Romulan | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Blood Oath (Review)

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Darren

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is twenty years old this year. To celebrate, I’m taking a look at the first season. Check back daily for the latest review or retrospective.

Blood Oath is a pretty fantastic piece of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and kicks the second season back into gear after a few mediocre (although not embarrassing) episodes. While it’s hardly the best episode of the year, and comes with its share of problems and baggage, it’s a tight and well-constructed piece of space opera. It’s a pulpy Klingon adventure, with the show’s best exploration to date of the existential problems of being Dax and a relatively simple (but potent) moral dilemma. It’s also just great fun.

Here’s Kor!

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: Blood Oath, history, james t. kirk, kang, Klingon, Odo, Peter Allan Fields, Romulan, star trek, Star Trek Original Series, star trek: deep space nine, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, Wagon Train to the Stars, Wilson Tucker, Winrich Kolbe | 10 Comments »

Star Trek: Myriad Universes – Echoes and Refractions: A Gutted World by Keith R. A. DeCandido (Review)

Posted on September 22, 2013 by Darren

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is twenty years old this year. To celebrate, I’m taking a look at the first and second seasons. Check back daily for the latest review or retrospective.

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

“What if” stories are inherently fascinating. Naturally, they are predicated on investment in the original story, but it’s always fascinating to imagine the branching possibilities, the ripples in the stream. Sometimes, these are used to explore the grand philosophical questions of Star Trek in a new light; to imagine how, were you to change one variable in a complex formula, the answer might be radically different.

However, Keith R. A. DeCandido’s A Gutted World feels different. It is a massive story, spanning a huge amount of time and space, drawing in a massive ensemble cast and gently probing the politics of five or six different Star Trek culture, as DeCandido explores what might have happened if the Cardassians never withdrew from Bajor, if Terok Nor never became Deep Space Nine.

To put it more succinctly, if the show never happened, but its central storyline still did.

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: Benjamin Sisko, brave new world, deep space nine, Ferengi, jean-luc picard, Keith R. A. DeCandido, Klingon, List of Star Trek characters (G–M), Martok, Romulan, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: deep space nine, StarTrek | Leave a comment »

Star Trek – In the Name of Honour by Dayton Ward (Review)

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Darren

This August, to celebrate the upcoming release of Star Trek: Into Darkness on DVD and blu ray, we’re taking a look at the Star Trek movies featuring the original cast. Movie reviews are every Tuesday and Thursday.

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the movies with tie-ins around (and related to) the films. We’ll be doing one of these every week day. This is one such article.

The Klingons changed rather dramatically, between the classic Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Part of the changes were physical – most obviously, advances in make-up allowed Klingon characters to be shown with their now-iconic forehead ridges. However, there was another interesting change. Somewhere between The Turnabout Intruder and Encounter at Farpoint, the Klingons went from generic communist stand-ins to a fully-formed alien culture with a wealth of ritual and tradition.

To a large extent, this shift took place during the movie era. Klingons wound up being the focus of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and were a significant presence in each of the films that followed. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, produced at the same time as the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, suggested that it wasn’t necessary for the Federation and the Klingon Empires to be mortal enemies. The final movie featuring the original cast, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, tied up Kirk’s adventures with the promise of galactic peace.

Still, it’s hard to reconcile the differences in characterisation between the Klingons seen in the classic Star Trek television show and those from the later spin-offs. With In the Name of Honour, Dayton Ward tries to explore this radical shift and also to bridge The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country. He does the former much better than the latter.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Federation, Final Reflection, kirk, Klingon, Klingon Empire, Romulan, spock, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, star trek iv the voyage home, Star Trek Next Generation, Star Trek Original Series, StarTrek | Leave a comment »

Star Trek – The Ashes of Eden by William Shatner et al (DC Comics) (Review)

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the movies with tie-ins around (and related to) the films. We’ll be doing one of these every week day. This is one such article.

The Ashes of Eden is effectively professionally published Star Trek fan fiction, written by William Shatner. The actor gets some assistance from veteran Star Trek writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, but it’s clear that Shatner is the driving force behind The Ashes of Eden. Indeed, an astute reader will spot quite a few thematic overlaps with Shatner’s much-maligned directorial effort, only without the rest of the cast around to temper his efforts to make this a story about Kirk and Kirk alone.

Still, The Ashes of Eden isn’t as bad as it might be. After all, just because something is fan fiction – professionally published or otherwise – says nothing of its quality. The story is probably best read as an exploration between Shatner and his alter ego, but it holds together quite well, providing a much more solid (if still far from perfect) exploration of the themes hinted at in Shatner’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

The dusk of an era…

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Filed under: Comics, The Original Series | Tagged: Ashes of Eden, Drake, james t. kirk, kirk, Klingon, Mary Sue, Romulan, Shatner, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, star trek: enterprise, StarTrek, Sulu, William Shatner | 4 Comments »

Star Trek – Unspoken Truth by Margaret Wander Bonanno (Review)

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the movies with tie-ins around (and related to) the films. We’ll be doing one of these every week day. This is one such article.

Saavik is an interesting character, for several reasons. Most obviously, there’s the behind the scenes manoeuvrings involving the new character. Everything from her origin to the recasting of the role between Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. There’s the inclusion of a short scene in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and the fact that the last time we see Saavik, she’s watching the reunited cast of the original Star Trek continue their galactic adventures.

There’s her complete absence from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and then the weird pseudo-return of the character in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, where the role that would become Valeris was originally considered for Saavik, before being cast with Kim Cattrall, an actress who had originally been considered to play Saavik. It’s interesting to consider the conceptual history of the character, given what she was supposed to represent upon her introduction in The Wrath of Khan.

Margaret Wander Bonanno does an excellent job exploring Saavik’s life in the wake of her decision to remain on Vulcan in The Voyage Home, with Unspoken Truth doing an excellent job playing with the character in the grand scheme of the shared Star Trek universe.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: james t. kirk, kirk, Kirstie Alley, Margaret Wander Bonanno, Pon Farr, Romulan, Saavik, spock, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, StarTrek, vulcan, Wrath of Khan | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Star Trek III – The Search for Spock

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Darren

I have a soft spot for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. It’s a weird thing to admit, but it was really my first encounter with the crew of the original Star Trek television show. I was only eight or nine at the time, and I’d grown up watching and loving Star Trek: The Next Generation. Of course, this was in an era before DVD and blu ray made it feasible (and affordable) to collect the whole thing. So I branched out by trying the movies.

Being a young child in the era before the internet, I didn’t know that the second through fourth films formed a loose thematic trilogy. I just picked the film with the title that jumped out at me. Since “Spock” was an iconic part of Star Trek, and I knew him from his guest appearance on The Next Generation, The Search for Spock seemed the logical choice.

And it retains a special place in my heart.

“I have been, and always shall be, your friend…”

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Harve Bennett, khan, kirk, Klingon, Leonard Nimoy, Romulan, spock, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, star trek iv the voyage home, Star Trek Original Series, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, star trek vi: the undiscovered country, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, star trek: the original series, StarTrek | 7 Comments »

Star Trek (DC Comics, 1984) #7-8 – Saavik’s Story (Review)

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the movies with tie-ins around (and related to) the films. We’ll be doing one of these every week day. This is one such article.

Star Trek comics are an interesting way of catching a glimpse at the franchise one-step away from the heart of production. While there are other forms of tie-in media, comics are produced on a monthly schedule. While scripts need to be written and art needs to be drawn, there’s less lead-in time required, meaning that contemporary Star Trek comics are often able to react dynamically to on-screen events. While novels might take up to a year from original pitch to the time they hit the stands, there’s something rather more urgent about tie-in comic books.

This is an issue for many tie-ins comics. For example, the syndicated Star Trek newspaper strip launched shortly before the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture made a point to feature Ilia as a bridge officer on a relaunched USS Enterprise. She rather suddenly disappeared after those involved actually saw the movie and realised that she didn’t quite survive the adventure. Similarly, when it came to detailing the adventures of Kirk and company in the wake of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, writer Mike W. Barr moved the crew over to the USS Excelsior, in accordance with writer Harve Bennett’s original plan.

That said, Mike W. Barr’s comic book origin story for Lt. Saavik holds up rather well, fitting quite comfortably with Carolyn Clowes’ origin for the character offered in the superb 1990 book The Pandora Principle. Of course, Barr’s origin sketches the broadest of outlines, and is clearly more preoccupied with crafting a pulpy space opera adventure.

Saving Saavik!

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Filed under: Comics, The Original Series | Tagged: DataTrak International Inc., Klingon, Lieutenant commander, Mike W. Barr, Motion Picture - Star Trek, Redemption (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Romulan, Saavik, Sarek, spock, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, Star Trek Online, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, Trek | 4 Comments »

Star Trek – Errand of Mercy (Review)

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Star Trek: Into Darkness this month, we’ll be running through the first season of the classic Star Trek all this month. Check back daily to get ready to boldly go. It’s only logical.

Ah, Klingons. It feels strange to think that we’re almost at the end of the show’s first year and that we’re only meeting the franchise’s most famous aliens now. More than that, in the original version of the show, their distinctive model space ships didn’t appear until the third season, in Elaan of Troyius, the same episode where their iconic imperial crest appeared. They wouldn’t get their bumpy foreheads for over a decade, until Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And a lot of what we’d take for granted about Klingon culture would only be established in the tie-in novel The Final Reflection and later in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Still, Errand of Mercy welcomes the Klingons to the franchise, and offers a demonstration of why the aliens had such staying power. It’s also a rather wonderful Cold War analogy, feeling like something of a companion piece to Gene L. Coon’s A Taste of Armageddon.

I bet a lot of people were surprised that they could Klingon to their reputation as Star Trek’s top alien for so long…

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: A Taste of Armageddon, Errand of Mercy, Federation, James Blish, John Colicos, john f kennedy, kirk, Klingon, Peace, Peace Corps, Romulan, Rudyard Kipling, star trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, StarTrek, Trek, United States | 6 Comments »

Star Trek – The Final Reflection by John M. Ford (Review)

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

The Final Reflection was written in 1984. Development on Star Trek: The Next Generation would only be announced in 1986. Sure, there were a bunch of successful movies being produced, but these only amounted to a couple of hours of Star Trek once every few years. And, even then, the movies were aimed at a much broader audience, without the same development and continuity that a television show could offer. Not that Star Trek ever really had that tight a sense of continuity, of course, but it must have seemed unlikely that things could ever go back to the way they had been. Certainly, in 1984, nobody could have anticipated the eighteen-straight years of Star Trek running from Encounter at Farpoint to These Are the Voyages.

As a result, fans had to look to other avenues to expand and develop the rich Star Trek universe. The novels were one such avenue, although they developed slowly. Mission to Horatius had been published while the show was on the air, but it was very clearly aimed at a younger audience. Spock Must Die! would be published in 1970. However, the spin-off fiction developed relatively slowly. Star Trek had yet to become a massive franchise with tie-in multimedia commercial opportunities.

Perhaps because the Star Trek novels had not quite turned into a massive franchising opportunity, and they weren’t under the same level of publicity or scrutiny that they would be in the years to come, writer John M. Ford was able to do something quietly revolutionary with his first Star Trek novel, The Final Reflection. He was able to venture away from our core cast of iconic characters and instead develop the Klingon Empire.

More than that, though, he was able to paint the Klingons as the good guys.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Delta ray, Encounter at Farpoint, Federation, Final Reflection, Janice Rand, John M. Ford, kirk, Klingon, Romulan, spock, star trek, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek vi: the undiscovered country, star trek: deep space nine, Vulcans | 3 Comments »

Star Trek – Romulans: Pawns of War by John Byrne (Review)

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

Where were the Klingons? That seems to be one of the most frequently asked questions when a modern writer re-visits the early part of the first season of Star Trek. It makes sense. The Klingons are the franchise’s flagship aliens, and their long-term relations with the Federation mark one of the show’s earliest examples of continuity. The Organian Peace Treaty from Errand of Mercy is mentioned once or twice, but it informs a lot of the appearances of the Klingons in the classic Star Trek, as the warriors are prevented from engaging in direct warfare with the Federation.

However, when first introduced in Errand of Mercy, towards the end of the first season, the Klingons have just declared war on the Federation. However, it seems like this has been expected for a long time. Kirk speaks of the Klingons like old enemies. Kor knows that captain of the Enterprise by name. There’s a sense of a pre-established history, which makes their appearance towards the tale-end of the season all the more perplexing. Apparently they have been there all along, even if we haven’t seen them before.

John Byrne’s Alien Spotlight issue might have been themed around the Romulans, and the collected edition might be Romulans: Pawns of War, but it seems more devoted to exploring what exactly the Klingons were up to behind the scenes between their appearances on Star Trek.