Topic: The Movies

[Scottish Andy]

Hi All,

I just thought I'd share a thought or five based on the comments below:

BTW, once I get a copy of Star Trek: The Motionless Picture, I'll have a new chapter of When the Going Gets Tough... up. (I can't believe I'm getting this movie. But I need the power up and departure sequence of the Enterprise to give me the imagery to get the Howard Hughes' departure sequence right.)

....

(Side note, turns out I need Star Trek II, not TMP. So it'll still be a while til I post the next chapter. The departure sequence in TMP is the wrong one.)
CaptJosh

Yes...gotta watch them do the quicky launch with the file footage from the first movie to set the mood. Smiley

TMP was rather slow moving... Movies must keep...well...moving...to grap one's attention.

--thu guv!

So, happy (belated) birthday to me, on Tuesday I went out and got myself the 2-disc Director's Cut and/or Special Editions of all 12 Star Trek films--for $110 including tax! That's less than a tenner DVD! Rockin'!

That said, I just watched what Josh lovingly calls "The Motionless Picture" for the first time in many years. I admit, it's the first time I've heard it called that, despite how appropriate I thought it was at the time.

Having just watched Robert Wise's Director's Cut, I am now of a different opinion. Oh, it's not hugely different. A few included lines and some much nicer VFX generally make it better than the TV version of the movie I watched so long ago. However a couple of (inexplicably) dropped lines (specifically, Sulu's line "The new screens held!" after V'Ger's first plasma torpedo hits 1701) makes some sections of the movie seem... empty. You can feel where a line was supposed to be, or should have been.

I especially like the cleaned-up VFX of V'Ger itself. The second plasma torpedo attack on Enterprise is far better, and the "hexagon bridge" scene is excellent too.

Kirk's fly-over of Enterprise brought back to me just how beautiful she actually is. I love that design. Apparently Matt Jeffries started the refit of his own design for ST:Phase II, the new engine nacelles and pylons being his idea, but Andrew Probert is the genius building on this work for TMP.

I actually got shivers watching her leave that box-dock for the first time.

Oh, anyone know how I can take screen caps of this? I tried taking Print Screens of STII's Reliant VFX, but all I got were blank black caps. I assume it is copy protection related.

Though not as detailed as the STII departure scene, I think a mix of both would be pretty good.

All that aside, I came away with a greater appreciation for ST:TMP than I had before. I see that this movie actually tried to be Sci-Fi, instead of either Star Trek or Star Wars. It dealt with a concept of a machine developing a soul. It dealt with a force so great that it defied comprehension. In an age when everything in Trek has a sodding Technobabble solution or explanation, it's nice--refreshing!--to see that some things are still wonderous, do still defy explanation, and we are left scratching our heads as to what can possibly be the reason for it all.

Voyager's ship is massive with sections that look totally bizarre on a spaceship, have no reason to be there, such as those huge curving static fields, the glowing orange spikey balls and the massive, curving, iris-like openings that had lights on them.
The modern audience just sits there and goes, "This is boring. What's all this crap for?" Last night, I found out. I watched these endless pans of sections of V'Ger that made no sense to me, and even though I still had that lingering irritation of a scene with no action, I managed to just marvel in awe at this incredible spacegoing monstrosity.

I'm not supposed to understand it. That's the point.

[CaptJosh]

Sadly, I have to disagree with you on what that movie was trying to be. Because it wasn't a movie trying to be anything. It was a TV episode trying to be a movie. The Motion Picture's script was a reworked and reworked and reworked yet again TV pilot. Once they decided they were going to do a movie, they should have scrapped the script they had and written a movie instead of trying to turn a TV pilot script into a movie script. Because it started out as a TV pilot, there's a lot of dead space in there that's just filler. Too much time is spent staring slack jawed at the screen. I would make a very good episode. Then again, it already did make a good episode. Anyone else remember Nomad from "The Changeling"?

[Governor Ronjar]

Indeed I do remember the 'Changeling', and you are correct. Even Roddenberry admitted it was an off-shoot of the TOS episode. But, then, so is Insurrection (ST9 or whatever it's called) which is a rip-off of a TNG episode where the Enterprise crew was tryying the same trick to move indigenous people to a new planet. Difference being: Insurrestion was entertaining.

I like some of the visuals from TMP, but that's about as far as it goes. It was a hurried attempt to get a Paramount movie out there to compete with Star Wars, and in the bonus features of said 2-disk set, they say exactly that. The V'ger ship was meant to wow you, much in the way any Japenese Anime might with their art. I loved V'ger. I liked that it didn't make sense. But it was there for the same reason one hangs dangling, multicolored bobbles in front of a baby: to entertain.

I am glad that you found a certain magic to the movie, though. I love to find that one element in a flick that just gives me shivers. ST:TMP aint it, though... 'Course, I'm more of a 'Forbidden Planet' fan, myself when it comes to sci-fi/not Trek.

--thu guv!

[Commander La'ra]

Star Trek: TMP never really struck me as trying to be sci-fi...unless you count trying to hit the exact same vibe as 2001, only with the Enterprise crew and no homicidal computer as trying to be sci-fi.

The antiseptic look of the ship, the quiet dialogue, the mysterious yet horrendously powerful object....etc, etc, etc.  I enjoyed it on some levels, probably for most of the reasons the Guv just listed, but it never, ever, struck me as being all that original or adventurous when it came to it's plot.

[Scottish Andy]

I just watched III last night and I have to say that I enjoyed it thoroughly. I think it was because we got to see the supporting characters actually doing somthing in this movie as opposed to just being their duty stations. There is a lot of good humour and emotion in this one, and because this movie is full of hope for Spock's future it's mostly the positive emotions. I just watched the first part again with the director/producer/actor commentary on, and I have a juicy bit for all you proponents of Klingon honour and family values. *grin*

The producer/writer said that he wanted to do an action/adventure movie. He said that according to the TOS episodes he watched, the Klingons were either ill-defined or undefined. He could have picked the Romulans but he thought that the Klingons would be more likely to have the absolutism and determination needed to pursue the "opposition" role to the end in his movie.

Director Leonard Nimoy said of the Klingons--and specifically of Kruge killing Valkris for knowing too much--that Klingons are so paranoid that "if your brother knows too much, you're going to kill your brother. That's the Klingon mindset." (I'll have to listen to that again to clarify the quote, but that's the jist of it.)

I've also heard from some corners that the Klingons were just set up to be the fall guys in this movie, the bad guys that Kirk & Co. beat. You have no doubt they will do it, so that makes Kruge & Co. "straw men" and there is no substance to them. While it may be true that they are going to be beaten, the same can be said of any movie of "the good guys vs. the bad guys". So, setting that inanity aside, I thought that Kruge was a very nuanced and complex character. He showed he was Klingon, and showed his power to his crew and his opponents, but also proved that he could be noble and recognise nobility in others: "I give two minutes, for you and your gallant crew."

He was unapologetically Klingon: taking on the weird photon tube thing for no discernable reason and killing it with his bare hands to prove his power. (Surely he didn't think it was "the very scientists" he sought?) Killing a prisoner (he didn't care which) to improve his barganing position with Kirk, but not killing wantonly or indiscriminently. His violence was purposeful. Crew discipline is very important, so the upstart gunner had to go. It was a lesson to the rest of his crew.

I had always thought that, in the final confrontation between him and Kirk, Kruge had said "Yes, accelerating, isn't it?" when Kirk told him the planet would destroy itself soon. I managed to listen properly last night and found him to be saying "Yes, exhilarating, isn't it?"

Now that strikes me as class. Stubborn Klingon refusal to let outside considerations such as an exploding planet--that he happens to be standing on!--getting in the way of him getting what he wants. Though admittedly, he must not have heard of the Klingon proverb Kang quoted some 14 years earlier: "Only a fool fights in a burning house."

A whole bunch of great scenes and dialogue in that movie. Uhura & Mr. Adventure. Bones in the Bar. Sulu and "Tiny"--and the rest of the McCoy breakout scene. Scotty's "This, or nothing!". The whole breakout from Spacedock. Kirk's "The answer... is no. I am therefore going anyway", "That's what you get for missing staff meetings", "Calm yourself, Doctor". Kirk falling of fhis chair at his son's death. (Though, on that... there's a lot of swearing at Kruge and it doesn't seem like the audio comm channel was muted during it. Since kruge didn't react to the insults or the surprising knowledge within Kirk's anguish, I can only assume that either Chekov or the computer knew when to mute the audio.)

I have to agree with the Guv saying STIII was one of the best. STII will always be my favourite, but I've always liked III as well. This is the first time I've seen it in many years, and the first time in considerably longer where I've just sat and watched the damn thing instead of trying to take notes and stuff for my own nefarious purposes.

Good Movie. 

[Governor Ronjar]

Woot!

My favorite scene is still when they stole the ship and you find out Scotty sabotaged the Excelsior's engines.

I love Kruge, which is why I used him and came up with the concept for 'Fall of the House of Kruge'. That and I wanted to write Trek-dom's longest ship to ship fight scene... One type setting 10, its over 30 pages long! On setting 12...76 pages!

Anywho, Andy...waiting on a comment from you before I commence to posting on Side Trip. Not looking for accolades, just wanna know you're caught up with me...

--thu guv!

[CaptJosh]

I always assumed that Q'ruge (to put the name approximately into tHlIngan Hol) heard all the swearing, heard it accurately translated into a repeated questioning to his parantage, and "knew" from that name calling that he had Kirk right where he wanted him. After all, Klingons were the Russians of Star Trek. And when a Russian chooses to be unruffled, you cannot disturb them save with explosives. (I exaggerate, but you get my point.)

The other possibility is that the concept of bastardy doesn't translate because they just don't have such a thing, so it meant nothing to him other than the fact that he had killed Kirk's son.

[Commander La'ra]

Director Leonard Nimoy said of the Klingons--and specifically of Kruge killing Valkris for knowing too much--that Klingons are so paranoid that "if your brother knows too much, you're going to kill your brother. That's the Klingon mindset." (I'll have to listen to that again to clarify the quote, but that's the jist of it.)

I agree with the not-to-be-named mutual acquaintance on this issue.  I think that, for whatever reason, Kruge wanted to get rid of Valkris.  There's no...utterly no...reason he couldn't have simply beamed her over before destroying the ship, which leads me to believe that there's a long story behind Valkris' death.  One we'll probably never hear.

"I give two minutes, for you and your gallant crew."

I sensed so compassion or admiration in this quote.  That said, it's one of my favorite lines of his, not because it shows that he's giving Kirk 'recognition', but because it shows how much of a bastard he really is.

Kirk asks for one minute.  He grants two as a show of power, not admiration.  You can hear it in his voice.

He was unapologetically Klingon: taking on the weird photon tube thing for no discernable reason and killing it with his bare hands to prove his power. (Surely he didn't think it was "the very scientists" he sought?) Killing a prisoner (he didn't care which) to improve his barganing position with Kirk, but not killing wantonly or indiscriminently. His violence was purposeful. Crew discipline is very important, so the upstart gunner had to go. It was a lesson to the rest of his crew.

His violence was purposeful...yet it also showed a certain weakness on his part.  He didn't strike me as the type of fellow who inspired loyalty.  Kang...Kor...they both seemed like commanders you could really get into working for.  Especially Kang.  Kruge substituted loyalty for fear, though, in a nice change, didn't particularly suffer for it.

I had always thought that, in the final confrontation between him and Kirk, Kruge had said "Yes, accelerating, isn't it?" when Kirk told him the planet would destroy itself soon. I managed to listen properly last night and found him to be saying "Yes, exhilarating, isn't it?"

Always liked that line.

Now that strikes me as class. Stubborn Klingon refusal to let outside considerations such as an exploding planet--that he happens to be standing on!--getting in the way of him getting what he wants. Though admittedly, he must not have heard of the Klingon proverb Kang quoted some 14 years earlier: "Only a fool fights in a burning house."

Yeah, well, he never did seem to be the brightest torch in the Klingon bundle.  He did, after all, have no idea the Enterprise was in the state she was in and attacked anyway.  Constitutions are a little bigger and better armed than a B'rel.

III isn't my favorite of the series, but it is very good, and I enjoy it whenever I watch.

Over the years, though, the Guv's take on the character of Kruge has increased my enjoyment, though.  Since we decided long ago that Kruge and La'ra were enemies, it's fun to see my alter ego's rival's plans turned to ashes despite his best efforts.

[Governor Ronjar]

I greatly enjoyed writing with Kruge in that story. Though, there are some scene's I'd edit now that I've reread them.

I just tried to watch Generations yesterday. I couldn't finish it. The older I get, the more of a flop that on seems. I get past the Enterprise-B scenes and I'm ready to turn it off. And I can't stand that they killed Kirk off in the TNG era! Bah!

--thu guv!