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What the weapons look like depends largely on what the creative people want to present.

For example, compare the phasers used in Star Trek V and VI with those used in The Next Generation. Both were produced in the same time period by the same studio using most of the same creative and prop people.

The V/VI phasers look mostly like handguns (except with the barrel mounted over the hand grip, instead of forward of it.) They're beefy, black, and serious-looking. The director of Star Trek V (William Shatner, actually) wanted to show Starfleet marines checking their weapons, fitting magazines, and generally preparing for serious combat.

The Next Generation phasers look like a cross between a remote control and a Dustbuster. They're straight, beige, and domesticated. The actors had a terrible time aiming the things on-screen, and the SFX people had to do all sorts of odd-looking corrections to make sure they actually "hit" what they were aiming at. Virtually all the time, whatever aliens the main characters were up against had more serious-looking weapons.

The reason for the difference was that, in Kirk's universe, Starfleet was a bunch of rough-and-ready cowboys. In Picard's time, it was a much more disciplined peacekeeping-and-exploration organization. The weapons portray the creative philosophy at the time.

And before you say this is an unrealistic approach to combat, ask one of the early F-4 Phantom II pilot who was sent into combat with missiles but no gun.

Why not link to here instead?

Most of us old codgers just skim right past these doohickeys while reading - like becoming numb to flash adverts and such. Speaking of which, does anybody know of a firefox plugin to strip emoticons?

Or, better yet, somebody make a parody page called Emotikhaaan! This would be a great way for you whooper snappers to educate some of us on your new evolutionary cryptic language - just crop in two of those thingies to alternate over Kirk's face. That would teach me two more right there. Get 'er done! Plus, I would leave an open tab just for that bookmark alone, referring to it quite often when some posts reach my emoticon threshold level > 1. Let's build generation bridges, shall we?

Khaaaaaaan!

KHAAAN!

If I were you I wouldn't trust what this guy has to say.

Ill-advised remakes of things that weren't much good in the first place.. you can just smell Hollywood's influence.

http://www.khaaan.com/

I found that site years ago (late 90's i think). It cracks me up that it still there.

Classical Trek for me ended when TNG ended.

Pretty much agree with you on that.... I DO think that Ronald D. Moore leaving Paramount hurt Trek alot. Not many people know that the creator of the new Battlestar Galactica, is also the same guy that refined the Klingon characters in TNG and DS9.... He also specialized in what the studios, then, didn't want... story arcs.. Voyager was done mainly by the Berman and Braga crowd who basically ruined everything. Well.... Okay 7of9 was a pretty cool character... They should not have lost Moore... But he is doing pretty well for himself....

The ultimate Trek Movie was, ofcourse, TWOC... Okay this is another excuse to post -> http://www.khaaan.com/

As far as games go... I would REALLY like to see a computer equivalent of the old Star Fleet Battles paper game....

GSG

Okay.. I hope I am the first to post this -> http://www.khaaan.com/

GSG

Khaaaan!

http://www.khaaan.com/

Khaaan!

http://www.khaaan.com/

http://www.khaaan.com/

Damn, I never would've believed this could be used in reference to anything!

ha, i own that site.

http://khaaan.com/really.html

I think you mean: KHAAAN!!!!!

Shouldn't that be KHAAAN!!!?

Not pleased at all.

Don't you mean this?

I'm afraid I'll have to get my kid "enhanced" just so he can keep up in school. Meat is programmable too. Knowledge is good but ethics will hopefully ease our future obsolescence

http://khaaan.com/

Ha, my "confirm you're not a script" is "godsend"!

No one is making any Red Dwarf analogies

Until some movie studio hires a bunch of some short native American actors for its next high-fantasy movie.

or continuing to reference Star Trek

On the KHAN-trary...

.. what their equivalent of a "Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaan" is?

Definately not the only one thinking that: http://khaaan.com/

I think you forgot someone.

Okay I give up... What the hell is that site and why is there nothing to click on? That was certainly a waste of a click... The resizing graphic is keen, but that's about it. I think http://www.khaaan.com/ is better!

I'd hope they'd learned their lesson the last time they veered off-course. They brought in new management and changed the company back from the forgettable "Inprise" buzzword, but there they go again. It must be the spirit of Phillipe Khan that drives them to cyclic madness.

Khaaan!

KHAAAAN!

In a stunning turn of events, Massachusetts state secretary of administration and finance Thomas Trimarco has revealed that Microsoft's recent efforts to make Office XML a ratified ECMA standard may indeed make the format acceptable to the government.

Science fiction superstar William Shatner quickly responded to the news...

Overall I think the top ten are solid choices, but the order leaves a little to be desired.

Agreed. It's nice to see a "Top X" list that actually adheres to the genre at hand and seems to have been chosen by people who know what they're talking about.

Personally I think ST II was more entertaining than VI and deserves a higher spot. VI had some good moments, but you can't beat Khan (or I suppose you can beat Khan, but he'll piss you off and make a mess of your ship before you do :)

The only thing I'd change with this list is to swap Empire and New Hope. I know that ANH started this whole Star Wars fad, but I (and most other fans, I think) believe that Empire was the best of the OT. It's also a great relief they didn't put any of the new Star Wars films on the list because they certainly don't deserve it, even as much as the hype and Lucas might have you believe they do.

What? No Serenity? -__^

Here you go!! You can watch this in your favorite Flash supporting web browser for 4 hours in a row!

http://www.khaaan.com/

Instead of Shatner crying out KHAAAAAN, does he go on a rampage for an hour in the Genesis cave?

There's a 4-hour version of Wrath of Khan?

Yes, if you stare at this for 240 minutes:

http://www.khaaan.com/

I had a discussion about this a while ago:

Me: I want 10 year old netmeeting technology to go with my VOIP.
My friend Masood Khan: Just Wait!
Me: Wow that worked.
Khan: It's an age-old diplomatic trick.

KHAAAAAN!!!!!

Khaaaan!

There, now that I got that out of the way we can have a decent discussion here!

Slashdot Pretendsto Preferences Subscribe Journal Password Logout Sections Main Apache Apple AskSlashdot 3 more Books BSD Developers Games 1 more Hardware 1 more Interviews IT Linux Politics Science YRO Help FAQ Bugs Stories Old Stories Old Polls Topics Hall of Fame Submit Story About Supporters Code Awards Services Broadband PriceGrabber Product Guide Special Offers Tech Jobs Advertisement Pretendstocare (816218) Pretendstocare arthur@arthurnet.org (email not shown publicly) http://www.arthurnet.org/ Karma: Positive Related Links Review Liunux Products Review Linux Products Compare prices on Linux Software Compare prices on Linux Software atrebuse preview of the Ubuntu 5.10 Preview release More Debian stories More Linux stories Mad Penguin on Ubuntu 5.10 Preview Posted by Zonk on Sunday September 25, @10:00PM from the frothy-birds dept. atrebuse wrote to mention a preview of the Ubuntu 5.10 Preview release, on Mad Penguin. From the article: " Every community has its heroes. From the beginning of time, we've all needed that special something to grasp onto and worship in one way or another. The Linux community is no different. Sure, there are a handful of people known as leaders or visionaries that people look up to, but what other altars do they worship at? The Altar of the Distro. That's the one I'm referring to. According to the DistroWatch page hit ranking sidebar, Ubuntu Linux has held the title of '"most worshiped distro' for quite some time now. So why is that? Is it because Ubuntu is just that good? Is it because the Ubuntu followers are just sitting there hitting their browsers refresh button on the DistroWatch Ubuntu page? What is it about Mary? " Mad Penguin on Ubuntu 5.10 Preview | Preferences | Top | 48 comments | Search Discussion Threshold: Save: The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. as a wise man said (Score:5, Offtopic) by CupBeEmpty (720791) on Sunday September 25, @10:02PM (#13648473) (https://vdov.net/) Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you. -- C.G. Jung [ Reply to This ] Well... (Score:5, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 25, @10:02PM (#13648475) I don't know about the rest, but I definitely know what it is about Mary. [ Reply to This ] ah, Ubuntu... (Score:5, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 25, @10:03PM (#13648478) ...the nigger distribution. [ Reply to This ] Naked People (Score:5, Funny) by nmb3000 (741169) on Sunday September 25, @10:03PM (#13648479) (http://www.khaaan.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday May 14, @02:14AM) I liked the cover on the old version. You know, the one with the half-naked people [nyud.net] Can't go wrong with naked. Well, you could I guess, but I wasn't on the cover. -- I am the proud winner of the very first ThinkGeek No-Prize, awarded by Mark S. on June 2, 2005. Envy me! [ Reply to This ] 3 replies beneath your current threshold. Here's a screenshot of the logon screen, very cool (Score:5, Troll) by arothstein (233805) on Sunday September 25, @10:03PM (#13648481) (http://www.adl.com/) *_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_ g_______________________________________________g_ _ o_/_____\_____________\____________/____\_______o_ _ a|_______|_____________\__________|______|______a_ _ t|_______`._____________|_________|_______:_____t_ _ s`________|_____________|________\|_______|_____s_ _ e_\_______|_/_______/__\\\___--___\\_______:____e_ _ x__\______\/____--~~__________~--__|_\_____|____x_ _ *___\______\_-~____________________~-_\____|____*_ _ g____\______\_________.--------.______\|___|____g_ _ o______\_____\______//_________(_(__>__\___|____o_ _ a_______\___.__C__

http://www.khaaan.com/

http://khaaan.com/

You forgot the obligatory link:

Khaaan

Hayden Christensen graduated from the William Shatner school of melodrama. With honors.

See http://www.khaaan.com/ for further explanation.

ZAHHHHHHHHHN!

Don't you think it was a little over the top?

Khaaan

I believe this is what you're looking for ;)

Goatse for the eyes and ears