wmartin@brl-vgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (04/05/84)
Every so often, I see references to the animated version of ST on this group. I consider myself to be a mild fan of ST; I have seen most (and maybe all) of the episodes, but don't watch their reruns regularily. Is there any reason for someone with this level of interest to make an effort to find and watch these animated versions? That is, are they just the usual Saturday-morning kids' cartoon trash, but of interest to ST fanatics for completionist reasons, or are they better quality animation with stories comparable to the regular ST episodes? Are these animated episodes in national syndication or still in current production, or have they been completed long ago and may be hard to find currently on tv? If they are no longer in production, were they a network feature carried everywhere or a syndication not widely shown anyway (am I likely to find them on Saturday mornings if I look for them)? In short, are these episodes worth the effort? Will
smw@tilt.UUCP (Stewart Wiener) (04/07/84)
If the animated episodes are being shown in your area, DEFINITELY make
an effort to see them. They are infinitely beyond the usual Saturday
morning fare, and the kudos for that goes squarely to Gene Roddenberry
himself, who refused to let Filmation Studios take control.
Filmation wanted kiddie cadets aboard the Enterprise... you know the
kind of schlock they're capable of. Roddenberry committed them to REAL
Star Trek. I believe he produced it himself. If not him, then it was
D. C. Fontana, who wrote the greatest animated story, "Yesteryear," in
which Spock has to go through the Guardian of Forever to Vulcan, saving
the life of the 8-year-old Spock. It is amazing how MUCH they were
able to do in just a half-hour format.
Two seasons of animated ST were produced, in 1973 and 1974, I believe;
a total of 23 episodes. It won an Emmy for best children's cartoon. And
of course it was cancelled for the same lousy reasons the original was.
The voices of all the original actors, except Walter Koenig (Chekov), were
used. James Doohan and Majel Barrett often doubled as guest voices, with
Doohan regularly doubling as the navigator, Lt. Arex. (The animated
format let them be much more imaginative with aliens, putting two in the
bridge crew. They also used "life-support belts" to generate a glowing
force field instead of bulky spacesuits, which got them out more often.)
Mark Lenard did do Sarek's voice in "Yesteryear," by the way.
In short, animated Star Trek deserves to be counted as "real" Star Trek,
as much as the 79 original shows and two films. It's no more inconsistent
than were those, and features the original producers and cast. YES, if
you have any opportunity to do so, go out of your way to see animated ST.
--
Stewart Wiener :-) "Read and weep as did
Princeton Univ. EECS :-) Alexander when he beheld
{allegra,ihnp4!mhuxi}!princeton!tilt!smw :-) the glories of Egypt."moriarty@uw-june (Jeff Meyer) (04/07/84)
I would just like to add that the written adaptations of the animated episodes, called Star Trek Logs, are also excellent; they were all written by Alan Dean Foster, and while he occasionally took liberties with the episode plots, he did a succesful job of filling in a lot of characteization and scientific detail that the animated episodes left out. Moriarty
smw@tilt.UUCP (Stewart Wiener) (04/08/84)
>>From: moriarty@uw-june (Jeff Meyer) >>I would just like to add that the written adaptations of the animated >>episodes, called Star Trek Logs, are also excellent; they were all written >>by Alan Dean Foster, and while he occasionally took liberties with the >>episode plots, he did a succesful job of filling in a lot of characteization >>and scientific detail that the animated episodes left out. Actually, he did more than take a few liberties; in the later ones, from #7 through #10, he got around the restriction preventing Ballantine Books from printing original ST stories by "expanding" the episodes to include a novelette size story of his own. He did fill in the backgrounds of the two alien bridge crewmembers very well; Lt. Arex, the three-armed Edoan navigator, and Lt. M'ress, the Caitian feline second communications officer. I think it would be terrific to affirm their place in the crew by putting them in the movies. How about Betty Buckley as M'ress? :-) -- Stewart Wiener :-) "Read and weep as did Princeton Univ. EECS :-) Alexander when he beheld {allegra,ihnp4!mhuxi}!princeton!tilt!smw :-) the glories of Egypt."
rjnoe@ihlts.UUCP (Roger Noe) (04/09/84)
By the way, I think "Star Trek" was the first live-action series to make the transition to a regular animated series. I would appreciate hearing about any other examples of shows which appeared in both formats. 1. Are they just the usual Saturday-morning kids' cartoon trash? No. That's why they got knocked off Saturday morning TV; they were too sophisticated. 2. Are they better quality animation with stories comparable to the regular ST episodes? I would say so. The animation was nothing very unusual for the time period (22 episodes, aired from September, 1973 to January, 1974 with the last handful appearing September-October, 1974) but the stories were not aimed at anyone that "Star Trek" was not previously aimed at (i.e. not kids or morons like most of TV). Sure, it's not "best of ST" but the best of the animateds were comparable to some mediocre ST episodes which preceded them. 3. Are these animated episodes in national syndication or still in current production, or have they been completed long ago and may be hard to find currently on TV? They completed long ago and I do not know where they might be currently syndicated. They WERE part of a network Saturday morning line-up. I would think they would be quite hard to find on TV currently. 4. In short, are these episodes worth the effort? Probably not for this particular questioner. I don't even make any effort to find them although I would make the effort to get up at 9:00 on Saturdays if I knew that a station I receive was airing them. Or maybe I'd just set my VCR timer and save them all. -- Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
rjnoe@ihlts.UUCP (Roger Noe) (04/11/84)
> One of the episodes was an adaptation by Larry Niven of his > Known Space story, "The Soft Weapon," in which the Kzinti get > grafted onto the Star Trek universe. > Mike The title of the Star Trek animated episode is "The Slaver Weapon". Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe