griffith@con.Berkeley.EDU (Jim "The Big Dweeb" Griffith) (02/13/90)
Here is the information I got from the Palo Alto Creation Con. It's got a lot of new stuff in it, but it is quite lengthy. Note that I also picked up information on some upcoming movies, but I posted that to rec.arts.movies. First, Star Trek VI. After the apparent failure of STV, Paramount tried to re-think the movies, and they really don't know what went wrong. The special effects were quite poor because literally all of the top FX companies were tied up at the time with _INDIANA JONES_, _BATMAN_, and _GHOSTBUSTERS II_. Harve Bennett has proposed the "Academy Days" idea, based on a script written by David Lougherty (who co-wrote STV). Bennett has been promised that if this idea is accepted, he will direct. There are no other firm ideas on the board at this time. Shatner and Nimoy have already said that they will have nothing to do with any script based on this idea. Gene is opposed because he feels that it's impossible to find three actors who can recreate the chemistry between the characters. As for who directs, so far Bennett is the only one being seriously considered. Shatner would have first shot over Nimoy, if it came to that. Just the salaries for the seven original STTOS cast would equal the entire budget for STII, so that's also a consideration at this point. On STTOS topics, Leonard Nimoy is working on a new movie, a romantic comedy starring Gene Wilder. Now for STTNG. Richard says that Jonathan Frakes is a real nut. Brent, on the other hand, works quite hard to entertain people, whereas Johnathon is more of a joker. Brent and Jonathan know all kinds of obscure songs that no one else has ever heard of, and they're always singing them. Recently, the Dalai Lama visited the set, along with an entourage of 30 or so monks. It turns out they're all Star Trek fans. So they put on the visitor's list "20 Tibetan Monks", which everyone laughed at. So here these monks show up and everyone's like "my God, there really *are* monks...". So Brent goes into some schtick, and they got a shot of Brent in costume surrounded by these 20 monks in robes. Brent originally wanted to be a doctor. He was interning, and he was taking the blood pressure of a man that was in for a heart transplant. The man opened his eyes and said "am I dead?" Brent replied "not yeeeet". They hustled him out and read him the riot act... Richard was asked if TNG will meet TOS. He said outright "no". He gave two reasons. First, "Gene hates time travel stories - he feels they're a cheat". Will future episodes show Earth? As rarely as possible. Will Ensign Gomez return? Probably not. The new uniforms cost $2500-3000 each. Why don't we hear more about STTOS in STTNG? Because Kirk was one of many legends of that time. Also, Gene wants STTNG to stand on its own. We also probably won't see any of the TOS characters, simply because their appearance in TNG insures their survival in TOS. There is a Spock script floating around, which will be filmed when Nimoy's salary becomes reasonable. Nichelle Nichols wants to do an episode as Guinan's daughter. There is also a "Sarek" script. Mark Lenard has pointed out that he's only 200 or so in TNG time, so it's not unreasonable. Richard said that the series is the third or fourth best syndicated show. In terms of number of viewers, the show would be in the top 20 of network shows. EPISODE COMMENTS : Richard implied that Gates was brought back because Muldaur opted to leave. This is the first time I've heard this. In "Evolution", the final scene was cut somewhat, so we didn't get to see more of Wesley and his friends at the end. Granger Hines, who played the lead colonist in "Ensigns of Command" received no credit for the episode. After filming was completed, it was decided that his voice didn't have the presence they wanted in the episode, so they dubbed in the voice of another actor. Because of this, Hines asked that his name not be credited. Richard pointed out that the voice of the female Romulan in STV was also dubbed in. "Who Watches the Watchers" was filmed almost entirely on location at Vasquez Rocks. Marina Sirtis had a hard time with the heat (over 100 degrees). There were snakes, scorpions, bees (meaning no deodorant or perfume). The flashlights in "The Enemy" were far too bright to be run off of batteries, so they had power cords going through their sleeves, down their pant legs to a power source. At one point, Jonathan Frakes stretched a little too far and received a shock... In "The Price, one of the actors was Kevin Peter Hall (the one that was 7' 4" tall). He was the predator in _PREDATOR_. Also, in that episode, at one point you see a Ferengi hitting on a female crewmember. He stretches his hands out at one point, and the crewmember says something like "no way" and leaves. The original Ferengi concept included their being endowed "not unlike a horse", which explains that exchange a little better. "The Vengeance Factor" was also discussed. Gene did *not* want the girl summarily executed. However, he was in D.C. at the time. Anyways, the girl was genetically altered. The first time Riker fired, it was for standard human stun. The second time, it would have taken out an elephant. The third one, setting 16, would have taken out a bulkhead. "The Bonding" and "The Defector" were both written by Ronald D. Moore. He was a fan who submitted a script as a first-time writer last Feb. They bought "The Bonding" and filmed it, bought "The Defector" and filmed it, and then hired him as series story editor. All in the past year. Richard says that every once in a while he walks by Moore's office, and he sees Moore sitting in there, just shaking his head... In "The Hunted", in the scene where Riker and Worf are about to leave the turbolift when they see the guy about to fire and Worf pushes Riker out of the way. Well, in one take, Frakes got cute, and set all of his weight against Dorn, and there was a slide of Frakes just standing there smiling with Dorn trying to push him out of the way... When Riker said "set phasers on maximum stun", he was originally supposed to say "set phasers on kill", but Gene said "no". Now for upcoming episodes. Most of it we've already heard, so I'll omit it. I'll only list the new stuff. In "The Offspring" (directed by Frakes), Data creates a child. The android is played by the same guy who played Trent in "Angel One" (Leonard John Crowfoot). They had to shave all of his body hair, put heavy make-up on, and he couldn't eat for 14 hours straight. After that comes "Sins of the Father". In an officer exchange program, the Enterprise gets a Klingon as an acting First Officer, who hassles everyone except Worf. So everyone is upset because they're getting hassled, and Worf's upset because he's not. The second plot has Worf returning to Klingon to battle for his family honor. The head of the Klingon council in this episode is played by the same actor who played General Kor in STV. After that comes "Allegiance". Picard is kidnapped, but no one realizes it. Picard has to work with an alien and a Starfleet ensign, also being held, in order to escape. Meanwhile, back on the Enterprise, "Captain Picard" is acting rather strangely... After that comes "Captain's Holiday". Crusher forces Picard to take a vacation. He goes to a "pleasure planet", where he is accosted by a woman who seeks his help. And he just wants to relax. The Ferengi also appear. Another script, just recently accepted, is called "Tin Man", and it was also written by a fan. PATRICK STEWART : He was commenting that there are a lot of nice perqs that go with being Captain of the Enterprise. He was at the movies the other night (actually, he says "at the cinema", or "at the pictures", but he's getting better). Anyways, his companion wanted popcorn, so he went to get it, and the popcorn person got him popcorn freshly popped, rather than the junk that was lying around, congealing. Patrick was asked about the uniforms, and he didn't realize how much they cost, so he turned to Richard and said "they really cost $3000?". Richard said "yep". "Each?". "Yep". "So, I guess you can say that whenever we have one of those conferences, there is around $15,000 worth of costumes sitting there". He went on to talk about how the new ones aren't perfect, but they're better. The scream "I HATE MY SPACESUIT!!!" is supposedly rather prominent. He's been in therapy over the costumes... The old ones were... "unhealthy". Someone was asking a question about an episode, and he said "I forget the episode's title". Stewart jumped in and said "you can't afford to forget the names of episodes in this company. I can get away with it - that's what goes with being Captain. But these people are liable to rip your throat out...". So true. So then someone asked him how he liked working on _DUNE_. He said that he loved it, because he wasn't required to be in that many scenes, and that gave him a lot of time to play. And he played, enthusiastically. There was a lot of scenes with him cut, and many of them were restored for the video version, including a scene with Gurney playing the baliset. He's been doing Shakespeare since he was 14. His favorite play is Henry IV, especially Part II. He also likes Hamlet, of course. So then he was asked why Jean-Luc doesn't have a love life. He made a few cute comments, and then said that if we all bought television sets and watched the show come April, we might see something to our interests... We won't necessarily *approve* of it... He said that "The Captain's personal life is about to expand, somewhat radically". Someone asked how he'd like doing comedy. He replied with "how do you think I spend my week at the moment?" He said that compared to most of his career, Star Trek is rather hilarious. He remarked that his early Shakespeare roles were the more comic ones. Someone else asked why Marina Sirtis' uniform is different from everyone else's. He made some cute comments, and Richard said that since she is a "counselor", she needs to be as unintimidating as possible. Favorite episode? "11001001". He also likes the two Dixon Hill episodes, "Measure of a Man", and "Time Squared". "Time Squared" was interesting, because no one was sure what was happening, and they were kind of making it up as they went along. He said that he most enjoyed "Captain's Holiday", which they just finished. Someone asked how he handles being a sex symbol? "With elegance, with grace, an overwhelming modesty, and huge numbers of locks on my door". He then went off on some subject, and he stopped and said that he does just spout the hugest amount of rubbish at times. He blames it on Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, and Michael Dorn, who have torned him into the fool we see. He said that they're the silliest bunch of people imaginable. Well, Levar isn't silly. But they're working on him... How does he feel about the Pulaski/Crusher situation? He felt that Pulaski was never really pinned down as a character - they started off all of these chains and never really let the character become firmly rooted. He said that the whole thing was a mess. Someone asked if there was any chance of a revival of the tradition where the Captain's shirt is constantly torn. He looked at his chest and said "no". Someone asked why the ship splits. He actually liked this question. He said that they were filming some scene recently, and he couldn't remember his next order, so he ordered emergency saucer separation. He said that he'd like to do it to get rid of those thousand or so people up there in that saucer, "I mean, what are they doing up there with their lives?". He thinks that separating is the greatest thing, but the damned thing *came back*. He thinks they should do it more often. He said that there are times when they get half-way into an episode, and he'll say "hang on a minute there. Do you think we should have... separated there?" He then turned to Richard Arnold and said "why *don't* we do it, Richard?" Richard's reply was that it costs too much. "We can use the same footage!". He's with us on that one, folks... This led to "stock footage", which led to the story about Mr. Singh. Remember Mr. Singh from "Lonely Among Us"? Well, they'd finished shooting with him, and they needed to redo a scene, after they'd dismissed him. They needed to shoot the back of his head in one scene, because he'd been in it from another angle or something. So they took a wig similar to his real hair and stuck it on to a chair. So people had to act to this wig stuck on this chair. So someone asked since he'd discussed his feelings for Diana Muldaur, how did he feel about Gates. he said that he was... puzzled by the initial move. The way he said this suggested to me that he was actually rather opposed to it, but he didn't want to propagate dissention. At the end of the first season, there were voices that wanted to detach even more from the show. He said that there was one voice in particular, but he didn't say whose. He said that Gates was offered up somewhat sacrificially, to protect the rest of the show. He feels the initial switch was a mistake, and he's glad that she's back. The way he said this implied no dislike or dissatisfaction with Diana - he simply felt that the chemistry with Gates was good, and that she had been forced to elave for more political reasons than anything else. He also regrets that Wil Wheaton hasn't had more to do in the past season. That's it. Hope you found this interesting and/or newsworthy. Jim ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Edited by Jim Griffith - the official scapegoat of rec.arts.startrek.info E-mail submissions to trek-info@scam.berkeley.edu or ...!ucbvax!scam!trek-info