Why Do I (we) Criticize Star Trek So Much?

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ArcticFox
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Because I don't know about you guys, but I love it.

I do. I love Star Trek. I love all of it. When Star Trek is good, it's REALLY good and when it's bad, it's silly. I pick on it because it interests me enough to pay attention at that level and it's rare for Sci Fi to do that. I crack on episodes that get the physics wrong or how Riker should have been fired but I don't have any malice. I just like to have fun analyzing it as though it were real.

Now, I do think some shows, like Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica are better, but there's plenty of love in my heart for all forms of speculative sci fi.
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ccgr
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The newer Star Wars got it's fair share of nitpicking too ;)

I still haven't brought myself to watch the original Battlestar Galactica, have you?
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ArcticFox
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Oh I grew up on the original. It was awesome, and seems campy by today's standards but still stands up on its own.

What I have found fun now that I'm a grown up and a member of the church I am, is that there are a lot of Mormon references in it because the original series creator, Glen Larson, is a Mormon and drew heavily on it when creating the show. Seems like every time I watch it now I find something new. Some of that even survived into the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.
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ArchAngel
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True, but the nit picking for the newer Star Wars is a different animal altogether.
For Star Wars, we pick on the story progression, character development, script, etc. You know, as just a poor movie. Star Trek is about where they fudged the science details.

And it's a good question, Arctic. Above all other sci-fi, it seems it's the most fun to nit pick on Star Trek's technicalities. It certainly presents itself as a much more intellectual and technical show than just about anything else out there, and maybe it's the same kind of thrill at proving the smart kid wrong. With all the technobabble, *ahem, treknobabble and all the scientific references, if you can understand it and see through the mistakes, it feels like a badge of honor.
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ArcticFox
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I think that's definitely part of it... (the proving the smart kid wrong thing) but I also think you're right in pointing out the part where the show presents itself as being all technical and intellectual.

But I also think a big chunk of it is that it's more relatable than most other speculative SciFi. These characters are (mostly) humans, in the not terribly distant future. We expect things to be more or less a reflection of our own day and age, and so things that don't mesh well tend to get our attention.

I think another part is that in terms of sheer volume of content, Star Trek beats everything else. Hundreds of TV episodes, a dozen movies, a truckload of games... We know the Star Trek universe better than any other setting, so that it really feels almost real in a way that none other can, and I think that tends to make us a little less forgiving of anomalies and inconsistencies.
"He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool."
—Brigham Young

"Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus."
—Christopher Hitchens
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