Star Trek

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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

Post by andersonh1 »

More from Brent Spiner:

https://trekmovie.com/2019/08/01/stlv19 ... ek-picard/
Before Picard, Spiner had been skeptical about returning to the role of Data. At STLV, he talked a bit about how he has a different view of the character than the audience:

-- I love Data, of course, I do, I would be a fool not to. Data has been very, very good to me…But as I have often said: love is a very personal thing. My relationship with the character has been very different than the audience’s, because you didn’t have to put on that makeup every day.

When asked specifically why he chose to return to the role, Spiner listed a number of reasons:

-- I will tell you my biggest reason for coming back: they asked me, and they were very nice about it. There are a couple of more reasons. The pedigree of the writing staff was very difficult to say no to. It was Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman – who won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, and the showrunner Michael Chabon, who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist…And then there is the opportunity to sit across with Patrick again and share that experience with him. Patrick and I are really, really good friends. I did some little stuff with him on Blunt Talk and had a really good time with him…And also you guys [pointing to the audience of fans], because I thought if it got into the wind that they asked me to do it and I said no, you would not be coming to my show on Saturday night.


Now this is interesting: they've contacted Robert Picardo with regard to a second season.

https://www.cinemablend.com/television/ ... r-season-2
former Star Trek: Voyager actor Robert Picardo has revealed the show has reached out to him about a potential Season 2 appearance.

-- I am pleased that they (CBS) have expressed interest in me. They have reached out to my agent about next season. So I’m looking forward to seeing what it is. As you know I play two characters, primarily the Doctor but also Lewis Zimmerman.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

Post by Sparky Prime »

The pedigree of the writing staff was very difficult to say no to. It was Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman – who won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, and the showrunner Michiael Chabon, who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist
Sorry Spiner, but I can't agree about the pedigree of the writing staff.... I don't think Kurtzman is a good writer at all. Most, if not all, of his plots involve a MacGuffin, and a lot of big action scenes that don't make sense when you think about them. And Goldsman's record is spotty. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt before Transformers The Last Knight, but not anymore. Chabon doesn't have a whole lot of film projects under his belt. IMDB lists some pre-production stuff, but from what's out, besides Star Trek Discovery, really all he's got is Spider-Man 2 and John Carter so I think there is more to be desired from him...
andersonh1 wrote:Now this is interesting: they've contacted Robert Picardo with regard to a second season.
That is interesting. I'd love to see where the EMH ended up after Voyager returned home. And with Seven already being in the show... I wonder if they've got any plans for DS9 characters. It'd be really cool to see characters from all three shows set during this era.

Also interesting to have a mention of plans for a season 2 already. They've referred to Picard as a limited-series. Which, doesn't mean they couldn't still make it an ongoing series, or looking ahead to that possibility at least. But, still... Seems a bit early when there are rumored troubles behind the scenes before production even began.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

Post by Sparky Prime »

The season 3 trailer for Discovery, and a new trailer for Picard have been released thanks to NYCC.

Seems really strange to see a TOS styled Romulan Bird-of Prey in the trailer for Picard. I mean, it's nice to see, but why is still in operation in this era? The shuttles in the background at Starfleet headquarters look like the shuttles from Discovery, which also feels off for this era since their design is based on the shuttles from Star Trek V, not any of the shuttles from TNG/DS9/Voy era. It's nice to see a hologram of a Galaxy Class starship in the lobby (with out any redesigns to it so far as I can tell). Although once again, it seems a little odd to me given the Galaxy Class would be a bit dated at this point of the series. Really nice to see Riker and Troi make an appearance. It seems they've also retired and live in a house that kinda reminds me of Kirk's house we see in Generations. Data's appearance looks to be something Picard dreamt. I don't know what exactly they did to Brent Spiner... bad de-aging CGI? New make-up? Whatever it is, it looks off. And it seems Starfleet has figured out how to replicate Data, and will be mass-producing androids. There's some interesting stuff going on, but honestly I'm not all that excited about the 'mystery girl in trouble' plot. It's all the old characters and what they're up to I'm more interested in seeing.

Discovery.... Ugh. It's good to see some aliens from TNG/DS9 now that they're in the future (like the Trill and a Cardassian), with out any major redesigns from what I could tell. But for as much as they show in the trailer, I don't feel like it actually showed much of anything. Apparently something goes wrong at some point in the future leading to the collapse of the Federation, and (as a new character in the trailer says) it's up to Michael Burnham as the last hope in the galaxy to figure out when exactly this happened and how to fix it. So they've learned nothing from the past two seasons and are still putting the focus entirely on Burnham. Discovery and its crew seems more like an afterthought in this trailer.
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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

Post by andersonh1 »

I'm enthused for Picard after the trailers, so I seriously hope they're giving us a good story, because sometimes the show/movie doesn't live up to the promise of the trailer (the last two Star Wars movies had good trailers but the movies were a real letdown, just to give one example).

- it's Old Man Picard going back out into space. Patrick Stewart is really showing his age (I think he's 79), but I think it will be interesting to see how the show handles that. I like the idea that rather than stay on Earth and quietly retire, he decides to take on a mission to solve something he feels the Federation should be taking care of, but won't.
- I love that his dog is named "Number One"
- Nice to see the original series Romulan ship, and I wonder how it factors into the story
- Good to see Riker and Troi, also apparently retired from Starfleet
- Data doesn't look quite right, but again it's good to see him, and to see a reference to his painting
- Seven of Nine dual wielding... sounds like rather than settle down, her experience of being victimized by the Borg has possibly given her the motivation to help others who have been victimized? I wonder if her relationship with Chakotay will be addressed.
- Nice hologram of the Enterprise D.

Like I said, I really hope they got this one right, and we get a good story, because I would really like to settle back and just enjoy revisiting these characters. Whatever plot they came up with was good enough to lure Patrick Stewart back to play Picard again when he had said that he was done, so maybe that bodes well for the series.
Sparky Prime wrote:There's some interesting stuff going on, but honestly I'm not all that excited about the 'mystery girl in trouble' plot. It's all the old characters and what they're up to I'm more interested in seeing.
I'm interested in the plot, but it would not be enough to get me to watch if the old characters were not involved, so I agree with you that they're by far the primary draw for me. My kids are most looking forward to seeing Seven of Nine again.
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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

Post by andersonh1 »

Interesting... Stewart turned it down at first.

https://www.newsarama.com/47313-sir-pat ... icard.html
The creative team met Stewart at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, and proceeded to outline what they had in mind for Picard. Stewart heard them out, considered his options, then (very politely) said no.

It was a last-ditch effort from writer Beyer that saved the program. She physically interjected herself between Stewart and the door, asking the actor to please reconsider. Stewart agreed, and asked for a four-page outline from Kurtzman to read over the weekend.

Kurtzman delivered 35 pages worth of material. And whatever was in it, it was good enough to convince Stewart to don his old captain’s uniform once again.
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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

Post by andersonh1 »

Sorry to see the news that Rene Auberjonois has passed away, and so soon after Aron Eisenberg. And I think I saw earlier that Marina Sirtis's husband had died, and of course D. C. Fontana, writer for the original series, also passed away. Sad times for the Star Trek cast and fans.

https://slate.com/culture/2019/12/star- ... butes.html
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Re: Star Trek

Post by JediTricks »

Yeah, Rene was a quiet powerhouse on DS9, his passing lessens us all. He's also the first main castmember of a modern Trek show to pass.

Over 30 Trek cast and crew have died this year, but that's actually lower than the last few years. Aron Eisenberg's passing happened the same day as 2 other actors.
Image
See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

Post by Sparky Prime »

Picard premiered this week. I don't have CBS All Access, but I've been reading all the plot summaries and found various clips from the series....

Spoiler
Picard gives an interview with the Federation News Network (FNN) which recaps some of the recent events during the 20 years since Nemesis. Picard left the Enterprise to head up the Federations efforts to help evacuate 900 million Romulans (which have lost the forehead ridges they've had since TNG) from Romulus (begs to question why the Romulans needed the Federation's help when they have an Empire that rivals the Federation) from the Romulan sun about to go supernova (retconning the 2009 film, which explained it as another star near Romulus that went nova and threatened to destroy the entire galaxy, which was a scientific impossibility. Unfortunately, this isn't much better scientifically speaking, given the Romulan star appeared to be a main sequence G type star, like our own sun, which cannot become a supernova. Not to mention, the star would go into a red giant phase for thousands to billions of years first). Unfortunately, some "Synths" (a newly created force of androids, based on but not as advanced as Data) suddenly went rouge, destroying the Utopia Planitia fleet yards where the evacuation armada was under construction, as well as set fire to the atmosphere of the planet, which is still burning years later. In response, the Federation banned the creation of synthetic lifeforms (begs to question how they treat ones already in existence, like Voyager's EMH) and gave up the evacuation efforts. Picard resigned in protest of Starfleet abandoning its obligation to help save lives.

Meanwhile, a young girl named Dahj is celebrating being accepted to the Daystrom Institute with her boyfriend, when they're attacked by some masked troops. The boyfriend is killed and they attempt to subdue Dahj (by putting a bag over her head and fighting her hand-to-hand rather than using one of their phasers to just stun her, or beaming her to them) before she "activates", but in the process, they cause her to "activate", and she kills them. She seeks out Picard, having apparently triggered a program to feel she'd be safe with him. Picard is quickly able to deduce she's some kind of flesh and blood android that must have some connection to Data. That night, Picard has a dream about a painting Data made, while Dahj leaves, feeling she is putting Picard in danger. The next day, Picard realizes he has the painting hanging behind his desk, except it doesn't show her face. But he has another copy of it in his museum (which he confirms only he has access to, making it more like this stuff is just in storage) that does show her face, discovering Data painted a woman with Dahj's face some 30 years ago. The museum hologram informs him it is named "Daughter" (Picard apparently mentions at some point Data always wanted a daughter, and I'm not sure if this is a poor reference to Lal, or if they actually forgot about Lal). Dahj calls her mother (which I guess is implied to be faked, because the image glitches), whom tells her to go back to Picard. She quickly tracks him down again, and they're attacked by the masked troops again. They turn out to be Romulans (I'm thankful they weren't Section 31). One of them spits some sort of acid at her (I've seen this clip, and I assume it was a suicide pill he seems to bite down on before spitting, but the scene could have made it more apparent), which begins to devolve a disruptor she'd been holding as well. It explodes, killing Dahj (maybe, the explosion blocks our view, seemingly engulfing her, but I think its possible she was beamed away at the last second) and Picard is knocked out after he's thrown back.

After Picard recovers, he's told none of the security cameras could see Dahj, and they speculate she had a "cloaking device" (not how that technology works considering people had no problems seeing her, but whatever). Having a purpose to find out what this matter is all about, Picard goes to the Daystrom Institute on his own, where he asks a Dr. Jurati if it were possible to make a flesh and blood android. She thinks he's joking at first, but explains even before the ban, a fully sentient android made of flesh and blood was still thousands of years away. Following the ban, they can only do theoretical work. She shows him B-4 (mistakenly calling B-4 a copy of Data, rather than a prototype) saying that B-4 failed to handle Data's neural network. Without Data's neural network, they haven't been able to figure out how to exactly replicate Soong-type android technology. Picard shows her Dahj's necklace (people seem to take an odd interest in it, despite being a simple two rings that are interconnected), which she says is Bruce Maddox's symbol for "fractal neuronic cloning", a theory Maddox had that they could be able to "clone" Data from even a single one of his positronic neurons (pretty sure you can't clone an entire computer memory from just a fragment. Not to mention, how do you make it flesh and blood and still has super human abilities like Data?). Jurati explains Maddox disappeared after the synthetic lifeform ban, but apparently he always created two. So Dahj has a twin sister somewhere, which is revealed to us, she (Soji) is a researcher on a captured Borg cube under Romulan control.


Overall it sounds like an interesting story premise. A lot of the reviews I've seen have said it was ok. Not great, but not terrible like Discovery. Although, they are still making some dumb mistakes in the writing that they could easily avoid. And I've been seeing reports that after the first 3 episodes that it's going to devolve to Discovery level writing.
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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

Post by andersonh1 »

I haven't had a chance to watch Picard yet either. It'll be a while. Either I'll wait until all the episodes are available and get the free trial CBS streaming just to watch the episodes, or I'll do what I so often do and just wait for the show to be released on physical media. I've seen the trailers and clips, and I have to admit that I'm happy to see the Romulans go back to their original look without forehead ridges and with different hairstyles. The original series Romulans didn't all have Spock-style haircuts.
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Re: Star Trek

Post by Shockwave »

I've seen it and I really enjoyed it. There were really only two things that bugged me:
Spoiler
At one point, Picard asks if it's possible to build a full flesh and blood android and to quote Red Letter Media's review "Isn't that just a person"? the other is that all androids are built in matching sets of two... for reasons. I don't trust that the writers are ever going to explain the reason for this, but we'll see.
For the most part, I enjoyed and I'm interested to see where they go with it.
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