Wil Wheaton Proves That People Liked Wesley Crusher

[_Janny_]

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.

I wouldn't say it's weird. Wheaton is a very nice guy from what I hear, and he's a genuine nerd. So no wonder the fans like him. Minus the cash and celebrity status, he's basically one of us.

 

[EchetusXe]

He wasn't my favourite character but I never hated him. He was just a bit of filler between Picard, Worf, Data, Geordie, Q and Reiker. The character allowed us to see a bit more of Picard's psychology as he fucking hated kids, and thus had a difficult time dealing with Will.

 

[Jared]

Well. I never disliked him, but, then again never really liked him. It was only after the series as the person I had any kinda feeling about it

 

[oktalist]

I only hated him because he was a useless, annoying, whining baby with no redeeming qualities. Other than that, there was nothing wrong with him.

No worse than this one:

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

He was a product of the 90's fad where there were uber-smart kids running everything. They had that kid on Seaquest who can build his own submarines, Wheaton on Star Trek with his too many examples to list, that kid off the atrocious Team Knight Rider series.

But yeah, focusing so much of the plot and so many episodes around him, thats what got me. That and they made him out to be smarter than an android centuries ahead of its time bult by a man centuries ahead of his time.

He is a much better person on The Big Bang Theory.

 

[Booze Zombie]

So, grumpy older-fans insulted him, for the most part? Fair enough.
I've heard some bad writing went on, of course, but we're talking about television here, nothing's perfect.

 

[Ashendarei]

I never really hated him, but I definately grew to dislike his character, especially as the series went on.

His character seemed far to cliche / goody-goody to me, and I just couldn't empathize with him.

 

[Boba Frag]

[/quote]

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...

Eh.. maybe because he's acting? And doing a really good job of his character?

 

[Sproingy]

I was 8 when i started watching trek. Next gen was just starting at the time and my Mum was a trekkie so we watched it together. Wesley was who I looked up to. I have heaps of friends who were in the same boat so now we're all growed up we're able to defend the character...

Later I started learning trombone and Riker became my idle

 

[LadyRhian]

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.

Okay, you gotta remember (and I know, I am showing my nerd roots here) that Wesley was the son of Picard's first officer on the Stargazer. Jack Crusher got killed under Picard, and Picard felt responsible for that. I think he was trying to be a surrogate father to Wesley, in some small way, because he felt responsible for causing Wesley's real father to die.

As for kids on the ship, Picard objected to that- early and often. But by the middle seasons, I think he'd become resigned to the whole thing. He didn't like it, didn't agree, but obviously, whatever protests he was making were going nowhere. Yes, the character was the author insertion fantasy of Gene Roddenberry. Wesley got away with a ton of stuff that he shouldn't have gotten away with, but after Gene passed, I think the writers acted to tone down Wesley "can do no wrong" Crusher. He was involved in that death at the academy, and he was clearly in the wrong and he got punished for it. I saw that and it was like "so much for the old Wesley Crusher".

As for assigning Wesley to the Enterprise, why not? There may have been some element of nepotism, but he was established as being very intelligent, and as far as I can remember, he was one of those at the top of his class- I think that came out in the "death at the academy" episode. I don't see any reason why his superiors at Starfleet wouldn't have assigned him to the Enterprise. Yes, he did a stupid thing, and caused the death of another cadet. But based on his intelligence, they might have thought that some experience could aid him in not making those stupid kind of mistakes in the future. And who better to learn from than Picard?

I'm not saying it is completely logical, but it isn't completely illogical to assign Ensign Wesley Crusher to the Enterprise, the flagship of Starfleet, either.

The only other thing I can see that is not true to your comments is that Starfleet is not entirely a military organization. It's a scientific and diplomatic organization with some military aspects. In later series, the military aspects definitely got played up, especially in the Dominion war. But it didn't start out that way. In fact, the voiceover from TNG says it best: "Our continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out strange new life and new civilizations- to boldly go where no one has gone before!"

 

[Digikid]

Ppl that hate Wesley Crusher are morons. He represented a view of a youth that had high hopes and was able to EXCEED THEM.

I loved that character and was disappointed when he left.

 

[ShadowKatt]

What I never understood were the people that hated him JUST because he was a child. I would have thought that these people would have been pretty big trekkies, enough to know that the Enterprise - D had several thousand people on it. It was a multi-generational deep range ship, of course there were children on it. He just happened to be an officer as well.

 

[Outright Villainy]

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

This would be my reasoning. I though Wesley was a pretty awful character, but Will wheaton himself is pretty awesome. He was great in the guild...

 

[The Shade]

No worse than this one:

Hey, now! Adric at least had the brains to be worthy of the Doctor's sidekick! He was mathematically savvy and helped with all kinds of missions.

And then he crashed and died.

...

Yikes.

-------------------

OT: Wesley never stood out to me as an annoyance. In fact, the only episode when I can recall his presence even having an impact on the episode was the one where he was being sentenced to death on that silly planet for walking on the grass, or whatever it was.

And we can just chalk that up to being a poor episode all 'round.

 

[gerrymander61]

The episodes in which Wesley featured heavily or saved the day were the worst episodes in TNG. It wasn't so much Wesley that I hated so much as how his character was used in the show.

 

[manaman]

The ship supposedly had the only Klingon in the Federation, the only android in the Federation, and a blind engineer on it, and they still focused on a gifted youngster being an unbelievable issue. It was a sci-fi show, I don't really see how that was absurd.

 

[Dr. wonderful]

I actually hated him when I was younger, because I KNEW he was trying too hard. (Not the actor).If he paid attention to what everyone else was doing and learn from their mistakes along with his, he could of beem my favorite character.

But that spot belong to Data. -_-"

 

[oktalist]

No worse than this one:

Hey, now! Adric at least had the brains to be worthy of the Doctor's sidekick! He was mathematically savvy and helped with all kinds of missions.

And he had the badge to prove it!