Yeah, that leaves something to be desired. I always get the sense he can barely contain his glee, "Hey, I'm in a Trek fan film! This is so cool!"
He's been that way since day one.
STC Ep. 9 - "What Ships Are For"
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
He's been that way since day one.
We'd have missed out on that great red hair, though.
Some women do change their hair colour. I've known some who have gone through many differents hues.
And onscreen we have seen Nurse Chapel as a brunette as well as blonde.
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Yeah that's my thinking on Noel as well, plus there's history and chemistry with Kirk.
FWIW, I'm not in any way trashing Michelle Specht. I think she's talented, charismatic and frankly steals the limelight in most scenes she's in. I just wish they'd done something different with her.
Kipleigh Brown as Rand maybe?
Either way, some of these comments come down to personal taste, and I don't wish to suggest that my tastes are any sort of standard for creative choices. They're just my preferences, for what they're worth.
GOOD:
* Great concept in principle. While typically STC script-on-the-nose, this really felt like "if contemporary political/social issues were being explored in a 60s SF show". 10/10.
* Great guest actors (I'll leave the performance vs direction debate for others)
* Loved the B&W. Felt like a nod to Captain Proton
* Overall visuals (cinematography, art direction, etc) continue to impress
NOT SO GOOD:
* I noticed Vic directed this. I think he's much, much better when being directed.
* Pacing/cutting.
* TOS music cues fantastic, but have to be used sparingly and appropriately
* Haberkorn (and other central cast - esp Uhura) under-utilised.
* Great concept in principle. While typically STC script-on-the-nose, this really felt like "if contemporary political/social issues were being explored in a 60s SF show". 10/10.
* Great guest actors (I'll leave the performance vs direction debate for others)
* Loved the B&W. Felt like a nod to Captain Proton
* Overall visuals (cinematography, art direction, etc) continue to impress
NOT SO GOOD:
* I noticed Vic directed this. I think he's much, much better when being directed.
* Pacing/cutting.
* TOS music cues fantastic, but have to be used sparingly and appropriately
* Haberkorn (and other central cast - esp Uhura) under-utilised.
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Amazing. The STC Episode that impressed me the most until this moment was Lolani; however, What Ships Are For managed to impress me even more.
The use of B/W in this Episode serves as an allegory for the way the Asteroid inhabitants saw their world in binary terms and it kinda functions as meta commentary about Star Trek too. When it aired in the 1960s, ST tried to stay away from that distinct "1930s Space Opera Serial" vibe that was still around on TV. That's why the Gooseneck Viewers were removed from the Bridge after The Cage, that's why most of the time ST writing felt way more nuanced and complex than just "Us vs Them" formulas. That accounts for the moral differences between the Federation and the Hyalini.
I may be reading too much into it, obviously.
Oh, the message was very "on your face" too. The best social commentaries in Star Trek never were quite subtle, though. I liked the insertion of a modern subject like the Refugee Crisis on this Episode. TOS always felt timeless anyway.
The use of B/W in this Episode serves as an allegory for the way the Asteroid inhabitants saw their world in binary terms and it kinda functions as meta commentary about Star Trek too. When it aired in the 1960s, ST tried to stay away from that distinct "1930s Space Opera Serial" vibe that was still around on TV. That's why the Gooseneck Viewers were removed from the Bridge after The Cage, that's why most of the time ST writing felt way more nuanced and complex than just "Us vs Them" formulas. That accounts for the moral differences between the Federation and the Hyalini.
I may be reading too much into it, obviously.
Oh, the message was very "on your face" too. The best social commentaries in Star Trek never were quite subtle, though. I liked the insertion of a modern subject like the Refugee Crisis on this Episode. TOS always felt timeless anyway.
Yeah I noticed a couple that stood out to me as not-quite-right.
Then I saw Vic was credited as Music Editor...
Source, please.
AFAIK, there was no original score composed for this episode. Vic was using the library cues from TOS, and maybe something previously scored by @Not Herbert. Andy will be back for episodes 10 and 11, however.
My bad. By 'original music cues' I meant as in using The Original Series cues, not specially-composed music. Have fixed
.
I don't have one. That's my own opinion about the stylistic differences between The Cage and the rest of TOS. And my perception of TOS in relation to Sci-fi of the same time period too.
About the Goosenecks, I don't think we have an official reason why they were discarded. Ex Astris Scientia speculates it's because they could have been expensive. The Matt Jefferies Wikipedia Article claims he disliked the Gooseneck Viewers, yet there's no source too.
As I recall it was said to be a production decision in that you had them showing video of a person talking - and they didn't want to have to do a process shot (which equals more expense and more post production time on an already tight schedule) every time someone talked over the intercom system to someone on the Bridge.
(And yes, they did occasionally still did this if someone was in the Briefing room, or somehow next to a 'viewer' - but they could more easily pick and choose when they wanted to have such a shot if they felt it added something to a scene.)
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Yes, that's probably the main reason. I remember seeing something that I can't find now on the "birdofthegalaxy" Flickr account, about how initially they couldn't show crewmembers walking in front of the viewscreen with a moving star field. Only later on we would see that type of FX on the Bridge. Perhaps it's for the same reason, those blue screens seemed really time and resource demanding back then.
I like to think TOS tried to have a more "realistic" Navy Ship/Submarine feeling to it. Getting rid of the Goosenecks, besides from relieving the production team of additional costs, also gave way to the voice-only intercoms that are closer to what they had on real life. It's that equilibrium between futurism/realism that makes me think TOS looked so much different from other Live Action Sci-fi from the same Era. Of course, in some Episodes that goes out of the window... With unicorn dogs and all.
Then you should have added "Maybe" to "that's why the Gooseneck Viewers were removed from the Bridge after The Cage...."
Is it any different from this scene from "The Cage" and "The Menagerie?"
[Woodland glade]
(A picnic spread on a tartan rug, two horses standing by, a futuristic city in the distance)
VINA: You want some coffee, dear? I left the thermos hooked to my saddle.
PIKE: Tango! You old devil, you. I'm sorry I don't have any sugar. Well, they think of everything, don't they? (feeds lumps to the horse)
VINA: Hey, your coffee. Is it good to be home?
PIKE: They read our minds very well. Home, anything else I want, if I co-operate, is that it?
VINA: Have you forgotten my headaches, darling? I get them when you talk strangely like this.
PIKE: Look, I'm sorry they punish you, but we can't let them
VINA: My, it turned out to be a lovely day, didn't it?
PIKE: It's funny. It's about twenty four hours ago I was telling the ship's doctor how much I wanted something else not very different from what we have here. An escape from reality. Life with no frustrations. No responsibilities. Now that I have it, I understand the doctor's answer.
VINA: I hope you're hungry. These little white sandwiches are your mother's recipe for chicken tuna.
PIKE: You either live life, bruises, skinned knees and all, or you turn your back on it and start dying. The doctor's going to be happy about one part, at least. He said I needed a rest.
VINA: This is a lovely place to rest.
PIKE: I used to ride through here when I was a kid. It's not as pretty as some of the parkland around the big cities, but. That's Mojave. That's where I was born.
VINA: Is that supposed to be news to your wife? You're home. You can even stay if you want. Wouldn't it be nice showing your children where you once played?
PIKE: These headaches, they'll be hereditary you know. Would you wish them on a child or a whole group of children?
Presumably the Star Trek Writers' Guide was created quite some time after "The Cage," so what they showed there isn't really germane to what the Guide was telling the writers to avoid.
But I think more importantly, the "great problems, technical and otherwise" mentioned by the Guide were explained as presenting details of 23rd-century "Earth's politics" and "socio-economic system," which "television today simply will not let us get into." That's the "otherwise" problems, but as for the "technical" aspect I doubt whether simply showing an actor on a viewscreen would have been what they meant. They were talking about having a story set on 23rd-century Earth, and the various problems that entailed.
Come to think of it, some of the Admirals they showed on viewscreens may have been speaking from Earth.
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