Non-fans of TWoK....

[trevanian]

Couldn't it be argued, though, that perhaps the Enterprise and other ships carried standard equipment for scanning gaseous anomalies, just less than the Excelsior would have been carrying at the time?

Screenplay for TUC has this exact explanation, during a tour of the E given to the Klings. But most of the other cryo knocks on TUC are right on, though I feel the battle scenes in SFS rip more on TWOK than TUC's do, mainly because they just put reversals on them (sneak attack, but this time E shoots first in SFS, the 'you're going to have to come down here' is reversed with the 'you'll have to bring us up to get it' in SFS.)

 

[Maurice]

I can't say I agree with Cyrogenic's post because it's being nit-picky about things that don't really matter. Auxilliary this and that...so what? It's just jargon to show how diure the situation is. As to cutting to Red Alert diagrams, again, so what? Those are hardly notable sins in films full of dramatic contrivances and cheap production values.

 

[sidious618]

I love the film if only for Khan's "This is Ceti Alpha V!" line.

 

[Joker]

I prefered the original version of that line.

"This is my real chest!"

 

[sidious618]

 

[TeutonicNights]

I love the sets and fx. It's not as cartoony-looking as in later treks, adding to that "naval" feel. Also some "used future" in the Genesis cave, some "Alien"-ish atmosphere on Regula and on Ceti Alpha 5, some future Earth too. If they had used blinking lights more sparsely, it would hold up much better today.

I wonder how this movie had been with a bigger budget. Too bad they had to reuse the shitty TMP bridge.

 

[AxelFoley]

I love the film if only for Khan's "This is Ceti Alpha V!" line.

I think it's supposed to be:

"This is Ceti Alpha Fiiiiiiive!"

 

[Unicron]

What's wrong with the uniforms introduced in TWOK? I thought they were cool; much better than the TMP and early TNG uniforms.

I've always liked them too. The problem with the TMP uniforms wasn't so much the design itself, which was good, but the poor range of colors used. My only change I'd make to the TWOK era ones would be to keep the TOS color scheme for the underdress shirts, rather than the new color system that was invented for TWOK.

 

[Anji]

I never saw a flaw in this film. I never had time to look. I always enjoyed the ride.

 

[RyuRoots]

I never saw a flaw in this film. I never had time to look. I always enjoyed the ride.

It's one thing to like it, but...not ONE, no matter how minor? Even putting aside my opinions on characterizations and plot decisions, I feel I need to bring up that it does have a few logic flaws. Mr. "I dinnae know whar the bloody sickbay is", for example.

 

[trevanian]

I never saw a flaw in this film. I never had time to look. I always enjoyed the ride.

Geezus, on every trek movie, I pretty much see all the flaws the first time through (TVH largely excepted, though I've sure seen the flaws in that on EVERY subsequent viewing or attempted viewing.)

KHAN was so full of distracting goofs and just plain-out distractions, I have a hard time seeing how people wouldn't be pulled out of the story momentarily during almost every reel ... but in a way that was the real strength, though, that in spite of all these screwups that made your eyes roll up, the movie kept pulling you back in and giving thrills. Probably because the combo of character-driven action, a lot of insert shots and an effective beyond belief score goes a long way toward making a good movie into a near-great one.

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

Strange I didn't see any glaringly obvious problems with 'Wrath that put me out of the film, I think you just have a distaste for the film itself really.

 

[trevanian]

Strange I didn't see any glaringly obvious problems with 'Wrath that put me out of the film, I think you just have a distaste for the film itself really.

Are you kidding, it is in my top 2 or 3! As I said above, it pulls you back in even after dead people blink or the worst matte painting this side of a Bob's Big Boy lobby shows up. That means the movie really works!

Most of the distracting problems have to do with cheapness, they aren't massive dealbreakers.

 

[Cryogenic]

Most of the distracting problems have to do with cheapness, they aren't massive dealbreakers.

Yeah, if shooting on cheap, high-speed film stock; using bright, TV-style lighting, and lame, uninteresting camera angles; set decoration that includes "No Smoking" gags and signs made of stickers that bubble, warp and peel, as well as sometimes having a glossy sheen and cheaply reflecting light sources; lazily and ignorantly re-using expensive model footage from a previous film with high quality control; tacky cuts and inserts, including awkward visual pleonasms; the offensive ethnic-cleaning of a once-great character and his followers; the lame, Mad-Max-style costumes of a once-great character and his followers; the even-lamer hair styles of a once-great character and his followers; the super-cheap redressing of models and sets (more to come); the fact that the Enterprise looks like it's been scorched, kicked and rolled around in dirt, then covered in soot; the sometimes-plainly-out-of-focus shots and bumpy camera pans and zooms; having an old computer terminal double as a 23rd Century starship interface, in spite of the fact that the terminal is replete with rusty screws, old-fashioned flip switches, LEDs and antiquated memory terms like "parity" (some of the writing has even faded and been partially rubbed clean); the butt-ugly plastic blocks, turquoise chairs and crappy station graphics that have been hideously splashed all round the Enterprise bridge in a deranged attempt at adding visual interest; Kirk's cheap and underwhelmingly-redressed quarters; Spock's cheap and underwhelming quarters; Kirk's 1980s wristwatch; the fact that the alien lighting for Main Engineering and the Enterprise's corridors has been completely abandoned and replaced with insipid (Main Engineering) and god-awful (corridors) colours and textures; the fact that Spock dies in a chamber that's a bastard child of a Klingon bridge from the previous movie and a 20th Century disco; and just the whole militaristic feel and craptacular approach to cinematic staples like cinematography, art direction, mise en scene, editing, sound design and sound editing, visual effects and music . . . if none of that bothers you . . . well, yeah.

 

[Bones2]

^
Enjoy typing all that, did you?

 

[Cryogenic]

^
Enjoy typing all that, did you?

Yep.

 

[The Castellan]

My biggest problem was this film led to the tradition of Trek movies never being about boldy going where no one has gone before, and more about blowing stuff up and politics. Plus the Klingons were overused, I think.

And I did not like the more millitary feel TWoK had.

TMP will always be fy fav film of all of them.

Only good thing about TWoK, they got someone with actual muscle (yes, Montalbahn's chest was real) and not some wimp having to wear a molded rubber shell to look buff and fit.

 

[trevanian]

Most of the distracting problems have to do with cheapness, they aren't massive dealbreakers.

Yeah, if shooting on cheap, high-speed film stock; using bright, TV-style lighting, and lame, uninteresting camera angles; set decoration that includes "No Smoking" gags and signs made of stickers that bubble, warp and peel, as well as sometimes having a glossy sheen and cheaply reflecting light sources; lazily and ignorantly re-using expensive model footage from a previous film with high quality control; tacky cuts and inserts, including awkward visual pleonasms; the offensive ethnic-cleaning of a once-great character and his followers; the lame, Mad-Max-style costumes of a once-great character and his followers; the even-lamer hair styles of a once-great character and his followers; the super-cheap redressing of models and sets (more to come); the fact that the Enterprise looks like it's been scorched, kicked and rolled around in dirt, then covered in soot; the sometimes-plainly-out-of-focus shots and bumpy camera pans and zooms; having an old computer terminal double as a 23rd Century starship interface, in spite of the fact that the terminal is replete with rusty screws, old-fashioned flip switches, LEDs and antiquated memory terms like "parity" (some of the writing has even faded and been partially rubbed clean); the butt-ugly plastic blocks, turquoise chairs and crappy station graphics that have been hideously splashed all round the Enterprise bridge in a deranged attempt at adding visual interest; Kirk's cheap and underwhelmingly-redressed quarters; Spock's cheap and underwhelming quarters; Kirk's 1980s wristwatch; the fact that the alien lighting for Main Engineering and the Enterprise's corridors has been completely abandoned and replaced with insipid (Main Engineering) and god-awful (corridors) colours and textures; the fact that Spock dies in a chamber that's a bastard child of a Klingon bridge from the previous movie and a 20th Century disco; and just the whole militaristic feel and craptacular approach to cinematic staples like cinematography, art direction, mise en scene, editing, sound design and sound editing, visual effects and music . . . if none of that bothers you . . . well, yeah.

Man, that is like reading my stuff when I post about SFS !!!

Honestly, what you have there covers most of my minor objections to TWOK. And again, I think it is to the film's credit that very little of that stays in mind long enough to disrupt the flick.

I do disagree about Kirk's cabin, though; I find the carpet on the walls and the sonotube cabinets up there to be immense improvements on TMP's no-one-can-really-live-in-a-room=this-glarey (well maybe in The Abrams Universe?)

I think that while some of Mike Minor's design work is a little bit SF-hokey (phase II transporter room comes to mind), it always has its heart in the right place, and I think what he and Jennings did in TWOK for Kirk's quarters was a very decent salvage job, and Spock's quarters falls under the heading of 'nice try' though that infinity mirror (which I imagine came from ModernProps) is just too feeble. Spock's water bottle IDIC could have been lit more sparsely to some good effect (one of the few things they got right in SFS), and I'd love to see Minor's artwork for that, which I read made Spock's quarters look like an opium den.

I even like the idea of using stuff like those audio cassette holders they added to the bridge walls, but I'd've done a better job of disguising them if I went that route ... they should have been using the wonderful battery holder castoffs that seem to have been employed for the basis of arm controls on THE LAST STARFIGHTER (I used a ton of them on super-8 films, and you can see some when they first enter the planet base in ALIENS.)

And I find a lot of the editing to be very effective, myself. An old BEST OF TREK went on and on about how TOS used lots of insert shots and TMP completely eschewed this approach, but TWOK returned to it, and it is quite true. There are the wince-making ones (the hand on the stereo system knobs during 'yellow alert'), but a lot of nice ones (like Khan looking for the controls as the shields drop, and the one of Sulu's board as the ship shakes while he fires phasers in Mutara.)

I'm guessing you've got TMP at the top of your trek movielist, and then a long gap before another one. Do you have a rough ranking, or is it more like the lyric in B&W Gilligan's Island episodes when they sing ' ... and the rest?' For me, TWOK and TMP and TFF are the only ones I honestly LIKE, so while I can rank the rest, it is kind of like ranking most TNG episodes ... most of the time I think, 'who cares/why bother?'

Before anybody can ask if I liked typing this, the answer is 'yes' ... my coffee was made and I enjoyed the 2 cups while keying this, so this was a relaxing way to wake up.

 

[Cryogenic]

Man, that is like reading my stuff when I post about SFS !!!

What can I say? The Dark Side flows easily.

Honestly, what you have there covers most of my minor objections to TWOK. And again, I think it is to the film's credit that very little of that stays in mind long enough to disrupt the flick.

That's completely fair. My response was tongue-in-cheek, of a fashion, though those observations dog my viewing experience of TWOK, as a 26-year-old, to such an extent, that I really can't quite get past them any longer. In my teens, it was a different story, though TWOK felt cheap to me even then.

I do disagree about Kirk's cabin, though; I find the carpet on the walls and the sonotube cabinets up there to be immense improvements on TMP's no-one-can-really-live-in-a-room=this-glarey (well maybe in The Abrams Universe?)

I'll meet you half way: that lighting paneling on the ceiling was a bit much in TMP. And did Kirk really need a table in the middle of his room, with four seats, to boot? Well, I suppose he could have had private dinners with scantily-clad female guests. The redress in TWOK gives his lodgings a warmer, cosier feel . . . BUT . . . you have to remember that TMP was Kirk's big reunion with the Enterprise, and that he wasn't even meant to take command. His quarters hadn't been filled with any of his personal effects. Kirk was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger. If GR had been kept in charge, we would likely have seen a fitting progression in Kirk's living space, and a warmer -- by design -- sequel.

I think that while some of Mike Minor's design work is a little bit SF-hokey (phase II transporter room comes to mind), it always has its heart in the right place, and I think what he and Jennings did in TWOK for Kirk's quarters was a very decent salvage job, and Spock's quarters falls under the heading of 'nice try' though that infinity mirror (which I imagine came from ModernProps) is just too feeble. Spock's water bottle IDIC could have been lit more sparsely to some good effect (one of the few things they got right in SFS), and I'd love to see Minor's artwork for that, which I read made Spock's quarters look like an opium den.

I'll respectfully leave that area alone, now. There's not much more I can say about either character's abode.

I even like the idea of using stuff like those audio cassette holders they added to the bridge walls, but I'd've done a better job of disguising them if I went that route ... they should have been using the wonderful battery holder castoffs that seem to have been employed for the basis of arm controls on THE LAST STARFIGHTER (I used a ton of them on super-8 films, and you can see some when they first enter the planet base in ALIENS.)

CASSETTE HOLDERS???! Of course! Damn, it's obvious in retrospect. Man, that just makes me look on TWOK with even more disdain. Honestly, I have no idea why those extra pieces were added. The clean spaces and advanced aesthetics of the TMP bridge were broken by those decisions. And the shapes just look like cheap 80s stuff -- which, as you've just revealed to me, is a truer impression than I previously realised.

And I find a lot of the editing to be very effective, myself. An old BEST OF TREK went on and on about how TOS used lots of insert shots and TMP completely eschewed this approach, but TWOK returned to it, and it is quite true.

Yeah, well . . . as can be said, and has been said, a thousand times or more . . . TMP was a conscious evolution from TOS, so the idea that it didn't just repeat every situation and visual tic is part and parcel of why it was made the way it was made, and why that works so beautifully for those that dig it.

There are the wince-making ones (the hand on the stereo system knobs during 'yellow alert'), but a lot of nice ones (like Khan looking for the controls as the shields drop, and the one of Sulu's board as the ship shakes while he fires phasers in Mutara.)

The latter aren't exactly terrible, but the former??? No, no, no! You've got it wrong. See my list again. That's not a stereo system . . . it's an old computer terminal!!! Look: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twokhd/twokhd0434.jpg Talk about a willful anachronism! You can see it in all its 20th Century, right down to the labelling which is in various states of dissolvement, presumably due to acid erosion from excessive human handling.

I'm guessing you've got TMP at the top of your trek movielist, and then a long gap before another one. Do you have a rough ranking, or is it more like the lyric in B&W Gilligan's Island episodes when they sing ' ... and the rest?' For me, TWOK and TMP and TFF are the only ones I honestly LIKE, so while I can rank the rest, it is kind of like ranking most TNG episodes ... most of the time I think, 'who cares/why bother?'

You guessed right. I've said so before. And doesn't my avatar kind of give the game away? In any case, I agree with you. Ranking the films is a pointless exercise. Exactly as you said, I see it as TMP . . . and the rest.

Before anybody can ask if I liked typing this, the answer is 'yes' ... my coffee was made and I enjoyed the 2 cups while keying this, so this was a relaxing way to wake up.