Star Trek

Though I was only a little kid, I remember seeing people leaving the theatre crying when Spock died.

I remember sitting in the theatre and hearing the line: "Jim, you better get down here... better, hurry." My guts got all knotted up. I couldn't believe what I knew had happened. I was a bit teary eyed during that entire scene.

The destruction og the Enterprise in TSFS was a close second. After all the times that the captain had threatened self-destruct over the years, he actually did it. All of those deaths were sad, but these two were the worst.

Would be a tie between Data and Enterprise-D for me, since I loved that Starship from the very first moment I have seen it.

Quote (Captain_Storma @ July 15 2009, 8:06 am)

Would be a tie between Data and Enterprise-D for me, since I loved that Starship from the very first moment I have seen it.

I didn't think either Data or the Ent-D's deaths had as much impact as Spock and the original Enterprise's.

Spock's death was a really really big deal and it was expertly played by Nimoy and Shatner.  TWOK, with Kirk facing his age and lost oppotunities for a family and Spock's death, was the seminal movie of ST.  Leonard Nimoy and Robert Orci were absolutely right about that.  In TWOK, the characters truly transcended their TV origins and became real.  Spock's death was really the most powerful example of that.  In TWOK, ST was changed (seemingly) irrevocably.  

Data's death was well done too, but, imo, not nearly as well as Spock's.  No words were exchanged between him and Picard.  We did see a bit of a wake afterwards and Picard explaining to B4 what Data's life was all about.  Pretty good.

But it just wasn't scripted as well as Spock's death was.  And then, of course, it wasn't really a novel thing anymore, since by that time, we'd seen major ST characters die before, i.e. Spock, Kirk, Jadzia, Yar, etc.

The death of the original Enterprise was up there with Spock's death.  In some ways it was more shocking.  How can you have ST, without the voyages of the starship Enterprise?!!?  It was done so well too, with Kirk's determination, Scotty's anger, and Chekov's shock reflected in their voices.  It was drawn out and it was agonizing.  You can totally here the pain in Kirk's death as he mourned his true love burning up in reentering the atmosphere of the Genesis planet.  It was another of those seminal moments in ST.  I remember reading Shatner's response to the death of the Enterprise.  He said he thought, like Spock's death, it was a great dramatic device.  Deaths are great for drama.  That said, if you're going to do one, you better get all you can from it, because, once it's done you can bring it back (unless, of course, it's Spock, Data, or the Enterprise (if you subscribe to the A, B, C, D, thing as a continuation of the same ship, which I don't.  There was only one NCC-1701 and the rest never ever replaced it, they only succeeded it)).

In contrast, in GEN, the fully operational Ent-D was taken out by an antiquated Klingon BOP, a ship it outgunned both in terms of firepower and technology.  Yeah, the destruction of the Ent-D was spectacular and it was good that it was different from the death of the original (the real) Enterprise, which was a good thing.  But, man, that was a really ignoble end to that ship.  Unlike the original Enterprise, which was around, what, 45 years old or more, the Ent-D, with its 100 year lifespan, was tanked by an old BOP after only seven years of service.  The other thing is, while it was shocking, I didn't feel nearly as sad at the death of that ship.  I think it's because it had happened before with the original and it was just replaced by the Ent-A and then, later, the Ent-D.  You just knew there was just going to be an Ent-E.  The only question is what it would look like.  So you pretty much lost a lot of the drama there with the death of the Ent-D.  Still, if they were going to do it, you'd think they'd have at least written a better way for it to go.    

The other thing about the Ent-D's death is that the characters didn't seem to care that much about it.  You had some shock after the crash, obviously.  And that scene with Picard and Riker was a nice one at the end (another of those good scenes in that mostly bad film), where Riker wistfully says he always wanted to sit in that chair (maybe that's how NEM should've ended, with Picard leaving command to Riker of the ENT.  Actually, I think I would've preferred that.  It emphasizes that NEM is truly the end of TNG with Picard handing the seat to Riker), but that's it.  Compare that too TSFS where you can just see the agony and sadness in the faces of the original crew and the agony in Kirk's voice, knowing that he scuttled the thing he loved most in life.  It's not the death of a ship, like the Ent-D was to Riker and Picard, it's the death of a family member to Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Chekov, and Sulu.

So, in the case of the Ent-D, knowing that there would just be another ENT clone (figure of speech), and seeing that the characters weren't too broken up about it, that just kind of left me kind of cold to the whole thing.  I was more like, well, that was a pretty cool sequence, something I haven't seen before in ST.  When I saw TSFS, though, it was more like "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!"    

So, to sum it up, if I had to rank those four deaths, it would be

1.  Spock
2.  The Enterprise
3.  Data
4.  ENT-D
   
The question I struggle with, though, is where does Kirk death fit here?  Was it better or worse than Data's?  I think it was, maybe, a little bit better.  I dunno.  I'm of the same opinion as Ron Moore, the guy who wrote that death, and a lot of other fans.  It was something that should've been so much better than it was.  Moore said that it completely failed to have the impact they wanted and that it was their fault (his, Braga, and Berman), not Shatner's, Stewart's, McDowell's, or the director and I agree with that.  

It was more permanent than Data's, so it has that going for it.  Kirk's not Spock or Data, he wasn't going to come back (although I know he does in Shatner's books).  

I still can't decide between the two.

Spock's is sad, but I love to watch it and cry.  However, he comes back so I'm okay with it.

So I voted for Data's death because he doesn't come back.  I don't like to watch Data's--it's way too sad.

DATA Of Course

I have got to go with Spock. I remember when that came out in theaters, and me and a couple of buddies went to see it. When people in the theatre realized that Spock had actually died, you could have heard a pin drop. I know that I could just about hear my own heart beating. When we walked out of the theatre, there were actually some people crying. My second choice would be atie between George Kirk and Tasha Yar. George Kirk died honorably, as did Yar, but Yar's death was a senseless death.

As always... depends on the connection you have to the show rs!

I grew up with TNG, GENERATIONS was the first TREK movie I saw in cinema. I was 12 years old, in love with the Galaxy-Class...seeing it blown up was like a world going down for me

Oh, and she had a noble end. She saved almost all her crew, has proven herself worthy.... just like McCoy said in the pilot... Treat her well and she will get you home.

Quote (guke27 @ July 17 2009, 11:58 am)

DATA Of Course

Someone that agrees with me!

Here is another one. I know crewman Lon Suter from Voyagers season 1 was not a main cast member but his death was kind of sad in an empathetic sort of way. Especially after he saved the ship. That was a very nice story arc dealing with an insane serial killer. I hope we see that kind of arc on Trek sometime in the future.

Spock in TWOK. Hands down the 'best'.

I sobbed like a baby. Just crushed.

I saw it at a drive in and the car lights started coming up and people started driving out right after Kirk's 'I feel young' line when the camera starts is swoop across the planet towards the photon tube.

So...I missed the photon tube.  Spock was just dead.

I musta grieved for a month.

Quote (Captain_Storma @ July 18 2009, 2:07 am)

As always... depends on the connection you have to the show rs!

I feel like I have a strong connection with both ST and TNG, Storma. ?I was one of the original TNG fans, the ones that Berman and Braga both describe as "the core fans." ?I was with the franchise from ST to VOY. ?Also, I was there on opening weekend for NEM too, so they can't blame me along with the rest of the core fans for deserting the TNG cast, like they've done in their interviews (which I thought was a really ridiculous excuse btw, saying that since the "core fans" had now gotten jobs and families, they didn't have the time to see NEM. ?Yeah, right.). ? ? ?