h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I can safely say I enjoyed reading this review of the Star Trek movies and, on the whole, agree with the number theory. I'm afraid I must admit to liking the odd numbered ST:TNG films that you are so scathing about, but cannot agree enough with your analysis of the odd numbered ST:TOS movies.

I'm looking forward to the return of Wesley Crusher, so long as his very attractive girlfriend, "Ensign Robin Lefler", turns up or he does a Kirk (as in Generations).

As for the next film, another with the Generations crew is welcome. But where are the films with DS9 and Voyager? Both should have had movies by now. What is going on in Hollywood? The Paramount people seem to have walked away from a sure bet. Other than the movie, the only good thing on the horizon is 'Enterprise', which is a very funny mixture of appearing older than Kirk's era whilst other parts of it appear newer! I.e. the Tricorder. Big, leather cased item in TOS, in Enterprise, it looks more like a large TNG version. Did they really go backward in design?

But the biggest question is: Why does the Klingon race loose its weird head style between Enterprise and TOS era's and then regain it between TOS and TNG era's?

THanks for a good review.
Clive

Just speculation this . . .

The klingons lost their wedgey heads because they decided that all klingons going off-world (kronos) should have reforming surgery so they would blend in and have a tactical advantage and take their enemies by surprise.

That's my theory anyway and I don't care how shaky it is . . .


Cheers,

Myriad.

I can't remember where this quote comes from, but the definitive reasons for the inconsistency with the pastie-head Klingons is...

"Budget. Deal with it."

That made me so hard! Great article, BTW

Nice quote Geoff!

don't agree about tng odd numbered films being crap. Generations is good, Insurrection is brilliant. Obviously First Contact is the best though.

Oh, great entry. Very entertaining.

Thanks very much for the kind comments. I'm aware that the "odd number" theory does break down a little bit with the TNG films - it's not that 7 and (of?) 9 are bad, as much as they're just not as stonkingly brilliant as First Contact.

As far as Klingon foreheads go, I read some terribly bad book by some hack writer called James van Hise who was knocking out unofficial Star Trek books by the bucketload until Paramount's lawyers stepped on him and all the others around 1996. It was a guide to alien races, and it made the suggestion then that the Klingons had gone in for massive amounts of genetic engineering to enable easier infiltration - so this is a theory which *might* have legs! On the other hand, the Official people had the ideal chance to address the question in "Trials and Tribbleations", and sidestepped it very definitely.

Cheers for the comments, and thanks for reading, one and all.



H.

I vaguely remember reading something about a disease/genetic mutation that affected the entire Klingon race due to climate change at some point in the last ten years or so, but I have no idea where or how "official" it was.

Sorry I couldn't be more unhelpful

I think (on the off-chance that anybody cares what I think) that Generations was really good, a little bit better than Insurrection. I find the special effects in Generations to be the most atmospheric and stirring ones I've ever seen, apart from the attack in Independence Day.

If you watch the films, you'll notice they start changing the Kilgons foreheads in them, before we get to ST:TNG, so whatever happened, it wasn't that long after the original series ended.