Just finished watching Trek IV after many years.  Still a fun movie.  I think I used to like it better though.  My feelings on Trek are kind of fluid lately, and I'm enjoying the older stuff better than I used to.  III, while far inferior in effects, has really grown on me, and II is still fantastic.  Together, II, III, and IV are a wonderfully well-knit trilogy.  But I think I like them in that order now as well.

Just finished reading Best Destiny.  It gives us an idea of Jim Kirk as a kid, interacting with his father George and Capt. Robert April, first captain of the Enterprise.  I feel the book was really good, but there were two problems for me.  1) the ending is rather weak compared to the excitement of the middle, when young Jimmy and several Starfleet officers aboard a small scientific vessel are attacked by pirates and have to still come off as victors in the end.  The ending, immediately post-Undiscovered Country, where we see how the events of the book have affected old Jim, are rather anti-climactic.  2) Young Jerk, I mean Jimmy Kirk, while an interesting character, is not the same as old Jim Kirk.  That's the point of the book, as the events of the little miscreant's life in the book shape his character drastically and alter his nature so he becomes a much better person.  Still, I have a very hard time believing that it's the same person, and that he had so completely changed by this little misadventure.  Still, it was a fun read.  I can recommend it.

Next book: Federation, where Kirk and Picard met before they got stuck in the Nexus.

Gaffer Tape said:

 "In order to solve the problem, we must bombard it with microwaves," only for someone to chime in, "Why do you want to throw that black box in the kitchen at it?"

Too Late! (most of these are white there are only a few blacks in this kitchen).

Sigh, because, and I hate to have to say this, as far as I see it, none of those words are meant to offend, even when they are used to describe the subjects you speak of.  "Mentally retarded," used in that fashion, for example, is a fairly recent invention, and was created to be a more sensitive, politically correct way of referring to people with mental handicaps.  An existing word, "retard," was used specifically because of its neutrality.  And it was chosen to replace its predecessors, such as moron and idiot, which were also originally chosen as clinical terms, because they had passed through the vernacular and picked up to be used as insults.  But as far as I see it, there is no way for that not to happen.  Yeah, "retarded" is now being seen as a derogatory term, precisely the opposite of what it was meant to be.  So it will be replaced with a new, even more sensitive word... which, in a few generations' time, will also be seen as incredibly insensitive and will be replaced and so on and so forth because it describes an unenviable position in which to be in life.

So bring me an example of someone using those terms to hurt other people, and I'll be right behind you saying that's insensitive and cruel.  But it makes me more than a little worried that we've become so fearful that anything that even sounds like something that can be used to be offensive should be encouraged to be banned from use.  Insert your own slippery slope argument here, but that's terrifyingly intolerant to me.  I'm terrified of this burgeoning world that looks more at the potential for incriminating word choice over actual context.  It reminds me of that hullabaloo from a few years ago over the word "niggardly" because it just happens to sound like a really bad word.

I still haven't seen it... thanks.

That is an awesome idea.  Personally, though, I would have put O'Brien with the DS9 cast instead of the TNG cast, but maybe that's just me.

EDIT:  Also, they included Leslie from TOS but skipped over Wesley Crusher entirely?  That's just cold.  And they have Ilia but not Decker?  And no Ezri Dax either?  Harumph.  I smell favoritism.

How could you possibly think excluding Wesley is a bad thing?

In canonical limbo(?)

Man I love deleted stuff, and I finally figured I should include this thread from trekbbs.

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=220249

Lots of interesting stuff.  It'd be nice if Jambe Davdar started tackling the Trek films.  Man, those would be some awesome docs!

For a flying milk carton? Sure!

For those interested, there is a website called workprints dot biz.  There they have a workprint of the film Generations.

And another interesting find: the TrekCore channel on YouTube has deleted scenes from TNG and other series.

http://www.youtube.com/trekcorevideo

Why anyone would want to watch the workprint for a piece of garbage like Generations is a mystery to me.

Is anybody Surprised trek 13 is well into development at Paramount and Orci and Kurtzmen are back as the writers.  Some peoples hopes for their firing have been dashed, oh well.

Rumors suggest the director is the Rupert Wyatt who directed rise of the planet of the apes.  And we will have a 2016 release date.

 

I hope this time its not a space revenge movie.  A ripoff of star wars or the wrath of khan. I don't want any more nods to nostalgia or retreads of classic episodes or movies.  Something new and fresh would be nice.  But not likely.

Its like every superman movie having to either be about Zod or Lex luthor.

 Generations is horrible it would have played fine as a tv episode, but it is neither a classic tos cast movie or TNG movie.  It also gave STID the idea of killing Kirk.  The way they killed off Kirk was stupid.  The way he is buried is also laughably bad.   Lets just leave his body on Veridian III covered with rocks. 

skyjedi2005 said:

Rumors suggest the director is the Rupert Wyatt who directed rise of the planet of the apes.  And we will have a 2016 release date.

I hope this time its not a space revenge movie.  A ripoff of star wars or the wrath of khan. I don't want any more nods to nostalgia or retreads of classic episodes or movies.  Something new and fresh would be nice.  But not likely.

It could be all that and more, and I still won't bother to watch it. Bizarro Trek is a pool that has been pissed in to the point where the water's become opaque with yellow, and all the chlorine in the world isn't going to get it clean enough to convince me to dip even a single toe in.

I'm just going to wait until Trek gets another reboot, whenever that'll be. Hopefully by then, we'll get something that isn't mindless bullshit.