The Tribble Ate My Homework

Greenfinger.

The problem, you see, is that the Star Trek DVD came out Tuesday, and since the original series premiered when we were seven (Thursdays at 8:30 on NBC, followed by Dragnet, and then Dean Martin), we have something of a primal interest in it, but when the planet blew up, and then the dude’s mom was killed, we started wondering what fucking alternate universe have we landed in, not to mention the dude and the chick sucking face on the transporter pad, and then apparently we missed a cool gag in the starship wreckage, although we did notice the Tribble, and why is it the best Trek movies are directed by Trek-agnostics like J.J. Abrams and Nicholas Meyer, the latter of whom had never even seen the series before doing Khan, and oh shit aren’t we supposed to write a morning post?

So, yeah. Sarah Palin sucks.

11 Comments

Aw man, Star Trek is another on the long list of movies that was going to be my first Blue-Ray DVD. But since I’m pretty much flat broke and unable to afford a blu-ray player at the moment, guess the regular DVD will have to do.

Wasn’t the first directed by Robert Wise? By me a very fine director, The Sound of Music, and editor of such movies as Citizen Kane. I dimly remember seeing it. Wasn’t there a fine sequence at the beginning as the ship was revealed?

And I think this should probably be the last of this morning’s missives. I thank you all for your support. I couldn’t have done it without you. This is the happiest day of my life. I want to thank my agent and my co-star and all the little people everywhere who worked so hard to make me look so good and I want to thank God and my parents and…

Wait. Whut?

@Benedick:
indeed Robert Wise. and it was the best Star Trek movie until the Abrams one. (I totally disagree with the CW that the Wrath of Khan is better) I loved the new one. loved it. so much that it has made me really hopeful for the prospects of the screen adaptation of the Stephen King masterpiece The Dark Tower which is one of those things that just do not seem very easy to adapt to the screen. but since Abrams is also doing that I am hopeful.

ps
about the planet. that was the single most inspired way to relaunch a series I have ever seen. go back and change history so that it can unfold in different ways. anything could happen now.

I was a big fan of The Original Series, or “TOS” as the Trekkies call it. One thing I learned is that, if you’re a starship captain, you can make out with a lot of alien women. I look forward to it.

To fanboys (especially Trek fanboys) everything is sacred. Can’t take chances. Can’t kill Spock. Can’t blow up Vulcan. Etc.

To be fair for every Nicolas Myers and Abrahms there is Berman and Braga who rode Trek to a well deserved irrelevancy.

@ManchuCandidate:
I dunno I work with a lot of geek fanboys and pretty much to a person they were psyched by the new Trek movie. it was hard to hear a discouraging word about it.

I do remember having to explain to a couple why blowing up the planet would now allow things to unfold in completely different ways but whatever.

@Capt Howdy:

I was annoyed that they once again had to invoke the “time travel” BS; historically, that’s been the last refuge of Trek writers that wrote themselves into a corner.

Cases on point: the later bits of Voyager, Star Trek IV (blech), and the painfully craptastical entire run of Enterprise. On the last one, I kept hoping that Bakula would “leap” into a better show…

@al2o3cr:
good point.
but just because time travel has been abused in the past . . .

well. I liked it. but then I am a shameless trekie and I really loved the idea that they are now no longer bound by the previous events in the series.
if the intent was really to “reboot” the series IMO that was the best way to do it.

one other word about that movie. I thought the casting was absolutely inspired. the best evah.

Genius creative move. Before I realized what was going on, I was thinking “How are they going to back themselves out of this corner?”

The moment I understood they were committing to it, I was reminded of Ron Moore’s complaint: By the time he worked on the series, he was boxed in by canon — couldn’t make a move because of a throwaway line of Shatner’s in 1967.

Now they can run it whatever direction they want, and you don’t walk into the next movie knowing the ending.

on the subject of Trekies:

Local dad spoke only Klingon to child for three years

that is going to be one hell of a tell-all book. lets hope it does not have to be translated from Klingon.

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