Star Trek

Great song? Good show? Bad movie? What should be enjoyed and what should be avoided.

Star Trek

Postby Enzo » Wed Sep 06, 2017 1:25 am

It was a popular SciFi series on TV a while back...

One of my cable stations has A wall of Star Trek every evening. Original, then Next Gen, then DS9, Voyager, then Enterprise.

Now I been a fan for ever, but I find I can't really watch the original series much any more. The special FX don't hold up so well. The writing inconsistent, and the episodes they smack you in the face with a shovel full of morality. The two guys with white/black faces..OH please. And the E Plabnista thing with Kirk's mighty speech...Oh brother. But it was great in its day.

Next Generation holds up reasonably well. More consistent, and morality more woven into the stories rather than so much cupcake icing piled on top.

I never cared for Deep Space Nine. If nothing else it revolves in part around the Ferengi - one of the worst character sets in TV scifi. They are ludicrous.

Voyager, Oh OK, I can watch it. I do get a little tired of Mulgrew whispering her lines. KATE: you can be dramatic without whispering. (Russell Crowe - listen up)

Enterprise. I never saw it when it was first run, so i am only now seeing the episodes, so they are new to me. I like that it looks more space-shippy inside. The Next Gen Enterprise looks more like a resort hotel. The Enterprise ship looks closer to a submarine inside. I am not so fond of the cliff hanger ending each week, but too bad.

Way back in the first couple series, the crew or part of it were taken over mentally by some alien presence so many times, I wonder why certain protocols were never put in place to protect against it. And how would any crew member be able to trust any other when on any given day, they could be under controls of the Flumen Defecati or whoever.

And I sure hope we don't go to yet another world where some force/virus/who-knows causes them to quickly morph into other beings, though they of course are caught just in time to reverse the effects. "One more hour down there and we would have lost them forever."

They also show the animated series, which seems like the old series, but they can have characters with tentacles.
E Pluribus Condom
User avatar
Enzo
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
Chortling with glee!
 
Posts: 11956
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:30 am
Location: Lansing, Michigan

Re: Star Trek

Postby Lance » Wed Sep 06, 2017 4:17 am

There's a new series coming some time soon too.
No trees were killed in the posting of this message.
However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

==========================================

Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a few hours.
Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
User avatar
Lance
Administrator
Administrator
Cheeseburger Swilling Lard-Ass who needs to put down the remote and get off the couch.
 
Posts: 91394
Joined: Thu May 12, 2005 5:51 pm
Location: Oswego, IL

Re: Star Trek

Postby tubeswell » Wed Sep 06, 2017 4:47 am

I'm a trek fan. We get all the old series on pay TV.
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

If you are seeing an apparent paradox, that means you are missing something.
User avatar
tubeswell
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
 
Posts: 324860
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2010 11:51 am
Location: 129th in-line to the Llama Throne (after the last purge)

Re: Star Trek

Postby Lianachan » Wed Sep 06, 2017 8:09 am

I'm not a fan, as such. I like the original series and the new films, but not the rest of it all.
A-nis bidh fios aig daoine nuair a tha mi a 'mionnachadh aig dhaibh.
User avatar
Lianachan
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
Tits and Nazis though.... Worth investigating
 
Posts: 8742
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 5:12 pm
Location: A' Ghàidhealtachd, Alba

Re: Star Trek

Postby Heid the Ba » Wed Sep 06, 2017 8:10 am

I watched the first series when it came out, Friday nights 8pm. It hasn't aged well though. I never really watched any of the others.
Get it up ye.
User avatar
Heid the Ba
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
Tree hugging, veggie, sandal wearing, pinko Euroweasel
Mr. Sexy Ass
 
Posts: 107531
Joined: Wed Aug 02, 2006 12:20 pm
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland

Re: Star Trek

Postby Halcyon Dayz, FCD » Wed Sep 06, 2017 12:36 pm

Enzo wrote:Voyager, Oh OK, I can watch it. I do get a little tired of Mulgrew whispering her lines. KATE: you can be dramatic without whispering. (Russell Crowe - listen up)

Genevieve Bujold was originally cast as Janeway. She was even quieter.

Watch on youtube.com
Hatred is a cancer upon the world.
It rots the mind and blackens the heart.
User avatar
Halcyon Dayz, FCD
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
Snarling Rabid Green-Communist Big-Government Tree-Hugger Euroweasel
 
Posts: 32238
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2005 1:36 pm
Location: Nederland - Sol III

Re: Star Trek

Postby tubeswell » Wed Sep 06, 2017 4:10 pm

Mulgrew delivered her lines better. Her voice has a hard pitch to it that can crack a walnut at 20 paces. It cuts through the soundtrack.
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

If you are seeing an apparent paradox, that means you are missing something.
User avatar
tubeswell
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
 
Posts: 324860
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2010 11:51 am
Location: 129th in-line to the Llama Throne (after the last purge)

Re: Star Trek

Postby Arneb » Wed Sep 06, 2017 5:33 pm

I liked all of them, each in their own way. Everyone seemed to hate Janeway, but not me. And I loved how DS9 turned darker and darker, telling tales of the Federation it sure didn't want to hear - about infiltration, about throwing away its own core values for trivial short-term gain or just plain survival. This was all pre-Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, mind you.

One of the moments I liked best is when Chief O'Brian is forced to collaborate with some Cardassian engineer on some, well, engineering problem. After a few beers at Quark's he barks at the Cardassian, "I don't hate you for what you did to us, I hate you for what you turned us into".

But yes, TOS looks very cheap today, Special effects, storytelling, morality and all.
Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem
User avatar
Arneb
Moderator
Moderator
German Medical Dude
God of All Things IT
 
Posts: 70001
Joined: Thu Nov 23, 2006 8:22 pm
Location: Potsdam, Germany

Re: Star Trek

Postby Enzo » Wed Sep 06, 2017 11:12 pm

I was often put off by inconsistencies in writing.

Original was a pioneering journey to the fringes of known space to explore. yet on some episodes they were on "routine patrol" somewhere and all bored. In NExt Gen the Federation was all prime directive and oh so proper supporting cultures they met. yet ther was the episode wher warp travel was destabilizing some area of space and causing problems on some planet full of civilization. In the end the Federation decides to only reduce warp travel a little. I know they were trying to make commentary, but it was not the federation we were being shown in prior episodes.
E Pluribus Condom
User avatar
Enzo
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
Chortling with glee!
 
Posts: 11956
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:30 am
Location: Lansing, Michigan

Re: Star Trek

Postby Lianachan » Fri Nov 10, 2017 9:30 am

Has anybody seen the new series? I'm about 5 episodes in and it's already jumped the shark for me.
A-nis bidh fios aig daoine nuair a tha mi a 'mionnachadh aig dhaibh.
User avatar
Lianachan
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
Tits and Nazis though.... Worth investigating
 
Posts: 8742
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 5:12 pm
Location: A' Ghàidhealtachd, Alba

Re: Star Trek

Postby Arneb » Fri Nov 10, 2017 2:10 pm

Boy did I have to google "to jump the shark", being a durdy furriner and all that.

I suspect that there are only so many sensible, entertaining stories that you can tell in any one TV Universe.

Just yesterday I read they'll start a new Star Wars trilogy. Different time, different cast, same Universe. I wonder what variant on "poor by discovers he is really something special and saves the world doing so" they'll pull out.
Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem
User avatar
Arneb
Moderator
Moderator
German Medical Dude
God of All Things IT
 
Posts: 70001
Joined: Thu Nov 23, 2006 8:22 pm
Location: Potsdam, Germany

Re: Star Trek

Postby Lianachan » Fri Nov 10, 2017 3:28 pm

Arneb wrote:Boy did I have to google "to jump the shark", being a durdy furriner and all that.


Yeah, they've really nuked the fridge too.

Arneb wrote:I suspect that there are only so many sensible, entertaining stories that you can tell in any one TV Universe.


It's not that so much as it's a couple of other things. The technology looks far more advanced than the series that are set after it - inevitable, given that sci-fi generally shows us stuff that's just beyond our own current technology and TOS was made 60 or so years ago - but this is a mess of see through wall/windows, swish-abouty holographic displays and the like. The entire premise of the show is built on utter scientific nonsense. A warp drive, as per the rest of Star Trek, is a conceivable development that doesn't need too much of a leap of faith to accept, but the drive in this new series..... Nope. It's jarringly awful and rips you out of the moment - and it suggests nobody who knows anything about science was involved in the show. And it seems to have completely vanished by the time of the other series. Plus the acting and sets are awful, the effects look like a video game and the morality of the main characters is highly dubious. I've heard the dreaded F word, too, which doesn't really sit well in Star Trek.

Arneb wrote:Just yesterday I read they'll start a new Star Wars trilogy. Different time, different cast, same Universe. I wonder what variant on "poor by discovers he is really something special and saves the world doing so" they'll pull out.


Heard that too. I'll decide how excited I am about that after the next couple of Star Wars films. So far so good, for me.
A-nis bidh fios aig daoine nuair a tha mi a 'mionnachadh aig dhaibh.
User avatar
Lianachan
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
Tits and Nazis though.... Worth investigating
 
Posts: 8742
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 5:12 pm
Location: A' Ghàidhealtachd, Alba

Re: Star Trek

Postby Lance » Fri Nov 10, 2017 3:43 pm

If the shark had gotten into a fridge that was nuked hundreds of feet away, perhaps it could have avoided being jumped.
No trees were killed in the posting of this message.
However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

==========================================

Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a few hours.
Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
User avatar
Lance
Administrator
Administrator
Cheeseburger Swilling Lard-Ass who needs to put down the remote and get off the couch.
 
Posts: 91394
Joined: Thu May 12, 2005 5:51 pm
Location: Oswego, IL

Re: Star Trek

Postby tubeswell » Fri Nov 10, 2017 4:35 pm

Arneb wrote:Boy did I have to google "to jump the shark", being a durdy furriner and all that.


How it all started. The lowest point of the series.

Watch on youtube.com
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

If you are seeing an apparent paradox, that means you are missing something.
User avatar
tubeswell
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
 
Posts: 324860
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2010 11:51 am
Location: 129th in-line to the Llama Throne (after the last purge)

Re: Star Trek

Postby Arneb » Fri Nov 10, 2017 6:46 pm

Lianachan wrote:
Arneb wrote:I suspect that there are only so many sensible, entertaining stories that you can tell in any one TV Universe.


It's not that so much as it's a couple of other things. The technology looks far more advanced than the series that are set after it - inevitable, given that sci-fi generally shows us stuff that's just beyond our own current technology and TOS was made 60 or so years ago - but this is a mess of see through wall/windows, swish-abouty holographic displays and the like. The entire premise of the show is built on utter scientific nonsense. A warp drive, as per the rest of Star Trek, is a conceivable development that doesn't need too much of a leap of faith to accept, but the drive in this new series..... Nope. It's jarringly awful and rips you out of the moment - and it suggests nobody who knows anything about science was involved in the show. And it seems to have completely vanished by the time of the other series. Plus the acting and sets are awful, the effects look like a video game and the morality of the main characters is highly dubious. I've heard the dreaded F word, too, which doesn't really sit well in Star Trek.


Ah, so it's even worse, not being core Star Trek anymore.

Lianachan wrote:
Arneb wrote:Just yesterday I read they'll start a new Star Wars trilogy. Different time, different cast, same Universe. I wonder what variant on "poor by discovers he is really something special and saves the world doing so" they'll pull out.

Heard that too. I'll decide how excited I am about that after the next couple of Star Wars films. So far so good, for me.


It's a long time till I'll skip a Star Wars film, but while I enjoyed The Force Awakens, it was a bit too obviously formed in the image of A New Hope.
Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem
User avatar
Arneb
Moderator
Moderator
German Medical Dude
God of All Things IT
 
Posts: 70001
Joined: Thu Nov 23, 2006 8:22 pm
Location: Potsdam, Germany

Re: Star Trek

Postby g-one » Fri Nov 10, 2017 7:00 pm

Lianachan wrote:Has anybody seen the new series? I'm about 5 episodes in and it's already jumped the shark for me.

You mean "Star-chick"? :mrgreen:
striving to recognize the penultimate straw
User avatar
g-one
Illuminatus
Illuminatus
 
Posts: 2177
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2016 6:18 am
Location: Melonville, Canada

Re: Star Trek

Postby Enzo » Fri Nov 10, 2017 7:02 pm

I saw a moment of the first episode of the new Trek, but apparently the remainder of the series is on some kind of access channel or streaming service or something. Not on my cable anyway. What I saw looked dark and broody like just about everything else these days. Well, except The Orville, which is all bright and cheerful.


I have to willfully set aside my scientific background for much of these. Star Trek is loping along at Warp 5 or something and stars are whipping by the window willy nilly. Considering our closest neighbor is like 4 LY away, the scene out the windows would imply travel at maybe 15-20 LY a second. Thousand LY a minute. Yet 10,000LY takes them inordinate amounts of time to traverse.

As to the transporters, I think it was maybe Theodore Sturgeon, there was a scifi story I liked, where there was interstellar transporters. You were scanned and sent along, where you were digitally reconstituted and went from there at your destination. Problem was your bodies were still at the transmission point. You had been anesthetized prior. Then they basically killed you and melted you down. This eliminated a major objection to the transporters: scanning wouldn't tear apart the scannee. (In the story the problem resulted from the sending technician not doing away with the traveler, resulting in now two of her.)

And Star Wars? I have not been to one of them since the first time Jar Jar Binks appeared.
E Pluribus Condom
User avatar
Enzo
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
Chortling with glee!
 
Posts: 11956
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:30 am
Location: Lansing, Michigan

Re: Star Trek

Postby Halcyon Dayz, FCD » Sat Nov 11, 2017 8:37 am

Lianachan wrote:It's not that so much as it's a couple of other things. The technology looks far more advanced than the series that are set after it - inevitable, given that sci-fi generally shows us stuff that's just beyond our own current technology and TOS was made 60 or so years ago - but this is a mess of see through wall/windows, swish-abouty holographic displays and the like. The entire premise of the show is built on utter scientific nonsense. A warp drive, as per the rest of Star Trek, is a conceivable development that doesn't need too much of a leap of faith to accept, but the drive in this new series..... Nope. It's jarringly awful and rips you out of the moment - and it suggests nobody who knows anything about science was involved in the show. And it seems to have completely vanished by the time of the other series. Plus the acting and sets are awful, the effects look like a video game and the morality of the main characters is highly dubious. I've heard the dreaded F word, too, which doesn't really sit well in Star Trek.

This and some more.
It is horribly written, and they did away with Trek's strongest trait: ensemble.
They made it the Michael Burnham show, and they made their Designated Hero a thoroughly unlikable Mary Sue* bigoted warmonger who got her captain** killed.
It's all dark and edgy, they might as well have called it Battlestar Discovery.
The only Trek about it is the label.

*I mean, Spock's adopted sibling he never ever mentioned? Come on!
** The only likable character in the whole goddamn show.

And the Uruk-Kling-Hai, let's not even talk about them...
Hatred is a cancer upon the world.
It rots the mind and blackens the heart.
User avatar
Halcyon Dayz, FCD
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
Snarling Rabid Green-Communist Big-Government Tree-Hugger Euroweasel
 
Posts: 32238
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2005 1:36 pm
Location: Nederland - Sol III

Re: Star Trek

Postby g-one » Sat Nov 11, 2017 7:30 pm

Hear hear!
:=D:
striving to recognize the penultimate straw
User avatar
g-one
Illuminatus
Illuminatus
 
Posts: 2177
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2016 6:18 am
Location: Melonville, Canada

Re: Star Trek

Postby Arneb » Sat Nov 11, 2017 9:31 pm

Reading HD's comment, I feel I might break my Star Trek allegiance (I have the JJ Abrams fillums somewhere in a moving box, but I never watched them). This sounds just horrible.
Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem
User avatar
Arneb
Moderator
Moderator
German Medical Dude
God of All Things IT
 
Posts: 70001
Joined: Thu Nov 23, 2006 8:22 pm
Location: Potsdam, Germany

Re: Star Trek

Postby Lianachan » Sun Feb 23, 2020 8:44 pm

Anybody seen any of the new series, Picard? I’m quite enjoying it, though it of course has annoying aspects. Much better than I’d anticipated.
A-nis bidh fios aig daoine nuair a tha mi a 'mionnachadh aig dhaibh.
User avatar
Lianachan
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
Tits and Nazis though.... Worth investigating
 
Posts: 8742
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 5:12 pm
Location: A' Ghàidhealtachd, Alba

Re: Star Trek

Postby Мастер » Sun Feb 23, 2020 9:05 pm

I've been watching TOS the last few days.

I searched for one thing on Netflix, it didn't come up, but Star Trek was suggested instead. So I gave it a shot.

My initial non-trivial exposure to Star Trek was in a hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. I was involved in a series of meetings that rotated between Atlanta, New York, and Chicago. Atlanta (at least at the time) was not one of the more expensive American cities, so the hotel in which I stayed was quite luxurious. And late at night, one of the television channels had syndicated episodes of TOS followed by TNG.

I really don't remember that much - something mentioned earlier in this thread was the fellow with a half-black and half-white face. I remember that one. Not much else, though.

Watching them now, TOS falls into the "so bad it's good" category. Some of the "special effects" are laugh-out-loud stupid by today's standards, or for that matter, by the standard of the 1980s. Slightly above a Japanese guy in a rubber Godzilla suit trampling all over a model city. (Parodied in "Arrested Development" for what it's worth.). It's that bad. But what can we say, it was 1966, a low-rated television show with a small budget. What does one expect?

I think I'll put another few episodes on now, even though it's 5am here.
They call me Mr Celsius!
User avatar
Мастер
Moderator
Moderator
Злой Мудак
Mauerspecht
 
Posts: 23929
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2005 2:56 pm
Location: Far from Damascus

Re: Star Trek

Postby Lianachan » Sun Feb 23, 2020 9:27 pm

I’ve not long finished watching all of TOS. Enjoyed it, mostly! Powering through TNG now, which I’m enjoying much less.
A-nis bidh fios aig daoine nuair a tha mi a 'mionnachadh aig dhaibh.
User avatar
Lianachan
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
Tits and Nazis though.... Worth investigating
 
Posts: 8742
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 5:12 pm
Location: A' Ghàidhealtachd, Alba

Re: Star Trek

Postby Arneb » Mon Feb 24, 2020 10:08 am

I'm watching Picard episodes as they appear. There are minor annoyments, but I am really enjoying it. Missed my new installment on Frdiay, come to think of it.

I remember some TOS episodes from their first airong in Germany (something in the middle to late seventies), so I was spared being tormented by the special effects. To me, everything was totally realistic. But I always preferred TNG. Heck I'm even a fan of DS9 and Voyager. To add insult to injury, I somewhat liked the Enterprise prequels.
Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem
User avatar
Arneb
Moderator
Moderator
German Medical Dude
God of All Things IT
 
Posts: 70001
Joined: Thu Nov 23, 2006 8:22 pm
Location: Potsdam, Germany

Re: Star Trek

Postby Lianachan » Mon Feb 24, 2020 10:12 am

All of the various Star Trek series (except Picard and Discovery) are on Netflix, so I’ve been watching them in order of release. I don’t have great memories of DS9 or Voyager, but will eventually get though them when it’s their turn.
A-nis bidh fios aig daoine nuair a tha mi a 'mionnachadh aig dhaibh.
User avatar
Lianachan
Enlightened One
Enlightened One
Tits and Nazis though.... Worth investigating
 
Posts: 8742
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 5:12 pm
Location: A' Ghàidhealtachd, Alba

Next

Return to Music, Television and The Movies

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests

cron