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OtherworldlyInvader posted:They would have to seriously re-work the aliens to be way less human and that would cost some serious money and pose a lot of challenges. I think this would undermine the show because the aliens in Babylon 5 (or most space opera, really) aren't meant to be truly alien. We shouldn't be goggling at how weird G'Kar and Mollari are, we should be seeing them as characters of made-up nationalities that have decades of bad blood between each other, and we should be getting very much into them as people. Maybe in another few decades tastes will swing back around and everyone will be heavy on very theatrical presentation again, at which point nobody's going to give a poo poo that a Minbari is just a dude with a plastic headpiece.
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Oct 23, 2013 05:28
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I think another huge strike against Babylon 5 being remade today would be that at heart B5 actually has a pretty sweet and sappy heart. G'Kar, for all his rage against the Centauri and his utter arrogance before the Shadows tipped the scales, turns out to be a big romantic lunkhead. Mollari, for all his cynicism and decadence, is consumed by his naive nostalgia for a Centauri renaissance that probably wasn't quite as much as it was cracked up to be. John Sheridan. Marcus. And today's market would revile that kind of production, regardless of how "real" the loving "aliens" are, because at the end of the day Babylon 5 is very much not the kind of cynical, even bitter narrative that some of the most popular shows today spin out.
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Oct 23, 2013 07:12
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Drone posted:Just read a couple chapters while waiting for a phone call appointment and yeah, your description hits the nail on the head. I mean I'm enjoying the book well enough, and it's had some neat things to say about solipsism so far, but in the end I can't help picture stuff like this being written by some superfan back in 1970 and sold in mimeographed form at conventions to other people hawking Kirk/Spock slash and cheap plastic IDIC pins. My understanding was that James Blish was actually on hard times and was basically slumming just to get by, and normally wouldn't have deigned to crank out Star Trek. He also did the adaptations of the Animated Series.
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Oct 24, 2013 03:13
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Guy Montag posted:Apparently (according to JMS), WB has been loving B5 for years, most egregiously in the budget/profits department. He alleges that they have done some funky accounting where all the costs for production are counted (plus marketing and distribution, etc.) and all the net profits from sales are shifted to different accounts, like in some kind of international divisions or something crazy like that. This way they can say B5 barely/didn't make them any profits, while simultaneously cashing in (and presumably skating on royalties/residuals). Who knows how true it is, but outward signs definitely point to WB execs giving no shits about B5, and it certainly is not something tv/movie studios would be above doing ethically. Didn't someone post in an earlier thread (or the B5 thread?) that at least part of the hostility came from PTEN being semi-separate from the traditional WB hierarchy? There's definitely some hosed up corporate politics going on there.
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Oct 24, 2013 03:18
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Astroman posted:On the specific question of TAS, I'd say it's about as canon as you can get. You can't go by Memory Alpha, as they are not the official "keepers" of the franchise and will include stuff Paramount may not consider canon. But if you look at the database on https://www.startrek.com a cursory glance reveals entries on Captain/Commodore Robert April and Dr. Stavos Keniclius. So I'd venture to say the whole of TAS is canon, not just Yesteryear. Though note that Saavik is NOT listed as half Romulan there, so they are still keeping to filmed stuff. Just including animated in that. I always thought someone had the right idea - can't remember if it was Gerrold or Fontana - who said it was really silly to not consider TAS 'real' Star Trek, considering that loving Gene Roddenberry (along with various TOS writer veterans) put their names on the goddamn credits every episode, and the title card says "STAR TREK" in big letters. Farmer Crack-Ass fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Oct 24, 2013 |
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Oct 24, 2013 03:22
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Wait, you guys actually visit the official website?
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Oct 24, 2013 06:45
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Gammatron 64 posted:TAS has the awful, awful cheap-rear end animation you would expect from a 1970's Hanna-Barbera cartoon (in fact, it's below Scooby-Doo quality, it's like He-Man levels of bad) Pretty sure TAS and He-Man were done by the same animation company, Filmation.
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Oct 24, 2013 15:58
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a travelling HEGEL posted:Yeah, an entire 50¢. Star Trek actually hired something like five different effects houses in order to get their special effects done on time, and it was probably the best work that could be done short of a major feature film production.
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Oct 24, 2013 16:10
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I just can't deal with Chris Pine's loving eyebrows.
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Oct 24, 2013 17:59
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Bicyclops posted:My favorite thing about TAS is that I believe Shatner's acting actually got better when he only had to talk into a microphone, also that it felt like being on drugs and like fun drugs, not the bad ones. That's really weird, I've always felt like Shatner was dull, flat, and uninspired when he was doing voiceover work.
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Oct 24, 2013 22:20
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Thwomp posted:This may seem like trek 101 but were TOS Spock and Kirk at the academy at the same time? I never thought they were. I always figured Spock knew about Kirk's solution because they had been friends for long enough that Kirk had told that story. For all their banter over TOS I find it hard to believe there'd never be a mention of "I've known this guy since the Academy" or "I think you've lightened up some since then" or something like that. Turns out people can make friends after
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Oct 24, 2013 22:23
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Nessus posted:By this reasoning though, Star Trek died during that first season TNG episode? I mean, broadly the same thing happened, albeit with an alien parasite rather than a whitewashed goblin-king. If not then, certainly when Section 31 started doing poo poo. Section 31 is annoying because dipshit authoritarians glom onto it as some sort of reassurance that unaccountable renegade spy agencies are actually necessary to protect western civilization and that it's okay to be uncritical Tom Clancy fans.
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Oct 24, 2013 23:03
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1st AD posted:Well considering that a significant number of TOS episodes were Westerns in space and were even shot on the same sets, you're not far off. I remember This Side of Paradise and Spectre of the Gun - what else was shot on Western sets?
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Oct 25, 2013 05:13
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Phy posted:Arena, if the Vasquez Rocks count They don't. It's an outdoor location, not a set; plus, outdoor shooting costs a bundle, so it's not like they were saving money with it.
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Oct 25, 2013 17:52
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Lowen SoDium posted:That episode always kind of bothered me. In that one scene alone, Kira says that thanks to people like [the arms dealer] Bajor is a free world the Cardassians were beaten. But then she turns right back around says to Quark that she is looking forward to seeing him go down. It's kind of forced, really. Early in the series we learn that Quark has a habit of tricking new Dabo girls into entering binding agreements which contractually require them to perform sexual acts for Quark, and although Sisko puts a stop to this, nobody seems to have a problem with continuing to support his business. Odo constantly complains that Quark is involved in criminal activity, and although he's pretty widely considered a tightass, his judgment as a police and security officer is also well-regarded... and yet nobody has a problem with continuing to support what could be merely a legal front for a criminal enterprise. But open up a holographic gun show and suddenly Quark is the new
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Oct 25, 2013 20:00
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Luigi Thirty posted:Exactly, similar to why Worf gets to murder chancellors and nobody cares. He's just exercising his Klingon rights! That's probably more related to "this guy is loving our war effort over with his dumbass glory poo poo, we're not going to look a gift assassination in the mouth if it means working with a competent Chancellor"
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Oct 25, 2013 21:04
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counterfeitsaint posted:We've talked about the oomox vs genocide thing in these threads before. The problem is there are tons of people on these forums that are only capable of viewing moral issues in complete absolutes. Tricking an employee to rubbing your ears (which, while pleasurable isn't actually related to ferengi sex) is immoral. Selling the means to commit genocide on millions of people is immoral. Therefor, both of these things are exactly the same and should be responded to in equal amount of repulsion. I know it contradicts the "capitalist with a heart of gold" narrative the writers went for later in the series, but I really don't think they were only talking about oomox in that scene.
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Oct 26, 2013 06:17
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Luigi Thirty posted:How early was it in the run? Paramount told them to tone down the creepy Ferengi sex pretty early on and Quark stopped explicitly talking about holosex. It was pretty early. First season, Captive Pursuit.
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Oct 26, 2013 07:29
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That's about when the TNG movies and Voyager kicked off. EDIT: Luigi 
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Oct 26, 2013 07:38
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Luigi Thirty posted:They're not libertarians though. They follow a very strict code of business conduct (at least among Ferengi) and everyone's scared as hell of their regulatory agency. I figure the regulatory agency started as one of many "certifying agencies" or something like that, and over the years had bought out or merged with others until it was the only game in town. Combine that with collusion among big business interests, and it's not at all hard to see how what might have started as a small "private" company now acts as an enforcer for the Ferengi elite's interests.
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Oct 27, 2013 00:21
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Why wouldn't balloons work in space? 
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Oct 27, 2013 00:55
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"Weeaboo" seems like an incredibly unfair (and inaccurate) characterization considering that his parents were Klingons and he himself was being raised Klingon until his parents were killed.
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Oct 27, 2013 19:00
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Apple Jax posted:Yeah, I love the design and all, but I feel like any hardcore crazy Star Trek fan with $1,500 to blow would rather spend it on 25 Enterprise Refit models then one model ship that only showed up in one painting. Apple Jax I think what you meant to say was blow $1500 on commissioning a 46" long E-refit model. Blade_of_tyshalle posted:Ew, who would want a Connie-R? please don't troll
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Oct 28, 2013 15:42
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Sprat Sandwich posted:Picard is actually pretty poo poo when it comes to captaining, just an 'FYI'. The same could be said of all Star Trek captains if you really want to get into that.
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Oct 28, 2013 16:50
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Whalley posted:Janeway should have been piloting a fuckin' Miranda or Nova class, something that is meant for constant returns for repairs and restocking. Careful, because too far in the other direction means it strains credibility when the crew manages to lash the ship together when it should have just completely quit by the fourth season. And no, a starship that's amalgamated together out of major components of different species' ships is no less incredible.
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Oct 28, 2013 19:55
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Nessus posted:I imagine a lot of the apparent admirality decay could be explained by Starfleet being so peaceful for decades during the lead up to TNG/DS9/VOY's era. Haha no this got completely retconned out. TNG references a "disastrous" Tomed Incident with the Romulans, the Norkan "campaigns" remembered by the Federation as "massacres", as well as the Enterprise-C being lost with all hands fighting Romulan warbirds at Narendra; border wars with the Talarians; and the Cardassian War lasted long enough that Captain Picard was dealing with Cardassians when he was commanding Stargazer. By the time DS9 also retconned in wars with the Tzenkethi, the 24th century was very much no longer a "peaceful" era.
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Oct 28, 2013 20:39
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Gau posted:The implication over all of this, however, was that these "wars" were more comparable to police actions than to anything like the Dominion war or even the tensions with the Klingons. The analogy that jumps to the forefront is America post-WWII; we've been involved in between two and seven "wars" in the last sixty years (depending on how you count), but none of these even come close to the common historical classifications of wars. Similarly, you can see the Federation getting involved with the Tzenkethi, the Cardassians, or a couple incidents where they were a third party and still have it be peacetime for even the majority of Starfleet, and certainly the Federation. They "won" the cold war with the Klingons, and it earned them a half-century of fires to put out around the quadrant. Nessus posted:Except the Cardassians, none of these sound comparable to the Dominion War, though, which seemed like Space WWII vs. I don't know, Space Vietnam. The Federation could fart its way through episodes of the latter on the basis of its big fat supply tail and willingness to blow up Mirandas, I expect. I suppose you could also get some interesting commentary on what war of that sort means for a post-scarcity society, too. Well of course they're not going to compare to the Dominion War because they're not the biggest wars ever fought.  So what you guys really mean is that the admiralty was never good because they've never had to lead a major war effort.
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Oct 28, 2013 23:17
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Gau posted:Hey thread people, where is this image from, and where can I find a larger version? Which ship is that supposed to be again? I can't find a registry number. 
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Oct 29, 2013 03:09
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Gonz posted:So, so many Nazi planets out there in the Milky Way. It wasn't a Nazi planet.
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Oct 29, 2013 16:15
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Sprat Sandwich posted:What is the deal with space Nazis? I mean not some species being fascist but literally dudes with swastikas and Hugo Boss uniforms. It only ever happened three times: TOS, where a senile Earther says "hey what if we could try and set up a benevolent Nazi state?" and basically takes over an alien planet. Voyager, where Hirogen go rooting through the computer and found that WW2 is still a popular setting for FPS shooters so it must have something going for it. Enterprise, where they went back in time to the 40s and aliens and I never saw it but it looks like they just went full retard on it. They never just stumbled onto a planet where swastika-toting Germans arose out of nowhere.
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Oct 29, 2013 17:31
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:No, instead they stumbled upon a planet where the US Declaration of Independance arose out of nowhere. Yeah that one was pretty terrible.
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Oct 29, 2013 18:09
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Shadeoses posted:How many cowboy and gangster planets were there? There was only one gangster planet, in A Piece Of The Action. There was only one cowboy planet in TOS, in Spectre of the Gun, although there were other TOS episodes that clearly were reuses of existing sets from Western productions. (This Side of Paradise comes to mind, with the 'agricultural colony') Enterprise had another cowboy planet. TNG had a western-themed episode (A Fistful of Datas), but that was on the holodeck.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:58
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BrandonGK posted:My favorite part of the episode is the fact that The Doctor experiencing the death of a child is never mentioned again, not even once. Main characters died and they never bothered mentioning it again.
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Oct 29, 2013 23:45
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McNally posted:In fairness, wasn't the idea of parallel development the new hotness that every sci-fi writer had a hard-on for in the 60s? I don't know about that. Star Trek used it as a way of bringing costs down and making the format affordable. It's explicitly stated in the series pitch.
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Oct 30, 2013 05:38
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hailthefish posted:Seriously, at least it's not parallel development nazi aliens or time travel nazi aliens, it's "Hey, you guys have a super violent past, THIS IS PRETTY GREAT!!!" aliens in nazi costumes. It wasn't parallel development in that episode. Some idiot professor from Earth had the idea to see if he could get an alien planet going on Nazism and turn it towards benevolent purposes. Then one of the aliens said "gently caress that" and set himself up as a behind-the-throne ruler.
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Oct 30, 2013 16:24
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Miri and Bread and Circuses were the two main parallel development episodes that I can recall. EDIT: Oh and The Omega Glory which we just discussed earlier. derp Farmer Crack-Ass fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Oct 30, 2013 |
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Oct 30, 2013 16:25
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OtherworldlyInvader posted:You mean Data???? Pffft, whatever, whiner. I bet you can't even post an example episode where referencing Lal would have been a meaningful contribution to the story.
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Oct 30, 2013 16:27
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1st AD posted:The TOS episode wasn't a parallel development, it was a Starfleet officer who turned the planet's government into Nazi's (then got overthrown by an ambitious person and kept sedated) because they were more efficient and Kirk had to clean up his mess. Wasn't a Starfleet officer, was just some dipshit Earth historian.
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Oct 30, 2013 19:16
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rypakal posted:Dr. Whalen in The Big Goodbye. He even survives the gunshot wound. Dude if you keep pointing this poo poo out how are we supposed to reduce Star Trek to a bulletpoint list of recurring phenomena - a collection of "tropes", if you will - that can be easily regurgitated again and again??
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Oct 30, 2013 21:24
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Ellison also voiced the Babylon 5 main computer "experimental personality program"'s voice.1st AD posted:That was a terrible episode, I remember this coloring my perceptions of Penn and Teller forever. Penn is also a gigantically creepy pervo who won't take 'no' for an answer.
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Oct 31, 2013 21:12
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