Me too. And I liked AotC and RotS.
TOS myths and misconceptions...
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
Me too. And I liked AotC and RotS.
I could give a fuck about "the appearence of Jar Jar in TPM" - I didn't actually dislike the character or see him as anything out of the ordinary, as SW characters go - but nonetheless I don't think much of Star Wars from ROTJ onward.
number6
Vice Admiral
I think fans and detracters alike have misconstrued what GL was trying to accomplish with the SW series. He wanted to recreate the sci-fi serials he enjoyed as a child. And he did.
You can try all you like to pigeonhole why people don't respect Lucas, but it's not as simple as you make it out. There's a tone shift starting in RoTJ where Lucas starts putting more silly gags in the films to the detriment of the dramatic scenes, stuff that's largely absent from or certainly lower-key in Star Wars and Empire. Furthermore, the screen gets filled with pointless characters designed to sell toys. And it's here that we see the first clear signs that Lucas can't figure out how to pay off the situations he's set up.
I'm fine with the films being fairly tales. I'm not fine with the way the films got dumbed down and patronizing. Kids loved Star Wars fine without muppets and burp jokes.
number6
Vice Admiral
I am not "pigeonholing" anyone. It is a mere statement of fact and any interview with Lucas on the subject will back it up. Do I like the way it was "dumbed down?" Certainly not, but as someone who was in their teens when the films came out, I bought the action figures the same way everyone else did. I won't begrudge the man for making something that I enjoyed. ILM did great work and the films were great entertainment. It was never intended to be hard sci-fi, as much as you seem to think it should have been.
But this is tangent to the conversation: the state of the art of SFX at the time. You can derail this as much as you like. You still can't really prove me wrong.
^^^As above, you're the one who derailed it with the broad generalizations. Nice try, though.
This is indeed a very common misconception among non-fans. Another one was exemplified by an ignorant Australian interviewer who started his spoilery report on the world premiere of Star Trek 09 exclaiming that Spock "got the girl" and that this was so unexpected, and then stated that "This is the first time that Spock has had a love interest"
You can see that he's not the only one if you look through the comments on Youtube to any video that contains any of Spock's love scenes from TOS, quite a few people are surprised.Non-fans also almost always get surprised at the idea of Spock as a sex symbol, the general public has a myth about Kirk as the hunk of the show and Spock as 'the guy with the ears'. In fact, Spock has always been a huge sex symbol among the female Trek fans
Also, a few online articles and quite a few comments on forums last year reveals that many people who didn't watch TOS have a misconception that Kirk and Uhura had some kind of romantic relationship in TOS. They are used to hearing about their famous "first interracial" kiss and don't know the context.
.
No, we don't. It's just a TV show, and one that has contradicted itself quite a few times. There's no need to rationalize something that was written or shot a certain way because of the real life circumstances rather than any artistic intent.
And even if you insist on rationalizing everything in order to imagine some sort of coherent fictional universe, there is no need to draw any conclusions about the Starfleet policy based on the lack of women in higher positions in the SF in TOS, any more than we would draw conclusions that there are, say, more whites than Asians in SF just based on the ratio of actors and extras we saw on screen. We only saw a small portion of Starfleet officers in TOS, so if you want to rationalize, theoretically the ratios of male:female in top positions in SF might be very different, and the ratio seen in TOS is just accidental. Or we just might simply accept the fact that what we saw on screen was that way because the show was made in the 1960s.
The whole idea that Vulcans ONLY have sex during Pon Farr was never mentioned in "Amok Time". D.C.Fontana has tried to debunk this myth, saying that the writing staff never intended it this way, but it still persists.
D.C. Fontana said:
I doubt that there were really any arguments from Soviets that GR or the NBC felt compelled to respond to, but there is no doubt that one of the reasons that Chekov was created was to have a Russian character. Sure, they also wanted to have a teenage girl magnet, but why not kill two birds with one stone? I can't see why else he would be called Pavel Chekov, talk with a Russian accent and mention Russia so many times. It's not like Davy Jones was Russian, is it?
TOS Myth: Star Trek was an ensemble show.
WRONG. Bill Shatner was the star, Leonard Nimoy and De Kelley were the co-stars. The rest were recurring bit players.
WRONG. Bill Shatner was the star, Leonard Nimoy and De Kelley were the co-stars. The rest were recurring bit players.
That's a myth created by the movies, which elevated Scotty, Uhura, Chekov and Sulu to the rank of stars and gave birth to the idea of the "core 7" characters.
According to Koenig, they had him try several accents, among them a Davy Jonesian English one, before settling on Russian.
Grace Lee Whitney was also a co-star for the first half of season one in which she appeared!
Actually, Nimoy was always a star of the show, same as Shatner. Kelley was a co-star in season 1, and a star in seasons 2 and 3. Whitney and everyone else were co-stars - or "featured" actors.
Grace Lee Whitney was also a co-star for the first half of season one in which she appeared!
Opening credits for season 1:
Closing credits for The Man Trap:
Closing credits for The Enemy Within:
Closing credits for Charlie X:
In season 1, only Shatner and Nimoy were given starring status in the opening credits. Everyone else who was not a guest star was "featuring" (and listed in the closing credits). Kelley and Whitney were given a higher status in the credits than the rest of the supporting cast, but neither were supposed to be the stars.
It was only in season 2 and 3 that Kelley got the starring status.
Season 2 and 3 opening credits:
Amok Time closing credits:
Assignment Earth (the only episode where a guest star was credited right after the opening credits - Robert Lansing as Mr. Seven - closing credits:
Speaking of myths and misconceptions, a 1995 article on 'em as debunked by Nimoy (courtesy of the excellent My Star Trek Scrapbook blog).
Actually, Nimoy was always a star of the show, same as Shatner. Kelley was a co-star in season 1, and a star in seasons 2 and 3. Whitney and everyone else were co-stars - or "featured" actors.
Grace Lee Whitney was also a co-star for the first half of season one in which she appeared!
My understanding is that the featured actors had contracts. Kirk and Nimoy were contracted to appear in every episode and so had star billing while Kelley and Whitney weren't. In the end, Kelley only missed one episode, while Whitney missed four (prior to being fired half way through the season). The 'bit part actors' were 'day players' who were just hired as an when needed if available. James Doohan was always more than a bit part player but it appears that he didn't have a contract. I think Majel Barrett appeared as a guest star in her first two appearances in the first half of season one. By the second half of season one she was lumped in with the day players.
Not quite. DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Grace Lee Whitney, and George Takei all DID HAVE contracts. IIRC Nichelle Nichols was hired as a day-player, but they hired her a lot (same with Majel Barrett and John Winston). Walter Koenig was on contract starting in the 2nd season. Star Trek was made in the days before all contracted actors appeared in opening credits. The opening credit/closing credit thing is due to the way SAG contracts were in the 60's. The same thing happened with I Dream of Jeannie made around the same time - Bill Daily & Hayden Roarke were both on contract and major characters but they were put in the ending credits. This changed around the late 60's / early 70's timeframe.
Kelley missed three regular episodes in season one: What are Little Girls Made Of?, Errand of Mercy, and The Menagerie, Part II. He's also, of course, in neither of the pilot episodes.
I think we can also appreciate that back in the day they had little to no inkling that Star Trek would take off in popularity after its cancellation and remain a phenomenon for decades to follow. They more likely thought once the show was done after a few reruns it would be forgotten and any references to the 1990s wouldn't matter.
Oooh, that's a cool blog. The guy's the same age as I am (plus or minus a year) and it's like digging into my own Trek past.
Makes me want to finally read this book.
Similar threads
- Poll
