:: Captain's Personal Blog ::

Stardate: Monday, July 07, 2003

Truth More Entertaining Than Fiction
The above statement is evidenced by the following cartoon, sent to me by Brian:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-07-04


and the writer commentary found here:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2003-07-04


As for my own feelings about STAR TREK, well this wouldn't be the first time that I mentioned it on this site......

To recap, Activision filed suit against Star Trek's cororate heads at Viacom (which owns Paramount, and subsequently Star Trek,) accusing the company of running the franchise into the ground and killing any fan interest in its videogame tie-ins.

Is this a terrible mistake? An inacuracy to say the least? Not on your life. I have been saying for many years that the good folks at Paramount are killing the franchise, beyond any hope for recovery. As for what the witty comic strip writer above wrote.......I agree -- sort of.

He had me going for a while, until he spoke of getting the show's writers to possibly write for the video games. What this one point lacks in sense is evidenced by the following statement. The writers are number three on the list of persons responsible for the demise of STAR TREK. Check this out:

1) Why number three?
Simple. Number one is the high muckety mucks at Star Trek (not to be confused with the head honchos at Paramount.) I am referring here to the so-called "keepers of the flame." They have gotten so out of touch with what the fans want that it has become tragic. If they were parents and the fans were their children, they would have been brought up on charges for child negligence. What Tycho says in his article is true. The expectations of the fans have been lowered to such a degree that any glimmer of quality is treated as an astounding feat. For further evidence see 2). Number two on the list are the head honchos at Paramount who are guilty of nothing more than allowing the high muckety mucks at Star Trek to continue.

2) Creative Hey-Day is over
Does anyone remember the calibre of writers who were writing for STAR TREK in the 60's? Harlan Ellison, David Gerrold, DC Fontana, to name a few. These were the cream of the Science Fiction crop at the time. Granted, Asimov and Bradbury weren't writing, and neither was Philip K. Dick, but for crying out loud, these guys weren't second stringers. You generally don't hear STAR TREK touting its writing/directing staff anymore unless it happens to be a former/present cast member. I get the novelty of that, but is it really necessary? Is STAR TREK really nothing more than a proving ground for inexperienced talent? I can appreciate the need to further the experience of the talent who work the show, in fact some of the best episodes of recent years have come from former/present day actors. However, I would gladly sacrifice those episodes for better CONSISTENT writing.

3)Eugene Roddenberry
It's funny that I should be writing this after their website went on summer hiatus, but what I am about to say is no less true. Maybe certain things SHOULD be kept in the family. Of all the sites that I have seen and all the companies that I have dealt with, none have been more consistent at offering fans what they have wanted in the way of merchandise than Roddenberry.com, run by the son of the late, Great Bird of the Galaxy. Granted, I don't think I wanted to buy Rod's old car (offered on the website) but past that, the offers are good. Quality prop replicas, uniform patterns, scripts, guides, apparrel, toys, it's all there. This is the kind of attention to fan desires that I haven't seen in a long time. Art Asylum is another company that is turning its attention to what fans have been clamoring for for years, but I fear that fan backlash may put their plans on hold prematurely.

As for STAR TREK video games, for the most part I have been pleased. Unfortunately, my favorite STAR TREK programs no longer function on newer computers, and I fear that they are lost to me forever:

1) STAR TREK: CAPTAIN'S CHAIR
This was the coolest program I have ever seen. Not only are you given a real-time Quick-Time VR view of the bridges of five different Starships (Enterprise - TOS, Enterprise - D, Defiant, Voyager, Enterprise-E), but you can interact with the consoles, firing phasers, activating the viewscreen, going to warp, even setting the ship to auto-destruct. Every fanboys dream, just short of an interactive tour of the whole ship, which leads me to:

2) STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - INTERACTIVE TECHNICAL MANUAL
Before Captain's Chair, this was fantastic. Not only could you walk around the bridge of the Enterprise-D, but you could go into Sickbay, the Captain's Quarters, The Ready Room, Transporter Room, Engineering, an much more. You could get technical rundowns on every aspect of the ship, and even a tour from Commander Riker. It was nice.

Other games were good as well, although I haven't played any of the more recent ones (the most recent being STARFLEET ACADEMY, which I had a great time with.)

When I started this post, I thought I would get around to expressing my serious distaste for modern STAR TREK, but this has just taken way too much out of me. Perhaps I'll get around to it another day. But, then again, how often can you beat a dead horse? Or a dead franchise?
:: J 11:31 AM [+] ::
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