It’s got Simon Pegg in it so I will at least be entertained while he’s on screen.

Am very much not okay with Kirk and Uhura hooking up. Hasn’t Uhura been through enough, having to wear those stupid mini-dresses every episode? LEAVE UHURA ALONE!

That prequel plan sure worked out great for the Star Wars film “franchise”

I’m curious to see Abrams’ take on it.  It can go either way - he usually hits ‘em out of the park or fouls out.  Industrial Light & Magic’s part will be fine, I’m sure.

Slyer as Spock is weird, though.

The corvette thing at the beginning is like a parody of a JJ Abrams movie.

It’s not Uhura Kirk is in bed with but an Orian Slave girl (the green women).

I’m still not sure why boy Kirk is driving a car off a cliff. But it’s JJ Abrahms, so I’m sure there will be plenty of head scratching nonsense.

I don’t know how well it will do when it comes out - the early reports are that the special effects are gorgeous but, for me, the movie is basically going substantially AU from what we know of that time from ST: TOS canon. This is probably because J.J. Abrams has said that he never was a fan of the series and that he didn’t even know that they’d made other movies.

Anyway for those who love space adventure and ignorant armies clashing by night the new movie will probably be appealing but for old TOStrekkies like me I have serious doubts. Oh well, we’ll see on May 9th if it’s a hit and whether or not I think I’ll be able to stand watching it :(

Uhura in mini-skirts was always a very very very good reason to watch TOS.  Mmmmmrowr!

(My personal fav: the blonde w/the tinfoil skirt who majorly crushed on Spock, to Kirk’s annoyance.)

Set geek on MAX!

Really, I’m loving the dimly seen mega-structures in the background…...

Shouldn’t that Uhura thing been “spoilered”?  >|^P

Nerdage: if you look at the so-called factory, it’s pretty clearly the Enterprise under construction. Of course, the idea that you’d build the Enterprise on the ground instead of at the Utopia Planetia orbiting shipyards is silly, but w/e.

should the Trek lore have been left untouched, or is this an interesting take?

I’m a fan—not a Trekker, but definitely a fan of the ST universe. That means that the lore isn’t holy writ to me, and the more Trek the better. So this movie’s release isn’t a problem for me. The actual film….?

It could be really, really good, or just heinously bad.

That’s pretty much how I’m looking at it—JJ Abrams is nothing if not uneven, and a lot will depend on the guy playing Kirk (if he turns out to be a dud like the guy who played Anakin Skywalker or tries to out-ham Shatner, the movie’s as dead as Ceti Alpha VI).

Either way, I’ll be making a rare visit to the theatre for this one—not a Cinemark theatre, though.

Deep hurting. Deeeeeep hurting! /MST3K

I’m a fan of the original series. It played heavily in reruns when i was kid. I also enjoyed TNG when i was older but i now find that-and all subsequent Trek shows and movies, with the exception of DS9 to be unwatchable.  Oddly the original series holds up-for the most part.

Whether the new film is good or bad, I don’t know, but at least it will be interesting. Star Trek needs a reboot if it is going to survive.

I’m not sure how I feel about this movie exactly.  But I always loved TOS and TNG the best.  I still watch TNG when it comes on Spike or whatever network…. much to the chagrin of my boyfriend.  (He knows he loves it)

I do have to add though, did Abrams really have to keep the original costumes when he changed everything else? They look like they’re out of an Austin Powers movie.

I could give a flying fuck about continuity bewteen series, and especially continuity in Star Trek.  Never seen much of TOS besides the movies, either.  JJ Abrams’ take will be interesting at least, and I’m beyond glad that they snubbed the pile of Shat - that man needs to have his ego punctured regularly.

Sylar and Simon Pegg, though - it’ll be worth it just for them.

And Enterprise was great, especially the multi-episode arc format they mutated into.

Yeah, I don’t think he has sex with Uhura unless I’m missing something. That’s not her he’s making out with.

I’m very iffy about JJ Abrams. Plus, this is the team that wrote Transformers, so already it’s got a knock against it. But I will be contributing to it’s number one box office nonetheless, because I am curious to see what they do with it.

The Enterprise isn’t really buildable under gravity.

Of course, they *could* use antigravity, but if they had that, they’d use a friggin drydock in space like every other proper sci-fi space opera.

did Abrams really have to keep the original costumes when he changed everything else? They look like they’re out of an Austin Powers movie.

This was actually my only complaint.  I get that Abrams has been tapped to totally re-imagine the franchise (in a new Bond or Batman kind of way), so there are going to be changes.  And I’m fine with that - it’s not like them making a reboot version of Star Trek makes all of the original episodes disappear or anything.

But if you’re going to do that - why make the women wear those mini-skirts?  You’re updating everything else, why not the uniforms?  Every time I see those uniforms I think of a World’s Fair “The World of Tomorrow” sort of thing and it just makes me roll my eyes.  If you’re going to change everything, why not start there?

why make the women wear those mini-skirts?

Two words: teenage boys.

I’m with Incertus on this one.  Why the hell do we have to go backward again?  There was so much fertile dramatic ground at the end of Deep Space Nine—ah, to hell with it.  You can’t merchandise fertile dramatic ground, but you can cross-promote the shit out of familiar characters being played by a younger generation of actors.  This movie was dead in the figurative womb; epic fail.  If I wanted to see Bugsy Malone in Space…

If Kirk drove a Corvette when he was a kid, how come he is so confused when he sees cars in the time-travel episodes of the original series? I recall Spock having to explain how to use the clutch when Kirk tries to drive a car in “A Piece of the Action” (the show with the Chicago-style gangsters). I guess continuity is completely out the window at this point. Meh! This is going to suck hard.

I’m actually kinda glad they’re re-booting the film franchise. I’ve never been one to care much for slavish devotion to canon lore, so that doesn’t bother me much, but the TNG films were boring and drab in the same way that I thought the TNG TV series was; everything was too pat, too perfect. While I watched it pretty religiously, TNG always seemed cold and impersonal to me, and the movies with that cast just felt like two-hour special episodes. All the other series, from TOS to Voyager to DS9 to Enterprise, were messier and much more realistic.

Plus, Zach Quinto, Simon Pegg and John Cho == win.

Really, I’m loving the dimly seen mega-structures in the background…... 

That’s the arcology that the 21st Century Libertarians moved into when they “pulled a John Galt”.

FREEDUMB!!!

Back on topic- Why can’t anyone in the film industry come up with anything original?  Must everything be a rehash?

I’m both with and not with Incertus and Churchlady.  I liked Enterprise; I didn’t feel compelled to fit it into a standard ST frame.  The idea of humanity Out There, clued out half the time as to WTF was going on was okay with me.

Continuity might not be important to us as viewers, but it’s pretty much Holy Writ for the Trekker community.  There is no group more obsessed with continuity in existence.

My feelings about this are severely mixed!  I think it will probably suck but imdb said Cirroc Lofton was in it, and if that’s true I’ll probably see it 400 times.  Also, John Cho.  Mmmmmm.

Love, love, love DS9, love TOS, meh on TNG and VOY and Enterprise…had its good points but wasn’t really Star Trek.

I agree with Dan about TNG. It was boring. Everyone on that show was too perfect, so lofty they shit marble-to steal a quote from Amadeus. None of the crew had flaws or foibles. Whereas Kirk is impulsive and prideful, Spock is an emotional basket case, McCoy is cranky, and Scotty is an alcoholic. Also nobody on TNG looked like they were having any fun.

Quad-B, the idea is to put butts in seats.  Since Star Trek has long since become culturally iconic, trying to “boldly go where no one has gone before” in the dramatic, artistic sense is an unacceptable and pointless financial risk.  The studio isn’t trying to make art, they’re trying to make something that will sell lunchboxes and fill suburban multiplexes.  If you want something more challenging and original, I suggest SpongeBob Squarepants.  The original risk was much lower, so the standards are much higher.

I’m just happy that John Cho is Sulu.  I hope he’ll have more opportunities to play bigger roles as a result.

Oh hell yes I’ll see it in the theater.  I may have to go alone, though.  Everyone in my family hates Shatner so much that even a different actor playing Kirk will be contaminated. 

In the various pictures through the link, the one of Nimoy as Spock looks like Mark Lenard as Spock’s father Sarek.  Wierd since Lenard died in ‘96.

I’m thinking the franchise has essentially been dead for a few years, and they know it. So they’re jumping on the bandwagon of reboots that’s been happening with the Batman and James Bond movies, and the Superman, Terminator, and Battlestar Galactica TV shows. All of those are doing well, and they weren’t fettered by baggage of past movies/series, so they’re free to be kickass and wonderful in their own right.

But I’m getting the distinct feeling that Star Trek is a johnny-come-lately to the reboot genre, and is still obligated somewhat to please the Trekkers and Trekkies who have certain expectations about what a Star Trek movie is. So I’m skeptical.

That’s not to say I won’t go see it. I’ll say it now and I’ll say it proud: it will be nice to see a “hot” Kirk. It may be the first time to actually view him as anything but a bombastic oaf. I was always more of a Spock gal myself.

I agree with Dan about TNG. It was boring. Everyone on that show was too perfect, so lofty they shit marble-to steal a quote from Amadeus… Also nobody on TNG looked like they were having any fun.

The world of TNG was so sterile that it made perfect sense for the crew to bring along their therapist when exploring the galaxy.

This movie looks like it’s going to be 90210 in space or “Federation teens.” That said, I’m going to see it, anyway.

“—Two words: teenage boys. —”

You don’t have to be a teenager to appreciate incredibly short skirts.

I’m enthused if only because TOS was a little before my time.  I grew up on my dad’s knee watching TNG and “The Undiscovered Country” was the first Trek movie I caught in theaters.

That said, the franchise has been in the dirt for years now.  I can’t see Abrams doing WORSE than Nemesis or Enterprise or *shudders* Voyager.  Deep Space Nine was the last decent Trekkie piece produced in my memory.  And at a certain point you can’t just keep out-high-teching yourself.  “oo!  We’ve got new aliens.  Now we’ve got NEWER aliens.  Oo!  We’ve got faster than light drives.  Now we’ve got faster than faster than light drives!”  *Yawn*

Going back lets Star Trek look to the future without trying to one-up the older series.  You get to project a utopian (or distopian) future that is more immediate and tangible.  When you’re going out to 2063, how much farther into the future do you plan to project?

I’m pretty much with pablo.  I actually wish it was a full reboot - without Nimoy - just start all over.  I *loved* TOS and TNG and even liked DS9.  But the life had been so sucked out of the franchise I think it should be burned to the ground and rebuilt.  I hope that’s what they’re doing even with Nimoy in it.  I’m cautiously optimistic about this film.  I *love* the trailer.

And, as mentioned above, that’s not Uhura he’s boinking in the trailer so, unless you’ve heard it elsewhere, that ain’t happening.

TOS is fun to watch because it is so damn campy. I really don’t have any opinion on the others.

The world of TNG was so sterile that it made perfect sense for the crew to bring along their therapist when exploring the galaxy.

That’s hilarious!

Other problems i had with the show:

Space travel should always look difficult and dangerous, not families on a luxury cruise ship where everyone has a 1000 sq.ft. apartment.

Windows make no sense on a spaceship. 99% of the time there is nothing to see out of them, and even then you have to either turn your lights out or filter the incoming light.

Remember that time on the holodeck when the characters came to life and tried to kill us? Well maybe that won’t happen this week.

Back on topic- Why can’t anyone in the film industry come up with anything original?  Must everything be a rehash?

Oh come on, this happens in every part of the entertainment industry. Think video games. A great game (Doom) gives birth to an original genre (FPS), and then the life is sucked out of it as 5,000 FPS are released over the next ten years, until no one can take it anymore.

Same with music. Same with movies. Originality is rare, most stuff is formuliac.

Of course, they *could* use antigravity, but if they had that, they’d use a friggin drydock in space like every other proper sci-fi space opera.

What???  IF they have AG, it makes <u>perfect</u> sense to build it somewhere there’s AIR.  >;^)

As to miniskirts: in the fullness of time, EVERY damn fashion will come and go, again and again.

Whoever thought that tattoos would come back?

Do they save whales?  I’d like it better if they saved some whales.

TNG bashing up ins?  Are you kidding me?  Take the ‘08 election.  It’s pretty clear who was Kirk and who was Picard.

“Enterprise” was DOA, but for me the one that REALLY didn’t work was “DS9”, which was a blatant swipe of “Babylon 5” with a much larger budget.

The intrinsic problem: the STATION.  “ST” has always been about GOING. A station is, well, stationary: things come to you.  They eventually had to graft on that superduper puncher ship, because ST is all about GOING, not sitting.  Y’know, as in “To GO where etc etc….”

In “B5” the station made intrinsic sense.

Just ONCE I woulda liked to hear how the hell ‘money’ worked in the Federation…....but noooooo…..

Money? Isn’t the Federation Communist in the true sense of the word?

Eric, the rumor is that JMS (the writer for B5) went to Paramount first, and they rejected his idea for a new series.  He even had a shape shifting security officer.

Not long after, Paramount came out with a new series.  Coincidence, of course.

blucas, that’s only because not even Barack Obama is as bad-ass as The Sisko.  (And in his fondest wet dreams, McCain ain’t no Kirk.  Even W channeled that cowbow mythos better.)

I always wish I could see the B5 that would have been produced with the kind of budget that Paramount could have thrown at it.  Oh well… DS9 is an okay substitute when I can’t bring myself to watch the old B5 episodes yet again, but it does make me sad when I see the more obvious ripoff features.

Cowboy!  WTF is a cowbow?!?

xiC9fb gqigooudhhng, nwbqmswarrrt, [link=http://tfhvnzadzyhc.com/]tfhvnzadzyhc[/link], http://ftciodubxuhv.com/

Does it bother anyone else that both Kirk and Spock are such squeaky tenors?  You’ve got to be at least a baritone to command a starship IMO.  It’s bad enough that they LOOK twelve…..

I thought the stories in DS9 were interesting, and the characters were multifaceted. Voyager on the other hand, blech. What excites me about the new movie is how everything’s a little more dirty. The ships, the environments, the characters. TNG was very clean thematically and visually IMO. The original series had a lot of that too. Kirk was a mostly good guy, but also kind of a bastard. Spock had all that inner turmoil going on under the surface. I’m not super sold on Sylar as Spock, but I’m willing to go with it.

More dirty?  The interior of the new Enterprise looks like a computer room decorated in neon.  And don’t start me on the whole Rash Impulsive Teenage Kirk.  I’m trying hard not to call it Alias Trek.

Then again, I liked TNG.  What do I know?

“blucas, that’s only because not even Barack Obama is as bad-ass as The Sisko.  (And in his fondest wet dreams, McCain ain’t no Kirk.  Even W channeled that cowbow mythos better.)”

THEY DON’T ALL LOOK THE SAME, JEEZ.  I kid.

Obama doesn’t remind me of Sisko at all, though.  Obama and Picard are geniality and erudition personified.  Sisko is awesome, but I don’t see much of his “Your Lucky It’s Illegal for Me to Murder All You Fucking Idiots Right Now” barely-restrained rage in Obama.

*you’re*

just once I’d like to make a post on this damn site without a typo.

Does it bother anyone else that both Kirk and Spock are such squeaky tenors?  You’ve got to be at least a baritone to command a starship IMO.  It’s bad enough that they LOOK twelve…..

I was going to make a comment about sexism but then I realized that Kate Mulgrew as Janeway was damn near a baritone when she felt the need.

Anyone got the legendary clip of whispery Genevieve Bujold as Captain Janeway? Now, THAT was inspired casting.

We’ve established so far that J.J. Abrams is being dick about the old fans. Other than that, everything is up in the air.

I heard Bujold hated the script and actually flipped out on set while they were filming, saying she couldn’t read that shit anymore.

I am disappointed the trailer did not feature the main character strapped into a rusty old dentist’s chair.  JJ’s dentophobia is a hallmark!

Status: Optimistic.

“a lot will depend on the guy playing Kirk “

Who *is* that guy, anyway?  I consider this cast an all-star lineup (Pegg, Quinto, Morrison etc.) plus one actor I’ve never heard of, in the most important role, no less.

It looks bad, in that campy, horrible bad way that makes me think that it will rock for no other reason than that it’s fun, which is what TOS was about.  I don’t have much experience of JJ Abrams other than the first season of lost, which shocks me every other episode but still manages to have some of the most cliched writing I’ve ever seen, so I’ll have to give it a 50% chance of being good.

I like space opera, and am not too hung up on Star Trek canon.  So this looks half interesting.

BTW, Kirk boinks Uhura (Zoe Saldana) in the film.

Woah! How about a little spoiler warning!

Joshua, it’s worse than that:  the B5 spec script had a character named “Ducat”.

It’s hard to believe ST would leave that in (but they did).  Almost like a taunt.

I have to warn people against going on opening night.  The nerd xenophobia is strong, there is anticipation to the point of a creepy explosiveness, and if you even audibly stifle a cough while any of the canon characters are speaking, you will be cast out of the Audio/Video Club for life.  It’s freaking perilous, man.  You just don’t want to go there!

Matinee the following week, people.  Trust me on that.

And my opinion on the miniskirts?  In the future, everyone has nice legs.  Micro-spoiler alert: Simon Pegg’s won’t be among them.

B5 fans will look for any excuse to feel wronged.  They’re like the libertarians of the sci-fi world

Isn’t Abrams also responsible for “Fringe”?  And I mean ‘responsible’ in the judicial sense.  That show sucks like a galactic black hole.

::pats self on back for apropo simile::

Ben D. : supposedly, there’s “no money” in the Federation, although they catch on real fast when they meet the Ferengi (and was there ever a more anti-semitic gimmick?).  Okay, fine, but what replaced it?  Have replicators just made the Fed. so abundant it doesn’t matter?  What kinda turmoil did THAT switchover make?  What motivates people to strive in the absence of want, and the universality of plenty?  What social changes happened as replicators came online?

See, THESE are interesting SF questions, which is why I always classified ST as “Adequate entertainment, but piss-poor science fiction.”

++++++
BTW, why is brat-Kirk driving a ~1963 Corvette?  Shouldn’t that thing be in a museum?

OK, having a bit of fun here: 

B-5 fans are the libertarians of the sci-fi world?!  Where’d that come from?  As far as I know, JMS isn’t a libertarian.  Taking the analogy a bit further, I think that makes the Star Trek universe the Wizards of the Coast of the sci-fi world. 

Besides, seasons 1-4 of B-5 were way better than DS9.  Of season 5, I’ll pretend that it doesn’t exist.

Ha! That would make Doctor Who fans the kindergartners of the sci-fi world.

(Somewhere, ‘aggrieved libertarians’ should be worked in….but perhaps I repeat myself.)  >;^)

(At least B5 financed one iteration of Lightwave.)

Yeah, that’s it, I’m bloody racist scum, not, y’know, a huge fucking fan of DS9 who tolerates other flavors of Trek.  It’s ok for you and anyone else to get into the Who’s the Best Captain fun, but if we like Sisko and also think Obama is occasionally, but not always, bad-ass in a similar way, it’s because I’m comparing him to another POC and not to the Best Captain Ever.

> “This movie looks like it’s going to be 90210 in space or “Federation teens.””

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Here are the actors’ ages, and the ages of their characters in the film’s main timeframe:

Chris Pine = 28. Kirk = early 30s.
Zachary Quinto = 31. Spock = early 30s.
Karl Urban = 36. McCoy = about 40.
Simon Pegg = 38. Scotty = in his 40s.
John Cho = 36. Sulu = in his 20s.
Zoe Saldana = 30. Uhura = in her 20s.
Anton Yelchin = 19. Chekov = about 20.

Teen actors: 1. Teen characters: 0.

“90210” my arse.

Sadly, most prequels blow HARD…

Hasn’t Star Trek been exploited enough?

Enough?  Is there still money to be made?

++++

Quinto: it’s ODD how much younger he looks in the stills and this trailer then he did on “Heroes”.  What did they change?  Is it the bangs?

I just meant “like libertarians in their capacity to display wounded superiority”.

It was just funny to me that dude was getting all chest-out because DS9 STOLE the idea of SPACE STATIONS from B5.

It’s sci-fi, people, unless your last name is Clarke or Asimov, I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t make priority claims.

When the NAME of a character in your spec script shows up in the other guys’ show,  I think you should look askance.

Ahhh well, Paramount, deep pockets aside, woulda probably fucked B5 up anyway.

Nick the Australian,

90210’s Ian Ziering was about thirty, as was that woman who had a talk show after the show ended (can’t for the life of me become interested enough to google or imdb her.)  That show wasn’t exactly endangering the Porky’s record for Most-Aged High Schoolers in Film or Television, but it was still ridiculous.

I think the lack of facial hair just makes people think they’re so young.  Scruffy faces are so common now, that the Star Trek era of everyone but Riker having no beard just seems kind of odd now.  And there were plenty of rumors about Riker’s beard, if you know what I mean.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Incertus, LOL =)

Forget about building the Enterprise on land, what about the fact that the Warp Nacelles are not clear of the dish! How are the bussard collectors meant to gather the hydrogen required to fuel the matter/antimatter reaction that is the very basis of the warp drive if the saucer section is right in front of them? It strains credulity!

I’m apparently going to alienate everyone who has mentioned Voyager thus far by saying I like it, about as much as TNG.

TNG is always special for those of us who grew up desperate to watch any TOS ep we could, and finally got new ones after decades of waiting.

It was tainted because the first couple seasons were so damn awkward; it took them a while to shake it down.

I for one loved the idea of the “Ship’s Counselor” and not just because Marina Sirtis was (and is) Teh Hawt; I saw it as the Federation maturing into a more gylanic, balanced society versus TOS’s 60’s macho. TNG’s cast had a provocative gender balance, particularly the idea of balancing Troi’s touchy-feely femininity with Tasha Yar as badass Security Chief. (I also loved the way the Galaxy-class ships had evolved from the Constitution class of the original Enterprise, and felt it too was more Goddessy).

Then in the first episodes they proceeded to gum it all up, ignoring Troi, killing off Tasha, sending away Dr Crusher—but I gave up watching in disappointment long before any of these things happened and didn’t resume until well into Season 3, at which point they seemed to have got their act together.

When I was staying away I wished they’d just kill off all the human males (Wesley definitely included) instead and just keep the women and nonhuman males. (I grudgingly would have allowed Picard to live, but be put in charge of a Starbase somewhere…) When I came back I found they were all cool, even Wesley, and Picard in particular really kicked ass in his own mature way. I even found room in my heart for Riker, whom I had despised even more than Wesley.

(Will Wheaton, if you read this, I’m sorry, OK? I don’t blame you, I blame a really rough first 2 years. I loved Wesley years before he left the show, all right?)

Once they learned to pull it together TNG was fantastic.

I loved DS 9 when it aired but missed a number of years of it when we moved and I lost reception. Did DS 9 migrate to Paramount network? Because I never got Paramount Network. And that’s why I never saw Voyager until a while after Natasha died and I started haunting the video stores. Fortunately the stores had complete Voyager series; their DS9 run on the other had had been badly plundered by thieves and so I have gaps.

But I loved Janeway as the Captain, and the characters of Torres, The Doctor, and Seven of Nine (and her relationship with Naomi Wildman).

Lest we forget—Jerri Ryan has some bearing on Obama being our President-Elect today. Very indirectly—she was and perhaps still is a Republican, and got married to that dude who was a Republican Senator from Illinois. Until that is he pulled the typical Republican Guy Politician trick of being a cynical dog and forcing his wife—Seven of Nine!—to go to strip clubs and so forth until she got fed up and divorced him. I believe he, or whoever the Republicans put up hastily to replace his tarnished ass, was the one Obama defeated in 2004.

Dunno if her experience made her rethink her political values, but at least she didn’t Stand By Her Man when “her man” was such a troll, and that’s something.

(My personal fav: the blonde w/the tinfoil skirt who majorly crushed on Spock, to Kirk’s annoyance.)

Eric, Rejector of Memez on 11/18 at 04:34 PM

The character was Nurse Chapel, and the actress was Majel Barret, who had originally been cast, in the unaired pilot “The Cage” as “Number One,” the unnamed female first officer of original Enterprise captain Christopher Pike. (The women wore pants in that pilot and also in the aired pilot “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”) Gene Roddenberry’s wish to portray a future where women could potentially be starship captains, admirals, etc was shot down by the network—perhaps just as well considering the problematic relationship of TOS with feminism, which probably was just as much Roddenbery’s own issues as network-dictated.

Majel Barret eventually married Roddenberry, went on to play Lxwanna Troi in TNG, and also is the voice of every Federation computer from TNG on, as well as the standard continuity narrator.

I dunno why you see her Chapel uniform as “tinfoil;” she wore blue, as a medical officer.

More geekery, even more out there, be warned…

I’ve got my own fannish theory about the TOS era miniskirts for women. Even before Enterprise “established” that the Starfleet uniform a century before TOS was a dark-blue coverall body suit, the two pilots, which were later rationalized into the series as having taken place some time before the years TOS was set in, established that women and men both wore pants.

So I theorize that what changed the style, between WNMHGB and the regular series episodes, was actually a feminist thing—somewhere in Federation space, either among certain human colonies or some new species entering the alliance (possibly the Betazeds?) there was an actual matriachy, and the dominant women there refused to wear pants and popularized the style among women in the Federation in general, so for a while Starfleet bowed to this fashion wave. Eventually it subsided, but it explains why Deanna Troi often opted for skirts a hundred years later. This might actually have been a reflection of culture wars going on between an over-macho element (perhaps emerging from wars with the Klingons) represented by people like Kirk and the blatantly male-chauvinist Pike, and the symbolism of skirts for women was abandoned once that macho fever had run its course.

Because I just don’t accept that society would have simply remained as sexist as Roddenberry’s notions in the 1960s were for several hundred years and then started getting more enlightened at last in the century between TOS and TNG; waves come and go, and I choose to believe that however much the skirts on the TOS TV show were just there as eye candy for Roddenberry and my teenaged self, in the context of a Federation already hundreds of years old and capable of peace and progress, that feminism would account for things just as much as male chauvinism by then.

So if this new movie has the miniskirts for Starfleet crew women, that sucks. Unless they explain them in feminist terms like this…

Of course the only really sensible clothes for the crew of a spaceship, particularly of ships that go into danger either exploring or as warships, are ones that can double in a pinch as vacuum-survival gear, at least long enough to run for an airlock. How often, on all the series, did we hear of “hull breaches?” A hull breach would leave everyone in the affected sections dead real fast, in any of the uniforms any of the series or movies portrayed—the coveralls of Enterprise come closest to making sense, but obviously would still not be much more protection in a sudden vacuum than Uhura’s miniskirt would have been. (In the animated series they supposed that the uniform included mini-personal-force field generators that kept a layer of air around the body, but this was completely out of line with the clumsy spacesuits shown in all the live-action shows). Actually I’d think that by the 22nd century it wouldn’t be too hard to make a bodysuit of fabric that is normally a bit loose and breathes well, but in case of pressure drop, constricts to form a skin-supporting mesh—then all you’d need would be some kind of helmet, that might also extrude from a thick collar.

Ah well, it never pays to look too closely at the technical rationality of Trek…

I am officially an old fart.  I did not know this was happening.

My favorite Uhura trivia is that Nichol Nichols was going to quit Tar Trek, but Martin Luther King talked her in to staying.  http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/02/how_mlk_saved_star_trek.php

RE: Tinfoil skirt:  Sorry Mark, you are soooo off the mark you’re in another quadrant.

The character was a guest star.  IIRC, she was the daughter of the administrator of a “sky-city” that were oppressing the groundlings.

Geeeze, as if I wouldn’t KNOW who Nurse Chapel, or for that matter Majel Barrett.  Or that I can’t tell the diff between a stnd uniform and a floor length tinfoil skirt, with halter-style midriff baring top (it was one of the BEST ST costumes evah.)

So, BZZT, you lose in this round of ST geekery.

It strains credulity!

DESTRUCTOR WINS!

As for Trekenomics:

I used to hang out at the Paramount-sanctioned Star Trek forum site and it just boggled my mind that people could be right-wing and still like ST. But there they were—racists (mostly of the variety that deny racism is a factor in the modern USA at all), sexists, homophobes, Creationist Christians, warmongers—reactionaries of every stripe. Right along with us moonbats.

I guess in a way, this is a great triumph of Roddenberry’s vision, that all sorts of people could read what they wanted into the Trekverse.

Certainly when I was a preteen in the 1970s scrounging every syndicated episode I could find, I would have been horrified at the notion that these future people were all some kinds of communists. (Ursula LeGuin kind of shattered my rigid ice of prejudice with her novel The Dispossessed but it took about a decade to really sink in).

Actually for a diehard propertarian, it is easy to argue that actually the series and movies only show life in a somewhat military organization, and to suppose that outside Starfleet everyone is still earning wages, and businessmen are still building their empires, and the Federation Council is always arguing about taxes and budgets and whatnot.

But certain TNG episodes spelled it out, by the end of the first season—by that time at any rate, the core societies of the Federation—Earth, Betazed (it is Troi who explains all this to some 20th century people found frozen on the border of Romulan space) and others don’t use money.

What motivates people to strive in the absence of want, and the universality of plenty?  What social changes happened as replicators came online?

See, THESE are interesting SF questions, which is why I always classified ST as “Adequate entertainment, but piss-poor science fiction.”
Eric, Rejector of Memez on 11/18 at 08:24 PM

Troi answered the question about motivation—or maybe she didn’t; if not, then there is a world-view, Eric, which assumes that actually human beings will spend their time even better and more happily if we can get away from the tyranny of need.

You are quite right she, and the whole “Franchise” (as Paramount calls it) has gingerly skirted the whole historical question of how society was transformed in this way. From earlier TNG days on, getting firmer and firmer with later eps, DS9 eps, and Enterprise eps, they have firmly established that it happened long before replicators.

Roddenberry’s humanism was socialistic to at least this extent—the misery we go through in our economic games is not really dictated by material scarcity. It is the result of domination games; if we weren’t devoted to fighting each other, we would find that sharing the wealth we can make in any technological era is a lot more feasible than it looks.

Perhaps R was too naive, and should have been more Marxist—but in Marx’s terms, we are now long past the era of absolute scarcity already.

At any rate, the Trek canon as established by the 80s and 90s relates the end of money to the period when, after devastating global wars and other catastrophes, humanity at last set about helping rather than gaming each other, perhaps out of sheer, stark necessity.

Sometime in the next hundred years anyway—but only after wars described as “nuclear” (limited, one trusts) and other outrages. But long before replicators!

They just share, and plan cooperation for big projects, and people do things they think are interesting and/or productive for the inherent gratification.

Business, in the old-fashioned sense, happens on the frontiers (long before they meet Ferengi) and Federation people understand it just fine, they just think it is crude or backward. (Or not, in the case of frontier renegades like Harry Mudd, who love being entrepreneurial in the old-fashioned sense—and are regarded as criminals by the core society). In the TOS era, the Orion people are so businesslike they are slavers.

Lest we forget—Jerri Ryan has some bearing on Obama being our President-Elect today. Very indirectly—she was and perhaps still is a Republican, and got married to that dude who was a Republican Senator from Illinois.

Close…

Okay, in 2004 Peter Fitzgerald, who was the Republican junior senator from Illinois, decided not to run for re-election, and the Repubs picked Jack Ryan*, husband of Seven-of-Nine-actress Jeri Ryan, as their nominee while the Dems picked Obama.  Then around late spring, news came out that Jack! had tried to get Jeri to go to sex clubs in Paris with him, but she didn’t want to, so they got divorced.  Jack left the race soon after, and the Republicans, in their infinite wisdom, decided to replace him with… Alan Keyes.

*I know.  I mean, I knew Republicans liked Tom Clancy, but…

You want an interesting vision of what life might be like in an age of universal plenty, you can always read Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels—they’re pretty awesome.

I also think a part of the problem with the idea of Star Trek as serious sci-fi is that too many things that became canonical happened because of the limitations of its format.  They invented transporters because it was too expensive to show shuttles taking off and landing.  That kludging then gets explained retroactively.

Similarly, I always wished that they would take the implications of how different 25th century life would be if they were to follow all of their ideas to their logical conclusions.  Take duplicating people from their “pattern buffers.”  We’re told that it just doesn’t happen because it’s illegal.  Well, why wouldn’t they take advantage of that technology?  Send an entire troop of duplicated Red Shirts to an away team mission, then put them back in the buffer as needed?  Instantiate every item as needed, then store them away between missions?  Because it was just be too weird, no one could relate to that. 

This is just quibbling, though.  I do enjoy the various Treks!

First, cheers to Pam for providing the geeking space.

Reboot, sure.  One on hand it is a good excuse to drag the concept up the stair and into the bedroom for one more good, sweaty flogging.  I guess.

It seems I’m swimming upstream in this thread but I’ll stand by TNG as the only decent thing the entire franchise ever did.  Ok, actually, Wrath of Khan was mainling pure, comedic kubuki gold.  I never get tired of “kiptin, kiptin dey pot kleatchers in oar boudies”.

Anyway, yes, it’s pedantic but the enterprise in dry dock, on a planet’s surface, was pretty lame.  Great visual, just total non-sense.

And while I’m being OCD allow me this, I’ll grant you the idea of casting younger people is to attract whole new generation of losers.  Fair enough, but please, can you imagine a twenty-something being the captain of an aircraft carrier today much less the freaking starship Enterprise.  Come on.  I ask you, would it have hurt to at least make them look like they’re out of high school?  (thank you for reading my john mccain moment).

And Nick the Aus, point taken but look at the screen, they *look* younger than that despite what the secretly leaked script might say.

Back to TNG for a moment, I liked TNG because I thought it was the only mature, interesting version of the story line.  I liked the characters (most of the time) and wanted to see what would happen.  It’s funny to hear people call TNG sterile.  I remember hearing that about PInk Floyd in the late seventies when it was cool to be all punk and involved.  And I’m not saying anything bad about punk or Pink Floyd only that I loved Pink Floyd and I enjoyed TNG (a lot) and find it curious both were derided using the same criticism.  I find great emotion and feeling in both.

Abrams I don’t get.  I mean exactly that.  I have not and don’t intend to watch of his TV shows.  I spend little time in that regard and if I did, those shows don’t interest me.

+1 on Destructor even though none of that makes any sense.  What’s that line about a “purty mouth” in Blazing Saddles?

ok i could go on a real nerd rant here about how DS9 is so tragically underrated and voyager was mediocre at best, but i’ll just hit the highlights:

i’m looking forward to the movie—as someone said earlier, abrams is hit or miss.  i’m holding out hope for it, but not going to be crushed if it sucks.  i do like trying a new direction (even if it is the much-abused prequel direction) as opposed to making more TNG movies.  even though TNG is probably my favorite series—but i find it hard to compare star trek series.  it’s like picking a favorite child. 

“Obama and Picard are geniality and erudition personified.”
totally.  it’s probably not a coincidence that picard was my favorite captain.

i’m definitely a spock girl over a kirk girl, but that is probably because i am part vulcan.  i was however, slightly disappointed when i heard that ryan gosling was up for the role of kirk and ultimately was not chosen.  seriously, so hot.

I haven’t really watched many (any?) of Abrams TV shows, but frankly, Cloverfield kicked all sorts of ass.  And I think that the non-Kirk main characters (Spock, Bones and Scotty) will all be very good. So I’ll go see it.

I liked TOS and the movies..well some of them. I thought TNG was really good, but except for First Contact the movies fell into the OMA syndrome…they were ex-stories, and really felt outside of the established universe. DS9 of course, is a very well done Babylon 5 ripoff once it hit its peak, and Voyager was really well done, but gave me either cabin fever or home sickness.

One thing that’s missed, is that at least with the TOS, quite frankly, it’s SWASHBUCKLERS IN SPACE. And I’m down for a good popcorn flick, politics be damned sometimes.

Re: Uhura and Troi, the problem is that TNG misused Troi, in a strategic sense. In such a starship, there’s going to be communications bouncing around left right and center. Status updates, warnings, etc. In TNG, nobody was manning that helm. That’s the logical place for an empath. At least nobody important. That’s what Uhura was doing in TOS…in that way, honestly, portraying her as a bit of a sweetalker in her younger days works for me. As long as in the end it shows how she uses that skill in terms of her career, I’m fine with that.

But don’t think too deeply about Star Trek. It’s pure popcorn entertainment. IMO it’s GREAT popcorn entertainment, but hard sci-fi it’s not.

I haven’t really watched since TNG was on TV, but I’ll probably check this out because I like “Cloverfield” a lot. Yes, I was the one. I haven’t really watched Abrams’ TV shows.

Obama not surprisingly is a big fan of Star Trek; see Number 2 of the Wired, “5 Signs President-Elect Obama Is a Geek” http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/11/5-signs-preside.html

2. He is a big fan of Star Trek. He said himself: “I grew up on Star Trek. I believe in the final frontier.” And, when Leonard Nimoy was the guest on NPR’s “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” in September, he said that he had run into “one of the presidential candidates” and that that candidate had, upon seeing Nimoy, given him the Vulcan salute. He refused to name the candidate, but said he “was not John McCain.” (Ed. Note: not to mention, he is the best example of the strength of IDIC we’ve seen in a long time)”

lonespark: Cowbow=kowtow. Do I have to spell it out? Or maybe bush really is a cowbow. He’s s’posed to be scared of horses.
This sounds fun. ANYONE has got to be better than Shattner. Although he was kinda funny.
And IceWeasel, the older you get the more everyone younger than you looks like a 12 year old.  It’s a fact of life.

The problem with the Culture novels is The Superman Problem: The Culture is so powerful it never seems to really be in any sort of danger, and all its problems are self-imposed.  Frankly, it’s boring.

The best things there are the names of the ships.  Meh.  At least it inspired big chunks o’Halo.

++++

I agree w/the multiple posters above who praise ST as popcorn.  But those denigrating B5 fans are just ignorant poseurs.  bwahahahhahaahah!

Kirk doesn’t have sex with Uhura. Look closely: it’s an orion slave girl. Also, that’s not older spock; it’s Sarek played by Ben Cross.

soil creep, this i did not know, although i do recall in that newsweek piece a comment he made about michelle’s belt resembling a dilithium crystal now that i think about it.  it’s like he just has to find more ways to be awesome and then when i think he’s tapped out, he becomes even more awesome.

While watching that trailer I was expecting at any moment that Spock would telekinetically behead his opponents and expose their brains to steal their powers…

7lOXoX rcujgmtmvksx, rpzwbpvhikqj, [link=http://uyltjplyekyk.com/]uyltjplyekyk[/link], http://vabmcoihkatj.com/

dwN5aQ oldbfmujzqbv, rwxyrcgzbbtk, [link=http://szgwvkcyfglf.com/]szgwvkcyfglf[/link], http://zzyvjwdyvmsw.com/

Disappointed: that it all looks so overproduced. The allure of a prequel, to me, is that you get to revisit all the ways that old series/movies looked, while updating things that were utterly ridiculous. Vintage uniforms? Great. Entirely too shiny starship corridors? Not so great.

Indifferent: about continuity/canon. It’s a fun party game, and an exciting challenge, but not the point, to me.

Having a huge nerdon: about the Sylar-guy being Spock. Hubba hubba.

Generally, Star Trek was supposed to be about idealistic hope for the future, not gritty, dismal realism

I agree, not to mention they FAIL at gritty every time.  But it’s all fun.

For me, the best of the TOS shows was the one w/“Bela&Loki;” [sic], aka “the one with The Riddler”, or “the half black/half white episode”.  Basically a way to sugar coat an obvious fable about racism to the American public, and I say that with love.  It was great.  Many a pre-adolescent had a light pop on over their head.

Frankly, I think a TV series is better suited to that kind of preaching than a movie.  As for fun SF conceits, ST is just the wrong vehicle.

(For one thing, the whole WW2 premise of “Fire Torpedos” just seems ridiculous—I doubt we even do that NOW, let alone 400 years from now.)

Here’s the best case ever made the Federation is communist:

http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Trek-Marxism.html

Both the B5 PPG and ST phaser can kill. The phaser can stun, and evaporate people. But both can kill. Traning makes the diffrence and the B5 security crew seem much better trained. B5 ships are no technological match for ST ships, but jumpgates and jumpdrive are faster than warp drive.

As regards libertarians and communists in space, I’d like to mention Charlie Stross’s “Iron Sunrise”.  Part of the backstory is that groups of Earthlings were transported as settlers en masse to other planets by a weak-deity like entity called the Eschaton.

The Eschaton transported one group to a space habitat.  This included a lot of libertarian space nuts.

After a lot of hassle, they wound up spacing all the remaining libertarians and settling down to the freest society a space station can sustain, which means pretty socially liberal and rather controlling in their economics.  A closed life support system is no place to allow Objectivism.

weak-deity like entity called the Eschaton

Whereas our weak-deity like entity simply BLOGS at Eschaton.

A closed life support system is no place to allow Objectivism.

Am I being reductivist to think that “Iron Sunrise” is a response or semi-response to “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress?”

It always annoys me when people say TNG was sterile, mostly because it seems to come from people who either haven’t watched it or, at best, watched the admittedly-awful first series. 

Go away and watch the double episode where Picard spends most of it being tortured, then come back and talk to me about sterile.

they either love DS9 and hate Voyager (and are therefore lacking in anything resembling taste) or love Voyager and hate DS9 (and are therefore brilliant).

Part of this is the timing. DS9 started to get really good a few seasons in during the mid-90s with the appearance of the Dominion, and it started to become a really high quality show. Around the same time, Voyager appeared, and started off very weak—the writers weren’t sure what characters in Voyager worked and what didn’t, and so we got off into a lot of episodes that focused on Neelix and looked at Chakotay’s relationship with his spirit guides. It took a few seasons before the writers figured out which characters gave them the most good science-fiction material to work with (and in my opinion, this came after the addition of Jeri Ryan and the migration of the series into the “Seven of Nine and the Doctor show”). Plenty of people who started followed DS9 around the time it became a great show saw the first couple seasons of Voyager and wrote it off as crap. Meanwhile, people who never got into DS9 may well have tuned into Voyager a few seasons into it and appreciated how well-written it had become.

Business, in the old-fashioned sense, happens on the frontiers (long before they meet Ferengi) and Federation people understand it just fine, they just think it is crude or backward. (Or not, in the case of frontier renegades like Harry Mudd, who love being entrepreneurial in the old-fashioned sense—and are regarded as criminals by the core society

The existence of characters like Mudd convinced me that the Star Trek universe of “no money” was always sort of a myth propagated by the Federation for propaganda purposes. In the end, people were trading and making money and engaging in other such “crude” behaviors all over the place. Even Bones is smuggling Romulan Ale as a gift for Kirk.

ARGH, Obama is in NO WAY Picard, Obama is Sheridan from Babylon 5. This must make Michelle Delenn! And let’s be gender-inclusive in bashing the Babylon 5 people, please! Says this B5 fangirl.

I am late to the thread but I am looking forward to seeing the canon rebooted. TOS is my mother’s fandom, and thus I’ve never let myself get too into it because it’s got that eerie miasma of parental approval around it. And honestly, maybe I would have enjoyed TNG if I hadn’t been twelve at the time, but I remember being about as entertained as I was by, I don’t know, tagging along to my parent’s staff meetings. Mature people making rational decisions in a tidy, prosperous world! What adrenaline-pumping fun! It’s nice to see a young, action-y Star Trek with decent production values, so that I can admire Kirk’s hotness without the baggage of yesteryear attached.

I had never realized, however, how attached I am to Leonard Nimoy’s voice as Spock. I can’t listen to him in anything else, but Mr. Quinto’s wispy tenor in the trailer bothered me.

I liked both DS9 and Voyager.

Who couldn’t like ‘7 of 9’ and the idea of Counselor Troy and Worf getting it on…

Can you believe that Jeri Ryan’s then husband was such a sleaze ball? Well, and he set new limits for sleaze balls… Swinging as a republican. As if he had married dog shit… His political career is hopefully over for good. He felt way to entitled to sleep around on his wife… And yet the family values simpletons support republicans to this day… Forgiveness only goes so far.

Harcourt Fenton Mudd is proof that even in the future, there will be opportunities to make a buck or two.

Yes, there is a ‘black market’ strongly hinted at in many Star trek shows and their various spin offs and such, otherwise how could the Ferengi survive…

Also Troy = Troi…

My favorite characters were Kira and Dax. Ohhh Dax… Yum…

Based solely on the trailer, this movie completely trashes Trek chronology.  Unless they’re somehow bringing young cadet Kirk forward in time to command the ship years before he should, AND have aged up the younger officer characters like Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu (especially Chekov, who wasn’t part of the original crew, plus was introduced as a wet-behind-the-ears ensign), this is going to be a big, beautiful, AU fanfic of a movie.

And what’s with the blatant and egregious errors?  Couldn’t they have found a short actress to play Uhura?  A shorter guy with brown or hazel eyes to play Kirk?  And what’s with Sulu and a katana?  He used a Western-style fencing foil in the one episode where they had him use a sword.

I’m not hopeful.

“Start diggin’ some nerd-holes.”

All you need to know is that 11 is an odd number. I’ll catch it on SciFi in the middle of the night in about 5 years time, thanks.

As for the inevitable TOS/TNG/DS9/B5/etc debate, I merely say: “Farscape, bitches” and run for cover…

(In all seriousness, there were some good TOS eps. There were also many truly cringe-worthy shit eps which should be stricken from the record. TNG had its moments, DS9 was actually pretty damn good from about season 3 until they killed my beloved Jadzia, and Voyager was just mawkish pap. I know better than to say anything about B5.)

Marge: [picks up phone, hears modem noises] Ooh, what’s wrong with this phone? it’s making crazy noises.

Nerd 2: [contemptuously] Those “crazy noises” are computer signals.

Nerd 3: Yeah.  Some guys at MIT are sending us reasons why Captain Picard is better than Captain Kirk.

Nerd 1: Hah!  They’re outta their minds.

(Homer Goes To College, original airdate: October 1993… spooky!)

Also, I assert that Green! Purple! is a metasatire of fan arguments. Thank you for your time.

“The problem with the Culture novels is The Superman Problem: The Culture is so powerful it never seems to really be in any sort of danger, and all its problems are self-imposed.  Frankly, it’s boring.

The best things there are the names of the ships.  Meh.  At least it inspired big chunks o’Halo.”

Beg to differ here!  The Culture is presented warts and all, and the Superman Problem doesn’t seem to have helped many of the main characters avoid horrible fates.  It’s also a diverse enough universe to able tell stories ranging from Inversions to Use of Weapons.  In fact, I’ve always thought that the Culture stories were more Farscape than Farscape itself.

(runs for cover)

I would just like to thank Incertus for everything he’s posted on this thread. I’ve noticed the same thing about Voyager / DS9 and ranted about “going forward” with regards to Enterprise. But I wouldn’t have said it as well as you did, Incertus.

I shall go back to lurking now.

Iceweasel:  The quote about a “purty mouth” is from the movie Deliverance, not Blazing Saddles.

I’ll never forget Ned Beatty being told to “squeal like a piggy!”  (shiver)

So much for my 15 seconds of movie geekdom ...

I think we’re all sort of ignoring the elephant* in the room, which is that whoever wrote the “Enterprise” theme song is still walking around free, possibly even continuing to work as a musician.

*Okay, fine, the Gorn in the room. Or the giant pile of Tribbles.

From Star Trek XII: So Very Tired...

Kirk: Captain’s Log, Stardate 6051… had trouble sleeping last night; my hiatal hernia is acting up.  The ship is drafty and damp. I complain, but nobody listens.

Sulu: Captain, Klingons off the starboard bow.

Kirk: [covering his face in annoyance]  Again with the Klingons…
————————-

From <Where No Fan Has Gone Before</i>:

Leonard Nimoy: Truly, it was a paradise.

Fry: And all you had to put up with was one really annoying Star Trek fan.

William Shatner: (pause) Let’s get the hell out of here.

I’ve always thought that the Culture stories were more Farscape than Farscape itself.

Well, I love ‘em both - but you have to admit, the costume design is way better in Farscape. And it’s funnier.

All is not lost on the Farscape front… The webisode series is still somewhere in production, the first of the new comics is out this month, and various members of the creative team keep alluding to future projects. Keep the faith! (And rewatch your DVDs. I’d forgotten just how good it really was.)

Well, Dunc, the costume designs in my head were the Best Evah, so there! 

As much fun as mock flame wars might be, I truly don’t believe in either/or positions.  I like all Treks, the Culture, B-5, BSG, and Farscape, even though I have strong preference for some over others.

And I think I currently love Lost above all recent TV vaguely sci-fi series, so I have hopes that the new Trek will be awesome.

Hey, if you can come up with better costume designs than Terry Ryan, you should be doing it for a living. That man’s a frelling genius.

This is a ways down in the thread, but still: **** Spoilers follow ****

One of the reasons this trailer looks so different from the Trek we’re used to is that history gets changed by time-traveling Romulans from the 24th century.  No, really.  An annoyed with the Federation guy (Eric Bana) goes back in time and kills Kirk’s father.  To his chagrin James T. has already been born, but history is changed to the point where everything we know about the 20+ years prior to Kirk becoming captain is different (single mother, abusive uncle, etc.).  Bad guy jumps forward in time and tries to wipe out Vulcan as well.  Enterprise to the rescue, hooray!

This movie wipes out *all* Trek continuity: the original show, next gen, ds9, voyager, and the previous movies are yet to occur, and may never happen.

Ok, actually, Wrath of Khan was mainling pure, comedic kubuki gold.  I never get tired of “kiptin, kiptin dey pot kleatchers in oar boudies”.

I’ve always used that line to justify why WoK was Khan/Chekhov without even trying that much. Given Ricardo Montalban’s non-prosthetic chest, and the fact most of the Botany Bay survivors were Chippendale’s dancers, I’ve taken to referring them as “Khan’s crew of Intergalactic Leathermen.”

As a we nipper I read the novelization by Vonda N. McIntyre before seeing the movie, so I always insert stuff from the book into the narrative. There’s a lot more in the book about Chekhov’s state of mind that makes sense in a D/S context.

otherwise how could the Ferengi survive…

I just assumed their economy was separate from other ‘nations’. —-hey, was the Federation the only multi-species government???

Mature people making rational decisions in a tidy, prosperous world! What adrenaline-pumping fun!

LOL!  ::high-five::

He used a Western-style fencing foil in the one episode….

Spot on.  I was thinking it HAD to be an epee’, but Google Images confirms it was a foil—which is ridiculous,you’d be very hard put to hurt someone w/a foil, but an epee’ can do serious damage.  (Also, great ‘beefcake’ of Takei w/his shirt off.)

Beg to differ here!  The Culture is presented warts and all,

::amused eyeroll::  Yeahhhhhhhhhhh, their main ‘problem’ is dealing with their overwhelming smugness.  I’m riveted.  (LOL!)  No, seriously, Banks is a great writer who could make a grocery list seem fascinating (some writers can—Dan Simmons, Stephen King—it’s practically a curse), but I always feel that he painted himself into a corner with The Culture and always has to bend himself into a pretzel to make things the slightest bit difficult for them.  YMMV.  >8^D

But I still respect you, ‘cuz you like “Farscape”, which kicked ST’s ass up and down the aisle in terms of imagination, writing, drama, set design (Farscape’s edge: they had LIQUIDS on set.  ST was apparently terrified of liquid.  Also, FS would shoot on location.), makeup design, and, frankly, actors.  For moi, only Patrick Stewart showed the chops that Claudia Black brings.

And after seeing what FS could do—in Australia—with makeup, putting up with the “glue something to the bridge of the nose” aesthetic of ST got pretty unimpressive. —also, there’s the whole “grit” factor.

The final miniseries had very grand CGI too.
::sigh::

Go away and watch the double episode where Picard spends most of it being tortured, then come back and talk to me about sterile.

You’d need a lot more puking, ala’ Farscape’s ‘Scorpius’, to take away the wall-to-wall sterility of TNG.

(BTW, <u>another</u> great FS actor. “Hello -John.”)

I always feel that he painted himself into a corner with The Culture and always has to bend himself into a pretzel to make things the slightest bit difficult for them.

The primary interest (for me, anyway) in the Culture novels is nothing to do with making things difficult for the Culture, and everything to do with the fascinating moral dilemmas raised by being more-or-less omnipotent. It simply wouldn’t work if they were less awesomely powerful - they’d just be another bunch of aliens trying to advance their interests. (Of course, it’s possible that they are just another bunch of aliens trying to advance their interests, and the whole aggressively-proactive-altruism business is just one of SC’s social engineering techniques.)

The central question is not whether the Culture can achieve {whatever}, it’s whether or not they should. Are they really as good as they think they are, or are they really no better than the Affront?

I’ve got my own fannish theory about the TOS era miniskirts for women. Even before Enterprise “established” that the Starfleet uniform a century before TOS was a dark-blue coverall body suit, the two pilots, which were later rationalized into the series as having taken place some time before the years TOS was set in, established that women and men both wore pants.

So I theorize that what changed the style, between WNMHGB and the regular series episodes, was actually a feminist thing—somewhere in Federation space, either among certain human colonies or some new species entering the alliance (possibly the Betazeds?) there was an actual matriachy, and the dominant women there refused to wear pants and popularized the style among women in the Federation in general, so for a while Starfleet bowed to this fashion wave. Eventually it subsided, but it explains why Deanna Troi often opted for skirts a hundred years later. This might actually have been a reflection of culture wars going on between an over-macho element (perhaps emerging from wars with the Klingons) represented by people like Kirk and the blatantly male-chauvinist Pike, and the symbolism of skirts for women was abandoned once that macho fever had run its course.

You’ll recall that it the mirror universe episode of Enterprise the Enterprise is really sexist and all the women wear miniskirts - I think a lot of what Enterprise was about was providing this kind of commentary about TOS. I’m of the opinion that they were indeed trying (in retrospect) to show the TOS era as really patriarchal.

And of course, you also see this initially idealistic human race becoming militarised by threats from space (Enterprise also features some xenophobic humans who hate and mistrust aliens), which probably has something to do with it becoming more patriarchal by the time humans have consolidated their place in the galaxy as an interstellar power. I think the hints of an upcoming war with the romulans pretty perfectly explain what happens - the human race becomes militarized, reestablishes old inequalities, uses all sorts of WMDs on the Romulans, and doesn’t really start to clean up it’s act until they’ve established the tense peace with the romulans that exists in TOS.

Farmboy: GodDAMNED Aussies!

Speaking of becoming more patriarchal, or at least hierarchical:

Ever notice that in ST even the civilians often seem to wear some sort of badge or label?  WUWT?

(and thank god for spellcheck…)

“The primary interest (for me, anyway) in the Culture novels is nothing to do with making things difficult for the Culture, and everything to do with the fascinating moral dilemmas raised by being more-or-less omnipotent.”

Yeah, this pretty much sums up what fascinates me about the Culture as well.  Thanks Dunc for saying it better than I could at this moment!

Ever notice that in ST even the civilians often seem to wear some sort of badge or label?

At the end of the day, the world of Star Trek is actually a depiction semi-Communist totalitarian organization where everyone’s position is determined by their function within the <strike>Party</strike> Federation. And they all have to wear silly outfits.

I am the third way on Incertus’ dichotomy! (I like both Voyager and DS9.  But then, I didn’t see any Voyager episodes later than mid-season-4.)

Dunc- Best TNG are “Inner Light”, and “The Lower Decks”.

...Continued

Whereas Okuda pieced together quite a reasonable timeline from asides, mentions, and unpublished backstory in the aired shows, and it suggests among other things that ships like TOS Enterprise, the Constitution class, were (when they were brand-new) the big breakthrough; it also seems reasonable to suppose that subspace radio was a quite new invention; lots of the lost colonies and planets affected by various century-past human contacts, beginning with the (fake) survivors on Talos IV in “The Cage”, had apparently arrived in ships much slower than Pike/Kirk’s Enterprise, and been totally out of contact, or even more tellingly became known only as old-fashioned, light-speed radio signals finally got picked up.

So in the century before TOS, most of the time the Federation would have been much “bigger” in the sense that travel and hence communications times would have been much slower and sporadic, hence the cultures more or less included in the Federation (not to mention refugees, dissidents fleeing it, and castaways of various kinds) would have been more diverse, and the character of Starfleet might have fluctuated drastically and varied by region.

So when Captain Pike said in “The Cage” that he wasn’t used to women on the bridge, and Number One did a double-take in disbelief, I don’t think that women had ever been totally squeezed out of Starfleet—but I do think that there were factions within it that had operated on a particular front, and become quite sexist and macho, while elsewhere women were completely integrated, perhaps even dominant—this is where Number One came from, another branch of Starfleet where such notions were unheard-of. The 2250s would have been a period when people who had been quite separated by long travel times were suddenly in much closer contact, just as the pace and volume of world travel and communications picked up dramatically in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Okuda established (with, I believe, full studio blessing) that the “generations” of Trek were exact centuries apart and that TOS in particular happened in the years exactly 300 after their airdates in the 1960s. An exception being the pilots; clearly “The Cage” happened many years—I’d say at least a decade—before 2264, and several years at least would have lapsed between WNMHGB and “The Corbomite Maneuver.”

The Constitution class ships would have been designed and built in perhaps the 2340s or early ‘50s—Roddenberry said when starting the show that he viewed the Enterprise as a “ship with some history” and imagined that Pike was not the first captain.

I suspect that these ships were designed and perhaps even built during a severe crisis, perhaps a war as pressing as WWII was to Roddenberry and his original audience, that “The Cage” took place in a time-frame kind of like the 1950s, with both heady optimism from a big victory and paranoia about potential new dangers, and that by the 2260s the core of the Federation felt kind of like the USA in the 1960s—more confident, perhaps even hubristically so, and with a younger generation (and those who had been very young during the trial by fire decades, like Kirk) eager to cut loose.

And that subsequently, the core of Federation society fused into a smoother sort of smug cosmopolitanism—which however is not the end of history but the beginning of history of really free and responsible people, as shown in TNG.

Well done Mark.