STC Ep. 7: "Embrace The Winds" speculation and discussion....

First off, you're getting upset against a casting decision on a 50 year old show, a show that is generally lauded for diverse casting. Secondly, Leonard Nimoy, depending on your point of view, wasn't "white". He was Jewish, a historically oppressed minority (witness Patterns of Force).

Should I not feel empathetic while watching Roots because I'm not black? Maybe I should only feel guilt instead? You have a sadly literal notion of identification and empathizing.

You can't have a story without conflict. When the story takes sides for the viewer and doesn't allow any gray in the middle, that's when it gets too ham-fisted.

 

Boma in the Galileo 7 was a pretty meaty role.

 

STC is just so heavy handed with the rhetoric. I couldn't even get through Lolani becasue of it. Perhaps it stems from the fact that I disagree with STC and ENTs depiction of Orions but this conversation is horrendous:

Lolani: And men and women working alongside each other equally.
Mckennah: Well the federation sees no difference between the rights and abilities of men and women but biologically and chemically we're different...
Lolani: One gender isn't stronger than the other?
Mckennah: We're each individuals with our own strengths and weaknesses... but we're not defined by our gender.
Lolani: That sounds like a dream. One I have had many a night.
Mckennah: It's a good dream, Lolani. One worth holding onto.

Ok, I get it all ready sheesh. It's almost like Mckennah is trying to convince herself of this fact.

I also can't abide all the ethnocentric culture slamming, even in the real series. You don't get to call another culture backwards/primitive/uncivilized just becasue their culture is different than yours. The Tellarites make eat the still beating hearts of sacrifices but that doesn't mean their culture is worse than yours just becasue they value different things.

Spock was right and Kirk was wrong for destroying Val in "The Apple." Who is he that he gets to decide what is right for those people?If Star Trek really wanted to be progressive they would do away with the Ethnocentricity.

 

Yeah well the people of Vaal evolved, aligned themselves with the Romulan and enslaved the Federation, leaving Captain Kirk to serve the Vaal Empress with baskets of fruit.
So it all worked out in the end.

 

Sorry. I should have specified my comment above was about the third season mostly. But to try to answer your question, I guess my personal opinion is that I'm fine with the characters as written and the actors cast. If I let it bother me, I'd be going cuckoo like, why didn't they cast a hindu actor to play Kahn (despite that, Montalban did a great job), or an Asian actor or another latino to play a lead guest-star? I think the show's track record was just fine and they might have gotten around to it had they scored a more substantial third season budget or any subsequent seasons.
As for why not a woman, well, at the risk of opening a huge can of worms, I consider myself pretty savvy and knowledgeable as far as Hollywood actors of the 50s and 60s, and frankly I can't really think of any actresses off the top of my head from that period, especially tv actresses, who could have pulled off a tough military type female. Sure it's easy to blurt out names like Janet Leigh or Liz Taylor if you like, but back then and until the late 80s there was a huge divide between movie and tv actors.
It's my guess the head writers were at the same impasse when working on and refining scripts.

 

Beverly Garland frequently portrayed strong female types during the 50s and 60s. Anne Francis is another that had some range. Even Elizabeth Montgomery had a few roles that were against her "Bewitched" persona.

 

I think it's even simpler than that. GR was still in a relationship with Majel Barrett; and had told her (whether it was true or not - and as history and many an actual memo have shown, it's not true); that "The suits said no one will accept a Female character in a Command role..."
^^^
So, if GR EVER okayed a script with a Female Captain, he may have been concerned Majel may have come to him with: "Hey! I thought you said NBC said 'No women characters in a Command role...' - What's up with THIS script here?"

Remember the old adage: "Happy wife (well Mistress in this case...); happy life...."

[And to be fair, from what I've read, Majel Barrett probably did know the actual situation; but I'm sure she let GR THINK he'd gotten away with telling her what he did RE: Why "Number One" as a character was dropped.]

 

All three were signed to other series during the time of Star Trek, though Anne Francis did the Invaders sporadically I think, but might have been considered unavailable at the time (and being on other series as stars made them more expensive than Justman's budget would have allowed...

 

For all of its flaws, ep 7 "Embrace the Winds" was better than many TOS 3rd season episodes. It had something to say, and it also helped to redeem "Turnabout Intruder" in some small way. Also, Vic and Todd gave some fine performances, as did Chris, who isn't even a professional actor. Nice to see John Champion finally give some life to Lt Hadley. I don't think Billy Blackburn ever had a line in TOS, right?

Sorry if this post is all over the place. Anyway, I don't think this was the best script that STC ever produced, but I like these talky little stories. We can pick it apart all we want, but there were no blunders like many 3rd season TOS episodes had.

 

If you really believe so much in moral-relativism then I don't know why you're a Trek fan. Trek promulgates a certain brand of universal secular humanism and the prime-directive is rarely adhered to. That's just how it is.

 

My quick review:

Pretty good episode. The pacing was pretty good in regards to acting and editing choices (e.g. the opening scene in the shuttlecraft with the counselor and Spock)...something that fanfilms tend to fall short of

I thought it was nice to have Erin Gray (as 'Commodore' Gray) in a yellow skirt and 'sexy' boots. It's well known that once a woman gets a certain age that she isn't deemed 'sexy' or she should be portrayed in a certain manner (i.e. a mom, grandmom, aunt) and not as interesting as a hot, young 'thing' in her late teens or early 20s. The Commodore was still professional and authoritative whether or not she was in a skirt or pants. The Berman Era believed that women should be covered from head to toe in order to be on the level of men, and I say 'boo' to that.

I like how it's still said that sexism exists, even though a non-human race was used as a scapegoat (i.e. the Tellerites). The novel, even though Star Trek novels are many times iffy IMO, Crisis on Centaurus shown that human bigotry and racism (among one another, based on skin color) still existed in the 23rd century.

I like the nod to Star Trek V (bad film, but there were some interesting things in it) and Star Trek Online such as Nimbus III and the large arthropods; the arthropods are from the game and the planet from the movie.

Lastly, even though the high voice still gets me, I do like Vic's portrayal of Kirk. While I do see some Shatner-like mannerisms, he's made the character his own. Likewise, I love the way Chris Pine has now made Kirk his own character. (I also like the Spock portrayal; it's not stiff, but reserved like Nimoy's original portrayal).

 

BTW, the dilemma of moral-relativism was handled best in this episode of Babylon 5 (written by David Gerrold).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Believers_(Babylon_5)

 

Well, yes and no. STC is heavy handed in the way that TOS could be. Think "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield". STC is, in general, making a period piece as if it where 1970. Sure the SFX are more in line with TOS remastered, and there is some ret-conning going on, but it is in the style of 1969 TV. Heck, even in the 1980s, TV was a bit on-the-nose preachy with shows like Quincy ME or Trapper John MD, not to mention the sit-coms.

Also, TOS was progressive when it made for good television. In The Man Trap, they kill the last remaining salt creature. Couldn't McCoy have tried the stun setting? Well, I guess he's a doctor, not an armory officer. They fixed that bit in "Devil In The Dark" when Kirk wants to destroy the Horta, Spock insists that killing it would be "a crime against science". In retrospect, I'm sure GR would have liked Spock to have thought of that back on planet M113.

Sorry if I went off on a bit of a tangent there.

 

For the world is hollow and I have touched the sky

http://www.nexusroute.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/trekhollow1.jpg

 

Yes, the McKennah-Spock moment in the shuttlecraft! Great comic timing. It does owe a lot to the editing, although the performances are spot-on as well.

 

Ok, what DID it have to say?
that you can have a paper-thin character argue that women are just as capable and fallible as men?
Part of good screenwriting is to actually show these traits on the screen, not to have the character talk about it.
I'm sorry if I seem to target you specifically, but I've seen this comment a few places and, no, this was NOT ''better than 3rd season Trek'', and I wish people would stop using this argument.
Fred Freiberger gets a lot of flack but I seriously doubt he would have let this one get past the writer's table.
The script for this episode definitely continues a downward slide for this series as far as plotting goes (they do have an affinity for dialogue), but this one specifically was terribly written. I've worked on pre-teen geared animated shows that were on par with this one as far as craft goes.

 

Just watched it....

Production & soundtrack values were out of this world. The only possible ding I could find was the Commodore's dress tunic looked ill-fitting and cheap. Everything looked fantastic.

The "A" story, on the other hand, felt very dated, and ill-fitting to the current times. One way you could have adjusted this was to make the captain-candidate a female Tellarite, which is actually what I expected from the first act. This could have played on the frictions of another memeber race's issues & notions with that of the Federation at large, AND addressed the hopelessly human-centric nature of most TOS-era stories.

For example, Andorians played a very large role in Enterprise. Assuming that same continuity, you'd expect a large Andorian contingent in Star Fleet, and might make the same assumptions on the other founding races. Certainly you give a pass on TOS since it was budget limited and the continuity issues not really firmed up, and I guess you could obviously apply the same budget notion to fan productions, but heck, Exeter had an Adorian cremember, so you'd think that path was already laid.

Even in this STC episode, Kirk specifically mentions that the Tellarites were critical to the foundation of the Federation and to the war effort against the Romulans, and yet you don't see any in Star Fleet?

The last isn't a specific ding on STC, but rather the whole human-centric TOS framework for most fan films.

The "B" story was interesting, except for the McGuffin ending. Guess thats only 6 Connies now. A couple more and they'll be rivaling the Galaxy Class for taking dirt naps.

My incoherent ramblings aside, awesome effort.

Vf

 

Well, okay, Azetbur. Yes, the genius of TOS lay in how it dealt with human nature and human problems. To perceive this as a flaw is perhaps to miss the whole point of TOS fan films.

 

Not better than TOS 3rd season in general, but better than "And The Children Shall Lead" and "Plato's Stepchildren". Okay, it was largely exposition, but I actually like stage plays. I love Aaron Sorkin scripts where people sit around and talk. If Sorkin had written "Embrace The Winds", it would be the same but with overlapping witty dialogue and each scene ending with the characters saying "okay". So what is wrong with this IS the actual dialogue, not the acting, direction, or production.

All in all, STC has produced some fine episodes, and I'm not just saying that because I work on the series, I truly think so. Just like TOS, there are some that don't live up to the standard. Remember that TOS season 1 had "Miri" and "Alternative Factor", two particularly sad episodes.