Elvis Gump wrote:
>>> On Sep 3, 10:49 am, Elvis Gump
>>> wrote:
>>>> Has anyone else seen this yet? The torrent servers for it seem to
>>>> be offline this morning, but the streaming version is up, though
>>>> small and slow continually re-buffering.
>>>>
>>>> The acting by the New voyages cast is as wooden as ever but there
>>>> are some really nice SFX in it, including views odf the TOS
>>>> shuttle bay and the movie era Excelsior bridge where George Takei
>>>> reprises his Captain Sulu role yet again.
>>>>
>>>> I'm about halfway though it, but it's worth a watch so far.
>>>> --
>>>> "We live in a Newtonian world of Einsteinian physics ruled by
>>>> Frankenstein logic."
>>>> --David Russell
>>>
>>> I thought it was a fairly enjoyable episode, but lacked the action
>>> of the last couple shows. This one had a lot of slow, dialog-filled,
>>> space.
>>
>> The first third (at least) of the episode was actually reasonably
>> fast-paced and exciting, right up to the appearance of the older
>> primitive Sulu in the transporter. So far, so good.
>
> You know if they'd used the AMOK TIME fight music I might have gone
> along with it.
>
>> Then it really slowed down when Elana was standing there in the
>> Enterprise room inside the energy field. She talked and talked, and
>> talked and talked. I found myself looking at my wristwatch. The
>> script should have gotten Elana out of that room sooner and into
>> some more interesting adventures on the Enterprise.
>
> Yep. And the bits with Elvis T. Kirk and co rushing off to the
> conference room while STILL IN THE ROMULAN NEUTRAL ZONE smacked of
> the worst of TNG script tendencies.
Well, it's pretty standard fayre in Trek, the conference room scene. After
all, they only went to the conference room while STILL IN THE NEUTRAL ZONE
because Spock had concluded they were trapped in the spatial distortion
thing. Kirk had actually just tried to hightail it out of there, remember,
only turning to fight because Spock had detected the power surge for The
Weapon. So, they were trapped, needed to talk about what to do. They could
all stand awkwardly around on the bridge, or go to the conference room. They
went to the conference room. They did it while still in the Neutral Zone
because they couldn't leave. The ship was stuck. I don't see a problem here.
> The idea that young Sulu had looked at a monitor for five seconds and
> divined the way to save them all was also a bit potty,
Maybe a bit dodgy, but not any dodgier than things we take for granted in
TOS, from McCoy magically having the right thing in his medical bag to Spock
and Kirk being able to time their leap through the Guardian Of Forever so
precisely, or Kirk giving Khan access to the Enterprise's schematics. The
whole series is full of gaping plot holes, but it's not fair to nitpick too
closely. Often a story is better for not bogging itself down in reality too
much.
Sulu had gone to the Romulan ship to find some "co-ordinates" so the
information to remember wasn't a vast amount, and would be fresh in his
mind. He read it off teh monitor, commented that he'd understood it (in the
scene in the Romulan corridor), all they needed was a few numbers to give to
the Enterprise computer to plot the right course out, there's not really a
problem here either.
The weakest point for me was the "only Sulu has the piloting skillz0r"
implication, which is a bit silly. It's hard to believe that the ship's that
difficult to fly, or that they've only got one crack helmsman on board.
Especially as NV had set up the DeSalle guy as a jolly good helmsman in
their previous stories. But I can let that pass.
> as was the
> idea that Alana's mom could hack the Romulan computers in five
> seconds flat from a terminal in a hallway.
She wasn't hacking it, there's no indication that it was encrypted or
anything. She went along because she had expertise in Romulan computer
systems. It was more like somebody who has expertise in how to *use* Linux,
rather than how to *hack* Linux. I personally thought this was quite well
done, considerably better than later Treks where anybody seems to be able to
operate any computer, even those constructed by alien civilisations they've
never even met before, in unknown languages, as if the entire universe uses
a standardised system and just slightly different coloured lights on the
panel.
How somebody could become an expert on Romulan computers is another matter,
considering the lack of contact between the Federation and the Romulan Star
Empire, but I think it's at least implied in other Trek that the Federation
employs spies against them and the Klingons etc, so it's entirely possible.
Certainly no more jarring than the difference between Balance Of Terror (we
known nothing about Romulans, ooh, I wonder if they're Vulcans?) to The
Enterprise Incident, wherein there seems to be quite a lot of knowledge
about them and certainty about the Vulcan thing, and the Federation even
know that the Romulans and Klingons are tradng with each other (those spies
again, presumably).
>Seriously, this sort of
> computing I expected in the 1960s aimed at people who barely knew
> what a computer was, but to aim such a thing at the geek core
> audience of TOS? WTF???
Well, it's trying to recreate the 60s feel to some degree anyway, and I
think your nitpicking is a bit OTT. A hostile reviewer could pull apart
pretty much any TOS (let alone Newtrek) episode in similar fashion.
Ian
