Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

@socketwench - I always rankle when people group ST3 in the "Bad Trek" category. It's a good movie. It's not the Pulp Sci-Fi of TMP, or Moby Dick in Space like TWOK, but it is a funeral dirge for Spock. Everything is being done to get Spock's body back until they realize he's alive. It's slower, more solemn. As is right for a funeral dirge.

Even at the end we don't know we're gettnig him back, so it's treated solemnly.

It's one of my faves.

But that one with the whales, now....

@socketwench - The destruction of the Enterprise hurt. It really hurt.

Like, I know the 1701-A is the same model as the TMP 1701. But adding that A on there...it's a while new character, and one I dont like as much because we didn't spend time together. Just two movies.

Find storry about the melting saucer section...it was achieved by dropping colored candlewax on a substitute model. The candlewax was composited away with the burning infrastructure underneath.

@antijingoist @socketwench - Personally I never liked it. It made me laugh everytime instead of feel for David's death.

Different strokes....

@socketwench - From what I understand Kirstie Alley turned the role down for rmore money.

However, because Nimoy is FAMOUSLY protective of the vulcans (he got on a lot of make-up crews cases cause he liked Spock's ear tips a certain way and would refuse to put them on if not done right), he made sure Robin Curtis was as flat as possible.

That's sort of good, because I think she NAILS the Vulcan Aesthetic. The problem is, Kirstie, who didn't, just played Saavik better because she emoted. On top of that she's half Romulan in the script.

There's a wonderful scene at the end of the movie, though, where she sees Spock and bows her head. Before the scene, Nimoy went to her and said "Forget everything I taught you about Vulcans. I want you to react like you've just seen a passionate lover who left you years ago passing by on the street."

@antijingoist @socketwench - I didn't say he KEPT BEING GOOD. :D

@socketwench - The bridge was almost complete when Phase II was cancelled to become the motion picture. The only real changes were to make all the control panels black glass, remove a bridge transporter section, and a wierd round human sized targeting reticle behind Chekov's station.

The graphics were already done, and so the Phase II enterprise is on all those control panels. You can tell by looking at the nacelles. The front of the Phase II Enterprise nacelles are thinner than the rest. The TMP ones are larger. If the scene was clearer, you'd see the "notches" on the struts from Phase II.

@socketwench - Nichelle Nichols is one of those actresses who was never really given a moment to show off what she could do.

There are a lot fo bits and pieces throughout TOS and the movies, but in every one, she's giving 110%. Even if it's just a stare to the screen.

This scene in TSFS? This should be shown ANYTIME Nichelle Nichols is memorialized.

@socketwench - WE NEED MORE CAPES

@socketwench - Nick Meyer specifically said that in order to get believable acting from Shatner, you had to run the takes until he got bored. Once he got bored, it was at an acceptable level.

That said, Shatner can really dole it out when he needs to. The mind meld here and the entire Spock/Kirk scene at the end of TWOK are DEVASTATING.

@socketwench - They're actually refilmed Franz Joseph blueprints from the 70s. Before TWOK they used the same blueprints, just on film!

If you REALLY want to get nerdy, the green damage control graphics on the bridge? That's the Phase II Enterprise on there.

@socketwench - I do know the effects work was done differently because ILM had full control.

TMP was done by Doug Trumbull and John Dykstra's Future General and Apogee. They controlled that look and went with the pearlescent paint job on the E. To film it, it had to be dark to avoid blue screen splash over.

TWOK used TMP footage, so ILM wasn't able to completely remove the pearlescent paint job for new shots, so, again, filmed pretty dark.

TSFS is all new footage, so ILM, which hated the pearlescent look, were able to refinish the model, removing the pearlescent paint job and film brightly. Too brightly if you ask me. The ships look flat because of that.

The rest of the bright look is all up to Nimoy's directing I'm guessing.

David Lynch was one of the few people who could accurately film a nightmare: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j13ZuGgcqd0

A question for the writers and creators out there.

How do you write for your characters? Do you just know what they'd say? Or do the characters tell YOU what they'd say (and even make plot suggestions/changes?)

I do the latter, and during a convention where I explained the process of "telling a character who they are until they start telling ME who they are" another creator leaned in and whispered "your brain frightens me."

This is how bad it's getting here in the states: https://www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/national/refugee-advocates-want-canada-to-make-exemption-for-u-s-transgender-asylum-claims/article_b2cfc342-3a5a-57f7-b97b-7b908f55b7a4.html

A quote on my mind these days.

"There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair.

"Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain."

So it seems that the newest Linux Mint uses the Ubuntu Noble software base and the one I was using before the reinstall used the Ubuntu Jammy base. After a reinstall using the Jammy software set my PCs are very happy again.