50 Years of Star Trek (2016) Reviews

• The end is just the beginning

  TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews2017-01-21

  This is a documentary made up of interviews(from different times and places) with franchise(and outside ones who are fans) cast(albeit Shatner's absence is hard to ignore. They do talk about him, and it's almost all positive. Well, the other captains aren't there, either. I could go into the many smart, thoughtful people's names, but it would quickly become a list, and a lovefest), crew, scientists, etc.(they of course don't get equal time), show and film clips, zooms on stills, and historical footage. It goes into, well, see the title. It's 1 hour and 24 minutes without ads. According to what I read on here. I watched it with, and couldn't tell you for sure. For me, it was 117 min. They discuss a lot of subjects. Diverse people working together to solve problems: women, Asians and African-Americans: right there next to white men, with responsibilities, receiving respect. The technology and how much of it we have today. Inspiring generations. Everyone has something to say and is interesting to listen to. It's edited well and goes into the right amount of detail. Here and there they dive deep into a certain special effect, scene or important conversation. And yet they manage to cover half a century's worth of series and movies. It doesn't really touch on J.J.'s reboot and its trilogy. So, you know, all of Star Trek is gone into. They're fairly honest, admitting when there were missteps. This contains some disturbing content and two bleeped swears(you know exactly the words used). It spoils countless of the big plot points in the many hours of ST. Keep that in mind. I recommend this to anyone, Trekkie or otherwise. 8/10

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• ST50 cash-in special that can lightly garnish an existing ST disc collection

  alerter2016-11-11

  I saw this when it was originally broadcast and revisited it on disc the day after 08 Nov 2016. It's a quickie morale booster for someone who wants to live in a real Star Trek universe. When this cash-in, ST50 special cleaves closest to the art/craft and sociology of Star Trek, it's marginally better than the other ST50 cash-in special, BUILDING STAR TREK. But it's best to think of this as a slap-dash ST50 birthday party that none of the "Captains" attended. It's not as bad as it sounds. The opening panel of talking heads assembled in the Leonard Nimoy Theater wasn't that bothersome, to me. I can ask, "Why those guys and nobody else?" But it was very nice to see Jeri Ryan up in that mix. 50 YEARS OF STAR TREK (aka STAR TREK ANNIVERSARY) does feature a chopped- up interview with Nimoy along with remembrances/comments from a hodge-podge collection of non-Captain actors and others behind the scenes. Among those others, it was very nice to see and hear DC Fontana, who is not well enough celebrated for her prodigious contributions to ST:ToS and ST:TNG. 50YoST attempts a full franchise retrospective, which is flat-out impossible in a meager 85 minutes; but correctly, I think, places more emphasis on ToS & TNG. While Roddenberry was the visionary who conceived of this enduring "Wagon Train to the stars," he could never have kept his Enterprise afloat without the team that executed and delivered on tight timelines and even tighter budgets. Not enough of that off-camera drama was touched on here. What we do get are a number of decent slices of and perspectives on what ST has meant to many of the familiar, yet rarely featured, faces who brought ST to TV and movie theaters. One ST story that deserves its own Ken Burns-style documentary is the making of ToS' City on the Edge of Forever. That production, behind the scenes, might be the closest that ToS ever came to the anarchy that eventually produced (the Bogart/Bergman incarnation of) CASABLANCA. It's an episode that went way overtime and over budget to the point of almost not being made -- and, being made, with many compromises, generated considerable fallout for years to follow. And I wished that 50YoST managed to say anything about Gene ("the lost gene") L Coon's contributions to ToS, rather than nothing, at all.

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• Bad use of sound

  karla-perry2019-01-09

  Drove me crazy with the overly loud music played during the interviews.