Take an ocean freighter built yesterday and pit it against a cruiser or frigate from 130 years ago…guess which one sinks? Hint – it’s not the steam powered, iron hulled vessel. How about the haters turn on their brains for a few seconds.

And Spock not being 100% logical and having a visious streak after the genocide of his species…hmm. Yah, I never remember Spock ever being emotional in TOS. Oh, and after the genocide and Nero’s stated purpose of continuing genocide against humans and the rest of the Federation, compassion was the illogical choice.

“Boo hoo. They sold out and murdered my childhood.” I’ll take sold out over the stale tripe of Voyager, Enterprise, and Insurrection and Nemesis every day of the week. DVD’s, put your fingers in your ears, scream lalalala and pretend that someone cares what you think.

Jeffery, they don’t want you to think in this movie. They’re salesmen. They write the stories that the studios, directors and producers want because they know it will appeal to the greatest possible audience. Even if they have to remove a ridiculous amounts of logic, decency and over all morality from the story, they’ll do it.

I mean, they made Spock a more human character by putting aside logic and giving him the desire to KILL. Remember in the original series episode “The Arena”?

Spock: You mean to destroy the Alien Ship captain?
Kirk: Of course.
Spock: I thought perhaps the hot persuit alone might be sufficient. Destruction may be unnecessary.
Kirk: Colony Cestus III has been obliterated Mr. Spock
Spock: The destruction of the alien vessel will not help that colony Jim.

And Star Trek 09?

Kirk: Show them compassion may be the only way to earn peace with Romulas. It’s logic Spock. Thought you’d like that.
Spock: I just lost my entire planet. To hell with logic!
- “Oh, I’m sorry. I was quoting the book.”
Spock: No, not really. Not this time.

So you see? Spock has learned that chances to earn peace with a waring civilization is bad and killing is good! Hooray!
..
…
…..
…….I hate this movie.

Take an ocean freighter built yesterday and pit it against a destroyer from from WWII and let see which ship is sunk.

Vulcan has ships far advanced compared to Earths fleet, and not one of them were in orbit around Vulcan?

Does Vulcan have so much as a single shipyard in orbit?

Anything floating around with a ray gun to shoot an invading threat? Like maybe something to shoot a meteor?

Surface to space missiles?

They were wide open to a mining ship?

How far away is Epsilon Eridani from Sol?

Their only hope was a fleet of ships from Earth?

No other Federation ships? Andorians are in the Fed, arent they? Any other planetary societies in the Fed?

My God, what has Trek become? Sold out.

They’re both round, juicy, have seeds, good for you and are a part of the same family? And they both have stories to tell and territories to explore? How dare I compare the two!

So you don’t want alien looking crew members because……what again?

“just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it needs to be done. Otherwise, you’d end up with Star Wars or Men in Black, just showing off “alien” aliens for no reason other than just eye-candy.”

News Flash. THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THEY DID IN THIS NEW STAR TREK MOVIE! You saw Aliens who were nothing more than eye-candy with no lines of dialogue and no importance to the plot.

If you think my District 9 arguments in saying you can make CGI Cartoons as believable as the humans isn’t as relevant as it may sound, than neither is your Star Wars or Men in Black argument. Your using them to generalize CGI characters as just mere eye-candy when a movie like District 9 used them to tell a story. You think the look and feel of District 9 would have been more effective if the aliens were humans with forehead ridges?

Maybe if you ‘thought’ of ways of making an ‘alien’ looking crew member being a part of Starfleet and how that would work, you wouldn’t run into issues like the ones you describe. Maybe you can have an Alien who wants to be a crew member onboard the Enterprise so badly, but because He/She looks SOO different, nobody ever accepts or takes him/her seriously. I’m sure a lot of people could relate to that if it was done right. You just can’t look at things at face value and immediately assume it won’t work.

Oh, Farscape has a TON of Alien looking characters that were regulars to the show and I don’t recall a single review that whined and complained about that.

But that’s not the point. Star Trek has never been about “how weird can we make the aliens”. You example of District 9 isn’t as relevant as you think it is, since the whole story of D9 hinges on the fact that the aliens look so strange. No one doubts that these days you can have completely-CGI creations as believable characters. But just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it needs to be done. Otherwise, you’d end up with Star Wars or Men in Black, just showing off “alien” aliens for no reason other than just eye-candy.

And your examples of “Alien” looking crew members is not really helpful as you are delving into something from TAS. Comparing live-action to entirely animated is apples to oranges, and the fact that your examples are only from TAS sort of validates that Star Trek has, in general, shied away from “alien” officers.

According to Shatner’s books the machine planet V’Ger visited was, in fact, the Borg homeworld back before the machines started incorporating organics into their makeup.

*DOIINNGGGG!!!!!!*

The artwork is really nice.

And none of it is real either, so what’s the point of the canon argument?

Unless future movies contradict it, there´s no reason to not accept it in a canon level.