Star Trek

It's not that expensive compared to the amount of money needed to get a good gaming computer or console. It's just that the infrastructure for VR gaming isn't there yet, and you have a very limited game selection. For the record, my friend had to get a $500 graphics card to handle the system and the VR set-up was also about $500. They have ready built gaming computers designed for VR for about $1,000.

I've been finding that what's helped me appreciate Enterprise the most is modern Trek things making its elements feel like part of the universe. Like everything about the Franklin in Beyond, the TNG-era DTI books being heavily focused on the Temporal Cold War, and the early chapters of the Kirk autobiography referencing many of the characters being around^* the Captain Mayweather of the freighter was probably Travis's brother, Hoshi's son helped Jim through the chaos on Tarsus IV, Admiral Reed addressed the plebes at the Academy, and there was a bartender who's clearly supposed to be Phlox. Also the Archer Building at Starfleet HQ is named after Henry, not Jonathan, but most people make the mistake.

Maybe it's the Klingon make-up, or Micheal Dorn's deep voice, but it always felt to me that Worf was older, and more experienced, than TNG's scripts said he was.

That is something of a Klingon thing that they worked into TNG backstory and such. Klingons mature remarkably quickly but live a long time assuming they arnt killed in battle.

It was their excuse on how Alexander aged so quickly, he was a year old when he was brought onboard the Enterprise and his time serving onboard Rotarran he was only 8 years old.

Edited by Memers on Aug 3rd 2018 at 9:30:17 AM

He was also played by a four year old in his first appearance (about a year after his birth) and then went away for a year and was played by a ten year old when he came to live with Worf on the Enterprise.

No wonder the Rozhenkos couldn't keep up with him.

Edited by TParadox on Aug 3rd 2018 at 1:49:47 PM

The Duras kid also aged extremely quickly, its something that is very much a klingon thing.

Could be worse though, Jem'hadar do it in a few days but they don't eat, sleep, sit, have sex or do anything but serve the founders.

Regarding integrating Enterprise Canon into the rest of the franchise, the show always had a large wealth of material that was genuinely good. Unlike even Kirk's era it captures the old school NASA feeling of "We are sending people out in metal pods just to see if we can." The encounter with the Franklin and MACO reference in Beyond drew on that to give the movie some needed sense of history and perspective.

On a different note it was my birthday yesterday and I celebrated it by going to a Star Trek Convention. I'll report on what happened later, as I have family in town and I'm separated from my computer (too much to type on a phone).

For reference, Worf is supposed to be 39 during Nemesis. While Micheal was 35 when TNG started production.

When I started watching Enterprise for completion or whatever, it really struck me how well they'd managed to hybridize the Star Trek aesthetic with modern tech and made it feel like a submarine in space.

They've got video monitors dressing the set that I think I've seen filling thrift stores lately.

well its been announced, Patrick Stewart is coming back to trek at the age of 78 No script or anything yet but he is onboard.

Edited by Memers on Aug 4th 2018 at 1:45:35 AM

I was at the convention where it was officially announced. Sadly, I was there on Friday and not Saturday. But this will be a long post cause there is a lot to talk about.

It landed on my birthday and after attending last year I convinced my dad, older brother and younger brother to come this year. My mom, sister and sister-in-law also came down which made for a very fun weekend. We only went Friday because going multiple days is pointless unless you plan on spending a lot more money and I was the only one looking for autographs. I was going to wear a black Star Trek polo shirt, but my mom surprised me with matching blue t-shirts with a cartoon Enterprise and read "Keep on Trekkin'".

This year was a big 25th Anniversary for Deep Space Nine. We got there around 10 o'clock where they had a DS9 panel in the main hall with Ira Steven Behr (head writer), Chase Masterson (Leeta), Nicole Deboer (Ezri), Andrew Robinson (Garak) and James Darren (Vic Fontaine). It was mostly a roundtable discussion, plugging the upcoming panel for a DS9 documentary "What We Left Behind" and some audience questions.

• Andrew Robinson was asked about the layers of Garak, and he said that he enjoyed playing Garak because the character was so much smarter than him. He left acting in the 70's because he always felt like the roles he got were stupider than him, and he prefers reaching up than reaching down. As an actor, anything about their character that isn't in the script they try to fill in the gaps themselves, which is what lead to the book "A Stitch in Time."
• Chase Masterson wore a t-shirt saying "Be Kind" and it was her own non-profit charity offering support to people dealing with bullying of all types (orientation, race, transgender, etc).
• Everyone was asked about their favorite episode or favorite line. Robinson said his was probably "In the Pale Moonlight" and "Never tell the same lie twice."
• Ira Steven Behr was asked about rejected spec scripts and what was common for them. He said they got literally thousands and the main problem was that it was typically written as a TNG story and not a DS9 story. As a result it was more about anomalies or politics and their characters were incidental to all of that.
• They commented on how unusual it is to have such a large cast of characters, Rom, Nog, Garak and Dukat were guest stars introduced in the first three episodes and remained major characters through the last episode.

After that was a DS9 guest star panel, which my family was keen on but I told them there will always be a panel going on, so if we want to check out the rest of the convention we need to move along. That's when we went to a room with a Ten Forward recreation, a lot of DS9 concept art (including the evolution of the Defiant design) and a VR system for a virtual Gene Roddenberry museum that was designed to look like the interior of a starship. The computers were designed to look like Borg Cubes, and they had a specially autographed system (by JJ Abrams, Levar Burton, Michael Giacchino and a few others) for a charity auction. My brother went through the VR, signed up for something and got a vintage Lwaxanna Troi action figure, which he gave to me.

We then went through a room the Discovery Mirror Universe props and costumes. We all had seen a few episodes but wasn't versed on the entire series yet. But it was cool to see the detailing and pictures, they had a green screen set up to take pictures in a chair with a number of circular columns arraigned like an organ visage (which was apparently part of those episodes). We then visited the original Enterprise bridge recreation, which was modified to have a Terran Empire decal on the turbolift. Afterward went to the vendors room, which is when you will randomly come across various actors and different merchandise. We perused around it several times and found new and different things each time.

We went back to the main hall where they were wrapping up the DS9 guest stars, as it was moving on to a partial TNG cast with Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden and Denise Crosby. I waited in line to ask a question for most of the panels, but didn't get a question in because they would always go long and only got to maybe three questions.

• I learned Michael Dorn was Apollo Creed's bodyguard in the original Rocky, but there is no clean shot of him. Also he originally was interested in directing, but working crew for a tv show he randomly had to be a stand-in and read lines with another actor and was commended for doing a good job. He still wasn't interested in acting until they said he would be paid better than as a director.
• In the Q&A section Beth Toussaint (Ishara Yar) jumped up and called out Denise for never calling her "sister," which was a funny surprise. She came on stage and they hugged, Denise later commented on how good the casting was and they do look like sisters.
• Worf was a very last minute cast addition and the wasn't told up front that he was going to be a regular, it was several months before anyone knew what Dorn looked like without make-up. McFadden was really confused when Dorn was talking to her like they already met.
• Apparently in the first season they got all their trailers together and started making it into a legitimate trailer park, with fake grass, palm trees and fences. They would hang out in their space clothes in lawn chairs while studio tours pass by. They were forced to take it down due to security concerns (a lot of it was borrowed from the prop department).
• Dorn recalled going to the studio gym and saw McFadden doing one-person modern dance.
• McFadden was asked about Labyrinth and she talked about how much freedom she and responsibility she had with that film. She actually did some casting and talked briefly about working with David Bowie.

After getting lunch we went back to the Vendors room and I had intentions on getting autographs from Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden and Michael Dorn (we waited because the line is always longer earlier in the day). I had a Star Trek: First Contact poster I bought for last years convention (and already had a number of signatures on it). Frakes was the only one at the table at the time we showed up and there was a small line. We all agreed to head over so we could meet him but my younger brother (who is known for a short attention span) got distracted and wandered off. As we approached I saw his sign said autographs for $50, selfies for $40 and both for $80. I debated until the last moment to add a selfie and went with it. When he walked over he put his arm around my dad and me, then asked if it was just me or everyone. I decided so last second I didn't even think about a group photo, so my older brother was able to get in on it too. It wasn't until we broke off and I rolled up my poster that I realized my younger brother missed out on the photo. I felt bad but he knew what we were doing. Frakes was friendly but seemed distracted, a convention official said that he had been at the table for hours and needed both a lunch and bathroom break, and I was literally the last person before that break.

We tentatively wandered around the room some more, my older brother bought some tribbles for his kids (they had a chart of all the different "species" of tribbles, including a Borg tribble). McFadden and Dorn returned about the same time and I got both autographs. McFadden was so lovely and friendly, she liked our matching t-shirts and asked if we were a musical quartet. She signed next to Picard's head, saying she would whisper in his ear. She asked me what I did and I told her I went to film school but did a number of other jobs, she said that's how everyone gets started. With Dorn I mentioned that he has the most acting experience with Star Trek, and he rattled off his statistics (11 seasons, 200+ hours, 5 movies). He was friendly but seemed like he was trying to move the line along. Once we finished my dad and brothers mentioned how fun that was to meet them, which was the exact same reaction I had last year when I met Marina Sirtis.

We went back to the main hall where they were wrapping up the DS9 guest panel, the most notable was Hillary Shepard Turner, mostly for also playing Divatox in Power Rangers Turbo and a fan was asking about the upcoming movie "The Order" made bu Ranger alumni. All she could say was that she was part of the movie.

Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis was the next panel, Frakes opened it off by going through the audience area was yelling to Sirtis how much he loved her.

• Frakes suggested to Seth McFarlane about bringing Sirtis on for a role in The Orville (which was previously announced a few days earlier). He also said that Ted Danson was going to appear.
• Sirtis mentioned that they often end up telling the same stories and the same jokes at every convention. A friend of hers said that it is like watching a movie with all your favorite songs, something familiar but packaged differently. One in particular was the famous Patrick Stewart blooper where Troi says "He's hiding something" and he says "We know that you cow! You waste of space!"
• Troi was definitely lined up to be removed from the show in the first season. Her relationship with Riker was counterproductive to them wanting Riker to be the Boldly Coming Kirk analog, and there was a general feeling that there were too many women on the show. Since one woman was the doctor and the other was the security officer, the empathic therapist was seen as extraneous and more difficult to write for. Since Crosby left of her own accord, that saved Sirtis' job.
• A fan asked about why every time sex was mentioned in the show there was always a cut to Riker with a goofy grin on his face. Sirtis mused that "Isn't that how every guy reacts when you mention sex?"
• Frakes explained how the beard was added to Riker in the second season (another "greatest hits" story) and commented on Riker's Beard being the inverse of Jumping the Shark.

After that panel was a reveal on the "What We Left Behind" DS9 documentary, with Ira Steven Behr and some of the documentary crew.

• They opened with some footage of the documentary itself, including a never-before-seen blooper with Avery Brooks and Cirroc Lofton. Jake was apparently injured/dying (did not recall the episode) and Sisko was cradling his body on the ground. Brooks and Lofton had a really difficult time keeping their composure and the best they could manage was more of a neutral "eyes really tightly closed" expression, and when the director yelled cut Brooks dropped Lofton's head and collapsed in laughter.
• Most of the footage we saw was talking about how important they felt it was to show a black man being a father figure on tv, with Lofton talking about how Brooks treated him like a son. He went to a ball game with Brook and Brook's actual son and he would introduce both as being his kids.
• Avery Brooks has apparently decided he has said all he can say about the show, his role and its legacy, and no longer wants to attend conventions or give interviews on the show. He remained involved with the documentary in an advisory capacity, but all footage of him is archival.
• This was the first time the show has had any sort of HD conversion, done with the select footage they wanted for the documentary. The brief clips looked good (although the show had a much darker color lighting, making it more difficult to see the difference). A fan asked about getting the entire series in HD, and Behr could only shrug his shoulders. Paramount was helpful with the footage for the documentary but is dragging their feet on a full series conversion.
• Behr commented on the perception that Deep Space Nine was a very depressing show to work on, which he seemed hurt by the idea. He said it is mostly that Avery Brooks was first on the call sheet, and that tends to lead the way on how the show would run. Brooks took his job seriously and that filtered to the rest of the crew. He then pointed out that the blooper shows that they still had fun, it just didn't get silly like TNG or VOY cast would be.

Near the end I slipped out to go to the bathroom, and I bought some TNG-era Starfleet delta symbols to surprise my family with. When I came back they had Robert O'Reilly (Gowron), JG Hertzler (Martok) and Gwynyth Walsh (B'Etor) on stage in make-up doing an in-character panel. They tried singing along to a Klingon Rap but they barely knew the lyrics. The Q&A had someone ask which human war they would have liked to be a part of and Walsh said Hiroshima. The other Klingons said that was awfully dark and she said "That was a really dark question." It was kind of cool at first, but was definitely a lot sillier and we were ready to go after about 15 minutes.

We did one last wander around the vendors room. My younger brother went to Hillary Shepard Turner because he was a big Power Rangers fan, just to say how much he liked the show. We ended up finding the most expensive piece of on-sale merchandise, which was a vintage TOS picture of the cast with everyone's signature, worth about $8,000. My family all had a good time, but they agreed that multiple days would have whittled down what you could do without spending thousands of dollars. My older brother saw that Thursday had a photo op with most of the VOY cast and he would have been keen on spending $300 on that.

So I don't know if it's been mentioned here, but I just found out that Nichelle Nichols has been diagnosed with Dementia.

I met her years ago at the First Edmonton Comics and Entertainment Expo. She complimented my shirt. Hearing this is tough. The last few years have been rough for Original Trek Alumni. I think only besides Nichols, only Shatner, Takei and Koenig are left.

Deepfake technology and Trek make for an interesting combination (albeit an uncanny one at points).

So DS 9 was going to originally have a very different ending

https://www.themarysue.com/star-trek-deep-space-nine-ending/

it would all have been a dream. I am not even kidding.

That's been known for a while, at least tossed around as an idea. Behr seems to imply it was a genuine pitch that was shot down and he had several meetings trying to get it approved.

Even outside the Canon issues, I think it would have been too gimmicky and undermined the drama of the series. That's the risk when you start messing with metafiction.

Allow me to change subjects a little bit, because these recent news are truly worrying and may affect the entire future of the franchise:

According to Midnight's Edge Paramount is on the edge of bankruptcy. They have around $50.000.000 in debt due to their recent wave of flops and underperformances with Star Trek Beyond, TMNJ Out of the Shadows, Monster Truck, Ben Hur and Transformers. The studio is in real financial problems.

While the future of Star Trek 4 is getting murky. Chris Pine and Chris Helmsworth seem to be out of the project but the rest of the cast is dubious too. Then there's Quentin Tarantino's R rated Star Trek movie that was apparently already greenlighted but is far from starting.

CBS on the other hand has another problem with the brand, as Star Trek Discovery was sued for plagiarism as apparently the plot of a interstellar travel using tardigrades and having similar characters (including an interracial gay couple) is too similar to an already pre-existing videogame and the videogame's creator is suing CBS.

Should be notice that CBS has the licensing rights of all classic Star Trek shows and characters, all of the "prime timeline" and in fact Paramount can't use their likeness, Paramount only has the movie rights of the "Kelvin" timeline. In fact this became an issue as in toyline licensing classic Star Trek beats by wide margin the Kelvin toyline hurting Paramount. Paramount asked CBS to stop selling classic toys to allow their new branch of Star Trek to take over and CBS basically said "screw it".

Videos here:

In any case, I personally do not think a fourth movie is a good idea. They should stop with Beyond and count their losses. Besides how are you going to replace Anton Yelchin? The first Star Trek movie was IMO truly good and memorable, sadly it derails afterwards. Into Darkness had many flaws, Beyond was however an improvement, but it should end there.

The Tarantino film on the other hand is an amazing idea. Not only is he a proven talented director but it will be a creative and fresh idea, and probably the type of risky move that may pay off as a lot of people would want to see the movie out of pure curiosity, but in any case both Tarantino and Star Trek have a fanbase that combined and adding the non-fans that would go see it out of curiosity it probably would make money.

Edited by Luppercus on Aug 27th 2018 at 3:47:54 PM

In 1967, the navigator's post was assigned to a character who represented the United States's greatest enemy as a demonstration of the peace Star Trek advocates.

How would you represent "our greatest enemy" today? Put someone from that background in the chair.

A Tarantino movie is everything that makes Star Trek movies fail at being good Trek.

Edited by TParadox on Aug 27th 2018 at 7:08:43 AM

Supposedly Tarantino's intended Star Trek movie will be an upscaled version of something like "Yesterday's Enterprise," which is hard to argue against. I learned recently that Rick Berman has gone on record saying that if they had the foresight it should have been used as the plot for Generations. I'm not interested in an R rated Star Trek, but Tarantino playing with that premise is certainly an interesting prospect.

I really hope the creators of Discovery did not do something that stupid.

Also, what would they have done in a fourth Kelvin-timeline movie anyway? Save whales? Try and find God? Make peace with the Klingons?

The intended idea was a Time Travel story where Chris Pine's Kirk will meet and have an adventure with his father, who was played by Chris Hemsworth in the '09 Star Trek. This was announced not long after Beyond came out, so it's taken them a while to even get to failed negotiations.

Regarding the lawsuit, a related idea was around as early as TNG I believe, where the ship would have whales on board because their biology is designed for three dimensional space and thus have know how to navigate superior to any supercomputer. Dropped because it would be obviously expensive to realize that on camera. Voyager also had the gel packs integrated into their systems for improved navigation.

After looking into it, I don't think the game developer really has a case. Both the game and the series were in development at the same time, both are based on actual scientific journals talking about the resilience of tartigrades and the use of biological organisms for FTL travel is already well established in sci-fi. It's ultimately similar to the Babylon 5 plagiarism claims, related ideas but ultimately two different beasts.

In this case the work in question is an indie game that has not even released yet and has been in open beta for the last 4 years. He would have to exhibit evidence that the writers were aware of the game and knowingly took ideas from it. You also can't copyright ideas, in this circumstance he needs to prove long-form emulation beyond the most obvious (among other claims to back up their case is having a black woman, Indian with a beard and a blonde guy). Look up "Scene a faire" for more on that.

Edited by KJMackley on Aug 28th 2018 at 4:39:54 AM

It was Dolphins, not Whales and the idea actually made it into some early licensed TNG materials.

Edited by Zyffyr on Aug 28th 2018 at 9:27:49 AM

What I wonder is why Star Trek producers are so obsessed with prequels. I kind of get it with the movies as it was a soft reboot but never got the case for Discovery, especially not after the already existing Enterprise. What's the fear of going forward? Going to a post-Nemesis timeline? I guess they're afraid they can't imagine anything really new in technology or geopolitical changes but there's still a lot of things they can do.

Edited by Luppercus on Aug 28th 2018 at 12:51:26 PM

You do know they're doing another series with Patrick Stewart, right? Set 20 years after Nemesis?

The Original Series is the version of the franchise that the general public is most likely to be familiar with, so they're trying to bank on connections to TOS to sell people on their new product.

A big part of it was that Voyager left a bad taste where the technology level became almost magical. A lot of tension was dropped because Technobabble was used to solve almost everything and there was a Magic Countdown on shield strength (even Nemesis was faulted for it, even though it had a few dramatic hull breaches to balance it out). As such the prequels/timeline reboot was an attempt to make things feel more raw and make space feel scary again. Not without reason, though, as part of the dramatic value of Wrath of Khan was having both ships lose shields altogether and reducing the fight to pure strategy.