Category Archives: Star Trek
Do You Believe The Rumours of Star Trek 3’s New Director?
Aside from Urban’s inspired acting, most the new Star Trek is way off mark.
Rumours are rampant about who will take over the helm in directing the new Star Trek franchise‘s next voyage. Ithink anybody will do a better job then JJ Abrams, who on many accounts, has shared his dislike and lack of understanding of the Star Trek world. Star Wars, his new project, is the yang to the Federation’s yang after all.
Anyway, here’s the new thoughts from Deadline:
Deadline has heard from their sources that Paramount and Skydance Productions are interested in getting Joe Cornish, the writer and director of the 2011 cult hit Attack the Block and frequent collaborator of Edgar Wright(who shot a single scene in “Into Darkness”), to direct the third installment of their “Star Trek” reboot.
Besides Attack the Block, Cornish has been a frequent writing partner with Edgar Wright, having co-written the upcoming Marvel Studios movie Ant-Man with the popular director.
There’s been word that Paramount want to start filming Star Trek 3 sometime in 2014 with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci having returned from the previous two movies to write the three-quel.
This is all well and good, but what will happen to the lens flare?
Related articles
- ‘Star Trek 3′ Could Be Directed By Joe Cornish (slashfilm.com)
- Has STAR TREK 3 Found Its Director? (aintitcool.com)
- ‘Star Trek 3′ Orbits Director Joe Cornish (variety.com)
Muddy Waters
My Trek Through Trek – Part IV
What we’re watching: Mudd’s Women Episode 6 of Season 1 TOS (October. 13, 1966)
My Rating Out of 5 Tribbles: 1 Tribble, which thinks that a miner’s kitchen is liberation.
My After Episode Thoughts: “Original Series sexism at it’s best with a space pedophile to boot.”
Pros: Wonderful cinematography, The Venus Drug.
Cons: Harry Mudd, The Space whores, soliloquizing for no reason, just about everything.
The space whores!
Today my trek takes me to Mudd’s Women, the fourth produced TOS episode and, dear god, what a mess!
Star Trek is famous for its strides in feminism with the inclusion of women in places of power yet judging by this episode you would never know it. The plot concerns a space pimp and his three whores. I use the word whore because that is what these women are. They do not even resemble real women. Somehow these space whores don’t even seem to breathe and, what really grinds my gears, is that they walk the same halls with Uhura and the liberated women of the Federation. It is strange that Uhura appears in the cold open yet disappears from the bridge entirely for the rest of the episode. Are we to believe that she was not needed for the four or so days in which this story takes place? Has she been given an extended vacation because there are now other women on board? I think not. Perhaps, Stephen Kandel and Gene Roddenberry (the writers of this episode) were somehow embarrassed to have her on the same ship with these gross over sexualized caricatures. Perhaps, and more likely, they just plain forgot about her.
Blatant sexism aside there are plenty more faults in this one. The episode veers wildly from tragedy to comedy: one moment I’m (meant) to laugh at a humorous quip from McCoy and the next moment I am (meant) to feel the turmoil of three lost women who are used as a commodity in a transaction for Lithium crystals. Excuse me? One must first be presented humans to empathize with, not gratuitous ‘butt-shots’ with a semblance of emotions.
I am not sure what Shatner is doing with his performance in this episode. I am sure he didn’t even know. At a particularly tense moment of the story Kirk tears Scotty to bits over the Scotsmen’s need to present the facts about orbital time and how long the core has power. Two lines later Kirk inexplicably and easily apologizes. Why was this written into the episode? Scotty is the ship’s engineer for pete’s sake! It is his job to look out for the ship and therefore the crew inside of it. The majority of Kirk’s motives in this episode are bipolar. One minute he is as cold as a Klingon prison moon and the next he is as warm as a supernova.
Sidebar… I have noticed when the writing becomes particularly bad, like the aforementioned Scotty dress down, Shatner’s iconic choppy melodramatic rhythm becomes prevalent. This must be how he muscles through the writing abortions that sometimes are present in the show. Shatner is not a terrible actor as so many believe, on the contrary, he is one of the very best. He knows how to make terrible writing interesting and bold. The dress down, though it makes no sense, is a piece of damn interesting interaction. Kudos, Shatner, you magnificent bastard!
Lest this post become a bitch fest, I’ll talk about the pros of the episode and there are some. While this episode may be a mess thematically it is shot fantastically. In the cold open there is a brilliant tracking shot that sinks from the science station to Sulu at helm. Magnificent. Worthy of the cinematography of Michael Ballhaus. There are some equally interesting shots throughout the halls and in the prison even though it is capturing an odd soliloquy where Harry expounds his dastardly plans to dupe the Captain. Not to mention this all happens within ear shot of two security guards.
Uh… Harry they can hear you. You may not wish to share your half baked plan in front of two guys that can walk over to the Captain and say “Sir, that space pirate dressed like a Quentin Crisp Australian cowboy fantasy is trying to con you.”
The space pimp!
Let’s look at this Harry Mudd. On paper he is interesting. A space pirate who is wanted for fraud who inexplicably gets caught in an asteroid field (wait a minute… Han Solo? Is this your fabulous alter ego?) Alas, interpreted by Roger C. Carmel, this space rogue becomes a jolly joke with a huge Santa Clause belt buckle that evokes more space pedophile then dangerous fraudster. He talks literally like a pirate. No kidding. Carmel borrowed the West Country dialect of Robert Newton to form Mudd’s annoying cadence. Someone should have seen that this episode is all too hokey.
Carmel is at least 50% to blame.
I should also note the fascinating Venus Drug. It’s a drug that makes you grow younger or appear younger or uh… act younger (this is confusing as different characters say different things about it.) The way the Venus Drug is used reminds me of the actual way pimps and sex traders use heroin and other drugs to placate their victims into staying in the trade. This is a marvelous observation about the sex trade and were this episode shot in 1996, instead of 66, something would have been made of it. Though they get close. One of the only enrapturing moments occurs when the women first go into withdrawal and realize the hold Mudd has over them. This is a startling moment and shows that this supposedly jolly Mudd is not all he is cracked up to be.
I could go on for pages about what is wrong with this episode. It is certainly bottom of the barrel. I wont. Instead I leave you with a summation that Paula M. Block presents in her and Terry J. Erdman’s massive reference book Star Trek: The Original Series 365 when she addresses the disgusting anti-feminist theme of “How to marry a millionaire” which is prevalent through out the original series:
“Take Eve, the most rational of the three women. After spending most of her life cleaning up after a bunch of unappreciative male siblings, all she wants is the opportunity to connect with a good man. Even after learning that she doesn’t need the Venus drug to appear desirable, Eve can’t foresee a future that doesn’t involve snaring a man. The thought of serving aboard a starship never occurs to her – except perhaps as the captain’s wife. So she consigns herself to life on barren Rigel XII, cleaning up for another unappreciative male (miner Ben Childress) and listening to the winds blow day and night.” (pp. 039, 126)
It is hard to believe that this is the same world that would later give us Captain Janeway.
<— To Part III
—> To Part IV
Related articles
- “Beam Me Up Scotty” was Never Said in the Original Star Trek (todayifoundout.com)
- Top 10 Gloriously Out of Shape Action Figures (toptenz.net)
- Richard Branson says Captain Kirk is afraid to fly? BullShatner (metronews.ca)
Bailey, Bones and Balok
My Trek Through Trek – Part III
What we’re watching: The Corbomite Maneuver. Episode 11 of Season 1 TOS (Nov. 10, 1966)
My Rating Out of 5 Tribbles: 2 1/2 Tribbles who you think are cool when you first meet them, but turn out to be Clint Howard in a silver poncho.
My After Episode Thoughts: “Brilliant premise ruined by an acid fueled reference to the Wizard of Oz”
Pros: Dr. Leonard Fing Bones McCoy is in the house! Kirk’s salad. Spock’s daddy issues. Nuclear Allegory. Fine early character development.
Cons: Clint Howard. Ensign Bailey. Cheap, easy ending. Did I mention Clint Howard?
Kirk: Captains don’t eat no salad.
McCoy: They do if they want to fit into their velour.
In the last Trek Through Trek, I wrote about how a gripping story can be cheapened by a hasty final act. The Corbomite Maneuver once again demonstrates this. If I were to look at this episode based souly on its strides in character development, it is easily a 5 Tribble episode. The iconic crew is finally in place: Sulu takes his seat at the helm, Uhura, in all her sexy revolutionary glory, sits at communications and most importantly, my favourite character of all Star Trek, Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy makes his first of many excuses to be on the bridge and not in sickbay. I swear, he is the only doctor who seems to rarely want to practice medicine.
It is a misconception that the original Enterprise crew was held together by the relationship of Spock and Kirk. Some will even claim that it is the interaction of the ensemble that makes this show. I, however, believe it is the trio of Spock, Bones and Kirk that hold this crew together; Spock is coldly logical, Bones is pure empathy and Kirk is the instinctual arbiter. Bones is essential to the original Enterprise. Red blooded Humanity runs through him like green blooded logic streams through Spock. McCoy is the moral centre, always standing up for the little guy. Sometimes advocating so much for him that he allows his emotional nature to get in the way of the mission at hand. He is the connection we as a 20th/21st century audience have with 23rd century issues. His distrust of technology parallels our unease to the storm of technologic advance that we deal with everyday. It is only fitting a that a great Western character actor like DeForest Kelley brings him to life. Spock is the brain, Bones is the heart and Kirk, well… he has to be the crotch. The sex, as it were. If one examines each Star Trek crew, one can find this dynamic. Apply this triumvirate to TNG: Data is the brain, Picard the heart and Riker the sex. McCoy’s debut is not the only first in this episode. Just head on over to Memory Alpha if you want to see how many grounds are broken in these 50 minutes. The list is endless. Perhaps, it is all this establishment that hampers the main trajectory of the episode.
For the first three acts, Corbomite, has a lot going for it. It is a tale of first contact. The first of many such tales. It points out how fear of the unknown can severely derail future events and relationships. The episode solidifies the adage that first impressions are everything. When that poor greenhorn Ensign Bailey coaxes Kirk into firing phasers at Balok’s Fasarius ship, Kirk sets off a reaction that nearly turns the five year mission into a five minute jaunt. Events like these have happened in our own history. For example when Captain Cook first landed on the islands of Hawaii, something he did, left him dead in the sand. Magellan too. Countless explorers have by accident caused war without them knowing why. When the Zulu first saw the tall ship’s sails on the horizon, they mistook the white tapestry for clouds and thereby thought the pasty men, that landed on the their shores, arrived from the skies. This belief caused all sorts of repercussions for the history of Southern Africa. It is not inconceivable that Balok would think that humans were attempting war when they destroyed his explorer buoy. This is a fascinating idea and it gives the episode real teeth. Until the end, of course.
What must it be like to be Ron Howard’s younger brother? How can one ever find a name for oneself if one’s older brother is such an extraordinary young child actor, writer and
This is how I feel about the fourth act.
oscar winning director? It must suck to be Clint Howard. His claim to fame, aside from Austin Powers innuendos, has always been his involvement in Star Trek. He has been involved in three different episodes that span the 60s, 90s and 2000s. Clint’s most iconic moment is probably his portrayal of Balok in this episode. However, I don’t think it is because of his stunning performance. Trekdom’s fascination with Clint is more likely the result the absurdity of his character. Balok is a child, alien, scientist with the voice of a muppet. He might as well have been a puppet like his alter ego. Better yet, if this puppet was the only incarnation we encounter, Balok would be far more fascinating.
Speaking of fascinating, this episode is the first moment when Spock uses this catchphrase.
I really dislike when a story is full of potential and suspense only for it to be undercut by some odd character choice. The whole episode goes to great lengths to set up a brilliant threat to the Enterprise, only to turn it was a master plan coined by an oddly overdubbed child. I understand that the creatives surely wanted to create a “nothing is what it seems” theme, yet, it turns the episode into a farce. This is a reoccurring problem with early Trek. The creatives don’t seem to trust their material. More likely, they don’t yet understand what they can do with Star Trek. Hell! This is only the third episode.
The Corbomite Maneuver has such a gorgeous message but only ends up being undercut by a cooky creature shot and a ‘hip’ sequence.
P.S. Am I to believe that Bailey became an Ambassador for all of humankind? One moment he was an green ensign and then only a few short hours later he is worthy of inter world diplomacy. What a cheap little ‘explain away ending.’ Thank the stars the show gets better!
<— To Part II
—> To Part IV
Related articles
- Balok’s cube (en.memory-alpha.org)
- Why Does the NSA Control Center Look Like the Bridge From Star Trek? (bigthink.com)
- Spock (en.memory-alpha.org)
Going Where No Man Has Gone Before
My Trek Through Trek (Part II)
Every Trekker owes a debt to Lucy!
When I conceived of this journey through Star Trek I debated for a long time, 3 or four hours which is a long time for a guy like me, in what order I would tackle the episodes and movies. There are three different ways one can travel through Trek, canonically, chronologically by broadcast date and chronologically by production date. Each order poses different problems. If I chose to view canonically, I would have to begin with Enterprise, which would mean I would jump into a fresh series for me as I didn’t watch it when it was on TV. I decided against this because I am not sure if I will like the show and therefore ultimately abandon my project before it has begun. The broadcast order poses its own problems as it confuses the development of the series. Following that order would make this episode the fourth in succession. This position is incorrect as Where No Man Has Gone Before was intended as a second pilot. I ultimately decided to go ahead and view Trekdom in its production order. This order may not be optimal if I want guidance and illumination into the history of the Federation, but it does offer insight into how this world developed. It’s a far more interesting order for a young director in training like myself. This will cause a problem when I enter The Next Generation when the episodes loose canon when watched in production order, but we’ll navigate that Nebulae when and if we cross it.
To understand the monumental importance of Where No Man Has Gone Before, one must first ask Lucille Ball. No kidding here. Fricken Wah Wah Lucy. Without Lucille Ball there would be no Star Trek past the Jeffrey Hunter sweater epic that is The Cage. The story is as follows: after the failure of The Cage, Gene Roddenberry continued to shop around his idea for a Sci-Fi epic. No one was buying, until Lucille Ball, a friend of young Gene, somehow saw the pilot and said in passing to the president of NBC that they should greenlight a second pilot and actually air it to get sample of an audience’s reaction. This testing was not done with The Cage which wasn’t broadcast until 1988. Long story short, NBC did. Gene under NBC guidance overhauled the show, hired a young Canadian actor cutting his teeth on Sci-Fi on shows like The Twilight Zone to replace Jeffrey Hunter who had returned to his career as a matinee idol and the rest is history. Trekkers love Lucy indeed.
All right, boring nerd history aside, let’s talk about pilot deux.
Right at the top one can tell that this is a different beast then the terrible first pilot. It does not overwhelm with the pretension of Jeffrey Hunter and Martian Spock. Instead we are greeted with a comedic battle of wits between the colder more logical Spock and a charismatic Kirk. Snide jokes are being traded back and forth between two friends. Friendship is the core of this episode and indeed every good Star Trek episode hence forth.
From this point forward, the vision of the future is very different. It is cleaner, more sleek and spartan. This is reflected in the redesign or, perhaps, clean of up of the Enterprise set. As the episode progresses it becomes well understood that this is not a cluttered claustrophobic war vessel but a visionary bastion of human exploration.
You may recall, if you read the last entry, that I in my ineloquent manner, made a big storm of the inefficient women on the bridge. I put the blame in no small manner on psychedelic sexualization of every skirt. The women of this episode’s Enterprise are night and day (as far as can be under the moral lens of the 60s). Dr. Elizabeth Dehner is a woman of wry humour, with a constant upturned grin that seems to suggest that she is secure with her womanhood and her life. When Gary Mitchell throws some 60s style degradation at her, she easily makes mince meat of the crass helmsmen. However, you can still see the 60s female role peep through this episode though. When the Enterprise crosses the forcefield, a sleek and suspenseful sequence that evokes thoughts of ancient mariners falling over the edge of the Earth, the young blonde clad Yeoman raises her hand inexplicably to hold onto the strength of a male courageous limb. Even the damsel in distress exists on the bridge of the Enterprise.
The bridge is populated by many other firsts. George Takei makes his first appearance as Sulu, but is curiously in charge of physics, Jimmy Doohan sits at the helm in his Pseudo-Scottish presence as Scotty and there is even an unnamed man of colour sitting there pushing buttons. Spock stands for the first time in his mainstay location just to camera right of the Captain’s chair. His performance bares more similarities to iconic Spock, yet at one point he yells in a very un-Spock-like manner. (Un-Nimoy-Spock-like, for Quinto is all over the place vocally.) It is clear that Nimoy and perhaps Trek itself is still unclear as to the role that this character will play.
What the creatives of Star Trek are sure of is: the role discussion will play in this world. All the characters clearly parse out the issue of sudden powers in a human and this conflict
“You cannot kill me, so, let’s discuss why.”
is not one centered on the destruction of a threat, but rather the ramifications of evolving before our time. Gary Mitchell is a human who is suddenly given the ability to grasp all the information that his brain can handle and then some. This occurrence demonstrates what may happen if humans were suddenly offered a surplus of information. Can we handle too much information? A timely question for us now that we have all the thoughts of human kind at the touch of our finger tips. It’s obvious Gary cannot handle this as his mind explodes in a myriad of godlike powers conveyed in some cheesy yet surprisingly effective effects sequences, most noticeably in the really good and probably simple telekinetic sequences.
Where No Man Has Gone Before is not without its flaws. The final act is hampered by self important dialogue that seems to slow the conflict between Kirk, Mitchell and Dehner into a staring contest (at least we get great views of the expensive contact lenses). The final standoff plays as a thought experiment of the evils of an imperfect god, a debate upon the illogic of praying to deities that ask for obedience for no reason and are perhaps political allegories of deflection of human inadequacy on their creations. A common anti-religious theme that pops up many times later, even in the feature films. This “climax” takes the teeth out of an otherwise fascinating episode, but manages to satisfyingly convey a timely criticism of human development.
Flaws in an unfocused climax aside, Where No Man Has Gone Before is a grand episode that makes it obvious why this show was able to greenlight a full first season. What can be said is the greatest element that adds to the future success of Star Trek, is the addition of William Shatner’s Kirk. Say what you will about the man but he is willing to go for it. Throwing himself convulsing when he wishes and essentially oozing charisma, where Jeffry Hunter oozed nothing but an eel like aura. Certainly Hunter would not throw himself to the floor in flailing turmoil. The Trek trek is on!
“I don’t get, green blooded humour.”
<— To Part I – “The Cage“
—>To Part III- “The Corbomite Maneuver”
Related articles
- Where No Man Has Gone Before (uncommongeek.com)
- Kirk, Old Friend – A Character Study of Khan (comparativegeeks.wordpress.com)
- Star Trek Continues… on the Web (sqwabb.wordpress.com)
Escaping the Cage
Martian Spock and Surly Pike molest some Talosian vibrating flowers. Notice Pike seems ticked these flowers aren’t women.
My Trek Trough Trek (Part I)
What we’re watching: The Cage – Pilot of the Original Series (1964)
My Rating out of 5 Tribbles: 2 Very Small and Sickly Tribbles
A Snapshot of my after episode thoughts: “Roger Sterling commands the Enterprise and proves that sexism and surliness make for a boring journey.”
Pro: Talosians are cool. Yeoman is stunning actress is perhaps one of the most beutifful woment to stand on the bridge. Majel Barrett has more then three lines and doesn’t hit on Picard once.
Cons: Jeffrey Hunter. Emotional Spock. Creepy rapist Doctor.
Recently I saw Star Trek: Into the Darkness. This experience caused me great distress. Not only was it a shoddy film, it also did not resemble a Star Trek movie beyond having the same characters (and vaguely at that). I resolved then, in the cacophony of explosions and Cumberbatch diphthongs, to rewatch all of Star Trek from the beginning to the end. I intend to watch from the Pilot, right through the films, Next Gen, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise. Enterprise will be most interesting as much to this Trekker’s shame, I never watched it when it was on the air. I intend to put my finger on what the soul of Trek is. Tonight, I began my journey into the rich galaxy of the Federation with a review of The Cage. I also remembered that I had a blog (that I rarely use because of some unpleasantness) and I thought I’d keep a journal record of this trek. (Ok. I’ll attempt to cut down on my usage of the word Trek. Trek. Trek.)
It is alienating to go back and look at The Cage knowing all that we do now about the Federation universe. Not only is the Enterprise populated by strangers, Spock, perhaps the protagonist of Star Trek as a whole, is unlike himself. Aside from the Vulcan pointy ears, he’s is petty much unfamiliar. He even cracks a smile at one point. It is amazing how uninteresting Nimoy is in the pilot. He seems like a young school boy actor whose energy is flying all over the screen.
What Spock became in the later episodes is embodied by Majel Barett’s Number One. She instead is the cold logical advisor. Alas, there also something disjointed in her character. The soul of the Enterprise is missing. That soul is the Captain.
The role of “the Captain” has always been integral to Star Trek. Much like Doctor Who’s Companion, the Captain is the human character the audience can draw in on to help them navigate through the dense fantasy that is often high Sci-Fi. Hunter’s Christopher Pike fails in almost every regard to do this. He lacks any form of humor; the one joke he cracks at the end to the Doctor, is frighteningly disgusting. As a commander he seems lost and more interested in selfish pursuits of pleasure then running his ship properly. The first thing he declares is that he wants to quit! The majesty of the universe is to be guided by a man who has lost his passion for adventure. When he first descends to the Talosian surface it seems like this is a job requirement, not an expedition for knowledge and after all that is happening in this episode he begrudgingly returns to the bridge.
Pike and his harem of women.
Ok. I am sure you are saying “Julian you are wasting your breath harping on about characters.” You are right, but I found myself feeling disconnected to the plot as frankly I did not care if Pike made it back to the Enterprise or not.
The most striking thing I take away from the episode is the inherent sexism. I forgot that at the beginning of this widely ahead of its time show, it was a bastion of orchestrated 60s moralism in space. Yes, there are at least two women in the main crew, and this is ahead of its time. But the yeoman character is largely the classic airhead women of sixties television. Number One, a women of power, does not make a single decision for herself as commander, which would not make her a women of much power. All decisions are made for by the smiling Mr. Spock or the nameless male yeoman is the blondest guy I have ever seen and I am pretty blonde. It is amazing how timid The Cage is compared to the episodes that followed. It’s a miracle the show ever made it past the Pilot.
I have knowingly not delved into the themes and philosophies of this episode because I will engage with those again when I reach The Menagerie episodes later in the first the season. These episodes present the same ideas with far more thought and investigation then The Cage ever throws a blue Talosian flower at.
Sports Fans what can we say about The Cage? It is a good thing Jeffrey Hunter thought Trek was beneath him and returned to a very short film career. He is unlikable and a dinosaur. His leering at the female characters would have stunted any of the political commentary of the later episodes. It is a great thing that Roddenberry was able to creep out of the overbearing fists of network executives and produce the genius that is only episodes away. The Cage should remain where it is, at the beginning and stuck behind a forcefield under the Talosian surface.
The Brains of the Organization. (See what I did there?)
To Part II – “Where No Man Has Gone Before“
Related articles
- New Star Trek Series Could Be In The Works (thelazygeeks.com)
- Giveaway and Review: Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years (universetoday.com)
- A Tree Full of Spocks. (bloodstonescifi.com)
- Movie Review: STAR TREK (2009) (unclenecro.wordpress.com)
Julian R. Munds 
