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Walter Koenig Reprises His Role as Chekov
hords writes "Walter Koenig returns to the role of Lt. Pavel Chekov in an upcoming episode of Star Trek: New Voyages, a fan made series mentioned earlier on Slashdot. He will be re-imagining the role that made him famous. 'The folks from New Voyages approached and we started kicking around ideas for a Chekov story,' said Koenig. 'It occurred to me that what we were coming up with was what every actor dreams of: a second chance to get it right...it is almost beyond comprehension that this is happening so late in my life! Talk about belated reward!...I didn't believe I could ever again be this excited about performing a part...I guess it isn't so trite after all: perhaps, all good things do come to those who wait.' Amazingly enough they even got D.C. Fontana to write the episode!"
nothing, he's getting nothing
there is so much going on in your post with your name and your sig and... wow. just wow.
William Shatner has been getting consistent work for many years now. He's had supporting roles in several very successful films, from Dodgeball to Miss Congeniality. He has won last year's Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor and is currently nominated for another Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor for his role in Boston Legal, a television show with bigger viewership than the original Star Trek ever got.
Any questions?
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Over here in the UK, most TV series, including The Simpsons, 24, Babylon 5, The X-Files, etc. seem to be priced around £30 (=~$55) which, to me, is about right. However, the Star Trek series seem to be priced around £69.95 (=~$125) which is ridiculous.
I'm gradually collecting Trek on DVD, having sold my videos on Ebay while I could still get a reasonable price for them, and I just wait until the post-Christmas sales in stores or on-line retailers to buy the DVDs. So far, I have the complete TNG DVD set and I don't think I paid more than £40 for any one series.
I've emailed Paramount with some intelligent questions and comments about their pricing policy on Trek DVDs on a number of occasions (hoping that a lot of other people do the same) but never even get a confirmation of receipt of the email, let alone a response.
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Relevant section:
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Whaa? You crazy. Kirk may have died (twice, IIRC) but William Shatner is doing pretty well with Boston Legal.
And All Bran adverts in the UK..
Not meaning to troll or anything, but I started browsing through Wikipedia to find out more about New Voyages. And guess what, even the original entry from June 2nd already included these "news"...
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
If I remember correctly, he said:
"We still have the mundane to deal with."
She responded:
"Can I do it?"
And we see the body floating out in hyperspace.
I talk about stuff.
Then you better not check (German) prices for Star Trek - or even more extreme: "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" or "Angel":
at amazon.de: 59 euros per HALF season of Buffy/Angel, making ~120euros (~147$) for a whole season;
granted, the older seasons are cheaper _now_ but you could order a whole season for less than that from the UK or US.
They sell Star Trek TOS and Voyager seasons for 99 euros, TNG for 79 euros.
In theory, you can order a RC1-season of Buffy (45$) and a RC1-DVD-player including shipping, taxes and customs for less than the price of a RC-2 season...
Read Warped Factors if you want a good account of why Koenig hated Shatner.
William Shatner managed to make enemies of most of the cast of TOS. While he was friends with Nimoy and Kelly, the rest of the cast hated Shatner. James Doohan refused to speak to Shatner even to the last days of his life.
BTW - Koenig really is Russian. His grandparents were Russian Jews from Vilna, Lithuania.
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Those Star Wars fan films exist at the behest of Lucasfilm. That permission can be withdrawn at any time and one can lose their permission to legally redistribute the fan films. This is part of the power a copyright holder gets--the power to set terms for derivative works. Sometimes this power is used for maximizing benefit for the many (such as the GNU GPL's implementation of copyleft which aims to preserve the freedom to share and modify for all recipients of the covered program), most of the time it is not.
The same situation exists for Paramount and Star Trek--Star Trek New Voyages is legally made and distributed so long as Paramount does not deem it a threat (like the Borg when people beam on board one of their cubes and walk around carrying big guns). And this doesn't even begin to get into trademark issues.
For copyright law, all the real power is with the copyright holders unless the fan film is a parody (which Star Trek New Voyages is not). I'd hardly call such a situation "safe" for the fan filmmakers. Even the permission Star Trek New Voyages receives appears to be selective and revocable.
Our copyright and trademark laws don't have to work this way, but they are structured to give more power to businesses. Multinational corporate publishers like Lucasfilm and Paramount have the means to sue and have lobbied the US Congress to make sure that copyright law is on their side. If you look at this in terms of one or two particular instances where smaller filmmakers get the permission they seek (for now), you're missing the point. Richard Stallman has been talking about a more sanely structured copyright regime, one which draws a clear line between commercial and non-commercial activity. Examples like Star Wars fan films and Star Trek New Voyages have a profound effect on his thinking. He ends up arguing for allowing all sorts of non-commercial activity that most copyright regimes prohibit by default.
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