Star Trek's 40th anniversary

jbuck919 · Post by **jbuck919** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 11:07 am

I was twelve and in art class and talking about how disappointed I was with the Irwin Allen science fiction series(es) then in vogue, and a classmate said words to the effect, "You should watch this new show called Star Trek, it's great." Thus began my lifelong love affair with this classic series, which turns 40 years old with this fall season.

I myself lost interest after TNG (I saw a few episodes of the later series but not much). But I still think of great episodes of TOS. Running through the memorized dialogue in my mind helps put me back to sleep when I have insomnia (no funny comments, please). Any other trekkers here?

"Captain, Ambassador Sarek and his wife... are my parents."

Ralph · Post by **Ralph** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 2:39 pm

And this also marks the 40th anniversary of my never having seen a Star Trek episode.

jbuck919 · Post by **jbuck919** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 3:24 pm

Ralph wrote:And this also marks the 40th anniversary of my never having seen a Star Trek episode.

Even then, you were obviously spending too much time at Tower Records.

living_stradivarius · Post by **living_stradivarius** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 7:10 pm

I love Nemoy and Shatnertrek and TNG.

Haven't followed the rest besides some "Enterprise" episodes.

Data and Worf remain my favorite chars on the show. Picard's a runner-up.

"Make it so"

anasazi · Post by **anasazi** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 10:52 pm

I was a fan of the original series, and even some of the movies with the original crew.

They had hardly anything like the CGI or special effects of today's shows, but they did have some half-way decent writers. I liked the ideas and the way the original show made me think about things.

Has it been only 40 years?

jbuck919 · Post by **jbuck919** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 3:25 am

anasazi wrote:I was a fan of the original series, and even some of the movies with the original crew.

They had hardly anything like the CGI or special effects of today's shows, but they did have some half-way decent writers. I liked the ideas and the way the original show made me think about things.

Has it been only 40 years?

Forty years before when it happened meant no tv at all, something even I cannot imagine, just as my students cannot imagine no personal computers or Internet.

Fans of TOS realize that there were strong and weak scripts, but the strong ones were indeed classic. I was not kidding when I implied that we were awash in a sea of ghastly Irwin Allen SF series. There was no particular reason Star Trek should not have been equally lazy about its scripts. It was primarily the force of character of Gene Roddenberry (who did not write a single script himself) that made this series something entirely new to TV, and something to remember. Ironically, it tottered along like a lame animal when incredibly stupid series like Lost in Space survived swimmingly.

"The fact that my internal anatomy differs from yours, Doctor, pleases me no end."

Teresa B · Post by **Teresa B** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 6:42 am

Wow, has it really been 40 years??

I am a confessed Star Trek fan. (I would go back and watch the Tribble episode any time.) I especially liked TNG, and was in love with Picard.

Teresa

jbuck919 · Post by **jbuck919** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 6:51 am

Teresa B wrote:Wow, has it really been 40 years??

I am a confessed Star Trek fan. (I would go back and watch the Tribble episode any time.) I especially liked TNG, and was in love with Picard.

Teresa

Fortunately...I am immune...to its effects.

miranda · Post by **miranda** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 7:39 am

I've watched a few episodes of the original series, and a few more of TNG, and I've enjoyed them both. But what I really love are the crazy songs recorded by a few of the original series' cast members. Leonard Nimoy singing (if you can call what he does singing)"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Earth", and singing a song about a cocktail party on a spaceship, and William Shatner covering "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" are so bad that they're hilarious. I have an old lp of Nimoy reading Ray Bradbury's short story "The Veldt," which is a great record.

jbuck919 · Post by **jbuck919** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 8:06 am

miranda wrote:I've watched a few episodes of the original series, and a few more of TNG, and I've enjoyed them both. But what I really love are the crazy songs recorded by a few of the original series' cast members. Leonard Nimoy singing (if you can call what he does singing)"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Earth", and singing a song about a cocktail party on a spaceship, and William Shatner covering "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" are so bad that they're hilarious. I have an old lp of Nimoy reading Ray Bradbury's short story "The Veldt," which is a great record.

I haven't heard those, but Nimoy, a great actor, messed up his only singing opportunity in the episode "Plato's Children," and Shatner made the feeble attempt on his Priceline commercials. Let's face it, most people can't sing.

"Captain, I do not believe it is within your prerogative to insult me."

Lark Ascending · Post by **Lark Ascending** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 2:24 pm

Trek geek alert! I have just returned from a fantastic weekend at a small UK Star Trek convention held in Coventry. I've been attending these events for almost 10 years now and have met many of the actors from my favourite Trek shows (I became a fan during the Voyager/DS9 era). They are also a great excuse to meet up with friends and party into the wee small hours when my usual British reserve mysteriously evaporates

.

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:07 pm

jbuck919 wrote:Any other trekkers here?

I'm one too.

Love the original series. Enjoyed some of NG. Never bothered with all the other spin offs. I enjoy their fans enthusiasm, but for me it's the original series.

"Itchy kitchy kitchy kitchy coo, Captain?" - Mr. Spock

Teresa, they played 3 classic episodes on TVLand, which will start running the originial series soon, in honor of the 40th anniversary. The leadoff segment was the Tribbles show.

"Fortunately, I am...of course...immune." - Mr. Spock

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:09 pm

Lark Ascending wrote:Trek geek alert! I have just returned from a fantastic weekend at a small UK Star Trek convention held in Coventry. I've been attending these events for almost 10 years now and have met many of the actors from my favourite Trek shows (I became a fan during the Voyager/DS9 era). They are also a great excuse to meet up with friends and party into the wee small hours when my usual British reserve mysteriously evaporates .

Lark,

We expect a full report, and pics would be nice too.

Lark Ascending · Post by **Lark Ascending** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:43 pm

For Corlyss, and anyone else interested in what us sad sci-fi types get up to on certain weekends, here is a link to the convention website:

http://www.sfbevents.com/reunion/index.php

There are several reports and photos posted on the forum, fortunately none of them featuring me on the dance floor.

jbuck919 · Post by **jbuck919** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:17 pm

Lark Ascending wrote:Trek geek alert! I have just returned from a fantastic weekend at a small UK Star Trek convention held in Coventry.

I asume they played the TNG episode in which Deanna and her mother are stripped naked by a Frerengi.

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:19 pm

Lark Ascending wrote:fortunately none of them featuring me on the dance floor.

None of you dressed as Mr. Spock with a lampshade on your head dancing the Charleston on a rickety table?

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:56 pm

I looked. It was scary.

If you look, it's the Star Fleet Ball pics, about half way down, with 3 collections.

jbuck919 · Post by **jbuck919** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 5:06 pm

I would just like everybody to know that I never attended a Star Trek convention, though I had ample opportunitities, and don't disparage anyone who did.

William Shatner is lucky that he was not so type-cast that he could not pursue a subsequent career. Leonard Nemoy, who also has had a significant subesquent career (not necessarily, but sometimes, as an actor) , was so infatuated with his unique role as Spock that he wrote two books about it.

"I have little to say about it, except that, for the first time in my life, I was happy."

Teresa B · Post by **Teresa B** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 6:28 pm

I just remembered, I once sat next to Mr. Sulu on an airplane.

Teresa

living_stradivarius · Post by **living_stradivarius** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 6:42 pm

Corlyss_D wrote:
Lark Ascending wrote:fortunately none of them featuring me on the dance floor.
None of you dressed as Mr. Spock with a lampshade on your head dancing the Charleston on a rickety table?

Only Mr. Sulu would do that.

Wallingford · Post by **Wallingford** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:25 pm

I believe I'LL celebarte by digging up my copy of MAD MAGAZINE, October '76, whose cover story was "the Star Trek musical," Keep On Trekkin'........written by the great Frank Jacobs, the magazine's master of poem parodies & song satires. His spoof kinda sums up my own feelings about the series--witness the crew's resentment at the monotony of cabin fever aboard the Enterprise:

(sung to the tune of "I'll Never Fall In Love Again:")
What do you get when you fly thru space?
You twiddle your thumbs for hours and hours--
Then when you're through, you take cold showers!
I-I-I'll......never fly thru space aga-a-a-ain:
Oh, I'll.....never fly thru space again.

Lark Ascending · Post by **Lark Ascending** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 12:42 pm

jbuck919 wrote:Lark Ascending wrote:
Trek geek alert! I have just returned from a fantastic weekend at a small UK Star Trek convention held in Coventry.

I asume they played the TNG episode in which Deanna and her mother are stripped naked by a Frerengi.

No, but the convention was held in the Lady Godiva suite of the hotel

.

Corlyss_D wrote:Lark Ascending wrote:
fortunately none of them featuring me on the dance floor.

None of you dressed as Mr. Spock with a lampshade on your head dancing the Charleston on a rickety table?

Definitely not -a truly disturbing image

.

Corlyss_D wrote:I looked. It was scary.

Probably the highest form of praise you could give a sci-fi con

.

Brendan · Post by **Brendan** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:41 pm

Star Trek was superior science fiction for its time, and inspired many budding scientists as well as those folk who turn up to conventions as Ferengi (sp). A guy I work with speaks conversational Klingon to communicate with his serious Trekkie buddies. My interest faded with later series of DS9 and Voyager.

SciFi has morphed over time into shows like CSI (most forensic teams would love 1/10 of their gear). I want one of those computer search engines that displays closer and closer matches to the input. When I do a search on my computer, I just get a little hour-glass. Must have a hell of a cpu/graphics card to be doing that much video/image streaming to the screen while trying to do a search.

jbuck919 · Post by **jbuck919** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:53 pm

Brendan wrote:Star Trek was superior science fiction for its time, and inspired many budding scientists as well as those folk who turn up to conventions as Ferengi (sp). A guy I work with speaks conversational Klingon to communicate with his serious Trekkie buddies. My interest faded with later series of DS9 and Voyager.

SciFi has morphed over time into shows like CSI (most forensic teams would love 1/10 of their gear). I want one of those computer search engines that displays closer and closer matches to the input. When I do a search on my computer, I just get a little hour-glass. Must have a hell of a cpu/graphics card to be doing that much video/image streaming to the screen while trying to do a search.

We have a prominent poster here who shares your reservations about the limitations of forensics and shared them with me when we met over the summer.

Star Trek, very obviously, had its own limitations, which are the limitations of SF. We will probably never travel to the stars, or even know if there is intelligent life coexistent with us on a single planet in the unvierse (the implications are beyond the bounds of science), but it sure had some great moments on its own terms.

"I have little to say about it, except that, for the first time in my life, I was happy."

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 4:16 pm

To mark the anniversary, classic-TV network TV Land on Friday (8 p.m. EDT [September 15, 2006) will showcase four episodes from the original"Star Trek"series, including the premiere and the historic episode featuring TV's first interracial kiss."Star Trek"episodes will begin airing regularly on the channel on November 17. Episodes will also be available online at TVLand.com.

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 4:22 pm

Star Trek had an impact on the way that devices they anticipated were designed.

The cell phone looks like the original hand-held communicator. That's not a coincidence.

The emergency services workers' communication devices are placed where the communicators on the Star Trek uniforms were situated - i.e., on the left shoulder between the neck and the arm. The modern device is not as sleek in design as the show but will probably evolve as miniturization does.

The medical vital signs readout devices used today mimick the Star Trek devices on the wall over the beds in sick bay.

Wallingford · Post by **Wallingford** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 8:40 pm

Corlyss_D wrote:Star Trek had an impact on the way that devices they anticipated were designed.

The cell phone looks like the original hand-held communicator. That's not a coincidence.

Wow.....you mean Maxwell Smart's "shoe-phone" (from '65) can't make that claim??

Haydnseek · Post by **Haydnseek** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 9:00 pm

Wallingford wrote: Wow.....you mean Maxwell Smart's "shoe-phone" (from '65) can't make that claim??

Remember when budget cuts at CONTROL required them to use pay-shoe-phones?

miranda · Post by **miranda** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 11:25 pm

I would just like to add that a former roommate of mine, from years ago, kept a well-worn Klingon dictionary by his bed; he attended a wedding of two friends of his which was conducted entirely in Klingon (or so he told me, anyway.) I am sure such weddings are not unheard of in the world of Star Trek fans.

And Maxwell Smart's shoe phone was great. I always wanted one of those.

jbuck919 · Post by **jbuck919** » Thu Sep 14, 2006 9:27 am

Voice recognition technology and certainly voice synthesis is also getting up there, something I never thought it would.

The flip side of that is that in some areas where science really can advance, as opposed to impossible concepts like faster-than-light travel and subspace communication, we've gotten ahead of Trek. You'll notice that the Enterprise still uses a klunky mainframe computer instead of a network, has CRTs instead of plasma screens, and uses analog instead of digital displays (I mean, a chronometer that works like a car odometer--really!).

"Mr. Spock, this bag does not contain gold, silver, or platinum, nor is it likely to in the near future."

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Thu Sep 14, 2006 11:45 am

jbuck919 wrote:Voice recognition technology and certainly voice synthesis is also getting up there, something I never thought it would.

Cripes! I forgot about that episode with Terri Garr and Robert Lansing where they used the actual IBM prototype (no pun intended) of a computer that could take dictation using Kurzweil voice recognition software. It wasn't long after that show that the Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter debuted. It couldn't take dictation but it could store text on tape for replay, especially useful for record-keeping and repetitive correspondence.

I was sure that show was a pilot for another series but nothing ever came of it.

jbuck919 · Post by **jbuck919** » Thu Sep 14, 2006 11:54 am

Corlyss_D wrote:
jbuck919 wrote:Voice recognition technology and certainly voice synthesis is also getting up there, something I never thought it would.
Cripes! I forgot about that episode with Terri Garr and Robert Lansing where they used the actual IBM prototype (no pun intended) of a computer that could take dictation using Kurzweil voice recognition software. It wasn't long after that show that the Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter debuted. It couldn't take dictation but it could store text on tape for replay, especially useful for record-keeping and repetitive correspondence.

I was sure that show was a pilot for another series but nothing ever came of it.

It was in fact a pilot for another series that was never made. Of course, Terri Garr, like Joan Collins from "City on the Edge of Forever," went on to greater careers.

"Spock acted in the only logical manner open to him. One does not thank logic, Amanda."

dulcinea · Post by **dulcinea** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 8:37 pm

Whenever I watch a dramatic entertainment, my first concerns are CREDIBILITY and BELIEVABILITY. For ex, in an historical drama you can't allow anachronisms such as Errol Flynn as ROBIN HOOD talking and behaving like a New Deal Democrat. Science fiction demands a very particular type of credibility: never assume that the world of the future will be identical to the present world you know. The first STAR TREK is very dated because, underneath its futuristic veneer, it's actually a very American 60s vision of society. The embarrassing baby dolls that Uhura and the other females of the ENTERPRISE almost wear are a reflection of the impact of the miniskirt; I fully remember how, for a while, the miniskirt became the female uniform par excellence--I myself wore minis that could easily have made me the target of every pedophile in Puerto Rico. That fashion--which was flattering only to very young women with great bodies--didn't last, of course; thanks to the influence of the hippies, who made jeans their uniform, pants had by the end of the decade achieved the dominance they still hold--and which is reflected in the other STAR TREK shows, where the women wear pants outfits that not only look like real uniforms, but are actually much more flattering.

dulcinea · Post by **dulcinea** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:34 pm

NEVER ASSUME THAT THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE WILL BE IDENTICAL TO THE PRESENT WORLD YOU KNOW. In the movie CREATURE--an imitation of ALIEN--, the action takes place in one of the moons of Saturn, which implies that the timeframe is three or four centuries into the future. At the beginning, the crew of the spaceship exploring that moon discover the wreck of another spaceship. Its markings say that it was registered in WEST GERMANY. The creators of this movie--which was released in 1985--actually believed that the division of Germany and of Europe would last for centuries and centuries!!!

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:46 am

dulcinea wrote:Whenever I watch a dramatic entertainment, my first concerns are CREDIBILITY and BELIEVABILITY.

Can't think how you get on with opera and ballet then.

jbuck919 · Post by **jbuck919** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 4:26 am

dulcinea wrote:NEVER ASSUME THAT THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE WILL BE IDENTICAL TO THE PRESENT WORLD YOU KNOW. In the movie CREATURE--an imitation of ALIEN--, the action takes place in one of the moons of Saturn, which implies that the timeframe is three or four centuries into the future. At the beginning, the crew of the spaceship exploring that moon discover the wreck of another spaceship. Its markings say that it was registered in WEST GERMANY. The creators of this movie--which was released in 1985--actually believed that the division of Germany and of Europe would last for centuries and centuries!!!

Well, in Star Trek, Chekov refers to "a little old lady from Leningrad."

dulcinea · Post by **dulcinea** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 5:30 pm

jbuck919 wrote:
dulcinea wrote:NEVER ASSUME THAT THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE WILL BE IDENTICAL TO THE PRESENT WORLD YOU KNOW. In the movie CREATURE--an imitation of ALIEN--, the action takes place in one of the moons of Saturn, which implies that the timeframe is three or four centuries into the future. At the beginning, the crew of the spaceship exploring that moon discover the wreck of another spaceship. Its markings say that it was registered in WEST GERMANY. The creators of this movie--which was released in 1985--actually believed that the division of Germany and of Europe would last for centuries and centuries!!!
Well, in Star Trek, Chekov refers to "a little old lady from Leningrad."

How old was that lady?

miranda · Post by **miranda** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 5:48 pm

There's going to be an auction at Christie's in October of Star Trek stuff, where rich fans can shell out thousands of dollars for a model of the Klingon Space Station, among other things.

http://www.christies.com/special_sites/ ... erview.asp

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Star Trek's 40th anniversary

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