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ST - Star Trek

TM2YC

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Gaith said:
voypod2-head-777x437.jpg


podcast called The Delta Flyers,

I'm hooked on this and kinda bereft that I've run out of episodes. My favourite anecdote (from Ep3) I think was them saying Kate Mulgrew (who is of Irish decent) joked that her 1st Officer was "Chuck O'Tay". I can't un-hear that now :D .
 

Gaith

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Soooooo: no one's gonna talk about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds? Guess this means I'll have to actually watch "The Menagerie" at some point, let alone Discovery. :p

Anyhow...

TOS: "Spectre of the Gun" (3x01, 1968)

Kirk.jpg


In honor of Westworld, I continue my journey through Star Trek's three Wild West episodes. "Spectre of the Gun" has a weird and very un-Prime Directive premise in that the crew has been ordered to make contact with a mysterious alien civilization despite clear warnings from them not to attempt that. When they press on, the away team finds itself in a surreal, half-finished vision of the Old West. A moderately run romp fellows.

Grade: B. It may not be TOS at its finest, but I was never bored.

As for Westworld, one has to wonder if Crichton was influenced by this episode's sci-fi/Wild West mashup, nonworking guns, and even oddly monotone enemies that keep trying to provoke our heroes into drawing their weapons, a la Yul Brenner's Gunslinger. And, is it even possible that the striking red backdrop of the series' control room is a nod to the unnaturally red skies forced upon this episode by a budget too low to shoot on the studio's own exterior Western backlot?
 

asterixsmeagol

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Trek Movie said:
‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ To Be More Optimistic And Episodic, Says Co-Creator
Speaking to Variety executive producer Akiva Goldsman provided more details on the approach the show is taking:
"We’re going to try to harken back to some classical ‘Trek’ values, to be optimistic, and to be more episodic. Obviously, we will take advantage of the serialized nature of character and story building. But I think our plots will be more closed-ended than you’ve seen in either ‘Discovery’ or ‘Picard.’ I imagine it to be closer to the original series than even ‘DS9. We can really tell closed-ended stories. We can find ourselves in episodes that are tonally of a piece."

However, when it comes to the characters, Goldsman said indicated Strange New Worlds will not be hitting the reset button every week, saying "I think what we would want to do is keep the characters having moved through and recognizing the experiences they’ve had in previous episodes, but to be able to tell contained, episodic stories."

Good. I like story arcs to a certain extent but having a weekly feel with a big story like DS9 is more what I want.
 

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That sounds like my ideal Trek series. I doubt they have the capacity to pull it off, however.
 

TM2YC

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I'm coming to the conclusion that unlike with Star Wars, which has a very limited quantity of good "proper" content = 4 really good movies (about 8 hours), making the bad content very frustrating, Star Trek has over 600 hrs of amazing TV and movies from the past. So who needs new stuff and who cares if it's awful, or if it's okay, or if it's almost as good as the old stuff.
 

bionicbob

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TM2YC said:
I'm coming to the conclusion that unlike with Star Wars, which has a very limited quantity of good "proper" content = 4 really good movies (about 8 hours), making the bad content very frustrating, Star Trek has over 600 hrs of amazing TV and movies from the past. So who needs new stuff and who cares if it's awful, or if it's okay, or if it's almost as good as the old stuff.

Exactly.

For those who may not like the Kelvin Movies or the new CBS All Access Star Trek (not sure what we are calling this iteration yet? Kurtzman Trek???), it does not mean Star Trek is dead or ruined.

You still have YOUR STAR TREK.  Whatever series you love, it is still there and nothing can take that away or diminish it.

Even during the Berman Era, there was division amoung Trek fans over the various series.  But that is okay.  Infinite Diversity in Infintine Combinations.   That is one thing I love about the Franchise... there is a Trek for pretty much for everybody.   :D
 

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bionicbob said:
TM2YC said:
I'm coming to the conclusion that unlike with Star Wars, which has a very limited quantity of good "proper" content = 4 really good movies (about 8 hours), making the bad content very frustrating, Star Trek has over 600 hrs of amazing TV and movies from the past. So who needs new stuff and who cares if it's awful, or if it's okay, or if it's almost as good as the old stuff.

Exactly.

For those who may not like the Kelvin Movies or the new CBS All Access Star Trek (not sure what we are calling this iteration yet? Kurtzman Trek???), it does not mean Star Trek is dead or ruined.

You still have YOUR STAR TREK.  Whatever series you love, it is still there and nothing can take that away or diminish it.

Even during the Berman Era, there was division amoung Trek fans over the various series.  But that is okay.  Infinite Diversity in Infintine Combinations.   That is one thing I love about the Franchise... there is a Trek for pretty much for everybody.   :D

Speaking of...

Been looking forward to this for weeks.
 

wilhelm scream

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Handman said:
bionicbob said:
TM2YC said:
I'm coming to the conclusion that unlike with Star Wars, which has a very limited quantity of good "proper" content = 4 really good movies (about 8 hours), making the bad content very frustrating, Star Trek has over 600 hrs of amazing TV and movies from the past. So who needs new stuff and who cares if it's awful, or if it's okay, or if it's almost as good as the old stuff.

Exactly.

For those who may not like the Kelvin Movies or the new CBS All Access Star Trek (not sure what we are calling this iteration yet? Kurtzman Trek???), it does not mean Star Trek is dead or ruined.

You still have YOUR STAR TREK.  Whatever series you love, it is still there and nothing can take that away or diminish it.

Even during the Berman Era, there was division amoung Trek fans over the various series.  But that is okay.  Infinite Diversity in Infintine Combinations.   That is one thing I love about the Franchise... there is a Trek for pretty much for everybody.   :D

Speaking of...

Been looking forward to this for weeks.

Now this is a masterpiece!
 

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Just finished the Plinkett review today.  Those last 5 minutes are especially damning.
 

TM2YC

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Handman said:
Just finished the Plinkett review today.  Those last 5 minutes are especially damning.

Mmmmm yeah, that's some soothing Star Trek balm, full off optimism and adventure. Cliff Eidelman's 'Sign Off' (about 2-mins in):


^ Sheer magic!

I liked that the review didn't feature any of the usual "Plinkett is a serial killer" humour. I never found that all that funny, it's the opinions I enjoy hearing. Also Mike makes another good argument for physical media, buy the old stuff, keep it forever and then you don't need to give them another penny of your money until they start making something you actually want to watch :D . Having not watched Picard, past the opening episodes it's difficult to tell if Mike was joking or not at times. Did they really use clips from Night of the Living Dead?
 

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TM2YC said:
Having not watched Picard, past the opening episodes it's difficult to tell if Mike was joking or not at times. Did they really use clips from Night of the Living Dead?

I don't think so, but they did use 1-second flashes of stock footage of a robot they slapped a Starfleet logo on, which earned some clickbait scolding, so maybe he was riffing on that.

The overall narrative of S1 is as much a cluster-fruitcake as Mike says, but I was disappointed the review was so narrowly focused on all that. The production values are excellent, the cast is hugely talented, and Stewart in particular turns in several lovely acting moments per episode. No, it's not a shining addition to the Trek pantheon, but then, not much of Trek is, particularly in their first seasons. If they come up with a more modest and coherent second season, and tone down the gratuitous adult content, the show could still produce something great. We'll see. :)
 

asterixsmeagol

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I enjoyed the first season of Picard more than I enjoyed the first two seasons of Discovery, but I haven't loved any of them. Even though it's not quite a continuation of TNG, it's still better to have it as a coda for that series than ending on Nemesis.
 

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Gaith said:
If they come up with a more modest and coherent second season, and tone down the gratuitous adult content, the show could still produce something great. We'll see. :)

I see you're still going with that Discovery post-S1-pre-S2 "If they'd just fix the problems then..." optimism and not my preferred "They'll keep the problems and then ruin the good bits too" pessimism ;) .
 

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^ Ha, well, I still haven't given Discovery a spin. :p
 

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81ydOeobm-L._SX342_.jpg


Having recently upgraded the NextGen movies to a 2nd-hand blu-ray set, it's time for a re-watch and some long rambling reviews... :D

Star Trek Generations (1994)
'Generations' was peak Trek for me and probably for a lot of other people too. The TOS crew had gone out in style in ST6 (still rotating heavily on TV and video), 'The Next Generation' series had ended on a high, 'Deep Space Nine' was on it's 3rd season and 'Voyager' was just about to air. I had a poster, a mug, the interactive VHS boardgame, a couple of TNG novels, the '94 Encyclopedia and many of the ERTL model kits (Enterprises OG/A/B/D, Reliant, Klingon Bird of Prey/TMP-Cruiser/TNG-Cruiser, DS9, Runabout and Voyager). I think 'Generations' was probably the first Star Trek movie I saw at the cinema. In that spirit I was deaf to it's flaws but over the years the deficiencies have become more apparent. Now after revisiting the film in the shadow of recent Trek travesties, I was more than willing to overlook those flaws and love it all over again. Still, let's explore those flaws anyway...

Star Trek's long-running cheapness when it comes to costumes, FX, props and sets is unfortunately obvious. There are at least three completely different uniforms (in a range of assorted colours) being used by the crew to save money and some of them don't even fit. Geordie's is 5 sizes too big and Riker's is 5 sizes too small, like they were borrowed from the DS9 costume department (and I'd bet they were). There is also some re-used footage from ST6 to save more money and it stands out like a sore thumb. The decision was made to drastically change the lighting on the Enterprise-D to be dark and moody, which feels weird after 7 seasons of it looking another way. I agree about the need to not have bright, flat TV lighting in a movie but some sort of balance could've been struck. Is anybody suggesting that brightly lit sets like in Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' aren't cinematic? Data's emotion chip is finally put into play but the writers seem more interested in using it for cheesy gags, than for exploring Data's character. Of course bringing Kirk and co back for one last cameo after they all had the (literal) perfect sign off in ST6 kinda sucks. They should've left it alone and had more faith in the TNG actors to carry the movie. Picard lets go of the Nexus far too easily, with no real explanation given beyond him being our hero, so that's what he's supposed to do and his plan to stop Soran is just dumb. Despite them doing a re-shoot to fix it, Kirk's last scene is still weak. With that over...

I hadn't seen this in so long (and never on blu-ray) so I'd quite forgotten how beautiful most of the FX shots are. The ships look terrific (the Enterprise-B is one of my all time favourites) and the early uses of CGI hold up very well indeed. Dennis McCarthy isn't one of the more famous ST composers but his Nexus theme is stunning. It's got that magical Christmas music sound to it. All the TNG actors still look young and athletic, more or less just like they did in the TV show. They're all still taking their characters very seriously and haven't forgotten their accents, attitudes and behaviours. Picard is still mostly portrayed as the reserved negotiator and diplomat, something that would be eroded as the franchise went on. There is a long, involved scene of Picard trying to dissuade Soran from his course of action by just reasoning with him and he almost gets through. The later Picard would've just fired a barrage of torpedoes at first glance. There are many great moments like when Kirk jumps his horse and doesn't feel the danger. It's very poetic, I can totally believe that would break the Nexus spell for an "adrenaline junky" like Kirk (plus wow! You can tell Shatner is a great horseman). Overall, I really enjoyed watching 'Generations' again! :)

 

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TM2YC said:
There is a long, involved scene of Picard trying to dissuade Soran from his course of action by just reasoning with him and he almost gets through. The later Picard would've just fired a barrage of torpedoes at first glance.

Counterpoint: would he, though? In Nemesis, he belay's Worf's instinctive raising of shields when staring down the Scimitar, and makes numerous appeals to Shinzon's better nature. And in Picard, there's many more instances of him decrying and trying to avoid violence than resorting to it. I think I know what you mean, though, and that's that Trek has come to view action pron as totally awesome, dude under Abrams/Kurtzman. The ridiculously overpraised Beyond is one long orgy of violence, with a few token throwaway appeals to diplomacy and peaceful problem-solving. But the writers stack the deck by making the villains increasingly insane and fanatical (see: space vampire Idris Elba, determined to wipe out an entire starbase full of civilians for nebulous reasons of revenge). It's not so much the characters that changed as it was the character of the films themselves.

Anyhow, I love Generations, it's my favorite of the TNG films, and thus, due to my TNG bias, my favorite Trek film by default. The mishmash of costumes and new dramatic lighting, as you say, tells the story of where the franchise was behind-the-scenes right on screen, and that, to me, only makes it more memorable. :D
 

TM2YC

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Gaith said:
TM2YC said:
There is a long, involved scene of Picard trying to dissuade Soran from his course of action by just reasoning with him and he almost gets through. The later Picard would've just fired a barrage of torpedoes at first glance.

Counterpoint: would he, though? In Nemesis, he belay's Worf's instinctive raising of shields when staring down the Scimitar and makes numerous appeals to Shinzon's better nature.

I was exaggerating a bit, "trying" to be funny :D . It would perhaps be more accurate to say that Picard is increasingly more likely to grab a phaser rifle and give a "let's kick some ass" look to camera as the movies went on. Only moving on to firing torpedoes, setting self destruct and engaging ramming speed when that had failed.

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Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Arguably the best and most accessible (for non Trek fans) of the four TNG movies, although not perfect. It's a terrific action focused adventure in it's own right, quite dark in tone but still remains very Star Trek in spirit and theme. Although the focus is sometimes too much on phaser battles, explosions and body-horror, the story shows us a near-future bleak post-WW3 possibility for mankind (if we don't mend our ways) and celebrates the unified far future paradise that space travel could herald. The scene where Picard (literally and metaphorically) disarms Lilly by showing her the wonder of seeing Earth from orbit, is totally magical and gives me goosebumps every time (in no small part thanks to Jerry Goldsmith's score). In that way it's arguably the most Star Trek of all the films, conveying Gene Roddenberry's central vision.  The script goes to show you can swear in ST (and direct it at Picard), without it feeling cringey and misjudged. When Lilly bursts into his ready-room and calls Picard a "Son of a b*tch" and tells him he's talking "Bullsh*t" it feels natural because it's justified by the material and characters. Then it's followed up by her bringing him to his senses with a reference to literature.

I believe 'First Contact' was the last Trek film to use physical models and arguably the FX have not been bettered in this franchise. The shot where the new Enterprise sweeps past the camera into the Borg battle blocking out the whole frame is still stunning. Ground breaking CGI shots like when the Borg Queen's head lowers into her robot body still hold up and still look creepy. Even on VHS, I've always found it distracting that the actors are armed with two different Phaser-rifle props. They're similar enough that I can't help trying to spot which version they are holding in any given scene. I wonder if this was because they were just trying to save money on props, or maybe re-shoots were behind it? (Plus there's a third design used in the space-walk scene). You can tell Jonathan Frakes is trying his hardest to make every single shot and camera angle look beautiful and visually interesting in his debut feature. Overall 'First Contact' is an easy re-watch anytime for me.


 

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I agree there's a lot to love about FC, but I really loathe the Borg Queen/Data stuff. I think the Borg Queen was a mistake in general, though I appreciate Krige's performance and think the character could have worked better in another story. It's her whole seduction of Data/wanting a worthwhile mate that's off-the-charts cringe for me. TNG-era Trek is so generally sexless that to have all this evil-coded sexuality brought in out of the blue feels wildly out of place, and results in her merely prancing around making speeches, and never really doing anything other than being duped. That, and Picard's whole mission to offer himself up as a sacrifice plays like a hacky riff on Luke willingly facing the Emperor.

Maybe someday I'll make a fan edit that cuts out all the Queen stuff, leaving no explanation for exactly how Picard rescues Data, and only following the Phoenix storyline in the latter half. It might not meet this site's exacting standards for coherent storytelling, but I could at least enjoy (what would be left of) the movie again... :p
 

TM2YC

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Gaith said:
I agree there's a lot to love about FC, but I really loathe the Borg Queen/Data stuff. I think the Borg Queen was a mistake in general, though I appreciate Krige's performance and think the character could have worked better in another story. It's her whole seduction of Data/wanting a worthwhile mate that's off-the-charts cringe for me. TNG-era Trek is so generally sexless that to have all this evil-coded sexuality brought in out of the blue feels wildly out of place, and results in her merely prancing around making speeches, and never really doing anything other than being duped. That, and Picard's whole mission to offer himself up as a sacrifice plays like a hacky riff on Luke willingly facing the Emperor.

Maybe someday I'll make a fan edit that cuts out all the Queen stuff, leaving no explanation for exactly how Picard rescues Data, and only following the Phoenix storyline in the latter half. It might not meet this site's exacting standards for coherent storytelling, but I could at least enjoy (what would be left of) the movie again... :p

You could eliminate the Borg Queen/Data plot easily I think (but it would drastically reduce the run time of the film) since the Enterprise's first action upon arriving in the past is to blow up the Borg sphere. So just cut everything the Borg do after that, beginning with them managing to beam aboard the Enterprise. It would just be a short film about hanging out with a drunken Cochran, going on a magic carpet ride, meeting some Vulcans and then sodding off back to the future.
 
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