Topic: The Unofficial Star Trek Fan Thread

@Dogorilla yeah, it does feel like you’re watching people watching the view screen too much and that bit at the beginning with Shatner in a pod looking at the Enterprise is so long and slow. I think it’s more a modern thing as people don’t like slow movies anymore, even 2001 Space Odyssey or Lawrence Of Arabia struggles to connect with the yoof of today despite both being legit amazing films.

I think the story itself is fine myself, the problems come from the plotting. What happened was originally there was to be Star Trek Phase 2 series which focussed on a new crew of the Enterprise however the series was scrapped in favour of a movie (as Star Wars was massive) so the pilot was adapted into a movie which is why it feels like a stretched out episode and focussed so much on non-og cast members.

There’s a lot I like about the film. Seek and destroy, the plot twist of the probe seeking it’s origin for a chance to meet god and become one with them, the transporter malfunction to remind you how dangerously complex this tech really is so you don’t take it for granted, the reworking of a crew member to a machine which holds the themes together. It’s far from perfect but it’s also far from the worst Trek film and arguably the most Trek like film.

@Teksetter I always liked the little details around Inner Light. What could have been a very isolated stand alone episode actually mattered in more subtle way with Picard still playing the flute and talks about how personal it is future episodes.

@jump That's fair, there are certainly things to like about it. The probe becoming sentient is interesting as you say, and I like McCoy calling out Kirk on his arrogance in assuming command of the ship. Didn't know it was originally written as a TV pilot, that's interesting.

@Dogorilla there’s an insane amount of scrapped ideas on unmade Star Trek projects some sound brilliant and others make you go WTF.

Luckily Trek fans are crazy obsessed so have documented them all like the Tarantino Star Trek movie (this was very close to happening), the Deep Space Nine movie, the Khan vs Picard movie, the “Avengers” movie where Data, Odo, Doctor (from Voyager) and Kirk all team up, Worf in a House Of Cards/The West Wing type show (I’d so watch that!), a cartoon based on Quark etc.

One of the things I like about Strange New Worlds is it feels like it’s based on the pilot of Star Trek which didn’t have Kirk as the captain so it’s like a second chance of the original idea.

Been watching DS9, and I love how that series becomes more and more serialized as it went on.

@Themagusx1 I think I read somewhere that Deep Space 9 was the 2nd non-soap opera show to be serialised on American telly long before it became the norm. Not sure how true that is though.

DS9 kinda feels under appreciated, most Trek fans absolutely adore it (apart from the few humbugs who complain it doesn’t have enough travel in it therefore they can’t be trekking) yet it never caught on the same way as other shows. Especially odd as DS9 was the most action packed of out of those 80-90s Trek shows so you’d think they attract casuals viewers for the pew pew action.

I remember my dad saying he didn't really like Deep Space Nine because he found it too cold and dark. I obviously haven't seen it yet so don't know if that's a fair criticism for the whole show but I wonder if that might be partly why it's not quite as fondly remembered as TOS and TNG among the general public. Not that darker shows can't be popular (my dad watches plenty of grim crime dramas, for that matter) but maybe it's not what people expect (or expected at that time) from Star Trek.

@Dogorilla It is a bit but I wouldn’t say it’s that hugely darker and colder than other Trek. I think it’s because of the aesthetics where the bright clean star ships have been replaced with this dark foreign looking space station that it gets that rep from.

If you watch the OG Trek that feels cold to me, characters like Sulu and Chekov are basically just given orders which is so weird as I watched the movies before the series so I always thought they were a happy family. Whilst DS9 has half the senior staff boinking each other, I think the cast of DS9 are probably the most personal from top to bottom especially with characters like Quark.

I think the show lacked iconic-ness from it coming at a time when it had two other Trek shows on the telly plus the movies were coming out so it didn’t take as much of the limelight as it could have done.

I remember the episode that made me go “fudge this is a good show” was an episode in season one where the Federation was helping a formerly oppressed planet recover and they capture a war criminal who ran a concentration camp only SPOILERS it wasn’t him, he was just a lowly admin clerk who felt guilt about what his people did so he disguised himself as a senior officer to be hanged to give the Bajorans a sense of closure in capturing him. SPOILERS

Yeah that's true, the character relationships in TOS do feel quite impersonal most of the time outside of the main three and maybe Scotty. I'm looking forward to the hopefully more fleshed out casts in the later series.

Speaking of fans, a few of my favourite rock stars are Trek fans and did cameos;

Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine

Iggy Pop

Mick Fleetwood from Fleetwood Mac

I put it down to how in Next Gen and DS9 the crew were always running off to Quark’s/Ten Forward to get legless which is relatable to rock stars getting smashed on tour.

@jump I find it fascinating that the two most serialized shows at the same time, we’re both set at a space station and a war that was set around the space stations. Babylon 5 and DS9 I think were both ahead of it’s time to be honest.

@Themagusx1 @jump
The serialization that crept into Trek really was a bit of a topic back then, when so few (if any) US TV shows were doing it. I remember hearing Gene Roddenberry was against the idea - he (and most TV producers) wanted the shows to be as accessible as possible, and kept episodes self-contained. Whereas most fans wanted grand, season-spanning sagas.

We got tastes of that continuity in STTNG, where the Enterprise’s struggles with the Borg or Q built up over time, or when the show references Jean-Luc’s Inner Light experience later on, like Jump mentioned above.
From what I watched of DS9 and Voyager afterward, those shows seemed primarily serials to me.

There’s an OG episode that always bugged me, it’s The Challenging where an old Earth probe becomes all powerful. Scotty is killed and Kirk is peed but the probe brings him back to life, then Uhura has her mind wiped and everyone is largely indifferent to it and she’s never brought back like Scotty was The episode ends with Uhura being taught basic English and it’s never mentioned again she’s basically a different person.

If it was one of the other shows it would have been milked for the drama of losing who Uhura was.

@jump I forgot about that one, that is a bit messed up!

I just watched The Captains, a documentary made by Shatner where he interviews the other captains up to Chris Pine as well as few others like Chris Plummer who played one of my favourite villains Kang, the angry Klingon who shouts Shakespeare lines.

I was not expecting much but this is rough. A real shame as a Star Trek Inside The Actors Studio type documentary sounded good since the acting in Star Trek gets under appreciated, it’s way better than it should by casting these great character/Shakespearean actors so there’s some untouched material to mine there beyond the standard fandom/franchise questions. Shatner just isn’t a good interviewer or good at making it feel like two old friends having a cosy chat. He seemed to pee-peed off Avery Brooks and Kate Mulgrew so they had to edit around it. A lot of them fell back on their stock convention answers/stories to make up for it which is a shame as there’s a lot of questions only Shatner can ask from being in their position. Some of the production choices like the god awful jazz background is baffling too.

I did have fun reading inbetween the lines like how Kate Mulgrew was talking about how she wanted to be there (she wasn’t first choice, the original casted Captain Janeway quit whilst filming) or when she needs to lead the cast like telling people now is not the time for toilet breaks (she was jealous of Jeri Ryan/Seven Of Nine so she would bully her on set like denying her toilet breaks since she had to be stitched in and out of her costume to go) plus when Shatner speaks in general as he’s trying to turn it around back to himself. Still Patrick Stewart and Scott Bakula had a few interesting things to say once they can get a word in.

@jump I have seen the captains and it seems like a vanity show for Shatner, though there were some good moments in it. I prefer his other documentary called Chaos on the bridge about the first few seasons of TNG. it was not ego centric like the Captains was.

Let's all remember the Shatnerverse books "written" by William Shatner, ego in its purest form.

@Themagusx1 ooh, cheers I’ve not heard of Choas On The Bridge. I’m gonna see if I can find it somewhere and give it a watch.

@jump I gotcha covered https://youtu.be/SfYfeWEgnxU?si=GjEkCSeKpOjaQ4UW

Enjoy!

@Themagusx1 For some reason I can’t view it my country but it was easy enough to get around with a VPN.

Interesting doc, I’ve heard the stories before but it’s nice to hear them directly with the players involved too. I felt it could be a longer as it was very quick paced and they left out other stories like how Roddenberry wanted to Troi to have a third boob. Very much an enjoyable watch though so thanks for that.

@jump Glad you enjoyed it. It was a faster pace doc, but yeah it should have been at least a half hour longer. And you are welcome.