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Star Trek Meme: Day 13
Day 13 - What's your favorite dramatic moment?
A bit easier to answer, but only a bit, and separately for each incarnation.
TOS + TOS movies: "I am, and always will be, your friend." There's just no beating that for emotional impact, even knowing it'll be undone by the next movie. It's the culmination of decades of friendship on a Watsonian level, and on a Doylist one for the audience (the first time one anyway) watching that friendship. (You have to earn something like Spock's goodbye to Kirk when he's dying, you really can't goo there early on in your story, she growls.) I can make fun of William Shatner's acting style with the rest of the world, but for that particular scene, it wasn't just Nimoy who was in the zone, acting-wise. It's intense and sublime and if you disagree, I just don't want to know.
TNG: upon first time watching, the end of Best of Both Worlds, part I. If you get there unspoiled and see Locutus for the first time, absorb what this means, and then Riker gives his order, you know what I mean. However, while it's still a tense moment during rewatch, and so my choice is another scene. It's the very end of Chain of Command, part II, when Picard admits to Deanna Troi he did see five lights. Before that, I thought the George Orwell rip-off in the torture scenes was well done but flinched from one of the biggest Orwell points - that anyone can be broken, that Winston Smith in 1984 really did see as many fingers as O'Brien wanted him to see at the end. I thought substituting Picard saying "there are four lights" to Gul Madred after his rescue arrives was basically bowlderizing and making something look heroic which shouldn't be glamourized by heroism because it's so real life awful. And then we got to this quiet aftermath scene, and my feelings completely changed. And remained changed during rewatch. For all that TNG gets accused of being sanitized sci fi, not "gritty" the way later shows were, there is this scene in its stark honesty, and it reaffirmed and even strengthened my Picard love. He's the hero of the show AND he's no more invulnerable, in body and spirit, than anyone subjected to such horrors. Also? That he trusts Troi with this information is a good way to show, not tell the importance of her job as counsellor on the Enterprise.
DS9: one of the best is certainly also a quiet scene - Sisko's final statement in In the Pale Moonlight - "I can live with it" (if you've watched the episode, you know why this epitomizes the moral grey of DS9) -, but it's not my favourite. My favourite, depending on my mood, is either Bashir taking Garak's hand in The Wire - "I forgive you, whatever it is you've done" (which, yes, presumptous, but very Julian and very what Garak needed to hear at this moment), or Kira at the end of Duet, learning that the guy who killed Marritza didn't even know who Marritza was (either the pretend identity or the real one), it was enough that M. was a Cardassian. The expression of Kira's face will always stay with me.
Voy: Janeway and Seven in the holding cell in The Gift, when an only recently cut from the Collective Seven faces the new and (to her at this point) terrible reality of being an individual again and tells Janeway she's forcing this on her, countering Janeways pro free will speech with the question that if she, as a free individual, would want to return to the Collective, would Janeway let her? This was when I thought "this idea of having an ex drone on board is actually turning into something interesting that hadn't been done on TNG before, and was riveted.
Reboot: for all my growling about a certain imitiation earlier, the reboot did offer more than one dramatic scene I loved. For my favourite, again depending on my mood, I choose either Spock's showdown with the Vulcan Academy (this had been one of the most speculated about scenes of Trek fan lore, and I do love this version, including Quinto managing to make "live long and prosper" sound like "up yours"), or Pike's scene with beaten up young Kirk in the bar, which managed to make reboot Pike into one of my favourite Starship Captains and was just the right mixture of fatherly and no-nonsense to drag reboot Kirk into a future.
Day 1 - Which Star Trek series is your favorite?
Day 2 - Who is your favorite character?
Day 3 - Who is your least favorite character?
Day 4 - What was the first episode/movie you watched?
Day 5 - What was the first Star Trek series you watched?
Day 6 - Your favorite canon pairing? (Canon being the series and the movies, including the reboot.)
Day 7 - Your favorite non-canon pairing?
Day 8 - Your favorite actor/actress? (Not the same as character.)
Day 9 - What's your favorite episode?
Day 10 - What's your favorite species? (Humans are a species as well.)
Day 11 - What's your least favorite species? (See question 9 about species.)
Day 12 - What's your favorite funny moment?
Day 14 - What's your favorite Star Trek quote?
Day 15 - How did you get into Star Trek?
Day 16 - Are you involved with Star Trek fandom?
Day 17 - Have you read any of the books? If so, which ones?
Day 18 - If you could be any species in the Star Trek universe, what would you be?
Day 19 - How did the Star Trek reboot affect you?
Day 20 - Of the minor characters (one shots, not the recurring ones) who’s your favorite?
Day 21 - Which Star Trek food would you want to try at least once?
Day 22 - Which Star Trek world would you want to visit at least once?
Day 23 - Is there anything you'd want to change about Star Trek? Why?
Day 24 - Is there anything about Star Trek that has disappointed you?
Day 25 - How has Star Trek changed you?
Day 26 - Lots of Star Trek Parodies out there. Which do you dig?
Day 27 - What would you cross over with Star Trek?
Day 28 - Your favourite friendship in Star Trek?
Day 29 - If you could tell Gene Roddenberry one thing, Star Trek related or not, what would it be?
A bit easier to answer, but only a bit, and separately for each incarnation.
TOS + TOS movies: "I am, and always will be, your friend." There's just no beating that for emotional impact, even knowing it'll be undone by the next movie. It's the culmination of decades of friendship on a Watsonian level, and on a Doylist one for the audience (the first time one anyway) watching that friendship. (You have to earn something like Spock's goodbye to Kirk when he's dying, you really can't goo there early on in your story, she growls.) I can make fun of William Shatner's acting style with the rest of the world, but for that particular scene, it wasn't just Nimoy who was in the zone, acting-wise. It's intense and sublime and if you disagree, I just don't want to know.
TNG: upon first time watching, the end of Best of Both Worlds, part I. If you get there unspoiled and see Locutus for the first time, absorb what this means, and then Riker gives his order, you know what I mean. However, while it's still a tense moment during rewatch, and so my choice is another scene. It's the very end of Chain of Command, part II, when Picard admits to Deanna Troi he did see five lights. Before that, I thought the George Orwell rip-off in the torture scenes was well done but flinched from one of the biggest Orwell points - that anyone can be broken, that Winston Smith in 1984 really did see as many fingers as O'Brien wanted him to see at the end. I thought substituting Picard saying "there are four lights" to Gul Madred after his rescue arrives was basically bowlderizing and making something look heroic which shouldn't be glamourized by heroism because it's so real life awful. And then we got to this quiet aftermath scene, and my feelings completely changed. And remained changed during rewatch. For all that TNG gets accused of being sanitized sci fi, not "gritty" the way later shows were, there is this scene in its stark honesty, and it reaffirmed and even strengthened my Picard love. He's the hero of the show AND he's no more invulnerable, in body and spirit, than anyone subjected to such horrors. Also? That he trusts Troi with this information is a good way to show, not tell the importance of her job as counsellor on the Enterprise.
DS9: one of the best is certainly also a quiet scene - Sisko's final statement in In the Pale Moonlight - "I can live with it" (if you've watched the episode, you know why this epitomizes the moral grey of DS9) -, but it's not my favourite. My favourite, depending on my mood, is either Bashir taking Garak's hand in The Wire - "I forgive you, whatever it is you've done" (which, yes, presumptous, but very Julian and very what Garak needed to hear at this moment), or Kira at the end of Duet, learning that the guy who killed Marritza didn't even know who Marritza was (either the pretend identity or the real one), it was enough that M. was a Cardassian. The expression of Kira's face will always stay with me.
Voy: Janeway and Seven in the holding cell in The Gift, when an only recently cut from the Collective Seven faces the new and (to her at this point) terrible reality of being an individual again and tells Janeway she's forcing this on her, countering Janeways pro free will speech with the question that if she, as a free individual, would want to return to the Collective, would Janeway let her? This was when I thought "this idea of having an ex drone on board is actually turning into something interesting that hadn't been done on TNG before, and was riveted.
Reboot: for all my growling about a certain imitiation earlier, the reboot did offer more than one dramatic scene I loved. For my favourite, again depending on my mood, I choose either Spock's showdown with the Vulcan Academy (this had been one of the most speculated about scenes of Trek fan lore, and I do love this version, including Quinto managing to make "live long and prosper" sound like "up yours"), or Pike's scene with beaten up young Kirk in the bar, which managed to make reboot Pike into one of my favourite Starship Captains and was just the right mixture of fatherly and no-nonsense to drag reboot Kirk into a future.
Day 1 - Which Star Trek series is your favorite?
Day 2 - Who is your favorite character?
Day 3 - Who is your least favorite character?
Day 4 - What was the first episode/movie you watched?
Day 5 - What was the first Star Trek series you watched?
Day 6 - Your favorite canon pairing? (Canon being the series and the movies, including the reboot.)
Day 7 - Your favorite non-canon pairing?
Day 8 - Your favorite actor/actress? (Not the same as character.)
Day 9 - What's your favorite episode?
Day 10 - What's your favorite species? (Humans are a species as well.)
Day 11 - What's your least favorite species? (See question 9 about species.)
Day 12 - What's your favorite funny moment?
Day 14 - What's your favorite Star Trek quote?
Day 15 - How did you get into Star Trek?
Day 16 - Are you involved with Star Trek fandom?
Day 17 - Have you read any of the books? If so, which ones?
Day 18 - If you could be any species in the Star Trek universe, what would you be?
Day 19 - How did the Star Trek reboot affect you?
Day 20 - Of the minor characters (one shots, not the recurring ones) who’s your favorite?
Day 21 - Which Star Trek food would you want to try at least once?
Day 22 - Which Star Trek world would you want to visit at least once?
Day 23 - Is there anything you'd want to change about Star Trek? Why?
Day 24 - Is there anything about Star Trek that has disappointed you?
Day 25 - How has Star Trek changed you?
Day 26 - Lots of Star Trek Parodies out there. Which do you dig?
Day 27 - What would you cross over with Star Trek?
Day 28 - Your favourite friendship in Star Trek?
Day 29 - If you could tell Gene Roddenberry one thing, Star Trek related or not, what would it be?
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