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Old-Timers Thread (kids not allowed!)

Chrisisall

Chrisisall

Commodore
Commodore
If you watched TOS first run on NBC, welcome. All others report to the disintegrator station!

I'm old- like, Ron Tracy old, and I don't like the anti-OS Enterprise dissing I hear, as in "It's a toy-looking ship" or production design garbage as in "The phasers are dated" crap.
You little CGI-addicted kids can go to Shakaree.
REAL SF fans go for the STORY & CHARACTERS before the flash!
Now, I love progression, but where we've come from is part of it. So, the OS Enterprise is a thing of beauty, the Tricorders fascinating, and the Phasers inspired, Herberts notwithstanding!!

Who's with me?
 
Chrisisall said:
If you watched TOS first run on NBC, welcome. All others report to the disintegrator station!

I'm old- like, Ron Tracy old, and I don't like the anti-OS Enterprise dissing I hear, as in "It's a toy-looking ship" or production design garbage as in "The phasers are dated" crap.
You little CGI-addicted kids can go to Shakaree.
REAL SF fans go for the STORY & CHARACTERS before the flash!
Now, I love progression, but where we've come from is part of it. So, the OS Enterprise is a thing of beauty, the Tricorders fascinating, and the Phasers inspired, Herberts notwithstanding!!

Who's with me?
Click to expand...

I'm with you. EVERY Trek incarnation since TOS has its good and bad points, but none are able to captivate me the way TOS did/does/will.

Put TNG into a comic book. It wouldn't wash. TOS can fit nicely into it...and don't worry about PC or dated "flaws". It's high art as it is, unconcerned about who gets offended.
 
Ok, count me in! I remember later when I worked for NASA-Ames Star Trek quotes were all over the place. We had one of the contractors who used to do Dr. Daystrom..."Mightay starships!" On request, as well as others. One of the scientist types had several comic strip references taped to his door.

We even had the real Lt. Uhura (Nichel Nicols) fly a mission on the Kuiper Airborne Observatory one evening... Ah the good old days!

Regards,
Chuck
 
Chrisisall said:
If you watched TOS first run on NBC, welcome. All others report to the disintegrator station!

I'm old- like, Ron Tracy old, and I don't like the anti-OS Enterprise dissing I hear, as in "It's a toy-looking ship" or production design garbage as in "The phasers are dated" crap.
You little CGI-addicted kids can go to Shakaree.
REAL SF fans go for the STORY & CHARACTERS before the flash!
Now, I love progression, but where we've come from is part of it. So, the OS Enterprise is a thing of beauty, the Tricorders fascinating, and the Phasers inspired, Herberts notwithstanding!!

Who's with me?
Click to expand...
After half a century of life I still watch Star Trek once a week. I'm not overly concerned with what other think of the show or its SFX.
 
I amy not be old enough to have seen it First Run, but I think I saw Remastered First run.

I watch Remastered, then Original quality, I like the original Quality better. CGI ruined some of it.

I like the Phasers and Tricorders better and the Communicator is awesome.

I may not be old enough to have seen it first run, but I still like and respect it more then most other Treks.
 
I love 'em all. (Well, I love most of 'em.) If you focus too much on sets and costumes and so on, there is no such thing as a show - certainly not a scifi show - that will never look at least a little outdated. And most of them will eventually look really outdated...right up until yhe moment when they become retro-cool and the cycle starts all over again.

Is state-of-the-art the only thing that matters? No, it most certainly is not.

So yeah, to heck with complaints about the ships and the rubber suits. To heck with complaints about the color schemes. Just enjoy the characters and the adventure - with a little bit of philosphy thrown in. It's a great, great mixture.
 
I grew up watching the Original when it was only ever called "Star Trek" and there was only one "Star Trek". The Original ST is about the only one for me and I even have a hard time accepting the movies...

I have also never seen the animated cartoon thing that it became in the seventies - not sure I plan to, either...

I caught snippets of the pretenders that followed but was never a regular viewer. Star Trek is a thing of 1960s telefantasy and, as such, still manages to maintain the charm and "magic" for this viewer (although maybe that's nostalgia for childhood speaking).

Nevertheless, I casually glanced at the other subsequent series but they never seemed to contain the X factor.

Oh, and the TOS Enterprise is definitely the most romantically and aesthetically pleasing for me. Hell, even the uniforms (and other costumes!) still look the best.

When anyone says "Star Trek", these are the images that spring to mind - not faux Klingons and Androids in spandex jumpsuits.
 
I've said this before: mention Star Trek to the "man on the street" and he thinks Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise; not baldy and the robot. The sequel series and movies, fun though they can be at times, are a pale image of the original.

I don't think it's going out on a limb to say that in 50 or even 100 years the original series will still be watched, somewhere. I doubt the other series will.

Star Trek fills a void in the United States' cultural history; that is, our young nation has very little in the way of legends or heroes. Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, James T. Kirk. Larger-than-life, legendary figures.
 
May I ask something? I don't want to divert this thread too much, so if I'm out of line, Chris or somebody, just tell me and I'll start a new thread.

The thing is, I get tired of the "anti-OS Enterprise dissing" too. Really tired. Tired of the "newer is always better and always hotter" mentality. Tired of the "If the aliens don't meet my standards for authenticity, the show is bad" mentality. Really, really, REALLY tired.

Besides being tedious and patronizing, those sentiments simply are not true.

However...isn't "There is no real Trek except the original Trek" - a sentiment that I've seen a lot in this forum from many different people - exactly the same mindset except from the opposite perspective? Instead of "newer is always better" isn't it really a way of saying "older is always better"?

The reality is that neither new nor old, in and of themselves, have a damn thing to do with quality. Yes, there are things that TOS did better because it did them first and it did them with verve and freshness. (And when we all first watched it, we had quite a bit more verve and freshness, too. At least I did.)

But there were things it did very badly, too - character development, for example. And it could be extremely heavy-handed with the preaching - far more heavy-handed than Picard in full denunciation mode. Looking at the series through the rose-tinted spectacles of increasing age doesn't camouflage those things. At least it doesn't for me.

But admitting those faults doesn't negate the great things about it, either. At least it doesn't for me.

And yet here in this forum - here in the family, so to speak - it sometimes seems to me that admitting any shortcomings of The Original is seen as some kind of betrayal. Are we really that defensive? Is TOS so fragile, so endangered, that it can't stand up to criticism, whether that's loving and respectful criticism or the "newer is always better" type?

Of course not. Hambone is right that TOS has a place in the popular consciousness that no other Trek - and few other shows of any genre - have. But if it becomes so...so...sancrosanct, so untouchable, that it isn't open for thoughtful criticism any more and it can no longer be enjoyed for its errors as well as its strengths...if it becomes to most people a show to be referenced rather than watched and enjoyed simply for fun...well, it dies. It's entombed.

And I don't want to insult anybody here, but I really think that's the natural end-product of "There is no real Trek except the original Trek."

If the way a person truly feels is "There is no real Trek except the original Trek," well, that's all there is to it, I guess. You can't help how you feel. But I have to say that I don't find that sentiment to be at all conducive to thoughtful discussion. Even if the intent is different, it's just too similar to "Newer is always better."

And anyway, becoming part of popular culture isn't proof of quality either, is it? I mean, I Dream of Jeannie has a much more prominent place in popular culture that Citizen Kane or Schindler's List...is I Dream of Jeannie higher quality than Citizen Kane or Schindler's List? Please, please, tell me no! :lol:
 
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I remember watching it on Friday nights when I was nine or so years old. It was the only show my parents let me stay up late to watch, because they knew how much I loved it. During Christmas season, I used to turn off all the lights in the living room except our blinking Christmas tree lights, and pretend I was on the Enterprise and we were in the middle of a red alert (luckily, no one else in the family watched it, so I could be weird all by myself :)).
 
^ But I am an old-timer! I can stand on your lawn if I want to! (she said, shaking her cane threateningly in semi-senile rage)
 
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Of course, i'm with you little brother. Nothing will ever come close, not for me anyway. The relationship between the characters is still unsurpassed, not even the regular weekly cardgame in tng.

MRSWHATSIT: i LOVE your red alert!!!!
 
JustKate said:
However...isn't "There is no real Trek except the original Trek" - a sentiment that I've seen a lot in this forum from many different people - exactly the same mindset except from the opposite perspective?
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Yep.
I love TNG at it's best. It went places the original couldn't.
It's just that TOS was lightning in a bottle that couldn't be duplicated, even with the same cast in the movies.
:adore: my Trek.
is I Dream of Jeannie higher quality than Citizen Kane or Schindler's List? Please, please, tell me no! :lol:
Click to expand...
No, but remember when she was trapped in the safe going to the moon? NBC ran this promotional contest to see who could guess the 3-digit combination. My guess was incorrect. :rolleyes:

Yeoman Randi said:
Of course, i'm with you little brother.
Click to expand...
If you weren't, I'd tell Mom & Dad!:shifty:
 
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