My biggest complaint would be the UPN network. Damn they suck! They have a library of about 5 commercials that they show over and over, no matter what you watch. And their picture quality really sucks the big one! Look at anything that is red: it is super blocky since they are using some half-assed form of digital video. TV is actually looking worse now than it was just 7 years ago. There must not be any such thing as "professional quality" video gear anymore, since most consumer grade equipment beats the hell out of anything that is shown on TV nowadays (I have seen the blocky reds start to show up on other networks as well). My digital video doesn't get blocky, even when I compress the hell out of it. TV stations suck.
...then again maybe it is all part of a huge plot to introduce digital cinema... that way they'll still be able to say that movie theaters have better image quality than TV shows.
MPEG is also pretty bad.
You defintely should check out DS9. It was not boring at all. Way more action than TNG.
Sure, I won't argue that Enterprise had tons of action. But I was hoping for more focus on how Starfleet came about, and how the technology was developed. Maybe it's just me, but that's kinda the impression I got from reading some of the article about it.
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Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut
http://www.muellersatomics.com/
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Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut http://www.muellersatomics.com/
I'd love to see it. I had planned on seeing it, but unfortunately, the only theatres in my area were REGAL!
I liked it.. BUT...
Several continuity problems here. If you know TOS like I do, you know they screwed with everything here. I believe that the point is they have these time traveling bad guys called the Suliban who are trying to change what we know and make it what they want. SO THAT WAY the writers can do whatever they want and reinvent the star trek wheel as it were.
BAD FREEEEKIN IDEA...
Did anyone notice that Scot Bakula was playing a wimp? This captain is more wussy than Picard. WHAT THE HELL... I specifically remember Rick Berman say that Kirk wanted to be THIS GUY. KIRK WAS THE ULTIMATE MANS MAN!!!
Dave
I _feel_ a _sud_den _need_ to worship the porcelin god.
(I think I got the accentuation right?)
Kirk was a wuss. McCoy was the real McCoy. He kinda reminds me of someone I know... "Pointy eared sonuvabitch! Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not an equal opportunity employer!"
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Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut
http://www.muellersatomics.com/
Really -- all I want is a bright orange bridge and velour uniform shirts.
Voyager has the best looking bridge... it looks like a starship bridge.
How about ideas for an Amish Enterprise?
Instead of communicators, there would be a big bell.
The phasers would be hand cranked.
The ship would be powered by horses in space suits.
Hmmm. This is beginning to sound more and more like Battlestar Gallactica.
A Redneck Enterprise?
The Enterprise would look like a giant pickup truck towing a doublewide.
Shotguns would be allowed onboard for hunting tribbles.
Kirk repeatedly would show the "Pull my finger" trick to unsuspecting aliens.
The mission statement would be "To boldly git and find new wrestlers for the WWF."
Blood wine would be replaced with Billy Beer laced with moonshine.
Q's part would be replaced by Buford T. Pusser.
The outside of the Enterprise would be primer grey.
The bridge of the Enterprise would be John Deere green.
The PA system on the Enterprise would have been made up from Eprad drive-in speakers.
The theme song would be "Dueling Banjos" followed by a Hank Williams medley.
The different warp speeds would be engaged from the bridge by using an advanced version of "The Clapper."
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Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut
http://www.muellersatomics.com/
quote:
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with Joe. TNG had the best ship.
I feel like such a damn geek arguing about Star Trek of all things!
As far as the Klingons, I would agree with Michael, if it weren't for the DS9 episode Trials and Tribbleations. If you saw it, you probably know what I'm talking about. For those of you who haven't, here it is, breifly. The crew of the Defiant went back in time to Kirk's time. It happened to be the day Trouble With Tribbles took place. Until they could figure out how to get back to the 24th century, the dressed like the crew of the original Enterprise, and blended. When they saw the Klingons, one of the crew asked Worf why they looked so different. His reply was something to the effect of it's a long story and we don't discuss it with outsiders. That implies that the Klingons did, in fact, actually look different in TOS than in the movies TNG. That really pissed me off, because until that episode I did just dismiss it as lack of budget for makeup.
You are indeed entitled to your own opinions, just as long as they agree with mine.
I hate soap operas.
The TNG ships looked too birdish and swan-like -- but they were cool too.
Do you mean it WAS a to be continued episode? Which episode did you watch? I agree that some were rather boring. But overall, I loved the series. It's a lot like Babylon 5 in that you really have to watch the whole thing from start to finish to get the most out of it, unlike TNG and Voyager.
Ken-
I don't remember the name of the episodes, but there was no "to be continued" tag at the end and no "part 2" or "part 120,565" tag at the front, but it sure wasn't just a one-parter. The one I saw took place after the chick who has the tire track marks on each side of her face gets killed and she comes back as a much cuter chick (but she still has the skid marks on her face, unfortunately). It dealt with prophets and crap like that. It literally had nothing to do with Star Trek at all. Worf seems to be a part of the series, and he still has major issues and still needs his ass kicked in the worst way possible. Why is his head bigger than any other Klingon? It's HUGE! Maybe he is the "Fred Flintstone" of the Klingons?
I don't have much of a use for the series, but still, I would like to see that Tribble episode and also take out the actress who plays the chick with the skid marks on her face.
She's the only good reason to watch Voyager!
In fact, it is reported that this is the reason that she was added to the cast!
Joe - I think that was the first episode of the last season. That was the best season. I definitely liked Jadzia Dax (the first chick with tire track marks) better than Ezri (the second one).
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Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut
http://www.muellersatomics.com/
I guess we'll all have to "assimilate" with 7 of 9 from now on.
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Barry Floyd
Floyd Entertainment Group
Nashville, Tennessee
(Drive-In Theatre - Start-Up)
I think Voyager would have been a lot better if they had a captain that didn't sound like she smoked 12 packs a day. Janeway should have been killed in the first episode (along with Neelix) and Chakotay should have taken over the ship. The actress who played Kes was super hot without the character make-up, but the Kes character was lame. I think she left on her own. She sure looked good in the last couple of episodes she was in when they let her show her own hair. The Doctor was the best and most developed character.
Actually Genvieve Bujold WAS killed off in the first two weeks of shooting.
So who's watching the TNG marathon? It's fun watching this show now. I haven't seen it in years. There sure is a lot to nit-pick!
) I thought it was much better than last week's.
First the episode with the causality loop. There is no air in space! How could decompressing the frickin shuttle bay move the frickin ship?????
Now for the episode that followed that one. (Sorry, didn't catch the titles on either.) First off, why were the Ferengi allowed to roam the ship freely? And wasn't the cargo bay supposed to be off limits? And what the heck is up with the frickin dress Picard was wearing? I hate that uniform! (Yes, I know it's the dress uniform. But did it have to take them 7 years to figure out it looked like a dress and shorten it?)
BTW, is it just me, or did the chick in that episode have tire tracks?
I know that the original actress who played Janeway was replaced with Mulgrew, but for some reason Mulgrew just wasn't quite right either. Never did I care whether she lived or died, but the other crew members were cool.
Seven of Nine was a good character, and the episodes did get a bit more interesting, though I really got tired of the "resistance is futile" catch phrase after about the billionth time. Not a big borg fan here. The should be called "bore" because it is boring when they are brought into the plot.
The second episode of Enterprise was good. It looks like a good series to me. It's not pansie-assed like TNG, dungeons dragons and prophets like DS9, nor politically correct like Voyager. It instead is just a well made show.
I've not seen the new ENTERPRISE yet.
But I will.
I didn't see TNG or Voyager or DS9 first-run either. But, I have now, so I can compete with all of you!
I thoroughly dislike DS9. Dreary, and loaded with kid episodes, and Ferengi. I watched the series every night from beginning to end.
I will always feel that the original series was the best of all. Except for Kirk's overacting, the charactors were well-developed and first-rate! I watched every show first-run on NBC, and was thrilled when I saw my first episode in color, "Miri." It was on a Motorola 23" screen! What a pile of junk TV! It ate horizontal output tubes for breakfast! Always had a spare in the house!
TNG was OK. It was alot like the original series to me, except for the "Data" charactor. Silly how they depend on a machine...
Voyager was more like the original after sitting through TNG all those years. I got tired of Janeway, and got turned-on by Seven Of Nine. Wooof!
DS9 plods along, like a '58 Edsel. Even the final episode was dismal to me. I was glad when it was all over.
I work when Enterprise is on. I look forward to seeing it.
And NO, I dont do much recording anymore.
I knew that there was something that I liked about you guys. A Bunch Of Trekkies!!!
The current "brains" behind Star Trek are playing quite loosely with the "facts" they establish. I know that when the new series starts chopping away at things which were established in the original series then the die-hard fans will set phasers for kill.
The whole concept of a "prequel" is... difficult to pull off. At least George Lucas already had a back story in mind before he made his first Star Wars movie but when you're making everything up as you go, a prequel is something you shouldn't do... Mr. Berman.
This ENTERPISE is more technically evolved than Kirk's Enterprise except where the writers say they arn't...for example, this series doesn't get transporters but the ship looks MUCH MUCH more high-tech inside and out.
Then there are the little non-techno things that bother me...why the rankings in "pips" rather than the old-fashioned stripes like Kirk's crew used...heck even in the ST movies they didn't use pips but insignia...with the ST movies, one could see the transistion between the generations...this ENTERPRISE looks like TNG without the luxuary features of transporters and holodecks...that is TNG on the sticks!
Or even phrases...Kirk had "landing party" more appropriate for ENTERPRISE where they have "land" to move about vs Picard's "Away Team".
The only thing I like thus far is that the weapons are not going to get them out of trouble that well.
Steve
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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
Imagine if on some distant world where they didn't have movies (only TV) and they had a show called "Projector Trek". In it you would have projectionists running platter systems. The booths would all have chipped concrete floors and no ceiling since the exhibition industry is trying to pinch as many pennies as humanly possible. The staff would be all screwed up and only the cheapest components would be used. Then they would come out with a show called "Projector Trek: The Next Generation" where everything would be digital cinema, there would be couches and lounges in the booth, along with a bar and Whoopi Goldberg. There would not be one straight line or 90 degree angle anywhere, everything would be rounded and curved. Also, everyone would be politically correct. Then after that they came out with a series called "Projectorprise" that takes place a thousand years before the original "Projector Trek". In this show they are running movies with changeovers! As you know, changeovers are far more technically advanced than platters. They also provide a far better presentation than platters could ever dream of achieving in every single case no matter what. The booths would look nice and have refridgerators and TVs for the projectionists and people treated them like God.
This show has the same inconsistencies as Enterprise does.
I'm a big one for picking on the inconsistancies (sp?), too. Correct me if I'm wrong, but at the time of The Cage, phasers were not invented yet. Aren't Enterprise's "phase pistols" just phasers with a longer name?
I wondered the same thing about the rank insignia. In fact, the uniforms have always been one of my biggest pet peeves about Trek. At least they are being consistent with one thing: gold is for command and red is for engineering.
I'm not sure what your point is about the landing party vs. away team. Did they actualy use the term "away team"? I don't remember.
I do agreet with the point about the ship looking technologicaly more advanced in every way. But (and I think I've said this before), I think that's just due to the limitations of television technology and the budget they had in the 60's. Think about it: would you really want a show produced in the 21's century to have a ship as 60's-looking as Kirk's? I think you just have to kinda use your imagination on that one.
Here's a major Trek timeline problem: correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't it been established that the first sharship was Daedalus class? (The one with the huge shere as it's primary hull instead of a saucer.)
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Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut
http://www.muellersatomics.com/
Chipped concrete! Oh the shame! One question... in "Projectorprise", who has the role of a Jar Jar character?
, include that everything should work well in projectorprise...in the Case of Enterprise, things don't work better than on TOS and in fact a bit worse...Now as to other's question...yes in the second episode of Enterprise they used the "away team" term when visiting the ship.
The Cage did have both hand phasers and the phaser cannon that used the "ships power". If you recall, a hand phaser was used to escape from the cage. Setting the phaser was something to the effect of focusing a lens on a camera..you turned the splined dial on the barrel of the phaser.
To some degree I can understand trying to take into account that communicators are larger than cell phones but then again, the communicator was "mil-spec" There are some things that just don't make sense though...like the rank designation...we currently have Navy personel that have rank shown via stripes and in Kirks day we still did (who would have thought that the Commodor would be obsoleted though)...in Enterprise we have the pips.
This reminds me of Back to the Future where we go back on an alternate time line (ie we really are going back based on TNG's time line not TOS).
To some degree the show could have been made less costly if they tried to make the ship a bit more crude...again something that could evolve into the TOS Enterprise. One could see the progression from the TOS series to the TOS movie then to TNG series Enterprise...this one seems way out of place.
Steve
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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
Defensive directed-energy technology -- an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emissions of Radiation -- used within sidearms by the Federation before the advent of the phaser. By the 2250s, hand-held sidearms as well as a large laser cannon for planetary use were employed.
So the weapons in The Cage were not phasers. Another inconsistency.
Ken
Random thoughts in regards to Steve's comment about the term "away team," which reads: "yes in the second episode of Enterprise they used the "away team" term when visiting the ship." Perhaps that's because they went to a ship. I have noticed several times when landing on a planet they used the term "landing party." Perhaps the term originates from actualy landing a shuttle pod, and only applies in that case. Perhaps it was later carried on to refer to any expedition to a planet (or similar body), even though they used the transporters in TOS. My guess, "landing party" = mission to planet, "away team" = misson to another ship.
I don't think "away team" was ever used in TOS, but does anyone recal if they did use the term "landing party" to refer to missons to other ships or stations, or did they not specify? If nothing was ever used in that case, and "landing party" was just used for planetary missons, then perhaps we do not have an inconsistency.
Ken: Don't forget that Spock was half-human (Vulcan father, human mother), so he had special ties to humans.
Enterprise has its ups and downs. The character-driven stories always work best for me, like the one where the Vulcans who embrace their emotions visit Enterprise and try to convert T'Pal. Overall the show is usually watchable.
Now thats truly lazy.
I worried about another flopped trek movie with uncle rick at the helm, but as I have come to understand, the biggies at paramount have given him a virtual gag order to shut the hell up and let stuart baird (director) and john logan (writer) have thier day. even patrick stuart is content to let them have all the say. he was impressed at production meetings when Rick Berman kept insisting on certain changes in the script as he wanted them when JOhn Logan kept interrupting him telling him that he cant do that, because it interrupts the entire time line from TOS to current, and Stuart Baird would folow suit. So I have some faith that we might forget the embarrasment that was INSURRECTION and not get another one like that.
ANd someone in here said Picard was the best captain ever? WHAT??? DId you see Generations? He couldnt beat up a 300 year old man, and had to go get KIRK, in his seventies, to do it for him. It is no wonder that they had him beef up as it were for the First Contact film. At least there he got to break some glass and yell like a roman.
Dave
I am very unsatisfied with Enterprise. I give up on them. The season finale was great, this one was just another lame follow up. Rick Berman should be fired. They need fresh blood.
By the way, I tried to watch this new FIREFLY show, it sucks.
dave
Dave, you could not be more right. You know who they need to make that show good? Ira Steven Behr. Of course, he's busy with THE TWILIGHT ZONE right now, a show which is tremendously disappointing. It's weird. I had been looking forward to that show ever since I heard that Behr was working on it. Then when I heard that ENTERPRISE and THE TWILIGHT ZONE would air back to back, I became even more excited. There seemed to be something so perfect about that match-up. THE TWILIGHT ZONE is run by Behr, the guy responsible for DEEP SPACE NINE, and ENTERPRISE is run by Brannon Braga, the guy responsible for VOYAGER. It was like the ultimate battle of Good vs. Evil, and I could not wait for Behr to kick Braga's ass. But then, like, a week before the shows aired, I was thinking about what Behr did to make DS9 so much better than all the other Star Trek shows. He developed the characters over the course of the show. Things did not end where they began. Entire storylines were built on top of vague ideas from previous episodes. But there wouldn't be any of that on THE TWILIGHT ZONE. The stories wouldn't be 176 hours long, they'd be 30 minutes. Could Behr handle such a show? It's too early to tell, but after seeing last week's episodes, my guess is no. It's not that they're tremendously bad. They're just ridiculously predictable and unoriginal. I liked the first episode. It's just that I'd seen it in the theater about 4 years ago. It was called DISTURBING BEHAVIOR. The second episode's ending became obvious during the opening credits. That's not good.
So what has to happen is THE TWILIGHT ZONE gets cancelled, and Behr becomes the executive producer of ENTERPRISE. And then hell will freeze over and monkeys will fly out of my ass. But one can dream.
Oh, and yeah. FIREFLY does suck.
Rant mode off
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Samual Hunter Sr.
KC5ZSL
What kind of song is this? When Enterprise was coming out, Berman said that Kirk wants to be Archer? ARE YOU KIDDING? Kirk eats guys like that for breakfast, just after he kicks thier ass, then gets out of bed for breakfast.
Since when did the human race become so afraid of thier surroundings? Hey, we blow up stuff just for fun, I am sure that one smart ass vulcan says thing one and OUT THE DAMN SPACE DOOR THEY GO.
Dave