Scott Atwell Star Trek Discussion thread (Series and Films) (1 Viewer)

[Nelson Au]

"What is that, are you trying to kill yourselves?"Patterns of Force

 

[Nelson Au]

Lee, that's a great point about Spock in Court Martial. And it pays off so many times later when Kirk's risks his life and career for Spock. I'm surprised there wasn't any discussion of Spock in the book as far as I can recall.

 

[Ockeghem]

Lee,How about A Taste Of Armageddon, The Gamesters Of Triskelion, Bread and Circuses, By Any Other Name, and The Omega Glory?

 

[FanCollector]

5 for Scott and 3 for Nelson. I have five more. There is some room for interpretation but my way of counting was to credit him for any escape in which he at least participated either in planning or action, but not to count instances in which he was simply freed by someone from outside.Nelson, Cushman's book doesn't go into much depth about the content of the episodes, don't you find? Just the cursory assessment at the beginning of each chapter and then it is mostly history rather than analysis. That isn't a complaint--it's already 600 pages! But it does leave room for other books (and message boards...) to go deeper into themes and characterizations.

 

[Nelson Au]

I'll have to even the score! Agreed the book is what it is, and no complaints from me either! I believe Kirk started to escape in Catspaw. "I'm going to lock you up for 200 years." This one seems questionable as he got help. "It's a very nice cage! " I, Mudd?

 

[FanCollector]

I hadn't counted those cases, but I am certainly open to being convinced otherwise. My recollection is that Korob frees him in Catspaw, Spock frees him in Tomorrow is Yesterday, and he is held prisoner on the planet in I, Mudd but does not have to escape a particular location. But again, I could have one or more of those wrong.

 

[Nelson Au]

Definitely I agree about Colonel Fellini.In Catspaw, I was thinking of the initial time Kirk, Spock and McCoy are locked up and Scotty and Sulu unchain them, and then Kirk attacks Scott in an attempt to escape. But I can see they didn't really escape.And I see what you mean about I, Mudd. Okay, back to the drawing board!

 

[Ockeghem]

I'm not sure about The Return Of the Archons, but I'll take a guess at it anyway. How about Friday's Child (that's a hard pillow!), Spock's Brain, The Empath, and The Way To Eden? I have two or three more that I'm not sure about, but that's enough guesses for now.

 

[FanCollector]

Spock's Brain (go, science!) and Friday's Child are correct. I remember them always being released in Archons. The Empath is open to interpretation...I hadn't counted it because the Vians always seem to be letting them go, but I suppose stealing the control device, reprogramming it, and going from the holding area to the lab involved some real effort, so let's add that one also. Eight points total.(Were they held anywhere in The Way to Eden?)

 

[Nelson Au]

Scott, you beat me with the hard pillow! How about some really extreme cases? Kirk escaped from Janice Lester's body in Turnabout Intruder?In The Coudminders, Kirk beams into Vanna's cell, stuns a guard and escapes with Vanna?In The Mark of Gideon, Kirk, with Spock's help, escape from the false Enterprise?In Assignment Earth, Sgt Lipton caught Kirk and Spock and later while being held in the mission control room, Spock managed to give Sgt Lipton the nerve pinch when Scotty tried to call the landing party allowing Kirk to use the communicator to have him and Spock beamed out.

 

[Nelson Au]

I posted this link in the Star Trek Into Darkness discussion thread. It's something a friend sent me where a guy morphed the original actors faces images over the new actors. While we've seen this done before on Trek sites, this guy got a lot of notice for it on Reddit. I even thought of trying it myself. So in case some of you don't read the thread on the new Abrams film, here's the link:http://petapixel.com/2013/10/04/star-trek-face-morphs-blend-original-series-actors-modern-counterparts/

 

[Ockeghem]

(Were they held anywhere in The Way to Eden?)

Lee,I was thinking of them being rendered unconscious on the ship, but you're right -- no imprisonment there.

 

[FanCollector]

I have never seen that kind of photo "morphing"! He did a great job, particularly with Kirk. But they were all very good, except possibly the Spock one. (Maybe their faces just don't go together.) Those escapes were all good, Nelson, except I didn't quite see it in The Mark of Gideon. To me it seemed that to whatever extent Kirk was held prisoner, he was freed by Spock's arrival. I was afraid Janice Lester would be too tricky, but you were way ahead of me! Six points, total.I have one left, which may be the cleverest escape of all.

 

[Nelson Au]

"You traitor. I'll kill you.....What did you do?!"The Enterprise Incident?

 

[Nelson Au]

I agree, the Spock morph wasn't working as well, I'm thinking the photos used might have been part of the reason.

 

[FanCollector]

That was it! Getting oneself declared dead is a pretty effective means of escape. No stumping you guys. Razor thin margin--I count 8 to 7 for Scott.

 

[Nelson Au]

"Sure fooled the doctors!" You calling it a clever escape tipped me off! That was a fun question. Nice job Scott.

 

[Nelson Au]

I read The Menagerie section. I kept thinking, why is John D.F. Black so chatty about his unhappy experiences in the early part of the first season today? I didn't check yet when his quotes were taken from, perhaps they are old quotes. It just seemed odd to me that he wrote the forward for the book and is signing copies. He had that dispute with Gene Roddenberry about whose idea it was for the envelope story around the The Cage footage. But perhaps today he's forgiven all and is very happy to have been associated with Star Trek, and he was in those video interviews on the Star Trek DVDs a few years ago. Again, the continuing theme of Spock putting aside his own needs to help out his crewmates. and again, what reads as another slam bam 5 day effort to get another episode done, as fast as possible and as economically as they can. The interesting section was how they were able to edit the new footage, old footage and track the music and make the airdate which they were under intense pressure to meet. And then one key member who made that happen quits! What keeps coming back to my mind is a quote from an earlier chapter. Everything about Star Trek at the time it was made had never been done before. Which then led to so much effort on Gene Roddenberry's part to involve himself in every script and every detail to make sure his vision was clear. So it's an amazing view I am getting of the rather impossible task to bring to screen the series. The overriding message is that he wasn't going to compromise and make a mediocre or standard type of series. He was going for a serious and smart show. But the cost was a lot of bruised feelings and pushing many technicians to the edge to get the film made.

 

[FanCollector]

Good question about Black. He has a given a small number of interviews over the years, but hasn't participated much in the Star Trek scene. Most of his comments in this book are from new author interviews. Cushman told me that Black has mostly avoided talking about the show on purpose, but in the course of being interviewed for and publicizing this book, he has been surprised and impressed by the kinds of people who are fans of the show and the seriousness with which they treat it. It wasn't so much that he hated Star Trek or anything; just that he felt it was such a brief moment in his life but he is very gratified that his work on it seems to have meant so much to people. There is a brief video of Black and Cushman being interviewed for Access Hollywood (there's a guy who works there who is really a first-class Star Trek expert) and Black talks about Roddenberry hiring him to work with the writers because Roddenberry knew that writers didn't like him. And Scott Mantz, the interviewer, asked if in a way there was the necessity of Roddenberry rewriting scripts in order to give the show a "voice," knowing that most of the early scripts were written by people who had only seen the pilots. And Black thought for a moment and said yes, Mantz had a point. So maybe he was upset at the time because he had been promised a certain way of working and it wasn't like that, but now can see the other side a bit also.I really wonder why the details of that original Menagerie wraparound have been omitted. Could Black be writing his own book? It seems so unlikely given his previous lack of interest.Five days, plus the director was doing his prep work at night because he was also directing Court Martial! I don't know about Black's original outline, but Roddenberry and Coon's script for the envelope is so very good. All the lead characters are well-served, the mechanics of the plot hold up very well, and there is a genuine surprise ending. Pretty great for what is in essence a clip show.I think another reason that some of the writers felt more mistreated on Star Trek than on other shows was that Star Trek was one extra step removed from the anthology shows. If you were writing a Twilight Zone or an Outer Limits or a Playhouse 90 or whatever, it was all new and different. If your writing was good, then no one had a reason to rewrite you. If you were writing a Route 66 or a Naked City or a Virginian or a Wagon Train, there were regular characters and a format, but the real heart of the story was always the guest characters, so most of the script was centered on new characters invented by the writer. Star Trek did have roots in the anthology tradition, but the regular characters were always very important to the story and the guest stars were usually engaging with the regulars. (Sometimes they didn't even have guest stars!) As a result, there was probably more rewriting on shows like Star Trek because "your script doesn't sound like our people" would be a pretty devastating criticism in a way it wouldn't have been on many other shows.

 

[Nelson Au]

Great info and thoughts Lee. I found a video with Cushman and Black with Scott Mantz, so I'll watch that after I post.In the big grand scheme of things, what you think Black could have felt makes sense. It was such a small part of his career as you said, I can see his feeling that he wasn't that involved in the show, so he kept a low profile about it. but I'll see the video and see what he says. That's cool that he's coming out of sorts and seeing what all these Trekkies are about! And point about the voice of the show makes so much sense. I never thought that much about shows of that era as I don't watch that many of them. Of course the main two Sci-Fi Anthologies of the era we are fans of. But I never thought that shows like Bonanza and those series do show the main characters intereacting, helping and involving themselves with the guests. That's so true! I'll look at that video!