Star Trek - General Discussion

[schnauzergirl]

And don't forget William Windom's long tenure as Dr. Seth Hazlitt on Murder, She Wrote.  He was also terrific in a sadly under- appreciated show, My World and Welcome to It.

Edited August 9, 2021 by schnauzergirl

[SmithW6079]

On 8/8/2021 at 8:46 AM, marinw said:

I like this one too. I think it was as opportunity to make use of all the Nazi Uniforms NBC had at their disposal. Ditto for the Gangster Planet and the Old West Planet.

 

On 8/8/2021 at 4:55 PM, rmontro said:

Patterns of Force was a good one.  With the Nazi plot, it could have gotten too cheesy, but it was well done.  

To me, the thing about "Patterns of Force" (and I just watched that one the other night), is that it shows that Nazism is evil, no matter how benign the intentions. Of course, Gill should have been smarter and not broken the Prime Directive in the first place, but even if he was hellbent on doing so, he could have avoided using Nazi imagery. A historian should have known better than that.

2 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

What makes it more surprising is that other "blocked" crewmember, the one whom Rojan doesn't crumble, is Lt. Shea (Carl Byrd), who's African-American.  No offense intended, but this being 1968, I was expecting "the black guy" to get it, not the pretty girl.

(BTW, I check every time I watch, and they get it right.  Hanar picks up the dodecahedrons and hands them to Rojan, and you can see that Rojan does indeed crumble "Thompson" and not "Shea", just by keeping track.)

I thought Byrd did a good job of showing Shea's understandable fury during the rest of Act 2.  I wish we hadn't lost him for the rest of the episode.

Thompson is played by Julie Cobb, daughter of Lee J., making her professional debut.  She may be best remembered these days as "Jill" from Charles in Charge, although I was never a fan of that show.  (IMDb tells me she's been married to both Victor French and James Cromwell.  Huh.)

I watch the dodecahedrons and keep track too. Every single time. And because I looked up the character's name, I looked up the actress too, saw who she was the daughter of Lee J. Cobb and both her husbands. I like both those actors, so I wonder what the story was between her and Victor French. In Wikipedia, she's listed only in the info box for him as a spouse.

[rmontro]

1 hour ago, SmithW6079 said:

To me, the thing about "Patterns of Force" (and I just watched that one the other night), is that it shows that Nazism is evil, no matter how benign the intentions. Of course, Gill should have been smarter and not broken the Prime Directive in the first place,

I can't help but compare this episode with "The Omega Glory" (the one with the Yangs and the Kohms), which was on the other night.  The former seemed so much more well done. 

I have a question about "The Omega Glory".  From what I gather, it is simply a coincidence that the Yangs had a US flag and had developed their own US Constitution.  Is that correct, or did they give some sort of explanation that I missed somehow?

[Cobb Salad]

3 minutes ago, rmontro said:

I have a question about "The Omega Glory".  From what I gather, it is simply a coincidence that the Yangs had a US flag and had developed their own US Constitution.  Is that correct, or did they give some sort of explanation that I missed somehow?

My understanding is that it was a coincidence.  The parallels with the US along with Spock’s statement “they fought the war that you didn’t” gave a feeling of “what if” regarding the events of the time.  

[rmontro]

3 hours ago, Cobb Salad said:

My understanding is that it was a coincidence.  The parallels with the US along with Spock’s statement “they fought the war that you didn’t” gave a feeling of “what if” regarding the events of the time.  

That's what I thought.  Seems like a bit of a stretch though.  It would be more believable on a Rick and Morty episode, since that deals with multiple dimensions.

[Maverick]

 Budgetary constraints gave us Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development.  Basically it was a way to explain why so many planets the Enterprise stumbled on looked like Earth (with one of them even having it's own Mayberry.  Needless to say, it was a bit of a stretch, even for a science fiction show.

 The Doomsday Machine had the most new effects of any remastered TOS episode.   For the most part, I think it really enhanced the episode.   The Enterprise making those strafing runs on the machine are really cool and not something they could have hoped to do back when the show first aired.

[rmontro]

20 hours ago, Maverick said:

The Doomsday Machine had the most new effects of any remastered TOS episode.   For the most part, I think it really enhanced the episode.   The Enterprise making those strafing runs on the machine are really cool and not something they could have hoped to do back when the show first aired.

That's fine.  I just don't know why they had to turn the Machine green, or to change the basic look of it.

[Maverick]

 I haven't seen either version of The Doomsday Machine in a while so I don't remember the color, but I don't think they changed the design of the machine at all.   When the remastered episodes first came out, I remember Leonard Nimoy commenting he wasn't happy about them changing the their original work.  But when he saw that the finished product and realized they weren't replacing scenes with completely new effects but just recreating what was there with updated technology he was please with the outcome.  

[ottoDbusdriver]

When you compare the original Doomsday machine with the remastered Doomsday machine, in addition to the color change the remastered Doomsday machine seems to be a lot shorter and I found it to be not quite as impressive as the original.  It seems to lose a bit of its near-overwhelming threat status.

[rmontro]

15 hours ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

When you compare the original Doomsday machine with the remastered Doomsday machine, in addition to the color change the remastered Doomsday machine seems to be a lot shorter and I found it to be not quite as impressive as the original.  It seems to lose a bit of its near-overwhelming threat status.

Also, the texture of the outer shell appears to be different.  It still looks like a floating turd, but I far, far, far prefer the original.  I don't understand why they couldn't or didn't reproduce it.  

There are other cases of the new special effects updating the look of a few ships, or even including them when they weren't originally present IIRC.  But I don't think the look of the Doomsday Machine needed updated, at all.  Just recreate it as it was, and include some more flybys or whatever it is they wanted to do, and leave the look of it alone.  It's iconic, IMO.  It's like changing the look of Adam West's Batmobile.

[SmithW6079]

I watched "Mirror, Mirror" recently on Hulu. For me, it's one of the best episodes of TOS ever. I just love alternate history/timeline stories, and this fit the bill, from the crazy uniforms to the different beam-up patterns, to one of the few times Uhura had a larger role to play.

To follow it up, I watched the Star Trek Continues fan series episode "Fairest of Them All," which is a direct sequel to "Mirror, Mirror" that takes place in the mirror universe. There are some issues with the episode, but overall, I thought it worked really well as a sequel.

Star Trek Continues: "Fairest of Them All"

 

[rmontro]

5 hours ago, SmithW6079 said:

I watched "Mirror, Mirror" recently on Hulu. For me, it's one of the best episodes of TOS ever. I just love alternate history/timeline stories, and this fit the bill, from the crazy uniforms to the different beam-up patterns, to one of the few times Uhura had a larger role to play.

Not to mention alternate universe Spock's beard.  It is soooo iconic, it's almost its own character.

I've been meaning to watch Star Trek Continues for years, but I haven't been able to find the time.  I've been watching all the TOS reruns on MeTV every Sunday night, and I think I've been through the entire cycle (again).  I should substitute that time with watching STC episodes.

[SmithW6079]

34 minutes ago, rmontro said:

Not to mention alternate universe Spock's beard.  It is soooo iconic, it's almost its own character.

I've been meaning to watch Star Trek Continues for years, but I haven't been able to find the time.  I've been watching all the TOS reruns on MeTV every Sunday night, and I think I've been through the entire cycle (again).  I should substitute that time with watching STC episodes.

Overall,  the Star Trek Continues series is pretty good, and it does feel like a continuation of years 4 and 5 of the five-year mission.

Vic Mignogna is convincing as Capt. Kirk from the get-go, but it took a little time for me to get used to the other actors in their roles. They added a counselor character (borrowed from TNG).

I think they're worth the time, and it's one of the better fan series.

[Frost]

On 8/3/2014 at 9:43 PM, Runningwild said:

Not sure if this is the right place to put this, but I keep seeing all these stories about why George Takei still hates William Shatner. Apparently Takei is still miffed about the way he was treated during the original series. Really? No new slights to report? You're going to make a career and a living out of the fact that once upon a time you were a minor character on a show where the lead actor was a bit self-centered?

This post is from 2014 and it strikes me as funny that today, the day after William Shatner became the oldest human to fly to space, George Takei called him an unfit guinea pig.  Stay classy George!

[chessiegal]

We have a friend who met Shatner. He said he was a real asshat.

[rmontro]

2 hours ago, chessiegal said:

We have a friend who met Shatner. He said he was a real asshat.

I wouldn't doubt it.  This doesn't surprise me.  A lot of people are surprised when famous athletes act like spoiled divas, but they've been pampered all their lives, what do you expect?

I thought Shatner's comments about the space flight were interesting though.  Talking about  how small the thin line of our atmosphere is, and how there is this tiny area that is life, and then on the other side, going on forever, is death.  How the conditions that keep us alive are so rare and so small and short and specific.  And it serves as an analogy to our short time on the planet compared to the eternity without us.  That's all paraphrasing, but that's what I got out of it.

[SmithW6079]

3 hours ago, Frost said:

This post is from 2014 and it strikes me as funny that today, the day after William Shatner became the oldest human to fly to space, George Takei called him an unfit guinea pig.  Stay classy George!

That makes me sad for George. He's developed a great third or fourth act (let's face it, he's way past a second act), so why does he have to continue to hold a 55-year-old grudge? If he couldn't bear to say congratulations, then why not remain quiet?

[rmontro]

15 minutes ago, SmithW6079 said:

That makes me sad for George. He's developed a great third or fourth act (let's face it, he's way past a second act), so why does he have to continue to hold a 55-year-old grudge? If he couldn't bear to say congratulations, then why not remain quiet?

I guess by this time hating Shatner is part of his brand.  If only they would have given him some sort of show about being captain of the Excalibur, maybe he wouldn't be so bitter.

[SmithW6079]

4 minutes ago, rmontro said:

I guess by this time hating Shatner is part of his brand.  If only they would have given him some sort of show about being captain of the Excalibur, maybe he wouldn't be so bitter.

So he's going to be bitter for the rest of his life? Sometimes life sucks and you can't always get what you want. He built a new career in his 70s and 80s, something most people never do. I used to follow his Facebook page, until I realized it was just him (or his husband or staff) reposting stuff rather than original thoughts.

[CeeBeeGee]

On 10/14/2021 at 7:01 PM, rmontro said:

I guess by this time hating Shatner is part of his brand. 

Which is honestly...utterly pathetic.

Takei tweeted to Jeff Bezos "why didn't you pick me?" (or something along those lines). Because Shatner is iconic in a way that you aren't, Takei. I find the desperation to keep a 50+ year old "beef" alive really distasteful. I knew he didn't like him but I feel like the only time he gets attention is when he craps on Shatner, so that's what motivates him to keep it up. Grow the hell up and find a better hobby.

[blueray]

I caught the end of a random episode of TOS on Saturday (ME TV). And Kirk was in subspace and just sort of floating around. And crew just started laughing and "attacking" people at random. It was a funny episode without any context.

[Maverick]

 The Tholian Web.   Kirk floating around in the wacky EV suit was trippy even in context.   But that's 60s fashion and SFX.

[marinw]

I loved Spock's eulogy  in The Tholian Web. "You must evaluate the loss in the privacy of your own thoughts.".

[rmontro]

9 hours ago, marinw said:

I loved Spock's eulogy  in The Tholian Web. "You must evaluate the loss in the privacy of your own thoughts.".

In other episodes, that was the type of eulogy that might have prompted someone to call him a "cold hearted Vulcan".  

I also thought it was funny how the guy started freaking out when Spock said they had to assume the Captain was dead.  I know the guy was succumbing to the space madness.  But the crew on Star Trek always seemed to have intense personal feelings about their Captain.  

[marinw]

1 hour ago, rmontro said:

In other episodes, that was the type of eulogy that might have prompted someone to call him a "cold hearted Vulcan".  

I found the eulogy  enourmously dignified. And don't forget how much Spock loves Kirk, platonically or otherwise.

Edited November 9, 2021 by marinw

[rmontro]

15 minutes ago, marinw said:

I found the eulogy  enourmously dignified. And don't forget how much Spock loves Kirk, platonically or otherwise.

So you really did like it, I'm glad you clarified that.  I have no problem with it, especially in the military environment, and in the state of emergency that they were in.  Short and to the point.  I could see someone accusing Spock of giving Kirk the short shrift.  McCoy didn't realize Spock was mourning Kirk until they had listened to the secret tape.

Speaking of the secret tape, that was a case of a Vulcan lying.  Because Spock lied to Kirk, saying he and McCoy never listened to it.

[chessiegal]

We watched an episode on MeTV Saturday night. Low and behold, Michael Dunne shows up. We both looked at each other and said - Dr. Miguelito Loveless! (The Wild Wild West)

[marinw]

This show airs on CTV Sci-Fi in Canada and it is fascinating:https://deadline.com/2021/03/star-trek-documentary-series-history-channel-nacelle-company-1234711394/

[Hiyo]

Sally Kellerman, who played Dr. Elizabeth Dehner from the second pilot episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before", has passed away.

Edited February 25, 2022 by Hiyo

[marinw]

CTV Sci-fi is having a Star Trek movie marathon. Right now I am watching The Wrath of Khan for the millionth time. I maintain that it is still the best Trek movie ever made.

Edited June 5, 2022 by marinw

[rmontro]

5 hours ago, marinw said:

CTV Sci-fi is having a Star Trek movie marathon. Right now I am watching The Wrath of Khan for the millionth time. I maintain that it is still the best Trek movie ever made.

Fully agree, although that opinion isn't exactly going out on a limb.  I say The Voyage Home is #2,

I was watching Shore Leave, which aired on MeTV last night.  It featured Emily Banks as Yeoman Barrows.  She was high on a list of Star Trek's most attractive women on a YouTube video I saw.  I thought the opening scene was kind of amusing, Kirk was saying he had a kink in his back.  Yeoman Barrows started kneading it for him, but Kirk thought it was Spock doing it, so he said "A little higher, Mr. Spock", but then he realized it was Barrows and he dismissed her.  

[marinw]

6 hours ago, rmontro said:

I say The Voyage Home is #2,

My #2 is The Undiscovered Country. YMMV.

[rmontro]

8 hours ago, marinw said:

My #2 is The Undiscovered Country. YMMV.

That's my #3.

[Hiyo]

The Undiscovered Country is definitely one of the better Trek movies.

[vibeology]

If we're talking TOS movies only, my order is:

The Wrath of Khan

The Voyage Home

The Undiscovered Country

The Search for Spock

The Final Frontier

The Motion Picture

[rmontro]

3 hours ago, vibeology said:

If we're talking TOS movies only, my order is:

That's as good an order as any, although I find Star Trek:  The Motion Picture to be curiously rewatchable.  

What's the best of the rest, maybe First Contact?

[marinw]

First Contact is my favourite Next Gen film.

[vibeology]

Catch me on the right day and First Contact is my favourite Star Trek film.

[Maverick]

 Unpopular opinion, but I don't think ST VI is that great and therefore can't put much stock in the odd number curse.   From the idiotic scene of Uhura pulling out books (1) to try and speak Klingon to Spock essentially mind-raping Valeris in the middle of the bridge to the huge tracking patch on Kirk's back that the Klingons can't track or, you know, see because it's so huge the whole thing is kind of a mess, both from a plot and characterization standpoint.  

 For me, ST II and ST IV are the best movies.  While tonally they are almost polar opposites and hard to compare, they are both well done and tie for tops for me.   Another unpopular opinion, but as the middle piece to this arc I don't think ST III is as bad as it's made out to be.  I think its biggest strike is in the casting.   If they couldn't get Kirstie Alley back as Saavik, then they should have dropped the character.  Robin Curtis just didn't do well with the role.  Likewise Christopher Lloyd as a Klingon was an epic casting fail.   It's not a great movie but if I had to pick I'd probably watch it over VI.   

 I also don't mind watching TMP every so often.   There are some good bits (the transporter accident is pretty chilling) but there are so many parts that drag.  I actually like the time spent on the new Enterprise, with the extended fly around and scenes of it being lit up prior to departure, but the journey through V'ger stuff goes on way, way too long.  

 The less said about V the better.   Bottom of the barrel.   

[CeeBeeGee]

8 hours ago, vibeology said:

If we're talking TOS movies only, my order is:

The Wrath of Khan

The Voyage Home

The Undiscovered Country

The Search for Spock

The Final Frontier

The Motion Picture

I would agree with this but I would swap the last two. ST: TMP is bloated for sure but there's a solid one hour TOS episode there (or as the wags had it, ST:TMP Where Nomad Had Gone Before). And the score is fantastic! TFF is just crap. That cheesy grinning Vulcan--who happens to be Spock's half-brother? Kirk's crew mutinying? It's like bad fanfic. There's maybe one-two good scenes in it but the rest is garbage.

[SVNBob]

3 hours ago, Maverick said:

 Unpopular opinion, but I don't think ST VI is that great and therefore can't put much stock in the odd number curse.

Back in the earlier days of the internet, I either stumbled across or was recommended by a friend that espoused a "two-layer" theory about the quality of Star Trek movies.  Meaning that it wasn't just about the odd or even movies, but the odd-odd (1 and 5), even-odd (3), odd-even (2 and 6), and even-even (4) movies.  (I think this was just before the TNG movies started, hence not including them in the counts.)  I think the theory was that the odd-odds were the worst, even-evens the best, and the other two mid-range and easily mixable.  But because it has been so long since I read the page, I could be wrong.

I just tried Googling for anything similar to what I'm half-remembering, but couldn't find it.  However, I did find an op-ed on Tor.com saying that it's not the number of the movie that's the key to how good it is, but the subtitle.

[Hiyo]

I'd put First Contact up there with the best of the TOS movies.

If I had to list a top 3 of all Star Movies, for me, it would be (in no particular order) First Contact, Wrath of Khan, and The Undiscovered Country.

[vibeology]

7 hours ago, CeeBeeGee said:

I would agree with this but I would swap the last two. ST: TMP is bloated for sure but there's a solid one hour TOS episode there (or as the wags had it, ST:TMP Where Nomad Had Gone Before). And the score is fantastic! TFF is just crap. That cheesy grinning Vulcan--who happens to be Spock's half-brother? Kirk's crew mutinying? It's like bad fanfic. There's maybe one-two good scenes in it but the rest is garbage.

I'm not arguing that V is good but the few things I like I really like. I'm a sucker for the camping. I like watching the three be family in a low stakes environment. Plus the uniforms in TMP are so bad that I genuinely don't enjoy looking at it. To go from the bright colours of the series to the wall of bleh everyone is wearing is such a disappointment. It just drags my energy down for the rest of the film.

[JTMacc99]

On 6/6/2022 at 4:07 PM, vibeology said:

If we're talking TOS movies only, my order is:

The Wrath of Khan

The Voyage Home

I love both of these movies. The former is just a great movie, period. The Voyage Home layered in the wonderful humor that was often found in TOS. 

I'm not sure where I slot in First Contact. Probably between these two. Although the start of that movie, from the opening credits through when the Enterprise follows the Borg back in time, is spectacular moving making. Spielberg couldn't have done it better. 

[rmontro]

17 hours ago, Maverick said:

 Unpopular opinion, but I don't think ST VI is that great and therefore can't put much stock in the odd number curse.

The thing I like about VI is you could kind of tell it was the last one with the full crew, and they kind of hit all the greatest hits.  Like there's a mind meld, Spock taking command in Kirk's absence, Klingons, Kirk doing his almost mystically attracting females thing.

V is yeah, not that great, but there are some good moments.  It may the best at showing the relationship between the top three, they have a lot of scenes together, and the camping is nice.  I wonder if Shatner just isn't that good of a director, but maybe the story just isn't there.  It does have that one great memorable line:  "What does God need with a starship?".

I might prefer TMP.  For all its slowness, it feels like an early Trek episode, you can feel Roddenberry's influence heavily.  III is probably a little underrated.

I guess the reboots aren't getting much love, even though the casting is good (outside of Scotty, also not that fond of Cumberbatch's Kahn).  There's a question of how much it's really Star Trek science fiction or more Star Wars influenced space opera.  

[CeeBeeGee]

5 minutes ago, rmontro said:

I guess the reboots aren't getting much love, even though the casting is good (outside of Scotty, also not that fond of Cumberbatch's Kahn).  There's a question of how much it's really Star Trek science fiction or more Star Wars influenced space opera.  

I loved the first one! And yes, the casting was fantastic. But I was tremendously disappointed when the second one was their version of WoK--I remember thinking "Khan, again? Seriously, they couldn't be more creative than that?" Star Trek II had to bring back a character because they needed a surefire hit, after audiences were so disappointed with ST: TMP. (Although it still made a lot of money.) Star Trek 2009 was a huge hit and way over-performed. They weren't forced to reuse a character. And casting Cumberbatch as a character with the last name of Singh, whose background in the original episode was supposed to be South Asian is inexcusable in 2013.

I did like the third one, especially the Jaylah character. But Chris Pine seems a little young to be in line for a promotion of Vice Admiral.

[rmontro]

1 hour ago, CeeBeeGee said:

I loved the first one! And yes, the casting was fantastic. But I was tremendously disappointed when the second one was their version of WoK--I remember thinking "Khan, again? Seriously, they couldn't be more creative than that?"

I didn't mind the idea of them doing Kahn (it seemed like a natural thing to explore), I just didn't care for the execution.  And nothing against Cumberbatch (he's a great Dr. Strange), but he had big shoes to fill with Carlos Montalban.  As you said, the ethnicity didn't seem right either.  I guess maybe they tried to avoid comparisons with Montalban by going in an opposite direction.

[marinw]

I recently caught the last half of "A Taste of Armageddon"  an CTV-SciFi. Kirks violation of the Prime DIrective is pretty bad, but I have always loved the "I will not kill today." Speech:

“We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it! We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes… knowing that we're not going to kill today.” 

Edited July 20, 2022 by marinw

[starri]

I share this with a heavy heart.

[Hiyo]

Hailing frequencies closed, Sir. 😞