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Daystrom Institute
Welcome to Daystrom Institute!
Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.
Read more about how to comment at Daystrom.
Rules
1. Explain your reasoning
All threads and comments submitted to the Daystrom Institute must contain an explanation of the reasoning put forth.
2. No whinging, jokes, memes, and other shallow content.
This entire community has a “serious tag” on it. Shitposts are encouraged in Risa.
3. Be diplomatic.
Participate in a courteous, objective, and open-minded fashion. Be nice to other posters and the people who make Star Trek. Disagree respectfully and don’t gatekeep.
4. Assume good faith.
Assume good faith. Give other posters the benefit of the doubt, but report them if you genuinely believe they are trolling. Don’t whine about “politics.”
5. Tag spoilers.
Historically Daystrom has not had a spoiler policy, so you may encounter untagged spoilers here. Ultimately, avoiding online discussion until you are caught up is the only certain way to avoid spoilers.
6. Stay on-topic.
Threads must discuss Star Trek. Comments must discuss the topic raised in the original post.
Episode Guides
The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:
- Kraetos’ guide to Star Trek (the original series)
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Animated Series
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Darth_Rasputin32898’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- OpticalData’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
- petrus4’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
I saw The Wrath of Khan as a kid, quite possibly before seeing any of the series, so there's never been any question of it not being representative of Star Trek for me, though I can see how someone approaching chronologically might see more of a disparity.
However, TOS had plenty of deaths, including destruction of starships, as did V'Ger's, uh, collection of data, so does TWoK really stand apart in that regard? Chekov and Terrell kick off the plot while surveying planets, encountering a strange alien creature, and Kirk and co. find an underground paradise; I see that as fitting the explorative aspects of the show, at least somewhat. The villain is defeated with teamwork, deception, and by outplaying him, common to the original series. And the story raises some ethical questions regarding cheating, playing god, and marooning, again in the tradition of the show. I see the differences as more stylistic than substantial, but as I said, personal history affects my perspective.
As far as general movie principles go, music can be a strong influence on audiences, and Wrath of Khan has a great score.