Star Trek

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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

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JediTricks wrote:Someone pointed out to me recently that Scotty's trip around the Enterprise isn't just model-gazing, it is giving the audience a sense of scale so when we see tiny humans next to this massive ship, we understand later in the film that the tiny ship next to the massive V'ger. Those senses of scale do reverberate, I think.
That's a good point, and it's something the movie reminds us about several times with scenes like Spock's EVA or when they depart the Enterprise to meet the Voyager 6 probe.
The New Coke Trek films don't give a shit about the Enterprise, which is why it's so ugly and poorly-designed (the way the giant nacelles are barely attached to the pylons, for example). They weren't even sure how big their ship was going to be in the first one, giving multiple vastly different scales, ultimately deciding it should be larger than the 1701-D.
Yeah, that's what I meant by how easily it got blasted in the three films. They made the Enterprise pathetic. Bad design, and it stood no chance against any of the threats it went up against in all three films. Why did they name the Enterprise-A in its honor in this timeline? It didn't have the distinguished history like it did in the original timeline. It's apparent the JJprise was designed with the scale of the original ship in mind, but then, they really didn't care that much about anything making sense in those films.
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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

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JediTricks wrote:TMP is a great film, it's a tragedy that the director's edition was never rendered in HD as it solves some of the issues the theatrical cut suffers. But even the theatrical cut, I was watching it with friends recently and the lead-up to V'ger is shocking how engrossing that material is.
I haven't seen the theatrical cut in years. The 2 disc director's cut is the one I own and have watched the last few times I've been in the mood to see it again. But I agree, the music, the pacing and the largely dialogue free sequences as the Enterprise flies into this massive cloud are well done.
The New Coke Trek films don't give a shit about the Enterprise, which is why it's so ugly and poorly-designed (the way the giant nacelles are barely attached to the pylons, for example). They weren't even sure how big their ship was going to be in the first one, giving multiple vastly different scales, ultimately deciding it should be larger than the 1701-D.
They're modern popcorn action flicks: lots of blurry CGI and spectacle, very little substance or depth. I don't hate them, but they're certainly inferior to the original series and movies.

I've been watching TOS lately since it's been a few years, and I'm reminded of just how much I enjoy that show, and how well done it really is on so many levels. Shatner gets a lot of flack for some of his acting choices, but he's very good as Kirk in those early episodes, and capable of a good deal of quiet and subtle acting when required. Spock's court martial during "The Menagerie" is a prime example of a very restrained William Shatner, calmly involved in proceedings and working out just what Spock is trying to do and trying to say. And Spock smiles, or half smiles, a lot more than I remembered in the early episodes. You can tell the actors are just learning their characters, but they're already putting a lot into the parts and producing some good performances.

There's a reason that show thrived for so long. I've seen every episode a dozen times growing up, and I still enjoy going back and re-watching every few years.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

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So I just got the Star Trek art of John Eaves book, and several of the Hero Collector books... And I just have to say, these are amazing.
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Re: Star Trek

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Star Trek 4 has reportedly been shelved by Paramount.

Looks like the Kelvin timeline is dead.
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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

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I think the biggest loss with the Kelvin timeline is that so much potential was squandered. I finally watched Beyond and it was not bad, all things considered. But so much about the Kelvin timeline Trek movies was just retreading old material without a lot of new ideas added to the mix. There are some good ideas in all the movies, and then there are all the dumb, thoughtless plot devices and mindless action movie cliches that just bring them down. The intelligent writing that the best of the old series had is just not there.

This is the Star Trek I'm looking forward to: https://www.cbr.com/picards-life-radica ... ek-series/
With pre-production continuing on the new Star Trek series featuring Patrick Stewart's Jean-Luc Picard, executive producer Alex Kurtzman has shed some light on the upcoming CBS All Access series.

Kurtzman, who oversees all new Star Trek programming on the premium streaming service, has revealed that the planned series will take place after the events in the prime timeline of 2009's Star Trek, which saw the destruction of Romulus and subsequent demise of the Romulan Empire after Spock failed to stop a supernova from consuming the Romulan homeworld.

"Picard's life was radically altered by the dissolution of the Romulan Empire," Kurtzman revealed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

Kurtzman, who co-wrote the J.J. Abrams-helmed reboot, also co-wrote the tie-in comic book miniseries Star Trek: Countdown leading to the events of Romulus' destruction. Taking place several years after Picard's most recent on-screen appearance in Star Trek: Nemesis, the miniseries saw Picard leave the Enterprise to begin a career as a diplomat. Whether this career change will remain canon and how the destruction of Romulus will impact Picard has yet to be seen, but it confirms that the new series will chronologically be the latest in the franchise's prime timeline.
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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

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More detail on the Picard series:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live- ... ls-1174452
The only problem: The actor was rumored to be uninterested in revisiting Picard, whom he played for seven seasons on Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987-94 and in four feature films. Kurtzman wasn't sure of the response he'd get when he called Stewart's agent and asked for a meeting.

"To our amazement and delight, the agent called back and said he was curious to know what we had in mind," Kurtzman says.

Kurtzman, along with then-Star Trek: Discovery producer Akiva Goldsman and writer Kirsten Beyer, met with Stewart to pitch their vision.

"What we tried to convey in that meeting was how desperately we loved him and the character and how much we wanted to see what happened to Picard," says Kurtzman.

Stewart asked them to prepare a three-page document outlining their ideas. By this point, novelist and screenwriter Michael Chabon had joined the team to pitch a Picard-centric show, and they soon realized they could not fit their ideas into just three pages.

"It turned into a 34-page document — with no way to shorten it," says Kurtzman. "We were going on all in and he was going to read it or not read it, love it or hate it. It was our best attempt at trying to get him to say yes."

Fortunately, Stewart liked what he read. Kurtzman got the call that the actor would be in Los Angeles during Oscars weekend and wanted to meet.

"He walked into the room and he had a huge smile on his face and said, 'This is wonderful,'" recalls Kurtzman of that March 2018 meeting with Stewart." What he understood at that point … was that he was with people who desperately wanted to collaborate with him, that we weren't trying to exploit him. He knew if he was going to go back to Picard, it needed to be for the greatest reason ever."
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

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I'm not sure how to feel about the Picard series... I mean, I'm happy they're FINALLY returning to the 24th century of Star Trek. I feel like with how they keep trying to modernize Star Trek and do something different with it with prequels that just serves to screw up everything, that this should have been a "no duh" move on the creators part. What better way to modernize Star Trek, and do something new with it, than with something set in the modern era of Star Trek at a point in the story we haven't seen?

But on the other hand... It's Kurtzman in charge of this, who is largely responsible for the 2009 films and Discovery. Doesn't exactly inspire much confidence they'll get it right anymore than they have with the prequels. And I'm not a big fan of the Romulan Empire being destroyed.
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Re: Star Trek

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A Section 31 series starring Michelle Yeoh as the mirrorverse Philippa Georgiou has been announced.

A Star Trek series about a black ops organization lead by a character from the mirror universe... I can't think of a series that'd be more anti-Star Trek than that.
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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

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Sparky Prime wrote:A Section 31 series starring Michelle Yeoh as the mirrorverse Philippa Georgiou has been announced.

A Star Trek series about a black ops organization lead by a character from the mirror universe... I can't think of a series that'd be more anti-Star Trek than that.
Yeah, that doesn't appeal at all. I can't see Roddenberry signing off on it, if he was still around. With all these different series, it really does seem as though they're trying every idea they can think of to see what might stick.
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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

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Sparky Prime wrote:I'm not sure how to feel about the Picard series... I mean, I'm happy they're FINALLY returning to the 24th century of Star Trek. I feel like with how they keep trying to modernize Star Trek and do something different with it with prequels that just serves to screw up everything, that this should have been a "no duh" move on the creators part. What better way to modernize Star Trek, and do something new with it, than with something set in the modern era of Star Trek at a point in the story we haven't seen?

But on the other hand... It's Kurtzman in charge of this, who is largely responsible for the 2009 films and Discovery. Doesn't exactly inspire much confidence they'll get it right anymore than they have with the prequels. And I'm not a big fan of the Romulan Empire being destroyed.
I've wanted to see them go back to the 24th century for a long time. Counting Enterprise, all we've seen since Voyager ended are prequel series. I'd much rather move the story forward. I hope they do the character of Picard and the setting justice.
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