Topic: Star Trek?

This is moving a conversation from one thread to another. For the beginning of this conversation, see this thread.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Star Trek?

You're freakin' me out, Teague. You're the second person to mention Red Letter Media in conversation to me today, and I'm ashamed to admit I've never heard those words before. Seems like I've got some googlin' to do.

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Re: Star Trek?

...oh my god. You're about to fall madly in love with life.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Star Trek?

Well in response to Jefferys rant of epic proportions, I bow sir. That was a thing of beauty.

I can honestly say that I hadn't really ever sat down and thought about the plot in those terms. But I definitely agree on most of your points, there's a few I'm a little iffy on. But that can just be pinned down to how far I'm willing to let a movie stretch the bounds of logic.

But in the end it still remains on of my favorite movies of late, for all the reasons you listed and more (Namely Abrams dedication to using as much real stuff during production as possible).

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Star Trek?

A lot of listeners will recall that I don't have much experience with Star Trek, and that when I saw Undiscovered Country for Down in Front, it was literally my very first exposure to Trek at all. Immediately afterward I saw the Abrams movie.

I really liked the Abrams movie. I was talking over Undiscovered Country, so I can't say I didn't like it, but I don't recall being distracted by how cool it seemed.

At some point after, I watched some episodes of TNG and found it to be stunningly boring. In recent months, I've seen some episodes of the original series, and have enjoyed it more than TNG, but less than the new movie.

In conclusion, I clearly know more about Star Trek than Brian and think he's being ridiculous by saying the new Trek is anything but the best of the series.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Star Trek?

I think one of things that happened with the whole Star Trek franchise (This coming from a guy who grew up watching Voyager and DS9 (In reruns obviously)and has some basic peripheral knowledge about TOS, TNG (And I havn't even seen Enterprise) is that each series was trying to emulate the style, at least somewhat of the previous series. While not really adding much in the way of anything new, DS9 got pretty close, and that's probably why it's my favorite of the series'. But the whole Star Trek thing just got stale and old. People didn't want to sit around and watch people discuss the anti matter containment field.
And I'm perfectly willing to nail that down to the whole MTV generation thing, or whatever you want to call it. The audience was different, but Star Trek tried to stay the same.

So, at least in my opinion, the new Star Trek movie is exactly what each of the new series SHOULD have been doing in the first place. Updating the style, tone and technology to match the current audience.

So while I can easily say that the new one is my favorite Star Trek anything, it's also the only film that has been made with me in mind. (Me being a child of the 21st century effectively)

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Star Trek?

Thanks for the link, Teague. I'm for bed at the moment, but I'll watch it tomorrow for sure.

I think I'm one of the few people who's pretty meh on Star Trek overall. "The Wrath of Khan" is one of my all-time favorite films, but I have indifferent or low opinions of the other movies — most recent one excepted, obviously. I grew up watching "The Next Generation" as a teenager, and yes, Teague, while a lot of it is either boring or really crappy, there were a few high points.

My personal threshold for silly is very low, though, and getting lower as I stare middle age uneasily in the face. So much of Star Trek is just plain silly, and I have a hard time with that. Of course, silly plus time equals camp, so it's sometimes hard to know just where to draw the line.

I guess one of the reasons I enjoyed "Star Trek" is 'cause it seemed to actively want to minimize the silly. The villain wasn't a megalomaniac; he wanted revenge for the death of his wife. And it wasn't even an unjust death, just an unfair one. She was killed in a natural disaster, one nobody could have prevented, but he went crazy and blamed a person in power for not doing more to stop it. (A lesser man would point out the obvious parallel to a certain recent president and a certain recent hurricane, but I don't wanna get political here.) For all of the film's implausbilities — yes, that's a word now, shut up — it was deeply grounded in real people with real motivations. And I liked that.

It was breakfast cereal for grown-ups, in a way. It indulged without insulting. Michael Bay wishes he could make a movie that's half as much fun.

It's damn peculiar, is what it is! It's a mass of contradictions and paradoxes. The movie is profoundly stupid, yet clever. It's fantasy, but grounded. It's lightweight popcorn, but it's got the highest on-screen death count of all time and deals with themes of predestination and free will. About the only aspect of the film that's not in some way self-contradictory is the fact that there were just too goddamn many lens flares. I think we can all agree on that.

(Someday I'm going to learn how to write a short post here, I promise. I'm really sorry I'm so wordy. I guess I just don't bother posting at all unless I feel like I have a lot to say.)

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Re: Star Trek?

Clearly Teague doesn't understand the intricacies of the Andorian political system, otherwise he would understand his statement is so far out of the realm of the possible, it might as well have come from a parallel universe!

*snort*

Re: Star Trek?

Oh merciful GOD, Teague. I've only made it through part one (of freakin' seven!) of that Red Letter Media bit so far, and you're right. It's amazing. When he put up the four-way split-screen of the hero getting the girl at the end of the movie, and the bottom-right was Charlie hugging Willy Wonka, I near abouts fell out of my chair.

This is awesome.

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Re: Star Trek?

O.O is all I can really say at this point.  When I read the rant (may I call it a rant?) I was blown away not in the fact that you addressed more things then I would have even began to think off, but my mind started to slowly slip to "what would he say if I post Star Wars greater then Star Trek".  But I realized that with posting that I would be posting that in response to a guy who pretty much just did a show right here on the forums!  Although im sure we could have a really good conversation on the pros and cons of Star Trek vs. Star Wars but that is for a later time and im sure we don't need this to be switched into another forum.

All in all for the shorter version of what im trying to say great speal kept me reading it all the way thru and hope that we can have a discussion later on all of it big_smile

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Re: Star Trek?

If you're talking to me, then yes, you can call it a rant. It's more along the lines of the ravings of that creepy homeless guy who stands outside the Starbucks and smells like mushy peas for some reason, but "rant" is just fine.

If you mean that "Star Wars" the 1977 movie is greater than "Star Trek" the 2009 movie, then heck yeah, I definitely agree. Both are fun films, but "Star Wars" was better paced (to my liking, anyway) and had a more cohesive story.

If we're comparing the whole Star Wars and Star Trek, like, oeurvres, then it's tough to say. They're trying to do such different things, you know? Star Wars is intended to be one long story with mythological inspirations, in the same way that "The Lord of the Rings" was so intended. Star Trek seems to have been meant to be a framework in which socially conscious allegorical stories (as well as just-for-fun stories) could be told.

I think when Star Trek is at its very best, it tells better, more moving, more personal stories than those found in Star Wars — at least in my experience with Star Wars; I haven't read all the, like, novels and whatever. The trouble with generalizing that, though, is that (again in my experience) Star Trek spends so little of its time living up to that standard of the-very-best. It's often entertaining, but only rarely transcendent.

Obviously there's "The Wrath of Khan," which I've already gushed about. I mentioned elsewhere that I grew up watching "The Next Generation," as a teenager and into my early 20s. It was my regular Thursday night (or whatever it was) show, but I didn't go nuts over it or anything. I can think of three episodes of that series — I even remember their names — that really typified the at-its-very-best thing I'm talking about.

First, as I mentioned before, there was "Family," the episode where Picard goes back to the family vineyard. I think it had a B-plot, but all I remember of it is the A-plot, of Picard's reflectiveness and the conflict-and-resolution with his brother. It was a hell of a character piece.

Similarly, there was one called "The Inner Light." Picard gets zapped off the Enterprise during the teaser, and doesn't return until the last act, if I remember correctly. During that time, he lives for decades as an inhabitant on an alien planet, eventually coming to believe that his memories of his other life were just a fever dream brought on by serious illness. In the end, it turns out he never left the ship, but merely had a lifetime's worth of memories downloaded into his head by an alien memorial. Amusing enough premise, but it's told as a character piece, and after Picard "returns" to the Enterprise, he grieves deeply for the "family" he thought he'd had and lost.

Finally, there's "Darmok," which is just a truly classic science-fiction story. Picard and an alien can't communicate because the alien's language is entirely steeped in cultural allusion, and they have to find a way to get along in a survival situation. It's more than a little reminiscent of "Enemy Mine," but really it's just a sublime story about breaking through barriers of miscommunication and misunderstanding.

For every one of those, you've got like a hundred "Spock's Brain" episodes.

Star Wars is a really long book with a couple great chapters, a couple pretty good ones and a couple truly lousy ones. Star Trek is more like a vast collection of short stories, some of which truly stink and nearly all of which are just okay at best, but it's worth slogging through them to get to the real gems buried deep inside.

So: Different. Hard to say which is better, since pretty much the only thing they have in common is spaceships, and even then only sometimes.

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Re: Star Trek?

I will agree completely on the fact that when you watch Star Wars you can see the mythological references as well as historical references  (cant remember if you said that but anyways) as with comparing that to LOTR, it isnt really fair for that on the the terms of refrences.

LOTR was pretty much ripped straight from (and I will need to check this) norse mythology.  Where as Star Wars combines multiple mytho with historical events like hitler and what not to create such a great story.

But enough about mytho and that this is a Star Trec forum haha tongue

Now Recently I did sit down and watch all the Star Trec Series and when I say everything I do mean everything.... and my god.  Now sitting aside all the time I spent the episodes that you pick out that you remember, I agree 100% on them they where fantastic! But like you said the down side is pretty much all the random episodes that come for every one of them episodes which kinda stinks but it was someones childhood. 

Now for all the Trek movies Khan was by far the best in my opinion.  Now this doesn't include the newly released Trek only because well I point it towards your previous "ravings of that creepy homeless guy who stands outside the Starbucks and smells like mushy peas for some reason" tongue.

As with the final point of your post of Star Wars being a book a long one that i refuse to count the first three chapters, where as Star Trek is a collection of stories. I can agree with both points of that and this is what makes it so hard to figure out which one is better, on one hand you have a Book that people that connect to because of all the ties into history and mytho, where as Trek has them really great episodes and movies and characters but its much harder to connect to for some because it really does kind of walk that line of sci fi or fantasy. ( I think it was you who said that in a previous post not sure thou)

When it comes down to it, im sure that this debockle will come down to ryan and dork doing some spoof of lightsaber vs phaser. big_smile

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Re: Star Trek?

You know, I never quite understood the "I refuse to acknowledge" point of view. I saw your recent post in the "Episode III" thread, where you basically said that as far as you're concerned the prequel trilogy never happened, or words to that effect.

I don't get this.

I'm not going out of my way to challenge you here; we're just talking friendly-like. But to me, I can broadly put movies into categories of "I like this" or "I didn't like this." (Not always. A movie like Lars Von Trier's "Antichrist" is gorgeous and thought provoking and so deeply unpleasant that I really don't know how to say I liked or disliked it. It broke my value system.)

I can totally understand saying "I disliked this movie and do not wish to see it again," or "This movie failed so spectacularly to meet my expectations that I dislike it more than I really should," or whatever.

Maybe "This never happened" is just a figure of speech, hyperbole to express the whole "I didn't care for it" sentiment more succinctly. And maybe I'm just overthinking it.

I do that.

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Re: Star Trek?

Well yes and no.

With the " This never happened" to me its more of a joking tone to say and it pretty much means what you said I didn't care for it.  Now don't get me wrong I still watch them because there are some good spots like the gladiator arena in ep. 2.

But where as some people Have read all the books and hooplah that is Star Wars and to them the story didn't follow there expectations  and so the refuse that it happened. 

So really it comes down to is this person being serious about this or is the person just saying, me being me I have a knack for just saying things but if we were to discuss lets say the mytho behind LOTR and SW then I would include Ep. 1-3, where as the hard core Fans will be like " nu-uh, X happened this way but instead Y made it so they had to shoot it like this". now given that sure its cool of a movie to follow the original story of books and such but what I think that most Fans forget is that SW ep. 1-6 is based on what Lucas vision of what SW is and he allowed writers to come in and expand upon this universe, and with that the fans believe that that is how things are suppose to happen because Lucas allowed them to write it that way which is not true.

now to somewhat get back on topic, tend to veer off into randomness if you can tell, but yes most of the time I just like yourself i but movies under "I like them" or "Why the hell did I spend 10$ to see this Aka Don't like them", and then of course there always movies that fall in between.

So when I posted that, it was just me saying it just to say it.  My ratings of it it would fall in the between slot.

So yea i suppose that both of us are kinda just over thinking both things....hmm this could be entertaining or random rant of randomness

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Re: Star Trek?

Sure, that makes sense. I guess I just get tripped up specifically by the "that never happened" language. Every time I hear that, without fail, I want to stop and say, "Wait. You understand that this is fiction we're talking about, right? You understand that all of this was made up, that none of it ever actually occurred?"

I really do think of myself as being a fairly laid-back guy. But on that one point, I just reflexively rush to the nearest phone booth and emerge in my Captain Literal Nofunsypants costume and rush off to save the day.

I kind of annoy myself sometimes.

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Re: Star Trek?

hey if your wearing the cape only you can make the woosh noises.

But its understandable to come to that conclusion when someone says that, but with the people who say it they dont think like we do so where we would look at lucas Ep. 1-6 or or the ST series compared more to the newer Trek movie comparing them based on that some go and use other info that I guess doesn't really have any significant value other then maybe make most people go "the hell O.O"

As with annoying yourself, well at least you know that your never bored and if you are then you must be doing something wrong haha.

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Re: Star Trek?

Why is it not fair to compare Star Wars and LOTR because they're so different and yet it is fair to compare Star Trek and Star Wars?

How are Star Trek and Star Wars in any way similar except for half of their titles?

They're really completely and wholly different entities doing entirely different things. Different stories, different genres, different universes, different styles, different values, everything.

They only get compared because on the most obvious and superficial level - their titles and the fact that there are spaceships - are they similar and that's as deep as most people can be bothered to investigate.

I'm sorry, but this has bugged me as a meaningless and pointless waste of time ever since I was a kid.

Re: Star Trek?

To clear some things up he mentioned LOTR in a previous post and i used it in an example of comparing the different mythology behind SW and LOTR, but being it as just a thread about ST i only just mentioned it and more or less left it at that.  And well with ST you cant really compare mythology with it because they where creating there own thing really.

As in how they are similar you know it is how people look at it.  Like you said in pretty much the last paragraph people see ships and the name and that is far as it goes but when it comes to the people that Live and breath these movies they get into random debates like who is a better pilot? or phaser or lightsaber.

So when it comes down to it its all opinion.  I liked SW and I liked ST but both had there pros and cons.

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Re: Star Trek?

I'm pretty sure I agree, Brian. To be honest, I've lost track of who brought up "Lord of the Rings" or in what context.

Comparing things for superficial reasons is always tricky. Me? I have a totally irrational tendency to like stories set in outer space. I have no idea why; I guess I just decided as I kid that space was cool. I'll watch pretty much anything if it's set in outer space.

"Star Wars" and "Star Trek" have that in common … and to be honest, that's probably what motivated me to watch both of them when I was a little kid. I watched "2001" for the same reason, and we all know how that turned out.

On the other side of the coin, I tend to be prejudiced against magic and sorcery and wizards and stuff. I don't have a grudge against it; it just tends not to work for me, for whatever reason. I like broccoli but not cauliflower, and I put soy milk in my coffee even though I don't like to drink it; people have preferences they can't always explain. I enjoyed "Lord of the Rings" despite that prejudice … though that might be a bad example, because there's precious little actual sorcery in the thing. Oh, "Harry Potter" is a better example. I devoured those books despite the fact that I should have been prejudiced against them.

I don't think it's unreasonable to say "This is superficially like that, so if you liked this you might enjoy that." But have you guys ever heard of the "Napoleon Dynamite" problem? I read an article in the New York Times or something a couple years ago about how Netflix was really working hard to improve their recommendation algorithm. It turns out they hit a brick wall when it came to "Napoleon Dynamite." The average rating seemed to be a three out of five, because everybody either rated it 1 or 5 stars. And there seemed to be no logical way to predict, based on your movie likes and dislikes, whether you'd like that film. Which makes sense to me: I really liked it and I don't know why!

Which I guess is even farther off topic than we already were, but hey, whatever.

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Re: Star Trek?

yea I will say its my fault with the LOTR example it was really the first thing that came to mind when i was writing the post and how it spawned well that is a question even i want to know tongue 

As for Napoleon dynamite im gonna list that as one of them movies where it had its moments the first time I seen it then after that I felt like my brain was mush, Almost like the filler episodes in Star Trek ( see what I did there big_smile)

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Re: Star Trek?

So, Star Trek? Yes? Do it? We still voting?

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Re: Star Trek?

Oh, we'll certainly do it.

You know who else certainly does it? Your mom.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Star Trek?

Pshh at least MY mom makes money when she does it.

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Re: Star Trek?

...that was kind of excellently played. If only Star Trek had bombed, it would be genius. *hats off*

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Star Trek?

A good duel sir.
*honorable bow*

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