Re: Ships of the Line for 2009

Jack Bohn <jackbohn@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

I must admit, I expected a _Ship_ of the Line, again, with focus
on the reworked Enterprise, as this calendar had to have been
planned when it would have made a great Christmas gift at the
crest of the publicity for the movie, rather than an item on
which to mark the date of the premier of the movie. Actually,
there are no images of the Movie ship, unless they are surprising
us all by going back to the original design. If they aren't, I
suspect we'll see a lot of images _next_ year, when the calendar
will make a great Christmas gift along with the DVD.

You know, I'm not positive, but my *impression* is that in
past years when there's been a November- or December-ready calendar
they didn't use publicity materials for the new movie in the matching
year. That is, no 'Undiscovered Country' stuff for 1992 calendars
and the like.

*Why* they wouldn't is a mystery to me, particularly since
things like the design of the Enterprise or the face of William Shatner
are not really secrets which need to be guarded against someone in the
production staff running off copies in July. Perhaps it comes from some
ancient primordial sense of 'once a production secret always a production
secret', carrying on even though there are perfectly good MiSTings of the
whole script and select scenes on the web already.

(I'm making that up. I think.)

While I did go to the bookstore this weekend I somehow missed
the Ships of the Line calendar. Did they do it actual calendar-style
this year, or did they do that goofy horizontal layout where it can't
actually be hung up again?


Now, what we do have:

The Cover:
[ ... ]
If I have one complaint, it is that the
lighting is a little dim, especially as the selling display for
the calendar.

Gr. Some dingbat, probably motivated by the same declaration
that There's No Sound In Space So You Don't Really Hear Explosions,
has got the idea of Outer Space Is Dark so embedded in the brains that
now we can't actually *see* science fiction stuff anymore. Now it's
infesting printed art too.


January "Never Been Done!"
first to do? Looking at it from various angles, I got the idea
of a planet exploding. Could this be Psi 2000 from "The Naked
Time"?

Could be. That was certainly a never-before-done thing.


(I always have to look up that name, the James Blish
version, in a burst of verisimilitude, has it identified by an
unreadable string of letters of which the first few cause folks
to nickname it "La Pig," and adwriters for some edition of the
book chose to highlight that adventure as "The Enterprise
explores a planet named La Pig!")

I remember that. Planet ULAPG and then some string of digits
or the like? It was a credible-looking numbering scheme and I wonder
too if it was in the script draft Blish got (alongside the polywater
references) or if he just felt it looked better in print than Psi 2000
does.

If the planet *was* La Pig in the pre-shooting draft, that does
suggest asking when that changed and why. I would *imagine* that if it
was changed for any deliberate reason (other than just 'it sounded goofy
when our actors said it) this might reflect the semi-conscious effort to
avoid slangy references. While a couple slipped in (``nobody here but
us chickens'', ``bet you credits to navy beans'') for the most part Team
Roddenberry tried to keep them out, which had the effect of keeping the
dialogue from being too tightly bound to the production date.


As an aside, did any of the Remastered TOS put the lie to Kirk's
"I've never been this close" line from ST VI? I mean no more
than the original "Enterprise Incident" did?

Ahm ... hm. Well, I guess there'd be 'The Trouble With Tribbles'
redux, although in that case the only direct reference to distance I see
is that the ship was 100 kilometers off K-7. That only gives Koloth's
ship's distance from K-7, though, and only at the first contact, but if I
don't miss my guess the effects from 'Trials and Tribble-ations' as well
as 'The Trouble With Tribbles Redux' would have the Klingon ship in the
picture frame all the time anyway.

'Errand of Mercy' had that cute little Klingon Ship popping up,
but there's no dialogue giving explicit distances, just that the ship
was apparently near the limits of sensors in order for the automatic
deflectors to pop on before Sulu even knows what they're responding to.


Centerfold
Here's a place for those who complain the computer model matches
neither the 11-foot nor 3-foot model, as it is used here to
represent working in the 1960s visual effects shop. I'll leave
it for experts to say if one can actually tell, as the image that
is undetailed, (de-detailed? derezzed, to borrow a word from
TRON) simulating a photo that was overexposed and/or posterized.
Real experts might tell us if the filmmaking equipment is of the
proper vintage. I would suspect the two people are not
recognizable folks of that time, but I could be wrong.

That sounds like a clever shot, though. A little bit of breaking
the fourth wall can be quite palatable.



August "Around the Quadrant in 80 Days"
Boy, that's fast! Perhaps "Sector" should have been used... and
"8 Days," suggesting smallcraft have come up to the 1000 ly/year
speed of the large ships. (Or just admit it is a playful title.)

Hm. I don't remember any playful-travelogue-adventure type
episodes other than the 'Primordial Aliens Made You All Humanoids So
Shut Up Already About The Forehead Bump Prosthetics' episode of Next
Generation. There could be a story niche there.



October "Kobayashi Maru"
Is this Kirk's test? (The last time I'll try to tie in to the
new movie.) It uses the pre-D-7s John Eaves designed for ENT.
(Did they not appear in the show? I went to DITL.org to find a
name for the class, and I don't see any image of it.)

Ahm ... hm. I don't remember if it ever showed up. Maybe in
'After Two Seasons Of Nothing Going On Suddenly Everything Happens At
Once To Reboot Enterprise', or if not there in one of the Klingon Folly
episodes from the fourth season. That'd be where to look. I don't
think they showed the Klingon ship in 'Enterprise Company Theater
Presents Blazing Saddles'.


December "Warp Bubble Test"
An interestingly painted Constitution-class ship in a bay that
pays obvious homage to a wind tunnel. Only when one sees an
image of Kirk and Spock in one of the windows overlooking it does
one realize this is a model. (11 feet long?)

That sounds like another good joke/gimmick, going along with
the centerfold. Clever, if it looks like I imagine.


Oh, the series scorecard:
TOS - 5
TFS - 2
TNG - 2
DS9 - 1
VOY - 2
ENT - 2 (Giving it credit for the two early Klingons)
As for the Spirit, I don't think I've been crediting post
Generations Films to TGF, it can just stand off on its own.

Fair enough. Boy, you expect Deep Space Nine to get no love,
and the Original Series to be given a boost given the forthcoming
movie-themed product, but that lineup does give the impression that
it's Kirk or it's nothing if you want to be interesting.

--
Joseph Nebus
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