Star Trek... is it really forty-five years old?

[Cody]

Star Trek

[drew]

The original theme tune still gives me a tingle of excitement whenever I hear it. Later shows were never quite 'it' - though 'Wrath of Khan' was excellent and a few episodes of TNG, DS9 and STV were great. Found 'Enterprise' completely 'wrong' - just didn't like it at all.

Cheers,

Drew.

[Mauiby de Fug]

Wow... I'm a trekkie, always will be. My family are rather into sci-fi, and I grew up with TNG, DS9 and "Voyager". My dad used to bounce me up and down on his knee to the TNG theme tune! TOS was great for it's time, if a little laughable now, but well worth the watch to see where everything came from. 'Tis surprised how many things are revisited. "Enterprise" was okay in its own way. 'Twas interesting to see the development of some of the things that you take for granted in Trek - the teleporter, universal translator, force fields etc. Although I have to say that these days I prefer my sci-fi set on ships a little less advanced/ more "realistic", such as Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Babylon 5 and the like, it Star Trek will always have a special place in my heart, and something I will often return to.

(Except that last movie. That doesn't exist.)

[Disembodied]

The original series was, for its time, pretty good. Daft, but it had a charm. DS9 was the best of the rest, I think, in that it was able, eventually and occasionally, not to take itself too seriously. The rest ... had problems: mostly group-huggery and an incredibly smug attitude about just how spiffy human beings are. There they go, travelling the vastnesses of space, perpetually finding people they can teach (to be More Like Us!) and never once bumping into anyone they can learn from. And the endless bloody Pinocchios ...

I saw an interesting comment from Ron Moore, formerly of TNG and lately of BSG, on the use of Treknobabble: I suppose when you're churning out scripts, the quality of the plot is bound to suffer!

[DaddyHoggy]

When I was lucky enough to interview Dwight Shultz he was in both TNG and B5 at the time - he said in interesting thing (I thought) - "TNG is where we [the human race] will aim, all clean and sophisticated, and Babylon5 is where we will end up, much as we are now, just in space."

(and I have photographic proof of the encounter too!)

[Selezen]

When I was lucky enough to interview Dwight Shultz he was in both TNG and B5 at the time - he said in interesting thing (I thought) - "TNG is where we [the human race] will aim, all clean and sophisticated, and Babylon5 is where we will end up, much as we are now, just in space."

(and I have photographic proof of the encounter too!)

Let's see it then!!!

I'm a die hard TOS fan, but I love TNG too. Anyone who says they are a trekkie and doesn't like the original series isn't a real trekkie as far as I am concerned. Without TOS and all its flaws, Trek would not exist. I can tolerate most of DS9 (as long as I switch off my "rebranded Babylon 5" rants), I am willing to accept that Voyager has some good points, and I refuse to acknowledge the existence of Enterprise.

The films are awesome (KHAAAAAAAN), and the new "reboot" film was strangely good. Including the original theme in the end titles was masterful - kudos to Michael Guicchino (spelling) for that - brings a tear to my eye everytime.

[drew]

My homage to the original series...

Cheers,

Drew.

[SandJ]

I must have been watching repeats when watching it circa 1970 to 1972. Each week, my Mum would pick me up from school and buy me one of these on the way home:



and I would eat it watching Star Trek.

I didn't like the kissy bits. I'd hide my face during those.

[SiriusCG]

Yeah, 45 ... hmm ... I'll give away my age but I watched the original series as a kid when it aired. Between StarTrek TOS and the writings of men (and women!) like Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Andre Norton, I would say they sparked in me a lifelong love of space and it's infinite possibilities ...

Cheers

[Selezen]

Oh wow..

<lost in nostalgia land>

[CommonSenseOTB]

Best part of Star Trek TOS has to be the fight music. So good it is routinely parodied.

http://youtu.be/3Rl46Dpy-P4

[snork]

How to make a complete arse of oneself, pt.1 :

Grow up in the 70's in German language sphere, and then later in anglophone online places write stuff along the lines of
"Thou shall not have any Star Trek but Enterprise!"
(and never know why suddenly everyone spits at you).

This is a big and evil trap for German language folks - the original series in German language ran (runs) under the title Raumschiff Enterprise (Spaceship Enterprise).

And this trap works both ways.
Few months ago, one TV channel had Star Trek Fridays, which meant each friday 2 Star trek movies at prime time, and selected episodes from the various series all night long. (one week ST-os, one week NG and so on) - iirc it even came without commercial interruptions.

So one night, when in the tv program it said that in the night they will show episodes from Enterprise, I unsuspectingly was hoping for some nice, maybe even unseen-before episodes of the original series*.
Imagine my surprise when it looked much too modern, and then next what is Scott Bakula doing there?

And then the opening soundtrack started -
WTF ? OMG! Where's the remote ? Where is the mute button ? HELP! Where did I put my shotgun ? arrgh.

"Faith of the Heart!" (rofl) sung by some horrible wannabe-Bryan-Adams-impersonator - wow, OMG!
Sounds like it was meant to go with some cheap, saucy, girl-audience-oriented drama telenovela series, sth. with horsies in Wyoming or such.

OMG, I laughed sooo much at this. I then was all up for some fun Star Trek mockary.
Only slowly began it to dawn on me, that this was not a (-n intended) mockary of the Star Trek series universe, but actually the newest official subtraction to the Star Trek series.





I hardly could believe it.

I mean - Scott Bakula is the captain ? WTF? Who's next - Sarah Jessica Parker ? OMG!

And then he is a paranoid xenophobe who fears and hates aliens, and he is unable to make any decision - I mean sth. like "Should I fold or should I crumble the toilet paper?" is already overcharging this captain and he ends up paralysed, blocking the bathroom for the other crew members.
I mean any such "captain" clearly would not be allowed in on NASA open day, not without parental supervison at least, leave alone commanding anything.

Really, someone at Paramount or so must have understood willing suspension of disbelief totally wrong.

The only thing worse I have seen from the ST universe was some ST-NG episode that I think was written by some fanboysgirls who must have won some 13yos-write-an-episode contest.
But luckily I have succeeded in forgetting all about it.

------------------------------

So I appreciate/d Enterpise (original series!), the selected episodes that ran on German TV.

Then came ST-NG - that one generally ****ed me off so much that I quit watching anything Star Trek that was not original series. (I liked the ST-NG pinball machine though )

That made me miss ST Voyager in it's time - nowadays it is probably my favourite of the Star Trek series.
I totally adore The Doctor, particularly in the first and maybe also 2nd season, when he is still very rude and arrogant.


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*(The selective publishing history of German language original ST series is extremely complicated, but also funny and interesting in its own way)

[DaddyHoggy]

When I was still a single chap in a one-bed flat I had a Sky dish but stopped paying for the Sky channels - but still got the free stuff which included RTL (5 I think) - so I got ST:TNG in German and because I knew the episodes off by heart I could follow along, doing my best to pick up a little pigeon German along the way - I did wonder though whether the German dubbers had heard the voices of the original cast and had deliberately gone out of their way to sound completely different!

[Disembodied]

Back in the early 1990s, the BBC didn't differentiate its Ceefax pages by region – no matter where you were, you got whatever Ceefax was showing in London. Back in those pre-digital days, Thursday evenings on BBC2 in Scotland were devoted to Gaelic-language programmes – but the Ceefax subtitles were for Star Trek. So you could flick on the Ceefax subtitles and spend an entertaining few minutes watching some Gaelic soap opera (called "Ochone", probably) with old Mrs MacGregor, down in the local shop, complaining about the Romulans again.

[DaddyHoggy]

Back in the early 1990s, the BBC didn't differentiate its Ceefax pages by region – no matter where you were, you got whatever Ceefax was showing in London. Back in those pre-digital days, Thursday evenings on BBC2 in Scotland were devoted to Gaelic-language programmes – but the Ceefax subtitles were for Star Trek. So you could flick on the Ceefax subtitles and spend an entertaining few minutes watching some Gaelic soap opera (called "Ochone", probably) with old Mrs MacGregor, down in the local shop, complaining about the Romulans again.