Star Trek-RM: The Cloud Minders… Grading/Discussion

[AstroSmurf]

This is the grading & discussion thread for Star Trek Remastered airing the weekend of 07/12/08.

The Cloud Minders

The U.S.S. Enterprise is sent on a mission to acquire the precious rare mineral zienite, needed to stop a planet-wide plague on Merak II. But when the crew arrives at planet Ardana to negotiate for the desperately required substance, they find that none is available due to a social rebellion between the surface dwelling Troglytes and the ruling class living in the cloud-city of Stratos. In a desperate bid to save a world from certain death, Kirk must try and negotiate a truce between the warring classes while finding relief for the Troglytes from their hazardous working conditions.

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Next Week’s Episode: Spectre of the Gun
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[cooleddie74]

B.

With Above Average remastering for the fetching, amazing new Stratos cloud city and shots of the planet Ardana. Very nice new CGI buildings and clouds with much more texture and detail than the old 1968/69 matte painting.

 

[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

I always disliked the episode's deus ex machina ending, in which the Enterprise has to rescue Kirk from the zienite gas with the transporter.

 

[zopman]

I always liked the idea of this episode, & the genuine heat between Droxine & Spock. And I think this was the one episode where someone (Jeff Corey as the High Advisor) actually out-over-acted Shat ("Very well, if you prefer the RAYS!!").

Of course, as mentioned in the other thread, the new Stratos rendering is top-notch gorgeous, although that real money shot (the closeup) is shown only once & so briefly you could miss it if you blinked (& also cropped for the TV screen so you don't see the full extent of the panorama as shown in the screen shot). Also, the initial view of the city floating up above from the planet surface is OK (yes, so much better than the original), but is a bit more fake & not quite as blow-away as the closeup. But I quibble: B- for the episode, A- for the FX. Bravo guys, nice re-envisioning!!

 

[Kryton]

I hadn't seen this episode in decades...the one thing that really struck me as "out of character" for the show in general was the Spock "re-cap" complete with flashbacks.

It was very jarring in some ways since the whole "Captain's Log" conceit was created just to avoid such narrations.

 

[Gepard]

B- for the episode, Excellent for the remastering.

The episode suffered from many of the standard season three issues, especially making Spock all out of character (he might as well be drooling over Droxine), and the preaching gets heavy-handed in the middle, but it has a nice wrap-up, and I appreciated that Plasus stayed pissed at Kirk and Spock at the end, instead of agreeing that they were right.

Lovely job on the new VFX, especially incorporating the new shots into the montoge over Spock. I'm not sure how they pulled it off, since I was under the impression that they didn't have access to the oroginal footage; so, however they eliminated the original superimposed shots and replaced them with the new, good job.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

Should've replaced Stratos with shots of Bespin Cloud City.

Also, have the High Advisor try to carbon freeze the troglydite woman.

Really, I never cared for this episode. I don't remember from when I was younger. It's just kinda blah to me. And it seems odd that the enlightened Federation tolerates such a rigid class-based society. And Kirk would've kicked Jeff Corey's ass in about 5 seconds.

However, the part where the psycho red-head (is that redundant? ) orders Kirk to dig with his bare hands. HAWT. There's a decent amount of S&M in this one.

 

[Shatmandu]

They should have replaced Droxine with Skeletor and checked if anyone noticed.

Joe, eating

 

[Hambone]

This episode features one of the series' most annoying female guest stars. Interesting costume on Droxine but it would have looked just as good on a wire hangar.

Nice CGI Stratos, not what I was expecting though. Still, an improvement. The troglyte's suicide dive was an improvement too...but just barely.

 

[cooleddie74]

Diana Ewing was hot in the day, but more wooden than Pinocchio's dick. I guess it helped give her a more distant and alien persona but it still made her little more than a wax dummy with a killer rack.

 

[SchwEnt]

Has nothing to do with the re-mastering, but...

At the end of the eps, the Enterprise has three hours left to get the zenite to Merak II and stop the botanical plague. THREE HOURS.

So let us say the Enterprise hauls ass at Warp 8 from Ardana all the way to Merak II.
How far could they get in three hours?
How far apart could Merak II and Ardana be?

Just wondering...

 

[Basill]

Has nothing to do with the re-mastering, but...

At the end of the eps, the Enterprise has three hours left to get the zenite to Merak II and stop the botanical plague. THREE HOURS.

So let us say the Enterprise hauls ass at Warp 8 from Ardana all the way to Merak II.
How far could they get in three hours?
How far apart could Merak II and Ardana be?

Just wondering...

Did they actually have to arrive at Merak II within the quoted time? I would have to watch the episode again to get the exact dialog. Maybe they had 3 hours before they absolutely had to leave Ardana or any attempt at making it to Merak II would have been futile, given the ship's known top speed.

 

[Timo]

Spock repeatedly reminds Kirk about how much time they have left. For the last half a dozen times, it is not specified whether this is until the mysterious H-Hour when the disease will suddenly kill every daffodil on Merak, or until the hour the ship has to depart. However, the first time Spock makes this plea, his wording is less ambiguous than later on:

Spock: "We have ten hours and forty minutes to deliver that consignment to Merak Two."

Basically, it seems that the hours that Spock quotes are indeed supposed to be the hours at the end of which the shipment must be at its destination. But that makes absolutely no sense, so of course we can and will interpret it the exact opposite way, saying that the hours are counted towards the last possible moment of departure.

Even better, since the disease itself cannot be a time bomb with an hour-accurate countdown, we can do the same trick that was done in "The Galileo Seven" and decide that the Enterprise isn't flying to Merak II at all. Instead, she is going to fly to a rendezvous with another vessel, and that rendezvous is the thing that is scheduled by the hour.

Once again, logic preserved at the expense of sadly misguided writer intent.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[nx1701g]

Episode: B
Remastering: Above Average (I loved seeing the new and improved Cloud City)

 

[FredCFO]

Good:

Link

Not so good:

Link

 

[Mallory]

Welcome to the board FredCFO. I hope you enjoy your time here with us.

As a reminder, the Board Rules specifically prohibit hotlinking images:

...you should only include an inline images from web space that you own, or with the permission from the web master on which the image is located to avoid what results in costly bandwidth theft to the originating site owner. Instead, please post a link to the image.

I went ahead and changed your post to use links instead.

 

[Jack Bauer]

Spock must've really wanted to bone Droxine. C'mon he just talks casually about Vulcan sex when he kept his mouth tighter than clenched butt cheek about it in Amok Time? He was leading the girl on!!! Droxine was nice looking but I thought that the brunette miner chick was hotter.

 

[Timo]

I find if a bit odd that people so often choose to refer to Spock's casual attitude about pon farr as a sign of his horniness here. I'd say there are far better signs there...

The whole scene begins with a highly atypical "meditation" monologue where Spock uses words such as "beautiful", "pleasant", "charming" and "sweetness" when shamelessly praising the "lovely" Droxine and daydreaming about Vanna on the side. Obviously he's in utter heat to start with. He then hears the very minute noises that Droxine makes next door and moves in with his charm offensive - and once that offensive is in full swing, his Vulcan ears fail to hear the sounds of a violent struggle in the room he just left!

I'd say Spock's seven-year cycle was being majorly disrupted there and then. Or perhaps this was Spock's pon farr year, only it's two and a half years (2,500 stardates) for half-Vulcans rather than seven...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Basill]

I find if a bit odd that people so often choose to refer to Spock's casual attitude about pon farr as a sign of his horniness here. I'd say there are far better signs there...

The whole scene begins with a highly atypical "meditation" monologue where Spock uses words such as "beautiful", "pleasant", "charming" and "sweetness" when shamelessly praising the "lovely" Droxine and daydreaming about Vanna on the side. Obviously he's in utter heat to start with. He then hears the very minute noises that Droxine makes next door and moves in with his charm offensive - and once that offensive is in full swing, his Vulcan ears fail to hear the sounds of a violent struggle in the room he just left!

I'd say Spock's seven-year cycle was being majorly disrupted there and then. Or perhaps this was Spock's pon farr year, only it's two and a half years (2,500 stardates) for half-Vulcans rather than seven...

Timo Saloniemi

Heh. Maybe he was catching up for lost pon farrs. In his private statements to Kirk in Amok Time, he at least implied that he had tried to stave off the natural urges for a time, hoping to be sparred but that the ancient drives were too strong and that "eventually they catch up with us." It is never said in TOS when the process should begin in full swing, but the untamed Genesis Spock was very much younger when he went into his first pon farr in TSFS. Who knows, T'Pring may have been shacked up with Stonn for 20 years? Maybe Spock had done an excellent job holding pon farr at bay but some trigger, maybe something like the plant spores from Omicron Ceti III, set his reproductive physiology into an avalanche even he couldn't control.

 

[Cyrus]

The new Stratos was a definite improvement. But the clouds still look too static, too much like a painting than real clouds.