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Post by Mod City on Aug 31, 2008 0:18:41 GMT -5
Change, this is a great thread. Very interesting stories that bring back memories.
I grew up with syndicated episodes of TOS that came on after the 10 p.m. news on Sunday nights in the early 80s. My mom would stay up with me so I could watch - on a Sunday night! Good memories. I found it again when Sci-Fi started doing their big Special Edition thing about ten years ago.
Favorite film in the series is Wrath of Kahn, although I've enjoyed most of the others.
I didn't follow TNG and after with the exception of the movies, and I think I missed out a bit. Still, I'm happy with my TOS experience.
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Post by ijon on Aug 31, 2008 11:58:02 GMT -5
Change, you are indeed the Star Trek guru. I love your reminiscences and can't wait for the next episode. Nice visual aids as well, thanks for posting those.
Talking about the series though, I just wanted to go back a bit to the question of "Star Trek" vs "science fiction." I agree with the Cap'n's point about character-driven drama being desirable (as an aside though I don't think such is the only formula, novels such as War with the Newts, Last and First Men and Things to Come all achieve drama with a pseudo-historical and episodic structure) but I think Trek became more and more character-dominated over time.
Again, this not necessarily bad. Star Wars was always about bigger-than-life characters who mold their galaxy in their own images. For myself though, I prefer my characters strong but not actually mythic. I think Master and Commander is a good recent example. Jack Aubrey and his crew are finely drawn characters, but while his position gives him a great deal of freedom he still operates within a framework established by others. It's interesting that Roddenberry frequently mentioned the essentially identical setting of the Hornblower novels as a pattern for Star Trek.
The Trek movies had The Old Gang becoming more the shapers of their world rather than actors within it, first through casting off their command authority and ultimately largely dominating it. Somehow that lessened their world for me. I thought similar elements ran through what I saw of the spin-off series as well. It's just my own personal reaction, of course, and as many people may have loved the very same progression. As the Cap'n says, it all depends on what you want from the show, and that's never going to be quite the same for any two of us.
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Post by CBG on Aug 31, 2008 16:36:57 GMT -5
In other words, the Prime Directive is relative.
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Post by SOL Stowaway on Sept 1, 2008 12:58:32 GMT -5
Star Trek TNG viewer's choice marathon on right now on Sci.Fi: 11:00am - "Relics" 12:00pm - "I, Borg" 1:00pm - "The Inner Light" 2:00pm - "Q-Who?" 3:00pm - "The Best of Both Worlds (1)" 4:00pm - "The Best of Both Worlds (2)" 5:00pm - "Yesterday's Enterprise" 6:00pm - "Phantasms" 7:00pm - "Attached" 8:00pm - "Parallels" 9:00pm - "The Pegasus" ETA: Awesome collection, Change! Wow. How about I drink a tall glass of Chronoton Juice, travel back in time, and mail you my extensive childhood collection of Star Trek action figures so you can have each item autographed for me? Thanks!
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Post by CBG on Sept 1, 2008 13:00:59 GMT -5
"Yesterday's Enterprise" is a classic...as well as "Best of..." They'll both make you cry. Catch 'em if you can.
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Post by SOL Stowaway on Sept 1, 2008 13:14:52 GMT -5
Yeah...the last three episodes are the only meh episodes in the bunch, IMO.
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Post by Truck Farmer on Sept 1, 2008 13:27:36 GMT -5
Star Trek TNG viewer's choice marathon on right now on Sci.Fi: 11:00am - "Relics" 12:00pm - "I, Borg" 1:00pm - "The Inner Light" 2:00pm - "Q-Who?" 3:00pm - "The Best of Both Worlds (1)" 4:00pm - "The Best of Both Worlds (2)" 5:00pm - "Yesterday's Enterprise" 6:00pm - "Phantasms" 7:00pm - "Attached" 8:00pm - "Parallels" 9:00pm - "The Pegasus" ETA: Awesome collection, Change! Wow. How about I drink a tall glass of Chronoton Juice, travel back in time, and mail you my extensive childhood collection of Star Trek action figures so you can have each item autographed for me? Thanks! I think those times might be Central because it's almost 2:30 and I'm watching The Inner Light right now. And if this isn't my favorite ST:TNG episode it's close to the top.
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Post by CBG on Sept 1, 2008 13:32:22 GMT -5
Oh, yeah, that'll leave you vaklempt. It's an amazing episode. I remember it in first run, talking about it at work the next day, too.
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Post by Captain Hygiene on Sept 2, 2008 11:07:09 GMT -5
These are some door signs and entry keys from TNG, DS9, and ST:VI: The ones on the top and sides are Klingon corridor signs from ST:VI From the left you have TNG door entry; and the next two are from DS9. Change, keep your stories coming! Also, this picture reminded me that the plans for the Deep Space 9 station from the show's Technical Manual show a kiosk for "Tom Servo's Used Robots" or something similar. I'm sure that never made it on the air, but I always thought it was a cute reference!
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Post by CBG on Sept 2, 2008 11:11:48 GMT -5
Yeah, I used to go over to the set and check it out.
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Post by CBG on Sept 5, 2008 18:26:06 GMT -5
I have been deluged with requests for another story, (okay one guy PM'd me!). The next story takes some pics and information that I'm still researching, so I thought I'd give you this as a side bar. You'll recall that the Klingon delegation and the members of the Enterprise crew had a 'get acquainted' meal in the dining room: Anyway, they used some custom-made china for the occasion. A few years ago, Pfaltzgraff put out commemorative place settings: Well, back in 1991, I had 'em first: These were made by the Paramount Art Department, and I was just lucky enough to know the prop lady real well when they were getting rid of them. Someone in E-bay Land has it now. You'll notice on the back of mine, there is no "authorization" these were one-of-a-kind. Later, some interesting set decorating for the dining room scene.
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Post by CBG on Sept 6, 2008 0:18:30 GMT -5
My Star Trek Memories Third in a Series Greetings- I thought how best to present this story to you, and each time I thought I had a starting point, that moment would invariably backwash into the last; and the story became so long that I risked missing parts of it as I tried to transcribe it from memory. So, I decided to chop it up, and serve it in digestible pieces. This one comes outta the middle somewhere. Part of my routine each morning upon arriving at work was to walk the stages and various sets of ST:VI. On Stages 8 & 9 at Paramount, we had temporarily reconstructed the corridors, engine room, conference room, and Ten Forward from TNG, to the same rooms for Enterprise-A. So, I got to walk on the Enterprise(s) everyday when I got to work. On this particular day, I was checking out the dining room set that was under preparations for shooting later that day. This set, by the way, is the re-tool of the Enterprise-E conference room you know the one with all the variations of the Enterprise on the wall? The various busy-bees were buzzing away at their various tasks getting the place ready, and I look up on the wall, and hanging there are three portraits: Abraham Lincoln-Hero of Captain Kirk Surak of Vulcan-Hero (if that’s possible for a Vulcan) of Spock And this guy: Okay, anybody who knows anything about TOS knows that this guy is nobody’s hero…heck, he ain’t even Andorian! So I look at this Mount Rushmore of Enterprise Pride and think, “Can this be right?” These were hand painted portraits, made especially for the picture. I went back to my office, and my boss-the construction coordinator-just so happened to be having a meeting in his office with the producer Ralph Winter. So I explained what I had seen to my boss and Ralph, and wondered if there was some kind of ‘inside joke’ going on, and if so, could I be let in on it? He got an extremely serious look on his face and picked up the phone. “Hello, Richard?” He was telephoning Richard Arnold who was Gene Roddenberry’s resident Trekkie. Look up his name. I know he has credits on TNG. He met his demise when Gene passed away; as with much of the ‘old’ Star Trek, but I digress… So, Mr. Winter gets Richard on the phone and asks him to go down to the stage and see if he sees anything wrong with the set. Mr. Winter thanked me, and finished his meeting with my boss. I had my own work to do, and went about it. A few hours later when I went by the set again on my way to dropping off reports at Operations, the painting was gone. The Andorian was gone, and the Lincoln and Surak paintings had been repositioned to balance out the space. I later came to find out that director Nicholas Meyer (also directed WOK) had planted that painting as a dig at producers. See, Nick had a different vision for the Enterprise than did Paramount, and most Trekkies(ers). He envisioned a “Run Silent, Run Deep” Enterprise. He wanted dripping pipes, hatches with dials, gauges…things you would see in a submarine. He fought hard, but compromised…That compromise you see in the scenes of the crew searching the ship for evidence. The ‘cooking utensils’ in the kitchen. The open bay sleeping of the crew members. Basically anything you see in that movie and say to your self, “Hey, I thought they had food synthesizers!” , well that was Nick. Well he lost out on that one, that time. As it turns out it was fortunate for his wallet as well. Apparently the actor portraying the character had been in a lawsuit with Paramount for what was several years at that time. My little contribution to ST history. Thank you for your time. CBG
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Post by Phantom Engineer on Sept 6, 2008 17:30:40 GMT -5
Very cool; Change, thanks for sharing.
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Post by CBG on Oct 17, 2008 14:33:56 GMT -5
My Star Trek Memories Fourth in a Series Christmas is just around the corner, kiddies, and this memory has to do with Christmas presents. Every year production companies hand out oodles and oodles of nifty presents to their cast and crews. Some are fantastic, like the stories you hear of Seinfield or Drew Carey givin' out cars. Some are flops like a polyester windbreaker from Platypus Man. One year iPods were VERY controversial. Well, every year the Star Trek Construction Crew (beginning with TNG and continuing through Enterprise) would give out a yearly commemorative plaque as a thank you to those who helped them out that year. Originally it started off as a thank you to departments (Third season TNG) who had helped, but they became WAY too popular, and had to be extended to individuals. I got one every year because I did the daily construction costs for all of these shows all of those years. Some examples: You'll notice in the first photo a plaque for the Fourth Season of TNG. That has always been one of my favorites. It was simple, yet elegant with the two wood tones, and the Next Gen communicator design. When I got that one, I hung it up in my office and stared at it. Then I got this great idea, and enlisted the help of a guy I worked out with at the gym who also worked craft services on TNG. The result was this: This is truly a 'one of a kind' item. It took a little over two years to get all these signatures due to scheduling of the actors. In case you can't read them, they are as follows: Marina Sirtis - Troi Michael Dorn - Worf Patrick Stewart - Picard Whoopie Goldberg - Gianan LeVar Burton - Geordie Gates McFadden - Dr. Crusher Jonathan Frakes - Riker John de Lancie - Q Brent Spiner - Data Colm Meaney - O'Brien I still love this plaque, even though I'm not the Trekkie I used to be. Thank you for your time. CBG
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Post by Captain Hygiene on Oct 17, 2008 15:01:49 GMT -5
That's really cool, Change. I like the Defiant plaque.
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