The Star Trek III (Back from the Dead) Thread

That teaser just screams Khan.

Is it just me or is Season 6 of TNG really really really awful? I'm about 13 or 14 episodes in and really only one or two have been enjoyable. They are leaning on thew holodeck way too much and pretty much nothing has happened. Even the two-parter ("there are four lights!") wasn't that great. I've never watched the series in order before even though I've seen every episode tons and tons of times and for the first time in this process I've hit a big-time lull.
 
I always found that episode to be pretty boring, even though the four lights line is basically Star Trek mythos.
 
I've also been working through Season 2. I guess it's a slog in that Beverly's gone for a spell, but it's okay otherwise.

When it was broadcast, I remember thinking of "The Royale" as the episode that marked when I'd watch TNG every week without fail. Before then I'd catch every other episode, sometimes better than that but not usually.

Anyhow, because of that I'd always thought highly of that episode without knowing why. I just watched it a few days ago and, man, it's not especially good. I think I dug it so much during broadcast because of Data doing his Cool Daddy act at the craps table, which still holds up. Otherwise it's okay but not too fresh. Then again, so many of the things we think of as ST tropes come out of these episodes, so in that sense it's not exactly terrible.

It's still ripping off a TOS episode, though, right? I don't know the TOS stuff as well, but I remember seeing one that was *very* similar with gangsters and whatnot, and at the time I thought, Hey, Royale!
 
[quote name='dothog']It's still ripping off a TOS episode, though, right? I don't know the TOS stuff as well, but I remember seeing one that was *very* similar with gangsters and whatnot, and at the time I thought, Hey, Royale![/QUOTE]

You're thinking of "A Piece of the Action", which is way more fun than "The Royale". I remember the latter when it aired. Some people really hated it. I was kind of "meh". It seemed lazy to me. I hate high concepts that involve aliens that seem both boring and stupid. "Hey, let's use our magic tech to re-enact this book for some pointless reason because why the hell not." Why would they care? Why should I care?

It's hard with some of these episodes because they came before they ran the Holodeck into the ground. (And yeah, "The Royale" isn't exactly holodeck, but it might as well be.) "The Royale" had so many problems because the payoff was so weak and the setting was just dull. I don't watch sci-fi so that I can see things that would bore me to tears in real life. You could subvert it or make it creepy or weird, but they played it straight.

As for Season 6, yeah -- not exactly a thrill ride there. I did like "Chain of Command", but mostly for the Picard bits. I also quite liked "Face of the Enemy" (Troi used well? Who knew?), "Frame of Mind", and "Tapestry". Those all would be on my favorites list.

The problem is the rest of the season is filled with clunkers, wastes of time, and ideas that seemed great but just lacked in the execution department. It's like they got their best ideas out already in earlier seasons and just didn't know where to go. I remember around this time looking forward to episodes that sounded like they had cant-miss concepts and then being somewhat let down that it wasn't half as awesome as it should have been.
 
I actually really enjoy my watchings of The Royale, but I do agree some kind of subversion may have made it a classic episode. And I get wanting an explanation for why Alien of the Week wants to recreate a shitty book. Ah, well.
 
[quote name='blandstalker']You're thinking of "A Piece of the Action", which is way more fun than "The Royale". I remember the latter when it aired. Some people really hated it. I was kind of "meh". It seemed lazy to me. I hate high concepts that involve aliens that seem both boring and stupid. "Hey, let's use our magic tech to re-enact this book for some pointless reason because why the hell not." Why would they care? Why should I care?

It's hard with some of these episodes because they came before they ran the Holodeck into the ground. (And yeah, "The Royale" isn't exactly holodeck, but it might as well be.) "The Royale" had so many problems because the payoff was so weak and the setting was just dull. I don't watch sci-fi so that I can see things that would bore me to tears in real life. You could subvert it or make it creepy or weird, but they played it straight.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, the "technically proficient yet inappropriately accommodating alien" trope is a headscratcher. They riffed on that a little with the kid in the cave. Episode escapes me. Anyhow, The Royale is one of those where you just try to make the best of an effective holodeck episode and enjoy Data having chicks blow on the rocks for luck.

[quote name='blandstalker']As for Season 6, yeah -- not exactly a thrill ride there. I did like "Chain of Command", but mostly for the Picard bits. I also quite liked "Face of the Enemy" (Troi used well? Who knew?), "Frame of Mind", and "Tapestry". Those all would be on my favorites list.

The problem is the rest of the season is filled with clunkers, wastes of time, and ideas that seemed great but just lacked in the execution department. It's like they got their best ideas out already in earlier seasons and just didn't know where to go.[/QUOTE]

As for Season 6, I agree with the assessment of those episodes. But then I'm relatively easy to please, for some reason I give TNG a big pass when it comes to critical thinking. I also agree that they were tapped for ideas, and I think it comes out in just summarizing those episodes.

The entire season is really built around building "moments" for individual characters and less about creating grand space adventures or tense diplomatic scenarios for the crew. Look at the episodes you've raised: Riker winds up in another hospital; Cardassians/Q screw with JLP; Troi is a romulan (hubba hubba); Riker gets an evil twin.
 
Something just occurred to me while watching TNG on BBCA. Why is it that they can beam someone onto the ship without them standing on a transporter pad, but to get off the ship they must be in the transporter room standing on the pad? Actually they don't, plenty of times they beam straight off the ship from another room, so then what the hell is the point of the transporter room? They just wanted to give O'Brien something to do?:lol:
 
[quote name='Clak']Something just occurred to me while watching TNG on BBCA. Why is it that they can beam someone onto the ship without them standing on a transporter pad, but to get off the ship they must be in the transporter room standing on the pad? Actually they don't, plenty of times they beam straight off the ship from another room, so then what the hell is the point of the transporter room? They just wanted to give O'Brien something to do?:lol:[/QUOTE]
I think this was reasonably explained, IMO. There was a couple mentions of how transporting from spot to spot in the ship was dangerous and not recommended because of the danger of potentially having the incorrect coordinates, or something. Anyway I bought it at the time
 
Site to site was always done with the express impression that it was only done in emergencies. Not sure I ever caught the reason the first few times through, but that was the indication that I got.

S2 is turning out better than I remember. I still dislike Pulaski, but it's not horrible. 'Elementary, Dear Data' I thought was kinda weak by itself, if you didn't know what was going to come out of it. Anti-climactic.
 
That makes no sense. Even the normal transport is essentially two transports. The only difference with site to site is they aren't standing there on the platform.
 
[quote name='Clak']That makes no sense. Even the normal transport is essentially two transports. The only difference with site to site is they aren't standing there on the platform.[/QUOTE]

Another thing to point out is look when they transport off the ship somewhere, say down to the planet. They are almost never exactly where they want to be. Now that's also a plot device to get them walking somewhere, but it can fit here too.
 
[quote name='Clak']Ugh, don't even mention that. You have to wonder what was going through the minds of the actors.[/QUOTE]

Not to resurrect another Nemesis smackdown, but it was their fault. Patrick Stewart got the buggies into the script because he likes to drive and wanted Picard to drive (I am still boggled at that). The writer was a friend of Spiner's, and was receptive to any "requests" for Picard or Data.

In other news that didn't get discussed here, Simon Pegg says the villain of the next Trek movie is not Khan. Personally, I'll be glad if this is true. I don't really see the need of remaking the old movies in the new universe, and I think I'll be happier if they leave Wrath of Khan alone. The last attempt...no I'm done going there ;)
 
http://m.ign.com/articles/2012/06/25/star-trek-someone-spilled-some-metroid-prime-in-my-uncharted

IGN: Will the Enterprise be a Normandy-style explorable hub?

Sheldon Carter: The only part of that question that I baulk at a little bit is the comparison to Mass Effect. I would say that we’re not an RPG, for sure, this is more of an - as I said, think Metroid Prime or Uncharted –but, yes! The whole ship is explorable. Basically we got the entire blueprints from the movie, so for the first time you’re going to be able to go down into the officer’s quarters, you’re going to go down to engineering, you’re going to go into the transporter room, and then on top of that we’ve got the whole cast so we want to use them! You want to be able to go and interact with all the members of the crew.
Click to expand...

This game is looking epic, but don't want to get my hopes up. God of War writer, entire cast of Movie is voicing and helping with dialogue, the tops guys at Bad Robot seemed to be involved in the direction...
 
I don't know if we really need extended cuts of the episodes. The timing and pacing were fine for most of the series...it was just in season 7 where they started having these poorly scripted side things going on that was suppose to give the characters more and it just felt out of place considering we had 7 years to know the characters.
 
[quote name='ITDEFX']I don't know if we really need extended cuts of the episodes.[/QUOTE]

I'm a fan who is largely uninterested in re-releases across formats (VCR, DVD, Blu Ray, whatever the shit's on deck). But I'm willing to consider it as more than a novelty, and perhaps even consider a purchase, if you pack in extras like interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, never-before-seen/deleted scenes, "Director's Cuts," so on.

So I'm probably completely on the other side of this issue from you.
 
[quote name='dothog']I'm a fan who is largely uninterested in re-releases across formats (VCR, DVD, Blu Ray, whatever the shit's on deck). But I'm willing to consider it as more than a novelty, and perhaps even consider a purchase, if you pack in extras like interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, never-before-seen/deleted scenes, "Director's Cuts," so on.

So I'm probably completely on the other side of this issue from you.[/QUOTE]

Well directors/writers commentary would be nice... we are probably going to get a shit load of Okawa's(sp?) text commentaries, which is nice but can be distracting. Honestly I think the stuff written in the companion books are good enough.

Honestly which episodes need a DC? We don't need more of BOBW, SOTF or Inner Light. and fuck Sub Rosa.
 
[quote name='ITDEFX']Honestly which episodes need a DC? We don't need more of BOBW, SOTF or Inner Light. and fuck Sub Rosa.[/QUOTE]

You're not providing much support for that. IMO anytime we can see more of a B (or C story) that was previously cut to fit for broadcast, I'm all for that. I can't begin to enumerate episodes, good and bad, across all seasons that had B-stories that would have otherwise been more worthwhile if they were given a few more scenes. (I don't see how timing/pacing has anything to do with it, I think we're talking about deleted content here and not alternate takes, right?)

I don't see how a TNG fan could possibly be against this. It's such an odd position to take. Maybe if you explained the position in more detail beyond just listing episodes.
 
[quote name='dothog']You're not providing much support for that. IMO anytime we can see more of a B (or C story) that was previously cut to fit for broadcast, I'm all for that. I can't begin to enumerate episodes, good and bad, across all seasons that had B-stories that would have otherwise been more worthwhile if they were given a few more scenes. (I don't see how timing/pacing has anything to do with it, I think we're talking about deleted content here and not alternate takes, right?)

I don't see how a TNG fan could possibly be against this. It's such an odd position to take. Maybe if you explained the position in more detail beyond just listing episodes.[/QUOTE]

Agreed. Otherwise, I'll stick with the Amazon streaming. Needs added value, and I consider DC better than slightly improved visuals.
 
[quote name='dothog']I don't see how a TNG fan could possibly be against this. It's such an odd position to take. [/QUOTE]

I agree completely.

And yeah, fuck Sub Rosa. But if there were deleted scenes, I actually would watch it again.

I agree that HD is the big draw. But HD isn't enough for me to want to watch a lot of these episodes again. I enjoyed seeing the stills for Code of Honor, but watching the episode? I have better things to do with my time.

That plays into a bit of reluctance with the new set. Yes, HD is wonderful, but I'm paying big bucks for episodes I have no intention of watching. Making them pretty won't help.

But, to see new scenes? That would be fascinating. Were there some good ideas in there that got cut? Was the episode a waste even with the deleted scenes? Would there be interesting tidbits that we missed out on because of time?

One of the magic things about DVD and Blu-Ray is that it's easy to present the viewer with both the original televised version and a version with the new scenes. It's trivial to do and doesn't take much effort or space. That way purists get the episodes as broadcast and archaeologists get to see additional footage.

For me, it would be a massive selling point to see something new in TNG and (hopefully) DS9. It would certainly get me off the fence. Heck, I'd probably preorder.
 
I really enjoy extra material, though I get it mainly through youtube. But it opens up so much, and it enriches a lot of internal debates over episodes or films.

Like the dune buggy discussion from earlier: when I saw the behind-the-scenes interview with Patrick Stewart on Nemesis and he's making it clear the buggies were his idea, that's something I absolutely had to see for myself to believe. I wouldn't have believed that had I read it somewhere or had anyone else told me, "Yeah, the buggies were PS's idea, not Berman's or the studio's." It's not that it made a difference in a big way in terms of my overall opinion of the movie. It's that there was value in seeing and hearing those words come out of his Shakespearean, buggy lovin' gob just settled that internal struggle about WTF is this buggy doing in my ST film?

The behind-the-scenes stuff on Trials and Tribbleations is another one that really enriches the episodes. It's such a fan favorite, and it's pandering in all the best ways, but when you watch those vids on the writing and production behind it, it makes you realize that it wasn't just "coasting" on technology, it was probably a career highlight for all of the production people involved. It doesn't make the episode more or less fun, it just adds that little bit that finalizes your opinion on the episode.

I'm talking a lot of BTS material, but deleted scenes, alternate takes, I love all that stuff. I think my favorite extras are usually interviews with writers, who seem more capable in discussing characters in a Big Picture way. Actors/producers tend to reduce things to scenes, whereas the writers are always eager to provide context.

Anyhow, if they include that on the TNG Blu Ray discs, I'm all over it. And not just on youtube, I might even consider picking up a couple of the stronger seasons if I found them on sale somewhere.
 
I am super stoked for the extra 20 (TWENTY) minutes of The Measure of a Man. That episode is just so great, and seeing more of it, even if it was deemed necessary to cut to fit airing restrictions, will be fantastic. And blandstalker already posted the excellent point that most TV series boxsets that do this show original and extended cuts. Seamless and effortless and pleases both parties. Opinions usually aren't wrong, but yours is ITDEFX, sorry.

Besides, there are no time slots on home video, so fuck da rules. I want to see every single thing of TNG that was committed to the story and film. That would be amazing. Then throw in the damn bloopers why the hell not!
 
Here's a question that someone more experienced can answer. Didn't the Tosk from DS9 appear on TNG?

I remember an alien life form that was messing around with the crew and at the end of the episode, they locked them under a forcefield to teach them a lesson. Anyone remember this episode?
 
[quote name='davo1224']Here's a question that someone more experienced can answer. Didn't the Tosk from DS9 appear on TNG?

I remember an alien life form that was messing around with the crew and at the end of the episode, they locked them under a forcefield to teach them a lesson. Anyone remember this episode?[/QUOTE]

ahhh no... similar design I think.... Michael Westmore did the aliens for the trek series.
 
[quote name='davo1224']Here's a question that someone more experienced can answer. Didn't the Tosk from DS9 appear on TNG?

I remember an alien life form that was messing around with the crew and at the end of the episode, they locked them under a forcefield to teach them a lesson. Anyone remember this episode?[/QUOTE]

I believe you're thinking of this: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Allegiance
 
The Galileo shuttlecraft from TOS sold at auction for $70,000-- Story

galileo_1.jpg


Thing looks like a hunk of junk now. Hard to believe someone would pony up that kind of cash for it in that condition!

Link to Auction , with more pictures and videos.
 
That's a shame that it was preserved after all of these years. But I heard there was a group that was trying to win it so they could restore it and preserve it. Did they win the auction?
 
[quote name='lordwow']I have to say though, if there's ever a Season 3 Yesterday's Enterprise/BOBW Theater experience... I'll be there.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, those two episodes they picked aren't enough to get me into a theater. honeslty I've never cared for the first few seasons of any of the Trek shows really. It seems to always take until around season 3 before they really find their groove.

Also, I wonder if they'll update the Borg personal shield effects in the coming seasons? Cause the original effect was just to blur the actor out, then later on in First contact and Voyager the green force field type effect was used.
 
So do any Trekkies like the TNG movies? Only seems like casual fans appreciated them. I liked Generations, thought Insurrection was boring but not bad, absolutely hated First Contact, and turned my brain off for Nemesis.
 
[quote name='Friend of Sonic']That is a good question. I won't be upset either way, though I prefer they keep the old effect. That can be explained as the Borg later improved their shield tech.[/QUOTE]
I'd actually prefer they updated it if possible. I always figured they used the blur effect because they didn't have the money for anything better.

As far as TNG movies go, Generations and First Contact I like, Insurrection and Nemesis, ugh....
 
I pretty much hated the TNG movies. The only one I liked was First Contact, which I see pretty much the same way I see The Undiscovered Country: lots of good ideas, lots of weak things that undermine the great ideas. On the whole, enjoyable, so long as you don't think too hard.

Unlike the rest of the movies, I think First Contact really tried. It attempted to figure out what would make a good movie, how to use the cast effectively, and how to take what TNG did and put it on the big screen. I think every other TNG movie utterly failed at this, being a combination of laziness, stupidity, and boredom. Also, unlike the rest of them, it told a story worth telling. Even though I don't think it was necessary to stick the TNG crew in the middle of that moment, it was a lot more interesting and satisfying than the bad-guys-with-a-big-weapon-going-to-blow-up-some-planet plot the other three shared.

I loathe Generations. Hate, hate, hate it. I think it's a waste of McDonald, Shatner, and the TNG crew. The only thing dumber than the story is how the characters inside of it act in order to go through the motions of the extremely by-the-numbers plot. I personally found it an insulting send-off for Kirk, but I don't think anyone escapes the movie well.

Insurrection is a middling TNG episode. That almost says it all. I kind of don't like it because it starts borrowing from Generations, of all things.

I've already had more than my say about Nemesis. I'd rather watch just about anything.
 
The thing that bothered me about First Contact is that the Borg lost all their credibility/power after Locutus was used to defeat them. The episode where they helped a Borg get an individual personality was a cool revisiting but that was about as much as I could take. There's also the fact that the time travelling made absolutely no sense and was lazily done.
 
I can't really disagree with your criticisms. I'm still not enthusiastic of even the concept of a "Borg Queen", which just seems wrong on every level.

That said, I still think First Contact, flaws and all, is better than:

- the Cosmic Bluebird of Happiness (aka the Nexus) and the utterly bankrupt idea of being able to appear at any place or time and choosing one that is stupidly ineffective

- the stupefying mediocrity of Insurrection that leaves me unable to remember much of anything good or bad, except that face stretching silliness

- pretty much everything in Nemesis
 
I dunno, not that it's the same concept, but I also think it was a little ridiculous after they kidnapped Picard to use him as the Borg's ambassador to the Federation. Something like that should have been irrelevant since they know they could plow through all of the Federation ships once they knew all of their secrets. What's the point of communicating to the people they were about to kill/assimilate?
 
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