Star Trek

International Talk Like William Shatner Day

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In honor of William Shatner’s 78th birthday tomorrow today, 3/22/09, I am declaring March 22nd to be “International Talk Like William Shatner Day!” Hey, we have “International Talk Like a Pirate Day”, and Shatner inspired a helluva lot more kids to be like Captain James T. Kirk than any who wanted to be some smelly, toothless, “arrr”-spouting frickin’ pirate.

Now, since talking like our hero is a bit more challenging than walking around going, “Arrr”, I’ve included the following video tutorial for your edification, filmed by producer Bill Biggar, on a loooong drive to the airport on L.A.’s fabulous 405 freeway. Enjoy, and remember, it’s pronounced “sabotaaj”, not, “sabotahj”.

Links for January 29th through January 30th

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Sometime between January 29th and January 30th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • Do Humanlike Machines Deserve Human Rights?: "This question is starting to get debated by robot designers and toymakers. With advanced robotics becoming cheaper and more commonplace, the challenge isn't how we learn to accept robots–but whether we should care when they're mistreated. And if we start caring about robot ethics, might we then go one insane step further and grant them rights?"
  • On the Flickr support in iPhoto ‘09: From Fraser Speirs, author of the excellent Flickr Export plugin for iPhoto and Aperture: "I acquired my copy of iLife ‘09 yesterday and decided to dive deep on how Apple have implemented Flickr integration in iPhoto ‘09. Here are the results of my investigation. Be aware as you read that this is the result of a morning’s click-around investigation and not months of serious use. I will do my best to give an honest assessment of what is in iPhoto ‘09, and you’ve already read my full disclosure in the previous paragraph."
  • Google School: Find Images by Exact Dimensions, Make Wallpaper Search a Breeze: "Weblog Design Live uncovers the undocumented search operator (that's also new to us) and demonstrates how to use it. Just use the imagesize operator followed by the WidthXHeight in pixels." For instance, imagesize:320×480 goth finds iPhone/iPod Touch wallpaper ready 'goth' images (for a potentially odd interpretation of 'goth', that is).
  • White House Unbuttons Formal Dress Code: "The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat. 'He's from Hawaii, O.K.?' said Mr. Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. 'He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.'"
  • Create Your Own Original Star Trek Story: The original Star Trek only managed to make 80 episodes before running out of Dilithium. Not enough! So we mixed up the show's most frequent plot twists, to create a foolproof Trek story generator.

Links for January 14th through January 15th

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Sometime between January 14th and January 15th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • The Year in Pictures: Mystery Solved!: Tracking down the source image for Shepard Fairey's iconic block-print style 'HOPE' Obama poster.
  • Klingon Language Keyboard: Expensive (about $65 plus shipping) and uses a PS/2 connector instead of USB…but still! Klingon keyboard! How cool is that?
  • Am I on MySpace.com?: No. It appears you are not on MySpace.com. You're safe at the moment, but at any point you could accidentally follow the wrong link and end up stuck inside the sweaty armpit of the Internet. But with our helpful Firefox plugin you can browse in peace again. Any visit to MySpace will cause it to jump in and save you with a large prompt offering to take you back to sanity.
  • Mark your calendars: January 27th is Rabbit Hole Day: January 27th is the birthday of Lewis Carrol, author of ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. Alice fell down a rabbit hole into a place where everything had changed and none of the rules could be counted on to apply anymore. I say, let's do the same: January 27th, 2005 should be the First Annual LiveJournal Rabbit Hole Day. When you post on that Thursday, instead of the normal daily life and work and news and politics, write about the strange new world you have found yourself in for the day, with its strange new life and work and news and politics. Are your pets talking back at you now? Did Bush step down from the White House to become a pro-circuit tap-dancer? Have you been placed under house arrest by bizarre insectoid women wielding clubs made of lunchmeat? Let's have a day where nobody's life makes sense anymore, where any random LJ you click on will bring you some strange new tale. Let's all fall down the Rabbit Hole for 24 hours and see what's there. It will be beautiful.
  • Twitter Author List!: By NO MEANS is this comprehensive, I’m just filtering it through my own knowledge base and the info I was forwarded (Clearly my tastes go towards Urban Fantasy, Sci-Fi etc) so feel free to post in comments with more info.

Star Trek Original Series DVD Choices Suck

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Prompted in no small part by the upcoming movie, I’ve been on a complete Star Trek kick lately. I’ve been reading Star Trek novels like they’re going out of style (check out my library sorted by what I’ve read most recently for an idea), I’ve been jonesing to watch the movies, one by one, in order (though I don’t know when I’m going to manage that, as Prairie is decidedly not of a mind to do any such thing…the things she has to put up with, living with a geek…), and I’m really noticing a pretty glaring gap in my DVD collection. While I’ve got the entirety of TNG and DS9 on DVD, I don’t have the ones I grew up with. I don’t have the original series.

And, sadly, I don’t think I will anytime soon, because the current choices…well, they aren’t good.

When Star Trek was first being released to DVD, the ‘season set’ trend hadn’t kicked in, so they were initially being released on the same model of the old VHS collections: two episodes per DVD, with two DVDs released every few months. Slow going, and expensive. I made it about halfway through Season One when those were first being released, then gave up, and eventually sold the DVDs off.

The second stab was a bit better, collecting an entire season in a set. In all honesty, these are the sets I’d like to have. However, they’re out of production, and I remember them being priced pretty high. No matter what they were priced originally, they’re rather ridiculously priced now: Amazon has the full three seasons for $199.99 used — that’s $67 per season! If I actually wanted a new set, it’d be $400! I like Trek, but I’m not that dedicated. Even eBay only brings the full collection down to the $150 range…better (but not great), if the price doesn’t get pushed up too high, if the seller doesn’t ship you scratched, crappy disks, and if you’re willing to take the risk of eBay — which I’m not.

Then there’s the current releases. They’re all overpriced, at around $80 each, or $200 for the full three seasons (come on, most TV season sets are now in the $30 range, and even the full 40-disc 7-season Buffy set is under $200), Season One is a weird hybrid normal DVD and HD-DVD (which is unplayable for me) that would keep me from accessing all the special features…and to top it all off, they’re the new “remastered” versions. Now, I’ve heard good things about the work done on the remastered episodes, and I wouldn’t really mind owning those versions…if the originals were included as well (gee, does this sound familiar, Star Wars fans?).

I don’t want my only option to be the new, George Lucas inspired, “we’ve got to put new special effects in or noone will want to watch this show anymore, even though it’s been consistently popular for forty years” versions. I want the show that my dad introduced me to. The show that had me pointing excitedly somewhere behind me and over my shoulder, exclaiming “Speeeeshhh!” as the Enterprise flew by in the opening credits. The show I grew up with, that I watched whenever I had the chance, that Royce and I would quote lines at each other from, that influenced my ongoing love of science fiction. The show that got me to my first ‘con, many, many years ago in Anchorage.

And right now, I can’t get it.

And I’m annoyed.

Meh.

(On the bright side, at least I’m not posting about politics….)

Star Trek Story Record #8 (BR 513)

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Star Trek Story Record #8 (Front)

Star Trek Story Record #8 (Front), originally uploaded by djwudi.

A treasure I found a long time ago, and recently reacquired from my brother. Star Trek Story Record #8, Power Records BR 513, still in the shrink wrap. This set includes the LP and a comic book with two stories: A Mirror for Futility by Alan Dean Foster, and The Time Stealer by Cary Bates and Neal Adams. While there’s a little bit of damage to the top right corner (it looks like it got nibbled at while in storage at some point) so I can’t claim perfect mint condition, since most of the shrink wrap is still intact, I assume the record and comic are both still mint. From this eBay search it looks like I could get as much as $60 for this if I wanted to…I’m just not sure that I want to!

Kevin Smith Hasn’t Seen the New Star Trek Film

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Really. Thanks to TrekMovie.com for posting this excerpt from a radio interview with Kevin…

Host: So thumbs up on The Watchmen, what else you got?

Smith: I saw a movie last night that I cannot talk about.

Host: Was it good?

Smith: It was phenomenal.

Host: Any stars, any break out stars, and do they trek?

Smith: The stars absolutely trek in this film. It is fantastic. Anybody who was worried doesn’t need to be worried–about this film I cannot talk about…It was in very capable hands. The director did a phenomenal job–the director and his crew. Top notch cast and the guy that plays the lead is an instant star. That dude is going to be so famous. He is so wonderful. He picked up a role that I would say is pretty challenging for someone to step into the shoes of, because it is a role that has been played before many times by the same guy.

Host: How do you out Shatner, Shatner?

Smith: I don’t know what you are talking about.

Host: I was just saying that as an expression.

Smith: Yes, absolutely, in a world of expressions, I would agree with that…I am so not good with this game, you are going to bury me man.

Host: We had you on before The Dark Knight and I remember asking you if you could direct a movie like Dark Knight and you said ‘hell no’ it was so far out of your sphere…but I bring that up to preface this. Let’s say a franchise like Star Trek, not that you have seen the movie or we are talking about the movie, but we are talking about it for example. That is something that is so dangerous to attempt. Is that the kind of project you would like to do? Would you like to be the guy who gets to do a movie like that?

Smith: I would not like to be the guy. In the case of something like Star Trek, it would take a really insanely talented filmmaker–storyteller. Like in the case of Star Trek, JJ Abrams. So leave it to the people who are best equipped for it. I am just the guy who should be watching those movies.

Star Trek Optimism

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When I first heard that work was beginning on a new Star Trek film, I suppose you could have described my first response as ‘cautiously optimistic’ — however, that reaction would have swayed far more towards the caution side of things than the optimism side.

However, as more and more (non-spoilery) details appear, I’m moving more and more towards the ‘optimism’ side. While there are still a few little details that raise warning flags (for instance, that the script was written by the guys who wrote Transformers), overall, things are looking good.

Recently, director J.J. Abrams, writer and producer Roberto Orci and a fair chunk of the cast and crew spent a little time between shots doing a couple of Q-and-A sessions on the Trek Movie fan weblog. Full transcripts are posted here and here, but they’ve thoughtfully provided an ‘executive summary’ list. All in all, I think there’s a lot of promise here.

  • First full trailer currently in the works, targeting early- to mid-summer release
  • Principal photography is scheduled to wrap at the beginning of April [about 1-2 weeks more than originally planned]
  • Documentaries on the film’s pre-production and production process can be expected on DVD release; Making of… book also discussed
  • [J.J. Abrams friend and frequent collaborator] Greg Grunberg will not appear in Star Trek due to his commitment to another film
  • About 1,000 effects shots are expected to be used in the film (more than any previous Trek film)
  • Target MPAA rating: PG-13
  • The two biggest challenges for Abrams were getting a handle on the vision of the future and casting the film
  • Humor is a very important aspect in the film (“humor and humanity go hand-in-hand”)
  • Abrams’ goal is to make Trek ‘real’ and is thus utilizing sets and location shooting rather than green- or blue-screens wherever he can
  • The Enterprise “will be a combo of the physical and the virtual”
  • An image of the Enterprise is “coming soon”
  • The doors on the Enterprise will go “SWOOSH!” when they open.
  • The set of the Enterprise bridge will be stored for future use;
  • the movie’s script is about 128 pages long (indicating a roughly 2 hour movie)
  • the script took about four months to write
  • [Orci] and co-writer Alex Kurtzman will not be making cameos in the film
  • James T. Kirk and the film’s villain (Nero) were the most difficult characters to write;
  • the TOS episode “Balance of Terror” and the second, third, fourth and sixth films helped shape the writers’ takes on the characters, as did novels by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens.
  • Script shoots for many memorable moments akin to the “Never forget the name of the ship…Enterprise” moment in TNG “Yesterday’s Enterprise”
  • Film makers have kept with Trek tradition and brought in academic and scientific consultants (more info on this promised)