On Fri, 4 May 2001, Joshua Bell wrote:
> "Marvin Long, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >So what? Whose vision of Star Trek matters? Roddenberry's or Wise's?
>
> Star Trek? The viewers'. Roddenberry got lucky. His involvement in the
> ST:TMP and the first season of ST:TNG had a detrimental effect.
I'll grant you TNG--he seemed to be out of ideas--but you've some work to
do to convince me he significantly harmed TMP.
> Star Trek: The Motion Picture? Wise's. A feature film isn't a pure
> brain-dump, and it isn't literature, it's an experience composed of visuals
> and sounds. The director is the ultimate authority, not the script-writer,
> producer, actor, editor or composer. (In an ideal world, of course.)
That's a good argument, so I'm content to let Mr. Wise have his 2nd
chance. I'm gonna get me a copy of the pre-fixed movie before it
disappears from the shelves like Star Wars did, though.
> >Ok, it's too early to poo-poo this "Director's Cut," since I haven't seen
> >it yet. Maybe Roddenberry shared Wise's reservations, and Wise's edits
> >will be what GR would have approved.
>
> I don't care who was responsible for the flick - the movie, as a movie
> within a franchise, should stand on its own merits. If you want to talk
> about the script, the special effects, the design, the edits, the score,
> etc. in isolation, that's a different story. The movie is the collective
> experience of all of the above, and I judge it against its peers based on
> the combination of those parts.
I thought I was, too...and with the arguable exception of STII, STI is
still the best as a movie, franchise or no--it helps to remember that Star
Trek was not a juggernaut franchise when STI came out. STI *made* the
juggernaut possible by being in the right place at the right time. To
judge it as a "franchise film" based on the work from ST:TNG onwards is to
indulge in weird kind of revisionist hindsight.
I'll grant that STI doesn't fit into the franchise as it now exists as
well as the other ST movies. That doesn't mean it isn't a better movie
than the rest of the ST movies.
> Come on now - you really don't think the repetive sequences of "effect shot
> - reaction shot - effect shot - reaction shot - effect shot - reaction shot
> ..." sink lower than the series ever did?
Not really, because there were some really great freakin' effects shots
and a high concept to go with them. Again, compare to 2001, where the
pace is more like, effect shot-effect shot-reaction shot,
effect-shot effect-shot reaction-shot...a waltz tempo rather than a march
tempo, but still. It's not a formula that lends itself to the ensemble
soap-opera approach of which franchises are made, but I'm terribly glad
that Star Trek at least got one chance to steal from Kubrik, and steal
well, before becoming a soap opera.
> At least there's a great score to back it up.
Mmmm, yes indeedy. There's a local DJ in Austin who routinely plays the
Klingon theme on his morning show....
> If you want to take it seriously, you've got the wrong franchise. :)
I am a pre-franchise Trekkie, Joshua. I feel no more obliged to let the
latter-day franchise dictate my tastes than do Greek Orthodox parishoners
feel obliged to consult Mormons about scripture.
Besides, it's not so much that I want to take the work seriously: I want
the work to take me, Joe Audience-member, seriously. STI, whatever its
faults, does that. After STII, though, the series increasingly takes its
audience for granted. More Slurm(tm)!
> "Phoooooooootoooooon tooorpeeeeeeeedoooooos............ avaaaaaaaaay!"
Still infinitely better than watching Riker try and fail to mug his way
out of a paper bag. Better Chekov than Wesley. And better Vulcan logic
than Betazoid psychobabble.
Hypocrisy alert: those who knew me in college may remember that I enjoyed
ST:TNG quite a bit when it was in its first run. I even went through a
period when I thought old Trek was horribly dated, an embarrassment...
fickle me. Now I watch ST:TNG and much of the time get struck with the
same sense of "Ewww!" Its good shows are good & the bad ones bad, just
like the original series, which I no longer think has anything to
apologize for.
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
