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looks pretty good!

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So i’ve watched a few original Star Trek episodes here and there over the past few years, despite having seen them all a bazillion times by now. However they may have dated – and definitely many have – there are still some cool aspects of them to watch.

But, since CBS took over several years ago, they reissued all 79 original episodes on DVD. You’d think that was a good thing, and for the most part, it’s fine, BUT, they also took the ‘liberty’ of updating CGI into them. Again, you’d think well, in some cases, the special effects are pretty bad (i’m thinking of The Constellation flying into the Doomsday Machine scene in particular, where it is ridiculously obvious it’s a model on a stand in front of a tv screen showing the effects, right at the very end of this clip:

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However, I find in watching these ‘redo’ episodes that I mostly dislike the redo of the “CGI”. Maybe it’s just an old man ranting, but I just think in many cases, the original approach with the huge original model lit from within just simply looks better than their attempt at ‘muted’ CGI – naturally they can’t “really” do CGI because that didn’t actually show up until TRON and The Last Starfighter, over 16 years later.

The first YT video below shows the difference side by side (original vs update), from this episode, and you can see what I mean.

As to the episode itself, mixed reviews. Too much Kirk (no Sulu, Scotty at all), the plot is somewhat contradictory of itself (why does Kirk keep the attempt on his life such a big secret and, why does he yell at Spock, twice, for trying to keep him from getting killed, especially when that’s Spock’s JOB?). Also, his attempts at getting laid are simply lame and way too obvious, and like so many ST attempts at including Shakespeare – this probably being among the first given it’s from the first season of TOS – just detracts from the melodrama already in play (literally). And Uhura’s otherwise fine song in the rec room is obviously dubbed, much like the clip I watched of good ol’ Clint Howard in The Corbomite Maneuver as a (literal) kid, playing a scary alien. But i’m probably just jaded….

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hilarious – highlights include ‘The Riker Maneuver’, ‘Worf getting his ass kicked’ and ‘acting’ 🙂

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PS – if you see a T-Mob-lame ad on this clip, F T-Mob-LAME!

I think this episode was an improvement over the last one – some good unexpected stuff happening, they broaden the story to not just be about ‘the search for Spock’ – although there’s more than a bit about that, too – and some good action too….they are pushing the envelope a bit (not completely in a good way) with the Section 31 stuff, but i’ll remain in check on that one for now…

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read this short anthology over the past few weeks. These are really good stories (one is an essay) and although I haven’t read much of her fiction, I liked these a lot. Time for more…!

Other views:
Goodreads
Powells
Amazon

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saw it last night – pretty good, definitely throwing in weird angles to the story, which the main plot of was otherwise a bit meh – Star Trek (and sci fi ad nauseum) has done the ‘old society confronted by modern space society’ – or whatever you want to call it – many, many times.

Still, I also like how they are *finallY* giving other bridge crew something to do – not just being ‘red shirts’ on missions (look it up) but actual dialog – keep it up! Of course Burnham keeps up the great work as the center of the show, but they are definitely letting her character grow too..

Finally, creating a main season multi-episode plot thread around Spock isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and that they are trying to create back story around Capt. Pike (thankfully NOT Capt. Kirk) is also cool – the plot thickens, as they say…

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Finally, it’s restarted. After the craziness of last year which saw Captain ‘Malfoy’ (Lorca) disintegrated into a Klingon ‘battlestar’ and Capt. Georgiou (sp?) come back in ‘evil’ format – what craziness awaits this season?

So far, so good. While they re-introduce (indirectly) Mr Spock, and (directly) Capt. Pike – it works for me so far. Because Burnham is still the backbone of the show, as she should be. But they finally give others (besides Burnham and Saru) on the bridge >actual things to do, and dialog – keep it up!

I also thought Capt. Pike looked familiar in a small way – and courtesy of IMDB …he was Black Bolt in the short-lived Inhumans series from a year or two ago – got it.