io9 
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San Francisco, 9:03 PM
Fri Dec 11
30 posts in the last 24 hours
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08:18 PM
07:58 PM
But the best part was that despite all this awesome, the resolution came down to philosophy and psychoanalysis. Hell, the whole battle can be said to be a cosmic-scale intervention. "You guys are being total dicks and hurting the ones you profess to love. Quit it."
Although, the scenes of the Battle of the Line in the B5 prequel movie were wondrous just for the sheer NUMBER of ships on screen.
06:29 PM
Mostly really good characters who evolved nicely over time. Garrick, Worf and Dax especially.
They took weaknesses like the Ferengi and the fact that they never went anywhere and turned them into strengths.
Some really good early Ron Moore exploring the importance of religion.
Great huge fleet actions like you showed above.
Sure, it wasn't perfect but it was really darn good.
06:32 PM
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06:38 PM
I've always thought that it was the Trek that "got it". The right mix of drama, action, humour and darkness, plus good characters, writing and storylines.
Plus I had (have) a huge crush on Dr. Julian Bashir.
06:41 PM
06:43 PM
@Xicer: I dunno. It seems that whenever I claim that DS9 was the best of Trek, I get a lot of backlash. Don't know why.
@Ghost_in_the_Machine: That was one of the things I liked about it most. They used money. They got involved in local politics. they made deals with the devil because they had no other choice and the might of the federation was too far away to give them choices. All sorts of things that Kirk and Picard would never think of.
06:45 PM
06:51 PM
I always liked the fact that they weren't afraid to show the Federation getting their butts kicked every now and then.
07:14 PM
07:30 PM
That said. I am a staunch detractor of DS9. I could explain why but it all boils down to: I never gave it a chance (on principle alone) and so the window of opportunity is pressure welded shut with rust and failure.
Plus Odo. *shivers*
07:47 PM
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07:58 PM
@Howard Blair: It's so nice to be on a site where we can talk about this stuff without invoking godwin's rule or calling each other gay. I agree Sisko was weak, but it was such an ensemble show that the other characters picked up the slack - again turning weakness into strength. Not only do I disagree that this was the worst, I don't even agree that "Enterprise" was the worst. I enjoyed it. By far and away the worst Trek was "Voyager." After the finale I turned to my wife and said "Thank god that's over."
The official Dr Eilio Lizardo ranking of trek (tm) goes:
DS9
TOS
TNG
Enterprise
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Voyagerr
08:08 PM
I loved the relationships that developed over the course of the series. It wasn't a 'we're the main characters so we all know each other.' Bashir and Garrick, Bashir and O'brian, the intense and fairly complicated relationship between Sisko and Dukat...
To say nothing of the character arcs. I'm thinking specifically of Dumar here. What a complete and total tool that guy was... and look where he ended up.
08:14 PM
08:16 PM
08:18 PM
Ugh, so many typos. Time to go read "Santa Olivia" for #io9Bookclub, then to bed.
This has been a lot of fun.
06:17 PM
Some of those battles would have been the best *film* battles had they been on the big screen.
06:05 PM
Anyway, I never got to see the rest of the show. So that clip of that battle was awesome!! LOL
...and wasn't that, ummmmm, Nog's son? Not sure if I got the name right. Quark's brother's kid? Wearing a Starfleet uniform? Damn, I always heard Deep Space 9 got really, really good - someday I hope to watch all those other seasons I missed. :)
05:36 PM
As cheap as B5's SFX were (especially S1), they showed actual damage to the ships instead of shield flare and the actors diving in one direction.
As for Space 1999's "dogfights", they were pretty mundane. Turn left. Turn Right. Eagle and/or alien Explodes.
05:38 PM
05:40 PM
Good point. I remember they were very fond of Conservation of Momentum.
11/24/09
11/24/09
For some stupid reason, they were always very divisive among the fans, but I thought they were excellent, especially once they got to the Sentinels books (which were MUCH better IMO than Carl Macek's goofy story-sketch he had for that ill-fated series).
11/24/09
11/25/09
11/24/09
The novels anymore are just
"What can we take away from the main cast, without killing any original cast, to create more drama?"
11/24/09
Still, other than the whole Killiks/Joiner debacle (those were painful to read), I've rather enjoyed the extension of the franchise in a logical path that the novels have taken since Zahn's original trilogy.
The focus is getting more and more onto the next generation of characters, including Ben Skywlaker and Jaina Solo, plus a number of other characters introduced into the mix from various sources: Corran & Mirax Horn and their kids, Jag Fel, Chief of State Daala, etc
11/24/09
I've enjoyed them too, but there is definitely a lot that could be done if a newgroup was allowed to take a swing at the franchise.
Also, Chewbacca was ultimately expendable, and is the only one to die out of all the books.
Currently, Luke, Leia, and Han still have a very big role in the stories being told, despite their age, and if that's what people want, elt them do a reboot.
Hell, even Boba Fett still gets notice.
#speakup
11/24/09
I would however like the focus to shift away from the movie characters. Del Rey keeps using the argument of '60 is the new 40' but that's just lazy IMO. However we are getting more standalones focusing on minor characters, like the upcoming novel Crosscurrent which takes place shortly after Legacy of the Force and focuses on Jaden Korr, a video game character and Jedi Knight of the younger generation.
11/24/09
I have no idea what Del Ray is going to do after they advance the story another 10-15 years. Besides having at least two massive galactic conflicts during that time.
#speakup
11/25/09
11/25/09
It's far from the same, and as much a reboot as any of the standalone novels or comics were.
Oh well. I've read most all of the books and comics, but I think it would be really itneresting to see a new group of authors take a stab at the series.
#speakup
11/24/09
Tie-in work in general so rarely gets the love it deserves...since io9 has been talking a lot lately about the "ghetto" SF lives in, it's important to note that many fans (unfortunately) place tie-ins in the ghetto's ghetto.
You've definitely covered all the major arcs in tie-in history, I think, and I appreciate that you addressed canonicity in a couple of places--it's a very common debate for fans (especially in the differences between how Star Trek and Star Wars officially deal with it) which probably deserves a post of its own. #canon #continuity
(Given that Greg Bear had already written a Star Trek novel in the Eighties, people shouldn't have been that surprised about the Halo novel, though. ;))
11/24/09
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11/24/09
Second, John M. Ford -- a couple of people have mentioned his Star Trek tie-in "How Much for Just the Planet," but there's another, "The Final Reflection," that does for the Klingons what Diane Duane does for the Romulans, and is a pretty fine s-f novel in its own right.
11/24/09
When the movie came out, I desperately wanted to see it but knew there was no hope since it was rated R and I was 11. So I picked up the book instead.
What a beautiful mindfuck that book was for an 11 year old. It was essentially proto-cyberpunk, painting out a broken dystopian America, with this almost unrelenting bleakness. The wasteland of New York City described in such intense detail. If I had nightmares, I would be dreaming of the drumming of the crazies in the underground tunnels, their minds blown to criminal depths by the widespread use of chemical weapons.
The book has one of the best cityscapes in the long history of dystopian sci-fi. Everything described in beautiful detail, from the zombie-esque crazies underground, to the feudalistic structure of the ruling gangs, to the chaos of the government food drops in Central Park, to small sections of town where people vainly tried to emulate the peace and normality they once had, to the brutal measures taken by the government in processing the prisoners and keeping them from escaping.
The movie pales by comparison and I was deeply disappointed when I finally got a chance to see it.
11/24/09
I loved those books so much. I'm still irritated to this day that the subsequent TV shows and movies seemed to go out of their way to piss on Ford's take on Klingon culture and history.