Wesley Crusher discussion

[ifilmco]

This is a separate thread inspired by - but not an extension of - the most irritating Trek character thread. Discuss the Wesley character without using base language, people bashing without anything productive to say aren't cool! :stare:

[Tenebrae]

I always found it amusing that despite the fact that he did actually help save the Enterprise about 3-4 times, the entire senior staff remained utterly dismissive of him.

 

I think he's actually a more interesting character than people give him credit for but... yes, I'd say he was annoying but he had some quality dialogue - "If we do this wrong - everything in the holodeck will revert to energy!"

 

At least now he's found whole new areas of time and space to irritate the hell out of.

[juhan]

I'm not afraid to say it, Wesley Crusher is MY IDOL!!!! When I grow up, I wanna be just like him (though i'm already 21...). He's so cool he's like the next step in human evolution. So young yet already so talented in the ways of a Starfleet Officer. He even got to have a fling with a young Ashley Judd (yeah the girl who could turn into a giant bear was cute too...).

[Bapman]

There was girl in ST who could turn into a GIANT BEAR !? :stare:

another question... is WESLEY still a Q !?

or... has he changed back... if he has... when n why !?

if he hasn't... what the heck was he doing in NEMESIS !?

n why didn't HE stop the BORGS or the DOMINION ? :o

[TFMF]

Well - there were times mainly early on like in the first season where he got a bit annoying but later on he had really grown up - he was like a proper member of the crew - it was a shame he never got a proper part in Nemesis

[Arktis]

He was in Nemesis?! I never noticed that... what part(s) was he in?

Aha, his scenes were cut.

http://www.trektoday.com/news/140802_05.shtml

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0253754/fullcredits

 

Wesley isn't a Q. If you compare the Traveler to Q entities, you'll see that the Q are far more powerful. The traveler is more of a super-genious who understands the laws of space-time and thought. Most likely this is because he comes from a higher level dimension. Basicly, that's what Wesley becomes because of his innate understanding. But he's no Q.

[TFMF]

Yeah you did see him in Nemesis but he didn't say anything

[starcrunch]

He was a nowhere type of character, I mean yes he was smart but he never exhibited any leadership type qualities, Wil Wheaton is one of those actors who perpetually looks like he's fifteen years old and that hurt his character, he always seemed so precocious, I mean even when he rebelled against the Enterprise crew in that Indian episode I found his performance very unbelievable, he is just not that type of character.

 

Any way if he was in Nemesis, I don't understand, I thought he stayed with those Indians? or was it the traveller he left with?

[Arktis]

He left with the traveler.

 

I found his performance believable, because strangley enough, I could put myself in his shoes. I lost my father at a very young age as well. So his feelings of pressure, confusion, frustration, and anger were all very familiar. Another thing you might consider is that often times Wesley behaves the way he does precisely because he didn't have a father growing up. That's like having a piece of you amputated before you grow old enough to know what it's usage is like. You'll never get it back and you'll never know what it would have been like to have it. The net effect is that you're very awkward and different from others in a way that you can't easily hide because you don't fully understand it. This makes Wesley a good character, IMO, because he's an accurate illustration of something not a lot of people can understand.

 

Leadership... there was one episode where he took charge of a geological survey mission. But, yeah I can't disagree with you there. Wesley wasn't the leader type.

[Bapman]

Sssooo...

If Wesley became a Traveller... he's still immensely powerful right ?

So why the heck didn't he ever do something productive like creative something to beat the BORGS or the DOMINION ?

God ST is a masterful when is comes to wasting potentially great characters and stories.

[nuages]

I always thought a hilarious way to end Voyager, would be for Wesley to so up all of a sudden and be like, hey whats uP? wanna go grab a burger?? here i'll get us to earth right quick.

 

Personally i really like wesley crushers charchter, simply cause he was so amazingly talented and it was hilarious how easy things came to him, i find the one thing that annoys me about his charchter is that they stopped really developing him, which made him to 1-sided. And i must say there is nothing wrong with being GOOD!!!!! OH back to the 1 sided thing, when they did develop him with his teen angst thing it felt all wrong cause he was so out of the series, and you didn't really feel the development.

[ifilmco]

A lot of what else can play a role is how shifting movie/production schedules could often make it more efficient or cost-effective to not include him in an episode or to give him a smaller part. I agree that it was disappointing when his character wasn't developed as much as he deserved -- it's a really hard character to play, especially since there are SOO many directions his character could go.

[juhan]

Bapman: the answer to your question is: The fans wouldn't like it if everytime VOY/DS9/TNG was in trouble (roughly every other episode), there was a Wesley Crusher coming to rescue. We wouldn't have a show then, would we? Imagine in VOY season 1, wesley crusher appeared on the bridge and said to kes "baby, if you'd let me have one night with you, i'd send VOY back home", and kes said yes, then VOY would be over in 1 season!

[Bapman]

But you see that's my point.

They always take the cheap way out... by just forgetting about other things.

When they can find some other way to explain it.

like in SG-1... Daniel Jackson became an ancient but didn't stop Anubis... 'cause he couldn't. The other Ancients stopped him.

But they were good enuf to give a reason... unlike ST where they just leave it n hope that people don't notice.

 

If you're gonn make a powerful character... show him being powerful and use him.

don't just go... hey we made really powerful human but its not gonna have any point whatsoever 'cause we r not gonna use him... infact let's just pretend he doesn't exist.

 

Their stories have sooo much holes that the crap inside oozes out.

[ifilmco]

I think there are practical matters to contend with: if Wesley's status is of someone very powerful, then you have to concentrate on that. For instance, do you think that the show could have had multiple people with stories as huge as that of Q? Because from a writing standpoint, Wesley and Q are easily on the same storytelling level. It was how undriven Starfleet seemed to be to nurture someone as valuable as he. Or, let me put it from this angle: would it have been better to have made Wesley get promoted higher, and be placed in more command situations?

[nuages]

would it have been better to have made Wesley get promoted higher' date=' and be placed in more command situations?[/quote']

 

I think it deffently would have been, was probably the original intentions, but he probably wasn't liked enough to do that :P, would have been alot better though for sure, well as long as the charchter developed well.

 

i thought it was really stupid when he first did the starfleet academy exam and didn't get in. Like he wasn't this super intellegint kid who became a more active crew member doing more important things then most of the crew. I mean he was in the senior staff meetings!!!! So?? is Starfleet Academy filled with those types.

[zarkov2k]

So why the heck didn't he ever do something productive like creative something to beat the BORGS or the DOMINION ?

Maybe due to the Travellers' [version of the] Prime Directive?

[starcrunch]

Yeah you did see him in Nemesis but he didn't say anything

 

Where in Nemesis was he?

 

and what happend at the end of the ep witht he Indians, after he took his vision quest, I thought for sure he stayed with them, but it's been awhile, anyway was he kicked out of starfleet for insubordination or what.

 

I do remember him leaving with the traveller , what ep was that?

[juhan]

Starcrunch: He began his vision quest and that was it. We didn't see him anymore. (I dont think there were anymore cameos of him for the rest of the series). There couldve been more news in Nemesis but they cut a whole heap out and left him in the riker-troi wedding scene (coz they obviously shot that scene already with him in it before deciding to cut wesley out of the story).

 

For the rest of you, especially Bapman: You DID know that in real life the story was that he demanded a higher salary (or his manager did), and ST couldn't give him a better offer so he left in search of better acting opportunities. So they had to cut him off fast, which was why his departure was kind of sudden like there was a gap in the story. Wesley was modelled after Roddenberry and he had great plans for that kid and you could tell that there was something big in plan for his character. Like he was going to re-shape the Federation or something along with the other "Chosen Ones".

 

And I don't think wesley's first failure at the exam was unrealistic. Its basically only 1 entrant every year or something like that, so even though he was super smart and stuff, the Academy just thought they'd prefer that old gas-breathing dude first. With extreme competition, things like this happen in real life.

[ifilmco]

Yeah, he'd been interested in doing more movies, which conflicted with the ST schedule. When Roddenberry passed away, the great storyline of Wesley got (sadly) ignored.