So, I watched the first two Star Trek movies on laser disc yesterday.

[HopeHoops]

I remembered how slow the first one was, but had forgotten how much I liked the second one. "Search for Spock" is on the agenda, but I realized I don't have "Voyage Home". I do have 5 and 6 on laser disc. EBay solved the problem of the missing movie. I'll just have to wait. That one is a riot. "He did too much LDS in the 60's." :rofl:

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. "Do you guys like Italian?" "No" "Yes" "Yes" "No" "Yes" "No"

"Yes, I love Italian..... and so do you."

"Yes".

:rofl:

[HopeHoops]

2. The best scene from movie 4 was when Spock used the nerve pinch on punk rocker on the bus.

That cracks me up every time I think about it.

On Edit:

The one thing that really bothers me about the movie is this: What the fuck good is one whale, even if she is pregnant? If it is a boy, sure it could mate with mom, but that's not a genetically stable mix. Besides, whales aren't incestuous. They know family structure and respect it. Maybe they should have stolen another Bird of Prey.

Oh, the second funniest part is when Scotty picks up the mouse and talks to the Mac.

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. That was great! I love that scene, too.

The kid that plays the punk rocker was one of the production assistant guys who had a punk band - he wrote and played the music coming over the boombox, too.

[HopeHoops]

6. Really? How cool is that?

:yourock: :headbang: :banghead:

[pokerfan]

8. It's been a while for me

but I thought they kidnapped a mating pair. Not that that would be that much better for the gene pool.

Favorite part of the film: Chekov and Uhura asking a SF street cop for directions to the naval base in Alameda, where they the nuclear wessels are kept. :rofl:

[HopeHoops]

10. No, just one - pregnant.

There's only so much room in a Bird of Prey.

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. No, they really did take two, plus the unborn one. "Captain, There be whales here!"

:D

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. No, they brought back two - a male and female, named George and Gracie.

[HopeHoops]

13. Okay, well it has been a while since I've seen it. I'll take your word for it.

I just ordered it from eBay. I'll have to watch again. My youngest is hooked now.

[hunter]

14. Maybe they brought back a few buckets of frozen whale semen too...

:hide:

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. What I love about the first one is the slowness. I think it's a brilliantly made movie.

Very elegant, very moving. Very much in the genre of hard science-fiction, which I love.

Interesting story, well executed, with some truly beautiful camera work. Gives the sense of the true vastness of space.

[HopeHoops]

5. It was a good exercise in displaying SF artwork. It is also a snoozer.

I really tried to appreciate it this time, but it still just dragged on. Watching it was like getting really stoned and reading a 1978 Omni magazine. But it is still a good movie. "The Wrath of Kahn" moves appropriately for a Star Trek movie.

[Deja Q]

9. As generic sci-fi, it's terrific. But as Trek? Kirk looks constipated and the others are

stick figures, with little depth that GOOD Trek is known for.

The Decker drama sort-of worked... but it ultimately fell flat. Not a bad concept, but not well executed either.

It needed Trek's depth to go with the hard sci-fi... which reminds me, TMP is a lot like "The Changeling" (probe crashes with another entity and merges to become something else) and a couple other TOS scripts... but for recycling plots, they did use different twists and turns (Nomad just obliterated what wasn't perfect. In a way, so did Vger, but Vger catalogued things and later decided humanity was an infestation...)

I did like the transporter accident incident. Even in the 23rd century, problems happened.

Ditto for the wormhole - great effects and camerawork, and it's nice to see the creativity involved in having a refit starship exhibiting some flaws, with Kirk being gun-ho on thinking everything is good to go. The McCoy/Kirk sublot does work better...

It DOES look great; the money spent on the modelwork was a lot ($40 million) but, for the time, it's spectacular. Still looks really good these days.

Still, a movie cannot be sold on effects alone. The concepts are there, but even I, who can handle cardboard sets and pedestrian pacing, will agree it's too slow at times. (At the movie's premiere in 1979, Doohan and Shatner FELL ASLEEP during it. :eek: )

The slowness of the pacing w/ the space scenes do give a sense of realism to space, though Spock's shuttle flying upside down and doing a 360 degree turn, the inertia dampers were working overtime...

Even the laserdisc has an extended scene, not shown in theaters because all the stage scaffolding was visible! :D They could have added that in the director's cut DVD, with CGI to shroud it...

But I do prefer the original over the director's cut, which takes out too much, and is so choppy that it doesn't acknowledge certain cuts (e.g. 3 klingon ships are there, 2 are destroyed, and there's ZERO mention of the third ship even existing... oops...) heck, I even miss the computer voice -- the original has it going "RED ALERT" 5,000^74 times more frequently than it should; the director's cut axes it entirely. (What, no happy middle?)

The hard edge look to the refit Enterprise was great, too.

It's a mixed bag, but I don't hate it. Unlike a couple of the TNG movies -- indeed, all the TNG movies feel disjointed and incomplete. Amateurish, despite being made by the same people who put out a large number of solid TNG TV stories... even "All Good Things", with only one flaw (a probe starts the chain of events, not the future-Enterprise, oops) to threaten the piece.

[sarge43]

7. Certainly the most joyful of the OS cast movies

They were clearly enjoying themselves.

Also some very moving moments

Chekov: Admiral, it's the Enterprise.

and

Sarek: Do you have a message for your mother?

Spock: Tell my mother I feel fine.