Wil Wheaton Proves That People Liked Wesley Crusher

[Greg Tito]

Wil Wheaton Proves That People Liked Wesley Crusher

Long hailed as a scourge upon the Enterprise by a vocal minority, Wil Wheaton showed us that not every fan hated Ensign Wesley Crusher.

For some reason, Ensign Crusher got a bad rep. My older brother hated him on Star Trek: The Next Generation, pointing out that having a teenager on the bridge of the Federation's flagship was probably not a good idea. I remember being somewhat inspired by Crusher's position, being young at the time, and never understood why he was so castigated, eventually forcing him to leave the show. It appears that I wasn't alone.

At The Guild panel at San Diego Comic Con 2010, one audience member asked how it felt to go from being the most hated character on the starship Enterprise, to the most hated guild leader of the Axis of Anarchy, Fawkes. To prove that the premise of the guy's question was faulty, Wheaton took an informal poll of the audience.

"I have a question for the audience, and be honest. How many of you really hated Wesley Crusher on Star Trek?" he asked and there was a smattering of applause. "How many of you actually really liked Wesley Crusher?"

The crowd went nuts, cheering and whistling for about 20 seconds before Wheaton added, "As I've gotten older and the people who watched who were around the same age as me have gotten older, I've learned that the people who were like 'We hate you and here's the 67 ways we want you to be impaled by a Klingon and killed' were truly a very vocal and cruel minority. There were a lot of other people who were too young to be on Usenet."

Now, the audience at Comic Con may be a bit biased, but I can safely say that the majority of nerds packed into that panel loved Ensign Wesley Crusher for what he was: a naive but brilliant kid trying to be a man in a setting that was much bigger than him. That's something a lot of nerds can relate to.

(Image [http://www.flickr.com/photos/wilwheaton/2782876432/])

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[Rigs83]

I agree, when I was younger I never hated him on STNG. I guess fans have always been clingy, complaining dipshits.
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[JaredXE]

I never hated Wesley, but I could see how he was a total Mary-Sue character(before I even knew that term), and was practically perfect in nearly every way.


Then he ascended to a higher plane of existence. I think the Traveller touched him in inappropriate places.

 

[Greg Tito]

I never hated Wesley, but I could see how he was a total Mary-Sue character(before I even knew that term), and was practically perfect in nearly every way.

Other than the super smarts, he was a pretty flawed character, I think. Always searching for a father figure, socially awkward and constantly saying the wrong thing. If he was suave, debonair, AND smart, I'd see your point, but I don't think that was Wesley at all.

Then he ascended to a higher plane of existence. I think the Traveller touched him in inappropriate places.

This made me laugh. Maybe that's why we haven't seen him in any of the movies yet.

 

[Captain Pancake]

I didn't mind him as a character. He wasn't my favourite (Riker FTW), but he was no way a detriment to the show.

 

[Grubnar]

I never hated him, and I do not really understand why anyone would do so.

And I always thought it a bit strange, with all these men, women and children on board, that he was almost the only child/teenager ever shown regulary in the series (except for Alexander, son of Worf).

I often thought Star Trek needed more scenes with characters interacting with their family. Like Chief O'Brien comming home to Keiko and Molly after saving DS9 (again!) or Commander Sisko talking with his son Jake. Those can be great character building moments.

 

[Kimarous]

I've never been a huge Trek fan, but I've still watched my share of TNG and have never really understood the hatedom Wesley supposedly warrants...

 

[gristledemon]

didnt hat him but he was odd. he did have his moments but then there is the episode where he knocks over a flower planter or soemthing and is sentenced to death........ not his fualt but that episode just bored me
thats abotu my biggest complaint

 

[Cabisco]

I suppose some people just felt he was put in for teenagers and lord forbid people trying to get their show to reach to a further audience than super trekkies who know all of the planets.

Ok perhaps i was too far their but what I mean is they where likely the same people who went nuts when someone with blonde hair was casted as bond, or starbuck as a women etc. A very small, but insanely loud group.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Riker annoyed me more to be honest just because everyone seemed to love him for being self satisfied and in control. He was like Kirk but without the entertaining over acting and roguishness. Wesley got a few cringes every time the universe seemed to conspire to show us how unbelievably awesome he was but I secretly wanted bad things to happen to Riker.

 

[RatRace123]

Are you sure it's nothing to do with Wheaton himself just being awesome?

 

[fullbleed]

I'm always conflicted when it comes to Will Wheaton, all of his apearences on Big Bang Theory leave me with an intense face punching hatred for the guy. But then I read his blog and he turns out to be just the nicest guy. Hmmm...

 

[AugustFall]

I was never much of a trekkie but my dad enjoyed the show and having a character the younger generation could relate to gave it a new angle for them.
However my love of Wil Wheaton>Wesley Crusher. He has transcended the role imo.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

WIL WHEATON!

After his poorly received role in Star Trek it's weird that he's become such a loved character by nerds for playing as a douche.

The guy really does have this strange nerdy cult following now.

 

[lee1287]

he Tricked Sheldon. Enough said, he must die.

 

[TheGreenManalishi]

It wasn't Wesley that was annoying, it was the fact that he was a plot focus too often and, half the time, he beat Geordi and Data to the punch when it came to solving a technical issue on the ship. That ain't right.

 

[Therumancer]

The character didn't fit in with the show to be entirely honest.

I don't think the issue was ever ENSIGN Wesley Crusher, it was the time he was running around the ship as a civilian doing all kinds of stupid junk. Even with his mother being the chief medical officer, I do not think that would translate into him being given as much leeway as he was given to begin with, and at that point he should not have been on the bridge.

The biggest problem with him later on was the fact that the show is supposed to be set in a military enviroment. The idea of people bringing their families on board a warship is ridiculous to begin with, even with a detachable saucer section, but the idea that your going to see crew posts assigned over this is even worse. When he went into the military they last place he ever would have been assigned was The Enterprise, exactly because of the nepotism that you saw with the concept when he was around.

See, one thing to understand is that as a matter of nessecity military organizations work on something referred to as a "seniority system", or "god's plan for the universe". While who you know, and your personal capabilities DO enter into the equasion (big time), there are limits when your looking at heavily desired assignments like being assigned to a fleet flagship. There are probably like four thousand people at any given time wanting a berth on a ship like that/transfer, all of whom are going to be the golden boys for some admiral or higher up, and all with very decent records. Sadly the captain of a ship does not wind up having complete control over who gets assigned to him, especially when your dealing with what amounts to a political post as much as anything (ie The Enterprise is sent out to act as a diplomatic envoy as much as anything else).

I think the problem was that the character just didn't work as a civilian, and the attempts to bring the character around as an Ensign fated to serve on the Enterprise, just flew in the face of any and all common sense. I'm not sure if it's the character people hated as much as the fact that it just didn't fit with the concept.

What they should have done was remove the entire aspect of "it's the doctor's son" and had some teenage ensign brought in from the beginning, since there are going to be ensigns around. The Captain having an ensign assigned to be a personal gofer is not all that unreasonable, I mean Kirk had Yeoman Rand. The character's prescence and his getting into all kinds of wierd things in the course of doing his job in exceptional situations could be made to work.

 

[TheGreenManalishi]

Also, all he's done is prophecise a future where the Phantom Menace generation grow up and it becomes accepted.

I can see the Escapist's headline now, "Ahmed Best Proves That People Liked Jar-Jar Binks".

 

[CanadianWolverine]

Wait, there were people who hated the Wesley Crusher character? Oh well, to each there own. TNG was roughly the only time I ever liked Star Trek and it probably from a lack of options and a lack of experience. Now the whole thing is like a cheesy joke and my lady love likes to point out how many similarities the show has with porn.

And is Will Wheaton still an actor? Huh, the only person I think of as having a acting career after TNG is Patrick Stewart and maybe Brent Spiner as a professional supporting actor. I just hope actors get their paycheck and get to go do something else satisfying with their life rather than retread old characters at conventions supporting bizarre fan's nostalgia but who knows, maybe some of them are such good actors I don't even realize they have been in a ton of characters roles since their past show's glory days.