(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Star Trek open thread: seeing the 1973 animated series through modern eyes [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-06-24 It’s easy to dismiss “new Star Trek” as a soulless cash grab. People want more Star Trek, but they’re more particular as to what they’ll accept as valid Star Trek than the studio executives would like. Plus, with the rise of ChatGPT, there is the worry that the Star Trek franchise might be more susceptible than other franchises to replacing human writers with large language model artificial intelligence. Visually, these new movies and TV series are unquestionably superior to the classic series and movies. In terms of storytelling, however, Star Trek fans don’t quite agree. The writers of Star Trek: Discovery have done a good job of crafting each season to set up a mystery that isn’t resolved until the end of the season, keeping viewers hooked through a binge. But after watching these episodes once, I haven’t felt the inclination to watch any of them a second time. That seems to be the goal: get viewers to binge, and don’t worry whether the storylines are anything anyone would care to revisit later. From the beginning, Discovery was meant as a hook to get Star Trek fans to sign up for CBS All Access (now Paramount+). The CBS executives seemed to think that Star Trek fans will pay anything for Star Trek, and accept whatever the studio gives. Despite his lofty ideals for the abolition of money, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was not averse to the occasional cash grab himself. Perhaps the most infamous example of this was when he tried to sell Vulcan jewelry. Runner up was the time he added lyrics to Alexander Courage’s music for the opening credits of Star Trek so he could get half the royalties. Doing an animated series based on Star Trek was also a cash grab. Even before Star Trek was canceled in 1969, it had already become a cult hit. By 1973, Roddenberry saw a way to make a quick buck with an animated series that would be produced on a shoestring budget. Enter Filmation, an animated studio that delivered adequate results on time and on budget by keeping the frame rate low and aggressively reusing previously animated visuals and recorded music cues. Aside from the theme music, there were at least three music cues that were used in every single episode: “Evasive Maneuvers” — Used whenever something strange but not necessarily threatening showed up “Fire Phasers” — Used for when the Enterprise is dealing with a situation, regardless of whether or not phasers are fired “Enterprise Attacked” — Used to signify an active threat. This cue begins with a menacing fanfare, followed by a striving ostinato Thus there was no need to write new music for each episode. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good music in my opinion, somehow manages to be both jazzy and operatic. And to be fair, there was a little bit of that in the original series, e.g., the music for the Vulcan duel in “Amok Time” was recycled in a few later episodes for other violent situations (so far on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, that music has only been used for its specific original significance). This kind of musical recycling was also a common practice on The Rat Patrol (a live action cartoon about World War II) and later cartoons like G. I. Joe and Transformers. There was money in the Star Trek budget to pay most of the core cast of the original series to reprise their rôles as voice actors on the animated series, and also for the occasional guest star. But Filmation producer Lou Scheimer took it upon himself to voice some additional characters. Anne Nored (left, voiced by Nichelle Nichols) and Carter Winston (voiced by Ted Knight) in the episode "The Survivor." To the producers’ credit, they added a couple of recurring characters to take advantage of the animated medium, characters that would have been awkward for the live action series: the feline Lt. M’Ress (voiced by Majel Barrett, who also voiced the Enterprise computer) and the three-armed and three-legged Lt. Arex (voiced by James Doohan, who also voiced Lt. Commander Scott and several one-off characters). After the success of the first batch of Star Trek movies and Star Trek: The Next Generation, Roddenberry started to regret certain elements of the animated series, and declared it to not be canon. He regretted not making it more consistent with the larger Star Trek continuity. And yet, later Star Trek series “canonized” certain elements of the animated series, in particular the episode “Yesteryear,” which fills in a lot of information about Spock’s childhood. Other noteworthy episodes include: “The Lorelei Signal,” in which it’s up to the women of the Enterprise to save the men from sirens. “Mudd’s Passion,” in which Harry Mudd (Roger C. Carmel) sells Nurse Chapel a love crystal which she uses on Spock. Having seen the first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, it would be interesting to revisit this episode. “The Terratin Incident,” in which the crew of the Enterprise shrink to the size of action figures. “The Jihad,” noteworthy in part for its title, but also for a subtle challenge to gender norms. “Bem,” in which a strange alien is able to separate his body into three parts. “The Practical Joker,” which introduced the holodeck, though not by that name. As for “More Tribbles, More Troubles,” I’m not sure if it really adds anything besides rehashing the classic “The Trouble with Tribbles.” Compared to the newer animated Star Trek series, Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy, and giving a handicap for the lower video resolution, the 1973 animated series is objectively an inferior production. And yet, the series has a charm that has earned it affectionate parodies in the form of a demo for its Star Trek: The Next Generation counterpart... ...and Star Trek: Voyager counterpart. The open thread question: what is your opinion of the 1973 animated Star Trek series in relation to newer Star Trek shows? 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