A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season Three But it was in the third season that ( Star Trek: The Next Generation ) began to come into its own, at least in part due to the arrival of Michael Piller as head of the writing staff. Piller had both written and produced for the TV series “Simon & Simon”…. Says Piller, “I can’t claim full credit (for the success); we had a lot of good writers here. I will claim credit for my contribution, which is that I just have an idea for what I think makes a good dramatic story….”  -  J.M. Dillard,  Star Trek – Where No One Has Gone Before: A History in Pictures The third season of Gene Roddenberry’s  Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST-TNG)  was yet another period of transition for the series, albeit one with good portents rather than bad ones. Maurice Hurley, one of the show’s co-executive producers, left the staff, as did several other writers, including Michael Wagner.  Meanwhile, Roddenberry, the series’...

Man of Steel,  director Zack Snyder’s ambitious 2013 reboot of Warner Bros. Superman film franchise, is an earnest but sometimes dour and plodding retelling of the DC Comics superhero’s origin story. Starring British actor Henry Cavill ( Stardust ) in the dual role of Kal-El/Clark Kent and co-starring Amy Adams, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe, and Michael Shannon,  Man of Steel  reinvents Superman’s backstory from the ground up. In essence, it tells Superman’s Moses/Jesus-inspired saga of how Kryptonian scientist Jor-El (Crowe) sends his newborn son to Earth to save him from his home planet’s destruction. Because the screenplay by David S. Goyer (based on a story by producer Christopher Nolan) pretends that the Christopher Reeve/Brandon Routh Superman films don’t exist,  Man of Steel  begins on Krypton. As in the comics and the Richard Donner  Superman: The Movie,  the planet is doomed. However, in Goyer’s reboot, Krypton’s red sun...

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – The Complete Season Five “Ready he is to teach an apprentice. To let go of his pupil, a greater challenge it will be. Master this, Skywalker must.” –  Yoda,  Star Wars: The Clone Wars  (2008) All Good Things… On October 3, 2008, George Lucas’s CG-animated series  Star Wars: The Clone Wars  premiered on cable’s Cartoon Network. The 3D animated show aired two months after the theatrical release of the eponymous animated feature directed by Dave Filoni, the man tapped by Lucas as the TV show’s supervising director. After five seasons on Time Warner-owned Cartoon Network and 108 episodes,  Star Wars: The Clone Wars  ended its run on March 2, 2013. Lucasfilm, now owned by the Walt Disney Company, decided to wind down  Star Wars: The Clone Wars  in order to focus on the new live action Sequel Trilogy of Episodes VII-IX. Lucasfilm also needed its animators to start production on a new animated series,...

Star Trek: The Next Generation Season Two   Background: Capt. Picard:  There's still much to do; still so much to learn. Mr. La Forge - engage!   –“The Neutral Zone” (Season One  finale) Star Trek: The Next Generation’s  (ST-TNG) first season officially ended with these optimistic words on May 16, 1988. On that date, many television stations broadcast  The Neutral Zone,  the 26th and last first-run episode of the syndicated show’s premiere season. Created by Gene Roddenberry at the insistence of Paramount Pictures,  ST-TNG  was a daring concept for its time. Intended to be a sequel to the canceled  Star Trek  TV series that aired on NBC  in the late 1960s, The Next Generation  was one of the first direct-to-syndication series produced. Paramount had shopped the show’s concept to ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC, but – to the studio’s relief – was turned down. Paramount Television and Roddenberry were secretly glad about the big net...

The Measure of a Man Stardate 42523.7 (Earth Calendar Date 2365) Episode Production Number: 135 Episode Number (Aired): 35 Original Air Date: February 13, 1989 Written by: Melinda M. Snodgrass Directed by: Robert Scheerer While docked at Starbase 173 for scheduled repairs and refits, the  Galaxy- Class  USS Enterprise  NCC-1701-D, Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) commanding, receives a visit from Admiral Nakamura (Clyde Kusatsu). The admiral, an old friend of Capt. Picard, is the ranking Starfleet officer in the sector, and Starbase 173 is strategically important because it’s located close to the Romulan Neutral Zone. After exchanging small talk with Picard during a tour of the  Enterprise,  Adm. Nakamura introduces Picard to Cmdr. Bruce Maddox (Brian Brophy), a cyberneticist assigned to the Daystrom Institute. The ambitious Maddox is an admirer of Dr. Noonien Soong, the scientist who created Lt. Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner), and seeks to replicat...

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season One       Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship  Enterprise.  Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.       Background   In the summer of 1986, Paramount Pictures was on a collective “high” about  Star Trek.   Much to the studio’s surprise, Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi TV show was now the company’s crown jewel franchise. It survived cancellation by the NBC TV network in 1969 by becoming a hit in syndication. In 1973,  Star Trek  returned briefly to network television via Filmation’s   Star Trek: The Animated Series .  Plans for theatrical films and TV movies came and went, but by 1977, plans were underway to launch an updated version of the show as the flagship of the Paramount Television Service.  The new series,  Star Tre...