Star Trek - The Bear and Badger

cindemon

Diluted Dante wrote:

TBF, I think the original films probably require familiarity with the characters, at least these days anyway..

The exact thought crossed my mind when watching it, visuals aside, there was a lot of talking in the first 30 mins. I knew I could not start him off on The Motion Picture(Hell, I still struggle with that one)& on reflection should of just gone in for First Contact from the off & showed him some TNG skillz.

Thanks to ERE I now have a pre-order slapped down for the Star Charts(feck knows if they will even see a wall, but I do love me a map) & tears at seeing the Federation book price slashed. Will not be taking a punt on the model magazine thing, no matter how much love I have for Klingon vessels & Star Trek ship design in general. Was burned many years ago by the Star Trek Fact files mags. Twas the most expensive TV guide I had ever brought.

Blue Swirl

EvilRedEye wrote:

Seems a bit ridiculous to say it's the best Trek we've had in ages when we had a decent film in 2009.

When I say 'best Trek in ages' I mean both of the reboot films compared to the awful last two Next Gen films, Enterprise, and the hit-n-miss Voyager and DS9 series. Basically, I've yet to hear a complaint about Into Darkness that couldn't be leveled at Trek as a whole; my thinking is if people don't like ID they don't like Star Trek in general, or they're wearing some serious rose tinted specs. Just IMHO, of course. Everyone I know loves the V for Vendetta film but I thought it was pain incarnate. YMMV.

In other news, Star Trek Attack Wing is a thing that exists now.

Diluted Dante

As I say, I watched TOS recently, and the reboot (not seen Into Darkness) doesn't fit for me. Voyager and DS9 are much, much better.

Enterprise was very hit and miss, I'll give you that though.

b0r1s

DS9 really? And I thought you had taste Dante!

Terrible rip off of Babylon 5, yes I'm turning into another this vs that thread.

Diluted Dante

Babylon 5 is a big pile of shite!

b0r1s

Oh no right outside now!!

Blue Swirl

Diluted Dante wrote:

Babylon 5 is a big pile of shite!

What you should have said was, "You're right. But first, let's watch Krull, and then we'll discuss it."

Ali

Watched Into Darkness and really did enjoy it. Only problem I had with it was the big reveal...

Spoiler:

MattyJ

Why?

Diluted Dante

Possibly because

Spoiler:

Funkstain

I enjoyed the spectacle, but fuck me can anyone write a decent screenplay these days? What kind of hack comes up with

Spoiler:

Spock

In t'darkness is alright. And Jesus, some folk hate anything 'alright'. They'll adopt total shite and go to keyboard war defending said shite as a misunderstood curio but they can't seem to accept that sometimes, average happens. It was alright.

Blue Swirl

What Spock said. Though I genuinely loved both the reboot films. They may not be the 'best Trek in ages' but they're definitely 'the Trek I've enjoyed most in ages'.

Funkstain

Well yeah, I said it was fun, but you have to admit the writing is hacky as fuck. This Lindeloff (sp?) fellow seems to be the worst kind of committee pleasing Hollywood hack.

Blue Swirl

Bits made me twinge when I recognised the Hollywood writing tropes, but over all I saw a romping space adventure with much action and 'leaping prior to looking', which is original Trek all over. I think TOS has gotten this rose-tinted reputation as a philosophical piece of high art, but go back and watch it again it's cheesy as all hell and the philosophical nature of some episodes never gets in the way of a good skimpy costume or bare chested fist fight.

Roujin

Khan in into Darkness is such a genius this time around that he gives the security guard at the start the antidote for his daughter BEFORE the guard even goes to Starfleet HQ to plant the bomb.

The reason most people don't like Into Darkness is because the film takes you for a fucking idiot right from the first fifteen seconds when Kirk decides to break the prime directive for no reason other than the chase that ensues allows them to show the enterprise rising out of the ocean so they could cut to the intro.

Spock

For me, Star Trek is at its best when it tackles the big philosophical and sociological stuff, ('Let this be your last battlefield' from the original series, for e.g.) it's the franchises U.S.P, so to speak. The frenetic pace and action focus of the two reboots are great ( I love 'em and they're fun!) but the franchise needs to differentiate itself from the no doubt superbly balanced pop corn/pseudo mythic tweenish machismo of the new star warz. So, Star Trek three needs to be deep, IMHO.

Diluted Dante

I want a Star Trek spin off based on the Rise and Fall of Khan Noonian Singh books. That would be bloody brilliant.

Swirl, TOS is cheesy (although some bits only in retrospect, and stuff like the Gorn fight is played entirely straight, which in turn makes it even cheesier), there are skimpy costumes, and Kirk ends up shirtless more than is reasonably expected, but... it rarely loses it's philosophical bent.

Even the utterly ridiculous Gorn episode is about questioning if the Federation became unintended aggressors and when Kirk realises that the Gorn might have been acting in self defence he refuses to kill him despite having been told he is in a battle to the death. This act of mercy saves both crews.

Blue Swirl

Diluted Dante wrote:

Swirl, TOS is cheesy (although some bits only in retrospect, and stuff like the Gorn fight is played entirely straight, which in turn makes it even cheesier), there are skimpy costumes, and Kirk ends up shirtless more than is reasonably expected, but... it rarely loses it's philosophical bent.

I think it's philosophical content has been exaggerated with time. YMMV.

EvilRedEye

Star Trek ship plush toys. Enterprise and Romulan Bird-of-Prey are being released.

Here's an interesting thing. It's a ship from one of the calenders.

It's called the Bonaventure class and it basically sits between the NX class and the Constitution class. I quite like it. I think it actually works as a prequel ship better than the NX class. You can see the through-line between the Phoenix and the Constitution class, whereas with the NX you have nacelles bolted onto a saucer, which makes no sense as the Phoenix is a stardrive section and nacelles without a saucer. I wish they'd used the whole saucer-growing-from-the-stardrive-section look as it just makes so much more sense from the point of view of showing the evolution of the starship designs.

Blue Swirl

EvilRedEye wrote:

It's called the Bonaventure class and it basically sits between the NX class and the Constitution class. I quite like it. I think it actually works as a prequel ship better than the NX class. You can see the through-line between the Phoenix and the Constitution class, whereas with the NX you have nacelles bolted onto a saucer, which makes no sense as the Phoenix is a stardrive section and nacelles without a saucer. I wish they'd used the whole saucer-growing-from-the-stardrive-section look as it just makes so much more sense from the point of view of showing the evolution of the starship designs.

This is possibly the nerdiest post ever. Kudos, sir.

To continue in this theme, I thought "NX" wasn't so much a class but the designation for prototype ships? E.g., NCC 1701-* is the line of Enterprises, while NX 01 is the prototype one from, um, Enterprise.

Diluted Dante

No, NX is a class. NX-01 is the Enterprise obviously, and NX-02 is the Columbia.

EvilRedEye

Yeah, NX is the class of ships from ENT, but it's probably meant to be a continuity link with later series where 'NX' is the registry prefix on prototype ships, for example the Excelsior was NX-2000 and then became NCC-2000 later on.

Blue Swirl

Ah, so NX is a class in ENT and the prefix for prototype ships in later series? With this knowledge I am sure to get laid.

JMW

Depends if you're fussy what by.

EvilRedEye

Here are some big pictures of the star charts book.

The pre-order price has gone up to £60, I seem to remember it being £30 before. The fancy Federation book has also gone up to £35 from £25. Regret forgetting to order these things sooner, dammmmn.

That cheap movies boxset (I-X) has fallen below £50 on Amazon too.

EvilRedEye

The American price for the star charts book is only $47.99 so that must surely be some kind of mistake.

Blue Swirl

JMW wrote:

Depends if you're fussy what by.

Genuine lulz.

I can probably "seal the deal" with the Stellar Cartography book.

EvilRedEye

I think I might bite the bullet and buy that fancy Trek book even though it's gone up to £35 again as I just struggled to find it on Amazon and was, like, "OMG NOOO". It's still there but they're selling just the book without the extra stuff now and I think the deluxe version will go soon.

EvilRedEye

I didn't stick with Enterprise past the first season but the Enterprise NX-01 model from the Starship collection really is lovely.

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