Shatner's post-TOS Dog Days?

Wow . . . maybe Hitler was right.

 

I didn't see anything posted here (amongst all of the drivel) about Shatner's boozing days, after which he starred in TJ Hooker. A show about a cop who hit rock bottom and came back. It was basically his recovery from alcoholism.

 

It's called "media imperialism," and Hollywood is in control of it around the world. Asia, obviously has taken a westernized model when it comes to livelihood, trade, business, fashion, technology, and most importantly mass media. It's just the way it is, and the way it has been ever since Commodore Matthew Perry (U.S.A.) opened internationl relations with Japan in 1854.

 

Godwin's Law strikes!

 

I could understand that in this country, given that Hollywood is about all there is, but the notion of people on the side of the world rejecting their own for the whole Aryan thing is, well, either creepy or pathetic. There's some underlying issue that goes beyond the money and power of Hollywood if it overshadows productions in the native lands. And it makes me shudder.

 

^^^
Aryan? What are you talking about? Makes you shudder? It's just economic hegemony. ANY big business corners the market from here to Asia. Whatever you're suggesting is just bizzar.

There is never any underlying issue besides money and power. Trust me.

 

The definition of "Godwin's Law."

 

Every single country in Asia and its citizens are fully aware of the fact that the United States is the world's super power. We live in a global community. There are not enough resources in each and every single Asian country in Asia, and they cannot thrive or survive without being allied with the United States.

My native country of South Korea just opened up a Free Trade Agreement with the United States last year. But there were 2 demands enforced on the South Korean government. Double the length of time that Hollywood films play in South Korean theaters, thus meaning that a quote is placed where only half of South Korea's own native films are produced each and every year and shown in theaters than ever before. Which means, Hollywood receives twice as much money from South Korean theaters than they did ever before, and the South Korean film industry receives only half the revenue they generated in previous years, which effects the South Korean film industry which actually has been thriving in recent years with films like "Old Boy" and "Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War." Also some local South Korean farms in the south had to close down due to expansion of military bases, and the insistence that South Koreans receive more American produced agricultural goods.

The bottomline is that, you are either with "Big Brother" or you are not. South Korea cannot afford to turn its back on the United States, so they have no choice but to comply with these demands. Just look what happened to France when it turned its back on the United States and did not join "The Coalition of the Willing?" France was ostracized and humiliated by the United States in the global community. A nation like my South Korea wants to compete in the global market. They cannot afford to turn their backs on American imperialism if they want to thrive and survive as a nation and remain an important player in the global community.

As for a country like Japan, Americans are fascinated with their products, so Japan obviously has the upperhand in raising prices of their goods when exporting them to the United States, while at the same time raising high tariffs on American made goods imported into Japan. But, if Japan were to ever turn its back on the United States, they are screwed. Royally screwed in the global community, because if America loses confidence in Japan, other nations would follow causing a domino effect that will also make other nations turn their backs on Japan, cutting-off access to outsourcing and natural resources (Japan hardly has any natural resources of its own to sustain its own industries...). American imperialism with the power of the United States government, its powerful military, and its mass media is something that westernized countries around the world cannot ignore or turn their backs on. It's just a way of life around the world that many societies have accepted as the way it is and the way this world operates.

 

It's not just an "economic hegemony" to reject people who resemble yourself in favor of the blond-haired, blue-eyed Hollywood type -- there must be something deeper going on than that.

 

So, do you think if more American films showed people of Asian descent in a positive sense, and had more in starring roles, they would favor American movies as much, or does it have more to do with idolizing whites, who seem to represent a stronger or more successful race?

 

Basil, could you edit your quoting down to what's pertinent rather than just copying seven posts that we can all go back and read just so you can add two or three lines of your own?

This thread has taken a very strange turn from discussion of Shatner into a whole other issue. One that would be better suited for Gen Media than TOS.

 

Yes, and?

 

I already answered this question, twice.

What do you think?

Mallory is right. We have gone off topic. This topic went from William Shatner's Dog Days ---> George Takei ---> Discussion on Asian American and Asian Affairs. If you would like to discuss this further, we can take this to this thread in the General Discussion forum: Star Trek celebrates Asian Pacific American Heritage Month!

Let's get back to the original topic.

 

Will do. Sorry for the long copies and to have taken the post off topic, but I found GWR's observations fascinating and disturbing. I'll do better in the future.

 

I looked a little sideways at Shatner's Movie Memories when he described meeting Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins in the summer of 1968 and they were being touted as "the guys that were going to land on the moon". My understanding was that no one knew any such thing in 1968. They knew they were going to be Apollo 11, but NASA also expected that there would be repeat missions and schedule changes. (For instance no one knew Apollo 8 would orbit the moon.) To say nothing of the fact that all of the pics of "the gang" at NASA always have our fearless captain strangely absent.

If I have all of this wrong and The Shat was telling The Shat's Honest Truth, then I apologize. Otherwise it seemed like a nice setup for his "I was king of the world one summer and a year later I watched the moon landing alone in my camper while missing my daughters" story. BTW, that was the part of the book I really did believe. "If I don't get to see my girls I'll die." Suprisingly touching.

So what about that boozing?

 

Actually up to April 1968 (according to Deke!, by Deke Slayton and Michael Cassutt, and one of the best possible references for crew assignment planning in that era since Slayton made the schedules from Gemini through Apollo-Soyuz), Michael Collins was assigned to Apollo 9, alongside Frank Borman and Bill Anders. The backup Apollo 9 crew -- and thus the Apollo 12 heirs presumptive were Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Jim Lovell. Then Collins had to go into surgery for a bone spur between two vertebrae, and Lovell was moved up to the prime crew of Apollo 9, with Fred Haise taking Lovell's spot on the backup crew/Apollo 12 designate.

In August 1968, since there was little hope that the Lunar Module to be tested in Earth orbit planned for what was then Apollo 8 -- with crew Jim McDivitt, Dave Scott, and Rusty Schweickart, and backup crew (thus Apollo 11 likelies) Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon, and Al Bean -- Frank Borman accepted the plan to change his Apollo 9, a high earth orbit Command/Service and Lunar Module test, into a lunar orbit Command/Service Module test, with the schedule swapped to come ahead of McDivitt's crew.

So that's when Borman, Lovell, and Anders became the crew of Apollo 8, and the presumptive Apollo 11 crew became Armstrong, Aldrin, and Haise. Collins, recovered from surgery, was given the formal assignment to Apollo 11 after the return of Apollo 8, and Haise became the Lunar Module pilot backup for 11, with the schedule to fly on 14. (Apollo 13 and 14 had a switch too.)

In short, through 1968, Armstrong-Aldrin-Collins weren't a team, although there was good reason to expect that Armstrong or Conrad would be prime candidates for first-on-the-moon, and Aldrin or Bean would be with him.

(There was also a bit of a complicating factor that Slayton was willing to throw the schedule overboard if he had good reason. He would have made Grissom the commander for the first landing were Grissom alive whatever the rotation ended up doing if it were not an obviously impossible choice -- such as being vetoed by a higher-up, or had Grissom flown much too recently to be able to train for the landing mission -- and he considered offering it to Borman.)

Of course, it's worth remembering first that any group of astronauts shown to the Star Trek people around that time could be fairly well described as ``the people who are going to walk on the moon'', and that it would be natural if one met Armstrong or Aldrin before Apollo 11 to remember them with singular interest afterwards. Most people would do the same.

 

Thanks! I don't feel like digging up the book, but IIRC he was very specific (perhaps cleaning up after the fact.) He may have even gone so far as to say "July 1969". Dunno. But the more I think on it, I'm more curious about the fact that there are a bunch of "Trek folk with NASA" pictures out there and I don't recall seeing Shatner in any of them.

 

Well, July 1969 would be a plausible thing to be told -- between the orbital mechanics dictating when a landing could be done and when launch pads would be available, there were useful launch windows for May, July, September, and November 1969. The May, July, and November ones were in fact used that year. Assuming one lunar-orbit test flight with the Lunar Module, and that makes July or September 1969 reasonable bets from the view of Summer 1968.