That was two different episodes. The guy with the computer was Gary Seven (Terri Garr was in that episode). That episode was called "Assignment: Earth". The other one was "Tomorrow is Yesterday".
Ah, thanks. That's what happens when you post drunk;-)
Remember that episode that was supposed to be a pilot for another show? You know, the one where the enterprise travels back in time to the 60's and meets this guy with a big computer who's messing around with a rocket? You know, the one where the enterprise enters the earth's atmosphere and gets spotted by a jet plane?
Surfing lightsabre battle, great, I'm sure it's fantastic, but what is it with posters and editors who think it's necessary to dump details without a spoiler warning?
I'm actually glad they gave me fair warning! Now I have a year to brace myself.;-)
Let Lucas decide that force auras work however he damn well pleases. There's a lot of stuff to be annoyed about in Star Wars, but that ain't one of them.
How about you let me decide what I damn well get annoyed at in Star Wars? There's a lot of people with interresting things to say about Star Wars, but you ain't one of 'em.
lucas created a lot, what you define as noncreative is exactly what creativity is: mixing and matching previous cultural artifacts [...] it doesn't take away from lucas's creativity to find his sources of inspiration
No, I say he created nothing as a slight exageration in opposition to the common view that he made up all those things.
People think he came up with the city planet, the worm-man ruling a desert planet, etc. And he didn't, he did not create them, he renamed them: not creative. Seriously, people actually say he created this universe as if from scratch, and I think Lucas is starting to believe that himself. There is some measure of creativity involved. He, and his team, had to adapt these concepts and repackage their visuals, provide alternate histories, etc. But do not confuse this with true creativity. He did not create, he transformed.
And I reitterate that I am gratefull that he did, SW was very influencial and I'm glad he did it. But he did not go from creative genius to hack. He went from masterfull recycler to hack.
ALL stories, written by ANYONE can be found to have similarities to previous stories
You are stretching the reach of "similarity". The man-worm ruler of a desert planet with a giant under-sand worm is not a "similarity", its outright borrowing (not that there's anything wrong with that per se).
study joseph campbell and his groundbreaking work with myths, especially the hero with a thousand faces to see what i mean
Been there, done that. Didn't bother to mention it, its been said to death (and debated, David Brin says Lucas fails at Cambellian mythology).
however, for whatever bizarre reason, with jar jar and surfing lava, lucas somehow thinks that YOUNGER children should be courted
That is not bizarre, its a symptom of Lucas' shit to the corporate mindset: Hook 'em young.
When ep1 came out, the stores were filled to the brim with SW toys. Hell, people were buying 'em like there was no tomorrow before the movie came out. The shift to a younger audience was purely market-driven.
he doesn't care for the original fans because we are already hooked. I will go to see episode 3, and he knows that I and my geeky brethren will. He doesn't have to pander to our taste, he has us. Now he needs more. There is the off chance that we will eventually frow out of our SW-paraphanelia life styles, and the LucasCorp machine knows it. So younger is better.
Btw, he had a speudo artistic reason for it, in his defense: Kiddy movie as Anakin is a kid, teeny movie as Anakin is in his teens, and I guess we'll have some kind of young adult situation in ep3 (home-buying?).
how can someone create such a dark and fantastic universe and make it so compelling int he first 3 movies, and then fill it with things like jar jar and "surfing on lava" (whoa gnarly yo!) and other idiocies in the last 3
Lucas never created anything, he recycled other people's ideas:
Tatooine is Dune:
The sand people are the fremen.
Jaba is Leto II, the god emperor of Dune.
The Sarlac is Shai-Hulud, the great worm.
Corruscant is Trantor: The galactic capital, situated near the center of the galaxy, its entire land-mass and a good portion of its ocean covered in one gigantic multi-layered city.
Han Solo is a space-cowboy (picture him with a cowboy hat...there you go), and Chewbaca is his indian life-partner.
The story itself is "Young peasant saves beautifull princess from dark knight's fortress with help of old sorcerer and comic-relief sidekicks", cookie-cutter fairy tale storyline.
Lucas never created anything, his talent resided in two things: Getting himself a kick-ass team to do an incredible job, and incredible marketing insight.
Don't get me wrong, I love the original trilogy and I see nothing wrong with a bit of post-modern cultural recycling. In fact, I applaud Lucas for reviving the classic sci-fi pulps, but he his in no way a creative man, he's just good at rehashing already existing ideas.
So my guess is that the problem with the prequels is that he has somehow convinced himself that he has creative talent. Dellusional men do weird things...
I think both Episode I and II were good movies (II was better than I), but still somewhat lacking compared to the first three.. Perhaps it was the overuse of CGI?
Poor editing, actually.
If you look on the ep1 DVD's deleted scenes, you'll see a scene where Qui Gon is talking with Anakin in Mos Eisley, and one of the flying camera droids that Darth Maul had released when he got on the planet creeps up on them. Qui Gon senses its presence, and in a very cool Jedi move turns around, takes out his lightsaber and destroys the drone in one swift motion. then turns to Anakin and, aware that they have been found, says something like "We must hurry!" and they run off to the ship. Upon their hasty arrival, Darth Maul catches up with them, and they fight (the deleted scene ends when he says they must hurry).
But that scene was cut, so the following scenes do not make sense:
When Darth Maul releases the drones. That is now a useless scene because they don't do anything. He releases them...and that's the last we hear of them (I think we see one zipping along once in the background, but that's all).
When Qui Gon and Anakin get to ship running, and Darth Maul is there. Why are they running? How did Darth Maul know the ship was there?
So, he cut an important scene that linked two other scenes (therefore crucial to the flow) and showcased super cool lightsaber action and force powers (what we are there to see!), all because of "time constraints". But he felt it necesary to leave in the same chapter the scenes of:
Jar Jar stepping in cow dung.
Jar Jar getting farted on by a space-cow.
Jar Jar shop-lifting food.
That is bad storytelling. If you have time constraints, you cut the scenes that have no relevance to the story and no impact on the flow, not the ones that are both cool and integral to the story.
Actually, it's been well-established for some time that Dagobah had a strong dark-force aura, which allowed Yoda to hide undetected.
Sure, because the best way to hide a light source is to put it in the dark...Apparently Timothy Zhan (or whoever wrote that part) has never heard of the word "contrast".
Lets try some analogies: A drop of cold water will go unnoticed if dropped on a) Someone cold b) Someone hot.
A drop of green paint will go unnoticed if droped on a) A green surface b) A red surface.
A shout of pain will go unnoticed in a) A quiet library b) A loud bar.
A light Jedi's force aura will go unnoticed if he hides near a strong force area aligned to a) the light b) the dark.
However, by the end of TNG and certainly the beginning of DS9, and now with Voyager & Enterprise, Roddenberry's vision is boring.
Its not boring, its not there at all. Gene died in 1991, and Rick Berman started raping star trek before the body was cold. Berman never liked Star Trek, he liked the money-making petential of a well known brand name, but he did not like:Gene's vision, so he killed it.
The main thing about TNG, and even more so with the original Star Trek, is that you had what actually seemed like real interaction among the cast. You got the feeling that Kirk, McCoy and Spock were real people, and were actually friends; the same holds true with the TNG crew.
Rick Berman has said in interviews that he thought that that was what was wrong with TNG: The people getting along. According to him, what makes a show interresting is conflict. So he wanted to make better shows by removing all that camaraderie from the show and having crews that did not get along.
Like the Maquis and Starfleet on Voy...that turned out great didn't it? And now enterprise...
I've been saying it for over ten years, I'll say it again: Rick Berman must die.
Here is one complicated reason why I think DS9 was a pile of shit: They never made a connection between the Tosk and the Jem Hadar.
One is an artificially created repitillian race that does not eat or sleep and that can become invisible at will, and they know who created it and where they live. The other is an artificially created repitillian race that does not eat or sleep and that can become invisible at will whom they needed, for matters of life and death, to learn more about.
They never went to the creators of the Tosk, hell, they never even mentioned the Tosk beyond season one!
I have more, but that one sums it up: They did not follow the implications of past events within the series, and they plagiarised so much that they even did it to themselves. That cannot be the best trek has to offer. Go watch "Best of both worlds" again, I think you need to.
the "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" philosophy does apply. Why cancel it when you can just not watch it?
Because I want to watch Star Trek. Not that crap that uses familiar words from the trek franchise, I want to watch Star Trek.
I want to watch a show about a future techno utopia where a united humanity ventures forth to the stars in a spirit of friendly exploration.
I don't want to watch "the search for weapons of mass destruction...in space!". And as long as that shit is there, maskarading as Star Trek, I won't get to watch new trek. I want it canceled because it is killing star trek, I want that cancer removed before the entire organism (ie, franchise) is dead.
I'm not saying I don't want you to get CG work on lame shows, or that people who enjoy shows about sexy people rubbing each other down with space goo shouldn't get to watch them. I would gladly simply not watch it if it were some random crappy show. But its a parasite sucking the blood out of something I loved, and that is why I hate it instead of simply ignoring it.
Rick Berman must die so that trek will live again.
I don't know what they think their mirror images are, if they know it's themselves, or if they've just learned to ignore it. But they certainly don't believe it's another animal or else they'd react to it.
Cats use mainly smell to identofy other cats. The mirror test is great for birds, they're very visual creatures, but for animals who's sense of indentity is not carried by vision, is pretty pointless.
Dogs don't care about pictures of their owners, but they react to recorded voices and treat their worn clothes with some affection.
Humans have existed for thousands of years without caffeine...and electricity, and computers, and roads, and cars, and work hours, and watches, and clothes, etc.
When you're at work and you have tasks to accomplish but are feeling to sleepy to do them properly, cafeine is a tool to enhance your productivity. Sure, its basically your boss medicating you so that you will be his tool, but if you're showing up for you're 9 to 5, you're already subjecting yourself to unhealthy living conditions for money...why not go ahead and drink the koolai...er...cofee while you're at it?
MJ is the best cure for laziness that I've ever tried.
I do not doupt that your account is true and informative, but I do believe the guy was looking for a legal way to beat laziness.
Its hard to be productive when you're spending your days trying not to be shanked by all the murderers, rapists and crooked accountants the government decided you should spend the next 10 years with.
Unlike all the other Star Trek series, DS9 had the interesting "Advantage" of being situated in a space station. Which essentially was a non-moving set/location. So while all the other Star Treks were about mindless exploration (and meeting new species in each episode), DS9 was all about building what was there because it was all what they had.
The story/plot of DS9 got quite involved, you had the Federation, Cardassians, Bajorans, the Dominion [...] Seems like quite a setup if you ask me
One word: Defiant.
In the 3rd season, they finally realized that the whole shoddy alien space station idea was lame, and they jumped the shark on an already bad show by giving them a freaking warship.
And funny enough, the only parts you mention as being goog happened when they had that spaceship.
P.S. Exploration and a new species every week? That was what they did the first 3 season, with either the runnabouts going through the wormhole or aliens coming through the wormhole, and then they replaced it with mindless war, which is not a step up.
1. Mutant X was not a cheesy ripoff of X-men, it was sanctioned by Marvel
Mutant X, the show where the wise leader of a group of young mutants with extraordinary powers fight crime and prejudice using their secret base and their freakin' black stealth jet plane that comes out from under a waterfall? Yeah, that's not a rip-off of the comic book where the wise leader of a group of young mutants with extraordinary powers fight crime and prejudice using their secret base and their black stealth jet plane that comes out from under a waterfall...jeez!
Marvel ripped itself off. Self-plagiarism is still plagiarism, no matter what the lawyers try to make you believe.
2. Andromeda WAS good
Now you're just lying through your teeth. That show was crap from day 1. It was Hercules, in space. Bad acting, bad designs, bad writing, bad all around. Guys watched it for the hot babes, girls watched it for the hot guys, the rest of the show was just filler, excuses and pretences for the presence of beautifull people. Inane drivel.
Don't get me started on an entire alien race that has to wear bracers to support their lame ass arm spikes...urgh
With the trend of sci-fi shows being cancelled, eventually all we will be left with are the vapid teeny-bopper soap operas (Smallville anyone?)
SmallVille IS sci-fi. The Alien and spaceship should have been a clue.
P.S. Not being able to tell what is and isn't sci-fi must be why you liked Andromeda and Mutant X. I like sci-fi, and I couldn't stand these shows...SO horrible, yuck.
Slashdot Mirror
That was two different episodes. The guy with the computer was Gary Seven (Terri Garr was in that episode). That episode was called "Assignment: Earth". The other one was "Tomorrow is Yesterday".
;-)
Ah, thanks.
That's what happens when you post drunk
space contais lots of plasma.
Yeah, that's from all those Red Shirts bleeding to death under Kirk's watch...
The only reason it's aerodynamic is because that looked good on the TV screen.
Ahhh...Those wacky StarFleet engineers.
Although I applaud the Starfleet dress code for sexy counselors, bravo, bravo.
I don't get these trekkies wasting so much time worshipping a mediocre series
Yeah, they're almost as bad as the 1U53R2 bashing trekkies on a site that's labelled "news for nerds"...talk about pathetic!
Remember that episode that was supposed to be a pilot for another show? You know, the one where the enterprise travels back in time to the 60's and meets this guy with a big computer who's messing around with a rocket? You know, the one where the enterprise enters the earth's atmosphere and gets spotted by a jet plane?
Hmmm...I guess you don't.
Surfing lightsabre battle, great, I'm sure it's fantastic, but what is it with posters and editors who think it's necessary to dump details without a spoiler warning?
;-)
I'm actually glad they gave me fair warning! Now I have a year to brace myself.
Let Lucas decide that force auras work however he damn well pleases. There's a lot of stuff to be annoyed about in Star Wars, but that ain't one of them.
How about you let me decide what I damn well get annoyed at in Star Wars?
There's a lot of people with interresting things to say about Star Wars, but you ain't one of 'em.
lucas created a lot, what you define as noncreative is exactly what creativity is: mixing and matching previous cultural artifacts [...] it doesn't take away from lucas's creativity to find his sources of inspiration
No, I say he created nothing as a slight exageration in opposition to the common view that he made up all those things.
People think he came up with the city planet, the worm-man ruling a desert planet, etc. And he didn't, he did not create them, he renamed them: not creative. Seriously, people actually say he created this universe as if from scratch, and I think Lucas is starting to believe that himself. There is some measure of creativity involved. He, and his team, had to adapt these concepts and repackage their visuals, provide alternate histories, etc. But do not confuse this with true creativity. He did not create, he transformed.
And I reitterate that I am gratefull that he did, SW was very influencial and I'm glad he did it. But he did not go from creative genius to hack. He went from masterfull recycler to hack.
ALL stories, written by ANYONE can be found to have similarities to previous stories
You are stretching the reach of "similarity". The man-worm ruler of a desert planet with a giant under-sand worm is not a "similarity", its outright borrowing (not that there's anything wrong with that per se).
study joseph campbell and his groundbreaking work with myths, especially the hero with a thousand faces to see what i mean
Been there, done that. Didn't bother to mention it, its been said to death (and debated, David Brin says Lucas fails at Cambellian mythology).
however, for whatever bizarre reason, with jar jar and surfing lava, lucas somehow thinks that YOUNGER children should be courted
That is not bizarre, its a symptom of Lucas' shit to the corporate mindset: Hook 'em young.
When ep1 came out, the stores were filled to the brim with SW toys. Hell, people were buying 'em like there was no tomorrow before the movie came out.
The shift to a younger audience was purely market-driven.
he doesn't care for the original fans because we are already hooked. I will go to see episode 3, and he knows that I and my geeky brethren will. He doesn't have to pander to our taste, he has us. Now he needs more. There is the off chance that we will eventually frow out of our SW-paraphanelia life styles, and the LucasCorp machine knows it. So younger is better.
Btw, he had a speudo artistic reason for it, in his defense: Kiddy movie as Anakin is a kid, teeny movie as Anakin is in his teens, and I guess we'll have some kind of young adult situation in ep3 (home-buying?).
But CG is expensive! They can't just throw away all those pointless Jar-Jar scenes rendered on their outrageously high dollar/hour CPU's :(
Whoa! That...actually could have been part of their reasoning!
Sacry...
Lucas never created anything, he recycled other people's ideas:
Lucas never created anything, his talent resided in two things: Getting himself a kick-ass team to do an incredible job, and incredible marketing insight.
Don't get me wrong, I love the original trilogy and I see nothing wrong with a bit of post-modern cultural recycling. In fact, I applaud Lucas for reviving the classic sci-fi pulps, but he his in no way a creative man, he's just good at rehashing already existing ideas.
So my guess is that the problem with the prequels is that he has somehow convinced himself that he has creative talent. Dellusional men do weird things...
Poor editing, actually.
If you look on the ep1 DVD's deleted scenes, you'll see a scene where Qui Gon is talking with Anakin in Mos Eisley, and one of the flying camera droids that Darth Maul had released when he got on the planet creeps up on them. Qui Gon senses its presence, and in a very cool Jedi move turns around, takes out his lightsaber and destroys the drone in one swift motion. then turns to Anakin and, aware that they have been found, says something like "We must hurry!" and they run off to the ship. Upon their hasty arrival, Darth Maul catches up with them, and they fight (the deleted scene ends when he says they must hurry).
But that scene was cut, so the following scenes do not make sense:
That is now a useless scene because they don't do anything. He releases them...and that's the last we hear of them (I think we see one zipping along once in the background, but that's all).
Why are they running? How did Darth Maul know the ship was there?
So, he cut an important scene that linked two other scenes (therefore crucial to the flow) and showcased super cool lightsaber action and force powers (what we are there to see!), all because of "time constraints". But he felt it necesary to leave in the same chapter the scenes of:
That is bad storytelling. If you have time constraints, you cut the scenes that have no relevance to the story and no impact on the flow, not the ones that are both cool and integral to the story.
Actually, it's been well-established for some time that Dagobah had a strong dark-force aura, which allowed Yoda to hide undetected.
Sure, because the best way to hide a light source is to put it in the dark...Apparently Timothy Zhan (or whoever wrote that part) has never heard of the word "contrast".
Lets try some analogies:
A drop of cold water will go unnoticed if dropped on
a) Someone cold b) Someone hot.
A drop of green paint will go unnoticed if droped on
a) A green surface b) A red surface.
A shout of pain will go unnoticed in
a) A quiet library b) A loud bar.
A light Jedi's force aura will go unnoticed if he hides near a strong force area aligned to
a) the light b) the dark.
Yeah...
However, by the end of TNG and certainly the beginning of DS9, and now with Voyager & Enterprise, Roddenberry's vision is boring.
Its not boring, its not there at all.
Gene died in 1991, and Rick Berman started raping star trek before the body was cold.
Berman never liked Star Trek, he liked the money-making petential of a well known brand name, but he did not like:Gene's vision, so he killed it.
The main thing about TNG, and even more so with the original Star Trek, is that you had what actually seemed like real interaction among the cast. You got the feeling that Kirk, McCoy and Spock were real people, and were actually friends; the same holds true with the TNG crew.
Rick Berman has said in interviews that he thought that that was what was wrong with TNG: The people getting along.
According to him, what makes a show interresting is conflict. So he wanted to make better shows by removing all that camaraderie from the show and having crews that did not get along.
Like the Maquis and Starfleet on Voy...that turned out great didn't it?
And now enterprise...
I've been saying it for over ten years, I'll say it again: Rick Berman must die.
DS9 was the best series, hands down.
Here is one complicated reason why I think DS9 was a pile of shit: They never made a connection between the Tosk and the Jem Hadar.
One is an artificially created repitillian race that does not eat or sleep and that can become invisible at will, and they know who created it and where they live.
The other is an artificially created repitillian race that does not eat or sleep and that can become invisible at will whom they needed, for matters of life and death, to learn more about.
They never went to the creators of the Tosk, hell, they never even mentioned the Tosk beyond season one!
I have more, but that one sums it up: They did not follow the implications of past events within the series, and they plagiarised so much that they even did it to themselves. That cannot be the best trek has to offer. Go watch "Best of both worlds" again, I think you need to.
the "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" philosophy does apply. Why cancel it when you can just not watch it?
Because I want to watch Star Trek. Not that crap that uses familiar words from the trek franchise, I want to watch Star Trek.
I want to watch a show about a future techno utopia where a united humanity ventures forth to the stars in a spirit of friendly exploration.
I don't want to watch "the search for weapons of mass destruction...in space!". And as long as that shit is there, maskarading as Star Trek, I won't get to watch new trek. I want it canceled because it is killing star trek, I want that cancer removed before the entire organism (ie, franchise) is dead.
I'm not saying I don't want you to get CG work on lame shows, or that people who enjoy shows about sexy people rubbing each other down with space goo shouldn't get to watch them. I would gladly simply not watch it if it were some random crappy show. But its a parasite sucking the blood out of something I loved, and that is why I hate it instead of simply ignoring it.
Rick Berman must die so that trek will live again.
I don't know what they think their mirror images are, if they know it's themselves, or if they've just learned to ignore it. But they certainly don't believe it's another animal or else they'd react to it.
Cats use mainly smell to identofy other cats.
The mirror test is great for birds, they're very visual creatures, but for animals who's sense of indentity is not carried by vision, is pretty pointless.
Dogs don't care about pictures of their owners, but they react to recorded voices and treat their worn clothes with some affection.
Anthropomorphism is a bad habit.
Yes, the dreadfull theme song does indeed capture the mood of the series perfectly
Humans have existed for thousands of years without caffeine ...and electricity, and computers, and roads, and cars, and work hours, and watches, and clothes, etc.
When you're at work and you have tasks to accomplish but are feeling to sleepy to do them properly, cafeine is a tool to enhance your productivity.
Sure, its basically your boss medicating you so that you will be his tool, but if you're showing up for you're 9 to 5, you're already subjecting yourself to unhealthy living conditions for money...why not go ahead and drink the koolai...er...cofee while you're at it?
MJ is the best cure for laziness that I've ever tried.
I do not doupt that your account is true and informative, but I do believe the guy was looking for a legal way to beat laziness.
Its hard to be productive when you're spending your days trying not to be shanked by all the murderers, rapists and crooked accountants the government decided you should spend the next 10 years with.
I'll just keep calling it "the X prize" until there is more than one.
my grandfather had great taste in porn.
Good thing I wasn't the one who had to go through his personal effects when he passed.
So, who did inherit his porn collection?
Unlike all the other Star Trek series, DS9 had the interesting "Advantage" of being situated in a space station. Which essentially was a non-moving set/location. So while all the other Star Treks were about mindless exploration (and meeting new species in each episode), DS9 was all about building what was there because it was all what they had.
The story/plot of DS9 got quite involved, you had the Federation, Cardassians, Bajorans, the Dominion [...]
Seems like quite a setup if you ask me
One word: Defiant.
In the 3rd season, they finally realized that the whole shoddy alien space station idea was lame, and they jumped the shark on an already bad show by giving them a freaking warship.
And funny enough, the only parts you mention as being goog happened when they had that spaceship.
P.S. Exploration and a new species every week? That was what they did the first 3 season, with either the runnabouts going through the wormhole or aliens coming through the wormhole, and then they replaced it with mindless war, which is not a step up.
1. Mutant X was not a cheesy ripoff of X-men, it was sanctioned by Marvel
Mutant X, the show where the wise leader of a group of young mutants with extraordinary powers fight crime and prejudice using their secret base and their freakin' black stealth jet plane that comes out from under a waterfall?
Yeah, that's not a rip-off of the comic book where the wise leader of a group of young mutants with extraordinary powers fight crime and prejudice using their secret base and their black stealth jet plane that comes out from under a waterfall...jeez!
Marvel ripped itself off. Self-plagiarism is still plagiarism, no matter what the lawyers try to make you believe.
2. Andromeda WAS good
Now you're just lying through your teeth. That show was crap from day 1. It was Hercules, in space.
Bad acting, bad designs, bad writing, bad all around. Guys watched it for the hot babes, girls watched it for the hot guys, the rest of the show was just filler, excuses and pretences for the presence of beautifull people.
Inane drivel.
Don't get me started on an entire alien race that has to wear bracers to support their lame ass arm spikes...urgh
With the trend of sci-fi shows being cancelled, eventually all we will be left with are the vapid teeny-bopper soap operas (Smallville anyone?)
SmallVille IS sci-fi.
The Alien and spaceship should have been a clue.
P.S. Not being able to tell what is and isn't sci-fi must be why you liked Andromeda and Mutant X. I like sci-fi, and I couldn't stand these shows...SO horrible, yuck.