TAS: pros & cons....

[Warped9]

Just for discussion, the pros and cons of TAS.

Liked:
- chance for exotic aliens and environments
- new ship designs
- more looks at the Enterprise's interiors
- generally good story ideas with a measure of adult feel to most of them

Dislikes:
- episodes often felt rushed and edited most likely due to the half hour format when some of the stories really needed to be fleshed out
- static animation
- new ship interiors and shuttlecraft designs (while interesting) often inconsistent with TOS or generally not well thought through
- despite adult level ideas story execution also often had a simplified quality somewhat more suited to a Saturday morning audience

I must add that Alan Dean Foster's adaptations of the episodes often addressed most of the cons.

Anyone else?

 

[Michael]

I'd like to add some points:

Pros:

• It had the voices of the original actors
• Some episodes incorporated nice little homages to things from TOS
• The episode Yesteryear – yes, I think this wonderful episode alone gives TAS its right to exist

Cons:

• No Walter Koenig and hence no Chekov
• Not more episodes like Yesteryear

 

[Piper]

My main quibble with TAS is the music, endlessly repeated. Can't stand it. The rest is good though.

 

[Aquehonga]

Pros:
Continued the voyages of Kirk & Spock. Was enjoyable & Had good stories also.

Cons:
Not 100% a part of ST-andard canonuity. Heard down on the FoT board that STPTB pick & choose what's canonuous from TAS depending on whether it helps them or not.



Just make TAS canonuity.

 

[Shawnster]

I'd like to add some points:

Cons:

• No Walter Koenig and hence no Chekov

However, as a fun fact, Walter Koenig was able to contribute to TAS as writer of the episode "The Infinite Vulcan." It's nice he still had some connection to the show.

 

[Kelso]

Pro: It's good.

Con: It's short.

 

[Warped9]

The ultimate downside of TAS for me was the mentality that reared its head periodically that reflected the sense that they really saw the show as kiddie fair.

Example: "The Infinite Vulcan"

Here we have a classic TOS story of first encounter with a cool exotic life form, intlligent planet based aliens. Eventually we learn they revere and follow a human who is trying to save them from extinction, and he's got a plan the aliens are willing to follow out of gratitude. Everything about this story is good, even the idea that the human is actually a cloned descendent of the original. And then it all goes off the rails because someone had the genius idea of making the clones fifty feet tall.

doesn't begin to express it. Once that happens it's near impossible to get back into the story. If this one thing hadn't been done, if the clones had just been normal sized and perhaps augmented to some extent then this could have been one of TAS' best.

Same thing with "BEM," which conceptually predates TNG's first season episode "Justice." Nothing wrong with the idea of a colony being--an idea used decently in Greg Bear's novel Anvil Of Stars. But the way they did it in TAS just burns your brain with its sheer stupidity. That said I liked TNG's "Justice" concept of overseeing alien(s) rather than TAS' "just another omniscient entity."

"The Terratin Incident" has the crew being shrunk in size(!). Yeah, I know it follows the classic '50s film The Incredible Shrinking Man and the '60s classic Fantastic Voyage, and I know that DS9 did it as well live-action, but I still think the idea was dumb.

Other dumb ideas:
- the huge inflatable starship in "The Practical Joker"
- tribbles as colony beings in "More Tribbles, More Troubles" (man, I hate that episode)
- aging in reverse in "The Counter-Clock Incident" (Alan Dean Foster at least came up with something of a resolution in his adaptation, but I still think it smelled)

I still have a fondness for the show (I bought the dvd set). What kills me ultimately about TAS, though, is seeing how far animation has come. I don't mean in the art of animation, but in the storytelling and its level of general acceptance by the mainstream beyond thinking it's just for kids.

An animated Star Trek series done today with good writing at least on par with the early '90s Batman TAS and an art style with a touch of semi-realism to it could be rather good if handled right. I say this because it often seems like many animated projects handle their subject matter better than the live-action counterparts. Maybe the networks aren't paying as much attention to the production process of a "cartoon show."

 

[Praetor]

I don't think I can add that much to the remarks made so far.

I enjoy TAS, I own it on DVD, and it is rather good, but there is about 10% that for whatever reason (watered down for kids, rushed production, whatever) that just makes me go and then . It ranges from certain writing/plots to the design and art of the show. Some of these moments retain a certain cheese-quality that I find appealing. Others just annoy me.

Overall, I would only want it made canon if we can look at it through rose-colored glasses and reinterpret that which we do not like - shuttle designs, giant Vulcan clones, and so on. Since I do this with certain episodes of other series, I'd be fine with accepting it as canon.

I also agree that a modern animated Trek if done well could be just incredible.

Incidentally, Warped9 and anyone else who knows, just how do the novel adaptations deal with the more annoying issuse?

 

[WendellM]

I agree with most of the pro/con points in this thread.

I miss the "B-stories" and little character touches from TOS. TAS eps are generally very plot-driven adventure stories. That's fine once in a while, but I like the extra time that hour-long TOS eps had to relax and look around at people and what they were doing. There are a few of those character moments and semi-philosophical ramblings in TAS, but nothing like in TOS.

OTOH, the pure adventure stuff is generally enjoyable. Sometimes TOS would set up an interesting idea but not really explore the full details of it. There tends to be more of that in TAS, since that's what the whole ep is.

 

[Basill]

My main quibble with TAS is the music, endlessly repeated. Can't stand it. The rest is good though.

I agree with most of the pros and cons, but I actually like the music. It's a shame that the same music had to be used in every single episode, but what they did use is actually a pleasure to hear. Some of that's due to a sense of nostalgia (especially since some of it was used in other cartoons), but some of it I actually think is good stuff.

 

[Michael]

- aging in reverse in "The Counter-Clock Incident"

The Counter-Clock Incident was my favorite episode as a child. I didn't care about the implausibility of something like this really working. I just loved the idea of a universe were everything is reversed. Although they didn't make any sense whatsoever, I really liked the black stars on white space. Jeez, I was so young.

I actually like the music.

Yup, here's another one who likes the music. It's actually quite good for an animated television show. At least I always felt it was.

 

[Maurice]

Although I've had the TAS DVD set since it came out I've only recently started really watching it since I've been collecting screen grabs for my TAS Caption Contests.

As some here have critiqued, it's common to say the 22 minutes each episode isn't enough time to develop them, but while it is more challenging it's not a huge limitation, as many half hour shows have illustrated. In TAS a big part of the problem is that the pacing is leaden and plodding. The whole show feels padded because, I suspect, to keep the animtion budget down, there are many slow pans across backgrounds, shots of the Enterprise that hang around a lot longer than they did on the live action show, etc. Furthermore, the way the dialogue is edited is not snappy. I'd say a couple of minutes that could have been used in story development is lost in many episodes to these pacing issues.

The voice acting is flat, and the overuse of Doohan, Barrett and even Nichols doesn't help. Doohan may have been able to do a lot of accents, but he was out of his element. Voice acting's not the same thing as stage or TV acting. It requires an ability to project everything through sound alone. All three were ill suited to that task. Frankly, much of the time they're playing other parts they sound like people trying to disguise their voices. Terrible.

 

[Warped9]

Incidentally, Warped9 and anyone else who knows, just how do the novel adaptations deal with the more annoying issuse?

Yes. Established SF writer Alan Dean Foster adapted the episodes in Ballantine Books' Star Trek Log series. Overall he did an admirable job and reading them made me feel more like it was an adaptation of a live-action episode. The stories felt more real and more fleshed out. I easily envisioned the real characters rather than their animated versions.

 

[Praetor]

Interesting. I wonder if those can be found on eBay...

 

[Jeyl]

TAS? Hmm.

Pros:
- Alien looking aliens!
- More depictions of space like elements such as zero gravity.
- No needless redshirt deaths.
- New ship designs and sound effects.
- Women in charge! (i.e. The Lorelei Signal)
- M'ress! (and Arex too)
- Short and sweet episodes.
- McCoy has a daughter! Such a rare case for characters in Star Trek.
- Original cast members.
- Return to previous Star Trek elements such as tribbles, the Shore Leave planet and various characters.
- Another excuse to cast ENTERPRISE out of existence with the Bonaventure!
- And of course, Captain April.

Cons
- Some silly episodes (Ultimate Vulcan, Mudd's Passion)
- Animation issues. Black ninja figures to fill in for animation budget, Turbolift doors being misplaced, klingons all of a sudden appearing on the bridge, uniform color changes, hands over mouth to short cut away from animating mouth syncing, ect.
- Reuse of many musical cues.

Oh, ya. The Animated Series happens in my book. All the way.

 

[Praetor]

Two thoughts:

T
- Some silly episodes (Mudd's Passion)

I didn't think that was a silly ep...

Turbolift doors being misplaced

They did add a second one...

 

[Jptrekker]

Example: "The Infinite Vulcan"

Here we have a classic TOS story of first encounter with a cool exotic life form, intlligent planet based aliens. Eventually we learn they revere and follow a human who is trying to save them from extinction, and he's got a plan the aliens are willing to follow out of gratitude. Everything about this story is good, even the idea that the human is actually a cloned descendent of the original. And then it all goes off the rails because someone had the genius idea of making the clones fifty feet tall.

I think the reason Spock 2 and Keniclius 5 were fifty feet tall is that the Phylosians were also 50 feet tall, at least before they got sick. There's a scene where they show the attack fleet and a room full of dead Phylosians and they seem much larger than the human sized Phylosians Kirk encountered.

Dead Phylosians

Phylosian Fleet

 

[Praetor]

That's an interesting point. I'd forgotten that.

 

[Jeyl]

Turbolift doors being misplaced

They did add a second one...

Oh, nonononono. It's in the Episode "More Tribbles and More Trouble" when Cyrano Jones is standing in front of a Turbo Lift. The door element of the animation is out of place to which you can see inside the turbo lift.

 

[WendellM]

It's in the Episode "More Tribbles and More Trouble" when Cyrano Jones is standing in front of a Turbo Lift. The door element of the animation is out of place to which you can see inside the turbo lift.

Yes, and there were other episodes with bridge scenes like that. At least it had a car and wasn't just an empty shaft (which would later claim the life of Ann Mulhall/Miranda Jones/Dr. Pulaski on L.A. Law ).