XPost: rec.arts.movies.current-films, rec.arts.sf.tv   
   From: g_d_pusch_remove_underscores@xnet.com   
      
   John Duncan Yoyo  writes:   
      
   > On Sun, 02 May 2004 20:13:20 GMT, Michael Johnson    
   > wrote:   
   >   
   >> Lets go with ST as your example. Their fanbase before ST:TMP was made   
   >> was the same 'loyal but devoted' fans that plugged for a film. It was   
   >> only until the release of that movie and the subsequent sequels that   
   >> the fanbase became more mainstream enough to warrant ST:TNG.   
   >   
   > IMS ST:TMP was not all that successful.   
      
   In part, that was because the studio execs totally misundertood the   
   principle reasons why _ST:TOS_ was so successful, and insisted that   
   huge chunks of dialog and plot development be relegated to the cutting-   
   room floor in favor of mindbending SFX --- thus leading to its nickname,   
   _Star Trek: The Motionless Picture_.   
      
   The original release of ST:TMP hardly even made _sense_ unless one had already   
   read the novelization _before_ seeing the movie. The later "directors's cut"   
   was somewhat better, but still had huge gapping plot holes in it (for example,   
   neither Spock's pursuit of Kohlinohr nor the reason why that path was closed   
   to him make sense without the backstory in the novel, nor his conveniently   
   abrupt arrival aboard the refitted _Enterprise_ already knowing so much   
   about the situation and the mission, nor much of his subsequent behavior.   
   Decker's decision to merge with V'ger made little sense unless one knew he   
   had been raise within the transhumanist "New Human Movement" that had been   
   seeking the same sort of transcendent apotheosis that V'Ger was groping for.   
   Without reading the novel, one would not have known that the reason McCoy   
   was so pissed at being recalled to active duty was that he had been living   
   on New Fabrini, helping Natira and the people of the worldship _Yonada_   
   to rebuild Fabrini culture. Without reading the novel, one would have had   
   no clue whatsoever that one of the two people who died in the transporter   
   accident was Kirk's _ex-wife_, who had decided to pay him a surprise visit   
   and to wish him well; after his promotion, they had been married under a   
   two-year contract that they had decided not to renew, but were still on   
   quite amicable terms. And so on, and so on... All of the scenes and dialog   
   that would have provided this background and clarified these details   
   wound up on the cutting-room floor, so that we could all get bored silly   
   watching 20 minutes of 2001-style eye-candy as _Enterprise_ penetrated   
   V'Ger's "energy cloud" and took a leisurely cruise down its length...   
      
   In hindsight, it is surprising that _Star Trek: The Motionless Pictrure_   
   did as well as it did, since it wasn't really "Star Trek As We Knew It."   
   I chalk it up to just how darned _hungry_ the fans were, and how long   
   they had been waiting to see it --- because the original theatrical release   
   simply _wasn't_ that good a film!   
      
      
   -- Gordon D. Pusch   
      
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