Category: Star Trek Musings

Haven’t We Been Here Before? – The Picard Season 3 Pre-Show Ramble

Tonight is the premiere episode of the third season of Star Trek: Picard.

The big TNG reunion season. The final season. The final journey. A clean break from the previous two seasons. That sort of thing. And you know what? Early reviews have been enthusiastic. It’s the best Trek in years. It’s the TNG reunion we should’ve had years. The press has been positive. Perhaps a bit too positive. This shouldn’t be cause for concern. This shouldn’t be raising any red flags. This shouldn’t be raising any shields. But it does on all counts.

The reason being that… I’ve been here before. I’ve seen this all before.

Continue reading “Haven’t We Been Here Before? – The Picard Season 3 Pre-Show Ramble”

Random Thoughts On… Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Director's Edition (2022 Version)

I tried the seven-day free trial of Paramount Plus recently and I was going to wonder if it was worth diving in with either a monthly subscription or maybe go long term and do the annual sub. Now the key reason you’d go for Paramount Plus is because all the Star Trek stuff is there. The old shows, the movies, and whatnots. Except… not all the Star Trek stuff is on there. You have the old shows – the good Trek, as some would call it – and you have all thirteen movies. But you don’t have the recent Trek. No Discovery, No Lower Decks, No Blunt Talk: The Next Generation, not even a Ready Room with that walking shill Wil Wheaton. So I’m guessing that stuff is on Crave, which I have as part of the Bell package and you don’t want to conflict. Okay, fine.
But you also don’t have the Star Trek II: Director’s Edition, which has some extra footage and slightly different cuts. You don’t have the Star Trek VI: Director’s Edition, which has some extra footage and slightly different cuts. However, they did just add the new 4k-enhanced Director’s Edition of The Motion Picture… which, for those who don’t know…
Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in 1979 in a relatively unfinished state, owing to the fact that a lot of special effects fell short of what director Robert Wise intended at the time. So a couple decades later, he had the opportunity to finish the film as he intended, which gave us the Director’s Edition, which featured some additional footage as well as a reworked sound mix and some additional visual effects created from CGI. The Director’s Edition of the Motion Picture is often considered the definitive version of that first Star Trek film, but was done entirely in standard definition and without any regard for potentially migrating this over to a higher resolution; hence why all these years we had the Blu-Rays releases featuring the original theatrical release, which… I had not seen until that Blu-Ray release, because up until the point, all home video versions of The Motion Picture – barring the Director’s Edition in 2001 – was based on an extended TV cut that aired on ABC and featured additional footage; some of which eventually made it to the Director’s Cut.
And so after a couple more decades, which seems to be the appropriately timed interval for such endeavors, the team who developed the Director’s Edition got back together and this time, they had access to all the original film elements pulled from the Paramount Archives, they redid the opticals and CG effects to make them more consistent, and the end result, once again, is the most definitive take on The Motion Picture given the utmost care. Everything looks sharp, the new elements look better than they did before, it’s a much cleaner looking film, and quite frankly, if director Robert Wise was still around today – he passed away in 2005 – but if he were around to see this, I think he’d be pleased that the film he originally envisioned had finally come to fruition in the best possible way. Like, if you want the best version of The Motion Picture, this is it. And I’ve always preferred this cut over the original or the TV edit. The TV edit was the one I grew up on and there’re some cuts there I’d prefer over what ended up getting used, but this one feels like a nice balance and more refined.
Now make no mistake; at the end of the day, it’s still Star Trek: The Motion Picture and you either call it one of the greatest sci-fi epics ever made or one of the slowest. And as a movie, I think I like it more now than I did back in the day. Yes, the pacing can be glacial at times. Yes, the acting as a whole feels somewhat artificial and lifeless. There’s no joy to be had with this film and the few attempts at light humor feels contrived. But what this movie does is take you on a journey and is a visual feast.
We get Klingons, we see their ship, their new bumpy heads, their weird hair that thankfully they ditched for Star Trek III and gave them the wigs instead. Get to see Vulcan, Earth, that starbase they’d recycle the model countless times and you realize all this time they had the thing hanging upside down. That two-minute overture with the Enterprise beauty shots that is either adored or ridiculed. And the latter half is nothing but weird visual effects, strange alien constructs… never before has a giant flying space dildo tickle the imagination as much as V’Ger did in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
See, the key word is picture; you look at the pictures and the visuals. That’s the selling point. The wonders of space. Jumping from the TV show to this… anyway, whether you like the movie or not and The Motion Picture has its moments, and this new Director’s Edition is the best version of the film you could watch… and who knows? Maybe Shatner will get his wish and he can redo Star Trek V because that’s also a movie which could benefit from a Director’s Edition and honestly, I don’t know that’s never happened. Sure, it wasn’t the best film, it has flaws, but it’s the closest to feeling like part of the television show. There’s a central theme that is evaluated. There’s character moments. The ideas are there. The execution was lacking and it amazes me that there was never a desire on Paramount’s part to redo the film with new visuals. And honestly, I’d like to see that happen. In an age where we just got a brand-new version of Rocky IV that is a similar but different film from what we got back in ’86, the fact that we’ve yet to get some traction on a reworked Star Trek V confounds me. And… well, we’ll see in that regard.

Random Thoughts On… Star Trek Resurgence

A little late to the party… but I wanted to sit on this for a bit before sharing some thoughts…

This Star Trek: Resurgence video game that’s coming up or maybe it’s already out – I haven’t checked – but it looks vaguely interesting. And I thought it was a novel choice to make a Star Trek game and have it take place on a Starfleet vessel that isn’t the one anyone would be familiar with. It’s not an Enterprise; it’s not a Voyager; it’s random no-name Starship run by a new set of characters with their own duties and stuff to deal with. And I thought it’s a nice approach, because you can do an original Star Trek story with a new cast of characters and not have to worry about canon or anything like that. The only thing you’d have to worry about is the minutae, which shouldn’t be that difficult because usually, these Star Trek games do a fine job of conforming and respecting the lore… there are exceptions, of course, but games of this ilk, especially those who are reliant on lore – no pun intended, there – usually respect that lore.
So from what I’ve gathered, this is more of a choose-your-own-adventure game where you play a character and you are sometimes presented with a number of actions you can take in order to progress the story. THat’s my first impression from the few snippets of gameplay that I’ve see. I don’t know if there’s more to it, but that’s the impression I got is a sort of interactive move. The preview that they have… I don’t know who’s doing the Spock voice, but it’s almost – ALMOST BUT NOT QUITE – a dead ringer for Leonard Nimoy. I mean, you pay attention, it’s not quite the same voice, but it’s damn close and whoever they got did a fine job, and the rest of the cast perform rather admirably to move the scene and that sort of thing. So that’s one aspect of the game that I’m not too concerned with is the voice acting. The graphics kinda look a bit cheap and plasticky; you’d figure we’d be at a point where we’d be beyond that sort of thing with all these 4K-this and raytrace-that and all these fucking gimmicks… but I guess we need another console generation to get close that deepfake shit that people can pull off on their fucking phones or something.
But yeah, I am curious about this. And if it’s at the right price point and if the word of mouth for this thing is pretty good, then I may give it a shot, but if not… Steam sale, I guess… ‘cuz it’s probably not going to be on GOG. And you know? That would be nice.

Random Thoughts On The Motion Picture Director's Edition 4K Remaster Refurbished Edition On The Paramount Plus Thing.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in 1979 in a relatively unfinished state, owing to the fact that a lot of special effects fell short of what director Robert Wise intended at the time. So a couple decades later, he had the opportunity to finish the film as he intended, which gave us the Director’s Edition, which featured some additional footage as well as a reworked sound mix and some additional visual effects created from CGI. The Director’s Edition of the Motion Picture is often considered the definitive version of that first Star Trek film, but was done entirely in standard definition and without any regard for potentially migrating this over to a higher resolution; hence why all these years we had the Blu-Rays releases featuring the original theatrical release, which I had not seen until that Blu-Ray release, because up until the point, all home video versions of The Motion Picture – barring the Director’s Edition in 2001 – was based on an extended TV cut that aired on ABC and featured additional footage; some of which eventually made it to the Director’s Cut.
And so after a couple more decades, which seems to be the appropriately timed interval for such endeavors, the team who developed the Director’s Edition got back together and this time, they had access to all the original film elements pulled from the Paramount Archives, they redid the opticals and CG effects to make them more consistent, and the end result, once again, is the most definitive take on The Motion Picture given the utmost care. Everything looks sharp, the new elements look better than they did before, it’s a much cleaner looking film, and quite frankly, if director Robert Wise was still around today – he passed away in 2005 – but if he were around to see this, I think he’d be pleased that the film he originally envisioned had finally come to fruition in the best possible way. Like, if you want the best version of The Motion Picture, this is it. And I’ve always preferred this cut over the original or the TV edit. The TV edit was the one I grew up on and there’re some cuts there I’d prefer over what ended up getting used, but this one feels like a nice balance and more refined.
Now make no mistake; at the end of the day, it’s still Star Trek: The Motion Picture and you either call it one of the greatest sci-fi epics ever made or one of the slowest. And as a movie, I think I like it more now than I did back in the day. Yes, the pacing can be glacial at times. Yes, the acting as a whole feels somewhat artificial and lifeless. There’s no joy to be had with this film and the few attempts at light humor feels contrived. But what this movie does is take you on a journey and is a visual feast. We get Klingons, we see their ship, their new bumpy heads, their weird hair that thankfully they ditched for Star Trek III and gave them the wigs instead. Get to see Vulcan, Earth, that starbase they’d recycle the model countless times and you realize all this time they had the thing hanging upside down. That two-minute overture with the Enterprise beauty shots that is either adored or ridiculed. And the latter half is nothing but weird visual effects, strange alien constructs… never before has a giant flying space dildo tickle the imagination as much as V’Ger did in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
See, the key word is picture; you look at the pictures and the visuals. That’s the selling point. The wonders of space. Jumping from the TV show to this… anyway, whether you like the movie or not and The Motion Picture has its moments, and this new Director’s Edition is the best version of the film you could watch.
And who knows? Maybe Shatner will get his wish and he can redo Star Trek V because that’s also a movie which could benefit from a Director’s Edition and honestly, I don’t know that’s never happened. Sure, it wasn’t the best film, it has flaws, but it’s the closest to feeling like part of the television show. There’s a central theme that is evaluated. There’s character moments. The ideas are there. The execution was lacking and it amazes me that there was never a desire on Paramount’s part to redo the film with new visuals. And honestly, I’d like to see that happen. In an age where we just got a brand-new version of Rocky IV that is a similar but different film from what we got back in ’86, the fact that we’ve yet to get some traction on a reworked Star Trek V confounds me. And… well, we’ll see in that regard.

The TNG Cast To Reunite In Season 3 Of Blunt Talk: The Next Generation

Source: https://blog.trekcore.com/2022/04/star-trek-picard-beams-up-entire-next-generation-cast-for-season-3/

The question now is not whether these beloved characters will somehow get ruined or killed or both, nor is it whether this talk of a “proper send-off” is eventually countered with the response that we already had a “proper send-off” called All Good Things… Nor is it wondering why you’re building up hype for the following season when you’re not even done with the current one. I’m sure all these are vital questions but they’re not the most important question.,

The question now is whether Worf will look like Worf.

That is the question that pre-occupies our people, Captain Kirk. We need breathing room!

Earth, Hitler, 1938…

I beg your pardon?

*shrugs*

As far as Wesley not being included, well, he is included… in the after show.

And I, for one, am more than pleased to see him stay there.

Shill Sheaton indeed.

Random Image Does Not A Star Trek Make

A little late to the party, but whatever.

The above image is the first official promo image of the upcoming Star Trek: Prodigy animated series… and I am ambivalent as a whole.

The image depicts our core group of characters; a ragtag group of alien misfits who are all smiles now, but I’m sure their assembling will begin with bickering and slowly but surely, they’ll be good buddies by the end of the season, if not the show. For what it’s worth, I like the varied designs of each of the characters. Whether it’d be the Thing-looking thing or the blue slime thing or the robot thing, it’s a suitable cast for what I’d imagine is kids’ fare.

This image does not immediately scream Star Trek. There’s nothing in the image that I would remotely associate with Star Trek. None of the aliens seem like anything you’d associate with Star Trek. You could have called this anything else and I’d be like, “Cool.” If I gave you this image without telling you what it is, Star Trek would not be the first thing to come to mind… maybe Star Wars. But for Trekkies to start shouting to the heavens that this screams Star Trek is hyper hyperbole to the reaches that goes beyond hyper hyperbole.

One image does not make or break a series, however. It’s just a stock image of some stock aliens. That’s what I got out of it. Does this bode well for Prodigy? I can’t say since this is all we have to go on and it says NOTHING beyond this is what the central group looks like. And until we get more concrete details, I can neither praise or damn the series as a whole based on one single stock promotional image. I can speculate, but that would be raising hopes and the current regime has worn out their goodwill in being giving that much benefit.

I will take a “wait and see” approach with this one. Let’s see what comes of this and then we’ll have something to sink our teeth into. Until then… maintain current course.

I’ll be in my ready room.

COMIC REVIEW – Star Trek: Countdown To Darkness (2012-2013)

Much like the previous film, Star Trek Into Darkness – the overall twelfth Trek film and the second in the Kelvin Timeline trilogy of films – got its own prequel comic book series in the form of Countdown To Darkness… and in hindsight, this one hasn’t aged all that well.

Don’t get me wrong; as a story in a vacuum, it’s a fairly traditional Trek story involving a trip to a new planet, the discovering of a reimagined classic character, the depiction of Klingons in this new universe, and an otherwise, fairly entertaining romp. There are some minor inconsistencies in terms of canon – the mention of a previous Starship Enterprise before the one featured in the movie, for example… which I don’t believe ever made it to Kelvin canon – but as a standalone adventure, it’s a perfectly adequate Trek comic book.

As a tie-in comic, there are a couple plotpoints that tie in to the movie in question, but these are mostly related to comments made in passing in the film. Unlike the first Countdown miniseries or even the Nero miniseries that came afterwards, there’s no real reason to dive into this one expecting anything that would further your enjoyment of what has since become a somewhat divisive motion picture.

David Messina’s artwork is still pretty much a highlight to these comics and pretty much drive the series onwards. But he’s provided artwork for many superior Trek minis. Not quite his best work, but still pretty good.

Countdown to Darkness is fairly basic Trek fare and an underwhelming tie-in comic.