A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

On Quora, member Thomas Tisher asks: What's your choice, Star Trek or Star Wars? My reply: That’s  way  too binary. I mean, seriously. Why would anyone even have to choose between the two? The two franchises have different storytelling styles, and even though they tell stories that involve space travel and strange planets, they’re not even in the same genre. Star Trek  is a utopian, optimistic vision of how Gene Roddenberry and his creative airs see humanity’s future. It’s not hardcore science-fiction, partly because the franchise began as a TV show in which the tech was loosely based on scientific principles but was mostly made-up for the sake of storytelling. In addition,  Star Trek  allowed Roddenberry and Co. to comment about social and cultural issues (especially war, sex, the Cold War, racial equality, etc.) on television without interference by the network censors. The trick, of course, was to present stories with social commentary adde...

On Quora, Justin Mihalick asks: Were the films Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country the two worst Star Trek films with the original cast? No. I do not agree with that supposition, at least not as far as  Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country  is concerned. Of the six  Star Trek  feature films released between December 1979 and December 1991, actor-director William Shatner’s  Star Trek V: The Final Frontier  is considered by most fans and film reviewers to be the weakest of the bunch. It got low marks for its low-budget special effects, an uneven script, a story twist that the late Gene Roddenberry disliked intensely (although, to be fair to Harve Bennett, David Loughery, and William Shatner, Roddenberry disliked many of the movies’ concepts, such as the more militaristic aspects of Starfleet introduced by Nicholas Meyer in  Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ), and cheesy humor that was added into the scri...

Will Star Trek have any new movies coming out with the original cast and not the new actors? Let me get this straight. You’re asking if Paramount will release  new  films starring the cast from the Original Series and the first six feature films instead of the cast from the Kelvin Timeline movies? The answer to that is a definitive “No.” DeForest “Dee” Kelley, who played Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, MD, died in 1999. James Doohan, who played Chief Engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, died in 2005. Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock, died in 2015 Grace Lee Whitney, who played Yeoman (later Commander) Janice Rand, also died in 2015 The rest of the cast, including William Shatner, has an average age of 80+. With three of the  Enterprise  “Big Four ”  cast members dead and quite a few of the supporting cast members are either dead or no longer active in the acting business, making a new feature film with the Original Series cast is next to impossible....

  John Colicos (as Kor) in original "swarthy" Klingon makeup and prosthetic Fu Manchu facial hair. © 1967 CBS Studios Why do the Klingons in Star Trek TOS look different than the Klingons in Star Trek TNG and the rest of Star Trek series? When Gene L. Coon and Gene Roddenberry created the Klingons as the 23rd Century avatars for the Soviet Union to serve as foils for America’s avatar, the United Federation of Planets in 1967, the new aliens were depicted as swarthy-looking humanoids with extra-bushy eyebrows and, in the case of Kor (John Colicos), a villainous-looking Fu Manchu mustache-and-goatee. Sometimes, though, the Klingons would have pigment variations and on occasion, such as in  The Trouble with Tribbles,  we’d see fair-haired Klingons alongside the basic Klingon-with-swarthy-makeup. William Campbell (Koloth) and Michael Pataki (Krax) in The Trouble With Tribbles. Note absence of swarthy makeup and more "Western-style" goatees.  © 19...

 Did Kirk's Enterprise complete its five-year mission? Yes. It did. The original   Starship Enterprise,  registry number NCC-1701, completed its five-year mission under the command of Capt. James T. Kirk. This much was confirmed by the fact that Kirk is an Admiral in  Star Trek: The Motion Picture,  as well as certain other plot points, such as the fact that the  Enterprise  has undergone an extensive refit and that most of the crew has been reassigned to other duties within Starfleet. (Kirk’s line to McCoy about his fitness to command after being at a desk job for two-and-a-half years includes the words. “five years out there, dealing with unknowns…”) What  is  not clear - on screen, anyway - is  when,  exactly, the five-year mission ended. Right now, the canonical reference works  The Star Trek Encyclopedia: A Reference Guide to the Future  and its companion work,  The Star Trek Ch...

How long will the current Star Trek movie franchise continue? If you’re referring to the Kelvin timeline films ( Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness,  and  Star Trek Beyond,  the “current  Star Trek  movie franchise” is - for all intents and purposes - dead and buried. There are several reasons for this, but it all boils down to this: even though the cast was pretty good, the special effects well-done, and the  initial concept  was interesting (how to tell a “prequel’ story without the usual problems that prequels have), the Kelvin Trilogy just didn’t jive with the rest of the  Star Trek  franchise. Although I liked the basic idea that Nero and his monstrous ship, the  Narada,  travel back in time to the 23rd Century and alter the destinies of James T. Kirk and Crew, the execution was, to put it simply, problematic. In the Prime Timeline (aka  Star Trek  prior to 2009), Kirk is older than most of the bridge cre...

On Quora, Cameron McCall asks: Which came first, Star Trek or Star Wars?  Star Trek, or as it is known today, Star Trek: The Original Series, was created by ex-pilot, World War II veteran, L.A. Police Department police officer, and television writer Eugene Wesley Roddenberry in 1964, sold to Desilu around that time, and approved for a network run on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in late 1965. It premiered (with The Man Trap ) on September 8, 1966 and ran on NBC for three seasons until its cancellation in March 1969. Star Wars began its long creative development as early as 1971, and by 1973 George Lucas, a graduate of the University of Southern California’s film school, had a first draft for a screenplay then titled The Star Wars. After shopping it around to the big studios, including Universal Pictures, he sold the script to 20th Century Fox after finally convincing Fox’s VP for Development Alan Ladd, Jr., who didn’t quite understand the story but nevertheles...

© 2006 CBS Studios. Photo Credit: StarTrek.com On November 21, 2006, 40 years and two months after the premiere of Star Trek (or, as it is now known, Star Trek: The Original Series  or TOS), CBS DVD released Star Trek: The Animated Series: The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek  (also known as TAS) , a four-disc box set that presents all 22 episodes of the NBC Saturday morning cartoon series that continued the adventures of the USS Enterprise under the command of Captain James T. Kirk. The DVDs also feature audio and text commentary (on selected episodes), a behind-the-scenes documentary, a featurette about the links between TAS and other series in the Star Trek franchise, plus a timeline of the show. TAS was created in the early 1970s by Gene Roddenberry at the request of NBC, the U.S. television network which had broadcast the original live-action Star Trek series from 1966 until its premature cancellation in 1969. In an ironic twist, the same executiv...

“Star Trek: Nemesis” (2002) Also known as: “Star Trek X: Nemesis” Directed by Stuart Baird Screenplay by: John Logan Story by John Logan & Brent Spiner & Rick Berman Based upon “Star Trek” created by Gene Roddenberry Starring: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Tom Hardy, Ron Perlman “Star Trek: Nemesis” is the 10th feature film based on Gene Roddenberry’s “Star Trek” television series and the fourth to star the cast of the spin-off series “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”  Released on December 13, 2002 as a “generation’s final journey,” “Star Trek: Nemesis” ended the voyages of the Starship Enterprise-E on a less-than-glorious note and put Paramount Pictures’ movie franchise in deep-freeze for seven years. “A Generation’s Final Journey Begins” (Stardate 56844.9 - Earth Calendar Year 2379) Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Duty. A starship captain's life is filled with solemn duty....

© 2018 Eaglemoss Ltd. STAR TREK marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios On November 13, 2017, Eaglemoss Ltd's Hero Collector imprint published  Star Trek Shipyards: Starfleet Ships 2294-The Future, the second volume of a new and ongoing encyclopedia that focuses on the various space vessels seen in the Star Trek television and motion picture franchise. Edited by Ben Robinson, who also wrote the text along with Marcus Riley, this is a followup to Star Trek Shipyards: Starfleet Ships 2151-2293 and focuses on Federation vessels featured in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, as well as the four TNG  features released between 1994 and 2002. Star Trek Shipyards: Starfleet Ships 2294-The Future is divided into four chapters; each chapter is dedicated to specific ship types, starting with Small Transports and segueing into larger classes, such as Fighters and Multi-Mission Explorers such as the USS  Lantree, Stargazer, En...

©2018 Eaglemoss Ltd. Star Trek marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc.  On September 25, 2018, nearly 50 years after the start of  Star Trek: The Original Series ' third and final season on the NBC television network, Hero Collector published Star Trek Shipyards: Starfleet Starships 2151-2293, the first book of a multi-volume encyclopedia dedicated to the various Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and other starships featured in the ever-expanding Star Trek television and movie franchise. Edited by Ben Robinson and written by Robinson, Marcus Reily, and Matt McAllister,  Star Trek Shipyards: Starfleet Starships 2151-2293 is a lavishly illustrated 192-page hardcover dedicated to the various Starfleet vessels that have been seen in the various television series and feature films from The Original Series all the way to CBS All Access' Star Trek: Discovery.  Written as an in-universe reference work,  Star Trek Shipyards: Starfleet Starships 2151-2293 i...

(C) 2008 Paramount Home Entertainment Pros:  The few great Trek films are included; extras are mostly nice Cons:  If you have the two-disc Collector Editions, you don't need this! Although I've come to love the DVD (Digital Video Disk, or Digitally Versatile Disk) format ever since I purchased my first in the spring of 1999, there's one particular sales technique involving the admittedly-useful and versatile format that has made me somewhat annoyed with the various movie studios - the seemingly endless re-release and repackaging of popular films such as the  Alien  franchise, the Jack Ryan film series and the  Die Hard  series. All right, I confess: sometimes it's good that studios will backtrack and improve upon a "bare-bones" first edition of one of my favorite movies, particularly DVDs that lacked such extras as director's commentary tracks, deleted scenes, and behind-the-scenes featurettes. I tend to like those bonus features; as an...