Favorite TAS episodes not named Yesteryear
- Thread starter tomalak301
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Not complete inability, as they proved in later years. They got better at including rotoscoped, fluid movement sequences, and there were cases where they did fully-animated feature films, a couple of which (Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All and The Legend of BraveStarr) were pilots for TV series that then recycled a lot of their fluid animation sequences.
I've come to wish that Filmation had done a second animated Trek series in c. 1980-81 as a continuation of ST:TMP. By that point, the quality of their animation and music had improved considerably, and they were beginning to employ some people who'd go on to be big names later on in animation and elsewhere -- Paul Dini, Michael Reaves, Tom Ruegger, Marc Scott Zicree, Rich Fogel, Bruce Timm. (It was still a few years before J. Michael Straczynski came aboard.) There was certainly precedent for Filmation doing a sequel/revival of one of their series; they'd done it with Batman, The Archies, and Fat Albert, as well as reviving the live-action Isis in animation in Freedom Force, and would later do it with Gilligan's Island (as Gilligan's Planet), Shazam (as The Kids' Super Power Hour with Shazam), and The Ghost Busters (as Filmation's Ghostbusters). The diverse multispecies crew glimpsed in TMP would've been a great fit for animation, and a TV series would've expanded on the TMP-era universe and the refit Enterprise in a way the later movies didn't. Plus it would've solidified Filmation Trek as a larger and more integral part of the whole, as well as a better-made part. I would love to live in the parallel universe where this happened.
One thing that can be said for TAS is that it allowed, even if in a limited fashion, stories to be visualized in ways TOS was simply unable to do. Even with a better budget and more time allowed 1960's era television resources simply couldn't deliver some of the exotic aliens and elaborate set locales suggested in TOS but actually realized in TAS. A bit more budget for TOS could perhaps have given us some more variation in spaceship deigns and matte paintings, but many of the genuinely cool aliens, locales and ship designs couldn't have been done live-action.
Agree, I think that TMP-TAS would have been brilliant in 1980-81. As you stated, Filmation already had Flash Gordon animated series 1979-81 in production. TMP animated series would have been exciting to see. In 1979-81, I even collected the Star Trek:TMP based Sunday newspaper comic strips that continued the adventures after TMP in print.
I've had my idea about a TMP-era animated series for a couple of years now, but it's only last night that I realized the writing angle, that it could've led to Trek episodes written by Paul Dini. (We did eventually get Trek episodes co-written by Michael Reaves -- TNG: "Where No One Has Gone Before" -- and Marc Scott Zicree -- TNG: "First Contact" and DS9: "Far Beyond the Stars." But they could've gotten their start on Trek far earlier.)
I love "The Time Trap", which is responsible for my love of starship graveyards. I'm also very fond of "The Jihad" which is quite an adventure.
Oh, and "Magicks of Megas-Tu", my pick for most batshit crazy episode in the entire franchise.
Oh, and "Magicks of Megas-Tu", my pick for most batshit crazy episode in the entire franchise.
I don't care that much for "More Tribbles." It's such a contrived exercise in coincidence to bring the Enterprise, Koloth, Cyrano Jones, tribbles, and a grain shipment together again. TAS has a number of sequels, but none are this slavishly imitative of the original. "Yesteryear" revisits the Guardian of Forever to tell a very different story. "Once Upon a Planet" expanded on elements that had only been implicit in "Shore Leave" and told what was effectively a more meaningful and substantial story (both because there's actual danger rather than the misperception of it, and because the ending actually changes things rather than restoring the status quo). "Mudd's Passion" revisited Harry Mudd's familiar pattern of having "love for sale," but in a very different way than before, and with rock monsters involved. "The Pirates of Orion" took the tidbits "Journey to Babel" had established about the Orions and built a whole different story around them. But "More Tribbles" is just retelling the same story as before. It has a couple of slight tweaks to the formula -- the stasis weapon, the glommer, the tribbles getting huge instead of just multiplying -- but it's a very lazy rehash of an episode that I think was overrated anyway.
It's also inconsistent within itself -- how come the stasis weapon freezes the transporter the first time but not the second? And why does Kirk go ahead and beam the tribbles to the Klingon ship before he delivers his ultimatum? That's not how a threat works! You hold off on using it unless your opponent fails to do what you demand. Since Kirk had already done his worst, the Klingons had nothing to lose by continuing their attack. It just made no sense.
It's also inconsistent within itself -- how come the stasis weapon freezes the transporter the first time but not the second? And why does Kirk go ahead and beam the tribbles to the Klingon ship before he delivers his ultimatum? That's not how a threat works! You hold off on using it unless your opponent fails to do what you demand. Since Kirk had already done his worst, the Klingons had nothing to lose by continuing their attack. It just made no sense.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that this script had been intended as a sequel if TOS had gone to a fourth season. Something must have changed in the writing however, as how would you have depicted a giant tribble live action? (Unless they did a variation of the model work with cat trick from "Catspaw"?)
Just get a lot of fake fur, stitch it together, and stuff it with foam. If they can make fake boulders and cave walls, a fake giant tribble isn't all that hard, since it's not like it has to move much or has any limbs or facial features. If it needs to move, just have a couple of stagehands roll it. Or maybe stitch the fake fur around a wire frame and have a guy inside to lift it up and walk it forward. Like a fur-suit version of a Doctor Who Mechanoid.
Hmmm, I suppose, could have worked. Yes, like the Horta costume in a way!
The model work could have been used for the REALLY big ones in the Klingon engine room!
The model work could have been used for the REALLY big ones in the Klingon engine room!
Errrr...yeah. I especially like that Chekov is a Russian Edosian.Here's my favorite (fan-made) full TAS episode.
Spockboy
::Single eyebrow raise:: Fascinating.
Um..Scotty and Geordi caused the Big Bang????
I believe Gerrold intended "More Tribbles" for the 3rd season, but Freddie F. wasn't a fan of the original "Tribbles"so that was that. Besides, without Coon there to joke it up ("Tribbles" absolutely reeks of his humor) I think a live action episode would have been just as unfunny as the animated one.
How are you drawing that conclusion? David Gerrold published a book version of "The Trouble With Tribbles" that traced his story from the initial conception and pitch to the final draft script. The story didn't change all that much, and most of the jokes were Gerrold's.
As I recall, the only scenes that were outright added or reworked by Coon were the briefing room scene in the teaser with Chekov (still a very new character when Gerrold was writing his script), and the brief scene with Spock and McCoy examining a Tribble in sickbay. Gerrold took a bit of issue with a Bible-quoting Spock ("They neither reap nor sow") and McCoy's "I like them... Better than I like you," line, which he found a bit too mean.
I didn't say Coon wrote it or chunks of it. I am just pointing out that a lot of the humor smacks of Coon. And I know that book you are referencing. To my ear "More Tribbles" doesn't always exhibit a same "voice" in its humor as "Tribbles". This leads me to suspect that a number of those funny lines came from or were tweaked by him. Staff writers often touched scripts, and most of those tweaks went uncredited.
I wonder if the second season had allowed to continue if they would have done an episode with the Horta. I think they would translate well to animation, maybe even better than the live version.
...So you're discounting all the clear documentation about the writing of this episode (much more than we have for most TOS episodes) because you have a feeling?
For the last time (and seriously, last time), I am saying that TO MY EAR (in case you didn't catch the emphasis in the previous post) the voice of some of the jokey lines smacks of Coon; the same Coon that Gerrold says—in his own book—helped guide him by making suggestions through his agent so he that he could do revisions without being given an official assignment. If you find this completely impossible, so be it, but as to the "documentation" Gerrold's memoir of the writing of his episode would hardly qualify as an objective account....So you're discounting all the clear documentation about the writing of this episode (much more than we have for most TOS episodes) because you have a feeling?
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