Oldschool/newschool Star Trek double header!

[Vlad!]

So apparently the Carolina theater is playing a Star Trek double header, and I suspect I'll be roped into going.

It's been a really long time since I saw either of these movies (I saw First Contact in theaters when it came out, and Star Trek IV when I was just a wee lad). I remember liking both of them less than average (my internal physicist gets grumpy around time travel, for one), but they're pretty hazy. Anyone have an opinion strong enough that I should either put my foot down and stay home or actually look forward to going?

[bloop]

and Star Trek IV when I was just a wee lad). I remember liking both of them less than average (my internal physicist gets grumpy around time travel, for one)

You were this nerdy as a wee lad?

Those come right after Star Trek II in my hierarchy, btw.

[Vlad!]

You were this nerdy as a wee lad?

My dad was, and I was like, hey, movie.

[spacebrat311]

I love Star Trek IV.

I've always been a bit leery of the Next Generation era movies. I enjoy them fine, but they never had that "Star Trek essence" to me. Which is weird because the Next Generation did have that for me as a series.

[Vlad!]

I've always been a bit leery of the Next Generation era movies. I enjoy them fine, but they never had that "Star Trek essence" to me. Which is weird because the Next Generation did have that for me as a series.

For me, First Contact seemed too heavy and Insurrection seemed too light. I haven't seen any of the others. The original series movies seemed to do the same decent job of blending camp and drama that the tv shows themselves did.

[murlough23]

So here's my opinion of the Star Trek movies:

I: Haven't seen it.
II (The Wrath of Khan): It's been a long time, but I vaguely recall it being a blast.
III (The Search for Spock): Okay. A little slow.
IV (The Voyage Home): Probably the one I've seen the most times, because I love the time travel stuff and the campy humor. Very cheesy, but hilarious.
V (The Final Frontier): Bitch PLEEZE.
VI (The Undiscovered Country): Awesome, though the pink floating Klingon blood really freaked me out when I was younger.
VII (Generations): Not bad as a double length episode, but they really shafted the original cast here. Definitely one of the lamest death scenes in all of Trek.
VIII (First Contact): Probably my favorite Trek movie, again due to the time travel stuff. Alfre Woodard is awesome, as is James Cromwell. And I still guffaw at the "plenty of letters left in the alphabet" line. (Bonus: They rejiggered a scene from this to use as the intro for Enterprise's best episode.)
IX (Insurrection): When the best line in a Star Trek movie involves Data talking about boobs, you know you're in for a real crapfest.
X (Nemesis): Not as terrible as some Trek fans make it out to be, but not good enough to justify a bigscreen release, either. I liked the business with the retarded Data prototype and thought the bits of Romulan history they filled in were intriguing. But it was a bit unintentionally campy.

I really need to watch the original series films again (save for IV, which I've seen more than enough times, and V, which sucks.)

[spacebrat311]

I: Star Trek the Motionless Picture is more like it. Holds a lot of nostalgia for me though.
II (The Wrath of Khan): Hell yes.
III (The Search for Spock): I'm with Murlough on this one. Act I is really fun, but Acts II and III are a little slower and a little cheesier.
IV (The Voyage Home): Easily the most fun one could have in a Star Trek movie.
V (The Final Frontier): Marshmellons. Sybok. RAGE.
VI (The Undiscovered Country): Cold War metaphor is a bit on the nose, but it's still a quality little whodunit.
VII (Generations): My favorite TNG movie. The flaws are exactly as Murlough pointed out- Mistreatment of the TOS cast and it feels more like a double-length episode than a movie. Still, an awesome episode.
VIII (First Contact): A lot of fun, but still feels tonally wrong for Star Trek to me.
IX (Insurrection): I just couldn't really bring myself to care.
X (Nemesis): The writing is just totally smeared with poor understanding of the characters, and poor understanding of what Star Trek is. Tries to be both Wrath of Khan and First Contact and fails at both.

[bloop]

V (The Final Frontier): Marshmellons. Sybok. RAGE.

I thought you were going to say something about God hating Star Trek.

VII (Generations): My favorite TNG movie. The flaws are exactly as Murlough pointed out- Mistreatment of the TOS cast and it feels more like a double-length episode than a movie. Still, an awesome episode.

My issue with this has a lot to do with the climax being two elderly men fighting.

[murlough23]

The writing is just totally smeared with poor understanding of the characters, and poor understanding of what Star Trek is.

Agreed. Star Trek is really about the characters. TNG more or less needed to retain the status quo from one show to the next so there wasn't a ton of room for character development, but still. These people developed interesting quirks and mannerisms and issues over time that we, the audience, cared about. With some of the latter TNG movies, I think the writing was being done by someone trying to take an existing franchise and make a blockbuster hit out of it, not someone with a good working knowledge of the story so far.

If you care more about character development than the weird sci-fi anomaly of the week, then I would highly recommend the latter seasons of DS9 (probably from 4 on up, when Worf joins the cast). But then, if you have pretty strong opinions of what Star Trek is and what it isn't, some of the things that the characters do in DS9 will likely offend these sensibilities. (Which is ironically my favorite thing about DS9 as a series.)

NP: "Beware! Criminal", Incubus

[spacebrat311]

I love DS9. I love that it questions the assumptions of Star Trek while still remaining fundamentally Star Trek.

[Vlad!]

To me, DS9 is where the series started taking itself too seriously. It seemed like every time I turned it on, one of the Cardassians, Feringi, Bajorans, Federation is grieving on another and some dude whose name I don't even remember has the hots for some chick who turns out to be the cybernetic ghost of christmas past. And then some guy with a name I can't pronounce takes over the station--again--and Ben has to fly some ship through a wormhole and realize that he's God or, well, I don't know. I realize in many ways it was a break from the episodic nature of the previous series and wasn't aimed at the sporadic watchers like me, but I never got into it.

Personally, I think I would have enjoyed Insurrection more if it weren't a Star Trek movie (and if I didn't pay money to see it in theaters...). It's the sort of movie you watch with your friends for the lulz when you mostly just want to chat it up and need something going in the background.

First Contact I remember as being weird and creepy and unnerving in places combined with ridiculously campy in places, but that may be that I was still a little young (13) to appreciate the parts with the borg.

[murlough23]

It seemed like every time I turned it on, one of the Cardassians, Feringi, Bajorans, Federation is grieving on another

Well yeah, complicated political situations were a good chunk of the show, so a lot of this was probably lost on the casual viewer.

and some dude whose name I don't even remember has the hots for some chick who turns out to be the cybernetic ghost of christmas past.

Can't say that I recall that storyline.  You sure you're not confusing DS9 with Voyager?

And then some guy with a name I can't pronounce takes over the station--again

Ah yes, the old "Nefarious alien plot takes over the station for an episode" trick. That's a tried-and-true cornerstone of Trek. On other shows, there was a ship to take over instead of a station. These sorts of subplots are usually pretty lame, though there was an excellent 6-episode arc where the bad guys ran the station in Season 6, which was pretty darn good. And there was a Cardassian boobytrap that caused the computer to take over the station which made for a hilarious episode back in Season 3. Other such episodes were less inventive.

and Ben has to fly some ship through a wormhole and realize that he's God or, well, I don't know.

The wormhole and the non-linear beings ("gods" according to the Bajorans) who lived in it were an integral part of the series from Day 1. Since this brought religious topics to the fore, I can see why this wouldn't be your average Trek viewer's cup of tea. But that stuff didn't come out of nowhere, and what you're describing happened in the series finale, not multiple times.

I realize in many ways it was a break from the episodic nature of the previous series and wasn't aimed at the sporadic watchers like me, but I never got into it.

The first few seasons of the show were pretty cheesy and the last few were hard to pick up as a new viewer, so I could see why it'd be difficult to hang in there.

[Vlad!]

Can't say that I recall that storyline.  You sure you're not confusing DS9 with Voyager?

Some clever Googling reveals that it was Dr. Bashir and Dax, who turned out to be some sort of mutant host thing (not the cybernetic ghost of christmas past).

[spacebrat311]

Huh.

[murlough23]

Some clever Googling reveals that it was Dr. Bashir and Dax, who turned out to be some sort of mutant host thing.

Dax was a Tril. That's what Trils do. The host body dies and then the symbiont (however the hell that's spelled) is placed into a new host body. That was always the character's history (sadly, they never explored the backstory of Ben Sisko's friendship with "old man" Curzon Dax" onscreen), so it made Dax a really convenient character to replace with a different actress when Terry Ferrell played salary hardball and wasn't around for the seventh season as a result. They just killed off the character, and BAM! New host. They made it more interesting by having the new Dax be completely unprepared for the joining (apparently it was an emergency procedure or something).

But yeah, the business with her and Dr. Bashir was silly. Dr. Bashir in general was kind of a goofy character at first, but he came to be one of the most admirable characters by the end of the series.

[Vlad!]

You have to realize that these things may be obvious for people who started watching in the beginning and followed each arc as it happened, but for those of us who were just like "I'm bored...hey, DS9 is on, let's watch that" about once or twice a month, these things get really confusing. "Wait, so she's immortal? No? Then why did she tell that dude that she's three hundred years old? Maybe she's a robot? I dunno, just roll with it".

[murlough23]

You have to realize that these things may be obvious for people who started watching in the beginning and followed each arc as it happened, but for those of us who were just like "I'm bored...hey, DS9 is on, let's watch that" about once or twice a month, these things get really confusing. "Wait, so she's immortal? No? Then why did she tell that dude that she's three hundred years old? Maybe she's a robot? I dunno, just roll with it".

Absolutely. In explaining them, I realize that they sound pretty ridiculous to anyone who hasn't seen the story develop onscreen and is just now catching up on the Cliff Notes. (And in some cases, even if you were watching from episode 1 and know the whole story, it's pretty stupid. No Star Trek series is exempt from this problem.) What I'm trying to point out is that this stuff generally didn't come out of nowhere. Much of it was part of the backbone of the series, or at least a story that was given time to develop over several episodes/seasons, rather than the writers just pulling ideas out of their asses in a desperate move to entertain people.

The nature of any serialized show is that it's difficult for new viewers to pick it up mid-stream. I think this is more or less the norm for any dramatic series in our current day and age... it wasn't as common in the 90's. (As far as sci-fi series go, I think Babylon 5 set the bar... I need to go back and watch that series in full at some point.) So DS9 was a bit of a fish out of water at the time it aired. It wasn't for everyone. It certainly worked better for me on DVD. But now it's hard for me to watch TNG outside of a few exemplary episodes, or really any Trek series that seems to reset the status quo after every episode. I think it's great that you can understand the basic premise of "This is a starship and here's more or less what the people on it are like and what their mission is" without having to watch the entire back catalogue, but when characters are in peril, short of it being the end of a season or some "very special episode", you pretty much have no reason to invest, because it'll all be back to normal by the end of the hour. (This sort of thing got most notably ridiculous on Voyager, when they'd get the crap kicked out of them and have half their shuttlecraft blown up in one episode, only to have the ship restored to full working order at the start of the next with no explanation. Um, you're lost in an unfamiliar quadrant of space, hundreds of light-years from HQ. How exactly does that work?)

The catch-22 for heavily serialized shows is that age-old problem of getting a new audience caught up. This can result in a lot of precious screen time being wasted on exposition of stuff that some of the audience already knows. Sometimes a "Previously on..." bit will take care of it, or characters will remind us briefly of past events relevant to the current episode, but for the most part, you can't please everyone with this stuff. In the modern age, we have the Internet and DVDs, which I think is the best source for a fan who jumps in midstream to catch up on a show. We didn't really have that stuff - at least not to the extent we do now - in the 90's. I think after a while a show like DS9 has got to say, "Screw it, if you're not into the show already, there's probably no way we're gonna hook you now", and just focus on telling really good stories for the folks who are already on board. That sort of stuff just isn't designed for casual viewing every now and then. I'm sure you must have watched anime series or something similar at some point that are similarly designed. I don't think it's a case of a show taking itself too seriously - I think it's more a case of taking the audience seriously and presuming they'd like the story to actually go somewhere.

I mean, can you imagine Dax having to explain the biology of the Tril species every single time the character made reference to her age or one of her past hosts? That would be insanely tedious.

[Vlad!]

Oh, I completely agree, and I'm not criticizing the show for taking that direction (I realize I didn't make this as clear as I should have). I'm just pointing out why I never got into it.

[murlough23]

Oh, I completely agree, and I'm not criticizing the show for taking that direction (I realize I didn't make this as clear as I should have).

OK. I'm glad you cleared that up, because it seemed like you were criticizing the story based on what didn't make sense after a few scattershot episode viewings.

I'm just pointing out why I never got into it.

I think that's fair. It's a risk that anyone who sets out to write a serialized TV show has to accept. What's frustrating is that, unless you're lucky enough to get in on the ground floor and draw in a massive audience like Lost did, it's extremely difficult to get a network to commit to this sort of a show long-term. The fact that more people don't watch most serialized shows doesn't indicate to me that the show sucks or that the audience sucks - it indicates to me that networks are a little too trigger happy when a show doesn't display blockbuster numbers right away. People often don't watch this sort of stuff because they're likely already committed to other shows of that type that fill a similar need. They just don't have the time, and I can't blame them for that. As much as I don't really get into episodic, non-serialized shows as much, I think there's a need for that on TV because otherwise people would never try out new shows midstream.

NP: "Beautiful", Plaid

[Vlad!]

OK, so I went to see the double header and it was pretty good. I remembered approximately nothing from Star Trek IV. There were some parts that were actually pretty good. I enjoyed it overall. First Contact was also better than I remembered it, though it was interesting to see that even though it was miles ahead of the former in terms of special effects, its spirit had been eroded somewhat. I definitely remembered the Borg queen seduction scene as being about ten times more salacious than it actually was; probably because I was an awkward kid in my early teens when I saw it the first time and I was like ZOMG THEY'RE KISSING.

Anyway, I'd say it was worth sacrificing an evening to see these two movies on film, and through careful regulation of my liquid intake beforehand I managed to avoid my nemesis, the dreaded Full Bladder Right At The Climax Of The Movie syndrome.

A good time was had by all.

[murlough23]

I never liked the idea of the Borg Queen. The Borg were more interesting to me as drones with no individual identity. The Queen just seemed like a cheap ploy to put a central face on "the bad guy" and to sex it up a little, which by definition is awkward whenever Star Trek attempts it.

[Vlad!]

I never liked the idea of the Borg Queen. The Borg were more interesting to me as drones with no individual identity. The Queen just seemed like a cheap ploy to put a central face on "the bad guy" and to sex it up a little, which by definition is awkward whenever Star Trek attempts it.

Well, it's sort of implied that she is like the drones in that she is an expression of the collective. It's not that there's one individual "Borg queen", more that the hive expresses itself by creating Borg for different purposes, and one of the ones it creates is a queen.

[bloop]

If I remember what the Borg queen looks like accurately (and I do), then you have a strange idea of sexing the proceedings up.  Bleck.

[Vlad!]

Also, I am about 500% more psyched about the upcoming JJ Abrams Trek movie than I was before yesterday. I think modern reinterpretations (Voyager, Enterprise, I'm looking at you) and time had distorted the charm and the fun of the original series and, yes, of the Next Generation series as well.

[murlough23]

If I remember what the Borg queen looks like accurately (and I do), then you have a strange idea of sexing the proceedings up.  Bleck.

I didn't say that it worked, just that they tried. Remember, this is Star Trek. Just about anything with a chick is "sexing the proceedings up".

[Vlad!]

One interesting thing would be the similarities between the two movies. A common touchstone in both was the highest-ranking officer (Kirk/Picard respectively) putting the moves on some girl from "primitive" Earth (20th century/21st century). Two observations from my friends while this was going on:
1) You can tell that Kirk and Picard are supposed to be completely smooth, to the point of hilarity
2) Shatner really only ever plays one character, and him acting across Catherine Hicks, who was clearly uncomfortable in her role as whale scientist/love interest, was unintentionally lulz-worthy

[murlough23]

1) You can tell that Kirk and Picard are supposed to be completely smooth, to the point of hilarity

Picard didn't really make moves on the ladies that often. I think Patrick Stewart actually complained about that a few seasons into TNG. I tend to see him as a character a little too wrapped up in his career to sustain a relationship for that long (though none of that sort of character detail tends to make it into the motion pictures). I think that's why there was some sort of a backstory about him and Dr. Crusher not working out.

NP: "Broken Lungs", Thrice

[Vlad!]

Picard didn't really make moves on the ladies that often. I think Patrick Stewart actually complained about that a few seasons into TNG. I tend to see him as a character a little too wrapped up in his career to sustain a relationship for that long (though none of that sort of character detail tends to make it into the motion pictures). I think that's why there was some sort of a backstory about him and Dr. Crusher not working out.

Yeah, when he was putting the movies on Lily it was pretty obvious that he didn't really care about her for herself, he just cared about her for the sake of his own ego. Patrick Stewart did a great job of putting those extra touches in there.

As a side note, that's one of the reasons I have such trouble with TNG. Some of it is very legitimately well-done, and I think Stewart's performance lends a lot to that. However, some of it is still pure sci-fi camp and hand-wavery, and it's difficult for me to reconcile the two.

[murlough23]

As a side note, that's one of the reasons I have such trouble with TNG. Some of it is very legitimately well-done, and I think Stewart's performance lends a lot to that. However, some of it is still pure sci-fi camp and hand-wavery, and it's difficult for me to reconcile the two.

True for all of Star Trek, I think. A lot of it depends on the writers. You have your Ron Moore types who want to do something real and gritty that has lasting effects, and then you have your ratings gamers who go, "Hey, I know! What if Picard and three of his crewmen had YET ANOTHER TRANSPORTER ACCIDENT and this time it turned them into little kids?"

Though a few lesser episodes of Battlestar Galactica stand as proof that even the "Ron Moore types" fall victim to hand-wavery from time to time.