And do you know how he managed to make every frame in that film look like a period painting…? A very particular and expensive lens NASA gave him.
(Of course, though, while the man despised filming on location, he required massive amounts of reference pictures to build his sets, so even though the official moon landing was fake, NASA still had to get some astronauts there first to take those pictures for him.)
No, no, Kubrick hated shooting on location. All those Vietnam scenes in Full Metal Jacket…? Filmed right next to London.
Now, he did fake the moon landing, of course, that’s why NASA gave him the lens he used to make every single frame in Barry Lyndon look like a period painting… but much like with the start of 2001 (also filmed in London), he wanted lots of location pictures for reference (he didn’t want to go there, wherever it was, but he had no qualms whatsoever about sending other people), so he demanded NASA send astronauts to the moon anyway to take those pictures, and the official moon landing was faked using those pictures taken in the real one as reference.
I was and continue to be shocked that there are conservative Star Trek fans. I just can't wrap my head around how they justify it. It's very clearly painting socialism and left leaning ideas as the universally correct ideals which will lead us to a utopia.
Because classic trek - for all its reaching for the stars and left leanings - is still very much rooted in and reflects the US postwar mindset. We are the good guys! The best guys! We do no wrong! Which is a trough that right wingers like to feed at.
The show is also about a space navy that has near total autonomy on the frontier, securing the interests of the Federation while inducting new worlds into its ranks, with our heroes being the Good Guys who are high ranking officers in the military who give orders and investigate conspiracies and hold life and death in their hands as they fly around their heavily-armed “totally not a warship” exploration vessels.
It’s very Space America, and at times almost libertarian in its politics and non-interference. It’s not even explicitly socialist, all we know is that they don’t use money, except when they do. The writing is sort of fuzzy on the matter, which results (regardless of the intention) in an economy that doesn’t actually seem that different to our modern day in practice. There’s no money, but people still own businesses and talk about buying stuff, which allows for the economic system to fade into a sort of forgettable background space.
Besides, Star Trek isn’t necessarily about a socialist future. It’s about a post-scarcity future. I think that’s a key difference. I’ve spoken to many conservative fans who say that they believe that capitalism is the only way that we can achieve a post-scarcity future, i.e. invent replicators. Because Trek isn’t about a worker’s revolution, it’s about the slow progression of technology, followed by a nuclear war, and then at some point they just sort of got rid of money because it was obsolete. All we even know about it is from one-off lines.
It makes me think of the Culture series, another sci-fi universe I’m fond of. It’s even more leftist-coded than Star Trek, yet somehow Elon Musk is a fan of it and names his rockets after ships from the books. Apparently Jeff Bezos is a fan too. Ugh. And as a result, a lot of people’s first introductions to the series is through these awful people, since it’s a lot more niche than Trek.
all we know is that they don’t use money, except when they do. The writing is sort of fuzzy on the matter, which results (regardless of the intention) in an economy that doesn’t actually seem that different to our modern day in practice
At most they use credits, which at least according to this guy, are at most a peripheral, 3rd party currency, or at least a currency the federation uses for external trade, and that’s what makes most sense to me. Why would the average person care about federation credits when they’re only used on border systems at most, and your home replicator can make you pretty much anything you’d ever want? To a person living in such a world, for all practical purposes there is no such thing as money in the federation.
There’s no money, but people still own businesses and talk about buying stuff, which allows for the economic system to fade into a sort of forgettable background space.
They never seem to talk about buying stuff unless it is out on the frontier, exchanging with foreign entities, etc. It also doesn’t seem like businesses in star trek (at least the above board, earthlike ones) aren’t anywhere near today’s businesses. To me, it seems that they are treated as family businesses, with limited “employee” count, and with each “customer” getting their service/food/item for free, within reasonable limits. It’s like going over to your family’s house for dinner. You don’t pay, you’re family and they will happily feed you (within reason). And it seems that businesses treat everyone like that.
There is no stock market, profit motive, costs of running a business. It’s all done out of the goodness of people’s hearts.
I doubt it’s that big of a difference. If they have the tech to materialize full fledged humanoids regularly, millions of times a day, I’d think they’d also have the tech to make replicated food taste good.
But sure, I can see it being marginally better. But not enough to mean money is still in use.
It might be more of a “tomatoes I grew myself” type of thing for most cases.
I always saw the “real food is better” attitude exists as either a hipster thing or simply because recipe they prefer just doesnt exist in the database. In TNG we see people from the past try repilcated food and absolutely love it.
So (hipsters aside) a home cook would also be more likely to have some minor variance in their meal while the replicated version would be identical on each plate every single time. I imagine the heterogeneity may be part of the appeal of human prepared meals. The replicator also may have grandma’s beloved secret recipe, but not your grandma’s secret recipe.
This is true, but also it’s implied in technobabble that replicators operate on a lower “molecular” resolution whereas transporters operate on a quantum scale. I rationalize this as a space saving measure; when you’re transporting living organisms, you need perfect precision, and thus a full pattern buffer worth of resolution. This is clearly expensive to store, so much so that it decays over time unless you do something tricky.
Replicators use a lower resolution scan, as you can just reassemble protein molecules into the right shape most of the time. Eddington complains about this issue. (The non-canon TNG technical manual mentions tanks full of protein sludge used for replicators.) Now, is this actually detectable by a human palate? Eh, maybe.
I imagine if you were to beam a plate of non-replicated food though, the full flavor profile wouldn’t be lost. It’s specifically the low resolution of the replicator tech.
I haven’t heard that take before, which is actually a decent workaround for the “why can’t we replicate living beings?” question.
I doubt it would be detectable though. Because you’d have to be able to tell the difference between replicated molecules, and molecules that were transported, with only differences being individual atoms and subatomic particles. Neither of which I’d think somebody capable of discerning. Maybe it’s a bit if a placebo thing?
Or maybe it would be a “pure water has no taste” sort of thing, where replicators make things too pure, to the point where some consider it bland. A real tomato grew in dirt and still has at least some, and the soil effects it’s taste, whereas the same isn’t true for replicated foods.
There also may be some degree of intentionally making an excuse. Lots of people love gardening, and in a world with effectively infinite, free food, your hobby seems more valuable if you have an excuse that your home grown real food & liquor tastes better.
This isn’t a random, one-off comment - in every series, it’s mentioned over and over again how much better non-replicated food is. And getting better/ upgraded food patterns, and so on and so forth.
Hell, it even took Picard a while to get his tea made right.
Now that said, it’s mostly a software issue, not a hardware issue.
I largely agree with your analysis here. My point was that the way the economy is portrayed is such that we don’t get to see much of how it actually works, meaning that a lot of our understanding is speculation based on a handful of lines.
Meanwhile, they’re still participating in the aesthetics of commerce within the Federation, and literal commerce beyond its borders. The idea that there’s a currency used for trade outside the Federation, but citizens get everything for free within it, is a popular interpretation but it’s never actually explicitly stated within the text outside vague mentions of a “Federation credit”. It’s personally my favorite interpretation, but I think everything’s vague and in the background enough that I can see how people can walk away with different interpretations. Just look at that Ex Astris Scientia article; I even disagree with where some of the evidence should fall on whether it’s pro- or contra- money.
The wildcard here is that we see Federation worlds that seem to still use money, namely the Bolians who are members of the Federation, but the Bank of Bolias is a major financial institution.
The interesting thing to me is that people often assert that replicators are the reason that money doesn’t exist in the Federation, but that’s simply not the case; it’s established in VOY that money “went the way of the dinosaur” in the late 22nd century, prior to the invention of the replicator over a century later. Neither replicators nor money existed in Kirk’s era. It seems that replicators are not essential to eliminating money in the Trek universe, although I’m sure they’re a boon to the standards of living.
My point was that the way the economy is portrayed is such that we don’t get to see much of how it actually works, meaning that a lot of our understanding is speculation based on a handful of lines.
For sure, and it is rather frustrating. But it makes sense that they don’t outright explain the details, as it would just cause lots of people to complain.
The wildcard here is that we see Federation worlds that seem to still use money, namely the Bolians who are members of the Federation, but the Bank of Bolias is a major financial institution.
It also might be a planet to planet thing. Like, imagine if a ferengi colony world broke off and asked to join the federation? They would undoubtetly keep their currency. It would just be a question of whether or not it is seen as a dealbreaker for the federation. I’d wager it wouldn’t be, so long as said ferengi colony keeps to the “every one treated equal, with dignity, and sufficiently provided for” philosophy of the typical federation world.
It seems that replicators are not essential to eliminating money in the Trek universe, although I’m sure they’re a boon to the standards of living.
Yeah, that is a common theme that I’ve heard as well. If we had replicators in today’s world, it would only be for the rich, and even if it came down in cost it would still never be free to get one or operate. The philosophy of society itself has to change to agree to make sure everybody is housed, fed, and cared for sufficiently. Without that step, replicators aren’t going to do anything to get us to a post scarcity world.
It's as much Star Trek as the unofficial Trek movie Galaxy Quest. Doesn't matter if the characters and universe are different, it's got the same vibe to fit in.
I can understand why. The motivations and message are a bit deeper than WoK. But UC wouldn't have happened (in the same way) without WoK first, since I don't think Kirk had the same hatred towards Klingons before. Distrust sure, but not revenge level hate.
UC also has that connection with one of the best TNG episodes, Yesterday's Enterprise.
I think the humour in the first few episodes was Mcfarlens way of sneaking the show past the network suits - he sold it as family guy meets star trek, then switched on them once it was established.
Literally the case, the first couple eps were written for fartjock executives. Ep 4 onwards were written for the show. It’s why there’s a sudden stratospheric upswing
Honestly I kind of wanted them to keep more of the humorous tone. I know a lot of people hated it and thought it was distracting, but I thought it was a pretty unique take on the genre. I wish they’d toned it down without going full space opera.
Truth. I thought the show turned Naomi and Holden into twats but they did a pretty good job with Chrisjen. I’m still mad about the Arjun bamboozle. Arjun 1 is best Arjun.
I feel like most of it comes from the lack of forced perspective in the show. You never really see stuff from certain characters angles like you do in the book.
The show could only show a generic third person perspective, you never really got holdens insights from the chapters from his perspective, or Naomi’s from hers. So they kinda blurred together in the show I found.
This is a good point. We never get that internal monologue from Holden like in the books. In the first season, at least, I feel Ike they stripped out that key component from Holden’s personality where he would talk before he would fight.
Yeah they chose weird edges to soften. Make Amos less intimidating and batshit? No sir, my boy is supposed to be a crayon eater restrained just barely by Naomi, Holden or his love for children.
They can’t speak English though. In fact the scene this screenshot is from is them trapped in the past unable to communicate because their universal translators are offline. I would assume Quark speaks Federation Standard, but apparently that’s not close enough to English to figure out what they’re saying in the 40s
One thing I’ve always wondered, and this is hardly the most unbelievable aspect of the science fiction elements of this show but it’s one of the most pervasive and constant; why don’t we ever hear the native languages of the aliens underneath the sounds of the universal translators? Most, although not all, of them speak by vibrating the air, so where are those sounds disappearing to?
This was a plotpoint in DS9 where the UT didn’t picked up the nuances of a language but the mutants who were able to comprehend the language deciphered what was really meant.
I love that she’s such a Trekkie that she doesn’t even know how to do the Vulcan salute properly, despite probably having seen images of it her entire life even if she never watched a single episode of Star Trek.
For those who don’t know how much Rick Berman sucks:
“He’d comment on your bra size not being voluptuous. His secretary had a 36C or something like that, and he would say something about ‘Well, you’re just, like, flat. Look at Christine over there. She has the perfect breasts right there.’ That’s the kind of conversation he would have in front of you. I had to have fittings for Dax to have larger breasts. I think it was double-D or something. I went to see a woman who fits bras for women who need mastectomies; I had to have that fitting. And then I had to go into his office.”
– Terry Farrel
“Apparently someone had told Whoopi that we had written the episode, so she came over and started asking us if she could change one of her lines. And we were like ‘Oh you have to talk to Rick Berman. That’s Rick Berman’s domain. Only Rick Berman can go through and change the dialogue.’ There are some shows where actors just ad lib their lines, then there’s Star Trek where you have to say exactly what’s on the paper. So, I as a courtesy said I would let the production office know that she had a question about the script… Rick’s response was ‘Why the hell was Whoopi Goldberg talking to Eric Stillwell? What was he doing on the set?’ The next thing I know, I’m banned from the set. Just for passing on a message… and it was humiliating, on my episode, that I’m banned from the set.”
Also: “Since the early 2000’s, several writers of Star Trek material, such as David Gerrold[10][11] and Andy Mangels,[12] have criticized Berman’s participation in removing and minimizing LGBT themes from multiple Star Trek series, including The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.[13] Berman has responded by saying that he took full responsibility for the lack of such characters and that he had been working with other producers on including gay characters,[14] telling Kate Mulgrew that such a character would be included “in due time”, though no such characters would be included during his time as producer.[15]”
As much as I hate him, I also hate actors who change and ad lib lines. Someone went through this work to phrase or develop a conversation or monologue, stayed up to make it the way they want, then an actor comes and changes it. I realized that while watching the making of Sopranos and David Chase explaining how disrespectful it is to to writer. But yeah Berman sucks.
Sometimes the actors know their characters a lot better than the writers. For example, in the empire strikes back, the original script had Han saying something else, whereas Ford came up with the ‘I know’, which fits much better with his character.
Kershner: (Tries it out) “I love you.” And you say, “Just remember that, Leia, because I’ll be back.” You’ve got to say, “I’ll be back.” You must. It’s almost contractual!
Ford: If she says “I love you,” and I say “I know,” that’s beautiful and acceptable and funny.
One of the most influential science fiction monologues was ad libbed, and it's so much better than the original script.
Original script:
"I've seen things... seen things you little people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion bright as magnesium... I rode on the back decks of a blinker and watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments... they'll be gone."
Hauer's monologue:
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to die."
Like David Chase once said to Tony Sirico when Sirico said “my character wouldn’t say that”
“Your character?? This is MY character mother fucker, I wrote him”
Everyone needs to stick to their job and not fuck with the jobs of others. Collaboration is ok, but not on most shows, as most scripts are written just the way they’re meant to be said
But it’s not there character any longer, they gave them away. The writer isn’t going to be able to, much less should they dictate every little detail about a performance. Those details are so important to a charter, you can’t say a charter is solely the writers creation.
I’ve worked in all sorts of performance disciplines. Comedia dell’arte, High clown, low clown / children’s ents, improv, film, theatre in pros-arch, round…, puppet , Grotowskian devised theatre, Boalian Theatre of the Oppressed…
Only one small subset of that work demands word-perfect adherence. Performance is much more than post-Stanivlaskian Aristotlean drama.
Even Beckett, who was completely, insanely anal about everything from the design of the tree in Waiting for Godot, to the size of the spotlight in Not I, to the length and timing of the tapes in Krapps Last Tape, still made on-set changes right up to the performance.
Not to mention, often on set the script supervisor will sometimes give you last minute changes between takes.
Then, no script is ever perfect. I did Glengarry Glen Ross (which is suuuper tight in terms of interruptions, e.g.
A: “And a man has to shiver in his…”
B: “…shoes…”
A: “…boots…”
B: “…shoes… boots…”
A: “…And for what?” )
But one night the cop missed his cue during one of the sections where people are coming in and out of the office to be interviewed, and I’m (as Roma) trying to put the screws on the guy from the Chinese restaurant so I have to keep vamping on convincing him not to call his wife until the cop remembers to come out and confuses him for Shelly Levene.
It’s so much better for the audience for me to vamp than it is for us to stop the play and go and tell the actor he missed his cue. The show must go on.
Don’t forget the fact that he was aggressively homophobic and refused Gene’s wishes to depict the HIV/AIDS crisis in multiple episodes or even have a gay character on the show, including blacklisting a script about the crisis titled Blood and Fire. Not to mention shooting down the Garak/Bashir connection that both actors actively wanted and refusing to allow Malcom in Enterprise to be gay despite his actor also specifically playing him as gay.
Then there’s the fact that he aggressively tore Denise Crosby’s badge off of her shirt on her last day then lied about it on Twitter saying that she ‘gave it to him’. Or the fact that he’s the SOLE reason that Tasha Yar’s legacy is being forced into sexual slavery for a high ranking Romulan. Or that he constantly fought with Marina Sirtis about her contract as well. Or that he forced himself on a ton of writing credits just on the off chance that someone might potentially sue him. Or the fact that he was micromanaging everything to do with DS9 and only got worse with Enterprise. Or the fact that he fucking breathed this morning.
Fuck him.
Unfortunately, the article also says Brent Spiner is a big defender of Berman.
Data wasn’t perfect. Why should Brent Spiner be. That being said, that’s a hell of a character flaw…
Oh no I get what you mean, it’s clarification. I wasn’t super clear there. I didn’t mean the actor was gay but that the actor had definitely played the character as gay.
Don’t forget the fact that he was aggressively homophobic and refused Gene’s wishes to depict the HIV/AIDS crisis in multiple episodes or even have a gay character on the show, including blacklisting a script about the crisis titled Blood and Fire. Not to mention shooting down the Garak/Bashir connection that both actors actively wanted and refusing to allow Malcom in Enterprise to be gay despite his actor also specifically playing him as gay.
There was also the push to have a male actor play the main androgynous alien in The Outcast that Riker falls for. Frakes was all for it. Berman nixed it.
I try not to hate people anymore. It’s just too exhausting. I did before, a lot of people, and I’m just so tired.
But that man?
I could be on my deathbed and would still put on a Grandpa Joe type display if I found out that scum-covered amalgamation of used condoms had finally fucking died.
It was so insulting for him to come out and say he isn’t a fan of the source material. Was it too much to ask to find someone who’s passionate about Star Trek? I know they’re out there.
It is, or at least was, a strangely popular thing n Hollywood for people working on franchises to claim they knew nothing about them. A kind of “too cool for all this” vanity they were trying to project.
Exactly! If he was not a fan of any of the 60 years of source material perhaps he should’ve stepped aside and let someone who cares about Star Trek contribute to it
Imo, instead of asking why he didn’t step aside, I think the fault is on the studio executives for wanting to go in that direction in the first place. They clearly wanted a different direction to classic Trek, otherwise JJ wouldn’t have been their choice.
the guy who directed rogue one and the andor tv series isnt much of a fan of star wars, and those are two of the most acclaimed star wars projects since disney bought star wars
Although I do really like both of those and would probably put them at the top of the current generation of SW, they feel much less like SW properties and a lot more like they’re wearing a SW skin. Which, you know, is fine since it’s actually good and doesn’t destroy the property. Even if you don’t like Andor, they’re still making a ton of just regular Star Wars shit.
JJ basically derailed Trek for those of us that actually like the type of thing Trek was doing for nearly a decade. Basically took until SNW to get an actual Trek show.
Star Wars is samurai movies with a skin on it. The whole thing is borrowed, in space. So it’s okay to have stories like Andor, Rogue One and Mando, etc because they mesh well with the general design of the universe.
Lower Decks is as far as Star Trek as it can be, and yet it fits very well in the universe. Because it respects itself and respect the source material.
JJ never respected the source material and the universe.
Pretty much. SW is a very “hero’s journey” story. Somewhere else in this thread, I posted this:
And although I would say that Andor is proof you can do cool things with a Star Wars background, at its heart SW is a conceptually fairly simple. Young person with the help of wise wizard and plucky band must master his powers to face down the evil tyrant. Now, is that the OG trilogy? Prequels? Sequels? LoTR? The Matrix?
That, but in a space samurai/western backdrop. Andor not only respects the canon, it explores it. Sure, it’s not telling a hero’s journey tale, but it’s grabbing a piece of existing canon and enhancing it if anything.
This is where JJ I think fucked up with the Trek canon.
Just because the trauma is there doesn't mean the trauma is the same. It definitely had an effect on him, but to say that its the same as what Seven went through is ridiculous.
Picard spent his childhood on an old timey vineyard in France, playing and laughing and picking grapes. Seven spent hers in a maturation tank until she was big enough to be a soldier.
The three things I spotted were hangar bay has a fin type thing above it, there’s an extra bit on the rear of the “neck” from saucer to engineering hill and the position and rake of the pylons is shorter on the Nemesis version which brings the nacelles forward a touch and opens up the rear of the engineering hill a bit.
this got so out of hand at my local fest that they decided to do time traveller’s weekend as a theme. this year we went, and my costume was a cave man who hit his head on a tree branch while chasing a rabbit, woke up here and is amazed by everything
I read a theory once that “daimon”, the Ferengi title for captain, could translate to “good/lead merchant” or something along those lines.
So if we assume that’s true, it’s possible that “hewmon” means something like “shitty merchant”, and it’s just pure coincidence it basically sounds like human.
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