Topic: More Enterprise Exteriors - All hail CityTV
OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
It's just bad writing. Star Trek is a fictional universe. It's science fiction, artistic expression, and drama. ISS and the circumstances surrounding ISS just don't fit in with Trek drama at all.
But I will reserve final judgement until I see what kind of role ISS plays in the show. But either a quick shot cameo or a major plot element, it won't work at all. For various reasons. I'll see if I can dig up the email I sent Bernd ranting about the topic awhile back.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
posted
For fucks sake, what's with all this petulant "alternate timeline" must be respected?
Suspension of disbelief. Work on it. I mean, you guys seem to be fine with innacuracies in television shows set in the present-day. Strangely enough, when you drive to Seattle you don't get Dr. Crane on the radio. Someone who looks a lot like Dennis Franz has never worked for the NYPD. But move the series into the future and suddenly there's a requirement that the show can never show something accurate to our revisionist view of how the future turns out? Because that proves the show is fake?
I'm going to watch "Broken Bow" tonight and enjoy it (or not, as the case may be) as drama and escapism. The ISS is real. The Eugenics Wars are not. I can't see why you guys can't make that distinction.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
Fucking simulposting.
The Star Trek universe (or 'backstory') is a very complex one and a very good one. The future as described by TOS (and Clarke too) I really enjoy. Because today, in the twenty-first century, they take on an extra, originally unintended context. Which is that the human species has seriously slacked off in its originally voracious pursuit of a spacefaring civilization. More can be done, as a writer, with this already created backdrop to give a new message about the procrastination of humanity.
And also, I would bet anybody on this board money that if they mention ISS at all, they will be calling it some great achievement of humanity or something. Which is, unfortunately, complete propoganda. ISS is a failure engineering wise and policy wise. I've ranted before about ISS and the current state of NASA, so I will assume my point is made.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
posted
Somehow i doubt our encountering aliens who speak our language and look exactly like us except for the fact that they have pointy ears and bad haircuts.
The bottom line is that its the intro , perhaps they will never mention the ISS in an episode , it may just be in the intro because it relates to the premise of the show.
Either way the ISS being in the intro will have about 0 influence on my final opinion of the show.
-------------------- My Mother never found the irony in calling me a son of a bitch
posted
Thing is that, for the most part, the Star Trek universe has been identical to our universe until about the year 1964 when TOS began, diverging sharply after that. Hence, contrary to Mark's statement, the Star Trek version of a pre-1964 Earth is likely to happen because it has happened that way, barring an occassional time travel by Star Trek aliens to Earth.
However, chances are you won't see much similarities in technology after that year, so the probability of an identical ISS is much lower. If we separate TOS from the Star Trek universe, the chances are much higher because TNG, DS9 and especially Voyager writers largely ignored the TOS scheme of development. Hence, the ISS becomes an argument for separating the shows. That's the whole point.
posted
It's not a spoiler, so I'll just go with it.
The ISS shows up *only* in the opening credits sequence of the show. As we know, the opening sequence features shots of historical exploration stuff through history. At the end of the opening sequence, we see a batch of "future history" stuff. This includes:
-the assembly of the ISS (the last part of which we see in the picture here)
-a futuristic space plane being released from an orbital docking arm
-the Phoenix separating from its booster and deploying its nacelles (footage lifted directly from "First Contact")
-Some early starship (which looks like a Star Destroyer from "Star Wars" with outboard nacelles) flying over a lunar landscape which is covered with colonies and stuff
-the *ONLY* shot of the Pre-E, leaving Earth and flying into warp.
The OP sequence carries with it a couple other CGI shots, including one of the "Deep Flight One" deep-submergence vehicles that (I think) is still being built right now, and a composite shot or two of US astronauts in space.
I would point out that the OP sequence is the LEAST "Trekkish" of them all. The Rod Stewart clone's singing "Faith of the Heart" is a very different touch as well. Do I like it? I'd say yes, though the song could lose its Armaggedon-ish patriotism quickly. I have this horrible image in my head of a bunch of Trek fans at a convention spontaneously breaking into song, waving lighters around and whatnot. Yipe.
Mark
[ September 26, 2001: Message edited by: Mark Nguyen ]
posted
Now, I have yet to see it tonight, but your description indicates that these events are part of the same continuity, although it's possible that the ISS is there only as a thematic comparison. We argued over whether it could exist, but I'm perfectly happy to interpret the sequence otherwise.
However, this doesn't explain other evidence to the effect that Voyager's vision of the 1990s is closer to the present day than TOS's. It still seems to me that the universes should be looked at as variations on each other, and not a single, unified canon.
posted
So, a shot of a real space station, humanity's second relatively permenant one, and the first not built by a single nation; this shot, appearing in a montage of all sorts of pictures of spacecraft, real and imagined, destroys all of Star Trek, makes the entire show unwatchable, and is as bad as Berman personally sneaking in our rooms at night and replacing our blood with battery acid?
OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
There is no possible way that you could construe that heaping pile of sarcasm for what I actually said.
The ISS in Star Trek damages an otherwise, for the most part, excellent creation. It's unimaginative, contradictory to the backstory, and controversial considering the controversy surrounding ISS itself.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
posted
Um...how to put this gently? Look at Capt. Sisko's office in DS9. In his office, there is a model of the station with the space shuttle "Enterprise" attached.
On a tangent, the ISS is frelled. A recent report has stated that the station in its current state can't handle science tasks. As a result, scientists who were in favor may leave. An example of the issues associated with the station is that two people are required to operate the station. The third is a backup to one of the two primaries if there is an illness or injury. This statement is supported by former station inhabitants. Additionally, the current 'war' has crippled NASA. NASA will be short on funds, which will ultimately mean the station has less functionality and science value.
The only bright note, if we follow Stingray's arguments, is that NASA is considering opening space exploration to commercial ventures. Of course, the downside of this is that space exploration is prohibitively expensive. This brings us back to where started-hamstrung on Earth dreaming of colonizing the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
The opening showed where we had been and where we could go if we, as a civilization, decided that space exploration was a necessity, not a luxury.
[ September 26, 2001: Message edited by: targetemployee ]
posted
It is unreasonable to expect every series of StarTrek to remain completely exact with the already established history of previous shows. Enterprise now being the fifth incarnation of the show has also made attempts to be true to the established StarTrek timeline and universe. But I would rather see the ISS than something that was mentioned in one line of dialogue of TOS. Imagine if TOS had of included such things as rocket packs and jet cars in its history as many people thought the future would hold in the 1960's. Would you expect to see these in the Enterprise opener despite how stupid that would look, so that it would keep inline with what was said in TOS? This is my opinion anyway.
-------------------- More human than human -Blade Runner
Registered: Jun 2001
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