Us non-geeks might get to understand what the hell Prometheus was all about.
SPOILER ALERT! According to an article in the Grauniad, they are hopping mad at modern movies habit of giving away the entire plot in their trailers, so choose wisely
Ahead of the movie’s release next month, Fox has now published three new TV spots for the sci-fi film. The videos have ominous-sounding titles–“Run,” “Pray,” and “Hide”–and they deliver the chills.
Part of what makes them scary is not knowing what’s coming, so that’s all we’ll say. All three videos are embedded below; they’re pretty short, so it won’t take very long to see them all.
Scott isalready planning the next Alien movie, Alien: Awakening. “You’ve got to assume, to a certain extent, success [for Alien: Covenant], and from that you’d better be ready,” he said. “You don’t want a two-year gap. So I’ll be ready to go again next year.”
Alien: Covenant arrives in theaters on May 19 in the US.
In other news, Fox has teased this year’s Alien Day, which will be held on April 26 (a reference to the planet LV-426 in the sci-fi universe). According to CBR, Fox’s celebration plans include a livestream event featuring a Q&A with the _Covenant_cast and the reveal of some behind-the-scenes footage.
Everyone loved DS9. Enterprise just never matched it. Having now watched all 4 seasons, it was clear that the failing of Enterprise was simply the acting, too wooden, not really believable and despite Tripp & T’Pol shagging just never any real spark between them as an ensemble. It was best shown up by the appearance of Rene Auberjonois in one episode, who did very little but simple out acted everyone else in sight.
It was a shame because for much of the show, the actual stories themselves were much better and tighter “Sci Fi than DS9” but again imho the entire Temporal Cold War, Aliens with Germans in New York etc detracted from the real story of the Federation being formed and boldly going. Certainly Series 4 contained some cracking stories, just that imho none of them were true “Star Trek” stories.
Maybe it would have been better to leave the Time Travel alone for a future spin off but it was enjoyable and brings us nicely to.
TOS.
Mrs D_P never saw the show - even during its billionth repeat showings. She is now obviously up to date with the Trek Universe and we sat down to watch The Cage with Jeffrey Hunter.
PMSL. The wooden Spock, the cardboard planet, the horrific acting at every level and the graphics… Yes it all elicited snorts of laughter, and yet… The Orion Slave Girl scene - bloody hell - the Orion Slaves in Enterprise S4 MUST be clones - the effort of finidng the look-a-likes - the instant recognition of Bones as Karl Urban - that was a really cute moment.
And, despite the at times tedious amount of dialogue vs action in that first pilot, it still gripped - you could still see what made it stand out as being something new.
The journey now is to (FINALLY) watch TOS in the right order one after the other, to see how clever those who came after followed the “Roddenberry” templates so that we are finally ready for Discovery next month.
It has been an epic journey, obviously interspersed with side trips into movies and other shows, but I really 1) cannot think of any other woman who’d happily sit down and watch every single episode (and movie) ever made and 2) cannot recommend enough that the pilgrimage IS worth while.
Live long and Prosper
(And yes I AM keeping a note of all your other show recommendations for when our 5 year mission is finsihed )
So here we go. Star Trek The Original Series Review.
What a crock of Shit.
No seriously.
By modern standards it was just a MESS. Obviously, we do not remember it that way…
Series One
Starts with the Jeffrey Hunter Pilot Episode. Spock is unrecognisable, in fact a pllank of wood probably acts better than he does. Actually, when I “starred” in a Merchant Ivory movie with Hugh Grant, MY acting was better than Spock.
What was important about this episode is that it set the standard for a tendency for Star Trek shows to go “Mental” rather than “Alien” - in fact the number of episodes across all the series where the crew are having their minds bent is out of all proportion.
Next we notice the mess that the cast is. No sign of Scotty for a few shows, Yoe(Wo)men come and go and the Bridge Crew changes as fast as Kirks uniform - yes he wears a GREEN top in almost half the shows not the yellow. In fact, Chekov (who we all imagined as a permanent fixture does not show up AT ALL in the first series! The Uniforms are a giveaway - Kirk is wearing Green then Yellow THEN he is seen in a Jeffrey Hunter style top - all out of sequence - it is as if the producers edited the sequence all over the place.
The Sound Stage - Oh come on, Dr Who got canned over the Cardboard Sets in the late 80’s, tis was worse. The one set of rocks must have appeared a dozen times throughout the run. The Monsters? Absolutely WHAT was the Poo Monster doing alongside Abraham Lincoln (on the same sound stage)
nd back on the subject of Aliens, in at least 4 episodes, Enterprise is “Intimidated/Invaded” by coloured Lights. I mean COME ON! At least have the lilghts flash in a different order FFS.
I could go on, the episode with Gorn - where Kirk makes Gunpowder and a cannon out of a Toilet ROll Holder, some string, brown paper and a piece of Bamboo…
And then, Kaboom. That was it. In the last ever episode Kirk is Body Swapped and goes all Lady Boy or something while my Ex Wife inhabits his Body and decides to “calmly” take over the Enterprise and be Captain. Seriously? No WONDER it got dropped it was SHIT!
And you all of course know the BIGGEST Lie of Star Trek?
Kirk never ONCE says Beam Me Up Scotty. - NEVER!
And that was it. One of THE most important TV Shows in Hstory was actually utter SHIT b y every possible standard of modern TV making…
And yet it was BRILLIANT. What we realised, coming to TOS after “Enterprise” is that what was GOLDEN about that show was the Ensemble. The fact that you could laugh because Spock raised an eyebrow (long before Michael Caine copied him), Or Scotty with a bad hair day just has to scowl, and you just know that today, someone would arrest McCoy for his “prejudiced Love-Hate” relationship with Spock.
You realise watching again that Spock actually GOT LAID. That Kirk was a really bad Lady Boy (Or Boy/Lady). That Gorn IS possibly still one of the GREATEST TV Show Monsters of all time.
What we both realised as we watched that show was -
God It was Brilliant, we loved it and we miss them all.
I just hope that Discovery manages to find that spark between the cast and it comes out more TOS than the “technically superb but empty” Enterprise.
God blsess Gene Roddenberry - what a marvellous mess you created.
Actually you were pretty close I guess, the Butler was fucking the Gamekeeper or something like that.
Was a LONG time ago, the Production Company put out a “Casting Couch Call” to the local Cricket League as it featured a Cricket Match (no shit) anyway, we signed up 50 quid for a day’s work. Had to go to a fitting session and we had to grow Tache’s and stuff.
Highlist was a Bacon Sarnie in Guildhall Square Salisbury, then into Make Up where my hair was done by none other than Helena Bonham Carter and we did the BIG SCENE where Hugh Grant walks into the Courtroom to see his Boyfriend being sent down for Buggery…
The FUNNEH was that Hugh had been out on the lash the night before and walked into one of Salisbury’s “legendary” Squaddie" Pubs and had “lost” took them an extra two hours to cover up his black eye & thick lip.
Anyway we had no idea the content of the film until we turned up at the Cinema Gala Premier with kids in tow.
It’s almost precisely what I was expecting, which is Seth McFarlane actually concentrating on something. When he does that, he’s rather good, so The Orville is consequently, rather good.
It’s got a better first episode than any Star Trek series to date, but that’s not surprising. Galaxy Quest, which treads similar ground, is probably the second best Star Trek movie, and it’s just a spoof.
What Galaxy Quest was to TOS, The Orville is to TNG. Every fucking shot tells you Seth McFarlane lurves TNG. Which is cool, because I loved TNG too. Glad to see it back in some form.
And now I’ve just seen the second episode of The Orville. I’m upgrading my assessment. It’s excellent, and I cannot quite express how excited I am about the rest of the series on the basis of these two episodes.
McFarlane has clearly grasped what it was that made Trek decent, and also knows what made it crap. The humans on the show are very contemporary, cracking wise and expressing their sentiments like we would, not the somewhat stilted future humans we got in Trek. Most of all, they’re flawed in ways that the TNG crew was not. It makes a universe of difference.
The second episode’s main plot beats could have been lifted from a number of Trek episodes. Crew members get abducted, so the rest of the ship has to get them back. It’s the execution that’s handled so well.
I hope Star Trek Discovery is decent, but as long as The Orville maintains this level of quality, it can crash and burn and I probably won’t care.
As much as the bright illumination of Enterprise was annoying, so is the “Expanse” style darkness of Discovery.
It is also very "Orange.
The music nods towards TOS but during the actual show maybe misses the drama of TOS or TNG.
But for all that, wow. It starts with a DS9 quality battle and the characters already have more depth the Enterprise and some cohesion.
It didn’t blow me off the sofa (but then neither did Encounter at Far Point). It does show great promise.
I did like the little touches, the BEEPS and whoops on the bridge from TOS.
MY ONLY TRUE COMPLAINT? Why did they have to accentuate the alien-ness of the Klingons even more? Unrecognizable from the "non ZPC Hispanic look of TOS but tbh even less like a Klingon than Worf. Equally having sub-titles means we are reading rather than looking at the epic sets on screen. Makes it slightly detached tbh
It’s gonna be a hit and I will love it. Eventually.
Star Trek has landed on small screens, or at least the expansive flatscreens that dominate our living spaces and send information back to Mr O’Brien When he gets the latest deposit from the homestead on the Flowers, he’s going to have footage of a very happy boy, because Star Trek Discovery really sticks the landing.
I know folk, including Phil, will moan about the Klingon look. Don’t. You’re pandering to the same spotty geeks that demanded an explanation as to why 1960s Klingons looked different to 1979 onward variants. It’s called a fucking makeup budget, you fucks! TOS didn’t have much of one, they spunked shitloads on the first movie, and worked out how to replicate that cheaply enough for TNG! These are nits I did not pick. If the Klingons are supposed to be the embodiment of the warrior culture, you can have no complaints with the way they’ve been done here. They are warlike, scary and awesome - yet still steeped in the concepts of honour and glory that we saw developed so well in TNG.
Unlike every other Trek that has gone before it, Discovery focuses on a single character. It’s not only a bloody wise move. It’s also how most other fiction seems to work. Previous Treks never really revealed the universe through the eyes of one protagonist, preferring to spread the attention across the entire crew. Viewers eventually got to know them, but early episodes of previous series didn’t engage as well as Discovery does. It has the confidence to build a character and write a show around her.
And everyone’s going to love Michael Burnham, the human raised on Vulcan that the writers have chosen to make their fulcrum. Two episodes in, she has already gone on quite a journey. I’m looking forward to seeing where she goes next.
Some may also remember me wondering how Discovery was going to do in a post-Expanse world, another fantastic show that has been setting the sci-fi standard. It’s not the “darkness” that Discovery is nicking from the Expanse. It’s the momentum. Two episodes in, we’re not where we are at the start, and we can never go back. Warp speed, full ahead.
The Expanse, The Orville and Star Trek Discovery all on at around the same time. It’s a good time to be a space opera fan.
The Klingon reboot is a niggle not an annoyance imho. My annoyance was the sub titles.
Yes it adds a feel to the show but their dialogue is quick so we missed the grandeur and detail of the sets.
FFS couldn’t they clone Hoshi ?
Next few days are already dragging tho waiting for the next instalment the Producers already talking about S2 having a broader scope. Jeez 1st 2 episodes started at late DS9 level and they want to go bigger?
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