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Salon Writes on The Troubles with "Trek"
Splatta was the first to write with us with article currently running on Salon about the possible end of the Star Trek "idea". The story is well researched with commentary from Paramount, Leonard Nimoy and others about what's happened to the Star Trek story over the last several years and "the indignites of age". Is it the end of Trek? What do you think? Is the franchise dying?
You want ANTI-COMPETITIVE? Call apple & ask them how many manufacturers make hardware for your appletosh. You want a cdburner for your mac?? call apple, a floppy drive? call apple, a G4 upgrade?? tough shit
/. yet, .doc called doc.doc with one little line of text in it and sicked my hex editor on it...
"M$ puts the directory structure of my hard drive into any saved Word file ('97 version or later)."
This is by far the most rediculous anti-ms bullshit ive read on
where do you guys come up with this stuff???
But you made me curious, so i made a little
Know what i found?? c:\doc.doc oh no! there goes my privacy!!! now everybody knows my hd is called c:!!!! whatever shall i do?
I cant believe someone has the gall to sit back on their mac & call ms anti-competitive.
well thanx for a good laugh
First, I rather like the Enterprise-E, it makes sense for the newest Enterprise to look different from the first one, there is a time span of something like 140 years (Kirk wasn't the Enterprise's first captain, I seem recall it was 20 years old by the time he got it). Second, you're talking about First Contact, not Insurrection.
Look at what's been going on meanwhile: Babylon 5, Earth: Final Conflict, Farscape, X-Files.
Exactly. Audiences and TV sci-fi have become more sophisticated while Star Trek has not (sci-fi has also become more mainstream, which means there are some pretty pathetic sci-fi soaps around these days).
I don't think Star Trek has degraded as much as it has simply stood still. After all, even Voyager has its moments, for example, the episode about the meta-matter(?) duplicate crew (where they realize that they are not the originals, and that when they die, nothing about them will be known or remembered) was excellent pathos, and was quite unique.
But, for the most part, Star Trek has been surpassed by more intelligent, and logically consistent, sci-fi, such as the new Outer Limits, Babylon 5, Stargate, the first season of Earth: The Final Conflict, and so on.
Ehhh... that movie was a re-run that came before First Contact ... there is no way that chick could come back into existance, ever think about that ?
yeah
Good job. You just described "Doctor Who." ;)
(Doctors I liked, most to least: 4,7,3,5,2,8,1,6)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Note: I'm posting this a second time because my first post seems to have disappeared (actually, it looked like Slashdot was restarted after being hacked for a minute or so :).
I think the actress, Jeri Ryan, is being given a bad rap. It's true that the producers are using her for sex appeal (and she does look good in those tight outfits), but I'd still like watching her character, 7 of 9, even if she was more conservatively dressed.
Say what you like about Voyager, but 7 of 9 is a good character, with a unique point of view, a penchant for cut-theough-the-BS straight talk, and a dry sardonic wit. I like her. And, it's Jeri Ryan's acting, with her quizzical looks, aloof stances, and so on, that brings out 7 of 9's character.
As a franchise um they better they better keep ... if I remember ... intermz of a strong female character ... Janeway um you would kick Napolean's @#$% so I would be all about Voyager movies ...
Janeway the hellz with bonez all have to say about that episode is male domination
the in the bonez edition they had some sister as
the only woman in the flick (poor attempt @ killing 2 birds w/ one stone ) and was kwel and all that but Janeway most def kicks royal butz
Sorry, but in my opinion, God Emperor of Dune was pretty much the beginning of the real story in the DUNE saga. It divided the timeline between Muad'Dib's Imperium, and repairing the damage created by Muad'Dib's Imperium.
The whole series was about the damage that heros inevitably wreak on their society, the destruction that occurs when religion and government ride in the same cart, and what it really means to be human.
I will refrain from commenting on the damage that Herbert's son and some "writer" called Kevin J. Anderson are themselves perpetrating on the Dune Chronicles. Oh, wait...too late.
Other than that, you're pretty much dead-on. :)
Maybe if they moved Voyager to a daytime slot (next to all the other soap operas) it would finally get some ratings!
The existance of that "mega-rant" is the proof why Star Trek should be retired. I mean, comeon, it's some pimply guy in spock ears with an ugly web page compaining about how the phasers and the stars in the viewscreen are fakey.
The original Star Trek was about strong characters and good drama. Space is just a more interesting backdrop than the old west. I agree with the guy who said "Trekkies and the Internet ruined Star Trek" -- The shows have gone timid as hell because they're worried about using a Type 1 phaser when in episode #206 it's clear that a Type 2 would be more appropriate.
Imagine if there were a group of police show fans that would write in everytime "Walker Texas Ranger" pistol-whipped someone the wrong way. That's pretty boring and stupid, but that's exactly what Star Trek fans do all the time. The only reason any of you think that the technology interesting is because you've projected your own fantasies onto the show.
1: The new movies. I-Generations: Too long, too lame, Paramount sending out press release to the media before theatrical release that Kirk dies, ruining the only big surprise in the movie. II-First contact: Troy and Riker only being in the movie to get drunk. The black woman running around with card that was obviously scripted and directed as a token character. Star Trek has always been the most integrated show ever, it doesn't need that kind of crap. Not too mention the big plot hole: why not just send the whole borg ship back in time years ahead of time so that the humans can't ride along. A terrible movie. III-Insurrection: This movie would have been better than The Wrath of Khan, if a big chunk hadn't obviously been cut of near the end. Just how the heck did the bad guys get off the holo-ship that had no way out? What the hell went on there? It ruined the whole movie for me. 2: Voyager: This show has it all. Bad acting, bad writing, bad directing, and is often inconsistent with both its own past episodes and old episodes of Next Gen. The show is underbudgeted, and it shows. Seven of Nine is the only good thing this crappy little melodrama has ever had. 3: DS9 final 2 seasons: The show would go on with the war, station life, etc, with total continuity, and then suddenly have a weird episode with nothing to do with anything. It was ok with mirror universe episodes, but when Keiko and Miles would spend and episode doing lame shit with Molly it got lame fast. I gave up on Star Trek for these reasons. I am giving Lucas one more chance to not blow the next Star Wars like he did with Episode 1: The Merchandising Blitz. -supabeast! @work
I'm sorry, but that is exactly why I loved TNG so much, because they tried to delve into some of the more esoteric and inventive sides of science and astronomy (altho most of the time they resorted to "techno-babble"). I loved discussing the episodes with my friends and debating whether it was feasible for Geordi and Ensign Ro to be able to be intangible and walk through walls, yet at the same time not fall straight through the floor into space. But the science and the seriousness made it fascinating.
Granted, its not as funny as Kirk slapping his face in exasperation as Spock misunderstands some comment, or Bones complain about his limitations as a physicians, but then TOS was different. It had a different focus, and relied less on technology and more on morality.
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The author of this article needs to learn a BIT more about trek. Firts of all, Star trek, ESPECIALLY TOS, which this guy touts as being so perfect, was never "money in the bank". It was almost cancelled nearly every month of its 3 year life due to poor ratings. It did not gain wide popularity until it hit syndication. The same thing happened in the first few seasons of TNG. Secondly, this will not be the first time since 93 there was only one show on the air. for al least 6 months, DS9 was the only new trek you could watch, following the end of TNG. And i remember when TNG went off the air everyoe was also saying "this is the end". Sure, they may be running sort on ideas, but if i know old Rick B, hes got something interesting up his sleeve. As long as he can keep the suits up top convinced its worth the effort, Rick will try to keep Roddenberry's dream alive. ---Software si like sex... its better when its free-----
I have to say the after TNG (after gene rodenberry died) star trek's plots got really bad after rick burman took over. he should of left the writing to the writers.
I still think that the Star Trek Universe would be a great foundation for any kind of story. It is just up to the script-writers to realize what they have got and to make something breathtaking out of it - half of the work is already there.
A few years ago there were many rumors in the star trek newsgroups about a possible "Star Trek Klingon" series. I think that is a great idea, as long as it doesn't just give us another Enterprise or Voyager. The Klingon empire would certainly be an interesting place, and a less-than-utopian society. I think it would also be interesting to set it in a time when the Federation was still an Enemy.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
But at about the time that DS9 came along, I just got sick of it. Nothing was happening. Nothing was changing. And of course, B5 came along and stole my heart. I had known that it would be great, when I first read of it in ~92 and JMS had said that they'd be showing the weirdness of the alien restroom.
Basically, nothing is or has happened with Trek for some time. I think that the best thing that they could do would be to give it a rest for ten or twenty years and see what fresh ideas can come along later, or find some way to tear down all of the cruft and start over again.
The idea in post #96 is a very good one. Although a lot would depend on writing, cast, etc. I'd be willing to give it a try, which is more than I can say for Voyager or the awful movies that have followed VI. (the reason II, III and IV were good was that they told a continuing story you dumbass writers!).
The other good idea I've heard is to do a series based before TOS. This could be cool b/c the writers wouldn't really be able to, if they knew what was good for them, write particle du jour episodes. No holodecks. No civilians on the ship. No borg. No Q. No transporters at all. The old Klingons - maybe. That could be really good if they'd be willing to take chances. Killing characters if the story demands it is good, as Roy Fokker taught us. Taking dramatic turns with the show is good, if the story demands it, as B5 taught us. And take a lesson from TOS, and make some shows that have some relevancy to the current day, but without making them wimpy (eg the TNG drug ep).
They won't do it though, which is why I doubt I'll ever see a good, new Trek show again. And everyone can suffer from this. Honestly, JMS was ripping off (consciously or not) Star Blazers/Yamato all over the place with the spin off and it wasn't at all appealing to me.
Anyone have ideas for what could make Trek great again? Certainly it wouldn't involve any of the crap that's come out lately.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Truth be told... I never got terribly into the original series.. Oh, I've managed to see pretty much all of tehm, but for me the love started when i saw the first movie...
:-)
:-)
And I've been at every trek movie on opening day ever since... For me, the voyage home shall always remain my favourite.. tongue in cheek that it is.. saving the whales, and Kirk and Spock wandering about San Fran.. very cute.
I also dug the TNG, and rabidly watched it from the 2nd season onward.. and I transferred my affection to DS9.. but It never "held" my interest.. Always on that dern space station...
As far as Voyager goes.. I never have been able to get into it.. The charectors seem forgetable, and it just doesn't grab me anymore.
Maybe we need to have the series killed off... Wait a few years (2002?) and have anoterh movie.. Slap Kirk, and Spock, and picard together, for something... Be it a last hurrah, or a transition to some new TV series (hint hint).
Whatever happens.. I don't want Trek to die... I hope they keep doing movies until I have kids, and they can then watch it, and muse about the cheesy old "Tng" series... Yeah..
---
I don't spell check... deal...
---
http://thepoliticalgeek.com/blog/ Politics for Geeks.
The cartoon was actually pretty good. They had some good writers, and could do things that they were unable to with live action b/c of the low fx budget. Could have been better, yes, but was not as bad as Voyager. ;)
(Although when the ship got hit, they _did_ just rock the camera back and forth)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Not to be overly critical, but I think you missed a few points, foremost that it was meant to be humorous, secondly that the series established Riker as an extremely good pilot. Now, he could have sat down and pushed buttons like a good helmsman should, but he trusted his own judgement and tactile feedback. In fact, the original trek probably made use of key controls so that people wouldn't think it was just a big aircraft instead of a spacecraft. If there had always been a stick, no one would have batted an eye, but it wouldn't have been funny, which was the point.
Like you, Tarnar, I am a longstanding fan of both old and new Star Trek. But I think the author raised some salient points and you are therefore wrong to dismiss him out of hand as a 'bitter fan'.
I agree he was a bit tough on Berman; I thought there were some really outstanding TNG episodes and I did come to care about the characters. I was very sad to see the series end. However, his assertions about Berman's attitude to TOS are certainly food for thought. It's very disapointing that Paramount would have brought him into the franchise in the first place if he had such a poor understanding of it (this is of course assuming that these assertions are true).
Secondly, Paramount certainly did franchise the thing to death, which kind of "wore out" the magic to some extent. Worst of all was putting out two series at the same time. Why on earth would Paramount do that when it would inevitably make people cease to hunger for it?
The studio never ever cared a bean about the possible significance of Trek beyond its profit potential, and they even mismanaged that in the end, sacrificing long-term appeal for the sake of increasing Trek revenue in the immediate short term.
As an aside: perhaps as a consequence of this glut of Star Trek some networks started screwing with their schedules and it became more or less impossible to know exactly when the next episode was going to be broadcast. It just wasn't unique or special enough to take pride of place any more, with so much of it about, especially when you include reruns: even in the UK at one point there would be maybe half a dozen different episodes of various ST series broadcast in a single week. That's just plain overdoing it. But ultimately it's Paramount's fault for milking its cash cow too hard and too often.
But there's nothin new about this. Parallels have already been drawn with the cheapening of the Star Wars franchise (Ewoks movies ferchrissake!!!).
Video and film are the new narrative tradition, and are as important to our culture as oral storytelling and literature have been. Unfortunately you just can't trust Philistine money-fixated studio execs with such an important legacy. They are the reason why there is so much crap, and why the few good things that emerge despite them either meet an untimely end (the Dr Who TV series) or are perverted to satisfy mass market expectations (the Americanised Dr Who TV movie) or get milked to death like Star Trek.
I just wanted to say one other thing: the only good idea for a new Trek series I ever heard was the Captain Sulu/USS Excelsior one. Pity they never suggested doing the same for Captain Scott. Look back at those TOS episodes; he was one outstanding bridge officer.
But even so, the best thing to ensure the world doesn't get terminally sick of the whole thing would be to veto any new series for now and maybe even restrict syndication for a while too.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
- Handheld "communicators" with which we can reach out and touch anyone on the planet, or be thus reached. Heck, we have cellular phones not much bigger than a mini-box of matches now--way smaller than the original Old Series communicators, and approaching the "wearable badge" size of TNG.
- Pneumatic hypodermic syringes.
- Handheld textual display and computing devices with touch-sensitive screens, some of which can even tap into our data networks via wireless communication. (It is just so wickedly appropriate to be able to read Q-in-Law on a PADD-like device (my Palm IIIe), courtesy of Peanut Press)
- Paperless books (q.v. Peanut Press)...will physical books soon become the rarity that they are in Picard's day?
- Hand-held sensory devices (well, okay, they aren't actually here in widespread use in the consumer market yet, but I've heard of some such gadgets that are gradually getting there).
I have to wonder whether at least some of these advances weren't due to kids getting inspired by Star Trek and saying, "I'm gonna invent that when I grow up."Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Oh yeah, am I the only one who wanted to cheer when Kirk died (both times) in Generations?
Yes, you are.
Obviously you're the kind of person who can't conceive of the notion that things outside of your experience might have value. If you'd actually given TOS the same viewing attention you've obviously given TNG you'd have had the opportunity to understand its value. Just because you didn't doesn't mean the value isn't there.
To troll what you don't know is ignorant and narrow-minded. And to cheer the death of Captain Kirk is idiotic and offensive.
I know what you mean. I stopped watching Trek during the first year of Voyager (more because it wasn't convenient than that I didn't like it anymore), and from what I've heard since then, I only regret it a little bit, and that for Deep Space Nine. Voyager, it seems, has started borrowing plots from bad fan parodies. I find this Voyager quote to be rather rather self-descriptive: "Get this cheese to sickbay!"
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
yeah...now that you mention it...
"assimilate...assimilate"
Unfortunately, all good things.... they changed producers after the first season and killed off the main character (Kevin Kilner was the best thing about the show). Now it is just another shoot-em-up, punch-em-up, Humans vs. Aliens show a la "V".
Thats what happens when Marketing and Pointy-Haired-Bosses take over the reigns: "Yes yes! More kung-fu, lasers and breasts, and the aliens need to have lasers coming out of their breasts!"
What a pity...
but she does it SO WELL !!!!!! :)~~~~~~~
the franchise is dying.
You claim that 50% of a theatre full of Star Trek fans wanted Kirk dead? Just think about that for a moment. Notwithstanding the obvious difference in the appearance of the ageing actor, this must be the most ludicrous claim I ever heard.
Most people who enjoyed Kirk's earlier career (and Shatner's earlier performances) would surely have mourned the passing of a legend. What kind of person would so revile a one-time hero just because he's become middle-aged? Such an unpleasant attitude can only be described as nihilist.
Trekkers represent perhaps the most forward looking of us, and they're mostly a relatively optimistic bunch. If this particular club has now given itself up to nihilism then we're surely completely f*cked as a society. Who else is there to believe in the future if not them?
The only other possible explanation of such an extreme reaction is that most younger Trek fans are, though not wholly nihilist, at least contemptuous of people over some arbitrary age limit. I refuse to believe that the current generation of youngsters is that rotten.
Rather than either of these, it seems much more credible that you made this claim up to bolster your own minority opinion.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
people only whined about TNG for a couple years at most. it got to be a good series after about two to three years. voyager, however, is on its 6th(?) year and still has the STUPIDEST writing and ideas for shows. i remember a poll or a news article a while back and all anyone did was bash voyager, paticularly its lame writing and show ideas and acting (i want to kill the person who casted captain janeway sometimes). i only watch it to fulfill my star trek watching addiction if you will, which i got from growing up with TNG.
Anyone who has seen voyager knows that the current Star Trek idea is over. Insurection sucked and so does voyager. They should've ran with that idea of doing a show about Captain Sulu and the U.S.S excelsior. The old series never went bad
STAR TREK WILL NEVER DIE! People are interested in space and science. I found the writer to be very negative toward Star Trek. First Contact is one of my favorite movies. I would agree that Insurrection wasn't all that great but that happens in show business. Bad movies are created. I'm a loyal fan of Star Trek and I will be at the front of the line at the next movie. Here's my point: there's a following. When there's a following, more movies will follow. STAR TREK RULES!!!!!
...in other words, turn ST into a REAL soap opera... but having to read the soap opera rags at the checkout line to get the "dirt" on ST characters would be...um...tragic, to say the least. But it would be interesting to see some more soapy story lines, like maybe bring Wil Crusher back, but have some big Oedipus complex story line for awhile, where he curiously falls in love with a character that looks like his mom, maybe get David Gerrold ("Trouble with Tribbles") to write some more exploratory story lines (he likes to throw homosexuality into things... Not that this is bad, but it would/could at least spark some thinking about things) for it. But they'd have to lose the "starfleet is all-good". At least in ST5 (?), the one with that outpost in the neutral zone that Spock's half-brother got everyone to go on a snipe hunt, hinted that the goodly power of Starfleet wasn't everywhere the suns shown on the Starfleet Empire. But even DS9 was wimpy about stuff. No crime? Come on. No intrigue, except between the obvious stuff? Geez. OK, the stuff about the Dominion was OK, but it didn't seem much bigger to me than the station. It was hard to get a sense of just how bad the Dominion was, since everything still rotated around the station. Now if the Dominion had spies or moles in the Starfleet Council, or Dominion-sympathetic SF officers (the "Braveheart" scenario, where Robert the Bruce totally SCREWS everyone). Starfleet politics was only hinted at occasionally. Anyone in the military knows how political it gets to keep moving along in rank. How come a series runs 7 years and no one on TNG or DS9 got promoted or transferred?
the problem is they keep doing the same stuff....space ships, meeting human like aliens.......etc.........DS9 was a cool change of pace. I think they need to change the focus to something they havent done before. What i dont know......but thats why i am a computer jock and not a screen writer ;)
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Now, obviously, they turned jms down. BUT, some bigwig decided that instead of a new scifi on a space station there should be a Trek on a space station. So, while jms was feverishly pitching his five year plan, Paramount went to constantly rip him off. Some evidence (partly from Starweek, the Toronto Star's TV guide thingy, partly from me):
But why at the same time? Easy. Paramount had to beat jms to the punch, so B5, not DS9, looked like a cheap ripoff.
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
Here we go with a thread of a few messages filled with memories of good things about Star Trek and an outpouring of non-stop "it sucks" messages from juveniles while they push their own debatably "better" choice.
I think I'll safely ignore this entire thread -- we've seen it all a thousand times before.
-- www.bteg.com | bleh.n3.net | hac47.dhs.org
Those stories, and many of the stories in the
original series, turned on constant elements of human nature.
Absolutely. My most favourite of all was the one where Picard, in just 25 minutes, lived a whole lifetime as an artisan in an alien society 10,000 years in the past.
The moment when his late wife friend and late best friend reappeared and he remembered who he was - and his disorientation when he returned; the memory of a whole lifetime and a dearly-loved family receding like a dream upon waking.
So beautifully understated, it was priceless (especially for an American show). Pass the tissues, please. Sniff.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
That was the second movie. But if I had to look at any of the Star Trek cast's tonsils, I think I'd prefer those of Nichelle Nichols. Yowza!
And the brethren went away edified.
All good things come to an end. Is it really all that bad of a thing? Perhaps it is better to stop, rather than create the same old same old, or other dissapointing material.
B5 was pretty good if you don't mind the sometimes trite dialog. I've been watching Farscape lately and have actually been digging it. The writers don't as obviously moralize at you, and they hardly ever seem to have to pull some plot device out of their ass at the last minute to resolve all the problems, something that the TNG writers were particularly fond of doing. Oh, yeah, and the aliens are much more believable. None of this "Bumps on the forehead makes someone an alien and everyone can interbreed." Rodenberry started that and he may have been a good writer but he obviously never took a High School biology class.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
*sigh* I miss Bones.....
As a franchise... They've covered just about everybase. I wouldn't mind seeing one or two more Next Generation movies. I really hope they don't start up any half-assed syndicated TV show though.
OK, it's kind of a splitting hairs issue, since if you like the old series anyway you probably like it (among other things) because it was cheesy. The characteristic soundtrack while Kirk fights the rubber monster to save the scantily-clad alien woman who's somewhere between a 60's kind of beautiful and "creepy", the Irwin-Allen-esque stage tumbling when the ship's hit, etc. For anyone who enjoys the old series, it's pretty much impervious to scrutiny.
The old series had its high points, and its low points, as did the old-series movies... (In fact, I think Star Trek 2 and 6 are the only good ones of the bunch.) The series did some good stuff, being partly inspired on occasion by good sci-fi.. but it also had issues - budget, censorship/network influence, and Roddenberry's (I think it was Roddenberry's) supremely lame, sort of hippie-ish idea that understanding, time, and technology could lead to a future humanity with virtually no conflict except from alien influence. IMO this is where the old series really went sour.
Star Trek is just (and has been for quite some time) massively overrated. It probably only stood out in the first place because there's virtually no decent-quality sci-fi on US television. And every stage of the Star Trek thing has had its good and bad points. Yeah, even Voyager's done some good stuff. I think all the series had a lemon of a first season (except original, which had a lemon of a last season)...
Oh, and whoever wants to be a shithead and tell us all why we shouldn't waste time discussing this can just get on their knees and suck it. Like it or not, Star Trek is a major fixture of US culture, and it may be on its way out. I won't miss it.
---GEC
Bow-ties are cool.
I know it's far too late for a posting to get any attention, but I just feel like getting this off my chest. Congratulations for having the perseverance to get down to this post.
This article is rather poorly-written, which is unfortunate, because it comes close to being very interesting. Fundamentally, the problem is that the author is unwilling to recognize the difference between his own opinion, and factual reporting. In the genuinely factual areas, this article is fascinating, but it is ruined by the author's tendency to liberally sprinkle his own opinions through it, presenting them as equally factual reporting.
For starters, the author is obviously a trekkie. This already bodes ill- people form very strong opinions about things they care about, and often find it difficult to separate those opinions from fact. In this case, the author is obviously from the "Original Series was the high point" camp of Trek thought. This is not a problem, but his refusal to even acknowledge the validity of the other camps is, especially when he takes his opinion as the premise for his argument that Berman is responsible for the death of Trek.
He even lets his perceptions distort the facts "Generations," FYI, did not debut "just weeks" after Paramount pulled TNG's plug. And Paramount's "screwy" DVD release schedule makes perfect sense when you consider that a DVD-quality print of Star Trek I is a *teeny* bit harder to get hold of than a corresponding print of, say, "Insurrection." His point about the lackluster quality of the discs is well taken, except that they haven't exactly given Berman's pet Next Generation films that star treatment either, suggestion that the problem is higher up than Berman.
Personally, I see Trek as having come in 3 phases (he sees only two). These were the Original Series, the Next Generation, and the DS9/Voyager era. The latter is defined by UPN and Paramount's explicit desire to make the series into cash cows, with the resulting emphasis on cheap ratings tricks like action and soap-opera. To my mind, this is what killed Trek. The most recent 2 series, to be sure, show gleams of brilliance here and there, but the average quality has gone sharply downhill.
The point is, there are a great many people like me, weaned on TNG, who regard it as a worthwhile entity in its own right. It may be somewhat different from the Original Series, but it has its own identity, which many of us would still regard as Trek.
The factual parts of this article are fascinating- the inside look at the intra-Trek animostities between Nimoy and Berman, and the portrayal of the various sides in the battle for Trek's future, were very interesting. However, he severly dilutes his journalistic effectiveness by rejecting out of hand any possiblity of the validity of one side in that debate. As a result, this article becomes little more than an opinion piece whining about how much better things were in the old days.
As one final comment, I agree with several other posters that the best hope for Trek is that it can be given a rest for a while, to find its center and restore some balance. In fact, this supposed "death" may be a blessing in disguise- if Trek is no longer a sacred cash cow for Paramount, it may be possible to take it in more worthwhile, less profit-motivated directions.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" -Salvor Hardin
Yeah, but Fall_Line sucks ass.
some people just have no sense of humour :-)
Set the show at the end of time, when all is known and everything
can be set to exactly as you wish.
What do people do when anything is possible? What would they really want?
Would they want to be in a world completely at peace? Would they instead want
to live in a fantasy of conflict, strife the unknown. All the people in the
federation say they want to live in peace above all things; but, why then do
they seek situations where violence and risk are guaranteed?
Follow a group of people as they enter their own creations. See if
they choose a peaceful universe or do they get bored and opt instead for a
world of adventure with its collory of injustice and pain? See the all the
consequences of their actions laid out before them. See if they choose some
ignorance of the future in order to have excitement. See if they choose to
come into their worlds believing it to be an end in itself, with no
remembrance of how they used to live. How much foreknowledge will they really
want? Do they end up wanting to live in a world similar to our own even though
they could have everything.
I'd like to see a knowledge singularity and what others would want in
their wildest imaginings.
Maybe the problem with Trek at the moment is that its original mission is played out and old. Space has already been explored and how much more can you discover? Maybe instead of focusing a main plot on exploration aspect of the series, maybe screenwriters should try other approaches.. How about a Starfleet Academy series? Lots of personalities, races, conflicts within the community, threats from infiltrating aliens, occasional away missions for training, etc. Maybe the point is not to make a series about ever-exploring ships; how about focusing on static environments with dynamic plots (like DS9 or Babylon 5). Of course, opening the series to missions and exploration adds ideas.. I find the Voyager series pretty cool.. maybe only because I missed a few seasons and the reruns I see every night now is like a season premiere! However, I did find some of the episodes lacking in depth and good conclusions (Demon, The Phage).
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Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
As long as we're dreaming, I'd like to suggest that the next movie be based on Peter David's novel Q-in-Law . They wanted to make this into a TNG episode, but there was too much red tape in the way or something; I don't know the whole story. With the two most memorable recurring guests in the franchise around, it would be an absolute blast.
Too bad it'll never happen. Oh well. At least I have the book.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Prople will probably post a billion messages on this thread about Babylon 5... here's another one.
IMO, this is one very positive edge B5 has always had over Star Trek. When the original B5 series started, it was started with a fixed scope (5 years). A single story, beginning, middle, end, Straczynski planned out what he wanted the series to be and did it. It's a pretty good idea - figure out what you want to do, do it, then (hopefully) go on to something different. Star Trek sometimes did this on a per-episode basis... but all the episodes of all the series have a lot in common, so potential for innovation is really pretty limited. I think it's gotten to the point where more Star Trek is just "more".
BTW, Michael Dorn, TV's Lieutenant Work from TV's Star Trek: The Next Generation, gives a stunning performance as I. M. Weasel.
---GEC
Bow-ties are cool.
Nonsense. How exactly would a human detect such racial and/or cultural differences among a completely alien society? Compared to the yaening gulf between us and them, such differences would likely be very subtle, perhaps invisible.
And you claim cultural variety amongst Federation humans, yet they all speak American English - even O'Brien who is Irish (not Scottish as you claimed).
I don't think there is any evidence that the aliens were being stereotyped any more than was necessary for the plot. After all, for storytelling reasons each species had to have some identifiable characteristic that made them different from humans and the same as each other. Later, once the species characteristics had been established, individual differences would be explored: Spock's human emotional side, Quark's occasional generosity, Odo's loneliness, Worf's sensitivity.
Actually in the time-honoured manner of Hollywood, all these differences got over-exploited to the extent where each of these characters was in danger of becoming the exact opposite of what they were supposed to be. Spock and Data both became the most likely characters to have an emotional outburst; Worf the most likely to have a 'relationship' with someone (or to break up or get rejected and go off all hurt); Quark the most likely to sacrifice profit for some higher purpose. Personally I deplore this aspect of the show. Such relentless anthropomorphism simply undermined the strength of the alien characters making them less unique in the context of their colleagues, rather than adding dimension to them.
As regards Roddenberry's putative racism: in the shows which were truly Roddenberry's (the original series) it was plainly stated in several episodes that though 23rd-century humans all lived and worked together, they each took pride in their own individual cultural and racial inheritance. Uhura in her African lineage, Sulu in his Japanese ancestry, Chekhov in his Russian origins (how could you have forgotten that - it was even a running joke!) In many ways the bridge crew of the original Enterprise was a shining example of the multicultural society to which all civilised nations today aspire.
I think this pretty much disproves any notion that Roddenberry was racist.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Two Words:
:-))
Mulder. Scully.
After all, they're both quitting the X-Files, so Paramount can just pay them obscene amounts of money and steal them!
--
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Everything popular's done some merchandizing. B5 has pretty much the same lineup of shitty little toys, novelizations, comics, etc... It's not selling out by any measure. The potential is there, the people who have the opportunity are taking advantage of it.
:)
- The books are trash because they're written for people who aren't interested in reading a good book. They're supermarket impulse-buys, wanna-be bestsellers, etc. You get the same from most any book based on movies or TV. If you want to get moralistic, you could say that they're a full step up from trashy romance novels.
- The same (sadly) goes for comics. American (US at least) comics are shit. Few exceptions.
- IMO the lameness of the movies are as much a product of the times as anything. Not many (again, US) movies today go for any kind of quality. Maybe that's true of any decade..
Oh, and B5 hasn't quite gone. I believe TnT still runs it at 7AM. In a perverse kind of way, this is actually better exposure than Voyager gets on UPN prime time. It's true that TnT cut Crusade tho - it turns out that they didn't have room in their lineup for another non-western, and the old "Wagon train to the stars" routine didn't cut it.
---GEC
Bow-ties are cool.
OK, I'm not a Microsoft fan, but pointless MS bashing really isn't that cool anymore. It's the same advice I give to people who are obsessively intimidated by Barney or the Teletubbies - get over it, move on, there are more important things to worry about.
---GEC
Bow-ties are cool.
I don't think static character relationships are good. the problem isn't that the relationships are dynamic. The problem happens when the writers stop making the relationships dynamic. Then the plot becomes annoying.
DS9 actually got better by the end.
Contrast that to voyager. Here's an example dialog.
Paris: Hey Harry (Kim), you plan on checking out those babes on rigel 4?
Kim: (ignoring paris) I'm just going to relax on my shore leave.
Belanna: Tom! I don't understand why you're just gabbing about babes like some silly adolescent when you were supposed to meet me in the mess hall.
Tom: hey,pumpkin, it's just (lame excuse here)
Tuvok on intercom: Ensign Kim, please report to the bridge.
on bridge--
Janeway: Mr. Tuvok informs me that you left a tricorder on the alien planet. that's a security violation and very close to violating the prime directive. You--
Tuvok: captain, I would caution you on your course of action. I've observed you over the years, and I know what you're going to do. you plan on reprimanding kim and sending him to quarters.
Janeway: One of these days, I'm going to surprise you Tuvok, but not today. Move it, Kim.
Kim marches out, 7of9 walks in, sees kim and comments.
7of9: you seem distressed, ensign.
kim ignores her goes out.
Chakote speaks to janeway in a hushed voice. Chakote:Don't you think you were a little hard on him?
Janeway: He's an ensign. when he learns the ropes I can loosen them.
(this of course ignores the fact that kim's been an ensign for 4 or more years)
There. now you don't have to watch 80% of the voyager shows, since you have that formula.
The problem with voyager is that they don't make the character relationships change unless there's some big deal, like paris and torres getting together.
I mean, how many times does the goddamn holodeck have to break before they decide that maybe, perhaps they should turn it off?
How many times do cars have to crash before you stop driving?
And holodecks are better, you can have sex in them
Okay, I'll preface this by saying that during the 3rd season, I saw a ST:TNG rerun at 10 PM. I started watching them daily. After a few weeks, I learned when the show was on, and started watching the new shows. I still watched the reruns until I had seen them all. I then remembered seeing an early ST:TNG epsiode with my father, but not really appreciating it... ST:IV is the first movie that I remember seeing in theaters (although I didn't remember the movie itself...), so I've subconsciously been destined to love Star Trek.
:)
I now love watching TOS reruns, terrific trash Sci-fi, which I love.
Now, what made ST so cool was the story lines. When DS9 came out, I thought they show kicked ass. I loved the political intrigue and back dealing. Unfortunantly, the nature of the story was for Sisko to tackle the station and bring everything into line. This of course would mitigate the intrigue, and should have led to the end of the show. Instead the contrived war kicked in and I was turned off to the show.
Voyager was stupid from the beginning. The characters simply didn't interest me, and after a few weeks, I stopped.
The reason ST:TNG was so good, IMHO, is that it was a new show to stand on its own, with the advantages of being Trek. Because ST fans would watch it, the show could afford to spend a few episodes building up the characters without jumping into an action show. This is a tremendous advantage a new Trek show would get, they are guaranteed 4-6 weeks before needing to produce. For that reason, I think they Paramount should start Trek shows midseason with months of hype so that we all look foward to it, and they need to produce a handful of epsiodes before getting a long break to figure out how to bring the show into season 2.
One area that I felt wasn't developed is the Federation as a real, livable, world. We've seen snippets of Star Fleet Command (ST:VI), and a scene of the council (ST:IV), but no attempts to really flesh out the universe.
A Star Fleet Academy show would have the potential to do so. If you pick your characters right, you could show the Federation in a new light. Essentially, the way ST:TNG was about ideal humans, ST:SFA (can I be the first to coin the acryonym?) would be about "ideal college" kids. In an era when young people are under siege and society doesn't know what to do, Paramount could display idealist youngsters. Instead of stupid romance/dumb stuff (Star Trek: 90210 would be HORRIBLE), they could focus on people whose ambitions can put on the line and whose desires are noble. By showing this side of people, much could be accomplished. This would, in my opinion, be a Good Thing.
There are not enough current events and dillemmas to run two shows. As a result, concentrating on one would allow solid storylines. Unfortunantly, Berman couldn't experiment even if he wanted to. Destroying Star Trek to the fans would hut financially for no reason, so as a large franchise, there is limited flexibility. A ST:SFA accademy would be low risk, but it could be solid.
Shrug, I really liked Wesley Crusher. As a middle school student, an intelligent teenager getting an opportunity to excel was an inspiration to me. A SFA series would be like that on steroids.
Just please, no Space Camp ripoffs of them launching into space to fight the Borg...
Ok, yes I'm too nitpicky.. a) It's "Westley" not "Wesley" b) That was just the movie adaptation.. it was actually Fezzik's mother who originally said that, but since she was totally edited out of the movie they had to throw the line in somehwere... Sorry =) I'm done now! btw: it is nice to see that somebody other than me likes the movie.. hehe.. "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
Some people have them implanted...like the ferengis. (Remember Little Green Men?)
After reading that article, there are only two series that I can think of which are currently in the same predicament at Star Trek. Those being Doctor Who, and Babylon5.
Doctor Who is a bit older than Trek, and it did survive and even prosper long after the original Trek series ended. Because of it's unbroken nature (26 years is a long time) we can see the gradual changes in directors, writing staffs, and story editors.
It's easy to draw a comparison between the final seventh Doctor and the current Trek series, Voyager. Both represent the end of the line, bearing little resemblance to what the series was in the beginning, however surviving on that last bit of nostalgia.
Doctor Who is ahead of Trek, it's already been put to bed, revived once, proven unsuccessful, and put to bed again, only to be picked up by some new blood and possible theatrical movies.
If Doctor Who does come back, the future of Trek becomes a lot less hazy. It will show, that given the appropriate rest, a series can come back.
Babylon5 is on the other end, it's alot younger than Trek, and after an original successful series it's branching out into the "franchise" business, even though JMS was so against the very thought just three years ago. It's already had a spinoff, which has proven very unsuccessful, and is currently in that same limbo original Trek was 25 years ago. Whether Babylon5 makes the jump to theatrical movies is the question. If it is, then it will become the next Trek and probibly end up in the situtation in about 20 years.
"You are The One who Was, you are The One who Is, and you are the One who Will Be. You are the beginning of the story, the middle of the story, and the end of the story, which begins the next, great, story" -Zathras
Doctor Who is The One Who Was
Star Trek is The One Who Is
Babylon5 is The One Who Will Be
Oh, come on. Terry Farrell was a centerfold girl I admit but Nana Visitor, though certainly presentable, is hardly a major babe in the conventional sense of the term. It just goes to show how girl-starved geeks will fixate on any visible female. If you ever worked in an IT department that was all guys and just one (reasonably attractive) girl then you'll know what I mean.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
When ST:TOS started it was possibly the most radical things on air. It had a half-breed alien first officer, a Russian helmsman and a black, female communications officer. At the time these were almost revolutionary. In the USA Martin Luther King was telling the KKK about his dream, and in the UK Enoch Powell was prophesying "rivers of blood". But Star Trek showed the world what King's dream looked like, and that image profoundly altered our society.
Today we have Commander Benjamin Sisko. He has a son and a dead wife. Oh, and by the way, he's black and his best friend is a young alien woman who used to be an old man, and is in a relationship with a Klingon. So whats new?
In many ways we owe this acceptance to Trek. But at the same time that acceptance is the death knell for Trek. We have learned what Trek had to teach us. Like all successful young revolutionaries, Trek has grown up and become part of the new Establishment.
What Science Fiction needs is not more Trek, or even just better Trek, but something new. Something that challenges our assumptions, and especially our contradictions, in the way that Trek challenged those of the 60s and 70s. I don't know what that thing is going to look like, but I don't think it will look much like Trek.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
moral trek?p isode-in-the-name-of-what-is-right-and-jus t-(for-humans) trek?
same-body-different-head trek?
dynasty trek?
flagrantly-flout-the-prime-directive-in-every-e
equality trek?
PC trek?
i used to love star trek, but as i grow older (im 26) i see through it more and more. in all the series the stories are nothing short of lame and the show owes more to exploring their personalirties that it does to exploring space.
gimme B5 any day.
its not even real SF, so many fantastic and impossible elements support its inconsistent soap opera structure... DS9 was closer, but quickly degenerated into half space opera/half soap opera. 'The Outer Limits' is the only gem in the pile of shit that has been American television SF. Let David Cronenberg direct the next Trek film, with Clive Barker and Harlan Ellison on the script. yeah, that's the ticket...
I see what you're saying but I think you're ignoring the fact that the epic/saga has been around as an art form for a long time. It's altogether a different sort of thing than a standalone novel. There are certain narrative benefits to long stories. Plenty of intelligent people read them in book form, and sa far as TV is concerned, Trekkers in general are supposed to be fairly intelligent aren't they?
Having said that there is little doubt that book publishers are prone to the same sort of poor judgement as studio execs: "it sold before so it'll sell again". Just look at Larry Niven's sequel to Ringworld Engineers. Ugh.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
There was a lot of very thought-provoking stuff about politics and history in the last two instalments though. Prbblem is you need an IQ of about 250 to understand it all. I sometimes wonder about FH. I think he was somewhere on a different level.
If he only knew Kevin Anderson was writing a sequel he'd surely be turning in his grave. That guy writes the most awful trash.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
It's too late. The Borg had some good potential (and the 1990 cliffhanger was great) but they got ruined in the "Hugh" episode. Kinder, gentler Borg? No thank you. TNG had a good thing going, and they threw it away.
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Riker:
(Shudder)
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
"The concept of aliens on the other side of the galaxy all looking alike, speaking fluent English, and efficiently use anarchisms and idioms just doesn't stand up in my mind"
Well for me, it's not so much that they do that in Voyager it's more of the fact that some of the episodes have gotten *REALLY* boring to be honest. Just tonight I was watching a rerun of Voyager. It was the one about Where Paris and Kim are playing in the holodeck as Capt. Proton, and the ship gets stuck in subspace and then some holodeck like aliens think the Capt. Proton people are real but the humans are fake. Which to me was really boring to watch because A)9999.9% of the episode was in Black and White, only the commericals were in color B) the whole Capt. Proton thing they show is compleatly boring. Then in the end it seems the episode was about nothing.
I've been disapointed with the show in general lately. You can usually figure out what's going to happen at the end within the first 15 minutes of watching the episode these days. It's pretty boring. Although I still seem to watch them hoping to see a good one, which you do sometimes.
So pretty much for Voyager it comes and goes. I never really had much of a problem watching ST:TNG though, I've probably seen each episode about 3 or 4 times, but only because a local TV station has been showing reruns of ST:TNG 5 days a week for about the last 2 years or so. They have a good time slot for it too because there's nothing else on TV.
So lately espically with Voyager it seems to come and go, but I think they could do a ton more with it than what they're doing it seems the writters just aren't there or something. DS9 was ok, I didn't like it in the begging but I started getting into it in the last 3 seasons of the show.
As for putting the show to rest, I think it would be weird not having a new episode of Star Trek on, seeing as the show has been on the air half my life. I've seen a new episode every week for pretty much half of my life. Which when you think about it is pretty impressive so maybe in the end it's best just to put it to rest for good? Who knows, either way I'll still watch the show as long as they don't get *REALLY* boring with it.
Come to think of it, I think there's still room for a series like the original Star Trek shows (speaking of TOS and TNG here).
Intelligent stories that make people think.
The only problem Star Trek is having right now is that the new shows are too different from the original ideas behind Trek (did any of the more recent DS9 episodes have a real message? If so, I just got too stupid to notice), and (definitely for me, probably for most of us) not as good.
The problem is that they're doing a lot of stuff to "attract" more viewers - more special effects, bigger explosions, a Borg superficial people get interested in by just looking at her, not by knowing the character -- at the cost of the storylines. They may be attracting a new audience, but they're quickly losing people who liked the idea behind the older shows.
The Free Film Project (http://www.freefilm.za.org/) is trying to do a "Original Star Trek'ish" film at the moment - let's see what that gets us (and let's participate... It's opensourced!)
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Now that is something I never thought anyone would want to do: rip off Battle Beyond The Stars.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Yes, of course. Did anyone know differently?
Voyager was an attempt. and a bad one. an attempt at what I cant say, if you dont know from just the word "attempt" then well.. I cant help you.
The problem with Star Trek is that it got too big to do any good anymore.
it's like.. oh.. I dont know, star trek.
It started out small, a Constitution Class vessel that had just breached the great barrier and through this had gained several crewmembers that were able to strangle people with power cables and such.
That was great, simple, small. the edge of the galaxy! I mean imagine that- yhow can we do bigger?
And then throughout the serii it got bigger.. and bigger, And eventually the entire galaxy was taken, and colonized, and such. And now we're getting time travel and transwarp and aliens that can do anything but like to pick on humans, and it's just too big.
If you have a solar system it's ok, until you want to go bigger, then you do so, and now you have several. Maybe even a galaxy isnt too bad, as long as you play your cards right.
But with Multiple Galaxys all of wich travel through time and can go wherever they want- it just loses it's point
it's something that can no longer be televised.
Everything has it's curve. Most are straight up then down, or just straight down. Star Trek has been choking us and beating us to death for far too long to be fun anymore.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch voyager.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I've always wondered why they couldn't an episode from the perspective of another race. Why not have a Series hosted by, or from the perspective of Q. Since he's Since he's all-knowing, He could just focus on any race, any where, and at any time. He could show how the romulan empire came to be. Or how 19th century earth nearly avoided a catastrophy thanks to the vulcans. Or what about an episode on some of the dirty things, that Section 31 has done that no one knows about. Has anyone thought about such an idea? If paramount is reading this, You have my permision to use these ideas.
Do not read this
The quick, off-the hip response to this suggestion is that what you propose is merely a cut down Outer Limits which uses Star Trek backgrounds. Outer Limits works (occasionally) due to the strength of the writing. It cannot survive on characters becase there are no consistant characters from week to week.
The second response is one based on the tail of the first -- that the setting is irrelevant to the success or failure of a TV show (or movie). If you read the Salon article, you see that the author of the piece gets it: writing is what drives a TV show, and character is what keeps the audience coming back week after week.
Character is driven by the actors, yes, but it is also driven by the writers. The writers have to get inside the heads of the characters, become them, know them better than they know themselves. This is why the first episode/half-season of a series always, always sucks. The first part of a series is to sell you on the premise. After that, after we've stopped gawking at all the pretty lights and toys and started accepting them as reasonable, we start to get more concerned with the characters and the story.
Would B5 have been the same had Sheridan not been written so strongly? Or the stories?
Having guest writers means there is no continuity, the writers are not around long enough to know the characters. There isn't a master plan, and things don't go anywhere. And if B5 did anything, they raised the bar in that long term series now should go somewhere. Just lurking about in space trading witty dialogue with the alien du jour just doesn't cut it any more. Audiences get bored, they need to want to know what happens next -- next scene, next segment, next week.
Asside: was I the only one that noticed that ST:DSN started to have an arc (the Dominion) that drove the story almost immediately after it became aparrent that B5 had one?
Without interesting or developing characters, there is simply no point unless the stories are strong enough to stand on their own. And Outer Limits has shown a few stinkers in their time.
I'd like to apologize for the tone of this post, I didn't mean for it to come out this harshly. I just don't think this is such a great idea.
--
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
Erm, do you know what a collective is? A collective is a cooperative enterprise owned and run by its members, with any profit shared equally amongst them.
Microsoft is a commercial entity which is run by paid employees, and exists to sell its products to others, in order to make a profit which is distributed to shareholders (who may or may not also be employees), on the basis of their ownership shares. It is the antithesis of a collective.
Incidentally, voluntary software projects have much in common with collectives. Moreover, most commercial entities behave the same way as Microsoft. Unless you're some sort of hippie living in a commune, who avoids all commercial products, you support these practices on a daily basis.
How all of this relates to the Star Trek franchise is a mystery to me.
Then there was Star Trek cartoon which went
away (and is never mentioned, and I have never seen, must have been bad).
Filmation did it - same outfit that did "Lassie's Rescue Rangers". Eeek!
Actually the stories weren't really distinguishably different in tone from those of the "real" series and the voices were done by the original crew (mostly). But the animation and the music were absolutely shite.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Then, they added 7 of 9. While most of the viewers today, only watch it because of Jeri Ryan, I think it is a cheap publicity stunt. She adds nothing of value to the series.
...
How dare you say that! She has the best pair of breasts in the Delta quadrant
Actually, that Voyager episode with the Borg Queen first aired during the last season. I don't know the exact date, but it was even after Insurrection came to the theatres. The Borg do have time travel. Maybe First Contact is in the future of that Voyager episode. Maybe that was a clone. Maybe that was another queen. Who knows. Just think of it as entertainment.
Put Shatner and/or Nimoy in charge. If possible, Shatner and Nimoy.
I can see three possible outcomes to this course of action:
- They save the "feel" of the Trek universe and get it back to glory.
- They do a mediane job but people like it anyway because after all it's Shatner and Nimoy.
- They do a very lousy job, which will probably make a lot of downright fans realize they're human and maybe even "get a life".
LaloWho is a Trekkie, not a Trekker, by all means
I will give the latter series credit for the whole Borg thing, which was a very cool concept.
;-)
:->
Good point. While Voyager tends to be hit and miss, I thought the recent two-hour Borg Queen episode was pretty good.
At this point, though, about the only thing that will get me tuning in is some good old fashioned lesbian action.
Seven and B'Elanna in zero G...
--
A man who wants nothing is invincible
i wouldn't say that season 6 and 7 were different from the rest of the series. the episode 'Tapestry' was the first episode of trek i watched and to this day is still my favorite. The series final was also one of the best TNG episodes.
From the mega-rant:
I laughed for about 30 seconds. :-)
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Two points:
The moment when his late wife friend and late best friend reappeared and he remembered who he was - and his disorientation when he returned; the memory of a whole lifetime and a dearly-loved family receding like a dream upon waking.
So beautifully understated, it was priceless (especially for an American show). Pass the tissues, please. Sniff.
YES. I thought I was the only one who remembered that episode? That was without a doubt the best Star Trek (any series) ever. It played like an adaptation of, say, a really good Arthur C. Clarke short story, or maybe another author of his era and caliber.
--
"HORSE."
"HORSE."
-Flaming Carrot
If you want to know why the creaking Star Trek universe has to be retired, the Star Trek Mega-Rant makes it very clear indeed.
--
Xenu loves you!
Please re-read my post. I said that Shatner did a poor job with the middle-aged version of Kirk. I did not say that a middle-aged character or actor is a bad thing. Shatner's middle-aged Kirk is boring. Stewart's older Picard is not. The movie didn't need Shatner to carry it, but some itchy movie execs decided that it had to play the Kirk card while it had a chance to.
A large portion of the theater did in fact cheer. Half is a reasonable estimate - I did not count. The cheering was loud and not directional. You can call this nihilism.
I'm a huge Trek fan, though pehaps not a "Trekker" by your definition. I've been a huge fan since I was a kid, after the original series but before the "Next Generation". When I was young, I read Trek novels by the dozen looking for a Star Trek fix. I still look forward to a future as bright as Trek. I think most science fiction fans like the way that future looks. The problem is that too many Trek fans treat any story handed down by Paramount as a great thing, without looking at it on it's own merits. Likewise, blind devotion to Shatner's performances seems to be a trait shared by your class of Trekker as well.
My objective opinion, and the opinion of most people who watched T.J. Hooker and the rest of Shatner's post-original series work is that the man is a poor actor. He was a perfect fit for the original scripts - brash and arrogant. But the time had passed for the Kirk character, played by Shatner, to retire. He doesn't portray brash and arrogant very well now that he doesn't move around so well. Many of the hand-to-hand combat scenes he's been involved in have been comical. His acting is comical, irrespective of his age. Patrick Stewart can portray an older Captain with style. Connery could do it. Any number of older actors could carry off the role. Shatner, however, can't.
I mourned the passing of Spock. I've mourned the passing of DeForest Kelley. But asking me to mourn a character, who died in a poorly constructed scene in a less than compelling movie is a little much. One of the few things that I agree with the original article's author on is that the Kirk character deserved a better death. The way he went was just fine - but he died in a movie that was set up for him to die, not with the original cast memmbers on hand to mourn him, but with Jean-Luc Picard to survive him. He had no place in a movie that should have been about the new crew. No torch needed to be passed, and certainly not in that way.
In summary, I cheered, and I don't consider myself a nihilist. I made up nothing. I'm a Trek fan, but not blindly devoted to all things Trek.
The studio for the original series was Desilu, which was purchased by Paramount later.
The interesting thing about that is that Paramount wasn't even interested in Star Trek or really any of Desilu's shows at the time. They just wanted their lot. So really, Paramounts "cash cow" is really quite unintentional on Paramount's part.
My journal has hot
In sci fi, space stations have been around almost as long as space ships. You might as well complain that both shows are ripping off Battlestar Galactica.
2.A portal that opens up so ships can go to far away places. On B5 it was a hyperspace portal, which works quite like
As far as we know, there is only one wormhole in the Star Trek universe. In Babylon 5, everybody uses jump points to travel, with the exeption of some of the older races (like the shadows).
3.Both series got a ship the same week.
As I recall, the Defiant was introduced one season before the White Star (could be wrong on this one). But in any case its irrelevant, as you generally need ships to get between stations and planets.
4.B5 had a telepath named Lyta. DS9 had a Daboo girl named Leeta.
Yeah, one is a telepath who was changed by the Vorlons, the other is a ditzy daboo girl with big boobs. Other than the name, what do they have in common?
5.Letter-number, letter-letter-number.
TNG, TOS, B7 were abbriviations too, they must also be ripoffs of B5. Wait, those shows came out long before B5, and two of them were Star Trek series.
6.Paramount started using the same CG company Babylonian productions was using.
DS9 had some CGI for the special effects, but they still used models for the ships. B5 used CGI for a lot of the fx and all spaceships, space stations etc.
If you want to flame Paramount, there are plenty of of ways to do so without pulling lame generalities out of your ass.
My recomendation to the industry if they don't want everything to go out in the open real quick would be to get some software decoder out for linux for FREE real real fast. Otherwise it will be cracked and with the big drives (200GB anyone) coming real quick there is no issue to talk about.
my 2cents
That's the most intelligent, well thought-out idea I've ever heard anybody say about Star Trek in a long time. Now if only you worked for Paramount... :)
:) ... half hour short, one hour show, perhaps with commentary (ala the Sci-Fi Channel's Star Trek 2nd Edition) and then maybe even another half-hour short....
Something like that would even work as a set of specials, with 2 one-hour stories. Another idea would be to pair your idea with classic episodes from TOS, TNG, DS9 (but not voyager because it sucks too bad
My journal has hot
It's the writing, stupid (not you, Mr. Nebular, I'm addressing Mr. Berman).
The reason that the franchise is in trouble is that they're taking too much water out of the well. The big problem with Voyager and Ds9 was that there just weren't enough stories in the current creative team to cover all the territory. Half of the last DS9 season was simply creative treading of water. Insurrection wasn't bad, it just didn't have a story that justified a full feature film treatment. If you just took the best stories between the two series during the course they ran together, you would have had a hell of a series.
I expect the current season of Voyager to be a great improvement on the last, but I'm reasonably certain its time for some new writing blood.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It is true that the aliens in Star Trek are basically just humans with bits of make-up added, and I see many people complaining about that. But anybody who does, does not truly understand Star Trek. That includes you. Star Trek is about telling a story, making us think, letting us see a future which we wish could be our own. It is NOT about showing off fancy make-up and alien languages, or getting bigger and bigger guns and blowing up more and more things. Star Trek is smart, it is one of the only truly intelligent shows that has ever been run on television, and it is unfortunate that people mock it for being a show that is for the mind more than the eyes. Star Trek is smart. It always has been. Then they brought in Voyager (NOT DS9, which was a very refeshing, well-done series), and made a mess. The problem with Voyager, is that it is aimed at a different audience than TNG. It's aimed at people who WANT to glare at large breasts and have lots of shooting and stupid decision making which only causes tense, violent situations. What Janeway needs to do is sit down and take a moment to, well, to think. And people like you need to be quiet, and let them tell decent stories.
TNG was uneven, and those who refuse to admit that should be made to watch the "planet of somewhat clad bodybuilders" episode from the first season until they cry "uncle". TNG had some great episodes. The first half of "The Best of Both Worlds" was some of the most exciting TV SF I've seen. The second half was a sorry excuse for the beginning of a season (make them go to sleep? This is a fearsome enemy?) But that's OK. Unevenness at least proved they were trying, aspiring to SOMETHING. Voyager is not... uneven. It's quite bland all the way through. Sigh. Sometimes I turn on the TV and find Voyager and hope too much. I watch what might be a good episode, and my roommate says "it's all going to be a dream, you know. They can't actually be allowed to change things in this series." He's always right, of course.
TOS was campy and sometimes truely bad (e.g. "Spock's Brain"), but there were times that that show succeded at something that TV SF had never done before (in the US anyhow): it made people THINK. There was a hue and cry over the inter-racial kiss. They even tried to explore (a little poorly, I admit) the phenomenon of hippies, which was a very touchy subject at the time (unless you were just slapping them down outright). They touched on the subjects of hatred, slavery and compassion. And, in the end it was just a much better show than TNG could ever have been because the studio was convinced it would fail. With TNG they would never have been allowed to show an actual gay couple kissing (in fact even a man-turned-woman kissing the Dr. goodbye was changed to a kiss on the wrist), but given the political climate of the times, that would be the exact political equivalent of the Kirk/Uhura kiss. I am not saying that this political topic had to be explored, but the fact that it could not be was quite telling.
Why couldn't TNG forge into unknown territory politically? Because the studio thought the show could be a success. It did not have TOS' luxury of assumed failure.
Same with Babylon 5 / Crusade. Straczynski was left alone to do Babylon 5, and challenged the viewers to re-invent TV SF in their minds. When he went to do Crusade, he found that the industry had never changed. He was just under their radar screen the first time around.
It's not really Rick Bremman or Gene Roddenbury or JMS or Majel Barrette-Roddenbury (pardon misspellings) who have caused any of this. They try to varying extents to make their shows great. But, Hollywood is a scary town and perceived profit is like chum in the water for sharks. The Ferrengi start to look like the good guys....
Star Trek was certainly an entertaining show but it never was a "truly intelligent" show. The "aliens" not only look like humans but they also think like humans (or I'd rather say they think like the average american). The "future" you see in Star Trek is only a decor with no substance (that's why Star Trek is not real science fiction). William Baric
I had thought that an anology show would be great when Voyager was first announced (shrouded in secrecy). The main character of Star Trek is the *setting* itself. It has a vastly unexplored history. The eugenics war, Capt. Pike's missions, early encounters with Tholians, etc.
Have a revolving cast. I think the fans are in it for the stories anyway.
I dunno. You could call it "Federation" to give it a wide enough scope.
It's Halloween & I'm stoned happy. I'll respond to you tomorrow.
...thanx for the good stifled laughter.
Briefly, Re: Mac's hardware, we gots tons. and Re: Ridiculous anti-M$ bullsh*t, it's true, and documented, which i'm sure you'll love to read.
a whole new series. B5 did a great job of doing a
big epic story. It was pretty good. If people did stuff of similar quality, but without the cheezy 'human in make-up' looking/acting aliens, without the cheezy 'beings of pure energy', or the 'psi' or 'life force' crap that was in B5, but keeping the good stuff like long stories slowly told over time, characters that grew and changed, etc, then that would really be nice.
There are a lot of ideas out there to explore. Getting stuck in the rut of Trek is just dull, no matter what the differences between the series. It's still in the same lame universe.
Well, to paraphrase Monty Python It's Not Dead Yet.
The only unqualified success in the franchise has been TNG. The logical thing, then, is to determine what made TNG a success and do more of it.
I think a lot of the reason TNG worked was Patrick Stewart. Partly his persona was big enough to fill the screen without overflowing into hamminess (or at least not on a regular basis), but I think he as an actor moved the writers in a particular direction. I think that the writers thought they were given, not some run-of-the-mill TV actor but by golly a classically trained RSC caliber thespian. As a result, they gave him a lot of overblown material that made him, well, sort of a geeky swashbuckler. In other words, the material was expansive, but the actor was restrained. This kind of reminds me of the way Gilbert and Sullivan must be played. No matter how wacky the line, the character must not be in on the joke.
I think the result is that the character of Picard is a balance of reflection and action. In a way, I see TNG's metastory as a meditation on how the stories we are the story we tell ourselves; how words and ideas inform our actions. That's why, at the end of the otherwise mediocre "Generations", Picard's little homily about the nature of time made the movie for me. Because it speaks to the part of our souls that need stories, to help us make sense of our experience.
I think the ensemble approach is a bad thing for Star Trek. There must be a single character who anchors the series, and while he or she doesn't have to be the focus of all the action, he should play a critical part in making sense of the actions of others. I think most of the best Picard moments in TNG are when he does this, when his words or ideas sway others.
The Starfleet Academy show could be a bad thing or a wonderful thing. I think it would be wonderful if it focused not on an ensemble of young people, but the people who mentor them.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well... the "arguably troublesome" bit was to cover my tail on God Emperor... which I don't mind as much and I think belongs. The final two, though... *yrgh*... maybe it's just the weird old couple at the end.
I think the first four were adequate. Of course, I was bugged by Paul by the end of the first book, and so didn't need much convincing that he was going to go and cause some trouble for the universe one way or the other.
Point taken, though. :)
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Michael Hall
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
Michael Hall
mph.puddingbowl.org
to get rid of one of the worst sci-fi series of all times. Ok, this is just a personal opinion, but anyone who likes science fiction (as opposed to sci-fi like star trek which has nothing to do with science) should automatically despise Star Trek...
Yes, I know, it's generated a lot of fans out there... but so has Barbie Doll, and other stupidities... Star Trek is just one of them... I mean how anthropocentric can you get? All aliens are just humans with little bits of make-up added? So what do they want to say? The human race is perfect? Or the fact that a guy who's supposedly Captain of a spaceship goes and leaves his duty to explore planets and put himself in danger... what's up with that? What do they want to say?
And then you suddenly realise the truth: They don't want to say anything. It's just a cheap popular sci-fi series...
Daniel
Carpe Diem
all those computer screens u see on ST are done with MACOS.... thats why Voyager is lost, Janeways still waiting on her g4
There are a lot of reasons why Trek is in the state that it's in, but the main ones are Rick Berman and Paramount itself. In some ways, the death of Trek started in its own popularity.
Trek is a massive cash cow for Paramount, a major franchise for them. Because of this, they're far less likely to do anything that would cut off that revenue flow. Basically, they can't take risks whith the story, because that might cause people to stop buying Trek stuff, and take a few precious pennies away from Paramount.
Rick Berman is equally afraid of losing that income, because it would mean him losing his job. Now, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that perhaps this is because higher-ups have tied his hands. He's not the kind of person who can revitalize the franchise.
By far, the best thing to do is to end Voyager gracefully and end the Trek franchise for a while. Bring it back with new blood in a few years, and bring it back to the spirit of the original, episodes and characters that actually take chances and make the audience think. Then, maybe, Trek can get back to where it should be.
Funnily enough, the "mega-rant" answers the very example you quote of police not explaining how their gun works...
...and anyway, I think the point you're making is the *same* point the rant is making: that Star Trek is fun so long as you don't try and pretend that it can be taken at all seriously, as many do.
--
Xenu loves you!
In a way i'm happy to(hopefully) see Trek go. I'm not sure who to blame, well maybe Paramount, they have run it into the ground with so many spinoffs, (crappy) video games, (mostly crappy) books, (shitty) comics and (stupid) little dollies. Even though i liked some eps of Next Gen, most of DS9 and Voyager are a joke, and nothing more than trying to breathe life into a dead series. A TOS movie, suggested by the article, could be cool but the plot would have to be outstanding for it to get ME to go watch it.
If Trek is to survive (and i'm not sure i want it to)Berman&co. will have to perform a serious miracle, and it's not likely to happen, the article is right, these guys don't have the imagination or balls to do it.
Ah, the irony, ST:Voy & DS9(in reruns) is still alive and a far better show, B5, is well nigh dead.
-------.sig----------- "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."--Wesley, "The Prince
While I like Voyager (season 3 is being shown right now), a possible solution is to made a new series which takes the mickey out of itself, perhaps by imagining an 'amalgam' type of alternative universe and setting a new series in this. A possible amalgam could be found with Star Trek and Doctor Who. Yes, who cares that the rights are owned by two companies but we fans can dream, can't we. Both series had a planet called Vulcan :)
Here are some urls which in some way are about a combination of both series:
TrekWho-L Mailing List -- check out William Donges' classic crossover fanfic between Star Trek and Doctor Who and more..
Paul Gadzihowski -- The Doctor (Who not the doc from Voyager!) meets up with Janeway, Kirk, Picard, Tuvok, Sisko, etc! lots of continuing fanfics on this theme (he even does a weekly comic strip). A quote from the latest update of this site: "The seventh Doctor leads Captain Picard to water, but won't make him drink." The quality is better than the actual show!
The fact that they had to bring in Jerry Ryan for sex appeal is pretty demeaning to science fiction...
Nothing new there -- TOS had Uhura and Yeoman Rand (as well as green-skinned alien babes) while TNG had Counselor Troi and DS9 had Dax and Major Kira...
--
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Nope... I'm not ignoring the existence of epics. I'm just acknowledging the unmitigated willingness to go back for more of the same on the part of the public, and the corrupting effect that has once the people shovelling the slop realize how low expectations will drop if it's a choice between the familiar and the new (and possibly challenging.) Several authors of some note have complained from time to time that their audiences will not let them walk away from a well-loved story. Indeed, Stephen King, Lord and Master of the formula, parodied the whole thing in Misery.
It also doesn't follow that since smart people read epics, and Trek fans are smart people, Trek must be worthy of the same respect or categorization as some sort of classical epic. It simply isn't. There isn't any coherence there to speak of outside of the vaunted "consistency" of the Trek "universe" in regards to technology and back story. This is not all moving toward some gestalt. This is Paramount squeezing and squeezing and squeezing. I challenge you to tell me how, for instance, the latest movie advanced some greater narrative agenda. No fair, by the way, outlining the morality play presented and claiming that Star Trek is all about recasting morality plays in sci-fi terms and so any movie with a morality play in it is part of some Trek epic.
I'm not going to deny that there's a benefit to telling a story across several volumes. Sometimes it grants the author a level of freedom to work at a reasonable pace but keep food on the table, too. On the other hand, the floundering, sopping mess that is Star Trek reflects no greater theme or arc. Simple economic opportunism is driving the train here. The article rightly points out that Berman et al wish the original series would go the hell away, and the last motion picture was, indeed, a collective clock-punching by a cast that clearly thinks walking through their parts and looking smug is quite enough for the rubes who are showing up as regular as clockwork because they're big fans who'd probably pay to watch Brent Spiner eat poop on a stick (me among them.)
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Michael Hall
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
Michael Hall
mph.puddingbowl.org
What makes these writers good is that, when asked to blend scientific and technological speculation, they don't go into a tizzy about whether it's possible. They think back to writers like Aeschylus and Shakespeare, who wrote stories that were independent of the technology base. Those stories, and many of the stories in the original series, turned on constant elements of human nature.
I think Star Trek, and most of TV and almost all movies these days, is cursed with unimaginative, unskilled writers. Very rarely, some good writing slips thru the cracks, and invariably the show is cancelled. There seems to be some bigger profit margin in bad writing. Or maybe the execs consider it too risky to expose the public to quality. I find the whole phenomenon a little mysterious; an apparent failure of the free market.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
The whole thing just needs to rest for a while (as was pointed out by one of the preceeding posts).
I more or less grew up during the middle of The Original Series. I think I've still missed a few episodes but they were really tackling current events issues (not that I knew it then). Roddenberry really put himself out on a very long, and very thin branch to produce this series, and it paid off too. Although it's a little dated it's still good stuff.
Next Generation was basically a knock-off, but after 15+ years it was a welcome one. There was a good infusion of neat(tm) ideas that worked pretty well.
The differing perspective of DS9 was good, but no one wants to watch 3+ years (or so it seemed) of War. Terry Farrell must have thought so.
Voyager was initially a neat idea, but except for being way-far-away, there's little really, really new.
Earth Final Conflict (on a slightly different, but paternally related subject) is a decent series, although I haven't watched it as much as I would like. It's a (reasonably) new and neat idea.
Paramount - Take a rest for a while and dream up something really different and unique, then be deliberate in choosing where it goes.
Just a few $0.0275 (inflation)
I wasn't suggesting that all sagas can be classed as "worthy" in the sense of, say, a Booker Prize winner. But many people just like to sit around the fireplace and hear stories. Stories about their favourite heroes. And it has always been so. I don't see how Trek is any different in this regard than, say, Beowulf for example (and I'm not talking about the Linux clustering technology). Beowulf is just a series of adventure stories.
And if you accept the obvious fact that many Trek episodes (both old and new) attempted to convey some kind of message then how is it different from the Iliad and the Odyssey? Or the Canterbury Tales?
It's a little naive to denigrate contemporary storytelling just because it hasn't achieved the respectability of age. Future generations will likely see things with a less jaded eye.
If you don't see this, look at the way Dickens' novels and Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" stories are revered - and they were both originally published as cheap serials in the daily press, just to sell newspapers.
There are a lot of different reasons why *I* buy into long series, depending on the author, the story, the characters.
The reason I kept going with Trek is that I cared about the characters and the stories (in TNG anyway) were often brilliant.
I ran into trouble with STV and DS9 because the networks kept changing the broadcasting slot and I found that where those series were concerned, I didn't care enough to keep rearranging my timetable. I don't think we're that far apart on this particular issue; I just don't hate long book series the way you do (as long as they stay good).
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Actually I did read your post very carefully. That's why I wasn't very hostile...
I don't dispute that the later Kirk was missing the energy and intensity of the younger Kirk. But you imply he was always a bad actor. This reminds me of those who mindlessly parrot the tired old jokes about his "wooden" performance and his "overacting". Well, you can't have it both ways, was he underacting or overacting? these people probably never even watched enough of it to be able to tell.
Actually I don't think Trek would have stood up for more than a fleeting moment if either of these things were true. Please note that there were several sci-fi series around at the time but only Trek achieved such a massively loyal following. Why was this?
In my opinion it was precisely because of the rapport that quickly developed between the main characters, and between the actors and the characters they played. Their nature evolved very quickly. And they were all so brightly drawn. It developed a clear subtext in the minds of the audience.
You knew that Kirk cared for nothing but his ship and his crew, and that with an obsessive intensity; long-term personal commitment outside of that was impossible for him.
You knew that Spock suffered perpetual inner turmoil because of the antagonism between his human and vulcan halves. You probably even suspected that the usually grumpy McCoy was a refugee from some intensely personal disaster. These three were all in some way broken individuals who had thrown themselves into their careers to compensate.
It doesn't really matter how this consensus was arrived at. What matters is that we all came to know it quite quickly; and consequently, being able to understand the characters, we began to care about them.
Shatner's contribution in those days was outstanding. He must have almost believed he was Kirk. He certainly made me believe in him. Sure, he played Kirk as arrogant, but it was what we evidently wanted to see. and it's what made Kirk a living legend: the man who couldn't fail.
I agree with you about Shatner's later relative dullness. I'd argue that's what would likely have happened to an ageing, disillusioned starship captain too, but I will openly concede that Stewart (as he is now) is a better actor than Shatner (as he is now).
However the chosen manner of Kirk's death was hardly his fault. Not was it Kirk's fault if the actor playing him had run out of steam. Your reasons for cheering are still ludicrous. One doesn't normally cheer the death of somebody one still remembers with respect, just because they didn't die heroically enough. The important thing was: he was gone, and there would be no more.
The fact that this apparently meant nothing to you, can only tell us about you, not about Shatner *or* Kirk, neither of whom were allowed to have any influence on the outcome.
Sorry.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
For that matter, Heinlein's stuff could be done with far fewer effects. He was extraordinarily prolific, and could keep a TV series busy for many seasons.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Star Trek was a wonderful phenomenon to watch. The original series could really stand on its own, even given the extreme level of schmaltz. The fan-base was an unheard of phenomenon for a TV show.
:-|
But it's been a long, slow downhill slide. The movies were always uneven, but the recent offerings even make The Great Bird's self-indugent outing in ST:TMP look like art. Voyager episode quality can be measured in terms of how much of the plot can be said to have actually happened at the end of the episode, and no one on the set of any recent ST production (TV or movie) actually takes it seriously beyond their own task. It's just a business, now (this last from various sources at media cons and through the Net).
Look at what's been going on meanwhile: Babylon 5, Earth: Final Conflict, Farscape, X-Files. Even Reboot has plots that Voyager could learn a few things from. I'm not saying that other shows are perfect. Babylon 5's "Grey 17 Is Missing" provoked creator J. Michael Straczynski to lament not being able to apologize to each and every fan individually. But these shows try to explore what can be done with TV science fiction. Star Trek is interested in finding a way to increase the franchise market-share, and not much else.
I'm not actually trying to bash Star Trek, here. What I'm trying to say is that the good people involved in that show would be far better served trying to create something new and innovative. Those who desperately cling to the franchise because it's the only way to assure a market should be quietly taken out and shot. It's just more humane that way. After all, they shoot producers, don't they?
Perhaps in 20 years, the fan base will rise again to provoke a new generation of studio execs to re-create the mythos again. Until then, even the hint that ST's days may be numbered is welcome news in these quarters...
I used to watch the various Treks pretty avidly as a young child. I was in high school when Deep Space Nine came out, and I couldn't help but realize that there are some bizarre racist overtones in Roddenberry's shows.
Basically, Earth is portrayed as a cornucopia of cultures and ideas. Humans are almost as diverse in Trek as they are in Real Life. Of course, the language barrier supposedly has been cured, and somehow all of the warring nations ceased to be different enough from one another that they felt the need to fight any more.
But I can't help but notice that there is ONE klingon culture, and it's basically a mockery of feudal Japanese society. And the Ferrengi are all alike, with one culture (disturbingly resembling the portrayal of Jews in Nazi propaganda films (don't you dare call Godwin on me for this one--would that I could have left Nazis out of this)).
People often come to me and cry "but they have black *and* white klingons!", to which I say "That's genetics, not culture!"
So, while Miles O'Brien, the Scottish monkey-wrench, marries Keiko, the Nipponese botanist, all the klingons show up as a homogeneous chorus.
I say good riddance. IT's time we got rid of the "diversity is ok for us, but they're all alike!" mentality.
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I noticed
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I noticed
It's getting about time to leave everywhere
I was one Trekker who was attracted to Babylon 5 because it offered a whole new perspective on the space genre. There was a new universe, produced in what was (at the time it started) a rather novel fashion for a large-scale space series. And the perspective wasn't nearly as centered on one species/alliance/side as it was in Star Trek.
To paraphrase Darwin: evolve or die.
-W-
Is it all journey, or is there landfall?
--Ellison & van Vogt, 'The Human Operators'
It's starting to get strange and interesting again.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I think a lot of you are right. Voyager and much of The Next Generation are crap. That is because they are jsut using ideas from the orginal series. By the time voyager came out traveling through space was the most played idea out there. The original series introduced some great concepts (thanks to Roddenberry) and pretty much defined scifi. I think that DS9 really brought a lot of that back by focusing more on a religous and magical sense which allowed them to explore the human condition more. After all that is what Roddenberry really wanted.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
1. The wife saying "Oh, you're watching your 'creature' show again." It was easier when "Sisters" was on and I had bad show parity.
2. Gravity. We put all this trouble and expense into going to space, and nobody wants to float. What a waste. Not even in CGI shows like War Planets (which rocks, even though it is a kids' show).
3. Bipedal aliens with ugly heads. I mean, Jar-Jar is even bipedal, has a nose, etc. You go to the trouble of CGI-ing a whole actor for cinema-grade resolution, and it's less cool than Roger Rabbit.
4. Aerodynamic space ships. OK, so Episode I is supposed to be long ago, but why the chrome SR-71?
5. Breathable atmospheres and shirtsleeve temperatures. And every life-form breathes the same stuff. What are the odds?
With current technology and the ability to economically CGI TV shows, we are running out of excuses. If sci-fi does not update its conventions to the possibilities of the media, it will become a dead artform. It will be too laughable.
Babylon 5 and Earth, the Final Conflict do best, but each is just a rehearsal for what could really be done.
I wrote parts of this stuff
Hmmm... I wonder if that is the episode where they visit what I refer to as "the planet of scantily clad happy people who have sex all the time". If it is, one viewing was enough to make me scream "uncle". Yes, the first season was truly awful. (Well at least the episodes I've seen anyway. I'm sure there's a few decent ones in there.) It was just as campy as TOS. You could bet your paycheck that if there was a half way decent looking female on any planet they visited that Riker would end up locking lips with her just like Kirk used to. Ugh. The second season was better but I think TNG really hit its stride in the 3rd season.
That you people seriously need to get a life!
It's TV for goodness sake, if you like it - great, if you don't then you don't have to bloody watch it, do you?
When it ceases to entertain at least someone, and subsequently make the producers money, then it will die it's natural death (as did B5), but until then I have a suggestion for you - GET OVER IT!!!
Thank heaven for small mercies, at least no one started jerking off over Arthur C. Clark and his friggin' space elevators or some such nonsense!
Start Trek the Next Generation was the last (and best IMO) Star Trek. Everything since then has been a pathetic degradation until the latest versions with have devolved into lame soap operas. It is really quite pathetic at this point.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
StarWars is just as old? Interesting take, since it isn't. And taking a tagline that is relatively wise, regardless of where, hardly means I'm a hypocrite :-)
Treak is dead... No New stuff.. Just the same old stuff... Dead.. Dead... Dead....
Now, Voyager on the other hand, is suffering from being in prime time and thus forcing ratings. If you think 7 of 9 is there to build personality, think again :-). It's not that Voyager's episodes aren't necessarily bad (There's a few that really stand out as stinkburgers however), but in 9 out of 10 times, it's been done in the trek universe before. This is one of the reasons the Doctor is getting a lot of favored reviews.. he's the only character (or type of character) that really hasn't been developed in any other trek series, and many of the plots revolving around him are new. Many of the Seven of Nine plots are too Borg-intensive, as opposed to moving her away from Borg. But every other character on Voyager is bland, and I've yet seen any really good exploration of one particular character that hasn't been done before.
I agree that what Paramount should do is hold off on another series.. put at least a year between Voyager and whatever this new one is called (and since there's no B5 to compete against, there's no rush here). Plan the new Trek movie to premiere the same year as this series comes out; if possible revolve the movie around the new series (Although I've heard the new movie will be strongly Klingon in nature.. yeeesh).
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
This may be an Inevitable Slashdot Suggestion (along with 'BEOWULF!'), but why not Open Source the Star Trek franchise? Allow anybody to make new series based on TOS, or DS9, or a prequel, or a parallel-universe 'alternative' TNG, or a Borg soap opera (actually, I think Paramount have already done that). What Trek needs is a bit of competition - as long as Paramount have a monopoly on the franchise, they won't do anything adventurous.
Of course, if copyright law were written to help the public rather than a few special interests, the original series would have passed into the public domain many years ago.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
First, have any people commenting so far (before my post in terms of chronology) even READ this article? It seems to be a Witchhunt.
;-) ). He goes on to be nostalgic, quoting Shatner again and again on the decline of the series. Talking about the old scripts being the best ones, the old actors being the best actors. He even says WHY this may be so, as nostalgia can cloud your vision. The 'good ol days' are always better. Then he ignores he ever said that.
Here we have a Trek fan, who is bitter about the divergence in the franchise (so many different series), who is looking to point a finger. He calls TNG and Voyager tripe on the first page (and is half right
Then he starts pointing fingers. Squarely at Rick Berman. Now, this is bar-none disgusting. He blames him for all the bad series. He blames him for killing off Kirk in a 'dishonorable' way (I thought how he died was good, he saved 200 odd million people and got to come back to life like Spock). Rick Berman may have had his faults, but he put DS9 & TNG on the air. Plus movies. Finding one person to point a finger at is SO easy, and here we see it done.
Then there's all the talk of marketing and franchising. Now he sounds like a bitter Star Wars fan, whining about George Lucas getting commercial and sick about the series.
Maybe Star Trek is dying. I hope not, DS9 was an amazing series. TNG was a great one too. 'Generations' was not as bad as the author wanted it to be. It was a way to look back at both TNG and TOS (or at least Kirk's hairpiece). It's sad to see a fan get bitter and start pointing fingers when his favorite toy series falls apart.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I for one am still curious as to why they replaced the last ST with Voyager... I think this is what took the wind out of ST's sails. The fact that they had to bring in Jerry Ryan for sex appeal is pretty demeaning to science fiction...
I have watched the series (and movies) on and off since the late 70s, but ST never held a candle to the SF books that I've read over the years. Perhaps it's the fact that the genre doesn't often translate well onto the screen, but I suspect it's also due to the limited nature of the show. However, there is at least movement, as opposed to DS9 which never appealed to me.
Another thing that I've found distasteful is the same thing that has progressively annoyed me about Lucas' Star Wars films. Too many creatures.
And yes, ST is guilty of the Jar Jar factor aswell. The point is, a story should sustain itself, and there shouldn't be a need for an endless parade of critters to simulate an alien experience.
Personally I will watch ST again when they get another Captain on par with Jean Luc. Flashing a little T&A (7 of 9) isn't going to win me over so easily.
The original series is looked back at with fondness for a good reason: It ended before it got too old, unlike almost every single American tv series. Each show was new, in at least some way. Each show of each series since then has felt less and less original. Combined with comparisons to previous Trek series, they wind up recycling their own story lines, and also have to be distinct from other SciFi shows/movies/books.
In the 1960's, Trek was original. Noone had really seen something like this before. In the 1980's, the only people who hadn't seen everything TNG was doing were the youngsters like me. DS9 was fairly new to people (like me again) who hadn't seen a certain other sci-fi series on cable. Voyager... well Voyager's just bad.
The article talks alot about the crew of the original ship being more interesting. They are. Even though the characters are under-developed and over-acted, they had much stronger relations to each other. Because of the simplicity of the characters, clear dynamics were easily created. The later series characters all evolved (somewhat), and had more complex relationships that changed over the span of the series. While this would seem like a Good Thing, it isn't in this case. With the simple, immediate relationships in the original series, the viewer could quickly get involved in the story. Of course, if the original series had been allowed to drag out forever like most American series, the weak characters would have become incredibly boring and trite.
In the end, the franchise is dying because Trek is becoming just one of many sci-fi shows, instead of the only one. And it doesn't compare favourably most of the time.
Intolerant people should be shot.
I don't think we're that far apart on this particular issue; I just don't hate long book series the way you do (as long as they stay good).
Then we're not apart at all. I don't hate long series because they're long. I hate them when they suck. And there are a lot of sucky ones out there. :)
Though I'll admit, despite over 25 years of watching Star Trek, that I have a particular aversion to the ST novels as a class. May be snobbery on my part... but when I see all 2,789 ST paperpacks filling up space in the already-cramped confines of my local bookseller's sci-fi/fantasy section (an omen as ill as when they moved "New Age" and "Philosophy" in with each other, putting the Friedrich Nietzsche just after the Shirley McClaine(not that I admire either)) I get irritated.
Well, as it will be.
Pleasant having a civil exchange on Slashdot. Isn't it about time for a KDE or Enlightenment item so we can all have at each other with the long knives again?
------------
Michael Hall
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
Michael Hall
mph.puddingbowl.org
>Star Trek is not about science or technology. >Those are just a medium for the real stuff that
>goes on. Star Trek is about the characters and
>moral issues. To enjoy the show, you have to
>watch it consistantly. You have to know the
>characters. Half (if not more) of the content of
>the show is just about the characters and how
>they are growing.
This is *exactly* what is *wrong* with these newer three-lettered spinoffs. Star Trek was *not* about the characters; the characters, though they had personalities, were not individuals but personifications of human traits. It was the situations and conflicts that made Star Trek interesting, not the collection of second-rate actors playing characters.
This meant that they were able to use the entire program for the plot. Between the longer commercials today and the "sub-plots," "character devlopment," and miscellaneous junk, they get about half as much time for the program itself as Star Trek did.
Sir, i flame you not. I merely ask what you mean in bringing Microsoft into the matter. Granted, my initial response to the article was a lame attempt at a first post- but what is this a forum for? News for nerds? Or is it a MS-bash-whatever thingy? Frankly, i don't see the logic or relevance in your comparison. Besides, wasn't the Borg's robustness and efficiency more analgous to a few (ahem) *nix OSs than to MS? oh well, whatever nevermind.
I have long been a Trekker. I grew up with The Next Generation (the best of the Trek series IMHO). I also know what makes Star Trek better than Prime Time. The world forces me to use politically correct language for various races and people with real problems. This is stupid in most ways but then most things people with a little power do are stupid. I think the line has to be drawn somewhere and this is it. I REFUSE to use politically correct language for fans of a TV show! You sir are a TrekkiEEEEEEE. Trekkies made up this "Trekker" nonsense because it took no less than William Shatner to point out what comes of taking Trek too seriously. "Move out of your parents' basement. Get girlfriends........"
wasnt earth final conflict supposed to be start treks replacement ?
merely a cut down Outer Limits which uses Star Trek backgrounds.
Interesting. When someone refers to an anthology series as being "like" something, they usually go for The Twilight Zone.
Yes, I'm proposing an anthology series based loosely on the Trek universe.
setting is irrelevant to the success or failure of a TV show (or movie).
Setting is not irrelevant for many reasons. The first, and least important, is that setting draws people into the show. If the writing overshadows this, then you are essentially right as far as the viewer is concerned. However, setting is also critical in a TV show because it determines how likely you will be to succede in making the show. The Twilight Zone worked because they just used whatever sets were lying around. They dressed them up a little and shot. Nowadays, a series really needs to have its own space, and that means that you have to have some kind of stable sets. I was suggesting a way to go half-way and have semi-stable sets. This is how you get a "differnet" setting each week, and avoid being tied to "The Ship" or "The Station", etc. This makes the series bible simpler and less restrictive, which is a hook for authors, which leads into...
Your other comments can be summed up as "it's the writing, stupid!"
I cannot agree more. This is why I was pointing out a way to get the Paramount writers out of the loop and open it up wide to any authors who want to do mass-market SF. Does it have to be a Starfleet/Federation story? Not really. The likelyhood that someone's going to be able to make the episode will probably be increased if you use the core characters, but there's no reason that a story that only has 1 or 2 characters needs to use the regulars.... This could be a chance for Paramount/Viacom to really pump some life back into the series. Of course, based on past performance, I doubt it would happen.
The other way I could see it going is to have a fairly loose bible, and a dictator-like staff-editor/writer who does the Straczynski thing (e.g. weaving a "background" plot which stretches over several seasons by slightly modifying the contributed scripts). This would have less likelyhood of working for Paramount, because they have no one like JMS to do this with an iron hand, and yet crank out top-notch backplot. If they could get someone, then it could work. Breman (is that the right spelling) would just screw this up. If you got someone who was really brilliant, though, you could even have the episodes out of chronological order, and slowly put the pieces together in such a way that only someone who sees the entire series even knows it's happening.
I think, though, that the only reason this worked so well in the first and second seasons of B5 was that viewers who didn't "get" the uber-plot were still grabbed by the individual stories. If you want to do that for Trek, you need to rip it out of the current "writing team" hands. Writing by commitee does not work, and ST is now a great example of the pitfalls.
Let it die.
TOS had its place. Heck, I milked it for a 20 page paper more than a couple of years ago. In fact, my first memory of television involves Star Trek.
TNG was ok. I watched it faithfully while it was possible to not reorient the antenna to do so. DS9 was ok, too.
Voyager is excruciating.
In a lot of ways, it's all an echo of the ongoing disaster that is the Fantasy/SciFi section of your local chain bookseller. People without anything new to say are happy to push these megaseries on a public that is shockingly resistant to learning new characters and settings. For a while it was a sort of cute "Tolkien wrote a trilogy, so good fantasy must come in threes" meme. Then it was Frank Herbert extending Dune through the arguably troublesome fourth and disastrous last two volumes. And along the way, David Eddings, Stephen Donaldson, Piers Anthony, and others decided people were happy to just stick with the familiar. In fact, they got punished in the market if they tried to stray.
It's ironic that a genre in which the readers pride themselves on the new and imaginative would much rather look in satisfaction on bookshelves with row upon row of "volume four in the fifth trilogy of a ten part epic."
Star Trek is trailing edge and predictable now. Let it die. Let's see something new.
------------
Michael Hall
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
Michael Hall
mph.puddingbowl.org
In my opinion, TNG was the best TV series I've ever seen. No, I'm not a trekkie. I don't own a single piece of Star Trek merchandise, and I haven't seen an episode of Voyager since last season. But I understand it. Note that when I say "Star Trek" here, I am mainly refering to The Next Generation (and also Voyager and DS9), as I am not very familiar with the original series.
Star Trek is not about science or technology. Those are just a medium for the real stuff that goes on. Star Trek is about the characters and moral issues. To enjoy the show, you have to watch it consistantly. You have to know the characters. Half (if not more) of the content of the show is just about the characters and how they are growing. Most people wouldn't understand why it is hillarious when Data says "oh shit!" It is, of course, because doing so contrasts so much with his normal character. (he says "oh shit!" shortly after first installing his new emotion chip) When you really get in to it, you find that Star Trek has better character development than almost every other series on TV today.
The other important issue in Star Trek is the moral issues presented. One of the most interesting episodes of Voyager that I have seen involved a debate over whether or not it is right to use medical or other scientific data aquired through immoral means. Although I did not agree with the decision made by the Captain, I found myself talking about that episode for hours afterwards.
If shows like this don't interest you, that doesn't make me think any less of you. Everyone has their own tastes. But lots of people come at Star Trek from the wrong direction, and then they think it sucks. Star Wars fans, in particular, can't seem to comprehend the idea of sci-fi without constant fight scenes and explosions. So, I guess what I want to say is, no, just because you don't get it doesn't mean it sucks.
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Dear JMR, What a great idea. I'm Sol Upinsky (head of script aquisitions at UPN) and I've been reading Slashdot for months hoping someone would write a great new Star Trek script. Yours is definetly a winner. Please email the entire script to me asap. My email addy can be found at this URL http://www.naugthylolitas.com and my email will be on the confirmation page of the third ad banner. Cheers
I'm a big fan of SF and ST also. But the thing is dead. Somebody shoot it and get over with it. The problem has to do with this imaginary technology they've created. It's reached the point now where, no matter what goes wrong, there's some little gizmo somewhere that could fix it. TOS had some techno-babble in it, but the whole ST idea has run so long that they've really got a deus ex machina problem. Best bet for another good ST series is to cut to the time before TOS. Get rid of the holodeck and intership video. Perhaps kill the transporter as well. Then have powerful, intelligent characters struggle for both survival and understanding in some good SF scenarios. Let's get back to adventure and action mixed with thoughtful social commentary. Enough of the Love Boat in space already.
Sounds like you need help finding the Macintosh Product Guide
Try out the Hardware section.
You want a cdburner for your mac
I already have one, thanks. A Yamaha with Adaptec Toast.
Adaptec lists over 150 Mac-compatible CD-R/RW drives in their database (select toast from bottom menu).
a floppy drive?
iFloppy
SuperDisk
Addonics
a G4 upgrade?
PowerLogix
Newertech
where do you guys come up with this stuff?
I'll send you to Microsoft's own website for more information about that little undocumented feature called meta-data.
It's so funny when people talk about things they know nothing about.
I hope to release you from the collective. What can I do to help you sir collective-lot?
Watching the current crop of Star Trek spinoffs is like going to the hospital to visit your sick, dying 120 year-old grandmother. You really love her, she's a great old lady, but it's clear that she's suffering. She was always so nice, you hate to see her in pain, but you hate to see her go. I think that maybe it's time to just let go. In fact, I think that the series finale for TNG would have been a great funeral, but it's a little late for that.
itachi
Sounds like you need help finding the Macintosh Product Guide
Try out the Hardware section.
You want a cdburner for your mac
I already have one, thanks. A Yamaha with Adaptec Toast.
Adaptec lists over 150 Mac-compatible CD-R/RW drives in their database (select toast from bottom menu).
a floppy drive?
iFloppy
SuperDisk
Addonics
Teac
a G4 upgrade?
PowerLogix
Newertech
where do you guys come up with this stuff?
I'll send you to Microsoft's own website for more information about that little feature called meta-data.
Or read how the Microsoft Annual report was written on a Macintosh.
It's so funny when people talk about things they know nothing about.
I guess I find it a little easier to separate the Kirk character from Shatner the actor. Regardless of any respect or affection that I'd feel for the Kirk portrayed early in the ST:TOS, the quality of Shatner's performances in the last several Star Trek films had sunk to the point where I'd rather not hear about Kirk any more.
Perhaps the character will be revisited in the future in interesting performances, and probably more importantly, more interesting stories. I don't think that earlier performances of Shatner justify continually pulling his role out of mothballs.
The story of an aging captain dealing with "retirement" were handled very well in "The Wrath of Khan" and "The Search for Spock". After these films, it almost seems that those issues were forgotten in the interests of milking some more money out of the series. To be sure, "The Voyage Home" was a blast, but the later films seemed to be a little too formulaic.
I don't think I'm alone here, and I don't think that most who share my opinion are showing particularly jaded attitudes. I guess that's enough about that from me - we may just have a fundamental difference of opinion here.
As a tangent, I can understand your concerns about the so-called overacting in the original series (I never really saw "woodeness"). I'd probably be more inclined to attribute that to the show's director (directors?) rather than to Shatner or any of the other actors. Most of the emotional moments on the show were a little heavy on soliloquy (and it worked well, I think).
I don't know if that's due to directing style or as a method to deal with the limits of the studio. There seemed to be some limitations on camerawork and sets for a lot of the in-studio shots. It seems to me that without really immersive sets, the right thing to do is to get up in the characters' faces with still shots, and let them spruce up the dialogue with demonstrative delivery. There's not much point in moving camera angles in featureless gray rooms. I think that some of the planet-bound sets (particular, "City on the Edge of Forever") take some of the pressure off of the individual actors' performances, and let the director weave more interesting scenes.
I wouldn't be surprised if the so called boring, drawn out scense in "Star Trek the Motion Picture" were an overreaction to the limits induced by the original sets. I think it's too bad that that experiment was ruled unsuccessful. With a little judicious editing, I think that movie is among the best Trek ever filmed.
I mean come on how hard can it get? The original show did do some work as far as making minor political points and they tried to show some diversity among aliens (although the "interesting ones" always looked similar to humans).
The original series was stopped because at that time the marketing was different, now a days they (being Hollywood and TV in general) run every popular idea into ground, sometimes painfully so. Look at some of the stuff they wrecked before, Highlander 2 is a great example of "how can we squeeze some cash outta this?" It is how it works, period. If the setting were different and TV (especially TV) writers, producers and directors were allowed we would see more challenging material across the board.
It is coicidence that Star Trek has reached this point, next week it will be another concept, just not as popular.
I do have to admit there is one exception and that has been X files. Every time I start thinking X files isn't worth watching someone tells me I missed a great episode. Otherwise I cannot think of a single long running series that was not exploited to it's fullest for the sake of a penny.
Crap - wrong command again ----
The story of an aging captain dealing with "retirement" were handled very well in "The Wrath of Khan" and "The Search for Spock". After these films, it almost seems that those issues were forgotten in the interests of milking some more money out of the series. To be sure, "The Voyage Home" was a blast, but the later films seemed to be a little too formulaic.
OK, I can agree with you in the sense that they may have dragged it out too long, even if audiences were clearly still willing to pay. However I still can't understand your joyful reaction at seeing the character die. When I go to a movie I do my best to enter into the spirit of it, to identify with the story and the characters. Otherwise what's the point? I always admired Kirk as a character, even if Shatner began to suck later on. Remember, it was Kirk who died there, not Shatner.
As you say, we've almost argued ourselves hoarse about this. We'll just have to agree to differ.
I think that some of the planet-bound sets (particular, "City on the Edge of Forever") take some of the pressure off of the individual actors' performances, and let the director weave more interesting scenes.
I'm not seeking to disagree with you, but ironically that particular episode demonstrates the prowess of the younger Shatner very well. Admittedly the tragic nature of Kirk's role in that drama provides Shatner with the best possibly opportunity, but even so not every actor is capable of such a convincing portrayal of a man torn in half.
Just watch Kirk's face... when he confesses to Spock of his feelings for Keeler, when he clutches McCoy in horror as she dies, and afterward when he returns through the portal he looks like a man with the taste of ashes in his mouth, a man who has lost everything. That episode was about acting performances and the direction thereof. I don't feel it was really about camerawork or any other technical artistry. It was scenes like these which convinced me Shatner *was* a fine actor; it's a terrible pity that typecasting destroyed his career so early.
I wouldn't be surprised if the so called boring, drawn out scense in "Star Trek the Motion Picture" were an overreaction to the limits induced by the original sets. I think it's too bad that that experiment was ruled unsuccessful. With a little judicious editing, I think that movie is among the best Trek ever filmed.
But why? The performances were utterly banal all round, the plot nonexistent...the only thing it had was photography and specal effects. Take that away and there's nothing left at all.
IMO the best movie was The Wrath of Khan. It was somewhat heavily overacted throughout (especially
by Montalban). But Spock's death scene was beautifully played; you can't overact something as intensely meaningful as the tragic (heroic) death of a friend as close as Spock was to Kirk.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
It's sad to see what's happened to Trek over the years. TOS was pretty good. I personally think Trek was at its peak during TNG, but I know I'm in a minority as far as that's concerned so I'll just shut up about it.
DS9 was a good series in its own right. But it never felt quite right; it was tied in with the Trek universe quite well, but it didn't feel like Trek.
Voyager... I'd like to like Voyager. A few of the episodes are actually very good. But it just doesn't work like TNG or TOS or even DS9 did. It's like Trek crossed with Lost in Space (not the movie; the original TV version).
At least they cancelled that one atrocity they were thinking of doing; I can't remember the title but it sounded like it would turn out as Star Trek meets Saved by the Bell. A series based on Starfleet Academy could be a Good Thing, but I don't think the present team could pull it off.
The Trek franchise isn't going to die out anytime soon. If you don't believe me, rent Trekkies and watch some people who are probably obsessed to an unhealthy degree. The question is whether it will continue for a long time or suffer a prolonged, agonizing death. Sadly, at the moment it seems like the latter. But I hope it turns around, either with Voyager or whatever next series (that idea with Sulu and the Excelsior was very cool; what happened to it?)
One possible hypothesis is the aforementioned "death of trek" theory, but here's an alternate one:
First Contact made more money because it was a *much* *better* *movie*
Stay with me folks, we're just getting started
lamented Voyager and it's less-than-stellar tv ratings? More evidence
that the franchise is faultering? Possibly. Let's review, which of the
following non-starter ideas/characters/incidents have occurred on Voyager?
is on par with Wesley Crusher in terms of appeal, feature
her prominently in a number of episodes.
like the kazons (or was that the chili-con-kazons) and feature
them for a season and a half.
with the 'great spirits' in order to sort out some bad
delta quadrant mojo
The answer? All of the above. I mean really folks, what do the folks at paramount expect? You put out garbage like that and then are surprised when people don't bother with it? And as far as the franchise dying goes - you could have made that statement just after the release of *every* *one* of the odd numbered movies and for every odd numbered movie (so far) there was an even numbered movie that mysteriously revitalized the dying franchise.
It isn't hard Paramount, produce something worthwhile and we'll line your
pockets - produce crap and you'll end up eating it.
there are two kinds of people in this world - those who divide people into two groups and those who don't
ST: TOS. The Enterprise and her crew are the flagship of Starfleet, with a mission for exploration, a "Wagontrain" to the stars. Kirk is the consumate swashbuckler.
ST: TNG. The Enterprise and her crew are the flagship of Starfleet, with a mission for exploration, a "Wagontrain" to the stars. Picard is the intelligent manager.
ST: DS9. DS9 is a space station, with a mission to service travelers, a "truckstop" in the stars. The head of the station is competent but forgettable.
ST: Voyager. Voyager is a small starship, with a practical mission to cross the galaxy to return home, a modern "Lost In Space" that ends either when the ratings drop below profitability or they actually return home. Captain Janeway is not only incompetent, but deserves a courtmarshal for stranding her ship and crew to the other side of the galaxy.
Does it really take much to understand the demise of Star Trek?
Graham
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
The problem is in the 23rd century, computers are
still running Microsoft OS's. Good grief, how
often can the ships computers get cracked by aliens, holodeck characters and berzerk crew members before they switch to the latest OSS operating system.
Star Trek is essentially dead. Voyager is stringing along just well
enough to keep some minimal fan base from storming the studio with
pitchforks and torches, but.....
What if Paramount created a very loosely themed series with nothing
but guest writers and a team of staff-editors? You could have a group
of 5-10 "regulars". Kind of an anthology show, maybe even with
1/2-hour shorts grouped 2 per episode. Don't give it a ship. We've
already established that the ships look pretty similar inside, so
there's no reason to tie the show down. Just build a bunch of sets
that can be quickly dressed to be different ships.
You could then tackle everything from the oft mentioned Star Fleet
Academy (still an idea I would need proved to me) to exploration to
simple character pieces to huge Starfleet-moving plots. Hell, at that
point you might even get a few good SF writers to write an episode or
two. Not so much share-cropper novels as mildly-constrained free-form
SF.
The best way to go would probably be to avoid setting any
ground-rules. Just write up the core cast for the series bible and set
the writers loose. If they write something that you would never have
allowed, but it just works, go with it.
This is really about all I can imagine that would save Star
Trek. You'll notice that I've given no actual story ideas here. If
someone's on the inside, please feel free to show this around, as
there's nothing here that any real claim could be laid to.
Then speak not ever again.
Is Star Trek dead? I will have to answer "It depends."
I have long been a Trekker. I grew up with The Next Generation (the best of the Trek series IMHO). I also know what makes Star Trek better than Prime Time.
It's the story stupid! If there is a good plot and theme, that could make up for the worst of actors, the most hideous directing, and the cheeziest special effects.
Star Trek did this. Gene Roddenberry was a God because of this. The Next Generetion did this. I can't count how many times both series have surprised me, gasp at the depth, and made me think. This is what Star Trek did well and this is what made it a success. It was (and still is) one of few shows that want you to think.
Then came Deep Space Nine. DS9 had a great concept. It could have been great in the same way Star Trek 6 was great. In many ways the show was great. But somewhere along the lines, the story became unoriginal and cheap. But then they began a war, somewhat like Babylon 5, and it meant something. I was satisfied with the last few seasons of DS9 but I will submit that it lowered Star Trek to a point that it was like everything else.
And Voyager. This is a sad show that tried, futily, to retake some of the energy from TNG. Voyager has had some great shows but what it lacks is excellent theme. Theme is key to all that is Trek. If a show doesn't mean anything, I don't want to watch it and I am sure there are others who agree with me. Voyager kept rehashing the same themes, whether original to Voyager ot stolen from TNG. These themes became stale. Then 7 of 9 came aboard and the ratings went up! Now instead of trying to revive Star Trek, all the producers needed to was keep the audience staring at Seven's breasts--just like everything else. So in this sense, Star Trek is dead. It should be hung and tortured for the monster it has become. But, there might still be hope.
I will use a familiar cliche to Babylon Five watchers: This new series might be our last, best hope for Trek. I have read of some rumors about the new series parelleling the United States and Europe. The uninitialted may find nothing of interest here. But the more alert Trekkers will recognize this as another attempt at the thing Star Trek has done so well: making Star Trek relevent to a current day audience. Indeed, this is a common challenge for all science-fiction. But think! The recent controversy over the United States attacking Kosovo. Whichever side of the fence you take regarding this incident, there is plenty to say here about morality and human beings in general. How exciting it could be. Hopefully, as the article suggests, Rick Bermin will rethink Star Trek in this way. Come on Rick. Tell us something for us to ponder. Make us think. Blur the distinction between good and evil. And have our heros save the federation from its largest threat: itself.
This new series holds all the cards. This could be the resurrection of Star Trek! It could also bury Star Trek forever.
Live long and prosper, Star Trek.
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux to you mister!
You mean "Toronto: Final Conflict" ? :)
I call it that after I tried watching one episode during the first season.
The heroes got out of a car and parked behind the CBC TV studios.
That killed any chance of me 'suspending disbelief.'
The commercial hence didn't make me want to watch it either.
TNG amused and entertained while it was on, TOS is fun to watch mainly because, unlike TNG, NOT EVERYTHING IS SOLVED BY CHANNELING X PARTICLES THROUGH THE DEFLECTOR ARRAY!!!
I will say this for TOS: at least the humans got out and fought, unlike the push-button driven TNG.
PS Wrath of Khan is the best!!!
PPoE
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
The article is sad, yet true. Next generation was a very good continuation of Trek, as it had the blessing and guidance of Roddenberry, at least up until season 5. It did quite well during 6 and 7, but at least they had the mercy to end it there... DS9 was pretty good, as they weren't continually encountering "new, strange anomalies" and had an original premise, and gave stories with more continuity. They actually had SOMETHING to do with each other.
Voyager just sucks .
I suggest that it be put into hibernation for a while, let all of the old people cycle out, and wait for new writers/directors to come in.
If anything for moves, Peter David should have something to do with the next movie (note MOVIE not TV SHOW). He always did a good job with Star Trek. And that X-Men thing was well... stupid. Good thing i never read it...
If somebody asked me to write an article about Star Trek, (and I was a better writer) this is exactly the article I would have written. This is the first "Star Trek Sucks" analysis that reveals the most obvious reason why Star Trek isn't good anymore: Rick Berman.
If people ask me if I like TNG, I'll say "sure, seasons 1-5". Seasons 6 and 7 were so completely different from the previous stuff, it was almost a new show. I don't know about anyone else, but I felt incredibly cheated when ideas that Roddenberry had obviously wanted to incorporate into the series over time; such as the idea of an alien civilization "seeding" the galaxy's genepool, or the fate of young W. Crusher were "dealt with" in single tritely-written episodes leading up to the finale, as if to get rid of all that silly nonsense about the potential of the human race so we can get back to the good stuff: space station soap operas and blowin' stuff up!
So here's my proposal: Paramount if you're listing, you need to do two things: 1. Stop being jerks. Overmerchandising, and even worse, cracking down on copyrights used by the freaking community of devoted fans that has kept your mini-empire from crumbling 2. Hire me. Yes, that's right, I humbly offer my services as the full-time curator of the Star Trek universe. I don't know much about production value, I don't know much about profit margins, but I know Trek.
Bah. It'll never happen. Besides, I'm not even sure if Paramount's even worthy of getting a second chance. Trained monkeys could do a better job of keeping Gene's vision alive. Face it: if Paramount was forced to make a choice between Voyager and Ally McBeal on their Wednesday lineup, which one do you think they'd choose?
All right, I'll put it in terms that even a Paramount Executive could understand: by not investing in the long term success of the series by truly putting some thought into what goes, you'll lose the fanbase that was attracted to the series in the first place: people who like thought-provoking, cool-feeling, well-written sci-fi. As is usually the case in everything, short term micro-managment is what will kill a project. Even one as cool as Star Trek.
I do have to say that if Trek continues on now as it has been, it won't last long.
Paramount's only cash cow is Star Trek. As a business they cannot exist without it. Unfortunately the cow is going dry. I'd put the beginning of the end when the networks got fed up with being required to air paramounts other shows in order to air Trek. When DS9 stopped being aired regularly on network TV was the day that I stopped watching regularly. It's back now, but I don't have the time to catch up with what I missed. The series really needs a rest, and get a fresh start, or at least some new visionary writers.
It isn't that any of the new Trek stuff is bad, it's just that it is all old-hat now. They are covering stuff that has been done before in Trek and in other places. Star Trek used to be real science fiction. You know, the good stuff that wins Nebula Awards, not those pulp series books (the Trek books actually come to mind). Since its comercial success, they don't have the guts to try anything new. Science fiction isn't dead, and it's been around a lot longer than Start Trek. As long as there are new, revolutionary ideas being written about in SF, there is a chance for Trek.
It's really a pity that Nimoy won't be doing any more movies. If a good movie was written with a good Spock part, I'd hope that he'd agree to do the part. Of course, nothing with any artistic value is going to be put out, simply because Paramount wants a money maker, not a cultural treasure. Really, that's the big problem. Paramount wants money, and they fail to realize that the reason that Trek has been so successfull is that it is a cultural icon. Not on par with Shakespeare, but it certainly is something that I'd like my grandchildren to be exposed to some distant day in the future. Unfortunately they'll have to live with Kirk dying an ignoble death, while Spock, Bones, and Scotty just fade away...
Where I'm coming from: Probably by now have seen all the episodes of the original series, a few dozen or so of the Next Generation series, and just a handful each of the next two spin-offs.
The original series was just a plain fun show. It never took itself too seriously, and you could count on getting laughs out of Kirk, Bones, and Spock. By the time the Next Generation was in high gear, the humor was drained from it, with forced Data gags being about the only source of attempted humor. The show just took itself way too seriously, with constant kvetching about the "Prime Directive" or whatever. Instead of appreciating the show for its entertainment value, trekkies would incessantly debate the minutiae of the show and whether this or that scientific aspect was legit. I thought: Who cares? If I want to deal with some legit science, I'll pick up a tome based on fact, not watch a fictional TV show. Just entertain me.
Unfortunately, the show's creators would listen too closely to the over-analyzing of the trekkies, and while pandering to them, neglect what it takes to make a good all-around show. They thought it was necessary to cater to this narrower audience in order to keep the series alive. They were probably right -- the problem is that the approach didn't make for good TV.
Now look at the original series -- they didn't have instant feedback on every single facet of the show, so the show was a product of the creators, not a reaction to the complaints of trekkies. Sure, it didn't get a strong enough reaction from any one group (like the latter series did from the trekkies, and only the trekkies) to allow it to survive more than a couple of seasons, but it made its appeal more universal. That's why, even to this day, everybody knows who Kirk, Bones, Spock, etc., are. Targetting a show at a niche audience is okay, but when you start ceding the creative control to a nitpicky audience, you're asking for trouble, because you're never going to be able to satisfy everyone. It might get you longevity, but the end result is predictable and feels forced.
I will give the latter series credit for the whole Borg thing, which was a very cool concept. At this point, though, about the only thing that will get me tuning in is some good old fashioned lesbian action. ;-)
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
When the Next Generation show came along, it was... okay. There seemed to be a general lessening in (expensive to film) action, and the situations didn't quite seem as tense. Granted, as the series progressed, there were flashes of brilliance (borg) and things happened that were truly cool and interesting. (Klingons!) But...
I could see the slow slide into lazy writing getting worse with each new episode. More and more often, they reverted to a technobabble, last minute super tech fix. (yes they did this on the orginal series too, but not as often.) Pretty soon, all the new Trek shows had the new Nose/Head/Ear prosthesis aliens who would show up, hell would break loose, and then at the last minute, the problem would be fixed with a technobabble answer. Deux et Machina.
Not to mention, but these guys would come across more weird spatial anomalies than I do meals, but that's another minor gripe.
The only series I really thought that approached the feel of TOS (the original series) was DS9, and then only towards the end. Sure, DS9 had more than its share of technobabble, but dammit, people made hard decisions, and they had to live with them. Things that Mattered happened. Someone pulled out a phaser almost every damn episode, and you weren't entirely sure how things were going to turn out. Sigh.
What I would like to see is the shutting down of trek. Let Voyager finally, thankfully get home. Beam up the welcome mat, and put Trek into hiatus for oh, lets say 5 years. Then bring back something that is:
A. Internally consistent (something no trek series has really ever been) ie: less technobabble / Spatial Anomaly du jour / reliant on last minute inventions)
B: More character driven, with longer story arcs. DS9 was best when it did this.
C: Important to the Trek Universe. This is why DS9 got interesting towards the end. War! And its also why Voyager is mainly interesting to see what Jeri Ryan was squeezed into this week. (not that this is a Bad Thing.)
D: Action! Less debate society. As much as I liked the Next gen, god they talked a lot. Sure, space battle was more expensive to film, so they minimized it as often as they could, but heck, nobody has to build a model ever again! Fire up lightwave and let's go!
Well, anyway, that's my two cents.
Lotek---
If Paramount really wanted to do something original based on Star Trek, they would at least few times consider the idea of making series or movie that do not revolve around humans. Most of races are well known from series, yet the details of their political system, culture and psychology are defined just enough to be a base for something creative. While I won't really care about a plot that will revolve entirely around Ferengi (it would require to lose everything that even pretends to look seriously), it's perfectly possible to "develop" other races past the level of caricature -- DS9 is less human-dominated than the rest, and it didn't do any harm to the show itself or its "Star Trek-ness", so making a series or movie without a Federation captain running everything wouldn't be that much of a stretch.
But the fact that it wasn't considered probably means that people at Paramount either can't see it, or never cared to look -- instead they have Voyager where they made the best possible excuse for inventing more alien races without any obligation to "develop" them.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
There is a simple problem with Star Trek... The writers are running out of creative steam and refuse to admit it, so to make it where no one stands there and whistles for an hour, they stoop to cheap marketing tricks and dicking around with concepts that do interest people. You want an example?
Try the Borg. When the came out, they were awesome and mysterious. They were a visage of people so integrated with technology they they were *integrated* with technology. They were the projection of our society at a radical level. Naturally, we wanted to know more. What it was like to be a borg... how they are assimilated... what it was like to see people you knew from the other side... The solution: Seven of Nine. Granted, it was a decent idea to start, they pulled it off badly and worse, as a cheap marketing gimmick. Seven was reduced to running around showing off her figure and giving Data-like analysis of everyhting as a Borg technology or as "from Species ". It was terrible.
I think that if things go at the current pace, 2 people will be watching Voyager. GET THEM HOME ALREADY AND STOP LEADING US ON!!!
Okay, so ends my rant...
Dijital
Diji
"I came, I saw, I WTF'd!"
Really all it would take is some decent scripts. But this is exactly the problem, it just can't happen. Any time a sci-fi series goes mainstream because of popularity, or is designed for a "pop" audience, it is bound to be mediocre, IMHO. It's designed to make a lot of money, and therefore it has to reach the widest audience, which means it has to be a generic plot. I'm doing some extreme generalizing here, but hopefully you see what I mean. Movies like the matrix could have been so much more if they weren't limited by hollywood rules, and even the matrix was a bit out there by hollywood standards, I think.
/. readers have to say about this. I can't even think of a movie, maybe x-files on tv back when it was a newer show...
The franchise is NOT going to go away anytime soon. If it has even a 1% chance of making money, it will be around (witness most movie sequels). I did enjoy TNG the most, then DS9. Somehow Voyager just doesn't impress me. The plots from show to show get repetitive, with a lot of holes in the plot (big fight with the borg, the ship gets all f'ed up, then suddenly its all back together next week like nothing happened). The characters seem one-dimensional, and I'm simply not impressed by them. Bad acting maybe? I don't know. Maybe I just really like the ST:TNG cast for some reason.
It's not like there is much else on TV right now thats any better than voyager anyway, however. Mediocre across the board (I'm really cynical if you didn't notice). What was the last series on TV or movie that you saw that was at all original? I'd be interested in what other
It seems to me that the only originality in sci-fi these days is in books...most of the better sci-fi doesn't translate well to the screen, though. Of course that is true of any book in any genre, however. Maybe thats just because of Hollywood.
anything about Star Trek to post a story. Before I go any further, I would like to say that I was a Star Trek loyalist/fan before it ever became fashionable, back when people would make their own ST props instead of buying them in the blister pack. Me, I had a NC1701 (not NC1701D) squirt gun.
It seems that the only sci-fi that exists on this electronic rag is Star Wars. Stars this and Jedi that, Jar Jar must die etc etc yada yada yada. I wish that in the preferences section I wish I could check a box so I would not see any more Star Wars stories. I am tired of only one diet of Star Wars sci fi here on Slashdot.
That's just it. Us Trekkies live in a time of bounty of Star Trek stories. It is very easy to forget the lean days of the mid/late seventies when the only new stories were ones that you made up with friends, a ASCII simulation on CPM, a stupid Saturday morning cartoon, or a few newsprint novels.
With such large amount of story resource now, it's not hard to see how people (especially non sci-fi fans) see it as tedium. Just like I see Star Wars on Slashdot as such. Personally, I would like to see quality of story (perhaps a series of movies) rather than quantity (a lot of TV shows).
All that is irrelevant. The very thing that brought Star Trek back (us fans buying it) is the same thing that will keep it around. As long as there is a buck to be made off from it, it'll be around.
Star Trek will die a slow and miserably humiliating death under Berman. There's no doubt in that, and it's been obvious since Roddenberry's passing. It's not the same anymore and everyone knows it. Berman has to go even though he's kept it going for so long. Nimoy, Fontana or at least somebody's who can understand what the original series was all about like Nicholas Meyers should take the helm. I don't mean that Star Trek's future should be a rehashing of the TOS; I mean Star Trek should not be treated as a normal television show like the original was.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
I disagree with the author's opinion that TNG sucked. It didn't. I liked TOS a bit better, but I thought TNG was nothing to be ashamed of. DS9 was a bit more cerberal than most would like, but I liked it as a change of pace. IMHO, I thought the show took a turn for the worse (debatable though?) when they added the Defiant to the station. I never really understood the whole Dominion thing. Voyager was cool the first year. It was a change of pace from DS9 and was action-centric (as DS9 was focused on the mind, Voyager is squarely focused on the body).
/.).
I think that Voyager diverged greatly in the second season. It lost its way. Then, they added 7 of 9. While most of the viewers today, only watch it because of Jeri Ryan, I think it is a cheap publicity stunt. She adds nothing of value to the series. The Borg - been there, done that. (I am Locutus of Borg - WOW, was that a great cliffhanger!). I remember waiting for months on how the next TNG season would begin. It was fun. People on BBSes would be chatting back and forth arguing about how the next season would start. We were hardly disappointed by the TNG cliffhangers. Alas, DS9 and Voyager lacked that aura.
The recent movies (after IV - the best bar none - okay, II was great as well) have all danced around the themes of ST. They do not have the magic that a single episode of TOS or TNG had. It was all about special effects not about plotline (as has been beaten to death by others here on
Berman and everyone else at Paramount needs to go ahead and devote a new movie (or series) that refocuses the franchise on plot and story with REAL characters with a twist of action every now and then to keep the audience awake(!). It is something that is sorely missing from the franchise right now. When they rediscover Roddenberry's formula (they will - someone will...), ST will be just as good as it ever was. If they have to take a hiatus in production of ST related shows or movies, so be it. It'll be the stronger for it in the long run.
I can't wait until II and IV are on DVD (especially II). Too bad it will be a few years (bad Paramount, bad Paramount). Wonder if DVD will survive until then...
Later,
Justin
Mu. P.S. The address you see is real. =)
Is one set in the war torn, starship fighting, massive combat alternate future portrayed in the final episode of Next Generation. Most of the best STNG episodes involved somebody's ass getting kicked in a big way. Written well, it wouldn't have to be that far from Gene's vision of the future. Conflicts happen.
They should focus on the borg more... its the federation's most deadly enemy. Movies/Shows, telling us how the borg came to be, etc... or has that alredy been done? Mix that in with a hostile Klingon's and it would be something great to see.
The *only* reason that people are saying that Trek is "dead" is that there isn't a spinoff in production to take over the franchise once Voyager is retired--this does *not* mean that there isn't life in the old girl yet. Here's why: ;)
Despite the comments by many about how supposedly "bad" Voyager is, it is now an excellent show with good ratings. It used to be bad, though--it started out being totally unlike the rest of the Trek series, with very little Federation-related stuff going on; it was like Babylon 5 on crack. But the show was revamped a couple seasons into the run, the episodes now actually feel like Trek, and it is a great and worthy show now. Plus, Seven of Nine can assimilate me any time, a sentiment shared by almost everyone here...
Yes, The Next Generation is dead and should be put out to pasture. Yes, the original series produced a very very bad movie and now everyone in it is too ancient or too dead to make another that might salvage their reputation. Yes, a DS9 film is likely to go nowhere. But Voyager is now a testimony to what the franchise can do when they stick to hardcore Trek--it took a crappy series less interesting than my left testicle, and turned it into an *excellent* show.
All that's left is to find a compelling time and place for a new series--and the Trek universe is full of them--and to examine what made the early Voyager so bad and what made the rest of them so good to come up with the right kind of theme. Maybe they could even skip a century into the future from where current offerings lie, and evolve Trek in such a way as to interest everyone all over again: there was nothing like seeing the early TNG series and "filling in the blanks" to see how we got from NCC-1701 to NCC-1701-D (oops, was that supposed to be E?
Look at the evolution of the series to see what I mean--in the 60s it was primarily a children's and young adults' show; it wasn't at all technical, and the reason they added baby-faced Chekov was that he looked the age of most of the audience. It was a show that was cancelled with extreme prejudice after just a couple seasons. Then it became a very embarrassing cartoon and comic book--you can't get much lower. Then the middle-aged crew came back in a film meant to appeal to those adults who grew up with the Trek universe, and it was a great comeback and the movies became serious sci-fi meant for grown-ups as well as kids. TNG brought it to a new TV generation who loved it, and a Golden Age finally hit--thirty years after the original series--with the original crew in films and two crews on TV. The early Voyager was the first sign that anything was wrong--but not much is wrong now. No, Insurrectuion wasn't a good film. So what. Thirty years from now, Trek will still be around--time has *proven* its resilience.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
Anyone who would insist that the best of the lot was "Next Generation" (once called "a talk show in space" by Spin) or "Voyager" (the Gilligan's Island" of "Trek") has been sipping too much Romulan ale. ... well, a new generation of viewers (baaad double entendre, baaaad) ... It's a well known fact that both Shatner and Nemoy have at one time or another denounced the fandom of Trek ("I'm Not Spock", "Get A Life") and this journalist chooses them for his major sources? Why not talk to some of the newer casts? Oh yeah, because you're biased and want to interject your nostalgia into your story. That's what we in the business call bad journalism. Oh yeah, am I the only one who wanted to cheer when Kirk died (both times) in Generations? =)
Wwwwwhat? Okay, we all know that Voyager sucks, but everybody of my generation was born and raised on ST:TNG. I remember having debates with my middle school home room teacher about TNG character development. I've had friends who are still glued to the screen watching "All Good Things" for the nth time. Nonononono, how the heck could you possibly blame TNG for killing Trek? TNG SAVED Trek. It opened up the Trek universe to
The reason why The Next Generation was so successful is not its tie with the original Star Trek (although that did help develop its early viewerbase). The Next Generation survived and succeded based on its writing and characters, not on whether-or-not kirk would be in the next movie. TNG had very little in common with the original series; it flourished on its own merits.
As for DS9, perhaps in the beginning, it survived based on TNG's success, however its complex characters and continuous storyline allowed it to be successful on its own, even though it was basically an extention of TNG.
I can't say too much for voyager, however, it doesn't adequately keep my attention. But, if whatever new series is rolled out is strong enough, on its own, Star Trek isn't going to die anytime soon. The trick is to either boost Voyager's viewerbase or introduce the new series soon, before Voyager gets cancelled.
I gave up on Star Trek when the only solution they could come up with to solve writing problems was to bring in someone with bigger tits. (No joke, the TV went off at the last commercial break.) Since then, I have not been able to watch an episode all the way through. I've tried a couple of times, both Voyager and Deep Space 9, but the parts I've seen seem to have more to do with "The Young and the Restless" then they did with the shows, the original and The Next Generation, that used to be such the guilty pleasure. It all seemed to be about who was sleeping with who. And even worse, all of the "relationship" crap wasn't even original, but one more iteration of "having to understand their differences".
But then that has been the whole problem with the series since Voyager and even before. It is all "Been there, done that". I mean, how many times does the goddamn holodeck have to break before they decide that maybe, perhaps they should turn it off?
But then, how far down do ratings have to go before they hire a new writing staff? I mean, Babylon 5 managed to find writer...er...ok, maybe not, but Strasynski's not doing anything these days. Maybe he could teach a class or something.
Anyway, sorry for the incindiery post. I should probably stop now before I piss everyone completely off. But I wouldn't loathe the damn thing so much if I hadn't loved it in the first place.
(What really makes me sad is that every once in awhile, a really good SF show pops up, and then dies a quick death. Last year, I absolutely loved Brimstone, but it only lasted half a season. And yet they keep this decaying mess on year after year... Sorry. Bye. Probably ought to post AC.)
The cake is a pie
If you have a point to make, then why not name yourself?
After the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation, All Good Things . . . , Star Trek has been a continuous failure. Let's count the mistakes:
Ok, I don't think I need to continue. I wish that someone would take over the franchise and make the right decisions.
Comments, suggestions?
Justin
justinad@ix.netcom.com
Nope, I think for myself. I use Mac OS today since it fulfills my needs. I do not yet use Linux, because it is not yet user-friendly enough (I plan to use it because of its power). I do NOT use Windows whatsoever since it is a terribly-implemented OS and its owner acts ANTI-COMPETITIVE whenever possible.
M$ puts the directory structure of my hard drive into any saved Word file ('97 version or later). Thus they are able to control me by revealing my privacy to those outside. I must take this into account if I am fortunate enough to know it. If I am NOT, I am FUCKED by their "undocumented" feature (as M$ calls it).
Well, beyond that, I would never use an M$ product to serve a web-page. Any cracker worth their salt would easily be able to change it. Does M$ give a sh*t about security. No, and NEVER. F*ck the consumer they say, as usual.
So, F.U.D.-you, MSAC. You blow *ss! (once again, but I'm not goin' to fall for that sh*t again)
SSIA
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
The problem with Star Trek, as I see it, is that there is simply not enough danger. Star Trek is always about one ship that HAS to survive to keep the series going. Even if by some chance the ship is destroyed (as has happened in several episodes)...it is always explained away by some ridiculous space/time continuum thingie.
= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
What if, instead of beating the Dominion, the Federation had gotten theie butts kicked? What is Earth was captured and the federation destroyed. That's it...all gone.
All that's left is the former Federation outcasts...the Maquis. You could build a whole series around the Maquis as they fight to destroy the Dominion. It's the whole futile odds-are-impossible thing that makes Star Wars thrive. Difficult struggles, lots of potential conflicts...and best of all...a rotating cast so that people can actually DIE. Not the leaders of course...they never die but, you could follow a ship for a couple weeks until it meets a gruesome (tho noble) death.
Another way cool tangent would be to have Voyager reach the Alpha quadrent somewhere around the fourth season when things are getting dull. They would of course be stunned to find the Federation gone, but have lots of way cool Delta Quadrent technology that would help reverse the losing battle. Borg sheilds or whatever. Could even wake up Seven's borg implants so she could start assimilating Jem Hadar (sp?) warriors and turning them to fight for the Maquis.
Anyway... It would have been cool. The bottom line, Rick Berman (if you are a slashdotter), is that if you keep everything happy, audiences get tired of it. Without sorrow, you can't know what makes joy so good.
Just my thoughts...
- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
I've adored Star Trek since I was 6 (which wasn't too terribly long ago, actually). My dad loves Star Trek, my 8 younger siblings love Star Trek, but half my adolescent friends think that loving Star Trek is insane. Why? Because, as I believe has already pointed out, the image of Star Trek has radically changed.
I'm accustomed to ST:TOS. The endearingly bad acting, the suspiciously human aliens, the refreshingly non subtle story morals, the fascinating away missions, the Kirk/McCoy/Spock dialogues are all treasured childhood memories. When I think of Star Trek, I envision a hopeful, funny (not always intentionally) show, one which fueled my dreams of science, space, and the future of mankind.
My friends, on the other hand, are accustomed to ST:TNG, ST:DS9, or ST:V. They think of Star Trek simply as a glorified soap opera and a gargantuan money maker...and, indeed, such is what it has become. Efforts on my behalf to introduce them to the charm of the original Star Trek end in failure, as they're a tad too spoiled by more modern sci fi to see anything in the original Star Trek but corny dialogue and bad special effects. The original Star Trek requires both imagination and optimism to enjoy...modern teens are all too frequently deficit in those areas, and cannot enjoy ST:TOS any more than they can enjoy Dr. Who (another favorite of mine).
What to do? I'm not sure that the original message and form of Star Trek can be restored to popularity. American culture, at present, cannot appreciate it. The charm of the original cast members can never really be recaptured. At present, the modern image of Star Trek is that of just another special effects laden TV show...and, in that form, it is dying. Let it die. Perhaps in another day and age, "the true meaning of Star Trek" can be resurrected.
--When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!--
Okay, I admit that I am not a fan of the original series (heck, I was born long after its cancellation), but it seems to me that the appeal was in the almost utopian view of the future in comparison to current issues. It portrayed an environment in which members of several different races and both genders could effectively work together (alongside their perfectly refined technology) to further human (and other miscellaneous species) knowledge and advancement. It was, in essence, the ideal setting to escape from the turbulent times.
The times, however, have changed since then. A show about conflict in a near-utopia (in comparison to our time) just isn't as exciting as it once might have been, not only because all of the plots are just rehash, but also because we are a lot closer to living in that same type of setting in real life than back during TOS's running.
What I think they should do if the producers want to keep running the Star Trek theme is to dispose of the near-utopian environment and replace it with one that the current generation can relate to more and view with the same hope and aspiration that the original series gave. For instance: the Federation is overthrown... society must re-create itself, not only on Earth but on other planets as well. The technology is still present, but no longer the focus (read: distraction) and human relationship and societal development because the central issue.
Oh well, just me two cents...
-Chris Andreasen
-Chris Andreasen
Now we all know that ST: Voyager sucked before Ms. Ryan joined the show. She might not be the best actress, but she has to be better than Kate M. . Captain has that grandma act, which belongs to a cooking show and not a sci-fi show. Voyager has maybe 2 cool characters one being Nelix and other the doctor person, everyone else is pretty weak. Now lets not blame the good-looking chick, because we all know that one of main selling points of original ST was adventure (with good looking honeys in lots of cases)
Okay, I must agree with everyone else. When did this turn into bash MS instead of Star Trek, dead or alive? So, while you make the point that MS does not care about its users. I think not. Their only policy that bothers me is their release of unstable code and waiting for the bug reports to come in. But its brilliant market strategy, get to the market first, whatever the cost. Anyway, what do I mean by all this? If you are going to bash anything, have a well thought out argument.
The best thing to do, for now, is to put it away before even more people get sick of it. Notice how STOS went away for awhile, then there was Star Trek cartoon which went away (and is never mentioned, and I have never seen, must have been bad). Then Star Wars came out, Paramount realized it was sitting on a moneybag, and they began the bombardment. Personally, I am a bigger TNG fan, but I can't really make comparisons, TOS and TNG are different in so many ways. But that is the point, after people who grew up on TOS reached middle age: BOOM! Same thing will happen when TNG fans do the same. I just hope there will only be one show running at a time from now on. Curiously, I think that though DS9 and V were weak at first, they slowly got better. The main problem with that is that the character development went down and down with each series. (within each series, it increased with time, tho). For certain, it will go away for awhile. But it will be back.
I loved the original series. I enjoyed watching Next Generation. Deep Space 9 was boring. Voyager is horrible.
The imagination and the creativity has waned and now it's gone. I have watched a few of the newer episodes and after the first 5 minutes, I can guess pretty accurately what will happen. My brother and I used to joke that they have 9 adlib scripts--they grab one, change a few names, change a few details, add water, and *voilla* new episode! Clearly the imagination and the creativity that was once there, is now no longer there.
And the symbolism and messages of the episodes is incredibly dry and cheesy now. Before they used to say these heavy things about humankind. About the universe. About interrelationships. About technology and society. Now it's all this touchy-feely stuff.
I think they should end Voyager and do movies every now and then.
Here's a list of the 9 scripts:
1. the inevitable crystalline entity
2. ____ hits a rift in space/time and have to repeat what they did until they figure it out
3. superior entity/race tests _____ crew and the crew has to defend humanity and the entity/race learns what it means to be _human_
4. ____, the new technological trinket, is like a drug and the crew becomes addicted and then has to become unaddicted
5. ____, the token non-emotional being (android, morph, computer program, borg), spends another episode discovering human emotions
6. holodeck suffers malfunction/is tampered with, and they have to make-believe for real
7. the crew of the _____ is on a routine mission and discover a covered-up conspiracy by the federation against some group of innocents and the crew of the _____ break regulations to help them
8. crew member _____ revolts against _____'s doctrine and fights against them--oh no, who's gonna die
9. Q irritates the crew of the _____ for an hour and discovers that they are still the wily humans they always have been
I've been a Star Trek fan for years. I'm old enough to have seen it when it first came out, and I liked it then, and I still do. All that being said, I just don't watch Star Trek any more. I watched TNG regularly, a little of DS9, and a whole three episodes of Voyager. I just can't stomach it anymore. The main characters aren't likable. Ever notice how the background characters are usually MORE complex in the Star Trek spinoffs? The number of background characters who became important because they turned out to be more interesting to the viewers is amazing. The main characters are simply too sublime for anyone to care about or like. In the original series, the main characters were extremely noble, but they were not humerlous paragons of duty, justice, and the Federation Way(tm). Star Trek next made the mistake of not keeping their universe believable or consistant. Everything occurs in a vacuum. They have episodes where they replace limbs and fix aging through use of the transporter. This is just one example of too many to count where they introduce a major technological advancement, and then have it disappear. In the original series, no real attempt was made to explain things like warp drive or the transporter. This was a Good Thing(tm) because it helped discourage cheap fixes using the technology. The capabilities of their technology was also more clearly defined, and so you didn't have nearly as much techno-babble B.S. The TNG movies have all been two hour long TV episodes. Who wants to spend $8 to see a two-hour long TV episode of anything? I could go on and on, but the truth is that these are symptoms, not the disease. I believe the real problems is: They don't have someone in charge of the universe as a whole. Gene is gone, and no one is steering the boat anymore. Mostly looks to be a bunch of different power cliques turning out various unrelated episodes and movies of varying quality. The original Star Trek was canceled before it could degenerate into something worthless. It was kind of obvious that they were running out of ideas, but they (were forced) to quit while they were ahead, and so were able to come back. What if instead the show had ran on until it ran itself into the ground? This is like the Elvis question - would Elvis have remained popular if he had never died? Or would he have faded into obscurity? At this rate, I'm betting on obscurity for Star Trek. Oh, shadows of Star Trek will hang around for a while in the form of lame spinoffs and stuff to siphon money away from the die-hard core fan-base, but that's all. I've heard people mention a Academy spinoff for example. Whoopee. That'd be the ultimate in inward-looking "who-cares" spin-offs. From Marco Polo to water polo. It would be cheap to produce though, and would fulfill the function I mentioned of siphoning money from a dwindling fan-base. Oh well, all things come to an end.
Star Trek is beyond tired...it's a fat old horse with four broken legs. They should shoot it and put it out of our misery.
Well, I certainly hope not. I am currently laying down the basics for a Star Trek story of my own based on a new ship with a new crew and in the 25th centutry which I think will be very intriguing. I should be buying my Star Trek Encyclopedia and Technical Manuals, as well as Klingon Dictionary, so that I can be as accurate as possible with my story.
;-)
So, in other words, the franchise may die, but I hope not. Even if it does, anyone can still write stories based on it.
PS: My story will be published solely on the intenret and will be GPLed
yeah
If only all cultures had the benefit of a good joystick :) After 300 years of technology development, the joystick is still considered advanced enough to control a huge Starship capable of faster than light travel. With enough research, the Federation may be able to lay off all those useless crew members and replace them with an army of pilots trained on arcade games.
But other than that, it was an ok movie. Touched on something of an issue, but other than that, kind of a special effects movie. I liked Generations, First Contact was also good, but Insurrection seems to be the worst, although it is not that bad.
This was originally posted on the Ain't it Cool News website back in August (1999), and you can find the original full story here.
The interesting bit is this:
"Interestingly enough, there was a surprising lack on consistency between the reports, save for info on one of the titles - Gene Roddenberry's PHOENIX RISING. All of the reports about this show said pretty much the same thing. Thus, the Phoenix Rising information should be considered rather reliable, although please be aware some changes will likely come down during the show's developmental process."
....
"Gene Roddenberry's PHOENIX RISING. Phoenix Rising is being developed by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine alumni Robert Hewitt Wolfe.
FLASH BACK: Remember Roddenberry's two series pilots from the '70s (Genesis II and Planet Earth)? Both featured a man called Dylan Hunt being frozen in (more or less) modern day, then revived on an Earth that has fallen to great savagery and barbarism. The point of the proposed series would have been for Hunt and his sidekicks to work towards reuniting and re-unifying mankind. Remember this concept for a moment, and the name Dylan Hunt.
PRESENT DAY: Robert Hewitt Wolfe conceives of his "perfect" Star Trek series: a series set thousands of years in Star Trek's future. The galaxy is in turmoil, all of the governments to which Trek fans are accustomed have crumbled and imploded. The galaxy is a really screwed up place: Vulcans have renounced their logic and are now savage enemies of anyone who crosses them. Homeless Klingons roam space in violent packs of attack ships. The Federation is long gone - but it is an ideal not forgotten to those living in this untamed reality.
A Federation Starship...an "Enterprise" from a bit further down the ship's lineage...is discovered drifting in space, its Captain (and maybe a few crew) are frozen in stasis. Ship and crew are revived, and are horrified by the galaxy to which they awaken. Using their Enterprise as an icon for the cohesion and strength that used to be (but is now lost), Enterprise and her rag-tag crew set out to restore the Federation to what it once was, and restore peace and balance to the galaxy.
It is unclear if Wolfe ever formally approached Paramount with this Trek series concept. None the less, the basic idea for his series is finding its way into a new (non-Trek) "Roddenberry" series called Phoenix Rising.
Take the Genesis II / Planet Earth scenarios mentioned above...throw them together with Wolfe's "ideal" Star Trek series...and you get Gene Roddenberry's PHOENIX RISING. PR is the tale of a spaceship and captain found drifting in deep space. They are revived into a galaxy that is all messed-up. They set about trying to restore peace and order to the way of things - by trying to re-unite the galaxy and resurrect the glorious old days of solidarity and (relative) peace. It's a tough job in a tough place, but somebody's gotta do it.
Given this formula, one significant question sticks out: this "galaxy in decay" notion would have worked magnificently on Star Trek - as viewers would already have a general frame of reference for what Trek history looks like & feels like. Thus, we can understand what has actually been lost, and are able to visualize what our heroes are trying to resurrect.
But Phoenix Rising does not have the benefit of dealing with such solid and established notions of what has come before, because its back history (on which the entire series is predicated) has never been seen or experienced by the audience. As such, one concern regarding Phoenix Rising is that our heroes will be struggling towards a "new order" / "golden age" which has no resonance or point of association to the viewer. Thus, the "goal" of the series might seem tenuous or abstract, unless the show (somehow) conceives of a brilliant & effective way to convey the coveted age of hope which our characters are striving to bring back - so we can associate with what their endgame really is.
As far as I can tell, Hercules' Kevin Sorbo has expressed great interest in playing the revived captain in Phoenix Rising, although no final decisions have been made on this. I am told that Sorbo will either go for PR, or Gene Roddenberry's ANDROMEDA (see below).
Phoenix Rising is currently being developed with an eye towards a Fall 2000 premiere."
.....
I would LOVE to see it a star trek series developed as mentioned above, but it looks like Paramount will find a way to mess with it again and screw it up...
and I haven't seen anything as far as recent news on Phoenix Rising, since I am not really that heavy of a TV watcher, etc...
but one can always hope, I suppose...
So I just loaded the threads for this article.
/.
Definitely not the intelligent give and take discussion that I usually (sometimes) see on
Seems like every friggen nerd in the entire world has something to say about star trek. And since they all read slapdash, they have to post their 5 paragraphs of drivel for all to read. But nobody but me reads this tripe, and nobody responds to the others crap.
I actually tried to read through a stack or articles (I gave up the usenet star trek groups years ago, now I remember why) Waste of time.
Hard tech topics at least have a more definite right/wrong (my cpu is faster than yours, etc.) Cloning, startrek, privacy are all nice topics, but the comments they provoke are sad.
But look at me, surfing at 2:00 on a friday...
ed
tem
What ever happened to Q? I thought that the Q should have been explored more... In a trek movie perhaps... B5 says alot about how studios care about good sci fi...if you look at the crap that JMS has gotten on B5 and especially crusades... Where is the motivation to write good sci fi if the fans can only enjoy it at 2am. -- AC
Precisely, individuals are thought of in aggregate by the M$ marketeers. This backs up the borg idea nicely. I do not consider that M$ even thinks I exist. I am but a minor, minor person in their War to control a world of 6 billion.
But I am a member of a group. M$ wants to own all users of computers. Micro$oft does NOT care for individuals whatsoever. They matter not to this collective.
Long, establishing shot of a futuristic San Francisco, with sleek, graceful vehicles moving over the Golden Gate Bridge... Pan around to Starfleet Headquarters, as a shuttle pulls in... a dramatic moment, as we are about to see the great Captain in a new adventure for the first time in ten years... The shuttle doors open... and there is ADMIRAL KIRK!!!!
With a hideous toupee. Obviously wearing a girdle. In a uniform that makes him look like a dental assistant.
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
And the brethren went away edified.
In my opinion, the death of Trek (at least in its television incarnation) can be largely attributed to the folleys of the fourth series, Star Trek: Voyager. This show is so bad that even the reknowned Trek reviewer Tim Lynch stopped watching the show after its second season. I think what's wrong with the show is best described by Tim himself in his review of Voyager's second season:
I've edited Tim's article considerably for length; the full text can be found at http://www.psiphi.org/voy/ep/twl-2. html#general
Regards,
Actually, the translator is in the communicator, not implanted in people.
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While reading in the Salon article about how the orignal series lasted only 3 seasons, as compared to the subsequent, modern shows which have logged vastly more episodes than the first, it occurred to me that the original series competed in a vastly tighter television market than did/does the newer shows. When the original show aired, there were only 3 major networks and there was no cable. Most folks were doing well to get good reception on three stations. Also, it was not uncommon for the T.V. stations you did get to "sign-off" at some point late at night (i.e. they were not necessarily 24-hour).
The point is, there just weren't that many available time slots for shows like there are today. If a show today can't get a time slot on one of the major networks, it is frequently an option to look to an alternative outlet -- cable channels -- to still get the show on the air.
So, in that sense, it seems to me it is a worthy achievment that the original series was able to occupy one of those limited time slots for 3 years. I wonder how long any of the other Trek shows would have lasted under the same circumstances. Or how long would the original have gone if cable had been available then?
Read your post again. Then read your punchline.
StarWars is just as old, and I know many people that would say the same thing about it.
Sorry, I just found that funny.
>The fan-base was an unheard of phenomenon for a TV show.
Wait a minute, did I catch this right? You think TOS had a huge fan base? I think I'll have to correct you on this...
TOS was (and is) a great show. But when they were making it, it was a complete failure. Why else do you think the "5 year mission" was over in 3 years? No one was watching it... until after it was canceled and put into syndication. Then people found out about it and realized how good it really was... and this is also why, 15-20 years later, they brought Star Trek back with TNG. I was raised on TNG, and I must admit I still like it better than TOS. But Star Trek will never die; look to TOS for an example - just when the producers thought they'd killed it, that's when it started to get truly popular.
Have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum?
I've liked all the Star Trek series. With each one their are classic episodes and forgetable ones.
In my opinion the best of each are:
TOS - City on the Edge of Forever
TNG - Family
DS9 - Far Beyond the Stars
Voyager - Timeless
The common thread seems to be difficult choices and conflict, both internal and between primary characters.
It's an easy to create new races that want to hunt , aquire, steal or do assorted nastiness to the beloved crew, but it takes a whole different level of narative skill to give crew members individual motivations and use that as a source of conflict. Why not have likeable but subversive crew members. I mean, by now Voyager's crew should have broken down into a Lord of the Flies type of situation. Seventy-some odd years from home and the captain want to explore some anommaly. She would have been spaced by now.
The fault for the failings of the current Treks lies squarly at the feet of the writers and the producers.
Create three dimensional characters. Give each of them a full assortment of motivations, goals, fears, and failings. Quit sanding the rough edges and make everybody get along. Don't keep defining the characters as analogs to previous characters.
Hell, I could go on and on about what they should do, but we all know that they do not have the capability of changing. Oh well, screw it.
just as long as the aliens don't have more than two tits and on two separate symmetrical breasts. I'm am really glad that the producers have upheld this high standard of physical beauty. I have always enjoyed how there always is a sexy female alien. I mean, you would think that most of the aliens would be multi appendaged squid monsters or something like that rock eating blob that the original series had in one episode.
But the producers have consistently rolled out good looking creatures from other worlds. That's they way it was with the original series too. We all knew what Captain Kirk was doing to-err-with the cute female aliens when they faded to black. It's a ST tradition - wham bam thank you martian mam. I just wish that Star Trek would show us the Venus butterfly.
I will compare the borg to linux (or at least the GPL), and the federation to microsoft...
The borg assimalates people into their collective, one cannot leave (with a couple of dodgy exceptions that are exceptions rather than the rule)
The GPL lisence assimilates code. once code has been GPLed, it cannot leave (I don't think that there is any counter-examples of this)
The borg are indestructable. (for all intensive purposes) To destroy the borg, you have to destroy every borg in existance (because every borg has the ability to produce as many borg as hosts they can find, and every borg has the knowledge of all the borg). Considering just one borg cube would have taken out almost all of the federation's fleet (if it wasn't for picard, in "first contact") and how wide spread they are (they are seen throughout the galaxy) this would be a pretty big accomplishment.
Linux is indestructable. (no I don't mean it's stability) As it's code is free (as in speach) anyone can get the code, and improve it. Even if all of the companies that make money off of linux stopped tomorrow, linux would continue to grow, and improve. Even if the internet stopped working, and people couldn't contact each other to co-ordinate the programming of major linux projects, linux would continue as people could program away for themselves. To destroy linux, you would have to destroy every linux source on the planet, as every source has the knowlege of all the linux programmers in the world.
The borg adapt quickly because they use the knowlege gained from eachother to protect from future attacks.
Linux adapts quickly as people use knowlege from other linux users, and their access to source code to patch holes as soon as they are found.
The borg are not evil, they do what they can to help people (they don't kill people, they assimilate them, from the borg's perspective, they are "helping" them become borg.)
Linux is not evil, its advocates do what they do because they believe that they are "helping" them. (Before you flame, ask yourself: how many people go back to windows after using linux for any reasonable length of time?)
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The federation can be changed very easily by its' members leaving or new ones joining.
Microsoft can be bought out (unlikely), or can buy other companies (more likely) and thus change its' structure. Microsoft can sell off part of itself, or buy another company to add to itself without much dificulty.
The federation is easily destroyed. Without the engeneers working away to create new ships, new weapons, and new technology, the federation can be easily disolved away into nothingness. The federation has a minimum population to continue to function. I won't put a number on this, but its system requires a certain hierarchy that allows people to work efficiently. With less than that many people, the federation would dwindle to nothingness.
Microsoft can be easily destroyed. Without programmers working to make windows, and other programs work with the latest systems, then they would fall behind, and become redundant very quickly. Microsoft needs a minimum number of developers to keep it alive. without that minimum number, it would become unprofitable, and an unprofitable microsoft is no microsoft at all.
The federation adapts slowly. This is partially due to the fact that evolution happens over generations, and partially due to the fact that the only people who can fix specific problems are those who have skills in the specific field. (i.e. a doctor could not fix an engeneering problem, and vice-versa)
Windows adapts slowly, as it can only be changed by those with the code. they can only change it when they are told what the problem is, and they can find it. Microsoft has a limited number of programmers, and a limited budget, so it can take _much_ longer for microsoft to counter a problem than for the equivalent linux problem.
The federation is not evil, they just try to appear that way (and do a pretty good job at it) If you disagree, just look at the way that they deal with other cultures, and the contempt that they hold for non-humans (prime directive my ass)
Microsoft is not evil, they just try to appear that way (and do a pretty good job at it) If you disagree, just look at the way that they deal with other companies... (non-anti-compedative actions my ass)
NOTES: I am not a trekkie, I do not use linux extensively (I have used it from time to time, over the last 5 years or so), I do not use windows or other microsoft programs unless I absolutely have to.
Enough said.
Insurrection could have been a 2 part series. First contact was great however. Unfortunately, though, we'll never have another Bones, or Spock, or even horny James Kirk.
We'll just have to deal with seeing soap operas of Ferengie Fred and Alien Angela and how they need to be more sensitive to eachother's needs, instead of a kick ass episode like when Kirk met Kahn. Now that was something to remember.
And it was fun.
That's what has been missing in TNG, DS9, and VOY. I can't watch Voyager, especially after they brought in T of A.
So, my vote is for the anthology series, with maybe a small number of characters who show up more regularly than others.. This way, we could get a marines episode, an academy episode, a 'love story' episode, a Q episode, a 'where are they now' episode, etc..
The studio excuse is that this would be horribly expensive. Well, TOS got by with some *very* clever people, and strong, passionate writing. Not bean counters, attempting to build a strategy that would turn a long-term profit, by studying 'market demographics', etc.
And no more 'use the real-life person generated in the holodeck to remodulate the dilithum crystals with a pulsed-phased tachyon bean emitter module'.
I never liked the original series. Perhaps it was because of the (to me)laughable special effects, but they all seemed so shallow and formulaic. ST:TNG on the other hand, was great. It had action, adventure, political intrigue, mystery. I do agree, however that Voyager and most of DS9 are complete trash.
KKKKHHAAAAAAAAAAAANNNN!!!! ... comeon, you know you love it.
fantastic idea!
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