How do you pronounce his name?
Oh yeah, we watched it. Stupid, but fun. Chris Peterson's dad was played by Chris Elliott's real-life father Bob Elliott. His acting was terrible, but I think that was an intentional part of the show's awkward charm. Every time the dad character made a joke about how weird/lame his son was, you kinda had to wonder if it was based on a kernel of parallel truth in their real lives.
I remember two Star Trek connections: (1) Chris' mother was played by Elinor Donahue, and she still looked marvelous. (2) In the third episode, the padded fighting contests at the father-son picnic used a re-orchestration of the famous "Star Trek fight music." It was unexpected and so overly dramatic for the lame "American Gladiators" wannabes, and especially the Petersons' pathetic performances. Good stuff.
Last edited:
I don't know. I would hazard a guess that it either rhymes with lean or mine.
But I not only remember Get a Life, I think it's one of the craziest, most subversive and wonderful comedies ever. Chris Elliott is awesome.
Remember Late Night With David Letterman when Elliott was "The Guy Under the Stairs"? Or his imitation of Marlon Brando doing "The Banana Dance"?
Or his movie Cabin Boy?
Sheer manic brilliance.
Last edited:
do you think it's outgrowing, or shifting priorities/mindset? (or both?)
20 years ago I used to be a diehard football fan so much so that I told my manager once that I would work any Saturday if I could have Sundays off during football season, so I could watch my team (she obliged)...
Used to be that I HAD to get tickets on opening night for a movie...
but eventually it became: "I'll see it next weekend, when the hype cools off", then: 'I'll see it when it comes out on Blu-Ray", and now: 'I'll see it when it comes to streaming..."
so many examples of this...which i think a lot of people experience...I still like football, but I don't need to see the game, I'm content to watch the highlights, I don't need to see a movie on opening day (last time I did was Captain America: Civil War)...
some of it is a shift in technology of course....we didn't have streaming or Blu rays as a kid, so if you missed a movie in the theater, you had to wait for second run theaters to carry it...or you were screwed, at least until the VCR/rental market became mainstream in the mid 80s...
as far as sports: yeah it was great to be able to celebrate a championship, but later on you no longer feel suicidal if your team loses in the big game...as you did when you were younger...
Both, I’m sure. You reach a different place in life, and the stuff that once seemed central just gradually seems to matter less and less, until one day…
On the other hand, I’ve been in a hospital at the moment when some momentous sports victory happens on the TV, and old people throughout the place start cheering. So obviously it doesn’t always fade.
No problem.
I'm pretty sure I have most if not all of the Star Trek Encyclopedia editions, certainly the first and at least one of the updated editions, then the giant super duper two-volume hardcover slipcase edition that my wonderful wife got me for Christmas back around the 50th anniversary.
Just remembered this - I got the so-called Star Trek "Omnipedia" on CD-ROM back in the mid 1990s from Simon & Schuster. They were trying to crack into the nascent digital age.
The best part of the whole thing, from today's standpoint, is that the offer also included a big poster of an illustrated timeline of Trek weaponry. It's probably worth more than the CDs now.
cheers all
I'm pretty sure I have most if not all of the Star Trek Encyclopedia editions, certainly the first and at least one of the updated editions, then the giant super duper two-volume hardcover slipcase edition that my wonderful wife got me for Christmas back around the 50th anniversary.
Just remembered this - I got the so-called Star Trek "Omnipedia" on CD-ROM back in the mid 1990s from Simon & Schuster. They were trying to crack into the nascent digital age.
The best part of the whole thing, from today's standpoint, is that the offer also included a big poster of an illustrated timeline of Trek weaponry. It's probably worth more than the CDs now.
cheers all
Last edited:
I may have my timeline mixed up and this isn’t a TOS question, but regardless, following up the note about the 1941 nod, did TNG ever establish the place of first contact as Bozeman, Montana before the appearance of the Bozeman in "Cause and Effect?" There was never a Navy ship named Bozeman that I remember, so the name choice is interesting. It works now in-universe, because the ship's name name serves as an homage by Starfleet/the UFP to first contact. But assuming the answer to my question is no, it's always struck me as an interesting naming choice by Braga. I'm straining to recall whether Bozeman is Braga's hometown. (I know that Berman is from NYC so I doubt that the Bozeman references were his.) If it is, I guess Braga named the ship and then continued the tribute in Generations and First Contact.
"Cause And Effect" first aired in March 1992.
First Contact premiered in November 1996.
I can confidently say that the Bozeman, Montana reference wasn't established until the movie - certainly not in TNG.
My first instinct is to chalk it up as coincidence.
I find it interesting that there might be a naval connection. Not to mention Braga's hometown... although that's kinda ringing a bell...
My memory isn't what it used to be. But then, if that's true, how would I know?
cheers
Thanks—I'm not enough of a TNG aficionado to know whether they came up with the first contact time and place details before the movie. Appreciate the clarification!
I checked and Braga was born in Bozeman before moving to Ohio as a kid. So he assuredly chose that name for the ship as an homage, included the nod to it (or another ship of the same name) in Generations, and then doubled down in FC by setting the Earthside story there.
why didn't he have a 'USS Buckeye' ?
There wasn't a USS Bozeman. You'd think it would at least have a light cruiser named for it.
FWIW, the Star Trek Encyclopedia published in 1994 in its italicized aside comment from the authors explicitly states that the Bozeman was named because the Montana town was Braga's hometown and that the hull number was a reference to Spielberg's movie because Greg Jein did the models for that movie.
Thanks for checking. I didn’t think so. You're right that it would probably have been a CL or CLG with their "smaller cities" naming convention, but maybe Bozeman was too relatively new and/or too small. Nice shoutout by Braga, and the later decision to set first contact there makes the name very rational in universe.
Prior to the film Star Trek First Contact: nothing had really been stated in any on-screen Star Trek franchise TV series or film regarding Earthling and Alien First Contact.
Around the time that Star Trek the Motion Picture came out, there was a lot of tie in Star Trek material; and if I recall, one of the star chart manuals had an anecdote about an the first Earthship with FTL capability responding to an unknown distress signal - and finding and assisting a Tellerite ship as a result.
And from their contact with the teller rights Earth learned about other species like Vulcans and Andorians.
They named an Atlanta class CVL for Juneau, a city in the then Territory of Alaska, so you'd think a city in a state would have been considered first, but I guess not.
I had to look this up. Broke out my copy of the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology, indeed published as a tie-in to TMP in December 1979. Not sure if this is the one you remember.
It details STU spaceflight starting with real-world events of the twentieth century followed by conjectural events of the 21st and 22nd centuries, much of it based on references from TOS, such as an Earth based spaceflight to Alpha Centauri, where humans first met "Alpha Centaurians," including Zefrem Cochrane.
Don't forget, he was introduced as "Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centauri" in "Metamorphosis," which was ignored when they made First Contact.
The book lists first contact with the Vulcans as a result of an Earth vessel picking up their distress call and subsequently rescuing them in 2065 - not far off from the now established date of first contact in 2063.
First contact with the Tellarites is described as taking place in 2073 when they visited the Sol System and tried to "claim" it, a confrontation which resulted in their becoming allies.
I cite this purely with fun and curiosity in mind. Thanks for reminding me about the book. I hadn't cracked it open in a long time.
cheers
Could have been that there was already a Helena. I'm certain that politics played a role in terms of ship name choice then as now.
Not necessarily. Cochrane was the first Earth human to reach Alpha Centauri and proving other star systems were within reach within an acceptable time frame. Although we don’t say, “Neil Armstrong of the Moon.” his name is forever linked to that feat of being the first person to step onto another world. In like manner Kirk recognizes Cochrane’s name and immediately connects it with Alpha Centauri as Cochrane being the first human to reach another star system.
Last edited:
Similar threads
