Another Pass at Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
Well, it’s been awhile, but let’s look at an odd Star Trek movie… in more ways than one. Star Trek III had a lot to live up to after The Wrath of Khan and it gave a good effort, but couldn’t help but be overshadowed by its predecessor. In order to discuss this mixed bag from the movie era, Case and Sam are joined by John Broughton from Starship Farragut. Starship Farragut has made fan content set in the TOS and animated series era of Trek and now it’s moving on to the movie era, so now is the time to don the monster maroons and seek out this movie’s katra! Can the trio give the flawed film new life? Only one way to find out!
Check out the Prologue for Farragut Forward here and the now released movie here!
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Meeting summary:
● In the latest episode of the podcast, the hosts discuss the strengths and weaknesses of "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock," comparing it unfavorably to its predecessor, with highlights including DeForest Kelly's Spock impression and Christopher Lloyd's performance as the Klingon villain Kruge. They dive into character and plot analysis, noting missed opportunities for deeper emotional resonance and stronger visual storytelling, particularly regarding the Genesis planet and Kirk's response to his son's death. Suggestions for improvement include reducing repetitive scenes and enhancing character motivations. The episode also features an interview with John Broughton, who talks about his fan project "Starship Farragut," detailing plans for the darker, more edgier "Farragut Forward" set during the movie era. Reflecting on his five-year hiatus from fan films, John shares his excitement for this new venture, as well as production details and release expectations for this upcoming project. The podcast concludes with a reminder to check out the Farragut series and a teaser for the next episode focused on "Highlander II: The Quickening."
Notes:
● 🎬 Star Trek III Discussion (00:00 - 08:47)
● Star Trek III is not as good as Star Trek II
● Movie underutilizes its potential
● DeForest Kelly's Spock impression is a highlight
● Christopher Lloyd plays a good Klingon villain (Kruge)
● Enterprise destruction has more impact than Kirk's son dying
● 🚀 Plot and Character Analysis (08:47 - 19:31)
● Movie picks up right after Star Trek II
● Spock's resurrection is well set up
● Civilian clothes shown for first time
● Klingons not fully developed as characters yet
● High stakes: Kirk's son dies, Enterprise destroyed
● 🎭 Production and Script Issues (19:31 - 30:47)
● Movie feels like a TV episode
● Camerawork is clunky and uninteresting
● Too many recaps of Spock's death scene
● Genesis planet not utilized well visually
● Savik's character inconsistent with previous portrayal
● 🔍 Character Development and Missed Opportunities (30:47 - 41:11)
● Kirk's reaction to son's death not fully explored
● Spock's resurrection could have had more mythological elements
● Vulcan spirituality interesting but contradictory to previous portrayals
● Katra concept introduces interesting possibilities for Vulcan culture
● David's death underutilized as plot device
● 📽️ Improvement Suggestions (41:11 - 50:14)
● Reduce number of Spock death recaps
● Improve fight choreography
● Make Genesis planet more visually interesting
● Develop Klingon motivations better
● Enhance emotional impact of key scenes
● 🎨 Visual and Narrative Improvements (50:14 - 58:42)
● Shoot more scenes on location for Genesis
● Introduce Harry Mudd as information broker
● Make Enterprise escape more dramatic
● Flip order of Enterprise destruction and David's death
● Spend more time on Genesis with characters on the run
● 🖖 Fan Film Discussion (58:42 - 01:08:39)
● John Broughton discusses Starship Farragut fan series
● New project: Farragut Forward, set in movie era
● Building movie-era bridge set and costumes
● Aiming for darker, edgier look like the movies
● Entire cast returning for new project
● 🎥 Fan Film Production Details (01:08:40 - 01:18:44)
● Two-minute prologue filmed, full 30-minute film planned
● Release expected before Christmas
● Building sets and costumes from scratch
● Hiring experienced director and cinematographer
● Complying with current fan film guidelines
● 🌟 Reflections and Future Plans (01:18:44 - 01:29:18)
● John took a 5-year break from fan films
● Cast feels more 'seasoned' now for movie-era roles
● Plans to tell multiple stories while complying with guidelines
● Excitement about moving into movie era of Star Trek
● Farragut series spans 60s, 70s animation, and now 80s movie era
● 📣 Wrap-up and Promotions (01:29:18 - 01:38:43)
● Where to find Farragut Forward and Homecoming
● John's Instagram: bespoke JB
● Podcast information and other shows on the network
● Next episode will be about Highlander II: The Quickening
Transcription
00:00
Case Aiken
I don't think it's a controversial statement to say that Star Trek three is not as good as Star Trek two.
00:04
John
Correct. I don't think anyone on planet Earth would disagree with your case.
00:08
Case Aiken
Maybe Leonard Nimoy. Welcome to certain point of views. Another pass podcast. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com dot. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another past podcast. I am case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea. Hi. And while I say, as always, there was a long time before Sam came on as co host. And we are today bringing back a guest from one of the earliest episodes. We are bringing back my friend John Broughton.
00:44
John
Hey, guys.
00:46
Sam
Hi, John.
00:47
Case Aiken
Welcome.
00:48
John
Thank you.
00:49
Case Aiken
And, John, for listeners at home who have not listened to our episode on Star Trek the motion picture, you're a Star Trek guy?
00:57
John
I am. I'm also a James Bond fan.
01:00
Case Aiken
Oh, yeah. I mean, we all contain multitudes, but last time you were on, were talking Star Trek stuff, and that was because we, at the time, had just wrapped production on a Star Trek fan film that you and I both worked on. And I say you and I both worked on. I worked on it. You made it happen.
01:19
John
Well, I have some folks that also help, so.
01:24
Case Aiken
Well, it's a team effort, but, yeah, we had worked on Starship Farragut.
01:28
John
Yes. You and I have been working. Gosh, I think going back 2007.
01:34
Case Aiken
Yep. Yeah, it was January 2007, the first time I showed up on set for a fair, good thing.
01:39
John
Okay.
01:40
Case Aiken
But, yeah. And that. I think you guys started that, what, 2005?
01:44
John
Yeah. Yeah, we started in 2005. We actually. I mean, it goes back even further than that. In 2004, I started to pen the project, and it was entitled at the time, Starship Excalibur, and that got changed to Farragut. And we made our series trailer a one or three minute proof of concept, because none of us knew what were doing with the camera. We never made a movie before. I took out some money out of my 401K, purchased all the equipment, and. And I had tried to get a camera guy to film it, and I just. Something told me that to invest and have everything. And I'm glad I did, because the person didn't show up, and I had to pull the camera out of the box.
02:35
John
And between Paul Sieber and I, we figured out how to turn the camera on and point and click and make something. And we did all that in December of 2005.
02:46
Case Aiken
Yeah. So it's been a long time of making Star Trek content because Starship Farragut began as a love letter to the original series and has had now multiple iterations or multiple episodes, as well as animated series number of featurettes. So lots of great Star Trek stuff. And sure, we all love lots of non Trek stuff, but why talk about non Trek sometimes when the mood to talk about Trek strikes you? And so today, we want to continue talking about Star Trek, and today is time to talk about an odd numbered Star Trek movie. So today we are talking about Star Trek, the search for Spock.
03:26
Sam
Yeah. Yeah, we are. That's what we're doing today. Odd number Trek. This is not a fifth episode, guys.
03:34
Case Aiken
Nope. Nope. But it makes sense, because the last time we talked about Star Trek. The wrath of Khanda as an example of, like, this is what you can do under fire when you're in a lot of pressure. You can make this amazing kind of production. I don't think it's a controversial statement to say that Star Trek three is not as good as Star Trek two.
03:51
John
Correct. I don't think anyone on Planet Earth would disagree with your case.
03:56
Case Aiken
Maybe Leonard Nimoy.
03:57
John
Oh, that's right. Because he directed it, didn't he?
04:00
Case Aiken
Yeah. Although, actually, I say that. And then. But then if you actually look at this movie very clearly, they love the death scene of Spock so much in this movie.
04:08
Sam
So much. So much.
04:11
Case Aiken
So I would say even this movie, like Star Trek two more than this movie. But that's a high bar. You know, Star Trek II is a truly great just movie in general, but, you know, it's hard to try to better than it. And there's a reason all Star Trek movies, not directly since then, but, like. But of every time they kind of try to, like, breathe new life into the series, they kind of do a Star Trek two style thing, like zero nine. Is that first contact? Is that right? Obviously into darknesses. Yeah, nemesis is. We've talked about all these on this show because they're. They're rough movies for that. I mean, first contact is pretty good, but. But. But there's a reason I've talked about the zero nine. Star Trek I've talked about into darkness on here. I've talked about Nemesis.
05:02
Case Aiken
I've talked about insurrection. Like, all these movies that are trying to do, like, similar kind of, like, let's have a, you know, this, like, compelling bad guy. Yeah. Like, wave fists across a few screens. Started there. This movie is not so caught up in that. This movie is actually trying to do something different, and that is a laudable thing, but it's. It's not as big a success. It's just. It's just not as good a movie. I'm sorry.
05:25
John
Right, right. But I think it's still underrated. I think it still has a lot of meaningful moments. It's. It's a film that, as you pointed out, I mean, you know, I believe that Star Trek two was the pinnacle of all Star Trek movies. And so it would be very hard to kind of Trump that. But I think that, you know, looking at that episode and everything that went on, I think after they made the film, they realized that we needed to bring Spock back. And so I think that the whole purpose of the film really was to bring Spock back to the franchise in a meaningful, logical way that made sense to the audience and Star Trek fans.
06:08
Case Aiken
Yeah. And it was set up fairly well at the end of two, particularly with the reshoots that they did later, unbeknownst to Myers, the director. And was one of the issues why he didn't come back to direct. Apparently, he was not thrilled with how that. With the inserts that they put at the end with Spock's capsule opening.
06:27
John
Yeah. If you've ever read Nick Meyer's book, the View from the Bridge, memories of Star Trek and a life in Hollywood by Nick Meyer, he kind of talks to that. And part of it I found interesting was his religious beliefs, being jewish. And he felt that there was some issue or concern about bringing back someone from the dead. And he just thought it should have been left alone. But then, interestingly enough, he was. He did like, I think he wrote Star Trek four, uncredited, and then he came back, obviously, for Star Trek six, which he wrote and directed. I found it interesting that it was more of a, what is it? Metaphysical underlay in terms of another reason why he didn't do it. But I think you're right, too. Like, they did that scene, remember?
07:18
John
I don't know if they plan that deliberately as a means that if we needed to bring. I mean, it just seemed to all work.
07:26
Case Aiken
I think it definitely left the door open, because at that point, Nimoy had a pleasure with the shoot, as opposed to after the motion picture where he wanted to make sure his character was killed the next time he had to put on the ears.
07:37
Sam
He was like, I'm done with this. Thank you.
07:41
Case Aiken
I mean, he wasn't going to do two until they were like, no, we're going to kill him. And he's like, how early? And then the script leaked, and they were like, okay, we're going to shuffle some scenes around so it's a bit later in the movie than it would have been otherwise. But that's two, and two is great. But I will say so. Last time when were talking about Star Trek to the big point I brought up is that it feels like a bottle episode of the show in that it is set. I mean, almost the entire movie takes place on the bridge of a starship, which is actually the same set with minor redressing. So this is all big cost cutting measures. Like, it is an extremely cheap movie and it's a remarkable work.
08:17
John
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I agree. I mean, they even the shots that weren't on the ship, for example, the Excelsior bridge, really, that. It wasn't even a bridge. I mean, it was just like, basically like, I guess, three or four walls. There was no bridge platforms. It was just the chair with the console. And it was just cheap. It was. My God, I thought that set was horrendous.
08:46
Case Aiken
Oh, yeah, with the new one.
08:48
John
Yeah.
08:48
Case Aiken
But I mean, like, with wrath of Khan, it is basically a battle episode where it's like, how much drama can you put into having basically one set that.
08:56
John
Oh, you were talking about Star Trek, too.
08:58
Case Aiken
Yeah. Which we have seen in other things. I mean, this goes on later on with, like, with d space nine whenever they show either deep space nine back in the past, or other ships or other stations that are cardassian. And even with Starship Farragut, for example, when we did the crossing, having, like, here's the mirror version of that, and we can have, you know, we could have Paul, like, talking at you and having like, a standoff on literally the same set, but through movie magic, it's this big dramatic scene, you know, and that's, that shows that Star Trek two really cared and did a really good job of taking a simple concept of, like, just two ships, you know, squaring off against each other and making it really dramatic.
09:39
Case Aiken
This movie is also very similar to a Star Trek episode, but I would say for the worse, definitely, because there's bigger ideas than what they, I think, had the budget for.
09:48
John
Agreed. I mean, and it shows in some areas, but yeah.
09:51
Case Aiken
I mean, for one thing, the. The most dramatic place that they have genesis, like, is a different location. It's just not the bridge of the ship. So, like, it's going to cost money there. And, like, they had a bigger budget, but it was still a pretty small budget. I think it was what, like 17 million after, like a couple of, like, additional bits of funding. Yeah. So the original budget was 16 million, and they got a million for reshoots. So, I mean, it's a small budget for a major movie. Like, if you. If you were told, like, hey, make a blockbuster Sci-Fi movie about space battles, and you were told 16 million compared to what people are throwing at studios now, that you would sound like a crazy person. And so it's a hard task that they went into it.
10:33
Case Aiken
But I do think that they could have made it work if they were as creative as they were with Star Trek two. But, I mean, let's talk about this movie, because, John, I agree with you. I think it is underrated. I think it is, generally speaking, a better movie than just being lumped into, like, here's all the odds, but it's works.
10:52
John
And I think if you look at Star Trek two, three, and four, they're very serialized, and those three films can actually be bookend as a trilogy as opposed to the other movies. And they work. They all work kind of well into each other as part of that trilogy.
11:13
Case Aiken
Well, yeah, I mean, for example, this movie picks up right after two, and we are dealing with the emotional issues that we're left with two, which is a good idea. And the imagery of Spock coming back again, it's well set up in the movie before. So that's a good idea. And it is a very interesting idea to have this character go through the process of being basically born again and coming back into his existence and uniting his soul. One thing I want to shout out for this movie is DeForest Kelly as Bones doing a spock impression is so fucking fun. Probably the highlight of this movie for me.
11:51
Sam
I mean, the highlight for me was Zulu's cape, but sure. Yeah, okay.
11:55
Case Aiken
Sure.
11:56
Sam
I'm sorry to kind of just kills the movement of that cape, but, yeah, okay, fine. The highlight is what you said for me.
12:05
Case Aiken
I said, for me, we can all take different things from it.
12:10
Sam
That's true. For me, it was the cape. It was amazing.
12:13
Case Aiken
That's fair. Yeah. This is a Star Trek movie where we actually get to see them in civilian clothes in a way that I don't think we'd really seen that often. There's a little bit in the motion picture, and I'm not even sure how much we saw in the original series. This is actually getting.
12:26
John
Yeah, I don't think we ever saw them, any of them in the original series in any outfits other than their uniforms.
12:33
Case Aiken
And, yeah, I guess they dress up sometimes when they go to worlds, but, like, not, like, not even that much in the original series, it's mostly. Mostly them in uniform. So, you know, it's a good opportunity for that. This is, well, in the wake of Star wars. So we get a scene that's like a cantina type scene that's fun. We get some more alien designs than we normally would in older material. That's really good. Christopher Lloyd is a yemenite. I think he does a very good job. And this is early in the Klingon world in terms of, like, establishing it. He's not Kahn. And that would have been a really steep slope to try to, like, ascend above. But, you know, I think he's a really distinct character.
13:07
Case Aiken
The downside is that klingons of this era are still kind of just like there is a Klingon. Like, we have several that we could name, like core, for example, but they don't necessarily, like, in this case, him being krug. Like, I think he does a really distinct job. He has a really impressive record up, like, in terms of, like, his accomplishments as a villain. He kills Kirk's son and he destroys the Enterprise. That's fucking incredible. Yeah, but, you know, he's. He's a good villain, but he's not. He doesn't ascend to the upper echelon of. Of the ranks of all the. The great Star Trek villains. But it's, you know, still. Still solid. You know, we have some high stakes stuff. Like I said, kirk's son dies. That is a big, dramatic gut punch in theory. And the Enterprise is destroyed.
13:50
Case Aiken
And I would say this is the best destruction of the Enterprise in terms of dramatic stakes.
13:54
Sam
Okay, but the destruction code being all zeros, they didn't make you laugh a little bit?
13:59
John
Oh, but see, Samantha, check it out. They actually did a nice nod to the original series because there was an episode, and God, let this be your last battlefield. Is that right? With the two people from Chevron, black one side, white on the other, and the other race was white one side, black on the other. And they Kirk destroy was. These two bad guys on the bridge were trying to commandeer the Enterprise. Kirk's like, I'm not giving it to you. This is my ship. She goes where I tell her. And so he initiates the auto destruct sequence. And that essentially, I think case, and you correct me if I'm wrong, I think exactly the way they did it then is how they had it in this. So I thought it was a nod to what they had, you know, what was already canon.
14:55
John
But you're right, it's kind of comical. But it was a nice nod to recognize the original series.
15:00
Sam
I mean, all I could think of was spaceballs. What kind of moron puts that as their security code?
15:07
Case Aiken
I mean, that's the problem of a parody. Kind of influencing, then, your retroactive perspective on things.
15:13
John
Oh, right. Space.
15:14
Sam
I would have thought it was dumb no matter what, though.
15:18
Case Aiken
But again, it is a callback here.
15:20
John
In addition to the code itself, it's the voice of the authorized person the computer's recognizing. So you can make whatever is your code because it's recognizing your voice. Yeah, just like a retina scan. It's recognizing your audiogram, if you will, and then whatever code you deem, you know, you put in it, there's stuff.
15:44
Case Aiken
Going on, you know? And we do get Spock back, which is a thing fans wanted. You know, it's. Sure, Spock's death is huge moment, but going forward, you could feel his loss when he wasn't there in this movie. You know, like, they try to make it so that, like, Bones is sort of, like, filling in for him because he has Spock's mind, Spock's brain in him. But. But you can feel that his absence. Like, there are all these moments of, like, all right, well, someone needs to step in and do the things, because Spock was the thing holding the crew together in a lot of ways. And, you know, to continue doing more Star Trek stories, people would be like, hey, where's Spock? Where's the guy who was in the actual pilot for the show?
16:26
John
We do get him back, and then we have some of the underrated moments of the film where you get to see the Enterprise return to space. Doc, you see Kirk and crew going against orders to steal the Enterprise to save Spock. And then you have the Klingon battle, and then you have Kirk outmaneuvering Krug when they beam over to the planet, which I'd always wondered why they didn't just beam over to the ship, but I guess you couldn't say spock otherwise. But they do outsmart, and that's a really cool movements, and the soundtrack worked really well. James Horner came back from Star Trek, too. And so those are some, you know, the movie itself, it kind of. In a lot of ways, it's made up by those great moments. And then when the Enterprise, it was like another.
17:20
John
When it exploded, it was like another death of the crew.
17:23
Case Aiken
Yeah. Arguably bigger. I mean, like, on the one hand, sure, everyone, all the living people have survived, but the symbol of the series is destroyed here, and it is a symbol that has mattered a lot to both the fans, but to the canon of the universe. Like, know, I make fun of Star Trek the motion picture a little bit for the amount of times people, like, look on lovingly at the ship. But it is a work of wonder. Starfleet, the constitution class ships, all of this element of human ingenuity is so impressive. It is the testament of mankind's ability to then reach out beyond our home and go out into the stars and like, make contact out there. You know, it is. It is the ascendancy of man in, you know, in form. And it's such an interesting design.
18:17
Case Aiken
It's so unique from what we thought rockets were going to look like, you know, prior to that, you know, in science fiction, it's so iconic, you know, you can just do an outline of it and people immediately know what you're drawing. It doesn't look like anything else. So its destruction should have some weight now. Its been lessened by the fact that the ship has been destroyed since then, or been threatened to be destroyed a couple of times as well, so it doesnt have the same impact. But at the time, this is the first time it occurred. Thats the Enterprise. This idea of the Enterprise a never existed. Nope, this is the Enterprise. This was the thing that we watched this crew go into the heavens and make contact with literal gods.
19:02
Sam
I actually thought it was a more moving moment than Kirk's son actually dying, partially because of the. I don't know if I would call it fight choreography. That just looks kind of clunky during that scene. Yeah, so definitely I get the reverence and the feelings for the ship, and I don't know what that says about me, about as a human.
19:26
Case Aiken
No, but I think. I think it's fair and like, from a symbolic standpoint, the. The. The Enterprise versus David Marcus. The Enterprise had been with us for longer and had meant more to us up until this point. You know, Marcus had been established one movie prior.
19:39
Sam
It was a very nice hug scene, though. It was. It was lovely in con, though.
19:46
John
It was. And on that, I know if I could deviate on that.
19:49
Case Aiken
Yeah, go for it.
19:50
John
You know, the hug when he embraces him, you know, they were estranged. They. I mean, it seemed like his son hated him up to that point. And then he comes to his quarters and kind of gives him some solace and, you know, because he's just. Kirk has just lost his best friend and comrade, and it's this really great moment. And when they hug, I mean, it's this awkward hug between the two of them. But it is a very good, poignant scene. I thought it was well done, and it just seemed very real, the awkwardness of it that they were both feeling in that scene.
20:31
Case Aiken
Yeah, it was a nice moment there. The thing about three that I think is, I've heard a bunch of times and I just sort of agree with it, which is that it underutilizes a lot of its potential. And so things like David's death is like one of those things that, like, this could have been a real moment. And Shatner does a good job with it, but it then doesn't inform the drama that occurs from it. It's not the inciting incident. For more things in this movie, it's. He is a casualty of this story as opposed to a major player of the story.
21:06
Sam
Yeah. Or a catalyst of some sort of.
21:08
Case Aiken
And he becomes a catalyst in six, but that's several movies later. You know, like, his death is. Is then a motivating factor for Kirk to have issues with the Klingons. But it would have been nice if that was built more into the text here because, like, we get to. You get to the end and Kirk offers a hand to save Krug, and that doesn't, you know, fight continues and whatnot. But it would be nice to have that be not just us intern, like, interpreting that as Kirk being the better man, but to have the tech support. But I do want to say on things that I really like about this movie, I really like that Mark Leonard came back as Sarak, I think, you know, with very little explanation of who he is.
21:47
Case Aiken
Like, you know, obviously they're like Sarah and then my son, you know, like, they. You get that part. Like, they cover that. That relationship pretty easily for people at home. But it's so nice to bring him back because he's such a stalwarth Trek actor. Like, Sarek is such an identifiable part. The relationship of Spock with Sarek is how we've learned so much about vulcan culture. That's really all very nice. Works really well. And it's nice to set up this, like, oh, logic fails me when it comes to my son. There are these moments of really touching father son dynamic, even though we don't get that much of them together on screen.
22:26
John
Yeah, that was. That was a nice nod. And then in Star Trek four, Sarah comes back, as well as his wife, Amanda Grayson. She also reprises her role. So it was nice to keep the continuity of characters in Star Trek mythos.
22:44
Case Aiken
Yeah, like, that's. That is just generally a thing I like about, I mean, like, the Star Trek movies are the film adaptation of a tv show. So we have this larger universe. And I like the idea that players that we may have only seen once or twice in the show, but they're still out there in the world, they still matter. And I like this big shared universe for those characters. I like when an actor shows up and is playing that same role and they mean something because they're bringing emotional weight from their previous appearances. And I think that's great. It makes the switching to something bad. It makes the savk recasting a little bit rougher because it's, she's such a new character and a v ra cast, like, just feels strange. It feels like such a. Just a whole cloth new person.
23:32
John
Yeah.
23:33
Case Aiken
So why don't we shift to the things that are kind of rough about this movie? So we'll start with Savick, because I just mentioned it. Unless someone else, or unless you guys have something else you really want to bring up, that was like a big strong point.
23:42
John
You know, you did have some. You had me thinking about whether or not when Shatner's son, when he realizes or that his son's been killed, he falls out of his chair. He says, you cling on bastards and that. And I wonder, you know, had Nick Meyer been directing him? Because in his book, he talked about how he had to work Shatner over and over to get the best performance, whereas Nimoy, you got him when he was fresh and you'd always get him, like, in one take, but he. So you had to time everything between the two. And with Shatner, I mean, I think the way that Dick Meyer directed Shatner in two and then probably the same in six in terms of wearing him down to get the much more natural, realistic acting from him.
24:34
John
I wonder, had that scene been a little bit more better if it was a different director than Nimoy, but.
24:43
Sam
Yeah, if it had been a little more grounded, because Shatner has a tendency to kind of fly or go over the top. And clearly Nimoy is not grounding him in some of these scenes. It's fine. He's not doing the worst, but it's theatrical.
25:05
Case Aiken
And by that, I mean, like stage theatrical. He's playing to the audience or like to the. Or he's playing to the back seats, you know, like to the mezzanine.
25:13
Sam
Absolutely. Sometimes even worse during his voiceover in the beginning, which is hilarious because you're literally just doing a voiceover.
25:21
Case Aiken
Sir, I think it might be kind of like when you have athletes who go on to be like sports commentators or coaches, the ones who aren't necessarily the superstars, tend to do better because they actually have to understand the game from the perspective of someone who's nothing, you know, a natural talent versus like, you know, the Adonis's who are just like a prodigy at a thing they may not have like the ability to articulate. Oh, no, you have to do x, y and z because for them, it's so natural that they just don't have the language for it. And I wonder if, like, Nimoy just, you know, wasn't able to articulate how to act as if you were William Shatner. He was articulating how to act if you were Leonard Nimoy.
26:05
John
Now, I tell you, Sam and case, one another thing that I thought he did pretty well because you can see the wheels turning in Kirk's head is when he's talking to his boss, the admiral, about taking the ship back to Genesis. Absolutely. No. And you can just see the wheels turning. And shatner's in Kirk's head about really going against orders, risking everything, putting his whole career in jeopardy for his friend.
26:37
Case Aiken
Yeah.
26:37
John
And there's some good, I've always enjoyed that piece because when you watch that, I mean, you can just see he's totally committed. He's going to go against orders. Nothing you can say can change his mind. He's just kind of appeasing the admiral. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, we're going anyway. And then how they steal the enterprise. That, that was pretty cool.
27:00
Sam
I also want to say that his best delivered line is possibly one of his shortest, but it is the best delivered line. And it's, I lied. When the Klingon's like, I thought you were gonna kill me.
27:12
John
Oh.
27:12
Sam
And he just turns around. He's like, I lied. It was just such a, like, even the scene before what he was like, you know, are you gonna help us or do you want to die? They go, I don't deserve to live. Like, okay, well, I'll kill you later because you have stuff to do. That was really great. Like, that was a funny moment. And then the follow up to that, just like him looking just so calm and being like, yeah, I lied. It was great.
27:36
John
Yes, that was great.
27:39
Case Aiken
Yeah. Shadrach gets a lot of flack as an actor, but I don't think he's a bad actor. I think that he had, I think he has some quirks that were exacerbated during the movie era, particularly. And I think it starts with this movie, frankly, but some of those are delivery quirks. Some of those are just the way it's edited. I mean, I think we've all seen projects that, you know, you can see when, like, a tighter editor can, like, save deliveries because you don't linger on a person's face or you don't get the moment before they say the line or stuff like that.
28:11
Case Aiken
And I think this movie has, like, a few spots where it could have been, like, clipped a little bit shorter and a little bit tighter and like this, you know, you wouldn't feel like there's these big, like, you know, pregnant pauses between smoke, like, spoken bits. So I'm just going through my notes of, like, just to make sure I didn't miss anything else that I kind of enjoyed.
28:29
Sam
We must do all the positives right now.
28:33
Case Aiken
Well, I mean, like, again, I think this movie is undervalued, but most of the areas where I think it's good, I think we could probably do a little bit more with it, because when we get to our pitches, I honestly think that the outline of this script is pretty solid. What is it? HaRV Bennett both wrote and produced, and he's usually good at pitching the idea. It'd be like a story by credit, but really shouldn't be the person to write the script. And I feel like his ultimate script. And then Nimoy, who is a rookie director here, I think those two factors are the biggest reasons why this movie doesn't come together as being more than the sum of its parts.
29:12
Sam
I can see that. I also really did like her as sticking that kid in the closet. I just thought that was fun.
29:19
John
Oh, with Ohura? Yeah, that gave her some meat of a role. Yeah. I mean, the movies, you know, they did give these nice spotlights to some of the answer characters, like Chekhov, Scotty over Sulu. It gave them some nuggets of something that, you know, than what we typically saw in the original series. And that wasn't. That was a nice moment where she put. Yeah, like you said, put him in the closet.
29:45
Sam
Yeah, because he was. He was being very, you know, first he had a little bit of hero worship, and then he was just like, well, you know, he basically told her she was being put out to pasture. She just turned around and was like, you're going to get in that closet. And it was great. It was wonderful. Be quiet, young man.
30:05
Case Aiken
Yeah, those are all nice moments.
30:07
Sam
There just the old person in me that's upset with teenagers who ride the train. Well, that's a personal note.
30:13
Case Aiken
I mean, that guy has a very punchable face.
30:16
Sam
I mean, he definitely did. And he delivered his lines flawlessly for someone who wanted to be punched.
30:23
Case Aiken
But, like, looking at this movie, I just couldn't escape the thought that this feels like an episode of the show. I felt that while we get good moments for everyone, some of the lines are a little clunky, but worse is the camerawork is very clunky. Like, there's very few spots where it's really dynamic, where we're really trying to say something with the way the camera is positioned and wherever the way the scene is lined out, it looks more like, here's a flat kind of shot. Here's a. Here is. The raw data is being presented, but without, like, an authorial eye to it all. And I feel like that continues to sort of, like, affect all of these scenes that are, like, serviceably written. All the stuff that happens in it is fine, but it could be more dramatic, it could be more interesting.
31:04
Case Aiken
And in some cases, it's less interesting than even the camera work we would see on the original series. Like, for example, the very end of the movie when Spock is back and everyone comes up to sort of surround him and be happy that he's back alive. Like, that looked like. That just looked like a flat shot from a tv show. You're not getting, like, individual close ups. You're not doing anything like that almost, you know, Sam, you called out the fight choreography with David. Like, if the camera work was more interesting, that probably would be, you know, a more noteworthy kind of scene. I think there's a lot on genesis in general that could have been more interesting. And, yeah, that's a very.
31:41
John
That's a very good point, case. And I know Leonard Nimoy was a photographer. I don't know when he became. When he dabbled in photography, but, you know, there's. And he's very cerebral as a person. I mean, he's very intellectual. He's always. And creative as well, but so you think there would have been a lot of ways. And had I directed it, I might have had, like, a dolly shot where I was going around them very slow and showing all that, the interactions between. Because it was just a straight pan and it wasn't. It wasn't anything spectacular. And for that moment, you know, we've waited the. We've waited the whole movie to see Spock come back. He's now back, and, you know, there's this nice moment with, you know, the camaraderie being rejoined and it should have been filmed a little better.
32:35
John
I never even thought of it, but you're absolutely right.
32:38
Case Aiken
Yeah. Even just individual coverage, like, just get every. If you got each of them, like, their eyes lighting up as they see their old friends, like, the spark of his intelligence in them, but we get none of that. It's just like, let's bring them together. And like I said, the action, you know, the actual kind of like a.
32:52
Sam
TGIF, like, after school special kind of feel. Like roll the family matters theme song as you scroll out from everyone.
33:00
Case Aiken
Exactly. Yeah.
33:03
Sam
Any of those theme songs really just. Aw, he's together with them. Yay.
33:10
Case Aiken
Well, and that goes from frame one of this movie. You can see how it is just not as dynamic a directorial style as to. We open with showing footage from the first movie. I don't even know how to really properly articulate this. We're going to have a small image of it and zoom in on it and just show the last scene of the movie. I guess it's kind of rocky ish. But I don't think those are necessarily the highlights either of the rocky movies doing that component. But it might, I guess, just be kind of an eighties movie trend, maybe.
33:49
Sam
It was very sepia. Tiny screen.
33:53
Case Aiken
Yeah. And zooming in on it just in time for it to be full screen for the. No one's more human, you know, like that whole chunk right there when it finally dominates it. But here's why. And by itself, I would be like, that's a lazy way to show it, but it's not the end of the world, because you're reminding everyone of the important details of the previous movie. Very shortly into the movie, we have an almost line for line recap of that scene when Sarek shows up. Like, he goes. Like, he reads Kirk's mind. And we get all of that, and then they go.
34:25
Case Aiken
They watch the footage of the exact same scene, and then they, like, rewind a little bit, but they watch that footage right there at the end of the movie, Spock, like, verbatim goes the exact same lines being ship out of danger, et cetera. And it's like, this is too many times, guys. This is too many times.
34:40
Sam
Too many times. They needed an editor.
34:43
Case Aiken
And it's frustrating because none of these, like, so saric reading Kirk's memories of Spock's death, I think, is a really visually interesting, or maybe not visually, is a really dramatically interesting way of presenting that information. You know, I think that's such a cool component of. Of the fathers through his son's best friend's eyes, like, capturing that moment and the security cam footage by itself also pretty much fine, you know? Like, sure, it's a little weird that you're just showing footage from wrath of Khan as opposed to, like, what a security camera would actually look like. And, like, God, can you imagine if they did that? That would be fucking great. Like, it's not like they didn't have Leonardo boy to shoot it.
35:22
Sam
But think of the budget.
35:24
Case Aiken
I realize I gotcha, but, like, those would have been so cool. And you could have done something interesting with that opening one, too. But again, it's, like, the most bland version of it because they're just playing the actual footage, but, like, miniaturized and then resuming in. And I think that's just sort of indicative of, like, there's a lot of handholding in this movie of, like, here's the data you need to absorb. And not only lot of us, like, actually feeling the emotions of those scenes that I wish we got more of because, like, for example, like, who could be thinking about those scenes? Kirk could be. Or bones could be, like, you could have. Like, we could be inside their heads. Like, we could open with stuff like that or show the fucking security camera footage. Stuff like, have them reviewing the tapes.
36:09
Case Aiken
Like, you know, it's just we spend a lot of time before we get to, like, all the. All the times where it would have been natural, which is why they show it so early. But you lose out on the moments of those really interesting versions of telling that story. In lieu of, okay, right off the bat, we're going to tell this one. And then, because it's part of the story, to have Sarek go through it, and then they show the footage again, and then they have spock do the dialogue later. We just keep doing the death scene again and again. It's like, oh, right, remember that important moment? Let's keep hitting that nail on the head of.
36:44
Sam
Yeah, they beat that to death. A death scene. Yeah, pretty badly. I mean, I guess in some ways, and I guess we've discussed this a couple of times now because we did t three and alien three, that this kind of also suffers from a third movie syndrome kind of thing. Calling back to a much better second film. A lot, a lot. Especially in the first. In the first half of it, because this movie doesn't really, like, pick up until you get underway for the actual mission.
37:20
Sam
You know, I would say, like, it starts getting fun the minute you get to, well, the gears working in Kirk's brain and the breaking bones out of the holding cell for the loony bin, because you're not quite at the loony bin facility yet, and kind of you've got your boys are back in town moment where everyone comes in to make that human heist happen. And then after that, you've got some moments that you're just kind of like, oh, this probably could have been better written, but for the most part, the movie takes off after that. It's just because the beginning is so referencing all the time, this thing that happened, to make sure that you remember that it happened because it's going to mean something in the end. That's a little. It's a little rough. It's a little rough to get through.
38:15
Case Aiken
Yeah. My notes for the pitch, a lot of the events of the second half of the movie, I would bleed in earlier. Like, I'd start a lot of that sooner, because I think we lose a lot of the traumatic stakes, by virtue of spending a little bit too much time. Speaking of the getaway, by the way, this is. This isn't a huge note. This is just like, who the fuck? Okay, this one, when the Excelsior breaks down, and it's like, the engine shutdown noise, that's just like, a generic, like, internal combustion engine shutdown noise. Like, who greenlit that?
38:45
Sam
I think this has more to do with budget than anything else.
38:48
Case Aiken
No, like, it's. It has nothing to do with budget because this is just whatever sound effects person put it in. I mean, I guess it could be like they were, like, press for time and had a placeholder, and then they were just like, oh, we never recorded something new. That's fine.
38:59
Sam
Yeah, I'm just guessing the foliars was like, oh, well, anyone actually noticed. They didn't realize case would notice.
39:08
Case Aiken
I have read several reviews today of people who called it out, so I feel like everyone noticed that.
39:14
Sam
Okay, so a lot of people would notice.
39:17
Case Aiken
Can we talk about Pon Farr?
39:19
John
Oh, yeah, that was in there.
39:21
Case Aiken
Yeah, that was in there.
39:24
John
So I never got it during the first film, but when I was younger, but when I first saw it in a theater and drive in theater. But I guess, did Savick in him or she just somehow calmed him down without any real physical contact?
39:45
Case Aiken
I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But what makes it rough to say those words is that they go into great detail about what ponfar is right beforehand. And they didn't have to.
39:56
John
No, they did not.
39:58
Case Aiken
She's like, pon Farr. Once every seven years. They must mate or they will die. And then, you know, we have the scene and, like, when we cut to it, she's, like, lying with him, but they're like, they're fully clothed. You know, it would be. It's not staged as if they slept together, but that's not how we understood it at this point. To work.
40:18
Sam
Yeah.
40:18
Case Aiken
And she doesn't have, like, a. Oh, I have a calming trance that can help him or something.
40:22
John
Or, like, they did do the thing with their hands, and I think it had a soothing effect.
40:27
Case Aiken
Yeah. Like, they may have had sex in his mind, maybe.
40:33
Sam
Still creepy.
40:34
Case Aiken
Yeah. I mean, like, there's some weirdness going on in there in general.
40:37
John
Well, the weirdness gets even more weirder because the character of Savick, although it was never revealed, I think I read in a book that Joan Lindbeel's character in the Romulan incident. What? The Enterprise incident episode where you had Spock and the female Romulan commander and supposedly they had sex and Savik was the offspring, and that would be even more.
41:06
Case Aiken
Oh, that's even weirder. I knew about the half Romulan thing. I did not know it was supposed to be Spock's daughter.
41:11
John
Yes. Because she's half Romulan and half Vulcanhouse.
41:14
Case Aiken
Right. I will note that you could also. This is also an easy workaround of not be fucking savvy.
41:23
Sam
Yeah, absolutely. That way. Yes. Yes. That would be preferable after learning all of that.
41:30
Case Aiken
Yeah. I mean, like, I'm just throwing this one out there. Like, if you couldn't get Christy Alley back. And Star Trek likes having the same actors reprise their roles. Like, again, we're touting the strength of Mark Leonard coming back as Sarek. Not a terrible time to just be, like, different Vulcan. Especially because this Savik is written very differently from the one from two. She comes off very much as, like, straightforward. This is a vulcan versus in two. There's a little bit more of that fieriness to her.
41:59
John
Right. They are very different. Yeah. And whereas Kirstie Alley's character is or version of Savik, is trying to kind of still figure out humans, and Savick seems. What was her name, the actress, the second Savik, seemed less preoccupied with that.
42:20
Sam
Robin Curtis.
42:21
John
Yes. Robin Curtis. Thank you.
42:23
Sam
Yeah, no, she seemed much less. And she seemed to really understand and point out to Kirk's son anytime he had a very human flaw, you know, like, oh, you're just like your father. Oh, like, you're flirting with me. You're just like your father. Like, so it is very different.
42:40
John
Yeah. It's almost like the first one was trying to figure things out. The second one is even. She's already figured it out because she's already pointing to people. Like, instead of getting guidance, she's actually telling David Marcus. Oh, so you. You know, the other Savik would have likely have asked questions versus explaining away what David Marcus did.
43:06
Sam
Yeah.
43:07
Case Aiken
Yeah, I like. So there's a reviewer that I rather like who goes by Sfdebree online, used to be, like, one of the blip school of, like, video essays, and now is mostly YouTube. Sfdbrie pointed out a detail that I thought was actually kind of interesting because I hadn't really. I didn't really catch it, which is that when she gets mad, we'll say, I mean, she's a vulcan, but when she gets mad at David for when it's revealed that it was all based on protomatter, like, the tech for Genesis, she talks about, like, the blood is on his hand because of his impatience or whatever. No one has died at this point. That is actually related to the protomatter part. It's all due to the tech for Genesis in general, which doesn't, like, if it was stable, everyone who died would still be dead.
43:53
Case Aiken
Like, no change would have occurred if the science was better. And it was weird that they introduced that device just to have the exploding world part and then for her to respond that way about it, because it's not like, there's no flaw from the fact that it's a shitty process. All the things that have gone wrong so far is because it was successful.
44:15
Sam
Yeah.
44:16
Case Aiken
So it didn't really matter.
44:17
Sam
I was actually thinking the same thing too, and I was like, but, like, there's a lot of people that died, but I don't think it was because of that. So, like, why are you lashing out at him specifically? I just. It felt weird. It felt like a weird line, I think. I think that line was specifically put in there, or that whole scene was put in there so that she could say, you're just like your father, bending the rules. And we could get another reminder that it's Kirk's son without much thought if. Whether or not that was, like, an actual valid poking point at him.
44:55
Case Aiken
Right. Which you could just remove if it wasn't Savit. Because if it's a person who doesn't know Kirk or doesn't know Kirk, well, then it's fine. It's just like, additional reminders of, this is not the same person. And also, the stakes are not being articulated clearly.
45:11
Sam
But again, this is a third movie, and maybe we'll find that this is a real pattern. And if she tells it, if she says, you're just like your father, then we're still pointing back at second movie. So.
45:26
Case Aiken
So let's talk about the death of David, because we talked about how the choreography is a little rough. So I think that the. That Kirk's response is. Sorry, you know, backing up, because we started talking about bonfire. We didn't finish.
45:38
Sam
Did we not finish it? Did we not finish that? I feel like we should be done with that. I feel like it makes everyone uncomfortable.
45:45
Case Aiken
It makes us all uncomfortable, but we have to talk about the fan far.
45:49
Sam
Fine. Fine.
45:50
Case Aiken
So the fact that they brought it up is, like, one thing, and I don't. I don't hate that they sort of discussed it. It's just weird that this is a. This is very clearly a Spock who fucks, but at the same time, they didn't want to have scenes of a. I don't know what you would call a young spock, but he's not young. He's like a de aged Spock hooking up with this character who might be his daughter. Also weird.
46:13
Sam
Yeah.
46:13
Case Aiken
I don't know. Again, things that you could have either shot in a way that would have been, like, kind of dramatic or sexy. Like, Star Trek has not been afraid of sexy stuff. But it's.
46:23
Sam
But we. But do we want to watch Spock at that age be sexy?
46:27
Case Aiken
I mean, he's. He's, what? Like, 15? Like, 15 ish in the.
46:31
Sam
Yeah, at that point, still too young.
46:34
Case Aiken
What. What if it wasn't that age? Like, what if they didn't deal with it until he was, like, a young adulthood, and then you could actually have a nice moment for, like, a hot.
46:42
Sam
Spock, maybe, but they didn't, and so this makes me uncomfortable.
46:47
Case Aiken
Yeah, it's. It's all weird.
46:51
Sam
I mean, like, honestly, like, again, if you change who she is and he's older when it happens, fine. But since I now know this information about him maybe being related to her and he's also about 15. No, nothing about this scene was fine.
47:10
Case Aiken
Yeah, it's a real Marty McFly with his mom situation here.
47:14
Sam
Yeah. Although it's kind of different because it's Marty McFly with his daughter. So he'd gone to the future. I don't know.
47:22
Case Aiken
Well, he went back to the future because we got Christopher Lloyd. All right, so let's talk about the death of David, because that is less uncomfortable for us to talk about. And it's more just frustrating that the scene itself is not that interesting. Even if Kirk, I think, reacts appropriately to the death. He's shocked, he stumbles, he's having a hard time. He's capital a acting when he does it, but it's still. I think that's the right response for him. But then David's death, the actual scene, it kind of is at a weird sort of perpendicular angle to it all. It doesn't seem as really intense kind of fight choreography. It kind of comes out of nowhere. And then, like I said, there isn't a lot of resolution to it in this movie. Like, Kirk isn't.
48:08
Case Aiken
I have to track down the man who killed my son for the majority of the time after, you know, like, the scene right there he is. But, like, it doesn't seem to inform his decisions later. And then it kind of just feels like a reset in terms of, like, the world that we're in and it's, you know, along with Spock coming back, it's like, oh, yeah, the person who died in the movie before is back to life, and the person who we introduced, who is going to have a meaningful relationship with one of the main characters is dead. Yep. Back to the status quo. It's a reset, which is kind of a bummer. I think that one of the reasons the odd even rule exists for Star Trek is because we're not continuously building upon what came before.
48:48
Case Aiken
There's this element that tries to bring it back to the serialized nature of the show each time rather than growing into something new.
48:55
John
That's interesting. Yeah.
48:56
Case Aiken
I mean, that's why two is so good, because they're exploring themes of aging. And four is honestly so good because they're exploring themes of the sins of our time impacting the characters in the future. And six is such a great send off to everything that had come up until that point. But one, three, and five all have the same problem where they are doing things like the tv show and having it be status quo and kind of feeling like, yep, it's just an episode of the show, right? Like, one is great in that it is a wonderful episode of the tv show, but all the things that had changed in the interim between the third season and this movie, like get reset, you know, like, Kirk takes over the Enterprise and like, that's it. He's just in charge.
49:41
Case Aiken
Like, everything is just playing like a normal Star Trek movie. Like, the characters who are introduced in that movie leave at the end of the movie, two throws the table over and you know, like, the shit's really different at the end of the movie. This movie's like, let's get back to it. I mean, sure, the Enterprise is gone, but, like, all the characters are still in play. Like, four has the benefit of being a different ship. Different people are, you know, different time, all that stuff. But five is, like, just one of the many times that Star Trek has encountered God. Like, like, who mourns Adonis? They encountered fucking Apollo. Like, how different is that for someone meeting, quote unquote, God? Why does God need a spaceship? Well, we've met a few gods who needed spaceships.
50:16
Sam
I mean, they're better travel than just using your God powders. I assume it's laziness, convenience.
50:24
Case Aiken
It's so far. Yeah, God gets tired. So, yeah, like, the, you know, the. The movie, again, it feels like it is a good movie at best, but it's not a great movie, and it has the seeds of great stuff, you know? Like, I will say that I think that they squandered the. The resurrection of Spock. I think that the movie could have capitalized on it to have some real biblical imagery here. Maybe biblical is the wrong term, but, like, mythological elements, you know, this component of someone coming back to life is truly incredible. Like, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity at this time in Star Trek for a character who died to come back to life. It is an opportunity to have a discussion about the soul.
51:08
Case Aiken
Like, I actually really dig a lot of the Vulcan spirituality that we get in this movie. It feels contradictory to the. The overly logical way that we've been presented so far, but at the same time, it is actually fleshing them out as having a full culture and that the pretense of logic doesn't necessarily preclude them from having art and from having philosophy and from having religion, from having ceremony. Like, because there's meaning to ceremony that goes beyond just, like, a belief that there is a. Like, a boogeyman in the sky. Like, there. There is cultural significance to ceremony that one could logically embrace and, like, bring to bear on your society. So that makes sense. The fact that they have the katra, they have his spirit go in. Which, by the way, so when.
51:52
Case Aiken
When Sarak says that, I had this response being like, oh, wait, is that, like, some sort of, like, thing that vulcans just do as they're, like, dying, you know, they're dying breath as they reach out to someone and, like, transfer their thoughts into it? And so, like, is the live long and prosper that Spock does into the glass. Him, like, act, like, instinctively trying to, like, send his thoughts through, but it's a radiation shield, so he can't.
52:12
John
That's deep.
52:13
Case Aiken
Yeah, it just. There was, like, this kind of, like, weird kind of psychological horror kind of component. Like, every time a vulcan dies, they must transfer their brain out. And it made me wonder, like, for in Spock's very special case, where his body was resurrected. That's cool. What is the larger plan? Like, do they collect the katra? They say all of his knowledge and so forth. That is such a useful base of information that you could accumulate.
52:38
Sam
Yeah. I mean, I would. I mean. Now head canon, because I don't think anyone's ever answered this, but I hope that there's a place where all that's poured into. In some sort of library that they have where you can visit the voices of the past.
52:53
Case Aiken
Yeah. Or, like, the Kree supreme intelligence, you know? Yeah, that'd be really cool. I would love to know more about that. But they. You know, they don't, because it was introduced as a. It was introduced for this movie to justify them having Spock's mind to then connect with his body because he had a body again. And that's fine. I mean, and it's nice again, it's great to have Deforest Kelly do the Spock impersonation, but can you imagine if this movie just had Spock's body come back and he didn't have his mind, and at the end of the movie, he was slowly recovering memories that were buried within his resurrected body's form, and I realized that is just b four from nemesis, but, like, better.
53:32
Sam
We miss so many, like, bones impressions, though.
53:35
Case Aiken
I know. I know. It's. That. That part's great. I wouldn't want to lose that far.
53:39
Sam
I was like, I don't know if I want. I want that to be edited. Like, I kind of, like, enjoyed moments where, like. So when they're on the ship and they can't. They. I think Kirk asks for the distance that they still have left, and then you hear basically Spock's voice, and, like, everyone's like, what? And they. They look over, and it was just sheepishly like, dude, was that right? Was it good? Like. Like, I. That was actually, like, a lovely moment. Like, that was. That was nice. So I don't know if I would want to trade it out. I feel like what you're saying feels more logical, you know, rather than some sort of, like, not freaky Friday in particular, but something for, like, someone is also living in your body while you're living in your body kind of thing.
54:33
Sam
But I don't know. It was. It was fine. I get it. Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I just. I think. I think even though it felt far fetched and a little more convoluted at times because they don't use the device very often, I still liked it. I still enjoyed it because it added.
54:57
Case Aiken
Levity and we would lose out one of my favorite lines in Star Trek, which is that green blooded son of a bitch. It's his revenge for all the arguments he lost.
55:06
John
Yeah, it was a good one.
55:07
Case Aiken
Yeah. I mean, as I get older, the more I love bones.
55:12
Sam
Yeah. Because as you get older, everyone really gradually becomes bones.
55:18
Case Aiken
Yep. That's fair.
55:19
Sam
You know what we should talk about?
55:21
Case Aiken
What's that?
55:22
Sam
Other podcasts on our network.
55:23
Case Aiken
Oh, that's a great idea.
55:25
Sam
Yeah.
55:25
Case Aiken
So why don't we take a break? We'll shout out one of the shows on this network, and when we come back, let's. Let's throw out some pitches, because I think that we're kind of just, like, circling around, being like, this movie didn't quite maximize its potential. But there are lots of podcasts that do. So check out these shows that maximize their potential. Video games are a unique medium. They can tell stories, immerse us in strange, fantastic worlds, blur the very boundaries of our reality. But at the end of the day, video games are fun, whatever fun is to you. I'm Jeff Moonan. And I am Matt AK.
55:57
John
Stormageddon.
55:58
Case Aiken
And on fun and games, we talk about the history, trends, and community of video games.
56:04
John
It's a celebration of all the games we play and all the fun we find within them.
56:08
Case Aiken
And there's so many more games out there, so we hope you'll share in that conversation with us.
56:13
John
Fun and games podcast with Matt and jeff. Find us on certainpov.com or wherever you.
56:18
Case Aiken
Get your podcasts and happy gaming. Hey. Oh, hey, Jeff. What's going on, guys? Oh, you know, talking about Superman. Oh, cool. I could talk about Superman. I could talk some more about Superman. We know. I'll bet a few people would want to get in on this. I'm down. You know it. That sounds like fun.
56:37
John
I'll do it.
56:38
Case Aiken
Cool. Let's do it. We can call the show Men of Steel, and you can find it@certainpov.com. Or wherever you get your podcasts. Yay. And we're back. All right, so. So we've talked about how this movie is fine in a lot of ways. It's, you know, there's good stuff going on with it, but it's just, it's an odd Star Trek movie. It's a. An odd by the odd even rule. Like, it's just there not succeeding at being as good as the movie came after or the movie that it came before.
57:10
Sam
Yeah. And it's a third movie, so. And they may be cursed.
57:14
Case Aiken
Maybe that also true. So, John, as a person who has actually made Star Trek films, if you were a producer, money behind the scene, maybe coming in as director, like, how would you go about making this movie work considering the budget and considering that Leonard Nimoy, one of his deals for coming back was he was the. He was the actual director. So maybe you were like the Viceroy director, the ad, like, what would you do to try to make this movie a more successful film?
57:47
John
That's a good question. Well, I like the idea. I mean, I think what we talked about, the death and when he's resurrected, if you will, and then the crew comes around him, that scene I would have filmed differently how we discussed. For me, I mean, I've gone back more and more, and a lot of the sets, they just looked so poorly put together. The Excelsior Bridge, for one. I mean, granted, they had some problems with the budget being a concern, but like the little Klingon freighter in the beginning of the film, which was just some boxes with a net thrown over it. And then you had the bar scene, which all of those just look very cheaply put together. They didn't look like they were anything elaborate. I would have tried to do something more with those sets.
58:42
Case Aiken
One thing I should note, we didn't talk about this. There was a fire at their studio when they were shooting. Apparently it wasn't too much damage, but it did cause some damage to the. To the sets that they had to work around.
58:53
John
I did not know that.
58:54
Case Aiken
Yeah. Apparently William Shatner assisted with putting it out, which is kind of crazy.
58:58
John
Now, are you sure that was Star Trek three? And I mean, I thought I heard that it was Star Trek two?
59:05
Case Aiken
The video I was watching today. Yeah. Production on the film was temporarily shut down after a fire destroyed several sound stages at Paramount.
59:11
John
I googled it, and it's talking to Star Trek, too. Speaking of sets, it was on the set of the wrath of Khan that Shatner got to show his real heroic skills when he saved the Enterprise set from starting a huge fire on the Paramount lot.
59:26
Case Aiken
We might be in source because I'm on the Wikipedia page for three. And it might be that Shatner wasn't involved. It might have just been. It might be more than one fire.
59:36
Sam
That is fair.
59:38
Case Aiken
It looks like there was multiple fires. I'm not sure which one Shatner actually participated in. Suffice it to say, it looks like there were some issues with the set in addition to budget. There was just, like, some destruction that occurred because of a fire. But, yeah. So, yeah, the genesis just doesn't look very good. I agree with you, John.
59:54
John
Yeah, I don't, in terms of filming it, I'd have to look back even further. For me, I think the film in itself provides the purpose of bringing Spock back. I mean, that was the whole point of the film. And from a franchise perspective, bringing back, to make their franchise work, I mean, I don't know how they would have. I don't think they would have been as successful without Spock. I mean, like you said, he was in the pilot. He was the only one that was in the first pilot and then the second. And then, and he's. He's up there with Kirk and, you know, Kirk and Spock and then McCoy.
01:00:32
Case Aiken
Yeah.
01:00:32
John
Yeah. I mean, so you, they go together.
01:00:36
Case Aiken
I did note that this would actually be the movie if you wanted to recast Spock. Like, this is actually a really natural way to do it.
01:00:42
Sam
Yeah.
01:00:42
Case Aiken
Because you could have, like, a 20 something year old guy be like, a young spock serving under them now, which could be kind of an interesting dynamic.
01:00:49
John
Oh, you mean like, so they, if had they gotten him off the planet, you know, some hours earlier.
01:00:57
Case Aiken
Right. Yeah.
01:00:58
John
Wow. Yeah. That's interesting because, yeah, you could. It'd be like Groot.
01:01:03
Case Aiken
Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah. And, I mean, that's. If you don't get Leonard Nimoy back, because that's the problem. Like, Leonard Nimoy is part of the cell, but in a world where they didn't, that would be a choice they can make. And the story text supports it without it feeling very hacky, which could have been kind of cool, but, yeah, I mean, Leonard Nimoy is the person people know from the series. He is easily the most visually distinct character from the original cast by virtue of being the only alien on the original cast. And people just remember him. People know the Vulcan, Hans loot. People know a lot about this. Leonard Nimoy got typecast, in a way, by virtue of being so successful at playing this part. So it would be difficult to not have them come back.
01:01:44
John
Yeah.
01:01:45
Case Aiken
I mean, I think, again, I think the outline is pretty good. It's a lot of. It's the putting it all together. But. But, Sam, I know you were coming a little bit harsher into this conversation. Where do you stand on that one?
01:01:56
Sam
So I actually think that the outline is pretty decent in terms of, like, the outline. But I do think that this script needs a lot of work, and it needs a lot of editing in the first half of it. And I would definitely. It just. I would definitely cut one of the explanations of the death scene. It's just too much. And I would probably cut the actual first footage kind of thing and have it play out that the footage plays when Spock's father meets Kirk and just kind of have it in that moment, because it's just happening far too many times. And it's making the first half of this very clunky. And it's a lot more fun to watch these characters interact. In essence, what is kind of a heist at the beginning. Right. That's much more fun.
01:02:52
Sam
It's much more fun to see Kirk and his crew do something that is not allowed of them and get away with it, and not only get away with it, but do exactly what they needed to do. Right. So I think, like, that's just very clunky in the beginning. And I think overall, the start of this film, because it's so much like there's been a passage of time in the beginning. I just feel like that. Just that whole voiceover, like, kind of explaining what happened and, like, the death and moving on, that's too long. And we can either have that in real life, or we can have someone else explain it. In fact, we can have the kid with the punchable face talk about it. I just feel like it's, like, far. It's just far too long. Very indulgent.
01:03:39
Sam
And so I feel like there are better ways to edit those moments in and kind of explain what needs to happen and what is happening to the crew and how it's being sidelined. That whole conversation can just happen with Kirk's commanding officer. Right? Like, you can. You can throw that in there. You can throw into, like, this being discommissioned and there's nothing else you can do and just have it be like, you know, like a seven minute scene where they're, like, going at it and Kirk is just like, okay, I'm going to do what I want anyway. And then I would get to everything that happens after just sooner, because it's nothing. It's not happening fast enough. And I don't know what I would do with the Klingons. I feel like they're good.
01:04:25
Sam
And, you know, Christopher Lloyd's voice is so distinctive that honestly, I found it a little distracting. He's just so distinctive, but I wouldn't change him. I think that he did a really good job with what he did in this film. It's just like, sometimes it just. You just. He's done so many different roles of my childhood that it's very difficult. Right. Sometimes when you're rewatching this stuff. But I think, like, in general, their storyline was fine, too. I think I would have wanted a little more drawn out or, like, a little bit better explanation. Like, I kind of.
01:05:02
Sam
Okay, Lexin, we're watching this, and you're like, clearly they're like, well, if you're watching this, you've trekked before, but I feel like this movie doesn't do enough to, like, if you had no knowledge of what these Klingons were after or why they were after it, the script doesn't really support that. So I feel like there needs to be something in there. Like, one of the things that Wrath of Khan did so well is that, like, there were moments for Montauban to kind of like, be like, yes, my wife. You know, like, kind of just like, you know. And whether or not we believed that's justified, knowing, like, past episodes that in the movie, it gave justification for what he was doing.
01:05:46
Sam
And I think this is what keeps this Klingon from being a really amazing villain because I don't really know his full motivation for wanting to get his hands on Genesis. I know he wants it. I know that he's paid for the incel. I know that he sent a spy to get it. Nowhere in the actual text does he explain why he needs the power. What? And again, if you've checked before, you can kind of make those assumptions. But the script, the text doesn't do that. So that needs to go somewhere. There needs to be an explanation. Maybe someone dissents like they did in wrath of Khan, which I guess I don't want to do that, but maybe someone dissents and he gets to explain it that way.
01:06:30
Sam
Maybe he explains this to Kirkland and then, yes, definitely need to shoot the killing of Kirk's son better so that doesn't look comically terrible. And I think that final scene between Kirk and the Klingon commander, I mean, I understand, like, Starfleet, they're supposed to have mercy and things like that, but I think it would have been way cooler to just have Kirk go right ahead to his baser instincts with this particular person because he killed his son. And I know, you know, he doesn't kill the Klingon on ship. And of course I'd keep that because that's a highlight for me. That whole interaction, all those lines.
01:07:20
Sam
I loved him, but I think, like, yes, ultimately, he does kick him off the cliff and stuff like that, but I think it would have been kind of cooler to just have him just be like, no, give it to me. Okay, you know what? You don't deserve this. And just off the guy, just do it. Because this guy killed your kid and someone that you just reconciled with. You didn't even get to have this relationship and start this in just a second, really, or maybe even less of it, because you're not even going to grab onto the guy's hand, and then everything about Spock is fine except for, yeah, I'm cut. I'm. No, no sexy time with you. With you, possibly your relative. I'm cutting.
01:08:07
Case Aiken
We're cutting the pond far.
01:08:08
Sam
You're cutting it. We're cutting it. Especially now that I know that she's possibly related to you. Just weird and creepy. And I will say, yes. I need. I need the scene at the end to have more reference. And I think I would have strayed away from making the attire of the people in the ceremony. I would have strayed away from them looking too egyptian. That kind of made me. Weirded me out a little bit. I don't like when people do foreign cultures to other space aliens. That makes me uncomfortable. So I would have stayed away from that. But, you know, other than that, I think that the. The last half of the movie has really good bones, and I think that's. That's how I would change it. I feel like if you fix that first half, it's much more bearable to sit through.
01:09:07
Case Aiken
Yeah, I'm kind of in a similar place. This movie has good bones. It's specifically. It has. It has good bones.
01:09:12
Sam
Yeah, bones is great. I would change nothing about him. And also, like I said before, Zulu has to keep that cape. That cape is everything. And him telling that man to not call him short is amazing. While he's in platform shoes. Tiny. Yes. I love it. Keep it.
01:09:29
Case Aiken
Yeah, it's a good moment of just, like, cut back to him and he's, like, a badass.
01:09:32
Sam
Yeah.
01:09:32
Case Aiken
Yeah. I think we're generally in agreement. So here's my thought. So let's say you want to have opening credits, and let's say you want to allude back to the events of Wrath of Khan because you want to have some kind of illusion, I think, don't show the whole scene. What I'm thinking is, like, do something kind of, like, show, like, opening credits and then flashes with no dialogue of it, like, maybe like a close up on the hand touching the glass and maybe the hand rising up kind of moments like that to hint at it, but not just do the full scene. And then what I'm thinking is have that actually be hinted at, you know, like, maybe, like, super up the saturation. And I don't know where you're at in terms of, like, eighties tech for.
01:10:10
Case Aiken
But, I mean, you know, this is well after 2001. Like, we can do, like, crazy color kind of effects going on here. So do stuff like that and then have it be bones wakes up in his cabin and has Kirk message him to come to the bridge. You know, like, have, like, a moment where we start off just, like, remembering the tension of it. And if Shatner, like, you know, was, you know, wanted to be the person to do it, he can also do it. He can have nightmares about, you know, about Spock's death. But I think it would be telling if it was bones to start setting up this moment there, because I think we don't spend enough time with that until he's very firmly established as having Spock's catra in him.
01:10:49
Case Aiken
I think setting it up where it's starting to emerge would be nice, because then you can then still go into the captain's log of them traveling back and so forth. But I think that we need to bring back Genesis sooner without it being, like, we're going to cut. And the credits of them, like, moving through that tracking shot of Genesis looks terrible, and I think I would rather have. I don't know why they're not scientists on the ground studying Genesis. And I think that it would be way more interesting if we had David ensure. Let's say they don't recap. Let's say it's Savik and it is recast, and we're kind of stuck in that situation.
01:11:28
Case Aiken
It'd be great if you just write it out as not being Savvic, but let's say the timeline makes it difficult for it not to be if they're on the planet and they're being affected by the planet and so forth. And, you know, you could spend a little bit more time with her. Like, maybe she's. Maybe they have, like, hazmat gear or something on so that we can establish her a bit before she, like, takes off the like, the hazmat suit and reveals that it's a new actress. You know, kind of the way that in Iron man two, when Don Cheadle is recast is Rhodey. He walks in and it's to his back and it's just like, I'm here. Just deal with it. Like, kind of like, you know, throw. Have, like, a throwaway line for the audience to be like, we're moving on.
01:12:00
Sam
Yeah, it's cool.
01:12:01
Case Aiken
Like, you know, like, you know, identify identification confirms it is Savik. And she pulls off her mask. You know, just to be very clear about it all. But I think that they should be studying Genesis actively and, like, maybe teleporting back and forth between the ship and Genesis. And so this could give us a nice moment of them talking about it where it's like, if the data fell into the wrong hands type line. You know, like, one. One of those type lines. Cut to. Here's actually my big twist, John. You'll like this one. Cut to hairy mud.
01:12:29
John
Cut to hairy mudd.
01:12:31
Case Aiken
Yes. Cut to Harry Mudd. Because here's my thought here. Instead of having the romulan spy who, like, gives the info to Krug how fucking dope would it be if we had a nice callback to the series here and bring back the actor who played Harry Mudd. He only was alive for a couple more years after this, so it might not be possible. He might have been in bad health. But how fucking fun would it be to have him be the person who sells the secrets of Genesis to Krug? Like, to have him as this, like, broker, like, you know, black market broker kind of character.
01:13:02
Case Aiken
And my thought is, have him sell it and then Cru could, you know, and we can make a note about how we also sold him, like, parts from a romulan ship to Cru to set up that, like, maybe he's responsible for Klingons having cloaking technology. That could be really fun. And when. When we get the whole, oh, so you saw this. That's unfortunate. I would like mud to actually have one over him. Like, have blackmail on him being like, if you kill me, this thing will be released and, you know, like, all the information will be tied back and the Romulans will be after the Klingons. And do you really want that? And it's just like, fuck, I can't actually kill you. Like, have, like, a fun scene there so you don't. You don't close the door on this character. But it's nice throwback.
01:13:38
Case Aiken
He would be, you know, there for one scene, mostly just on a calm, you know, but it would just be fun, a fun reference for the character. The same way that by bringing Khan back as the villain in two or bringing Sarek back, you know, that we're reminding people of the larger continuity of this, and if you don't know who he is, it doesn't matter at all. I just think it'd be kind of fun to check in on this character again. So Krug then goes to travel to Genesis. Meanwhile, we can be playing off the same kind of details. Like, what I'm thinking is that because they're on the ground, they identify that, or, like, they found the capsule that was Spock's and that it is empty and whatnot. Send word back to Starfleet. Kirk hears this whole bit.
01:14:19
Case Aiken
Play out the stuff with Sarah kind of in the same way. Again, I think this is where, like, the Cerec bit is where it's the most dramatic way to, like, recap the events of the first movie, or at least the, like, the death of Spock part. If you need to have the, like, the security footage scene, don't play the whole scene of them talking again. Like, just. Just immediately be rewinding back through the whole bit.
01:14:42
Sam
Yeah.
01:14:42
Case Aiken
So that we're not wasting time on this one and then say that Genesis. Or that they've lost touch with Genesis, so that there's some urgency also in getting to Genesis that isn't just. We have to get back to Spock's body, because I think that while, yes, it is respectful of Kirk, that Spock means so much to him that he will move heaven and earth to save him in this very Gilgamesh esque kind of way, which is funny because of the two, you would put Kirk as the inkidoo and to Spock being Gilgamesh. But in this scenario, that's what's happening here. He's cracking open hell to bring back the soul of his friend is the mythological thing going on here.
01:15:23
Case Aiken
And while that's cool, that is not the evolved human stance that we're at in the Star Trek timeline, because the needs of the many do outweigh the needs of the few. And the death of his son and the destruction of the Enterprise are losses to the Federation that kind of outweigh the revival of Spock in some regards. So I think having additional drive to get over to Genesis makes it less. Less of a problem in that regard, because it is a big cost for that to play out that way. So I think Genesis is. They lose contact with Genesis and Starfleet's like, nope, the Grissom is on its way. Like, the Grissom is on its way back. It was, you know, out of the system. It's moving back to check in with them.
01:16:01
Case Aiken
Like, you know, it could be a scenario where the ship, like, comes in, checks in with them. They they're up there. They beamed out a report. They came back down to the planet. They'll be, you know, the Gristim will be back in like, two days time or something like that. It's like, no, the gristmally be back. Like, no, you're not. We're not sending any ships. And that's when we get the Enterprise heist. I like it as it starts. I think it needs to be longer. I think that the Enterprise doesnt do enough in terms of actually being this important ship in the fleet. I get that its being decommissioned, and I get that theyre on a skeleton crew with it all automated, but I think that the Enterprise should elude more than just one moment of getting away.
01:16:37
Case Aiken
Scottys sabotaging of the Excelsior is great. And I think that should be the starting point, minus the sound effect of the engine breaking down. But then I think that they should actually have to deal with some stuff. I think that Sulu's piloting skills should be put to the test, and I think that all of them together should be working as a team to overcome all these problems. Maybe there's problems down below, and Scotty and Kirk both run down and they're fixing this thing. Meanwhile, I think we should be seeing Uhura jamming communications and messing up Starfleet's attempts to capture the ship so that she has something that she's doing during this escape beyond just getting them to the escape point, you know, give her a bit more going on.
01:17:14
Sam
Yeah.
01:17:14
Case Aiken
Then I want to flip the destruction of the Enterprise with the death of David. I think that they. They arrive, they find out about the ship. I want to have this be sort of the halfway point of the movie, is the destruction of the Enterprise and them escaping down, because then I want to spend. So, first of all, earlier, I would like the, when Genesis is attacked, for us to get a little bit of David and Savik on the run from the Klingons on the ground. And I think that once Kirk and the crew beam down there, they link up with them and they're also on the run in this jungle world. And I would say probably shoot this on location instead of in a studio. I don't know how that's going to play out money wise. I realize it's a problem.
01:17:54
Case Aiken
Location shoots are difficult, but this also could just be a lush forest, and you could also shoot some shit out, like in the sands. The whole thing about Genesis having wildly changing environments allows you to shoot basically anywhere you have access to and just make sure youre shooting under conditions that are easier to shoot outside with. Save money on your lighting budget in exchange for having more outdoor shoots. I realize thats expensive potentially, so I dont know how well that phases in, but I think that we need to have them on the ground running on Genesis a bit more. I think im going to take away the protoplasm kind of vibe. I think that really Krug coming. He should be looking for the torpedo, the Genesis torpedo.
01:18:31
Case Aiken
I think that he has enough information about what it is, and he needs to be looking for the device itself. And I think that him taking the device as a MacGuffin for this, you know, for the third act, causes the planet to destabilize. Like, he has to locate the torpedo, so he's looking for it and maybe trying to get hostages who might know where it is in the case of David and Savik, so that there's, like, stakes there, and then taking the torpedo, like, under, like, excavating it from the ground is causing, like, causes everything to start to shut down in this terrible way. And so maybe we could have some time with, like, Spock, Savik and David on the run together and get some bonding moments, which could be kind of cool.
01:19:10
Case Aiken
Once the enterprise is destroyed, at the halfway mark, they all link up, and at some point, the three are separated. But we get some scenes with Kirk with his son before David is separated from them and killed. And we can have that be, like, the big dramatic thing at the, you know, right before we go, we break into three. And three should be, like, kirk and the crew hiding in, like, doing some kind of, like, guerrilla warfare type thing. You know, don't go. Don't go nuts. We. We've talked about Predator recently. It's hard to shoot in the jungle. Like, we don't need to go crazy on this one, but, like, mounting their efforts, like, they locate, like, some. Some piece of tech and, like, maybe we're still in the race to get to the Genesis probe at this point.
01:19:51
Case Aiken
So they know where the genus probe is, so they set a trap for. For Krug when he gets there, something like that, to, like, you know, funnel them all together and then have the big confrontation habit where Kirk is dealing with the fact that this is the man who murdered his son, but he, you know, we get to have some more time spent on Kirk dealing with that. And, yeah, I just think that would make it a bit more dramatic. I just think having action scenes on the ground on Genesis is wasted here. We just don't get them. And why else have a planet like that? This is around the same time as return of the Jedi. Indor had some fun action scenes. Do stuff like that, make this movie feel cool in that way.
01:20:33
Case Aiken
And like I said, the rotating environments allow you to make comments about at this time. Yesterday, this was a desert. This is already a garden, and tomorrow it's going to be a swamp. Yeah, you know, like, shift it around. That can be a lot of fun. Like, they have to find something, but, like, the terrain is changing rapidly. That's all cool. But the protoplasm thing, I don't think actually adds anything to the plot. I think it just is a convenient excuse for why the planet blows up and just don't have that. Like, just remove that part and then this gives us some more time also that we can have, like, krug sort of exposit what the benefits of a missile that or a torpedo that can completely change the environment and if he retracts it, kill it completely. I think Genesis is a weapon.
01:21:16
Case Aiken
We know it can be used as a weapon even if it has the potential of creating lots of life. And this would be kind of fun. I mean, on this regard, you would need to have cool cinematography because one fight we didn't talk about was Krug versus those weird worm things. And that's such a boring scene for what is ultimately a really cool idea of a Klingon versus some sort of protoplasmic alien creature. Why was that not more badass looking as a fight? It just. It was rookie directing. So get a good cinematographer, get a good fight choreographer. You know, just try to. Try to make it interesting and try to sell it as being dynamic and cool. And then we're selling a movie at that point where it's showing. Yeah, yeah, they're a little bit older, but they're smart and they're.
01:21:57
Case Aiken
They're able to out, like, while piloting a broken down ship. They're still better pilots and better equipped for space travel than these new top of the line ships that Starfleet has up against. The Klingons. Like, yeah, they're not as tough. We're talking about a guy in his late forties, early fifties. Yeah, he's not going to be able to fight a Klingon to death, but he's smart enough to be able to lead him into a trap and take him out. That's what we have to sell. That, yes, they are still dealing with their age, but that they have ascended by way of skill and experience to a point where that part isn't an overwhelming factor.
01:22:34
Case Aiken
And then that way, we can have, you know, some nice kirk with the sun death stuff and, like, how that really mean something and maybe have some moments with, like, a young spock versus Kirk. And it's a little bit weird, but it's, like, kind of showing some of that sort of relationship as well. Parallel, you know, paralleling it. And then you get to the end and just have fucking coverage of everyone's faces when Spock comes back.
01:22:53
Sam
Every single. Yeah, no, I think it's good. And that's also why case always goes last, because it's always really thought out.
01:23:02
Case Aiken
Yeah. So that's my thoughts with search for Spock, and I think that we're all kind of in agreement where it's just like, man, if this movie had some tighter scenes, like the same scenes, but just, like, a little more interesting visually, that would be great. Yeah. And unfortunately, we don't get it in this movie, and as a result, it's a middling movie when it. When it had an. An epic buried within it.
01:23:24
Sam
Yeah. Could have had some really nice emotional moments, and they. They kind of fell flat because of all the other factors.
01:23:30
Case Aiken
Yeah. Like, imagine, like, talking about, like, hellish imagery and whatnot. If Kirk doesn't actually unite with Spock until later, like, Spock gets captured along with David, for example, when they, like, find the group or something like that. And so he never actually, like, gets with Spock until the end of the, like, the young spock until the end of the movie. And he's. He literally pulls Spock out of the fire, and we get, like, real underworld kind of imagery. Like, they fall into a cavernous kind of thing. And that's where he confronts Krug, and Krug produces his hostage, which is this young spock. And he and Spock both fall, and he pulls up Krug instead of giving a one liner while kicking. I have had enough of you and kicking Krug off. Have this epic moment.
01:24:13
Case Aiken
How many characters in epic poetry descend into the underworld and come back, change? Pretty much all of them at some point have some. Either that or an equivalent. And this would be such a perfect time for it because it's bringing back a person from the dead.
01:24:26
Sam
Yeah, I agree also about that line. I mean, I. I would have even preferred it to be like, this is for my son. Like, I've had enough for you. It's not enough. Like, I don't know. It's something you say to someone, like, you know when you're leaving a room after they've annoyed you know, I've had enough of you. I'm going to. I'm going to go take a time out somewhere else. That's basically what Kirk said to him. Like, I would have. I would have much preferred him just being like, this is for my kid.
01:24:55
John
Right.
01:24:56
Sam
You know? Stupid Klingon. I feel guilty because I like klingons, but I don't like saying anything stupid. But I felt like that line just was just like. That's what I'm saying. I feel like there just needs to be, like, a general. Someone just needs to go over the script a little bit. Mostly editing in the beginning.
01:25:15
Case Aiken
Yeah, it's unfortunate because, again, it's almost there and it's just not.
01:25:20
Sam
But it does make this movie perfect for another pass.
01:25:23
Case Aiken
It does. It's a perfect movie for it. But I feel like we've beaten this particular Star Trek movie to death. John, when this episode is coming out, we have another Star Trek thing in the works. Do you want to give a minute to talk about that?
01:25:37
John
Sure. So we just released homecoming. It took. Took some time. It was in post production hell for a variety of reasons, but it's been released. This one is our finale. So it segues from the TOS, the tv show, period, into the movie era, period. And we have a nice segue with Stan Lee, and we have a nice cameo by Stan Lee, who gives us the order that the old Farragut has been decommissioned and we are to report to our home port, utopia Planitia. And we get a new ship and we start new adventures. It's the new chapter of Farragut. It's interesting that I reflecting back now, but having tabled the series for five years and we had a. I wasn't thinking about coming back. I kind of threw my hands up at Star Trek and fan films and was done.
01:26:41
John
But early this year, I was, like, itching to see the movie era realized. And I hooked up with a friend who I worked, who I'd seen a lot of his work, and we've been moving forward on that. So we've already filmed. Last weekend, we filmed two minute prologue for a 30 minutes film. And it's the next chapter of Farragut, called Farragut Forward. And it takes place in this time period that we've been talking about, Star Trek two, Star Trek three. We get to see the Klingons. There's a lot of nods and references that I used in Star Trek three in preparing for this film. So you'll see that when it's released, and we're expecting to have it released before Christmas.
01:27:27
Case Aiken
For listeners, when this episode is actually coming out, it will be right about the time it is actually. Farragut forward will be available to be watched. So either tune in to where actually should people look for when they're looking for it.
01:27:43
John
YouTube, you can do a search. Farragut forward, we're calling the two minute, essentially the first two minutes of the film, a teaser for the film. We call it Farragut forward prologue, and then we'll have another. The rest of the film would just be released in its entirety next year.
01:28:03
Case Aiken
But we'll.
01:28:04
John
We are, as you know, case, because you're directly involved as well. But for Samantha, we are building the bridge from the Rathacon set. We have a studio and Frederick, Marilyn, and we also working on all the monster maroon uniforms, the burgundy jackets with the white nautical collar. Those uniforms we are making, painstakingly making those. And all the detail that you saw in starship Farragut in terms of sets, props, costumes, we're doing the same thing. And no one has been in this genre. I mean, no one has done it to the extent of making all the costumes and making all the sets. We are doing that. We're also tapping a seasoned, or I should say a talented director and cinematographer to give us the edgier and that darker look that you saw in the movie. So it's not going to be as campy.
01:29:13
John
The sets aren't going to be all lit up. You're not going to see all the. I mean, it's going to be darker, and which I appreciate. I think a lot of the fans will appreciate it, too, because the movies were darker. They were both in light and subject matter.
01:29:29
Case Aiken
So, yeah, so, I mean, like, it's exciting to look at this era right now because we're going from working on, like, tos stuff where, you know, there was, like you said, like, there's like, a flat lighting that is done for tv and taking the strengths of Farragut up until this point, which has been really good production design quality. Like, John, your work on the costumes has been amazing for all these previous ones. And looking at the maroon monsters, they look so good. What? The work you've done so far on these, the set pieces are going to look great. And now we're able to really take it and have our own directorial style that doesn't have to be matching the show in that way. We can. There's more flexibility, and it's a little more daunting, but it's a really exciting era to be moving into.
01:30:16
John
Yeah. And I think that having, you know, like I said, I threw my hands up at Trek and fan films, it's been literally more than five years. And in that time, I mean, I think it's taking a break because were doing it consecutively, like, back to back since 2005, and homecoming was our finale. But I, you know, looking back, I think it really helped us put tabling the project and then coming back to it because Mike and I made the comment when were. It was very surreal putting back on the Star Trek uniforms. And although I. It was a totally new uniform, it was still jumping back in the boots of Captain Carter. And I looked at Mike and I. I said, you know, something like, you know, I said, I think were both in wardrobe.
01:31:05
John
We had all the mirrors around us because they were doing makeup and they were doing some other stuff. And I just said, I think we're more seasoned. And he kind of laughed at that. And I said, no, I mean, because he said, you mean older? And I said, no, I mean season, I think that having aged an additional five years, I mean, I look at how I look back playing a Tos captain, and now, I mean, I feel like this is the time of Carter, this is the time of Farragut. And I think even with Mike and some of the other ones, which, by the way, all the entire cast members were all on board, they were all enthusiastic about returning and reprising their characters.
01:31:50
John
I thought that with this one being the last one, everyone was kind of done, but everyone has just been excited to see it. And there's a lot of momentum. There's a lot of zest right now in terms of the project and doing this. And I think I have some ideas to kind of be in total compliance with the guidelines yet allow us to tell more than one tale. So with these sets and props being made, there is an investment to see more than one story.
01:32:19
Case Aiken
Yeah. And I think people are going to be really excited at the. At the first story that comes out, and then that should help give us the Runway to tell more without it directly conflicting with what Paramount's current guidelines are for fan films, which are a bit harsher than they were five years ago.
01:32:36
John
Wait, you're saying the guidelines are much harsher?
01:32:38
Case Aiken
Well, no. Well, they dropped five years ago. Or six years ago is when they.
01:32:43
John
Oh, right.
01:32:43
Case Aiken
Yeah, right.
01:32:45
Sam
You almost gave John a heart attack. He was like, wait, do I have to double check, though?
01:32:49
Case Aiken
No, I was joking along with you. But yeah, I'm really excited to work on this project. John, you and I, tomorrow, as of the night, we're recording this. We've got a build party going on, working on some of the set pieces. So it's just a really exciting time. That energy is back after, like you said, post production help. It was rough on the last shoot, and I'm glad that we had that break, that we had that breather. But I'm excited for more fan trek because that is honestly what made me a real Trek fan. I've always been a enthusiastic person who liked to watch Star Trek, but considering myself a real hardcore Star Trek fan, happened because I linked up with Farragut. And so I'm excited to keep this going. I'm excited to move Farragut forward.
01:33:37
Sam
Yay.
01:33:40
John
People gave Razz me for that title. You believe it?
01:33:44
Case Aiken
Really? I think it works fine.
01:33:46
John
It works perfectly. I mean, on so many levels and. But it's like I said, it is our time and those uniforms will do some of the cast members a lot of grace.
01:34:02
Case Aiken
Well, that was the case with the original.
01:34:05
John
Yeah, we've been doing it literally 15.
01:34:09
Case Aiken
Yeah, we've been doing it 15 years. Yeah.
01:34:11
John
And we are one of the oldest and longest running web series. We branched out in sixties Trek, seventies animation, and now we are doing the same characters in eighties movie era.
01:34:25
Case Aiken
Yeah, it's a real incredible project. I'm so glad to have been a part of it. And I'm so glad that, like, again, you're the person behind it all. Like, you're the person who started it. So I'm glad that I get to continue talking Star Trek with you. So just one more time, where can people find Farragut forward when it comes out? And where can people find homecoming?
01:34:43
John
Homecoming and Farragut forward? You'll be able to find it. Just go to YouTube, do a search for Starship Farragut forward, and you'll find it.
01:34:52
Case Aiken
Yeah, definitely make sure we get those views so that people can see and it makes it popular as opposed to diffusing the attention, diffusing those clicks. But outside of that, John, is there any social media or anything you want.
01:35:07
John
To plug if you can subscribe the bespoke JB. A lot of that I push is through there, but it gets then repopulated on other social media channels.
01:35:20
Case Aiken
And that's your instagram?
01:35:21
John
That is Instagram. Yes, bespoke JB.
01:35:25
Case Aiken
Awesome. All right, well, again, everyone should check out the Starship Farragut YouTube channel. If you haven't checked out the series, I definitely recommend, well, don't start with Homecoming. That's the end of the series. Like, obviously a good, yeah, a good.
01:35:37
John
Primer is the price of anything. I would start with that first.
01:35:40
Case Aiken
Yeah. So definitely check out that. But the series in general has been just a blast to work on. If you love sixties trek, that's a great one. And now we're moving forward to eighties trek. So stay tuned for that slash it just came out. Now check all that out. Follow John on Instagram at bespoke. JB Sam, where can people find you?
01:36:00
Sam
They can find me here on another pass or on our discord service, which is also another pass and nowhere else because I am floating somewhere out in space just discovering new things and a figment of case imagination.
01:36:16
Case Aiken
Yes, here's the Katra floating in my brain. Meanwhile, you can find me on Twitter ace aiken. You can find the podcast at another pass. You can find more episodes of this show@certainpov.com along with the link to the discord that Sam mentioned. Or you can find episodes of other great shows that we're putting out. We've got a ton of fun stuff right now as of when we're recording this. The most recent show to join the network is Fables and Reflections, which is a Neil Gaiman podcast hosted by JD Martin and Angela Bones Bullock. It's a really fun show. They are super enthusiastic about Neil Gaiman, who is such a creative talent dealing with fantasy. And I love the introspective take they have on the works of Neil Gaiman, who has been an author that has shaped a lot of my interests.
01:36:58
Case Aiken
So check that one out and then check out all the other shows. And then check out more episodes of this show. Sam, next time on the show, what are they talking about?
01:37:08
Sam
Oh, they're going to love this. Next time on another pass, we will be talking about Highlander two, the quickening. But until then, if you enjoyed this, pass it on.
01:37:23
Case Aiken
Thanks for listening to certain point of views. Another pass podcast. Don't miss an episode. Just subscribe and review the show on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com.
01:37:37
Sam
Another pass is a certain pov production are hosts are Sam, Alicia and case Aiken. The show is edited by Matt Storm. Our logo and episode art is by case Aiken. Our intro theme is by Vin Macri, and our outro theme is by Matt.
01:37:51
Case Aiken
Broganden in his piece on Star Trek three. So he. Well, for one thing is pretty harsh about this whole thing. Sorry, I just lost the train I had there. Fuck. Sorry, I just lost that train. Nevermind.
01:38:07
Sam
He was very harsh. We were talking about Savick. Anything coming up? Because I'm interested. Okay.
01:38:16
Case Aiken
I'm trying. Matt, I'm sorry. When you edit this.
01:38:21
Sam
Thank you, Matt, for everything you do. We're sorry. That case is scattered brain tonight. He's been working open to close for the last week, so you know that's true. Be be. Go easy on him. Like Adele is asking everyone to go on her.
01:38:40
Case Aiken
Certainpov.Com.