At 11:31 PM 5/3/01 -0500, Marvin Long wrote:
>[Enters stage left, dusts off soapbox. Mounts.]
>
>On Wed, 2 May 2001, Joshua Bell wrote:
>
> > Insurrection falls beneath the other odds since it simply isn't an epic
> > tale. It's a fine 2-hour episode, but it's just not a movie-quality
> > experience. Generations is similarly weak but has more oomph behind it in
> > terms of scale. TMP fails primarily due to the weak pacing and general
> > unwatchability of the movie.
>
>[Blasphemes.]
>
>Star Trek the Motion Picture is actually the best of the movie series, or
>if not the best, then on a par with STII. STI is an wonderful example of
>the "big idea" Star Trek formula;
One objection that many have to ST:TMP is that they did that episode more
than a dozen years earlier, and called it "The Changeling."
[snip]
>4. STI is where we are introduced to the coolest version of the
>Enterprise to date, and it is the movie in which the Enterprise is most
>awe-inspiring as spectacle.
When it was first broadcast on TV and the ads claimed that the TV version
would include "20 minutes of restored footage" that was not in the
theatrical version, many wondered if that meant another 20 minutes of
flying around the _Enterprise_ in space dock.
>6. Did I mention "No
>holodeck gags?"
Yes, and I agree with you.
>Detractors complain about the slow pace,
Calling it _Star Trek: The Slow-Motion Picture_.
(Or _Star Trek: The Motion Sickness_.)
> but the music is wonderful and I
>think it lends the movie a bit of a "2001" kind of feel (which I like).
>They also say the acting is stilted, but at least it isn't reduced to
>smarmy mugging for a fanboy audience whom the producers have realized will
>be an eternal cash cow. Is Kirk worse than, say, Riker?
Is anyone?
>The pretense that any of the
>original crew are expected to stay at their posts is long gone,
Obviously, Starfleet lacks the "up or out" policy of the contemporary US
armed forces.
BTW, how long did Harry Kim remain an ensign? In the US Navy, promotion
from ensign to LJG is virtually automatic after two years, and promotion to
full lieutenant is similarly automatic at 4 years in service, unless one
decides to get out at the end of 4. The next promotion (to lieutenant
commander in the Navy or from captain to major in the other services) is
_not_ automatic, but if one did not get that promotion by the time one had
12.5 years in service (that was the number when I was in the Air Force --
it might have changed by now), you had to get out: the aforementioned
"up-or-out" policy. (Off the top of my head, I don't recall what the
numbers were for subsequent promotions.)
>except
>perhaps for Captain Sulu, the only cast member aside from Spock that is
>allowed to "grow up."
>
> >
> > Everyone knows that a "Director's Edition" of ST:TMP is coming out on DVD
> > later this year, yes? Essentially they'll be making the movie the director
> > wanted to make but wasn't allowed to due to budget and time. The cut
> will be
> > much tighter, more energetic, and completed effects will (in theory) blend
> > seamlessly. The creative forced were apparently trying very hard on the
> last
> > one, knowing how badly the SW Special Edition effects clash.
>
>The last time I looked, Gene Roddenberry was dead. And he had a pretty
>free hand creating STI, otherwise it wouldn't have had that slow artistic
>pace that that latter-day ST fans always complain about; otherwise, the
>studio would have cut a lot of the movie. Thus any director's cut of STI
>must be a cut by the owners of the current franchise tailored to the
>tastes of the current ST market, which overall prefers TNG to old Trek,
>and not a faithful rendition of Roddenberry's wishes. Or so I strongly
>suspect. So how the #*^! do they know what Roddenberry would want at this
>point? The video release has been the "director's cut" for the last 15-20
>years, as far as I'm concerned, because Roddenberry got footage added
>that had been omitted from the theatrical release.
And, as it turned out, the added footage _improved_ it by explaining some
things, rather than simply being 20 more minutes of special effects
sequences that were already tediously long.
-- Ronn! :)
