1. "Alternate universe" is hardly a cop-out. You honestly don't believe that having Kirk's father dead from the very hour of his birth, as opposed to being "there, and supportive" right through his academy graduation, would have an effect upon his attitudes and approach to life?
No, this doesn't explain the FUBAR with the Romulans but, to be honest, the original scenario with the Romulans is completely ridiculous. There's been 100 years of war, and they're offshoots of Vulcans, and nobody knows what they look like..? I've got to be missing something substantial, or was Gene simply hanging out with Uri Gellar and watching him bend spoons with his mind while he was writing that one? Honestly?
That being said... the whole "commendation for original thinking" is a very small detail, easily changed in the time-continuum sense of things by the very LARGE detail of Kirk having a dramatically different attitude than the one he was "supposed to have had" had time not been tap-danced all over.
How's that for a run-on sentence, be-yotch? Yeah, that's right. I went there (and kept going there, for a while, using commas, etc. etc., ad nauseum).
2. The episodes of any given Star Trek series contradict each other on small points here and there. There are also things that simply don't make sense, because the original episodes were written with little thought to continuity beyond the occasional "hey, I've heard that name before..." and absolutely no thought to "someday, this is going to be a worldwide phenomenon with five television series, eleven movies, and its own freakin' economy in used movie prostheses and realistic-looking phasers being traded by super-geeks on the internet... wait, WTF is the internet?"
I love Star Trek. I've spent my fair share of time dressed as a Klingon, trying to get the language down to a conversational level, and I'd say only about 80% of that time was actually at a convention. I also love Star Wars, and a significantly larger percentage of the time I spent dressed as a Stormtrooper (as opposed to the time spent dressed as a Klingon) was not at a convention. The time I spent dressed as a Klingon Stormtrooper WAS, however, at a convention... actually, it was at two of them, and I must say that the Trekkies are a lot more open-minded about being a fan of *gasp* MORE THAN ONE CONTINUITY than the average Star Wars geek. There are exceptions, of course, and that greater open-minded-ness does tend to come with even more geekish dedication (thus requiring more open-minded-ness in the first place).
Y'wanna know what really got peoples' goats bleating? I showed up at a Star Wars convention dressed as a Dwarf from The Lord of the Rings. That's right, I'm a fan of that too. I've also played World of Warcraft, and I'm a huge D&D geek; currently, I'm writing freelance material for various third-party, Dungeons-and-Dragons compatible RPG publishers.
It could be worse, though... Seriously.
I'm just having fun. I find it fun, a pleasant, temporary escape from my everyday routine, enjoyable, a little exciting at times, often inspirational for my own writing, occasionally... yes... upholding of a greater hope for the future of humanity in general, however empty that might seem at times when I'm not actually around fellow geeks and having a ball... and... well, fun!
It could be a LOT worse. I could be one of those complete fruitcakes that wears their Star Trek uniform to work every day... or who thinks George Lucas is the second coming of Jesus Christ... or who waits in line for six months to buy tickets to Star Wars IVXLCMI: The Phantom Acting, or, who can pull episode names out of their ass and actually think that it matters, somehow.
It's not real. It's a fun, temporary diversion, and if you've got enough of an imagination to appreciate Star * or LotR or comic books or RPGs, you ought to be able to fill in the blanks for yourself and enjoy each new induction into your continuity-of-choice for what it's meant to be, instead of stumbling over every little inconsistency.
Oh, and for the record, I've written three separate letters to Wizards of the Coast detailing point-for-point why they're Satan Incarnate for releasing such a piece-of-shit 4th Edition version of D&D. I just thought, y'know, that I'd throw that out there. No response yet, although one of the guys who works there is named Stan, and I think I wrote "Stan" instead of "Satan" at one point, so he might've taken things somewhat personally. The next time I'm in Washington state egging their windows, I'll apologize to him.
No, this doesn't explain the FUBAR with the Romulans but, to be honest, the original scenario with the Romulans is completely ridiculous. There's been 100 years of war, and they're offshoots of Vulcans, and nobody knows what they look like..? I've got to be missing something substantial, or was Gene simply hanging out with Uri Gellar and watching him bend spoons with his mind while he was writing that one? Honestly?
That being said... the whole "commendation for original thinking" is a very small detail, easily changed in the time-continuum sense of things by the very LARGE detail of Kirk having a dramatically different attitude than the one he was "supposed to have had" had time not been tap-danced all over.
How's that for a run-on sentence, be-yotch? Yeah, that's right. I went there (and kept going there, for a while, using commas, etc. etc., ad nauseum).
2. The episodes of any given Star Trek series contradict each other on small points here and there. There are also things that simply don't make sense, because the original episodes were written with little thought to continuity beyond the occasional "hey, I've heard that name before..." and absolutely no thought to "someday, this is going to be a worldwide phenomenon with five television series, eleven movies, and its own freakin' economy in used movie prostheses and realistic-looking phasers being traded by super-geeks on the internet... wait, WTF is the internet?"
I love Star Trek. I've spent my fair share of time dressed as a Klingon, trying to get the language down to a conversational level, and I'd say only about 80% of that time was actually at a convention. I also love Star Wars, and a significantly larger percentage of the time I spent dressed as a Stormtrooper (as opposed to the time spent dressed as a Klingon) was not at a convention. The time I spent dressed as a Klingon Stormtrooper WAS, however, at a convention... actually, it was at two of them, and I must say that the Trekkies are a lot more open-minded about being a fan of *gasp* MORE THAN ONE CONTINUITY than the average Star Wars geek. There are exceptions, of course, and that greater open-minded-ness does tend to come with even more geekish dedication (thus requiring more open-minded-ness in the first place).
Y'wanna know what really got peoples' goats bleating? I showed up at a Star Wars convention dressed as a Dwarf from The Lord of the Rings. That's right, I'm a fan of that too. I've also played World of Warcraft, and I'm a huge D&D geek; currently, I'm writing freelance material for various third-party, Dungeons-and-Dragons compatible RPG publishers.
It could be worse, though... Seriously.
I'm just having fun. I find it fun, a pleasant, temporary escape from my everyday routine, enjoyable, a little exciting at times, often inspirational for my own writing, occasionally... yes... upholding of a greater hope for the future of humanity in general, however empty that might seem at times when I'm not actually around fellow geeks and having a ball... and... well, fun!
It could be a LOT worse. I could be one of those complete fruitcakes that wears their Star Trek uniform to work every day... or who thinks George Lucas is the second coming of Jesus Christ... or who waits in line for six months to buy tickets to Star Wars IVXLCMI: The Phantom Acting, or, who can pull episode names out of their ass and actually think that it matters, somehow.
It's not real. It's a fun, temporary diversion, and if you've got enough of an imagination to appreciate Star * or LotR or comic books or RPGs, you ought to be able to fill in the blanks for yourself and enjoy each new induction into your continuity-of-choice for what it's meant to be, instead of stumbling over every little inconsistency.
Oh, and for the record, I've written three separate letters to Wizards of the Coast detailing point-for-point why they're Satan Incarnate for releasing such a piece-of-shit 4th Edition version of D&D. I just thought, y'know, that I'd throw that out there. No response yet, although one of the guys who works there is named Stan, and I think I wrote "Stan" instead of "Satan" at one point, so he might've taken things somewhat personally. The next time I'm in Washington state egging their windows, I'll apologize to him.
