All Things Star Trek — Page 17

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!

SilverWook said:

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

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

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.

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!

Wait til you get to Vger...

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.

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*