I personally hadn't seen "Space Seed" before I saw TWOK and I loved the movie. But after seeing the movie, some things just made sense.
Saw Wrath of Khan for the first time today...
- Thread starter K-Star
- Start date
I think that appreciation of TWOK is most reliant ( 
) on two things: apprecition of the original crew, who were iconic figures even then; and appreciation of the fact that this was only the second new live-action installment of the series since the original show was cancelled, and the previous installment, while very pretty, was disappointing to many on various levels. I actually saw III before checking out II on home video, but living in a time when these were the latest installments of Trek, I could certainly appreciate what the fuss was about.
So for those like K-Star who got into Trek via other series (which owe their very existence in part to the success of TWOK) and aren't particularly invested in TOS, I can understand not appreciating what the fuss is about. Though it does sound like K-Star missed some of the best shit in the movie.
) on two things: apprecition of the original crew, who were iconic figures even then; and appreciation of the fact that this was only the second new live-action installment of the series since the original show was cancelled, and the previous installment, while very pretty, was disappointing to many on various levels. I actually saw III before checking out II on home video, but living in a time when these were the latest installments of Trek, I could certainly appreciate what the fuss was about.So for those like K-Star who got into Trek via other series (which owe their very existence in part to the success of TWOK) and aren't particularly invested in TOS, I can understand not appreciating what the fuss is about. Though it does sound like K-Star missed some of the best shit in the movie.
I actually cut my Trek teeth on TAS on Nickelodeon, but got into live-action Trek with TNG. Then I got curious about everything Trek.
^Ditto. The music is incredible!
I wasn't referring to that, but to comments that the viewer might "get" the picture better if they saw Space Seed.
And Titanic will be one of the top grossing movies of all time. Popularity isn't synonymous with quality.
And you're entitled to your own POV.Others find meaningful messages and themes in it, such as Kirk coping with aging, death, the loss of his friend, etc.
Meaningful? Or melodramatic? There *is* a difference.
Actually, the only theme in TWOK that was particularly interesting or well handled was Kirk coming to grips with how his preference for shortcuts and evasion had damaged his life and those around him.
It would have been even better without his on-the-nose monologue about "cheating my way out of death," of course.
It would have been even better without his on-the-nose monologue about "cheating my way out of death," of course.
What about his dealing with aging?
A friend of mine thought the same thing, having seen ST II. She ran the Sydney branch of an international William Shatner Fan Fellowship, and most of its members loved to hate Merritt Butrick and David Marcus. They sent him up unmercifully and refused to accept him as Kirk's son.
Then my friend ended up on a studio tour during the making ST III, and it was the day Saavik and David opened Spock's coffin on Genesis! When she got home, we were full of questions about the new Saavik, the Genesis Planet sets, and what was in the coffin, but all she could say was, "Merritt Butrick, what a honey!"
Clumsy and superficial. The stuff of Hallmark cards.
Kirk asking Spock, "Aren't you dead?" after the simulator session was a nice bit of foreshadowing.
cardinal biggles said:
I guess you missed the part where this was a discussion board. "That movie sucked" doesn't lend itself to discussion nearly as much as "That movie sucked because..."The God Thing said:
What the fuck is there to explain? It is effectively like asking somebody to expound in detail upon the manifold reasons why he or she doesn't like to accidentally step in a pile of fresh dogshit.
Not that you've ever suffered from a shortage of reasons why you think The Wrath of Khan is the creative equivalent of Bennett, Meyer, and Nimoy taking turns ass-raping Roddenberry in a dark alley.
Roddenberry brought it all on himself. I mean he spent years slagging off on Harlan Ellison for having the gall to write him a great episode. He eliminated the canon status of TAS for no good reason but he was happy to cash all the checks he got for "consulting" on the show. He cock blocked Harold Livingston every chance he got for daring to write a better TMP screenplay than he could. And then of course there's TNG and all the horseshit that came after it.
So I say that Bennet was fully within his write to fill Roddenberrys enormous sphincter with semen.
Although I hated the removal of TAS from canon, there were, indeed, several necessary/efficient reasons for doing this at the time. Filmation, as an entity, was being wound down and the status of all Filmation products were in flux. Yes, it was highly likely that full rights to TAS would fall to Paramount/Viacom, but it had not been resolved. (Even way back when the Power Record/Comics were being done, Arex was licensed to Filmation and had to be redrawn as Connors, and M'Ress was redrawn to look like Marta the Orion.) The rights to Filmation art sign-offs were never clear cut, as Bjo Trimble discovered for her revised "ST Concordance".
Just prior to that infamous 1989 memo, wherein Richard Arnold (on behalf of the ST Office) told licencees Pocket Books and DC Comics that TAS "did not cross over with the movies", there had been plans for the kzinti to appear in "The Captain's Honor", a TNG novel, and for Arex and M'Ress to resume their positions in issue #1 of DC Comics Series II (they'd already been in Series I since the post-ST IV issues without a sign-off problem).
In 1988/89, the red tape to clear such a mess, with no one representing Filmation - and kzinti owner, Larry Niven, about to launch his "Man-Kzin War" anthologies, and sign-off on a forthcoming "Ringworld" RPG - was easily resolved by simply putting TAS off-limits.
Of course, Richard Arnold had no love for TAS, but he was doing all the tie-in manuscript clearances for GR in the late 80s and up until GR's death, so I guess why would RA put himself out for a show he didn't ever like.
I, for one, really enjoy TWOK..it's classic Olde Tyme moviemaking at it's finest, the ships "trading broadsides" like an old 30's pirate movie , the overblown acting by Shatner, optically based special effects, great lines and a fantastic score all combined to create the culimination of "Hornblower in SPAACCCCEEEEE" that became the hallmark of all the following TOS based movies.
TMP (which I love for different reasons) reminds me of a combination of 2001 and Star Trek TOS, the "Grandure of the Unknown" if you will and a fitting re-birth of TOS
But it's just a personal observation.
TMP (which I love for different reasons) reminds me of a combination of 2001 and Star Trek TOS, the "Grandure of the Unknown" if you will and a fitting re-birth of TOS
But it's just a personal observation.
