ST TMP questions

[kmart]

Despite its rather slow feeling throughout the movie, I though it was pretty good. I LOATHED the 10 minute Travel pod scene to the Enterprise.

10 minutes of no dialouge and Kirk staring at the Enterprise with an expression on his face that looked like he was on the verge of orgasm!
[snip]
PS: I am new here, nice place.

If you want everybody to play nice, why are you tearing the filmmakers a new one over one of the best-done scenes in the movie? Of course, if your vcr/dvd causes the scene to last 10 minutes instead of the 5 minutes it lasts for everybody else, then maybe it needs servicing. If you check out some early TOS, like THE NAKED TIME, you can see ShatMan doing some shticks about the ship that make this reaction shot of his in TMP look tame by comparison ... kinda evokes, 'it's okay to love your dog, just don't LOVE your dog.'

If you have a fear of no-talk scenes, I'm guessing 2001 and every silent movie ever made ain't your things either.

[AdmiralKanos]

If you have a fear of no-talk scenes, I'm guessing 2001 and every silent movie ever made ain't your things either.

Chill out. If you liked that scene, you're in the minority. It's BORING, and it's clearly designed for self-indulgent wanking. Does the pitifully slow progression of that scene somehow improve the story? Does it develop character? Does it advance the plot? Does it give us any insights on ANYTHING? No. It's just self-indulgence.

And yes, before you ask, I didn't like 2001 either. Too goddamned slow, and I'm not going to service the critics by pretending to like everything they like. You'd have a pretty good episode of "The Outer Limits" with that movie if you cut out the endless buildup, the half-hour acid trip at the end, and just kept the essentials of the story.

[kmart]

If you have a fear of no-talk scenes, I'm guessing 2001 and every silent movie ever made ain't your things either.

Chill out. If you liked that scene, you're in the minority. It's BORING, and it's clearly designed for self-indulgent wanking. Does the pitifully slow progression of that scene somehow improve the story? Does it develop character? Does it advance the plot? Does it give us any insights on ANYTHING? No. It's just self-indulgence.

And yes, before you ask, I didn't like 2001 either. Too goddamned slow, and I'm not going to service the critics by pretending to like everything they like. You'd have a pretty good episode of "The Outer Limits" with that movie if you cut out the endless buildup, the half-hour acid trip at the end, and just kept the essentials of the story.

Maybe YOU are the one who needs to bite deep into the chill pill. If you need all your entertainment served up in neat 3-act forms with just the proper requisite balance of talk vs. action, then drama probably peaked for you with Quinn-Martin productions of BARNABY JONES back in the 70s.

Movies aren't just about character, they are about characters in an environment. If you don't believe me, check ALIEN, another movie from that same year which people cut a lot more slack, despite the crazy number of anachronistic toggle switches all over the ship. Do all the loving dolly shots at the start of THAT movie tell you anything about character, even though we haven't even seen any people yet? TMP is the rare Trek instance when some sense of scale and majesty creep into that universe, so the more sedate moments that give the show some much-needed scale are quite welcome.

And to readdress the character issue once more, there IS character being covered, in terms of Kirks' nonverbal response. I'm not a TMP gusher, BTW ... I've got LOTS of problems with TMP in terms of lighting and sets and color and contrast as well as plotting and direction, but it still tries to bring some stuff to the party that Harve Bennett wouldn't dare to do, stuff that Rick Berman wouldn't even know how to spell.

If you don't dig 2001, your loss. If it is any consolation to you, most of those critics you seem to think liked it ... well, they didn't like it either. Believe me, I've researched 2001 rather extensively ... I spent several months putting together a 50,000 word article on its production history, and have read at least a couple hundred reviews of the film.

As for being in the minority with a viewpoint, what is YOUR point? I like MATRIX and GATTACA; one is a popular viewpoint, the other is not. Popularity doesn't invalidate a viewpoint, only inane, derisive discussion or outright dismissal of valid criticism does that.

[Vympel]

Actually, if you give III another listen, you can hear that for once in his career, Horner doesn't rip off Goldsmith ... his Klingon theme in III is only vaguely similar in terms of orchestration, but it doesn't use the same melody at all, and it ain't nowhere near as good.

Yeah, unfortunately I don't have ST III on DVD, so I haven't heard it in a long time- but I do remember that it had great music during the theft of the Enterprise, and the buildup to when the BoP uncloaks.

But really, you can't tell me that the opening theme to TWoK wasn't awesome- I prefer it to the Goldsmith theme.

[Vympel]

And yes, before you ask, I didn't like 2001 either. Too goddamned slow, and I'm not going to service the critics by pretending to like everything they like. You'd have a pretty good episode of "The Outer Limits" with that movie if you cut out the endless buildup, the half-hour acid trip at the end, and just kept the essentials of the story.

[C-3P0 in ROTJ]He agrees![/C-3P0 in ROTJ)

Good god that last half-hour was incomprehenisble nonsense.

[TurboPhaser]

Despite its rather slow feeling throughout the movie, I though it was pretty good. I LOATHED the 10 minute Travel pod scene to the Enterprise.

10 minutes of no dialouge and Kirk staring at the Enterprise with an expression on his face that looked like he was on the verge of orgasm!
[snip]
PS: I am new here, nice place.

If you want everybody to play nice, why are you tearing the filmmakers a new one over one of the best-done scenes in the movie? Of course, if your vcr/dvd causes the scene to last 10 minutes instead of the 5 minutes it lasts for everybody else, then maybe it needs servicing. If you check out some early TOS, like THE NAKED TIME, you can see ShatMan doing some shticks about the ship that make this reaction shot of his in TMP look tame by comparison ... kinda evokes, 'it's okay to love your dog, just don't LOVE your dog.'

If you have a fear of no-talk scenes, I'm guessing 2001 and every silent movie ever made ain't your things either.

Relax already! I was obviously exaggerating, but I was just trying to say that (yes, it is 5 minutes, but it felt longer) scene was over - done.

I know Kirk loves his ship, but that scene crossed between love and Kirk being hypnotised.

[kmart]

But really, you can't tell me that the opening theme to TWoK wasn't awesome- I prefer it to the Goldsmith theme.

Well, I can tell you that, but you don't have to believe it.

I actually like alot of Horner's stuff, esp the battle stuff in TWOK, just for the most part it isn't really his work, it is ripped from decades' worth of classsical and film composers. And not just creative borrowing ... wholesale xeroxing is a closer description.

Christ, the guy keeps taking that 'running round the centrifuge' music from 2001 and sticking it in EVERYwhere, in ALIENS and in PATRIOT GAMES and at least another couple films, and he hasn't gotten his ass sued off! Just don't understand how he gets away with it. He repeats his own stuff often enough too ... listen to 48hrs and GORKY PARK and COMMANDO and you'll see that they are all the same tune, usually with the same orchestration. COCOON and KRULL and KHAN and WOLFEN have got the same stuff too ... and he does something in TREK 3 that turns up in BRAINSTORM and UNCOMMON VALOR and CLEAR & PRESENT and ... shit, it just goes on & on.

Somebody asked Goldsmith once about other composers stealing his stuff (this was in the early 80s), and he said he was flattered. I gotta figure he must love Horner ... listen to BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS and it is underorchestrated Goldsmith through and through, mixing PATTON and GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY and so many others ...

[Darth Wong]

Maybe YOU are the one who needs to bite deep into the chill pill. If you need all your entertainment served up in neat 3-act forms with just the proper requisite balance of talk vs. action, then drama probably peaked for you with Quinn-Martin productions of BARNABY JONES back in the 70s.

I never said that, and please stop putting words in my mouth. I only said that I dislike pointless, slow-moving scenes. What part of this escapes your grasp?

Movies aren't just about character, they are about characters in an environment. If you don't believe me, check ALIEN, another movie from that same year which people cut a lot more slack, despite the crazy number of anachronistic toggle switches all over the ship. Do all the loving dolly shots at the start of THAT movie tell you anything about character, even though we haven't even seen any people yet?

No, which is why the beginning is dull. Ever hear anyone talk about how they loved the beginning of Alien?

TMP is the rare Trek instance when some sense of scale and majesty creep into that universe, so the more sedate moments that give the show some much-needed scale are quite welcome.

Except that those moments do not give the show any sense of scale. The Enterprise is not some wondrous creature we're discovering for the first time, nor is it some stupendous object with which we are not familiar. Far from it; it is quite well known to us, and the slow-moving fan-wank "let's slooooowly approach the Enterprise and show Kirk spooging himself" scene did not change anything or introduce anything, not even in terms of environment.

And to readdress the character issue once more, there IS character being covered, in terms of Kirks' nonverbal response. I'm not a TMP gusher, BTW ... I've got LOTS of problems with TMP in terms of lighting and sets and color and contrast as well as plotting and direction, but it still tries to bring some stuff to the party that Harve Bennett wouldn't dare to do, stuff that Rick Berman wouldn't even know how to spell.

TMP might have been a good one-hour episode, which is more than you can say for a lot of Berman stuff. But it IS stretched out and painfully dull in many ways.

If you don't dig 2001, your loss. If it is any consolation to you, most of those critics you seem to think liked it ... well, they didn't like it either. Believe me, I've researched 2001 rather extensively ... I spent several months putting together a 50,000 word article on its production history, and have read at least a couple hundred reviews of the film.

So you don't mind slow-moving, pointless scenes. I get it. Not surprising that you differ on your feelings about TMP, then.

As for being in the minority with a viewpoint, what is YOUR point? I like MATRIX and GATTACA; one is a popular viewpoint, the other is not. Popularity doesn't invalidate a viewpoint, only inane, derisive discussion or outright dismissal of valid criticism does that.

Subjective opinions on the entertainment value of a movie are not logical arguments, and cannot be judged the same way. Besides, movie box-office grosses are not strictly an indication of how many people like a movie, since they are heavily skewed by the numbers of people who don't even give a movie a chance to see if they would like it, or who go see a movie without having any idea whether they would like it beforehand.

[NecronLord]

The energy cloud looks like it must have been some kind of illusion, like an animal which tries to look bigger than it is. It dissipated with no trace, after all. The real ship is only 78km long according to the novelization, assuming Necronlord remembers it correctly.

Of course I do, I checked first...

Anyway, it doesn't actually seem to vapourize them; it just makes them vanish, almost as if it's using some kind of transporter-like system. But if Worf can keep a bunch of JH ships out of warp in DS9, I see no reason why V'Ger can't. If V'Ger used a tractor beam or shut down their power systems I don't see why they'd be able to fly away at all.

I don't see why there should be a trace of it. If it's switched off, it's switched off. Besides, 78Km dwarves anything else seen in Trek anyway, why would it need to make itself look intimidating, it is intimidating.

It's energy field had dissapated when it decellerated and it left Vejur looking even more alien and deadly.

Nope, it doesn't vaporise them. In the film it NDFs them, in the book it implodes them.

It was obviously and energy bolt of some sort - then the Klingon vessel was enveloped by angry whiplashes of wild, green enegy, crushed and then it simply imploded into nothingness! The other two cruisers were now firing torpedoes too, and were being destroyed as easily and frighteningly.

Later spock encounters a copy of one of them in Vejur's display room.

If it shut down the warp core then the Klingons would have been able to retreat at impulse. That said, there's the possibility that they were at warp, do we see a starfield in the background? (if you rented it on DVD you couldn't get a screenshot could you?) If we don't then they could simply be at warp but unable to outrun Vejur (nothing in the federation fleet was able to after all.)

[NecronLord]

The Star Trek Phase II guide interestingly includes the Original Treatment and first drafts of "In thy image." it is indeed better than any episode of Voy/DS9/Ent/and even most of TNG.

However the scenes showing off the enterprise are still there - although that nonsense with the wormhole is not - though that may be excused as every pilot episode seems to go to great lengths to show ther viewers the ship...

Similarly the uniforms were designed for the small screen thus they suck compared to the other film era uniforms.

[kmart]

You're making some huge leaps in your thinking, bud. This "like slow scenes" crap is a great example. Because I like every frame of 2001, that means I like slow scenes? Those frames are full of rich images, backed by a great score/soundfx mix. The pace of a scene doesn't relate strictly to making story points. You seem to want a one-to-one correlation between story points and screen time -- that's not putting words in your mouth, that's me interpretting your comments.

Before TMP, we had NEVER seen the Enterprise in a situation that gave us an idea of what a person looked like next to it, so the scale issue is absolutely justifiable, not just from a 'major motion picture' viewpoint, but also from a storytelling viewpoint. Plus, if you take into account the 'old-school' filmmaking style, that is the way films were made (Wise's HINDENBERG does a lot of this in similar ways.) You could argue that SW does the scale thing faster and better with their opening shot, but if Trek had done that, everybody would have been screaming ripoff, so they took a different route. Probably a lose-lose for them at that point in time.

Most people I know just plain-out love ALL of ALIEN (though I am not among them -- I like the characterizations and some design elements quite alot, but find the movie very slow and not engaging -- I much prefer ALIENS and a lot of the first part of ALIEN REZ, where they are spending time on the FIREFLY like privateer.) So I'm guessing the slow runup in ALIEN (which is par for the course in a haunted house movie, where they make a point of showing you the rooms before turning the boogey man loose) is not something that bugs all that many folk. AGAIN, CHARACTERS in AN ENVIRONMENT, not just characters.

This is pretty much all subjective, since it is a matter of what somebody finds dull. I found SMOKEY & THE BANDIT dull despite the amount of action, and the same was true for MOONRAKER, cuz those movies seemed to be churning up the same repetetive kinds of action without any inventiveness. On the other hand, another no-brainer, ACTION JACKSON, at least contains some charm for me and I can rewatch it, despite plot idiocies and the worst cinematography in memory, because there was a sense of fun about it for me. I can justify my choices about dullness, and have, above; yours (IMO) seem to be based mostly on duration, not content.

[kmart]

The Star Trek Phase II guide interestingly includes the Original Treatment and first drafts of "In thy image." it is indeed better than any episode of Voy/DS9/Ent/and even most of TNG.

However the scenes showing off the enterprise are still there - although that nonsense with the wormhole is not - though that may be excused as every pilot episode seems to go to great lengths to show ther viewers the ship...

Similarly the uniforms were designed for the small screen thus they suck compared to the other film era uniforms.

The uniforms for phase 2 were pretty much revamps of the old series clothing, but the TMP uniforms were all custom for the movie, specifically for director Wise, who had the in-place costume guy replaced after he came on. They suck because that is what the director wanted, not cuz they were designed for the small screen.

[NecronLord]

If you need all your entertainment served up in neat 3-act forms

Dumbass.

TMP is a three act form

Prologue: Encounter with the Klingons
Act 1: Kirk gets the Enterprise back and sets off to tackle Vejur
Act 2: Enterprise encounters Vejur.
Act 3: Vejur arrives at Earth and learns the truth.

For that matter 2001 is a three act form.

Prologue: Apes in africa
Act 1: Humanity discovers TMA1
Act 2: Jupiter Mission
Act 3: Absurdly drawn out (it fills all of two chapters in the book, and as anyone who's read Arthur C Clarke knows, his chapters tend to be very short) Bowman gets swallowed by the monolith bit.

Oh, don't forget Shakespere's plays...

[kmart]

Maybe YOU are the one who needs to bite deep into the chill pill. If you need all your entertainment served up in neat 3-act forms with just the proper requisite balance of talk vs. action, then drama probably peaked for you with Quinn-Martin productions of BARNABY JONES back in the 70s.

I never said that, and please stop putting words in my mouth. I only said that I dislike pointless, slow-moving scenes. What part of this escapes your grasp?

Recheck on the above: I believe my response was to somebody named admiral something, not to you. Other responses to your most recent post are just above this one.

[NecronLord]

was to somebody named admiral something

AdmiralKanos is one with Darth Wong. They are the two faced god of SD.Net.

[kmart]

If you need all your entertainment served up in neat 3-act forms

Dumbass.

TMP is a three act form

Prologue: Encounter with the Klingons
Act 1: Kirk gets the Enterprise back and sets off to tackle Vejur
Act 2: Enterprise encounters Vejur.
Act 3: Vejur arrives at Earth and learns the truth.

For that matter 2001 is a three act form.

Prologue: Apes in africa
Act 1: Humanity discovers TMA1
Act 2: Jupiter Mission
Act 3: Absurdly drawn out (it fills all of two chapters in the book, and as anyone who's read Arthur C Clarke knows, his chapters tend to be very short) Bowman gets swallowed by the monolith bit.

Oh, don't forget Shakespere's plays...

Double dumbass on you.

I can give you so many different breakdowns of 2001's structure your head would spin, and you could do the same for yourself if you were inclined to pursue the issue rather than make sport. I can also give you stuff from Kubrick himself that does support A 3-act structure for the film, but you can look that up for yourself as well.

My point, which you missed in your rush to 'educate' me, is that conventionality is not the be-all/end-all. It can serve as the point of departure, or you can be enslave and strangled by it. I think you might be too taken with Clarke's novel ... not saying that is a bad thing, I really liked it as a kid, but the film is not a literal translation of the prose (thank christ!)

For myself, I still see TMP's structure as being that of a TV movie, with several 'acts' -- though it fails to provide many 'hooks' to keep the viewer watching.

[kmart]

was to somebody named admiral something

AdmiralKanos is one with Darth Wong. They are the two faced god of SD.Net.

Apologies to all concerned then. Is that something I missed in the FAQ, or do I need to rewatch PHANTOM MENACE to catch some subtle hint that Palpatine and Sideous are really Kanos and Wong?

[Kurgan]

What's probably confusing you is that Mike has several forum aliases... AdmiralKanos being one of them.

IIRC....

[BenRG]

Why didn't the Klingon warships in the beginning of the movie use warp drive to get out of there when they were in full retreat? Was V'ger creating an interdiction field?

The cloud itself was moving at warp speed. The Klingons had matched warp velocities and were moving inside V'ger's warp field. I don't think you can activate warp drive under those circumstances. What the last K'tinga was doing, IMHO, was attempting to reach the edge of the warp bubble. Once through the edge, it would quickly drop behind V'ger and out of weapons range.

Where did the "82 AU" figure for V'ger's diameter come from? The Epsilon 9 space station reported its diameter as "over 2 AU", not 82 AU.

Well, I always thought it was 83AU myself. Maybe you heard wrong. Did your copy of the film have subtitles or Closed Captions?

Has anybody scaled the ship which we saw once the cloud dissipated? You can see it pretty clearly near the end of the movie as it approaches Earth.

I haven't scaled it scientifically, but based purely on my recollections, the navigational deflector/bug-eye thingy was about 10 to 12 times wider than the Enterprise. Add the main superstructure and the 'wings' and the width rises to about 20 to 30 times. It is impossible to tell the length as you never see the entire V'ger core ship in any one shot, but I would suggest it was several hundred times longer than the Enterprise. The weapons generator (lightning pit) alone was about ten to twelve times longer.

[Kurgan]

Nevermind, you beat me!

Actually, the more I watch "Alien" the more I like it, including the slow build up. Of course the first time I saw it, I had no idea what was going to happen (well, vaguely, everybody knows a monster's going to come out and wreck havoc eventually), so the buildup was tedius, a real "well... get on with it.." thing.

The idea being we're put into this impersonal, spooky old ship where the lives of the crew are in the hands of a cold, emotionless machine. HAL 9000 in 2001 was scary with his Bob Griswald-esque voice and his paranoia, but in a different way.

As far as action is concerned there isn't a whole lot to be had in either film really, and I do prefer Aliens, but I can appreciate Alien and 2001 for what they are, cool stories, told in a more subtle and subdued way than Star Wars.

[kmart]

^^Theatrical and laserdisc were always 82 AUs, as was, I believe, the novel.

I recall that you actually see the warp engines turn off on the klingon ships toward the end of the opening shot, so they seem to drop out of warp without any change in perspective or velocity. Doesn't make any sense if the thing is going warp 7 for the klingons to drop out of warp to approach it, but that is just like the cloud situation later on, which also doesn't makes sense, (as Dykstra pointed out) that the cloud hits epsilon 9 at warp 7 and yet still manages to take awhile to eat it.

EDIT ADD-ON: Turns out I'm full of shit on this klingon dropping out of warp point, as noted later on. Eating humble pie already, okay?

[NecronLord]

I can give you so many different breakdowns of 2001's structure your head would spin, and you could do the same for yourself if you were inclined to pursue the issue rather than make sport. I can also give you stuff from Kubrick himself that does support A 3-act structure for the film, but you can look that up for yourself as well.

Get this into your head. I will not take what you say on trust.

Technically the film was not shot to the script. However the origninal 'script' is here Thus the film was cocieved as a 4 act form however they quite rightly ditched the D section, as everyone would have left the cinema. So, if you have evidence as opposed to 'media studies' esque "interpretation" bovine excrement then bring it forward. Else conceede.

My point, which you missed in your rush to 'educate' me, is that conventionality is not the be-all/end-all.

And I claimed it was where. Oh. I see. I didn't. Concession accepted.

It can serve as the point of departure, or you can be enslave and strangled by it.

I see. *dies of strangulation *

I think you might be too taken with Clarke's novel ...

Errr. OK the film is based on the novel. Thus the novel > the film.

not saying that is a bad thing, I really liked it as a kid, but the film is not a literal translation of the prose (thank christ!)

No, instead it inserts long and dragging shots of endless special effects and an unessecsery extended sequence at the end.

For myself, I still see TMP's structure as being that of a TV movie, with several 'acts' -- though it fails to provide many 'hooks' to keep the viewer watching.

[BenRG]

I recall that you actually see the warp engines turn off on the klingon ships toward the end of the opening shot, so they seem to drop out of warp without any change in perspective or velocity.

I don't recall that myself. Of course, that might have been them turning off their warp field generators as soon as they were inside the much larger V'ger warp field.

As for the E9 question, as it seems that V'ger agressively attacked the relay station as per its' main mission, it possibly dropped out of warp to take a shot or two.

[NecronLord]

I recall that you actually see the warp engines turn off on the klingon ships toward the end of the opening shot, so they seem to drop out of warp without any change in perspective or velocity.

The enterprise was able to drop it's warp drive once within Vejur's influence, the Klingons would have done the same.

Doesn't make any sense if the thing is going warp 7 for the klingons to drop out of warp to approach it, but that is just like the cloud situation later on, which also doesn't makes sense, (as Dykstra pointed out) that the cloud hits epsilon 9 at warp 7 and yet still manages to take awhile to eat it.

It makes less sense for the thing to be travelling STL and be able to outrun all of starfleet and cross from Klingon to Federation space in a matter of days at most.

[kmart]

I recall that you actually see the warp engines turn off on the klingon ships toward the end of the opening shot, so they seem to drop out of warp without any change in perspective or velocity.

I don't recall that myself. Of course, that might have been them turning off their warp field generators as soon as they were inside the much larger V'ger warp field.

As for the E9 question, as it seems that V'ger agressively attacked the relay station as per its' main mission, it possibly dropped out of warp to take a shot or two.

It's my best guess that a lot of this relates more to production/vfx issues than to any sort of trek reality ... maybe the lighting pass on the engines didn't last for the duration of the shot and that is why the engine light fades, or it could be that the light dropoff is attributable to the engines being obscured by distance to camera and perspective change.

And as for the epsilon 9 thing, the quote I remember from Dykstra was something like, 'As long as they don't expect me to make it look like it goes warp 7, I don't give a fuck what they think." I think he was conflicted by the idea of having some integrity, while also getting the work done on time.

You gotta figure these fx guys that were called in late to save everythign had to be laughing when they saw liveaction had been shooting bluescreen with actors wearing blue costumes -- after STAR WARS, even amateur filmmakers knew better than to do that (you can usually tell the bluescreen shots in SUPERMAN as well -- most of it was front projection, but there are a few shots where his costume turns green during the dam scene.)