Star Trek is better than everything

[Tallguy 3,918]

5 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

which began the unfortunate trend of trying to turn Picard into an action hero.  

 

Go watch Starship Mine, AKA Die Hard on a Starship.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

 

7 hours ago, Tallguy said:

 

Go watch Starship Mine, AKA Die Hard on a Starship.

 

Yeah, I know. That was also misguided, and also a result of Stewart's whinging. But there was a lot of Trek between that and Generations where Picard was just Picard. But post First Contact was pretty much all action hero (let's not get started on the dune buggy scene in Nemesis), and cerebral Picard was mostly gone.

 

Patrick Stewart's a fine actor, but his notes on the character for the films were awful, and just frustrated everyone involved. And the less said about his influence on the Picard series, particularly season 2, the better.

 

As an aside, the best part of Starship Mine are the comedy bits with Data on the planet. That's gold. Gold, I tell you. Gold.

[Unlucky Bastard 8,324]

11 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Patrick Stewart's a fine actor, but his notes on the character for the films were awful, and just frustrated everyone involved. And the less said about his influence on the Picard series, particularly season 2, the better.

 

 

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

2 hours ago, Pellaeon said:

The funny thing about TOS is that the episodes (at their best) felt like completely standalone movies, whereas the feature films had more of an ongoing story.

 

Yeah. II-III-IV kind of make up a loose (albeit unplanned) trilogy, and the theme of ageing runs throughout all the films.

 

[Unlucky Bastard 8,324]

I've always known... I'll die alone.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

I thought you were dead already. Had no idea you were still in business.

[Unlucky Bastard 8,324]

This is not about age. And you know it.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

It's about you flying a damn computer console posting on JWFan instead of being out there crushing Tokyo.

[Tallguy 3,918]

Spare me your notions of poetry.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

I see your predilection for irrelevancy continues, Tallguy. 

[Naïve Old Fart 10,055]

1 hour ago, Unlucky Bastard said:

I've always known... I'll die alone.

 

I'll call Valhalla and have them reserve a room for you.

[Tallguy 3,918]

48 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

I see your predilection for irrelevancy continues, Tallguy. 

 

@Nick1Ø66 you're just as warm and sociable as ever.

[Tallguy 3,918]

I posted this over on FSM just because I was hoping Neil Bulk or someone could give me some insight. But at least here is some interesting FYI.

 

So, I ran across this:

 

(About 38:11.)

Obviously the sound isn't as good as either the FSM CD or the LLL. But the voice over is definitely drier and does not have the echo or reverb that has been on all three CD releases of this score, starting with the GNP disc. Maybe this echo was always there and it was just a limitation of vinyl that we couldn't hear it. Who knows? (I bet there are people who know.)

I'm thrilled with all three CDs I have of this score (especially the last one). But I'm also happy to know that I'm not crazy and the voice over did sound less "ghostly" and more like the film (which is bone dry) back in the day.

 

I used my meager Audacity skills, matched the speed, took out a couple of pops, and mixed the LP VO into the existing LLL track with no VO.

 

So now I have FOUR versions of the Epilogue (not counting the actual alternate): No voice over, voice over from the LLL CD, voice over from the film, and now voice over from the original LP.

[Yavar Moradi 2,780]

20 hours ago, Brock Lovett said:

I don't dislike any of the original movies, but I rank Insurrection fairly low on the list. Over the decades I've criticized Nemesis, but at some point I realized I watched it plenty on Paramount Widescreen DVD, Special Collector's Edition DVD, Blu-ray and now UHD. I mean, why have I watched it so many times on so many formats unless I just like it?

 

 

5 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Yeah. I know people love First Contact, and consider it the best of the TNG films, but I think it's sort of...OK. As @Tom Guernsey points out, the film feels small to me.  The tone is all over the place, and the attempts at humour just feel weird. I don't like the silly portrayal of Cochrane, and I think the Lily character is superfluous, mainly giving someone for Patrick Stewart to play off. Which frankly should have been Troi, and it was a missed opportunity to give Sirtis something to do. And they should have put Riker on the planet and Picard on the ship, but that was apparently changed at Stewart's insistence, which began the unfortunate (and deeply misguided) trend of trying to turn Picard into an action hero.  

 

Some of the Borg Queen stuff is compelling, but I do think it marked the beginning of the Borg being less mysterious and terrifying...and they were never so terrifying as they were in Q Who and Best of Both Worlds. The Queen definitely adds a kind of drama, but essentially turned the Borg into just another villain.

 

It's certainly better than some of the weaker entries in the series, but IMO a bit overrated. 

 

I agree with most of this. For me the only Star Trek films it's better than are Nemesis and Into Darkness, both of which I absolutely despise. There are a few redeeming features in First Contact and Insurrection, but overall I really dislike both because I feel like they profoundly misunderstand Trek and the TNG characters in particular. They outright contradict the morality shown in episodes of the series, and Picard in particular is turned into a violent, virtually unrecognizable action hero. The still-very-flawed Generations is the only TNG film I'm actually able to enjoy on any level.

 

Ironically (since I love TNG more than TOS, in terms of TV) I love all six original cast films despite their faults... yes, including The Final Frontier.

 

Yavar

[Edmilson 8,180]

Both fandoms now hate their own franchise, anyway.

 

[Tallguy 3,918]

16 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

Both fandoms now hate their own franchise, anyway.

 

 

 

I haven't hated Star Wars less since 1996. And Star Trek and I get on well enough. I love Strange New Worlds and nobody has ever tried to take original TOS away from me.

 

OTOH, that Revenge of the Sith Vader is slightly triggering.

 

And hell yes, I'm a nerd. I'm posting on JWFan in a Star Trek thread, for one thing.

[Unlucky Bastard 8,324]

It's the thread that's better than everything!

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

It's the feel-good thread of the summer!

[Yavar Moradi 2,780]

REAL sci-fi nerds know... Babylon 5 is better than both Star Trek and Star Wars.

 

One thing is for sure... despite a couple bad TV movies and the terrible Byron storyline in the first half of season 5... there's still a much better ratio of good to bad, compared with Trek and Wars. That said, I'm very glad to have all three, warts and all... and Farscape... and Battlestar... and that frustratingly little bit of Firefly we got. I've got room in my heart for all of it. And when more bad Trek or Wars are produced, I just move on and appreciate the good stuff, like the delightful Lower Decks or powerful Andor. Even if only a quarter of the stuff coming out in these franchises is good nowadays... that's still something I'm glad to have. Even the first season of Star Trek was a mixed bag with some bad episodes, and lest we forget, the Star Wars Holiday Special came out in 1978!

 

Yavar

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

Babylon 5 was great. Better than DS9? I don't think so. Better than BSG? Nah. Better than Firefly? Hmmmm. Maybe. Maybe not. Star Wars? I wouldn't compare.

 

But still a fantastic show. I need to watch it again sometime.

[Tallguy 3,918]

B5 had it's heart firmly in the right place.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

So did Mola Ram.

[Brock Lovett 7,034]

I prefer B-4

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

BB-8

[Mr. Hooper 2,681]

4-Q

 

[Yavar Moradi 2,780]

2 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Babylon 5 was great. Better than DS9? I don't think so.

 

I do. And DS9 is quite possibly my favorite Star Trek series. Babylon 5 hits its stride much, *much* quicker. I'd say the best part of DS9 is probably seasons 5 and (especially) 6. I rate the first season of Babylon 5 *much* higher than the first season of DS9 (with the exception of "Duet", probably the best episode of that entire series), and from the Hugo-winning episode "The Coming of Shadows" in season two all the way through the end of season 4, Babylon 5 was firing on all cylinders and is not only my favorite sci-fi, but favorite TV series period. Warts and all.

 

3 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Better than BSG? Nah.

 

Even assuming you mean the excellent reboot, yes I consider B5 far better. If we are just comparing the first season and a half of each series, I think Nu Battlestar wins hands down. My god, the Pegasus storyline and the mid-season "finale" of the second season... just incredible. But it's mostly downhill from there, for me. The second half of that season was a definite step down, and the following two seasons had a lot of great moments and elements but felt like less than the sum of their parts, and added up to a (for me) incredibly disappointing ending. Babylon 5 did stumble during the first half of its fifth and final season, but it stuck the landing (and then some).

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Better than Firefly? Hmmmm. Maybe. Maybe not.

 

Eh, it's probably an unfair comparison since Firefly didn't even get to finish a whole first season. I was grateful to get Serenity, but just like Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars, it was a flawed wrap-up that was a far cry from having another season of the show to tell a drawn-out and developed storyline. Certainly I think Firefly had the potential to top Babylon 5 in my affections if it hadn't been aborted.

 

3 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

But still a fantastic show. I need to watch it again sometime.

 

You should. Maybe you'll appreciate it more. And it's looking better than ever (though still far from perfect of course) on Blu-ray.

 

Yavar

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

I agree DS9 doesn't really hit its stride until Season 4...though there are some incredible moments before that. But from Season 4 through the finale? Simply some of the best science fiction ever on TV.  And eminently rewatchable.

 

The first two seasons of BSG were mostly damn near perfect...as you point out, through the Pegasus storyline. After that, the show took something of an unfortunate downturn. And things were never really the same after New Caprica, which they never fully recovered from. I still think there was a lot more story potential based on the original premise that remained unexplored. But the showrunners really painted themselves into corner between New Caprica and the fact that the thole thing started to become weighed down by its own mythology.  There were still some great moments in Seasons 2 & 3, but they never quite hit the highs of the first two.

 

On the whole, I prefer both DS9 and BSG to BB5, but I also wouldn't argue with anyone who preferred the latter, it's a defensible and respectable take. They're all great shows.

 

 

[Brock Lovett 7,034]

My issues with DS9 are actually in later seasons. The earlier ones were more boring and predictable but by season 5 the show was tonally all over the place and there were so many absurd episodes. I remember tuning in at one point and seeing Kira and Jake Sisko fighting with force lighting on the promenade and wondering what the hell was going on. Gul Dukat's character was also ruined.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

I agree that Season 5, while good, is the weakest of the final four seasons, the force lighting fight being a low point.

 

That said, I think the Season 5 finale, Call to Arms, is one of the best episodes of the series.

[Yavar Moradi 2,780]

DS9 season 6 is by far the best of that show... noticeably better than either season 5 or 7 on either side of it, despite those having some strong highlights. The final 10-episode arc of season 7 is really really good... until the last couple episodes, which I found to be a huge disappointment.

 

Season 4 of BSG has some good stuff but is easily the worst season of the show, with a pretty bad finale.

 

So yeah, despite stumbling in the first half of its final season, Babylon 5 comes out way on top for me because they really stuck the landing. "Sleeping in Light" is an even more powerful series finale than "All Good Things..." IMO.

 

Yavar

[Andy 4,821]

Had to scroll past the last few posts because I’m watching DS9 for the first time ever. 
 

Im midway through Season 3 and enjoying it greatly. Though I will be slowing down as my daughter is home from college for the summer. 

[Groovygoth666 907]

On 23/05/2024 at 12:20 AM, Andy said:

I’m jealous!  Supposedly, it’s UK only?

 

Such an underrated film. 

Then you don't want to heat I've got my tickets booked for both already 😁. That's a surprise, hopefully you guys across the pond will get an announcement for screenings soon. 

 

And TSFS is definitely underrated, and like @Tallguysaid I also think this is because of the "odd numbers are bad" myth 

[Tallguy 3,918]

16 hours ago, Andy said:

Had to scroll past the last few posts because I’m watching DS9 for the first time ever. 
 

Im midway through Season 3 and enjoying it greatly. Though I will be slowing down as my daughter is home from college for the summer. 

 

Awesome! I finished my watch last year and it's arguably the best Star Trek series, full stop. (TOS has different advantages because it's TOS.)

 

I've been watching the end of season 2 as part of my 30th anniversary re-watch (All Good Things turned 30 this week) and it's so freaking good! I had remembered it taking longer to get traction (like most Star Treks) but by this point they were an all cylinders.

[Edmilson 8,180]

[Tallguy 3,918]

We did our 40th anniversary re-watch of The Search for Spock last night. This movie has three things going for it: Shatner, Horner, and ILM.

Shatner: Get the worst out of the way first. To this day I consider "You Klingon bastards" to be a blemish on a note-perfect performance. Maybe if he didn't say it three times? There is a cutaway to Kelley and Doohan that is genuinely moving. And his resolve when he "comes back up" and thinks "Screw it. We're blowing up the ship" is amazing. He knows what he's going to do, but nobody else does.

But the rest of Shatner in this film is possibly the best he ever was as Kirk. And the last time (IMHO) that he attempted to do Kirk as a performance rather than just being Shatner. Nobody else gave him anything as good as this and alternatively nobody sat on him like Meyer did in Wrath of Khan. (He's way charming in The Voyage Home, I give him that.)

Horner: What can I say? This might have taken all of the Star Trek out of him. Maybe a Horner Star Trek IV would have just been a rehash of II and III. But this film had just enough different colors for him to explore that we still got his best. I'm sure another composer could have done this film. But there are so many scenes that fall flat without Horner and that soar with him. He also gets to explore his Spock theme. A lot.

I don't know the stats, but I'm pretty sure that this film uses the Courage theme(s) more than any other film. (TOS, TNG, and Kelvin films). By a lot. He never seems embarrassed by them, it never seems "contractually obligated". They are not just heard during The Big Moments. He weaves them into the film so perfectly they feel like his.

ILM: I know there are people who hate the Excelsior and even the Grissom. And Spacedock is admittedly gorgeous but stupid. This introduces arguably the most popular Star Trek ship EVER with the "Klingon" Bird of Prey. (Gee, was there another Star Trek race that had bird ships that had cloaking devices?) It's not my favorite, but boy did they get a lot of miles out of that design.

And the destruction of the Enterprise (I'd say "spoiler!" but it was in ALL of the trailers!) is breathtaking even to this day.

There is a quality and a charm to mid 1980's ILM that will always feel like coming home.

The plot is... Functional? It gets by on spending time with Our Friends. And Uhura and Sulu both get a few nice moments. (Sorry, Chekov. You had the last movie.) This is the first movie to treat the supporting cast as anything more than just "They sit in that chair".

Bringing Mark Lenard back as Sarek seems so obvious and inevitable now. It says something about the Star Trek soup of TOS re-runs, two movies, and whatever books and comics that I was marinating in back then that I didn't find it as extraordinary as I should have. And he is SO good. The Mind Meld is one of my favorite scenes and it's Shatner, Lenard, and Horner.

I'm one of the few people who thought Christopher Lloyd's Kruge was pretty good.

The downside: As much as I love this movie, outside of ILM it looks so cheap. I chalk that up to the cinematography and maybe a first time director. I mean, even the bridge that looked like the Future come to life in the first two films just looks so flat and boring. (It gets better in the later scenes.)

This film manages to be greater than the sum of its parts.

At some point I'll have to give The Final Frontier a serious sit down.

[Bellosh 3,746]

Your name is Jim...

 

...And The Adventure Continues!...

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

32 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

At some point I'll have to give The Final Frontier a serious sit down.

 

Pity. Were it not for The Final Frontier I could rank the TOS movies exactly in release order. Damn you Shatner!

[Tallguy 3,918]

1 hour ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

Pity. Were it not for The Final Frontier I could rank the TOS movies exactly in release order. Damn you Shatner!

 

1 and 2 are nearly a tie for me. Together they are the Platonic Ideal of Star Trek. On some days I could argue 4 is better than 3. (4 is my wife's favorite.) I'm wondering what I think of 6 compared to 5 these days. 6 has not aged well at all for me. I have no fond memories of 5. Sigh.

[Brock Lovett 7,034]

They're all great, including The Final Frontier

[Bellosh 3,746]

2-4 is the second greatest trilogy behind Indy.

[Andy 4,821]

On 28/3/2024 at 9:29 PM, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

I actually prefer Peck to Quinto, the latter of whom played Spock like a thinly veiled psychotic who always seemed seconds away from a murderous rampage. 

Seems Quinto was method acting!  His repressed Vulcan emotions just exploded to the surface!  Most illogical human behavior. 

 

Quinto Yells at Restaurant Staff Like Entitled Child, Makes Host Cry

 

 

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

Utterly unsurprising. 

[Andy 4,821]

“Hi I’m Christine and I’ll be your server. Would you like to start with some Vulcan PloMeek Soup?”

 

(bowl goes flying into the foyer)

[The Great Gonzales 5,817]

Cue twisted Courage fanfare.

[Nick1Ø66 5,357]

14 minutes ago, Andy said:

“Hi I’m Christine and I’ll be your server. Would you like to start with some Vulcan PloMeek Soup?”

 

(bowl goes flying into the foyer)

 

"I TOLD YOU I wanted the Pon Farr!!!!!"

[Tallguy 3,918]

41 minutes ago, The Great Gonzales said:

Cue twisted Courage fanfare.

 

"Where is that bass guitar music coming from?"

[Andy 4,821]

And it was on his birthday. 
 

Surely, the worst of times. 

[Giftheck 969]

This was the background music during his entire visit

 

 

[Andy 4,821]

Manager to Quinto:

”KROYKA!!”

[Tallguy 3,918]

Surely this fellow at the restaurant sounds more like Sylar.