Scott Atwell Star Trek Discussion thread (Series and Films) (6 Viewers)

[The 1960's]

Happy Birthday Susan Oliver
(February 13, 1932 – May 10, 1990)

In Tribute

Thank you Scott!

 

[ScottRE]

Thanks Neal! And in post 17001! Close enough!

 

[Nelson Au]

Much too short a life.

 

[Sam Favate]

I'm trying to piece together an old memory and, who knows, maybe some of you can help me. When I was 8 years old, I won tickets to a Star Trek convention in NYC. This would have been around 1975. All of the original cast was there, and it was a thrill to see them onstage. I recall Leonard Nimoy's joke, when asked where the bathrooms were on the Enterprise, that the only one you could get into was with a phaser. The pictures below are of some Klingon cosplay that day. It may be primitive by today's standards but this was a thrill to my 8-year-old self (seen in the picture).

Does anyone recall this convention? Where it was held? (I thought it was at the Hotel Pennsylvania, but I'm not sure.) What the dates were? (I think it was in November, 1975, but again, I'm not sure. I am sure it was a weekday, not a weekend, because I had to miss school to go.) Lastly, if anyone has any promotional materials from the event - a scan of a poster or an announcement or program, I'd love to see them. If anyone was there, I'd love to hear your memories. Upon doing some further research, I now think it may have been the New York Star Trek 76 convention at the NY Hilton at Rockefeller Center, Jan. 23-24-25, 1976. I would have attended on the 23rd. Anyone go to this one?

I got out the old slides and rescanned them in HD, and to my surprise, I saw something I’ve never seen before: DeForest Kelly!

New York Star Trek 1976 Information | FanCons.ca

New York Star Trek 1976 convention at New York Hilton at Rockefeller Center in New York, NY, USA on January 23-25, 1976. Learn more at FanCons.ca.

fancons.ca

 

[Nelson Au]

Cool images Sam! I’m in the west coast and the equivalent convention in my area was in San Francisco and Oakland in separate years of 1975 and 1976. So I can’t help with your question. I recall the big one I think in San Francisco had Shatner. And I remember a very imaginative fan in costume who built a phaser that wasn’t accurate at all, but stuck in my mind because it was a cool interpretation of the design. Those were the days! I think I should still have the booklets for those.

 

[Harry-N]

I have a picture of James Doohan from a 1977 STAR TREK convention. This was likely in New York City.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

I have a picture of James Doohan from a 1977 STAR TREK convention. This was likely in New York City.

View attachment 183826

I wonder if Doohan ever gave an interview discussing his time on Jason of Star Command, which was shot prior to Star Trek: The Motion Picture?

 

[Bryan^H]

 

[Sam Favate]

^ Nice to see TMP getting some attention!

 

[ScottRE]

On Ms. Collins' birthday...

Joan Collins Tribute

 

[Jason_V]

It took an inordinate amount of time for me to get through The Trellisane Confrontation. It's ponderous, boring and not well written. With passages of telling the audience what is happening (versus using dialogue and characters) and a lot of the crew acting out of character, it's a misfire. There is a good, solid story sitting here...somewhere. A slave race, a revolution, invasion, Klingons, Romulans, prisoners...it should work a lot better than it actually does.

One piece that irked me is a passage telling the reader how incompetent the security chief on the Enterprise actually is. It's a very small piece of the story, sure, but man...it stuck out like a sore thumb to me.

Thankfully, this book is in the rearview mirror for me now.

Next up...Star Trek: Enterprise - Rise of the Federation #4: Live By the Code

 

[Nelson Au]

Jason, I’m impressed with your dedication to reading the Star Trek novels! I read them back in my youth, the titles that were coming out at the time of the film series and the James Blish titles before those. I loved reading the film adaptations. Once the TOS films ended, I lost the enthusiasm.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

There’s one I remember liking with the TOS crew back from my childhood days - I don’t remember anything about it except that it had sort of haunted house vibes and at one point some key crew members got stuck on the turbo lift.

I remember really wanting to read TNG The Devil’s Heart but not being able to get a copy.

I remember being gifted Probe and being so bored with it that I never came close to finishing it.

 

[Jason_V]

Jason, I’m impressed with your dedication to reading the Star Trek novels! I read them back in my youth, the titles that were coming out at the time of the film series and the James Blish titles before those. I loved reading the film adaptations. Once the TOS films ended, I lost the enthusiasm.

Thank you, Nelson! I have a love/dislike relationship with reading. On one hand, I want to fall in love with any book and spend an entire day reading it on the couch. On the other hand, I can never find anything that captures my imagination and attention. Trek usually fits the bill, even if I don’t like the story. This book took me two months to get through…I really disliked most of it and I lost the enthusiasm a bit.

I also use reading as a wind down every night. Get into bed and I read a chapter (always the goal) or until my eyes tells me it’s time to sleep.

There’s one I remember liking with the TOS crew back from my childhood days - I don’t remember anything about it except that it had sort of haunted house vibes and at one point some key crew members got stuck on the turbo lift.

I remember really wanting to read TNG The Devil’s Heart but not being able to get a copy.

I remember being gifted Probe and being so bored with it that I never came close to finishing it.

Probe, with respect to the author, was boring as sin. I remember reading it back in the day, but haven’t gotten to it in my current reading list. I know there were issues with the writing which affected the final product, but man…not looking forward to it.

I’m not sure I ever read Devil’s Heart. I can visualize the cover, but that’s about it.

I will keep my eyes open for the haunted house type story. It sounds vaguely familiar, but I could be mixing up episodes, book’s and comics.

 

[BobO'Link]

I've never much cared for the Star Trek novelazations of the TOS series and, even as a kid, found them bland. They just didn't "read right" for me and didn't seem to have the same level of storytelling and interest as did the episodes. Today I'd call them poorly written "fan fiction" type works. Back then they came off as just poorly written adaptations. After reading 3 or 4 I gave up on them.

One of the only works I've ever read that, to me, feel like those original episodes is the "Star Trek: New Visions" comic series written by John Byrne. He used stills from the episodes to "illustrate" (they were called "photonovels") new dialog/stories to create 24 "Year 5" adventures. It was quite effective. The Gold Key comics mostly worked for me as well but weren't consistently stocked at the drug store where I purchased my comics back then.

 

[ScottRE]

I always felt Star Trek works best in the short form, like the episodes. A Trek novel is usually too long to sustain the story and I stopped reading them back in the 80's. I stuck with the movie novelizations since they were based in longer form stories. Unlike @BobO'Link I really enjoyed the Blish novelizations, at least until his wife started doing most of the writing. I thought they were quick, concise and interesting in their differences from the filmed episodes. Those were my Go To's and I still go back to them.

I loved the actual Fotonovels in the late 70's since those were truly the best ways to revisit the episodes between syndicated reruns and pre-VHS. I wasn't thrilled with the John Byrne version since he mixed stills from seasons so Kirk, for example, would gain and lose weight depending on where he grabbed it from. I would have preferred he just draw it as a comic.

 

[BobO'Link]

I always felt Star Trek works best in the short form, like the episodes. A Trek novel is usually too long to sustain the story and I stopped reading them back in the 80's. I stuck with the movie novelizations since they were based in longer form stories. Unlike @BobO'Link I really enjoyed the Blish novelizations, at least until his wife started doing most of the writing. I thought they were quick, concise and interesting in their differences from the filmed episodes. Those were my Go To's and I still go back to them.

I loved the actual Fotonovels in the late 70's since those were truly the best ways to revisit the episodes between syndicated reruns and pre-VHS. I wasn't thrilled with the John Byrne version since he mixed stills from seasons so Kirk, for example, would gain and lose weight depending on where he grabbed it from. I would have preferred he just draw it as a comic.

Nope... Byrne's a good story teller but *all* the people in his artwork look the same (men and women). If the clothes weren't different you'd not know who was who and would have to rely on "bumps" to be able to tell the men from the women. I'm not much of a fan of his art.

 

[ScottRE]

I will agree his women all tended to look like Barbara Bain (which worked well when he did the Charlton Space:1999 book) but he does okay with men. I always enjoyed his art. His FF and X-Men runs were among my favorite comics. Like ever.

Still, if I had to pick my favorite Star Trek comics, it would be the DC post Star Trek II run. The art did get sloppy before long, but those first issues in between Treks 2 and 3 were great.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

"The Mirror Universe Saga" is so good.

 

[Nelson Au]

Guys, I thought I’d follow up my viewing of The Naked Time with Tomorrow is Yesterday. As some of you know, it’s been reported that Tomorrow is Yesterday was to follow up The Naked Time as the Enterprise was to have gone back in time more then just a few days. I also had a nice diversion to Balance of Terror due to my viewing of A Quality of Mercy, the Strange New Worlds S1 finale.

i had a silly thought. If Tomorrow is Yesterday took place in 1967 as when it was originally broadcast, then John Christopher’s son would have been born in 1968 or so. So there’s been no successfully launched Saturn probes yet. Maybe he went on to work on another space program.

But the other silly thought is I wondered how long it would take to travel from the Earth to the Sun at the speed of light. I figured not long. It takes a little over 8 minutes. So if the Enterprise leaves earth orbit to slingshot around the sun, and Sulu says they’ve already exceeded Warp 8, I think they’d have overshot the sun by quite a bit! Ha, ha. Just having some fun. Warp 8 is mighty fast! DC Fontana did not have the quick access to the internet to do a quick check like I just did. And maybe Kellam de Forest wasn’t able to review the script that week and it got by? Its doesn’t matter, as this is a fun and favorite episode.