This is an introduction of sorts. I'm glad to have found such an active Star Trek board like this!
As a teenager, I watched TNG off and on during its first run on TV, and enjoyed it quite a bit. I'd seen bits and pieces of TOS, but it always seemed inferior so I never sought it. Recently I came across some recommendations of good TOS episodes, and decided to give it a try, as the local public library had the recent remastered DVD version available.
After spending the last two weeks watching the entire first season, I'm definitely a TOS fan. The stories are interesting, and the picture quality is excellent. At first I didn't even realize that they had redone the ship animation scenes, having never seen the originals. They clearly were careful not to make it too flashy, though in some of the later episodes they put in some lens flare which made it very obviously redone. The DVD includes a feature about their changes, and seeing the original effects I don't even think I would have minded them, so it's too bad they didn't offer a choice of which version to watch, as I've read the BD version does.
The simple sets designs in the ship got me thinking about what was important, and I came to the conclusion that the set is there mainly to communicate those aspects of the story. As long as the panels and buttons make it clear what's happening, they've served their purpose and don't need to be dressed up. Star Trek has always been about human stories, not technology itself (though it might be about the social implications of some technology, of course).
One thing that got a little tiring the most was the song used in the middle of almost every episode, when the plot is in its building danger portion. It has some scales that slowly rise, with a piano that does a few notes periodically. It's a decent song, but hearing it every episode wore it out. I suppose they used other songs every episode as well, but in scenes where there was talking rather than quiet, so that you focused less on the music and thus didn't notice its reuse as much.
Now that I've watched the entire first season, I plan on watching the second and third (was surprised that there were only three). I plan on then watching TAS, as it has an interesting art style, and uses the original actors for voices and the original writers as well. I plan on then watching all the movies in order. I had thought this was made in the mid-1970s, so was quite surprised of its 1966 date. It's amazing how well it holds up over all these years, and how good a transfer of the film there were able to make. I feel like a door has opened and I can finally know what people have been talking about when they refer to elements of Star Trek. I now understand the "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a ______" jokes, for one.
Some random comments:
* I had heard about Shatner's... pausing... style but I could hardly notice it while watching. I guess I approached the show without expectation. I liked his character's calm style of doing the logs, and in general.
* Female officer uniforms are too short. Sexy is fine, but these are gratuitous.
* It was fun seeing the precursor to the Q Continuum in The Squire of Gothos, complete with a mock trial using human laws.
* The background sound in sick bay was neat, just a simple pulsing note. I was trying to figure out the significance of the sound on the bridge. Sometimes it was a continuous whistle that is an iconic sound of Star Trek, but other times it was broken up and spaced out. Did this mean that planets and other things weren't nearby, as if it were a kind of sonar?
Finally, some comments about two episodes:
The Mengerie: I didn't understand why Captain Pike could only give yes/no responses. Even with more primitive technology, it would have been easy to allow him to communicate with words by providing some kind of menu that he accesses with his single flashing light, using something like morse code, where yes is dot and no is dash. This encodes common words as short sequences, and less-common ones (and letters I assume) as longer sequences.
A Taste of Armageddon: At the point where Kirk orders General Order 24 and the Enterprise is threatening to destroy Eminiar VII, I had a different idea of what they were going to do next. In the episode they eventually destroy the computer and force the inhabitants to face the horrors of war, and thus consider peace. I had thought that the Enterprise was going to "destroy" the planet, and perhaps the Vendikar planet as well. At that point, nobody would be dead, since the destruction would be entirely virtual thanks to their score-keeping computers. Then, since both were "destroyed", there would have been no reason for citizens of either planet to step into the disintegration booths, since there would be no score to settle anymore. At that point, the Enterprise could then set terms for peace, and dismantle the computer systems on both planets, as they would be the new ones in power.
As a teenager, I watched TNG off and on during its first run on TV, and enjoyed it quite a bit. I'd seen bits and pieces of TOS, but it always seemed inferior so I never sought it. Recently I came across some recommendations of good TOS episodes, and decided to give it a try, as the local public library had the recent remastered DVD version available.
After spending the last two weeks watching the entire first season, I'm definitely a TOS fan. The stories are interesting, and the picture quality is excellent. At first I didn't even realize that they had redone the ship animation scenes, having never seen the originals. They clearly were careful not to make it too flashy, though in some of the later episodes they put in some lens flare which made it very obviously redone. The DVD includes a feature about their changes, and seeing the original effects I don't even think I would have minded them, so it's too bad they didn't offer a choice of which version to watch, as I've read the BD version does.
The simple sets designs in the ship got me thinking about what was important, and I came to the conclusion that the set is there mainly to communicate those aspects of the story. As long as the panels and buttons make it clear what's happening, they've served their purpose and don't need to be dressed up. Star Trek has always been about human stories, not technology itself (though it might be about the social implications of some technology, of course).
One thing that got a little tiring the most was the song used in the middle of almost every episode, when the plot is in its building danger portion. It has some scales that slowly rise, with a piano that does a few notes periodically. It's a decent song, but hearing it every episode wore it out. I suppose they used other songs every episode as well, but in scenes where there was talking rather than quiet, so that you focused less on the music and thus didn't notice its reuse as much.
Now that I've watched the entire first season, I plan on watching the second and third (was surprised that there were only three). I plan on then watching TAS, as it has an interesting art style, and uses the original actors for voices and the original writers as well. I plan on then watching all the movies in order. I had thought this was made in the mid-1970s, so was quite surprised of its 1966 date. It's amazing how well it holds up over all these years, and how good a transfer of the film there were able to make. I feel like a door has opened and I can finally know what people have been talking about when they refer to elements of Star Trek. I now understand the "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a ______" jokes, for one.
Some random comments:
* I had heard about Shatner's... pausing... style but I could hardly notice it while watching. I guess I approached the show without expectation. I liked his character's calm style of doing the logs, and in general.
* Female officer uniforms are too short. Sexy is fine, but these are gratuitous.
* It was fun seeing the precursor to the Q Continuum in The Squire of Gothos, complete with a mock trial using human laws.
* The background sound in sick bay was neat, just a simple pulsing note. I was trying to figure out the significance of the sound on the bridge. Sometimes it was a continuous whistle that is an iconic sound of Star Trek, but other times it was broken up and spaced out. Did this mean that planets and other things weren't nearby, as if it were a kind of sonar?
Finally, some comments about two episodes:
The Mengerie: I didn't understand why Captain Pike could only give yes/no responses. Even with more primitive technology, it would have been easy to allow him to communicate with words by providing some kind of menu that he accesses with his single flashing light, using something like morse code, where yes is dot and no is dash. This encodes common words as short sequences, and less-common ones (and letters I assume) as longer sequences.
A Taste of Armageddon: At the point where Kirk orders General Order 24 and the Enterprise is threatening to destroy Eminiar VII, I had a different idea of what they were going to do next. In the episode they eventually destroy the computer and force the inhabitants to face the horrors of war, and thus consider peace. I had thought that the Enterprise was going to "destroy" the planet, and perhaps the Vendikar planet as well. At that point, nobody would be dead, since the destruction would be entirely virtual thanks to their score-keeping computers. Then, since both were "destroyed", there would have been no reason for citizens of either planet to step into the disintegration booths, since there would be no score to settle anymore. At that point, the Enterprise could then set terms for peace, and dismantle the computer systems on both planets, as they would be the new ones in power.
E is a particularly unusual case of a director’s cut. It isn’t an after-the-fact alternate version, or even a difference of opinion between the director and studio. It’s what the movie was always supposed to be. Unfortunate circumstances forced TMP into the theaters before they were done working on it. The Theatrical Edition is a draft. I don’t mean like George Lucas’ “The original versions of Eps IV-VI were just rough drafts” bullshit; this is for real.)
