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Novels that would make great movies

^ Pretty much. My attitude is to set things during the classic 5YM unless there's a specific reason to set it later: I want to use Saavik, I need Kirk to be older, but wiser, etc.
 
It was ok. The head exploding scene was a bit gratuitous I'll admit (it was shown in all its glory here in the US believe it or not when it was first shown).
Was it cut out sometimes? I think it's been in there every time I've seen it.
 
Yea, Kirk's second or third five year mission recast would have been better than a prequel any day of the week. Greg, why don't you write it and pitch it?
Other novels would be 'The Rings of Tautee' and the one with the Intellevore with a whole lot more development help.

The thing about these guys at Bad Robot is that they want to be the sole creators of the their own story sans consideration for something perhaps considerably or even remotely better.
 
I think that part of the appeal of the 5YM era is that it's the really iconic one, the default version that we tend to think of when we think of Kirk and his crew. That's when they were all in their prime, after all. The movie era is more an epilogue to the TOS era adventures, more often than not.

Yeah, and I get that. It's the era everyone wants to play with. And it's the most familiar and requires the least exposition (though outside a throwaway line that could probably be established pretty quickly--Hell, even the book cover can tell you, a story from the Enterprise-A, or 'set 2 years before TWOK'--so that can be pretty easily taken care of). And don't get me wrong I love books set during the original series--it's just if you add all those books up to the TV series, you'd basically have a 23 year mission--it's far too much for 5 years.

I do think there have been a fair number of books between TMP-TWOK (some added later when it became clear there was no additional mission before TMP). If you add those books together, along with the New Earth books that take about 18 months I believe it was, you have a pretty good sense of what occurred during that time. That's not to say there's still not plenty of stories to tell, but it's has some decent coverage.

I think there's far less for the Enterprise-A missions-there's a couple books and short stories, but there's still a lot untouched there (I'm not including the comics since I don't read those--and usually outside some nods are considered a different continuity). I was so excited when I found out Foul Deeds Will Rise (and the e-novella Miasma) were going to be on the Enterprise-A between TFF and TUC. And I'm always up for a Lost Era book--between the Excelsior, Enterprise-B and C, and all that went on between the Enterprise-B scenes of Generations and Encounter at Farpoint, there's loads of stories to be told.
 
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Was it cut out sometimes? I think it's been in there every time I've seen it.

Kilana noted in Germany they cut it, so I guess in parts of the world it was edited. I've never seen it edited here in the US though.
 
Kilana noted in Germany they cut it, so I guess in parts of the world it was edited. I've never seen it edited here in the US though.

Funny thing is: they cut it in Conspiracy but forgot to cut it in Shades of Grey. Riker'd dreams/flashbacks/memories whatever included those scenes. Hypocritical. On the other hand: Shades of Grey was never a good episode.

Another novel as worthy to be converted into a movie: Greg Cox' The Rings of Time. With Shatner doing the stunts.....;)
 
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Funny thing is: they cut it in Conspiracy but forgot to cut it in Shades of Grey. Riker'd dreams/flashbacks/memories whatever included those scenes. Hypocritical. On the other hand: Shades of Grey was never a good episode.

Oops. Somebody must have forgot (though to be honest the head exploding scene was pretty tame compared to things like the Saw films). Shades of Grey was probably one of the worse season ending episodes ever. If it was a middle season episode, I mean, it wouldn't have been great but no one's perfect. But season ending, it's lucky it didn't kill the franchise right there. Maybe they didn't cut it because they figured there'd be so few people watching it why bother ;)
 
Oops. Somebody must have forgot (though to be honest the head exploding scene was pretty tame compared to things like the Saw films). Shades of Grey was probably one of the worse season ending episodes ever. If it was a middle season episode, I mean, it wouldn't have been great but no one's perfect. But season ending, it's lucky it didn't kill the franchise right there. Maybe they didn't cut it because they figured there'd be so few people watching it why bother ;)

I remember Patrick Stewart complaining about a kissing scene being removed from Insurrection. Where was the harm in this scene anyway?
 
And don't get me wrong I love books set during the original series--it's just if you add all those books up to the TV series, you'd basically have a 23 year mission--it's far too much for 5 years.
Yeah, but only if you insist that every single book happened. The sheer number of books, comics, short stories, and audio adventures makes that pretty impossible. If you just include the ones you like and discount the ones you don't, it's a lot easier to fit stuff in.
 
^^^One way around that is to just include the year in the chapter headings, which Christopher often does in his DTI novels. Most readers of the novels seem to accept the chronology developed by the Okudas (with some adjustments, of course), so explicitly stating that a chapter happened in 2282 gives the reader in idea of the era and the likely key players involved in the story.
 
The head exploding scene was a bit gratuitous I'll admit (it was shown in all its glory here in the US believe it or not when it was first shown).

TNG was in first-run syndication, so the censorship standards were probably a bit more lax than on a network show.


The thing about these guys at Bad Robot is that they want to be the sole creators of the their own story sans consideration for something perhaps considerably or even remotely better.

Wow. Filmmakers just can't win. They adapt a novel or remake a movie and people complain that they aren't original enough. They tell an original story and other people complain they aren't imitative enough.

Seriously, your comment makes no sense whatsoever. Didn't the makers of the original ten Trek movies want to create their own stories too? Didn't the creators of the Star Wars movies, or Back to the Future, or any number of other original film series? How in the world is this specific to Bad Robot?
 
Sure, but I just find it odd that people criticize STID for it but not "Space Seed," which was even worse because it employed brownface makeup. I guess maybe they're grading "Space Seed" on a curve because it was a common practice back then, but that doesn't make it blameless.
My main objection is the lack of internal consistency. If they wanted Khan to be Sikh, they should at least have had an actor who looks Indian (however that was achieved). And yes, I know Sikhism is a religion, not an ethnicity, but there are a lot of Sikhs in Canada and not one of them that I have ever seen has been white.

As for casting, I've often thought Naveen Andrews would've been a good choice for Khan.
Agreed, and I've said so on numerous occasions on this site.
 
TNG was in first-run syndication, so the censorship standards were probably a bit more lax than on a network show.




Wow. Filmmakers just can't win. They adapt a novel or remake a movie and people complain that they aren't original enough. They tell an original story and other people complain they aren't imitative enough.

Seriously, your comment makes no sense whatsoever. Didn't the makers of the original ten Trek movies want to create their own stories too? Didn't the creators of the Star Wars movies, or Back to the Future, or any number of other original film series? How in the world is this specific to Bad Robot?


Yeah, probably true. I was still surprised when I first saw it. I'm a big horror movie fan so it didn't phase me (compared to something like Dawn of the Dead or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre--which amazingly had very little actual gore considering-but I digress), but I was like damn, they actually showed that on TV. Nowadays it's pretty tame, but in 1988 you just didn't see that sort of thing on TV.
 
My main objection is the lack of internal consistency. If they wanted Khan to be Sikh, they should at least have had an actor who looks Indian (however that was achieved). And yes, I know Sikhism is a religion, not an ethnicity, but there are a lot of Sikhs in Canada and not one of them that I have ever seen has been white.

Yeah, there's no denying that. Montalban was great in the role but why they decided he should be a Sikh I'll never know. I mean, couldn't he have just been a, you know, Mexican superman? The ethnicity/background of the character really wasn't critical to the character, except for his name (you don't see too many Mexicans named Khan-but still).

I just thought STID compounded the problem by making him a British white guy-really off the mark and now not only whitewashing the character, but the actor as well. They made up some lame excuse that they didn't want to cast a minority in a terrorist role (did they even believe that when they were saying it?). First of all, if you're worried about that, then DON'T USE THE CHARACTER IN THE FIRST PLACE. Second, the character is Sikh---I may be off the mark but I don't know of any major Sikh terrorist organizations out there. And the original actor who played the part was Mexican--not aware of any issues there either. If anything they expose themselves more to criticism of racial bias taking a major role played originally by a minority and casting a Caucasian in the role.
 
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To be fair, the whole bit about Khan being a Sikh comes from one line of dialogue in SPACE SEED. It's not essential to his character. It was never mentioned in WRATH OF KHAN. Khan never refers to himself as a Sikh or does anything particularly Sikh-like. Khan defines himself as a genetic superman, that's all.

Granted, I got two books out of his Indian roots, but it's probably possible to overestimate how important the "Sikh" thing is with regards to Khan.
 
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Second, the character is Sikh---I may be off the mark but I don't know of any major Sikh terrorist organizations out there.

Not in the US, but there was a Sikh nationalist terrorist group in India in the 1980s. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi put them down violently with a huge death toll, and she was assassinated in retaliation by her own Sikh bodyguards.

Then again, American racists don't bother to make such distinctions -- to them, anyone in a turban is the same. I still remember how, immediately after 9/11, some racists murdered a totally innocent Sikh gas-station owner because they were too stupid to know the difference between Sikhs and Muslims (or between the culpable parties and totally innocent people who happened to share their nominal faith).


To be fair, the whole bit about Khan being a Sikh comes from one line of dialogue in SPACE SEED. It's not essential to his character. It was never mentioned in WRATH OF KHAN. Khan never refers to himself as a Sikh or does anything particularly Sikh-like. Khan defines himself as a genetic superman, that's all.

For that matter, it was just Marla McGivers's guess that he was "probably a Sikh." He never confirmed it. So she could've just been wrong. Although the Singh surname is consistent with Sikhism (the only part of Kellam DeForest's research notes they actually listened to).
 
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