STAR TREK

[Henry R. Kujawa]

Today I was SO worn out, I did something I can hardly believe...  With very few exceptions, I have not watched STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION since it was first-run (24 YEARS ago).  So far today, I have just watched the first 14 episodes in a row!!!

 

    You know what's funny?  The show is actually fun to watch in a sort-of tacky way.  Some of the character quirks are amusing, before they became really annoying.  And I'm reminded of some of the early relationship dynamics, which, it seems to me, got totally screwed over the longer the show was on the air.

 

    Like-- it's obvious Picard & Beverly are attracted to each other.  WHY did they spend most of the run not having this go anywhere?  Then there's Will Riker & Deanna Troi, who the moment they meet are like a really bad, awkward retread of Will Decker & Ilia.  They're so stiff at first it's unbelieveable.  I think all the acting got 10 times better after the 2-hour pilot.  Anyway, the story that introduces Lwaxana was a hoot, and also showed that, despite whatever the hell the problem is, Will & Deanna do somehow care for each other deeply.  So... WHY didn't it EVER go anywhere (until the 2nd feature film?).  Both Wesley & Data are far less annoying here than they later became.

 

    Strange but true:  while I saw the show from the first episode (and taped every single one of them), my Mom never saw it until somewhere in the 3rd or 4th season.  And when she did, she got HOOKED, big-time.  She started watching it every time it was on.  Since they got to running the stories twice a week, that means, while I saw each story ONCE, she saw each one FOUR TIMES!!!

 

    At some point, she got around to seeing reruns of the 1st season.  I always remember walking thru the dining room, where she spent most of her time sitting watching the small tv on the table, and noting she was watching the 2-hour pilot.  And she looked at me and says, "This is the DUMBEST story I've ever seen!"  That's after having seen dozens (maybe a hundred or more) later ones.

 

    I've noted I have a lot more tolerance for "bad" films when I can't sleep, and that may account for my being able to sit thru so much of this today.

 

    It's a shame that my favorite woman on the show's 1st season, Tasha, got killed off suddenly when Denise Crosby announced she wanted to quit the show.  She may not have been my favorite kind of woman as far as face or personality, but I have a feeling I might have gotten along with her.  By the episode "Angel One", she seemed to be loosening up a lot.  I can't understand the complaint about her "not having enough to do".  Her movie career sure didn't take off...  (Doesn't that seem to be a running thing in the 80's and beyond?  People quitting successful shows and then regretting it?)

 

    A few times early-on, I found myself thinking how this might have gone if Paramount hadn't been so cheap.  After the tremendous success of STAR TREK IV, the push was on to finally do a new tv series.  But because the actors' salaries kept getting bigger and bigger by then, the decision was made, purely monetary, to do an entirely new series, with CHEAPER actors.

 

    What stands out is the thought that the "cruise ship" version of the Enterprise was said to be a brand-new ship fresh out of dry dock (just like at the end of ST4).  And the "battle bridge" seen in Ep.1 was clearly the bridge from the movies.

 

    I liked how about 10 episodes in, you finally saw a rectangular hallway (like on the old show).  Those octogonal vertical halls from the movies get on my nerves.

[Kirk G]

It appears that the "big three" and others WERE brought in as necessary...and everyone DID get a scene in the new show...Bones, Spock, Scotty, Sulu... I only recall Ohura, Nurse Chapel, Yeoman Rand and Chekov being shut out....

[Kirk G]

Yes, I think actor's salaries had a lot to do with it. Plus Sulu's agent was insisting that he be given a captain's chair...and though that was promised in one of the later movies to get him to participate, the footage was left on the cutting room floor.

It wasn't until the LAST star trek movie featuring the crew and the klingons that they showed him actually in command. It was a condition of his contract, I have heard.

 

But I asked Walter at a recent mid-Ohio-Con if there was any chance of the ol'd crew coming back or doing anything, and he curtly said. "Not a Chance."   I was disappointed, but he left absolutely no wiggle room in his terse answer.

[Henry R. Kujawa]

I just watched (again) one of the best STAR TREKs EVER!!!!!

 

    True to my earlier intent, and to my own shock, I am continuing to watch every ST in my collection in chronological order.  I watched ST5 in between seasons 2-3 of ST: TNG.  Now, after watching 111 episodes (in less than 2 weeks!!!!!), I watched ST6.  DAMN!!!!  I LOVE this movie!!!!

 

    It's pretty obvious they might not have decided to do a "final" ST film if ST5 hadn't been so seriously flawed.  I read the other day some feel ST5 almost "killed" the series.  While ST 2, 3, 4, & 6 are all SOOOOOO damn good, in retrospect, I do feel a bit of regret that nearly every ST movie was formed by behind-the-scenes B.S.  All the problems behind the 1st one, Nimoy wanting to quit during the 2nd one, Nimoy coming back in the 3rd one, The Enterprise having been blown up in the previous film when they did ST4... as for ST5, I'm not sure what to say.  After the end of ST4, couldn't they just, for once, have started a ST film with them already out there in space, like on, oh, say, every single episode of the original show???

 

    Even ST6 starts with The Enterprise-- ONCE AGAIN!!! -- in space dock.  The closest we got to the opening of a 60's episode was that The Excelsior was on patrol at the start.

 

    There's so much good stuff in here.  If this hadn't been designed to be a "farewell" movie, it could have stood alone as possibly the BEST ST film ever made.  I kinda think it already may be anyway.

 

    You know, the more I watch this, the more obvious it is that Valeris was supposed to be Saavik.  It would have had a lot more "emotional" depth if it had been.  Kirk hates Klingons for the death of his son.  Saavik-- it was hinted-- was in love with David, and would have had a motive for being part of the conspiracy.  All thru the film, Spock & Valeris have these question-and-answer things that refect what was going on in ST2.  Kim Catrall was getting Kirstie Alley's lines!

 

    I find it interesting that The President of Earth bears a striking resemblance to "Bem" from the cartoon episode.  Also, got a laugh to see Rene Aubojonois almost a year before he made his debut as Odo.

 

    Nicholas Meyer's love for Sherlock Holmes turns up in 2 bits of dialogue-- Spock, refering to "one of his ancestors", and Christopher Plummer saying "The game's afoot!" (he had starred as Holmes in MURDER BY DECREE, and a TV adaptation of "Silver Blaze" which I have never seen, before that).

 

    I should look up Chris Eidelmann.  What else did this guy do?  His score is FABULOUS!!!

 

    To sum up... ST6 blows every single TNG story completely out of the water on every level.  (And that reminds me, I think the engineering section in this movie is really the one from the TNG tv series.  It doesn't look anything like it did in any previous movie.)

 

    Did you ever notice how BIG the bridge is in this film?  For some reason, after ST4, they rebuilt the bridge completely from scratch for ST5, some said, to more resemble the one on the 60's series.  I may be wrong, but while the one in ST resembles the one in ST6, it looks MUCH bigger to me!  I'll have to check that out.

 

    To me, the only shame of this film is that it WAS the last one.

 

    And if they weren't gonna do anymore movies about Kirk, they damn well should have done some starring Sulu.

 

[Kirk G]

Wasn't there a fire at the Paramont back-lot which destroyed a lot of the standing/existing ST sets?  I suspect that might have had a roll in it.  Also, wasn't the ST6 movie supposed to be set in the future...and as a result, there were supposed to have been changes... advancements in design and appearance?

 

PS: Look at how poorly they show Sulu's captain's cabin, by only having a shaft of light fall across his face and pillow when he gets the news... cheap way to do it!

[Kirk G]

 Naw, Checkov would have to be his navigator, so that he could scream when the power feedback comes up through the control modual.

I just can't see Checkov under Sulu....can you?

[Henry R. Kujawa]

In response (at another board) to ST3 being "the worst" of the films...

 

 

I always thought ST3 was a great movie, in spite of the circumstances of its creation.

I mean, ST2 is a great movie, but imagine how things might have gone if Spock hadn't gotten needlessly killed (JUST because Leonard Nimoy wanted to leave-- and then, he changed his mind!).

We could have gotten a ST3 that stood on its own... and a ST4 that didn't tie in with the 2 previous films.

The most interesting criticism I found at the IMDB about ST3 was the one that strongly suggested chunks of the film had been edited together IN THE WRONG ORDER. If Spock's spirit was in McCoy, there was NO real need to retrieve his body, UNLESS they suspected he might somehow be alive. The entire sequence on the Genesis planet leading up to the report of the empty coffin was supposed to take place BEFORE The Enterprise reached Earth! Sarek's anger at Kirk for having left Spock behind was supposed to have been as a result of his having HEARD that report, before he went to visit Kirk.  As it is, Kirk doesn't find out that Spock is alive UNTIL he's already in orbit and his ship's been disabled by The Klingons.

There's also a lot of dropped balls (so to speak), involving them never having stated that Saavik was half-Romulan, never revealing that David & Saavik were involved romantically, and so on. (Similarly, they never came out and said the young engineering cadet who was killed in ST2 was Scotty's nephew, and they never brought up in ST4 that Saavik was pregnant with Spock's child-- sheesh.)

Of course, another review at the IMDB got me thinking about something else with ST2 that always bothered me, but I tended to brush aside for the most part. "SPACE SEED", depending on who you ask, was NOT really the greatest or best-thought-thru story ever on the old show. In some ways, the MOST interesting part of it was the ending. Kirk gives Khan's people a chance to build a new world from scratch. What might they accomplish in a hundred year's time? We NEVER got to find out... as they tell us, 6 months later, the neighboring planet exploded, throwing their planet's orbit out of whack, destroying the biosphere... one wonders how they ever survived there for 15 YEARS. And why did no one ever check on them? No wonder they were pissed.

I think ST2 was just so good for what it was, compared to ST1, that most fans tend to overlook the fact that ST2 does have some very real flaws. It's just so much better to watch than the previous film, it gets the characters so "right", I think you come to love it in spite of itself. (Kinda like THE BIG SLEEP-- heh.)

[Kirk G]

Are you aware that the final released movie theatre version of ST2 (Wrath of Kahn) has several scenes shortened or trimmed out?  In particular, the discussion in the briefing of what Genesis is has been shorted by several heated exchanges between Bones and Spock.  Only a fragment of the arguement remains ("Why you green blooded, in humane..."  "Really, Doctor, you should control your passions. They will be the death of you.") [ I take this to be foreshaddowing Spock's sacrifice, made of loyalty and passion, but excused as "Logical...the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."]

 

When ST2 was shown on network TV, these exchanges were restored, and the scene plays out a little bit longer.  Other similar edits, including a appearance by trainee Peter Scott (Scotty's nephew) were restored, and the movie seemed a little bit richer for it... but the changes are not obvious.

 

As for Nimoy wanting out, it's my understanding that he only agreed to sign on for ST2, if he would be eliminated as a character in the future (dies)... but near the end of filming, realized that he was enjoying this friendlier, more correct version of Star Trek, and didn't want to end it.  It was HIS idea to do the "remember" moment with Bones, with no idea what it might lead to.  Also, the final shot of the torpedo tube/coffin in the glade was an after-thought, shot weeks after filming had completed... and notably, did not feature a lid, hinge or opening of any kind.  It also was not made clear that Savak had adjusted the trajectory to allow a soft touchdown on the planet, instead of burining up in the atmosphere, as was intended.

So, I don't think it's right to lay whatever problems you may see in ST3 at Nimoy's feet for his decision to insert an ambiguous reference into the final scene of ST2. (Didn't he direct ST3? or was it 4?  Shatner directed 5, didn't he?)

[Philip Portelli]

Leonard Nimoy directed Star Trek III and Star Trek IV. 

What I found jarring was that there was the optimistic "I feel young" ending of ST2 and then the depressing "I left the better part of myself behind" beginning of ST3, which takes place directly after. Carol Marcus vanishes and McCoy takes the Vulcan Crazy Train but at least Scotty got over his nephew quickly!

And (apparently) no one in Starfleet knows about Vulcan death rituals. Must be bad for any Vulcan serving. I guess Spock did not leave instructions in case of his demise which is highly illogical. Even odder is that Sarek nearly died during "Journey To Babel" far away from Vulcan and his wife and son weren't concerned about his katra.

There was a great scene in a comic that takes place after ST3 where Amanda is shocked and horrified to finally learn that "ALIENS STOLE SPOCK'S BRAIN!!"

If I could recommend an old Star Trek novel, try to dig up The Vulcan Academy Murders which is a great mystery and a great character study of Kirk, Spock and especially Sarek.

[Kirk G]

The Vulcan Academy Murders, eh?

I'm going to go look that one up right now.  Sounds good...

[Derrick Ferguson]

The thing that never fails to tickle me is that for a race that prides itself on pure logic, the Vulcan religion is based entirely on mysticism.  The Vulcans having a religion in the first place is interesting since religion depends on faith, which has nothing to do with logic.

[The Baron]

I just can't see Checkov under Sulu....can you?

 

Ummmm.....

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

Bad Baron! Bad!

The Baron said:

I just can't see Checkov under Sulu....can you?

 

Ummmm.....