also to tell Picard that Wesley is special, "like Mozart."
(Really? Mozart is the best you can do? Felix Mendelssohn's music is SO much better, both in quality and innovation, not to mention the Bach revival with St. Matthew's Passion, the epic violin concerto, the sheer beauty of his melodies, and Mendelssohn was not simply a one-dimensional musician, but he was an artist, studied languages and philosophy, AND could name-drop any one of the 19th century's intellectual elite.)
Parenthetical Mendelssohn fangirlishness aside, the point here is that this Traveler (who reminds me a bit of the Q Continuum) specifically mentions Wesley as this paragon of human potential. WHY? I'm convinced that it's for no other reason than WESLEY IS SUPER SPECIAL without any reasons why that is. Having written a "perfect" character, Roddenberry et al. boxed themselves into a corner by not allowing said character to develop and grow and change and learn and all of those other things that make us human. Not only that, but WESLEY IS SUPER SPECIAL also means that Wesley never has to put any real effort into anything. He's innately smarter than the entire Enterprise crew and the rest of humanity and it's implied that his innate abilities give him the ability to pretty much do anything the plot requires. (Implied may be the wrong word here. Guaranteed is probably a better choice.)
Also, at the end of that episode, Wesley is made an acting ensign by Picard, despite the fact that no children are allowed on the bridge. So, for much of the series, seasoned officers who have no doubt waited years to be assigned to the Enterprise, as well as Captain Picard, are sharing the bridge (and navigational duties!) with a know-it-all teenager. Because every Starfleet parent would want their child front and center for every delicate diplomatic talk with a Klingon captain, every Romulan confrontation in/near/about the Neutral Zone, and I don't care how super special Wesley is, but he does NOT have the ability to make split-second decisions involving moral or diplomatic concerns or whether to invoke the Prime Directive in a specific situation.
Basically, being really smart does not equal moral clarity, having years of experience as a Starfleet officer, knowing how to resolve disputes diplomatically, or how to handle the pressure of being on the bridge. It's also notable that Wesley never seems to have any self-doubt about his intelligence or abilities and he lacks the self-awareness to realize how much he doesn't know. While he is surrounded by other characters who have lived, experienced failure and disappointment, learned from their mistakes, and whose years of exploring have formed their characters, Wesley is comfortable in his role as the special one, who never has to change or grow.
There were a few moments, such as in The First Duty, where the audience catches a glimpse of the three-dimensional character that could have been, in which Wesley makes a huge mistake, owns up to it, and becomes a likable and sympathetic character because of his moral actions. I actually liked Wesley in that episode. I wish three-dimensional Wesley had stayed for the rest of the series, but alas, it was not to be because the grand finale of his character arc ends with Journey's End.
There is so much wrong with Journey's End that I will probably write about at some point, but right now I am going to hit some of the finer points. A brief synopsis: Nechayez tells Picard that he must remove Federation settlers, specifically Native American (although there is no tribal affiliation mentioned for anyone) from a planet that is being ceded to the Cardassians. Wesley is just home from the Academy and acts like a jerk to everyone, including his mother. He's also rude to Geordi, which earns him my eternal ire. In the middle of this plot, Wesley goes on a vision quest, sees his dead father, realizes that he needs a different path in life than simply following his father's footsteps, meets the Traveler again, and then goes off with the Traveler to ascend to a higher plane of existence.
Yes, really. I'm not even kidding.
Let's have a moment of reflection in memory of the character that never was, who was sacrificed so that one-note Wesley could technobabble his way into every plot point and save the ship.
All of which to say that I have been wanting to rant about Wesley Crusher for the past several months now.
The most annoying part of the characterization of Wesley is that there was potential for a well-written character. The Crusher family backstory - Wesley's father's death, his mother's medical career in Starfleet, and their stay on the Enterprise - could have been an interesting and nuanced contrast to the lives of the bridge officers who, for the most part, do not have immediate family members aboard the ship. And although there are other families with children on the Enterprise due to one or both parents' careers, they aren't prominently featured like the main officers are. With Wesley, the writers had the opportunity to explore the concept of what it must be like for a child to grow up on a starship and how that would affect everything from that child's perception of "home" to the family dynamic and interpersonal relations.
Unfortunately, what actually happened was the creation of Wesley Crusher, the one-note character we all love to hate. Wesley is perfect. He's not just smart, but (at age 15) he knows more than career officers and diplomats. His science projects create new life forms. And, as anyone who has ever watched the first season of TNG knows, "Wesley saves the ship" is a common theme throughout many episodes.
There are many, many problems with the way Wesley's character is presented, the first of which is the complete and utter disregard for any semblance of reality or even consist ant world building. It's believable, and I would argue that it is almost predictable, that Wesley would be very intelligent. Having two parents in Starfleet would obviously give him a lot of firsthand knowledge about many different facets of science, engineering, history, various planets and their cultures, and it's clear that his family values knowledge and educational achievement.
In early 21st century Earth, Wesley would probably be considered very highly intelligent, especially for his age. However, this is the Trekverse, the fictional 24th centurey where humans have perfected themselves, eliminated poverty and war on Earth, and who now explore the universe. I believe that in this utopian environment, there would be any number of highly intelligent young people with a thirst for knowledge and a curiosity about the universe in all discovered and undiscovered dimensions.
It's never explained why or how Wesley is better than everyone else, but the writers (or maybe just Roddenberry) spend lots of time making sure that we don't forget that fact. Whenever he is featured prominently in an episode, everyone goes out of their way to tell us how special Wesley is and any character who disagrees with him is proven to be wrong. In case the message of Wesley Is Better Than You weren't clear enough, the events of Where No One Has Gone Before happen.
Early on (still only 6 episodes in), Wesley saves the ship and then the entity known as "the Traveler" appears for two reasons: to see if humanity is ready to experience the universe where thought/time/space are one reality and where thought becomes reality, and also to tell Picard that Wesley is special, "like Mozart."
(Really? Mozart is the best you can do? Felix Mendelssohn's music is SO much better, both in quality and innovation, not to mention the Bach revival with St. Matthew's Passion, the epic violin concerto, the sheer beauty of his melodies, and Mendelssohn was not simply a one-dimensional musician, but he was an artist, studied languages and philosophy, AND could name-drop any one of the 19th century's intellectual elite.)
Parenthetical Mendelssohn fangirlishness aside, the point here is that this Traveler (who reminds me a bit of the Q Continuum) specifically mentions Wesley as this paragon of human potential. WHY? I'm convinced that it's for no other reason than WESLEY IS SUPER SPECIAL without any reasons why that is. Having written a "perfect" character, Roddenberry et al. boxed themselves into a corner by not allowing said character to develop and grow and change and learn and all of those other things that make us human. Not only that, but WESLEY IS SUPER SPECIAL also means that Wesley never has to put any real effort into anything. He's innately smarter than the entire Enterprise crew and the rest of humanity and it's implied that his innate abilities give him the ability to pretty much do anything the plot requires. (Implied may be the wrong word here. Guaranteed is probably a better choice.)
Also, at the end of that episode, Wesley is made an acting ensign by Picard, despite the fact that no children are allowed on the bridge. So, for much of the series, seasoned officers who have no doubt waited years to be assigned to the Enterprise, as well as Captain Picard, are sharing the bridge (and navigational duties!) with a know-it-all teenager. Because every Starfleet parent would want their child front and center for every delicate diplomatic talk with a Klingon captain, every Romulan confrontation in/near/about the Neutral Zone, and I don't care how super special Wesley is, but he does NOT have the ability to make split-second decisions involving moral or diplomatic concerns or whether to invoke the Prime Directive in a specific situation.
Basically, being really smart does not equal moral clarity, having years of experience as a Starfleet officer, knowing how to resolve disputes diplomatically, or how to handle the pressure of being on the bridge. It's also notable that Wesley never seems to have any self-doubt about his intelligence or abilities and he lacks the self-awareness to realize how much he doesn't know. While he is surrounded by other characters who have lived, experienced failure and disappointment, learned from their mistakes, and whose years of exploring have formed their characters, Wesley is comfortable in his role as the special one, who never has to change or grow.
There were a few moments, such as in The First Duty, where the audience catches a glimpse of the three-dimensional character that could have been, in which Wesley makes a huge mistake, owns up to it, and becomes a likable and sympathetic character because of his moral actions. I actually liked Wesley in that episode. I wish three-dimensional Wesley had stayed for the rest of the series, but alas, it was not to be because the grand finale of his character arc ends with Journey's End.
There is so much wrong with Journey's End that I will probably write about at some point, but right now I am going to hit some of the finer points. A brief synopsis: Nechayez tells Picard that he must remove Federation settlers, specifically Native American (although there is no tribal affiliation mentioned for anyone) from a planet that is being ceded to the Cardassians. Wesley is just home from the Academy and acts like a jerk to everyone, including his mother. He's also rude to Geordi, which earns him my eternal ire. In the middle of this plot, Wesley goes on a vision quest, sees his dead father, realizes that he needs a different path in life than simply following his father's footsteps, meets the Traveler again, and then goes off with the Traveler to ascend to a higher plane of existence.
Yes, really. I'm not even kidding.
Let's have a moment of reflection in memory of the character that never was, who was sacrificed so that one-note Wesley could technobabble his way into every plot point and save the ship.
Friday, 2 September 2011
These are the voyages
I am thinking of writing some Trek-related commentary focusing mainly on TNG, Voyager, and DS9, since those are the series I watch. I'm finding various episodes on YouTube and TNG is currently on TV every weeknight (it's currently in season 6, I believe), and while I haven't seen every episode of any series, I have somewhat of a broad overview of the major themes.
So without further ado, we shall begin our continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where all Trekkies have gone before.
Fun will now commence!
So without further ado, we shall begin our continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where all Trekkies have gone before.
Fun will now commence!
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Pretty Things
I took this picture yesterday while watering my thirsty plants. A rainbow appeared, so of course I had to grab my camera.
I've been trying to revive some of the bushes that have been affected by the drought with daily watering. So far, I am seeing tiny bits of green reappear among the brown crunchy leaves, so I believe that there is hope.
Also yesterday I drew a picture of my pretty purse! It's in Prismacolors (of course), on one of the last pages of my sketchbook that I've been using since January 2010. I love my sketchbook (it's hardcover, like a book) and I will have to get another one just like it so that I can continue with my Prismacolor sketching odyssey.
Thursday, 11 August 2011
Rain!
Today I woke up to rain, thunder, lightning, and the weather radio alarm going off. It's still dark outside, but not so much gray because everything is covered with deep blue and green shimmery reflections. It's the kind of rain that makes everything come alive after several months of drought. In the distance, there is thunder and I hope the rain stays around for awhile because the trees and grass and flowers are thirsty.
Also, rain makes me feel dreamy, whimsical, nostalgic, and pensive, all at the same time (in various shimmery shades of blue, green, and purple).
Also, rain makes me feel dreamy, whimsical, nostalgic, and pensive, all at the same time (in various shimmery shades of blue, green, and purple).
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
This Blog Post References Itself
Because I need a place in which to ramble about art, music, colours, Star Trek, books, sunlight, silly puns, philosophy, Harry Potter, the world, stars, galaxies, the universe, the Oxford comma, and anything else that comes to mind.
My design layout is still under construction and subject to change on a whim, but this is the basic template for the time being. I'm still figuring some things out.
*Waves to Betsy!*
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