Star Trek - monitors

[cmccuist]

OK, this has bothered me for years. Gene Roddenberry was a genius and the original show was great. I mean they came up with:

1. Warp drive - flying faster than the speed of light
2. Transporter - blow up all your molecules and then reassemble them in a different location
3. Phasor - hand held weapon that could vaporize stuff
4. Gravity - space ship where you could walk around as if weightlessness didn't exist
5. Tricorder - don't know what it does, but it makes a cool sound
6. Tractor beam - hold ships by magic
7. Shields - protect yourself by magic

But with all that imagination, they couldn't envision something other than a CRT for monitors?!?!?

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Not to mention isn't it convenient that every alien species uses communications protocols/frequencies identical to the federation's? And somehow everyone speaks the same language?

Love the show(s) though, just there are some exceedingly cheesy/corny aspects. Personally I think Roddenberry was a bit lazy - not nearly as imaginative as Asimov or maybe Frank Herbert. Maybe on par with Lucas - some great stuff, some wickedly lame-o stuff.

[Steve Carlton]

The medical monitors were cool.

[GH85Carrera]

Almost all the aliens have two legs, two arms and have room for a human actor to fit inside. They rarely have weightless scenes. All of that is to make filming easier. Sub-titles would get tedious so almost everyone speaks English. The writers would love to have more visuals but even computer generated graphics cost a lot.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

The concept of having humanoid aliens with lots in common with us was supposedly part of Rodenberry's attempt to "explore the human condition and what it means to be human" too - I remember reading that someplace. It kinda' works and yeah, even though it's a cop-out on one level, it did make the series more "doable" and successful where it otherwise might not have been possible.

The whole "what does it mean to be human" question is one of the core underlying questions that drove Rodenberry's writing. I love the episodes that poke and prod at that question, typically.

The ones I can't stand are the ones where there's some problem ("the findibulator broke", captain!") and they come up with a bunch of contrived techno-babble to "fix" it ("well I re-phased a an anti-neutrino field inside this dildo-smegma matrix and it caused a sub-space fart bubble to emerge, fixing it!") Those are weak/lazy writing to just fill a time slot.

[jyl]

Remember we're talking 1967. There was no such thing as computer generated graphics. Special effects meant over-laying the physical film, or small models on black backgrounds. 2001: A Space Odyssey shows what the state of the art was at the time, and that's with a $6 million budget. I think each Star Trek episode had a $150,000 budget.

[cmccuist]

POP, good point. I think the show works/worked for exactly that reason. There was a lot of "what does it mean to be human" type episodes. The star of the show wasn't the Enterprise, but the interaction between Captain Kirk, Spock and Bones - and a lot of humanish aliens that were ugly.

To me, good science fiction writing has to have rules - how do you kill a transformer, how corrosive is that alien's blood, how fast can the Enterprise go, what are the limits of the transporter...

As long as I know the rules, and the show/movie is consistent in following those rules, I can enjoy the show.

However, I will never understand why they used those ridiculous, 1960's CRT monitors (that were basically 12" black and white TV's) instead of envisioning flat screens.

[exitwound]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

Almost all the aliens have two legs, two arms and have room for a human actor to fit inside. They rarely have weightless scenes. All of that is to make filming easier. Sub-titles would get tedious so almost everyone speaks English. The writers would love to have more visuals but even computer generated graphics cost a lot.

In The Next Generation (I believe after Gene died), the story was written that all aliens in the TNG Milky Way were the product of an ancestor race that spread its DNA around the galaxy. As a result, all humanoids were two legged like us...which also meant that all the races weren't so different afterall. The Romulans didn't like this very much. The Klingons said it made them look weak. The humans, of course, are the only ones to get something out of the discovery. We're all the same.

[Z-man]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

Not to mention isn't it convenient that every alien species uses communications protocols/frequencies identical to the federation's? And somehow everyone speaks the same language?

Well duh - they were speaking their own languages, but the humans understood them because of the universal translator.

You fail at the Trekker geekdom!

While many of the gadgets mentioned by the op are still only in the fictional universe, Gene Roddenberry did have a vision for the future. Consider the following everyday devices we use that were unheard of back in the 60's yet part of the show:

- Communicator = modern cell phone
- Ohura's earpiece = Bluetooth device
- Memory cards used to record video & data = thumb drives
- Huge screen on the bridge = HDTV
- Universal translator = Bablefish and similar websites
- Databoards = PDA's, iPhone, Palms...etc.

I wonder if Mr. Roddenberry figured out time travel and he went into the future so he could borrow that technology in his show....

-Z-man.

[s_morrison57]

I loved that show, would wait all week for the next episode, I was 10, after Capt. Kirk it just wasn't the same for me.

[cmccuist]

Originally Posted by Z-man

I wonder if Mr. Roddenberry figured out time travel and he went into the future so he could borrow that technology in his show....

-Z-man.

Either that or he got into area 51 and ripped his ideas from those poor aliens who built the pyramids.

Z, that is an interesting list that flanges up nicely with some of our modern gadgets!!

We still don't have that bed you lay on in sick bay with those arrows for monitoring your vitals!

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Z-man

Well duh - they were speaking their own languages, but the humans understood them because of the universal translator.

-Z-man.

Yea, but what about Klingons? Most of the time they speak English and then they will break into Klingon ?

There are lots of things that don't make a lot sense if you think about it. No one ever gets paid because money is not needed. Yet several episodes have people doing dangerous jobs for no real reward.

I always loved the Roddenberry era. Technology solved the worlds problems and all the was left was exploration. Now without Roddenberry things are not as nice. The last movie the equipment was worn, beat up and dirty. Probably more realistic but not as Roddenberry would have done it.

[Z-man]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

I always loved the Roddenberry era. Technology solved the worlds problems and all the was left was exploration. Now without Roddenberry things are not as nice. The last movie the equipment was worn, beat up and dirty. Probably more realistic but not as Roddenberry would have done it.

For that reason, I found Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to be more ejoyable to watch - I like my scifi dark, flawed and dirty. The hero didn't always warp off into the sunset, and sometimes things went terribly wrong.

That's the same reason why I feel the 'modern' Battelstar Galactica is a far better scifi show than the Star Trek universe was.

I guess my scifi universe was painted by the classics from the likes of Issac Asimov, H.G. Wells, and Ray Bradbury - rarely did everything turn out the 'best' way, whereas Roddenberry's universe was always hopeful and good, filled with a bright future.

-Z-man.

[ckissick]

Star Trek was given an incredibly low operating budget. Everyone involved in the show was always on the lookout for junk that might make a good prop.

Once, when the studio bought new typewriters for all their secretaries, someone, maybe Roddenberry, went dumpster diving to retrieve the packaging materials that the typewriters came in. They spray painted them various colors and stuck them on walls of the Enterprise.

The 3 spheres you see in the engine room are painted soccer balls. They used sono tubes for anything cylindrical.

[exitwound]

Roddenberry's vision of a bright future was boring after awhile. The characters were all beat up with their own problems, yet, they never seemed to affect the universe as a whole. Occasionally, something like Worf's bloodline actually DID influence the Klingon Empire, but overall, characters having inner personal problems didn't matter, and I find that boring to watch on tv.

DS9, I'll agree, is a much darker, bleaker view of what the future holds. It's a mirror of today, and it's a mirror of what's happened in the past. Differing cultures have different values and goals, and conflict is inevitable. Deep Space 9 is my favorite of all the star trek series for this reason. Writing Sisko the ability to LIE to bring the Romulans into the war is something humanity has done in the past and will continue to do in the future. Personal gain is a human trait that won't go away with the invention of the replicator/transporter. And giving the Captain of the station holding the border the balls to lie to his superiors to advance a war is gritty, dark, and what Star Trek needed.

Babylon 5 is one of my favorites for this reason too. No one race was superior or more perfect than the others.

Battlestar Galactica I couldn't get into. It's too dark, and I hate, hate, HATE the idea of "aliens that look like us". I abhor that storyline.

[Roosterrusek]

I want to know why in all the decades of medicine and advancement, how come they haven't come up with a cure for baldness?

And don't tell me it's cause they have moved past that otherwise they wouldn't be wearing those snappy uniforms?

[Roosterrusek]

Battlestar Gallactica, the new one is easy to get in to, particularly since I want to get in to Six.

[GH85Carrera]

The thing that bothers me about almost any Science Fiction movie today is it takes place in the post apocalypse world. There is always a major battle and lots of explosions. Virtually ever movie made seems to have a love interest. No matter the main plot there is a love story woven into the plot. We all know that the man and woman at the beginning of a movie that hate each other will in love by the end of the movie.

I would love to see some faithful versions of Asimovs robot stories made into movies. Not some POS like I-Robot that completely changes the plot and makes the robots the enemy. The three laws robot stories could be great.

[trekkor]

Love that show!


KT

[Porsche-O-Phile]

BSG was awesome - probably the best science fiction to come along in the last 10-15 years. Really good stuff.

Star Trek - Deep Space Nine I really kinda' liked too. "Voyager" got lame quickly after a great start. "Enterprise" is pretty cool. Star Wars Episodes 1-3 were a mix of great and suckatastic. Didn't live up to what I remember from the 1980s (Episodes 4-6) at all.

One thing I love about BSG and Star Trek is they don't get overly involved with special effects like the movies do (War of the Worlds, Transformers, The Phantom Menace, god-knows-what-else). The "big screen" stuff is 90% flashy spinny eye candy crap and 10% plot "glue" that is supposed to somehow tie it all together. The recent "Star Trek Enterprise" that came out was great - the SFX were only there in service to the plot, not the other way around (as has become painfully the standard in recent years). I like that.

BSG kicked ass. Great series.