I've been a fan since 1967 when Chekov was added. I became a bigger fan when reruns started and I would rush home from school to watch it every afternoon. I love all the shows, and look forward to a world modeled after Gene's vision, hopefully without the Eugenics War amongst others.
Old-Timers Thread (kids not allowed!)
- Thread starter Chrisisall
- Start date
That would be me, even watching it (whwen it was on) Friday night instead of going out.
I was born in 1970 and the original Enterprise is still the single most awesome spaceship design I've ever seen. Even the 1979 refit--beautiful as she is--doesn't match her.
Ditto that...
Harumpf!
Well, I hope I'm welcome even though I'm just south of 30! I remember watching Star Trek as a little boy with my dad before Next Gen came out. When people of my generation hear "Star Trek" most of them do think of baldy and the robot (and their klingon receptionist).
For my part, though, I do think of the original as a level up on it's successors. I still go back to Kirk and Spock. Politics and production technology aside, even as a guy in his twenties (for a few more months anyway) I still and will likely forever see Star Trek as the best of the shows. I enjoyed the new movie, in spite of it's enormous plot holes, but still, it's not the Trek I watched with my dad as a little kid. It's not the same. It's not, dare I say, as good.
As to the design of the show, I'm no just a Star Trek fan. I've spent a lot of hobby time studying numerous different shows and movies from the earliest silent films like George Melies' A Trip to the Moon (1902) to Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) to Flash Gordon from the 30's, the 50's, and the 80's, to Forbidden Planet to Star Wars to Independence Day to Starship Troopers to Battlestar Galactica (both versions). And on and on and on. Having seen it all, I still think Matt Jefferies work on Star Trek is the top drawer. The Enterprise is elegant and practical. It works on a sculptural level as well as implying a plausible engineering solution to the question, what would a star ship look like? There is no angle where the ship looks bad. And there's no angle where the ship can be confused for anything but the Enterprise. Phasers and communicators, and even tricorders share this design ethic; practical elegance.
Even TOS aliens seem more real to me in a way. I've lately been watching a bunch of Next Gen episodes and I've got to say, enough with the foreheads! On the original show, the aliens either looked like humans, or like something else. On the new shows, the aliens just don't seem "alien" enough. They just seem like guys in funny suits with increasingly elaborate and nonsensical cranial structures. I'm ok with aliens looking like humans since, after all, we know there is at least one planet that has developed such creatures. Why shouldn't a similar planet have made similar creatures?
Oh well. That's all I got right now. Our first son was just born a few weeks ago so I guess this was good practice at "old man rant mode" he'll be expecting form me in a few years.
--Alex
Well, I hope I'm welcome even though I'm just south of 30! I remember watching Star Trek as a little boy with my dad before Next Gen came out. When people of my generation hear "Star Trek" most of them do think of baldy and the robot (and their klingon receptionist).
For my part, though, I do think of the original as a level up on it's successors. I still go back to Kirk and Spock. Politics and production technology aside, even as a guy in his twenties (for a few more months anyway) I still and will likely forever see Star Trek as the best of the shows. I enjoyed the new movie, in spite of it's enormous plot holes, but still, it's not the Trek I watched with my dad as a little kid. It's not the same. It's not, dare I say, as good.
As to the design of the show, I'm no just a Star Trek fan. I've spent a lot of hobby time studying numerous different shows and movies from the earliest silent films like George Melies' A Trip to the Moon (1902) to Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) to Flash Gordon from the 30's, the 50's, and the 80's, to Forbidden Planet to Star Wars to Independence Day to Starship Troopers to Battlestar Galactica (both versions). And on and on and on. Having seen it all, I still think Matt Jefferies work on Star Trek is the top drawer. The Enterprise is elegant and practical. It works on a sculptural level as well as implying a plausible engineering solution to the question, what would a star ship look like? There is no angle where the ship looks bad. And there's no angle where the ship can be confused for anything but the Enterprise. Phasers and communicators, and even tricorders share this design ethic; practical elegance.
Even TOS aliens seem more real to me in a way. I've lately been watching a bunch of Next Gen episodes and I've got to say, enough with the foreheads! On the original show, the aliens either looked like humans, or like something else. On the new shows, the aliens just don't seem "alien" enough. They just seem like guys in funny suits with increasingly elaborate and nonsensical cranial structures. I'm ok with aliens looking like humans since, after all, we know there is at least one planet that has developed such creatures. Why shouldn't a similar planet have made similar creatures?
Oh well. That's all I got right now. Our first son was just born a few weeks ago so I guess this was good practice at "old man rant mode" he'll be expecting form me in a few years.
--Alex
Definitely, I sense that you are an old soul; chronological age is not so significant.
You exhibit wiseness in this!
But as much fun as we can get without Gene & the Shat....
We reach!
I mean, like "Horta-mindmeld" reach!
He's got a cool Dad, that much is certain.
Yeah, I'm technically crashing here, too, but let me add a couple of things to what I said above.
To me, the TOS and TMP Enterprises can best be compared to the classic sexy librarian: The TOS ship is her with her glasses on and hair up. The TMP version is her when she whips off the glasses and shakes out her hair. Thing is, I was always more turned on by the librarian when she looked like a librarian. (The TNG version is the dumpy sister--you can see the family resemblance but the proportions are all wrong. The Abramsprise is what happens when the sexy librarian hooks up with a biker gang and gets a tramp stamp and platinum highlights in her raven hair--sure, she gives you a rise in the Levis but you may not feel good about it.)
Okay, in all seriousness: The original looks* like a ship that was designed for function and somehow attained grace. The rest look like they're trying too hard to be space sculpture. Some are drop-dead gorgeous--the refit--and some are not--the D--but none surpass the original.
*I said "looks"--I'm well aware the ship was designed to look good first and foremost.
To me, the TOS and TMP Enterprises can best be compared to the classic sexy librarian: The TOS ship is her with her glasses on and hair up. The TMP version is her when she whips off the glasses and shakes out her hair. Thing is, I was always more turned on by the librarian when she looked like a librarian. (The TNG version is the dumpy sister--you can see the family resemblance but the proportions are all wrong. The Abramsprise is what happens when the sexy librarian hooks up with a biker gang and gets a tramp stamp and platinum highlights in her raven hair--sure, she gives you a rise in the Levis but you may not feel good about it.)
Okay, in all seriousness: The original looks* like a ship that was designed for function and somehow attained grace. The rest look like they're trying too hard to be space sculpture. Some are drop-dead gorgeous--the refit--and some are not--the D--but none surpass the original.
*I said "looks"--I'm well aware the ship was designed to look good first and foremost.
You ol' farts are a riot! All the newer Treks are better... old Trek is tired and dated.
And the Enterprise... don't get me started on how dated that thing is! I mean just look at her... look at her!
I don't know about the rest of you guys but I can barely stand to look at her (for more than 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for decades on end).
Well, as a kid I know I'm not welcome here... so after this small act of defiance I'll leave you senior citizens to your musings.
And the Enterprise... don't get me started on how dated that thing is! I mean just look at her... look at her!
I don't know about the rest of you guys but I can barely stand to look at her (for more than 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for decades on end).
Well, as a kid I know I'm not welcome here... so after this small act of defiance I'll leave you senior citizens to your musings.
Shaw,I think I just jizzed in my pants.
I'd have to agree.
IIRC, the Enterprise was my first 'love'. Fortunately, I later found girls, but I digress. Hopefully, I'm not being a gate crasher here, but it wasn't until '72, at the tender age of 5, that I found Star Trek in reruns after school. Watching it always left me with a sense of wonder and hope for the future, and as someone who was very aware of the cold war growing up, that says something. I have been very open to all incarnations of Trek, but there will never be anything that will match the original. Oh, and if it helps, the white hair in my beard is beginning to take over the dark, and my sight and hearing seem to be in a competition as to which one will need man made assistance first.
It was the Enterprise herself that got me to watch the show. I fell in love with her before I became a Trekkie.
Well, your parents were a lot more liberal than mine. I had to miss most of the first season because it was "after my bedtime."
My parents weren't liberal, they wanted peace in the household, something that could ONLY be achieved through my ability to get my early Trek "fix."Well, your parents were a lot more liberal than mine. I had to miss most of the first season because it was "after my bedtime."
Does anyone besides us realize that the ship was just as important as Kirk, Spock, etc?
Dunno - but they bloody well ought to...
Incidentally, we all seem to feel that the original ship is the sexiest - how about the rest of the Starfleet aesthetics. Personally, I can't think of any sexier uniform than the ones in TOS. Bill Theiss tried with his designs on TNG but I challenge anyone to say he'd bettered his earlier work in the sixties...
His earlier stuff was simple & perfect. His TNG stuff was influenced by the need to *seem* more evolved.
Nope.
Ship = vehicle that carried people to adventures or upon which adventures happened. In and of itself, I didn't give a damn about what kind of ship was used.
In fact, I found most Federation ships impractical. The nacelles should have been easy to shoot off and the Bridge should have been better protected.
An unshielded ship would be vulnerable no matter what its design. Denial of this is futile!
Like most of the younger people in this thread, I will first apologise for entering a thread meant for 'old-timers'.
But I think it's unfair to assume that just because you're young, means you are instantly dismissive or unappreciative of the old stuff!
I was born in 1985, well into the Star Trek movie era, but of course living in Australia, we were always a few years behind the rest of the world so our exposure to ST was pretty limited. No conventions. No TV specials.
My first exposure to Star Trek was, well, before I could remember really. My dad would watch late night re-runs (ST typically airs in Australia late at night) with me as a baby because I would be crying waiting for my midnight feeding, and he would get up and feed me the bottle and watch STAR TREK! Even as a baby, I would always awkwardly wrench my neck to see the Enterprise every time it WOOSHED by in the intro sequence (apparently during the entire intro sequence I would be glued to the television).
My dad would record these re-runs on VHS (well, as many as he could anyway) and made a list in a notepad of all the episodes he had, and on what tape they were on. As I got older, I started to actively watch the show and it became my companion TV show for when I was growing up from about age 3 onwards. Most kids I imagine were watching Sesame Street or Play School. I was watching STAR TREK. I loved looking through that notepad and simply choosing an episode based on how cool the title sounded. I didn't care about special effects, or 60's style acting - this was the BEST thing to watch for me. It fostered my love of astronomy and computers (something which has stuck with me to this day).
We didn't even have all the episodes, out of the 79 episodes, my dad only got about 40 or so of them, but I would still watch them anyway.
Of course, the movies were already out, but my dad didn't show them to me straight away - only once I had watched the show a LOT, he started to show me the movies. Of course I loved those too.
And then Next Gen came on, and yeah, loved that too (although for a long time I preferred to watch the original series). And more movies. And then more series. Which I love too.
But STAR TREK was there at the beginning, and in a way, I felt I was there at the beginning because I didn't know anything else. When you're 3 years old, it doesn't matter if a show is 20 years old or 2 years old - if it's good it's GOOD. And back then, STAR TREK was the BEST. It was the first for me (just like it was for all the people twice my age here) and will always have a special place for me.
Whenever I want to feel like a child again, I will pop in an episode of STAR TREK, like Balance of Terror or the Doomsday Machine, and it's like a warm, secure, blanket. It's the only way I will experience that childlike wonder about space and adventure ever again, and only the original series, the first movie and very very early TNG make me feel that way (and early TNG is CRAP).
Thanks for listening
But I think it's unfair to assume that just because you're young, means you are instantly dismissive or unappreciative of the old stuff!
I was born in 1985, well into the Star Trek movie era, but of course living in Australia, we were always a few years behind the rest of the world so our exposure to ST was pretty limited. No conventions. No TV specials.
My first exposure to Star Trek was, well, before I could remember really. My dad would watch late night re-runs (ST typically airs in Australia late at night) with me as a baby because I would be crying waiting for my midnight feeding, and he would get up and feed me the bottle and watch STAR TREK! Even as a baby, I would always awkwardly wrench my neck to see the Enterprise every time it WOOSHED by in the intro sequence (apparently during the entire intro sequence I would be glued to the television).
My dad would record these re-runs on VHS (well, as many as he could anyway) and made a list in a notepad of all the episodes he had, and on what tape they were on. As I got older, I started to actively watch the show and it became my companion TV show for when I was growing up from about age 3 onwards. Most kids I imagine were watching Sesame Street or Play School. I was watching STAR TREK. I loved looking through that notepad and simply choosing an episode based on how cool the title sounded. I didn't care about special effects, or 60's style acting - this was the BEST thing to watch for me. It fostered my love of astronomy and computers (something which has stuck with me to this day).
We didn't even have all the episodes, out of the 79 episodes, my dad only got about 40 or so of them, but I would still watch them anyway.
Of course, the movies were already out, but my dad didn't show them to me straight away - only once I had watched the show a LOT, he started to show me the movies. Of course I loved those too.
And then Next Gen came on, and yeah, loved that too (although for a long time I preferred to watch the original series). And more movies. And then more series. Which I love too.
But STAR TREK was there at the beginning, and in a way, I felt I was there at the beginning because I didn't know anything else. When you're 3 years old, it doesn't matter if a show is 20 years old or 2 years old - if it's good it's GOOD. And back then, STAR TREK was the BEST. It was the first for me (just like it was for all the people twice my age here) and will always have a special place for me.
Whenever I want to feel like a child again, I will pop in an episode of STAR TREK, like Balance of Terror or the Doomsday Machine, and it's like a warm, secure, blanket. It's the only way I will experience that childlike wonder about space and adventure ever again, and only the original series, the first movie and very very early TNG make me feel that way (and early TNG is CRAP).
Thanks for listening