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Star Trek XI: Romulan Wars?
Tycoon Guy writes "TrekToday reports that the next Star Trek movie will deal with the war between Earth and the Romulans that led to the founding of the Federation. According to Rick Berman, the film will be 'set before the time of Kirk, but will not be connected with Enterprise.' So how will they make this fit with the Classic Trek episode Balance of Terror, in which we learned that no human ever saw the face of a Romulan during the Romulan Wars?"
Maybe the Romulans wear Vulcan disguises?
paintball
So how will they make this fit with the Classic Trek episode Balance of Terror, in which we learned that no human ever saw the face of a Romulan during the Romulan Wars?"
Perhaps no human that saw a Romulan made it back to Federation space to report the fact?
Trolling is a art,
Just make sure whomever does, dies. Sheesh.
Were that I say, pancakes?
Heh, further proof thatBerman couldn't get an original idea to save his life.
:\
:P Always remember to keep a reliable backup of your Data. ;)
Okay, so it's not EXACTLY the same, but dang, how close can a guy get? Anyway, sounds to me like this would be better 'experimented' as a TV miniseries, as you're going to have to introduce characters, do character development, plot development, and plot resolution all in a single flick. In a miniseries, you'd have more screen time to work with, and wouldn't have to rush through it all.
Oh wait, this is Berman we're talking about. Then again, we'd be bashing him if this were announced as a miniseries talking about how much it's going to suck.
My personal feeling is that until they return to the TNG timeline, come up with a believable story plot, and give the Berman team a rest, things aren't going to get better. Perhaps dropping the franchise altogether is the answer, but not so long as the cash flows is that going to happen.
I know! Captain B-4 of the Starship Enterprise-F!
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Why, oh WHY are they going to do this? I don't pay 9+ dollars to see Star Trek when it's something that might not even be that interesting, considering the last movie (they killed off Data, the bastards), I mean come on Paramount, let's move on to DS9 or Voyager movies!
One way to handle this would be to work the plot out so that Romulans are actually seen by Terrans and/or allies, but that those who see them are either a) all killed or b) that it's all hushed up (I like this latter option, as there are all kinds of cool foreshadowin things which could be done).
1: Facial cloaking devices that bend light around the head
2: Bandannas ("this here's a stick-up, human")
3: Big helmets!
4: The hero slingshots around the sun, goes back in time, and unveils Romulan faces, negating the old episode. Yes, it's a time paradox, but if "First Contact" could get away with telling Zeffrem Cochran about his future...
5: Ignore old Trek on the assumption that only the geekiest fans would remember that episode and the rest wouldn't care.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
You now, even with fiction, history is what is documented, not necessary what really happened.
Star Trek XI: Why didn't I save any of my money? KAHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!
Nemesis was a steaming pile of crap. Everything Trek since the death of Rodenberry has been crap (last 2 seasons of Next Generation on). Please Please Please stop flogging this dead horse franchise while I still have respect for the vast canon of work created before Berman was hired to milk Paramount's cash cow to death.
They will just do what they normally do, ignore continuity.
You can bet the style of the ships and interiors won't even be remotely close to The Cage either.
With movies like Sky Captain coming out with intentional retro looks, I think it would be a bold move on their part to replicate the 60s feel, but with modern FX behind it. They should have done that with Enterprise but now they've pretty much blazed a revisionist trail despite the DS9 Tribbles flashback episode.
So how will they make this fit with the Classic Trek episode Balance of Terror, in which we learned that no human ever saw the face of a Romulan during the Romulan Wars?
They'll probably just "forget" that ever was mentioned, like they "forgot" Spock saying that WWIII took place in 1997, during TOS episode with the first appearance of KHAAAAAAAAN!!!!
sudo eat my shorts
They should have let Trek die the graceful death it deserved instead of mutilating it into "Enterprise". I don't think there's any hope for this movie, connected to Enterprise or not.
They won't - Berman doesn't give a damn about silly things like "continuity." I wish they'd just let Trek die, at least for awhile.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
Speak truth to power.
The real question is, will anyone actually go and see this movie? As we all know, it's the even numbered trek movies that don't suck (for the most part). I challenge you to name one good odd numbered trek movie.
Pretty widgets? What pretty widgets?
"Ah yeah well, whenever you notice something like that, a wizard did it."
-"But in episode AG4..."
"WIZARD!"
Because the audience can see the Romulans doesn't mean the Earthlings will.
Perhaps they'll tell the story from the Romulan point of view. Now, that would be a change.
More realistically, fighting an enemy you can't see is a pretty good dramatic device.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
They'll mess it up. Have faith.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"So how will they make this fit with the Classic Trek episode Balance of Terror, in which we learned that no human ever saw the face of a Romulan during the Romulan Wars?"
This is easy. Don't show their faces.
Rick Berman obviously never saw any classic Trek, so anything that happened there never really happened in the Bermanverse. :)
Slightly more seriously, I'm glad to see uncharted ground. With the removal of Brannon Braga as "show runner" on Enterprise (replaced with Manny Coto), it may well step up a notch. If he brings in someone else to handle the Romulan movie, not an unreasonable thing to do for a completely new aspect of Trek, it may be done well. (Is it possible that this was the treatment Joe Straczynski and... uh, whassisface from Dark Skies? turned in?)
After all, remember, Berman was in charge even through the hey-day of TNG and early DS9. Berman's problem may not be that he doesn't know decent science fiction from a hole in the ground; it may be that he can't seem to hire people who know decent science fiction from a hole in the ground...
-JDF
I don't particularly like the original Star Trek, so quite frankly I could care less whether they stick to canon. I know some hardcore trekkies will prolly be up in arms about this, but they're a shitty audience to begin with. Hardcore fans(Whiners) are the worst people to market to, since it tends to reduce the real entertainment value of something, just because an earlier (and more than likely shitty) episode of some show or other said one thing or another.
The fact that cinema and literature are fields where histories can not only be created, but altered, is what makes them so appealing and ENTERTAINING.
Be thankful that it's not a Voyager movie, at the very least.
"They will just do what they normally do, ignore continuity."
The whole point of the series is that the timeline was changed, thus altering the continuity. Most episodes make a reference to this, but there are still some thick people out there that keep missing that. One of ST's most popular movies touched this off, yet a gaggle of people keep missing it and whining about continuity.
I don't really care if people like Enterprise or not. But to keep running around in circles with a less-than-legitimate complaint is getting rather nauseating. Complain about the show being boring, or that the theme song irritates your stomach, but for the love of you know who, stop complaining about a problem that doesn't exist.
"Derp de derp."
Note to all fan-driven industries and franchises: "Secrets of the mysterious past," as a plot device, is getting pretty tired -- e.g. Data, Wolverine, Van Helsing (do we care?), pretty much any "prequel," etc.
Breakfast served all day!
If the last episode of Enterprise is any clue, it could be that Remans are used as front-line troops. Remans are different enough to technically be a different species. Does anyone know if Trek has pinned down the Remans' status as a species?
XI - that would make it another odd numbered star trek movie. I hold no hope for it....
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
Why don't they just give B&B something else to do and give JMS free hands like Warner Bros did with B5.
The owls are not what they seem
So how will they make this fit with the Classic Trek episode Balance of Terror, in which we learned that no human ever saw the face of a Romulan during the Romulan Wars?"
The audience will wear blindfolds. Problem solved. Seriously how many people knew this utterly useless fact of fictional trivia? More importantly who cares. Movie makers are allowed some artistic license, especially when the whole damn thing is made up anyway.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
So how will they make this fit with the Classic Trek episode Balance of Terror
They won't.
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
Your sig has scarred my fragile little mind. Someway, somehow, I will find your IP, hunt you down and harm you, I swear.
Okay, not really.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Same way they "explained" the physical differences between the classic and new Klingons. By simply blowing it off. Nobody gives a damn about minor (YMMV) inconsistencies.
The article hints about the shelving of a Romulan War plot in Enterprise - it could that this sudden movie move is due to the impending demise of the series - maybe season 4 has been dumped in favor fast-forwarding to some pre-planned final season arc.
(Of course the director's cut went off and added a whole bunch of cheasy plastic model in a green tank of water shots. Bastards.)
Frankly, you don't really need to see the face of your enemy in a space battle. They are a blinking set of lights a few kilometers away. It's just a question of turning that blinking set of lights into a fireball before they turn you into one.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated...
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
Noone will see the Romulans (or any other characters) in this film either.
They might as well release it straight to Beta for all the interest in Star Trek these days.
Sheesh. Time to move on to some other crappy sci-fi drek.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
This series is going down the tubes just like the Star Wars Movies.
How the first Romulan we saw was Spock's daddy.
-EB
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
So they killed Data, but didn't he upload himself to 'Before' first? Data may be dead, but Brent Spiner'll be back as a dumber version of the same....
After Nemesis I won't go see a trek movie in the theaters until I see a good review. It just won't be worth the trip. I might rent it when it comes out of DVD, even if it's panned, but it won't get my box office buck.
that is gonna be a fantastic film, IMHO.
if the film is set pre-OS, just WTF will be in it? is this another TNG project, or will it be DS9? i kinda doubt the latter, given that B&B appear to hate DS9. please, please let it not be a VOY movie...
ed
He's certainly not as old as he used to be!
Logic, macros, and more
With enterprise spiraling down the toilet for the first time in a long time, there might not be a new season of a Star Trek series comming out. Naturally, B&B are scared, so..... they create a new movie to inspire a series. This is all just one big ploy to get a new star trek series back on the air.
However the movie will be terrible: you can't tell a story w/out developing the characters, and B&B aren't good enough to develop characters, and have a plot at the same time. Toodles...
In nature, there are neither rewards or punishments, there are only consequences.
You're on Slashdot. The Nerd Alert is unnecessary.
Did you think this was "News for Normal People, Stuff that Isn't Geeky"?
We DID eventually get to see what the Chigs looked like in S:AAB though. I think it was the last two episodes (23: "And if they lay us down to rest..." and 24: "...Tell our moms we done our best") where they landed on the Chig moon and ran around in the swamp chasing the nursery-chig. Kinda reminded me of a predator, but without the dreads or funky jaw. Deep eye sockets, low snout, kind of a droopy mouth. They had gill-like things too (I think you got to see that in one of the very first episodes when they capture a chig). And of course, like all good Chigs they made them incessant clicking noises non-stop.
;)
Course, then the heroes screwwed things up by warning the nursery-chig of the attack... the diplo chig goes suicide bomber, and all hell breaks loose while the 58th are out exchanging prisoners. I wont ruin the ending... but damn. What a way to end a show. It's almost been a decade and I still miss it (luckilly I have all 24 eps on CD).
In the immortal words of Wang: "HU-RAH! GET SOME!!"
I don't count acient hebrew as hebrew. I probably should, but I don't. The whole lack of vowels thing for starters. :P
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
NO!! Berman must die a horibly painful and strung out death!
Now I know why I absolutely loathe Rick Berman and what he has done to Star Trek. TOS is the root from which the entire Star Trek Universe sprang. Cheesy or not, it is the model for everything that came before it.
Someone yank the ST franchise from Berman's grubbies and put it on hiatus for a while. Voyager and Enterprise suck runny eggs. It's time to put it to bed. Maybe give it to Stracynski (sp?) after a few fallow years.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
In the movie Enemy Mine -- as strange as it was -- I think humans never saw the Drac before, only their spacecraft as they attacked. Could they use the same reasoning?
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I haven't gone to the theaters to see an ST flick since first contact and I doubt I will anytime soon. At best I rent it or watch it when it comes on TV and only if their isn't a better alternative. The plots are ridiculous and it's painfully obvious that they are going to make as many movies as they can to drain out the franchise until people finally stop going to see this junk. Star Trek should definitely take at least a 5-10 year break from television/movies and come back as a revival just like TNG. Their was a reason TNG was the number one rated drama on television... you'd think paramount would want to bring back the golden years but the bottom line as has been stated before is BERMAN needs to be removed.
I'll make you a deal. You pray to God for help and I'll stop the moment he shows up.
stop complaining about a problem that doesn't exist OK, let's talk about problems that DO exist. Enterprise sucks. Not because it disregards the continuity of the ST universe, but because it is badly written. The plots are boring and formulaic, even by ST standards. The characters have all the personality of cardboard cutouts. The acting is wooden. It's just bad TV.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Wookies don't come from Endor.
i'd like to see him in this movie. that would be awesome.
i think he needs his own slashdot icon too.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
For too long Star Trek, the most important series in Geek history, has had second class status to Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings and even The Matrix. Those series has their own topics. Star Trek deserves better. Join the others who have signed the petition to give Star Trek a topic on Slashdot.
How about this: Even numbered movies are better than odd, accept when it ends in 0, then look at the next digit. Nemesis (movie 10) would count as 1, and therefore suck. Movie 20 would count as 2, and therefore not suck.
Maybe infant James T Kirk could soil his diaper while sitting on the lap of the Captain of this new vessel
<sig>no sig</sig>
Star Trek TOS got it wrong. They had the official story. In reality, humans will see Romulans a couple of times during the war. The Vulcans will engineer a cover-up, destroying records and doctoring memories with mind-melds.
Alright, so it's offtopic and I'm sure there's probally already a hundred posts about it below my threshold, but what about DS9? I'm not much one for prequels or even the TNG timeline. TNG was really "white bread" with it being extremely predictable episodes with flat (but sometimes lovable) characters resolving the given situation inside the episode to make for good syndication material. Oh, and throw in some Borg/combat oriented episodes towards for the season premiers and finales to try to hook people in and resolve it like any other syndicated episode afterwards.
Anyway, enough of my dorky rant, here's what they should be doing:
1.) Screw alternate time lines and particles and such. Don't even mention the possibility of it. Sure, it'd kinda annoy Star Trek dorks like me who have kept up with multiple series and like to compare them (god knows what Voyager did, haven't seen much of it myself) but if you just plug your ears and say lalala then it'll be okay. I promise!
2.) Go back to DS9 era and explore what happened there. All three major powers (fed, klingons, romulans) of the Alpha quadrant are recovering from a long and costly war from a powerful adversary that was basically the anti-federation from the Gama quadrant. I'd love to see how the Dominion would deal with the aftermath considering it comprised of a variety of genetically engineered races to fulfill specific jobs. Now that their founder "gods" have been defeated, will that shake the Dominion to the core? If so, what happens?
Hell, Sisko is still living in the Wormhole and with the Prophets, can we give him a resolution? I'm sure he'd come back and be part of the main story.
3.) Don't involve Berman/Braga in the creative aspect. They're okay producers just bring back the DS9 writing team and people like Ira Steven Behr.
4.) No fucking cameos. I'm sick of TNG cameos and the feeling that it needs to be done to somehow validate the series. Take a goddamn risk every once in a while. DS9 did it and it was succesful in a lot of regards. It didn't get the same ratings as TNG, but considering it was overlapping with Voyager and TNG towards the beggining its no suprise. I'd love to see a relaunch of this series after Enterprise is put to rest.
The Feds saw Klingons and knew what they looked like in classic S.T. In the movies they looked quite different. When Mr. Worf participated in the reprise of "Trouble With Tribbles," he merely commented that Klingons do not speak of those things. Glaring discontinuity is nothing new in the star trek universe.
More music, fewer hits
I've given up on Trek. Berman has totally and completely ruined it. Sometimes I think he's made it his life's mission to totally fuck up Star Trek to an unrepairable state. He's made the past series meaningless, rewriting things as they go along. He either doesn't know, or likely doesn't care that the fans want someone that respects the Star Trek universe, and wants continuity. He seems almost to DESPISE the notion of continuity. I dread the notion that this asshat is going to monkey with ST's past, yet again, almost assuredly with no regard to details of past episodes. Maybe Paramount really hates Trek, and is fervently trying to kill it off. The last couple of movies and series sure point to this.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Episode I: the first meetings and skirmishes, forces set in motion, characters introduced, we briefly see a young Kirk set on a trajectory to join Star Fleet. Earth (Federation?) scientists given a mandate to create technologies that will be needed in what is seen as the looming battle to come (ala the Manhattan Project, with many of the same moral dilemmas)
Episode II: the Romulans posed to take over Earth, only support from Vulcans and other reluctant allies averts disaster.
Episode III: a valiant counterstrike that forces the Romulans to withdraw with plot twists leading the power balance between Romulans, Federation and Klingons in TOS.
Do it like LOTR and have the 3 episodes come out 1 a year as a planned, and make sure the fans know its all one story to be released as such, not a GEE-If-we-make-money-we'll-think-about-another-mov ie-in-3-years.
Don't obsess on continuity, just make it a good story that half way sets up the Star Trek universe we know.
Letter To Iran
How would they make the movie so that nobody saw the face of a Romulan throughout the war? Simple:
- the Romulans don't have a video-based comm.
- the Romulan warriors have decorative/concealing battle armor for their heads
- have a mystique throughout the film that paints the Romulans as a powerful, mysterious race, somewhat along the lines of what was done with the Borg, thus increasing the level of suspense.
All this would be feasable, as we don't know much about pre-Enterprise romulans.
Oh, and as far as timeline continuity is concerned: there was a physicist (I don't remember wich one) that said that the time-space continuity is more like a deck of stacked cards than a linear stream. If you were to move a card in that deck to a place lower in the deck, it would no longer be the same deck, and would change the position of each of the other cards after it.
If that were the case, you could say that the altering of the time-space continuum by reptilians in Enterprise is a direct result of the war with the transdimensional creatures in the future, as they then went back and had those races (can't think of what they called themselves) conspire against Earth. Likewise, that would potentially alter any interactions with the Romulans.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
..."Believing oneself to be perfect is often the sign of a delusional mind."
He will suffer...he will be forced to watch his own Star Trek episodes/movies for all eternity!
Great. Balance of Terror is, in my opinion, one of the best episodes of TOS, and ranks up there amongst the best in the series- namely for the reaction of Spock to the sight of a Romulan, and especially for the reaction of the entire crew to Spcok after the sighting. That episode dealt strongly with racism, and was damned entertaining.
So now Berman's gonna take a shit all over one of the few uncorrupted Trek elements, and do it with a no-name crew?
Why exactly does this guy still have his job, again?
Like Klingons, Romulans used to look just like humans. The same terrible genetic plague released by renegade Vulcan scientists that made the Klingons grow brow ridges turned the Romulans into pseudo-Vulcans. All the stuff about the Romulans being an offshoot of the Vulcan is just part of the cover-up.
Who wants to see Shatner play the evil Romulan? Huh? Raise your hands!
in which we learned that no human ever saw the face of a Romulan during the Romulan Wars?
This is easily explained. All of the witnesses of who saw the Romulans were wearing read shirts.
an ill wind that blows no good
- Star Trek X: Leopard
- Star Trek X: Puma
- Star Trek X: Jaguar
- Star Trek X: Panther
- Star Trek X: Tiger
The trick is to not vary the modulus of the version number but to vary the fur color instead.Oddly enough- I can say the same thing about the first three seasons of TOS- which is probably why there WERE only three seasons of TOS.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
It's allowed to suck, it's an odd-numbered release...
Just like the way they explained how Klingons looked differently than the old series...
They ignore it.
In ST:Generations movie, the original series crew learned that Kirk was killed, when Enterprise was caught in the Nexus (actually Kirk got caught in Nexus and died several decades later). However in ST:TNG S06-E130 Enterprise with Picard finds Chief Engineer Mongmery Scott caught in a transporter beam, lost for 75 years. In the episode Scotty asks what happened to Kirk and the crew.......erhm but dear Scotty, in the movie filmed years later than the series you witnessed Kirk's death. You see my point?
I was getting sick of the borg
Must everything be placed in the "past"? Doesn't anybody have enough creativity to extend these series into the "future"?!?!?!?
considering the last movie (they killed off Data, the bastards)
That I was not aware of this makes me refreshingly aware that I must have saved myself $9 over the past year or two...
paintball
Have you seen a little movie called Alien Resurrection? Talk about killing a franchise even more than it already was dead.
Mod parent either +1 Funny, or -1 Crap, I just realized I'm a walking Nerd Alert... make it go away!
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
*blinks*
Hmmm . . . but it has been reported that JMS is working on the treatment for the next Star Trek movie. Does this mean that JMS is working on the treatment for the Romulan War??
JMS is a canon whore in his own universes . . .
Yep, there is. A bit of searching says that it's "Final Frontier", by Diane Carey. It's a good book, although it doesn't mesh with the other 412 versions of the early history of Starfleet that we've gotten from the novels and the series itself (like that really means anything these days). Still, definitely worth a read, as is the semi-sequel, "Best Destiny".
Mark Erikson
so Nemesis was the last TNG movie? that's a shame...I think it all went downhill after , All Goods Things Must Come to An End, anyway..
The original Star Trek episode "Balance of Terror" was actually inspired by the submarine movie "Run Silent, Run Deep", playing off the dramatic effect you describe.
Ummm... those were done in the 1960's, the formulas hadn't been well established at that point.
So how will they make this fit with the Classic Trek episode Balance of Terror, in which we learned that no human ever saw the face of a Romulan during the Romulan Wars?"
That was the Romulan's "baroque" period. They all went around holding masks up to their faces on little sticks.
I'm not old, dagnabit!
With my handy Romulan Viagra McCoy hooked me up with, the green chicks still live in fear of my "Photon Torpedo"!
IFAIR, in the cartoon series that continued the story line, where they discovered teh Romulians were not human cross breeds as originally though.
I am a trained engineer and am appalled by the science in ST. Not the made up part, but the bending of known rules. Now, if only they'd fix the science in ST XI, I mean, they even have shadows in space when a shuttle passes between the Eterprise and a sun. Everyone nows neither light nor sound propogate invacuum.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Let's burn some karma here.
Okay, I've read all the rants on either side of this issue, and the conclusion I've reached is this.
Continuity is highly overrated.
So, I'll admit I'm not a fanboy. I *am* a fan, however, and while continuity is important to me, it's not gospel, and I don't really get the urge to throw myself over the nearest cliff when it gets disrupted.
Instead, the way I see it, Star Trek in its whole has provided a generalized SciFi framework, into which different authors, directors, writers, artists, etc. can provide a story. Look at the general spread between TOS, TNG, DS9, STV and STE. Aside from the "boldly go" kind of essense, there's a HUGE diversity there. And frankly, as long as any one story is enjoyable, I don't really mind if there's some non-canonical bits therein. I *do* mind if they overuse the particle-of-the-week, just like I thought the midichlorian was a hideously stupid plot trick in Star Wars Ep1. But for run-of-the-mill stories, I'm more interested in how they handle the character development, coupled with the staple of SciFi - which is, in my opinion, how humans handle advanced technology and its effects (including the effect of encountering other species). All the rest is just details. Cool technology, maybe, but still just details.
So as far as I'm concerned, the "Star Trek" name provides a rather broad, rather permissive framework - with NAME RECOGNITION. And the best thing about it: that name recognition provides a budget for reasonably cool SciFi movies and television. Maybe not the BEST, but at least reasonably entertaining, and definitely more quantity than we'd get otherwise. And it spurs all kinds of spinoffs and competitors (B5, Andromeda, etc.) which are even better.
So, I'm all for chilling out the holy wars and just enjoying whatever is enjoyable, as it gets released.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
Oddly enough- I can say the same thing about the first three seasons of TOS- which is probably why there WERE only three seasons of TOS
Since most shows last one season or less, three seasons of ST:TOS is quite a success, and considering it was made in the the era of Gunsmoke & Bonanza where lines like "Ya called me yella, them's fightin words" and "Mary Lou, you're almost as pretty as ma horse" and similar phrases were popular on TV back then, those three years seems like even more of a success and made TOS stand out above the rest.
Any Romulans seen will be intelligence agents that are posing as Vulcans. The Federation will assume they were physically altered for their work.
... _grin_
Well it could be
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
They use boilerplate story programs:
"The Crew of the _______(insert catchy ship name here) finds out that the _________(1.transporter 2.holodeck 3.matter-antimatter thingy 4.dylithim crystals) has/have gone haywire and they only have 5 seconds to respond or be destroyed.
During the crisis, they find the only way to save themselves is to _______(1. go back in time 2. somehow create a time-warp to go back in time 3. Accidentally go back in time 4. Have Q come to the rescue and send them back in time.)
There is a middle part of the story that we'll just make up as we go until then end where right at the last moment, when things seem that the ship is in certain doom and with the added pressure of the entire known universe in jepardy, they simply reverse the _________(put techno speak thingy there) with the ________(place another techno speak thingy here) and in theory it should put everything right, but only after the huge time counter on the bridge counts down to 1 second left.
Last line of course is _______(put in old literary sea-faring reference here)."
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
My web domain.
Das Starship?
Nope. People will avoid it in droves. And it's pointless anyway. Berman, genital wart on the penis of humanity that he is, doesn't give a shit about continuity. He'll show the Romulans anyway.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
True enough- but by today's standards, definately tree-like acting ability seemed to be a standard for hiring actors for TOS and Enterprise- less so for TNG & DS9, but let's not even talk about Voyager.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I hope they dont destroy this like they did ' enterprise'.
'Enterprise' had a lot of potential, but was ruined by the terrible writing.. and this hangup with time-travel sheesh..
The writers need to get over it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Joss Whedon is the bomb. Firefly is my new favorite TV series. You must own the DVDs. Buy buy buy!
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
They need to either give Star Trek something fresh (and I mean something better than interesting), or put it on a shelf for a while. I think that they need some new hands on this franchise. I mean Nemisis was crap. Why was that dude pissed at Picard? Because he got a bum deal in life. Hell, Picard had nothing to do with that. Look at Kahn. He had a reason to be pissed as Kirk. I think B & B need to let someone else drive if they are going forward on a new Trek.
"If you have done 6 impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways" -- hhgg
About time they start ripping off quality sci-fi!
We fans have to realize that when the writers generated the orginal stories back in the 1960s, they had to take into mind the current politics in the US, what advertisers wanted, what the network wanted, what budget they had, last seasons ratings, etc.
Every subsequent installment of StarTrek has to deal with this. For example, some fans complain about the Klingon's faces changing. Back in the 60s, it was either impossible or would have cost way too much to have full face costumes that wouldn't face looked fake or stupid. Or what about that really stupid episode where Kirk and et. al. find some planet full of American Indians who worship the US flag or something? I think we'd all agree that one ought to be dropped out of the story arc.
Another thing is StarFleet itself. The 60s show had a mostly all white, crew-cut, "Right Stuff", NASA with bigger ships ethic. Women went around in mini-skirts bringing coffee. No problem with the miniskirts for me ... However, a show or movie with that kind of environment just wouldn't make it in these PC times. Half of the potential audience would be offended by it and advertisers would definitely keep well away.
I'm not sure why people hate Enterprise so much. To me, it seems reasonably "realistic" as to how things would be on a small ship like that in close quarters months at a time. People argue, have fights, boink a lot, things don't work right, things stink, people make bad decisions, etc. It isn't a perfect show, of course, because, again, it has to conform to ratings, what is "PC" at the time, etc. (There's still the problem of how everyone in the entire universe happens to speak perfect English all the time ... but all SF shows have that problem, especially StarGate. But that's a different rant ... and an unavoidable problem without out making actors playing aliens have to emit nonsense phrases with sub-titles, which would be like watching some obscure East European art film or something.)
I view StarTrek as less of set series of stories than a generally close, but not always connected series of tales. In the future, with better, cheaper effects it might be possible to take the old StarTrek episodes, run them though a PC and make them look like they have whatever the latest in effects can do and maybe even adjust the plots to create a more unified set of stories.
This, people, is why I browse with sigs turned off.
Maybe the Romulans are increadibly sneakie.
Camera pans accross the bridge of the Romulan ship: There's nothing but shrubberies sitting in planters. Each time we return to the image of the bridge, the planters are in different spots.
Ah, but we know where the Romulans are hiding: One planter blows up, killing the first Romulan. Then another, and another, and soon the Federation has thwarted their evil nemisis.
Appologies to Monty Python.
> So how will they make this fit with the Classic
> Trek episode Balance of Terror,...
The answer is: "It won't fit."
We're talking about Berman and Braga, who appear to believe that:
a) classic episodes are best ignored,
b) continuity is an annoyance,
c) suspension of disbelief is the responsibility of the viewer, not the creative staff.
I don't know why people have so much trouble with inconsistencies in their huge fictional universes. I mean, look at Robotech. Half of the episodes of Robotech weren't even from the same series. Actually, they didn't even take place on the same planet. And RoboTech is, umm, a great, uhh, dynamo of science fiction. So there you go.
Anyway. Romulans. Feh.
"Only great masters of style can succeed in being obtuse. " --Oscar Wilde
"but for the love of you know who, stop complaining..."
You love Valdemort?
If they really want to stay true to the series, then seeing as all the classic episodes had giant, clinking, flashy computers with absolutely no graphical interface and a button for every task to perform, and this film will be set before then, their computers are really going to have to be a hunk of junk.
Something along the lines of this for example.
I can think of two conclusions from your comment:
* You've watched a few later episodes of B5 without bothering to watch the early ones, and ended up wondering what on Earth was going on. Clue: B5 was a continuing story -- you need to at least watch most of it in order to understand.
* You're incredibly dense.
B5 was a well written, well plotted series, that makes total sense, and is actually reasonably easy to understand. I've never met anyone who had any trouble with it before.
OK, the props were cardboard, the effects poor (I think it was the first mainstream production to use all computer special effects, and it shows) & it had horrendous acting, particularly in the first series, but I don't think we can really blame JMS for that. He had to work with what he could raise for it.
Personally, I think they'd all have made it. I mean, they spent half the episodes being "dead" or getting rescued at the last minute. I expect episode 2x01 would have featured Wang drifting around in a mysteriously acquired spacesuit, and I can't see Vansen or Damphousse dying in a crash.
Is there a decent quality version of "Tell Our Moms We Done Our Best" around? Mine came from a torrent, and for some reason #24 is a quarter the res of the (pretty good quality) others.
After the travesty that was Nemesis (yet another insipid movie centered almost entirely on Picard, and then they have the gall to kill off Data?), I think one can safely say that the rules no longer apply.
Yeah, Insurrection may have sucked (and First Contact kicked ass), but Generations was an order of magnitude better than Nemesis. At this point, the odd=sucks, even=kicks ass rule applies only to the 6 original movies.
Not to mention that the success of the series was dependent on the viewers liking it, and consequently it having good ratings.
We are talking about 60's Americans. ie. your parents.
All of you out there take a good look at your parents. Then you might understand why it got cancelled after only 3 seasons...
Sulu: Captain, the Klingons are decloaking
Kirk: (smacks forhead) Again with the Klingons? Full power Mr. Scott!
Scotty: (feebly attempts to reach the controls but his belly prevents him) I just can't do it captain, I cannot reach the buttons!
in bed.
Time Travel is thought of as the worst plot device you can play with.
No, time travel is a _brilliant_ plot device. But, like distilled essence of scotch-bonnet chillies, it must be used with extreme caution. Star trek has neglected this, with results sometimes amusing (the fourth movie, for example, or the DS9 episode set during The Trouble With Tribbles) but more frequently dire (too numerous to list).
Just because no human in the Star Trek world saw the face of a Romulan during the whole length of the war, does not mean that we in the audience can't see the face of a Romulan during the whole length of the movie. I think they call that "Dramatic Irony".
are there any DVDs? I haven't been able to find any.
They might not worry about making it fit in with that episode.
Remember the warp 10 = infinite speed episode (New Star Trek) (the one with Lt. Paris becoming a reptile) and the over warp 10 lets you travel back in time (Old Star Trek) episode where they slingshotted past the Sun?
Now remember the Old Start Trek episode where the warp engines go runaway and they hit warp 14 and they manage to shut it down before it explodes? And they were merely going really fast and there weren't any temporal effects?
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
There really is charged armor now. As Im sure many of you have read about, the DOD as well as the Brits have developed a new type of armor for our tanks that basically acts a huge cap. Once the shell hits the side and goes throught the first part it shorts out the two side and is vaporized. So its really not that far out there when you consider we already use it now.
Oh, and it does "wear away"
Nope, the (implied) subject of the sentence is "you" since it's imperative. Therefore the third person whose death you are assuring gets the 'm' treatment.
Read jack phelps dot net
Vansen and Damphousse I can see surviving... but I don't know how Wang could have possibly survived that crash. He was in his flight suit when we last saw him, and he's still at the gun when the fighter crashes into him... he woulda barely had time to cross himself, much less suit up. And from all we know about those flying crates, they've never appeared to be compartmentalized. So having a chig crash into one and rip it in half doesn't seem like anyone inside would have a very good chance of surviving. Even Morgen and Wong said, IIRC, that "Wang is 99.9% dead".
;))
But hell, could you imagine a SAAB reunion these days? Everyone is a decade older and all grown up. I don't think the cast could possibly have their same youthful innocence as before. They were, what, mid to late 20's in SAAB? And how old is Rodney Rowland now? 40 or something? Kristen looks great for a 36 year old, but would she have the same fire as a 25 year old Shane Vansen? And how would Morgan work out? He always had the boyish charm on the show, but he's an early-30's adult now. And they were the young kids of the show to boot. The old men are pushing 50 (TC/James Morrison) and 60 (Ross/Tucker Smallwood) respectively!
Perhaps some things are better left dead.
(Or at least a new spinoff with another squadron and a new cast! Kidding, kidding.
Short answer: They won't.
Its Berman after all.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
at that peroid of time, Romulans wore combat armor with helmets that covered their faces. The faceplates were one way mirrors with the mirrors being on the outside. This was done to terrorize the Federation of Planets for fear of not knowing what the enemy looked like. Think of their grunt troops to be more like Storm Troopers or Clone Warriors from Star Wars. ;)
Hey did I win a No-Prize or what?
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
They mean, seen in the biblical sense!
I thought that was a great idea, too, until you brought in the Star Trek: 911 garbage. That comment was so stupid I'm going to volunteer for the Bush campaign in your name.
Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing, it does not necessarily mean we must do that thing.
GWEN: What is this thing? I mean, it serves no useful purpose for there to be a bunch of chompy, crushy things in the middle of a hallway!
...
GWEN: We shouldn't have to do this. It makes no logical sense! Why is it here!
JASON: Because it's on the television show.
GWEN: Well, forget it! I am not doing it! This episode was badly written.
GWEN: Whoever wrote this episode should die.
No legal ones. There are some bootlegs around, but they're supposed to be from VHS tapes, so I don't know what the quality's like.
I am so tired and bored by trek I am ashamed to admit there was a time I enjoyed it. I could care less about anything Trek since TNG, which was not too bad. But it still can not hold a candle to Babylon 5. It is past time to face the facts, Trek is tired and needs to die before it gets any worse. TOS is dated and silly. TNG is cliche and unrealistic. Everything after would require words to describe that do not belong in civil conversation. There is a lot of SciFi available that is better than Trek. If you need a scifi fix there are shows with stupid muppets that do it better.
"Star Trek XII: So Very Tired"
See the original cast in their latest, greatest adventure yet!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Personally, i don't see why everyone gets so worried about continuity.
These guys can't even make an original story with the trek name anymore without someone bitching an complaining about what's wrong with it, and not even bothering with how good/bad the story is.
If this were some new movie that happened to have the same storyline as this war than people would be complaining that it's too similar.
*.sig
There was plenty of software before Open Source. I don't think they'll have a shortage of things to put in it.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Of course some people actually saw romulans. But the federation buried them in debriefing centers and claimed that no one had ever seen the 'secretive' (and hence evil) romulans as part of their smear campaign against the enemy.
The romulans were really some nice people before the federation launched their unprovoked attacks and destroyed much of their culture.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Hey, the air in SAAB was always wierd. Don't tell me that a series where people can survive on airless rocks wearing flightsuits and O2 helmets, where airlocks cycle instantly without pressure losses in the cabin, where toxic atmospheres don't contaminate the cabin... Don't tell me that series couldn't have Wang getting into the airlock and sealing himself in before the whole thing blew.
It can be used to keep Roddenbury's coffin together, from all the spinning he's doing in his grave.
"If Common Sense was so common, it wouldn't be such a valued trait."
The Star Trek franchise : movies, spinoffs etc has been beaten to death.
I was, I am, a fan, but I enough is enough.
Unless the critics **RAVE** about this film I think I will wait for it to come out on DVD.
Steve
3) mostly failed in the box-office because Cameron had done such a good job of transforming the series into a testosterone-fest that anything less was going to be a dissapointment.
Oh, come now. That's not why Alien Resurrection failed. First off, I'd hardly call Aliens a "testosterone-fest" considering the main character is a woman. Second, Alien Resurrection was a failed premise from the start. Cloning Ripley? Give me a break. Evil scientists, yet again, studying the aliens scientifically, and of course, they break loose. And you have the ragtag "tough" group of random ship crewmates who just happen to be there in order to get lost in a massive ship made up of the same corridors over and over again when the aliens get loose. This is the best premise he could come up with? And, of course, another surprise droid! Hooray.
Originally, Ripley was supposed to get raped by an alien. Thankfully, they changed that ending, though having the queen give birth to a stupid-looking creature wasn't much better.
Alien is an almost completely perfect and gorgeous horror sci-fi film. Aliens is an almost completely perfect and gorgeous action sci-fi film. Alien Resurrection is a cash-in crapfest that should never have been kicked around to start with. At least Alien 3, as grimy as it was, didn't try to devolve into camp, and had Fischer gone into it with an actual finish script (they literally didn't have a finished script when filming started), it would have turned out much better. Alien Resurrection's entire premise is a laughable and poorly-done retread, and even Whedon's normally snappy one-liners are pure shit. "I'm the monster's mother." Ripley is turned into a big joke.
P.S. I should say, I never, ever got the appeal of the Buffy TV show either, but, hey, different strokes.
I'm a bit confused how Alien Resurrection wasn't his story considering his own words on the subject, as quoted here: http://visceralflux.net/alien/aprod.html
Seems pretty proud of his script to me. Again, I don't get the appeal of this guy. Buffy the TV show seemed way too silly and goofy for my tastes.
> OK, the props were cardboard, the effects poor (I think it was the first mainstream production to use all computer special effects, and it shows) & it had horrendous acting, particularly in the first series, but I don't think we can really blame JMS for that. He had to work with what he could raise for it
So what you're telling me B5 (which I did occasionally watch) was essentially like a high school production of a Shakespeare play. Sure, the writing was fantastic but it was unwatchable otherwise.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
On the Enterprise TV series they have already meet and SAW the romulans after the enterprise was attacked by a cloaked romulan mine.
Of course this could be from all the other star trek episodes going back to earths past and dicking around with the time line. Even on the enterprise series the vulcans visited earth in the 1960's, they went back to 2003 to stop the zendi bio weapon and on the cliff hanger we have archer in Nazi Germany.
...my suspension of disbelief.
I loved the episode too, except for that minor bit where the crew is whispering so that the Romulan ship won't hear them. You know, across kilometers of hard vaccuum.
Then Spock drops a wrench onto the deck of the submarine^Wbridge, and Romulans all over their ship -- in the corridors, etc -- are all turning their heads, like, what's that clanging sound?
Once I stopped laughing, I also appreciated how the episode took on issues of racism head-on.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
It was a mistake going with the prequel-ish theme for Enterprise, but at least this film will document events that we know actually happened, so I have some hope in it :)
Do you see what I did there?
But for the life of me I can't remember the name/author...
The general premise is that an earlier prototype of the Constitution class is on a maiden voyage (or something) and encounters the Romulans.
Some of the book IS from the Romulan standpoint. There is a mutiney on the Romulan ship and the Romulan captain (who is the honorable elder statesman-type) defects. The Romulan (evil) second in command presses an attack on the Federation ship.
The Federation captain learns from the Romulan captain that the Romulans have broken ALL of the Federation codes, so the Federation captain uses a ruse... PRETENDING that the Federation has invented a cloaking device and that there are other cloaked ships waiting for a general attack.
The visible ship (our heros) has a "cloaking unit that has failed" and radios home in "theoretically unbreakable" code (that they know that the Romulans will intercept) that they (our heros) have compromised the general attack and to call it off.
The Romulans KNOWING that there are additional Federation ships about (after all it came across in high priority code) break off their attack on our heros.
So at the end of the book the Federation undergoes a crash program to improve their codes, while the Romulans break their balls trying to discover the "cloaking device" because "obviously the Federation can do it, why can't we..."
It was a REALLY good read. Too bad I can't remember the title...
Help? Older slashdotters?
Line Grunt.
I don't think the producers of the Trek spinoffs have ever cared (probably haven't even seen) about Star Trek. They've changed nearly everything that was ever set up in Star Trek.
Eg., Next Generation changed the Klingons to honorable warriors and the Romulans to skulking liars.
Somehow, the Vulcans became nearly human in their capacity for Machiavellian behavior and Zephram Cochran became an alcoholic roustabout.
It only got worse in subsequent series.
-David
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
Will the real AC please stand up?
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
Let me explain a little fact about the makers of Star Trek here that should be clear by now: They don't give a flying fuck about continuity, what they care about is sales. If they got the idea that the next film would sell better if it suddenly turned out that Troi was somehow Kirk's mother and actually a Klingon, they'd do it in a heartbeat.
The problem is that the creator of Star Trek, the one person who really, really cared, is dead, and not around to defend his creation from the vultures. Contrast this with "Buffy", where JW made the mistake once of letting other people take control -- the stupid "Buffy" movie that came before the series. He learned from that. This is also why, as sad as it might be for us, it is a Good Thing (TM) that Buffy was brought to a clear, clean, and logical (if badly written) end: Whatever else happens, those original seven seaons are safe.
And this is the way to look at Star Trek: Remember the original series, remember "Next Generation", remember "DS9" if you liked it, too -- and forget the rest. It never happened, it doesn't exist, don't let their greed spoil your memories. In fact , this is also the only way you can stand "The Matrix": Tell yourself that there was only one film, the first one. That was the whole story, don't accept anything else that came after that. As far as you are concerned, those sequels never existed.
It's your choice.
I didnt make it past the first season before i lost interest.. but im not suprised it had some time travel involved at the end..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
There was no visual communications then. IIRC, there wasn't even subspace radio (IE: warp-speed communications), or a universal translator.
So everything was done, effectively, on ham radios. Neither side saw the other.
"If Common Sense was so common, it wouldn't be such a valued trait."
Cowboy Bebop is a show that has a solar system populated by humans, and it's probably the most believable one I have seen yet. There's a show that recognises that technologies that we have today (like wheels, for example) aren't necessarily going to be obsolete a few hundred years into the future. Again, there are no language problems there, at least none as complex as those that exist today on Earth. In that show, everyone speaks perfect Japanese!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Maybe its time to move on to the really next generation of Star Trek -- Time Trek! They've already laid the groundwork for this on Voyager. It would be the way to do an American Dr. Who without really stepping on Dr. Who.
Er...no...the rule is 'whoever' for subject and 'whomever' for object. In this case we have "whomever does" so 'whomever' is actually a subject.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Is not a good time to mention yet again how /. could used a dedicated star trek icon? Star Wars has it's own icon, and it has 60% of the movies and 0% of the tv series. Not to mention that slashdot japan has a star trek icon. You know, I'm just sayin...
Well, I thought they had already blown continuity with "Balance of Terror" when I watched the first episode of Enterprise and saw they had visual ship-to-ship communication. I haven't seen TOS in a while but IIRC the reason they didn't see the Romulans was lack of visual communication technology (which of course seems silly given today's technology). They could try to retcon that as only being on the Romulan end I guess but given their track record with Klingons etc. I doubt they'd bother, and that wouldn't make much sense for a highly intelligent race whose technology is otherwise up-to-date.
Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.
After the last movie, I can't wait to see this one... (NOT!!!!) Star trek movies are now trash and do not even deserve a download.
But it's bugged me for years. In classic Trek, the Romulan ships had a bird painted on them, hence they were called Birds of Prey. In later non-classic Treks, the Klingon ships were referred to as Birds of Prey -- of course they always looked like birds, but nobody ever called them that! What gives?
Of course, none of this detracts from the awesomeness of both types of vessels, which made the Enterprise look like the U.S.S. Pussy-Wussy.
While this is an interesting idea, I have yet to see a single instance of community pressure to get the /. staff to do anything. Their main comment:
/., and there are some good community-building features here, but response to the community, particularly in the message forums, is practically nil (or NULL, depending on your language).
If you don't like it, make your own site and do what you want. This is our site, so buzz off if you don't like it.
Or something to that effect. I like
All that happens, at best, when you complain about it is that you lose karma. I got karma to burn, so I don't care. That is why I'm joining you in the complaing, but being very apethetic regaring if it will make any difference.
...ensure that all of the female Romulans have large artificial lactation glands and tight fitting crop-top uniforms. Then all of the overly macho StarFleet captians will never see anything BUT the female Romulan boobies.
And don't forget to equip the Romulan females with the requisite anti-grav bras so that they can actually stand upright (um...erect?!).
who cares if they keep the faces of the romulans hidden from humans.
Its not like they every truly resolved why Klingons looked so different in Kirk's time compared to later.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
"Instead, the way I see it, Star Trek in its whole has provided a generalized SciFi framework, into which different authors, directors, writers, artists, etc. can provide a story."
Pretty much. The basics of the mythology are presented and anyone can write any story in that mythology. The problems come when a BAD writer violates the mythology. "Shared world" literary attempts only work when people respect the other writers.
"Aside from the "boldly go" kind of essense, there's a HUGE diversity there."
Not that much, actually. They each focus on a small group of individuals that encounter incredibly dangerous (destroy the planet) situations yet they always win and (with one notable exception) none of them every die.
"And frankly, as long as any one story is enjoyable, I don't really mind if there's some non-canonical bits therein."
But when those bits become so large that they change the history, then there is a problem.
"But for run-of-the-mill stories, I'm more interested in how they handle the character development, coupled with the staple of SciFi - which is, in my opinion, how humans handle advanced technology and its effects (including the effect of encountering other species)."
And THAT is the problem. Without the continuity, there isn't any development. New inventions are featured one week and forgotten the next. Even when they would have changed the entire mythology.
"So as far as I'm concerned, the "Star Trek" name provides a rather broad, rather permissive framework - with NAME RECOGNITION."
But what use is that name recognition?
Other than an easy way to guarantee that you'll pull in X viewers the first weekend because there are a certain number of geeks who will go see ANYTHING with "Star Trek" in the title.
If it isn't about the mythology (and you say continuity does not matter) then what is it about?
"And the best thing about it: that name recognition provides a budget for reasonably cool SciFi movies and television."
Watch FireFly. Far better than anything from the Star Trek franchise in the last 10 years. Yet they managed to do so without any existing mythology or name recognition.
"Maybe not the BEST, but at least reasonably entertaining, and definitely more quantity than we'd get otherwise."
Whereas people like me would be willing to take less of the quantity if we could get more of the quality.
I don't own ANY of the DVD's of ANY of the Star Trek movies, yet I own the FireFly boxed set.
"And it spurs all kinds of spinoffs and competitors (B5, Andromeda, etc.) which are even better."
I don't think B5 was a Star Trek spinoff. It had continuity. It had a story arc.
Andromeda just ended up being stupid.
Again, look at FireFly. See how good a single season of science fiction can be. Real character development. Not only did you learn more about each character as the season progressed (and not just randomly tacked on items like "best x in the Acadamy" or "master at the x" or "expert in x") and you saw how the events of previous episodes changed them.
SEXY ROMULAN BABE
A simple google search for electric tank armor will show you what I am talking about hero/x ml=%2F news%2F2002%2F08%2F19%2Fnmod19.xml
now just so you know I am right and you are not here is a link
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?
An example of how convoluted (but well thought out) the plot of B5 is. Babylon 5 is the fifth, and only surviving space station like it. For years, literally, he doesn't even hint at why this is so, another dumb thing that will never be explained, maybe just for the title (Can't very well call it Babylon 1 or just plain Babylon) ?
Hell no, completely integral to the story. The demons that were fought long ago (and are fought again in the show) were winning. They had destroyed the major staging point of their opponents, a loss that late in the war meant certain doom. But these aliens were more technologically advanced than us by perhaps millions of years. So, a little temporal trickery, and they steal Babylon 4 (which disappeared mysteriously about 3 years before the show begins).
Ok, so where did the first 3 go? Well, the evil aliens got to see Babylon 4 10,000 years ago. And they still have ambitions... so when they notice these lookalike space stations being built, they sabotage them.
Help me out guys, but none of this is learned until what, end of season 2, beginning of season 3? That's right, JMS kept this secret for about 35-40 more episodes than B&B could think of doing. Better yet, where they'd be forced to spell it all out for their drooling audience, I had to finally piece it all together myself after watching the entire series nearly twice.
Does anyone honestly believe B&B could have used the life-saving machine (whatever it was called) only twice in 5 years, or that they would set it up 3 years in advance? C'mon, every other episode, 20 minutes before the end of the show. Sure, Ivanova would also have been saved, but they would have had 2 or 3 people present, so she could "safely" be saved. Remember, they can only kill off characters if a contract expires and the actor refuses to re-sign.
If you want the new Star Trek to be like the cream of the TOS crop, then you *need* JMS. There may be no one else capable of rescuing it.
No, time travel can be done right, B5 proved that.
The characters had little or no control of the process, only got to use it once, in the entire series, and its consequences were thought out before the pilot was even filmed.
What time isn't, it isn't the Tv salt that can be sprinkled on every single meal to add a little zest to otherwise boring porridge. It's chilli pepper tha you only use once every great while, and then only the tiniest pinch. Of course, B&B pour the whole bottle on, and then wonder why it hurts so much sitting on the toilet shitting out another Star Trek series, episode by burning diarhettic episode.
Well, they'd never do it. Just because jms managed to pull a five-year "novel for television" out of his hat on half the budget of TNG (has anyone else managed to make a drama series---not a soap opera---with that level of continuity in any genre?)... just because he consistently wrote critically acclaimed work... you think someone would actually employ him?
Come on! He enforced a "no cute animals, no robots" rule for B5! How would the small-minded Paramount execs manage to get him to put in big-boobed women in spandex?
"And I don't go to bed until I've made some very bad decisions."
Kidding aside, since it'll never, ever get made, I'd like to see his treatment of it. It's easy to backseat-drive ("they should have wrapped up Buffy Season 6 without the dead and evil lesbian cliche!") but more difficult to actually come up with something better. ("Here's a plot outline in which not only do I avoid cliche, but I tell a better story. Ha!")
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Seriously. 'cuz, y'know .. there are times when simply moderating as "funny" isn't good enough.
Nah; I think they flipped a coin... heads, particle of the week; tails, reverse the polarity.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
I SOOOO almost want to like Firefly. It had some good concepts, some pretty good acting (except for the part of Mal "I'm so desperately trying to be Harrison Ford, but failing at every opportunity" Reynolds), some excellent writing, and it actually acknowledged that some people might speak something other than English in space. (I particularly liked how they would just swear in french or Mandarin, to get around the prissy fucks at the FCC.)
..... EXCEPT for the fact that Joss Whedon feels the need to continually hit us over the head with the fact that his favorite episode of Star Trek was obviously the one where Kirk and company get sent back in time to the gunfight at the OK Corral! I keep ALMOST settling in, and enjoying Firefly as some pretty good SciFi, when Whedon shatters the whole suspension of disbelief thing, and shunts into "cows in space"... over and over and over again! It's enough to make me want to throw rotten produce at the TV!
My roommates have actually developed a fascination with the show, and have its whole run on a couple of bootleg DVDs. I keep ALMOST getting sucked in. I keep ALMOST wanting to sit down and watch the whole damn thing with them....
Ugh... Forget that damn episode of Star Trek, for fucks sake, and make a SCIENCE FICTION show!
Oh yeah... one other thing that jolts me right out of SciFi land... the score... and ESPECIALLY that opening theme. They're worse than the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard. They're so horribly, stupendously bad, that even that wretched opening theme to Enterprise is lofty and inspirational by comparison. Here's to hoping that, with a motion picture budget, they can actually afford John Williams, or at least Jerry Goldsmith.
Glaring errors, to be sure, but as good as Buffy and Angel turned out; it's too bad that Firefly wasn't given some more time to be fixed and hit it's stride.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
...when it was called Star Wars
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Weren't the glowing bleed-from-your-ears rods blue, not green?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
PS Am I the only one who thinks Kerry looks like a Narn?
OH DEAR GOD GET IT OUT OUT OF MY HEAD AAAAAHHHH
"G'Kerry once wrote... "
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
So how will they make this fit with the Classic Trek episode Balance of Terror, in which we learned that no human ever saw the face of a Romulan during the Romulan Wars?"
The same way the rationalized the difference in warp speed between TOS and every series foward-- "It was actually a calculation error made back then. They forgot to carry the '1' and it turns out warp 9 was actually warp seven..." I've come to the sad realization that to expect serious continuity from Trek is an excerise in futility, especially given it's present state of affairs, which amounts to nothing more than swiss cheese.
That aside, are they seriously that desperate to actually push Rombulan Wars to the big screen? I mean, how good of an idea can it possibly be to totally seperate a movie from it's mythos by introducing a totally unknown plot, crew and ship into a meager two hour time frame???? I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's going to take a better cast, scripting and directing than the franchise has seen in literally a decade.
On the brighter side, this may just be the shotgun that puts the franchise out of it's misery.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Err... reference? If he hates it so much, why does he do so much work on it?
It's more likely that he's simply inept.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Remember how the first two season openers said "It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind...", and nothing was really done with it? Folks kept asking jms (the fact that he posted to the fan newsgroup is an entire new level of cool by itself) what it meant, and he said to wait. Then, nothing for the third year. Then, in 4x08, "Into the Fire", the conclusion of the entire Vorlon/Shadow thing... oh, that's what it meant.
A strange confluence of factors led to the creation of Babylon 5... a creator devoted enough to write four seasons (12/22, 15/22, 22/22, 22/22, 21/22---it adds up) of the show, a network that left him the hell alone enough for him to do it... well, it doesn't take much, but those things are exceedingly, exceedingly rare---see how often we get both of them together.
Let's see... the entire EarthForce arc, from 1x22 "Chrysalis" to 4x22 "Endgame"---who else could have pulled that off? Earth the bad guys! No way! They looked like the frickin' UN in the first season! ("Intersections in Real Time" remains one of my favorites, especially because it's a late-in-the-show episode that's self-contained enough to show to people who know nothing about the series. Could you imagine Starfleet doing that?)
Oh, and, of course, Londo's dream about his death at G'Kar's hands. You see it in the very first episode, 1x01, "Midnight on the Firing Line", but its full meaning isn't revealed until "War Without End, Part II" near the end of S3.
Not to mention that the Shadows' motives aren't even revealed until 3x22, "Z'Ha'Dum"---after we've all assumed that they're the demons and the Vorlons are the angels; what else could we have seen in 2x22, "The Fall of Night"? But it's not nearly that simple, of course. The Vorlon/Shadow arc remains my favorite component of the storyline.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
So, you're paying attention to one movie (Star Trek: First Contact) but ignoring an episode of another series (Star Trek: Voyager, "Relativity"; just to let people who don't realize it, Seven and the future "Federation" state that the Federation (not the Terran Empire or some alternate timeline) came into being because of the Borg; there's also a passing reference to the Borg being present during the time of Cochran's flight in "Year of Hell" (Seven knew that Phoenix was the name of Cochran's ship)). So, the whole basis for Enterprise's "cold war" isn't at all based on a movie, unless you care to only pay attention to some of the "canon" of Star Trek.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
but I have seen him on a view screen. English is not logical captain.
" (Star Trek: Voyager, "Relativity"; just to let people who don't realize it, Seven and the future "Federation" state that the Federation (not the Terran Empire or some alternate timeline) came into being because of the Borg; there's also a passing reference to the Borg being present during the time of Cochran's flight in "Year of Hell" (Seven knew that Phoenix was the name of Cochran's ship)). So, the whole basis for Enterprise's "cold war" isn't at all based on a movie, unless you care to only pay attention to some of the "canon" of Star Trek."
;) )
This is a fair and good point. No, I didn't catch that episode as I didn't watch Voyager a whole lot. I accept what you're saying, though. (In other words, I'm not using the "i never saw it so I'm going to remain ignorant" argument.
There's something to consider, though: The NX-01's timeline hasn't been completed yet that we have seen. It seems to me that the changes that have happened in this series would too dramatically alter the time-line that Picard and Co. live in. I would guess that if they reach a point to where they end the Cold War in Enterprise, they'll find some clever way to put time back to where it was, or at least pretty darned close. I do believe there was an episode of Voyager... oh I can't remember the name of it, but I remember that Kurtwood Smith played the antagonist.. anyway he had a time ship that was mucking around, Voyager destroyed it, and time more or less went back to where it was. (Err, was that Year of Hell?) So, according to Star Trek rules about how time works, this could potentially happen. I'd further add that there was an ep of TNG where there were paralell timelines all over the place with slightly different results, such as the Bajorans militarily defeating the Cardassians. Heh.
Ugh, I've really nerded myself out here. I guess the short version of my point is "It'd be hard to settle this until Enterprise is finaled. Not cancelled, but actually ended like TNG/Voy/DS9."
I'll say again, though, damned good point.
"Derp de derp."
Think about it!
The concept is, "War in Space." --Humans versus the Romulans. That's it!
No, "And every cast member of the popular television series except Wil has to have at least X minutes of screen time regardless of how irrelevant to the plot it may be."
If the writer is a good one, if the director is a good one. . , why this could be the best thing since 'Kahn'. --Because we need something. Everything since Kirk left us has been idiotic garbage.
In general. . . Star Trek movies suck when: Huge ensemble casts are scripted by Ricky-"Let's kill Picard's nephew, blow up those two Klingon sisters, make Data say, "Shit", and then crash the enterprise regardless of how little any of this has to do with anything even remotely story-related, cuz we can and it's cool in a college Jar-Head Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! sort of way,"-THE ASS-HAT Berman.
Berman is one of the hugest wannabes in show-biz today. He should stay firmly socketed in the producer's chair and stop pretending that he can write.
So barring his creative involvement, a new Trek film with some new blood and some real talent might just be the best thing to happen to Star Trek movies in over a decade.
-FL
Yes, but my point is, based on the chap I was replying to, that the acting was horrible, the sets were laughable and the special effects were atrocious, but the writing was fine. I mean seriously, that's a lot to put up with for an interesting story. Bad actors can bury even the best script, and the actors on B5 were bad.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
Star Trek XI: Bergman gone wild!
Catch the insane action when our cameras find the hottest trekkie college girls doing things they never taught you in school.
Yes, it is "Year of Hell" that the Krenim Imperium Time Ship is going about causing temporal incursions and removing from history rival species. There is some indication in "Relativity" that Braxton's future self, who is the cause of the temporal bomb, has some grudge against Janeway and all the temporal havoc he's had to clean-up because of her. He talks of "Three violations that I had to repair!" which I assume include the "Year of Hell" incident. So, it's possible that the time ship Relativity will fix all of Enterprise in the end, but it seems all a bit crazy, round-about way of telling a story that will never exist.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Big deal, so the Enterprise P warps back in time 500 years and lobs the Holy Hand Grenade of Spock into the heart of the Romulan fleet... thus causing them all to have a vision of Tasha Yar as a naked romulan chick and they suddenly find a reason to leave the humans alone and go home.
As long as Beavis & Butthead... er... Bremen and Braga are in charge, it can't be much better than that! I bet we don't get to see the naked Tasha Yar though...
Besides, if the events in First Contact had significantly changed continuity, how did Enterprise E apparently get back to the same future they left?
I know, I know: "it's just a show, I should really just relax".
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
They're saying it'll have nothing to do with Enterprise right? Didn't they just credit the creation of the Federation (in part?) to Jonathan Archer Seven years from this past season? B&B really need to have a word with themselves, nevermind previous ST, they can't even keep with current trek which they are still overseeing. Idiots!
While I was watching this episode in the 60's, I had the feeling of deja-vu. After some pondering, I realized that the plot of "Balance of Terror" is amazingly similar to "The Enemy Below", a book by D.A. Rayner published in 1956. It's about a British destroyer that goes after a German submarine and has the "ghost" in the radar (The Brit captain knew that U-Boats had a radar glitch at 180 deg. so he followed there and the sub captain thought it was probably a glitch instead of a pip). The sub is running full speed for home, same as in Strek. Same stuff happens...the two ships fight a prolonged running battle and damage each other's ships and the Captains develop a respect for each other's professionalism and announce that under other circumstances they could be friends. Deja-VU? Anyone else familiar with this book?
I normally don't reply to my own threads, but I will break with tradition on this one, because it's especially insightful.
> Only problem is, they'd just do every R.A. Salvatore book about the drow and Drizzt with the romulans and some new hero character yet to be introduced.
You are so correct that it's not even funny. I would not want to see this, either. I never liked Drizz't Do'Urden because he was unnatural. He should have been as wicked as the rest of the Drow. A better story would be that of a lone Drow assassin named Drizz't who crept up from the depths to kill ThickSkull and King Azun on a secret mission from Lolth herself. That would have been much more interesting than the story Salvatore tells, IMHO.
For me, a Romulan series about anything but the sheer evil of the Romulans would be heresy. What I want is the pure exacting nature of Romulan society, in a nutshell Roman society in space, but worse. I would want to see how they operate, in all their evil ways, and how they can remain stable doing so. A series like this, even using a bit of Sopranos humour, would be totally awesome.
But they'll never do it because they're stupid. That's not a troll, because there's plenty of evidence to support the fact that B&B are stupid. They never even watched TOS! DUH!!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
No no, I didn't mean Relativity would fix it, I meant that Enterprise might find an opportunity like that in their own time.
heh.
"Derp de derp."
"Enterprise apologists keep making this claim, but has anyone on the creative team ever said that Enterprise is supposed to take place in a different continuity?"
Yes, they have.
"Derp de derp."
Details? Quote? Reference?
If the whole series is eventually going to be undone, like a super-sized version of Voyager's "Year of Hell" travesty, then I'll stop giving a damn now and save myself the trouble of screaming at the TV after the final episode...
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
"Details? Quote? Reference?"
Go use Google. I don't care to do the work of somebody else who will just dismiss me as an "Enterprise Apologist". If you don't like the show right now, nothing I say's going to change your mind. Frankly, I'm just not that passionate about it.
"Derp de derp."
Google finds this:
Everything I find pointing to the "Enterprise is alternate history" theory is fan speculation. (Though Braga doees mention the First Contact/Borg-meets-Archer change.)
Overall, so far I give it a C-, though it's had some very good moments. It's better than Voyager.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Maybe it dispells the 'atlernate timeline' theory, but that very same article addresses the changes in the timeline quite clearly. It is a matter of semantics as to whether or not it is an 'atlernative timeline', but it is very much a different series of events. Continuity is far more flexible in this series.
"Overall, so far I give it a C-, though it's had some very good moments. It's better than Voyager."
I almost agree. I'd give it better than a C-, but I'd be hesitent to land on a particular grade level because I don't know how much of what I like about it is due to my own interests in the show, or how good at is in a more general sense. I don't think it's as good as DS9, but I wish it could replace Voyager. Heh.
"Derp de derp."
Who cares?
Star Trek is already messed up, with official knock-offs such as Voyager and Enterprise, that may be mistaken for real Star Trek. And now they want to make a movie? When will it be released? April 1st?
They need to go and make a DS-9 movie to end off the story there, and then continue with trek forward. This backwards trek stuff is just that.
Have you read my journal today?
"So what you're telling me is that this is REALLY an extended episode of Quantum Leap, and that as soon as Sam rights what is wrong with the Star Trek universe, he gets to move on?"
I know you're joking, but I think that'd be damn cool. I wish TV series would co-mingle like that.
"Derp de derp."
He sucks.
You figure out exactly what... ;-)
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~