I was watching Star Trek the other day.
What was the deal with Wesley Crusher exactly?
I seem to remember he was very unpopular with the ST fan base for some reason? Why was that? He was an okay actor wasn't he? Was he forced off the show in the end?
He was played by Will Wheaton.
From Wikipedia (yes I know not the most reliable source):
The Wesley Crusher character was unpopular among more than a few Star Trek fans.[5][6] Many fans considered the character to be a Mary Sue and a stand-in for Gene Roddenberry, whose middle name was "Wesley". The character's role in the show was greatly downplayed after the first season when Roddenberry's involvement in the show's production became more peripheral.[7]
Some fans disliked the idea of a boy who seems to constantly save the whole ship as a deus ex machina plot device. Commentators have observed at least seven times in which Wesley, "who has trouble getting into the Starfleet Academy" and is on a ship "filled with Starfleet's best and brightest crew members", has come up with "the needed solution".[8][9] Fans' dislike for Wesley Crusher has become something of a pop-culture meme, reflected in other TV shows such as The Big Bang Theory (which features a recurring fictionalized Wheaton as one of Sheldon Cooper's main nemeses, though they later become friends), Steins;Gate, and in a 2009 Family Guy episode, "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven", which included the main The Next Generation cast and featured Wil Wheaton in character as Wesley being bullied by Patrick Stewart.
For me and and the reason I didn't take to "Wesley" as a character was the perception that it was jobs for the boys. Yes he was smarter than your average bear but just because his mum was the ships Doctor shouldn't have allowed that kind of access to the Captain/ bridge regulations and all that.
However I think Will Weaton's appearance on Big Bang has softened people's view of Wesley in Next Gen.
Quote from: Smith on 19 January, 2021, 07:57:59 AM
He was played by Will Wheaton.
Explain? He was fine in Stand By Me, after all.
Not having a go. Just wondering what the reason for the hostility was.
Star Trek was a serious SF programme for intelligent grown-ups (no, really, it had single-handedly ended racism in the '60s, stop laughing), so why was there a child in a granny jumper on it? Why people might think you were an awkward nerdy know-it-all if they saw one on a show you watched. "Fans" were pathetic shits, even in the late '80s, and grud help us all they'd just discovered the internet
Wheaton is a fine fellow, and a decent actor, but the writers didn't know what to do with the character except set him up for bullying on and off screen.
Quote from: Trooper McFad on 19 January, 2021, 08:05:32 AM
For me and and the reason I didn't take to "Wesley" as a character was the perception that it was jobs for the boys. Yes he was smarter than your average bear but just because his mum was the ships Doctor shouldn't have allowed that kind of access to the Captain/ bridge regulations and all that.
It was the Traveller who convinced Picard that Wesley should be treated differently.
It's fair to say that viewer dislike of Wesley translated unfairly to Wheaton and he's lived with it ever since. Considering how badly he was apparently treated on set and the mess that his home life was, I'm amazed he isn't a complete write-off.
All interesting stuff. More views are very welcome too.
Will Wheaton was on the Kingcast Podcast recently, and they discussed this very thing, the pressure, how his Family life was an absolute mess. Really good interview, and he came across very well. Considering his Parents, it is probably a minor miracle he is still with us.
As for Trek, precocious kids should always be blown out of airlocks.
I house-shared with two huge Trekkies during my University days and the hate they had for Wesley Crusher was off the charts. I think for them he represented that trope you get in kids TV shows where the children always save the day after the adults mess up and this was against the spirit of what they thought Trek should be ie. a slightly more cerebral scifi without Scrappy Doo in it.
TNG is my least favourite Trek (I wasn't a Trek fan to start with and living with two blokes who had it on all the time didn't help) but I found him only marginally more annoying than some of the other characters.
Yeah, I'm not in the least bit a Star Trek fan- I enjoy the characters from the original series occasionally in book form, but wouldnt watch the series now- and while I very much enjoy Discovery (in the sense of being a tv show I like to watch, like Vera or NCIS: New Orleans) I'm not a 'fan'.
But Will Wheaton is an absolute star. Not only was he in one of my favourite films ever- the glorious Stand By Me- but his Facebook updates are a continuous joy. He has his head screwed on politically, is magnificently open about his life, and has a warm and witty personality that endeared me to him, despite not enjoying the tv shows he turns up in.
I've known a lot of Trekkies in my life, and I must admit I prefer to keep them at arms length much of the time.
SBT
Thanks everyone!
Er...you are not a Star Trek fan but you read Star Trek books?
I was a big fan of the show as a boy. I love that Kirk/ Spock/ McCoy relationship. Like many other things I loved as a kid, I occasionally get the urge to revisit it- but I cant watch the tv show now. I've tried many times, and have them on dvd.
But I get my main entertainment from books and comics, wayyyy before tv and film. So if the urge for a bit of Trek takes me, I'm more likely to pick up an original series novel.
That said, I recently took advantage of one of my town's local Facebook Give And Take groups to offload 200+ Trek novels to some woman who gratefully received them- in several Morrisons bags for life and socially distanced from my doorstep. So next time I get the urge, I will have to buy a new one.
SBT
The dislike of the character is almost the same as Joffrey from GoT. The hate for Joffrey grew so big that the actor Jack Gleeson semi-retired for acting. I hate this from the modern internet, these guys are actors doing a job playing a character. I think that Will Wheaton would have suffered the same fate if TNG was released today.
Quote from: SmallBlueThing(Reborn) on 19 January, 2021, 11:26:51 AM
I was a big fan of the show as a boy. I love that Kirk/ Spock/ McCoy relationship. Like many other things I loved as a kid, I occasionally get the urge to revisit it- but I cant watch the tv show now. I've tried many times, and have them on dvd.
But I get my main entertainment from books and comics, wayyyy before tv and film. So if the urge for a bit of Trek takes me, I'm more likely to pick up an original series novel.
That said, I recently took advantage of one of my town's local Facebook Give And Take groups to offload 200+ Trek novels to some woman who gratefully received them- in several Morrisons bags for life and socially distanced from my doorstep. So next time I get the urge, I will have to buy a new one.
SBT
Fair enough!
Quote from: broodblik on 19 January, 2021, 11:32:50 AM
The dislike of the character is almost the same as Joffrey from GoT. The hate for Joffrey grew so big that the actor Jack Gleeson semi-retired for acting. I hate this from the modern internet, these guys are actors doing a job playing a character. I think that Will Wheaton would have suffered the same fate if TNG was released today.
An interesting comparison. Although Joffrey is supposed to be a total bastard. Gleeson, if anything, played him too well. In contrast, we're supposed to like Wesley Crusher. And it seems most people didn't.
Personally, I'm not sure its entirely an internet thing. Some people always seem to have had trouble recognising the difference between characters and the actors who play them. Wesley's stint on ST largely predates the internet.
This has to be a nerd honey trap to see how long it will take before someone types "Shut up, Wesley".
Quote from: McGurk76 on 19 January, 2021, 07:52:40 AM
I was watching Star Trek the other day.
What was the deal with Wesley Crusher exactly?
I seem to remember he was very unpopular with the ST fan base for some reason? Why was that? He was an okay actor wasn't he? Was he forced off the show in the end?
Shut up, Wesley.
;)
Quote from: McGurk76 on 19 January, 2021, 11:47:55 AMWesley's stint on ST largely predates the internet.
Pre-web, not pre-internet: the first Usenet reference to Wesley dates to 1987. And definitely not for Wil Wheaton himself, he was an active BB'er from way back. The dickery started almost instantly.
For myself the first thing I ever did on the internet was sign up for the Strek-L Listserv in 1989 which was a hive of activity, when Next Gen hadn't even aired in Ireland and we had to rent it a year behind and two episodes at a time on VHS.
I slavishly watched Next Gen, but it was incredibly leaden in it's delivery of worthiness. I hate the term "woke", but it was just so feckin' woke. The Waltons in space. And Wesley was John Boy.
Worf's son Alexander was scripted in a better way because, first and foremost, he was a child, as opposed to a super-heroic, overly precocious teenager.
But he wasn't as annoying as Counselor Troi (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-1OPCIwyWg).
And I'm talking about characters, not actors.
The Next Generation's first 2 series were definitely the weakest.
Wesley Crusher featured heavily in the first two series.
There's some sort of relationship going on between those two facts that puts people off Wesley. The writers hadn't yet figured out how to make a Star Trek TV revival work in the '80s and Wesley got the shitty end of that stick. Tasha Yar was only in the first season and she seems to have got away without any ill will. Maybe it's the added child factor, because as poorly rounded as female characters (bar Pulaski, who was really just McCoy with tits), the child characters were even worse. They were usually quite wide-eyed and overly naíve, but at the same time I remember a ~9 year kid being chastised for not doing his calculus homework in one episode. A society that makes primary school kids do calculus is not utopian.
Thankfully these issues were hammered out by the time Jake Sisco and Nog showed up. Jake and Nog were way more sympathetic and relatable. I haven't encountered any DS9 fans who didn't like those two. I certainly never heard about them getting any hate.
Nog is obviously the standout child character of the whole franchise, just remarkable how someone could go from uncouth and annoying to noble and nuanced so gradually and plausibly. However it definitely helped that the much-missed Aron Eisenberg was into his 20s when the show started.
Just as remarkable is Cirroc Lofton's very human Jake, who had such a believable and positive relationship with his father that I very consciously modelled my own attempts at parenting on Sisko.
Definitely a huge step forward from how Wesley was treated as a character, although in defence of TNG it needed to exist in the way it did in order for the superior DS9 to have something to play against.
Quote from: TordelBack on 19 January, 2021, 05:59:11 PM
I very consciously modelled my own attempts at parenting on Sisko.
"Look kids, Daddy is going to commit some war crimes. But do as I say, not as I do, OK?"
Precisely.
Since there were families aboard the Enterprise in TNG I always had it in mind that Wesley bullied the younger kids on the ship when there were no adults within earshot but when they would try to fight back in some way he'd just use Picard as his trump card to win. He was just a snotty git to me.
Quote from: Tiplodocus on 19 January, 2021, 06:14:20 PM
Quote from: TordelBack on 19 January, 2021, 05:59:11 PM
I very consciously modelled my own attempts at parenting on Sisko.
"Look kids, Daddy is going to commit some war crimes. But do as I say, not as I do, OK?"
"...but it's okay because I'm God's Chosen One, and you're not!"
Quote from: von Boom on 19 January, 2021, 07:22:46 PM
Since there were families aboard the Enterprise in TNG I always had it in mind that Wesley bullied the younger kids on the ship when there were no adults within earshot but when they would try to fight back in some way he'd just use Picard as his trump card to win. He was just a snotty git to me.
Nah - he's the kid who got bullied by the younger kids so had to spend lunchtime with the dinnerladies.
From what I've seen of WW since (mainly based on Big Bang Theory and related press), he does seem to be a genuinely relaxed and funny guy willing to laugh at himself.
Some of the recurrent Wesley memes are quite funny though:
https://imgur.com/gallery/eLtxvC3 (https://imgur.com/gallery/eLtxvC3)
https://imgur.com/gallery/Y2d7b4T (https://imgur.com/gallery/Y2d7b4T)
https://imgur.com/gallery/u0h20 (https://imgur.com/gallery/u0h20)
I enjoyed his Tabletop (https://geekandsundry.com/shows/tabletop/) series, but it seems like that's in the past now.
I didn't quite buy Nog's transformation into Starfleet paragon, but boy was his PTSD storyline good.
Quote from: von Boom on 19 January, 2021, 07:22:46 PM
He was just a snotty git to me.
I agree. I think the writers caught onto this as well. The episode Holo Pursuits gives a good perception of what Wesley's character is. And yes, he's totally a bully. He started the Broccoli nickname for Barclay.
The early Seasons he was insufferable. For reasons given here. He shouldn't have been bridge crew, he shouldn't have been a Dues Ex Machina and his presence as some super genius messiah (don't forget that nugget that was introduced early on) undermined the rest of the program. Nevertheless, those early Seasons are problematic and ropey as fuck. Wesley was just the worst written character most of the time.
Later Seasons do Wesley much better. He's got some damn good episodes and I really liked him dropping out of Star Fleet and giving Picard the middle finger (which Picard deserves). He just had too much baggage. He was made a super human in the first season and it just didn't work.
It always seemed to me that some executive in a pre-production meeting said, "Yes, yes, yes - but how do we get kids to watch it?"
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 25 January, 2021, 12:01:57 PM
It always seemed to me that some executive in a pre-production meeting said, "Yes, yes, yes - but how do we get kids to watch it?"
Yes. This as well.