The 'Star Trek' Thread

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mobvok

mobvok

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I kind of introduced it haphazardly in one of the YouTubes in the OP, but one dedicated viewer has taken it upon themself to break down every Star Trek episode.

YouTube - sfdebris's Channel

I really highly recommend these, there are a lot of great insights and the videos are edited really well. It's sort of similar to the famous Red Letter Media takes on Star Wars, except they're about 10 minutes long and lack the serial killer voice.
 
Going through some of the early Doctor Who reboot episodes, I had the thought considering how each series' (90's Star Trek and Who) production budgets have influenced their story design. I remember reading (and IMDB backs me up) that on a per-episode basis TNG cost from 1-2.5 million. We can see that in the numerous TNG and Voyager sets, and how the makeup/alien planet exteriors are usually....competently done.

But I wonder if the ability to do all that leads to a more undisciplined approach. The Tree creature on "End of the World" is awfully lamely done, true, but Who's Sonic Screwdriver and Super-Badge allow the Doctor to interact with technology without bogging the plot down in specifics, a brevity that a lot of the Berman and Braga episodes totally lack. There's less need for a Geordi character in an Engineering set pushing buttons and dialogue about bleep bloop reverse polarity.

I don't know if these thoughts all tie together. But it's also a shame that despite its cost, TNG became rather neutered stylistically. A rare exception is in Best of Both Worlds, where not only are they upsetting the status quo of characters, somehow the composer escaped from his cage and managed to write some interesting (non-ambient) music that really brought some excitement to the Borg scenes.
 
The caveat I hinted at above is that I'm not very familiar with Deep Space 9 as a series, so if anything in the following doesn't apply....don't apply it.

So- one thing I hope Star Trek learned from BSG is that the "bridge crew" format of main characters is a little obsolete. Let's say....horizontally, it's integrated, in that we can pan around the bridge and know who each person is, but the conclusion from a story-telling perspective is that the narrative demands one of the most important characters on the ship be at stake when visiting a new planet or location or some such. This leads to the general ritual absurdity of the red shirts getting sodomized, or Worf getting his ass kicked as a cheap shorthand to represent danger.

But if the characters are more vertically integrated so that we have a glimpse of the peasant's life, then just like the Viper pilots, if we grow familiar with a low-level flunky that gets sent out on missions, it's entirely possible to plausibly threaten to kill them without any smartass wondering why Kirk or Riker isn't delegating exploration duties.

These are the things that keep me up at night.
 
thecycleofkhan.gif
 
i made a wrath of khan joke at work the other day. had to do with bugs crawling in ears...

i loved deep space 9 when i was 10.
 
I always liked the TV edit of Wrath of Khan better than the VHS/DVD/Blu Ray version. I guess it's probably because it's the version I grew up with. Granted the differences are fairly subtle (TV version has longer exchange between Checkov and the Marcuses, Preston's death scene extended, Saavik and Kirk's turbolift scene shot/edited differently, etc.).
 
The TV Edit is available on the OOP 2-Disc DVD, I believe, or at least it's a Director's Cut that combines elements of the Edit and Theatrical Cut.

I'm torn on picking up the Original Cast series on Blu or not. I'd love to revisit The Motionless Picture at some point; it's a perfectly good film, but not in-line with the tone of the original series and cast, I feel... it's a lot like Next Gen. Hell, it would've made for a better Next Gen film than any of the ones we got, as awesome as most of First Contact is.
 
mobvok said:
I don't know if these thoughts all tie together. But it's also a shame that despite its cost, TNG became rather neutered stylistically. A rare exception is in Best of Both Worlds, where not only are they upsetting the status quo of characters, somehow the composer escaped from his cage and managed to write some interesting (non-ambient) music that really brought some excitement to the Borg scenes.
Click to expand...
TNG was designed to run in syndication, as many episodic TV programs were before the longer-form TV storytelling came into play. The end of nearly every episode has to be a virtual 'reset button' so that the episodes can air out of order.

DS9 was the first Star Trek series to break the mould and have not only multi-episode, but season-long and series-long story arcs.

Babylon 5 and Deep Space 9 both broke new ground in sci-fi on television as far as story arcs go.

Voyager went back to syndicated, reset-button episodes most of the time and they squandered any coolness they could have had from being stuck out in the middle of nowhere.
LMP said:
Hell, it would've made for a better Next Gen film than any of the ones we got, as awesome as most of First Contact is.
Click to expand...
I think the big problem with the TNG films was that TNG was a large ensemble cast and spent more time, even entire episodes, on various parts of that cast. Once the movies rolled around, they were stuck with Patrick Stewart and a bunch of other guys, and had to force in stupid, non-essential stuff for the rest of the crew to do. The whole TNG film series was pretty much a disaster save for First Contact.
 
I think the music, and often staid camera movements did hurt the aesthetics a little. Like the way the bridge was designed- there was vertical depth so a director could get movement looking from Data to Picard or Picard to Worf, but horizontally there was just big flat beige walls. These aren't big complaints, obviously, and seeing the same rhythm of shots can be comforting.

It's been a while since I've seen Voyager willingly, but I seem to remember that they added some lateral stations that helped open up the bridge a little bit, which was a smart evolutionary step. BSG's circular control pit design must have been heaven for a director because they could get coverage from anywhere.

I get the syndication issue though. Some of the AV Club's great recaps (currently ongoing) of TNG do hint at some gentle continuity that keeps cropping up.

I wish that TNG was streaming on Netflix.

but, this is really cool:
Star Trek Video - The Counterclock Incident - CBS.com
CBS is streaming classic and the remastered Star Trek: TOS episodes

they also have Enterprise. don't watch that.
 
I'm rewatching TNG on DVDs at the moment... well rewatching some episodes and catching up on the ones I've never actually seen, which turns out to be quite a few. I still haven't seen any episodes from the first two seasons apart from the very first one.

Back in the days my brother and I played the (non-alcoholic) TNG drinking game, so I feel an urge to giggle every time Picard adjusts his uniform :lol:
 
I don't think I've ever had the ability to do a complete in-order watching of any Star Trek series. This is kind of frightening in scope.
 
mobvok said:
TNG became rather neutered stylistically. A rare exception is in Best of Both Worlds, where not only are they upsetting the status quo of characters, somehow the composer escaped from his cage and managed to write some interesting (non-ambient) music that really brought some excitement to the Borg scenes.
Click to expand...
The follow up episode to The Best of Both Worlds, 'Family', has some of Stewart's better work on TNG. Picard returns home 21st-century France and deal with his bully of a brother. Much soul-searching follows.

It's a shame the TNG producers had their hands tied by Roddenberry's idealistic vision of the future pushed to the extreme sometimes (TNG becoming a cruise ship in space), and the need for a show that could air episodes out of order in syndication.

I love DS9 because a few seasons in the writers and showrunners seem to collectively go "fuck it" and do whatever they want for character development.
 
Actually, thanks for posting that and reminding me that I really DON'T want to watch each episode. sfdebris' summaries are good enough.
 
The best TNG film was the series finale All Good Things. Heaven knows why they didn't adapt All Good Things into the first movie and went for the lame Generations instead.
I mean, the legend that is Kirk dies by...falling off a ladder. What the f--- were they thinking?
 
I don't have a clear image of what the original TWOK effects look like, but those in that video looked really natural. Well done.

either way I was really into the scene, so the edits-for-time just about killed me. :rant:
 
lemonfly said:
I mean, the legend that is Kirk dies by...falling off a ladder. What the f--- were they thinking?
Click to expand...

The original death scene was him getting shot in the back, but it was re-shot after a negative test screening (I think you can still find rough versions on youtube). I'm not entirely sure who though falling off a ladder was a much better idea.
 
:up: to the updated visual effects on TWOK!

I Move in Mysterious Ways said:
The original death scene was him getting shot in the back, but it was re-shot after a negative test screening (I think you can still find rough versions on youtube). I'm not entirely sure who though falling off a ladder was a much better idea.
Click to expand...

I'd be all for him being shot in the back instead of falling of a ladder...I mean, really...
 
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