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Star Trek: Enterprise Premieres Tonight
Ankou writes: "'Enterprise' premieres tonight on UPN. Scott Backula, you may remember him in as the lead role of 'Quantum Leap', plays Jon Archer the captain of the NX-01 which is the Enterprise predating the NCC-1701 and Captain Kirk by almost 150 years. It even takes place before the whole United Federation of Planets came about! This series will prove to be a more rougher, blue-collared version of star travel than the picture portrayed by Kirk and Picard, i.e. crew wear baseball caps and their captain is a regular 'Joe' kind of guy (possibly why they chose Scott Backula as the lead role). Only time will tell if this series will last, be the judge for yourself and see it tonight, Sep 26, on UPN at 8/7 central." I discovered last weekend that I stopped getting UPN. Who knows when, since I've never needed it before. So I will be missing it, and crying in chair, while mumbling curses directed at my cable provider.
This should prove to be a good series, tailored towards fans of Babylon 5 and the like. First post!
Are the ceiling lights really bright or something? Why would they wear baseball hats?
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at least not here in St. Louis...Our local "we run anything we want, but claim to be WB" network has Enterprise debuting Saturday...they also have rights to run other "UPN" shows, like WWF Smackdown...
How Jaded Are You?
Anyone notice that the commercials for this thing are less and less Star Trek and more and more Lexx meets Farscape.
...is spell his name correctly......
(stupid lameness filter!)
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
There is a pretty favorable review in USAToday that mentions among other things that this crew is a little weary of new items such as "Phase Pistols" and "Transporters"....It gets 3 stars out of 4.
Can someone tell me why this did not get picked up by a more respectful network?
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
That means more useless argument between nerds.
...and yet by belittleing us in this fourm you've partaken and become one of us.
welcome!
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
Wow, we got something first!
Seriously, though... I watched the 2 hour premier last night, and I will say this - It was pretty darn good. They have done an excellent job of "dumbing down" the technology, and the cast is pretty interesting. Combine that with the promis of some good-ol space violence, and you've got a winner.
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
there is a 1 in 10 chance this show won't survive because the hordes of Trekkies have nothing new to watch. It won't even matter if it's good.
I only watch Voyager for an obvious reason, in fact for two very big obvious reasons...
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Then why didn't they get Tom Arnold?
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
What was Star Trek's secret?
Short skirts and explosions.
Dancin Santa
Judging by the massive, bleeding failures that were voyager and sorta DS9, I'm not going to waste my time watching it.
And I dunno about Taco, but UPN is on peasant vision here in portland, oregon - twice (ch 4,32)
Perhaps you might investigate the possibility of buying bunny ears.
Anybody know of any "trekkie" parties?
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
As long as they avoid time travel as a plot device the show has a chance. Except for the original "Guardian of Forever" time travel has been used as a crutch when the writers get bored.
To a certain extent, you're right. Star Trek is about the heroes doing things that are impossible in our reality.
But what's happened in the last 20 years is that heroes have turned from "people who can do anything and never get hurt", to "people who are like you and me but pull it through just barely".
Who's more exciting - Indiana Jones, who gets the crap kicked out of him for 75% of the movie, then starts kicking ass, or to watch Superman shrug off bullets or never get hurt? I'll take Dr. Jones any day of the week (and twice on Sundays).
So I'm actually applauding Paramounts change of direction to more "ordinary" people who will become more than human through their trials and experiences.
Just as long as they never need the Girdle....
Of course, I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Excellent point! The Internet is global, so clearly people posting on Slashdot should only talk about issues which affect people in all countries. Obviously, since nobody in Europe's ever heard of Star Trek (an American television show, for those of you wondering), we should never talk about that again. Unfortunately, nobody in the Congo cares about privacy issues on the Internet, so I guess we can't talk about that either. Heck, I guess this is the end of Slashdot.
Invisible Agent
This post is a mirror; when a monkey stares in, no hacker gazes out.
> Shatner is a skilled actor, and the storylines
> remain as fresh as ever.
WTF? Did we watch the same show? You're a Euro aren't you? I bet you think that David Hasslehoff is a "skilled singer" and "his ballads remain as fresh as ever".
If anything, Star Trek succeeded in spite of Shatner chewing the scenery.
Actually, I've already seen a pre-air rip.
Heh, sometimes AC's are good for something. Yeah I remember seeing this before also. I think he has a point, but it may be over milked by now.
Also, Kirk is in many ways a Super Hero. In the rpg he is given a very large luck factor (helping him out in Corbomite Bluffs) and he can beat Spock in chess and is at least equal in physical combat.
But as another person who replied to this before pointed out the most insightful idea IMHO, that Star Trek is about Super Ego, Ego, and ID, etc... and how they interact in different situations. Thats what I liked about it.
It's *5* series, you idiot!!
Yep.. this is right.
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
Starbase 21 & UPN are sponsering a premier of the new Trek series Enterprise at the Cenimark theater wednesday in Tulsa Ok... on a big screen and with no admision costs. starbase21
ST is about *psychology*. Kirk, Spock and Bones are the ego, superego and id (not necessarily in that order because I'm too lazy to look up my Freud). Think about it: Spock, no emotion, ultimately logical and rational. Bones, almost pure emotion, knows nothing about technology but is empathic and caring. Kirk is impulsive and sexual but also strong and willful. Remember the famous "split Kirk" episode? When they talked about it they made it sound like anybody's dark side would be strong, but is that really true? How about Spock's or Bones' dark side? Do they even have one? No, the real point of that episode is that *Kirk* has a thin veneer of civilization cover a beast within.
ST:TNG had a different angle. It was about utopia. It was a much more political show--always coming across warring civilizations and doing diplomatic missions and so forth. I suppose characters in a utopia have something in common with superheroes--they both seem godlike. One thing they don't have, though, is exciting adventures. Which is also true of ST:TNG, which is why I rarely watched it.
DS9 I think we can dispose of as being pure claptrap.
324006
What you experienced was UPN feeding it down to the local affiliates via satellite, but with the solar flair with an X rating on Monday, it reflected off the northern lights causing it to shift to a frequency that was able to be received by your TV while decoding the digital signal as well. Either that or a reverse Tachion pulse caused the signal to travel back in time by 24 earth hours.
Who wants Pork Chops?
The opening credits weigh in at 26MB, but it's worth it! Almost brought a tear to my eye... http://www.enterpriseuk.tv/e-media/series/index.as p
Download it here
who liked DS9? It had more character developement than TNG or Voyager.
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Nice idea, but I always thought that Star Trek (the entire franchise) in all of it's incarnations, was about teamwork . It's always been about people coming together to get the job done. Regardless of color, creed, religion, etc. This is what I always loved about it. The super hero's you speak of were all flawed in some way and could not get the job done without the entire team. Everyone contributed.
Spock (my personal favorite) had superior strength and intellect, but at times he was too logical. This was his "achilles heel". Data, was much the same.
Capt.'s Kirk, Picard, and Janeway (pardon me forgetting the DS9 captain's name...didn't really watch it) were the leaders that pulled together the strengths of the team to get the job done, often in the most harrowing of circumstances.
So, I think you are right about the hero part, just not the super hero part. All of the characters were hero's in their own way. They all braved the "unknown" and faced their worst fears.
This is heroism.
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
"Captain, the enemy vessel is firing again! Shields buckling!"
"Captain, the enemy commander is hailing us. He demands our immediate surrender."
"Captain?"
"Captain?!"
"...Oh boy."
Why are you guys doing this?
There was Star Trek: The Animated Series!!
Why am I the only one that remembers this??
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
or to watch Superman shrug off bullets or never get hurt
And then to watch him duck when the throw they gun at him. Why was that?
:)
--Ty
on startrek.com It looks like this episode will be the first contact of the humans and the Klingon Empire. There is great tension in the video clip between Archer and the human commanders and the Vulcans who believe the humans aren't ready for interstellar diplomacy yet. They will obviously be proven right and the war with the Klingons will ensue as a result of Archer's actions.
I'm looking forward to watching the episode which relates what Jean-Luc Picard later referred to as "A poorly handled first contact [which] led to decades of war with the Klingon Empire."(said in a episode where Riker and a couple of other under-cover agents investigating a planet that is a candidate for contact were discovered, don't remember the episode name, but it was a decent one)
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
I'm really willing to give this series a chance. I don't think Voyager was "horrible" like a lot of people do, though it certainly wasn't as great as Next Gen or even DS9. Does anybody beleive that if this show gets canceled, there will be a massive fan mail campain like there was when the orginal series was on the chopping board? I don't think there will be.
The inheiriters to Gene's vision get two more chances to save Star Trek from destruction. The first is the "Enterprise" series, and the second is the new upcoming movie. Fortunatly for them, the next movie is an even-numbered one (odd-numbered trek movies have been cursed since the first one, while even numbered ones are great).
One bad omen: Some of the promotional ads for "Enterprise" are using some pop crap for background music. Star Trek has a perfectly good composer, Jerry Goldsmith, who is as good as Star War's John Williams. They really ought to USE HIM! When "Enterprise" comes on, and I hear the opening credits being sung by N'Sync, I will shut off the TV, rip the tape out of the VCR, and burn it (the tape, not the VCR . . . on second thought, the VCR goes, too).
Not a typewriter
Hit Dish Network's web site, find your local dealer, haul ass over there, buy whatever receiver model amuses you (I'd pick between the HDTV and PVR versions), and get it hooked up and activated before 8pm. It's doable. (Sears sells them under the JVC name too, but an independent dealer is probably better.) Dish Network carries TWO UPN stations in their Superstations package (and THREE WBs!), so even if one of them is playing some lame sports game instead of Trek you're covered. I've been a Dish subscriber for almost 5 years. Highly recommended. You can probably get the Detroit network stations too, or better yet, the NY/LA East/West combo if you're not in a local broadcast area. You will need line-of-sight to the southwest (in Michigan), 30 degree angle IIRC.
MAY remember him???
Besides the spelling error, I SERIOUSLY doubt anyone who reads /. doesn't know who Scott Bakula played. *grin*
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
BTW... 22 shows..
m l
http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/trekkies/amtrek.ht
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
hard science Huh? You mean warp drive, dilithium crystals, force fields, transporters, phasers, time travel, artifical gravity, sound in space, or aliens speaking english? Star Trek has some good qualities, but adhering to science isn't one of them.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
He's an even better singer. His version of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" leaves me speechless.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
I have employed the following method to varying degrees of success. I suggest to CT and anyone else who needs broadcast stations to simply unfold a paper clip and jam it in the coaxial pin hole. On a regular analog television you'll be able to get strong local stations if you aren't within heavy walls. A lengthy bit of wire also works. I don't know if slashdot's very proprietor would be willing to lower himself to the paper clips, but hey...
On 9/11 in the big library at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities I at least got sound as the news rolled in.
--hongpong.com
Okay, I'm not the most objective individual on this subject, and I really didn't like the direction Trek went after Gene died, and the odds are, if you didn't like Voyager or DS9, you won't like Enterprise, because it's the same creative team.
However, before we premiered Next Generation, we were dismissed pretty much out of hand before anyone had seen a single episode...and we ended up running for 10 years, not sucking most of the time, IMHO.
So I'll be watching, excited as hell that there's new Trek on TV, and hoping against hope that it doesn't suck.
Remember, too, the other series currently under development -- Star Trek: People Hut.
My group is working with the Paramount trek development group -- so some of this is subject to change -- but we're aiming 'People Hut' at folks who (unlike the original poster) believes that Star Trek is about people crammed in a small, metallic space -- a space within "deep space," you might say. We do, at any rate.
Anyway, we're also currently brainstorming and working with the Roddenberry tech-dev wing at Paramount, but People Hut -- tentatively -- is set to premier in 2004. We're thinking about taking a group of unemployed air traffic controllers -- the ones fired by Reagan about 20 years ago -- who have all sorts of dreams and longings for deep space.
People Hut, literally, would start in the living room of one the unemployed controllers and would focus in on the lives of these folks as they get closer to building their own little ship. (Sort of like 'Salvage One' from a long time ago -- you remember that? With Andy Griffith? And the girl that was in 'Escape from Witch Mountain'? They built a ship that looked like a thimble with a balloon on it and then zoomed off for various missions.)
Anyway, our 'ST:PH' would chronicle the lives of these dreamers. The ups and the downs of family life -- what it would mean, in other words, to be a dreamer in the era of the Reaganomics -- and how those dreams impact everyone emotionally.
Eventually they would christen their Sunday evening meeting the 'People Hut' where anyone -- not just unemployed air traffic controllers -- would come and chat about hopes, dreams, and deep space.
One guy -- we're not sure who -- wins the lottery in Michigan (this is pre-Power Ball, remember) and then realizes that, at long last, his dreams have a bit of financial backing behind them.
(We're thinking the lottery pay out would be around 12-15 million -- enough to build a ship and possibly hire some then-hot-shot Soviet scientists to defect and investigate various means of plasma transport -- the stuff that the Soviets were rumored to be working on before the break-up of the USSR.)
Probably midway through the first season they'll launch the People Hut -- PH001 -- and go on a few adventures. Maybe check out the moon a little bit more -- pick up some of the trash left behind by the previous lunar missions -- and really try to clean things up. ST:PH -- if all goes according to plan -- will have a strong socio-economic context.
If anyone is interested, I can detail a couple more advantures. Remember, lots of this is still under development. No green lights yet. Robert Downey, Jr is tentatively slated to play Captain O'Malley -- a grizzed Irish guy who invested his entire life in air-traffic control.
I'm not too familiar with the Star Trek universe but I enjoy watching the various shows now and then. One thing I have learned is that Vulcans have a pretty long lifespan. IE, Mr. Tuvok from Voyager also served under Sulu from a couple human generations ago.
My question is this: since Vulcans live so long, is there any chance that Mr. Spock could make a cameo appearance on Enterprise? I have no idea how old Mr. Spock is, so I could be way off base.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Actually, now that I'm in college, I'm not in an area that has EVER had UPN.. but never fear.. The local WB will encore every UPN episode on saturday night. Excellent. -- So check around, there may be a network that does this in your area.
- http://pakman.sytes.net/
Right here, but I think those two download sites are overloaded! I believe the video file is in MPEG format. I still can't download from either site. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The Star Trek universe is the reflection of our
universe, with science fiction props to
illuminate understanding of ourselves. The 35 years
of shows- more like 45 if you include the initial
scripts and lifetime of the fifth series- span at
least three cultural generations of Americans:
The pre-boomers, the baby boomer yuppies, and now
the GenX. The show has always focused on 30-something
adults of the era it was filmed.
The orignal trek series was like "Combat in Space"
or the generation of the baby boomers. They even
made fun of boomer culture like hippies and
peacniks in some of the episodes. The pre-boomers
were conventional, pro-establishment types.
The second and third series, New Generation and
Deep Space Nine, were "Yuppies in Space" or pure
baby boomer. The main characters were educated,
priviledged and aloof. The fourth series, Voyager, was
transitional with late-boomer officers and a GenX junior crew.
The independence of the latter was a source of conflict in the show.
Andromeda is the first all-GenX sci-fi show.
GenX'ers are more creative and independent and
fully tech savy. I presume the fifth Trek series
will be another GenX series.
Of course it is. A lot of great Space Opera is.
Spock and Data are pikers compared to Kim Kinnison, and the ones who've gained "godlike power" all leave the series.
Sisko's "power" is hearing voices in his head, but even that makes him a step above the average man.
But isn't that the point? From Gilgamesh to Robin Hood to Dartagnan to Michael Knight, western literature is about heroes. It always has been, and the best of it still continues to be.
Still closer... :-)
You could just pick up this month's Maxim (at least the U.S. edition), which features Jolene Blaylock and will probably be a little easier to conceal from your wife.
~Philly
Others have mentioned named aircraft in a rather anonymous way, but there is one whose name is well-remembered.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Does it begin with Scott Bakula "leaping" into the body of a starship captain, only to be confronted by a screaming Klingon and sighing "Oh boy"?
I love it. See Star Trek in all it's forms is really a peice of art. Normal shows aren't because at the end of the show everyone talks and they've basically all see the same movie. The interpretation will be identical. True art gets interpreted differently by each individual viewer based on something inside the viewer that the piece of art speaks to. I've heard the interpretation of Star Trek described as "Self, EGO, ID (Freud)", "the three stooges", "racism", "team work (the three muskateers)", "hero worship", "morality play", "wwf".... I think it's hilarious how many different ways people can interpret and read things into the Star Trek franchise. Of course there are the people who can't just leave things at entertainment value and who must always search for "the deeper meaning". And of course sometimes there is a purposeful "deeper meaning".
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Nor did the PT boats. One needs to look at the mission here. PT boats and aircraft are both designed for short or short-ish missions, and therefore come home for the type of care that you need an engineering space for.
Carriers, battleships, destroyers, and the like stay at sea for weeks or months. They have to be capable of greater repairs on-the-spot.
But there was at least one aircraft that had 'engineering space', the B36. It had walkways through the wings, and sufficient space around each of its 6 prop engines. You could take one engine offline, feather its prop, and do some fairly extensive work on it while airborne.
It depends on the mission.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Get out your coat-hangers, our UPN channel is also available through the air as well as on cable. So, you may be able to go old fashioned and pick up the station. If you are really desperate, and you find that your "local" UPN affiliate broadcasts from further away, you can run to Radio Shack or Home Depot and pick up a little directional antennae with more gain for fairly cheap.
Not too long ago, a fellow Trekker and I discussed the prospect of a series based 150 years BTOS (before The Original Series), and we we both dicouraged when we saw our first view of the NX-01 -- clearly much more advanced-looking than even the post-refit NCC-1701 of Star Trek -- The Motion Picture.
I vaguely recall seeing now and again in a series espisode or movie some passing references to earlier, pre-Constitution-class Enterprises, all the way back to the USN aircraft carrier and beyond. Some of those designs, while not terribly inspiring visually, still conveyed a sense of foraying into the unfamiliar.
Coming from an earlier, less technologically sophisticated era, the ship should have looked less rather than more streamlined and fluid, even a bit clunky, conveying visually the idea of less advanced starship design in the earlier era. The production-design people have gotten this basic concept completely backwards. To make an analogy in terms of US naval warships, it's as if somebody wanted to make a movie about the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor, but lacking any pre-World-War-II battleships because they'd all been sunk at Pearl Harbor or scrapped at the end of the war, the movie's producers used an ultramodern Aegis guided-missile cruiser as a stand-in and hoped nobody would notice or care.
By violating the canon, the series' producers have made a conscious fundamental goof with the biggest visual element of the series, presumably just to have some cooler eye candy. Maybe they'll suck in a younger generation of viewers this way, but to my mind, they've forgotten to "dance with them that brung'em," as we used to put it in Texas. And that kind of egregiously flawed decision making on such a basic, early choice gives me little reason to expect the other aspects of the series to be any better than a rehash of other Star Trekism.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
WIRED: Star Trek: Bakula to the Future
Scripps/Howard: Operation: Enterprise
The San Francisco Examiner: Living in the now
New York Daily News: Bakula's Bold New 'Enterprise'
Also, MAXIM's cover girl this month is Jolene Blalock, who plays Vulcan Sub Commander T'Pol. Presumably this is the same T'Pol that in ST:TOS Amok Time oversees Spock's Pon Farr ceremony. Many of the Trek fan site are speculating on just how long it will be before her character experiences the Pon Farr with no Vulcan males around and only Capt. Archer present to address her needs.
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I agree that it's about people who are larger than life, but I strongly disagree with your exclusion of Kirk (and for that matter, Picard). Kirk was the quintessential frontier hero, the swaggering, brawling Tom Sawyer. Spock is obviously essential, but the series clearly expressed he wasn't the "born leader" type as Kirk was.
ST:TNG was great because it completely transformed that world view. Instead of the frontiersman, we have the intellectual, the dramatist. He's no superhero, he's more human than human-- it's no coincidence that they cast someone who'd done a remarkable amount of Shakespeare.
Admittedly, compared to these superhuman captains and superpowerful sidekicks, the latest ST characters have been quite dull. The problem isn't a lack of superpowers, though-- you can have a strong hero without any explicitly non-human abilities.
Would I love to see a B5-style story done in the Star Trek universe? Hell yeah. I'd love to see a B5-style story run in any universe -- it was a great example of a style of storytelling which we're drastically lacking.
Funny thing is, now that the 4 season arc* is over, I'd now like to see a star trek or even outer limits type story in the B5 universe. The grand theme was great, now lets see an anthology type show delving into the little moments in the less explored areas, organizations and charecters.
*don't even try to tell me there were five seasons, I can't HEAR YOU LALALALA!
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Everyone else blocked it mentally.
I read the internet for the articles.
First of all, what the heck *IS* Star Trek cannon?? The continuity changes every episode!
Second, I have been told by people that know better than me that certain continuity regarding Spock revealed on TAS has been followed.
So.. you have to do better...
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
Let that title song of be a one-off one?! I mean, who wants to listen to a crappy Bon Jovi style theme song everytime an episode starts?!! :)
-adnans
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
Hey, heroes can be made by wit, daring and bravery, not just by gamma rays and the planet Krypton. One word: Batman.
Semi-low-tech environment. Cowboy attitude. Sounds familiar.
Oh yeah, this could be a good thing.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
It's very simple, they puts the characters in extraordinary circumstances against unrealistic odds and 9 times out of 10 every important character needs to be alive at the end of the day. Without superior abilities everyone of those ships would have been destroyed before the end of their first season.
Human beings simply aren't suited to the Star Trek universe unless they can pull out the Hand of God(TM) in the form of alien powers or uber tech to save their asses every once in a while.
Also the series provide a framework for telling lots of different stories. Some about people in a serious and realistic way. Others are just excuses for huge space battles. Once in a while they even have insightful satire of modern concerns. I think it's hard to say that the series as a whole are actually about anything. To me they seem more like a vehicle for invention that gets used in many different ways.
I think what you're looking for is *interesting* characters, not necessarily superhuman ones.
The problems with Deep Space 9 and Voyager were not because their 'superheroes' were weak, but that they just weren't interesting enough, and the few interesting characters that did exist could not carry the show all by themselves.
The original series had interesting characters from the beginning (and TV standards then, it must be said, were more lax.) Next Generation stumbled for a while before the writers came up with ways to make the cast -- especially Picard -- interesting people to watch.
Andromeda is good show, and it seems to fit your 'superhero' theory well -- absolutely every member of the crew has some exceptional ability. But none of them are able to easily defeat what comes at them, and in the end none of them are exceptional members of the universe in which they live. Their abilities make them *interesting*, that's all.
Are the crew members of Enterprise interesting? I'll find out tonight. But personally, my biggest gripe with the Star Trek universe has never been with their characterization; I couldn't stand the moralistic plots, outrageous plot twists, and insultingly stupid technobabble. I'm interested to see if Enterprise can get over those problems that have plagued Star Trek for years.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Supposedly the insulting part is where Archer insists on putting the poor Klingon on life support and returning him to Qo'onos. Had the Klingon been left to properly die, wouldn't have been a problem.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Here is an earlier copy of this same post by another user.
I am amazaed that the /. community is so quick to mod up repeat posts like this while at the same time jumping all over the editors if a story goes up twice. At least the editors aren't repeating stuff on purpose.
Maybe we should all be on the lookout for the next Star Trek story to go up. We can race to see who can copy and paste this superhero post the fastest and earn precious karma. It could be a "superhero first post" contest.
Of course, maybe the post is GPL'ed, in which case this reuse is all ok. :)
Lasers Controlled Games!
Also saw it premiere last night in Calgary, Alberta. Would like to see it again but do not get UPN.
As always, it's hard to tell from the premiere how the show will turn out. When I think back to the original Star Trek and to Next Generation, the early shows turn out, in reptrosect, to look terribly unpolished compared to later episodes.
I was not much into Next Generation until well into the second year but episodes in later years turned out to be some of the finest television ever, as was true of the original series.
The key to the success of Enterprise will be the acting (especially the development of the characters) and what social commentary the producers can weave into the episodes - why I like the original series so much even to this day. That is why(the original) Star Trek and Next Generation were so "successful" and that other shows much less so.
As for the comments re the "latest" Enterprise looking too streamlined and developed, chalk that up to advances in production. It's hard to go backwards once each new standard is set.
Overall rating: has potential and only time (and good writing) will tell. Good start though and Bakula is an enlightened choice.
A hint: check out the pictures hanging on the wall behind Bakula in one or two scenes.
Final comment about our newest Vulcan: what a rack!
What do you expect? We've pretty much progressed further in the thirty years since ST:TOS than they thought we would in three hundred years. Prime example: They didn't have the concept of LEDs or computer monitors back then. Hence, lots of switches, dials and chaser lights for feedback. Ooops. Also, ST:TOS was low-budget. Roddenberry wanted a film projecter behind each of the screens ringing the bridge, for cool animated readouts and library computer accesses. Until he found out a) that 12 projectors required, by union contract, 12 projectionists and b) how much one projectionist cost, let alone 12. Ooops.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
- Space = a 3D Ocean
- Planet = land masses
- Stations = Outposts
- Capital "launching" ships=Aircraft Carriers
- Large Spacecraft="ships of the line"
- the runabouts, fighters, etc. correspond to PT-Boats and launched fighter aircraft, and finally
- Photon torpedoes = Explosive ordinance (torpedoes or large shells, phasers = bullet type weapons
Put all the ships together and you have a fleet, (for example the USA's Atlantic Fleet, based mainly out of NYNY and Norfolk, VA, or the USA's Pacific Fleet, based out of Pearl Harbor, San Diego & Seattle). This is different from the USAF where the divisions are more by the mission of a particular type of aircraft, i.e SAC = Strategic Air Command, MAC = Military Airlift Command & TAC = Tactical Air Command, etc.the medium in which things travel, battles take place, etc.
Things that you go to for whatever reason,{trade, conquest, negotiating, R&R, etc.}
Smaller, strategically placed defensive or trade locations (DS-9, Babylon 5, etc.)
Not so much on the Star Trek Series, but Galactica, Star Wars, some on B5)
For example NCC-1701A = Constellation Class Cruiser, NCC-1701D= Galaxy Class Cruiser although they probably more closely fit the current definition & capabilities of a battleship, Voyager might be the rough equivalent of a small cruiser or large frigate, DS-9's Defiant is probably most like a Destroyer, but if equipped w/Cloaking technology becomes an attack submarine,
There are probably a dozen more analogues, but you get the idea.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Heh heh...and we got to see the the sexy vulcan chick and the engineer slather cold, wet, slippery de-contamination gel on each other 1st too...woo hoo! (judjing from T'Pol's umm..."thermometers"...it must've been cold...heh heh)...but I digress...
Interestingly enough, it seems to be a tradition to show Star Trek shows a day in advance in Canada...
When the original series was first played, the CBC received and broadcast their print of each episode one day prior to it's debut in the US. Subsequent series were syndicated and shown on various other independent networks and stations, sometimes a day in advance. I remember DS9 and Voyager in particular being shown here the day before it was on a US station.
When STNG first came out, I thought it would be cool to have a series showing what it would be like to be a rookie at the lowest rank on the Enterprise. Stuff like replicators that didn't always work right: "I wanted a Gornburger, not this Klingon worm crap.". Or low resolution holodecks. Or "Do I smell burning ham - or did Kirk singe himself again? Hey, what's with this red uniform?"
Wasn't that supposed to be "Akbar and Jeff: People Hut"?
It's as if
somebody wanted to make a movie about the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor, but lacking any pre-World-War-II
battleships
Amusingly, the real Aegis missile cruiser design was originally criticized on the grounds that it didn't have enough weapons showing. Aegis ships use a vertical launch system, nothing of which is visible except a small hatch on the deck. No bristling missile launchers like USSR ships of that era. Members of Congress actually berated the Navy about this.
The same thing happened with submarines in the 1950s. There was considerable resistance to building submarines that looked like bland cylinders. Nautilus, the first nuclear sub, still had a destroyerlike deck. All later US Navy subs, though, were dull, boring, but effective tubes.
In battleships, the most attractive design ever was the streamlined Yamato of WWII. The designers claimed that the streamlining was to keep the shock waves from the 18-inch guns from damaging the ship. The Yamato, like most WWII battleships, didn't accomplish much militarily, and was sunk by aircraft in 1945.
Once a technology is far enough along that
a broad range of workable designs are possible,
there's no obvious correlation between a finished-looking design and when the artifact was built.
Look at rockets. The V-2 was the most nicely shaped rocket ever built. Since then, rockets are almost always simple tubes. But look at the Space Shuttle at launch, the wierdest collection of big shapes ever to fly.
The Original Series Star Trek really had nothing at all to do with superheroes or the like. It was Gene's morality play, a means of examining 20th century problems and issues.
The whole space travel thing was just to make it easier for the settings of each issue to be different each week - a new planet, a new problem to be examined. And each of those problems reflecting a problem relating to the 1960's - racism, war (cold and overt), the place of technology in society, and so on and so forth.
Ever notice how all other worlds in the Trek universe are so one-note?
Even the characters were broken down into metaphors - Spock was cold science and reason, McCoy emotion and compassion, and Kirk was Everyman, walking a line between the two.
Some have even broken this down on Freudian lines, with each of the Big Three representing Ego, Superego, and Id.
It was never intended to be taken at face value, any more than Aesop intended one to believe in talking foxes.
The later series lost track of this (especially Voyager) and degenerated into parodies of themselves - although DS9 managed to have a pretty powerful story arc, once it found its centre.
It'll be interesting to see where this series goes.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
From the constant ribbing Kirk gives to Spock, and the way Spock takes it, one would get the impression that Spock generally loses. I don't know of a posting or mentioning anywhere their play stats.
Also, Kirk and Spock have always fought to a draw. There were times that their was an escape before the conclusion (like you mention) or where the conclusion was a contrived part of the plan (Amok Time) but that Kirk seemed to last indefinately against Spock means to me it was a draw.
For my background, I never enjoyed the original series, and found TNG much improved after Gene passed away and the Berman team took over.
The intro song has, for the first time, WORDS! This was startling and disappointing, until I found myself liking the song. Anyone heard it before?
We are provided with a glipse of post-First Contact politics. This includes a growing resentment of the Vulcans for with-holding technology and a passionate desire to be atonomous as a sepecies. This is especially evident after an accidental first contact with the Klingons. The Vulcans themselves appear to be a bit "off", in that they are not as 'emotionless' and they are obvious manipulators of the human leaders.
New technology abounds in the form of phasers, transporters, medical supplies and other things I can't recall.
The new ship is rushed into a mission early into the episode, and this quickly scuttles what up to that point was helpful character and relationship development.
I enjoyed seeing the new set and costumes. The camera views the character much closer in than the previous series, likely b/c the feeling of smaller quarters is desired. I enjoyed seeing a necktie for once in a star trek series (that wasn't from the hologram or time-travelling mission).
The plot was usual star trek, with 1st act that includes intro of Conflict #1, the external conflict; Conflict #2, the internal conflict; and quite often including last night Conflict #3, the Bigger Picture slash sure to be a recurring Conflict; followed by a partial resolution of conflicts which quickly becomes much much worse (the 1 step forward, 2 steps back plot); then acts of heroism, technological wonder, and unexplained scientific/human ingenuity makes everything better, or at least mostly better.
Other noteworthy bits:
The discovery of the ship's "sweet spot", which I hoped would lead to a committed explanation of artificial gravity
Stopping on (planet began with R, I think this is where Troy and Riker spent a weekend, or something like that?). Sort of an underground brothel/strip club.
The intro of the Suliban race, a shapeshifting race that appears to be the worker bees for a Temporal Cold War
The Klingon homeworld, called Chronos... why? Did I miss something during TNG and DS9? How is it that the Klingons can live without electricity, but can still fly at high warp speed.
Anyway, Enjoy the pilot,
Dennis
If you're still blacked out (as in Holland, MI -- sorry Rob), I'd suggest contacting all the local stations that carry a lot of syndicated content. That sort of agitation is rather appropriate -- the first Star Trek series lasted an extra season because of it.
Not that I really care about "Enterprise". I seem to be the only slashdotter who realizes that this will be a dud. Same "creative" team as Voyager, even more potential for logic-free stories. (The bad guys are time travellers, for crissakes! Every time the writers get stuck, they'll declare a pardox.) But it is essential that all America should witness Buffy's return from the dead!
I couldn't agree more. Like the t-shirt sez, "Space: No cute robots, no friendly aliens, no holodecks, NO MERCY!"
It had its share of first season flaws, but they were much fewer and far between than the first seasons of ANY of the Trek series. The characters were also fleshed out much more, and the series as a whole displayed far superior storytelling.
I tend to favor darker plots, and some episodes of Space were disturbingly grim. These also tended to be the episodes where the show really shined.
Besides, Vansen was a babe (Co-ed bunks? Works for me!) and the fighters looked totally badass.
-Cybrex
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
Spelling issues aside, it's my understanding that the the original concept had this Vulcan being the same character as the lady from "Amok Time". They later decided to make her a separate character.
Age is just not an issue. ST writers rely more and more on time travel gimmicks these days. So in the event (alas, unlikely) that Nimoy decides to make an appearance, we just have to send the Enterprise-Null through a time warp, so they can help him finish the democratization of Romulus. How long has that thing been hanging fire?
Actually they won't. Since you posted, you cannot moderate. Good try though. :)
The intro song has, for the first time, WORDS! This was startling and disappointing, until I found myself liking the song. Anyone heard it before?
I haven't seen the show yet (I'll be watching it in the theater tonight. Yes, theater - one of the local stations made a deal with a local place to show it on the big screen - COOL!), but, I've seen the intro - the song is Rod Stewart's "Faith Of The Heart". Not typically my style, but, it fits the concept of Enterprise fairly well, and is one of his better works.
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
Have to admit that I felt a bit uneasy hearing a popsong in the trailer. Although "Magic Carpet Ride" was used to good effect in First Contact.
However, technically, this is not the first time lyrics have been associated with a Star Trek theme song. According to Steve E. Whitfield's excellent book, The Making of Star Trek, Roddenberry penned lyrics for the original them, although they were not used.
The lyrics are as follows:
Beyond
The rim of star-light
My love
Is wand'ring in star flight
I know
He'll find in star-clustered reaches
Love,
Strange love a star woman teaches
I know
His journey end never
His star trek
Will go on forever.
But tell him
While he wanders his starry sea
Remember, remember me.
*** Quantum Mechanics: The Dreams of Which Stuff is Made ***
And be ashamed. I have as dirty a mind as the next geek, but this business of hiring people on the sex appeal is another Bad Sign. OK, Jeri Ryan is a decent actress (though not as good as Jennifer Lien). But every time she pranced on camera in those high heels and that body stocking, I wanted to scream. Hey Janeway, how come the Maquis converts have to wear uniforms, but not the Borg? Hey Borg collective, how come you got rid of her extra hand and eye, but not ... no, don't go there.
Well, so far the opening was rather good, with hte exception of the music. I was not sure if I was suposed to pull out my old Poison World Tour shirt, and light my lighter, or head to Audiogalaxy and download one of the old ones to play over it. I always sort of liked the fact that the opening songs had not lyrics. hopefully this was just for the premier.
Justin
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
...Roddenberry penned lyrics for the original them, although they were not used.
For good reason.
The lyrics are as follows:
The Vogons may have something to worry about.
Edith Keeler Must Die
For some reason I thought it was going to be on at 9pm, so when I woke up from a nap around that time, I found that I had missed it.
Will the pilot be re-run before next week's ep? I'd like to see it before I dive into the rest of the series.
Thanks
I guess I missed it, was it a NG episode?
I really wanted to hear Scott do the "Space the final fontier bit..."!
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Thanks for the context! It really helps; I am now utterly convinced that I'd rather gouge out an eyeball and scrape my thumbnail around in the socket rather than watch Enterprise.
All I can hope for now is that Comic Book Guy will agree with me...
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The "kr" pronunciation actually is a corrupted pronunciation of a sound that's something like a guttural (ch in german, H in Klingon) and a hairball; an Arabic or classic Hebrew (not modern; the pronunciation has changed) speaker would have no problem with it (it relates to the q sound in Semitic langugages), though they might break out in fits of giggles.
/Brian
Actually, I thought they did a pretty good job of allowing for dramatic license in TOS. The design of NX-01 was IMHO actually as close to the original Enterprise as they could get without looking ridiculously dated (though I thought T'Pol's viewer thingy was hilarious, and a workable tribute to the original even if it served no concievable purpose).
What I didn't like was the greasedown scene -- okay, we know there's more pointy about T'Pol than just her ears, but really!
/Brian
Very Star Wars, very Bab5 as well, not very Trek at all. But that's okay; they were going for a different feel. (Though I'd prefer not to have to see "Darth Sidious" again...)
What I would love to have seen was TOS done in this style, though; I do like the movie-like filmwork. I could do without Jolene Blalock, but I think we all could...
/Brian
Er...
Jolene Blalock: Jeri Ryan without the acting talent. 'Nuff said.
I liked the rest, though; there were some weak spots (how is it that the human crew didn't mutiny on T'Pol when she pulled rank?), and it just didn't feel very Trek, but I did generally like it. The big-screen camera work is something new for Trek, and it works amazingly well. The Suliban are a little weird; I assume there will be much more.
To those who complained about plot weakness, lack of character development, etc: get over it. Get over it now. The Trek folks have broken the Roddenberry mold completely with this one and are starting from the very beginning with the idea of an ongoing story (remember, Gene didn't much like continuity; he wanted every original Trek story to be self-contained). Granted, that doesn't excuse the Infamous Greasedown Scene (unless there will be some romantic issues for those two characters, which I'd say is unlikely). But it's a good beginning, and I'd say that's all it was intended to be.
The Enterprise NX-01 is a nicely designed ship; I don't fault them for not making it a copy of Captain Pike's Enterprise for two reasons:
-The ship was clearly designed primarily with human expertise; we're going to make it look like what we're familiar with, and that's what the producers did. That means identifiable displays, not just random switches.
-Maybe the TOS thing was an aesthetic thing. It certainly looked as 60s as TNG did 80s.
/Brian
That said:
You're a Euro aren't you? I bet you think that David Hasslehoff is a "skilled singer" and "his ballads remain as fresh as ever".
Oh those silly Europeans who worship talentless beautiful icons unlike us intellectual and very cultured Americans who worship enormously talented people like Jennifer Lopez, The Backstreet Boys, In Sync, Arnold Schwar... whatever, sports icons, and whoever else self-interested corporations tell us to like.
P.S. Yes, I'm being sarcastic.