Opinionated Voyager Episode Guide sees the return of Species 8472, for those of you who like CGI monsters in your Star Trek. See more videos at sfebris.com
It's actually a very well considered plan; Outcome 1: Neelix dies- WIN Outcome 2: Neelix is helpful- very unlikely, but technically a win for the ship as a whole. Outcome 3: Neelix screws up so badly that Tuvok is finally able to convince Janeway to throw him off the ship- definite WIN
@@g1darkhand14 Outcome 4: Neelix does a Neelix and wanders off during duty, but this time, being a security officer, puts him under Starfleet discipline rules and means Tuvok can send him to the brig for a week WIN
"You don't want to tell the sacred tale of the man who got his head removed and shoved up his rectum, do you Chakotay?" I almost choked. And given the 'native' advisor they had for the show, I would be surprised if that was considered for a script.
My theory is that Neelix was temporarily promoted to being a security officer to prevent him from making the crew sick with food poisoning in that delicate time.
Reduced points for having the news cutaway go to ABC rather than UPN. Also reduced points for missing the opportunity to make a Tom and Jerry joke when Paris mentions the mouse.
Even then, the Doctor has the Emergency Command Program so he has some programmed tactics/training, and Seven was a part of the collective, so there's a good chance that she has some memories of any soldier that was assimilated. All of this to say: Neelix is even more useless
You also have to give them credit: that episode from season 4 was one of the few that tried at making television. (evidenced, among others, by the Heirogen ship and the way the scenes are shot to create an alien feeling and also creepy vibe)
7:17 Original script - Melodeon: "I once tracked down a ham sandwich in a vegan restaurant"; Chakotay: "I once dreamt I pursued Khan 'round the Moons of Nibia and 'round the Antares Maelstrom and 'round Perditions Flames. With my spewit guide"; Melodeon: "PUNY HUUU-MON"; Paris: "I once got through my wifes underwear drawer in a week"; All 3 turn to camera; "Impressive". CUT AND PRINT!
Okay, stupid as the dialog in Voyager can be, I got a good laugh out of Tom's mouse chasing comeback. Felt like a nice bit of taking the piss out of big scary hunterman.
I wonder when you'll get around to mentioning the time Neelix breached security by letting a convicted felon contact unknown parties who tried attacking Voyager to break said prisoner out.
If the Vidiians want your lungs, they're going to just beam them right out of your body. Could've happened to anyone. Wasn't Neelix's fault. He didn't even know such a thing was possible.
Of course but it was still funny. Just seems like the kind of thing that would happen to Neelix. I got love for Neelix actually but he is too easy to clown on.
9:40 Actually Tuvox's bringing Neelix makes sense, just hear me out. You give the cook a mock-up phaser rifle, and use him as bait. While Species 8472 is mauling him, the rest shoot the target thus killing two birds with one stone. 😎
I don't know ... using Neelix might not be such a bad idea. I just wouldn't give him a phaser, but his knowledge about bioweapons is unmatched. His cheese might even be able to bring down Species 8472. And the Hirogen would never ever fight Neelix - they would die because they couldn't stop laughing when he confronts them.
No no no, Neelix isn’t being armed with a military grade weapon… he’s being armed with a Starfleet phaser rifle. I’d be more concerned if he was given a bb-gun; it could shoot someone’s eye out.
Classic case of over explaining. They were cool because they were mysterious and truly, utterly alien in the humanoid-centric Star Trek future. The second they delved deeper into their species and made them just another humanoid-like they were _done_
And a classic Ttek villain thing. They introduce a virtually unbeatable foe, only to have to weaken it it subsequent episodes to allow for plot devices.
@@planescaped But even their introduction wasn't that good. They are so uber-powerful, one or two shots from their tiny ships can destroy a freaking cube. And then there was the bs with them being the perfect organism. No, stronger than most lifeforms, more intelligent or whatever wasn't enough: they are perfect. And everything afterwarts had to fail, because they couldn't keep them this strong. They could have worked as a looming threat after they were repelled in Scorpion, but i agree, humanizing them made it even worse.
Oh glorious 90s TV-budget CGI, how I do not miss thee... Sorry, Species 8472 looked like complete garbage. I know, they couldn't do a tripedal lifeform with stunt performers in costumes (because of how it moves) or animatronics (considering their budget limitations), but this didn't even look halfway decent in 1998. The effect never visually connects with it's surroundings and couldn't possibly look more "weightless" and "not there". Worst of all, it didn't need to be that way. They could have chosen an anatomy that can be portrayed with performers and practical effects, even a different tripedal one. 8472 could have been anything, as long as it looked scary and more "alien" than the usual bipeds with rubber glued to their faces. "Xtro" had something much better in 1983 that looked genuinely disturbing - it was just good lighting and a performer doing a kind of backwards crab walk in a slimy-looking costume and with a prosthetic face on the back of his head. I have a hard enough time to watch anything with good CGI effects because my brain almost always just refuses to process it as something that is "really there". 8472's look ruined the entire episode for me when I first watched it. I didn't even care about anything else going on in it anymore.
It would be very interesting to see their episodes remastered by a reasonably-competent effects team today with decent modelers and animators against the original film elements. There's nothing inherently bad about the concept just, as you say, the execution.
I don't recall them ever being convincing or looking like they were part of the world either. It was more the idea of them being intriguing... in their debut at least.
Probably my favorite non-humanoid alien in Star Trek is the Horta. Like it's clearly just a guy shuffling around under a tarp with pizza stuff glued to it, but something about it is so endearing. I just wanna snuggle her.
From what I recall (remember it was many years ago) Foundation Imaging was given the gig after being let go from B5. Voyager was in a hurry to have a new enemy of the week so FI used the Shadows models with a couple of tweaks as a basis. A lot of the problems with CGI back then (and now) is the colours and lighting of the CGI does not match that of the live action.
I remember when the producers were so proud of the monster in "Basics": Our first fully CGI creature in Trek! And of course it looked even worse than 8472 later on ...
Wasn't that only established in the game STO? I have no issue with that being the name of Species 8472, but I still ALWAYS think of them as 8472 because that was in the show and not knowing the actual name was kinda nice, not having Starfleet or The Federation NOT know something for a change puts them in a position that they do not fully know or understand this species.
The argument at the end doesn't work for me. Just because we aer individuals doesn't mean we don't have laws and morals. Seven violated those. An individual is not given the right to decide whether someone lives or dies, but she decided that the member of Species 8472 deserved death. I'd expect any crewmember trying that BS to be confined to the brig.
You could argue that she considered its chances to be better on the Hirogen ship than on Voyager. It would have been nice if we had a shot of one of the Hirogen ships suddenly turning its guns on the others.
Except it wasn't BS, it was noble heroism and guts. Damn the consequences to ones career or future. She went with what she felt was right under the circumstances. I may well have done the same if given the same choice.
You have to learn to think for yourself and not equate rules with being right. Policies, rules and procedures CAN be positive and benevolent, OR they can just as soon be unjust, unfair, short-sighted, irrational, unnecessary, or harmful. And, this can change from situation to situation. A certain prohibition or policy might work well for one purpose or person or under some conditions, and not so well under others. Not being able to be flexible is wrong, in my eyes. I'm not saying we can't have uniform systems or policies, but the problem with inflexible laws or rules is that they can't bend to serve the needs of the moment. I'm not sure I believe in full bans or prohibitions or laws against most things. I believe most laws (not all) are an excessive restriction. Life is complex. Theres rarely one simple formula that solves life and works the best in all cases. I know that I almost always put my own moral code above anyone's else, my boss's or the State. When they align - beautiful, but if they dont- then I have a choice to make and I will make it based on multiple factors. I won't compromise my conscience for anyone. And if my values are different from the State or whoever claims authority at the time, then I will choose my values every time, on pain of death or loss or whatever. I haven't had to make a major choice yet, but I'm sure one day I will. I believe in Self over the State with very few exceptions (provided what one chooses doesn't violate the basic rights of others). I don't recognize a State's right to rule over the individual without question or refusal (against big business OTOH...). I don't and I won't. If this causes me problems, so be it. This doesn't mean I dont recognize rational and moral policies or principles when they exist, I certainly do. But when a rule, law or policy is clearly wrong - is harmful or unjust or wrong by my values, I will ignore it, or fight it as necessary. In this case, Seven felt JW (the highest current authority) was wrong. So she acted. That's a good thing. She well may have saved everyone on the ship. JW loves to put her principles of the moment ahead of the welfare of the crew, whether she realizes it or not. It's selfish, whether she has enough humility to recognize it or not. What Seven did may have saved the ship. In time JW may come to realize that herself though I doubt she'd admit it. Or at least she needs to respect her principles that lead her to act. She did defy a direct order but that's a rarity - this was an extreme situation. So it's not like JW has any real cause to worry about Seven going off half-cocked and putting herself or the crew into harm's way. Most of the time she's reliable and cooperative, but this was a unique life-and-death situation. I'd say Seven did the right thing. She thought for herself and put the ship's well-being ahead of a single foreign life whom on its own prior to it's injury posed a major threat (and later so will its people, altho that changes slightly shortly thereafter) Sure one could argue she violated the chain of command in this case but so what??? Everything in life has consequences, Seven was willing to accept them. If people can't think for themselves and break so-called "laws" when it's necessary, more people will suffer in the end. No one rule or law can apply perfectly in every situation. Not one. Not even the PD which Trek itself likes to show over and again. But even irl this is true. Remember that. I mean there's a right and a wrong time to obey. A person with a mature sense of self and a strong moral code will be able to tell the difference when they see it. She did right, but I can see why Her Highness wasn't happy with her afterwards. No doubt her penance was severe. No one gets away with disobeying Her Worshipfulness unscathed. But blind servitude and obedience isn't a virtue, not to me at least. Anyone can be a slave - it takes a hero to do what's right whether you have permission from those in authority or not. Thinking for oneself trumps groupthink (almost) every time. The individual is almost always right when it comes to matters of conscience- everything has rare exceptions of course, but in general, yes that is what I believe. That's my worldview.
I don’t understand this show. Why not just torture and eventually execute the prisoner after he refuses to comply? Reprogramming the nanobots to target the biology of the “hunters” should be a relatively easy task compared to inventing the process in the first place. Then all they need to do is create a self replicating bomb and have it seek out and exterminate the entire species.
A nuke that rains scorpions is *exactly* the sort of weapon Janeway would use.
Or the Brotherhood of Nod. ;)
With Wild Magic anything is possible.
@@TheOneZytel I mean, we all know Janeway is the heir of Kane
Dammed if I wouldn't use it too.
Almost, iso scorpions
To be fair, SF... Tuvok _could_ have deputized Neelix in the hope that one of the intruders might _kill_ him...
That sounds logical! :)
Too complicated; just bung a bunch of Talaxian spices into the torpedo tubes. FIRE!
WAIT! I think I figured out Tuvok's plan. Send in Neelix to DIE and never bother the crew again...too bad it failed
It makes perfect sense!
I never considered that until now. Brilliant!
It's actually a very well considered plan;
Outcome 1: Neelix dies- WIN
Outcome 2: Neelix is helpful- very unlikely, but technically a win for the ship as a whole.
Outcome 3: Neelix screws up so badly that Tuvok is finally able to convince Janeway to throw him off the ship- definite WIN
@@g1darkhand14 Outcome 4: Neelix does a Neelix and wanders off during duty, but this time, being a security officer, puts him under Starfleet discipline rules and means Tuvok can send him to the brig for a week WIN
"You don't want to tell the sacred tale of the man who got his head removed and shoved up his rectum, do you Chakotay?" I almost choked. And given the 'native' advisor they had for the show, I would be surprised if that was considered for a script.
My theory is that Neelix was temporarily promoted to being a security officer to prevent him from making the crew sick with food poisoning in that delicate time.
or perhaps in hopes of using him as canon fodder?
MC Hirogen "We got to prey just to make it today!"
Reduced points for having the news cutaway go to ABC rather than UPN.
Also reduced points for missing the opportunity to make a Tom and Jerry joke when Paris mentions the mouse.
One of the two is a cold calculating machine without feelings of remorse or pity and a large potential for violence. The other one is Seven of Nine.
😂 JW shade will never stop being funny. Never
"IM BATMAN" 😭😭 made me almost spit out my coffee
20/10 did not expect. Perfect placement.
It was pretty dumb of Janeway to tell the Hirogen where 8472 was. She could have not told him or lied and said 8472 escaped on a shuttle or something.
3:50 "... rearranged all the letters to read 'OVER GAY'" - brilliant! WHY didn't we think of that?
"Kill it faster than a massage supporting honk kong protest".. I almost choked on my burger. LoL
Make Neelix a security officer? Aside from Seven and the Doctor he is literally the only person on board without millitary training
Didnt Neelix fight in some war?
@@danielrobinson2861 Nope he dodged the draft
Do the Maquis count as military trained?
@@scockery I'd say yeah, I mean they did fight a guerrilla war
Even then, the Doctor has the Emergency Command Program so he has some programmed tactics/training, and Seven was a part of the collective, so there's a good chance that she has some memories of any soldier that was assimilated.
All of this to say: Neelix is even more useless
Tuvok was hoping Neelix would get his insides beamed out of him again…
tom is everything starfleet needs him to be
You also have to give them credit: that episode from season 4 was one of the few that tried at making television. (evidenced, among others, by the Heirogen ship and the way the scenes are shot to create an alien feeling and also creepy vibe)
Amazing that no one even kneeled or folded hands in this episode. XD
I loved when you called him chocolate-kay. Cause i always called him Chocolate-kotay
Tores: the red shirt of the Voyager series
7:17 Original script - Melodeon: "I once tracked down a ham sandwich in a vegan restaurant";
Chakotay: "I once dreamt I pursued Khan 'round the Moons of Nibia and 'round the Antares Maelstrom and 'round Perditions Flames. With my spewit guide";
Melodeon: "PUNY HUUU-MON";
Paris: "I once got through my wifes underwear drawer in a week";
All 3 turn to camera; "Impressive".
CUT AND PRINT!
"Tom Paris is a cat". 🤣
Okay, stupid as the dialog in Voyager can be, I got a good laugh out of Tom's mouse chasing comeback. Felt like a nice bit of taking the piss out of big scary hunterman.
who would have guessed Seven is a bigger psycho than Janeway...
8:54 Oh yeah, that's the stuff :)
I wonder when you'll get around to mentioning the time Neelix breached security by letting a convicted felon contact unknown parties who tried attacking Voyager to break said prisoner out.
Or his drug deal gone bad.
7:19 anyone else think that Robert Beltran here looks a little bit like temura Morrison's clones when they're in uniform with helmet off?
See, I think our host is getting it all wrong; Tuvok found the perfect means of getting rid of Neelix... It just didn't work out as planned.
If the Vidiians want your lungs, they're going to just beam them right out of your body. Could've happened to anyone. Wasn't Neelix's fault. He didn't even know such a thing was possible.
Of course but it was still funny. Just seems like the kind of thing that would happen to Neelix. I got love for Neelix actually but he is too easy to clown on.
9:40 Actually Tuvox's bringing Neelix makes sense, just hear me out. You give the cook a mock-up phaser rifle, and use him as bait. While Species 8472 is mauling him, the rest shoot the target thus killing two birds with one stone. 😎
Uh... Chuck I believe that would be an Ectum-Ray...
I don't know ... using Neelix might not be such a bad idea. I just wouldn't give him a phaser, but his knowledge about bioweapons is unmatched. His cheese might even be able to bring down Species 8472. And the Hirogen would never ever fight Neelix - they would die because they couldn't stop laughing when he confronts them.
I think neelix was going to be the bait!
No no no, Neelix isn’t being armed with a military grade weapon… he’s being armed with a Starfleet phaser rifle. I’d be more concerned if he was given a bb-gun; it could shoot someone’s eye out.
Just kiss Neelix already chuck ;) I know that is how this Voyager Review series will end.
Janeway would have solved all her problems if she had just eaten Nelix instead of Harry
To me, Species 8472 were good in their introduction, but not really all that interesting afterwards 🤔
Classic case of over explaining.
They were cool because they were mysterious and truly, utterly alien in the humanoid-centric Star Trek future. The second they delved deeper into their species and made them just another humanoid-like they were _done_
And a classic Ttek villain thing. They introduce a virtually unbeatable foe, only to have to weaken it it subsequent episodes to allow for plot devices.
@@planescaped But even their introduction wasn't that good. They are so uber-powerful, one or two shots from their tiny ships can destroy a freaking cube. And then there was the bs with them being the perfect organism. No, stronger than most lifeforms, more intelligent or whatever wasn't enough: they are perfect.
And everything afterwarts had to fail, because they couldn't keep them this strong. They could have worked as a looming threat after they were repelled in Scorpion, but i agree, humanizing them made it even worse.
Oh glorious 90s TV-budget CGI, how I do not miss thee...
Sorry, Species 8472 looked like complete garbage. I know, they couldn't do a tripedal lifeform with stunt performers in costumes (because of how it moves) or animatronics (considering their budget limitations), but this didn't even look halfway decent in 1998. The effect never visually connects with it's surroundings and couldn't possibly look more "weightless" and "not there".
Worst of all, it didn't need to be that way. They could have chosen an anatomy that can be portrayed with performers and practical effects, even a different tripedal one. 8472 could have been anything, as long as it looked scary and more "alien" than the usual bipeds with rubber glued to their faces. "Xtro" had something much better in 1983 that looked genuinely disturbing - it was just good lighting and a performer doing a kind of backwards crab walk in a slimy-looking costume and with a prosthetic face on the back of his head.
I have a hard enough time to watch anything with good CGI effects because my brain almost always just refuses to process it as something that is "really there". 8472's look ruined the entire episode for me when I first watched it. I didn't even care about anything else going on in it anymore.
It would be very interesting to see their episodes remastered by a reasonably-competent effects team today with decent modelers and animators against the original film elements. There's nothing inherently bad about the concept just, as you say, the execution.
I don't recall them ever being convincing or looking like they were part of the world either.
It was more the idea of them being intriguing... in their debut at least.
Probably my favorite non-humanoid alien in Star Trek is the Horta. Like it's clearly just a guy shuffling around under a tarp with pizza stuff glued to it, but something about it is so endearing. I just wanna snuggle her.
From what I recall (remember it was many years ago) Foundation Imaging was given the gig after being let go from B5. Voyager was in a hurry to have a new enemy of the week so FI used the Shadows models with a couple of tweaks as a basis. A lot of the problems with CGI back then (and now) is the colours and lighting of the CGI does not match that of the live action.
I remember when the producers were so proud of the monster in "Basics": Our first fully CGI creature in Trek!
And of course it looked even worse than 8472 later on ...
And now this channel is banned in China.
You keep calling them "8472" when everybody knows they're called "Undine". :)
Wasn't that only established in the game STO?
I have no issue with that being the name of Species 8472, but I still ALWAYS think of them as 8472 because that was in the show and not knowing the actual name was kinda nice, not having Starfleet or The Federation NOT know something for a change puts them in a position that they do not fully know or understand this species.
"Everybody" I always referred to them by the borg number, only fairly recently have I heard there was an "actual name" of the species
Which episode do I need to watch to hear that name?
@@Somefurfag I think the name is mentioned in outsides sources, games if I recall correctly, or maybe a book/comic.
@@Somefurfag That name comes from Star Trek Online.
The argument at the end doesn't work for me. Just because we aer individuals doesn't mean we don't have laws and morals. Seven violated those. An individual is not given the right to decide whether someone lives or dies, but she decided that the member of Species 8472 deserved death.
I'd expect any crewmember trying that BS to be confined to the brig.
Strictly speaking, she decided that the aliens' death was worth saving Voyager. Which is more of a defensible argument.
You could argue that she considered its chances to be better on the Hirogen ship than on Voyager. It would have been nice if we had a shot of one of the Hirogen ships suddenly turning its guns on the others.
Except it wasn't BS, it was noble heroism and guts. Damn the consequences to ones career or future. She went with what she felt was right under the circumstances. I may well have done the same if given the same choice.
You have to learn to think for yourself and not equate rules with being right. Policies, rules and procedures CAN be positive and benevolent, OR they can just as soon be unjust, unfair, short-sighted, irrational, unnecessary, or harmful. And, this can change from situation to situation. A certain prohibition or policy might work well for one purpose or person or under some conditions, and not so well under others. Not being able to be flexible is wrong, in my eyes.
I'm not saying we can't have uniform systems or policies, but the problem with inflexible laws or rules is that they can't bend to serve the needs of the moment. I'm not sure I believe in full bans or prohibitions or laws against most things. I believe most laws (not all) are an excessive restriction.
Life is complex. Theres rarely one simple formula that solves life and works the best in all cases. I know that I almost always put my own moral code above anyone's else, my boss's or the State. When they align - beautiful, but if they dont- then I have a choice to make and I will make it based on multiple factors. I won't compromise my conscience for anyone. And if my values are different from the State or whoever claims authority at the time, then I will choose my values every time, on pain of death or loss or whatever. I haven't had to make a major choice yet, but I'm sure one day I will.
I believe in Self over the State with very few exceptions (provided what one chooses doesn't violate the basic rights of others). I don't recognize a State's right to rule over the individual without question or refusal (against big business OTOH...). I don't and I won't. If this causes me problems, so be it. This doesn't mean I dont recognize rational and moral policies or principles when they exist, I certainly do. But when a rule, law or policy is clearly wrong - is harmful or unjust or wrong by my values, I will ignore it, or fight it as necessary.
In this case, Seven felt JW (the highest current authority) was wrong. So she acted. That's a good thing. She well may have saved everyone on the ship. JW loves to put her principles of the moment ahead of the welfare of the crew, whether she realizes it or not. It's selfish, whether she has enough humility to recognize it or not.
What Seven did may have saved the ship. In time JW may come to realize that herself though I doubt she'd admit it. Or at least she needs to respect her principles that lead her to act. She did defy a direct order but that's a rarity - this was an extreme situation. So it's not like JW has any real cause to worry about Seven going off half-cocked and putting herself or the crew into harm's way. Most of the time she's reliable and cooperative, but this was a unique life-and-death situation.
I'd say Seven did the right thing. She thought for herself and put the ship's well-being ahead of a single foreign life whom on its own prior to it's injury posed a major threat (and later so will its people, altho that changes slightly shortly thereafter)
Sure one could argue she violated the chain of command in this case but so what??? Everything in life has consequences, Seven was willing to accept them. If people can't think for themselves and break so-called "laws" when it's necessary, more people will suffer in the end. No one rule or law can apply perfectly in every situation. Not one. Not even the PD which Trek itself likes to show over and again. But even irl this is true. Remember that.
I mean there's a right and a wrong time to obey. A person with a mature sense of self and a strong moral code will be able to tell the difference when they see it.
She did right, but I can see why Her Highness wasn't happy with her afterwards. No doubt her penance was severe. No one gets away with disobeying Her Worshipfulness unscathed.
But blind servitude and obedience isn't a virtue, not to me at least. Anyone can be a slave - it takes a hero to do what's right whether you have permission from those in authority or not. Thinking for oneself trumps groupthink (almost) every time.
The individual is almost always right when it comes to matters of conscience- everything has rare exceptions of course, but in general, yes that is what I believe. That's my worldview.
@@YourCapyBro_windows95_3DPipes Trolling generally isn't a good way to convince people of your moral superiority.
I don’t understand this show. Why not just torture and eventually execute the prisoner after he refuses to comply?
Reprogramming the nanobots to target the biology of the “hunters” should be a relatively easy task compared to inventing the process in the first place. Then all they need to do is create a self replicating bomb and have it seek out and exterminate the entire species.