Star Trek: The General Discussion

Absent, your sence of humor seems to be, much anger I sence in you young padawan. :p


I'll get my coat.....
 
Yeah, I imagine a series produced now would do it much better simply because the effects are so much easier and cheaper to do.

The effects may be cheaper, (Not much though, because viewers nowadays expect movie SFX on a TV budget.) but that is a relatively small percent of a show's budget. Think of it - on a sci-fi show, everything has to be built. You need your bridge set, your various crew quarters, Engineering, Shuttlebay, Sickbay, etc. Some sets can be redressed and reused, but many have to be built for just the one purpose. You need costume designers to design and make the uniforms, makeup artists to makeup people into various alien species, (Unfortunately, very few aliens have a SAG membership.) and a production designer to create the entire look of the show. You need artists to create the various computer displays, and prop makers to make the various weapons and equipment. All of that is in addition (Or greatly expanded duties) to what you need to produce a drama show or sitcom.

Looking at it that way, it's no wonder UPN/CW decided to pull the plug on Enterprise and focus on reality shows like America's Next Top Model or dramas like Gossip Girl.
 
Ya kinda missed the point of my post there phoenixsac. JohnnyRacer was saying he wished we could see more of starships other than the main ship in a series. I was saying that as effects improve it would be easier to do that. If you look back at TNG, effects shots rarely showed more than two or three objects (ships, stations, planets) in space at a time. By the end of DS9 they were showing battles with entire fleets. In ENT, the battle at the end of the Xindi storyline not only showed a lot of ships, but they were of varied designs and they were all very dynamic.
 
By the end of DS9 they were showing battles with entire fleets.
The Second Battle of Deep Space Nine, where the Federation-Klingon fleet captures DS9 back from the Dominion was the first battle on Star Trek generated using CGI entirely.

This episode contains the largest battle ever seen in Star Trek, topping "The Way of the Warrior", which itself had topped "The Die is Cast". It is also the first Star Trek episode where CGI is used exclusively. Being the first episode where the battle scenes were entirely done in CGI, the producers realized that this was a massive project for television and quickly decided to split the workload between Digital Muse and Foundation Imaging. The latter was tasked with digitizing the alien ships, while the former would handle those Federation ships that were not digitized yet. The animation of the battle itself was for the first half handled by Digital Muse; Foundation did the second half (with the USS Defiant breaking through the lines and the arrival of the Klingons). Visual effects supervisor David Stipes explains that traditionally, scenes like this were done on the sound stage with models via motion-control rigs, but that was not an option this time, due to the immensity of the battle; "the problem is that motion control is about shooting one ship at a time, one pass at a time. There was just no way we could have done it. We just didn't have enough time or money."
(src)
 
Been a trekkie since i can remember. grew up on TNG and then DS9. watched nearly every episode of Voyager as it aired from like the second season. watched every episode of Enterprise as it aired up until the thrid season. Seen all the movies atleast 10 times each, some more than others. Khan and Undiscovered Country and First Contact are in my top 10 all time favorite movies.

Shit, i even was subsrcibed to Star Trek the magazine while it was around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Magazine

also, the Shatnerverse books are great. be sure to turn your brain down a bit for them but i loved them.

And im just as big a Star Wars fan too
 
btw the entire DS9 series is available for streaming on netflix, making every ST TV series available online.

Next Gen - I've been rewatching from the start, some of it is dated and pretty bad, especially the earlier season eps, some of it is still brilliant. Currently midway thru season 3, since I've watched it all before, I don't need to put my full attention to the TV and get other things done while watching the series.

Enterprise - unlike many fans who hated this series I actually enjoyed this one, plus being able to see it in HD (DVD release only) on my TV is a plus, since I've seen this recently, I just go back and watch my selected favorite eps from seasons 2-4 (season 1 is pretty rough)

Voyager - didn't like this series back then and still can't get into now, and I gave up on this show around season 4, but I figure I should give it a try again and try to finish the show so I can bash on it fully informed.

DS9 - my favorite of the ST series and probably the most anti-Roddenberry in philosophy, which is probably why I like it so much. I own seasons 4-7 on DVD (the best seasons) but I still like watching random eps on netflix because its so convinient.
 
DS9 - my favorite of the ST series and probably the most anti-Roddenberry in philosophy, which is probably why I like it so much. I own seasons 4-7 on DVD (the best seasons) but I still like watching random eps on netflix because its so convinient.

Watch Babylon 5 then. :p
 
I just realized one more great thing about our future: At least over here in Europe, "alternative" girls regularily wear uniform parts: combat boots, cargo pants, M65 and Bundeswehr jackets. This can look pretty good on a girl, but it still lacks a little... let's say, sex.

Now imagine a 23rd century whatever-alternative-people-then-study undergrad woman shopping for surplus starfleet uniforms. She would probably get something like this:

"...and women wore less."

Luckily, I am not the only one who can't wait for the future to arrive. The good basque separatists designers at Skunkfunk obviously feel like me. They created a dress that can only be described as a mixture between TOS and TNG period uniforms.
easo-pxd.jpg


(Yep, I actually did the Dax screencap myself as I could not find one)
 
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Watch Babylon 5 then. :p

Unfortunately they pulled all of Babylon 5 off of instant streaming as soon as DS9 came on, so that won't happen any time soon. Check the netflix listings, you'll see what happened.
 
Where is that slice of awesome?
 
I'm slowly rewatching TNG again. Today watched "Best of Both Worlds". I just can't get over what a downer ending it has... and it's a season opener!
 
The Captain made a new album:


Look at all these guest stars!
CD1
1. Major Tom (Coming Home) feat. Nick Valensi (The Strokes)
2. Space Oddity feat. Ritchie Blackmore & Candice Night
3. In A Little While feat. Lyle Lovett
4. Space Cowboy feat. Brad Paisley & Steve Miller
5. Space Truckin feat. Ian Paice (Deep Purple) & Johnny Winter
6. Rocket Man feat. Steve Hillage (Gong / System 7)
7. She Blinded Me With Science feat. Bootsy Collins & Patrick Moraz (Yes/Moody Blues)
8. Walking On The Moon feat. Toots Hibbert (Toots & The Maytals)
9. Spirit In The Sky feat. Peter Frampton
10. Bohemian Rhapsody feat. John Wetton (King Crimson / Asia)
11. Silver Machine feat. Wayne Kramer (MC5) & Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge / Rod Stewart)
12. Mrs. Major Tom feat. Sheryl Crow

CD2
1. Empty Glass feat. Michael Schenker
2. Lost In The Stars feat. Ernie Watts (Zappa/Rolling Stones)
3. Learning To Fly feat. Edgar Froese (Tangerine Dream)
4. Mr. Spaceman feat. Dave Davies (The Kinks)
5. Twilight Zone feat. Warren Haynes (Gov t Mule / Allman Brothers Band)
6. Struggle (original track William Shatner / Adam Hamilton)
7. Iron Man feat. Zakk Wylde (Ozzy Osbourne) & Mike Inez (Alice In Chains)
8. Planet Earth feat. Steve Howe (Yes / Asia)
 
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genius
 
I don't care what anyone else says, I will always love the Original Series the most. I started really getting into Star Trek by watching the six original movies and collecting TOS episode by episode for a while until I got the full series on DVD after a few years. I like TNG, too, but Captain Kirk's Enterprise will always be my favorite.
 
Here's a clip of Shatner recording Iron Man in the studio in all its audio trackless glory (he's hearing the music tracks on the headphones while singing)


I think it's already been mentioned on this thread, but go watch Shatner's documentary 'The Captains' which is avail now on netflix streaming

http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/The-Captains/70187715

Basically he travels all over the country and UK to sit down and chat with every ST TV series captain that followed him. Very honest, fun and beautifully shot.
 
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Guess the episode my Avatar picture is from!

EDIT: Jedd needed less than two minutes to guess it over in Random Thoughts. Awesome!
 
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i got it immediately. I am not ashamed
 
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