Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix STV-

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

I'm not disputing you, I actually thinking there might be something to this ... A noted poster here, THE GOD THING, had info about the woman who originally wrote the MAKING OF ST5 book, who was paid off and her manuscript junked before Shatner had his daughter do the published version. Apparently it was a lot more 'warts & all' than the published version, but nobody has ever said much in the way of acknowledging it. Maybe there were whole other drafts of the film or a whole separate unpublished history ... but she isn't talking (he sent me her email, and I tried a couple times unsuccessfully to get a response from her ... this was a couple years ago.)[/QUOTE]


Sorry, being the new guy I thought I might have inadvertently insulted you guys.

I was unaware somebody else wrote a making of book? Interesting that Shatner or Paramount..or both...might have put the kibosh on it. Makes a person wonder if there wasnt a lot more turmoil going on between the producers and Paramount than we know about? Shatners book came out pretty much when the movie hit theaters, so this womans coverage of events had to have been from fairly early on in the development of the film.

I love this cloak and dagger Trek history stuff!!

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

My theory on this is informed by the way Shatner rewrote history with his MEMORIES books, which on occasion take things that happened and then place Shatner in the room with the actual attendees, even though he wasn't there. Both Ellison and Solow/Justman have noticed this.

I'm guessing a lot of the preproduction conferences reported in the actual making of book weren't witnessed by his daughter/author, but by the other woman, and the daughter is just inserting herself in as a viewer/participant.
The daughter was definitely on location for early shooting, that can't be disregarded, but maybe she was there as insurance against the original author. Hard to say.

For me, I really mourn the loss of Piller's MAKING OF INS book.That sounds like 'how to unmake a movie' in big letters, based on what they started with and what they wound up having.

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

Yeah, I rewatched TFF because of this topic to see if I thought it could be "salvaged" and concluded it could be. I don't know if a "fan edit" would be enough or whether the cuts would be too jarring.

So many of the effects (shuttles, barrier) are crap... wow.

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

I did like ONE effect shot. When the God thing first appears, and that beam of light shoots up into space, near the enterprise, I thought that was pretty cool...

Rob

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

That sounds way better than Star Trek XI.

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

Whoah.

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

It does doesnt it. Also, it doesnt trounce all over continuity...it bends it a bit, but it fits.

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

It's kind of sad, how they framed it around De as the storyteller.

I can almost hear his narration, done Wonder Years style.

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

I've never shared in the outright hate this movie gets: I'm also a fan of all the character moments and would certainly buy an SE version on DVD, esp if there were any trimmed character moments that could be added back in. It won't totally redeem the film, but I also feel the same about Nemesis: if all the character moments had been added back in, it wouldn't be such a blight on the franchise.


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Never heard the Gary Mitchell idea; fake or not, it would have been neat, just like seeing Gary in Star Trek XI would have been neat also

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

Unfortunately, I think that by the time of TFF, Gary Mitchell was so far removed from anything current that to try and re-introduce him would have been very confusing to the audience. A very small portion of people going to the movie would have even the faintest clue who he is, and to try and explain it would be rather awkward.

Though maybe it's time for Gary Mitchell and Will Decker to show up somewhere...

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

There were a few good character bits cut. The ones from the deleted scenes section were all the bad ones---the ambassadors, Sulu/Chekov, Spock pretending to be a kid--- ugh!!!

The good ones were McCoy and spock having a conversation about the creature they'd just encountered at the end in the observation room before kirk walks up and says, "Cosmic thoughts?"

Also a couple of lines explained that Sybok's power was an 'anchient ritual--forbidden in moderm times'

McCoy extracts a projectile from a soldiers leg during the fight at nimbus city. (They needed an expensive FX where the 'bullet' pops out of the soldiers leg while McCoy uses a high-tech device) They left if out to save money.

After Kirk's fall MCoy asks him if he is "trying to meet his maker'


All of these are fairly brief and that's probably why they left them out of the deleted scenes section.

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

No more confusing than having Spock's long-lost brother pop-up. At least with Gary or Will, a part of the audience would have some idea what's going on.

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

Once again a person who can't cope with a heretofore unseen character, related to another character, being introduced during the course of a later movie or show.

As if every relationship, friend relative of every character was mentioned during the original 79 episodes.

"McCoy can't have a brother---they never mentioned him during the original series!"

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

Much as I hate the Spock's brother thing, they chose it precisely because it's a narrative shortcut. Forcing someone to choose between family and your comarades is easy to understand. A character like Gary Mitchell would require all kinds of explanation. "He was a comrade...he got these powers...he had to be killed...somehow he's back." blah blah blah.

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

I gotta chime in here....The Sybok thing bugged me in 1989. As time has gone on, however, I have grown to accept it. The fact is that there is always alot of baggage in most peoples families is quite true. We have learned far too little about Spock's family aside from his relationship with his mother and father. Nothing negated the possibility that there was a half brother, and nothing said he could not have been estranged from the family as we know it. Frankly, I think it works well. This film has alot going for it. I'd love to see it truely get a fair reception with new FX and restored ending. The memory scenes with Spock and Bones are both tragic and brilliant. I'd lose the stuff about Sulu/Checkov getting lost and Scotty/Uhura in love. Unfortunately, if you do this, you cut their roles down significantly. I wish the subplot from the book about the Klingon crew not liking Klaa was in this movie. It would have added a little to their one-dimensional appearance.

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

I love TFF, for all its flaws, and it's the Trek film I watch the most often. I would definitely buy a re-CGIed edition. And if it had a new commentary by Shatner, that would be great.

There is one effect I like just the way it is though: I think Sha-Ka-Ree is a cool looking planet.

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

Wow, thanks for that. I was trying to put this thought into words in a brief manner and didn't bother. You did a great job. It is a great narrative shortcut. We get a surprise introduction which the viewer can like or dislike (I personally liked it), but it can be done with a minimum of trouble shoe-horned into the brig scene very nicely.

Bringing back Mitchell at that climactic end point would have been near impossible to explain to the audience because it would have slowed the climax to a mood killing expository scene. and for those who knew who Mitchell was.... a complete waste of time. Oh gee we now need to stop the movie so they can explain Mitchell to the newbies, casuals and non-trek fans ho-hum.
It was just clearly and easily a being that tricked Sybok into thinking he was 'god' so Sybok would free him.

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

I can cope with them when the previous material doesn't specifically rule them out. I'm pretty sure it was specifically said Spock was an only child, then he pops up! Whoops, "he's really my half-brother, I wasn't lying, I was dissembling."

Was it ever stated anywhere that McCoy was an only child? If no mention at all was ever made about McCoy's siblings, then all of a sudden one popped up in a movie, it would be far easier to swallow. Spock being an only child, to me, was a critical part of his characterization for 20-some years.

My point is, Sybok was new to both casual and hardcore audiences, Gary would have only been new to the casual audiences. Heck, thinking back to WNMHGB, Gary is presented as this longtime friend of Kirk's, which is supposed to make it harder for Kirk to kill him, but we get no previous episodes to build this up, we just have to accept it. I don't see how it would have been a big difference.

As I said, I can enjoy the good moments that this movie does have, it's just so frustrating to see so many missed opportunities to add depth and richness to the canon, instead of just increasing the canon by shoehorning something in.

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

Can anyone cite that? Because I don't recall anything in TOS or the first four movies that addresses whether or not Spock has any siblings.

 

Re: Hypothetical: If Paramount ponied up the cash for Shatner to fix S

There isn't anything SPECIFIC, but the way the dialog sounds, it seems implicit that Spock is an only child.

Put it this way: if Sybok existed, it would have been appropriate to have some reference to him in the context of discussing Spock's childhood (unless it violated Vulcan cultural taboo to even mention him once banished, which I suppose is a convenient cop-out, now that I think of it.)

DC Fontana made a statement that Spock was an only child, but that was supposedly to keep fanfic writers from trotting out a bunch of siblings, and anyway, that has no weight, since Fontana is only a talented writer, which apparently means nothing to the people making TFF (and that's coming from somebody who loves TFF, but still thinks they did stuff wrong.)