Star Trek

[Buster's Uncle]

What's with the lame pseudo-movie era pseudo-retro uniforms?  It's hard to believe legal reasons - if CBS's lawyers wanted to get tetchy, that wouldn't save them for a second.  So what were they thinking?  Not very good costume uniforms and neither fish nor fowl.

Two more continuity points for the pic /w Sulu on the wall, at least TRYING to handwave the age thing with a mention of medical advances, and for remembering that Chekhov was working security in the movies - which is easy to miss.

[Buster's Uncle]

...It took me until they showed her in extreme closeup -making out with a hologram- to clock Sean Young.  Oh, how the mighty have fallen...

[Buster's Uncle]

Low expectations going in are definitely helping me enjoy this - I expected to hate every second, so when they get something right, it's a delight.  The acting is bad and it doesn't seem to be about anything interesting, but if you can get past Chekov's relative youth, they're getting him right.  -I only expected a five-minute cameo in the setup, but this is a substantial part.  This is something like the fellow he was supposed to grow up to be, and didn't get to in the movies.  Level-headed and experienced, confident, capable - hasn't been tortured and/or screamed any yet.

-He has a model of the real Enterprise in his office.  None of that &^%$#@! movie crap, either.  The callbacks to real Star Trek would be easy to blow by overdoing, but they're hitting it just right.

Persons inexplicably enamored of the little [censored] have to give this turkey of a movie a watch - remember to go in knowing it sucks and everyone hates it, and you'll enjoy as of halfway through...

[Valka]

If you're referring to McCoy in Encounter at Farpoint, his age was given as 137. And considering that DeForest Kelley was quite a bit older than Walter Koenig... that, plus the admittedly speculative medical advances the Federation will have made in the meantime, make Admiral Chekov look more youthful.

But remember this is a film, and even fan films have a makeup department. If you recall the footage of the convention you posted earlier, in RL he looks anything but youthful.

[Buster's Uncle]

Which con footage?  That talk -sans comb-over or rug- I posted something like six months ago?  I saw him looking puffy and old in person at cons in person over 30 years ago.

I think I already addressed everything you bring up, though I would have sworn McCoy was only 105-111 (something like that, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't stated onscreen, so all non-canon bullcrap anyway).

Okay, I didn't mention that McCoy had roughly twenty years on Chekov -they never said how old anyone was onscreen, so I'm going by appearances- to begin with because none of us are stupid.  No need to talk to me like I am; Farpoint came out in 1987(6?), and since the actors aged as the various series ran and this is set a while after Voyager -- so assuming 28 years since TNG began can't be too far off, and I was figuring that into my remarks about age.  Forgive me if I don't always waste time showing my calculations.

They went on to make explicit that Pavel is 143 here, which at least roughly works out consistent w/ McCoy in Farpoint, and handwave his apparent youth with a mention of medical advances.  (I had thought about that, but didn't expect them to bother to address it.)

[Buster's Uncle]

A few words on the script and Livia's pirate crew - it's a pity they have the Matt Sykes guy and didn't give him more to do; he's not a great actor, but he's never terrible, which you can't say about all the rest - especially sad with such a weak lead put out in front of him.  I don't think there's any appeal to the ship, the interiors, the assorted skanky-looking people (with one exception I'll go into) or the costumes, which not being good to look at probably hurts all their scenes more than the so-so acting.

The thing that impresses me about the lady with the chest?  You really notice her in the middle of all those nasty-looking characters --- and they don't make the Pieces of Eight/T'Bossoms mistake (so far) of rubbing your nose in it.  (Save the obvious jokes for after I'm done.)

I don't like how they had the Al Gore-looking Borg kid (not sure I can spell Eechib right w/o looking it up) turn out -He was nice, back in the day- but I can't say I don't believe it.

So, a lot done wrong, with an unfortunate overall look and a weak lead - but the writing's pretty good, in the sense that the people are people, with personalities and histories and relationships.  They stirred in just the right amount of soap opera elements so far -whether you think the elements are interesting could be another matter- to give it credible nuance and depth.

-I have the idea that this is one of those deals where (rather desperate) pros hope they can sell their flick to CBS as some sort of pilot and see some real ongoing paying work out of the deal.  Characterization/soap opera mixed into a script is never a bad idea, given time in the story, and definite points for that.  -Also, a very good idea for a 'pilot'.

If their part of the movie doesn't work -and I don't think it does all that well, because 'dark'- it's not because of script-writing competence, which is a very pleasant surprise.

-Do mark down that I praised a bit of 'Star Trek' writing onscreen since 1969...

[Buster's Uncle]

That's Olivia Munn, isn't it?  I ain't too swift sometimes.  When did she buy enough chest to push up like that?

[Buster's Uncle]

A little soap opera with the bad guy and his son, too - some Khan-and-Joachim action in reverse, and not badly-done, for all that it's an unimaginative villain race, to put it kindly, in rubber mask appliances that would have been very impressive circa Planet of the Apes - but here, draw a little too much attention to themselves when the fake lips move.  Still well-written soap opera business, though.

[Buster's Uncle]

BTW?  It's never impossible to communicate when your ship is covered with working running lights...

[Valka]

Which con footage?  That talk -sans comb-over or rug- I posted something like six months ago?  I saw him looking puffy and old in person at cons in person over 30 years ago.

I think I already addressed everything you bring up, though I would have sworn McCoy was only 105-111 (something like that, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't stated onscreen, so all non-canon bullcrap anyway).

If I knew how to post YouTube videos here, I could show you the exact scene in which Data is escorting McCoy around the Enterprise-D and they mention his age: 137 years.

Okay, I didn't mention that McCoy had roughly twenty years on Chekov -they never said how old anyone was onscreen, so I'm going by appearances- to begin with because none of us are stupid.  No need to talk to me like I am; Farpoint came out in 1987(6?), and since the actors aged as the various series ran and this is set a while after Voyager -- so assuming 28 years since TNG began can't be too far off, and I was figuring that into my remarks about age.  Forgive me if I don't always waste time showing my calculations.

Where did I talk to you like you're stupid? That's uncalled-for.

It was stated in Who Mourns for Adonais? that Chekov is 22 years old. McCoy was older than Kirk, and since the original plan for The Way to Eden was to have his daughter, Joanna, as one of the space hippies, we can assume that McCoy is at least 40 during the third season of TOS.

[Buster's Uncle]

I bristle a little sometimes at the assumption that you have to explain all this to me like I don't know my Trek.  I usually let it pass, but you may have noticed that I'm a little testy of late - seems like a lot of that going around, making me feel a little defensive.

They took Joanna out of Way to Eden from a wrong-headed wish to not make McCoy that much older - and Dorothy Fontana took her name off the script, what with the heart ripped out of Joanna to make a worse-than-usual episode.  But I have eyes, and no way was McCoy in his thirties; that's wrong for the character anyway, he being a cranky old man in a cranky middle-aged man's body.


Take the 's' out of https when you paste a URL - dunno why, but then it'll embed.  The 's' is something to do with web security.

[Buster's Uncle]

-And the bit I broke off to post:  when did Captain Parker Lewis Can't Lose beam down to Starfleet headquarters?  Did a little establishing scene get cut?

[Buster's Uncle]

I think the little badguy flotilla that took off for Earth vanished into a plot hole...

[Buster's Uncle]

Is Chekov's assassin girl suppose to be Romulan?  The (lame) forehead ridges don't go on a Vulcan -which I initially assumed she was- even in TNG-era 'Star Trek'.

[Buster's Uncle]

I did see the reveal about Fixer coming, but only about a minute in advance, to their credit.

It's looking like they're not going to blow all the secrets they set up, like what the deal with Livia-the-Khan-girl is, in the next few minutes, and it's shaping up as competent 'pilot' setup.  Pity we won't get to see any payoff, but you have to understand, given the makers' motivations.