The cat one is enjoyable in a stylistic way, but the first one is just generally good. It’s a little bit sad, showing two people sharing a sunset on a beach together, and ends with one side feeling alone even while sharing the moment. It’s like, to the narrator, the science of it, the how of it doesn’t detract from the beauty of it, it’s what makes it beautiful. And the other person makes it seem like to think about it is to stop enjoying it.
It’s got irony, it’s got depth, it seems like it represents a lot of Data’s experiences, and it does it with a pleasant scene. I think that poem was fantastic, and it blows my mind that the people in that room would be anything but impressed.
Plus he asks geordi’s opinion, of all people, about feelings on a somewhat romantic, wistful poem. Geordi, whose idea of creating a romantic atmosphere is to awkwardly half lie half sit on a beach towel while a rando circles around playing violin at you.
Data has troubles understanding emotion, but this poem is about a win in that regard.
It’s about two lovers or friends watching the sunset. One of them is enjoying the beauty on an emotional level. The other is enjoying it on a platonic level, because that is Data. Data starts explaining how the scientific processes cause the view, but the other person tells data to shut up, silently hinting that they just want to enjoy the moment with Data. Data picks up on that hint and stops talking to simply enjoy the sunset together. Picking up on that social que, was a huge accomplishment for data, that’s why he wrote a poem about it.
There’s no sadness at all. It’s all about overcoming you limitations. It’s a celebration.
I really really love this scene. On the one hand, Lorca is just doing the typical bad ass thing as you rightly point out. But on the other hand? Dude can’t look at bright light.
So in my head it’s just Lorca going “Okay, now I gotta turn and walk away because otherwise I’m gonna bend over and scream in agony. I look cool right? I think I look cool. OH GOD ITS SO BRIGHT EVEN THOUGH ITS BEHIND ME. FUCK. FOCUS ON BURNHAM FOCUS ON BURNHAM FOCUS ON BURNHAM. Alright, now nod like a badass. Alright. Cool. I did it. Where’s my ready room as I can no longer fucking see?”
You know, Klingons, for all the cheese they got saddled with over the decades, were sometimes given some truly amazing moments like that one. They’re this hyper macho, warrior driven and hide-bound culture, but they value friendship in a beautiful way. They really get loyalty to a friend in a way that no other in-universe culture does.
They also grasp mental health better than people might think. Such as Martok and Worf watching Garak face his claustrophobia in order to save them:
Martok: There is no greater enemy than one's own fears.
Worf: It takes a brave man to face them.
And this admiration is coming from people who consider the Cardassians to be bitter enemies, which is even more astounding given how devious and dishonourable Garak can be.
I mean, they set up that line as a joke, an actor cursed with his own success to repeat the same fucking line over and over and over. It could have easily been a one-note punchline, the catchphrase that made the creator cringe.
But it is because of his success that the line takes on a meaning for all the fans, inspiring a generation of followers to live better lives and engage with the community they love. So he must endure the cringe, because it pays the bills.
And then someone takes it seriously. Like, they create the thing he imagined, and now the line is fucking real. Real people (aliens) believe in Grabthar and Warvan, and truly believe that it means something to swear by Grabthar’s hammer and the sons of Warvan. And it’s Alexander’s worst fucking nightmare, because he can’t say it was all made up. Lives depend on believing their shared fiction. He must endure the cringe or people will die.
And then someone does die. Quelleck lived his life by the fictional code of the Mak’Tar, because he believed with all of his soul that it was the honorable life worth living. And it wasn’t religion or revelation, it was just Alexander’s acting, the role he embodied, playing out on an old tv show. That formed the basis for Quelleck’s life, and now that life was being sacrificed.
Alexander looked into Quelleck’s eyes and said the fucking line, because for the first time, maybe ever, he actually meant it. It was the greatest, and final, moment of Quelleck’s life. It was real. It wasn’t acting, it wasn’t art, it wasn’t a job. Dr. Lazarus stood up and avenged Quelleck.
Galaxy Quest was a much better movie than it had any right to be.
This happens in the episode where everyone prematurely ages, and they are sent through the transporter to make them their “normal” ages. There’s no reason given why they couldn’t do that all the time.
Man, I really, really wish the writers had the foresight and carefulness in their writing to come up with some acceptable phlebotinum justifying why transporter clones and other various transporter transformations not just don't, but indeed can't happen.
I get that it makes for some plotlines, but it also makes for so much idiotic fridge logic. Like "why don't they save a pattern buffer copy of EVERY away team in case of emergency" or "why isn't the federation using a volunteer clone army for military engagements" or indeed what we here.
Or even "why isn't federation surgery just loading someone into the transporter buffer then editing their XML to fix the injury".
And don't even get me started by the wasted potential of holography, especially during and post-Voyager.
...until you realize that even the Jem'Hadar won't do it. They had transporters, right? I could maybe buy that the Romulans, Cardassians, and Klingons would refuse to do it based on some combination of pride and honor, maybe. I could never buy that an organization like Section 31 wouldn't, though, or any number of the monster-of-the-week species.
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