posted
"The Archer/T'Pol dynamic (Human Captain and Vulcan XO don't like each other but eventually learn to respect one another) HAS been done before."
The second pilot of TOS, and the first with Kirk in, opens with the Captain and Spock playing chess. How is this "not liking each other"?
"NCC-1701 WAS the first starship Enterprise (The Motion Picture and TNG both displayed the Enterprise legacy, in photos and bas relief. There was the aircraft carrier, then the space shuttle, and then NCC-1701. Pretty conclusive to me, unless to don't regard either the movies or TNG as "canon". "
The Motion Picture chart missed out several Enterprises. As did the bas relief charts. Hell, they're not even consistent with each other (since the Space Ship Enterprise from TMP isn't on the TNG observation lounge wall).
"An ailing Gene Roddenberry passed the series HE created on to Berman who waited until Gene died and then tried desperately to remake Trek in his own image."
And he obviously ruined it. Which is why season 1 is the most loved, and I can't go a day without remembering the joys of "Shades of Grey". Do you know Rodenberry wrote Encounter at Farpoint? And what is often considered the worst out of all Trek pilots? The Erotic Adventures of Mr Plinky is not the answer.
"He brough TNG to a close (which still had some years left in it) so it wouldn't compete with his brainchild, DS9."
Oh yes, THAT's why TNG was bought to a close. Paramount let him stop making TNG, so that it wouldn't compete with a new and untried spin-off! Genius!
"The premise of the show was so boring, they created the Defiant, the Dominion War, and brought back Worf so someone would watch the show."
And, again, Berman did all that. Those interviews where Ira Behr said "we added the Defiant because we felt it was silly having this big enemy, when all we had were three wimpy runabouts". (And, again, what's with the single person being responsible. While Berman might have pushed for Worf, I don't doubt that the entire DS9 writing team, and the exec producers all had a role in the Defiant, Dominion War, and pretty much everything else that happened in DS9.)
"DS9 came to and end and almost immediately there followed Voyager which returned to the starship theme, but this series still did not attract the audience TNG had."
And at this point, the argument just decends into crazy talk that's wrong and crazy. Did you not notice that DS9 ended two years ago? Berman is so evil he produced seven seasons of Voyager in TWO YEARS! He's obviouslly the Master regenerated and with a bad hair-cut.
Was DS9 cancelled (even though it had more story in it), so it wouldn't compete with Braga's own semen-produced offspring?
And I'm not even getting into the argument of TOS = Roddenberry (and not, say, DC Fonta, or Gene Coon).
"About all Star Trek inspires me to do these days is turn of the TV and read a book. Not a bad idea, actually. "
No. More people really should do it. Or Simon will beat them with sticks of words.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
quote:Thank you, TOM for your thoughtful and enlightening rebuttal of my argument. Clearly I stand in the presence of greatness....
Look, Timelord, I'm not tooting anyone's horn here. But it struck me as incredibly irrational for someone to accuse people of spitting tired old rehashes of old ideas when you yourself spat out a tired rehash of the same old baseless "Berman is the death of Trek" argument. Explain in precise detail how and why you know Berman is a megalomaniac who wants to remake Trek in his own image and I'll listen. But don't expect me to give your reasoning a passing thought if you just ramble on about Braga's mailbox being in the seventh circle of hell and provide nothing but fluff like "Berman and Braga are apriori evil because everyone who knows real scif-fi says so on all the BBses" or baseless evidence that Liam ever-so-deftly dismantled in the previous post. One thing he didn't pick up one was this stinker...
quote:My criticsm is that there is an ever-diminishing level of artistry being put into the production of Trek these days.
Which may well be true, especially if you look at the fact that much of the plot structuring has grown stale of late, IMHO. (Which, incidentally, is my greatest hope for the shift in atmosphere from the 24th to 22nd centuries.)
But what's your justification for that claim? That they went ahead and made a show with a ship that wasn't in a blurry display in a twenty-year old movie! The horror! The horror! If you consider adhering-to-barely-seen-visual-canon-above-all-else as the true mark of artistry, I don't know what to say next.
[ September 30, 2001: Message edited by: The_Tom ]
[ September 30, 2001: Message edited by: The_Tom ]
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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Timelord
Ex-Member
posted
We clearly disagree on this issue, but it would be nice if you would refrain from putting words in my mouth. If anything is irrational here, it is your vehement rebuke of one persons OPINION.
quote:But it struck me as incredibly irrational for someone to accuse people of spitting tired old rehashes of old ideas when you yourself spat out a tired rehash of the same old baseless "Berman is the death of Trek" argument.
My OPINION was that Star Trek as produced by Berman/Braga is degenerating into space opera. If technobabble and cool FX are all you want, knock yourself out, but I would prefer a series with some dramatic weight. Sci-fi gets a bad rap on Emmy night because so much of it is crap, dramatically speaking.
quote:But don't expect me to give your reasoning a passing thought if you just ramble on about Braga's mailbox being in the seventh circle of hell and provide nothing but fluff like "Berman and Braga are apriori evil because everyone who knows real scif-fi says so on all the BBses"
Never suggested anything remotely like this. As it happens, I don't frequent other BBses. Obviously there are many other people with the same criticisms.
quote:But what's your justification for that claim? That they went ahead and made a show with a ship that wasn't in a blurry display in a twenty-year old movie! The horror! The horror! If you consider adhering-to-barely-seen-visual-canon-above-all-else as the true mark of artistry, I don't know what to say next.
My argument never centered on what is or isn't "canon". Artistry in my OPINION is in the creation of three-dimensional characters which are utilized in dramatic situations to explore the thoughts, emotions, strengths, and weaknesses of our humanity. TV is for entertainment, but the best shows do more than that.
We will see in the coming months if Enterprise really takes us where no one has gone before. The acting will certainly be of the highest caliber, it always has. I just wish the creators had been a little more creative. Naming the new series "Enterprise" seems to me to be nothing but a ploy to grab as many viewers as possible.
posted
I have to agree with you on the "space opera" point.
Some of the Voyager and DS9 episodes are just.......for a lack of better word, IKKY!!!! I hope Enterprise wouldn't get so "soapy" like its' counterparts.
And they have been running out of ideas for the end of Voyager and DS9, but that's why they changed it to the 22nd century, I couldn't be more happy about that.
As for the "Akira ripped-off" design, I'll only partially agree with you on that. So what if it is ripped off, it still looks cool, and I for one does not want to sacrafice "coolness" for "continuity"!
It's true that "Vulcan v.s. Human" plot has been done before, but so what, maybe that's just something special for all Trek, personally, I think it's more good then bad.
-------------------- "George Washington said, 'I cannot tell a lie.' Richard Nixon said, 'I cannot tell the truth.' Bill Clinton said, 'I cannot tell the difference.'"
-- comedian TOM SMOTHERS, from his latest stage act with brother DICK SMOTHERS.
posted
Let's not get into a slap fight here. That's what the flameboard is for.
As to the orginal topic "Enterprise is UNORIGINAL": of course it is. It may be a prequel, but it's still a part of the Star Trek franchise whether 'Star Trek' is in the title or not. The show is based in a universe which has allready been popluated for the most part. The mere fact that there are Klingons, Vulcans, phasers, transporters, communicators, etc. should be more than enough evidence that the show is 'unoriginal'. This isn't to say that things that aren't original are bad. My favorite movie of all time (quite serious here), STII:TWoK, is a sequel to a film based on a TV show produced thirty some odd years ago.
As to Berman & Braga: I haven't formed an opinion of them either way, but I do know that I still like to see the various Star Trek shows. They may not be as socially concious or 'original' as TOS (with you all the way on the Season 1 thing, Liam), but I still enjoy watching the new(er) stuff. Oh, they've got their share of real stinkers, but so did TOS. That's the risk you run when you create something. They may have some recycled ideas/production design issues, and a few inconsistencies, but that's bound to happen when you are trying to fit a new show into an allready established universe like Trek. I think they've done their best to do that and still have a show that's interesting to watch. I liked the results, I take it that you did not, Timelord.
I'm not going to let a few details like those you mentioned ruin what promises to be an interesting and exciting new chapter in the Star Trek saga. If you want to, well I suppose that's your choice...
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
quote: The uniforms borrow much more from the TOS movies...
I wish.
I guess you saw a different version of Broken Bow than I did, 'cause those uniforms didn't look anything like the ones from the TOS movies at all.
quote:Although the rankpips are taken directly from the 24th Century series. Still, this isn't a major deal.
Well its certainly the worst thing about the uniforms (which are otherwise OK in my opinion). Besides being TNGish, they really just don't go with the uniform IMHO.
quote:And there's no continuity issue with the design of the Enterprise.
A flag you often wave when someone doesn't agree with you about the Akiraprise. That really doesn't hold a whole lot of water because it would be very difficult to violate continuity with a starship design. Drop a Soveriegn with a couple slight tweaks and a different class name into 2100 and you haven't violated continuity. Maybe the Sovereign was based off of this class. This class is only 150 meters long. This class can only do warp 2. No continuity violation.
Its all aesthetics Jeff, which I think is what many people are objecting to. This class did not meet the task of helping them suspend disbelief and imagine that it was a ship that predated the Galaxy class by two centuries. The pre-E did obviously do it for you, and thats cool, but waving the canon flag isn't going to make the design meet the expectations of others.
To avoid an extensive list of reasons why I should like the pre-E, I should note that nowhere in this post did I say I didn't like it.
I am tempted to continue into a long tirade about Braga and my theories about why he should be hated as much as he is.
But that would take a very long time and I have a job interview tomorrow.
-------------------- "Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It?s us. Only us." Rorschach
"The Akiraprise violates continuity!" is something I hear a lot about from people who don't like the design. It's one thing to actually not like the design of Enterprise ... it's quite another to say its a continuity error (something of which, oh, Bernd I believe, has been quite vocal about).
Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
Assuming esthetics play a role in the process of designing starships (personally, I think functionality and practicality are much more important, but that's just me):
Certain trends get repeated/continued every so often. Take one look at the Chrysler PT Cruiser, for example.
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