[PaulILMFan]

Kmartian? PaulILMfan?

What say you Trekkers?

edit: Does this mean Kurtzman's Universal classic monsters DARK UNIVERSE cinematic universe is dead?

Zero interest in any of this Trek TV series. DSC to me is the worse Trek project they have ever slapped the Trek name on. How it ever got a Season 2 is mind boggling to me! The VFX are really cheap looking & badly designed as well but the characters are just so unlikeable & the PC casting angle is too forced & awkward.

Looks like 2 more Trek movies (with the current movie crew) are moving forward. The Tarantino one is due after Trek 4 so I am looking forward to see how those turn out as my next Trek fix! I prefer mega budget Trek on the big screen with big sound. If they can make a decent Beyond sequel with a similar budget then it should be well worth seeing as long as they get DN back for the VFX work!

https://trekmovie.com/2018/06/19/zachar ... tino-trek/
https://trekmovie.com/2018/05/22/zachar ... -clarkson/
https://trekmovie.com/2018/05/16/simon- ... velopment/

Nick Meyer's Khan prequel 3 episode TV series is on hold until CBS & Paramount resolve their takeover issues.
https://trekmovie.com/2018/05/17/nichol ... y-on-hold/

Finally on Trek..... Bob Peak's classic STMP poster (I have an original somewhere from the early 1980s!) is getting a new release (this poster also cameos in the final scene of Ready Player One!).
https://trekmovie.com/2018/06/12/bob-pe ... art-print/

[ShaneP]

Wait, Nick Myer is writing a Khan prequel? What will that be, two hours of Khan floating frozen through space? Or prequel as in the Eugenics Wars era?

Why would I want to see Khan without Kirk?

[aslan]

Well I'm not up to speed on what's going on with Trek development, but I just finished Discovery and thought it was...alright? I found it visually quite ugly and never really engaged with the characters, and I still don't know what the ship actually looks like, no clear beauty shots to grab the eye. But it passed 13 hours of my life away, so I guess that's a thing.

Honestly, I prefered the pastiche of Orville, though its not a way forward for trek to go.

[Kmart]

Aslan,
That was my wife's takeaway on DISCOVERY, almost word for word, and not too far away from mine. It didn't cost us anything but time because it was on a free trial, and it passed the time, but there's way too much good stuff out there to invest even in something this unspecial. And when it was bad, it was very bad (am thinking of the Emperor ship VFX and the hokey/fast wrapups to major plot issues.)

Plus as a person heavily into TOS (and DS9), I just don't see how you get to the start of TOS in a few years from where they're at now, just going by all this seasson's war stuff that doesn't jive with Trek history.

[aslan]

Kmart, you mean you're not going to immediately sign up to the new channel?

I agree about the plot resolutions. It was only two days ago that I saw the final episode and I cannot recall at all what the hell happened. I thought it was over initially when they left the mirror universe, but on it went. And I'm not usually one to worry about fictional timelines, but in this case it does feel so drastically removed from the thing I already enjoyed (TOS) that I too dread whatever contrived explanation the writers come up with to connect the dots. I know time moves on and it has to look like a modern style show, but did it have to be so drastically divergent.

Curious about your thoughts on Orville? I seem to recall you not caring for TNG, so it's "homage" probably doesn't hold much water with you. But for a cheap looking and unfunny show, I find myself quite liking it.

[Kmart]

I think I've weighed in on ORVILLE on some thread here ... in spite of the TNG feel, I very much enjoy it. The first couple of episodes I felt were very rough, forced and unfunny, but once they started telling real stories and including humor in a less heavy handed way (well, some of the time anyway), I started digging it. The plotting still feels very old-fashioned, and Seth is not leading man material, but it succeeds on charm, even with all the terribly anachronistic references. And I love that they do downer endings, like the thing with Bortus' kid.

I really wish they were doing 22 or 24 a year, because then they'd have to look for outside material, and I gotta tell you, nearly all of the material I worked up for TNG would still work on this show (probably better in some instances. ) Plus I really think they should do a takeoff on ALL ABOUT EVE with some scheming Shelby-type (blonde woman after Riker's job in the Borg 2 parter) angling to replace the ex-wife.

[aslan]

Thanks Kmart, good to know. You constantly surprise me, I imagined you hating it. I so wish you get to apply your material to something someday. Can you imagine McFarlane family guying up your work?

[Kmart]

I tend to run to extremes, taste-wise. Otherwise, why would I rewatch ACTION JACKSON nearly as often as 2001? (and it isn't just due to Vanity and Sharon Stone, though those aspects don't hurt, despite it being so hard to see them clearly through all that damned 80s smoke.)

I suppose it is still possible I might get a DISCOVERY cinematography or VFX story at some point. I sent a query about my still unsold TWIN PEAKS cinematography article to WATCH!, the official CBS magazine, and their editor was thrilled to receive a well written query! That's the first time since 1990 that I have gotten any kind of compliment on a query letter (actually it was a letter accompanying my first spec movie script at Joel Silver's company, and it somehow got passed all the way up to a VP of development before getting the inevitable turndown.) Still can't believe nobody is taking this TP story, given the cinematography is up for an Emmy ... have pitched it to nearly a dozen outlets ...

WATCH! doesn't really do any kind of tech stuff at all, but if she gets back in touch again, I'll mention my TREK history and see if that helps.

ORVILLE and DISCOVERY both have promo trailers up now. DSC actually has some humor in it (kinda rough, but they're at least trying) and ends almost like a scene from ORVILLE, in a comedy elevator bit.

Sort of semi off-topic, but FIRST MAN, the NASA Armstrong biopic, seems promising. Talked to the DP, and they used almost no greenscreen at all, instead doing the VFX in prepro and playing them back on a huge wraparound screen (isn't this how JEDI did its stuff?) that surrounded the planes and space capsules. Lots of full-size mockups ... AND miniatures (you can see a Saturn V model in the trailer.) Mix of Super16mm and IMAX for most of shooting.

[PaulILMFan]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat- ... ll-1133802
Looks like Star Trek 4 is not happening anytime soon unless the lead actors take a paycut!

[ShaneP]

Let's face it: Trek is a mess right now. There are multiple movie and tv projects in development but it is all over the place. This is similar to what is happening with Star Wars. They both need an overall visionary guiding things.

[PaulILMFan]

That will never happen as Paramount always cut costs with Movie Trek. Since Harve Bennett - Ralph Winter era no-one has run the Trek movies franchise.

They should be pumping these movies out every 2 years to grow the fanbase instead its 3-4 years. Trek 4 will happen in some form before the Tarantino Trek but I think the budget will be cut drastically. They need way less mindless action & way more TMP level serious sci-fi (with impressive modern VFX!).

I think these Kelvin movies are stuck in a pattern though now so they have to go mindless action over TMP to satisfy audience expectations. Beyond was very solid & even good at times so it generated a lot of goodwill but waiting so long to move forward with another then telling your lead Kirk actor the deal you signed for 3 & 4 is not something you want to honour is a bad sign!

Similar thing happened on the Voyage Home. Shatner demanded a higher salary so did not sign on for a long time then we get that time travel movie now it looks like time travel again (2 kirks) & Pine holding out for his 2016 deal to be honoured!
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat- ... ses-805204

It was the best of time its was the worst of times

[Kmart]

There's a story that Chris McQuarrie is interested in doing trek for a low budget, based on the expected domestic draw instead of the blue-sky hope that it does a billion. I haven't like any of his post WAY OF THE GUN work, but he seems like a sharp guy and wonder if there's some hope for a reasonable low-key trek film (which is what I thought the Clarkson film was going to be till Pine and Thor fell out.)

Also, I recommend the book STAR TREK LOST SCENES to folks with an affinity for the original series. Some really good legitimate researchers did this book -- in other words, not that hack Cushman! -- and it is a real labor of love, with some info I didn't know and lots of pretty cool imagery. I look at a couple of pages every morning with my coffee, it is the first book I have been able to nurse (instead of rapidly inhaling the whole thing) in a very long time, and it is inspiring me to watch the original series again, too.

[ShaneP]

So....uhm...Star Trek goes comedy:

https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/star-t ... 202993145/



Yeah...ok.

[Kmart]

If they really wanted to do a dark comedy, they could do a b-t-s movie and call it THE TROUBLE WITH ABRAMS.

[PaulILMFan]

...or make a weak TV series and call it say...Discovery

[ShaneP]

Just started reading Return to Tomorrow about the making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I'm right in the time of Bob Abel doing the fx work and throwing out several miniatures and sets. Probably page 50 or so. What a great read. And it's mostly just edited interviews with the cast and crew with a bit of commentary interspersed throughout by the author.

I also had no idea this was from manuscript of a never run CFQ article going all the way back to 1979. This is great for the interviews as they are at least current with the event they are describing and not some of those fond look back recollections type of interviews you sometimes get. It is all fresh in their minds and of the time.

Grade so far: A.

[Kmart]

In anticipation of that CFQ double issue that never happened, I took out a three year subscription to the mag ... so I was very bummed when it never came out.

Once you get to page 400 or so, there's going to be a lot of talk about 'optical cameras' as opposed to optical printers and matte stands, and I'm not really sure I understand all of it myself. So it does get kind of super-techy. There's also several pages of 'instructions' for how to do each frame of the wormhole interior, and that is just a scream.

Glad you're digging it.

[ShaneP]

All these years and I never noticed Phil Joanou as a consultant for Apogee on the film. He was still in high school.

Up to about page 120 now. Just started shooting. I never knew I wanted to read about antimatter reactor core fx so much.

Spock: "Fascinating"

[ShaneP]

How exactly do you hide 400 miles of wiring on a Star Trek set?

Someone deserved a tech award for that accomplishment.

In Trek tv news:

Patrick Stewart suggests new Picard-centered streaming series will be "one 10 hour long movie":

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/pat ... 42346.html

Jonathan Frakes stated a few days ago Stewart would be playing Picard after he has stepped down as Captain of the Enterprise. This is good news because it means they are trying something new rather than just trying a reboot of TNG or some rehashed thing.

[Kmart]

How exactly do you hide 400 miles of wiring on a Star Trek set?

It's right there in the dialog:
"Wormhole effect!"