Prouvaire

@[email protected]

Addicted to love. Flower cultivator, flute player, verse maker. Usually delicate, but at times masculine. Well read, even to erudition. Almost an orientalist.

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Skydance Makes Offer For Paramount Global; Star Trek Franchise Could Be Under New Ownership, Again ( trekmovie.com )

There is an update on the Paramount takeover buzz that kicked off last month with David Ellison’s Skydance Media reported to have made an offer to purchase control of Paramount Global. A change in ownership for the company that owns Star Trek could have an impact on the future of the franchise.

Prouvaire OP ,

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.

Prouvaire ,

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.

Prouvaire ,

Spock.

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

Please bear with me while I geek out about Edith Keeler in "The City on the Edge of Forever" for a moment.

It almost feels unnecessary to rave about “The City on the Edge of Forever” (S1E28) again, since it has been praised as one of the all-time best episodes of Star Trek for like 50+ years now, but I just rewatched it and want to specifically talk about how much I love the character Edith Keeler....

Prouvaire ,

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.

Prouvaire ,

@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.

Prouvaire ,

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.

Prouvaire ,

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.

Prouvaire ,

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.

Prouvaire ,

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

Prouvaire ,

My favourite deadpan funny line delivery of Nimoy's is this exchange from The Wrath of Khan:

Kirk: I would not presume to debate you.
Spock: That is wise.

Prouvaire ,

name any show other than Lower Decks or Strange New Worlds that had a good first couple seasons

TOS. 😎

Prouvaire ,

I just wanted to play to into Rom’s savviness and Leeta’s savviness. What did he pick up from his brother and what did he leave behind?

Hmm

Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x09 "The Inner Fight"

LoglineWho knows? They never released one. Edit: They finally released one - how novel to release the actual episode first! Captain Freeman assigns the Lower Deckers an overly safe mission to try and keep a self-destructive Mariner out of danger....

Prouvaire ,

Her whole pivot into even-more-than-normal overtly reckless behavior three episodes after the supposed precipitating event felt very abrupt, and the scene where she talks it over and appears to resolve her issues with Ma’ah felt rushed, almost forced.

Agreed. It's tricky injecting serious notes into an all-out sitcom and I'm not sure it worked as well this episode as it might have.

The Sito Jaxa makes reasonable sense as a backstory component, but I found it distracting and it does add to the “small universe” syndrome that expanding IPs risk falling into

Again, agreed. Lower Decks has as much (more even) blatant fan service as Picard season 3, although because it is a comedy I find it more forgivable and less grating than I did in the other show. That said, "Lower Decks" is my favourite TNG episode, so appreciated the Sito Jaxa callback for that reason (and it was a nice way of connecting this series and the episode it was named after). As long as they're not foreshadowing her return. That would be very very bad. They thought about bringing her back on DS9 but wisely refrained. Keep your hands off Sito Jaxa's corpse McMahan!!

Prouvaire ,

Great to have Robbie McDunc back as Locarno as well. If nothing else this may finally kill the urban myth that they didn’t use Locarno in Voyager due to royalties once and for all.

I don't understand the reasoning here. Why would Locarno's return for one or two episodes kill the theory that Paramount didn't want to pay Moore and Shankar ongoing royalties for seven years?

Prouvaire ,

I think the official explanation is that they thought about it and judged Locarno as irredeemable - "a bad guy in the guise of a good guy" whereas Paris was supposed to be "a good guy in the guise of a bad guy". But I tend to agree that money was the determining factor, as it so often is.

Whats your favorite Star Trek season?

Not to be confused with favorite series. I think my favorite season is ENT sesson 4, which is funny because the series overall is def on the weaker end of the spectrum, and i dont think any particular episode of the fourth season is Star Treks very best, its just the season that has more good than bad episodes of any season of...

Prouvaire ,

Without giving it too much thought, I'd say DS9 season 6 or TOS season 1, with DS9 season 4 also being a contender.

DS9 season 6 opened with the franchise's first example of long-form storytelling, with "Rocks and Shoals" being a standout episode in that arc. It also gave us classics like "Far Beyond the Stars" and "In the Pale Moonlight". Overall the episodes were solid with few duds.

Similarly season 4 also opened strongly, with four of the first five episodes all being strong, with "The Visitor" among the franchise's best ever instalments and "Rejoined" also being very very good. ("Indiscretion" isn't as good as the first three or fifth episode.) It also features "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost". Granted, the second half of season 4 probably isn't quite as strong as the first half.

TOS season 1 established so much of the template of what Star Trek is, and many of the episodes still hold up very well even close to 60 years later, including "The Cage"/"The Menagerie", "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "Balance of Terror", "The Galileo Seven", "Space Seed", "The Devil in the Dark" and, of course, "City on the Edge of Forever".

ENT season 4 definitely gets the prize for "most improved" season. (Yes, I have seen PIC season 3, but don't rate it as highly as most people.)

PRO season 1 gets the prize for best debut season after TOS. I think it did a great job in putting a new spin on the franchise while telling good, family-friendly stories that developed both plot and characters.

Prouvaire ,

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.

Prouvaire ,

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.

Prouvaire ,

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. 😉

Prouvaire ,

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.

Prouvaire ,

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.

Prouvaire ,

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

Prouvaire ,

This episode reminded me of what Mel Brooks purportedly said: "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die."

Also, Spork was one of the Vulcan proper names submitted by Bob Justman to Gene Roddenberry during the show's production: https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/star-trek-planet-vulcan-proper-names

Prouvaire ,

That seems like such an insanely weird decision to make.

It could have also been a mistake. The "Ephraim and Dot" Short Trek made a similar continuity booboo when they gave the TOS-era Enterprise the "NCC 1701-A" naval construction code.

Prouvaire ,

DECKD WK 1, EP 1 & 2
Solved in 3

⚪⚪⚪⚪⚪
⚪⚪⚪🟢⚪
🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢

https://www.playparamountplus.com/DECKD

Too used to playing Wordle rules,which is a disadvantage here.

Prouvaire ,

DECKD WK 3, EP 4
Solved in 1

🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢

https://www.playparamountplus.com/DECKD

Prouvaire ,

Boimler has his Starfleet recruitment poster seen in “Those Old Scientists”, but Number One’s face is obscured every time it’s on screen.

I'm 99% sure they were just being subtle (which I like), but 1% of me wonders if there's something in the actors', in this case Rebecca Romijn's, contract that says they have to be compensated if their likeness is used, even a cartoon likeness. And if so, sometimes the budget doesn't quite stretch far enough.

Prouvaire ,

T’Lyn is able to combine all the Tuvixed beings into one creature, which is then described by Tendi as a “Non-sentient blob of meat,” handily circumventing the ethical dilemma presented by “Tuvix”.

It really doesn't. It's like you lobotomising someone before you suffocate them with a pillow. Sure you turned the non-sentient blob of meat back into their constituent parts, but you're the one who created the non-sentient blobs from a bunch of sentient beings.

Prouvaire ,

Fair point. It's been a few days since I saw the episode, so didn't recall the nuances.

I did think it was a bit of a shame that one of Trek's most powerful ethical quandaries got so easily and blithely technobabbled away, but such is the nature of comedy. And VOY did pretty much the same thing to the Borg, so turnabout is fair play I suppose.

And speaking of inside remains as a result of transporter accidents, will you do these canon connections posts for the Very Short Treks, (even if they themselves have been declared non-canonical)?

Prouvaire ,

Also, I do think it would have been more interesting to proceed with Tuvix from a storytelling point of view. Obviously that doesn’t work great when you have actors contracted for multiple seasons

I was okay with Tuvix being split back apart eventually, but if VOY had fully committed to the serialised nature of its premise I would have loved to have seen Tuvix hang around for, say, 5-10 episodes first. They could still have had Neelix and Tuvok appear in the odd flashback or as holo constructs or something to justify their inclusion in the opening credits. Or, to be even more daring, not have them appear at all and removed Ethan Philips and Tim Russ from the credits for a while, although I don't think this sort of credit manipulation was permitted in the mid-90s. It would have made the impact of killing Tuvix even greater.

They never speak of it again. Probably because Janeway threatened to murder anyone on the ship who brings it up.

And that's what makes her the highly effective officer that she is. :-D

I think that after the season of LDS is done, while we’re waiting Disco season five, I’ll try and do some Non-Canon Connections.

Looking forward to that.

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    Prouvaire , (edited )

    I own all (I think) of the TOS era Bantam novels and short story collections from way back (though some in their UK Corgi editions), and just about all of the early Pocket novels (the first 50 or so); as well as a fairly comprehensive selection of early non-fiction books, including some obscure ones like The Making of the Trek Conventions by Joan Winston, Letters to Star Trek by Susan Sackett and Star Trek Intragalactic Puzzles by James Razzi.

    https://youtu.be/tRsYJej2RtI

    Prouvaire ,

    In my head canon quad is a fundamental unit used in quantum computing, which I assume is a technology in common use in Trek.

    Prouvaire , (edited )

    Exactly. Just as binary digit got abbreviated to "bit" and a collection of (eight) bits became known as a "byte", I figure something similar would happen for quantum digits -> qubits -> quads (because "qubytes" sounds awkward and "quants" sounds like something you couldn't get say on network television).

    Prouvaire ,

    https://youtu.be/GnFNnVHBW9Q

    No.

    Prouvaire ,

    I'm not familiar with Pete Holmes but it would have been nice to have Paul Wesley voice Kirk to provide some aural continuity.

    I watched "Too Many Cooks" in preparation for Very Short Treks and so thought "Skin a Cat" was tame in comparison. I enjoyed it. 'Twas silly.

    Prouvaire , (edited )

    One could argue that "Skin a Cat" makes a more profound point amidst the silliness. Which is that (as Azetbur has pointed out) "the Federation is nothing more than a homo sapiens only club".

    Obviously there are real world reasons why human (and primarily American) cultural references abound in Star Trek, but it's always irked me that, for instance, there would be an entire class of Starfleet vessels named after cities in one United States state - ie, the California class. Why not have all the ships in this class named after towns in, say, the ShiKahr district of Vulcan instead? I think that would do a better job of world building, representing the Federation as a body that's more than just a bunch of humans with a handful of token aliens. Or, better yet, have all the ships ships named after smaller cities in a range of UFP member planets?

    edit: typo

    Prouvaire ,

    A Jellico cat perhaps?

    Prouvaire ,

    I would not presume to debate you.

    That is wise.

    Prouvaire ,

    and we get close up enough on Batel to see that the patch on her shoulder reads “USS Enterprise”.

    I figure Pike got her one from the Enterprise gift shop. She's probably got one of Pike's pajama tops too.

    Prouvaire ,

    Alien of the Week shows like TOS and TNG. No season long arcs, no dramas where the events in the episode are less important than the character development [...] SNW was supposed to be that

    I remember that during SNW's development one of the producers explicitly stated that while the stories would be episodic, there would be character arcs that ran through the season. So SNW was never intended to be as standalone as TOS or TNG were.

    Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x09 "Subspace Rhapsody"

    LoglineAn accident with an experimental quantum probability field causes everyone on the USS Enterprise to break uncontrollably into song, but the real danger is that the field is expanding and beginning to impact other ships—allies and enemies alike....

    Prouvaire ,

    Is there somewhere a list of the songs that Ford was parodying in How Much For Just The Planet? Even though I'm a huge musical theatre nerd, I didn't get some of the references in the book and it always bugged me.

    (And speaking of John M Ford: Personally I still regret that the Klingon culture that the franchise developed through TNG and subsequent shows differed so much from the one Ford created in The Final Reflection.)

    Prouvaire ,

    Another musical theatre Star Trek fan who finally caught up with the episode. Obviously I loved it. The writers took their cue from "Once More With Feelings" and used the "very special episode" conceit to progress seasonal character arcs (as they did with "Those Old Scientists"). You could tell was the intent even from the "previously on" recap with a bunch of relationship tensions ready to be revealed through song. (The bunnies reference was a nice nod to the Buffy episode.)

    I knew Celia Rose Gooding could sing (although, sadly, she was off when I saw Jagged Little Pill on Broadway), so the actor whose vocal chops surprised me most was Christina Chong. I see from her wikipedia entry that she was actually in the Elton John musical Aida in Berlin, so that makes sense now.

    Maybe my favourite minor running gag was how the characters always heard and acknowledged the backing music - in dialogue or with just a glance. I could go on a pretentious detour on mimetic vs diegetic music, but won't.

    But I wasn't blind to some of the episode's flaws either. The biggest to me was that the songs lacked the craft and polish of really good musical theatre songs, with (for instance) many imperfect rhymes and awkward prosody (putting the stress on the wrong syl-LA-ble of a word). Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, a show that I loved, suffered from the same issue.

    A minor complaint is that I didn't think we need the rules of musical theatre to be so explicitly lampshaded by the characters, although La'an treating it as security (and personal, emotional) risk was cute - and in character.

    Prouvaire ,

    Or maybe midgets.

    Canon Connections: Strange New Worlds 2x08 - "Under the Cloak of War"

    • “Under the Cloak of War”. The flashbacks in this episode are set during the Federation-Klingon War seen during DIS season one, and a large part of that conflict was the new Klingon cloaking devices that T’Kuvma, and then Kol installed on their various ships. Get it? Yeah, you get it....

    Prouvaire ,

    in TOS there was very little rhyme or reason to the Stardates

    The explanation Roddenberry gave was that a stardate was dependent not just on time but location, but the real world reason was that the episodes were aired out of production order.

    Prouvaire ,

    Check my profile and take a guess. 😊

    Prouvaire ,

    This episode was like someone said "Let's do our version of The Undiscovered Country" and then gave it to a bunch of DS9 writers to execute. It starts with very Roddenberrian premise - the promise of a former enemy becoming an ally. But then it brings in the gritty realism of what war is really like, ala "The Siege of AR-558", and the moral cost that war extracts - that maybe the monster you see is not just in the face of the enemy, but the face you see in the mirror, ala "Duet", "In the Pale Moonlight" and the other morally grey episodes that often marked the best of DS9's run.

    Prouvaire , (edited )

    I have no problem with Kyle being played by an Asian actor in SNW (as I had no problem with April being played by a black actor), but just for fun I'd love it if the show introduced Chief Kyle's replacement at some point before the end, an English white guy who just so happens to also be called Kyle.

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