Star Trek: Enterprise Reactions? 1689
So, what did you think of it? The theme song has to go. Commander Tucker ("Kumanduh Tuckah") needs to get a personality other than "he'll be just like McCoy, only clumsy and stupid". Is it really necessary to rehash "cold emotionless Vulcans vs. thoughtless, reckless humans"? That plot device was old thirty years ago and it's physically painful to watch now. How can armor plating go "offline"? Electromagnetic shields maybe, but one of the virtues of a hunk of steel is that it doesn't go "offline". And what's with the soft porn? I was waiting for the bow-chicka-bow-wow music to kick in. CT: I didn't get to see it! I don't get UPN! Curses!
It was interesting... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, the Vulcan chick is hot
-Henry
... one in every crowd. (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I thought it was EXCELLENT for a pilot. The show will get its legs--let it happen and enjoy what you can while it does. Or just watch Andromeda.
Always looking to pick. Lighten up, dude.
Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
F-bacher
Blatant Fanservice... Not that I mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, I was pleasantly surprised by the level of prejudice, intolerance and violence. This show definitely played a lot like an old TOS show. It was quite a refreshing change of pace from Voyager and TNG's 'moral issue of the week' approach.
Bloody time travel (Score:2, Insightful)
Not as gritty as I would have liked either.
Reaction (Score:4, Insightful)
I liked scott as the captain. The rehash of the standard trek technology into older, original types is interesting. My first reaction was that the theme song just plain sucked. The intro images fits in with the overall theme nicely. I think it has some problems, all mentioned in the story, but it has promise. When did kingons and humans start hating each other? I know they had to meet first, but throughout the original series, they were the above all enemies. I'm going to keep on watching it for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. It wasn't the series premiere that I'd hoped for. My fav premiere is still TNG one, great characters, great story, with a good twist.
Trek seems to be de-evolving into soft porn. From 7of9, we all know what the whole point of her character was, now to this. It doesn't really fit into the series about exploration and discovery. I don't know, do we really need it? (after all, what's the internet here for anyway?)
It had a good "human" feel (Score:2, Insightful)
As far as the soft core porn, I had no problem with seeing that side of a Vulcan, and my non-geek g/f had no problem seeing a starship captain in his briefs.
I didn't like the science all that much. I got the sense that they had lost some of the knack for reality that we had gained during TNG, etc. For instance, the light of the phaser beam moved *much* slower in that communications room than the people in it. I didn't understand the whole shielding scheme either. It is very unlcear to me exactly what technologies they have and do not have. For instance, they have deflectors, transporters, anti-grav, and beam weapons - but don't yet have a tractor beam. I don't know if the physics of these are consistent or not. (What I mean is this: are any of these like having incadescent lights and not having figured out that you can use electricity for heaters)
I did like some of the "primative" touches. I liked the human linguist. I liked the "sweet-spot" in the ships anti grav unit.
once thing I'd like to know - do they have subspace communications? I assume that they do, but it was never mentioned, and on TNG they through around "subspace" the way people throw around "Action Item" in a corporation.
The recent broadcast (Score:5, Insightful)
No universal translators-Hooray, a realistic look at meeting strangers...they're strange!
No ridiculous premise-phew...they haven't been warped to a far off dimension, a la the worst trek of all. They're just explorers, trying to prove themselves.
They aren't invincible-There doesn't need to be mind control or some wacky technology to disable the Enterprise ( like in STTNG) it gets pounded, because, frankly, it's not that good.
There is potential for some ongoing plot lines, like the best of DS9. If the show is done right, there will be diplomatic issues w/ the Klingons. (the whole encoded information in genes, conspiracy thing)
On the other hand, there are a few annoying bits:
I didn't like the vulcan. She wasn't even hot enough to fill the 7/9 spot. The just bugged me, like a really dumb spock. At least the original pointy ears respected the humans.
There wasn't a lot of character development, but hopefully that will come with time.
Anyway, I'd tune in to the next few episodes to see if the problems go away.
New Trekkie point of view (Score:2, Insightful)
And the captin struck me as a DUMBASS, I mean was anyone else feeling the urge to stand up and scream "NO DONT DO THAT! " or "Why are you going to do that, starfleet would be mega pissed!!!!"(which they weren't... that baffled me a bit)
For everyone who was dissin' the softcore porn... ta hell with yas! Theres nothing that a geek like myself enjoys more than a DAMN FINE, nekked alien!
This was better than most of the bull on tv this season (see love cruise), and I'll probably continue to watch it... hoping it'll get better.
I think this series has a shot at being Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
First, the technology was appropriate to the timeframe. The ship has a maximum speed of about Warp 4. The warp core looks primitive. The medical techniques look primitive. There is no universal translater, just a linguist.
Another element they got right was the distrust between the Vulcans and Humans. Some posters have already complained about the rehashing of the "Emotionless Vulcans vs Irrational Humans". That will be a factor, but the issue is larger then that. The distrust between the two races goes beyond the emotion vs logic debate. The humans see the Vulcans as being restrictive and patronizing. And the Vulcans are somewhat racist. The role of the Vulcans is very close to that of a colonizing authority as in the British of the 18th century. An intresting side effect is that the humans are currently in the role of one of the many background races that really does not matter in the greater scheme of things.
They will have to be careful though if they wish to do better the Voyager did. They cannot fall back too often on "Sexy Exotic Alien Softcore" before they alienate too many long time fans. And the temporal villians are something else to be cautious with. It will allow the series to explain some deviations in continuity, but they must avoid breaking all continuity with the other series.
This pilot was stronger then the TNG and DS9 pilots. And Trek shows tend to take a while to 'hit their stride'. It will be a few weeks before I come to a conclusion, but the series is off to a good start.
END COMMUNICATION
Re:Way too early, wait till Saturday please. (Score:1, Insightful)
or maybe you should just stop reading, moron.
Exploration (Score:2, Insightful)
Enterprise seemed to me to be on a whole new level of exploration. Humans really haven't penetrated much of the galaxy. The best warp they can achieve is warp 4.5, transporters are for cargo only, phasers (phase pistols) are a new technology, no Universal Translater!. I could feel the sense of accomplishment they showed when talking about the "incredible" speeds the new ship could achieve. Everything's new.
My only disappointment was putting in a "temporal cold war" so early in the series. Time travel has been overused in the other series, and I had hoped that it would be used cautiously, if at all, in these archaic pre-Federation times. Ah well. All in all, I approve.
I Loved It (Score:4, Insightful)
I loved it.
I thought the Theme Song was touching.
I liked the vague familiarity of the "Country Doctor" and the Vulcan Science Officer.
I liked the spaceship that "felt" like a spaceship instead of a luxury hotel.
I liked the feeling of an impatient humanity that was well conveyed.
I liked the new translator chic who looks like she can scream better than Chekov could (and that says a lot).
I do wonder why the exposed crew didn't have to decon their "private areas," or will they just be sick in a few weeks as a result of their modesty. (No, UPN didn't have to show it but I would have liked them to have implied it at least.)
Well, let's see here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Theme Song: Sucked. Come on, I need the orchestra with the powerful brass about ready to blow my ear drums away. Something new. Not some recycled theme song written by a recycled band.
Ship: Nice design, though I honestly want to just have someone on the show explain why they picked that design for Star Fleet (circular disk, engines in the rear). If this is their first big star-ship, then at least tell me why they built it the way they did.
Crew: Interesting, but I was hoping for at least a little bit more of a clash between everyone's feelings toward each other. They all get along like compadres. Even the Vulcan science officer had little trouble getting along with the captain. Half of the storylines in Original Series/TNG/DS9 were about clashes between the crew. There's also little racial difference between them all. I mean, they're all Americanized people. At least Czechov had an accent.
Crew Chemistry: Gee, am I detecting a resurected Kirk/McCoy relationship in the captain and his science officer? At least McCoy knew when to add "colorful metaphors" when they were needed. It seems like Bacula just doesn't get the timing right (perhaps he could use some guidance from the South Park writers...can you imagine him yelling out to his crew, "Kick Ass!", and "Respect my Authorita!" to the Klingons?).
Storyline: Wait, there was a storyline I had to follow? Sorry...I had too many images of rubbing petroleum jelly all over some hot woman's back and behind. Ever since I saw some peculiar protrusions thrusting out of the Vulcan's undershirt I lost all sense of storyline.
Hot chick: Well, at least they got one thing right. Ever since Councelor Troi, this has been an absolute must. Voyager got it right in the second half of their run with Seven. At least they were able to keep some of my attention off the storyline and on the Jolene Blalock.
All in all: give me about a month to see if they can go somewhere with their setup. They've put in some good potential, and I'd like to see something come of it. But the key I would say is that Bacula has GOT to get an edge. Come on...Kirk, Sisqo, Picard, and Janeway all had veins popping out of their foreheads at one time or another in the show. Bacula's gotta do his part as well to continue the captain's legacy.
Forget it, some of them weren't listening... (Score:4, Insightful)
Second, didn't anyone else hear them say, "Polarize the hull plates!"? It's not the steel that's offline, but the polarization (early shield technology?) that was breaking down.
Forget it. Yer wasting your breath - some of the first people to start slammin' it were people who didn't really care in the first place. Some just WANT to hate this Trek as much as they hated Voyager (And, can ya blame 'em after that damned show? It almost got decent in the last season. Almost.) I heard exactly the same thing you did. So did everyone else, but some just gotta have something to bitch about.
Remember how it was supposedly the Vulcans that made First Contact with Earth after the first warp drive test? From the bit I saw (missed the first 1/2 hour :-/), it's the primitive race (Humans) chaifing under to tutalige of the advanced race (Vulcans). Not sure how much they'l be able to stretch out of that one, but it might make for some fresh material.
I agree - it's a much different perspective on things than the normal Trek setting for the last 3 shows where Humans and Vulcans are considered 'equal'. Plus, I see something very cool about this - while the Vulcans seem to have tried to protect us from ourselves based on what we've seen so far, we aren't beyond going off half cocked, and really screwing things up. I really expect to see this happen a couple of times within the series.
The other thing I see comming is how the Prime Directive finally gets created. So far, it doesn't exist. Humans can't really understand how come the Vulcans would hold back technology from us. We finally break free of the yoke somewhat, and go out on our own. Eventually, we're gonna find another species that is SO CLOSE to making it to warp technolgy, and we'll hand it to them. Then watch them have it blow up in thier face (yes, there was a Voyager a bit like that in the last season. One of the few almost likable episodes, but, it was too easily resolved for my tastes. Like most Voyager episodes. A hangnail is more of a problem than most of thier moral delimas.) After we see that happen, we'll probably start to understand the Vulcan mindset concerning the subject, and the Prime Directive will eventually created.
If fact, that Humans CAN and WILL totally screw up from time to time in this show is going to be one of my favorite things about it. 'Bout time we show ourselves for what we really are - flawed beings, who learn to adapt and overcome our problems eventually. (Ok, that's the rose colored glasses version ;-)
JTK is back in town (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see...
Getting kissed by alien hotties...
Running, two-gun Western-style shoot-outs...
Caution-be-damned attitude...
Oh, yes -- Jim Kirk is back!
(Now they just need to build a decent show around him...but I think they're on their way.)
Re:Real treckers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, come now.
Re:Spoiler-tastic (Score:5, Insightful)
Trapped by the canon (Score:5, Insightful)
Get over it. It's a TV show, not a coding textbook. Yes there will be inconsistencies and errors and who knows what else. Sometimes they're done for dramatic effect ("whoosh" sounds in space), sometimes they're done for convenience (ships always being shown upright 'cause it's too hard to explain to Uncle Vern why it's not *really* upside-down) and sometimes they just screw up. Or an author screwed up years ago. Or they're screwing with continuity on purpose and this will all make sense later.
Whatever the case for a premier episode it wasn't half bad. As many others have pointed out it's no worse then most other TV shows premier episodes and certianly not worse then any other ST's premier episode.
They've established the characters, given us a couple of directions for dramatic tension, showed off the fancy new (old) hardware and apparently started their first big plotline. Not bad for one show.
Sure we can all wonder if this is going to rise up to the best of the past or suck out loud like Voyager. As many others have pointed out that all of the series and movies and books and whatnot have had good stuff sprinkled amongst a lot of clunkers. Now the question is how will this new team and cast and direction play out and it's really unfair to judge from just one episode, particularly the first.
So enough nice-talk, my own opinions:
Anyway, I'll hold my judgement for a few more episodes. At least the premier wasn't awful even though it wasn't great either. Heres to hope...
what a bunch of whiny bitches (Score:5, Insightful)
"There wasn't any character development" : hey guys, this was a PILOT. Few pilots develop much characterwise, they have too much expositional ground to cover. Two hours is what, 80 pages of script? How much "development" can you cram into that without forcing it, AND still have time to show all the neato-whiz-bang special effects for which the series is famed? (And remember, they ARE trying to build a ~new~ audience, not just attract the old. The old will keep coming to con's and buying rubber vulcan ears forever.)
"How does armor plate go offline?" SOMEbody wasn't listening when they said that the armor POLARIZATION had gone off line. 1) At least in the NCC1701 a great deal of the hull stability was imparted by gravitic and other (insert pseudo-physics handwaving) fields. Assuming something has to assist normal matter holding together at 4.5 times the speed of light, yeah, I guess that would make sense. 2) Alternately, (insert more pseudo-physics handwaving) one could postulate that the "armor" was an ultradense iron/coherent molecules/whatever the heck - something that required a charge and computer support to dynamically resist damage. Whatever, it's nit picking.
I thought the pilot was decent. Bakula was (if I may mix genres) a physical Sean Connery-esque to Picard's Roger Moore-ish distance. I thought, yes, some of the supporting roles were pretty forced. But then again, I *remember* Encounter at Farpoint - a truly crappy pilot. Ship's Counsellor? What, a ship's prostitute in the future? And remember, Riker and Troi could communicate telpathically? That was dumped pretty quickly. And who can forget the Naked Now (episode 2) where writers (apparently already grasping at plot straws) reverted to the old saw of "everyone acting opposite" which would have been a lot better if we had more than caricature opinions of what their personalities WERE in the first place!
ST:NG took FIVE SEASONS to come up with ep's like "The Inner Light" - DS:9 royally sucked the first 2 years (fortunate, since I preferred watching B5 anyway...which ALSO took at least a few episodes to find it's feet).
The only two gripes I've seen that are valid IMO are the gratuitous slathering scene (not unappreciated, but pretty obvious. My god, no wonder we like the Vulcans!) and the points about putting spoiler comments on the front page before it aired. Rather provincial mistake, really.
The rest of you, cripes, give it a season or two. Let some of the characters' personalities gell a little, and let some chemistry develop. They may even change the theme music. I think it was a fine pilot, given the circumstances, no matter how "disappointed" some
STFAYFM (Score:3, Insightful)
Bitching for bitching is lame, okay bitching against the people bitching isn't any better, but can someone actually explain in a Vulcan way (logic heh) what's the problem with that?
sheesh
oh and the letters in the topic are for your own imagination, you probably guessed the F right though
Star Trek is still a focus of hope... (Score:2, Insightful)
This premiere was better in any one spot than my new favorite show Farscape. However, this premiere also had a pace and resolution of my all time most disgusted show; Voyager.
I swear to god, every last Voyager writer should be barred from ever writting for TV ever again.
There is one virtue of commitee writing in this case, and that is that the Voyager writers didn't get their hands into everything. You can taste what they didn't contaminate, because it doesn't stink. The ending was not something that escaped them. That is probably the greatest failure of this episode, and the one that really sticks with everyone that saw the show. How many people recall how it really ended? The last thing I remember is Archer talking with T'Pau like Janeway talks to 7of9, and then Archer going on the bridge to say something encouraging. The ready-room scene is the part that sticks, not the bridge scene.
Also, the theme song blows major ass. The video is rather disjointed from it, and while fitting, is pretty tacky. Overall, the intro says "one season, tops." Get rid of it. At the very least, do something I couldn't do in Flash 5.
I've seen people questioning how "hull plating" could fail. The answer is that the plating itself doesn't fail. What they have for "shields" is effectively a primitive combination of TNG's structural integrity field and TOS' defence screens. It's more integrity field, though. It is supposed to increase the armor strength of the hull beyond that of its physical properties. From the technobabble, you can assume they do this by putting a lot of energy into the plating to somehow strengthen the electro-magnetic properties of it. Think about how much harder it is to disrupt a stack of little metal blocks over if you magnetize them.
The blue girls on the planet seemed like something that could have been straight out of TOS. I didn't have a problem with the gel scenario itself - I doubt anyone sane did - but like most people I thought the camera work was extremely tacky.
T'Pau's make-up makes her look very elfin. I like the look, and though it detracts from the typical Vulcan make-up I find it a nice addition to the Vulcan species. Her wardrobe is pathetically 7of9. I'd be willing to bet that Vulcans usually wear those heavy robes to feel more comfortable in lower gravity enviornments. T'Pau's character must be feeling even more naked than her actress does. T'Pau herself is a moody bitch instead of a coldly logical creature with an alien alure. Commander Savok was my favorite Vulcan female. How many people realized exactly what she did on Genesis for Spock? I sure didn't until years later. It wasn't a shock, because it was logical. I don't want T'Pau to be a copy of Spock. I do want her to be a little less insulting by grace of class and more insulting by grace of logic.
While it was humorous, I was cringing badly at every Vulcan on the premiere. I think it was bad writing as much as bad editing as much as bad acting. Those were not Vulcans, those were people pretending to be Vulcans. They just didn't have ANY of the strength of will that comes from having found Kalimar. They were dirty little conspirators constatly feeling off guard with the irrational humans.
Of course, everyone probably figured out that the Vulcans were making sure humanity could stand on its own two feet by not giving too much information. That was something that was a little painful to see... nobody got that?
I like Hioshii. Nothing wrong there at all, just make sure she doesn't stay stagnant. Character development is vital to everyone.
Captain Archer isn't as passionate as he is irrational. This is supposed to be part of his character development, so I'm not critisizing it quite yet.
Enterprise NX-01 is a nice adaptation to the new ship we saw in First Contact in the battle against the Borg. It works. I know some people don't like it when old tech looks better than new tech, but the concept is more important to my mind, and that has remained intact.
What REALLY bothers me about this episode is that the "new" enemies are almost exactly the same as the ones found in Insurrection. God, I hated that movie. I refuse to add it to my Star Trek library, ever. The one saving grace of that entire movie was the cool nebulas, but as we all know, pretty graphics do not make sales after opening weekend.
The technobable was somewhere between TNG and Voyager. Technobable should not ever be technobable. In TNG it was always comprehendable. I had a bit of trouble trying to keep the technobable straight in my head. There was a lot of non-sense strewn about the few key words of realistic and theoretical science.
The plot was similar to the technobable. It just didn't hold together all the time. In that sense, it was a lot like Voyager. This episode didn't have to be two hours for the content it had in it, but if it was only one hour it would have been just like a Voyager episode. If that was the case, the two words left in people's minds would be "suck" and "boobies" and they would try to connect them in some way to make up for the lack of connections in the episode.
So far, I'm concerned that this series has taken bits and pieces from almost every single piece of Star Trek lore to create something new. The going line for this series has been "we've never done this before!" I hope they do go boldy go where no man has ever gone before, as TOS did. There is real promise here, but there is also the chance this will go the way of Voyager.
This premeire seems to be a sampler, and it is up to us to decide where we want to go with our main course. I say we set course for the second star to the right.
Lastly, I think Star Trek should once again get one or more advisors from NASA, MIT, maybe even slashdot (hah.) People with connections that can relay ideas back and forth between writers and experts in their fields.
Wow!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Vulcan Chick - Link (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite possibly. I can't think why anyone else would find it sad that link to pictures of the hot chick from the new star trek serries got modded informative.
I was informed. How is that sad? Surely pictures of Jolene Blalock aren't sad!
Re:Spoiler-tastic (Score:5, Insightful)
In the episode, Picard refers to the first contact with Klingons as with the Federation making first contact(when the Klingons attained Warp drive) , and that the Fed. didn't know anything about their culture. He also says that if they had implanted spies like Riker, then first contact would've gone much smoother.
Re:What a piece of crap -- TOS was different (Score:3, Insightful)
It inspired people. It infuriated people. Diplomats complained and complemented. People cared. It mattered.
"Enterprise" will be followed in my area by Chicago(?) police officers blowing up the local bad-guy aliens. If Voyager and the first episode are any guides, it will be a toss-up which will be more socially and technologically intriguing. The aliens will have less variety than one finds among humans in downtown LA. The technology... will look like an inspired 1960's vision of the future. This seems so very sad.
Might one do another "Star Trek" today? The original required continuously fighting the network suits, and spending through the nose for the special effects needed just to make every-day surroundings work. So "the studio _is_ the network" doesn't help. I fuzzily recall the DS9 director(?) saying some of his interesting stuff was only possible because the suits were off focused on Voyager. Voyager. I could live with moralizing, but it would be nice to get at least "harassed at airport" level thought behind it, rather than say "drunk homeless person" rantings. Ah well. But imagine, what would a new ST look like? Assuming the same basic "socially-and-technically-inspired cowboys in space" telling somewhat thoughtful stories?
Well, you need someone who can tell stories. West Wing has what's-his-name. TOS had several people. As for the social and technical...
Start anywhere. Dynamic organization rather than rigid hierarchy. A tight team acting as one, rather than "we run our sub with 18-year olds, so everything is explicit and verbose". A cast of people with deep and varied skills, rather than a couple of "I can do everything"s. People with intelligence, insight and wisdom, who make you think "gosh, what a neat perspective", rather than "god, how mindlessly stupid". Communication, coordination, planning, politics.
Walk the taboos - nudity, physical contact, backrubs, grooming, sex, social groupings, marriage, appearance. Religion - discussion of, high-profile belief in, disbelief. Push the envelope on race, class, caste, age young and old, pretty and ugly, fit and not, intelligence exceptional and impaired. Our changing humanness - delegating intelligence to the environment, genetic mods, non-biological component integration, symbiots.
Technically, if it is already being prototyped now, it's pretty silly to ignore it. Pervasive computing. Intelligence augmentation. Pervasive robotics, varied and autonomous, and active environments. Wide-band user interfaces with gesture, voice, VR, holography, force feedback, face and tone interpretation, task understanding, etc. Walk though the MIT Media Lab, and grab everything interesting. Read DARPA's current request for proposals.
Yes it would require work. Just doing zero-g in a shirt sleeve environment is a big pain. But it doesn't seem like ST is even trying any more. Perhaps that's ok, and Paramount is just mining out the last interest in a 1960's vision. I saw someone argue that the only problem with Voyager was that DS9 existed, which "divided the demographic". Perhaps. But that's not why I don't think of it as Star Trek. We can do better. Yes?
(Hmm, Neptune in 10 minutes means a light-hour per minute, so about a light-year per week. I hope they brought board games.)
Re:Spoiler-tastic (Score:2, Insightful)
Except for the fact that this corpse happened to contain some very important information.
Re:Comandah Tuckah (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a good thing that we still have the stereotypical bubba to make fun of, isn't it? I'm glad that political correctness hasn't ruined the opportunity to make fun of those people and their culture. So let's get all the trailer-trash, Foghorn Leghorn, Bigfoot truck, Mayberry RFD, tube top and stretch pants, and bigotry comments about Tucker going on
Jeez, guys. We're all geeky losers who watch Star Trek! That fatass, wig-wearing Shatner even told us to get a life! Remember "You, there. Have you ever even kissed a girl?" from the SNL skit? And we made him rich enough to sit around eating HoHos and drinking beer until somone calls him for a $25,000 convention gig. How about we just cut the crap about the stereotypical Foxworthy-style good ol' boy on Enterprise, huh? The jokes are really low-hanging fruit, anyway, too easy and cheap and socially acceptable to be worthy of us.
BTW, yes, I am Southern-born and -bred, and I do have a small chip on my shoulder about how we've become the chosen funny minority on the screen. The university where I got my MBA has a course -- no, I'm not shitting you -- on how to get rid of the accent so that your job prospects would be greater.
Ah told 'em ta blow it out they all's asses.
"Out there" (Score:3, Insightful)
As for the soft porn, the original show wasn't exactly lacking that either. What straight male over thirty hasn't had fond thoughts of the green chick in The Menagerie? That was racy stuff back then. The difference is that Menagerie and the rest of the original series had some class. They didn't just say "OK, how are we gonna get them naked? How about a disinfectant scene where they 'have' to rub each other down?"
Enterprise seems to have recaptured the spirit of the original show, if not the intelligence and class.
Good First Episode that harkens to The Original (Score:2, Insightful)
I watched most of the episodes of TOS and TNG, some Voyager (everyone knows it sucked in the beginning but got a lot better in the end), and almost no DS9. DS9 was just pathetic.
Anyway - my point is, some of you ultra trekkie people need to take a step back. Did you watch Galaxy Quest? Did you see the guys with the plans and how they were nit picking one little inconsistancy? I thought that was an exaggeration, I guess I was wrong. Drop the whole stupid-ass Klingon thing. THEY CHANGED THE MAKEUP. That's all. Warf's comment was a fucking inside joke! Get over it!
The shower scene and the hottie vulcan part was stolen directly from 7 of 9 because it was so successful in making Voyager more liked. Deal with it. Why the fuck are you complaining that they're putting hot women in our Sci-Fi shows? And who was the idiot who said this would make Roddenbury flip over in his grave? Did you WATCH the original episode? Kirk did the nasty with every hot alien chick in the universe. They just couldn't show more back then because the censors were stricter.
Personally, I think a little sexual/romantic tension is a GOOD thing. It gives the show dimension and a more realistic feel.
This was the best pilot for a Star Trek show ever, and you're talking like it's total trash. You know it's not, so stop finding excuses to trash it and watch it or don't watch it.
If you like Star Trek, you'll watch it and like it. If you don't, you won't. We all knew which camp we were in before we even saw the opening credits.
Now, about the theme music.... was I deaf during that part? I totally don't remember the singing at all, but I recognize some of the images. Wierd. Anyway, the singing I heard off the version linked to online was terrible, and I agree that it should be thrown out for some old-school orchestra music.
-Thaniel
Re:Well, let's see here... (Score:2, Insightful)
Come on, I need the orchestra with the powerful brass about ready to blow my ear drums away. Something new. Not some recycled theme song written by a recycled band.
Yeah something original in big brass just like the big brass opening credits of DS9 or Voyager. I hate to tell you but putting rock, even if it is Rod *shudder* Stewart, in Star Trek is a new and original thing for the series. Big brass openings and "voyages of the starship *insert name here*" monologues are not.
I also understand why they picked that particular song. Listen to the lyrics and remember what the show's main themes are. Notice that this crappy Rod Stewart song captures all the major introductory themes of the show i.e. exploration, being "held back" by the vulcans, and feeling your way forward into the unknown.
The song is already somewhat dated now so don't worry about it dating the show. This isn't the eighties rock of Transformers or nineties rock of Titan AE. I hesitate to call any Rod Stewart song a classic, but this one is a least going to be around for a while on easy listening CDs.
Someone else said that this opening will alienate the hardcore trekkies. Tough. They need to be alienated some. Trek needs to grow and change and evolve or it will collapse and die. Its time to stop trying to please everybody and make something worth while.
What I want to know is whether they will repeat the mistakes of Voyager and destroy the internal conflict that fuels the series. Are they going to maintain the internal tension of Vulcans vs. Humans or not. If they choose not then the show will suck for several seasons. If so then they can use it provided it does not become cliche.
The good, the bad and the ugly (Score:2, Insightful)
Bad: The THEME SONG. EWWWWW. What is this, Pax? The run of the mill plot. The now-mandatory forced tension between crewmembers. The now-mandatory treknobabble (bad in this case for even treknobabble.) I liked the part about the hull going offline. Sounds like Braga and Berman did s/shields/hull/g on some rejected Voyager battle script. Also, oh no, we're fighting the Dominion again only this time they're kinda scaly.
Ugly: They need some new makeup artists to populate the "lots of different aliens" scenes, or maybe they should use Muppets
Overall, not bad but I'm not sorry West Wing is coming back next Wednesday. Hope the new B5 pilot in January is a little more inspiring.
Time Travel has that kind of effect (Score:4, Insightful)
Commander Cisco in the Mid 21st had to usurp the role of a historical figure after said figure was killed defending him in a random street brawl. While he got history back on track, clearly it wasn't perfectly back on track, something Star Fleet noticed (his picture in the history books) and had some pointed questions about.
Captain Piccard and the Borg mucked with humans' first contact with vulcans, and while they were able to get out of the way (for the most part) and let history take its course once the Borg were defeated, it is likely some residue of the battle(s) would have been noticed by the vulcans' science sensors. This could well have led to vulcans being more cautious in their dealings with humans, delaying our exuberant expansion into space and perhaps preventing some of the historical mistakes in the original timeline, such as the Romulan Wars and the botched Klingon first contact (and resulting war).
Of course, the new timeline would encounter all kinds of new mistakes not present in the original history.
An interesting subject for late-night beer-soaked conversation fodder is the resiliance of the timeline, that despite historical changes (some significant) the timeline restores itself in large part. But, like any natural chaotic system, there are points where minor changes can have radical, irrevocable changes that completely alter the timeline, while other areas exhibit more stability and even major changes have relatively little long term effect on the historical outcome.
Theories might include the futility of killing hitler because social inertia would have led to the holocaust in any event (perhaps even under a different historical figure named hitler, as the last name was very common in Germany at the time), versus the idea of bumping into hitler in a cafe in Vienna years earlier, causing him to miss a fateful confrontation with a Jewish merchant that would solidified his anti-semetic attitudes and preventing an entire world war through a simple change in timing.
Extreme stability ("fate") vs. extreme instability. Of course, I think the most interesting theories of time travel involve a combination of the two, reflective of other chaotic systems known in nature where, under the right conditions and at the right time, a butterfly's wings can effect distant weather but under other conditions or times no amount of effort can have any effect on the advance of a storm. Some moments in history are as fragile as a soap bubble, while others as resiliant as bungie cord.
Of course, the advantage of such a hybrid theory of temporal mechanics (semi-chaotic temporal systems) is that it gives radical poetic license to writers of shows like star trek, and allows numerous consistency errors to correct themselves.
Re:It's not a family show anymore (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Reaction (Score:3, Insightful)
Gee - how come everyone seems to have forgotten how much T and A there was in TOS? There were silicone enhanced babes on every planet, and except for token episodes for the rest of the cast, Kirk all but fornicated with them every week.
I remember reading The Making of Star Trek as a teen, and I am reminded of the part about how the TOS producers and NBC censors were continually arguing about how far they could go. In fact there was one particular passage about how NBC had a rule that you could not show the underside of a breast, as if they thought moss grew under there or something.
Trek Physics!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Minimum (10^6 km) 4305.9
Time at Warp 4.5 = 6 minutes round trip = 3 minutes one way
4,305,900,000km
therefore, Warp 4.5 = 23.9217 * 10^6 km/sec
Now, Earth to Kronos was given at 80 hours at Warp 4.5 so
80 hours = 4800 Minutes = 288,000 seconds
288,000 sec * 23,921,700 km/sec = 6,889,449,600,000 km to Kronos (6.8894496 * 10^12) (6 Trillion KM)
Light travels at 300,000 km/sec
6,889,449,600,000 km / 300,000 = 22,964,832 LightSeconds
Light seconds to light years:
60 seconds in 1 minute
60 minutes in 1 hour
24 hours in 1 day
365 days in 1 year
60 * 60 * 24 * 365 = 31,536,000 seconds/year
THEREFORE:
22,964,832 / 31,536,000 = 0.728210045662100456621005 light years
Since the closest star to Earth is some 4 light years away, the Klingons are SURE some CLOSE neighbors!
"Enterprise" is GREAT (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just a tad early... (Score:1, Insightful)
heh