Headscratchers / Star Trek: The Next Generation S1E1 "Encounter at Farpoint"

• Riker and others are astonished that the Bandi station can provide anything they ask for (apples, specific fabric design) despite the replicator does exactly that.
  • The replicators are a piece of technology, where you approach the slot and place a command, with the results appearing with a materialization effect. The items among the Bandi appear out of seeming thin air, or in the case of the fabric design, replace the already existing item.
  • Possibly Early-Installment Weirdness considering there's no mention of a "replicator" even when Data and Riker discuss how the holodeck works in part like a transporter by creating some physical objects from patterns. In other words, like a replicator.
• Of all the species in the universe, Q singles out humanity. Why? Almost every single member of the Klingon race acts like the childish savages that Q views humanity as, while humans have made great progress away from that. Heck, even the Metrons acknowledge that humans are only half savage. Q could have saved himself some trouble by asking them about humanity, and focussing on the Klingons instead. Or the Dominion. Or the Cardassians. Or the Naussicaans. Or even the Andorians, another Federation race with a warrior history. Just saying.
  • That might be the whole point. Humans have come so far so fast. . . but is it genuine? Are we really on an evolutionary fast track towards something greater than we can ever imagine? Or despite all the protestations of "evolved sensibility," are we still just one bad day away from barbarism? Or perhaps it's the juxtaposition that draws interest. Humans would really like the universe to be one big, happy family where no one carries weapons because there's never any need to defend yourself, but reality is not so accommodating, and when pushed to it, Humans can be exactly as brutal as we need to be to stay alive.
  • Also, the Klingons are upfront about being a warrior race. Humans love to talk about advancing beyond that kind of savagery, but as stated above, they can become just as savage as Klingons. Q may want to teach humanity a lesson about their hypocrisy, knocking them off their moral high horse to make them understand how far they still have to come.
• So the Saucer Section has no Warp Engines and they dropped it off to turn around and engage Q. So A) Why didn't they then go and pick it back up before heading to Farpoint afterwards - as it wasn't exactly going to go very far and B) How in the heck said saucer section GET to Farpoint Station without a Warp Drive on hand or a starship to tow it?
• Meta: In the courtroom, there's a tight zoom on Picard and a great deal of the picture is conspicuously blurred or blacked out with no apparent thing in the scene to cause this. Does anyone know why this is?

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