Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
So what's the current fate of all of the characters? Isn't Kirk half-Borg now?
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The General Star Trek Thread of Earl Grey Tea, Baseball, and KHHHAAAANNNN
- Thread starter The Librarian
- Start date
That was in the Shatnerverse.
At least it's not B5, which was made in the 90s and yet has 4 dead main cast members (Richard Biggs, Andreas Katsulas, Jeff Conaway, and Michael O'Hare) and a few of its notable secondary/tertiary actors dead as well.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Henchmen21
Banned
Books that Shatner wrote after Generations.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
The Shatner books are pretty amazing. Shatner's ego is on full display in the most outlandish scenarios you can imagine.
In spite of that, I actually really enjoyed them. (Ashes of Eden through Preserver.) Granted, I probably haven't read them in a decade by now, so I might go back and find them horrifying.
benjipwns
Banned
It's only lately that he's even started to look 70.
The funny thing is that they have some decent ideas but you know it's coming down to Kirk saves the day. Even to the point of having to dumb down other Trek characters
Ashes of Eden is good book/comic, dealing with retirement and so on, and Kirk doesn't entirely save the day like he does in every book after.
Speaking of old timey crew brought forward in time, I thought Ship of the Line was a good book. Deals with Kelsey Grammer's character who came forward from the past in that TNG loop episode. Though he's oddly placed in charge of Starfleet's newest ship design or something. IIRC, it had some dealing with how captains in Kirk's time could do whatever the fuck they wanted, while half of Picard's day is about dealing with diplomatic or negotiation missions.
Like you, haven't read these in a decade or more.
benjipwns
Banned
If those are the same ones I'm thinking of. The best part of those is that because he was working off early scripts so they'd come out in a timely fashion, and then you watch the episode and it's all like wtf because entire things don't happen or all the plot holes and background are explained that they had to cut because of time/budget/etc.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
I think I've read Ship of the Line more recently, and it still held up.
Probably what *don't* are the Diane Carey books like Dreadnought and Battlestations. The main character Piper really seems like a Mary Sue in retrospect, but I enjoyed the hell out of them (probably because in part it has the Enterprise crew being competent, but still needing to be saved by a random crewmember.)
The last Star Trek stuff I read were the New Frontier novels, which I still highly recommend. They had a storyline where the godlike beings from "Who Mourns For Adonis?" return that I thought was quite good.
I sorta' checked out of the EU when I went off to college and lost access to my local library that carried them, so I missed the big Borg war and "Destiny" stuff.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
I randomly watched a TOS episode Shore Leave.
...this is hilariously trippy
...this is hilariously trippy
Rhomega Beta
Member
Go watch The Magics of Megas-Tu from TAS.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Yeah I did after watching SFD's review. Did they ever incorporate those glowing fields on the rest of the animated show?
Rhomega Beta
Member
The ones that let them breathe in space? It was in the first episode.
GungHo
Single-handedly caused Exxon-Mobil to sue FOX, start World War 3
Did the person writing the movie think they were writing for Janeway?
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Ah interesting. At least the cartoon managed to do stuff the live action couldn't, like alien crew members.
Escape Goat
Member
That... is interesting.
SeventhSon
Member
Now post a bald Kirk.
Escape Goat
Member
SpoonyBard
Banned
I watched it through a couple of years ago. There were just a couple of episodes that were genuine good, but the rest were kind of interesting for the most part too, so it's worth watching for a Trek fan I think.
Rhomega Beta
Member
This is what made TAS the most interesting for me, even if they depended on stock footage of the Enterprise and running, as well as the voice James Doohan used for Lieutenant Arex.
SpoonyBard
Banned
As far as good non-canon Trek stories go, I think the PC adventure games Star Trek 25th Anniversary, and to a lesser extend Judgement Rites had pretty good TOS style plots. Or as far as I remember, I haven't played those after '90s. Of course the Wing Commander style shooting segments feel weird, but the adventure segments were excellent.
SeventhSon
Member
I think Bald Kirk looks better than Hair Picard.
IIRC, I think Chuck from SFDebris once said that the problem with Janeway wasn't Janeway, she was just a symptom of a deeper problem with Star Trek.
Basically, something like the Prime Directive wasn't a great philosophical ideal, it was just some stuff written by sci-fi writers to try and sound like a great philosophical ideal. It's not actually a guide to life, it's just something clever and smart that makes the good guys look like good guys, when the script allows for it.
Problem is, people started to believe it. The more rooted it became, the more crazy it became. Resulting in Janeway seeming crazy. Except for the times when her inconsistent character doesn't believe in it, which just makes her even more crazy.
SpoonyBard
Banned
Well, even Picard seems a bit crazy sometimes when it comes to prime directive. Sometimes they'd try to save a planet, sometimes they'd say that maybe it was some cosmic plan that demanded that the planet was destroyed, and just let it happen. I think the problem was that that some of the writers didn't understand why prime directive existed, only what it said. It was meat to protect others from Federation influence, not protecting Federation from taking responsibility when someone needed their help.
Is there some broad concensus that the problem with Voyager was somehow related to its application of the Prime Directive? When I think of "things wrong with Voyager," that doesn't even make my top 5:
- Tuvix
- Inane technobabble taken to an unheard of extreme.
- Inconsistent characterization would be putting it mildly, for all the characters.
- Absurd reset buttons to support a premise that was stretched too far.
- Neelix stayed after Kes was gone (or, you know, for more than 3 episodes).
Like, I agree that Voyager's failures were symptoms of an overall problem with Trek, but to me that problem is that it became overly cynical both about the world (which Voyager and DS9 share) and the audience (primarily a problem with Voyager and Enterprise, where Braga was more in control). When I think about the worst episodes of any of the shows of that era of Trek, they don't really have a big Prime Directive problem (and actually, I'd say it's Enterprise where they really ran foul of this issue).
- Tuvix
- Inane technobabble taken to an unheard of extreme.
- Inconsistent characterization would be putting it mildly, for all the characters.
- Absurd reset buttons to support a premise that was stretched too far.
- Neelix stayed after Kes was gone (or, you know, for more than 3 episodes).
Like, I agree that Voyager's failures were symptoms of an overall problem with Trek, but to me that problem is that it became overly cynical both about the world (which Voyager and DS9 share) and the audience (primarily a problem with Voyager and Enterprise, where Braga was more in control). When I think about the worst episodes of any of the shows of that era of Trek, they don't really have a big Prime Directive problem (and actually, I'd say it's Enterprise where they really ran foul of this issue).
SeventhSon
Member
And it was used to create artificial plot drama, a sort of 'koybiashi maru' of moral dilemma the writers could whip out of their bag of tricks when creativity failed them. Roddenberry had the same problem early in the series with "throw the Enterprise into jeopardy!" plots.
I think a good use of the Prime Directive is the TNG episode "First Contact." It uses the non-interference aspect of the Directive with a society that isn't facing a cataclysm, just the prospect of cultural readiness to meet its galactic neighbors. The stakes are lower and allow for a less emotionally polarizing examination of the issue.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Then you have Janeway openly violate the Prime Directive and form an alliance with the Borg. Actions which lead to the extinction of at least one race.
Janeway's response? "My bad"
Janeway's response? "My bad"
Just watched The Voyage Home the other day. It was much more enjoyable than I remembered, you just have to go into it with the right mentality. It embraced the ridiculousness of it all, something the audience has to do as well. Some of the environmental themes lacked subtlety, but that's a minor complaint, imo.
It does have my favorite scene in all of the Trek movies, though: The Voyage Home final scene. It's just a perfect ending; great music, a sweeping view of the enterprise, two brief bits of dialog, and it made me wonder what the next adventure would be.
And I don't care what anyone says, I love that warp effect.
It does have my favorite scene in all of the Trek movies, though: The Voyage Home final scene. It's just a perfect ending; great music, a sweeping view of the enterprise, two brief bits of dialog, and it made me wonder what the next adventure would be.
What a shame it's The Final Frontier.
And I don't care what anyone says, I love that warp effect.
There's multiple ways to skin a cat. Leaving aside Tuvix, because GAF doesn't need more arguments about what she did being right or wrong (and honestly I'd say the fact that it provoked such feelings are the marks of a good episode), I think Voyager was a show that really needed an amount of continuity akin to at least DS9. The whole premise was a Federation ship out on its own, and what hardships or crises of faith and principle would occur. For that to have meaning, you had to see it play out, and as said, if you lean on the reset button too often, it undermines that.
(I actually really like the reset buttons in episodes like Year of Hell and whatever that one where it turned out the crew were the lifeforms from the Demon Planet, but I understand why people get angry in the context of other "let's never mention this again" elements.)
For me, I think I've come to enjoy the last season of Voyager a lot more for that reason, because it finally starts building up some character for the non-Doctor and Seven characters (Harry Kim actually gets to face command decisions, Torres makes peace with her past, Paris grows up and becomes a dad.) We also got one of the best episodes of Trek insofar as "what Trek is a show about", in "The Void".
Just think, we could have had Leonard Rosenman's atrocious score for Star Trek III, if Harve Bennett, RIP, hadn't stopped Nimoy.
Sir Walter Taffy
Member
I'm kind of on the ropes in term of the soundtrack for TVH. I love the main theme during the intro, those bell chimes are my favorite part! Although, aside for one que I disliked the rest of it. It does have a sort of "feel" about it that made it seem like the original series at times.
The only thing that saves it for me is the fact that since they spend most of the time in a hilariously-wacked out version of the 1980s, it doesn't have to fit the mood of the other films. But going from Star Trek II to III and changing the score would have been criminal.
Sir Walter Taffy
Member
Before you mentioned that in the last post I never knew about the supposed change in composer. But yeah, thank god for having Horner do III too, I totally agree with you.
GungHo
Single-handedly caused Exxon-Mobil to sue FOX, start World War 3
I think this is also why people liked Enterprise so much in its final season. Not just general themes, but people becoming more than cardboard caricatures.
It's been ages since I saw it, but Plato's Stepchildren (TOS) is pretty wack
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
In Generations, Kirk has already stopped being a Captain right, and was just being an observer?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's not an active captain at that point.
Real talk - Generations is actually entertaining and interesting until the movie gets to Veridian 3, then it absolutely falls apart with crazy Nexus travel and Kirk shoehorning.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Data getting personality is already annoying
SeventhSon
Member
A much better take on Data gaining emotions is in the TNG novel Metamorphosis.
I highly recommend it.
I highly recommend it.
Rhomega Beta
Member
It was my understanding that Kirk retired after VI, and only donned the uniform again as a special guest for the maiden voyage of the Enterprise B.
Yeah. I was confused until recently about when the whole Star Trek Generations thing was supposed to have taken sense, but according to Memory Alpha he retired in 2282 and returned a few years later, before the events of TWOK.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Did they ever say what the other crew did? All we know was Sulu became Captain of his own ship and Spock became chief of science right?
After Generations? Sulu was captain, Spock became the Vulcan ambassador, ends up in NuTrek alternate universe, Scotty gets trapped in a transporter in a Dyson Sphere until the 24th century and then toodles off to who-knows-where in a shuttle, it sounded like Uhura was going into teaching, and who knows what Chekov did.