And, for the record, I'll be the first to admit - a lot of Rand is crap. But she has one hell of a lot better ideas than most.

Oh, and Re: Balance:

"Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or their definitions, it is not true to say that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree." - Aristotle

@obiwan

PLEASE smaller paragraphs. You HAD been doing so good until NOW.

Re: Star Trek

I just decided to rewatch DS9. It's gonna be great.

But as the intro music played, I realized that my preference for the shows directly mirrors my affection for their themes, and I realized how representative of the shows the themes are.

DS9's theme is a theme that is somber, yet triumphant, which reflects the show. The show was about the real side of life - Star Trek up to that point had been an idealistic utopia. It was a show about suffering, war, and death, yet also family, love, and happiness. It was about how even in the darkest times, you can find hope in certain things. It was a show with philosophical substance.

Voyager was about a lot of the same things, but in a different way. It was more about hope, rather than suffering through the bad for the glimpses of good. It was never about suffering, like DS9 was, but it was every bit, and more so, about family.

TNG's theme was corny, at best. It is all about excitement and adventure. Both are good, but they're not really philosophical. It was few and far between when TNG addressed real philosophical issues.

And TOS was even worse. I don't even know what to say. But it was the 60's, so whatever.

And let's not even talk about Enterprise. Country Music : Orchestral Music :: Enterprise : The rest of the franchise.

My favorite Star Trek theme, actually, goes to First Contact though. That was a great piece of music.

Similarly, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, speaking in 2002 stated; "I think if Next Generation and The Original Series were about going out there and discovering new things about other races, Deep Space Nine is about staying in one place and discovering new things about ourselves. Not that we didn't go out there and discover things, but we had the same characters, we didn't change location every week. Sisko couldn't just solve a problem and sail off into the sunset, and never have to go back to that place again. That place was always there, and that problem could always come back to haunt him. So, in a lot of ways, it was a more complex show."

From Memory Alpha. If you ever read all of the reasons for DS9 on there, that's exactly why I love the show.

I looked at this thread, saw the wall of text, skipped it, and am going to suggest that the chronicles of narnia had an awful sequel

The chronicles of Narnia completely sucked in my opinion. I waste of my time to watch the movie and a bigger waste to read it to try and understand what was going on in the movie

@rumley
"It was few and far between when TNG addressed real philosophical issues."

TNG was absolutly philosophical rumley, in almost every sequel it was about philosophical problems. Morality and its borders are the main topics of TNG sequels.
DS9 is more religious and a copy of our world somehow.

@ Miro: What do you mean sequel? The movies? I count the movies separately from the TV show. And the TNG movies were spectacular.

yeah! I too put my vote down as DS9 being the best star trek series, individually I prefer the TNG crew of data and Picard but overall the cast of DS9 was better. I have never seen Voyager (besides the first few episodes) I took a dislike to janeway, TOS, hmmm with points for breaking ground and all that but I find Shatner is annoying and pompous.

DS9's biggest (and really only) weakness was the static nature of it. No "boldly going" anywhere on a space station. But, like Babylon 5, they used story to make up for it and with the addition of the Defiant they suddenly could make the story arcs reach far beyond the station itself.

And with four of the hottest babes to hit the small screen (both Jadzia and Ezri Dax, Kira Nerys, and Leeta the dabo girl), it always kept my attention...

Oh, and musically, the TNG theme was the theme from ST:TMP, just sped up.

My favorites shows are DS9, TOS, TNG, Enterprise, Voyager.

Coincidentally, my favorite Captains/Commanders are reflected in this as well. Sisko was simple the best. When he decks Q and Q says "Picard never hit me!", his response "I'm *not* Picard!" made me say "yes! Finally a real commander again!" That's also why I like Kirk. He wasn't afraid to brawl and could hold his own in a fight.

Picard did once in a great while, and it is why First Contact is on of my fav movies. He basically has the balls to take the fight to the Borg.

Archer could fight too, but I felt like Bakula should have taken this role when he was younger. He's a decent actor (just watch Men of a Certain Age to see what I mean), but he looked more like he could habndle himself in a fight when he did Quantum Leap.

Janeway, was more likely to send her opponents cowering with her pompous attitude and was useless in a fight. All they ever did on that show was use phasers.

I would just like to state the the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie was possibly the worst movie of all time. It was enormously disappointing.

It's M. Night Shyamalan. What did you expect? He hasn't done a decent movie since Unbreakable. Signs was fine until the whole contrived ending (who leaves the fucking axe in the basement when they've just been attacked by aliens?!), and the Village was a total waste (like they are so powerful they can prevent an airplane from flying over in all that time?). I stopped watching his movies after that. Watch a Tim Burton flick. It'll be much better.

Cyrano - no matter how bad Avatar:TLA is, it cannot be as jaw-droppingly awful as Transformers 2

Back on topic - DS9 is the best ST series. DS9 and B5, Ahh

And the films - WoK, TVH, TUC, FC are all great, although TVH is more a comedy than anything else. The reboot was interesting, and I'm hoping the follow up (if they make one) complies to the even number theory

I didn't like TUC. It was too mystical for my tastes.

And they're definitely making a follow up, i'm pretty sure.
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Untitled_Star_Trek_sequel

I think Transformers 2 did a great job of retaining cannon from the TV show.

TUC mystical? Don't you mean TFF with the whole God/Satan thing? TUC was a great flick with lots of political intrigue: perfect for a fan of Diplomacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_VI

Read it and tell me, please, where there is *any* mysticism.

@Pete - Did you like Nemesis at all? Picard going mano-a-mano with Shinzon was great, but I've always wondered how the hell Janeway could have become an Admiral while Picard was still a Captain.

Transformers two was way worse than one in my opinion. the two wangster hybrids, terminator, and plot holes made it unbearable for me.

Loved the first one though

Yeah, you're right Draugnar, I meant TFF. Final Frontier and Undiscovered Country are pretty similar names. :-)

TUC was pretty good, you're right. Time to rank the movies: :-)

1. Star Trek: Insurrection (9)
2. Star Trek: First Contact (8)
3. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (2)
7. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (6)
4. Star Trek (2009) (11)
5. Star Trek: Nemesis (10)
6. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (3)
8. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (4)
9. Star Trek: Generations (7)
10. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1)
11: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier(5)

I put the numbers there so we could look at the even/odd curse too. :-)

For me its:

1. WoK (2) - The standard to be beat.
2. FC (8) - Really damn good story on the ship, not bad on the ground, awesome opening conflict with the Borg.
3. ST 2K9 (11) - Nice reboot in an alternate universe.
4. TUC (6) - Great political intrigue.
5. TSS (3) - Destruction of the Enterprise! Gutsy move on the franchises part.
6. Nemesis (10) - Second best multiship and second best ship to ship battle(s) of the franchise.
7. Generations (7) - While less gutsy, the destruction of the Ent-D was visually awesome and Data's "Oh, shit." was perfect.
8. TVH (4) - Just fun, despite the whole :"Save the Whale's" theme.
9. TMP (1) - Better than the last two by virtue of the concept.
10. Insurrection (9) - Should have been a 2-part episode of the series. The plot wasn't worthy of a movie.
11. TFF (5) - Super being trapped on planet and unable to leave still manages to get psychic links string enough to draw others to him. He waited how long to do this why? Just a stupid plot. "Where No Man Has Gone Before" covered this ground already and much better story-wise.

Draug, how could you!

Insurrection was incredible! Its plot was no less complicated that WoK was. And it couldn't have been part of the show, because a fundamental premise was that the Federation was going through hard times, and was about to collapse. That didn't happen until the Dominion War.

Change the motivation to something else for the Admiral and you still get a story line that could have been a b-grade two part episode. Data losing his mind and being revealed to an entire planet/community thereby violating the Prime Directive had already been done on the show in "Thine Own Self" (Season 7 - Episode 16 or Episode 168 - Stardate 47611.2) and it was a much better episode.

And Khan wasn't about plot. It was about a fight to the death between Khan and Kirk. Arrogant "superior" intellect versus experienced, die-hard Captain.

Own, and computers going insane... 2001/2010 anyone? That was the whole reaosn HAL 9000 killed the crew was a conflict in his primary and secondary orders.

Should be "Oh" not "Own".

I'm with Draugnar on this. Insurrection wasn't a bad movie, but considering some of the 2 part episodes from TNG, it wasn't particular good either. ( Would have been a great 2-3 part episode... same criticism I have of Generations, really)

I guess I like the more gritty Ronald Moore type stories, which is why I dig on DS9 more. No surprise I loved BSG.... when a mutiny happens, major people face a damn firing squad!

BSG was probably one of the best shows I've ever seen... when it started out. I can't bear to watch the fourth season it's so bad though.

You can say the same thing about Insurrection though, Draugnar. Insurrection wasn't about the plot. It was about Picard taking a stand against the Federation.