Star Trek V Press Conference

[Samuel T. Cogley]

Has anyone else seen this "Special Feature" on Disc 2 of the "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" DVD?

It's one of the most awkward and hokey things that I have ever seen. From Harve Bennett and William Shatner's painful and unfunny attempts at stand-up comedy, to watching zombie-like journalists stare uninterested at the entire Enterprise bridge crew -- in uniform -- and standing on the bridge behind some cheap dime-store curtain...

Total train wreck.

They should have burned this footage, not immortalized it on DVD.

Anyone else share my pain?

It's a pain that even Sybok cannot free me of.

 

[Kegek]

Samuel T. Cogley said:
They should have burned this footage, not immortalized it on DVD.

Just this footage, or the entire movie?

 

[trevanian]

Rather than run that press conference, they should have just put a slide show up on screen and run audio transcripts of those script discussions included in the making of trek 5 book. Would have been more entertaining, more informative, and a helluva lot less painful. Including that might be the worse call Robert Meyer Burnett has ever made as a producer, a fan, or a human being (remember this guy has some good taste, his notion of a trek feature was to do an R-rated DS9 with blood and guts and interspecies sex, Tarantino style.)

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

Kegek said:

Samuel T. Cogley said:
They should have burned this footage, not immortalized it on DVD.

Just this footage, or the entire movie?

The movie looks like a masterpiece compared to that press conference footage.

I don't think Shatner answered even one of the journalists' questions with an answer that would be useful.

And Nimoy, Kelley, et al looked like puppets who were dancing at Shatner's command for the amusement of the reporters -- which, I guess, was pretty much the case.

And Ralph Winter's curly mullet and accompanying rainbow/vomit sweater... Yikes!

 

[TGTheodore]

What amazes me (and makes me roll my eyes) is that "reporters" even exist, when television (and I'm assuming magazines and newspapers) disappeared 200 years earlier.

The scene in TFF is almost as bad as the one in Generations.

Don't care if anyone was trying to make any kind of "statement" about tabloid journalism in the 20th Century, reporters just don't fit into ANY incarnation of Star Trek.

--Ted

 

[Kegek]

^
A little context, please? That makes sense as regards Generations, but Cogley seemed to be referring to an actual press conference - and not a scene from TFF. I don't remember a scene of this kind appearing in the film in any case.

 

[Sharr Khan]

TG Theodore said:
What amazes me (and makes me roll my eyes) is that "reporters" even exist, when television (and I'm assuming magazines and newspapers) disappeared 200 years earlier.

The scene in TFF is almost as bad as the one in Generations.

Don't care if anyone was trying to make any kind of "statement" about tabloid journalism in the 20th Century, reporters just don't fit into ANY carnation of Star Trek.

--Ted

Samuel T. Cogley was talking about an actual press event I'm pretty sure.

reporters just don't fit into ANY carnation of Star Trek.

Ok, this confounds me... Surely like any government system there are independent entities that watch and report on its activities and things of "interest" within the Trekvese?

StarFleet and The Federation would be dangerous bodies to keep around without reporters (citizens employed to find "truth" to a certain degree, at least ideally so) looking over their shoulders. This notion that reporters have no place in Star Trek strikes me as odd.

The Federations news service didn't seem very independent to me, at least I can't recall that being shown or indicated.

That's actually one of the things that got points for me in Babylon 5 - it had news services and journalists.

Sharr

 

[Jack Bauer]

I had more fun getting a root canal then seeing this press conference.

 

[Maurice]

^^^than

 

[archeryguy1701]

After reading this thread, I decided to check this conference out. I sat through 3 or 4 minutes and grew massively tired and bored with it. It was promptly turned off and returned to my shelf.

 

[GeorgeKirk]

It was definitely a very hokey, contrived, non-event "event". In other words, it was all Hollywood.

 

[Brikar99]

DS9Sega said:
^^^than

No, no, definitely THEN. Getting meds from the root canal would actually improve the experience!

 

[StewMc]

Its hilariously bad. The best bit is when Shatner is going around introducing the cast by their real names, and when he gets to Koenig he just says something along the lines of "and this is the actor who plays Pavel Chekov", followed up by Koenig quickly saying "Walter Koenig" with a forced smile on his face.

 

[ancient]

Ouch!

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

StewMc said:
Its hilariously bad. The best bit is when Shatner is going around introducing the cast by their real names, and when he gets to Koenig he just says something along the lines of "and this is the actor who plays Pavel Chekov", followed up by Koenig quickly saying "Walter Koenig" with a forced smile on his face.

Agreed.

It was torture.

It went like this:

Shatner: "George Takei... Nichelle Nichols..."

Shatner walks over to Koenig and pauses for just a little too long.

Shatner: "And the gentleman who plays Chekov."

 

[trevanian]

TG Theodore said:
What amazes me (and makes me roll my eyes) is that "reporters" even exist, when television (and I'm assuming magazines and newspapers) disappeared 200 years earlier.

The scene in TFF is almost as bad as the one in Generations.

Don't care if anyone was trying to make any kind of "statement" about tabloid journalism in the 20th Century, reporters just don't fit into ANY incarnation of Star Trek.

--Ted

I don't get that notion at all. Just because you've got a throwaway about TV not lasting past a certain time in TNG doesn't mean you throw out a whole cultural information system, one where the medium affects the viewer nearly as much as (maybe more than) the content.

I always figured news reporting was a big part of any free or democratic culture, and certainly a technologically advanced one purporting to be democratic. In fact, one of my TNG pitches (turned down because according to jeri taylor, they already had a story about a reporter character doing a ship's newspaper in the works) was a freedom of the press story, where Starfleet finally lets some folks onto the e-d to get some good press and good will a year or so after the fleet was pulverized at 359. Thought it would be a good character piece, since you'd see our folks go all out of character, some mugging and some being very quiet. I did not make it like the cliche of muckraking crusader or ideal-free yellow journalism, but just wanted to see how a civilian would view things there (and I also pitched the idea that the news INSERTS would be shot in 3d as a tie-in with 7-11 (MOONLIGHTING had almost run with that idea a few years earlier), but they all laughed at pricing that.

EDIT ADDON: the only actual tv-like scene in TFF is the pitchman thing for nimbus 3 - is that what you thought was so awful in the movie?

 

[TGTheodore]

trevanian said: Just because you've got a throwaway about TV not lasting past a certain time in TNG doesn't mean you throw out a whole cultural information system, one where the medium affects the viewer nearly as much as (maybe more than) the content.

Actually, I was referring more to the "crowding, flashbulb, verbal cacaphony, tabloid" kind of reporters. You'd think it'd be a WEE bit more sophisticated in a few centuries.

--Ted

 

[Holytomato]

"That's actually one of the things that got points for me in Babylon 5 - it had news services and journalists."

Yep. :thumbsup:

 

[trevanian]

TG Theodore said:

trevanian said: Just because you've got a throwaway about TV not lasting past a certain time in TNG doesn't mean you throw out a whole cultural information system, one where the medium affects the viewer nearly as much as (maybe more than) the content.

Actually, I was referring more to the "crowding, flashbulb, verbal cacaphony, tabloid" kind of reporters. You'd think it'd be a WEE bit more sophisticated in a few centuries.

--Ted

To reference David Gerrold, you're still making it for a 20th century audience. And you're referencing a feature film, where they need to cowtow to the masses (hence Burt Reyolds style humor as well.)

I'm still not getting what any of this has to do with disk 2 of st 5 though.

 

[Chris3123]

I thought you were talking about Shatner making a press conference apoligizing to the world for making the movie.