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Off Topic => Off Topic => Topic started by: Ratty on September 12, 2013, 11:22:25 PM

Title: Star Trek, to boldly go where no thread has gone before.
Post by: Ratty on September 12, 2013, 11:22:25 PM
Well, ok where one thread has gone before. We (erm, mostly me) were hijacking THIS (http://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php/topic,6615.0.html) thread so I decided to just split this page off into its own topic.

Quote from: KaZ on September 12, 2013, 10:00:37 PM
Doctor Who
I don't care for this show, and the Fan-base reeks of pretentious twats, at least Star Trek Next gen fans Bothered to watch the original series...

I've watched some Doctor Who and it's ok but not really for me. I think I understand why a lot of people dig it, but it does seem like it's become a fad along with other aspects of "nerd culture". I consider myself a bit of a Trekkie but I don't really like the original series. I much prefer TOS cast in the animated series and movies, because the first show had so much filler dialog and a boring Shatner romance for 20 minutes of what feels like every episode. Plus most of the time Kirk acts like he wouldn't know the Prime Directive (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Prime_Directive) if it bit him on the nose, and there's now-weird sexism in some episodes.

And I just find TOS characters (especially Kirk) to be boring compared to their TNG and DS9 counterparts, though they got a lot more interesting in the movies. And the animated series had tighter scripting and wasn't constrained by the budget limitations of TOS ("We've got a lot of Gladiator costumes? Sure we'll have an episode about a 20th Century ancient Rome planet, why not.") so we got to have some more exciting scenarios and fun aliens like Lt. M'ress.
(Spoiler'd for Catgirl in Starfleet regulation short skirt, in case anyone might find that NSFW.)
(click to show/hide)

Long story short: Star Trek TOS is overrated, come at me bro.
Title: Re: Star Trek franchise.
Post by: Beaumont_Belmont on September 12, 2013, 11:38:34 PM
Well the most fun aliens are usually the ones that don't wear pants. Except for xenomorphs. They're not so fun.
Title: Re: Star Trek franchise.
Post by: Ratty on September 12, 2013, 11:40:55 PM
Quote from: Beaumont_Belmont on September 12, 2013, 11:38:34 PM
Well the most fun aliens are usually the ones that don't wear pants. Except for xenomorphs. They're not so fun.

Absolutely. Unfortunately the downside of TAS is that none of them got much animation (it was during the dark days of TV cartoons) so 90% of the time you see Lt. M'ress or Lt. Arex it's an oft-repeated shot of them sitting at their stations. But there were a lot of nice alien-of-the-week inventions to.

PS- That is a standard TOS female officer uniform though, just look at Nichelle Nichols's Uhura in any given episode and you'll see there's practically nothing to them. Again a slightly sexist, slightly weird 60s vibe to TOS. It's created some unfortunate scenarios for female cosplayers in recent years (http://www.thisview.org/?p=127) (Link might be NSFW due to article title.)
Title: Re: Star Trek franchise.
Post by: Abnormal Freak on September 13, 2013, 04:38:22 AM
re: Doctor Who

Its fans bother me as well, but it's mostly the n00bz who irritate me. I've a friend who's big into all the past incarnations and has likely seen every episode, and for years after I first got to know him, EVERYTHING reminded him of a Doctor Who episode. It never really bothered me—not like all the references and posts I see on Facebook do.




re: Star Trek

Original show sucks, TNG was my shit as a kid; been wanting to get the Blu-rays if they ever drop to ~$30 a season.
Title: Re: Star Trek franchise.
Post by: Ratty on September 13, 2013, 05:44:54 AM
Quote from: Abnormal Freak on September 13, 2013, 04:38:22 AM
re: Star Trek

Original show sucks, TNG was my shit as a kid; been wanting to get the Blu-rays if they ever drop to ~$30 a season.

"Sucks" might be a bit strong, it was mostly good for it's time but I don't think it's aged very well. Also if you get the TNG season sets I recommend skipping season 1 until last, since it's not surprisingly but very severely the weakest season. In season 1 most of the cast hadn't really found their characters or chemistry yet and everything felt tangibly awkward. I think most fans agree that the series really hit its stride in Season 3 when Geordi LaForge, Worf and Dr. Crusher were all finally in their iconic roles. (Chief Engineer, Chief of Security and not-away-at-Starfleet-Academy-oh-God-Dr.-Pulaski-was-terrible-its-like-they-put-McCoy-in-a-wig respectively.) Though unfortunately it would still be years until Weasely Crusher got put on a series of buses.
Title: Re: Star Trek franchise.
Post by: Beaumont_Belmont on September 13, 2013, 05:45:42 AM
The starfleet uniform skirt for a short time extended to dudes, too.
(https://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi48.tinypic.com%2Ffjj0r9.png&hash=60dedabb76200bf6896bec2b4ba03af8)
Title: Re: Star Trek franchise.
Post by: Ratty on September 13, 2013, 05:57:10 AM
Quote from: Beaumont_Belmont on September 13, 2013, 05:45:42 AM
The starfleet uniform skirt for a short time extended to dudes, too.

Yeah the uniforms in Season 1 were awful, though that kilt would be better than the jumpsuites the main cast all had to wear then, as if at some point in the future humanity had evolved beyond the need to go to the bathroom quickly or easily. (As I recall Will Wheaton has said just about everyone wore foam pads to appear more muscled during the first season because the jumpsuits were so tight.) Iirc the officers dress uniforms (for meeting diplomats etc.) were like kilts for a few seasons as well. Too bad the costume designers wound up just abandoning any attempt at a more gender-neutral uniform though.
Title: Re: Star Trek franchise.
Post by: Beaumont_Belmont on September 13, 2013, 06:07:05 AM
We all know TNG should have just used The Motion Picture's disco pajama uniforms.
Title: Re: Star Trek franchise.
Post by: Ratty on September 13, 2013, 06:26:21 AM
Quote from: Beaumont_Belmont on September 13, 2013, 06:07:05 AM
We all know TNG should have just used The Motion Picture's disco pajama uniforms.

Well the Voyager 1 probe just left the solar system so, would be totally appropriate for the 3rd reboot movie at least ;D

(I actually do like those big fuzzy red uniforms they wore in the later TOS-cast movies though.)
Title: Re: Star Trek franchise.
Post by: Beaumont_Belmont on September 13, 2013, 06:31:49 AM
The fuzzy red uniforms ARE pretty cool.
Title: Re: Star Trek franchise.
Post by: X on September 13, 2013, 12:25:00 PM
Quote
Absolutely. Unfortunately the downside of TAS is that none of them got much animation (it was during the dark days of TV cartoons) so 90% of the time you see Lt. M'ress or Lt. Arex it's an oft-repeated shot of them sitting at their stations. But there were a lot of nice alien-of-the-week inventions to.

Star Trek TAS was made by Filmation and they are well known for using a lot of stock footage and very little character movement. This is one of the reasons why they went bankrupt. They were just not evolving with other animation studios. Had Filmation done something similar to animating their characters like in Japanese Anime, I would bet my bottom dollar they'd still be around and TAS would be an even bigger hit.

Quote
(I actually do like those big fuzzy red uniforms they wore in the later TOS-cast movies though.)

I loved those uniforms. To me it represented the golden age of Star Trek and the Federation in general. They had so many details not present in any other Federation uniform that had come before or since.

Quote
so we got to have some more exciting scenarios and fun aliens like Lt. M'ress.

M'Ress is a very intriguing alien right next to the Orion animal slave woman and the blue Andorean woman  :-[  M'Ress is perhaps one of my favorite trek aliens of all...not just because she's a cat girl.

Title: Re: Star Trek franchise.
Post by: Ratty on September 13, 2013, 07:41:16 PM
Quote from: X on September 13, 2013, 12:25:00 PM
Star Trek TAS was made by Filmation and they are well known for using a lot of stock footage and very little character movement. This is one of the reasons why they went bankrupt. They were just not evolving with other animation studios. Had Filmation done something similar to animating their characters like in Japanese Anime, I would bet my bottom dollar they'd still be around and TAS would be an even bigger hit.

Other studios got more animation because they had the work done overseas, Filmation was one of the last to do this and this is why they failed. They paid American workers more money for less results and it ended them. Sadly TAS only has 22 episodes.

Quote from: X on September 13, 2013, 12:25:00 PM
I loved those uniforms. To me it represented the golden age of Star Trek and the Federation in general. They had so many details not present in any other Federation uniform that had come before or since.

Yeah they're very classy, I'd love to make one for conventions and things, though they look like they'd get pretty warm fast to.

Quote from: X on September 13, 2013, 12:25:00 PM
M'Ress is a very intriguing alien right next to the Orion animal slave woman and the blue Andorean woman  :-[  M'Ress is perhaps one of my favorite trek aliens of all...not just because she's a cat girl.

Yeah Majel Barret-Roddenberry (aka Nurse Chapel / Lwaxana Troi) was able to invest a lot of mystique into the character considering she had so few lines and appearances. Basically only showing up to fill in for Nichelle Nichols when she couldn't be there or when Uhura was wanted somewhere else in the story. Unfortunately sometime before TNG came out Gene Roddenberry decided he was embarrassed of TAS (presumably because of the limited animation) and it was ruled non-canon. So we never got to see M'ress in any of the movies or any Caitians in TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT. Though Caitians had already appeared in a couple of the TOS movies in background roles, and I think along with the rest of TAS they're mostly considered canon again these days. (A couple of Caitian twins who were "intimate" with Kirk apparently appeared in Into Darkness but I've not seen that. Sauce (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Caitian).) M'ress herself has appeared in minor roles in comics and novels over the years, all non-canon of course. http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/M%27Ress (http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/M%27Ress) http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/M%27Ress (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/M%27Ress)
Title: Re: Star Trek, to boldly go where no thread has gone before.
Post by: X on September 14, 2013, 09:56:22 AM
I have the entire comic book compilation of 'Who killed Captain Kirk' and it features M'Ress somewhat prominently. It is unfortunate that the art style they used for her, makes her somewhat unattractive unlike her TAS counterpart. I personally could have done a better M'Ress.
Title: Re: Star Trek, to boldly go where no thread has gone before.
Post by: Beaumont_Belmont on September 14, 2013, 11:43:07 AM
...I've used up pretty much all my Star Trek material that isn't borrowed from Red Letter Media.
Title: Re: Star Trek, to boldly go where no thread has gone before.
Post by: Super Waffle on September 14, 2013, 03:42:37 PM
Into Darkness was pretty good right up until it became a shot-for-shot remake of Wrath of Khan.

And then it got kind of stupid.
Title: Re: Star Trek, to boldly go where no thread has gone before.
Post by: X on September 14, 2013, 08:17:03 PM
Quote
Into Darkness was pretty good right up until it became a shot-for-shot remake of Wrath of Khan.

You mean where the roles of Kirk and Spock got reversed? That was a little strange and I did think that Kirk was going to stay dead. But I had not figured in 'Khan's regenerative blood' aspect as well as using one of the cryo-tubes to keep Kirk from lapsing into death even further. I also think the USS Vengeance could have used more air-time. Unfortunately given the fact that it was too powerful a star ship, the Enterprise would not have lasted long enough to give us a good battle like it was with Star Trek II's Enterprise Vs Reliant. I actually liked the Vengeance design. and given the fact that it is purely a military ship I could see her lasting for quite some time against a Borg cube ship. I'm also betting that she could hold her own against Nero's ship; The Narada.
Title: Re: Star Trek, to boldly go where no thread has gone before.
Post by: Ratty on September 15, 2013, 08:43:11 PM
Quote from: X on September 14, 2013, 08:17:03 PM
You mean where the roles of Kirk and Spock got reversed? That was a little strange and I did think that Kirk was going to stay dead. But I had not figured in 'Khan's regenerative blood' aspect as well as using one of the cryo-tubes to keep Kirk from lapsing into death even further. I also think the USS Vengeance could have used more air-time. Unfortunately given the fact that it was too powerful a star ship, the Enterprise would not have lasted long enough to give us a good battle like it was with Star Trek II's Enterprise Vs Reliant. I actually liked the Vengeance design. and given the fact that it is purely a military ship I could see her lasting for quite some time against a Borg cube ship. I'm also betting that she could hold her own against Nero's ship; The Narada.

Yeah I heard that "Khan's magic blood" was a cheap deus ex machina at the end. Again haven't seen the movie but it just seems like a bad idea to intentionally invite direct comparisons between your new movie and what's been nigh-universally regarded as the best film in a series for decades.
A warship huh? I'm not really sure how prominent ships built purely for fighting are in the history of the federation in the original "prime" timeline, so that might mark another significant diversion. When the USS Defiant was introduced it's conflicts with peaceful, exploration-based ideology of the Federation is brought up. And as a warship it's said to be unique in Starfleet at the same time. But I guess there must have been at least a few warships back when fighting the Klingons was a regular occurrence.
Title: Re: Star Trek, to boldly go where no thread has gone before.
Post by: X on September 16, 2013, 09:54:38 AM
Quote
A warship huh? I'm not really sure how prominent ships built purely for fighting are in the history of the federation in the original "prime" timeline, so that might mark another significant diversion. When the USS Defiant was introduced it's conflicts with peaceful, exploration-based ideology of the Federation is brought up. And as a warship it's said to be unique in Starfleet at the same time. But I guess there must have been at least a few warships back when fighting the Klingons was a regular occurrence.

Well if you haven't seen the film then I don't want to give away too much, but;

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