Tobar said:

Leonardo said:

Picture some skit on italian television that tries to parody a Broadway show, and has all the characters speaking and singing in incredibly mangled english. Wouldn't you be baffled, at least?

*cough*

You might want to take an aspirin for that cough.

According to Wikipedia:

The song is deliberately meant to sound to its intended Italian audience like English spoken with an American accent.

The song was produced with the purpose of exposing Italian pop artists and musicians who were deceiving the public, pretending to speak/understand English lyrics and plagiarizing American and English songs, so this was a satirical parody to underscore the fact that those artists and musicians were not fluent in any form of English at all, and the Italian public would accept and popularize any song sounding like English, whether or not it was accurate.

Celentano's intention with the song was to explore communications barriers. "Ever since I started singing, I was very influenced by American music and everything Americans did. So at a certain point, because I like American slang — which, for a singer, is much easier to sing than Italian — I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inability to communicate. And to do this, I had to write a song where the lyrics didn't mean anything."

 

According to me, however, Adriano Celentano is a wanker and a boring "singer" who's been spouting the same political bullshit for the last 50 years.

The underlined part is to take the discussion back on topic, because Seth McFarlane is a wanker, too.

twister111 said:

 

Ti ringràzio!

You're correct I'm just trying to learn the language. It's my 5th language

Leonardo said:

twister111 said:
Ti ringràzio!
You're correct I'm just trying to learn the language. <span style="text-decoration: underline;">It's my 5th language</span>

Tanto di cappello, brava davvero! :)
Anche a me piacerebbe poter dire di conoscere cinque lingue.

If you ever need any help, pointers, whatever, feel free to enquire!

Grazie! Però mi conoscere soltanto nozioni di base un gran numero di lingue.

So I wouldn't say that I "know" all of them yet. I'm merely trying to learn them. I only feel confident to say that I know ASL(and English of course). I think of it as being a student of over 20 languages. (Which is the amount of languages I will know soon.) Anyways I might just make a thread about this later if there's further interest.

SilverWook said:

The Enterprise is a graceful lady in any environment...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQEsG4eKIXs

Now there just needs to be a movie shot like that.

darth_ender said:

http://trekweb.com/stbbs/showThread.php?bid=FldwoPP0qETo2&tid=51d6ad8aa7ac2&cid=51d6ad8aa7c00&viewby=&sort=&order=#51d6ad8aa7c00

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=218890

BionicBob from FE.org included these links.  Apparently some fans made a high quality fanedit of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, updating the special effects and including the deleted rock monster scene.  Unfortunately they tried to go the fully legitimate route and sent it to CBS, which means it will probably be locked up with a cease and desist letter in return, but I hope I will get to see a more attractive TFF.  In my mind, it's actually a movie with a lot of good potential, and it saddens me that it has such a negative reputation.  The interaction between the main trio is wonderful in this film, IMO.

By the way, I finally finished Enterprise, the novel detailing Kirk's first time on the job as captain of the Enterprise, taking over for Pike.  There were a number of interesting elements of character development, but honestly, most of the book was just that with little else.  When the actually conflict materialized, it was rather light in feeling, which is fine considering it feels very much like a TOS episode, but the thing is that the whole book is long and slow.  It would be like watching a four part episode with part 3 dealing with the plot and the rest simply dealing with Kirk's insecurity in his new position and other humorous flotsam.  I enjoyed it, but it should have either been much shorter or dealt with a much more interesting threat.

JEDIT: Having just sampled a YouTube video, I now see that it's still not up to today's SFX standards, but is still a fine example of how the movie can be improved with modern work.  I do enjoy what I see, and would love to see the whole thing.

Now having sufficiently offended a few people I'm sure, perhaps I can get this thread back on track ;)  I'm surprised no one commented on this.  I hope it flourishes.

Meanwhile, I'm reading Best Destiny, taking place immediately after STVI as Kirk and the gang take the Enterprise to be back to 001 to get her decommissioned.  But as they encounter yet again another emergency, Kirk is reminded of his rebellious youth, which we has the audience have the privilege of spending most of the book reading.  Only like 80 pages into it, but so far I'm really enjoying it, and it develops Captain April, whom I've wondered about for some time.

You know, I'm not sure which thread is actually the Star Trek thread, so I'll just post this here.  Found a TMP and TWOK combo pack at Walmart for $10.  And while I think the Slow-Motion Picture is a pretty bad movie, I've never owned it, and I've never seen the original version, which this is.  I also assume this is the original theatrical version of TWOK, which I've also never seen, so I'm thinking this was a good deal.

I'll just put links to the other joking threads in the first post (when I get around to it).  This thread is the real Trek thread.  Accept no substitutes.

My God, it's been five years since I watched this, but this movie is still sooooo boring!  Granted, I'm currently enduring the infamous four minute long Kirk and Scotty looking at the Enterprise scene, but still.  I could write this post seven more times, and it still wouldn't be over.  It's still going on!

Better to just watch the BionicBob version.  It shortens it up nicely and still keeps the plot intact.  I actually learned there was a plot to the film!

 

Wait til you get to Vger...

Gaffer Tape said:

 I'm currently enduring the infamous four minute long Kirk and Scotty looking at the Enterprise scene, but still.  I could write this post seven more times, and it still wouldn't be over.  It's still going on!

I chalk it up to being a product of it's time: Trek being back in the world again - and bigger than ever.  Plus, they were finally able to show the Enterprise in all it's detailed glory.  At that point, it had all existed only on 26" Zeniths. But yeah, they got carried away with that beauty shot.

 

I find TMP to be the best Star Trek movie.

I've always enjoyed it and found it the most cinematic of Star Trek films with the most convincing performances. And the most true to the idea of Trek (not so much the television show people remembered but a drama on a futuristic version of a exploration age sailing vessel).

It's definitely worth another look.

I recently discovered my most loathed food (Avocado Pears) are actually delicious in my current time of life.

About five years ago I got a similar revelation about Brussels Sprouts (when cooked correctly).

Obviously this sort of thing hasn't happened to Gaffer yet.

The ship is his lady and the shuttle trip is foreplay.

And you know what Kirk is like with ladies.

 

I knew Bingowings would sense my presence and come here.  ^_^

Anyway, I'm only about an hour in (not watching it all at once, as I have other things to get done), and I'm remembering exactly what I don't like about this movie but exactly what I did.  I do like the conflict between Kirk and Decker.  But the first half of the movie isn't a story (neither is the second half really, but I'm not there yet), it's a Technical Manual for the Enterprise.  And as a nerd I find that interesting.  When I first saw this movie I had seen the other films first, and I never felt I got to see or know the refitted Enterprise like the one I knew from television.  This was the one film that actually tried to do that, and I do appreciate that.  BUT a movie just doesn't have time for all of that.  It's cool to see every doodad come on, have a close-up on every panel, get to see how the training simulations work, see how every single bloody type of transport docks with the Enterprise, and experience every single step to leaving drydock (complete with turning all the running lights off only to immediately turn them back on again), but showing all of that is at the expense of telling the story.  Granted, in this case there was so little story I guess they really did have time for that, but that's the main problem.

So don't get me wrong.  As a hardcore Trekkie, I'm, you know, enjoying myself for all the minutiae and just poking a bit of fun at its expense on occasion, but watching with a critical eye that's just out to enjoy a story... it still doesn't work.  It does get a bit more enjoyable (or at least watchable) every time, but I'll never forget the first time I saw the film.  I was a senior in college and had rented it from Blockbuster.  I sat down that evening to watch and, to my surprise, one of my three roommates, the one who was least likely to give a shit about Trek, decided for some reason he wanted to sit down and watch this with me.  And I just felt so fucking embarrassed the entire time what with the overture, the four minutes of docking, the unexplained oath of celibacy line (seriously, he would not stop asking me what the hell that meant, and he's right.  It's just said!) and just the non-stop tedium and boredom and long, long, long shots of everything.  I just wanted to jump up and say, "No, really, Carl!  Star Trek isn't normally this boring and pointless.  Please don't judge it on this!"

To be honest, I do see this film and the reboots as almost exactly the same thing.  They both have really shallow plots and are filled to the brim with special effects.  The only difference is that TMP's special effects are slow and the reboot's special effects... have lens flares.

TMP is pretty much the perfect "background movie" for me. It's great to have on in the background whilst you're doing something else, but it's rather tedious to watch on it's own

Believe me, I know ALL about the history of this movie.  I also know that Gene sabotaged the writing the entire way, that no one wanted to work with him, and that people thought it was boring even back in 1979.  The studio thought it was boring, Harve Bennett's first words upon being asked about Star Trek was that he thought the movie was boring.  George Takei's autobiography had nothing good to say about it.  Jimmy Doohan's didn't either.  Nor did Shatner's.  Nimoy thought Roddenberry had absolutely no idea what he was doing and said, and I quote, "What's it got to do with a story?"  Yeah, it was a big deal.  It was such a big deal it almost killed the franchise all over again, and it's why TWOK was seen as such a godsend.

As for your question about the overture, I don't have problems with overtures (although having now seen the original version, I find it odd that its fanfare was on a completely blank screen).  You're asking me about each element on its own, but it's really not about that.  It's about the culmination of such things.  Right at this moment, I'm at the interminably long "flying into Vger" scene, and it's made me realize that, this moment, taken on its own, isn't necessarily bad.  Having this slow reveal could have built tension and wonder.  However, due to the way the movie is, it's nothing more than yet another slow scene.  So the overture isn't embarrassing because it's a overture.  It's embarrassing because it's the slow, long start before the slow, long Enterprise reveal before the slow, long Vger entrance after the slow, long leaving drydock sequence.  None of them are too bad on their own.  But they're all together, plodding, plodding, plodding.

Weren't there several different versions of TMP released?  What are they and which is best?

darth_ender said:

Weren't there several different versions of TMP released?  What are they and which is best?

My "Special Longer Version" using letterbox footage from multiple sources. All released versions had been P&S.  *Grin*