AHC: Make "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" even crummier!

Evad: "Hello, everyone, my name is Evad Richardson."

Tully: "And I'm Tully. And today, we're going to review 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture.'"

Evad: "Don't you mean 'the motionless picture'?"

Tully facepalms.

*'The Price is Right' losing horn sounds*

Evad: "I stand by my comment."

Tully: "Glad we got the cheap jokes out of the way, folks. All right. Where should we start?"

Evad: "I think we gotta start with Rodenberry's terrible writing?"

Tully: "And the sound you just heard was a million angry comments left on this YouTube video."

Evad: "'A million?' That's just wishful thinking, Tully. It's gonna be 56 comments, max, and that's including the spambots and that one guy who still hates us for making fun of 'Doom 4.' And we gotta talk about the writing. I mean... We gotta."

Tully: "For the record, I did not make fun of 'Doom 4,' that was Evad and the bald guy. The other bald guy, I mean. There's like four of you here at Black Box Channel with male pattern baldness and then there is me."

Evad: "And a double f'ck you for that. Back to the writing. I... How nerdcore should we get here? I mean, do I bring up the 'Third Encounters' thing...?"

Tully: "We're talking 'Star Trek' on YouTube. I mean..."

Evad: "Okay. Fair point. So, five, six years after the show gets cancelled, the annual conventions in the early '70 in New York City start doing incredible - just incredible - numbers and merchandise and etc. is turning this silly show..."

Tully: "Direct your hate tweets to..."

Evad: "Internet, I dare you to defend 'Turnabout Intruder.' I dare you. It was a silly show. I loved it. I love. And part of me will always love it. But at the end of the day it was silly show on TV. Please. Let's have some perspective here. Anyway. Millions of dollars are being made and someone decides they should make more money still."

Tully: "Paramount, namely."

Evad: "Yeah, yeah. They own it. And so they want to turn it into a TV show or a movie or..."

Tully: "... a movie for the European cinema market that will become a backdoor pilot for the TV show."

Evad: "Right. Which sounds dumb as shit, but you have to remember - '70s."

Tully: "I can't remember. I wasn't born yet. Tell us, o aged one, what was it like?"

Evad:
"The Children of Men and Elves lived together in peace, women didn't shave, nobody owned a comb and men had terrible mustaches."

Tully: "So, what, Day Two at 'Burning Man?'"

Evad:
"Only with worse music. Anyway, they keep bouncing this idea around for a 'Star Trek' something or other, but nobody can agree on what it should be and then 'Star Wars' shows up."

Tully: "Shall we blow the minds of the squares by telling everyone Lucas wanted to buy 'Star Trek' before he made 'Star Wars'?"

Evad: "That is a rumor I heard as well, but... Let's not get distracted. 'Star Wars' changes the game. Suddenly you can't do a silly little two million dollar sci-fi movie and not look bad in comparison. You have to go big or go home."

Tully: "And they went home. Paramount, I mean."

Evad: "Yeah. Just folded like 'Superman' on laundry day."

Tully: "The idea was..."

Evad: "... 'Star Wars' beat 'Trek' to the punch and now there is no more sci-fi money out there."

Tully: "I mean, that's just brilliant. Sci-fi fans got their fix with 'Star Wars' and no one will want to watch 'Star Trek.' Just... I'd love to be a movie executive one day."

Evad: "And these were bright people, too. Katzenburg. Eisner. Like, tippy top guys. They conclude 'Star Trek' is doomed because 'Star Wars' got all that sweet, sweet sci-fi money and 'Trek' won't get anything any more. Until 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' comes out and it too makes money."

Tully: "As 'Alien.' As does 'Battle Star Galactica' and a million other sci-fi films."

Evad: "And the good ones make a lot of money. And the bad ones don't."

Tully: "So you saying nothing can go wrong?"

Evad: "Clearly. 'Star Trek' gets green-lit as a second series, with that two hour long feature film pilot."

Tully: "And they hire a writer."

Evad: "Who's a TV writer. Who writes a two hour TV pilot. And they hire all kinds of TV writers to churn out scripts. And Rodenberry shits on all of them. Because it's all about him."

Tully: "Well, he had concerns."

Evad: "Uh-huh. His main concern was that someone was going to get 'Trek' right without him."

Tully: "Well, the auteur theory..."

Evad: "It's a silly TV show, Tully. Let's not... Kubrick is not involved here."

Tully: "It was Rodenberry's show. He had a right to..."

Evad: "Oh absolutely. I'm not... Listen, I'm not here to talk about... It was his show. But he was a shitty writer."

Tully: "You're going to get mail bombs, man."

Evad: "He's a shitty writer. There, I said it. I can say it again. He had neat ideas. He had a vision. But in terms of writing - actual craft of writing - he wasn't good. He was a shitty writer. His dialogue was terrible. He had no literary craft. He was an idea guy. He was not a good writer."

Tully: "I'll be over there, with my face covered up."

Evad: "Rodenberry manages to piss off almost everyone, but they humor him..."

Tully: "... Paramount, you mean..."

Evad: "Yeah, yeah. They humor him. And then someone decides that they need to turn this into a movie instead of just a movie for the European cinema to jump-start a TV show because the 'Star Wars' money is..."

Tully: "... astronomical..."

Evad: "Yeah, yeah. And they bring in men who can write a film screenplay. Something that Rodenberry has never written. And the guy writes a screenplay and Rodenberry rewrites and... it's terrible."

Tully: "I am going to have to legally change my name after this gets posted, won't I?"

Evad:
"Just flat out terrible. And the screenplay guy quits right there and then. They go through four writers in the next sixteen months. Four. Each guy shows up, does his thing and Rodenberry rewrites it. At one point, they hide the script from Rodenberry and have the guy write pages and send them by a diplomatic bag to Paris to the executives of Paramount. And Rodenberry somehow intercepts and rewrites those pages. That's some... They lose five writers due to Rodenberry."

Tully: "Well, I don't think we can..."

Evad: "They lose five writers due to Rodenberry. And that's a problem because the movie has a hard deadline on when it must be released. And they are working against ten years of expectations. And look how well that worked out for the Lucas prequels."

Tully: "Are you hating on the new 'Howard Duck' films, you monster?"

Evad: "'The'."

Tully: "Huh?"

Evad: "Howard the Duck'."

Tully: "What did I say?"

Evad: "'Howard Duck'."

Tully: "And clearly you had to correct me because otherwise no one would know what I was...?"

Evad: "Do you realize how many comments we're going to get on you skipping the article?"

Tully: "And now you're worried about comments?"

Evad: "Fair point. Anyway, so you have this terrible writer alienating everyone and writing in a medium in which he has never written and then everyone is shocked it is terrible."

Tully: "Let's talk Xon?"

Evad: "I had no problem with Xon."

Tully: "Everyone else did."

Evad: "Leonard Nimoy was not a fan of the script and he turned it down."

Tully: "But you gotta have a Vulcan?"

Evad: "Yeah, yeah, that was dumb. I mean, it should have been a Klingon. Or maybe a Romulan. To show that..."

Tully: "... passage of time and that the universe was evolving. That Federation was not looked in the same conflicts over and over again and that it made peace with its most bitter enemies."

Evad: "Yeah. Instead we got Not Spock hanging around Captain Kirk. That's just gonna get people mad. But I had no problem with him. He was Inverted Spock. And that was... neat. Or almost neat. He was all Vulcan, so he did not have any problems about being half-human and trying to downplay his emotional side, like Spock. To him emotions are something to be... explored. I was going to say 'celebrated,' but that'd be a bit too strong. He wants to explore emotions, but does not know how and knows that emotions are a big part of being human and is trying to learn. It was a good character. Decker on the other hand..."

Tully: "... Not Quite Kirk Jr."

Evad: "Yeah. Just... Why have a younger version of Kirk around if Kirk is in the movie? It makes no sense. It just makes people realize Shatner is getting on in years and it makes it look you are gonna phase him out, like you did with Nimoy. It just pisses people off."

Tully: "Were you pissed off by the bald headed girl?"

Evad: "Nah. I mean... Nah. She's... First of all, she was..."

Tully: "... a recovering nymphet wearing f'ck-me-boots from a race of sex maniacs?"

Evad: "Yeah. That was... The first thing she says once she gets on the ship is that she will practice chastity. The '70s were... Yeah. That was... But once I got past that, I was okay with it."

Tully: "Because of the f'ck-me-boots or the shaved head?"

Evad: "Oh the shaved head. Definitely."

Tully: "Have you ever...?"

Evad: "What?"

Tully: "With a shaved head girl?"

Evad: "Wrong YouTube show, Tully. Let's talk villain."

Tully: "Not the vistas?"

Evad: "Oh man. The vistas."

Tully: "If you watch the film today, that's the part... It really stands out. The slow reveal and the long lingering European shots. Where you just leave the camera on and go get a cup of coffee. It's... I did not finish watching the movie the first time I saw it."

Evad: "I... I saw this when I was ten on VHS and I remember not understanding the terrible dialogue and then just being confused and also turning it off. But the long shots punctuated by nothingness and bad dialogue. This was a shitty movie."

Tully: "... that made over a $100 million."

Evad: "Because the Trekkies..."

Tully: "Trekkers, not Trekk..."

Evad: "Double f'ck you to you. The fans were going to say it was great regardless. But it was a mess. I mean... Just a mess. The reviews. The reviews are actually great in tearing it to pieces. I love those reviews. Just these bitter critics ripping the acting, plot and dialogue."

Tully: "We'll be back with our review of 'Star Wars: Lando's Tale of Family and Inclusiveness' right after a word from our sponsor..."
 
They could have dwelt more on the Deltans as a 'distractions as a species' - even a long, drawn out explanation from McCoy (or a Q&A) on how Starfleet Medical finally figured out what to do in addition to the required Vow of Celibacy........


Yes, the person so sexy that she is required to take a vow of celibacy. Where goeth personal liberty ? ! ? I thought Star Trek was all about a freer, more open future (well, in some ways!)

And hate to disappoint a nice Deltan like Lieutenant Ilia but . . . . . people have a pretty wide range of different things they find attractive. For example, some guys like skinny women, other guys prefer a woman who has some curves, and a man who's gay is going to find her not particularly attractive but just a co-worker, now, a female member of the crew who's gay, well, that could set up a storyline.

And she disappears one third of the way into the movie!

One of the more intriguing characters and she's just gone. And since V-ger had de-materialized her in a scientific way, I kept expecting her to come back in a scientific way with knowledge and insight of what V-ger was about, and how to engage either peacefully in some kind of interesting direction of negotiations, or how to strategically defeat V-ger, or maybe both(?). But as time went on and, say, a half-hour passed and Ilia didn't come back, I lost hope and patience that this was going to happen. Would have been a better movie if it had!

But since this is supposed to be about making the movie even worse. Well, since they have the most interesting character disappear about a third of the way into the movie, I'd say that's about as bad as they can do. And we're have to think of other ways to make the movie even worse
 
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It would be wild to have an executive who one day is saying, whatever it takes, just make it good. And then seemingly the very next day he’s saying, no, that’s it, cut it off, no more money! :p

That’s uh not as farfetched as you imply :).

You wanna make the movie worse? Fire the director halfway through.
 


Yes, the person so sexy that she is required to take a vow of celibacy. Where goeth personal liberty ? ! ? I thought Star Trek was all about a freer, more open future (well, in some ways!)

And hate to disappoint a nice Deltan like Lieutenant Ilia but . . . . . people have a pretty wide range of different things they find attractive. For example, some guys like skinny women, other guys prefer a woman who has some curves, and a man who's gay is going to find her not particularly attractive but just a co-worker, now, a female member of the crew who's gay, well, that could set up a storyline.

And she disappears one third of the way into the movie!

One of the more intriguing characters and she's just gone. And since V-ger had de-materialized her in a scientific way, I kept expecting her to come back in a scientific way with knowledge and insight of what V-ger was about, and how to engage either peacefully in some kind of interesting direction of negotiations, or how to strategically defeat V-ger, or maybe both(?). But as time went on and, say, a half-hour passed and Ilia didn't come back, I lost hope and patience that this was going to happen. Would have been a better movie if it had!

But since this is supposed to be about making the movie even worse. Well, since they have the most interesting character disappear about a third of the way into the movie, I'd say that's about as bad as they can do. And we're have to think of other ways to make the movie even worse

I thought the issue with Deltans and the attraction men felt to them had to do with the pheromones they gave off, not necessarily their appearances.
 
I thought the issue with Deltans and the attraction men felt to them had to do with the pheromones they gave off, not necessarily their appearances.
For us, smell can be a nice extra, and at times a deciding factor for various social and erotic steps forward.

But we as humans attribute just so much personality and connection to appearance.

PS Does anyone remember this aspect in Harry Turtledove’s Worldwar and Colonization series, and how the “Race” (small dinosaurs) were smell oriented, and what they thought of their brief, self-contained mating season, as opposed to the humans’ low-level, all-year-long interest in sex including pair bonding?
 
No.....WESLEY CRUSHER.

I never liked the character but I felt bad for Wil Wheaton after he said that people would come up to him at Star Trek conventions and say, "I wish you would die." He didn't specify but I am fairly certain they meant him, not his character.
 
Here's one...

Let Gene Roddenberry write, produce and DIRECT it.

That'd really make it as bad as you can possibly can!




I've seen that as well. It was DeForest Kelly, James Doohan and Walter Koenig on with Harlan Ellison. Ellison (who antagonised everyone) pissed off James Doohan for calling Star Trek "TV for idiots" and everyone smoked.

Good times!


Ellison does have a habit of spouting off. One of the things that lingered with me from the first time I saw that interview was when he called Star Trek a cop show, and said everything on television is a cop show or a doctor show. Why? Because there's conflict and conflict resolution. By which measure, every dramatic piece in the last thousand years is a cop show. MacBeth P.I.
 
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