my unpopular Star Trek opinions: Pulaski is no more bigoted than Bones and actually learns to grow beyond it, yet she’s hated and Bones is lauded. why do you think that is? Pine is the best Kirk i said what i said (caveat: haven’t seen enough of Paul Wesley yet to rank him in my Kirk hierarchy) - ThreadSky

tillybridges.bsky.social • 16 days ago

my unpopular Star Trek opinions:

Pulaski is no more bigoted than Bones and actually learns to grow beyond it, yet she’s hated and Bones is lauded. why do you think that is?

Pine is the best Kirk i said what i said

(caveat: haven’t seen enough of Paul Wesley yet to rank him in my Kirk hierarchy)

Reposted from Adam Mallinger

What’s your unpopular Star Trek opinion?

1) after 20 years, the post-finale continuity in the novels was due for a reset.

2) I liked the novelverse conclusion in CODA.

3) The main characters on LOWER DECKS ending up crucial to many Cerritos missions kinda undermines the hook of the show

Comments

meemawblinkie.bsky.social•15 days ago

Pulaski was clearly written to be like Bones, but older women characters aren't ALLOWED to be like that you see. Only men and MAYBE conventionally attractive younger women.

tillybridges.bsky.social•15 days ago

🎯

leebwood.bsky.social•15 days ago

My unpopular Star Trek opinions:

1. Jellico was the finest captain in all the franchise.

2. The Defiant is the most godawful starship design in the franchise.

3. Overall, DS9 feels like a failed experiment.

amandajealous.bsky.social•16 days ago

💯% agree with you about Pulaski. She grows out of her prejudice towards synthetic life and Data specifically, quite quickly. I feel like she wasn’t given much of a chance as a character, in part because she’s an older woman with staunch opinions.

tillybridges.bsky.social•16 days ago

💯💯💯

amandajealous.bsky.social•16 days ago

Also she fucked your dad and will tell you about it. I love her.

tillybridges.bsky.social•16 days ago

yeah she was kind of a queen. actually sad we never saw more of her

amandajealous.bsky.social•16 days ago

I never finished reading these novels, but she’s features quite heavily in this story. Maybe worth checking out if you’re really hankering for more Pulaski.

kayleeofcoffee.bsky.social•16 days ago

pulaski was a great character

tillybridges.bsky.social•16 days ago

smashingcrumpet.bsky.social•16 days ago

Considering the difference between PineKirk and ShatnerKirk is one was raised by his father and the other wasn't, Chris Hemsworth (playing his Dad) should have done all of his lines with the Shatner delivery. Make it obvious why Pine wasn't using it.

tillybridges.bsky.social•16 days ago

ehhh not a fan, they’re playing the same character but are different actors and it’s fine for them to interpret them differently

for me the issue is Shatner’s Kirk, while compassionate and kind, is smarmy af

Pine replaces the smarm with overconfidence, and that endears him to me much more

stardustrohrig.com•16 days ago

Because Spock gave as good as he got to Bones - it was mutual conflict with each other while being able to work together.

Pulaski disatained and mocked Data repeatedly without any regard for him as an actual being.

stardustrohrig.com•16 days ago

should note I was never in fandom so I don't know the extent of the hate she got and it was probably far more than I am aware. But the above is my feeling on it. I will never forgive Pulaski for the "does it know what it's doing?" bullshit.

tillybridges.bsky.social•16 days ago

do you forgive Bones for calling Spock a literal devil? For mocking him and his culture literally every chance he got? Because most people do, and i think that’s very telling

stardustrohrig.com•16 days ago

That's fair and I forgot that line. Pulaski sticks more in my head because I was a kid when I watched it and I will never forget how she treated Data. And also Gordie to some extent though that gets more complicated because the VISOR was causing him pain so he needed something to fix that.

tillybridges.bsky.social•16 days ago

right but the point is she learned she was wrong and changed and grew beyond her bigotry. she was given an arc to become a better person, but she’s almost universally hated

whereas Bones never, ever grew beyond his bigotry that’s played for laughs, and is celebrated

that’s the crux of the issue

stardustrohrig.com•16 days ago

right but .... it was also fairly obvious that Bones and Spock were friends. Mostly (again could be miss remembering or possibly only thinking of the movies without remembering enough of the show). Or hell the books.

tillybridges.bsky.social•16 days ago

it’s okay for characters to have flaws and then change because they want to be better people, that’s my favorite kind of character actually

creating characters that make you feel things about them is the whole job of writers, actors, and directors

tillybridges.bsky.social•16 days ago

so what you’re doing here is justifying Bones’s severe racism because it was played for laughs, while the fact that it was played for laughs is *part of the problem*

Pulaski’s was taken seriously and she’s the only one of the two who learned to be better

there’s a lot of misogyny wrapped up in it

stardustrohrig.com•16 days ago

I didn't say anything about it being played for laughs I'm focusing on the part where Spock gave as good as he got there was never a moment that Spock didn't say anything right back to Bones. There was never that ability with Data to Pulaski.

tillybridges.bsky.social•16 days ago

That has nothing to do with the act of Bones’s racism though. Just because Spock replied to it doesn’t lessen the fact of what it was

stardustrohrig.com•16 days ago

Okay I think the problem is that I didn't understand it as racism ... it's mutual antagonistic comments from both of them against both of their species and there's no differential of power in their relationship. But I'll take your point. Still think Pulaski's treatment of Data was just cruelty.

davetoms.bsky.social•16 days ago

Fully agree!

Pulaski hate is somewhat tied to Crusher love. Fans lost Crusher so they were gonna hate whoever replaced her. Plus, misogyny ramps up Pulaski hate in ways Bones wouldn't get.

Pine is great! Plus, f*** Shatner. He's a hateful, ignorant old man.

maegodhavemercy.com•15 days ago

I only “hated” Pulaski at the time because she WASN’T CRUSHER. Time has certainly given me the perspective to enjoy her character, but also to hate the reason she was brought on to the show.

Pine is the best Kirk FOR NOW, but goddamn if Paul ain’t gaining on him. :D

tillybridges.bsky.social•15 days ago

oh yeah the behind the scenes stuff with the ladies in early TNG was awful, and i love Bev, but none of that’s Pulaski’s fault

kaelyrhn.kayleighbourquin.com•16 days ago

I'd argue that Pulaski, even at her most bigoted, is less bigoted than McCoy

drew-siragusa.bsky.social•16 days ago

I hate Section 31. A socialist utopia protected by secret fascist police is a fascist state, not a socialist utopia.

tillybridges.bsky.social•16 days ago

i like them *as villains*, which is what they should be as they’re the antithesis of everything the Federation and Starfleet stand for (and that’s how DS9 treated them when they were created)

turning them into anti-heroes, especially in the present political climate, is problematic for me

emiliagb.bsky.social•16 days ago

There were better ways to approach it if they wanted to play with the idea. Special Circumstances from the Culture novels, for instance.

For the S31 show proper, they could have lifted the whole concept from Leverage -- that thrust of bad guys doing the work good guys can't fits Trek's optimism

mymindopens.bsky.social•16 days ago

I liked them as villains in Discovery.

I thought that they could have evolved into a more nuanced intelligence agency working in the grey areas, with more interesting moral choices. But alas….

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