Scott Atwell Star Trek Discussion thread (Series and Films) (5 Viewers)

[TravisR]

Every self-respecting Star Trek fan needs to see this: (from Marina Sirtis' Twitter feed)

Imagine being a fan who just happened to walk into that restaurant that night.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Spiner is so quick witted and fast with a wisecrack that the poor fan would probably find their head spinning before he or she even knew what was happening!

 

[Nelson Au]

Frake’s must have been the photographer or he wasn’t there.

 

[Sam Favate]

Spiner is so quick witted and fast with a wisecrack that the poor fan would probably find their head spinning before he or she even knew what was happening!

Spiner's retweet:

https://twitter.com/BrentSpiner/status/1036673966151098368

 

[Nelson Au]

Guys, here’s a total non-sequitur.

I was watching an episode of Enterprise and having general flashbacks to high school and an incident back at a job in the early 90’s. These flashbacks refer to Star Trek of course. At the end of each Star Trek end titles credits there is the Paramount logo and the short musical accompaniment that plays with it. It’s a 6 note tune. I happen to be whistling it absentmindedly at my desk at work and my co-worker was wondering why I was whistling the Star Wars theme. In my mind I had no idea how he got that. It’s the Paramount logo. But if you listen, it is the same notes used in the Star Wars theme.

Others must have made this connection.

 

[BobO'Link]

Maybe... but not me. I've never noticed that. I think it's because of the tempo, orchestration, and that the Paramount fanfare ends on a high note instead of dropping down on the 7th note like the Star Wars theme. Now I wonder just when did Paramount begin using that fanfare and did Johnny Williams (as he was known early in his career) pen it for them.

 

[Nelson Au]

Sure, the fanfare can sound different to most people. I’ve found a few variants on YouTube from extended versions to the earlier versions with totally different fanfares.

The one I know so well is from the 1990’s or so. I see there are others in the comments found it sounded like Star Wars too. I don’t know who wrote this fanfare, didn’t think John Williams did.



Speaking of logos, I was really thrilled when the Star Trek DVD’s and Blu-rays used prints that included the Desilu logo.

 

[BobO'Link]

Me too on the latest TOS releases including that Desilu logo. That's how I remember the ending. Anything else is just wrong. But, at least for me, I want those original studio/distributor logos on all TVonDVD releases. I absolutely hate it when whatever company now distributes the programs adds their logo as if they had anything to do with the original production/distribution. It just throws me off. CBS seems to be the worst offender in those cases.

 

[Nelson Au]

Speaking of the TNG episode Schism, it just aired on the Heroes and Icons network last week. It’s been interesting the last couple of weeks to watch Star Trek each evening now that this new network has been doing this. TOS, TNG and DS9. And Voyager and Enterprise. They aired a few TNG episodes, in broadcast order, that I don’t watch that much. Schism and Man of the People. That second episode surprised me a bit as I hadn’t seen it in so long. I’d have thought that Picard wouldn’t have been so flagrant in how the Ambassador met his end. Of course, they were trying to save Troi. I’m being vague as not to spoil it. Earlier was of course one of my favorites, Relics.

There’s been several really good Season 6 DS9 episodes airing this past week too. The Magnificent Ferengi, Waltz, Who Mourns for Morn, Far Beyond the Stars and ending with One Little ship.

While I have all the discs, it’s been fun to casually watch the spin off series as they air. On TOS, they started with the second season last week and I’d thought they time Catspaw for Halloween, but they are actually showing it next week.

 

[ScottRE]

The Desilu logo is correct on Trek until the episodes aired in 1968. After that, it should be the Paramount “rising stars” logo with the Desilu music until the 3rd season. But once it’s hits 1968 on the Blu Rays, the current CBS Paramount Logo is used

 

[Nelson Au]

Howie, what I’ve gotten used to now is seeing and hearing both the Desilu and Paramount logo from my above post.

 

[Nelson Au]

Scott, that’s true about the change from Desilu to Paramount. I haven’t paid that close attention to which Paramount logo being used in 1968. I’ll have to watch an episode.

 

[ScottRE]

On most of the video releases pre-DVD, the third season Paramount logo was used on those second season episodes in 1968. The one exception was the Columbia House version of The Omega Glory. It’s the only Trek episode I’ve seen with the right logo for that period.

 

[ScottRE]

On September 8, 1966 at 7:30 pm EST, Star Trek premiered to less than universal acclaim. The episode "The Man Trap" was described as "dreary" and a "lower case fantasia" by critics who preferred Irwin Allen's The Time Tunnel.

However, time and a fiercely devoted fan base proved the critics wrong, and while the series was not a ratings winner during its original run, it has become a pop culture phenomenon. Arguably the most popular television program in history, this three year series has been run and rerun endlessly for five decades. Whatever an individual's feelings for it, history has already made its judgment. Star Trek has well-deserved staying power thanks to literate, thoughtful scripts which combine a message with action/adventure, fine acting and well drawn characters. It has spawned five direct follow up series (and countless imitators) and 13 feature films to date. Volumes have been written about it, both in books and an uncountable number of articles and reviews. Let's not forget a not-so-small fortune earned in merchandise, including, but not limited to, toys, games, trading cards, clothing, models, art, comic books, even kitchen tools and furniture. More importantly, it has inspired millions of people to aspire to be more, to aim higher and to (sorry) go boldly.

It's my favorite series of all time. I can and do watch it repeatedly. I never tire of it. It has always been in my life and always will. It's part of who I am. It's why I have performed, written, created. Whatever charm I aspire to have comes from watching The Captain.

All of this for a simple TV show? "Evidently, not so simple."

Happy 52nd, Star Trek. You still look good.

 

[jcroy]

This conversation started in the Lost In Space thread, but I wanted to explore the issue more and thought it might fit better here.

The issue of parallel Earth development in Star Trek never bothered me. "Miri" was the first time the concept was touched upon. Other than "The Man Trap", this is really the first time the show explored the surface of a planet in any detail. Certainly the first with an active society. The show was trying to save money and be as realistic as possible to better connect the audience to the story. The "another Earth" business is just there to hide the fact that a modern day street exterior is being used, and there is not too much emphasis on this fact after the very brief teaser. The idea makes more sense here explaining humans on the surface than in other shows were the inhabitants of the planets all happen to be human in appearance.

(Going on a tangent).

Another tv show where this "parallel earth" development might be an issue, is the Stargate franchise.

The "cheat" explanation for this could be that the development of another human society on another planet, starts off with human slaves which were taken from earth through a stargate to another planet. So all development of a "parallel earth" starts off from whatever societal/cultural group these ancestral human slaves had come from, when they were first brought over to a new planet via the stargate by their Gao'uld slavemasters.

For example in the original Stargate movie, the other planet (Abydos) through the stargate were descendents of ancient egyptians from the Pharaoh periods. The Daniel Jackson character (played by James Spader) was able to figure out the Abydos inhabitants were speaking in an ancient egyptian language.

http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Abydonian_language

 

[Sam Favate]

Lots of Star Trek actors were present for the special Emmy the series received last night:
https://trekmovie.com/2018/09/08/st...ors-award-discovery-comes-up-short-for-emmys/

 

[Nelson Au]

Hey Scott, it’s definitely amazing we are at 52 years from the premiere of Star Trek. Longer counting the production of The Cage. I was thinking yesterday that for every decade since the series ended, there’s been one form of Star Trek out there. Animated series, The Motion Picture, The Next Generation, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, and now Discovery and soon the Picard series. That’s just TV and films and now streaming. Not counting the books and comics.

I still remember the 1970’s because it was the darkest period as there was no reason to think they would really bring Star Trek back. Just little bits of news in TV guide of another series or a film.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks Sam for the heads up on the Emmys. It’s great to see Star Trek recognized like that. Shatner still looking youthful as well as the other cast members of the other series. I wonder why only one person came for each series?

 

[Nelson Au]

The news that Les Moonves is out at CBS had me wondering what that means for Star Trek.

I know only so much. What I do know is the TV properties all are under CBS. That left the film franchise with Paramount and in order to do Star Trek films, they had only the rights for the TOS characters and Star Trek brand for films. So that made me wonder if that was the reason the Enterprise was designed so differently.

At any rate, what I was thinking was that Shari Redstone, who owns Viacom, had been fighting with Moonves to merge with CBS. Viacom owns Paramount. So then Viacom would have had the rights to the TV characters and thus like Disney, we could have had a unity of control of both TV and film rights.

But it appears in the light of Moonves departure, Redstone has agreed not to pursue the merger at this time. But it looks like there is still a chance it will happen in the near future.

It would have been interesting because Star Trek could have been less fractured. With so many future Star Trek projects in the pipeline, some coordination would have been nice.

Additionally, I didn’t know that Moonves at the time CBS split from Viacom in 2005, was behind the push to cancel Star Trek Enterprise. But now he is counting on Star Trek to sell CBS All Access. Now he is pushed out.

 

[Sam Favate]

Fortunately (or not, depending on where you stand on CBS AA), it seems that Discovery was a big enough success that whoever follows at CBS will likely let Star Trek continue, but since any new leader won't be the one who invented AA, they won't be married to it either. When it eventually fails (and it will, the market can't sustain this many streaming services), a new leader should be amenable to sending Star Trek to Netflix, which would be thrilled to have it.

I always said things wouldn't change with Star Trek until there was new leadership, and there soon will be. It remains to be seen if that change will be for good or ill with regard to Star Trek.