Prouvaire

Lots of negativity in this thread, but that seems to be par for the course for any fandom. Personally I’m cautiously optimistic.

Skydance produced/co-produced (often partnering with Paramount) on a number of franchise movies, including Star Trek, Mission Impossible, Jack Reacher, Top Gun, GI Joe, Terminator, The Old Guard and Spy Kids. Some of their productions have been well-received (eg Mission Impossible, Top Gun Maverick) and others less so (Terminator Genysis and Dark Fate, although personally I quite liked Dark Fate). They’ve also produced smaller, critically acclaimed movies like True Grit, Annihilation and Air; as well as their share of dreck of course, like Geostorm.

What I think is clear though is that Skydance is primarily interested in big franchises, so if they were to acquire Paramount, I think more Star Trek movies would very likely be in the works which, as a fan, I’d be happy about. I know there’s an argument that Trek is best suited to TV, but some of the best Star Trek has been big screen Star Trek. And studios are more willing these days to have franchises run across both TV and film concurrently (MCU, DC, Star Wars), granted with mixed success.

Re Larry Ellison’s involvement - my guess is that he’d be a silent partner, putting some of his personal fortune - rather than Oracle’s funds - to help out his son. I believe he did the same thing for his daughter, Megan Ellison, whose company Annapurna Pictures he helped fun and which went on to produce films like Her, Zero Dark Thirty, Phantom Thread and Books Smart (and the stage musical A Strange Loop). I doubt Larry Ellison will take a hands-on role in the management of Skydance/Paramount.

As others have pointed out, Foundation isn’t a particularly faithful adaptation of Asimov’s stories, but there good things in it. It might be more accurately titled Foundation and Empire IMO, because it focuses as much on the Empire side of the story as the Foundation. The first season was lopsided. The Empire plotline was compelling, the Foundation ones were… not. Haven’t watched the second season yet, but apparently it’s more consistent.

For All Mankind is the Star Trek prequel we should have had. Co-created by Ron Moore (Deep Space Nine, Battlestar Galactica), the show has a bunch of Trek alumni working behind the scenes. It features human drama (and sometimes melodrama), geopolitical diplomacy, sweeping cultural change and scientific adventure against the backdrop of a multi generational future history, starting with the first moon landing.

That Bob Justman memo reminded me how much fun they had making TOS (as well as working long and hard of course). Perhaps my favourite is the memo chain Justman started about Vulcan proper names.

Re fixing mistakes: I guess I don’t have a problem with it as long as the mistakes are trivial, are clearly errors, and the original version remains available. What constitutes a “trivial error” of course can be up for debate. Correcting a background audio cue - sure, why not? Changing early TOS references of “Vulcanians” to “Vulcans” - definitely not.

Spock.

The why should be obvious, but this video goes some way to explaining it.

I’m pretty sure I encountered “City on the Edge of Forever” through James Blish’s short story adaptation before I saw the actual episode *cough cough* years ago, because Edith’s speech as televised:

One day soon… man is going to be able to harness incredible energies, maybe even the atom. Energies that could ultimately hurl us to other worlds in… in some sort of spaceship.

has always struck me as being incredibly blunt in comparison to what appeared in the short story version. Blish didn’t work off the final shooting scripts but earlier revisions, so I assume Edith’s “astronauts on some sort of… star trek”-like predictions must have been inserted by Roddenberry or maybe Fontana.

While some of the poetry and elegance may have been taken out of Ellison’s script (along with other, more justifiable, changes), there’s no denying that “City” is an absolute classic, and one of the few instances of Trek doing romance well.

Great news! The Matt Jefferies Enterprise is my second-favourite incarnation of the Enterprise (after the TMP refit), although I prefer the post-pilot version with the balls at the back of the nacelles rather than the grilles.

But I don’t have a problem with it. I’m actually very glad the model has been found cause it’s an absolutely iconic item, and hope it’s on its way to Rod Roddenberry.

No it wasn’t, it was genes and it sat on his desk before being loaned out to the studio

It was loaned out in the run-up to Star Trek The Motion Picture. It was not loaned to the studio at the time of production of the original series. I’m talking about the ownership of the model back in 1964, not 1978/79.

No the model was made before any production, again documented and linked for source.

Filming of the first scene of “The Cage” took place on 24 or 27 November 1964 (accounts vary).

The 3-foot model was commissioned from Richard Datin on 4 November 1964. He received the blueprints on 7 or 8 November 1964. An in-progress version was presented to Roddenberry on 15 November 1964, with Roddenberry apparently requesting a number of changes, ie “more detail”. The model was delivered to Roddenberry on 14 December 1964 while “The Cage” was being filmed in Culver City.

Therefore the model was made during production, not before.

Source for most of these dates: http://www.shawcomputing.net/resources/shaw/1701-33-inch.html

And even if the model was made before production of “The Cage” started, it doesn’t negate my point, which is that the model would almost certainly have been paid for, and therefore owned, by Desilu or Norway as it was clearly a production/pre-production expense. It was used consistently throughout the run of the show, and was even modified to more closely resemble the 11-foot model. I find it inconceivable that Roddenberry would have paid for it out of his own, personal, pocket.

Again it’s documented, you’re simply making things up.

I’m not making things up, I’m speculating based on what I know of business and Roddenberry himself. Roddenberry was known to appropriate items that were owned by the studio for his personal benefit, eg when he took film clippings after the show was cancelled and sold them through his private business Lincoln Enterprises.

Roddenberry merely stating “I’ve owned it since the Desilu days” in a letter doesn’t necessarily make it so. Note I’m not claiming he didn’t own it, I’m raising it as an academic possibility. And, as I said, I have no problems at all with the model going back to the Roddenberry family once it’s been recovered.

@CCMan1701A has a point. The model was built for production purposes, so it would have almost certainly been paid for - and therefore owned - by either by Desilu Studios or Norway Corporation (aka Norway Productions) depending on how the accounting was set up back in 1964. So unless Desilu/Norway sold or gifted the model to Roddenberry at some point, ie formally passed title to him, technically it would still be the property of the original corporate owner.

What I think quite possible though is that after TOS was cancelled Roddenberry took possession of a bunch of production assets nobody ever thought would have any value. Star Trek, after all, was a failed show. IIRC it was known that he used to do stuff like that, eg selling off merchandise to fans that - technically - he didn’t own. It’s just that nobody really cared too much back then.

Now as it so happens, Norway was actually Roddenberry’s production company, but technically that doesn’t matter, as there’s a legal distinction between a corporation you own on the one hand, and you as an individual on the other. That’s the whole purpose of setting up businesses as separate legal entities. So even if the model was originally purchased by and owned by Norway (as opposed to Desilu, which was sold to Paramount during the show’s run) then Norway (Roddenberry’s company) would still have needed to pass ownership to Gene Roddenberry the individual (via a gift or sale) in order for Majel Roddenberry’s statement that “it was Gene’s” to be strictly true. Of course, that would have been a cinch to do: Roddenberry, as owner/executive of Norway, simply sells or gives the model to Roddenberry the individual.

It’s possible that this happened, ie that Desilu or Norway sold or gifted the model to Roddenberry, but it’s also possible (especially if the model was owned by Desilu/Paramount) that he merely ended up with it, and that nobody questioned his legal right to it in the years since.

Personally, regardless of whether technically (ie from a legal or accounting perspective) Roddenberry did or did not own the model, I fully understand that Rod Roddenberry would be interested in recovering this seminal piece of Star Trek memorabilia, and I wouldn’t have any issues if it stayed in the Roddenberry family or was gifted to an institution like the Smithsonian.

I’ve never given the distinction much thought, but as I recall (and it’s been many years since I’ve read the Ender books) in Speaker for the Dead Jane was pretty much an AI, an evolved form of the fantasy game in Ender’s Game. In later books Card may have more explicitly applied his Mormon-influenced concept of a soul that exists prior to, and after, inhabiting a physical form, to the character of Jane. But when I think of Jane, it’s the Jane of Speaker for the Dead, as that’s the book in the series (along with Ender’s Game) that I read most often.

When I was younger I had a crush on Jane from Speaker for the Dead, so I wouldn’t be weirded out by that person, cause I’d probably be that person. 😅

“I love Italian. And so do you.” “Yes.” My favourite bit in TVH.

DECKD WK 3, EP 4
Solved in 1

🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢

https://www.playparamountplus.com/DECKD

DS9, VOY, ENT and arguably even TNG, all helped establish the “rule” that it takes Star Trek shows (after TOS) three seasons to get good. As much as I personally liked Kes as a character, there’s no denying the show took a step up after Seven of Nine was introduced. “Scorpion”, “Year of Hell” and “Living Witness” are all really good episodes.

ENT s2 was so bland it was the first and only time I ever gave up on a Star Trek show, so bored out of my mind was I. Boring boring boring. Except for “Carbon Creek” - that episode is a gem.

(I did force myself to catch up on season 2 after I decided to start watching ENT again in season 3.)

In other words… yes, you’re weird. But, you know, IDIC and all that. 😉

B5 season 5? An interesting choice. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve seen Babylon 5, but as I recall season 5 suffered from JMS having to write a lot of his season 5 material into season 4, as he didn’t know if the show would be renewed. As a result season 5 ended up being quite lopsided, with storylines like the telepath arc dragging out longer than they should have been. I think B5 was at its peak somewhere in seasons 2, 3 and 4.

Personally I thought season 2 was stronger. I found only two episodes in season 1 to be especially memorable: “Spock Amok” and particularly “A Quality of Mercy” (which I do think has been the finest episode of the Kurtzman era). Season 2 had four strong episodes IMO - “Charades”, “Those Old Scientists”, “Under the Cloak of War” and “Subspace Rhapsody”. 4 out of 10 is a good percentage, but - as you point out - it should be easier to produce a higher proportion of strong episodes in a 10-episode season as opposed to a 24-29 episode season.

SNW wins brownie points for doing a live action / animation cross-over episode and a musical, but loses some for playing it safe in all other respects. It’s the most overtly “conventionally Trek” modern show (after maybe PIC season 3 which was pure fan service with little interesting about it). Granted, what SNW does, it does with confidence and some measure of flair.

I’ve enjoyed two of the three episodes so far, but as burns go, this is 👍.

I would prefer this, I think, because I’ve been having trouble reconciling a sitcom spending a few minutes most episodes this season racking up a body count that would now be in the hundreds, or even thousands.

As a franchise, of course, Star Trek can handle both silly comedy and lethal brutality (and even Lower Decks has successfully juggled in a few serious scenes amongst the comedy, at times), but the way these vignettes have been inserted into the A plots this season is like if in “The Trouble with Tribbles” Arne Darvin had been gang-raped just before the credits rolled.