Ups And Downs
Happy birthday, Hugh Downs. In his 90s now, he's been everywhere as a broadcaster. He announced for Jack Paar and hosted Concentration, Today, Over Easy and 20/20, to name only his biggest credits.
Here's Hugh reporting in 1979 on Star Trek.
Here's something from 20/20 that has little to do with Hugh, but I couldn't resist. Also from 1979, it's a piece the show did on new wave and punk at a time when you didn't hear much about such music on network TV (and all there was then were the networks).
posted by LAGuy @ 12:11 AM
8 Comments:
I had no idea that Star Trek The Motion Picture set a record for opening week box office (with $17 Million). I guess I'm not a Trekie, as Hugh dubs them.
Sorry Hugh- this is now a Star Trek thread
I kind of stumbled onto to watching the "bad " Star Trek movies this weekend. My son had Star Trek The Motion Picture in his Netflix queue which I had never seen before. I like the 2.5 minutes of the starfield screensaver at the beginning. Someone deliberately chose to make this long and ponderous and must have figured that big shots of things gliding through space would be majestically awesome. We lasted 57 minutes (with about 10 minutes of action) and maybe will try to finish it later
HBO Family was running a Star Trek marathon and I ended watching Star Trek III- The Search for Spock. I vaguely remember seeing that on someone's videodisc in 1985. Although considered bad, I liked it much better- the pacing of an episode, Christopher Lloyd and John Larroquette as straight but still goofy Klinggons- what's not to like. The plot was no more incomprehensible than an average episode (What did young Spock and the Vulcan female do to get through his growing pains?)
When did DeForrest Kelley decide to start dressing like a southern queen?
I don't know if III is considered bad so much as a lull between the two best Star Trek movies, but the first one is universally reviled. There are so many flaws it's hard to know where to start, but one thing is they didn't realize just because you've got fancy sets and effects doesn't mean you stop the action dead to show them off.
There was such a pent up demand for Star Trek that it did pretty well, but Paramount realized the second film had better actually be good. So they slashed the budget (this is back in the days when sequels invariably made less money), hired new people and kept their richest franchise alive.
Star Trek I was an STTOS episode stretched into a motion picture ("I Nomad" I think was the original episode - same story of a modified 20th Century probe coming back in search of its creater). Really an incomprehensible choice, at least with hindsight. But it did give us the excellent new Star Trek Theme Song.
Actually, ST 2 was a continuation of an original episode, and ST 3 was a continuation of ST 2. And Star Trek 4 was close to the same story as ST 1 (except aliens built a probe to see what was going on on earth these days, instead of sending back one of our own).
You wouldn't think it would be that hard to generate some fresh stories. Not till Star Trek 5 did they start to have an original story (and character in Spock's half-brother).
"I don't know if III is considered bad"
Gene Siskel said the odd ones were bad and the even ones were good. He said this while they were only six movies out and I must have taken it as a given (I didn't mind V so either but the others were better)
Back to your original post, I have clear memories of Hugh and Barbara Walters (and Frank Blair and I think Lee Meriweather ) on Today in the morning as I got ready for school I think in the late 60s. And I thought he was an old man then. He has had a ridiculously long career
As LAGuy said, there are many reasons that the first movie was so bad.
One is this: In the late 1970s, plans were underway for a new Star Trek TV show. They had cast the lead roles, built a set, and made some test footage. But then when Star Wars burst onto the scene, Paramount said "We want a movie, not a TV show." So they took the first episode of that show and expanded it into the movie. Meanwhile, when they heard about the movie, the original cast all signed up! Which meant that the movie had to somehow combine the cast of the spin-off show (brash young Commander Decker and rigid bald alien woman Lieutenant Ilia) with the old cast. And old fans had no idea why we were watching so much about Decker and Ilia.
The later movies, for all their flaws, understood that the fans wanted to see the original cast!
DG wrote:
Star Trek I was an STTOS episode stretched into a motion picture ("I Nomad" I think was the original episode - same story of a modified 20th Century probe coming back in search of its creater). Really an incomprehensible choice, at least with hindsight.
Yes indeed, the backbone of the plot was stolen from the Nomad episode ("The Changeling"). But it also stole the idea of a ship so huge that the Enterprise enters inside it (from "The Immunity Syndrome"), the idea of a woman on the Enterprise who is taken over by super-powerful alien so that she can communicate that alien's viewpoint to our heroes while her eyes glow (from "The Lights of Zetar"), and the conclusion where the inhuman alien merges with the woman so it/she can become human and marry the man she loves (from "Metamorphosis"). It doesn't leave much room for anything new!
But it did give us the excellent new Star Trek Theme Song.
Agreed. One of the few truly great things to come out of the movie. In fact, I think all the music to the movie was good. Not surprising, since the giant movies of that era -- Star Wars, Superman, Raiders -- all had great music.
Star Wars, Superman and Raiders all had great music because John Williams wrote it. He helped keep alive that sort of big, exciting old-fashioned action/adventure score. (We can also thank George Lucas who told him he didn't want a sci-fi score for Star Wars.)
Star Trek's music (which I don't consider to be in the same class) was written by another fine composer, Jerry Goldsmith, no doubt inspired by Williams, just as the Star Wars movie made the Star Trek movie possible.
Scroll down Pajama Guy and you'll see that both celebrated their birthdays in the past week.
Post a Comment
<< Home