V'ger ACID trip

[RobertScorpio]

So, today I was watching THE MOTION PICTURE and froze Spock's mindmeld with the ILYA probe...have any of you done this? I see a Klingon, in what I bet was Make up designed for the failed TV show..I see someone who looks like Ilya, but I am not sure...

I see the VOYAGER plate, which was cool they slipped that in there...Over all, pretty cool thing to do..

I do like the re-mastered version. But even if this had been the version released, I don't think it would have mattered...the movie is still toooooooo slow for the post-Star Wars crowd...and there just isn't any great interplay between the characters until the end...

Rob

 

[Nebusj]

RobertScorpio said:
I do like the re-mastered version. But even if this had been the version released, I don't think it would have mattered...the movie is still toooooooo slow for the post-Star Wars crowd...and there just isn't any great interplay between the characters until the end...

Er ... the movie was already the second-highest grossing picture of 1979, and earned more in the United States in its 1979-80 release than The Empire Strikes Back did domestically in 1980. What would you want to fiddle with?

 

[RobertScorpio]

Star Trek fans don't generally rate it as the best TREK movie, but if you do you're not actually saying TMP was a better movie than The Empire Strikes Back are you? I am a TREK fan, but come on, TMP?

Phantom Menace vs TMP..maybe...but EMPIRE? Ummmm...no

ER.....

 

[cardinal biggles]

Nebusj said:
Er ... the movie was already the second-highest grossing picture of 1979, and earned more in the United States in its 1979-80 release than The Empire Strikes Back did domestically in 1980. What would you want to fiddle with?

TMP made $82 million in the U.S. (though I've seen one website that claims faulty box-office tallies in the late 70s/early 80s underrepresented its take, and it was closer to $125 million). ESB made $181 million during its first domestic run. Care to explain how TMP earned more?

 

[Nebusj]

cardinal biggles said:

Nebusj said:
Er ... the movie was already the second-highest grossing picture of 1979, and earned more in the United States in its 1979-80 release than The Empire Strikes Back did domestically in 1980. What would you want to fiddle with?

TMP made $82 million in the U.S. (though I've seen one website that claims faulty box-office tallies in the late 70s/early 80s underrepresented its take, and it was closer to $125 million). ESB made $181 million during its first domestic run. Care to explain how TMP earned more?

That's what Internet Movie Database says, under top grossing films for 1980: http://us.imdb.com/Sections/Years/1980/top-grossing
Nine To Five comes in at the top with 103,290,500; Stir Crazy with 101,300,000. Empire Strikes Back makes the list at number nine (!) with 51,740,189, just a touch ahead of Popeye.

I have no idea just how long Empire Strikes Back was in theaters, but if it ran across a year barrier that would artificially deflate its earnings by this standard -- Star Trek: The Motion Picture apparently only earned 39,658,976 in calendar year 1979, but obviously it was still running in early 1980.

(I haven't been able to find a convenient record of top grossing movies by release date and not subdivided into years; by convenient I mean one that I'm able to navigate to find the information I want. I have seen week-by-week box office records for December 1979, but I'm not doing that much research for support for my utterly minor rhetorical point, which amounts to: The Motion Picture was pretty near as successful as anyone could have dreamed.)

 

[cardinal biggles]

I don't know where the IMDb got those numbers, but to say they're wildly inaccurate would be an understatement.

Empire was released in May 1980, so any first-release revenues earned in 1981 would be miniscule -- maybe a few tens of thousands from the second-run theaters. Both Box Office Mojo and The Numbers have ESB making $145 million by mid-August 1980 (when it was still in wide release). "The Numbers" has ESB's total reaching $188.3M after the first weekend of the 1981 re-release, so if you subtract that weekend's total ($7M) from the grand total, ESB made as much as $181M before it finally closed out in 1980/early 1981.

Not that I want this debate to become a saga now, but a lot of the information on the IMDb is to be taken with a truckload of salt.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I liked the way they showed the journey to the Voyager probe.

 

[EnsignRicky]

Box office receipts are a seperate issue. Even if it made a billion dollars, it wouldn't change the fact that it was editorialy slow moving. The FX department had access to all kinds of new toys, and boy did they like to play with them.

 

[Nebusj]

cardinal biggles said:
Not that I want this debate to become a saga now, but a lot of the information on the IMDb is to be taken with a truckload of salt.

I'm always open to correction on matters of fact. I don't claim to be right all the time, just sourced.

I'm surprised to hear that Empire Strikes Back opened in May, though. I remember long ago a detailed conversation with a fanboy who pointed out the utter brilliance of Lucas in having the original movie -- with initial scenes set on a desert planet -- open for the summer season when the audience would feel the heat, and then having the next one -- with initial scenes on an ice planet -- open during winter when the audience would feel cold. Clearly, I've never thought to look up whether that claim was based on anything real.

 

[Maurice]

^^^It's baloney. All of the original Star Wars trilogy opened in May in the U.S.

 

[StarMan]

RobertScorpio said:
So, today I was watching THE MOTION PICTURE and froze Spock's mindmeld with the ILYA probe...have any of you done this? I see a Klingon, in what I bet was Make up designed for the failed TV show..I see someone who looks like Ilya, but I am not sure...

Quick bit of trivia: They slipped Darth Vader in there, too.

 

[Maurice]

StarMan said:Quick bit of trivia: They slipped Darth Vader in there, too.

That's been debunked a number of times. It looks like a silhouette of Vader for about one second, but what you're seeing is simply a dark gap between parts of the "data pattern"ed Epsilon Nine station. A moment later, the illusion is destoyed.

 

[StarMan]

^Really? next thing you'll be saying Spock's face isn't visible in the trail left by the comet in DS9's opening credits.

But seriously, I really thought they'd slipped him in. I remember freeze-framing and seeing a silhouette... although to be fair, I had to use my imagination to fully "see" Vader.

Thanks for clarifying, DS9Sega. Can I also say, I love your av. I played that game, long ago...

 

[cardinal biggles]

I'd like to add at this juncture that I love StarMan's av. If that lovely young woman will, in fact, be doing any streaking, would it be possible for her to pass through my neighborhood?

 

[Maurice]

StarMan said:
^Really? next thing you'll be saying Spock's face isn't visible in the trail left by the comet in DS9's opening credits.

But seriously, I really thought they'd slipped him in. I remember freeze-framing and seeing a silhouette... although to be fair, I had to use my imagination to fully "see" Vader.

Thanks for clarifying, DS9Sega. Can I also say, I love your av. I played that game, long ago...

Glad you liked it. It was a frustrating game to develop!

 

[The Castellan]

Well, I liked TMP of all the films, and I liked it ALOT more than TESB, and more than any SW flick, actually. :P

 

[Starlock]

cardinal biggles said:
I'd like to add at this juncture that I love StarMan's av. If that lovely young woman will, in fact, be doing any streaking, would it be possible for her to pass through my neighborhood?

I'll second that!

Here's a little bit more of her - still dressed though: WE'RE GOING STREAKING

 

[arch101]

Even after 29 years of watching this film, whenever I watch this scene and Spock proclaims "Curious, I see planets, moons, stars, WHOLE GALAXIES all stored here, recorded" The sheer thought of what he must be seeing staggers my mind. Virtually nothing in the original SW trilogy makes me go WOW after all this time. TMP is truly a movie with staying power.

 

[Jon1701]

DS9Sega said:

StarMan said:
^Really? next thing you'll be saying Spock's face isn't visible in the trail left by the comet in DS9's opening credits.

But seriously, I really thought they'd slipped him in. I remember freeze-framing and seeing a silhouette... although to be fair, I had to use my imagination to fully "see" Vader.

Thanks for clarifying, DS9Sega. Can I also say, I love your av. I played that game, long ago...

Glad you liked it. It was a frustrating game to develop!

Did you develop it?

I have it on a Genesis emulator. Frankly, its somewhat of frustrating game to play. That said, its hard to judge now given that 16mb games are somewhat of a distant memory. Its hard to play platform games now with all the 3D goodness that we have. Playing many of the games I used to love is a somewhat trying experience...

I just wish it had been more widely available at the time. In fact, I don't even remember it ever coming out in the UK (where I live).

 

[Maurice]

I worked on the game as its original designer, but left the project after butting heads with the head of the development house in Budapest. A year or so later, the new head of development brought me back to help salvage it, because the design and game story were a mess. Unfortunately, by this point a lot of design decisions had been made and implemented that were impossible to re-do. Only the Saratoga level was anything like what the game was supposed to be originally.

To make matters worse, Paramount's licensing dept. unapproved the game script a month after they gave their "final" approval, and forced us to open the game on DS9 instead of on the Saratoga, which meant the level that was supposed to teach you all the play mechanics got pushed way back into the game. I had to do all kinds of story adjustments to make this make any kind of sense at all.

AUGH!