Scott Atwell Star Trek Discussion thread (Series and Films) (4 Viewers)

[Jonathan Perregaux]

Well, The Avengers made eighty gablillion dollars because it actually had avengers in it and was a fun ride. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. gives us no avengers (or sometimes Lady Sif for no reason).

 

[FanCollector]

Saw this quiz from MeTV online. None of you should have much trouble with it, but it's very entertaining:

http://metv.com/quiz/quiz-whats-wrong-with-this-star-trek-picture

 

[Nelson Au]

Hey Lee, that quiz was pretty well done.[emoji3] There was 2 that I wasn't absolutely sure of, but I was right after all!

 

[Nelson Au]

Guys, I am very interesting in mid entry architecture which is a fancy name for cool modern homes designed in the 1950's and early 1960's.

One of the sites I look at for a particular builder of those homes had an article that I found very interesting about a home that was built in 1972 or so that is now on the market. One of pioneers of that era is Richard Neutra who designed many case study homes in Los Angeles. One of the more famous enough case study homes is designed by Pierre Keonig who did the famous house that's appeared in Galaxy Quest as the Jason Nesmith home played by Tim Allen.

The Neutra home is designed by his son Dion Neutra as Neutra died in 1970. The house is located in Tarzana California. It's a terrific example of that era of design and a time capsule as the article states the house is in original condition. The photos look like the house is immaculately maintained too.

So why am I posting this? The home was commissioned by Lou Scheimer. He is a co-founder of Filmation. And Filmation produced Star Trek The Animated series. Since Lou Scheimer died in 2013, the family probably wants to sell the house. Asking price is twice the comparable homes in the neighborhood! This is due to his celebrity and the designer of the house.

Funny how a posting about an unrelated topic can have one going down a divergent path. I was curious about Scheimer after reading about the house. I didn't realize his company was started in 1962 and while I've never seen it, or maybe I did, they did The New Adventures of Superman in 1966. That led to a a Batman series in 1968. That led to other more popular series from Filmation such as Fat Albert! Then later to The Real Ghostbusters which I never saw. I had no idea.

It was also interesting as I read more about Star Trek The Animated Series, the whole issue of whether that series belongs to canon. I know that since Roddenberry's death, TAS has become canon. I was also fascinated with reading about the animation techniques that Filmation pioneered. While this isn't new news to me or you guys, I just haven't read about it or thought about it in a long time. So it's got me kind of interested in revisiting the series. At least the better episodes. It's a shame that series wasn't able to be done with a higher budget and more fluid animation style and the cast wasn't there together to act off each other. I always find hearing the dialogue really shows that Shatner was in Chicago while Nimoy was in Los Angeles.

This is all funny as I came across a really cool interview on YouTube from a channel called Bill Boggs TV. He's posted many interviews he's done and he's got one with William Shatner done in 1979 promoting Star Trek The Motion Picture. I think this interview show was done in New York and is a mid day TV interview show at the time. This was taped the week the film premieres and Shatner hasn't been to the Premiere yet. I think it's a terrific piece to watch, bearing in mind this is all new to everyone and the fans have yet to see the film. So it's a pretty cool half hour if you have a free minute to see this. Maybe someone here knows more about the Bill Boggs show.

 

[KPmusmag]

These questions have probably been discussed in 12000+ posts, but -


I watched "Amok Time" tonight, surely a landmark episode. Brilliant. But I have two questions.


1. Why weren't Spock's parents present at the ceremony?


2. What happened when T'Pau found out Kirk was actually still alive? It is not as if Earth and Vulcan had no communication.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

My answer for 1 is more lazy but probably closer to the truth - the writers hadn't invented his parents yet. For number 2, no idea.

 

[FanCollector]

Such a great episode, isn't it? I think that Josh is right in the practical sense that Spock's parents clearly rated their own story and there was no plan to shove them into this one. Within the context of the show, however, I think it's believable. At the time of Journey to Babel, shortly after Amok Time, he hadn't seen his parents at all in four years. He hadn't really had any kind of relationship with his father for 18 years. Under those circumstances, it seems plausible that they wouldn't be quick to get together for family events like bar mitzvahs or koonut kalifee or whatever.

Your second question is one I've considered before. I don't know...T'Pau didn't seem like she was especially bloodthirsty. If the guys found a way to fulfill the requirements of the ceremony and of biology without killing Kirk, I'm not sure she would really object. It's true that McCoy scammed her, but she would be hard-pressed to make him seem morally wrong for doing so. She certainly wouldn't have any kind of legal argument to make. So I like to think she took it well, though I acknowledge there might be other interpretations.

 

[FanCollector]

Nelson, I remember Bill Boggs. He was a local New York television personality who started on the news and became a host/interviewer in the 1970s and 1980s. He had his own daily show for several years, as well as appearing on other news and news-like programs. I will definitely look at the Shatner interview!

Interesting find about the Scheimer house. I'll be interested to see if it sells at the high price. Many celebrity heirs try to sell large old homes that their spouses/parents had built for premium prices because of the celebrity factor, and then find that no one is buying at those prices. It happened with Alan King's estate, Bob Hope's estate, and some others.

I have the Filmation Batman show on DVD, mostly for nostalgic reasons. Some of them are fun. It's pretty recognizable for that Filmation house style. They licensed a lot of properties from other sources for their shows.

The animated Star Trek may not have been as good on average as the live action show, but it was so much more sophisticated than all the other kids' shows on then, wasn't it? As someone pointed out, how many other Saturday morning cartoons had one of their lead characters accused of genocide? My personal theory of the lesser quality is that a lot of it had to do with the reduced running time. 24 minute stories are less layered than 49 minute stories. Can you imagine trying to cut out half of The City on the Edge of Forever? (Not that you aren't also clearly right about the animation and the disconnected voice acting.)

 

[Nelson Au]

Hi Lee,

I had a feeling you might be familiar with Bill Boggs. [emoji3]

I'm curious as well how the Scheimer house does on the market. I agree that TAS had some good quality material especially when compared to the norm then. It's a shame the director was color blind and the Slaver Weapon episode was colored as it is. I wanted to revisit that one, I thought it was quite good if I ignore the color problem. Yesteryear is a stand out episode. You make a great point that the 30 minute run time, or 22 minute time frame, hobbled the story telling a little. Probably means that the stories just have to be simpler.

 

[Kevin EK]

To answer the Amok Time questions, the first person responding is mostly correct from what I understand.


Spock's parents aren't at the wedding ceremony because they really hadn't worked out the characters yet. Further, it would have complicated the situation far beyond what the TOS writers wanted to do in that story. Amok Time is really about what the blood fever does to Spock and his shipmates. Going into his issues with his father and mother would take us completely into left field. And it works better to get into their issues in Journey to Babel anyway.


Regarding how T'Pau reacted, I believe there was actually an acknowledgment of this in one of the Star Trek novels in the 80s. If I remember correctly, there was a scene between Kirk and T'Pau where she disdainfully referred to what had happened at the marriage ceremony. But of course that's not really canon.

 

[Jack P]

I remember Bill Boggs' "Midday" show on WNEW-Channel 5 quite well! Glad to see he's posting a lot of vintage material. One thing about him that isn't well-known is that he was once married to Linda Thorson (Tara King from the final season of "The Avengers") and he even posted the interview where he announces his engagement to her.

 

[Jonathan Perregaux]

I think T'Pau wasn't fooled for a split-second. McCoy's trickery gave her a logical way to bow out of the usually private Vulcan ceremony and get these off-worlders out of there. Plus, she had to go write "Heart and Soul."

 

[Jason_V]

Such a great episode, isn't it? I think that Josh is right in the practical sense that Spock's parents clearly rated their own story and there was no plan to shove them into this one. Within the context of the show, however, I think it's believable. At the time of Journey to Babel, shortly after Amok Time, he hadn't seen his parents at all in four years. He hadn't really had any kind of relationship with his father for 18 years. Under those circumstances, it seems plausible that they wouldn't be quick to get together for family events like bar mitzvahs or koonut kalifee or whatever.

I agree with this 100%. We know Spock and his parents are estranged, and if they haven't talked in years (or had a strained relationship), there's no guarantee he would share his life plan with them. Speaking from experience, I have a similar relationship with my parents. We talk, but they don't know any more than bare surface information about my life. They have also made it clear they will not attend my wedding when it happens, nor will they be part of any potential grandkids' lives.


So yeah, this rings incredibly realistically.

 

[Nelson Au]

I figured some more New Yorkers would know who Bill Boggs is. I looked him up after finding the interviews. I did see he was married to Linda Thorson.

 

[FanCollector]

I agree with this 100%. We know Spock and his parents are estranged, and if they haven't talked in years (or had a strained relationship), there's no guarantee he would share his life plan with them. Speaking from experience, I have a similar relationship with my parents. We talk, but they don't know any more than bare surface information about my life. They have also made it clear they will not attend my wedding when it happens, nor will they be part of any potential grandkids' lives.

So yeah, this rings incredibly realistically.

Thanks for adding the view of experience. When I saw Leonard Nimoy at the 92nd Street Y, he talked about how his father did not understand his desire to have a career in the arts. As a man who had always wanted to go to school and work in a secure professional field but been too poor to do so, Nimoy's father simply couldn't understand why his son, who did have that opportunity, would want to do something so risky and non-intellectual (in his view). Although it didn't deteriorate their relationship to the point of Spock and Sarek's, it was impossible to miss the analogy.

 

[Nelson Au]

Star Trek The Motion Picture premieres 36 years ago today. I know I posted this elsewhere, but it seemed appropriate here too. [emoji4]

 

[Jonathan Perregaux]

I still recall that rainy winter Saturday when I saw TMP for the first time. My parents took me to see it with my friend. The Klingon sequence blew my mind, as did the fly-around of the Enterprise. The costumes and behavior of the crew did not endear me, however. I was a Trekkie since before I attained sentience (probably sitting on my plastic toilet trainer at the age of 2 watching it—that's certainly how I took in most of my cartoons).


The moment the Enterprise engaged impulse engines lodged itself in my mind. I had never seen the Enterprise do these things or look so impressive. You could almost reach out and touch that pearlescent paint job.

 

[Nelson Au]

I saw it opening night. A buddy cut class and saw the first showing of the day.

 

[Carabimero]

Although my movie is not about Star Trek, it ended up with three allusions to Trek. It's finished. A couple of people here said they wanted to see it. If you mentioned it before, and would like me to ship you a DVD, send me your mailing address in a private message before 8am PT Saturday the 12th and one will be in your stocking on Christmas morning.

 

[Nelson Au]

It's being reported that George Clayton Johnson passed away on Christmas Day at 86. But there seemed to be some conflicting reports that he had died on the 23rd, but refuted by his son. But Startrek.com seems to be reporting it along with other news outlets that he died on Christmas Day.

He contributed so much to The Twilight Zone and Star Trek of course with only one filmed episode.