generalfrevious said:
Can the franchise ever recover from JJ Abrams, or was TNG the last good thing the franchise ever did?
Well I personally did like the last (war) seasons of DS9 and the first 3 seasons of Enterprise
DrCrowTStarwars said:
What proof do you have that making aliens that didn't look at all human was a choice for TNG. They had to use the makeup people they had and they didn't have an unlimited budget as you admit.
I still don't see why they couldn't have at least used some face paint to give the aliens some non-human skin colours or some contact lenses to give them non-human eye colours.
In the end, though, when you get right down to it, I could have lived with the lame rubber forehead aliens if the writers had at least come up with a better explanation for their existence other than the stupid pseudoscientific "ancient rubber forehead aliens seeded the galaxy with DNA designed to evolve into more rubber forehead aliens" crap.
DrCrowTStarwars said:
Oh and at the time it aired TOS was one of the most expensive shows on Tv,so how come they get a pass? They shouldn't
You can give a show the biggest budget in the world, and that won't make a bit of difference if technological limitations get in the way of bringing a creative vision to life.
DrCrowTStarwars said:
and you keep insisting that TNG was the only show that ever had aliens that looked human,it was not.
I never said that. What I said -- basically -- is that TNG's overuse of human and rubber forehead aliens was stupid or -- alternatively -- the explanation behind their existence was.
DrCrowTStarwars said:
Also how did the show that got the best ratings of any Star Trek series and became just as much a part of the pop culture as Star Trek damage Star Trek?
Perhaps the political correctness and pseudoscientific technobabble of the show didn't bother most viewers. I, however, can't stand any of it.
DrCrowTStarwars said:
Oh and again go rewatch the episodes you will find tons of debate between the character but in the end Picard was the captain so the crew did what he said because that is how the military or any job with a chain of command works. it seems to me your problem is with the fact that the crew didn't commit mutiny every single week. That may seem dramatic but it's not realistic and it would have gotten old after a while.
When I speak of conflict between the characters, I don't just mean conflict between Picard and his subordinates on issues pertaining to the running of the Enterprise or missions, I also speak of matters of a more personal nature, such as differing political, religious, philosophical, etc. ideals. From what I saw from TNG, there was never any major difference of opinion between the different crewmembers in regard to these matters.
Take, for example, the episode "Who Watches the Watchers". This episode deals heavily with the idea of theism and theistic worship, and could have easily featured the characters -- each with differing views on the subject -- engaging and debating each other on the idea. Instead, however, each of the main characters are Mary Sues of the writer(s), with each more-or-less sharing the same basic antitheistic beliefs.
DrCrowTStarwars said:
TNG and TOS were set up to explore SCi-Fi ideas and a lot of that technobabble you complain about has a basis in real science and that was the point of the show a lot of weeks. They would take something that was a theory at the time and expand upon it.
Oh, please. Most of that technobabble is pseudoscientific hogwash with as much basis in real science as Young Earth Creationism. Besides, the people-that-be have gone on record stating that all the technobabble in TNG was added to the script merely to pad the story out so that they could have an episode that ran a full hour.
DrCrowTStarwars said:
Oh and I always thought the aliens looked really good,it's only after CGI came around(Something that didn't get into full swing until after the series ended)that I heard anyone complain.
If anything turned me off of human and rubber forehead aliens, it was the works of H. P. Lovecraft, not plastic-looking CGI.
You seem to think that if you put two characters into a room and they don't instantly pull out knives and try to kill each other then the story is badly written. I don't know what to tell you other then that is not how humans in general and military personal act in real life.
You've gotten it into your head that my definition of "interpersonal conflict" means "brawl matches". Well, it doesn't. It means "differences of opinion -- sometimes very strong differences of opinion".
I don't think Star trek is the franchise for you. I think maybe you should give the Sci-Fi version of BSG a try,it seems a lot closer to the type of show you would enjoy.
The Star Trek envisioned by TOS and -- to a somewhat lesser extent -- DS9, is very much a franchise for me. The pretentious, pseudo-Communist Star Trek envisioned by Roddenberry for TNG, on the other hand, isn't.
DrCrowTStarwars said:
Warbler said:
4 versions of STII? I know of STII, Star Trek Nemesis, and Star Trek Into Darkness. What is the 4th version?
Most people I know count First Contact as a remake of St2 even though it's plot is different. The basic theme of Picard wanting revenge is there(Even though they dealt with that on the series so it should not have been a problem at that point)and they quote from Moby Dick. That is close enough for a lot of people to see it as a repeat.
First Contact is a remake of Aliens, which is a remake of Them!.
I dare you to triple bill this one day and spot the connections, it's fun.
Yeah and the same limitations applied to TNG. Oh and did you just call for them to use black face to change actor's skin colour? In the 1980s? I think you have gone completely insane and you still can't prove that any of this would have worked on screen or on budget. Again where is your proof? if making aliens that don't look human with out CGI is so easy then you do it. Come back in a week with a complete episode's worth of special effects that use no CGI and look realistic with dozens of extras made up so you can't tell they are human under the make up.
Oh and you blast creationism and anyone who believes in it and then you latter blast the writers for not believe in it and doing so in their script. Show me one creationist that was on the Enterprise in TOS and that is a scripting issue so don't you dare come back with your tired old line about how people were still trying to figure out how fire worked in the 1960s so any problems with the show should be overlooked. The fact is the methods for producing effects didn't change all that much between 1966 and 1987. Computers were put in control of cameras and did the compositing and that is it. It may have been a little faster but it wasn't cheap or fast at that point. Also even the little things like a phaser blast mean hour of manual work and it may blow your mind but the people that did that work cost money and that had to come out of the budget the same budget that hired make up people to apply the stuff to dozens of actors every week. The big change was that people demanded special effects on par with films like Star Wars every week in 87 so that is what they had to focus on. Also they couldn't afford to keep actors in a chair for six days while they made them look 100% non human. Not even films did that. Again if TNG could do this then it should be very easy for you to find proof. Anything from a budget report to make up artists saying that they came to the producers with a method for doing it that they could prove would not blow the budget and being shot down. Where is your proof beyond your personal hatred of everyone who ever worked on TNG?
You seem to be living in a dream world were TNG had an unlimited budget and access to tech that didn't exist yet and you are determined to personally attack and insult every person who worked on the show and everyone who watched it. You have admitted that you know nothing about what was going on behind the scenes meanwhile I have read books and interviews with the people who were there. I will take their word for what was going on over yours.
You are just someone who needs to attack the hard work of others in order to validate your own life when if you were challenged to do that same work you couldn't do nearly as good a job as they did. I am done with you because no amount of facts can ever penetrate pure hate and that is all you are and all you will ever know. You hate everyone and everything because it makes you feel better about yourself. Well I am not stupid enough to spend the rest of my life having this debate with you.
Oh and H.P Lovecraft wrote books,he didn't make weekly TV episodes. It's much easier to describe something that doesn't look human on paper then it is to make it week after week for dozens of extras. The fact that you think there is no more work in creating a make up effect then there is in typing out a story and it doesn't cost a cent more says all there is to say about you and just how far off the deep end you are.
So yes in 1987 you could create CGI aliens who didn't look human at all and looked 100% realistic for $1 a piece just like they did on TOS where there were never any human aliens. The producers of TNG choose not to so they could spend all day doing lines of coke off of strippers. Oh and every script was written by an inbred redneck who's mother and sister were the same person and had no idea how to write a script and they were hired because the producers wanted Star Trek to fail. TNG was the worst thing the human race has ever produced and everyone who worked on it should be burned alive for their crimes against the human race and the one hundred percent perfect show that never put a foot wrong known as Stat Trek.
There I said everything you wanted now I am done with you.
Bingowings said:
DrCrowTStarwars said:
Warbler said:
4 versions of STII? I know of STII, Star Trek Nemesis, and Star Trek Into Darkness. What is the 4th version?
Most people I know count First Contact as a remake of St2 even though it's plot is different. The basic theme of Picard wanting revenge is there(Even though they dealt with that on the series so it should not have been a problem at that point)and they quote from Moby Dick. That is close enough for a lot of people to see it as a repeat.
First Contact is a remake of Aliens, which is a remake of Them!.
I dare you to triple bill this one day and spot the connections, it's fun.
I'll have to try that next time. I have to say I never saw First Contact as a remake of Star Trek 2 myself but I tend to watch the movies with people who are not hardcore trekies. You know the type of people who watch the odd episode and who have seen the movies but can't name episode or tell you where the warp core is. Any way whenever I watch it with them they always say something along the lines of "They are just doing Wrath of Khan again" so I guess it is close enough for most people to count it as a remake.
Honestly it''s much more Aliens than anything else.
Warbler said:
generalfrevious said:
The whole franchise is dead, and has been for 20 years (15 if you like DS9). No power on earth can make ST good ever again. JJ blew it up permanently. Does anyone honestly think Chris Pine will be as iconic as Willaim Shatner? STID was so horrendous it nullified any goodwill the previous film may have had. These new films represent everything wrong with our corporation-centric, one percenter, money is speech culture. Like I said, they should wipe these films out of existence; they deserve to be forgotten. Star Trek used to mean something to us. Now it's just some soulless product to make some rich Viacom CEO even richer.
while I didn't think Star Trek Into Darkness was all that great, I think you exaggerate just a bit.
We live in one of the most cynical periods in modern history. Art is being destroyed by hacks like Abrams, and they get praised for ruining franchises. He makes Rick Berman innocent by comparison. Star Trek used to be just more than some silly low budget tv show; it was an optimistic look on humanity exploring the unknown world with others, and finding solutions to problems that did not boil down to punching the bad a hundred times, like in some dumb action movie. I don't think I can exaggerate too much in the death of science fiction as we know it.
generalfrevious said:
Warbler said:
generalfrevious said:
The whole franchise is dead, and has been for 20 years (15 if you like DS9). No power on earth can make ST good ever again. JJ blew it up permanently. Does anyone honestly think Chris Pine will be as iconic as Willaim Shatner? STID was so horrendous it nullified any goodwill the previous film may have had. These new films represent everything wrong with our corporation-centric, one percenter, money is speech culture. Like I said, they should wipe these films out of existence; they deserve to be forgotten. Star Trek used to mean something to us. Now it's just some soulless product to make some rich Viacom CEO even richer.
while I didn't think Star Trek Into Darkness was all that great, I think you exaggerate just a bit.
We live in one of the most cynical periods in modern history.
generalfrevious said:
Warbler said:
generalfrevious said:
The whole franchise is dead, and has been for 20 years (15 if you like DS9). No power on earth can make ST good ever again. JJ blew it up permanently. Does anyone honestly think Chris Pine will be as iconic as Willaim Shatner? STID was so horrendous it nullified any goodwill the previous film may have had. These new films represent everything wrong with our corporation-centric, one percenter, money is speech culture. Like I said, they should wipe these films out of existence; they deserve to be forgotten. Star Trek used to mean something to us. Now it's just some soulless product to make some rich Viacom CEO even richer.
while I didn't think Star Trek Into Darkness was all that great, I think you exaggerate just a bit.
We live in one of the most cynical periods in modern history. Art is being destroyed by hacks like Abrams, and they get praised for ruining franchises. He makes Rick Berman innocent by comparison. Star Trek used to be just more than some silly low budget tv show; it was an optimistic look on humanity exploring the unknown world with others, and finding solutions to problems that did not boil down to punching the bad a hundred times, like in some dumb action movie. I don't think I can exaggerate too much in the death of science fiction as we know it.
Yeah that was my huge problem. That Kirk being completely unlikable,the plot making no sense,and Khan having a cure for death in his blood. How are we supposed to be worried about any of the characters making it when we know that there are almost a hundred people frozen who have a death cure in their blood? They have just destroyed all drama and sense of tension in any future movies.
The big thing for me is that Star Trek is no longer about ideas. When I was a kid I watched the show for it's ideas and culture clashes,now those are all gone and replaced by catchphrases and callbacks. i was able to handle the movies being dumb action movies when the shows were still on the air because you would still get ideas in the shows but now that Star Trek is movies only made by the people who made Transformers Star Trek is dead to me.
As far as I am concerned Star Trek died with DS9. RIP Star Trek:(
DrCrowTStarwars said:
Oh and did you just call for them to use black face to change actor's skin colour? In the 1980s? I think you have gone completely insane and you still can't prove that any of this would have worked on screen or on budget.
Oh, so this
is blackface, huh?
I suppose your blinding rage caused you to skip over the part about non-human skin colours (blue, green, red, purple, etc.) something Star Trek was perfectly capable of handling in the '60s.
if making aliens that don't look human with out CGI is so easy then you do it. Come back in a week with a complete episode's worth of special effects that use no CGI and look realistic with dozens of extras made up so you can't tell they are human under the make up.
As I've already said, a simple thing such as painting an actor's face red and giving him orange contacts would have satisfied me. Now tell me how this would have been so hard to do without CGI.
Oh and you blast creationism and anyone who believes in it and then you latter blast the writers for not believe in it in and doing so in their script.
You have a comprehension problem, don't you? I don't blast the writers for not believing in creationism. What I do blast them for is for portraying evolution in a completely unrealistic fashion (individuals don't evolve and DNA cannot be programmed to evolve a certain way).
they couldn't afford to keep actors in a chair for six days while they made them look 100% non human. Not even films did that. Again if TNG could do this then it should be very easy for you to find proof.
Still putting words in my mouth, I see. I never said the aliens in TNG needed to look "100% non-human". What I did say, however, is that they could have gone the extra mile and at least painted the damn actors' face blue to make them a little less human in appearance.
But I guess a simple coat of face paint became very expensive between the end of TOS and the beginning of TNG.
You seem to be living in a dream world were TNG had an unlimited budget and access to tech that didn't exist yet and you are determined to personally attack and insult every person who worked on the show and everyone who watched it.
And I thought I was the master of hyperbole ...
Perhaps I was too harsh in my assessment of the people who designed the alien makeup for TNG. The point still stands, though, that something as simple as painting an actor's face a certain colour could have been done but rarely ever was.
You are just someone who needs to attack the hard work of others in order to validate your own life when if you were challenged to do that same work you couldn't do nearly as good a job as they did.
I've never been in a production of a film/TV show -- amateur or otherwise -- so I have no reason to knock the efforts of others down to bolster my own ego.
You hate everyone and everything because it makes you feel better about yourself.
Here's a news flash for you -- I hate myself far more than I can hate anyone else (Lil Wayne being an exception, of course).
Oh and H.P Lovecraft wrote books,he didn't make weekly TV episodes. It's much easier to describe something that doesn't look human on paper then it is to make it week after week for dozens of extras. The fact that you think there is no more work in creating a make up effect then there is in typing out a story and it doesn't cost a cent more says all there is to say about you and just how far off the deep end you are.
It's not that I think there's no more work involved in writing words on paper than there is creating makeup. It's that reading about completely alien aliens and worlds has stimulated my imagination to such a degree that little gray men just don't impress me anymore.
So yes in 1987 you could create CGI aliens who didn't look human at all and looked 100% realistic for $1 a piece just like they did on TOS where there were never any human aliens. The producers of TNG choose not to so they could spend all day doing lines of coke off of strippers. Oh and every script was written by an inbred redneck who's mother and sister were the same person and had no idea how to write a script and they were hired because the producers wanted Star Trek to fail. TNG was the worst thing the human race has ever produced and everyone who worked on it should be burned alive for their crimes against the human race and the one hundred percent perfect show that never put a foot wrong known as Stat Trek.
Do you know the number for this far-out universe? I'd love to add it to my list of multiverse worlds.
There I said everything you wanted now I am done with you.
Promises, promises ...
No sillys, this
is half-blackface. Half-whiteface.
;-)
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DuracellEnergizer, I will grant that maybe the could have and should have been more creative when coming up with the alien makeup, but I don't see why you should let that ruin the whole show for you.
DuracellEnergizer said:In the end, though, when you get right down to it, I could have lived with the lame rubber forehead aliens if the writers had at least come up with a better explanation for their existence other than the stupid pseudoscientific "ancient rubber forehead aliens seeded the galaxy with DNA designed to evolve into more rubber forehead aliens" crap.
was it really crap?
DrCrowTStarwars said:
Oh and again go rewatch the episodes you will find tons of debate between the character but in the end Picard was the captain so the crew did what he said because that is how the military or any job with a chain of command works. it seems to me your problem is with the fact that the crew didn't commit mutiny every single week. That may seem dramatic but it's not realistic and it would have gotten old after a while.
When I speak of conflict between the characters, I don't just mean conflict between Picard and his subordinates on issues pertaining to the running of the Enterprise or missions, I also speak of matters of a more personal nature, such as differing political, religious, philosophical, etc. ideals. From what I saw from TNG, there was never any major difference of opinion between the different crewmembers in regard to these matters.
Take, for example, the episode "Who Watches the Watchers". This episode deals heavily with the idea of theism and theistic worship, and could have easily featured the characters -- each with differing views on the subject -- engaging and debating each other on the idea. Instead, however, each of the main characters are Mary Sues of the writer(s), with each more-or-less sharing the same basic antitheistic beliefs.
other than the spats between Spock and Bones what great political,religious, philosophical, etc debates did the main characters in TOS get into?
I don't think the just because the main characters don't get into these debates with each other means than you can't have a great show. They did get into these kinds of debates with non-main characters in TNG.
DrCrowTStarwars said:
TNG and TOS were set up to explore SCi-Fi ideas and a lot of that technobabble you complain about has a basis in real science and that was the point of the show a lot of weeks. They would take something that was a theory at the time and expand upon it.
Oh, please. Most of that technobabble is pseudoscientific hogwash with as much basis in real science as Young Earth Creationism. Besides, the people-that-be have gone on record stating that all the technobabble in TNG was added to the script merely to pad the story out so that they could have an episode that ran a full hour.
gosh, you let every little thing bother you.
I don't think Star trek is the franchise for you. I think maybe you should give the Sci-Fi version of BSG a try,it seems a lot closer to the type of show you would enjoy.
The Star Trek envisioned by TOS and -- to a somewhat lesser extent -- DS9, is very much a franchise for me. The pretentious, pseudo-Communist Star Trek envisioned by Roddenberry for TNG, on the other hand, isn't.
DS9, I would agree does seem to be more your cup of tea. But the TOS? That doesn't seem to be something for you.
generalfrevious said:
The whole franchise is dead, and has been for 20 years (15 if you like DS9). No power on earth can make ST good ever again.
JJ blew it up permanently.
STID was so horrendous it nullified any goodwill the previous film may have had
the above statements are what I meant by exaggeration.
. Star Trek used to mean something to us.
used to? it still does to me. Don't the let JJ render Star Trek meanless to you. If Star Trek means nothing to us, the fans, it will truly die. But as long as we know what Star Trek really is about and what it stands for and that it does mean something to us, it can be saved. It may take a few years, I believe sci fi and Star Trek can be saved. What we need are more visionaries like Roddenbury and what Lucas used to be, to come along.
Now it's just some soulless product to make some rich Viacom CEO even richer.
maybe it is now, it doesn't have to remain this way.
generalfrevious said:Star Trek used to be just more than some silly low budget tv show; it was an optimistic look on humanity exploring the unknown world with others,
I agree here 110%
and finding solutions to problems that did not boil down to punching the bad a hundred times,
to be fair, kirk did get into a lot of fist fights in TOS, but I know what you mean.
DuracellEnergizer said:
DrCrowTStarwars said:
What proof do you have that making aliens that didn't look at all human was a choice for TNG. They had to use the makeup people they had and they didn't have an unlimited budget as you admit.
In the end, though, when you get right down to it, I could have lived with the lame rubber forehead aliens if the writers had at least come up with a better explanation for their existence other than the stupid pseudoscientific "ancient rubber forehead aliens seeded the galaxy with DNA designed to evolve into more rubber forehead aliens" crap.
Why need an explanation at all? It is what it is.
Reading the past few pages of this thread...
TheBoost said:
DuracellEnergizer said:
DrCrowTStarwars said:
What proof do you have that making aliens that didn't look at all human was a choice for TNG. They had to use the makeup people they had and they didn't have an unlimited budget as you admit.
In the end, though, when you get right down to it, I could have lived with the lame rubber forehead aliens if the writers had at least come up with a better explanation for their existence other than the stupid pseudoscientific "ancient rubber forehead aliens seeded the galaxy with DNA designed to evolve into more rubber forehead aliens" crap.
Why need an explanation at all? It is what it is.
Yeah B5 never had to explain why all of their aliens were humans with masks pulled over their heads and Farscape never had to explain why all of their aliens were puppets or people who had escaped from a bondage club,why does TNG have to explain anything and TOS and DS9 had those same aliens so why do they get a pass.
Okay now I am completely done with this because it is insane.
Actually Farscape explained why some of their aliens look like humans (about half don't) and and only a handful looked like bondage beings.
I actually found it charming that the Enterprise crew looked ready for bed (or gym) most of the time.
Warbler said:
generalfrevious said:
The whole franchise is dead, and has been for 20 years (15 if you like DS9). No power on earth can make ST good ever again.
JJ blew it up permanently.
STID was so horrendous it nullified any goodwill the previous film may have had
the above statements are what I meant by exaggeration.
. Star Trek used to mean something to us.
used to? it still does to me. Don't the let JJ render Star Trek meanless to you. If Star Trek means nothing to us, the fans, it will truly die. But as long as we know what Star Trek really is about and what it stands for and that it does mean something to us, it can be saved. It may take a few years, I believe sci fi and Star Trek can be saved. What we need are more visionaries like Roddenbury and what Lucas used to be, to come along.
Now it's just some soulless product to make some rich Viacom CEO even richer.
maybe it is now, it doesn't have to remain this way.
Yeah good point. We all need to remember that.
The third Doctor had a saying I have always liked. "While there is life there's a chance." and I think that applies here and I am sorry I forgot it.
Someone will come along and restore Star Trek at some point. it may not happen today or even in the next five years but as long as one of us remembers what Star Trek is really about at some point it will come back.
DuracellEnergizer said:
As I've already said, a simple thing such as painting an actor's face red and giving him orange contacts would have satisfied me.
So then....what's the complaint?
Tobar said:
DuracellEnergizer said:
As I've already said, a simple thing such as painting an actor's face red and giving him orange contacts would have satisfied me.
So then....what's the complaint?
You know what JNT said that "Memory Cheats" what he meant was that a lot of the times you only remember the really good parts of movies or Tv shows you saw in the past but I guess this proves it can also work in reverse. Sometimes you can forget just how good something from the past was. At least that is what I am finding as I rewatch TNG for the first time in years.
Rule number one...JNT lies.
Bingowings said:
Rule number one...JNT lies.
Rule number two...Hawaiian shirts are cool.
Bingowings said:
Rule number one...JNT lies.
Rule number two...Hawaiian shirts are cool.