Category: Star Trek Musings

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.

COMIC REVIEW – Star Trek: Nero (2010)

The other Trek 09 prequel comic miniseries focuses on Nero and what he’s been up to in between the prologue and the rest of the movie many years later. Beginning shortly after George Kirk sacrificed his ship and his life to save the fleeing crew, Nero and his ship are soon ambushed and captured by Klingons, who somewhat resemble the Klingons we’re familiar with when they don’t have their helmets on.

A lot of the Klingon stuff is based on deleted scenes from the movie and Nero’s band eventually make their escape, but there is an additional element that comes into play that gives Nero the answer to where and when to find Spock. I won’t spoil it here, but it is a nod to another Star Trek movie that I thought made quite a bit of scene in the larger picture and was a nice fit here.

David Messina returns to art duties here and he hasn’t missed a beat. The same kind of colors and character portrayals are pretty spot-on in his own stylized way and his interpretation of the Klingon ships as well as the battle at the end of the series is pretty good,.

Nero isn’t quite as good or as essential as Countdown, but it’s still a pretty good read and fills in the gap nicely between point A and point B.

COMIC REVIEW – Star Trek: Countdown (2009)

2009 saw Star Trek get a “reboot” of sorts in the form of what is now known as the Kelvin Timeline.

The story of the Kelvin Timeline involves time travel that created an alternate reality so that these movies can co-exist with the “prime” universe of the previous Trek shows. And so a comic miniseries was conceived to give us some backstory as to how we got to t his point… and while the more recent Picard series (or as I’d prefer to call it, Blunt Talk: The Next Generation) has effectively curtailed Countdown’s chances of (already non-existent) canonical status, when it comes to giving that generation of Trek a proper sendoff while also leading us to the next Trek era, Countdown has it nailed.

It tells the story of Nero, a humble minor who assists Spock in attempting to save Romulus from the expanding supernova, but when that doesn’t happen, we see his descent into madness and the origin of his mining ship, the Narada. In addition, we get appearances from Next Gen characters such as Jean-Luc Picard (now an ambassador to Vulcan), Data (revived in B4 and now Captain of the USS Enterprise-E), and a couple others even. And they’re all true and consistent with how the characters have been portrayed all these years, which is more than what I could say for BTTNG.

This series was my first exposure to artist David M|essina, who had done a prior Trek mini for IDW and would eventually do art for several more Trek series. I like his style; his depiction of the characters are true to form while being somewhat stylized, the various space settings and ships look fairly accurate to what was on screen, and the choice of coloring to create a somewhat somber tone for the book, yet retaining some of the old TNG movie aesthetics is much appreciated.

A pity that this couldn’t have been used as a backstory for what would come after and we got Blunt Talk: The Next Generation (a.k.a. Star Trek: Picard) instead, because in terms of not only providing the backstory for two of the film’s key characters, but also giving us a satisfying farewell to the Next Gen crew, Countdown has it nailed to a tee.

A Month Away From Discovery

We’re less than a month away from the premiere of the newest Star Trek series, exclusive to the on-demand CBS All-Access service in the U.S. or on the Crave TV service in Canada. There is a much stronger push for the series as far as adverts, promos, and the eventual merch deals are concerned and from what I’ve been reading online, there are equal parts excitement, resentment, and apathy to spread across the land.

And yet as I’m watching all this stuff and reading all the interviews and write-ups about the faithfulness, the canonicity, and the cinematicity… for lack of a better non-word, I find myself rather ambivalent towards the series. An almost anti-excitement that dulls my mood for this show.

You know, it’s funny. Every time they’d announce a new spin-off series back in the day, my interest is piqued automatically. A new show on a space station? A starship lost on the other side of the galaxy? A prequel to the Original Series? These were some out there ideas, but most of them turned out okay. And every time they’d announce a new movie, I’m rather enthusiastic about it. Whether it was the old TNG films or the recent reboots, those were events to look forward in my book.

This time, however… it’s different. This time… it’s not as important… or perhaps not as much of an event.

I’m just not feeling this Discovery show… and I honestly couldn’t tell you why.

Maybe it’s the premise of the show that I’m not a fan of. Maybe it’s the way the show looks. Maybe it’s just my general apathy towards current television. Or maybe I have more than my fair share of Trek to fall back on and I’m perfectly fine with that… but to be perfectly honest, I was more excited over the Star Trek: The Next Generation Mirror Broken comic book miniseries than I was the new television show.

This show isn’t doing much for me. It’s not making me feel excited over its impending debut. And I don’t know if that should be a cause for concern.

Well… I guess we’ll see how it turns out next month.

Or maybe not.

Thoughts On Lower Decks… Not For Me

So the new Lower Decks cartoon came out and I sampled the first episode… and then turned it off halfway through.

I don’t know what this is supposed to be, but I do know that it is not for me.

I tried to give it a shot, but turned it off halfway. It tries too hard to be funny and fails. I don’t care for the main characters who come across as unlikable, annoying, and downright stupid… I’d go so far to say mentally challenged or even full-blown retardation. It feels like a lousy Channel Awesome skit, which is not the sort of thing you’d want to aim for. And it’s not something that I care to keep up with going forward.

I’m sure the show has its audience and if you enjoy the show, then more power to you… but it is not my cup of tea, earl gray, hot.