Were the Romulans intended as comic relief (for "DS9" as well and the one…
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Star Trek: The Next Generation
RobofNJ — 1 year ago(April 16, 2024 01:11 AM)
"Voyager" episode [with the Doctor and the EMH of the Prometheus])
Note, I'm not saying every episode, and the Romulans are the Federation's match. Without a doubt. The Klingons generally are more comic relief as they're not trying to hurt the Federation but they're often pissed about what they do, such as Gowron who makes me ROTFLMAO. I know "The Neutral Zone" was downright serious. Even "The Enemy" (but here's wh I ask the question). Tomalak comes off as comical. Maybe it's because he's a bad liar, and it's played off for laughs to a decree. In "The Defector" which is downright funny when he does the scenes, his louder than life threat to Picard is just downright hilarious.
I say this because this is what I notice about the Romulans. I once read somewhere, and this is why I asked if they were comic relief in the past, in a reddit that the Romulans talk a big game, and they like to pride themselves on being sneaky and starting plots to drive the Federation/Klingon alliance apart, but they often are caught red-handed, and the results are hilarious. And then the post said something along the lines, that the Romulans are like little children that are all big and bad, but the Federation is like the parents who say, "OK that's nice. Now go to bed." Also whenever a more advanced enemy than the Romulans, like the Cardassians, the evil aliens who torture Riker in "Frame of Mind" (althugh they were one shot as well) Dominion etc, appear they're more serious and sinister and you don't see them as comical. Now I will say the earlier Romulan episodes were threatening. "Tin Man" is the closest we see to a full fledged battle, and they were sinister then. "Data's Day" also had them sinister. But even in "The Mind's Eye" something about the torture scene made them appear like tryhards rather than a menacing sinister bunch. Even the Romulan in charged of Geordi's torture sounds funny too. I'm not saying I would want to be at their mercy, mind you, but the way they act, I'd rather be around them than the Cardassians, who broke Picard, and downright almost destroyed his sense of free will. And in "Reunification", the Romulan attempt to damage control becomes downright hilarious. It seems as though the Romulans are like the Mafia in
GoodFellas
, they're dangerous and threatening, but they often get themselves in trouble in hilariously stupid ways.
Now after that it appears you can take the Romulans seriously as a threat, "The Next Phase" had them sinister and they almost succeed in destroying the Enterprise D, but Geordi and Ro stop it. "Face of the Enemy" was downright threatening (although the only comical thing is the one-dimensional nature of the Romulans, but that's not what I'm talking about).
On
DS9
, they were serious for a while, as every appearance with them showed them as not something to be messed with, such as when the Romulan officer offers Sisko the cloaking device for the Defiant, but warns that secret details will be maintained by the Romulans. But then "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" comes and again you have the funny-sounding Romulan, who turns out to be working as an informant for the Federation. -
Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man — 1 year ago(April 16, 2024 01:40 AM)
I don't think they were supposed to be comic relief but near peer competitors trying to take the Federation's spot as the supreme power in that part of the galaxy. They had been in some sort of period of decline and then announced their presence to the Enterprise and showed off their new War Bird. Naturally the Enterprise has to thwart all their ambitions. They could have made them a more menacing threat but they are also a sort of brother race to humans, passionate like us instead of hyperlogical like the Vulcans, so you don't want to make them too bad. That humans and Romulans are kindred spirits is hinted at by the Romulan commander in the episode where they are chasing artifacts planted by the original humanoid species.
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RobofNJ — 1 year ago(April 16, 2024 01:58 AM)
New? I always thought the only update was their cloaking device. I always thought neither the Cardassians or Romulans updated their ships, which is the only reason the D had a slight advantage over Macet's Galor in that episode. They won the battle against them by virtue of their newest ship (which was a new ship [the D that is] at the time) not because they were less advanced (it was the opposite, the Cardassians were absolutely feared, and as "Journey's End" showed, Picard trembled in fear in front of Evec, literally begging him not to start a war over the Native incident, fear he didn't even show the Romulans; even Jellico was a last resort, as the only one who could handle the Cardassians in a matter preparing for war, the other Federation generals and admirals seemed to be downright terrified of them)
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RobofNJ — 1 year ago(April 16, 2024 02:20 AM)
I always thought that was a change in the ship style to keep the show contemporary (as the Romulan ships of the 60s reflect our understanding of space, being rather outdated compared to now, I don't really like the 60s show that much) rather than their abilities and capabilities though.
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RobofNJ — 1 year ago(April 21, 2024 01:52 AM)
And I know when one small inocucuous comment leads to bigger dumber comments. It's a case of "That's where it starts," if you know what mean.
And the notion is that the Cardassians have not updated their ships. To be fair, the Romulan ships at least in "TNG" era were about 50 or 60 years old in design just like the Cardassians. At least in "TNG" era neither ship updated their designs. It could just be that the Federation had not been familiar with the Romulans that long. But I hoenstly got the impression that the update was about their cloaking.
The only thing I can accept about the Cardassians losing the battle in "The Wounded" was that the D was the newest ship relatively speaking. So it was not that they were behind (everything about their behavior and attitudes show a race that's more advanced). It's that the Federation beat them to it. In the Old World, countries that were advanced always advanced slightly before or after a major power. The Federation was afraid of the Cardassians with good reason. They feared their technology, their prowess. And people are so dumb when the canon shows them as more advanced than the major 3.