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

[Blimpoy06]

BTW, how is how ABC showed it different from the DVD/Blu-- missing scenes, missing lines, etc. (outside of the obvious commercial breaks)?

It is basically what Paramount now sells as the Director's Cut of the movie. The music edits are a bit rough in the ABC version when scenes are inserted. And the violence and language are toned down of course for broadcast. The one scene that stood out to me was with Kirk and Savik in the turbo lift. The ABC version uses a close-up of the two individually as they speak. Where the original film and DVD have it as a wide shot showing both. The performances are different for both.

There is a lengthy video in two parts that does a side by side comparison.

 

[Nelson Au]

I’ve never taken the time to notice the ABC cut has differences from the laserdisc DVD Blu Ray cuts. I did tape it back in the day. But I never watched it much. My main memory was the Jeffries Tube sequence when Kirk says David is his son and Spock’s reaction. I did notice the turbo lift difference you show above. My guess for the close-ups was the 4 x 3 aspect ratio didn’t work on the wide shot so they used an alternate close-up.

 

[Sam Favate]

I've been rewatching Enterprise, which I kinda dismissed (except for Season 4) when it aired, but really liked when I saw it again on DVD. I'm watching the blu-rays now, and I'm up to Season 4, which IMO is one of the best seasons of Star Trek ever.

Anyway, I just saw the three-part Augments arc, and I see a lot of ties to the larger Star Trek universe. Obviously, there is the connection to Khan, who is mentioned a time or two, there's the connection to Data through Dr. Soong. We will see later that the Augments' story affects the Klingons in a big way. I even see a connection to DS9's Dr. Bashir, who is genetically enhanced. (When Archer tells Soong at the end that maybe someday there will be a way to use his augment tech to benefit people, particularly after we see Soong altering the DNA to make the Augments less aggressive.)

Here's a question or two: Noonian Soong (Data's creator) is a descendant of this Dr. Soong. Is he his son? Is Noonian Soong enhanced? Is he named after Khan Noonian Singh? I always thought the similarity in their names was a coincidence, but this makes it plausible it was not.

Also the opening to part 3, where Archer has the Enterprise blow the hatch he's in so he gets sucked out into space and then beamed aboard, might be the most exciting opening to any Star Trek episode.

 

[Nelson Au]

San, I don’t think there is any connection between Khan’s name and Dr. Soong.

I’m actually re-watching Enterprise too. I finished the first two seasons and I am in the middle of the third.

 

[Camper]

It's been long reported that Roddenberry had an old friend named Soong or Singh or something close to that and that he pushed to name both Khan and Data's creator to something very close to his friends name. It has been long mentioned that he hoped that his old friend would make contact with him but his friend never did.

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/in...ed-famous-villain-friend-wwii-pilot-days.html

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/164037/did-gene-roddenberry-find-noonien

 

[Sam Favate]

Still making my way through Enterprise season 4. Just finished the Babel One/United/The Aenar trilogy, and it's terrific. This is everything I always thought this show should be. It's a shame Enterprise doesn't get much love from fans, because I would really hold up season 4 as equal to any of the best seasons of TOS, TNG, DS9 or Voyager. And attention, Discovery writers: If you're doing a prequel, this is how it's done. There are camera shots in The Aenar that could have come directly from TOS.

I recall reading that if there had been a season 5, Shran would have been added to the cast, and you can see how they are setting that up here. (Wasn't there a Kickstarter campaign for the fans to pay for season 5 that pledged a ton of money? And Paramount said no?)

BTW, my wife and I decided we will not be watching the infamous finale. The show will end this time with Terra Prime, as it should have ended.

 

[Nelson Au]

Back in June, I posted about a company that was issuing a limited number of prints of the original artwork for Star Trek The Motion Picture. This original done by Bob Peak had Shatner on the right and higher then Nimoy on the left. But Shatner asked he be placed on the left and lined up with Nimoy so they are equal. The print arrived today and it’s pretty amazing. High quality thick paper and the inks are super! The colors are rich and the details are sharp. Really amazing.

Here’s a quick and dirty photo.

 

[Sam Favate]

Back in June, I posted about a company that was issuing a limited number of prints of the original artwork for Star Trek The Motion Picture. This original done by Bob Peak had Shatner on the right and higher then Nimoy on the left. But Shatner asked he be placed on the left and lined up with Nimoy so they are equal. The print arrived today and it’s pretty amazing. High quality thick paper and the inks are super! The colors are rich and the details are sharp. Really amazing.

Here’s a quick and dirty photo.

View attachment 50807

Wow, that is really stunning. I have the other TMP poster (with Kirk on the left/Spock on the right) and it's about my favorite movie poster of all time. Partly because it brings back the anticipation I felt in the summer/fall of 1979, waiting for the movie to premiere, but mostly because I think it's Bob Peak's best work in a long career full of great work.

 

[Nelson Au]

Hey Sam, agreed about Bob Peak! He’s done some great work on many film posters. My 1979 original poster is faded and I recent found a similar vintage poster on eBay that’s in great condition. I’ll be investing in glass for the frame that’s UV filtering to prevent fading again.

 

[ScottRE]

That was very nice to hear about Shatner's wish to make Nimoy equal. This usually is not the sort of thing we hear about him and I get a little tired of the Shatner bashing. Thanks for that. Granted, putting him left makes him "first" but I still prefer to believe he was being "also" fair.

Whatever the configuration, it is a beautiful poster and I was very appreciative when Star Trek Beyond paid tribute to it.

 

[Sam Favate]

Continuing along with Enterprise, the last two nights we watched In a Mirror Darkly, which is a two-parter that's just a lot of fun and shows a lot of love for the original series. Does anyone know if this was filmed using the sets from the New Voyages fan series? The sets of the original series ship were extensive and far beyond what we've seen before when other shows revisited TOS. (TNG only recreated a small portion of the bridge for Relics, DS9 used a lot of green screens to place characters into TOS, but Enterprise showed us the bridge and many other locations around the ship, including the captain's quarters, the Jefferies tube, and more.)

Only two episodes left! I have enjoyed Enterprise Season 4 more than any other Trek I have watched in recent memory (which would be Voyager seasons 4-7 and Enterprise 1-3).

 

[ScottRE]

Does anyone know if this was filmed using the sets from the New Voyages fan series? The sets of the original series ship were extensive and far beyond what we've seen before when other shows revisited TOS. (TNG only recreated a small portion of the bridge for Relics, DS9 used a lot of green screens to place characters into TOS, but Enterprise showed us the bridge and many other locations around the ship, including the captain's quarters, the Jefferies tube, and more.)

Yep that is what I had read, the New Voyages sets were used for this episodes. As well as modified toy versions of the original series props (which is why the communicator is too “fat”).

I appreciated this episode but felt it squandered a two parter so late in the run. We only had two episodes of this cast left (the finale is a TNG episode) and nobody expected the series to come back. A single episode would have worked for me.

And Bakula is honestly terrible in this, the only time I’ve ever said that about his work. He is out hamming Shatner in this and it pulls me out of it every time.

However it’s a fan favorite so I accept my minority position here.

 

[Nelson Au]

Hey guys, I just finished the Augments 3 episode arc and in the middle of the Vulcan arc, The Forge and Awakening.

Regarding In A Mirror Darkly, and Bakula’s performance, I found that for all the sequels after Mirror Mirror, most of the actors playing the Mirror characters all over acted! They seemed to scowl and act overly angry and mean. I thought Tripp was over hammy too. There are exceptions, Nana Visitor was more nuanced. I suppose Doohan and Kelley and Nichelle Nichol’s Mirror counterparts were a bit hammy too in their only scenes in the brig. The evil Shatner Kirk was nuanced a bit too, but not overly hammy. In my mind, a more subtle evil version could have been done. Captain Lorca in Star Trek Discovery was like that, subtle and evil.

Regarding the TOS sets on In A Mirror Darkly, the bridge was a completely new set built on the Paramount stages, according the Memory Alpha Page in this episode and the supplemental features on the Star Trek Enterprise DVD sets. I’m sure the same material is on the blu ray set. And I recall, at the time, this is the case. The production staff being fans of TOS had the experience of prior series and a lot of research on the original TOS sets.

I’m not sure how I feel about this episode. It was done with a lot of love for TOS and the amount of effort into the episode was phenomenal. They did a fantastic job of recreating the original series. The story was fun. And had a nice twist. And the story was a well conceived and developed a series of ideas to follow up with two TOS episodes. It’s just too bad it was so late in the series and so close to the end. So I view it with a bit of sadness.

It reminds me of the day the finale aired, I flew down to Los Angeles from the SF Bay Area and it was a Friday night as I recall. I met up with a friend as we heard the crew would be viewing the finale at a hotel and fans were invited. It was an impromptu event, I saw Michael Okuda there. Wished I talked to him. It was difficult to actually watch the episode as the room was crowded and with lots of distractions. I knew it would be repeated on the weekend so I figured I’d see it when I got home. It was more about the experience of being there.

 

[ScottRE]

I could have sworn the New Voyages sets were reportedly used. Maybe just some of them? Or it was a load of BS....

 

[Nelson Au]

Scott, what you might be thinking of is that one of the fan productions did loan out the scanner viewer that lifts out from the helm console where Sulu uses to scan whatever he’s looking for. As I recall, they built quite a good replica that has a working pivoting mechanism, so it was borrowed for use on one of the series. I haven’t seen In A Mirror Darkly in a while and I don’t recall if we see that in the Defiant bridge. I’ll see soon enough.

 

[Nelson Au]

I just discovered another cool video on YouTube of vintage aerial footage of Desilu Studios. I think stages 31 and 32 are seen at the end of the footage. The very stages Star Trek was filmed. It was a promotional film that Desi Arnez narrates.

 

[Sam Favate]

As I recall, they built quite a good replica that has a working pivoting mechanism, so it was borrowed for use on one of the series. I haven’t seen In A Mirror Darkly in a while and I don’t recall if we see that in the Defiant bridge. I’ll see soon enough.

We do see it in the second episode.

 

[KPmusmag]

I just discovered another cool video on YouTube of vintage aerial footage of Desilu Studios. I think stages 31 and 32 are seen at the end of the footage. The very stages Star Trek was filmed. It was a promotional film that Desi Arnez narrates.

Thank you so much for sharing that video, very interesting. Desi and Lucy certainly built an empire. Too bad they couldn't work things out personally. As a kid who adored "I Love Lucy", I was always so pleased when the Desilu logo popped up at the end of "Star Trek". ILL and ST were truly my two most favorites growing up.

Is that Tara from GWTW?

 

[Carabimero]

I watched the finale of Enterprise with the Roddenberry group. It was great until the power went out. We still had a fine, but bittersweet time. I don't think any of us believed Star Trek would be off the air for so long.

 

[Sam Favate]

I saw Demons last night, an episode I always liked, and a good way to set up the real finale, Terra Prime. I'd say the episode is prescient because it so accurately reflects the time we find ourselves in now, but I rather think it's a sign of how much things have stayed the same throughout history.