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Has anybody watched the episodes of Star Trek: New Voyages that are available for download? If so, what do you think of them? How does the quality (writing, acting, special effects, whatever) compare to the original series?
If you're not familiar with the show (as I wasn't until about 15 minutes ago), Wired had an article on it back in December that you may want to read. Basically, though, its a fan produced continuation of the original series, with new actors playing the roles of the original crew. Here is a page with photos of all of the non-redshirt cast members.
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You know, I think I watched a little bit of that SW movie. I remember not being terribly impressed.
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I've heard great things about it. In fact Walter Koenig is reprising his role as a Chekov from the future in an upcomming episode.
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OK, you've got me interested. I'm downloading the pilot.
Fortunately, they're smart enough to distribute it via bittorrent, or I don't know how I'd ever get a complete copy.
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I think Star Trek needs to remain comatose for a few years. Then it needs to awaken with a new producer and creative people in charge. Which is basically what the execs decided to do after Nemesis flopped and Enterprise was cancelled.
I'd love to see a DS9 or Voyager movie.
I may take a look at this at a later date however.
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The man is the Hegemon of Hyper-literal, the Master of Minutiae. He most certainly did not miss it.
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My bad, I guess I either didn't read it correctly, or forgot about the Star Wars movie (probably the second).
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quote:I think Star Trek needs to remain comatose for a few years. Then it needs to awaken with a new producer and creative people in charge.
I don't really buy the idea that the universe needs to lie fallow for a while to allow either it or the audience to recuperate. If a new Trek show were to debut tomorrow that actually told interesting, original, well written stories I think it'd do pretty well. Shows like Firefly and BSG have raised the bar quite a bit, though, and a new Trek wouldn't be able to just rest on it's pointy eared laurels, trotting out hackneyed, poorly conceived time travel and holodeck accident episodes. Not with any real chance of capturing the TV SF-viewing public's interest, anyway.
quote:I'd love to see a DS9 or Voyager movie.
I hoped for quite a while that they'd start making DS9 movies; I loved that show, and felt like there were still stories to be told about those characters and that station after the series ended. I'd still like to see them do it, but I kind of doubt it'll happen at this point.
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Not yet--I just became aware the it existed today. I'll probably download the pilot tonight and watch it tomorrow or Sunday though.
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I haven't seen BSG, but I wouldn't say that Firefly raised the bar for sci fi, at least, not for Star Trek. It's a different aspect of sci fi entirely.
And I guess I agree, if a new show with a new idea, a new cast, a new team were to come out and it were well done I think it would get a positive response as well. I just don't see that happening with the team that is currrently in charge of Star Trek. They've gotten lazy, and they expect far too much out of the fandom without really feeling like they have to work hard to give much back in return.
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OK, I saw the two episodes; "Come What May" and "In Harm's Way".
For an amature, fan-based production, it was phenomenal. I am very impressed.
It appears that"Come What May" was the first one with "In Harm's Way" coming after. The second one is a big improvement on the first, and I expect the next few will be even better.
Of course, it is an amature production, and it shows. Don't expect it to be good as a show with a real budget.
Some thoughts on specific aspects of the shows:
Concept: I like it. Some people don't like the idea of putting new actors into the old beloved characters, but I think it's great. I totally bought the new Kirk and Spock.
Acting: The acting was adequate. There were some really bad spots in the first one, but it was improved in the second one.
CG shots: They were obviously CG, but they were pretty darn good.
Sets/costumes: Superb. This was obviously a labour of love, and they really delivered here.
Sound: They did a great job on this as well.
Plots: It was geared way too much toward the rabid ST fan. In the first one there were a lot of little references here and there to things in the past and the future. It made it feel way too fanboyish, throwing in references just because they could.
The second one didn't suffer from cheesy references, but it seemed to assume that the viewer was extremely familiar with details of the plots of TOS episodes. Now I've seen all of the episodes, but it was over ten years ago, and I had troubles following what was going on. Google helped some, but not enough. Specifically, I don't remember enough details about the planetkilling machine or the pilot with Captain Pike, even though I remember both of those episodes.
Writing/Editing: I'm not sure whose fault this is, but there a few places where I didn't understand what had just happened, or why. I would call them plot holes, but they are so big that they can't be just holes (in the second one, a ship appears to be destroyed completely, but then it's there again in the next scene with no explination).
All in all, I'm impressed. Those folks should be proud of what they've accomplished. I hope they continue to improve. I'll download the next one when it becomes available.
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Yeah, that Wired article I linked to talked about that in some detail. Don't read it if you don't want some fairly huge spoilers for the episode though.
Porter, glad to hear that it's worth watching. I'm intrigued by the fact that they are using the same characters, rather than just creating their own Kirk-era Starfleet ship--I don't have anything against the recasting, in this case anyway. I didn't get around to downloading the episodes this weekend (actually I completely spaced it off), but will do so soon.
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quote:I don't really buy the idea that the universe needs to lie fallow for a while to allow either it or the audience to recuperate. If a new Trek show were to debut tomorrow that actually told interesting, original, well written stories I think it'd do pretty well.
I think we need a couple of years to let the stigma of Enterprise fade, but I'm actually starting to get a handle on the world (what wonders watching things in order does!).
Personally I do not think that Enterprise itself was a mistake, I think that the concept of the first ship was good and could have been stunningly excellent. It was the restricted treatment of the show/world/concept that caused the show to fail. I think I've said this before in the context of comparing the show with Firefly. The problem with Enterprise was that everything was far to familiar and comfortable to the crew.
To make it work, they should have kept it a lot more duct-tape-ish. Most of their problems were resolved far too quickly and the show quickly became a wanna-be replica of ST: TNG where everyone was old hands at space flight.
I think there should have been a lot more uncertainty about solutions and the entire show would have gained a kind of edgyness that was a) different enough from previous shows b) more inkeeping with people doing something for the first time.
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Absolutely, Teshi--I couldn't agree more about where Enterprise went wrong. I still think that if done right a new Trek could work, but I can see your point about allowing Enterprise's (and to a lesser extent Voyager's) stigma to fade a bit.
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An additional possible problem that I thought of after posting the above is that Star Trek creates a specific kind of world that is not necessarily compatible with the "headspace" of Americans- the primary audience- all the time.
Thinking about BSG, Firefly, Lost and even the newest Doctor Who there is a kind of more "survival" feel about the science fiction that is being produced right now.
Now I was barely alive in the eighties/early nineties and definately not in the sixties ( ) but I think that there was a kind of optimism, especially concerning space, during those times that made the idealistic representation of humans possible. I may be stretching this kind of theory a little too far, but I think that this kind of thing does transfer into what people are willing to produce and what people are willing to watch.
I think that optimism lasted long enough for DS9 and Voyager but Enterprise, as well as being not that good, was aired in 2001.
This comes back to what I said before about how Enterprise could have been better. I think that regardless of 9/11 and all that followed, or any other 'depressant' of the turn of the millenium, Enterprise would never have been particularly successful in its form simply because it wasn't all that good.
(Sidenote: Perhaps this is because there were simply too many stories told in the same way in the same world. Having four practically concurrent television series (within 15 years) dealing with the same issues is a recipe for disaster.)
However, I think that in order of Star Trek to be widely successful without sacrificing its integral optimism about the future we (as in the consumer/ the producer/ the world) must be more hopeful than we are now.
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Every episode of New Voyages has improved on the one before. I've just watched all four of them.
The pilot, "Come What May", was okay. Not great, but okay. The first "real" episode, "In Harm's Way", was much, much better. "To Serve All My Days" (the one with Walter Koenig reprising his role as Chekov) was excellent. And I just finished watching the new one, "World Enough and Time".
It's been a long time since I've cried at a TV show or a movie. But I did this time. George Takei reprises Sulu, but it isn't just stunt casting. Watch it. It's just beautifully and powerfully done.
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Sometimes I catch some Enterprise reruns on sci-fi. Did the show ever do anything with the aliens who needed to destroy Earth because they somehow knew we were going to destroy them? Cause that was a cool plot arc.
For some reason, most of the episodes I've seen seem to be dumping on the Vulcans. And reminding us that Tapaul isn't a normal Vulcan. She's special. (I'll refrain from voicing my opinion on why they thought she was so special in deference to the family nature of the forum.)
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I'm about 1/2 way through the pilot. It's worth watching, but I'm glad to hear it gets better.
Between "Amazing Grace" (wth?), the bad Shatner imitation, and that ridiculously shaped cargo ship -- not to mention a couple of shots of the WRONG Enterprise -- I'm not terribly impressed.
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Kirk's hair gets better, and by the time I finished watching, he didn't even feel like an imitation to me anymore. Spock, on the other hand, feels a little too young (baby-faced) for me.
After the pilot, they switched actors for Chekov and Scotty, and Cawley's Kirk became a little less overacted (you don't want him not to overact at all, because then he wouldn't be believable as James T. Kirk).
The effects improve, the acting improves, the score improves, and the stories improve.
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Oh, sorry, five. I forgot about the animated series.
There's never been a Star Trek show called Enterprise. People who think there was probably also think there were sequels to The Matrix and that there was a fifth Star Trek movie between the 4th and 6th.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: The effects improve, the acting improves, the score improves, and the stories improve.
Yes, OH BOY yes, yes, and yes.
Couldn't manage to watch the second half of the pilot. But "In Harm's Way" was fairly good; the "Center Seat" vignette was fun; and I'm only a couple minutes into "To Serve All My Days," but I am enjoying it very much.
Thanks for the reassurance.
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So I downloaded the pilot; I'm getting from the comments that maybe I should just bypass it and go straight for the next ones?
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Definitely a good call. I had completely forgotten about this show, and had never watched any of it. I've now watched the first three episodes, and I can safely say that without people's assurances here that it got better I'd have stopped watching the pilot about when rivka did, and never gone on to the other episodes.
The episodes seem to get exponentially better, so I'm guessing that by the fifth or so they'll actually be of similar quality to the original series. They really need to either kill off Scotty or find an actor that can consistently maintain a Scottish accent, though.
quote:Originally posted by Noemon: They really need to either kill off Scotty or find an actor that can consistently maintain a Scottish accent, though.
Why? Jimmy Doohan never could.
I think I'll be skipping the one written by David Gerrold. Even Denise Crosby isn't enough bait to make me sit through two hours of that man's bile-laden political screeds. I have tried in the past. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I don't really know much about Gerrold. I found his "With My Finger in My I" to be far less clever than I suspect Gerrold did, but that's the only story of his I can recall having read (though I'm sure there are others).
I was surprised to see a young Chekov at his post on the bridge, alive and well, in "The World Enough and Time". Did he not die as an old, old man at the end of "To Serve All My Days"?
[Edited to add quotation marks around episode titles]
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Okay, I just finished "The World Enough and Time", and found it to be head and shoulders above the episodes that proceeded it. Wow. There were some problems with the story, but none that wouldn't have been found in an episode of TOS.
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I'm assuming that "World Enough and Time" (no "the", btw) takes place before "To Serve All My Days". But yes, that bothered me as well.
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That was the assumption I went with too, but having to do so grated.
I got the episode title from the episode download page. I take it that the title within the actual episode doesn't have the article?
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) but I think that there was a kind of optimism, especially concerning space, during those times that made the idealistic representation of humans possible. I may be stretching this kind of theory a little too far, but I think that this kind of thing does transfer into what people are willing to produce and what people are willing to watch.![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
