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Television Media

First Peeks At Enterprise 197

Posted by timothy from the tell-me-this-isn't-obsessive dept.
abde writes: "On Monday, TV Guide featured a preview of the new Starship Enterprise on the cover (scans and comparison with other ships courtesy German Trek site Treknews.de). Entertainment Online also features an transcript of an interview (and video excerpt!) with Scott Bakula on the new bridge (and wow are the set interiors as incredible as advertised!). More images of the ship interior (including Engineering) from that ET special are also shown on fansite Section31.com."
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First Peeks At Enterprise More

First Peeks At Enterprise

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  • careful with "history" (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The one thing that can ruin this show for me immediately is playing fast and loose with Trek history. Already, I'm concerned, after reading the interview with Bacula. He says that the series is placed 100 years before Kirk. What happened one hundred years before Kirk? The Earth-Romulus wars (see Balance of Terror, original series).

  • Shatner was a TERRIBLE actor! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Bill Shatner is such a bad actor that he has become a caricature of himself...this particular Trekkie can't even watch classic Trek without cracking up. But in the 60's, he was chosen for energy and sex-appeal...his delivery was laughable, but he still got the babe on every episode...and managed to become a revered popular icon in the process.

  • Sample dialogue (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @04:26AM (#92260)
    Riker: Shall we hit the sites with the Slashdot effect?

    Picard: Make it slow...

  • British SciFi Shows (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @05:25AM (#92261)
    My impression of a British SciFi show (namely, Dr. Who)

    Lead Character: Natter. natter. Natter natter. Natter.
    Other Character: Natter?
    Blue Character: Natter natter (laugh).
    Lead Character: Natter natter natter natter. Natter, and natter some more.
    Monster:[special effect here done by viewing a picture of Margaret Thatcher through a glass of stout]
    Lead Character: Natter natter natter natter natter natter natter natter natter.
    Character with strange forehead: Natter natter natter.
    [Exterior shot of a strange planet, which is strange that a strange planet has so many hedgerows.]
  • Captain! The webserver, she can'na take the load!

    Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
  • 4) I want some dumb people to crew a ship, not just the super-geniuses that Trek staffs Federation ships with.

    Have you seen any of the Voyager episodes? The crew is chock full of nimrods. Besides, the writers have a tough enough time as it is writing "smart" characters. If they try to actively make someone dumb they would create the equivelent of a tetatronic-subspace-neutrino brain drainer. At least with the "smart" characters you don't allow the writers to completely forgo logic when writing for the character (although that doesn't stop them from trying).

    Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
  • While I can't help but snicker at all the "one more swing of the cat" anti-franchise posts (preach on, brothers!) I can't help but note that the design of the Movie Enterprise (ST1-ST6) is one of the most beautiful, graceful, and just plain _right_ examples of industrial design I have ever seen.

    That's what I wish real spaceships looked like.

    Reliant was pretty good, borrowing heavily from the Enterprise design, and the FASA Starship Combat pen-and-paper game had an endless array of variations on the theme, most of which worked as well.

    Excelcior wasn't bad, but lacked the grace of the Enterprise design.

    But once they got back on the samll screen, the design went into the toilet. Enterprise-D was lopsided, unbalanced, and *ugly* "First Contact" Enterprise looked like something a Goth would design, and Voyager was putrid too. Swinging nacelles? Mein gott!

    The alien races fared no better. Klingons and Romulans in the OS looked bad-ass and _alien_. In the NG and later, they just looked... hokey.

    Starship design peaked in the OS movies. I hope whoever penned the design for the movie Enterprise won an award for it; he was the high water mark.

  • naw, he didn't die. TNG also had many plots of putting people in a different "phase". Kirk was what they described then as in a different universe but he didn't die. The used the transporter to bring him out of that dimention or phase. (Right dimentions and phases are different in reality but are a rough parallel between 50's and 90's Sci-Fi.)


    ~^~~^~^^~~^
  • of course. All of the episodes in which it was damaged never happened . . .


    :)


    hawk

  • Bakula probably has a larger range of emotions that he can play moreso than any of the actors on Star Trek ever had, and Quantum Leap was a great show that allowed him to explore those roles (Remember, Bakula was a stage actor before he was on QL). Some of the episodes showed off these abilities moreso than others; the finale, the one where he saves his brother in 'nam, the one where he leaps into the mentally challenged people (the first one, not the one that was part of the Evil Leaper triology), as examples.

    Sure, the last season had rather hooky plots; the one where Al became the Leaper, the entire Evil Leaper thing, for example. But that typically happens to any show that gets more than a couple seasons on air...

  • Um, I'll accept your argument if you can quote the line from "Metamorphosis" that declares he is biologically non-human. Until then, my explanation of TOS references indicating that he is from Alpha Centauri will remain that he simply moved there as a colonist. There's a lot more history to Star Trek than what the various productions have aired. Much of it was made up by fans (some pretty clever, others less so) who just tried to fill in the blanks.
  • While the ship looks a lot like the Akira as a silhouette from above, I think you're in for a surprise when you see it in profile. Wait and watch...
  • Kasreyn,
    "I believe the numbering system must be as follows, first two digits indicate class of ship it is a part of (all the Enterprises have been in the heavy cruiser class) - that is, heavy cruisers (in TOS, the "Constellation Class") must start with 17."
    Fair enough, but how do you explain the Constellation (NCC-1017) and the Republic (NCC-1312)?
    "For instance, I expect to see transporters, even though it is established ST universe canon that they were not around at Kirk's time! Read John M. Ford's excellent novel, "The Final Reflection", which was set "a couple years before he (Kirk) was born" (quote). "
    I loved John M. Ford's wonderful books, too. But not a single novel is considered "canon". Look at how Ford portrayed the Klingons and compare it to the way they developed in TNG and DS9. Ford guessed, and canon is about to prove him wrong. Just like "Star Trek: First Contact" invalidated the excellent novel about Zee Cochrane, "Federation".
  • Yep, that's been my worry too. Fortunately, the creators of this show have given themselves a really cool "out" in the form of this "temporal cold war" that is occurring in the distant future. Not only can they use this as an explanation as to why they aren't completely in synch with established Trek history (or perceived Trek history, in the case of some imagined fans), but they can actually use it to deliberately alter the course of events that lead to Kirk and Spock and completely change everything. Done properly, this could be a very exciting update for the Franchise. If they don't screw it up like Voyager...
  • I also love the movie Enterprise the most, particularly with the paint scheme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture (the pearlescent finish was repainted to shades of white for subsequent films). But the same fellow who designed that ship also designed the ship seen in Next Generation. His name is Andy Probert and his website is at: http://members.tripod.com/~DesignR/ [tripod.com]

    Check it out...he also did work for Battlestar Galactica and Airwolf.

  • Hunter...take a look at some old FASA Star Trek:RPG materials. The Federation Ship Recognition handbooks had a ship design called the Derf Class that has very similar lines. This one appears to be an Akira-ized version.
  • There's an interesting oddity with O'Neal though, in McGyver he was the smart guy who knew everything.. In SG-1 he's 'shoot first, ask questions later' and 'explain it in english' -- basically opposite to what he used to play. Unless Bakula does an extremely good acting job (I wouldn't put it past him), everyone will be thinking "Sam" when he walks onto the bridge.

  • Star Trek should take a few years off (Score:3)

    by Jamuraa ( 3055 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @04:34AM (#92275) Homepage Journal
    Taking a few years off from the highly profitable series from star trek will help them in the long run I think. Much of the reason that I like star trek was because it was new to me. With each series that goes by, I lose more and more interest in it.

    Not to mention that Bakula is entrenched in the minds of most Sci-Fi fans from his role in Quantum Leap. One thing that trek had going for it in the past was that the actors were relatively new to the minds of viewers, and therefore could be easily molded to the character.

    A couple seasons of break would allow for the writers to think up new material. In the meantime, Paramount has the other trek shows to put into syndication. Hell, DS9 went into syndication immediately, and I fully expect VOY to follow the same path.
  • Of course, that could also partially be b/c that ship belonged to a Queen who already spends a lot of time on fashion. And for a non-militaristic planet that couldn't defend against an embargo and invasion without the writer saving the day, the fighters look about right as a ceremonial thing. Bright and shiny and never really used much.

    Han Solo couldn't give a womp rat's ass - it probably helps him the more his ship looks like a piece of crap. (because who would expect it to perform like it does, at least when it's working properly) Things like the pods also had the same cobbled together, who cares what it looks like if it works style.

    The more military vessels were fairly similar though - the interiors of the Star Destroyers and Death Star were not far off from the interiors of the Trade Federation ships, and both looked relatively functional but wierd.

  • Quantum Leap had quite good writing, some of the better acting on TV and excellent production value. Stories were original, funny, and quite often compelling. Compare and contrast to the sitcom drivel it was up against. Or you're right and all these Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and awards [imdb.com] were just caused by too much sun in LA. It's certainly not the pinnacle of modern literature, but it's a TV show.

  • Scott Bakula [imdb.com] is a good actor. What's going on here?

  • Star Trek did take a few years off. They called it Voyager.

  • Supposedly, there weren't many huge technological improvements in the time between ep 1 and ep 4, aside from the Death Star. A lot of the ships from the original trilogy featured beat-up patchwork ships that only smugglers and rebels used. If tech didn't advance much in the thirty or so years between ep 1 and ep 4, then it's possible to imagine a monarch of a wealthy planet having a nicer ship than anything a couple of dirt-poor smugglers could have decades later.

    And the books don't count. The first one to quote from a KJA novel gets sporked. :)
  • Akira class? Will the first officer get a headache everytime he thinks of the ship? And the captain should have a motorbike. Definitely a red one.

    "WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED ENTERPRISE?!"

  • then why is Dark Angel doing well?

    Hot chick in tight black leather, lots of action.

    why did the matrix do so well?

    Hot chick in tight black leather, lots of action.

    Next?

  • I always wanted to see a non-Starfleet trek show, featuring smugglers and drug-runners and privateers and other scum. Reasons:

    1) No super-high-tech-magical technology. Does your average seagoing freighter have all the bells and whistles of an Aegis cruiser? I want to see a dingy, barely-functioning civilian ship with limitations.

    2) I want to see real aliens, the kind that you'd find scummy civilian spaceports, way off the main shipping lanes. What's a more interesting place: 24th century San Francisco or Mos Eisley?

    4) I want some dumb people to crew a ship, not just the super-geniuses that Trek staffs Federation ships with.

    5) I really really want to see the Federation as, if not as outright bad guys, then chasing after the heroes of a story. Perhaps the main characters could have a bounty on their heads for drug smuggling or something, with every other low-life chasing after them for it.

    6) I want characters without morals. I want to see telepaths who wouldn't hesitate to invade someone's brain as a main character. I want a captain who's willing to take innocent people hostage to get out of a situation. I want realistic, scared, survival-oriented people as the main characters.

    7) An unfair universe. I want main characters to get killed off *permanently*. No time-travel, no alternate universe, no particle-of-the-week magic, no transporter-to-keep-them-alive, none of that crap. I want characters to die dramatic deaths when it would advance the story and make everything interesting.

    Yes, I'm stealing many ideas from other shows. But I still want to see them in Trek.

  • Yeah, well, if you had Sulu, you'd expect Scotty, McCoy, Spock, etc. to appear at various points. Fortunately, you could say that Kirk's dead. :) But, unfortunately, so's Deforest Kelley.

    Dammit, Jim, I'm a corpse, not a doctor!


  • When you look at the mirrored site, scroll down and look also at the design that was disavowed as bogus. Keep in mind that the coming show is set in the century before the original series; which of the two designs -- the certified one or the disavowed one -- looks more plausibly like a starship that would have existed prior to the original Enterprise?
  • (How much does everyone hate the HoloDeck?!!)

    A lot -- it's a really weenie way of coming up with a story. I love(d) ST:Voyager, because what else could be better? True "going where no one has gone before"! Bizarre space-born phenomena! Aliens with weird heads and perky breasts! How intrinsically easy and interesting to write for!

    And what do we get? Well, mostly the above, but Voyager had it's share of "holodeck" episodes, which made me gibbering mad. I mean, jeez louise, they're in the Delta quadrant! And you're gonna give me an entire "Captain Proton" episode???

    ST:TNG used a couple of crutches -- holodeck episodes and Data episodes. The Data ones weren't too bad, but an entire hour going on and on about Data's quest for humanity was just too much. Leave that for asides and sub-plots.

    The new Bakula ST should be good -- no holodeck, for starters... A sort-of Horatio-Hornblower-in-space. And, thank God, the Klingons will be enemies of the Federation again, and also show them at the height of the Empire! W00t!

  • Yea, but even if there are challenges, the'll be solved in the last 5 minutes by rewiring the espresso machine through the forward deflector array so it can send a $PARTICLE_OF_THE_WEEK stream to solve $PROBLEM_OF_THE_WEEK.
  • It just wouldn't be slashdot without someone taking a dig at Microsoft. Forget sci-fi, looks like Bill already controls your every waking thought right *now* -- you can't stop talking about him.
    --

  • but I wish they would use slug throwers

    Lets see, bullets flying in a pressurized tin can, completely surrounded by a vacuum.

    It would certainly make for the shortest lived Star Trak series....

    ;)

  • One thing I really like about TNG, is that when ever the Borg appeared, one got a very serious sense of "from this point forward, our entire civilization as we have known it will be over".

    I find the sound track to "The Best of Both Worlds" to fit very well with the mood of the two-part episode. Heck, First Contact also induced the proper mood about the borg.

    Voyager seems to have "softened" the Borg, and I don't like that. All of a sudden they're not scarry any more. One doesn't think "Oh shit, I'm gonna be assimilated for sure... my life is over" when seeing them on the screen.
  • Company uses franchise to make money.

    All the news about starships, casts, history, etc. is just window dressing to this simple piece of news.

  • No magic please!! (NO holy wars please!) (Score:5)

    by spineboy ( 22918 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @04:36AM (#92300) Journal
    Hopefully they will avoid the NexGen script flaw of inventing some technology (magic) to save the ship and wrap up the plot in the last 5 minutes. The Original series (TOS) I liked beter because it was more about the people solving the problem instead of the easy way out as previously mentioned. (How much does everyone hate the HoloDeck?!!)

    Anyway, what I want to see is more battles - let's face it, watching the enterprise kick butt is alot of fun - TOS vs Klingons, NextGen vs Borg that's what males 12-60 want to see. But please more money on good interesting scripts and less on special effects - Dr. Who stayed around for like 30 years because of that
  • Who knew that skirts that short could trip women up sooo easily? You'd think long dresses would trip women up more.
  • The TV Guide article notes that the Universal Translator exists, but is pretty unreliable. The communications officer of the [em]Enterprise[/em], however, is a linguist.

  • Re:i hate prequels (Score:3)

    by remande ( 31154 ) <remande@bigfo o t . c om> on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @08:09AM (#92304) Homepage
    IMHO, the prequel Enterprise does look more primitive.

    The TOS ship will always look too primitive, because the model was primitive. It will always look like a model hanging from strings. The prequel ship will be a CGI model.

    However, look at the construction of the vessels. The TOS ship is smooth, almost aerodynamic--it looks like it was built in Seattle by an aerospace firm. The TNG and Voyager vessels are built like luxury liners. The prequel ship looks like its hull is solid steel--no transparent aluminum here. It looks like it was built in Detroit. It looks like it outweighs NCC-1701 by a factor of two, which it should.

    Look again at the picture. The prequel ship is missing the entire engineering section--no cylinder at the bottom. It's not grand and beautiful--it's hard and functional. It looks more complicated because it should, and because the TOS ship is so simple due to the series budget.

    One thing that viewers are going to have to deal with is that, while the technology of the stories is backwards, the technology of the actual production is much better than the TOS. A good way to think of it is that our views of the TOS episodes is "low res", but in the prequel we will have a high-res view of a low-tech universe.

  • The supposed Great Klingon Transmogrification would have happened in Kirk's era, between the series and the first movie. Not a line in any movie mentioned anything funny happening to Klingon foreheads. When asked, Roddenberry said that Klingons always had bumpy foreheads, but they didn't have the makeup budget back in 1969.

    What they should do is go with Roddenberry's explanation.

    The two strains of Klingons theory is inconsistent with the DS9 episode where three individual Klingons, shown in the original series with smooth foreheads, were shown with forehead bumps.

    Of course, doing it the Roddenberry way will be inconsistent with the "Gump Trek" episode of DS9, but Worf's "We don't talk about that" brushoff, and everyone's surprise at smooth-foreheaded Klingons, was a stupid way of dealing with the problem anyway. The transition from smooth to bumpy foreheads happened within the memory of many people alive at the time of DS9, specifically, Dax and the three Klingons mentioned above. It's as if Communism caused Russians to have bumpy foreheads, and no one remembered that Russians had normal foreheads before 1917.

    (What they ought to have done for "Gump Trek" was digitally bumpify the foreheads of the "original series" Klingons. Except Darvin, of course. Alternatively, leave off Michael Dorn's makeup and never mention it, but have everyone on the space station immediately recognize him as a Klingon.)

    (Lest anyone think I hated the "Gump Trek" episode, no, I thought it was a hoot. I just thought they botched the Klingon thing.)
  • was that the actors were relatively new to the minds of viewers

    Well only if you were totally ignorant about the actors past parts. Most of the principal actors in TNG had resumes of at least 10 important parts before appearing in TNG.

  • I'm sorry, but the Death Star was mcuh 'cooler' than that dinky little shiny ship. :) As far as the Imperial shuttles are concerned: they appeared much more menacing, and threatening. I mean, those flying foils/wings were cool! You have to admitt that having them fold down for landing was impressive and somewhat menacing.

    -------
    Caimlas

  • :)

    Or the monster is obviously a human in a cardboard box on wheels :)
  • Personally, i'd love to see them drop the whole episodic series concept for a while and go to miniseries with large budgets. Give us a rest from these "second-hand" treks for a little while.

    I would have also loved to see an Excelsior series - The ship seems to have a lot of history with it, and it's right in there in perhaps the most interesting (imho) era of trek. and maybe they could have gotten George Tekei to sign on.

    However.. I'd like to know, of the trek fans out there, how would you prefer to see the series live on?

    1: A new series.. if so, with what plotline?
    2: Forget voyager ever existed?
    3: Star trek miniseries?
    4: Just movies?
    5: Something else?


    Slashdot something useful. [thehungersite.com]
    Management is not a tunable parameter.

  • Re:I am more concerned they don't alter history. (Score:5)

    by AnalogBoy ( 51094 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @05:10AM (#92319) Journal
    I forgot to mention - it was touched on in one of the books that the first "Q" was Trelane, from The squire of Gothos. So, it may come to pass that we see some Q, but not identified as "Q".

    The romulan war hasn't happened yet in this timeline, according to an article i read. im sure it will be a point of conflict later in the series - and it may be a great one, if properly executed.

    I'm going to wax theoretical..

    I hope the klingons have their nose ridges, for one, and their sense of "Honor". I've always thought of it kind of like this.. Perhaps the klingons from the original series, identified as being from the planet "Khlinzahi", were an offshoot bunch - Klingons, without honor, perhaps some form of half-breed (perhaps with romulans? It might explain why they were allies in most of TOS [They shared the same ship design]).. If i remember correctly, they seemed to have some romulan personality traits. Somewhere between TOS and TMP, the klingons from Qo'nos became dominant again, either through politics (Perhaps all of the old klingons were from another "house") Perhaps thats why we see the "Old" klingons as the "modern rendition". Perhaps it was considered so dishonorable that klingon blood mixed with romulan blood that Worf mentioned "We don't speak of it.".


    Slashdot something useful. [thehungersite.com]
    Management is not a tunable parameter.
  • But they did have a holodeck, eventually. Didn't you ever see the animated series? There was one episode where they went to the holodeck, and I remember McCoy at the controls. Instead of the TNG 'Arch', it was some washing-machine type setup. IIRC, Kirk or someone fell down a trap set in the forest. So much for safety protocols.
  • Sweet Zombie Jesus. When Next Generation was released, people complained that it wasn't Just Like TOS(TM). Then DS9 came along and people complained that it wasn't Just Like NG(TM). Then Voyager, and now Enterprise.

    Here's a thought; watch the damn show before passing judgement.

  • I, too, wish they would go with a smaller ship with a more primitive look. It should definitely have a crew smaller than 430, maybe only 100-150. It should be cramped, like a submarine. It should have larger, inefficient engines. Was dilithium discovered yet (allowing greater power), or did they just have basic matter/antimatter? No transporter technology yet.

    I don't even like that they're calling it "Enterprise" to begin with. Why wasn't this Enterprise hanging on the wall in Picard's ready room, or pictured on the rec deck in ST:TMP with the others? It also ticks me off that the writers of the series don't take pointers from the novelists, who come up with much better explanations for alot of the things in the Trek universe. Why make up something bizarre and new when a better, more elegant explanation (that would work just as well) already exists? *sigh*

    The Vulcans already had a warp ship by the time they met Cochrane, and the Romulans split well before then. The Romulans are definitely capable of warp technology, though they may not have built it yet. I think they're relatively xenophobic.


    I have zero tolerance for zero-tolerance policies.

  • I forgot to say, of course, that such a crossover episode would require the NX-01 Enterprise to travel back in time to the 1960s, where it would accidentally ram an even bigger NCC-1701 Entrtprise from the future that had just beamed aboard a USAF pilot destined to make the first trip to Titan, who was Captain Archer's great-grandfather....Just think, T'Pol could be Spock's grandmother and he would logically have to kill her just to see how the paradox played out...boy will Sam be confused trying to figure all of this out on the fly.....

  • Re:Why oh why? (Score:3)

    by cybrpnk ( 94636 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @05:13AM (#92335)
    C'mon, Scott Bakula's not THAT bad. Quantum Leap won a slew of awards and actually had some fairly thought-provoking episodes. For example, there was the one where he beamed into a Mercury Program chimp and sat in a cage with a diaper on for the whole episode. His potrayal of one of the first primates in orbit around the Earth certainly prepared him to potray one of the first primates to leave Earth's solar system. Besides, think about the fun of an Enterprise / Quantum Leap crossover episode. Sam beams into Captain Archer and looks in a mirror and sees....himself!!!

  • Re:British SciFi Shows (Score:3)

    by DrCode ( 95839 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @08:03AM (#92336)
    Don't mock Dr. Who!

    Anyway, you forgot the part where the companion, usually a young woman in a miniskirt, trips while running from the monster.

  • Re:Prop Computers (Score:3)

    by chegosaurus ( 98703 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @04:33AM (#92337) Homepage
    > The question is, what OS will they use on the prop computers?

    Don't know, but I guess the database will be Oracle 8i Enterprise Edition. Sorry. That was inexcusable.
  • Get a life, everyone knows that the first "starship" enterprise was the enterprise shuttle prototype. And what about The USS Enterprise, aircraft carrier? Just because it wasnt mentioned in a show, or a manual, doesnt mean it couldnt have existed.

  • Personally this is the first trek series I have been interested since TNG. I never cared much for DS9 or Voyager. And just because Bakula is known for Quantum Leap is no reason he can't do a good job. Hell, if anything it means he CAN do a good job. It's not the actors fault if the viewer can't let go of the past. As for the ship, well, the disc is a little to Next Generation, but it looks cool.

    --
    Digitize me, Fred!

  • According to IMDB [imdb.com] A.T. Montgomery gets to play Ensign Travis Mayweather. What sort of eejit thinks up a name like that? Enid Fecking Blyton?

    --
  • No no, according to TOS, Cochrane was FROM Alpha Centauri; he was a Centaurian.
  • Let me explain this even slower: HE SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN ON EARTH AT ALL.
  • What the other poster is saying is if he is the human inventor of warp drive, he must of invented it on earth. Maybe he lived on AC later.
    According to earlier universe, he wasn't human. He was Alpha Centaurian, which, although humanoid, were not human.

  • Re:Star Trek should take a few years off (Score:3)

    by Mr_Icon ( 124425 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @05:03AM (#92353) Homepage

    Not to mention that Bakula is entrenched in the minds of most Sci-Fi fans from his role in Quantum Leap. One thing that trek had going for it in the past was that the actors were relatively new to the minds of viewers, and therefore could be easily molded to the character.

    Well, have you ever watched StarGate SG1? Do you know of anyone who yells "McGyver!" every time Colonel O'Neal is on the screen? Talk about the legacy here. Yet, the series are widely accepted among the Sci-Fi populous.

  • Not to mention that Bakula is entrenched in the minds of most Sci-Fi fans from his role in Quantum Leap.

    This is called TypeCasting, the bain of all actors and very few deserve it. Please give him a chance, he may suprise you. I am glad they broke with tradition and picked up a well known successful actor, if nothing else, he brings experience of a long running TV show with him.


    Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.

  • ...Except that it probably is. I'm a little disappointed that the ship is essentially indistinguishable from ST:TNG ships, except maybe the nacelle design. If ST:TOS ships are any indication, Federation ships of that era should be pretty awkward looking (not that it matters in space). The interior [section31.com] shots shown look promising - a little harder-edged than other ST, without the white decor, mood lighting etc. that appeared in later ships we're familiar with. I would have liked something even closer to the Nostromo or the Sulaco from the "Aliens" movies (in style, not overall hull shape), but I guess this is still Trek. I guess they feel that a Trek audience doesn't want to see their heroes flying around in a more tin-bucket style of spaceship, even if it is in the "past".

    Of course, the REAL question is... Klingons: forehead ridges or no? They may be forced to answer the question of why the Klingons "don't like to talk about that"!

  • That's got to be difficult, though. Keep in mind that to make something that in any way resembled the TOS Enterprise would look quite cheezy.

    /Brian
  • Hmmm... early Trek history, no Federation, underexplored galaxy... why do I suspect we'll see a lot of...

    Red red shirts
    Don't let it be you
    'Cause what they go through
    Ain't no fun at all

    Red red shirts...
    Shot to the head
    The first to be dead
    As we all know
    That we all know

    I'd have thought that in time
    They'd get too smart to wear red
    For that yeoman feeling bold
    Time to make the switch to gold

    (etc... either the Neil Diamond or UB40 versions will do)

    /Brian
  • No. I was actually young enough to watch reading rainbow yet old enough to watch TNG -- he picked up TNG well into his time on RR. In fact, he even did a Trek-themed episode during the early second season of TNG.

    /Brian
  • They may have to. Continuity on TOS was dreadful -- I think Starfleet had at least four different names in the first season.

    /Brian
  • They do change ST history, they don't, It'll be flamed. The franchise has boxed itself in either way.

    The only way I can see for them to pull it off is if they they boldly avoid going where they've already gone before. Hmmm...I like that, in a twisted kind of way. I feel a Saturday Night Live parody comming on...

  • The Original series (TOS) I liked beter because it was more about the people solving the problem instead of the easy way out as previously mentioned. (How much does everyone hate the HoloDeck?!!)

    I seem to recall an episode in which Kirk died on a space walk, but the crew regenerated him from a transporter matrix. Star Trek has never been hard sci-fi.

  • I've begun watching the Real World, and have decided that I am going to start dressing and speaking like the cast members... I have plans for a convention next year... also these 'cell phones' look intriguing, but are far too advanced for us... what with people actually answering calls...?

  • "Magic" is only a symptom (Score:3)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @08:07AM (#92369) Homepage Journal
    That's an apt word for one thing that's wrong with recent Star Trek efforts, but it's only a minor part of it. Here's what drives me crazy about most recent Star Trek efforts:
    • Bad science. OK, this isn't PBS. But can we at least get writers who know that a "planetoid" is not a kind of planet and that burnt hydrogen (commonly known as water) is not a rare substance? And even when the science is totally made up (like transporters) it at least needs to be consistent ("We don't have energy to replicate food! We'll have to transport it from the planet's surface!"). Yeah, I know, most TV viewers don't care. But SF fans are not most TV viewers.
    • Idea Cowardice. When you get an interesting Basic Premise, give it time to work, and don't abandon it the moment it gives you problems. Idea: give the characters families and make them part of the story. (Naw, can't put children at risk.) Idea: A Warp Drive Crisis! (Naw, too hard to write around.) Idea: Give the Captain a girlfriend! (What?! You want to pay another regular? Dr. Crusher can fill in when he gets horny.) A society that has evolved beyond greed! (Hey, careful, some of our sponsers are Republicans!)
    • Lazy storytelling. Not just "magic". Using the same gimmicks over and over. The worst one is time travel -- since it's paradoxical, the story doesn't have to make sense. Which is why we get more and more time travel episodes!
    • Brainless imitation. It shouldn't suprise me -- Hollywood hates taking risks -- but it's painful to watch. Just because there's a successful movie with planet-obliterating aliens and gigantic space battles, doesn't mean the same thing will work on Star Trek. Not every cop show needs car chases or running gun battles, and not every space opera needs to be Independence Day or Star Wars.
    • Dweebish characters. Need I elaborate?
    • Preaching. OK, the Big Message has always been an important part of Star Trek stories. But it doesn't work as the whole story!
    • Enough with the damn Holodecks. These people are part of my fantasy life. I don't want to know about their fantasy life.
    • No more trekkie stories. If people who make Star Trek into a pathetic kind of religion want to write "fanfiction" let them post it on the web. Nobody else wants to watch TV shows or movies written by overenthusiastic amateurs. Take some money out of your sfx budget and spring for some real scriptwriters.
    What's really sad is that I won't be able to resist watching the new series -- even though I know I will see all of the above!

    __

  • I am glad they broke with tradition and picked up a well known successful actor

    What do you mean "broke with tradition"?

    Avery Brooks was Hawk!

    Hawk!!!

    Not to mention Patrick Stuart's small-yet-crucial roles in both Dune and Excalibur.

    And let us not forget Chief Engineer Kunta-Kinte himself (LeVar Burton).

  • The romulan war hasn't happened yet in this timeline, according to an article i read.

    2156: First Romulan war
    2161: Formation of the Federation.

    Assuming that the new Enterprise is a Federation ship, as opposed to just an Earth ship predating the Federation, what you've said doesn't make sense. Unless you're confusing the first Romulan war with the second.

  • If ST:TOS ships are any indication, Federation ships of that era should be pretty awkward looking (not that it matters in space).

    I was expecting this ship to be a Daedalus-class vessel (same basic configuration as the Constitution class, only with a spherical primary hull and totally cylindrical secondary hull), since they were the mainstay of Earth's fleet around the birth of the Federation. The fact of an Earth ship being subconded into Starfleet until the Federation got its own construction efforts underway would also explain why this ship wouldn't have an NCC registry.

  • Windows.net with setup wizards and clippy on all the terminals from the Microsoft federation of planets sponsored by the Corporate States of American. %80 of the crew are mcse's who's only job is to hit the reset button when the bsod appears and just to barely keep the ship running. The other %10 are microsoft certified salesmen who's job is to force windows.net and office.net and space.net into everyone's throat. The last %10 actually run the ship and have real space like duties.

    Sadly I believe in a century form now corporations will become the next communist party in which they monitor everyone like 1984 and sponsor space programs like the enterprise to sell more windows based products. Bill would be thrilled if he could spy on everyone to make sure we were license compliant and with msn messenger and the spyware in windowsXP, it looks like he will get his wish.

  • Re:Try this link (Score:3)

    by marcop ( 205587 ) <{marcop} {at} {slashdot.org}> on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @05:05AM (#92386) Homepage
    TrekWeb [trekweb.com] has a bunch of links to various information on Enterprise including first looks of the sets. BTW, I am not affiliated with trekweb so I don't care if you don't check them out either.

  • As for the Klingons - I have a feeling that the baddies of the series (some group bent on genetic modifications) will modify the Klingons to be more human-like (explaining TOS) and then at some time in the future, they will revert back to bumps and ridges...

  • The preview link seems to have already suffered the Slashdot effect... but you can view a preview here as well, it was featured on Bureau42.com yesterday. It's a dead ringer for the Akira class ships first seen in "First Contact".

    http://www.corona.bc.ca/films/TP/scoops/scoops.htm l [corona.bc.ca]

  • Re:It had to be coming... (Score:4)

    by Gannoc ( 210256 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @04:44AM (#92391)
    The reason I think they had to do a prequel is that they've totally screwed up the technological level of the future. In the star-trek future, you have super-shields and weapons, you can travel in time, you can use wormholes, etc, etc. Its pretty difficult to write stories where there are abolutely no challenges.
  • If you're talking about the novel Q Squared, which is the only place you might get such a fallacy. Trelane could hardly be the first Q, since his two parents were also Q's!

    The Q's have been around before man, this was I think explicitly stated in a ST:TNG episode but I can't remember which. Either way, John De Lancie rules.

    -Kasreyn

  • http://www.section31.com/protected-images/et-tease -1.jpg

    Is that a Hanes cotton T-shirt our Enterprise Captain is wearing? =P

    Bah, this is ridiculous. Even though the older Enterprise is properly designed (it looks like a design ancestor of the Reliant, which was an older ship than the Original-Series Enterprise). I don't like the "NX-01" designation. Enterprise's 1701 has always made me curious. I believe the numbering system must be as follows, first two digits indicate class of ship it is a part of (all the Enterprises have been in the heavy cruiser class) - that is, heavy cruisers (in TOS, the "Constellation Class") must start with 17. Then it is number 01 of that series (which may start with 00 for all we know, maybe the Lexington). Of course, this is ALL out of my ass and I don't know the truth of it. I would, however, suggest that the NX designator is generally used for experimental or prototype ships (Excelsior: NX-2000), not for standard ships of the line. Of course, at this early date, the Enterprise may well be experimental!

    All I can say is, it will take a LOT of cunning and creativity to do this right. Think about it - they have to bring it into date with modern special effects, BUT they also have to make it look more primitive than the Original Series, shot in 1966-68!! I personally don't think "Enterprise" will have enough design talent on board to accomplish this feat. For instance, I expect to see transporters, even though it is established ST universe canon that they were not around at Kirk's time! Read John M. Ford's excellent novel, "The Final Reflection", which was set "a couple years before he (Kirk) was born" (quote). It was at this time the transporters were declared safe to use for the first time in the Federation, though the Klingons had them first. However, we're probably going to see the Enterprise crew beaming everywhere, probably with a transporter that works as nicely as ST:TNG's one. Oh well.

    -Kasreyn

  • I'm an old school trekkie, but I'm a bit illogical about what I consider canon. Basically, if it's one of the official ST novels, it's canon. But if it's stupid, silly, or runs counter to Gene's vision of ST ("Spock's Brain", some TNG episodes, pretty much all of Voyager starting at Season 2), then it's explained away with "alternate universe" and is not canon.

    Either way, Ford had a far more interesting take on the ST world. I much prefer his Klingons to the ones we finally wound up with. After all, they ARE a SPACEFARING RACE. The folks who developed them for TNG and onwards seem to not realize this fact. Yes, it's "cool" to make Klingons stupid and gutteral and disgusting. But they figured out space travel on their own! I think they are worthy of the respect Ford treats them with. =) To my imagination at least, his take is the correct one. That is to say, I think if Gene had an equal sample of Berman and Ford in the same medium, and had to choose, I think Gene would pick Ford for creative talent. =)

    Thanks for reminding me of the Constitution/stellation (I can NEVER remember which is the class and which is the ship!) and the Republic. I guess I'll need to reconsider my theory!

    Cheers,

    Kasreyn
  • The starship I can live with, though I would prefer something like an obvious predecessor to the Enterprise. (less streamlined - bigger engines that are less efficient etc)

    I am more concerned these guys will change history as it has been portrayed through the 3 series (don't count voyuer) and the movies.

    I am also concerned that this new "alien" in the background isn't the typical "must one-up the last series - (borg to dominion to 8472 etc) syndrome that we have seen before. I would think it great if it were the "Q" as we could have series cross-over "history" - but please no - We go to the future plots.

    I was always under the impression that is what the Federation that met the Klingons, not the Earth itself (iow - the Federation existed).

    Oh well, hopefully the Klingon ships keep their basic layout, and the Romulans don't pop up soon (they should barely be in space by this timeline)

  • Re:Weapons - Treksplanations (Score:4)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @04:59AM (#92418)
    Trek Geek 1 - A cell phone doesn't contain all the equipment and circuitry you'd need to actually contact an orbiting starship from the surface of a planet.

    Trek Geek 2 - Ah, but your forgetting the minimum diameter of any given transtator component in TOS, which has to be at least--

    Trek Geek 3 - We can also assume that the Eugenics wars wiped out a lot of 20th century technology, such as the minaturized components necessary for--

    Me: *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM*... Well I just made the world a better place. Now what do I do with the bodies?
  • Yes, but I bet the cellphone that's 1/3 the size of your flip-phone isn't powerful enough to reach from a planet's surface to an orbiting spaceship without using repeater towers. Think more along the lines of a satellite phone.

    Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups. [thedaythatcounts.org]
  • People were irritated with DS9 and Voyager because they focused specifically on action and special effects. When that didn't work they swung to the other extreme of becoming cardboard cutout soap operas. (Remember the whole Worf/Dax thing? Shudder.) TNG had that perfect balance of action and interpersonal relationships.

    But what DS9 had that TNG comepletely missed out on was depth of plot.

    In TNG you got 37 minutes of story (74 if it was a two-parter) that was wrapped up neatly in the end. There were one or two plotlines per episode and that was it. The best exception to this rule of thumb were the series of episodes surrounding the Klingon succession and Worf's family.

    With DS9 you got a whole series with several major plotlines weaved throughout for the duration. You had Bajor vs Cardassia, Federation vs. Dominion, Wormhole Aliens and the Prophets, Alternate Reality with the (very naughty but oh-so-fun) "bad" Kira, and so on. These were major themes from the beginning until the end, and they kept the series interesting. It was what compelled me to keep watching, even though they had a couple bad eipsodes. It created a sense of investment in the series.

    Don't get me wrong, I liked TNG. Voyager I could forget about (and largely I did). But I think that DS9 was the best of the four series.


    Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups. [thedaythatcounts.org]

  • Re:It had to be coming... (Score:5)

    by ocbwilg ( 259828 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @04:56AM (#92422)
    But why a prequel?

    To show George Lucas how it's really done.

    Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups. [thedaythatcounts.org]
  • Without the all-powerful technology that is the central theme to most recent Star Trek stuff, they would have to focus on interpersonal relationships, cultural reactions to space travel, societal change, the formation of interplanetary alliances, etc.

    It's funny... a lot of diehard trek fans didn't like ds9 and voyager because they felt it was going in that very direction (more relationships, less blasting the aliens). I still like TNG best overall, though a few melodramas arn't going to keep me from watching this new serries...

    ___
  • Why a prequel? In my opinion, two words: Rick Berman

    - harborpirate -
  • These sets are too techy-sweepy-steely-gloomy.

    I liked the it's-on-a-stage-set-in-burbank look of the original series.

    I finally saw GATTACA the other night on the skiffy channel. You know what my favorite part of it was? They went to space in single-breasted suits. Not jumpsuits. Not moonsuits. Not lycra leotards and polyester toreador pants. Single-breasted GQ serge with coordinated ties and well-shined wing-tips.

    They didn't climb a gantry or strap themselves into G-force cots. They walked from a hallway through one circular pressure door, sat in their stadium-style leather theater seats, and smiled at the stars out the window.

    So get rid of the metal grate. I want a nice linoleum running all through the ship's decks. Maybe some shag wall-to-wall carpeting in the captain's quarters. 400 years of progress and you think humankind won't be bringing their lifestyles into space?

    --Blair
  • The model of the enterprise (NX-01) immediately reminded me of the USS Thunderchild (NCC-63549). There are some pics and info here [stdimension.de] and here [geocities.com].

    The similarity is really remarkable. Could it be that we are dealing with an old-fashioned canard?

  • Okay, so I used to be as big a Star Trek fan as the next teenage geek without a social life, but I've sort of had better things to do recently, and the last couple of series haven't exactly floated my boat in terms of storyline, quality or acting. It seems the Star Trek is decaying with all the inevitability of uranium 235.

    But why for the love of God did they pick Scott Bakula to play the captain? Have they never seen Quantum Leap!? Not only did it feature some of the most hackneyed, unoriginal plot lines seen on TV, but the acting made The Dukes of Hazzard look like an Oscar winner! Scott Blatula has all the emotional range of Pinocchio, without any of the novelty extending body parts! If you thought Janeway reminded you of a Dalek in terms of acting skill, just wait and be amazed!

    Making the fifth installment of such a long-running show is incredibly tricky. Hiring third-rate actors is not making it any easier. I'll watch the pilot, but any hopes I had plummeted when I heard the news.

  • Exactly. The tech is going to be based on the 21st century tech seen in "Star Trek: First Contact", push buttons, no touch screens, a 'submarine' feel to the interiors of the starships, transporters as new technology (remake of "The Enemy Within" anyone?), etc.

    Could be fun; I found all the sequel series rather sterile (and what was with that teak woodwork on the bridge of TNG?)

    "What are we going to do tonight, Bill?"

  • Remember that Earth had been decimated in "First Contact". All the infrastructure had been destroyed, so it would take some time, even with the help of the Vulcans, to build it back up. Some of their technology could be more primitive than ours, if the knowledge had been lost.

    In the first pilot (with Captain Pike) they had laser pistols, so I can see them sticking with that, but I wish they would use slug throwers, they're much more effective weapons. Laser beams don't have any stopping power!

    "What are we going to do tonight, Bill?"

  • Try this link (Score:3)

    by tb3 ( 313150 ) on Wednesday July 11, 2001 @04:30AM (#92431) Homepage
    Since all those sites appear to be slashdotted, you can at least get a look at the new ship design here [corona.bc.ca].

    Go on, slashdot them, too :)

    "What are we going to do tonight, Bill?"

  • Actually, it *was* mentioned in the show. I think it was in the motion picture, the scene where they showed the lounge... "All these ships were called Enterprise..."

  • Yes, they certainly should have tried to make the ship look more primitive then TOS Enterprise; instead this one looks more "modern" then NCC-1701D...
  • I would like two things:

    1. Something -- anything -- that doesn't suck. Since Deep Space 9 and Star Trek: Generations, the suckage of everything produced under the Star Trek trademark has increased monotonically.

    2. Something that I can talk about in public without seeming like a social outcast. Maybe they should do a sitcom -- "Star Trek: Friends" with the lovely Jennifer Aniston as Yeoman Rachel.

  • If the female trekkies of the universe think like the female trekkies I work with (and the one I'm married to ;-), they're all in agreement that Scott Bakula is "a major hottie." Even middle-aged women agree: Scott Bakula flat-out turns on the ladies.

    YMMV, of course, as this heterosexual /.er was caught off-guard when his female boss dropped this bomb. Before the trolls come out of the woodwork, I have to issue the standard disclaimer: as a guy, I don't check out other guys, blah blah blah. So, after a rather unscientific poll of the females I know, I've come to the conclusion that chicks dig Scott Bakula. QED.

    Would the ladies of /. care to help prove this whack theory of mine?

  • And now for some commentary from Chris Pike himself: "Boop. Boop boop. Booooop. Boop. Boop boooooop boop. Boop. Boop."
  • There is a unidentiified vessel approaching. "On screen!" - Oh no, it's the rumored slashdot vessel! "Bridge to engineering" - Engineering here, go ahead... "Shut down all webservers right away, we're about to be slashdotted". And there the saga ends... ;)

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