The Star Trek Thread - Page 13

Do you ever like a film for its, y'know, qualities. Or is your goal to MST3K EVERYTHING EVER MADE.

Oh, I know it was in the original release of the film. I meant that it was added late in filming as it became obvious Nimoy was up up for reprising the role again.

Eh, it's never bugged me that much.

In fact to take it one step further...I love everything having to do with Space Dock in Trek III. Just the whole epic-ness of it.

My guess is that they would have done a Star Trek 3 just with Saavik insted of Spock.

I'll agree with you on that. The music during all of those sequences was amongst the best in the series, too.

I do like the bit where the beat-to-shit Enterprise is limping back into spacedock, with cutaways of Rand and randoms looking on sympathetically.

I seem to remember reading somewhere (perhaps in Shatner's 'Star Trek Movie Memories') that THAT was indeed the plan.

I think they would have figured out a way to bring back Spock regardless. Probably do a quick insert shot of the mind-meld for the beginning of III or something...

Right, but if they told a continuity-based story there would still be all sorts of narrative issues to straighten out: Kirk is still an admiral, and not officially in command of Enterprise; Enterprise herself is still assigned as a training vessel. The series doesn't make its way back to Captain Kirk until Final Frontier.

Oh and not to backslide the thread unnecessarily, but III's Excelsior definitely has the worst-looking Bridge in the films.

What was the story on the 'Trans-Warp' drive that the Excelsior was supposed to have? It was introduced in ST3 and never followed up on in any of the subsequent movies or TV shows.

I'm curious. Has anyone actually heard someone refer to IV as "the one with the whales?" irl

What about the Borg?

Transwarp probably took a long time to research and get going. Scotty obviously sabotaged the transwarp drive so badly that it was ruined and starfleet probably just said forget it and abandoned it. I bet that must have steamed the swaggering Captain Styles so!

My wife.

I agree that there's no way to just "do another adventure" after Khan, but there's something so...obligatory about the way III's plot unfurls. It's like TWOK just set up a checklist of shit for the sequels to undo. Kind of a shame.

Always interesting to hear about who did (and didn't) get along with each other regarding the original cast.

Transwarp was supposed to allow faster than Warp 10 travel, which was the threshold of traditional warp drive.

And transwarp was followed up on in perhaps the single worst piece of televised Trek ever -- the episode of Voyage where Paris tests transwarp on a shuttle, and begins evolving into a future human. He then kidnaps Janeway and navigates through transwarp again, whereupon he and Janeway "evolve" into these pseudo-lizard-catfish things and reproduce on some planet. They're then rescued, leaving behind the little Paris-Janeway-lizard-catfish babies. It's mind-boggling.

Since we are discussing part III...

Who the hell thought this was a good idea?

I Mr. Blackwelled the shit out of Trek III's civvies way back on page 3, lots of horrific screencaps. (This thread is on fire.)

They'd have found a way to have Kirk asigned to the Enterprise ala TMP. And yes Trek 3's Excelsior bridge sucked. Trek 6's wasn't much better but mainly due to them trying to bridge the gap to TNG.

Yes

I so love that the transwarp computer has actual nuts and bolts that Scotty can actually yank out. And cause massive faliure.

I'll be damned. I must have trans-warped right around that post.

I like the fact that his son is the "ant-kirk" and not just a Kirk clone.

I like that as well, the look on their faces just scream "What did you do this time Kirk?"

Also, the amazing shot you get when you first see space dock, I still let out a little "wow" every time I see it.

The one thing that bothered me in Trek 4 was at the beginning. When they are watching the destruction of the Enterprise, why are there views from outside the ship?

Also, at the end of 4 the Enterprise A is just fine, yet when we get to Trek 5 it's a piece of crap that can't hit warp.

All the time, when I worked in video stores.

Spacedock is gorgeous but I don't see how it squares with the open drydock seen in the first two films. I suspect it was designed solely so that Enterprise could have something to break out of.

We see Klingon text on the video replay. The implication is that it's footage from the Bird-of-Prey's filght recorders or something. Although you can see the Klingon ship in the frame at one point...

I'm not sure if I'd rate that lower than DS9's "Q-Less."

It fit in with the story Meyer was telling perfectly; Kirk's son is against (in deeds, words, and sweaters) everything Kirk represents.

Yeah the wow factor for Space Dock is there for me too. I mean that sucker has to be redicliously huge. And Rand being there always kind bugged me because she's all of a sudden a curly red head. And she looks really old.

The only goodness from the Trek 5 Enterprise being a POS was that we got some sweet Shuttlercraft action.

The spacedock in ST3 was actually the same model as the space station Regula 1 in ST2, just flipped upside down.

That made me laugh way too hard, Phil. Thanks.

Your point is valid; I'm just saying that he deserved a swashbuckler for a son, not some pacifist.

I think you have that a bit backwards. Regula 1 was a space station from TMP that was flipped upside down. The spacedock in III was an entirely new design and model.

No, you're thinking of the space station from TMP, which was stripped down and inverted for Khan.

(edit) HEEEEYYYY AAAABBOTTTTTT

Right, we think that because we like Kirk, but I liked that the film disagreed with us; the film says his swashbuckling and creating bastards all over the galaxy earned him a son who hated him. Kirk was good and flawed in Khan, with all sorts of bad life decisions coming back to haunt him, embarrass him, and try to blow his ass up.

You're both right; my error.

For a pacifist, David is a bit bloodthirsty. He went straight for the kill when Kirk and and the others beamed down to the Genesis cave.

Edit- Of course, Kirk still kicked his ass.

He's absolute shit with a knife, though. I think maybe Judas meant "pussy" when he typed "pacifist".

I didn't want to be THAT blunt, but yes: he's a total wimp. He couldn't beat a soggy Chinese dinner.

There probably weren't too many opportunities for a good old fashioned knife fight to break out on Regula 1. Can't blame the boy for being a bit rusty. Stabbing rats that were plaguing the station just isn't the same as Federation combat training.

Wanted to add: Meyer was the only director interested in playing up Kirk's flaws; he's also a bigoted old asshole in VI (offset by the newly and conveniently sensitive McCoy's offended look when the other admiral calls Klingons the "trash of the galaxy").

That's probably because Mccoy had a very long list of other alien species that he felt that description was more approriate.

I think Kirk's pretty flawed in the first movie. Kirk and Spock are both real dicks in that one, exploiting the end of the world to work out their own mid-life shit.

I remember feeling cheated over one of the shots in ST6:

The trailer VERY CLEARLY showed Kirk getting vaporized by a phaser blast in a solo shot. In the finished film, both Kirks were in the frame and it clearly shows that it's Iman's doppleganger of Kirk that gets shot.

I have to cop to not watching the first movie in maybe 20 years. I recall Kirk standing around not having personal growth.

OR WAS IT??

Get the publisher on the phone; I think I just rocked the Shatnerverse.

Horking Enterprise from Decker was a qualified Dick Move.

Spock has a nice little narrative in Trek VI. Nimoy plays him as a badass detective (even crediting a Sherlock Holmes quote to one of his ancestors), and does a nice bit of heartbroken over Valeris' betrayal. And damn it, that little subplot, especially the mind meld scene, would have been amazing if it was Saavik. And not Robin Curtis Saavik. Just call Kim Catrall Saavik. Damn it.

Christopher Plummer runs circles around Christopher Lloyd.

The only things I actively dislike in VI are DeForrest Kelley (he's terrible in the trial scene), Worf's Un'Kehl T'Om ancestor and the final "go to hell", "let's just fly the ship around to defy orders" scene.

Kirstie Alley is 58. Six years older than Shatner was in TWOK. Jesus Christ.

And Nimoy nails it in that mind meld scene. All his anger goes into it, and then he realizes what he's doing and is pretty shattered when he says, "She does not know."

this is the best thread CHUD has going for it right now...keep it up!

I want this:

I almost bought this stunning McCoy, but I realized that it would just collect dust.

In case you ever wondered what happened to Carol Marcus:

I'm so relieved that John Larroquette's Klingon had some form of closure.

I didn't realize the level to which fan films had morphed into "films starring and directed by convention jockeys". I can't wait to see this one.

Garrett Wang also stars, but doesn't merit a floating head? Weak sauce.

Phil, I think you might be confused. According to Harve, he briefly toyed with having references to Saavik being pregnant in ST IV in the scene on Vulcan. He wrote a scene where after the Bird of Prey takes off, a Vulcan aide comes to Saavik and says, "Everything is in preparation for you." andthen Saavik nods, looks down, and pats her swollen belly (or something similar). But he and Nimoy scrapped the idea because they (wisely) deemed it too tacky.

The thing you're confusing it with is the birth of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. That in itself could fill a whole thread, but here are the basics:

After the Paramount execs saw a rough cut of ST IV in early 1986, they were so impressed that they asked Harve Bennett and TOS actors to return to TV for new TREK TV series (starring the original crew). This was apparently spurred by suits who'd calculated that TREK could make just as much, if not more money, on TV.

Nimoy, who was riding high on a directing career, had no desire to return to the weekly grind of television. After Disney execs saw a preview of ST IV they offerred him any script at the Mouse Farm he wanted to direct. Shatner was winding up TJ HOOKER and felt the same. Plus he'd used his leverage to appear in ST IV as a guarantee that he'd direct ST V. No TV desires there. Bennett had nothing against returning to TV, but thought a revised version of TOS was a bad idea. The only person who even considered it was De Forrest Kelly. He was retired and found the idea interesting. But when the others and Bennett said "No" he didn't really have a choice.

So the studio went to the one person they felt could get it done: Roddenberry. Still smarting from TMP budgetary disaster, they knew that it was much easier to count pennies and control the budget in TV. Roddenberry said he'd do it on 2 conditions:

1) That he have complete creative control.

2) That the show be syndicated. The battles between him and the execs at NBC 20 years earlier still angered him. He never forgave them for killing his baby.

He got both. (especially #1. Can you imagine a studio/network releasing a pilot as uneven/bland as "Encounter at Farpoint" without demanding reshoots?)

The rest, as they say, is history. So basically Harve Bennett was responsible for resurrecting STAR TREK, directly or indirectly, not once, but twice.

He didn't. I don't know where that rumor comes from. The story and script for ST III were all Harve Bennett's. He finished his final draft before Nimoy had even been hired to direct. Nick Meyer was never involved.

He did visit the set once to show his support for Nimoy as a director, but that was the limit to his involvent in ST III.

I recall a Starlog article that came between II and III, and Bennett seemed to be suggesting that there'd be a passing of the torch to this next-gen crowd they'd creadted for II. He might have just been talking out his ass, but if I find the issue, I'll post it.

Just noticed: The helmsman of the Excelsior in III is Miguel Ferrer.

And this fan film is fascinating as it is depressing. "It's Star Trek Like You've Never Seen It - 100% handheld camcorder!"