This report says that the debut of the latest Star Trek movie has set box office records. I am not a big ST fan – I prefer series such as Babylon 5, Battlestar G., Firefly and so on, but the trailer for the new film looks pretty good.
|
|||||
|
We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people. Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house] Authors
Arts, Tech & CultureCivil LibertiesCommentary
EconomicsSamizdatistas |
23 comments to A record breaker |
Who Are We?The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling. We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe. CategoriesArchivesFeed This PageLink Icons   |
|||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||
(Raises one eyebrow) Fascinating!
I too am a B5 fan (it is a good series to learn about politics!), and have also just watched this weekend’s sequential showing of Firefly on the UK Sci-Fi Channel.
The new Galactica was too free-wheeling and didn’t really come to a proper conclusion; but was interesting anyway.
I’m going to see the movie in a few hours myself. I’ll withhold judgement until I’ve actually seen it. However I just thought I’d say i’m not sure where they can go with this “reboot” franchise. I like J.J. Abrams and think his work on television has been excellent. However what made Star Trek, Star Trek, was the ideas behind it expressed by Gene Roddenberry. Now personally I don’t really hold with most of his ideology, which I think for the most part was painfully naive. However despite all that I enjoyed the general optimism expressed by TOS and TNG. And despite it being the black sheep of the family I really enjoyed Deep Space Nine as well. I’m just curious what they hope to do with the new Star Trek though, without a central guiding principle like the original had.
I saw it today, (in IMAX, no less) very good indeed, big on character development and action along with a fair bit of humour as well.
Didn’t think too much of the few previous Trek movies I saw over the years though.
For grins, ask your favorite Trekkie to name 2 regularly occurring characters from ANY of the ST series who arguably does not draw a government paycheck.
Yes, the trailers look good. I wonder when trailers will be given awards?
But the trouble with these prequels is that major surprises are banned! Will that brat Jimmy Kirk get what’s coming to him? Naw, he’ll live on, and stir up strife wherever he goes. Will the token alien, called Spock, make the movie a must-see for our martian visitors? Probably not..
Billll,
Morn and Quark.
To make it harder, say Ferengis and minors (and Ferengi minors) don’t count. No beagles, either.
Elim Garak of DS9 might be one example, but he certainly drew a government paycheck before he became a “simple tailor.”
On Voyager, Kes and Neelix probably count, unless one considers barter of services for a share of Voyager’s rations as a form of “paycheck.”
Does Q count as a regularly recurring character?
Interesting that you used the terminology of ‘rebooting’ the series as that is exactly the terminology I was using to describe the plot line in discussions after I saw the movie last night.
Kirk was quite a scrapper as a kid…
And to be fair, one would expect a movie about a military ship to have the majority of its characters be on state wages… I do believe that to be the case on CVN-65 as well.
As to other series, there are of course the Ferenghi characters. I have often told friends I believe there is some Ferenghi in my family line somewhere…
My nine year old and I were bored with the distinct lack of character development and could not understand why the girl-from-the-hood would give mumsy comfort sex-kisses to Spock, or Kirk would shag without emotional attachment (son covering his eyes and me thinking WTF) unless this was reflecting the dumb ass audiences…
Yeh, if you’re liberated enough to vist STD clinics once in a while you’ll enjoy seeing yourself steering the Big Enterprise. Wreally.
Kinderling
I’m pretty sure there aren’t “hoods” in the twenty-fourth century, but surely Uhura’s entitled to kiss whoever she damn well pleases, no? The whole premise of this movie is that Spock’s human side was much more dominant in his youth.
Kirk and the green girl is a ref to Shatner apparently bedding “every alien princess” that appeared on the show, and specifically the one in the title sequence. It’s an in-joke.
All STDs were eradicated in 2121.
An excellent movie, I highly recommend it.
Live long and prosper.
I’m looking forward to seeing it, but it will have to wait until next weekend. Sigh.
B5 and Firefly are among my favorites; I have all the DVDs. Never could get into Battlestar, though.
Does anyone know where there is a good (comprehensive) list of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition?
Laird,
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Ferengi_Rules_of_Acquisition
Laird, someone actually published a small paperback book on those Rules: (Link)
I just saw the movie. Yes, there are some plot holes I can drive a truck through, but the movie was entertaining and fun . Two words I rarely use when describing the movies I’ve seen in the last year.
“The new Galatica…… did not come to a proper conclusion”.
Well I kept my mouth shut about the conclusion (as not everyone has sat television and it was not show on old style television in Britain), but everyone has had a chance to see the conculsion by now – if they have not seen it they are not interested.
There was conculsion – a horrible leftist green conclusion, with people giving up technology and going back to nature (even sending their space ships in the sun).
Just the sort of conclusion one would expect from Universal/N.B.C/General Electric.
It seems my paranoid predictions were proved right yet again.
Presently I am in fear of what the conclusion of “Lost” will be next Sunday – true C.B.S. is not as bad as N.B.C. but………
By the way, I am told the man behind Lost is the same person who has made the new Star Trek film.
He was on Radio Four (B.B.C.) the other day – and he got a very soft interview.
Like Classic F.M. ( the “private” radio station) the B.B.C. has decided that both the Star Trek film and the Angels and Demons film (no doubt, as in the book, a conservative Catholic priest will turn out to be the real force of evil at the end in a “surprise twist”) serve The Cause (the cause of leftism).
Anyway I listened to the man.
No more “age of cynicism” now everyone (in the world) must get together and, under our elected leaders (Obama) serve the Common Good.
He was simply repeating what the newsmagazines (such as Newsweek) and the network television stations (such as N.B.C.) had already said.
Hopefully the man does not really believe this totalitarian stuff – he may be just trying to get more people to pay to see his film.
But what he said made sure that I will not be paying to see it.
I wouldn’t count minor dependents. The two on Voyager are probably wards of the state.
Don’t forget Harvey Mudd.
For Sci Fi conclusions, you can’t beat the Terminator/Sarah Connor franchise.
Man studies war.
The engines of war turn on man.
Man studies war to destroy the engines of war.
Rinse repeat.
The bad guys are the Military Industrial Complex and the good guys have lots of guns and hot women fighting, and – given the nature of Time travel, not to mention the ‘kill your granny’ paradox – there can’t be a conclusion.
Shame the series got a bit lame toward the end.
Trekkies bash new Star Trek as “Fun, watchable”(Link)
Thanks, FromChicago, that’s a good list.
Naman, the book doesn’t appear to be very comprehensive, but thanks for the link anyway.
A general observation: I find it quite remarkable that a television series which ran for only three years (and, indeed, was almost cancelled after the second year) has ultimately spawned four TV spin-offs[1], eleven feature films (and counting!)[2], shelves full of novels and comics, several video games, countless fan conventions, etc., and is still going strong 40 years after the original series was cancelled! Like it or hate it, is there any other program which has had as strong and enduring an influence on pop culture?
[1] Not counting at least one TV cartoon series.
[2] Not counting the very clever and funny “Free Enterprise”, which is well worth seeing.
Like a lot of stuff in Star Trek, the economics is both vague and inconsistent. In Star Trek IV, Dr Gillian Taylor asks “Don’t tell me: they don’t have money in the 23rd century?” to which Kirk replies “Well, we don’t.” On the other hand, every Trekkie is familiar with ‘credits’ and ‘gold-pressed latinum’, whatever that is.
I think the basic idea is a cross between the lefty utopian dream of a world that has outgrown greed and profit, and a capitalist expectation that technological progress will eventually lower prices until the essentials of a comfortable life are of utterly trivial cost, effectively free.
If a replicator and construction drones can make anything you want, a holo-suite can let you experience anything you want, and antimatter, fusion, and space-based solar collection gives everyone unlimited energy to run it all, precisely what are you going to spend your ‘money’ on?
Surely it would be like charging those 21st century primitives for breathing air.
However, the fact that most space opera is not about the future, but about gaining a different perspective by transplanting present day morality tales into a futuristic setting, (so they don’t look quite so obviously cheesy,) the needs of plot has required money and trade to be reintroduced from time to time. Brave frontiersmen exploring the untamed wilds of uncivilised space, the venal Shylock figure with a secret heart of gold, and so on. So you do have money turning up every now and then. Often in the context of interchange with ‘less socially advanced’ species.
But I’m sure that within the confines of a Federation starship, nobody with any self-respect would actually receive anything so primitive and outmoded as a ‘paycheck’. So I think the answer to the question would be: any of them.
Whether they work for government, though, is another matter. The UFP is fairly obviously based on the UN, so it’s arguably more a sort of intergovernmental thing – but that’s the same difference as far as I am concerned. But in a world without money, would the word even mean the same thing?
If everybody had machines able to provide anything/everything they needed at virtually no cost, what would society be like? Is that even economically/socially possible?
Billll, at the risk of outing myself as a trekkie, the Mudd gentleman to which you refer is Harcourt, known as Harry.
It’s typical of a conman, which Mudd is, to deny a perfectly respectable first name in favour of a matey contraction. There are many contemporary examples, most of them in the cabinet.
I too enjoyed BSG2 until the final episode, which seemed to have been written by the UniBomber.
“If everybody had machines able to provide anything/everything they needed at virtually no cost, what would society be like? Is that even economically/socially possible?”
Read Ian Banks “Culture” novels (Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons etc). Some of the best “Ultitech” SF stories I have ever read.
For closet Sci Fi enthusiasts — there is a wonderfully humerous (yet ultimately touching) action-filled satire of Star Trek, Babylon 5, and much more.
To make it even more interesting, it was made by a group of Russian enthusiasts on a shoe-string budget, yet still manages to look better than several of the Star Trek movies.
Of course, the movie is in Russian, but it is subtitled. And it is freely available on YouTube. Search for: “Star Wreck In the Pirkinning”
“Star Wreck In the Pirkinning” is a Finnish production. And it’s great.
FYI, the Articles of Federation are cribbed heavily from the UN Charter. The Articles, the Federation’s founding document, are in the Star Fleet Technical Manual, 1975. Don’t know of an online copy.
Watching Kirk occasionally defy an organization inspired by the United Nations is not an unpleasant experience.
Of course “Lost” is ABC (not CBS) – my apologies.
As for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
I do not think it got lame – and I hope a third series will be made.
However, I liked “American Gothic” and “Invasion” (and, of course, the “Half Hour Newshour”) – so I am the kiss of death for a show.