Bad Photoshop Sunday presents: Captain Overly Obvious Girlfriend Cooper (Alice Cooper tonight!)

LMAO! :)

LMAO!...But seriously, I love your memes too! :)

LOL! :)

Let's see... where was I? Oh yeah, posting random Star Trek nuggets...

Like Robert Wise, who directed of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, JJ Abrams was not a Trek fan. He was a total Star Wars geek though. He was forced to avoid Star Trek canon (which he didn't even know), as previously mentioned.

So the 2009 movie and Discovery both succeeded in avoiding canon, but in different ways. Before the show aired, Discovery claimed to haave hired a team of super Trek experts to ensure continuity with canon. Now we know what kind of BS that was.

Karl Urban (Dr. McCoy in the 2009 reboot) said the script for the upcoming Quinten Tarantino movie is 'bananas'. He's a Brit so they may have a different meaning for that. All we know is that Tarantino is a major Trek fan. And he wants a PG rating so they can show peoplke being disembowled as they are blown out into space. This film will probably not hit theaters for 4 or 5 years.

I may have mentioned Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine) and Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway) made production difficult on Voyager with their on-set feud. Jeri Ryan was hot and Mulgrew didn't like it. She thought the show could do well with just good acting. But ratings tanked and they brought in a busty babe in a catsuit. Jeri Ryan was also doing the boss. They had a relationship until the show ended, and she left him. She was getting more and more stories about her until it was almost all about Seven of Nine instead of other crew members.

Robert Picardo, the EMH (Emergency Hologram - the Doctor) jokingly said the main requirement for being cast on Voyager was having a nice @ss. And that's why they chose him.

The rest of the cast were vocal about the issue and what it was like to work in that environment. Mulgrew denied any wrongdoing until recently. Just a few months ago. After the show ended, Mulgrew went to Netflix (surprise) to be in 'Orange Is the New Black.

The original actress to play Captain Janeway was Geneviève Bujold, but she was fired on her third day for being a diva. She missed out on a lot of royalties. :-)

Lt. Saavik was originally portrayed by Kirstie Ally. She didn't want to be typecast so they had to get another actress to play Saavik for Star Trek III and IV. She was replaced by Robin Curtis in those movies, then Kim Cattrall in ST VI. Lt. Valeris (the female Vulcan) was supposed to be Saavik, but Kim Catrall didn't want to be the third person to play that role so they changed the name to Valeris.

Lt. Saavik was originally impregnated by Spock and later had his child. This was cut from ST IV. It might appear in some canon novels, though.

James Doohan hated Shatner. He said Shatner would frequently stop the production, take the bosses backstage and re-emerge with changes to the script where he had their former lines. Shatner said he thought the show's focus should be the three main characters.

Doohan and Shatner never made peace after the show was canceled. Their animosity for each other continued until Doohan's death. Doohan once said, "I like Captain Kirk, but I sure do not like William Shatner." Other crew members had similar feelings. :-)

I wasn't aware that James Doohan harbored those feelings for Shatner, but it seems I heard he (Doohan) lost a finger in the D-Day invasion and they had to hide it on camera much like Gary Burghoff in MASH

Doohan was shot in the finger and lost it. I didn't know about Radar though. Thanks for the info.

Btw, I have lots more Trek lined up to post but I'm swamped with notifications.

Once I catch up I'll be back to blabbering on about more of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans again. :-)

Actually I think Gary had all his fingers, but his hand was deformed. Look forward to more Trek, but take your time. :)

Here's a quick Trek-related link to hold you over until I can get my sh!t together. Still trying to catch up on notifications.

It's about Jimmy Bennett - the young Kirk actor from 2009. And it looks like he may never have received the money he made on the film!

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-asia-argento-accuser-jimmy-bennett-allegedly-got-swindled-by-his-own-parents

That sucks! Sorry if I'm a little out of it, but my son in law to be was in a fatal rollover collision on US 2 this morning (he wasn't the fatality). His fiancee (my stepdaughter) is nine months pregnant. She and my wife have been at the hospital all day and I have been given updates via text (one helluva long work day). Anyway he's out of surgery and in ICU now (prognosis good) so hopefully things will be getting back to as normal as possible (which is not very).

Thanks for your thoughts, it looks like things are going to be okay. They had to leave a bone fragment in his head because it was too close to a vessel, but he came out of the surgery all right and should be fine. Sorry to hear about your PTSD, how long ago was the accident? Thanks again, see you next week.

I've seen this so you can delete it...I'll comment more after work

Thank you. As I said, I am happy to share everything with you. :-)

Hey n,I'm really sorry to hear about all the tragedy in your life (and the people around you). I've been very fortunate in that I haven't had that kind of trauma in my life.
To be honest, when I heard about the accident my first concern was about the daughter and granddaughter to be. I didn't know how that stress (I was told she was freaking out) would affect her pregnancy. Turns out they're both fine and we should have grandchild number 8 pretty soon. :)

Here's an interesting article about Nichelle Nichols...

https://thewire.in/the-arts/tv-first-interracial-kiss-star-trek-nichelle-nichols-uhura

Wow! I never knew, that is so awesome! It really makes me wonder what would have happened if not for that fateful meeting with Martin Luther King Jr. (in terms of Star Trek and the space program)

I'd heard the MLK stories for years, but never knew she wanted to leave for a Broadway show. Lots of great info in that one link. She's had it rough though.

Her brother Thomas was in the cult that committed suicide when comet Halle-Bopp passed over in 1997. Members were found dead after drinking poison and putting plastic bags over their heads.

Recently she had a stroke and now has dementia. There's a legal battle over who will control her daily affairs and estate. The poor gal is on her way out.

I didn't know, that's terrible. My all time favorite comedian, Tim Conway, is also suffering from dementia and his daughter and wife are struggling for control over who's in charge of his medical care. The daughter describes him as almost unresponsive. :(

I saw a picture of him recently but didn't know about his condition. In a way, he's already gone. I just hope he's not suffering.

A couple weeks ago Bob Newhart and his wife visited him and assured everybody that he was getting the best possible care

That's good to hear. Sometimes people with dementia imagine terrible things happening to them. I told my gal if I'm ever incapacitated to feed me all sorts of psychedelic drugs, just in case. I'd rather be out of it than know what's happening to me.

So I finally found the worst Star Trek mismanagement issue of all time. It is unbelievably poor judgement by the people who were in charge of our hero, James T. Kirk's life.

THIS is the lowest they have sunk in my opinion...

https://www.cnet.com/news/william-shatner-explains-why-star-treks-captain-kirk-was-killed-off/

That is totally chickensh!t...I never like burning bridges, but that was frigging ridiculous

Every TNG movie made less money than the prior one. It was a downward spiral for the franchise until the 2009 reboot.

Thes big decision makers are the same people who brought us Insurrection and Nemsis. Each is a stinking POS movie. Have you seen them? I hope not.

But at least they killed Kirk to improve the box office take for these poorly written movies. They would even be considered bad as TV episodes.

Here are the TNG movie box office numbers:

Star Trek: First Contact $92,027,888
Star Trek: Generations $75,671,125
Star Trek: Insurrection $70,187,658
Star Trek: Nemesis $43,254,409

For comparison, here is a commonly ridiculed TOS movie:

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home $109,713,132

These TOS movies did better than all TNG's except First Contact:

Star Trek: The Motion Picture $82,258,456
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan $78,912,963
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock $76,471,046

This one sits right in the middle of the TNG numbers:

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country $74,888,996

I wonder how much LESS the TNG movies would have made if Kirk had not had a bridge dropped on him? </sarc>

Btw, The movie's original ending had Soran shoot Kirk in the back as the cause of death. Test audiences freaked, and they re-shot the ending to be the bridge scene instead.

Because of the shitty TNG movies, everyone that worked on Star Trek was fired SIMULTANEOUSLY after Enterprise was cancelled in May, 2005. There were NO Star Trek employees until the 2009 reboot.

This is the most mismanaged cultural icon of a franchise ever. It takes a lot of mismanagement to put Star Wars in second place. They might have been first, but they are raking in zillions, which Star Trek seems unable to do.

I'd like to ask the geniuses who threatened to kill Kirk off screen anyway, "How's that box office improvement working out for you?"

Wow, that is crazy! I'm surprised to see "The Wrath Of Khan" not number one. IV was good, but somehow I figured II was the benchmark. I've always heard "If it ain't broke don't fix it", but living in the mismanagement capital of America I'm not surprised.

Star Trek IV was the first one to introduce comedy. At the time I thought it was strange, but I'm glad they did.

The top three box office Star Trek films are:

Star Trek (2009) ..................... $257,730,019
Star Trek Into Darkness.......... $228,778,661
Star Trek Beyond.................... $158,848,340

Next up is:
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.... $109,713,132

I thought the humor worked in nicely

I agree. Especially the punk dude on the bus getting the Vulcan nerve pinch.

Have you seen the news about planet 'Vulcan'? Astronomers have detected a planet orbiting close in around the star 40 Eridani A,. This is right where Roddenberry said it would be.

Just in case, here you go...

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/astronomers-just-discovered-spock-s-home-planet-vulcan-ncna911136

That is fascinating...I was an astronomy minor back in college and at that time there were no known planets outside of our solar system

I think the first exo-planets were discovered around 1990. A pair of them orbiting a pulsar. They are unlikely to support life, due to their location.

The original method of planet detection relied on watching for the planet's mass to make the star wobble as it orbits, which is good for finding large planets.

Now they also look for starlight dimming when a planet transits (between the star and Earth). A dip of a percent or two on a recurring basis is a good sign there might be a planet there. This is how they detect smaller planets now. :-)

Yeah, so much has been discovered since I was in school. At that time there was speculation that using the gravitational wobble would probably lead to the discovery of the first exo-planet, but it would take a very massive planet.

I was replying to myself and ran out of thread on the Trek rant so I had to star a new one. Here's more...

Leonard Nimoy refused to to Wrath of Kahn unless they killed off Spock. He and his daughterreceived death threats as a result. When he finally did the movie, he refused to come back for the sequel unless he could direct. So they gave him the next two movies to direct. As a result, we got 'The Search for Spock' and 'Save the Whales'. Shatner complained that his contract entitled him to anything Nimoy received, they let him direct the fifth movie, which his daughter also worked on (maybe writing, I forget). So we got The Final Frontier as a result. This is one of the most reviled Trek movies, if we don't count the TNG movies. Let's not.

Well, maybe just one: Generations. The TNG crowd didn't give Kirk a dignified death. Instead of dying on his bridge, the let a bridge fall on him He died UNDER a bridge. What a stupid ending for a hero like Kirk. And why didn't they leave it open for him to return somehow. It's Trek, after all. To quote Spock, when someone threatened to kill him, "I've been dead before". In a great series of books written by Shatner, the Borg took his corpse and reanimated him, so he was able to live out a life in the future. The books are well written, with co-authors - as all Shatner books are. But his death was childishly mishandled and a great opportunity for the character and fans was wasted. Shatner said while filming, the last thing he saw before dying was an aeroplane flying overhead. So it was the last thing (according to Shatner) that Kirk ever saw.

A while ago I sent you a link to fan fiction called Prelude to Axanar, a Garth story. CBS were suing them for making money from it and laid out new rules for fan fiction. There can be no more stories like Star Trek Continues or Phase II/New Voyages due to a 15 minute limit and no sequels. AND no one that ever worked on Trek in any way can be involved. A lot of other stupid rules, too. So they don't want other people making quality Trek, but they refuse to do it themselves. Nice.

Btw, speaking of Kahn, Ricardo Montalban originally didn't want to reprise the role. He was five years into Fantasy Island at the time and thought it was a bad idea for his career. But h liked the script and took a chance on it. He binge watched Space Seed over an entire weekend to get back in the groove. In an interview, I saw him describe the way he re-introduced the character on the Botany Bay with Checkov and Terell inside. He described how he peeled away the layers of his head and face gear slowly, even though he couldn't see anything with it on, which made it even more difficult. In the interview, he mimiced the motions to show the dignity and personality of Kahn, and demonstrated how it would have looked if he fumbled with his hands instead. This guy was on top of everything. He was also the subject of good natured pranks from the film crew. Once they had a little robot enter the room with a mask on of Herve Valenchez (the midget from Fantasy Island). Montalban let loose a belly laugh and said he felt like he was home.

I wanted to leave off on a positive note, so I'll end it here. Believe it or not, I left a lot out.

It's been a while since one of my monster posts but I finally had the time to let one loose. I hope you enjoyed it. :-)

Maybe they could bring back Kirk ala Bobby Ewing...Wow! That is a lot to digest! There isn't anything I could possibly add, but on a sort of a tangent I'm reminded of an episode of Taxi where Martin Short played a network programming director that discovers The Reverend Jim has a "gift" for spotting hit TV shows. Jim is reluctant to use his "gift" for commer gain, but Martin Short convinces him with the line, "you could have saved Star Trek!" Thanks for taking all that time to fill me in...that's really interesting or should I say fascinating :)

Hi bt,

I don't remember that episode of Taxi, but I probably saw it. All I remember is the hot chick did Alex in real life. She said it in her book.

Also, I have an equal amount of Trek information I left out - believe it or not. I made notes but I have to sift through it and make it coherent. Everything is as accurate as I can remember, and my opinion(s) are noted when necessary.

I look forward to sharing more Trek info with you as soon as I can get my sh!t together. Probably a bunch tomorrow and the next day - there's just too much in my scribbled electronic notes and I don't know if I have the energy to release a 5 message encyclopedia all at once again. That last one was record-breaking, even for me, and you know I can put it out there.

Anyway, I hope I didn't bore you. If you ever get tired of this stuff let me know and I'll stop. But I have new Shatter material to share about TOS, published today online. As I've said, it's never good. But it makes me respect him even more. He's endured so much.

OK, that's it for now. Next time I will give you another truckload of Trek info if you're still interested. :-)

I really enjoy all this info, I just feel bad because I don't have much to give back, but keep it coming. My coworker left last Friday for The Land Of The Gorn so hopefully we'll get some pics before too long. Thanks. :)

Huh? No need to feel bad or give anything back. You've provided enough entertainment already, I feel like I should be contributing more. I'm just not as available as I used to be, so my output has gone down dramatically. Please be patient, as I have a lot more to post. You have always been a favorite and I look forward to our interactions.

The amount oft text I post is probably insignificant compared to the work you put into your graphics, but it's all I've got. I don't have the skills to do what you do but I enjoy putting it out there for you.

Tomorrow I should have enough time to get a few text-limit messages out so we'll start with that. And call it even.

We're here to have fun so let's get to it... :-)

Agreed! Again, a wise user once told me, "I'm just here to have fun"

I found this today and thought you might be interested: it's got interesting information on 'They Live' (5:22).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSnWDrKJVXU

That's great...it never occurred to me that Roddy's name was never mentioned in the movie, but was included in the credits. It reminds me of Pink Floyd "The Wall" that includes lyrics to a song ("Empty Spaces") on the album sleeve that isn't on the album (the song shows up in the movie (along with "When The Tigers Broke Free"). Thanks for the link. :)

I got a kick out of that video also. There was another, but it had mostly the same stuff.

Great Mexican word of the day, by the way! :-D

Thanks! :)

I will drink to THAT, Amigo! :-D

This Mexican guy reminds me of Neil DeGrasse Tyson, so I made this meme about 6 months ago, about our Mexican friends...

27qfw9.jpg (click to show)

Remember: manyana means tomorrow, but pajama means tonight! ;-p

They've both got the same hat, too. ;-)

LMAO! Years ago Chevy tried to market The Nova in Mexico and couldn't understand why it was doing so poorly until someone pointed out that "nova" means "it doesn't go" in Spanish :)

Hey I didn't know that - and I owned a Nova. But if I had to guess I would think it meant 'New' as it does in several other languages.

My brother totaled mine, so it don't go either. ;-)