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I'm Finally Going to Watch The Animated Series

Obviously, if they were to do a ST animated series today, it would be based on Abrams' Trek...but I would hope they don't dumb it down. (We only have to look to the Batman series and DVD specials to see that weekday afternoons are not just for kid shows).

1) JJTrek is strictly the purview of the movies. The tv part of the franchise belongs to CBS/Paramount, and any future television entries to the franchise are gonna be based on the part they own and don't have to pay any additional licensing fees to Paramount Studios (NOT the same as CBS/Paramount) for the privilege.

2) Dumbing down JJTrek would be like dumbing down the Teletubbies.
 
1) JJTrek is strictly the purview of the movies. The tv part of the franchise belongs to CBS/Paramount, and any future television entries to the franchise are gonna be based on the part they own and don't have to pay any additional licensing fees to Paramount Studios (NOT the same as CBS/Paramount) for the privilege.

Yes, I'm quite aware of who has licensing of the ST property.

Regardless, a show on television would--in some respects--refer to the JJTrek.

2) Dumbing down JJTrek would be like dumbing down the Teletubbies.
Hmmmm...

That doesn't make much sense, since ST and Teletubbies are two entirely different things, but okay...
 
Maybe TAS wasn't purely a children's show, but I'm betting they were the target demographic.

Of course children were the key demographic, but Gene R and DC Fontana knew that the Star Trek fans were aching for new live-action episodes, so they resolved never to talk down to their audience, just in case the adults were watching Saturday morning cartoons.

TAS is wonderful! Lots of minor things I wish I could have "fixed", but excellent entertainment.
 
Pity he didn't decide to stay young, but maybe that would have been cheating life.

Check out the Alan Dean Foster adaptation in "Star Trek Logs"!

I wonder who could have played a live action April.
My pick (well, a few years ago): Leslie Nielson - he looks the part and it connects to his role in "Forbidden Planet".

Check out James Doohan (as April again) doing the famous "Space... the Final Frontier..." speech at the end of the Simon & Schuster Audioworks novel adaptation of "Final Frontier".
 
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Obviously, if they were to do a ST animated series today, it would be based on Abrams' Trek...

I don't think that's necessarily so. For one thing, as stated above, it is true that the movies are Paramount's purview and the TV franchise is CBS's, so there might be good reason for a new Trek TV series to take its own path. For another, animated series based on successful movies are often in distinct continuities, even if they do reference some elements from the movies. So while it's certainly possible that a new Trek TV series would be in the Abrams continuity, it is hasty to call it "obvious."

but I would hope they don't dumb it down. (We only have to look to the Batman series and DVD specials to see that weekday afternoons are not just for kid shows).

If anything, animated TV series these days are often smarter than feature films these days.

Also, I reject the implication that "kid show" is synonymous with "dumbed down." Kids aren't dumb, and kids' shows don't have to be either. A show can be aimed specifically at children and still be highly intelligent in its concepts, characterizations, and storytelling -- see Avatar: The Last Airbender, for example.


I do like the idea of the force field belts, which allows the crew to not have the need for suits to go out in the vacuum of space...

I hate the forcefield belts. They don't make sense. Where do they keep the air? How do they shield the wearer from radiation or blinding sunlight? I'm willing to buy them in a context where there's an atmosphere present, presuming they're just filtering out toxins and the like. But in vacuum, for more than a few scant minutes? No way. It's just too impractical.


Speaking of Walking Bear, this is actually the only part of the episode I didn't like. He was definitely put in to serve the plot, but to use a native american type character screamed "tokenism" to me.

True, but since the scriptwriter was himself Native American and trying to give his people some much-needed representation within ST, I can live with it. Clunky, but well-intentioned.

When I started this, someone said (I think it was Christopher) look past the corniness of TAS. Well, I think a lot of the look of this series wasn't corny, such as the alien designs like this one.

Oh, I never would've suggested that the look was corny. Filmation's shows had excellent art and design, whatever their technical limitations. And I wasn't saying I found it corny, just that a lot of people today would tend to see it that way and that it would be wise to look past that initial perception.


The Counter-Clock Incident

I don't think I'm much of a fan of this one like some others might be. For one I found it confusing, and TAS having it's own form of Technobabble to explain the two universes intersecting and one moving in reverse. It's a neat idea (Hell, one of my favorite episodes in the franchise is Before and After, which covered this kind of theme only on an individual scale), but to explain this came across as garbled and nonsensical.

I hate this episode. It's totally absurd. It offers four completely unrelated types of reversal -- time reversal, functional reversal, directional reversal, even color reversal -- as if they were facets of the same cause, and that's just silly. And the whole thing is inconsistent. If time were going backward, everyone's thoughts would be proceeding backward as well and it would seem forward to them.

Also, Warp 36? The Enterprise can go at Warp 22 without tearing apart? Even with the Tracter Beam attached, the ship would have ripped apart since it can't go that fast. I think this episode through the whole concept of Warp Drive for a loop and maybe it's good that this isn't considered Canon (Even though there are some episodes of TAS I would gladly consider Canon).

As I think I mentioned above, Roddenberry's memo declaring TAS non-canonical has not actually been binding since he died nearly two decades ago, and it's been increasingly disregarded in the years since. Canon is whatever the current producers of Star Trek decide it is. And since the new ST movie practically remade parts of "Yesteryear," I'd say it's a safe bet that the current ST producers don't feel bound by Roddenberry's ban on TAS. It's high time we buried this myth that TAS is non-canonical. It's as canonical as anything else -- keeping in mind that even "canonical" episodes or events within a series can be freely ignored by the makers of new episodes or films. Canon is a concept that applies to a series as a whole, not to every single detail within it.
 
If anything, animated TV series these days are often smarter than feature films these days.
Ain't that the truth. I'm currently revisiting Futurama (I'm presently just finishing Season 3) and as goofy as it is I think it's one of the smartest things in SF I've seen. Batman TAS from the early '90s is one the best ever done, better than most of the live-action stuff.
 
When I watch TAS I tend t see it as storyboard versions of the live action episodes. Not all the action and dialog is there yet and some elements may change but it gives you a good overview of he finished episode. I just cut it a lot more slack in the continuity department.

In terms of Walking Bear, it's possible that he was on the ship for years and just never saw him. Could it have worked if he wasn't on the bridge when Kukulkan first appeared and he was brought in later? Sure, but the episodes were only 22 minutes long. Him being on the bride was just one of the shortcuts that they needed in order to fit the stories in the time available.
 
When I watch TAS I tend t see it as storyboard versions of the live action episodes.
Agreed. Very much as I see it as well.


Fair to good episodes:
The Slaver Weapon
Mudd's Passion
The Survivor
Time Trap
Albatross
One Of Our Planets Is Mising
Yesteryear
The Lorelei Signal
The Ambergris Element
Eye Of The Beholder
Beyond The Farthest Star
The Infinite Vulcan
Once Upon A Planet
Jihad
How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth
The Pirates Of Orion


I'd rather forget:
The Practical Joker
More Tribbles, More Troubles
The Terratin Incident
The Counter-Clock Incident
BEM
 
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I don't think that's necessarily so. For one thing, as stated above, it is true that the movies are Paramount's purview and the TV franchise is CBS's, so there might be good reason for a new Trek TV series to take its own path. For another, animated series based on successful movies are often in distinct continuities, even if they do reference some elements from the movies. So while it's certainly possible that a new Trek TV series would be in the Abrams continuity, it is hasty to call it "obvious."

Well, too, I'm thinking broadly.

Even if they do have their own continuity, they still may use voices from people in the Abrams cast, and so forth.

People who watch Trek on the small screen will want to see something from the Abrams Trek, particularly those who enjoyed the film...and expect something from the film to be in the series. (Especially if there are those who are only familiar with Trek from the nufilm series).

It would be common sense and bad marketing to not do so.

If anything, animated TV series these days are often smarter than feature films these days.

Also, I reject the implication that "kid show" is synonymous with "dumbed down." Kids aren't dumb, and kids' shows don't have to be either. A show can be aimed specifically at children and still be highly intelligent in its concepts, characterizations, and storytelling -- see Avatar: The Last Airbender, for example.

TAS is a good example of that; although, animation today is given a little more respect than it did years ago.

'The Incredibles' was kicked around as a series on the small screen; and that scared me because I knew we would get a 'sanitized' version of the big screen film.

I hate the forcefield belts. They don't make sense. Where do they keep the air? How do they shield the wearer from radiation or blinding sunlight? I'm willing to buy them in a context where there's an atmosphere present, presuming they're just filtering out toxins and the like. But in vacuum, for more than a few scant minutes? No way. It's just too impractical.

Maybe by recycling air from the body heat? Or maybe the field automatically adapts depending on atmosphere, toxins, what have you.

That's where the imagination comes from.

The force field suits have a very futuristic sense to it; and I think it's very practical. No need for bulky suits; and the wearer has more freedom of movement.
 
The environmental belts and the holodeck (seen in "The Practical Joker") are two Star Trek ideas that predate TAS. GR speculated (re: TMoST) that the Enterprise had an entertainment facility where crew could see and interact with things in 3D. And I believe the force field belts were a Season 3 idea that they never used.
 
Well, too, I'm thinking broadly.

Even if they do have their own continuity, they still may use voices from people in the Abrams cast, and so forth.

That would be surprising. Even animated shows that do purport to be in the same reality as the movies they're based on usually don't get the original actors. That sort of thing is the exception to the rule, like Tony Shalhoub and Vincent D'Onofrio reprising their Men in Black characters (for one season) or Kevin Dunn and Malcolm Danare reprising their Godzilla characters. (MiB: The Series was only approximately in the movie continuity, with some major changes. Godzilla: The Series, however, could easily be treated as a direct, consistent continuation of the Devlin/Emmerich Godzilla film.)

Most of the Abrams Trek cast have pretty active, upward-trending careers, and it would probably be expensive to get them. (Filmation was able to afford the original TOS cast because they weren't particularly successful or expensive actors at that time -- and even so, Filmation didn't want to hire the entire cast at first, and even though Nimoy convinced them to bring most of them aboard, they still had to leave Walter Koenig out for budget reasons.)

Besides, we don't know a new Trek TV series would be about Kirk and the Enterprise. In fact, I doubt it very much. Pocket was going to publish a series of tie-in novels following up on the movie (I wrote one of them), but Bad Robot decided at the eleventh hour that they didn't want anyone else advancing the story past the first film until they could do it, so the books were shelved. Apparently their policy is to maintain a rather tight control on their continuity and any tie-ins to it, in order to ensure consistency. The only book and comic tie-ins that are being published are prequels, stories set before the film or during Kirk's three years in the Academy. Now, maybe a new animated show could be set in those same Academy years, or maybe if it came out after the second film it could be set between the films. But CBS might prefer to avoid setting a show in the Abramsverse, since they'd have more creative freedom that way.

People who watch Trek on the small screen will want to see something from the Abrams Trek, particularly those who enjoyed the film...and expect something from the film to be in the series. (Especially if there are those who are only familiar with Trek from the nufilm series).

It would be common sense and bad marketing to not do so.

Theoretically, yeah. But sometimes the connections are only approximate. Marvel tied into the Iron Man films, featuring Tony Stark as a dissolute, hard-partying corporate titan in his 40s, by creating the animated Iron Man: Armored Adventures, featuring Tony Stark as a 16-year-old prodigy trying to cope with high school. Its only real resemblance to the first movie is that it features Tony, Rhodey, and Pepper as the main leads and Obadiah Stane as the primary villain. Similarly, they tied into X-Men by creating X-Men Evolution, again in a totally separate continuity from the films. The only borrowed elements were a few details: Xavier having an English accent, Rogue having the limited powers of the movie version rather than the full Ms. Marvel power set of the comics version, Wolverine eventually adopting a costume like his movie version, things like that.


TAS is a good example of that; although, animation today is given a little more respect than it did years ago.

True. Filmation's shows could be incredibly hokey in a lot of ways, but in some respects they were smarter than most cartoons of the day, or at least I felt so when I watched them as a kid. And TAS was one of their best.

'The Incredibles' was kicked around as a series on the small screen; and that scared me because I knew we would get a 'sanitized' version of the big screen film.

If that meant not having the heroes kill anyone, I would've actually preferred that. I think it diminishes superheroes when they kill. And if they had done a TV series, it would've presumably been on the Disney Channel, and they've done some pretty good work with shows like Kim Possible, a terrific superhero/spy parody in its own right. As long as they got the characters and the attitude right, there'd be no need for excessive violence.

Then again, as I think I mentioned above, the standards for violence in animated programming seem to be loosening lately, at least on Cartoon Network in prime time.


Maybe by recycling air from the body heat? Or maybe the field automatically adapts depending on atmosphere, toxins, what have you.

That's where the imagination comes from.

I resent the implication that my dislike for forcefield belts is due to a failure of imagination. On the contrary, I dislike them because I can easily imagine all the things that can threaten an astronaut in space that skintight forcefields would be inadequate to protect against. I can easily imagine a less ridiculous design.

Even if you can accept that a skintight forcefield can adequately recycle air and maintain pressure, a transparent field just can't defend against some of the most basic hazards of space. Astronauts wear helmets with tinted visors for a very good reason: without atmospheric filtering, sunlight is dangerously intense. When I used the word "blinding," I was speaking in the most literal, permanent sense of the word. To be out in space without some kind of eye protection is simply insane.

Besides, it's just plain bad engineering to entrust your life to a "suit" that will only protect you so long as its batteries last. What if something drains or damages the power cells? At least in a physical spacesuit, you have backup protection in case of a power failure. In a forcefield belt, one cosmic ray disrupting a power circuit will kill you. Using powered forcefields instead of walls, doors, or spacesuits may seem all futuristic and fancy, but it's totally implausible from an engineering and safety perspective, because there's no backup. (I mean, really, how many people have escaped from starship brigs because the ship's power failed and the forcefield went down? Would it really hurt them to have some bars across the doorway as a backup? For that matter, why waste energy using a forcefield at all when a good solid door will work even better?)
 
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I resent the implication that my dislike for forcefield belts is due to a failure of imagination. On the contrary, I dislike them because I can easily imagine all the things that can threaten an astronaut in space that skintight forcefields would be inadequate to protect against. I can easily imagine a less ridiculous design.

Even if you can accept that a skintight forcefield can adequately recycle air and maintain pressure, a transparent field just can't defend against some of the most basic hazards of space. Astronauts wear helmets with tinted visors for a very good reason: without atmospheric filtering, sunlight is dangerously intense. When I used the word "blinding," I was speaking in the most literal, permanent sense of the word. To be out in space without some kind of eye protection is simply insane.

Besides, it's just plain bad engineering to entrust your life to a "suit" that will only protect you so long as its batteries last. What if something drains or damages the power cells? At least in a physical spacesuit, you have backup protection in case of a power failure. In a forcefield belt, one cosmic ray disrupting a power circuit will kill you. Using powered forcefields instead of walls, doors, or spacesuits may seem all futuristic and fancy, but it's totally implausible from an engineering and safety perspective, because there's no backup. (I mean, really, how many people have escaped from starship brigs because the ship's power failed and the forcefield went down? Would it really hurt them to have some bars across the doorway as a backup? For that matter, why waste energy using a forcefield at all when a good solid door will work even better?)

You do bring up some good points, but even Kirk, Spock, Yeoman Tamura escaped from a cell that was blocked by a door in 'A Taste of Armageddon'...

Pike, Colt, and Number One had to physically capture a Talosian to reveal that they actually blasted through their glass cage...

So even doors don't hold, depending on the story; and, as aforementioned, a persistent individual (Pike) who doesn't like being caged up...will find a way out eventually.

Going back to the force field suits: It's the 23rd century. If they can have something that works in space as well as underwater, that's an achievement...and very practical.

I possibly mentioned before, but if they are going out in space with those suits where the crew has to face a blinding sun....maybe there is something that adapts so the wearer doesn't blind his or herself.

If we want to get into questionable things; or aspects that can be questionable: We have Borg affecting a human through a padded suit in 'First Contact.'

Even outside the Trek realm, we look at 'Alien' where a crewmember was attacked through his bulky suit by a face-hugger.

ST already has ships going to various warps, and a lot of other things we can't imagine (yes, that word again) today in our reality; some of which may only remain in the realm of fiction.
 
The environmental belts and the holodeck (seen in "The Practical Joker") are two Star Trek ideas that predate TAS. GR speculated (re: TMoST) that the Enterprise had an entertainment facility where crew could see and interact with things in 3D. And I believe the force field belts were a Season 3 idea that they never used.
The force field belts were in the early drafts of "The Tholian Web". I like the basic idea of them, but agree with Christopher, the implementation of the concept would be difficult, if not impossible, especially with the compact belts we see in TAS. A backpack unit, larger than the belt but less cumbersome than a full EVA suit, would be more plausible.
 
The environmental belts and the holodeck (seen in "The Practical Joker") are two Star Trek ideas that predate TAS. GR speculated (re: TMoST) that the Enterprise had an entertainment facility where crew could see and interact with things in 3D. And I believe the force field belts were a Season 3 idea that they never used.
The force field belts were in the early drafts of "The Tholian Web". I like the basic idea of them, but agree with Christopher, the implementation of the concept would be difficult, if not impossible, especially with the compact belts we see in TAS. A backpack unit, larger than the belt but less cumbersome than a full EVA suit, would be more plausible.

The implementation of the concept isn't difficult; again, this is sci-fi....and we're talking about a show that takes place in our future.

Maybe the belt has everything a backpack would do. That's like carrying a backpack full of books, when you have something like a 'Kindle' to carry around. (And, at the same time, someone is saying...'Well, that's not possible or practical.')

Our computers (from the mid to late 20th century) have shrunk from being huge...to being as small as a finger...

What TAS did with those belts, is definitely plausible.
 
Going back to the force field suits: It's the 23rd century. If they can have something that works in space as well as underwater, that's an achievement...and very practical.

No, it is never practical to rely on a functioning power source with no backup for your very life if there's a simpler alternative available. In engineering terms, "practical" means having common-sense safeguards and redundancies built in. It means you can actually use it safely in a realistic world where things don't always work perfectly. And saying "it's the 23rd century" doesn't help, because it makes no sense to assume that designers in the future would forget such obvious and fundamental principles of safety engineering. Force fields and tractor beams and other uses of energy in place of matter are a popular sci-fi conceit because they seem futuristic and exotic and advanced, but they're just overcomplicating things for the sake of a flashy effect. They're anything but "practical."


If we want to get into questionable things; or aspects that can be questionable: We have Borg affecting a human through a padded suit in 'First Contact.'

Even outside the Trek realm, we look at 'Alien' where a crewmember was attacked through his bulky suit by a face-hugger.

I'm not saying a spacesuit is infallible -- I'm saying you won't instantly die if its batteries develop a fault.

And yes, no single system is absolutely safe on its own. But I'm not arguing for that, I'm arguing for redundancy. Redundancy. Redundancy, even! ;) Neither forcefields nor suits are perfectly safe on their own, so why not use both? If you're going to incorporate forcefields into a spacesuit, have them in addition to a physical layer, so they complement each other. That's practical engineering. A car has seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones, multiple complementary systems to protect the occupants. An elevator has emergency brakes if something goes wrong with the cable. So why should a spacesuit, of all things, rely on only one source of protection?


ST already has ships going to various warps, and a lot of other things we can't imagine (yes, that word again) today in our reality; some of which may only remain in the realm of fiction.

And it's a failure of imagination to overlook all the ways things can go wrong if you depend exclusively on a single mechanism for protection. Greater advancement in technology means more safeguards get put in place, not fewer.
 
The life support belts made it into TAS for one reason: It made animating the characters engaging in an EVA far easier than having to draw them all over again in spacesuits, by allowing the animators to just add an yellowish aura and call it a day.
 
No, it is never practical to rely on a functioning power source with no backup for your very life if there's a simpler alternative available. In engineering terms, "practical" means having common-sense safeguards and redundancies built in. It means you can actually use it safely in a realistic world where things don't always work perfectly. And saying "it's the 23rd century" doesn't help, because it makes no sense to assume that designers in the future would forget such obvious and fundamental principles of safety engineering. Force fields and tractor beams and other uses of energy in place of matter are a popular sci-fi conceit because they seem futuristic and exotic and advanced, but they're just overcomplicating things for the sake of a flashy effect. They're anything but "practical."

Well, it wasn't established there were backups in Picard's/Sisko's/Janeway's era with their EVA suits...

And it would be kind of silly to look in our reality and ask: 'Well, if I was attacked by a Borg in space, would my suit protect me?'

It's still a television show set in a fictional world; but, again, I go back to my statement of imagination; if a writer wants to delve into how these force field belts work, especially in regards to the concerns brought out...they can.

And it's a failure of imagination to overlook all the ways things can go wrong if you depend exclusively on a single mechanism for protection. Greater advancement in technology means more safeguards get put in place, not fewer.

Not really.

We go back to my statement above; and even the idea of the creation of any futuristic piece of equipment. (Hypothetically or literally)...

Like anything, it--the force field belt--was created for practical uses, but if it were to show up in a story a writer would have to explain the fail-safes put in place for the wearer.

Since a belt would take the place of a common suit, many things would have to be in effect to make sure it doesn't break down.

Similar to the transporter, which is a 'practical' means of transportation; but, as we've seen throughout the series, there are hazards. Even in ENT (no matter to pros or cons of the series) there were times when it was faulty; even in TOS, there were many transporter malfunctions due to weather, a phaser hit from another ship, etc....

As we've seen later on in the series, equipment has to be tested and retested before it is installed or placed on vessels. I'm sure something like the force field belts would go through the same process.
 
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It's possible the belts could be used only for specific conditions. Still, I'm inclined to agree with Christopher about the practical deficiencies. It's easy to draw and likely relatively easier to do in f/x for live-action, and it looks way cool and very sci-fi, but it's not something I'd seriously consider for the sake of genuine credibility.

I've dabbled with depicting individual TAS scenes as live-action, but one day I'd like to try to do an entire episode. Something like a collection of dvd stills in sequence. It would be time consuming and result in quite a few images, but I think it would be fun as hell and really bring TAS to life.

Small sample:
FicPic202.jpg


FicPic206.jpg


FicPic198-1.jpg


FicPic200.jpg


FicPic203.jpg


FicPic204.jpg


STE-Mudd1.jpg


And if you want to see life-support belts,
STE-Slaver1.jpg
 
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