Trek on TV

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Review, TOS Remastered | February 26, 2007 | By: Adam Cohen 69 comments so far

Review: The Paradise Syndrome Remastered

So here’s the pitch: The Enterprise is drawn to a lush, idyllic Class-M planet set in the path of an asteroid the size of Earth’s Moon.  Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to the planet and discover a primitive culture in place that closely resembles several Native American tribes from Earth. Additionally, vegetation on the planet (pine trees, orange groves, etc.) is identical to Earth’s, despite being a half a galaxy away- the odds of which, according to Spock, are "astronomical."  The party discovers an artfully designed obelisk set in the woods, evidence of an advanced species later revealed to have planted human life on the planet.  In the show’s opening minutes, we are presented with a tantalizing mystery and a major clue. Archeologically speaking, this planet may answer the question of how humans appeared on Earth.  On paper, this is one of Star Trek’s more appealing high-concepts.  Unfortunately, "The Paradise Syndrome" wanders about, indulging in silliness instead of exploring its more ambitious themes.

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TNG, Trek Franchise | February 25, 2007 | By: Matt Wright 97 comments so far

TNG’s 20th anniversary is coming…

As the 20th anniversary of The Next Generation approaches (on September 28) you’ll start to see more and more tidbits, information, and a general celebration of TNG around the web and here at TrekMovie.com. To get an early start one of our intrepid community members Greg Mefford has put up an Entertainment Tonight clip of TNG’s announcement back in early 1987. It includes an interview with David Gerold as he writes a season one TNG episode.

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Review, TOS Remastered | February 20, 2007 | By: Dennis Russell Bailey 133 comments so far

Review: Amok Time Remastered

Angry Red PlanetWarned by McCoy that Spock is acting a little "off," Kirk is forced to agree after the Vulcan assaults Nurse Chapel with a soup bowl. Spock awkwardly explains that he’s in the grip of an irresistible sexual urge and that he’ll die if he doesn’t mate Real Soon. Kirk can easily relate to this, so he defies Starfleet orders to return Spock to his home planet. Vulcan is the most PC planet in the cosmos: a world of unemotional, rational, pacifist vegans. It’s logical, therefore, that we are introduced in short order to: A masked executioner T’Pring, a betrothed woman who desires another man and enters into a murder conspiracy rather than be seen to defy conventional social mores Stonn, a co-conspirator so full of lustful rage that he can’t help blurting out unhelpful clues to his complicity ("No, I was to be the one!") T’Pau, a planetary ruler so smug and bigoted that she indulges in playing lethal "gotcha!" with naive strangers ("Des combad ees to de deat")

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Abrams, TAS | February 20, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 16 comments so far

Abrams, Lost & MI:III Receive Saturn Nominations

Star Trek XI producer (and possible director) JJ Abrams has received a Saturn Award nomination as best director for Mission: Impossible III. In addition the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror have nominated M:I:III for best action/adventure thriller. In the directors category Abrams will be going head to head with fellow Trekkie Bryan Singer for Superman Returns. Singer’s Superman racked in a total of 10 nominations and M:I:III garnered a total of 5. Lost (produced by both Trek XI producers JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof) led the TV nominations with a total of 6, including best series.

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TOS Remastered | February 17, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 43 comments so far

Remastered “Amok Time” Airs Today – T’Bring It On

Pon Farr has got Spock feelin’ frisky and to make it worse he has to fight Kirk to work it out of his system. Preview | Episode Info | Show times Another Trek classic with some of the best Kirk, Spock, McCoy character moments. Plus probably most memorable score of the series. This week doesnt offer CBS Digital with much to work with, but what they have they are really going to town on… New matte painting replacing live action ‘troika’ walk to arena on Vulcan New matte painting replacing live action establishing shot of arena plus a few Enterprise shots including some around planet Vulcan

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Interview, TOS Remastered | February 16, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 30 comments so far

Spinrad Talks TOSR Doomsday – Plus A New VideoBlog On ‘Saving Star Trek’

Norman Spinrad, the writer of "The Doomsday Machine" has now seen the new remastered version and  gave some of his reactions to TrekMovie.com. TrekMovie.com: What did you think of it?Norman Spinrad: I haven’t watched it at all for a while and it is a strange experience. My first take is that everything looked cleaner – not just the effects but the whole episode looked cleaned up. For the new special effects it seems the biggest change is that they seem to be able to do motion a lot better. Things are moving in a more complicated way. The doomsday machine isn’t that different. The way I conceived it, it was something else. It should look both alive and robotic..and neither the new or the old looked either.

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TNG | February 14, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 104 comments so far

Stewart: Star Trek Was A ‘Calamity’

Patrick Stewart seems to be continuing to distance himself from Star Trek and Jean Luc Picard. In an interview with The Stage, the veteran actor talks about the life changing event in 1986 when he choose to  do Star Trek: The Next Generation instead of taking a role in "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf" on the London stage.    I was a different actor after that — doing that kind of play, and finally being able to make truth of an emotional commitment to a role like that in such a small, exposing theatre, with the support of three magnificent actors [Billie Whitelaw, Saskia Reeves and Matthew Marsh], made all the difference to me. The calamity that then happened to me was that I was offered Star Trek: The Next Generation. […]It did change many, many things, and I’m immensely grateful for that. I have worked hard not in any sense to feel they were wasted years —though time is a factor in all of this, and I now have a lot of catching up to do. I feel that acutely — not that there have been lost opportunities, but that there are things I might have done and I’ve got to do a lot of them quickly now.

The Doomsday Machine

Review, TOS Remastered | February 12, 2007 | By: Mark A. Altman 123 comments so far

Review: “The Doomsday Machine” Remastered

THERE WAS, BUT NOT ANYMORE: DOOMSDAY HAS ARRIVED! Before getting to my review of the new “Doomsday Machine,” let’s get through the preliminaries first. First up, let’s address why it’s sacrilege to screw with the original Star Wars Films (ok, really SW and ESB, I never really cared what they did with Jedi – although putting a new song in Jabba’s court was not really a step in the right direction) and not Star Trek. The answer: because George Lucas, for all intents and purposes, is supplanting the original Oscar nominated versions of Star Wars (which resides in the Library of Congress among other places) for all time and, frankly, making them worse. The Enhanced Star Trek, on the other hand, is an alternate version of the original episodes which continue to be in syndication and on DVD and are not intended to replace the original 1966-69 versions, but rather exist as a companion piece to them.

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Humor, TOS Remastered, TrekMovie.com | February 12, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 81 comments so far

CBS Digital Guys Use TrekMovie.com To Play Prank On Boss

We all know that "Doomsday" was the big one for CBS-Digital, and that Special Effects Supervisor Niel Wray went a bit grey getting it finished. Well the effects team thought they would play a little prank on Niel and try and convince him that eagle eyed TrekMovie.com readers spotted an error in the final product (in the trailer). To that end they recreated a fake version of TrekMovie.com with a faked trailer and some rewritten comments…

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Feature Films (TMP-NEM), Nimoy | February 12, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 56 comments so far

Nimoy Wanted STIV To “Lighten Up” – OK Being Typecast

Leonard Nimoy has had a long and successful career and now says he can trace much of that success back to Star Trek. In a new interview with FatFreeFilms he talks about how Trek opened up many opportunities for him to both act and direct. After directing Star Trek III, Nimoy went on to direct a number of films including the hit comedy 3 Men and a Baby. Regarding humor, the man who portrayed the original emotionless Vulcan talks about why he wanted Star Trek IV to have a sense of humor:  when we developed Star Trek IV I said going in "this film has to lighten up". We have been dealing with death and destruction in these Star Trek movies and we have had enough of that. Spock died and Kirk’s son died and the Klingons were all being killed, and I said "Enough – lets find a way to have a lighter tone. In spite of the fact that Earth is being jeopardized we have got to find some humor." And I think we did.

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TOS Remastered | February 10, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 81 comments so far

Remastered “The Doomsday Machine” Airs Today – as if you didn’t know

Kirk and crew find a weapon of mass destruction, and an unshaven superior officer obsessed with taking it down.  Preview | Ep. Info | Show times A classic if there ever was one. CBS have been working on this for months with over 100 new effects shots, you will see… Lots of shots of the Enterprise including multiple shots of weapons firing A seriously messed up USS Constellation A big scary planet killer A shuttle and shuttle bay and all of the above from some new angles

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TOS Remastered | February 9, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 35 comments so far

Spinrad On The Transparent Doomsday Machine

Some have noted that CBS’s new CGI Doomsday machine doesn’t have that partially translucent look of the original. Well their reasoning is simple, it was never supposed to have it. Mike Okuda tells TrekMovie.com that he talked to the the original writer for the episode Norman Spinrad about this issue. According to Mike, here is what Spinrad had to say: It was a glitch, not at all intentional. The FX was really primitive, simple blue screen stuff, which is why you can also see fringes around a lot of spaceships and so forth against star backgrounds.

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Comics, Review, TNG | February 8, 2007 | By: John Tenuto 14 comments so far

Review: New Trek Comics

2007 is the 20th Anniversary of Star Trek The Next Generation, and IDW is planning to celebrate by setting their first Star Trek comic in Jean Luc Picard’s time. IDW is the latest inheritor of the Star Trek comics license (after being owned by both DC and Marvel over the years). The six issue series titled "The Space Between" spans the TNG era, with the first issue taking place in season 1 and the second during season 5. IDW have assigned an experienced team with writer David Tischman and Casey Maloney doing the artwork. Considering that IDW has experience with comics based on media items (such as Transformers and 24) it is no surprise that fans should be hopeful for the future of Trek comics. TrekMovie.com got a chance to speak to IDW editor Dan Taylor and see the first two issues and we like what we are seeing (and hearing).