Not enough news about the new movie and trek in general? What?
In the past few month we've got news that:
Movie is delayed until Dec 2012 instead of July 2012
A nutter is considering a pitch for a new series
They're doing a few TNG episodes on Blu-Ray (which could lead to an eventual series)
The TNG on Blu-Ray is the current news. Which is annoying since TNG is a horrible and bland series and the episodes they're talking about including are Farpoint, Sins of The Father & Inner Light. Not exactly episodes which need a retouching.
They've got 1, the pilot which is incredibly dated but still the best episode included which could do with a remaster, Sins of the Father (klingons ugh) & Inner Light (more of a simple dramatic piece, good episode but not exactly needing a touch-up).
Why not just go with Best of Both World & All Good Things? I guess it's an idea to pick simple episodes and see if there's a market to do the blockbuster episodes.
DS9 needs a remaster, the set had so much detail and could look fantastic, but the ship on TNG will just look empty and bland and boring.
An episode like Inner Light (my personal favourite ever Trek episode) is a lot easier to convert to Blu-Ray than either of Best of Both World or All Good Things would be due to the relative lack of special effects shots which would need shooting or more likely replacing with CGI. It doesn't surprise me that they'd test the water with something like that. Even Farpoint doesn't have a huge number of effects shots because it was the pilot and they didn't have the budget for them.
I don't think DS9 will ever get an HD remastering unless the TNG trial and hopeful full series sells very strongly simply because of the costs involved.
Should we move some posts over from the Star Wars thread? If not:
Originally Posted by Bill Casey
Don't forget Worf shifting through alternate realities with his fucking bowling trophy...
I'm pretty sure that was in the final season...
I really liked that episode. The wacky episodes like Masks and the de-evolving episode were too much though. That one where Data has weird dreams is an odd one too. As is the one where the Enterprise becomes a sentient being. I'm not sure what the writers were drinking and smoking when they were writing that year.
That season also had my least favourite episode, Sub Rosa, about Beverley's female descendants all falling in lonve with an alien ghost or something else very dull.
Originally Posted by Dr. Atty!
Or that no one noticed that Seven's parents went out to hunt Borg a decade before anyone knew about them.
I think that there was an acknowledgment that the timeline had been altered due to the events of First Contact which triggered the Borg encountering the Federation many years before TNG had claimed.
That season also had my least favourite episode, Sub Rosa, about Beverley's female descendants all falling in lonve with an alien ghost or something else very dull.
Are we forgetting the clip show 'Shades of Gray'
I guess it doesn't really count.
Originally Posted by Beefy
I think that there was an acknowledgment that the timeline had been altered due to the events of First Contact which triggered the Borg encountering the Federation many years before TNG had claimed.
I'm also one of the people who buys into this. First Contact's timeline alteration also then cleans up the reason why Enterprise is so fancy compared to The Original Series.
The timeline of the borg still slightly works even without the altered timeline if we split hairs with hearing rumours about the Borg and actually meeting the borg. If the nerds heard about a species and went looking (as they do) without knowing anything.
Especially if we remember we heard of the Borg in the TOS part of Generations. We know "of" them but don't know anything about them.
Last edited by Aussie_Outlaw; September 28th, 2011 at 4:38 AM.
So, are they still saying that V'Ger was the reason the Borg were created it or is that still a mystery? Enterprise could have been great if someone actually read the history of Trek first. They could have done a lot with the Federation giving the Klingons weapons only to turn it around on them. The Klingons did not need to be in the first episode nor did they need that Temporal Cold War shit. They should have stuck with the Vulcan/Andorian stuff which was very interesting.
DS9 being on Blu Ray remastered would probably get me to buy a player. Yet, I know Babylon 5 has already been told its a no go for them and I think they had half the effects DS9 had per episode. I can't see Voyager going Blu Ray for awhile.
I don' think anyone has said that about the origin of the Borg. Vger is pretty much completely ignored by all modern series so at this state it's left as an open mystery.
In Treklit continuity: (Destiny Trilogy of Novels) - The current treklit is all pretty much one consistent universe of a few hundred books)
The Borg were created by the NX02 (Enterprise Era Ship) when thrown back in time with an empathic alien gestalt race thus forcing forming a crude link which eventually matured into the current borg.
And I have too many Star Trek books on my shelves. Only real one missing which I can't be bothered getting is the Voyager Companion.
Last edited by Aussie_Outlaw; September 28th, 2011 at 8:45 AM.
DS9 being on Blu Ray remastered would probably get me to buy a player. Yet, I know Babylon 5 has already been told its a no go for them and I think they had half the effects DS9 had per episode. I can't see Voyager going Blu Ray for awhile.
Voyager is in the same boat as TNG and DS9. It's shot on film and then the effects transposed onto that film. The original film which the individual elements were shot on was very expensive so was reused by the studio pretty much straight away as they never thought they'd need them again.
The effects aren't compatible with high definition and can't just be upscalled to 1080 so would need to be digitally removed and then put back in. Plus a lot of the ship models have been lost of broken so they either need to be rebuilt or completely replaced with CGI. The whole thing costs a lot of money which is why the TOS Blu-Rays are so expensive. I don't see them selling enough copies of DS9 and Voyager to make it viable.
The one slight chance is that they decide that the syndication rights of the HD versions of the show would make it worth their while as it surely won't be too long before syndication money for the standard def shows dries up completely.
Last edited by Beefy; September 28th, 2011 at 8:56 AM.
DS9 being on Blu Ray remastered would probably get me to buy a player. Yet, I know Babylon 5 has already been told its a no go for them and I think they had half the effects DS9 had per episode. I can't see Voyager going Blu Ray for awhile.
B5 and DS9 did their effects differently. B5 was Computer Effects from Day 1 while DS9 was models for the early days and eventually ended up with Computer Modelling.
B5 looks horrible on DVD due to the way the video was stored. You can easily see the difference in quality between a normal shot and a shot with CGI in it. And they lost the computer models so they'd all have to be done from scratch:
wiki:
The transfer of Babylon 5 from fullscreen to widescreen (originally for the Sci Fi Channel; later released on DVD) created significant problems with regard to special-effects/CGI footage. Several factors complicated the process.
Although originally broadcast in the standard television aspect ratio of 4:3, all live-action footage was filmed on Super 35 mm film (with a ratio of 1.65:1). The idea was that, once widescreen televisions (with an aspect ratio of 16:9 or 1.78:1) became more popular, the episodes could be easily converted into a widescreen format.
CGI shots were rendered in the 4:3 ratio, but designed so that the top and bottom of each shot could be removed to create a widescreen image without ruining the image composition. For the widescreen DVD releases technical problems occurred during the progressive scan transfer and re-formatting, introducing artifacts that resulted in a picture quality of the CGI shots now inferior to the few laserdisc and other 4:3 home video releases.
While the camera negatives of the original live-action shots held the potential for high-definition digital images, the CGI shots and shots combining live-action with CGI, were stored in the much lower-definition NTSC digital format. (Again, the expectation was that it would be relatively cheap in the future to recreate the CGI in widescreen.)
Over the years, the original computer-generated models, and so on, have been lost, making it necessary to use the old 4:3 CGI shots. Both Foundation Imaging and its successor, Netter Digital, have gone out of business.
This has resulted in several consistent flaws throughout the Babylon 5 widescreen release. In particular, quality drops significantly whenever a scene cuts from purely live-action to a shot combining live-action and CGI. This is particularly noticeable on the PAL DVDs, since CGI shots had to be converted from NTSC, as well as being blown up to fit a widescreen television. In addition, while the live-action film was originally widescreen, shots were composed for 4:3, resulting in a conspicuous tendency for actors to clump up in the middle of the screen.
DS9 won't have the above issues, it'll be as difficult as TNG to do... but it's completely not viable due to lack of interest.
That season also had my least favourite episode, Sub Rosa, about Beverley's female descendants all falling in lonve with an alien ghost or something else very dull.
Season 7 was very up and down - the high points were "The Pegasus" (featuring Terry O'Quinn from Lost as Riker's old captain), "Pre-emptive Strike" (one last outing for Engisn Ro, who had been forgotten for the most part) and of course the finale. There were other decent episodes along the way, but a lot of poor or downright rubbish episodes mixed in.
I think the Blu-ray demo makes sense - "Encounter at Farpoint" will have a lot of effects, given how long they spend on the saucer separation and such. "Yesterday's Enterprise" could do with an upgrade. It's a classic episode and still one of the best battles in terms of everything exploding on the bridge (which Voyager overdid by having it occur nearly every episode), yet the space battle with the Klingons at the very end has pretty basic effects.
I think TNG peaked with Season 4 - some absolutely stellar episodes throughout. The only thing I'm worried about with the Blu-ray release is having to sit through some of the tripe in the first 2 seasons. I wouldn't wish those on anyone. It'll be a long time until we get to some tasty political intrigue with the Romulans, Worf's arc, "The Best of Both Worlds", etc.
This is still one of, if not my absolute, favourite scene in all of Star Trek.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n17nATi3EqI"]Stealing the Enterprise - YouTube[/ame]
Wrath of Khan may be the best, but Search for Spock is probably my favourite for the big "operatic" moments as Leonard Nimoy describes them. Stealing the Enterprise, the showdown with the Klingons, the destruction of the Enterprise and the fist-fight while Genesis is falling apart.
Last edited by Chris; September 28th, 2011 at 2:50 PM.
Star Trek 3 is class and I find it to be underrated/overlooked quite a bit. It also flows so nicely from Khan. Kirk losing his son to bring back his friend is crushing and Shatner not being able to get back in his chair after may be my favorite bit of acting he's done.
Originally Posted by Aussie_Outlaw
Movie is delayed until Dec 2012 instead of July 2012
I had heard 2013. I don't mind the delay but I hope they actually plan out what they want with this series of movies. The last one gave them a clean slate to make it more accessible to the general audience, but they probably should sort out how many films they'll get from this. I hate to say a trilogy as they feel cliche at this point, but that's about all they can keep the full cast together for, I'd suspect.
I figure the next movie will be Khan and, while I'm okay with that provided they do something different with him, they should map out what's to come. I'm a Gorn mark, but I doubt there is enough awesome in the universe to give me a Gorn movie. The Gorn would also be nice as, other than them being giant reptiles, there isn't much of anything about them in Trek and they could do whatever they want. Honestly, I wouldn't mind them raping TOS continuity (more so) and doing something with the Borg, provided they have a story and maybe a different take on the Borg.
If they insist on doing Khan, I'll say what I've said elsewhere, have the basic change from Space Seed being someone else finding the Botany Bay. Like have the Klingons find it and take Khan and company to that prison camp that was cut from the last movie. Have Khan tortured (JJ said he'd like to explore torture in the next film) and have Kirk literally sent into the Kobiashi Maru scenario, going into Klingon space to rescue a stranded Earth ship, only to have Khan take over the Enterprise and maroon Kirk and the main cast on the prison planet. Marooned for all eternity... ...Buried alive...
They had a great looking Gorn in a cut scene in the prison, so have Kirk fight him there as a way to suck off TOS a bit more, have Kirk take over an old TOS-style D7 Klingon cruiser and have to follow Khan to Earth to stop whatever thing he's going to do to destroy the planet or whatever. Kirk vs the Enterprise.
JJ's Gorn:
A nutter is considering a pitch for a new series
Ugh. I'd like a new series, don't get me wrong here, but it's just going to make the continuity convoluted all over again. A new crew, probably in the same era, just complicates things. And if it's in a different era, it'll confuse the movie audience even more. If they do a new show, I'd rather it come after this series of movies is either done or has a couple more under it's belt.
They're doing a few TNG episodes on Blu-Ray (which could lead to an eventual series)
The TNG on Blu-Ray is the current news. Which is annoying since TNG is a horrible and bland series and the episodes they're talking about including are Farpoint, Sins of The Father & Inner Light. Not exactly episodes which need a retouching.
They've got 1, the pilot which is incredibly dated but still the best episode included which could do with a remaster, Sins of the Father (klingons ugh) & Inner Light (more of a simple dramatic piece, good episode but not exactly needing a touch-up).
Why not just go with Best of Both World & All Good Things? I guess it's an idea to pick simple episodes and see if there's a market to do the blockbuster episodes.
DS9 needs a remaster, the set had so much detail and could look fantastic, but the ship on TNG will just look empty and bland and boring.
The Inner Light is one of their best episodes ever and is one that's immediately accessible to non-Trekkies/ers, but it doesn't strike me as one that I'd want on blu-ray if they're only doing select episodes.
Best of Both Worlds would be a tremendous choice but, really, that would require so much editing to not look like piss that it would make Lucas blush. If they were to redo effects and upgrade a select few episodes, something like Q Who, Best of Both Worlds, All Good Things, Yesterday's Enterprise and some others could be great choices that could look all flashy but I don't see how it'd be worth the cost to go through and redo them. With TOS, redoing effects worked great in that none of them took a whole lot to redo and look in line with the rest of the show.
Farpoint wouldn't be worth the cost of the blu-ray disc. Not to bash it here, but no one knew their characters yet and it always plays as a bit off to me (like most of the first season.)
Great thread. The Mike and I will make good use of it.
There was a poll going around, I don't know if it was legit or not, but it asked which of these characters would you like to see in the new film? It was Harry Mudd, the Horta, the Talosians and I think the Gorn or someone else. I think it was just a little cameo though not a huge part.
I'd dig them doing the Talosians. In the alternate timeline, Pike never went to Talos IV and it could be interesting to see the original pilot totally re-imagined with Kirk doing things differently.
Wrath of Khan may be the best, but Search for Spock is probably my favourite for the big "operatic" moments as Leonard Nimoy describes them. Stealing the Enterprise, the showdown with the Klingons, the destruction of the Enterprise and the fist-fight while Genesis is falling apart.
I watched Search for Spock loads in my teens. I remember liking that scene a lot, even though it's possibly the dullest escape going. I'd like to watch it again, it's nearly been 15 years. Was this the one, or was it Wrath of Khan, where they inputted numbers by flicking switches? Amazing.
Also look at that hair. It forced me to look and I found, http://shatnerstoupee.blogspot.com/ and I've been captivated by this for the last hour. I think I was a bit aspergers when I was younger as I had no problem with his hair.
Last edited by The Rogerer; September 28th, 2011 at 9:32 PM.
I'm sharing the love for Search for Spock, and especially for that whole part of the film between the crew returning home and Kirk stealing the Enterprise. It was all about the characters, their relationships with eachother and how high they'd allow the stakes to go for them in order to save their friends. At its heart it's a much more engaging idea than basing a film around attempting to save a planet full of people who we, and the crew for that matter, know next to nothing about and have no emotional investment in.
That is the major hit on the TNG crew films is minus a few scenes here and there, you don't see the chemistry the TOS had. Generations was more about Picard/Kirk than getting to know the crew. As bad as the original motion picture was, you were re-introduced to the main characters again. Generations was here is the TOS crew for fifteen minutes and why they work so well and here is an hour of the TNG crew not doing much then the last half hour is all about Kirk passing the torch to Picard. TNG really needed to have a film that gave you the outlines of who every one was and their relationships. All Good Things really should have been their first movie, but they needed something big to end the series with and it worked.
First Contact works, because you have the crew acting a bit foolish around Cochran while Picard deals with his hate for the Borg and Data is being tempted by flesh. You got to know the characters better by showcasing their abilities, their goals and their teamwork. I disagree with First Contact is just an adventure movie. The movie is dealing with the morality of revenge, seduction and the phrase never meet your heroes. There is a lot of Roddenberry underneath the layer of action sequences and space battles. Which is what made Star Trek great.
Insurrection just started off on the wrong foot with Data going insane. It really needed to be a giant mystery on why the Federation wanted this planet instead of outright saying, its makes you immortal. There was no need to bring in another alien race. Just have some Federation vs. Federation battles or just plain skip it and tell a story of the Enterprise during the Dominion War. As much as I loved DS9 doing that, it made no sense never to show the Enterprise or her crew in something as huge as a three year war with a vastly superior enemy.
Am out in Thailand at the moment and among other highlights it's given me chance to watch a few classic episodes of TNG. Man, what a great show. Practically shaped my morals as a nipper I reckon with it's ALLEGORICAL take on global diplomacy.
So there might be a new series being written eh? Any rumours on that? I was hoping there might be something in the offing since Enterprise was so cack, there's sure to be something else (in the FUTURE) they can come up with.
I would be happy to see a new series, but only if the writers can keep it in their pants, so to speak. Pretty much the first thing Enterprise did was strip the crew to their underwear and have soft porn gel rubbing scenes all over the place, and the next thing it did was have its own 9/11. A little subtlety, please, guys. DS9 had tons of action, humour, fun, sexual tension and thoughtful, message-delivering episodes without looking like it was produced by Spike TV.
A new series is so tricky as the main goal of the JJ film was to make something that was accessible to a general audience. That meant wiping every episode from it's timeline. If they jump in too quick, it could throw off some people that would only go see a movie anyway.
A new series, however, is probably inevitable and, when it comes, I hope it follows a BSG or Dexter schedule where each season has fewer episodes. Decide what they want to do and not have filler episodes.
A new era to work in can be tricky with the original timeline raped, but there are a few ideas for shows I've had for awhile. The main would be the "reverse Voyager." Basically, some science ship is sent on a mission to the other side of the galaxy for study, basically knowing they'll never see home again. Maybe have the crew in hibernation and do Lost flashbacks for characters as they wake up in the first episode to establish everyone. Each season could be them exploring some slightly different big thing and what happens around it without a fucking reset button.
The 'stuck with no hope of return' stuff is done to death. Recently we've had Voyager, Battlestar, SGU and now we've got Terra Nova. Isn't that plot idea pretty much done to death.
I'd rather a science/security type situation. If we set it around the work done on the Genesis Device we've got a weapon we know, we can have the klingons or someone try to steal it. There's an excuse to bring Pine in as Kirk to cameo and it's a slightly untold part of Trek-history.
Make them lose the device, or make it discovered that to get the technology we actually discovered it from an unheard alien plant race who use it to colonise/invade planets.
Voyager was never a no hope of return deal. Every episode they were heading home no matter what happened the week before. In truth, Voyager is perhaps my favorite basis for a series that they've done, but they followed through on so little that wore me down. Part of that problem for me is that the studio apparently didn't want to commit to potentially depressing premise and that's why they always kept the second caretaker unresolved, so if the studio demanded a shake up they could bring the ship back on a moments notice and go back to a more traditional TNG-like series.
With it being on Netflix, I went back to it a few months back and wound up both enjoying it more and less than I expected or remembered. At the very start it's established that this is Janeway's first real command. I hadn't recalled that being a plot point and it's something that's dropped right away, but that would have been interesting to explore. Kirk and Picard, in very different ways, had been presented as the perfect captains. Having a rookie, who makes a questionable decision that strands not only her crew but another crew on the other side of the galaxy at the start, would have been a interesting dynamic to explore. Show how it wears on her and her own uncertainty. Instead they fell pretty much right back to to "the captain is always right" with very sporadic and disjointed episodes that mention people not agreeing with her long after that had been abandoned as a plot point.
I don't mean "no hope of returning home" in the way that BSG or even voyager was. I mean like a crew who's mission was to explore far beyond any established territory and their mission entailed them knowing they may never see their homes again. There's this one DS9 episode (the title escapes me right now) where they come in contact with the single survivor of a science mission to the beta quadrant and are talking to her about their lives while they try to find her. Something like that as the basis. The ship is sent to some remote area where they can't just pop back to Earth on an episode's notice or really get supplies or reinforcements.
DS9 episode: Sound of her voice? It's in the back half of Season 6.
I like Voyager, it's nice, it's just annoying that it reboots so often and so many later stores seem to revolve around Seven, Janeway & The Doctor. Then it gets tiresome. Much like how Stargate Atlantis is fun.
Currently I'm slowly going through The show 'The 4400' and it's run by pretty much most of the DS9 production crew/writers. Wolfe, Behr & Echevarria all write/produce episodes. Not a bad series, and it's always wonderful to see Jeffrey Coombes appearing regularly in a series.
Though I guess pretty much all SciFi series in the 2000's have a link to Star Trek in one way or another. Still was a bit stunning to see 3 of the major DS9 guys all writing for the one show.
Having all Star Trek on Netflix streaming might just be one of the best things ever, especially now that the best one ever, DS9 has finally been brought on board.
Voyager's premise really intrigued me as well, but the core plot seemed to go out the window pretty quickly. Quite odd that it became notorious for the reset button given its nature lended itself to that the least, and I think it's a shame it was very episodic and never seemed to build over the course of seasons. I don't even remember many real arcs. There was the Doctor's constant drive to be recognised as a sentient life form and to feel sort of human, and... Seska being a bitch?
Though I had a discussion about this with a friend who was a huge B5 fan, and he remembers Voyager as being very stringent on keeping tabs on the supplies, crew morale, and general grind of trying to return home. He swears blind the show was a lot more consistent than I or anyone else I know remembers. We both agreed the ending sucked, though. Pure deus ex machina, and for a story that was all about how it would take 70 years to get home, to do it in 7 without really severe consequences seems kind of cheap. And once the ship shows up, the show ends, leaving us without any fallout or real sense of accomplishment. I haven't seen either in ages, but I think I probably enjoyed the Enterprise finale more.
Voyager's premise really intrigued me as well, but the core plot seemed to go out the window pretty quickly. Quite odd that it became notorious for the reset button given its nature lended itself to that the least, and I think it's a shame it was very episodic and never seemed to build over the course of seasons. I don't even remember many real arcs. There was the Doctor's constant drive to be recognised as a sentient life form and to feel sort of human, and... Seska being a bitch?
Though I had a discussion about this with a friend who was a huge B5 fan, and he remembers Voyager as being very stringent on keeping tabs on the supplies, crew morale, and general grind of trying to return home. He swears blind the show was a lot more consistent than I or anyone else I know remembers. We both agreed the ending sucked, though. Pure deus ex machina, and for a story that was all about how it would take 70 years to get home, to do it in 7 without really severe consequences seems kind of cheap. And once the ship shows up, the show ends, leaving us without any fallout or real sense of accomplishment. I haven't seen either in ages, but I think I probably enjoyed the Enterprise finale more.
Yeah.
When it was first on my friends and I were in grade school and watched it each week. There was some count one of us came across of how many torpedoes the ship was supposed to have. We kept count as it aired, expecting some big moment when they ran out, only for them to have an unlimited supply. That was probably my first realization of tv using and abusing the reset button.
You mentioned Seska. She's one of the missed opportunities of the show. You have this new Captain, integrating two crews and stranding them on the opposite side of the galaxy. Someone had to take exception and the second she got interesting and objected to Janeway, she was off the ship. Her having the ear (with benefits) of the first officer, only in his position as a token of the second crew, could have led to interesting stroylines. Not her with the Kazon, but her as a long term character, a manipulative woman who causes some massive event, could have been a strong arc.
Watching the last season now, and this is a purely Lostian bit on my part, I think the first shot of the final season should have been a crippled Voyager in space. Everyone's there (despite where their characters were the the previous cliffhanger) and the ship is flying apart. They eject the warp core and it blows. The viewscreen blows up and some red shirt is blown into space. A deflector goes up in it place, with debris scattering it so you can't see through. A bloody Janeway looks up and it clears to show that they're orbiting Earth. Then, after the intro credits, they do "previously on Voyager" and don't touch that first bit for a couple episodes.
As they go they can show stuff from after they get home. Seven integrating to life on Earth would have been tremendous. Same with the Doctor and Neelix. It felt really random to yank Neelix off the crew just before the end, as he had gone along in part to see Earth. I hated the future Janeway in the finale. Was really poor writing. Felt rushed and, if they wanted to rush it, the other caretaker was still out there.
Though I had a discussion about this with a friend who was a huge B5 fan, and he remembers Voyager as being very stringent on keeping tabs on the supplies, crew morale, and general grind of trying to return home. He swears blind the show was a lot more consistent than I or anyone else I know remembers.
I think it's wishful thinking to think they kept track on everything. Sure they may have, but there's a few websites which track the inconsistencies.
I never quite understood the rampant need for exploring they seemed to have. Every bit of exploration they undertook both wasted time they could have spent trying to get home and usually resulted in near disaster for the crew. You would think at some point, a large number of them would band together and say "Screw this, Janeway. If you're going to get us home, you're going to keep us at Warp in the direction of Earth 24/7 unless we need supplies."
That bugged me too. Another thing that bugged me was the Kazon being around for the first couple seasons. They established that they were technological novices and seemed to travel at low warp. If Voyager, established as the fastest Federation ship at the start, was actually heading away from their territory, they'd have been away from all of them fairly quickly. It's a nitpick, but it always bugged me.
Despite my hate for a lot of it, I did like Voyager. It was something nice and fluffy and you could always turn it on and get something nice.
I hate Voyager, probably more than Enterprise. Enterprise was fucked day one when the Klingons showed up instead of leading to the problems with them that created the Prime Directive. Voyager had potential and seem to say fuck it all. The first season was pretty good, but it got worse and worse. There was a hundred different avenues they could have taken and they didn't. Amazingly DS9, the space station show took more risk than the ship that was lost in space.
I think I realized the major problem with Voyager when they did another holodeck gone awry about What if the Maqui decided to mutiny? It was a good episode, but it should have been a season or two. I don't know if they were tongue in cheek with the episode or blatantly stupid not to realize this should have happened. The worst crime was neutering the Borg. One ship should not be able to beat them even the first time they meet them. The fact they fucked the Borg so bad that they allowed future Janeway to come back and fight the Borg with the weapons that saved the Federation only to have the Borg assimilate the weapons within the first few minutes of the battle was fucking retarded. Kim should have blasted Janeway to hell or just have the show go out with Janeway dying to save her crew using something other than a gigantic plot hole or just make their own bad guys without stealing from TNG. The worst Trek ever.
I had long stopped watching and stopped on that episode thinking it was the end of Forst Contact while scanning the channels. Almost immediately bought the season four DVDs.
Season 4 of Enterprise was the last Season I got around to watching from any Trek. It really is a fantastic season with so many little references to all the old eras (and The Big Show appears).
And in such a wonderful future where we can have robots like Data, why can't they get the holodecks to work for a full episode? In about 14 years they had at least 100 incidents from 3 venues. It's a huge widespread problem.
Oddly Voyager sort of offers a reason for why the holodecks turned out to be such a huge problem. Given how radically the EMH exceeded his programming, he seemed to demonstrate that these holograms are capable of a lot more than was anticipated. Perhaps that's why things seem to often go awry. If I recall correctly, the first holodeck problem was Moriarty becoming self-aware, so clearly this was an issue that could occur even without the extensive programming advancements that came with the Doctor.
First issue was Sulu and his team being trapped during during The Animated Series. (Practical Joker)
The first issue on TNG is 'Big Goodbye' which is only halfway through the first season. Picard plays as Dixon Hill and it turns into a mess. Why let them de-activate safeties anyway? Dumb.
Almost as bad as letting Troi fly the ship, managed to destroy both of Picard's Enterprises, I'm sure he's glad Troi is now on the USS:Titan.
And in such a wonderful future where we can have robots like Data, why can't they get the holodecks to work for a full episode?
Data wasn't made by Starfleet...
Also, Data malfunctions a lot as well...
- The Naked Now, where Data becomes drunk
- The Schizoid Man, where Data's mind becomes cohabited by Ira Graves
- Contagion, where Data gets the same virus as the ship
- Brothers, where Data is overrided by Soong
- Power Play, where Data is posessed by an electromagnetic spirit
- A Fistful of Datas, where Data takes over the holodeck
- Descent, where Data gets overwhelmed by negative emotions
- Thine Own Self, where Data loses all of his memories and ends up exposing aliens to radioactivity
- Masks, where Data becomes MUSAKA!!!
- Insurrection, where Data suffered damage to his memory engrams
Last edited by Bill Casey; October 12th, 2011 at 12:22 AM.
If Voyager, established as the fastest Federation ship at the start, was actually heading away from their territory, they'd have been away from all of them fairly quickly. It's a nitpick, but it always bugged me.
It was the same in Season 7 - somehow they just happened to run into the Hirogen again. Yes, they're a nomadic species who are spread out across the quadrant. But these Hirogen had the holodeck technology given to the Hirogen that took over Voyager in "The Killing Game" in Season 4. So despite Voyager's leaps towards home during that time (the transwarp coil from "Dark Frontier", travelling in the quantum slipstream for a bit in both "Hope and Fear" and "Timeless", etc), there was still a Hirogen ship in front of Voyager which had magically obtained the technology from a group of Hirogen tens of thousands of light years away.
Voyager is watchable. I can come down in the morning at 7am and happily watch an episode. It produced some classic episodes of Trek in its 7 years - "Scorpion", "Timeless", "State of Flux", to name but a few. I loved the progression of the Doctor's character, and the relationship between Paris and Torres worked well even if it emerged from left field. The show also produced the image of The Rock delivering the Rock Bottom to Seven of Nine. I've toyed with the idea of buying the boxsets, but that's where I think it would get very frustrating - the constant teases of going in a new direction only to revert to the status quo, the big plots that amounted to nothing (seemingly no real fall-out from the Borg civil war, the Equinox crew members never being seen again), the sheer lack of character development and focus for some characters, the implausibility of the ship being fine every week despite getting hammered by some alien ships in the previous week, the fact that Seven of Nine never seemed to actually learn any of the lessons taught to her in the many episodes devoted to her, etc.
Voyager was the show where they should have thrown away the Federation rule book. DS9 was already maintaining a good balance between traditional Starfleet values and the challenging contexts of war, political intrigue and other grey areas. Janeway looked like an utter fool at times, clinging to her Federation principles in situations where the entire crew and the ship could have been lost. There's a terrific episode in Season 2 called "Alliances", where Janeway tries to make peace between the Kazons and the Trabe. It's one of my favourite episodes of the show because they come to the realisation that the prime directive may no longer be applicable - the ship is always under attack by the Kazon, the Maquis crew members are speaking out about the loss of life and even Tuvok is encouraging Janeway to try a new approach. When it all goes pear-shaped in the end, Janeway says how the principles of the Federation are more important than ever. It undermines the previous 40 minutes by showing that Janeway hasn't learnt anything - that Voyager should continue as a lone wolf, easily picked off by its enemies. It felt like the writers had Janeway mistakenly side with a madman so as to get out of going in a more bold direction.
Voyager reminds me a lot of the WWE, right now with Vince being Janeway. I don't know if I would call Battlestar coming out of the death throws of Trek a good thing or not. I am not a fan of all the series, but I did enjoy the New Caprica Arc. The one sci-fi show that I am loving right now is Warehouse 13. It reminds me of a cross of classic Trek/DS9. A lot of tongue in cheek characters like Kirk/Spock/McCoy were with some nice layered DS9 storylines. Their finale a few weeks ago was up there with Best of Both Worlds for Best finale ever.
Battlestar Galactica is one of the best TV shows of the last decade. For Trek to make a TV comeback, it needs to make the same kind of leap that BSG took from the 1980s original. If they can somehow make a show with a ship exploring space, and not rely on the same cliches that have been done to death since TNG then more power to them. But I get the sense that they'd have to go in a fresh direction. I really loved the new film - the best thing about it was that it was fun. Just a good old adventure romp, with a nice balance between action, drama, comedy and plenty of nods to the franchise for die-hard fans. Aspects of the plot don't hold up with repeat viewings, but I look forward to seeing where they go next.
The one sci-fi show that I am loving right now is Warehouse 13. It reminds me of a cross of classic Trek/DS9. A lot of tongue in cheek characters like Kirk/Spock/McCoy were with some nice layered DS9 storylines. Their finale a few weeks ago was up there with Best of Both Worlds for Best finale ever.
So if you love Warehouse, do you also love Eureka as the tone of both shows is pretty much the same. They're both easy-to-watch fluffy scifi shows.
I don't watch Eureka, I tried an episode or two in the beginning and never took. I liked Warehouse, because it has a lot of the same fun that Classic Trek seem to have. Now having said that, this season went to darksville and back. It is nice to have a sci-fi show that has some fun to into instead of going down the dark gritty path now and again. Even though Roddenberry put a lot of social commentary into Trek, he did give you the sense of fun and adventure that is sorely missing on TV and in the movies of late. Tired of everything being Dark Knight.
If you want a recommendation on fun/light shows: Watch USA's dramas. They're all cut from the same cloth as Warehouse / Eureka. All easy to watch shows with a mystery/crime of the week and a long running arc.
Shows like Psych (psychic detective), Burn Notice (spy), White Collar (forgery crime), Royal Pains (doctor to the rich), Suits are all fun adventure shows. They're not science fiction, but they are still fun.
May 2013 for the next Star Trek film, which will be shot in 3D.
Originally Posted by Empire
Now that Paramount has finally turned the electricity up high enough on the electrodes attached to JJ Abrams’ sensitive parts and made him commit to directing the Star Trek sequel, the pieces are slowly beginning to fall into place. The movie might not have a title yet, but it has a schedule, with the studio targeting a May 17, 2013 release date with its torpedoes.
Deadline reports that the executives took swift action after Sony shoved Roland Emmerich’s Singularity off that date, zeroing in on the time slot and stuffing Kirk, Spock, Sulu and co into place.We assume and hope it'll be day-and-date over here, given that's what happened with the first one.
Now, of course, it’s up to Abrams to make the thing, working from the script he’s been overseeing as it's written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Damon Lindelof (who tweeted the news with “You have boldly waited this long... We shall do our very best to make it worth that wait.”)
The big news on the Trek front is that Abrams will be making it his first stab at 3D filmmaking, which means the Enterprise will be warping RIGHT INTO YOUR FACE. Okay, hopefully not: Abrams knows what he’s doing. But we are little concerned about 3D lens flare burning our retinas out.
In related news, there’s still no official word on Benicio Del Toro signing on as a villain (Abrams will only cagily say that they’re still in discussions) but one person who will really, truly be contributing is composer Michael Giacchino. Yeah, try to look surprised. But definitely look pleased.
I think they've dithered far too long in getting this film on track. It'll be interesting to see how Abrams uses 3D. What I liked about the 2009 film was the vivid colours, and I'm worried that it'll look just like most films released in 3D nowadays - slightly dark.
Also, there's a bunch of comparison shots from Trekcore for the imminent Blu-ray disc of TNG. I've put two pictures in spoiler tags as they're a bit big. The Enterprise looks great, and I'm sure it'll look even better in the final product.
13 seconds of the original film footage for "Sins of the Father" has gone missing, meaning that the scene will be upscaled from SD. Hopefully other episodes in the future don't suffer from the same problem.
Far too long between movies. With the interest and mainstream acceptance that the alternate timeline reboot got, they should have jumped on a sequel immediately. I can envision a lot of the interest from non-trekkers waning a good deal by the time it comes out.
Del Toro in discussions about playing the villain means Khan, right?
Far too long between movies. With the interest and mainstream acceptance that the alternate timeline reboot got, they should have jumped on a sequel immediately. I can envision a lot of the interest from non-trekkers waning a good deal by the time it comes out.
Del Toro in discussions about playing the villain means Khan, right?
One of the reporters on AICN is hoping he would be the leader of the Gorn...
I think Abrams has been part of the problem, in trying to get him locked in to doing the film. I wouldn't have wanted a rushed sequel like Revenge of the Fallen, but 2013 takes the biscuit.
Another villain has been cast. It's only Sherlock Holmes himself, Benedict Cumberbatch!
Originally Posted by Empire
The sneaky British infiltration of JJ Abrams’ revival of Star Trek’s cinematic fortunes continues apace! With Simon Pegg already entrenched as Scotty in the first film (Pegg just jetted to LA to begin work on the sequel), the next addition was Alice Eve, who signed on late last year. Now two of the UK’s brightest filmmaking talents are heading into space, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Noel Clarke announced as leaping aboard.
This being the Abrams/Damon Lindelof/Roberto Orci/Alex Kurtzman Trek universe, both actors' exact roles are being kept a secret for now. Variety was able to dig up, however, that Clarke is playing a family man with a wife and young daughter and The Hollywood Reporter has it that Cumberbatch will slip into the role of the villain that Benicio Del Toro was being courted for.
Cumberbatch has been pinging Hollywood's radar something rotten recently, between his superb work on the BBC's Sherlock and supporting roles in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and War Horse. He's already been snapped up for one evil role, agreeing to voice greedy dragon Smaug for Peter Jackson's Hobbit films.
Meanwhile, along with his directing/writing/acting duties in the likes of Adulthood and 4.3.2.1, Noel Clarke already has space (and time) travel experience thanks to his time spent as Mickey Smith in Doctor Who’s TARDIS. This time, we doubt he’ll be worried about being seen as the tin dog.
They are the newest additions to the cast, which already boasts Peter Weller as a villain and the returning regular crew complement, including Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Zoe Saldana and Pegg.
Currently known only as Star Trek 2, the film starts shooting shortly and will be out in the US on May 17, 2013.
The cast is shaping up nicely, and I'm glad to see Benedict making headway in feature films.
I wish they'd just say who the villain is. If its Khan, fanboys will freak out either way and it will give them time to get used to it. It it's a super awesome Gorn in a completely original story, none of us will really know anymore beyond that. And I can start marking for it.
I think if you are going to do Khan make it the Space Seed version instead of Wrath of Khan. It would be a nice change of pace, I also think it should be done as a teaser for the third film. Do the Gorn or Klingons now. I love the casting of Benedict, I hope they give him a meaty role.
There's going to be footage in front of The Hobbit next week. They released a plot synopsis recently which I'll stick in spoiler tags in case anyone is avoiding plot details for now (though the synopsis is pretty basic and doesn't mention any specific character names).
Originally Posted by Empire
“When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis.
“With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.”
I'm really looking forward to seeing Cumberbatch in this.
The rumor is Cumberbatch is playing Gary Mitchell who first appeared in Kirk's first episode. I am glad its not Khan, because no one could live up to that. On the flip side, I am kinda bored with all the action taking place on Earth. The great part of Star Trek was the Enterprise never being anywhere close to him and when they did come back, it was to deal with something huge like the Borg. I am also not a fan of Starfleet getting destroyed again. You would think the Klingons and Romulans would just swoop in at this point, but thats fanboy nit picking.
What if you want to watch Hobbit at the IMAX and not see half of Star Trek?
A film is a self contained entity, advertising it is one thing, but to show entire scenes out of context, or the whole opening of a movie....it just dampens that experience of viewing it as a whole for the first time.
It's the same with all of the clips they put online from movies now along with umpteen trailers. But at least those clips can be ignored.
The trailer looks good. The final scene of the Japanese version is interesting, since it clearly echoes one of the previous films. It's a deliberate tease, at least.
It looks like Starfleet is getting trashed again. I'm quite eager to see how Starfleet operates in this new timeline, but so far we've seen an armada ripped apart by Nero and now it's raining Starships on Earth.
I saw the reboot eventually. I liked it, as a film, but it's not really Star Trek. Definitely not TNG flavoured Trek. It's essentially a big sci-fi blockbuster with a handful of Trek lore thrown in, it isn't ever going to be something like Measure of a Man or I, Borg.
I saw the reboot eventually. I liked it, as a film, but it's not really Star Trek. Definitely not TNG flavoured Trek. It's essentially a big sci-fi blockbuster with a handful of Trek lore thrown in, it isn't ever going to be something like Measure of a Man or I, Borg.
Trek for the masses eh.
I'll watch it at some point just so I've given it a chance. But already it sounds beige.
The best Star Trek stuff to me was Deep Space Nine
i got some love for ds9. i always slept with the tv on as a kid, and in like 5th grade there was an odd period of 2 months or so where i would wake up in the middle of the night right at the time my local fox channel would be playing an hour block of deep space nine, watch it, then fall asleep again.
They did it with TDKR and TDK to my knowledge at the IMAX. Why do you think it's stupid?
Would have rather seen entire Joker opening and bane opening in the theater with the movie. Just more excitement. Star Trek I won't mind so much as I am not as invested into it.
The reboot was a lot of fun - it had exactly the kind of tone and pacing that the films desperately needed. There were also great performances from Pine and Quinto. The reboot certainly had a Star Wars vibe to it, but there were plenty of Trek elements as well. With the sequel, I am worried that we're moving towards films that focus on big explosions and slick effects without the kind of characters or story that made the TOS films so appealing.
I think Deep Space Nine was firmly the best of the Trek shows - it could tell a very personal story one week and then delve into large-scale political intrigue the next. But TNG will probably always be my favourite. Voyager has a bizarre appeal where it's very watchable, but also absolutely infuriating in terms of the lack of character development, actual consequences (Voyager must have the best repair technicians in the galaxy, considering the ship got the shit kicked out of it most weeks with no Starbase nearby) and a number of missed opportunities (the Maquis, various stories about the Borg, etc). Enterprise is easily the worst - I liked the third season and bits of the fourth, but the crew was mostly boring and it didn't take them long to start riffing on the same plots and themes as the previous shows.
I hope we see a return to TV at some point - I'd be more interested in seeing how the post-DS9 era pans out, as opposed to another prequel or alternate timeline. For now, I'll have to make do with the Blu-ray upgrade of TNG. They should have released most of the seasons by this time next year.
While the trailer didn't really tell us anything, it felt like a combination of the two original pilot episodes to me. Assuming Cumbersnatch is Gary Mitchell (which I'm fairly certain he is), he's the super powered, suddenly God-like former bff of Kirk. The extra bit in the Japanese trailer really struck me as The Cage. JJ said he wanted to do something with torture and it appears Kirk is secluded and being shown images that aren't really there to test him.
Combining the two would actually be a pretty smart thing to do. Much smarter than doing Khan.
DS9 was the best one. Its the only one I own on DVD for complete seasons. I love the TNG crew, but it feels like minus Q, the Borg and a few other things most of their stories were disposable. Voyager's problem was the missed opportunities and the fact that they tried to make Janeway the most unlikable captain of all time. Once you saw the Klingons on Earth in Enterprise and the Cold War bullshit, you know the show was going to be bad. As a life long Trekker, I thought the reboot was good. It was a much needed breath of fresh air. The fact that they got the internet arguing who Benedict is instead of bashing it for random nerd things is a minor miracle. I am putting this top of my list for next year.
I never watched JJ's first Star Trek, but I think in light of his helming of Star Wars I'll give this movie an adamant watch. That and the fact that this looks amazing.
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Originally Posted by Bill Casey
The cast is shaping up nicely, and I'm glad to see Benedict making headway in feature films.
