Author Topic: STAR TREK XI  (Read 39405 times)

ClintMemo

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Reply #25 on: January 22, 2007, 08:27:21 PM
I live in Louisville, KY. Not exactly a hot-bed of Science Fiction.
DS9 and B5 were both horrendously scheduled by the stations that were showing them here.  They generally ran on Saturday or Sunday afternoons, right after some sporting event, usually football or basketball. Consequently, they were usually either started in the middle or preempted entirely because the games always ran over their time slot. The networks used them simply as filler - like Fox did with Futurama. Trying to keep up with them was impossible.  I didn't get to see much of B5 until TNT bought it.  (And just for the record, I liked the 5th season)  I was also glad I got to see Crusade.  One season was better than nothing.  A similar thing happened when Enterprise started.  It was showing on Wednesday nights, right in the middle of our local college basketball teams favorite game time slot.  I got to see the first four or five episodes of the first season and then the last three or fours episodes of the last season.  I liked what I saw.  Maybe I'll get to see it all now that Sci-Fi is playing it.

The problem I have now is that I don't have any time to watch TV - maybe 2 or 3 hours a week on a good week, despite having Tivo.  I have just skipped entire series that I know I would have liked because I know I'll never get to see them all - especially if they are serialized.  So I have seen none of Firefly, little of Battlestar Galactica, none of any of the Star Gate series, none of Andromeda, virtually none of Lost, very little of Smallville, very little of Buffy, Angel or Charmed.  It's sad because, unlike 10 or 15 years ago, there is a TON of science fiction and fantasy on television and I'm missing almost all of it.  :'(
(Just for the record, I stopped watching Voyager after the "Warp 10" episode. I checked it out a few times to see if it still sucked and I always found that it did.  If ever there was a wasted opportunity for a Star Trek series - Voyager was it.  I remember watching the finale and thinking "God, I'm glad that's over with. I'm glad I didn't watch the whole series"  Unlike when I watched the finale of DS9 where I thought "Damn! I wish I'd seen that whole series!")

Not to sound like a fanboy suckup, but escape pod has been a great salvation for me.  I have a 20-30 minute commute each way to work and while I can't watch TV while I'm driving, I can listen.  I discovered escape pod about 2 months ago and I've been a total addict ever since.  After listening to a bunch of stories that I downloaded, I bought the complete archive and started listening to that from the beginning.  (And in the spirit of the Creative Commons License, I copied it and gave the originals to a friend as a gift.  :P)

Life is a multiple choice test. Unfortunately, the answers are not provided.  You have to go and find them before picking the best one.


slic

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Reply #26 on: January 23, 2007, 05:39:10 PM
I highly recommend that you buy the FireFly dvd set.  There are only 13 episodes, so you won't get lost, but you will feel gyped because there should have been 7 seasons of this seres.

We've been getting fed up with Cable, so we plan on going back to our old plan of buying a DVD season once a month.

ANd BG is really worth getting - so well acted, so well written, awesome special effects...



SFEley

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Reply #27 on: January 23, 2007, 06:13:38 PM
There's also Netflix -- you can rent TV seasons from them as well as movies. 

ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine


ClintMemo

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Reply #28 on: January 25, 2007, 08:10:19 PM
My wife and I have talked about getting netflix.  We decided we would sign up when our unwatched-and-still-in-the-shrinkwrap pile of DVD's got down to just one or two.  When we said that, it had about ten DVD's in it. That was probably three years ago. I think the pile is down to about twelve now, but some of the contents of the pile have gotten fresher.   :P

Life is a multiple choice test. Unfortunately, the answers are not provided.  You have to go and find them before picking the best one.


Tango Alpha Delta

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Reply #29 on: January 26, 2007, 06:49:55 PM
My wife and I have talked about getting netflix.  We decided we would sign up when our unwatched-and-still-in-the-shrinkwrap pile of DVD's got down to just one or two.  When we said that, it had about ten DVD's in it. That was probably three years ago. I think the pile is down to about twelve now, but some of the contents of the pile have gotten fresher.   :P


We started "Netflixing" when we were stationed in the UK (anyone who does not understand the concept of the "TV license" and my general opposition to it is welcome to email me seperately).  For the same price as one DVD per month, you could easily cycle through half a dozen rentals, without having to leave your house!  I suspect that once you start, you will find yourself only buying the big winners from your Netflix queue. 

Downside: when you have purchased a crappy movie, you have the luxury of using it as skeet, or turning it into a headlight on your kid's "MarioKart" Halloween costume!  Rentals have to be treated nicely.

And I would definitely second the Firefly recommendations; I'm about halfway through it, and I have never been so consistently satisfied by a television series in my life.  I started preparing myself for the disappointment of running out of them after I sent back the first disc, though.

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wakela

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Reply #30 on: January 31, 2007, 12:27:19 AM
Wow.  Talk about off topic.  Most of these posts aren't even about Star Trek, much less Star Trek XI.
Maybe there should be "Sci-Fi TV and Movies" or one of each or something.

-Firefly:  Capt. Eley, you seem to know a lot about its history.  Do you have a link to an article that I could read about why it was cancelled?  I've searched, but all I get are fanboy conspiracy theories. 

-Trek: It's all candy.  How many hours do you need to watch before you get to an interesting SF idea? How many hours of Escape Pod?  How many hours of reading a book?  I watch Trek just because I like spaceships and aliens and robots.  I don't have any expectations beyond that.

-BSG:  Ironically, its success is due to the lack of traditional SF conventions:  the ship isn't much different than a submarine, computers play no part (this despite how The Singularity concept is so popular in print SF), no aliens, few special effects.  People fighting robots is an old idea.  Robots that look like people is an old idea.  On paper BSG looks terrible.  But I don't not watch it for exciting new SF ideas. I watch it because I like the characters, and I have NO IDEA what the writers are going to hit them and me with.  Does this make it bad SF, but a great show?  Is it helping the SF community by attracting viewers, or hurting it because it's not exploring many new issues?  Or is it enough that it explores few ideas to great depth?



slic

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Reply #31 on: January 31, 2007, 01:19:44 AM
About BSG - the best sci-fi (on tv especially) is the stuff that looks at today's issues but removes us by a couple of degrees so it is a bit more objective.
And no new ideas?? The skin-jobs are a combination of the idea of being immortal and living on a planet full of clones!  Boomer, sorry, Athena (or is it Sharon) and Helo being together explores like fifty ideas(slight exaggeration due to excitement) - they are the "new" type of interracial marriages (in an unracist world), they had their baby kidnapped by the government, etc etc
Then there's Baltar's delusion (or is it telepathy), then the idea that robots are monothelistic, and, and - need to stop now...but you get the point.

Few special effects?? - remember, there really aren't spaceships out there.



SFEley

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Reply #32 on: January 31, 2007, 03:07:29 AM
Wow.  Talk about off topic.  Most of these posts aren't even about Star Trek, much less Star Trek XI.
Maybe there should be "Sci-Fi TV and Movies" or one of each or something.

Feel free to start more topics.  >8-> 


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-Firefly:  Capt. Eley, you seem to know a lot about its history.  Do you have a link to an article that I could read about why it was cancelled?  I've searched, but all I get are fanboy conspiracy theories.

I'm a fanboy too, and what I've expressed are my own opinions and conclusions from what I've gleaned from popular sources.  (You could call those conspiracy theories if you like.)

If you want to get as close as you can to a primary source, your best bet is probably to Google on some Joss Whedon interviews.  The Wikipedia entries about Joss and the show also have information that I consider pretty reasonable; you can read it and form your own opinions.


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-BSG:  Ironically, its success is due to the lack of traditional SF conventions:  the ship isn't much different than a submarine, computers play no part (this despite how The Singularity concept is so popular in print SF), no aliens, few special effects.  People fighting robots is an old idea.  Robots that look like people is an old idea.  On paper BSG looks terrible.  But I don't not watch it for exciting new SF ideas.

From your statements here and on Trek, I gather that a speculative fiction idea has to be new to you for you to consider a presentation of it interesting.  Is that correct?

ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine


wakela

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Reply #33 on: January 31, 2007, 08:04:10 AM
BTW, I watch BSG on DVD, and am only up to the end of season 2.  So if spoilers come up, please give me a warning. 

Slic,  I agree that the show is intriguing.  And for the record I think it is the best show on TV, SF or not.  My point was just that robots marrying humans, robots looking like humans, etc, is not a new idea the same way that the Borg are a new idea.  Or the Crystaline Entity or the symbiotic thing that Dax is.  BSG takes some old theames and explores them to greater depths.  Also, the writers deliberately avoid SF conventions like ray guns and aliens.  And a lot of BSG is political drama that is harldy SF at all.  So despite being less SFy, many of us would rather watch it that Star Trek. 

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From your statements here and on Trek, I gather that a speculative fiction idea has to be new to you for you to consider a presentation of it interesting.  Is that correct?
Good question.  I pondered this today while I should have been working.  I think speculative fiction needs to provide something to speculate on.  BSG certainly does this even though Bladerunner delt with many of the same ideas.  The Matrix did this even though the idea of living in a computer world isn't new.  Midnight at the Automart I think does not.  Nor does Star Wars, really.  The thing about Star Trek is that it is supposed to.  They promise to go to strange new worlds and all that.   But Deanna Troi's mother having a thing for Picard isn't particularly speculative, neither is taking someone with a prosthetic appliance glued to their forehead on a diplomatic mission. 

A friend of mine said, "What is up with everyone parents going to visit them on Next Generation?"
Me: "Yeah, and the strained relationships are so tired.  It would be nice to show someone with a good relationship with their father."
Him:"It would nice to have an adventure with some aliens!"

BTW, I re-read my last post.  The line "How many hours [of Star Trek] do you need to watch before you get to an interesting SF idea? How many hours of Escape Pod?" was supposed to be a dig at Star Trek, but could have been construed as also being a dig at EP.  My intention was to hold up the two in comparison.  I think EP deals with interesting ideas way more often than ST. 



slic

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Reply #34 on: January 31, 2007, 05:50:21 PM
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is not a new idea the same way that the Borg are a new idea.
It depends how deeply you scratch the surface - the borg are arguably just cyborbs crossed with a bit of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  It's the same with BSG - humans and robots being married is old, fine, but look at the added twist of the "telepathic clones" (Helo knowing that his wife once slept with the Chief, sort of).

If you generalize enough, you'll pretty much find that there are no new ideas, just new combinations and ways of presenting them.



scottjanssens

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Reply #35 on: January 31, 2007, 08:26:09 PM
If you generalize enough, you'll pretty much find that there are no new ideas, just new combinations and ways of presenting them.

A writing instructor I had told the class, "If a magician knows a dozen ways to force a card but only one way to present it, he has only one trick.  If a magician knows one way to force a card, but a dozen presentations, he has a dozen tricks."



slic

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Reply #36 on: January 31, 2007, 10:37:42 PM
Why was your writing instructor teaching you magic tricks?



scottjanssens

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Reply #37 on: January 31, 2007, 11:25:34 PM
Why was your writing instructor teaching you magic tricks?

He also showed how a novel is like a game of chess.  And also like a dollhouse.



slic

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Reply #38 on: January 31, 2007, 11:46:01 PM
Are you sure he was a writing instructor, or just some guy that like games and tricks?  :P



wakela

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Reply #39 on: February 01, 2007, 02:07:00 AM
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but look at the added twist of the "telepathic clones" (Helo knowing that his wife once slept with the Chief, sort of).
I would argue that this is interesting not because the cylons are telepathic, but because through understandable circumstances Helo fell in love with the Chief's girlfriend. But it wasn't the same girl because they were copies, but it was because they share memories.   For this to work the girl needs to be a clone or a robot or something, so the idea science fiction at its essence.  But when I watch, I want to see what happens when the two humans are put in the same room.  The drama is human (which I guess it always is).   Having said that, I have no problem watching as much Boomer as possible, though. ;)

If I looked in TV guide and had a choice between a show where people in spaceships fight with robots and the robots look just like people vs. a spaceship is transported to the far side of the galaxy and has to find its way home and meet various aliens along the way, I would definitly go with the latter.  But in the world we live in I would be disappointed.  I just find this interesting and ironic. 

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If you generalize enough, you'll pretty much find that there are no new ideas, just new combinations and ways of presenting them.
True.  You and I are probably just generalizing to different levels.  But I think of Cyberpunk as being new when it came out.  The Singularity concept is new.  David Brin's Uplift is new...



SFEley

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Reply #40 on: February 01, 2007, 02:12:55 AM
Are you sure he was a writing instructor, or just some guy that like games and tricks?  :P

Scott's talking about Jim MacDonald, one of the instructors every year at Viable Paradise

I attended VP II.  And yes.  Jim really, truly, teaches writing.  And his speaking on magic tricks, chess, modelmaking, and recipes for key lime pie all have a lot to say about writing.

ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine


slic

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Reply #41 on: February 01, 2007, 02:29:28 AM
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David Brin's Uplift is new...
Ok, that's a good one - I've only read the first book, but the idea of Humans intentionally force evolving apes and dolphins and then exploring space with them is not an idea I've heard of before.



scottjanssens

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Reply #42 on: February 01, 2007, 02:43:19 AM
and recipes for key lime pie

I knew I was missing one.



JaredAxelrod

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Reply #43 on: February 12, 2007, 04:26:40 PM
The Singularity concept is new.

Well, Vernor Vinge started writing about it in 1983, extrapolating from I. J. Good's essay on "intelligence explosion," which he wrote in 1965. And you can track a great deal of that thinking all the way back a hundred years ago, to the Industrial Revolution, when machines first started replacing men in the work place.

So, Man vs Superhuman Intelligence Of His Own Creation may not have been on Aristotle's original 5 conflicts, but it's not exactly new.



jeffreyrizzles

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Reply #44 on: February 19, 2007, 06:50:03 PM
I have no idea what it would take to make a Star Trek movie exciting again, but I'm willing to bet that whatever version is coming out next WON't have it.



wakela

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Reply #45 on: February 19, 2007, 11:00:32 PM
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I have no idea what it would take to make a Star Trek movie exciting again, but I'm willing to bet that whatever version is coming out next WON't have it.
Won't matter.  We'll see it, anyway. ;)



Russell Nash

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Reply #46 on: February 20, 2007, 09:40:34 AM
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I have no idea what it would take to make a Star Trek movie exciting again, but I'm willing to bet that whatever version is coming out next WON't have it.
Won't matter.  We'll see it, anyway. ;)

Not me. I was dragged kicking and screaming to the last one. Someone will have to point a gun at me to get me to go to the new one.



JaredAxelrod

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Reply #47 on: February 20, 2007, 05:04:17 PM
I have no idea what it would take to make a Star Trek movie exciting again

Steven Colbert as Dr. McCoy.



Mfitz

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Reply #48 on: February 20, 2007, 09:21:26 PM
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David Brin's Uplift is new...
Ok, that's a good one - I've only read the first book, but the idea of Humans intentionally force evolving apes and dolphins and then exploring space with them is not an idea I've heard of before.

The dolphins was a new spin, but I'd say the idea  of making animals as smart as humans had been arround since Flowers for Algenon (I know I spelled that wrong) which I think was written in 1959. And I think other people have written stories with evolved animals.




Tango Alpha Delta

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Reply #49 on: March 09, 2007, 01:09:56 AM
I have no idea what it would take to make a Star Trek movie exciting again

Steven Colbert as Dr. McCoy.

That is the single funniest image I have had in my head since the time my daughter tied her underwear to her bed and tried to bungee jump off the top bunk.

 :D

This Wiki Won't Wrangle Itself!

I finally published my book - Tad's Happy Funtime is on Amazon!