Insula Gilliganis
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Shatner: Star Trek Wouldn't Exist Without Star Wars
- Thread starter Megalith
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You are absolutely correct, my mistake, sorry for that - I got 'em mixed up because of the titles, wasn't thinking about it [H]ard enough at the time of the post.
I'll leave the booboo as posted howevever since you've pointed it out.
M76
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I actually like the Final Frontier. And I'm not just saying that to rile everybody up.
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DejaWiz
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TOS was cheesy and boring, even by the standards of the era it was released.
TNG was OK, but seemed to rip-off a lot from other shows (Borg - Cylons, as one example).
ENT, VOY, and DS9 were General Hospital level soap opera boring.
The OMP movie series were hit and miss...some were good, and some were WTF
TNG movie series were a lot better.
The reboots are killer! Finally brought the level of special effects, action, dialogue, and humor into the ST universe that was so desperately needed.
TNG was OK, but seemed to rip-off a lot from other shows (Borg - Cylons, as one example).
ENT, VOY, and DS9 were General Hospital level soap opera boring.
The OMP movie series were hit and miss...some were good, and some were WTF
TNG movie series were a lot better.
The reboots are killer! Finally brought the level of special effects, action, dialogue, and humor into the ST universe that was so desperately needed.
M76
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The special effects, you mean when they didn't even bother to build an engineering deck, but used a brewery? That kind of cheaping out on it is unacceptable. The original had just the right amount of humour for what it was. Star Trek didn't need anything the reboots bought. They're popcorn flicks that on their own are about as good as say the transformers series. Or as bad if you will. But they're not star trek, in any way. They only used the name for promotion.
They really should've created a completely new universe, and left the Star Trek franchise to die in dignity. Or if they were to touch it they should've treated it with the respect it deserved.
Dead Parrot
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For an interesting read on TOS, pick up a copy of "The Making of Star Trek". It is amazing that the show was even made, given all of the BS from the network executives. The network wanted a wagon train to the stars series since westerns were the go to theme of the era. Roddenberry basically lied to the network and then proceeded to make the show he wanted. Another weird rule for a fair amount of the series run was showing female navels was forbidden. Note how the lady's costume carefully covers her navel.
Really. Looking back, Kirk and Spock action figures would have been sweet to fight with my friend's Boba Fett.
I think a lot of the people dissing TOS, didn't live through that era. It was groundbreaking in so many ways. The only way they got it green lit past the exec's was to call it "a wagon train, in space." Cashing in on the westerns of the era, and our first steps into space (which were happening at the time). Sci-fi of the time was generally bad, because the execs and producers didn't get sci-fi.
And the writing was generally good, for the time. One of the few sci-fi shows that actually paid real sci-fi authors to write scripts.
I will take TOS over every other Trek, even though some of the follow ons were good. Hell, i watch episodes today, and they still hold up. At least from someone who likes sci-fi for sci-fi, and not an action movie in a sci-fi-ish environment (i am looking at the abrams reboot here). TOS went where no TV show has gone before, and that is still true, AFAIAC.
And the writing was generally good, for the time. One of the few sci-fi shows that actually paid real sci-fi authors to write scripts.
I will take TOS over every other Trek, even though some of the follow ons were good. Hell, i watch episodes today, and they still hold up. At least from someone who likes sci-fi for sci-fi, and not an action movie in a sci-fi-ish environment (i am looking at the abrams reboot here). TOS went where no TV show has gone before, and that is still true, AFAIAC.
M76
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That's a pretty lame excuse.
I like beer, but I still wouldn't want to live in brewery, or hold my wedding there, or even shoot my big movie's scenes there, where it stands out like a sore thumb that I'm cheaping out on set building.
M76
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I don't think anyone is dissing TOS, we're just acknowledging the fact, that it's unfit for consumption by today's standards. Yes they hold up to you, because you watch it trough your nostalgia glasses. You're not watching TOS, you're reliving your memories of the time when you first watched it.
Part of the problem is the campy acting which was period. The other problem is the SPFX which are also not just technological limitation but a bit period since studios use to have SPFX departments in the 30's and scrapped them and then actively avoided them for the next 40 years. And if you're spoiled by modern effects I could see that's a problem. But much of what we get is unrealistic ADHD inspired eye-candy.
The more modern series have their own problems. By the time DS9 finished, starships moved like Star Wars fighters and the naval-ish approach to combat was gone. The naval approach requires convincing writing and choreography between acting and effects to be made work. The x-wing vs. tie fighter combat can be just a free-for-all post production visual overload which is nearly impossible to follow. At which point the combat truly is superfluous formality. You could just get a post-fight report and the story wouldn't miss a beat.
M76
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I'm not a fan of modern vfx. It never holds up to the test of time. I mean the 2009 reboot's special effects look more dated and archaic than say TNG's original effects ever will. The biggest problem with VFX is that they can do anything, and that usaully means unrealistic and stupid. There are the exceptions where vfx is used as it should be like Mad Max. Practical efffects and using models just holds up better because you're still bound by reality when using that. So you can't go crazy with shiny effects lighting and lensflare. All you can do is what you can do with real lights cameras, and physics.
I agree about the fighting. One of my favorite aspects of Star Trek was the strategic battles, where it wasn't decided by having the faster or nimbler ship, or the bigger
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Saw this in a documentary like 15 years ago. Essentially it said the same thing. Shatner and everyone else involved with Star Trek the Motion Picture knew it.
Star Trek covered new ground at the time. It lacked a budget, but it's what got the ball rolling on the mainstream acceptance of science fiction. Before that it was a joke. It was the pretty much restricted to nerds and societies outcasts. Even if a few people enjoyed it from time to time, I doubt many would have openly admitted it. Star Trek made science fiction cool and inspired people to go into fields of science.
TNG didn't rip of much. It set the standard in its day. The Borg are NOTHING like Cylons beyond the general man vs. machine dynamic that's common in science fiction that predates any of the series' you are talking about. The Borg were actually scary in their earlier appearances. The concept alone is frightening. Chromed out bot's with lasers aren't nearly as terrifying. The revamped version makes even less sense.
Enterprise is a travesty of a show. I'll give you that one. Its concept was far too ambitious for the small screen budget it had. The founding of the Federation isn't something that could have been covered easily in a weekly program spanning 7 years. (Naturally it never even made it that far.) Voyager is pretty lackluster and mediocre. It lowers the bar of what Star Trek was by being less intelligent and much campier than immediate predecessors. It suffered from inconsistent writing, bad characters and it leaned on the tired and formulaic tropes of the shows that came before it. DS9 was a different Star Trek. Love it or hate it, the show was its own beast. Sure it had some TNG seasoning in it once in awhile, but it was different. It was soap opera'ish and got away with that because the trend started shifting a few years earlier towards more overarching and less self-contained episodic story telling.
The original series movies were overall excellent. Far better than what we got from the TNG era or the reboot series. I will grant you that ST:TMP is too slow and that ST:V is pretty bad despite some excellent dialog and character driven moments. I can't see how anyone could think the TNG era movies were better. Generations was shit. First Contact is surprisingly watchable despite issues of its own. Its good, albeit formulaic. Insurrection is just fucking retarded and Nemesis is an action movie with a Star Trek theme to it. Which makes it pretty much the same as the JJ Abrams flicks.
The visual effects of Star Trek were rarely if ever a problem. Most of the TOS era films still stand up well today. If you mean visuals as in Michael Bay style scenes than I suppose you are right. I'll agree that in some cases more action was necessary. For dialog and humor, if you couldn't see it in the TOS movies than I don't know what to tell you. Star Trek V may be a piece of shit, but its got some great quotable dialog in it.
Yeah, but season 7 of TNG was spotty. There were quite a few filler eps that year. I'm sure part of that was the writing/development of Generations (god did that suck), but the season was not as good as S3 of DS9 and was not as good as S6 of TNG, IMO.
As for TNG S2, as I recall, that's the year of the writers strike and it's really spotty. I haven't watched the DVDs in years, but I know that the writer strike year even had a clip show!
As TV Guide said 20 years ago, DS9 is the best of Trek.
I'd pay them 800 bucks for a full set of HD Transfers. I didn't bother with TNG. I like it, but I wouldn't pay that kind of money for it again....maybe 200 for the series.
The one thing that TNG did better was the finale. I felt like the DS9 finale was weaker, especially the second half, but I can't complain about 45 minutes when the last 3 seasons were almost all great eps that match the best of BSG, and I assume that's because of Ron and Ira. Not surprisingly Outlander has turned out pretty good too and they're both involved in it too.
Shatner is only partially correct. Star Trek : The Motion Picture wouldn't have been released without Star Wars success. It was the popularity of Star Trek : TOS in syndication that prompted CBS/Paramount to begin work on a new series, called Star Trek : Phase II, as early as 1974. A pilot and 13 episodes were written by 1975 and Roddenberry was allocated $5 million to make a pilot ( Star Trek : The God Thing ) around May 1975. If that title sounds familiar, it became the basis for the 5th Star Trek movie. Production of the series was taking longer than expected, Star Wars was released and was a hit, Paramount decided to make a movie instead of a series. The NEW ship ( Discovery NCC-1031 ) for the new ( 2017 ) Star Trek Discovery series is based heavily on a Ralph McQuarrie design rejected by Roddenberry for the proposed Phase II series. Ralph McQuarrie should be familiar to Star Wars fans since he conceptualized the ships for Star Wars, which were later used in the prequel trilogy.
BSG was shit. I don't know how you can make that comparison. Also, while I like DS9, its filler episodes with Vic Fontane and crap like that are beyond cringe worthy.
I will have to disagree here. Even though Pale Moonlight was an excellent episode, I still think Inner Light from TNG was the best. I don't think I have ever seen an hour of TV so moving. Heck, I even played the recording of the Picard Flute Solo from that episode at my wedding.
heatlesssun
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I think that flute auctioned off for $18k a few years ago.
For me, seasons 5 and 7 had the most questionable TNG episodes after the first couple of seasons. That show probably has the best hit rate of all of them in terms of good vs. mediocre or bad episodes. While I think DS9 is the better series, its bad episodes are really fucking awful and there are quite a few mediocre ones. For Voyager there are some good episodes, really good episodes. Unfortunately the bulk fo them are mediocre to bad. I think its rate of unwatchable episodes is rather high for a Star Trek series. For Enterprise, it has the highest amount of unwatchable episodes, plenty of mediocre episodes and very few good ones. That said, it really picked up in the final two seasons and I think its overall percentage of good / mediocre vs. bad episodes is slightly ahead of Voyager. In part this is the case because it didn't run as long. If we had more of the last two seasons in terms of quality (finale not withstanding) it would have been a better show than Voyager despite its shitty premise.
Gorankar
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I watch that particular episode frequently.
I agree. I just recently finished watching TOS on Netflix mostly for the first time and found it to be an excellent and enjoyable series. Anyone yearning for a bit more Star Trek should give it a fair try.