Daystrom Institute
Welcome to Daystrom Institute!
Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.
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All threads and comments submitted to the Daystrom Institute must contain an explanation of the reasoning put forth.
2. No whinging, jokes, memes, and other shallow content.
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Episode Guides
The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:
- Kraetos’ guide to Star Trek (the original series)
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Animated Series
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Darth_Rasputin32898’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- OpticalData’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
- petrus4’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
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I'm glad somebody else has brought up that TWoK sort of feels at odds with Trek despite being the best of the films. However, I say it is still the best Trek movie because:
It focuses on the characters who know from Star Trek, and their growth, change, loss, and acceptance is critical to the story. While the things that happen to them aren't limited to Trek characters, Kirk, Spock, et al. were the definition of "Star Trek" at the time.
The militaristic aspects aren't totally foreign to Star Trek. While exploration was always at the forefront of their mission, Starfleet was (as Carol Marcus pointed out) still a military organization. What has happened is that the exploration/scientific aspects in the story have been initially shifted to Dr. Marcus.
The sci-fi aspects and story telling are still very strong, it's just that Kirk and Khan shooting each other in a nebula is so great that we forget they're there.
The increased breathing room of a full motion picture that doesn't have to delve into the backgrounds of the characters we already know gives the story room to breath, and unlike TOS we have time to let events that aren't driven strictly by the "gimmick" of the scifi aspect intermingle and impact with the plot device(s).
I still hold that TMP is the most "Trek" of the movies, but TWoK is the best of the movies while still being sufficiently "Trek."