Star Trek: Thread Space 9

[soupytwist]

The first season I couldn't stand Troi. "THE PAIN!"

But over the seasons they got her character right.

I think the only times they really made her character seemed remotely real was 'First Contact' and the recent Picard episode. 

Speaking of which I rewatched First Contact last week - it's the best Trek movie.  Great pacing, some great dialog, genuinely exciting and shot like a horror film.   I always though Khan was the best one, but I actually think First Contact pips it now.   Shame the other 3 next gen films are trash.

[Kotowboy]

As usual I disagree.

Generations is my favourite TNG movie. Then First Contact. Then Nemesis then Insurrection parts I and II. ( )

If Only All Good Things was the final movie. It would have been the perfect finale.

I love GEN as the whole film is so warm. Both in tone and colour palette. The score is so haunting and gives the film some other worldly vibe. The Enterprise looks fantastic.

The Nexus is cool and weird and out of the 13 Trek films - I can't think of another where it actually deals with space anomalies. It's mostly STOP BAD GUY.

Plus the awesome crash scene   

[ReaperKK]

Ironically enough for me - I don't find Lwaxana annoying. I mean she is obviously written to be gregarious and outspoken and flamboyant -

I was never that bothered with her in TNG but I think she really shined in the handful of DS9 episodes she was in.

[DoctorAction]

I like Lwaxana and Generations v much. Got the tone absolutely right for me. I'd take it over First Contact also.

Troi's appearance in Picard was excellent. Very moving, I thought. She was never well used in TNG, which was a shame as she's very charismatic, and that Picard appearance shows what a great actor Sirtis is.

[Kotowboy]

Nepenthe was a revelation and the best Troi has ever been.

Also I agree about her acting in it. She seems like a bit of a mess now when she turns up to conventions - a bit like Trek's Carrie Fisher but her acting has only improved.

I don't hate Nemesis actually apart from it being the actual Wrath of Khan remake that everyone says Into Darkness is...

But it was bizarre basing the entirety of season one of PICARD on the least popular and least successful TNG movie.

And the fact that [SPOILER] Picard is basically now just a copy of his brain and mind etc in essentially a replicant body is just icky to me.

It made me feel weird. Like - Picard is [SPOILER] [SPOILER] dead now and we just have basically a copy of him who thinks he is Picard.


I wasn't expecting TNG Season 8 - but they should definitely go more in that direction for S2. I've had enough Dark Miserable Torture Trek now.

[DoctorAction]

I found it boring, in the main. I wasn't engaged with most of the main plot ideas. Thought that actors were great, though. Fingers crossed season 2 is better.

The latest Discovery episode was quite enjoyable, I thought. Didn't make a huge amount of sense but I was entertained.

[Adami]

Newest episode was meh. Nothing as offensively bad as the last episode, but it was pretty dumb. Die Hard and all.

[Kotowboy]

Nothing so far this season as awful as Stardust City Rag.

[Adami]

Nothing so far this season as awful as Stardust City Rag.

While it's very hard to argue with this, it's also difficult to compare which turd is the most turd.

[Kotowboy]

Well so far nothing in S3 of Disco has been anywhere near as bad as

• Spocks Brain
• Code of Honour
• The One Where Wes Crushes The Flowers
• Threshold
• Stardust City Rag

and I wouldn't put any DSC S3 episode in the 'giant turd' camp. S2 had Point of Light which was just tying up loose ends from S1.

[Adami]

You're a much bigger fan of S3 than I am. I really am not enjoying S3 at all. I had higher hopes after S2 but they've completely let me down.

Who knows, maybe it'll be like the movies? Odd numbers bad, even numbers good and S4 will be good. We'll see.

[Kotowboy]

At least we have Strange New Worlds coming too. Which is based on TOS - will be episodic and lighter in tone.

I'm not one of those Trekkers that just wants TNG over and over but SNW needs to be basically TOS updated.

[Adami]

At least we have Strange New Worlds coming too. Which is based on TOS - will be episodic and lighter in tone.

I'm not one of those Trekkers that just wants TNG over and over but SNW needs to be basically TOS updated.

I just want what I consider to be good writing that is respectful of what Star Trek is.

I would have a lot more excitement for SNW if it wasn't by the exact same team as Picard and Discovery. But, as always, I'll check it out and be open minded.

[Kotowboy]

Picard had completely different show-runners and writers to Discovery.

[soupytwist]

People prefer Generations over First Contact?   Ok....

I mean Generations did do what it was marketed to do - put Kirk and Picard together.......but everything else is so surrounding that is so bad.  Even the Kirk and Picard scenes aren't that great mainly because Shatner is playing Shatner rather than Kirk. 

[Polarbear]

Last episode, much like the rest of the season, was a mixed bag!

I really liked the scenes between Osyraa and Admiral Vance. I liked how they revealed a bit more about the Emerald Chain and Osyraa, making them a little less like problem of the week bogeymen, and more of a serious adversary to the Federation.

I didn't like all the "Die Hard" stuff on board Discovery.

From what I understood, the Emerald Chain is not just a criminal syndicate but also a league of planets. They were probably members of the federation before the burn, who then broke off and became more of a totalitarian society. They have a parliamentary senate, and apparently the best scientific institutes in the known space. Andoria also seems to be a member world of the Chain...

I think I also prefer season 2 over this. I can see how they could do a lot with this new setting, but half of the episodes this season have been forgettable action flops. There is a lot that they could do with this with a team of good writers!

[El Barto]

People prefer Generations over First Contact?   Ok....

I mean Generations did do what it was marketed to do - put Kirk and Picard together.......but everything else is so surrounding that is so bad.  Even the Kirk and Picard scenes aren't that great mainly because Shatner is playing Shatner rather than Kirk.

Yeah, I agree. At the same time, Picard was playing Picard, though. That's the last time that would happen.

Overall, FC was a better movie, despite not being all that good. Generations was just a mess. Despite having Malcolm McDowell, Soren was a weak bad guy and the NExus was silly. The whole thing with Lersa and Be'tor was dumb. The scene with Kirk's first death was awful. Crashing the Enterprise was just an excuse to blow a few million on CGI. Spiner was typically awful, but in this case they reworked his character so he was "non-Data Spiner" awful. The only thing I really liked about it was the final showdown, where Picard is thoughtful and Kirk is Kirk, and I'm one of the few people that thought Kirk's death was fitting. "Oh my" was actually the most Kirk thing he could have said.

FC was very entertaining eye candy, but really strayed way too far from TNG material. They reigned Spiner in a little which was good, but now they changed Picard even more dramatically. That was also the beginning of the end of the Borg as legit bad guys. Better movie than GEN, but that's not saying a whole lot.

[Kotowboy]

Your entire post is literally what people think everything I post is like.

For some reason other people get away with it.

Imagine If I went into the Star Wars thread and was like

Episode IV was shit. Hamill can't act. Empire was only better cause it wasn't quite as shit. Jedi is terrible. Only made so they could sell ewok toys... The prequels were a dumpster fire...Force awakens was episode 4 again but shitter...

[Adami]

Picard had completely different show-runners and writers to Discovery.

A ton of the same producers. The guys making the big decisions.

[Adami]

Anywho, as part of my big re-watch, I saw Search for Spock a few days ago.


I gotta say.....it's exactly what I remembered it being. It's not bad, it's not very good. It's right in the middle of the road. As much as I love Christopher Lloyd, I think he was just not the right choice for the character, despite doing an okay job. I dunno. The rest of the Klingons seemed uncharacteristically dumb as well. They don't know what a countdown is? I dunno. I feel like if the script had a few more run throughs before the final draft, it would've been improved. Also the action, for lack of a better word, was just not super well directed. I think this might have been Nimoy's first big directing gig. He got the character stuff great but his action directing wasn't great and kind of held the movie back.

That said, the character work IS really good. Stealing the Enterprise was a ton of fun and all the of actors got to shine. It really brought out what we loved about that crew. Also Kirk hearing his son was killed was just very well done. Shatner's acting in Khan and this is a real step up from the joke people generally tend to make him out to be. 

Not much more to say because the movie just didn't inspire me to say a ton. It's enjoyable and fun but not great and pretty forgettable. That said, very excited to watch Voyage Home when I do. My girlfriend has never seen Star Trek, but is a big sci-fi geek beyond it. I'm thinking showing her Voyage Home as her introduction since it's pretty fun, lighter, well done, and you don't really need to know a ton of the history/lore to enjoy it.

[El Barto]

Anywho, as part of my big re-watch, I saw Search for Spock a few days ago.


I gotta say.....it's exactly what I remembered it being. It's not bad, it's not very good. It's right in the middle of the road. As much as I love Christopher Lloyd, I think he was just not the right choice for the character, despite doing an okay job. I dunno. The rest of the Klingons seemed uncharacteristically dumb as well. They don't know what a countdown is? I dunno. I feel like if the script had a few more run throughs before the final draft, it would've been improved. Also the action, for lack of a better word, was just not super well directed. I think this might have been Nimoy's first big directing gig. He got the character stuff great but his action directing wasn't great and kind of held the movie back.

That said, the character work IS really good. Stealing the Enterprise was a ton of fun and all the of actors got to shine. It really brought out what we loved about that crew. Also Kirk hearing his son was killed was just very well done. Shatner's acting in Khan and this is a real step up from the joke people generally tend to make him out to be. 

Not much more to say because the movie just didn't inspire me to say a ton. It's enjoyable and fun but not great and pretty forgettable. That said, very excited to watch Voyage Home when I do. My girlfriend has never seen Star Trek, but is a big sci-fi geek beyond it. I'm thinking showing her Voyage Home as her introduction since it's pretty fun, lighter, well done, and you don't really need to know a ton of the history/lore to enjoy it.

The Klingons were all pretty dumb, but I liked Lloyd a lot. I don't remember recall any problem with the actions scenes, and in fact thought the loss of Enterprise was very well done. It's definitely early 80s looking, but it played out very well and you could always tell who was doing what. Part of what I dislike so much about the JJA movies is that you can never tell who's shooting what at who. The space battles are all confusing messes. TSfS, and of course TWoK were exactly how I like to see that sort of thing done.

My only real problem with it was the rebirth of Spock, and then his growth being tied to the rapid aging of the planet. Everything works out so there's just enough time for him to bang Saavik and leave at exactly the same age he was when he died. Also, Sarek explains it to Kirk like leaving your marbles in somebody else's head is the most natural thing in the world. And then when they get to Vulcan it turns out that actually doing something with those marbles is super rare and dangerous. Honestly, none of that made any sense. So, I suppose, the entire premise of the movie. 

Still, I always liked it more than most. It's just got a good 80's Trek feel to it.

[Cool Chris]

I skim this thread every couple days waiting for the discussion to veer toward the original cast movies.

I think both of you are fair in your assessments. I like Lloyd a lot as Kruge. His #1 (Torg?) was pretty cool, when Kruge points his gun right at him after shooting the gunner, and he calming tells him there are men on the planet if he wants hostages. According to Shatner's book, they brought in Edward James Olmos to read for Kruge. Some liked him, but his support didn't have the numbers, so they went another route.

I recall Shatner saying something like "we didn't really search for Spock, we stumbled our way toward him." I think there are some great scenes, but it didn't result in something greater than their overall sum. I believe it was Nimoy's first directing job (happy to be corrected) so I am sure they kept it as simple as they could for him, and then extended the leash for him with Voyage Home. Doing the scene where they kill David, Nimoy told Shatner he had no idea how to direct him on that scene, it was too personal for Kirk, so he wanted to leave it to Shatner as to how he wanted to play it.

 

Takei also told a story how he originally didn't like the "Don't call me Tiny" scene, that it didn't fit his character, but then when it played in theaters and the crowd cheered when he tossed the guy, he said "ok, yeah, that is a cool scene."

[Orbert]

I like Christopher Lloyd as an actor now, but at the time, I (and pretty much everybody else) only knew him as Jim Ignatowski, his character from Taxi.  Jim was either perpetually stoned, or perhaps brain-damaged from overindulging far too many times in his past* and when Kruge and Kirk were fighting and Kruge bellows "Give me Genesis!" it's Jim Ignatowski's voice and we all laughed our asses off at that.  When an actor is known for exactly one role previous (he wasn't exactly "known" for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), it's really hard not to see and hear him as anyone else.  Sure, he was buried under Klingon makeup, but he sounded exactly like Jim Ignatowski.


*This was finally explained in a later episode of Taxi.  Apparently, Ignatowski used to be a Straight-A Ivy League student, his high school Valedictorian, all that.  In a flashback scene, we witness him (unknowingly) taking a single bite of a marijuana-laced brownie, and BOOM! his IQ is immediately cut down to double digits.  Low double digits.  He instantly became the mind-blown character we knew so well, and the change was so ridiculous and instantaneous that it was perfect, and hilarious.  Anyway, that's who we all heard whenever Kruge opened his mouth.

[DoctorAction]

TSFS is my least favourite Trek movie. It has some great Shatner but that's all the good I can find to say about it. The premise is so dull. Kid Spock. Ugh. Then empty Spock. The Klingons are plain awful. There's almost nothing I want to see in it.

Edit: I'd even choose to watch Nemesis over it.

[Kotowboy]

It makes sense that Spock does nothing for the movie since Nimoy was behind the camera. Mind you - he also directed TVH and he's in that whole film....

I also find TSFS quite slow - even more so than TMP - which I actually love.

Hate hate hate the Klingons - so Discoverys first season was a slog for me. I think at this point they're so over done. In all of TNG they were just stupid cavemen warriors.

I'd put Nemesis over Final Frontier and Insurrection too.

It's funny that Nemesis is all about clones / inferior versions - and the film itself is a clone / inferior version of TWOK.

[soupytwist]

I think if I ranked the movies I'd put them.....

First contact.
Khan.
Star Trek 09
Undiscovered County.
Into Darkness.
Search for Spock.
Beyond.
(At this point there is quite a gap because I don't enjoy the rest much).
Generations.
Final frontier.
Nemesis
Motion Picture.
Voyage Home.
Insurrections.

[Kotowboy]

I find it too difficult to rank all the films but I can do them in categories...

TOS
1. Khan
2. Voyage
3. Country
4. TMP
5. Search for Spock
6. Final Frontier

TNG
1. Generations
2. First Contact
3. Nemesis
4. Insurrection

Kelvin
1. Beyond
2. 09
3. Into Darkness - but I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as its reputation. It's well made. has great action and direction. The actors are all good and the pacing is good. The actual dialogue isn't too

bad but the script needs several tweaks. Attack of the Clones it is not.

[Adami]

Anywho, as part of my big re-watch, I saw Search for Spock a few days ago.


I gotta say.....it's exactly what I remembered it being. It's not bad, it's not very good. It's right in the middle of the road. As much as I love Christopher Lloyd, I think he was just not the right choice for the character, despite doing an okay job. I dunno. The rest of the Klingons seemed uncharacteristically dumb as well. They don't know what a countdown is? I dunno. I feel like if the script had a few more run throughs before the final draft, it would've been improved. Also the action, for lack of a better word, was just not super well directed. I think this might have been Nimoy's first big directing gig. He got the character stuff great but his action directing wasn't great and kind of held the movie back.

That said, the character work IS really good. Stealing the Enterprise was a ton of fun and all the of actors got to shine. It really brought out what we loved about that crew. Also Kirk hearing his son was killed was just very well done. Shatner's acting in Khan and this is a real step up from the joke people generally tend to make him out to be. 

Not much more to say because the movie just didn't inspire me to say a ton. It's enjoyable and fun but not great and pretty forgettable. That said, very excited to watch Voyage Home when I do. My girlfriend has never seen Star Trek, but is a big sci-fi geek beyond it. I'm thinking showing her Voyage Home as her introduction since it's pretty fun, lighter, well done, and you don't really need to know a ton of the history/lore to enjoy it.

The Klingons were all pretty dumb, but I liked Lloyd a lot. I don't remember recall any problem with the actions scenes, and in fact thought the loss of Enterprise was very well done. It's definitely early 80s looking, but it played out very well and you could always tell who was doing what. Part of what I dislike so much about the JJA movies is that you can never tell who's shooting what at who. The space battles are all confusing messes. TSfS, and of course TWoK were exactly how I like to see that sort of thing done.

My only real problem with it was the rebirth of Spock, and then his growth being tied to the rapid aging of the planet. Everything works out so there's just enough time for him to bang Saavik and leave at exactly the same age he was when he died. Also, Sarek explains it to Kirk like leaving your marbles in somebody else's head is the most natural thing in the world. And then when they get to Vulcan it turns out that actually doing something with those marbles is super rare and dangerous. Honestly, none of that made any sense. So, I suppose, the entire premise of the movie. 

Still, I always liked it more than most. It's just got a good 80's Trek feel to it.

I don't think Lloyd did a bad job, I just don't think he was the right choice. I think Orbert said it best, even if I'd never seen much Taxi. I just hear Christopher Lloyd and it takes me out of it a bit. I can't explain why that is, but I just don't think it was the right fit even if he did a good job with what he was given.

As far as the action goes, I don't need anything huge. But I just think what we got was subpar. I think a more seasoned director would have been more creative but what we got was essentially b-grade level stuff.

I agree with you about Spock. When Sarek came to Kirk he was shocked that Kirk wasn't already getting deep into that stuff then at the end they were like "this has likely never been done before." Just felt very strange. I get what they were going for, but it felt way too rushed and poorly thought out.

[Kotowboy]

Yes.

" I assumed you had the Katra and were bringing the body to Mt. Salaya "

...

" The re-merging of the katra has not been performed for centuries - and even then it was a myth "

Jeeze - who wrote this ? Damon Lindelof?! 

[Progmetty]

I took this screencap to mark the baddest ass TNG moment yet IMO.

So I started this episode, I saw it was an 1.5 hours long, I thought "I'll do the usual 20 minutes and call it a night".
Next thing I knew; I finished it and preparing to do a second run through.

This fuckin episode.. this is some next level shit.

How much money was spent on this? The effects are fuckin marvelous by 90's standards and more than acceptable by today's standards!

The Borg! It's so cool that this happened with an alien race that we already encountered and had some idea of how they operate, they didn't just drop something new on us, monster-of-the-week style.

The Borg, what a bad ass concept for villains, they are one, they are all, utterly selfless, relentless, calculated, pragmatic and almost invincible. If they come back from this and learnt from it; I'd be very interested to know how they could be defeated again.

The Borg, so confident that you "ain't shit", that they'd let you beam aboard and just walk around their ship.. cause you ain't shit.

The Borg, is this ship their entire fleet? entire race? do they have a home planet? Can you imagine fighting.. hell, two of these ships?!

Riker was a boss, I wish the actor was better for this episode, but his lines carried the load sufficiently.
 
Towards the end when it sounded like everybody wanted to prevent the Borg ship from self-destructing because reasons; I literally went "nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope" and Riker came through for me haha

Again, this ups the level big time and I need to not to expect this often, if not ever again, for all I know I could be heading back into a Lwaxana episode again soon.

[Polarbear]

Yeah, The Best of Both Worlds two parter are not only some of the best TNG episodes. They are also some of the best trek period.

Borg are also the best bad guys trek has ever come up with. In the episode "The Dark Frontier" on Voyager, there is this one very unsettling scene where Seven is forced to part in the assimilation of one alien race. She walking through the corridors of a Borg ship while the entire population is being processed and assimilated was downright terrifying.

[Kotowboy]

Sidebar : the phrase " you ain't shit " makes me laugh because it literally looks like " You aren't shit " - in other words " You're great ". 


So when I see pathetic instagram or twitter posts from women that say " men ain't shit " i'm like " aww, thank you ! " 



--------

Also - in Voyager the Borg went from being a terrifying threat - to pretty much a downright nuisance. Janeway & co always seemed to be able to talk their way out . . . or outwit them

every time.

[Kotowboy]

From The Dark Knight Thread - joker is so crazy - he'd never get anything done

^ That reminds me of why I dislike the Klingons so much. They're basically cavemen warriors. They're so thick-headed and stupid and constantly furious..

There is no way any race that are that suspicious of 'everyone' and constantly angry and looking for fights to win - exclusively so they look good -

would ever be able to work together long enough to make any kind of empire - let alone make starships and decide on a command structre.

The first time anything went wrong at any stage of that development - someone would be getting a bat'leth in the guts - a massive fight would break out

with literally everyone wanting to come out on top for their 'honour' and nothing would ever get done....

....

I was thinking about this the other day with the Terra Firma episodes of DSC. There's that one moment where Mirror Saru offers Mirror Burnham some wine and she

goes apeshit at him. For simply offering her a drink.

Literally everyone is constantly f-ing furious with everyone at all times and fighting to the death

or putting them in agonizers - or trying to usurp the leaders. There is NO CHANCE they'd ever work together long enough to form any kind of empire. Everyone would be long dead.

-----

It's also why i agree with the theory that if aliens do show up in UFOs one day - they won't be like Independence Day aliens - cause any race that has mastered FTL travel

aren't going to be 100% pure evil.

[DoctorAction]

Yeah, the Klingons are crappy baddies. I liked them acting like louts in Quark's bar in DS9 while everyone rolled their eyes.

The Borg were an amazing enemy. Terrifying. They have been way over-used now so are not remotely interesting anymore, but were SO good to start with.

[Progmetty]

Sidebar : the phrase " you ain't shit " makes me laugh because it literally looks like " You aren't shit " - in other words " You're great ". 


So when I see pathetic instagram or twitter posts from women that say " men ain't shit " i'm like " aww, thank you ! " 

It's a low-end southern American thing, heavily used in cowboy movies and hiphop/rap music heh, I've been enjoying it the last couple of years 
It relies on the fact that if you are "the shit", that means you're real deal.
The worst one of the sorts is when I started working in the south and someone will tell me over the radio "There ain't nothing in this tank", I'd go "So what's in it then?" and the situation would take a minute to resolve