Guy Nacks wrote:socio-political commentary.

Through the lens of a Trek fan, epic space battles are not a requirement for a satisfying Star Trek experience. Quentin Tarantino could literally have his script be a 90-minute courtroom drama about an issue involving the Prime Directive and make it for less than $60 million, and fans would be FINE with that.

While I like the JJ timeline films, I think Undiscovered Country got the balance of mainstream action mixed with "calm" intelligent tense drama perfectly. Loved the political murder mystery aspect of that film. (it's my favorite trek film for the record, more then Khan even)

The beat Star Trek films are the ones that are another genre IN SPACE. The bad ones are the navel gazing shit or continuity porn.

II is often heralded as the best ST film, and it inarguably saved the entire franchise, but tbh over the past decade, VI has become my favorite as well. It's not just a well-crafted film in its own right, but it's a perfect ending to the TOS-era. It's the anti-Nemesis.

I would agree that the charming bombast of II and the expertly craft fin-de-siécle Cold War suspense of VI are at least on equal footing.

V would be a sci-fi classic if it did the concept justice instead of looking like William Shatnwr directed it in his backyard from a screen play he scribbled on the back of an Olive Garden napkin.

Chuckman wrote:V would be a sci-fi classic if it did the concept justice instead of looking like William Shatnwr directed it in his backyard from a screen play he scribbled on the back of an Olive Garden napkin.

Shatner obviously hired the wrong screenwriter to adapt his story concept, that much is a given. But, to be fair, the film had the misfortune to be made at the wrong time from a production standpoint. All of the premier special effects houses were already booked working on Last Crusade and Ghostbusters II, so he had to use some low-rent outlet in Hoboken. The story excecution is very flawed but the sheer mediocrity (and sometimes outright terribleness) of the special effects in that film are glaringly harmful.

Are you serious about the Hoboken thing? Why is there an effects studio in Hoboken?

Chuckman wrote:Are you serious about the Hoboken thing? Why is there an effects studio in Hoboken?

Sure am. I own Shatner’s Star Trek Movie Memories and the section on V is easily the longest since he directed that film.

He found a guy named Bran Ferren who had a small effects shop in Hoboken, N. J. , which Shatner notes is a place only notable for being the birthplace of Frank Sinatra and really good homemade mozzarella.

Chuckman wrote:Shit, mainstreaming Star Wars for a mass audience isn't even working.

Design by committee makes it very hard to make something worthwhile in the end.

The other problem, which you will note as common to both Star-something franchises, is J. J. Abrams.

For these reasons and the others you listed out I'm glad Hollywood (and Abrams) haven't turned their attention toward Stargate or Babylon 5, because I'm sure they would find a handy way of ruining those franchises too. The point of any movie (or any media really) in a specific genre is that it should be targeted to those interested in that genre and if the concept gains wider appeal through clever marketing, so be it. Creating a film based on an established franchise for any genre that is aimed at the general public takes away the soul of that franchise, especially with sci-fi. The thing that makes a sci-fi series unique and special is stripped away when dumbing it down for the masses to enjoy.

Chuckman wrote:Shit, mainstreaming Star Wars for a mass audience isn't even working.

Design by committee makes it very hard to make something worthwhile in the end.

The other problem, which you will note as common to both Star-something franchises, is J. J. Abrams.

I agree with this plus its just one franchise after another getting trashed now, predator, Jurassic world, star wars and for the first time ever when I heard there was a new ghostbusters coming I didn't cheer I felt instead wary and just thought I don't want another reboot of this...because the people who keep doing these movies don't have a genuine love for them all they do is look at them through a narrow lens of what they thought they were watching as children and get the context wrong nine times out of ten.

The Ghostbusters revival is being directed by Ivan Reitman's son, so there's that at least.

First teaser for Star Trek: Picard has dropped.

Absolutely love this teaser. It picks up exactly where it should, with Picard retired tending his vineyard as in the final TV episode which flashed 20 or so years into the future in one of the timelines. It's gorgeously shot and I love the reference to The Inner Light with the (Ressikan) flute playing the first notes of Jerry Goldsmith's Trek theme at the end.

^It should be pointed out that they chose to release the trailer today because it is the 25th anniversery of TNG's final episode "All Good Things..."

That is a profoundly weird teaser.

What were they referencing with the caravan thing? One of the movies?

Stewart looks... tired. This isn’t encouraging.

Chuckman wrote:What were they referencing with the caravan thing? One of the movies?

Stewart looks... tired. This isn’t encouraging.

About the caravan, nothing's been confirmed but the rumors are that the rescue operation referenced in the teaser was the evacuation of Romulus when their star went nova, as alluded to by Spock in Star Trek 2009.

About Stewart looking tired, the only other details they've given about the story is that something happened that affected Picard so deeply that he resigned his Starfleet commission and went back to work at his family's winery...potentially related to the rescue mission. Picard is supposed to be emotionally exhausted because he's evidently been through the wringer by the opening events of this new series.

The most obvious guess is that he did end up getting together with Beverly and she got killed during the rescue mission. Him having now been the presiding officer during missions that killed both Jack Crusher (who was one of his best friends) and Beverly would probably be enough to send him into a spiraling depression. That and PStew's about to turn 79 soon.

I hate you for making me imagine Beverly dying like that.

It's way more impactful of a death than, say, getting force-blasted in the chest by a tar monster.

I have been wondering about returning TNG cast members. Obviously they're not all coming back, and I can't imagine them having more than 2 of them reprise their roles tops.

It's already been confirmed that Frakes is returning at the very least in a directorial capacity (as expected, since he already directs episodes of Discovery and The Orville on a regular basis) but whether he reprises Riker onscreen is a whole other matter entirely.

It's a series that's geared around Picard, so my assumption is that appearances by former cast members of TNG will likely be limited to cameos driven by the plot of the story.

Chuckman wrote:I hate you for making me imagine Beverly dying like that.

I'd be really sad and disappointed if they did this because I'd like to see her on screen again since you don't get many older women playing roles outside of being mum and I think she didn't get the character development she deserved in TNG.

She absolutely didn’t. She was mistreated by the producers and Roddenberry, and her ideas for the character were dismissed.

Really, she should be the one headlining a revival show. She’s a brilliant actress that rarely had an opportunity to display her full range and talent and the scripts were usually written to make her the dumbest person in the room with a male character making the breakthrough. Among the exceptions is the episode where she gets stuck in a pocket universe, which is among my favorites.

A show where she’s captain of a medical ship would be *great*. She’s raised an interesting point in interviews about the natural conflict between the prime directive and the hippocratic oath. Good screenwriters could easily build a whole series around that.

If I were writing it I’d give her a new love interest, too. Jean Luc never learned to shit or get off the pot, so he can go play with his grapes.

She was also a pretty good director as well.

The sole episode that she directed in the final season ("Genesis") had a script that was corny enough (the crew de-evolves) to seem like it was from the first or second seasons of the show, but she was able to get some pretty good performances out of the cast and got some great atmospheric tension in the latter parts of the episode. She definitely helped elevate the material she was given.

I don't recall reading or watching anything that indicated the she had problems with Roddenberry, though, as flawed a human being as he was. Everything I've read/watched about why she left the show/was fired at the end of the first season points pretty decisively to Maurice Hurley, who was the showrunner throughout most of the first 2 seasons. It's pretty telling that she decided to come back to the show as soon as Hurley left after the end of Season 2.

Chuckman wrote:She absolutely didn’t. She was mistreated by the producers and Roddenberry, and her ideas for the character were dismissed.

Really, she should be the one headlining a revival show. She’s a brilliant actress that rarely had an opportunity to display her full range and talent and the scripts were usually written to make her the dumbest person in the room with a male character making the breakthrough. Among the exceptions is the episode where she gets stuck in a pocket universe, which is among my favorites.

A show where she’s captain of a medical ship would be *great*. She’s raised an interesting point in interviews about the natural conflict between the prime directive and the hippocratic oath. Good screenwriters could easily build a whole series around that.

If I were writing it I’d give her a new love interest, too. Jean Luc never learned to shit or get off the pot, so he can go play with his grapes.

Yeah I heard there was some real sexism that happened behind the scenes on TNG set, like I was going to mention this but I felt it might come off as a rant. But I know the actor Patrick Stewart even stepped in to stop this crap because he got so tired of them treating the female cast really badly, its like one of these untold Trek things that people don't seem to know about or ignore. Like her and the other female cast deserve a second shot in the picard series, to be more than they were in TNG.

Not to mention Gates McFadden before TNG was in Labyrinth and the ball room scene dance is all her choreographing, that scene is everything because of her Henson gave her the ability to do what she wanted and she really delivered and now its considered iconic. She also helped with the puppet scenes and movement during the filming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdiTg-Yg-FU