JJ Abrams new Star Trek movie...

[Diabolical]

But the real benefit of Paramount+ is the glorious return of Beavis & Butthead.

[anarky]

I started Prodigy and it was rather good. I stopped not out of lack of interest, but to go back and watch it all chronologically (which is taking longer than expected since no one else in the family is interested at all). Still on OG ST, which is dated as hell but mostly holds up. The new CG effects mesh MUCH better than the SW Special Editions.

Paramount+ is one of the better services. The new Beavis & Butt-Head movie and series may actually be funnier than the original!

[Tom Foolery]

Just started Discovery. Someone made an off-handed comment about a not seen character named Zaphod. Until proven otherwise, my head canon will assume it’s Zaphod from vynsane, and he and subsequently all of us, are in the Trek-verse.

[Ran]

Just started Discovery. Someone made an off-handed comment about a not seen character named Zaphod. Until proven otherwise, my head canon will assume it’s Zaphod from vynsane, and he and subsequently all of us, are in the Trek-verse.

We're in the Trek-verse? I guess it is better than just being the lousy fan-fiction universe I thought we were in.

[anarky]

Dibs on Seven of Nine.

[anarky]

Just read an article (on clickbait comicbook-dot-com so I'm not linking) that apparently a prequel to the Abrams universe Trek movies is in the works, set decades before Nero creates the splinter timeline.

So, would that make it also a prequel to every ST project aside from Enterprise and part of First Contact? Or does First Contact not exist in that universe despite happening earlier because the Next Generation crew is so important to first contact actually happening?

Fuck, time travel is confusing.

[Tom Foolery]

I started watching Section 31, the straight to streaming ST movie starring Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh. It’s only 90 minutes long, and it. is. Wretched.
I knew it was wretched about ten minutes in, but continued to muscle thru it for another forty minutes before I just couldn’t anymore.

I know none of you guys are huge Trek fans, but if this abortion is the best Paramount can come up with after nine years without a Trek feature film, then literally everyone at Paramount, from the CEO down to the parking garage attendant need to be fired. This goes beyond making me sad, this made me angry someone somewhere read this script and said “yup!”

I extremely dislike the concept of AI, but even a fucking robot could’ve strung together a better movie than this bullshit.

[anarky]

I'll assume this is the general purpose Star Trek thread.

I finally got around to trying to watch all of Trek in release order. I'm the only person in the house who cares, and can only watch when I'm alone, have an hour to devote to each episode, and am not watching or reading something else, so it's taking forever. I finished the original series yesterday. I thought I'd seen it all, though not in order, through years of reruns, but I think half the episodes were new to me.

Overall, it's rather good. There are a few stinker episodes, but they're mostly very solid. Dated as hell, but that's not a complaint--everything Bradbury or Asimov wrote is dated as hell and still absolute gold. It just happens with sci-fi after a few decades. Most episodes are, or border on, preachy, but it's easy to forget how incredibly groundbreaking it would've been. "There's a fucking Russian dude and a black chick, and they're treated as equals!" Seems pretty given now. The acting isn't particularly great overall, but most 60s acting is melodramatic as hell, so, again, par for the course. The special effects suck ass, except where they've been replaced by CG in the updated versions on Paramount+ (which is weird, since there will be a really great CG external shot of the Enterprise, followed immediately by an obvious styrofoam interior shot).

Next up, the animated series, which I've never seen at all. I have a feeling it's going to be a weird mix of "Rodenberry can finally tell his stories, unrestrained by the limits of cheap special effects" and "Rodenberry now is constricted to episodes that are half as long and have to appeal to the incredibly low standard 70s cartoons assume of children."

[Tom Foolery]

I watched ToS after school when I was a kid, so I’d seen most of the episodes two or three times each as a kid. I’ve rewatched them in their entirety probably once a decade since then. I have all three seasons on DVD and most recently, I rewatched them on P+ after I got streaming.

I would tell people to judge ToS by its best episodes, rather than by its entirety. The only other Trek series I’ve watched all the way thru is TNG.
I got thru the first few seasons of DS9 while it was still airing, but dropped off when TNG finished its run. I’ve only seen a handful of Voyager episodes, and tried Enterprise and only got about six eps in before my interest waned.

I’ve watched all the films several times and enjoy them, even the less good ones.

Of the new renaissance, I’ve seen all of Picard, almost all of Discovery, and only a couple episodes of Brave New World, but I enjoyed what I did see. Haven’t watched any Lower Decks or Prodigy. Nor have I tried Orville, although everyone says it’s good.

[anarky]

So the animated series was kind of what I expected: no special effects limitations, but constrained by what 70s cartoons almost all were. A lot of talking heads simply talking through the plot, using the same animation over and over. Some episodes were good, some bad, but almost all more mature than I expected. Arex and M'ress were great additions, though I understand they never show up again.

I thought I'd seen TMP. I knew the Voyager twist, but absolutely nothing was familiar beyond "there's a bald lady." It was... very, very slow. I saw Alan Dean Foster's name and had high hopes, but it was like a very padded TOS episode. Right down to the "new crew members are totally disposable and die right at the end and no one seems to care." Visually, it was stunning, though (but it does seem like Starfleet mysteriously banned all lighting).

[Ran]

I vaguely remember the animated series, but couldn't tell you anything about it other than that it had a similar 70s animation style to Super Friends, etc.

[anarky]

Damn. I know I've seen Star Trek 2, but it's been ages, and I'd not seen hardly any of TOS when I did. This is like a whole 'nother franchise here. I'm reminded of why this is considered peak Trek, and why we love Ricardo Montalban.

I was too young at the time, but now I'm thinking it must've been a sad time for science fiction fans in 1982. We just got the darkest installments of the two big franchises, and we'd spend about a year thinking Spock was dead and Han Solo probably was, too.

[Tom Foolery]

The director of TMP, Robert Wise, didn’t really get what Star Trek was. But he was a big time director(he directed Sound of Music or West Side Story, or both, and had won Oscars and shit), so the studio wanted him for their big, expensive sci-fi blockbuster.

Nicholas Meyer came in for Wrath of Khan and said, “Star Trek is submarine warfare” and he fucking nailed it. Nimoy and Shatner directed the next three to middling, but not awful, results. (I don’t even think ST V is that bad. A little clunky, but Shatner, Nimoy, and DeForest Kelly click pretty well in it. It’s been awhile since I watched it) And then Meyer came back for IV, which is my favorite Trek film. The entire cast acknowledge they are long in the tooth and it was a fun farewell to the ToS.

[anarky]

The rest of the OG films.

I saw 3 and 4 in theaters, and 5 and 6 on VHS shortly after they were released. I haven't watched them since (except maybe one viewing of 4 in the interrim). My opinions have changed quite a bit, partly because I'm older, partly because I have more context.

The Search for Spock. I liked it then. I like it now. I did remember it being much more comedic for some reason. (Like the Klingon on the bridge right before the Enterprise exploded, I recalled being a full-on slapstick idiot: "The computer is talking! It's counting!") Solid film. I like how the films after #1 can be watched individually, like show episodes, but have an underlying arc.

Not sure why they recast Saavik. Much as I like Kirstie, I do think her replacement is a better Vulcan.

The Voyage Home. I can't say this is the best movie, but it's freaking great. The time travel element is handled well. I really like that there's never any clue what the fuck the probe is, or exactly what it wanted. Curious if whale lady shows up again, maybe in a book.

The Final Frontier. I hated this one as a kid. Now, I rather like it. I'm thinking I just didn't know enough TOS episodes to know this kind of batshittery is a typical Tuesday for the Enterprise crew. The scenes in Paradise are beautiful. Okay, ugly as hell, but perfect.

The Final Frontier. Kurtwood Fucking Smith. Of course he'd be the fucking President of the Universe. I kinda liked it before, and now, it's just the perfect sendoff to the crew and era. I know there are some scattered appearances later, but it's the last time this crew is together. Yeoman Rand returning was a beautiful touch, and, with the other films fresh in my mind, Admiral Cartwright being one of the masterminds of the plot was a shocker.

Next up, TNG.

(There aren't any explicit crossover episodes of TNG, DS9, and VOY, right? I see the air dates overlap a little.)

[Tom Foolery]

Beware, the first season of TNG is underwhelming. It was finding its footing.

I think the later seasons of TNG might have mentioned incidents that were happening in DS9, just to acknowledge there was a sister series happening. But other than the pilot of DS9 I don’t think there were any explicit stories that started in one series and crossed over to finish in a different one.
And I didn’t watch enough Voyager to know, but the premise seemed to make crossovers with DS9 unlikely. TNG ended before Voyager started.