It's Forty Two! » Star Trek

In the news – Part I

Frank — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 18:51:28 +0000

Since I follow a lot of blogs and news-services online, I thought I’d share some of the better posts from time to time. So here goes part I.

Fan Service: On Losing Patience for Women Kissing
Talking about the Star Trek Deep Space Nine (one of my favourite TV-series) episode Rejoined where a female main character kisses another woman. These characters are of a race called Trill, who live in a symbiosis with a humanoid host. The story here goes that they used to be married in an earlier host or “life” and now meet again. This was a setting that allowed for a controversial scene at the time (1995)—two women kissing on TV. The blogpost makes some reflections on the topic.
Reposted from Skepchick.

Gender Gap Vanishes in Female-Empowered Cultures
Another topic that I have read a bit about lately … and watched a few BBC documentaries on. The biological difference between the brain of men and women. Interesting research showing that the differences may be even less “biological” than we’d think.
Reposted from Skepchick.

Quantum computer chips pass key milestones
So for a technology update. The article describes a new design based on superconducting electrical circuits as a competitor to current set-ups using photons or ions.
From NewScientist Physics & Math.

Star Trek – The Original Series

Frank — Sat, 23 May 2009 14:11:39 +0000

Finally got around to watch the entire three seasons of the original Star Trek show from 1966 to 1969 (I have just seen random episodes before). If you like Star Trek, it is well worth watching. It gives you a lot of back story for the Star Trek universe and the full extent of Roddenberry’s utopic vision of the future. I have to note that I do not much care for his utopic future in many ways, and tend to agree with Ira Behr (Deep Space Nine) on this.

Regardless, this 1960s Sci-Fi show is unique in many ways. There was no elaborate make-up, the alien costumes, if any, were laughable by today’s standard. The stories however are very entertaining. We are not loaded with the techno-babble of the newer shows, nor do we have all the boring filler episodes. This is hands on action with beautiful women and classic evil villains. We find planets with Nazis and Chicago gangsters, planets with aliens who keep humans in zoos, and pretty much every old scary aliens-are-evil imaginative story you can, well, imagine.

The set designs reflect what was considered modern at the time (I assume, I was born in the 70s myself). The high-tech panels and controls are covered with flickering lights and switches, and the computer voice is similar to what we remember from the Amiga 500. Of course, computers were not something everyone had much everyday knowledge of, so they tend to be portrayed as big gray boxes with flickering lights. Even the evil AI villain we run into in one of the episodes. Of course we must not forget the costumes. The men are dressed in a pajamas and the women in miniskirts. We also have the classic, yellow for command and red for crew colours which were swapped in the Next generation series. Most episodes have a red-shirt death, they seem to be very expendable.

All in all, the original Star Trek show is well worth watching both for the stories and for the classical Sci-Fi look, and not to mention for the legendary original actors like leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, James Doohan, Walter Koenig and the rest.

IMDB Link: Star Trek

Star Trek XI

Frank — Sun, 17 May 2009 19:27:49 +0000

Yeah, so I went to see the new Star Trek movie last night.

If you haven’t seen it, and are planning to, you may not want to read any further as there may be a few spoilers.

Now, I’m not a trekkie, although I have seen more or less everything of Star Trek. I liked the new movie on its own. It had great special effects and a good storyline. I also liked the previous Star Trek movie for much the same reasons.

I am not gonna review the movie here in detail, just want to rant about a few things that annoyed me about it. Well, not “trekkie”-annoyed, they will complain about everything, just a few details they could’ve done much better.

My first complaint is obviously to the story line. We are witnessing an event that changes the course of Trek history when Kirk’s fathers ship is destroyed by a Romulan vessel appearing from the future through a black hole. The Romulans look like shit compared to the Romulans we’re used to, but never mind that. The point is that they split the time line by interfering with history. Thus we are now seeing a new alternate Star Trek reality. The course of the plot line takes us to the destruction of Vulcan, so this alternate reality can never be anything like the Star Trek we know from the first 4 series and 10 films. Obviously the 5th series is unaffected as it is set at a time before this film. Basically what they have done is create a brand new Trek universe, where they can do whatever they want without considering the old “reality”.

Another annoyance was the interior design of the Enterprise, it looks nothing like a federation starship. The Enterprise in the Enterprise series looks like what we would expect of an early ship, a bit like a submarine in the lower decks. This one just had a too heavy industrial look compared to the slick design we are used to in all the other series and films.

All in all, it was a good movie regardless, and as they have more or less freed themselves from the Trek storyline Roddenberry laid out, we may see some very different Star Trek in the future. J. J. Abrams (the director of this movie) certainly have brought a lot to Star Trek in the past.