TOS

[Enlightenment]

The differences between TOS and New Trek can be explained quite easily: market targetting. TOS was aimed at a somwhat adult audience while much of New Trek (particularly Voy) was aimed at the one-handed typist w/ sticky keyboard crowd--ie, male teenagers. Given the intended audience, there was simply no need for Paramount to bother with real plots anymore as teenagers will watch anything on TV that has explosions, fistfights and semi-naked women. As such, Trek fell into formula mode as it had nothing more to say above and beyond 'look at 6of9's catsuit.'

[NecronLord]

Very good example; reminds me of an old joke:

Why do the hedgerows in Normandy grow so high?

So the German armies can march in the shade...

I like it.

Another is, what's the battle cry of the French army when fighting the Germans?

"We surrender!"

The french army actually fought well in 1939, the reasons they lost were;

Poor commanders, who had no concept of mechanised infantry
Polaticians in charge; appeasement
Overconfidence in the 'impregnability' of the maginot line (the germans used blitzkrieg principles and went around the thing)
Superiority of the German army, numerically, and in equipment.

It should be noticed that the british also ran away.

Where would america be without french support for their "Unlawful Combatants" in the Revoloution?

[Devils Advocate]

This will undoubtedly start some flaming but I liken the TOS vs TNG quality to SW 1+2 vs SW 4,5+6.

There is just something missing in Eps 1+2 and for me it was the characters (well that and really crappy Flash Gordon looking ship designs). I didn't really give a rats ass about anyone (even Yoda I'm sorry to say) in Eps 1+2. Flat dialogue didn't help matters as well as very little good humor.

Now, TNG did have some very good characters (Picard Data and Worf) but as a whole they were nowhere near the dynamic of Kirk, Spock and Bones. TOS beats TNG in almost every character point. The same way Eps 4, 5 + 6 of SW beat 1+2.

There were some great episodes in TNG but none that could come close to the better TOS eps.

Final note:

Kirk could kick a guys ass by flinging a pillow at him (Fridays Child). Kirk was and always will be The Man...

[Knife]

I think Patrick Degan hit it right on the head. In Tos the E-nil would get slammed and Kirk would tell Scotty to fix the freaking phasers, and in TNG the E-D would get slammed and Picard would ask for suggestions. Laforge would come up with some stupid remedy that would involve ions, phasing, and recalibration of something or other.
Basicly the original was good because the people acted like people. The Federation was people who wanted to act nicer but when push came to shove they acted just like we would or want to. TNG acted like they were better than everyone, but were not, and so made the most arrogant and stupid mistakes believable.(And sometimes unbelievable)

[Mr Bean]

Where would america be without french support for their "Unlawful Combatants" in the Revoloution?

French money is nice but it still holds true that France Tradtionaly through-out histroy has been pretty bad at most everything war-like, Hell they exiled thier best leader for bob sake

[Cal Wright]

I may sound like an incompetent individual, but personally I felt the special effects of TOS were excellent. Considering the time frame of when they were made. Hell, some of the newer ones look fake at times, for one I think is the animators are like, 'it's CGI no one will notice.' The acting was incrediable. It always seemed like they were weathered friends all over, would do what it took to do the right thing, keep themselves together and alive and just had fun altogether. Even DS9 doesn't match that.

[Patrick Degan]

I may sound like an incompetent individual, but personally I felt the special effects of TOS were excellent. Considering the time frame of when they were made. Hell, some of the newer ones look fake at times, for one I think is the animators are like, 'it's CGI no one will notice.'

What it really came down to was that the original production team had to do the most they could with the little they had, compared to the sort of budget available to a major motion picture. The FX of TOS aren't so much "excellent" or state of the art as they were creatively staged and used sparingly. Additionally, they used 35mm film stock to shoot the material on, and went slightly soft-focussed on the model shots. You'd be surprised at the multitude of sins you can get away with just with a few comparatively simple photographic tricks.

In other cases, it was a matter of simple ingenuity which ended up producing a spectacular visual. Take the episode "Arena" for example; the Metrons represented themselves with a swirling colour pattern on the Enterprise viewscreen (and voiced by the Voice of Control himself, Vic Perrin). Know how they did that? A large tub of water with a variable-pitch rotor to swirl it up and four coloured lights at the corners plus a spot and shot high-contrast. The hyperspatial swirls of Barrier-Space in "Is There In Truth No Beauty"? A rather standard effect of the day involving nothing more than letting smoke waft up over a coloured light with a black backdrop behind it; the gel filter is changed to shoot more smoke footage and the various coloured swirls are simply matted over one another. Gerry Anderson would use a variation of it for his first live-action SF movie Doppleganger (better known in the U.S. as Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun). And the first pilot, "The Cage", featured one of the simplest FX ever; in the scene when Capt. Pike is surveying his new prison and we see some of the other creatures bottled up by the Talosians, one of them is a very much obscured semi-shot of what appears to be a large arachnid-like creature. This was nothing more than a shadow-puppet being cast on the wall of the one cell by a stagehand, but the camera is already panning across to the far side of the corridor and we see it for only three seconds or so. When the dollars are in short supply, you either blow everything on one impressive effect and set of props, or you use ingenuity to stretch those dollars as far as they'll go in every area.

Many FX shots were reused over and over again; you notice the same planet shot with a different coloured gel. One of the most spectacular shots in the series from "The Ultimate Computer" with the majestic formation of the Lexington battle group was nothing more than the same reverse-printed image of the Enterprise matted to four corners of the film frame (look closely and you see the perspectives don't exactly line up the way they would "naturally"). But it sure looked grand, didn't it? Particularly for the 10 seconds or so it was actually on screen.

Creative improvisation. That was one of the prime tricks of the TOS grimoire.

[Master of Ossus]

Some of what they were doing with TOS was amazingly creative in finding ways to work around their limited budget. The transporter was, in fact, a giant method of saving money, as it prevented repeated planetary landings from creating skyrocketing budget issues for the show. Their stars were really just holes poked in cardboard, and many of their pictures were used over and over again, but it was still a great series! The characters really made the show, and the FX were not so bad as to detract from it as a whole.

[Lord Poe]

I have another thing to add about TOS over New Trek. The acting. And yes, that INCLUDES Shatner.

I honestly don't think Shatner is a bad actor. He portrayed Kirk as larger than life, and made him REAL. Picard has never felt real to me. Sisko knashing his teeth together isn't my ideal of acting either.

I think Shatner's best work was in ST2: TWOK. When you watch it again, concentrate on Shatner when the other characters are talking. He's STILL acting, not just waiting to deliver his next line. Check out his emotions toward the beginning where Spock is called "Captain Spock" over the P.A. system, and when Spock informs him he's returning to Enterprise, while Kirk is returning...home.

[NecronLord]

Where would america be without french support for their "Unlawful Combatants" in the Revoloution?

French money is nice but it still holds true that France Tradtionaly through-out histroy has been pretty bad at most everything war-like, Hell they exiled thier best leader for bob sake

Ack, and troops(admittedly few in number) Tactical training, weapons and general assistance. Note what happened to the white-house in 1812 while the french were occupied elsewhere.

A lot of the french poor luck in the last few centuries, has been geographical

They did well in the hundred years wars and such.

You mean Napoleon, I hate to say it but he was corsican not french, He was also exiled by the brits, un-oficailly it was, "Go into Exile or we'll have you ass-raped"