Star Trekking Week: The Even & Odd Movies Rule of Star Trek Movies (with Trek Untold's Matthew Kaplowitz)

[00:00:00] We're the winners first here in the game, alright? And that didn't work out, but you can still spread it out to where it looked. You know, you can do the famous Vulcan phrase, but, um, yeah, no, you, you've been staying busy. I always blown away by every guess that you take on because again, you know, you strip away the costumes and shiny uniforms. And it's like, yeah, these guys have been breaking their back for who knows how

[00:01:43] many decades.

[00:01:44] And, uh, it's always interesting which ones have found.

[00:02:43] You know, it was like, those are the little guys who don't get enough credit. It was just like, yeah, they pitched that at a meeting and sold, who knows how many units of that

[00:02:48] product. And, you know, it started even weirder how it made merchandise after it was in

[00:02:53] this syndication, which is so weird since the market at that time was whatever's on, you know,

[00:03:00] yep, you make a figure now and it's like somehow it struck gold a second time.

[00:03:06] I mean, yeah, that's kind of the thing is the franchise, they kind of like understand, oh, this is what this means to so many people. Now I get it. And now they have that respect for the franchise and for Star Trek and for Star Trek fans. And it's really cool to see like the majority of the people who I've talked to and the majority people who I've met who are involved in Trek at any level, you know, they might not call themselves hardcore Trekkies, but they appreciate it. They appreciate the fans. And they are

[00:04:24] among the friendliest people that you could possibly Tom Ben-Frank's. But for those who don't know, yes, William Shatner decided, hey, how about I make some extra bank and bring Kirk, I have him still be alive in the Nexus monstrosity at the end

[00:05:40] of generations and they got to save him.

[00:05:42] And then we're going to have Mearspog and other sorts of stuff that the card and company

[00:05:46] got to my.

[00:07:05] Um, and you've said at length, you know, just how you got into track before. And it's just, it's really just catchy how it went.

[00:08:01] Absolutely.

[00:08:04] No, that that's just well, and.

[00:08:08] I'm sorry, I'm in a lot of words, but that's cool to just.

[00:08:18] Be able to break them down and just say, hey, you know, we want to talk to you more than just about, hey, what is probably one of the many guests, spots that comes up first on your resume.

[00:08:20] Yeah, exactly. I do your homework.

[00:08:21] That's that's the key.

[00:08:23] Totally.

[00:09:25] movies both reignited the franchise and still kind of felt less track or something. And in this case now we're just like, okay, so when did the odd and even number rule kind

[00:09:31] of become a thing?

[00:09:33] Because that still is a thing and people have tried to justify it even though there's plenty

[00:09:37] who seem to like, you know, search for Spock and even generations and nemesis.

[00:09:46] So, or no, actually not. Yeah, and you know, with the Star Trek movies, I feel like at a certain point they kind of had some ideas of where they were going, but then they just kept going and they kept going. And it's not a bad thing ultimately because it did lead to ultimately the next generation kicking off because they were still popularity around the series and a demand for it. But yeah, there definitely was a point where they're like, okay, well, let's let Shatter

[00:11:00] direct a movie and that's kind of the moment where they're like, okay, we really have no

[00:11:02] direction to this point. So that's really a best case scenario because ultimately it meant that there was more time to fine tune it. Many years later into an era where there's better special effects and better actors and better everything really. And that was essentially, you know, phase two was the precursor to TNG.

[00:12:20] Yeah.

[00:12:25] And it's even funnier just seeing even kind of the producing team. Are you team Rotterraire?

[00:12:26] You team Hard Bennett or you team with Birmingham. Oh, now I'm a fan. And it's kind of slowly spreads and trickles down after a while. I mean, even people who never kept up with it, I think they all kind of get general references. It's funny just even just seeing TV buffs who may be seen maybe, I don't know, 10 episodes. And that was enough from it. And they instantly understand.

[00:13:40] Oh, yeah.

[00:13:40] Yeah.

[00:13:40] No, OK, the overacting captain.

[00:13:42] That's a shot in a reference.

[00:13:43] Oh, the guy with ears.

[00:13:44] That's a Spock reference.

[00:13:45] Oh, man, a robot who's trying to be human.

[00:13:48] That's a data. Yeah, but yeah, you could put galaxy quest definitely in there. And I have seen people try and put it in there as a replacement Friday or five or even one of the later movies. Uh, which one do you think just like universally accepted? You very rarely see anyone come up and say, okay, it's been 20 years. It doesn't hold up or.

[00:15:03] I think the only answer to that is wrath of con.

[00:15:08] Star Trek two is absolutely the one film where like it will never be looked upon in a bad light.

[00:16:05] elements. Star Trek II, they came back and they made drastic changes mostly because it was held by Nicholas Meyer. And as the story goes, the man did not like Star Trek. He

[00:16:09] really didn't watch any Star Trek didn't care about Star Trek. And honestly, that kind

[00:16:13] of opened them up to a wider world, you know, another franchise is it's a negative thing

[00:16:18] to have somebody doesn't know what they're talking about or not a fan these things. But

[00:16:21] luckily, the stars aligned. And somehow, everyone's actually really good. Yeah, it's very 2001. Esc. It's just the minute they take off and go into space that it falls apart. Cause everything up until then was actually pretty good at riveting and well paced. It's just the minute that they go out and they leave space dock and they do that like warp thing where all time in space starts like stretching. It's such like that's when they're just kills momentum

[00:17:41] dead in its tracks. Yeah, which is ironic. Cause it's supposed my watch, you know, like there was actual intent in what they did with alien whereas in Star Trek, the motion picture, maybe they got too wrapped up in some of the space jargon and all the protocol and it just took to learn to get there. So one, no, three, I'd say probably gets unfairly maligned off. So three is pretty good. Three is not that bad. I mean, it's not as good. It's definitely not as good as two.

[00:19:01] Definitely.

[00:19:02] It's not like to follow, but I mean, yeah, um, there are people don't like it. They are they are wrong, but they're allowed to have their opinion. It's definitely, you know, it's, I think the youth today would call it cringe, I believe. I think that's the technical term for it. And, uh, there definitely is some, some humor that is cringy, but I mean, that was the time. It's what they did. And it is kind of meta before it's meta because it was

[00:20:20] bringing Star Trek into modern day and that was a risk to do, but they,

[00:20:24] they pulled it off and they pulled off in a fun way that that's really helped,

[00:21:22] very long episode, definitely a two-parter. And that's not a bad thing.

[00:21:23] I think just folks at the time really wanted to be bigger

[00:21:25] and they wanted to feel more like a movie

[00:21:27] and wasn't quite there.

[00:21:29] But I think-

[00:21:30] I think you're with a 50-year-old, your journey.

[00:21:32] Yeah.

[00:21:33] I just love how it's like spiders like rove nemesis.

[00:21:37] He's like, that's my baby.

[00:21:38] And that was the one that divided next to fans even more

[00:21:41] and he hates insurrection because he's barely in it.

[00:21:43] I'm like, really?

[00:21:44] Dude, you literally start off the movie going berserk.

[00:21:48] I mean, personally, one of got, I do like how some Reddit guys have joked is like this is both bad and first contact is where Picard all of a sudden becomes Joe McLean in space. I mean, they did that before with Starship mine in TNG stuff either.

[00:23:03] Yeah, mine was definitely how the beginning ofylands of Big Baddy. But again, it's a fairly dark movie in its tone and what's happening in it. And yeah, insurrection had that kind of was using that as the guideline. They kept going with that idea. And it's not terrible. It's definitely not terrible, but it's the kind of movie where

[00:24:22] I could definitely skip the first 30, 40 minutes, so pretty much totally. It's just it blows your mind a little bit. They get their own corners as opposed to, you know, like a

[00:25:40] typical Western or detective show, which the around an average

[00:25:45] episode would be where it's like, how we're going to get to that home run and how we're going to make it interesting without being repetitive. And it's like, I do kind of wish that was still kind of the morale is like, you know, what you want, and how you're going to get it. But how can you create all these other obstacles and make just a fun resolution. And instruction does its best to find that it definitely does. It

[00:27:01] gives us a lot of resolutions. I mean, like we already talked about

[00:27:04] in depth, I feel like, know what the best solution would have been, other than just like really different clothes or than just looking more different. It's the problem you're running to with the aliens is you do need to make them look the different. I mean, if we're going to go into a different genre altogether, I mean, look at anime and how they, you know, all generally, I think most particularly characters will have some more facial designs across the board,

[00:28:22] but it's how they dress and what their hair looks like that.

[00:28:24] Really make sure you can tell apart who they are.

[00:28:27] You know, like Dragon Ball as a franchise is a great example It kind of needed to be flushed up maybe a little more, maybe established a little bit better as the film went on. Yeah, I mean, it seemed like he was just, they just changed the last minute because they're like, well, if you don't make him this way, then he'll just be a body show that Picard or Fuses is used. Yeah, exactly. So, which, so parts five and 10.

[00:29:42] And I know we're kind of, we're both not big on beyond.

[00:29:46] It seems like those's kind of forgotten by Trek fans. I think five is the universally maligned film for so many, many reasons. And they're all well deserving. I mean, Chatter Direct was not a good idea.

[00:31:02] Hell, a shot and he kind of just stayed in that way. I mean,

[00:31:05] ever since he did a lot of course, de force Kelly nailed it. Like that scene was great.

[00:33:21] get that dispenser man.

[00:33:25] And Star Trek five was kind of the beginning of Shatner again, not just the, the dislike amongst his fellow crew members, but also just like Shatner being like,

[00:33:30] having his head inflated even bigger at a new level that it's head.

[00:33:32] It was never previously inflated at. So for Star Trek five, he wanted everything

[00:33:35] to be different. He wanted to be his great piece of achievement.

[00:33:38] And so in doing so, he wanted everything to be quote unquote unique.

[00:33:42] And in doing so, that really just meant having his interests beyond display so

[00:33:46] that he could show off. I mean, that's Oh, man. Oh, man. So when, uh, when movie 10 came out, I did see some people who saw it just because like their parents were track heads and or because it was very much it looked like everything else that was out at that time with matrices and Lord rings similarly, there's lines also an insurrection about, you know, like, that are just kind of creepy, you know, that the women say we're not going to go into that. I feel like on this show, just keep it safe and PG ish. Yeah, I get it. No, there's definitely some things that are that are creepy and that were creepy for the era. It's not like it's a thing that doesn't age well today for folks. It might be those kinds of people.

[00:36:21] At the time, it was still also pretty cringy and a very bad light.

[00:36:25] And yeah, yeah, the film has a lot of that.

[00:37:26] trying to get too much done and they just needed a movie to just much like the motion picture. They just needed a test run.

[00:37:29] I mean, generations is very bland. There's no denying that it's bland. It's very safe.

[00:37:35] Is it watchable? Yeah, but you got to be in the mindset to sit through it because it

[00:37:39] is very slow. It's very vanilla. It's a lot of ups and downs and I'll have extreme up

[00:37:44] and downs and it's not that it's bad really stories about Shander. I'm going to leave it at that. John Ben Zite. Okay. Nice. So we'll really see. Yeah, John Putch who's now got on to actually continue to be a director. He's actually directed a bunch of movies with Freix as an actor,

[00:39:03] which is kind of fun. So he's gotten quite a career beyond acting. But yeah,

[00:40:02] This is why your audience should be happy. We didn't go down the entire Shatner book series because, oh man, we'd be crying.

[00:40:06] Your audience would just be cutting off their ears.

[00:40:08] Maybe.

[00:40:09] And what's weird though, is I brought it up in a few groups and I saw so many people

[00:40:13] just oblivious to the camp.

[00:40:15] They're like, oh, oh, oh, it was good.

[00:40:16] I'm like, OK, you can die on loan on that mountain.

[00:40:21] We'll return after these messages.

[00:40:24] Hey, it's Brent Pope, the host of Brentfist with Brent Pope. steak versus the iron giant classic matchups like Robocop versus Terminator and even the Muppets versus Sesame Street. That one was crazy. So if you're a fan of geek culture and love a spirited debate, check out the Who Would Win show wherever you get your podcasts or check us out at who would win show dot com. Well, camp is only good for so long.

[00:41:40] But if you just keep going, it's all good.

[00:41:42] It's like, well, it's kind of not all good.

[00:41:44] I didn't really solve anything.

[00:41:46] Yeah, that is exactly right. Then we got to the final season. And then we got to the final season. And it's no 24. Sopranos for him like, how did you guys just go out of your way to piss off your fans? But I'll say this about Game of Thrones and why I'm like using this as my example, because, you know, I can now watch the final season of Game of Thrones and enjoy it a

[00:43:00] lot more because now I know what's coming for me.

[00:43:03] So I know like, okay, after this episode, it's all downhill.

[00:43:07] And I know now.

[00:44:02] first film. But yeah, I mean, the first one is barely even really about him because it's kind of meant to be, you know,

[00:44:04] that was Shatter's original, passing the torch to Stephen

[00:44:06] Collins, that didn't work out.

[00:44:09] The odd even rule, it doesn't really mean as much anymore,

[00:44:11] because now we can go back and we can watch Star Trek 3 and

[00:44:14] enjoy it because it's kind of silly campy Christopher Lloyd

[00:44:17] Klingon fun. And there's other things to enjoy from it. Like,

[00:44:20] hey, now we know John Larrichette was it? And we know who

[00:44:21] John Larrichette is now.

[00:44:24] Star Trek 5 is still bad.

[00:44:26] And the future go.

[00:45:23] see this, I didn't get it. I don't like this because not what my headcanon was.

[00:45:27] Right. So I see people even say that after they've risked just walking part for you don't even need the last 20 minutes. I was like, well, interesting.

[00:45:31] I kind of want to see him be brought back to life. But I guess it does drag.

[00:45:33] I guess if I really watch it, yeah, honestly, it didn't need to go as long as

[00:45:37] a day. I mean, I guess it was the culmination of him getting his

[00:45:40] katra back from McCoy. And it helped set up, I guess, the future that they're

[00:45:44] planning a fourth movie, whatever that fourth movie was going to be at the time.

[00:45:47] And I can understand why at the just, you know, with this movie special on section 31 coming out with Michelle, you know, reprising her discovery character, what do you think that'll rank in the movies or it would just be just kind of like best of both worlds were just

[00:47:01] added together as one epic, you know, two part special.

[00:47:05] I guess we're on the wait and see really, you know, I'm kind much the same. I hope they deliver kind of another conspiracy plot kind of like on discovered country or Picard and don't do like to say just special forces aliens and predator in space. And it's like, yeah, okay, we already see enough of that strange new world. It's like literally the gourd are talking like the predator creature and kind of like alien where they, you know, latch on to you.

[00:48:21] So.

[00:48:22] I mean, like what I would like, well, no, I don't want to say what I'd love to see, but All together. Which one do you think will actually make like the top? If they were to do the IMDB top 250, which one do you think would go in there? You think it'd be for scondag or con. Definitely con because con influence, some of the other things after it. And con really was the hard reset.

[00:49:42] The motion picture was like I said, it was a classic. It's already been on TCM. Oh, really? I believe it has. Yeah. I think it's the only one to get that treatment so far. Wow. I could be wrong on that, but, you know, for the most part, either way, it doesn't matter. Cause I promise you it will end up there. If eventually the dragon has made it onto TCM, then Rathecon is not far behind it.

[00:51:03] And

[00:52:01] Colombo and Star Trek having a baby, right? Yeah, yeah.

[00:52:02] Murder she wrote in space.

[00:52:04] And I always see people call it the Scooby-Doo plot twist.

[00:52:08] I'm like, well, see, there's so many rewrites

[00:52:10] trying to make everybody happy.

[00:52:12] Vermin, Ron Berry on his dying bed,

[00:52:16] and just test screenings for the audience.

[00:52:20] And it is so wild too.

[00:52:21] Well, Bernie Albert Jonas is playing one of the crooked admirals

[00:52:25] just as a Klingon assassin.

[00:52:26] It's just so funny how for years, But yeah, he, if anything, Tony Giroi is kind of doing a similar thing by joining the Star Wars saga. He's not trying to make a Star Wars entry. He's trying to make a spy movie that. They started out saying, Hey, it's probably the best of the new ones. And then they just find something is like, when there's a pothole in the road, you drive around instead of just sitting there complaining at it, damn, you rode, why won't you fix yourself?

[00:55:02] And I feel like it's a whole other tangent. We can go on and do

[00:55:04] if we want to do a strange pop in that one. D. S. I got a so here's like the entire time you're like, hmm, this is kind of a typical and seriously. Where do I know that? I wouldn't mind seeing David Spade as a fringy. Now that would be a fringy. Whoa. Okay. Yeah. You know what? I'm gonna add Jack Black to this list.

[00:56:22] Yeah. Oh, with that or do you remember that first season episode next gen where, uh, the style of robot chicken and just with even more sarcasm like but it'd be essentially like lower decks where you're canon but you're also in animated form just mocking everyone's like hey seriously why do we pull our you know village shirts down like this it makes no sense. Just something we did and we kept doing it until the show ended.

[00:57:40] Because the only way to adjust anything in those outfits. This has been a delight my dude and a long time in the making and any characters you'd like to see more of before this should promote more. I mean, as far as strange new worlds go and really any of the other shows coming up, I'm open to anybody really. I mean, it's a big universe. There's plenty of folks we don't know yet.

[00:59:01] Of course, I wouldn't mind seeing more Franky though.

[00:59:03] I would like to have more Frank Hans Gruber equivalent. We kind of have yet to see that. I guess with some of the British villains, you kind of get that, especially with Christopher Plummer, but it would have been so awesome to just see someone who had kind of a twisted comic book plan. They could probably embrace that or video game and other Apple

[01:00:22] Microsoft looking technology that they already predicted, but we haven't really seen too much of what the actual bureaucratic nonsense is like.

[01:01:40] It's like, it's normally networks. So they give Stacy Abrams an editor excuse to get her sag card.

[01:02:42] like enjoy the ride. You'll be forgotten soon.

[01:02:46] As we launch down or off into space. Yeah, you write. That's kind of one thing I will respect him for.

[01:02:50] It was like, at least he could actually say, you know, he didn't captain a ship,

[01:02:54] but he at least cruised through there and went old method acting. But at the same time,

[01:02:58] it's like, why did it take you 30 years to do that shit to me?

[01:03:03] I mean, as of now, he's the only living starfully captain going to space, though.

[01:03:06] So that's that's a heck of an achievement. It can't take that away. out there so we better go beyond our solar system. I do wonder what some of the writers will do next. I did hear a recent inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum where Katie Sakoff said she wanted to reunite with Ronald D. Moore and it didn't even have to be sci-fi. I've heard rumors about what Nair and Shankar who wrote some of the best episodes of the Outer Limits and the show on Expanse but before that he

[01:04:22] wrote a lot of the data-centric episodes and I do wonder what their next pet project would be

[01:05:21] alone for whatever reason. And they can even wait two years before they even renew you

[01:05:24] instead of pulling a Netflix and saying,

[01:05:25] guess what, guys, we're just as bad as the networks.

[01:05:28] Exactly.

[01:05:29] Yeah, there's more freedom to do things.

[01:05:31] And you're not necessarily taking your time,

[01:05:32] but you have a captive audience when

[01:05:34] you're on a streaming platform.

[01:05:35] Oh, Dolly.

[01:05:36] And I hope IMDb can just maybe, I don't know,

[01:05:42] have a 72-hour delay on reviews, because it does seem like, Yeah. Yes. He'd probably do it and he'd probably be bearded up. I also forget Adam Scott was in Star Trek. He was in first contact. He was and what's funny is he's also in Hellraiser for that same year. And I'm surprised no one has found that that plot is surprisingly very similar to first contact. They're encountering some ancestors going back in time just to

[01:07:02] stop the evil, let alone how the intentional. Like, a lot of it was productions that were for Warner Brothers and Fox that were by Joel Silver and writer, Stevie Nee just Suza and Valverde first appeared in the movie Predator. It was on name. I was kind of mentioned the novelization and as well as spinoff material, like the video

[01:08:22] games and comic books. And Edward James, almost and Ronald D Moore are such big fans of Blade Runner, let alone how almost was in that, that they used the same guns and used a lot of same dialect implying that Blade Runner and Battlestar are in the same universe. So yeah, and then Firefly has its own Easter eggs as well. So it's just, it's an interesting one because for the most part, when you look back at it, you're like,

[01:09:43] you know what, that's actually pretty fucking a cool universe that they got there. You know, we never know where it's going to go. And the fan base always varies, but at the end of the day, I don't think anyone regrets being part of it. So no, never heard a single person who's ever been like, man, I wish I didn't do Star Trek. I've never seen anyone say I threw away my action figures. Almost all of them pretty much gave it to their nephews or had it as kind of funny using just riff.

[01:11:03] You know, I see so many Halloween fans

[01:11:05] want to argue for days and Star Wars guys just Oh man. As Fleetwood Max said you can go your own way. There's a landslide of Star Trek to be watched. Took my phaser through it away.

[01:12:22] That's the spot maneuver.

[01:12:24] I don't need a gun. of the story. So it's pretty cool to hear that. And that's what I've been trying to do with the show is get a good mix of folks who you know, who've seen a lot of things and you've heard before, but others who've never heard at all from so there's going to be more of that. And you know, I've still got episodes right now going through the summer, there'll be more throughout the summer and starting with some more in the fall. We never stop. So for anybody who wants to listen to some truck and told or watch truck and told, the show is available on all major audio platforms, whether

[01:13:44] you got Apple podcasts or Google podcast or Spotify or Aud start there and build your way up. That's pretty good. I'd open it up with you because, I mean, you don't

[01:15:03] overwhelm them. I can tell you just kind of prop them I see how the guest is feeling, how they want to do things and they kind of dictate how we move along. So that, that's kind of the key is, you know, you come in with what you want to do, but you got to be flexible to what they want to do. Absolutely. Well, and I applied you for just again, just climbing one mountain at a time

[01:16:22] and just making each one stand out in its own tropical way.

[01:16:26] So thank you. Thank you. I've climbed Mount Frank's so far. Now I've got