Gadgetory

welcome to the crave cast everyone i am your host eric mack live from cnet's desert planet Bureau I'd like to start by addressing all the members of Starfleet across the galaxy as you know Star Trek has been boldly going where no one has gone before for five decades now making it pretty remarkable that the venerable franchise has the energy to continue going so boldly and so we've gathered here to celebrate 50 years of all things Trek on the show today we're going to listen with envy about our colleague Amanda Kooser trip to the 50th anniversary Trek convention in vegas and will also be beaming in kelsey adams to share her thoughts on the evolution of the character of lieutenant Uhura Uhura with a dash of Trek history but first let's check in with the entire crew for today's voyage from the cnet Studios on earth it is GF sparkman and Steven Beecham and from an undisclosed location somewhere in the galaxy we've got Bonnie Burton and then from the Cray of satellite in the Albuquerque system it's Amanda Kooser how's everyone doing good well I'm regretting I didn't dress up at least like a Klingon at least like like or maybe just pretend I'm a robot that'll work right i rep Lee usually do we usually do um Jeff you you do have your Klingon outfit on right uh yeah but just the lower half so so like I said at the top there it is the the 50th anniversary this year of Star Trek a vaunted CBS property and Amanda you got to go to the 50th anniversary all the way out in Las Vegas it was your first convention and from reading what you wrote it seems like it was a touchstone moment a little bit emotional huh yeah it was a pretty momentous occasion for me I was a Star Trek fan from way back and as a kid I read there were such things of Star Trek conventions and dreamt that someday I would one of those and to finally get to one was yeah it was emotional I saw all the pretty much all the surviving original crew members and to see them up very close on stage discussing Star Trek topics was quite the thrill I have to say yeah there's that there's a photo we've got of you with George Takei you know Sulu what was that like was that a meet-and-greet where they were kind of shuffling everyone through did you get a chance to interact at all or what well that was a fun little little thing that happened and it was on a replica of the original Enterprise bridge which that alone was very thrilling but it was it was a pretty quick move through photo opportunity but I was that was the one day that I wore my complete Starfleet uniform my captain's uniform and I was I walked in and I was heading towards him and he looks over and he and he tells me and his wonderfully deep booming voice that my uniform is regulation but that my hair was not I just about melted right there that was fantastic for me but I also I don't think my hair is that much bigger than Janeway's was it sometimes so I don't know maybe I could get away with this in Starfleet I think it's pretty close so what were the other highlights for you well actually the other fans were a big part of it the costume contest was pretty spectacular there are people who have made a Horta the the creature from the original series that eats rocks and its babies are threatened using a mechanic's slide so this he had to lay down on the ground in order shuffle around in this costume a lot of people put in many many hours into making their Borg outfits and to making the crystalline entity from the next generation I mean the creativity level and the passion that went into these was really something to see and they had Robert Blackmon on the costume designers from Star Trek and they had a tarifa girl who was Dax on deep space 9 as guest judges so that that experience right there was pretty fantastic just beautiful beautiful work great creativity and so were you around for there was there was some discussion of the that the best and worst Trek episodes of all time were you were you there for that was that happening live yes I witnessed that which was I had my favorites for best and worst but I can't disagree with what they chose they went with my favorite for the best which is sitting on the edge of forever a bit of a time-travel episode from the original series still stands up it's a great one so that that one came in for the best episode I totally agree with that and as far as the worst episode goes that that sweet honor went to TV series enterprise which didn't last as long as some of our other Star Trek series longer than the original but only by a season but that series finale was it was a dog I mean they wrapped up the entire series with just a nightmare episode it's too bad cuz otherwise that season was pretty strong but so I can't disagree without in either though I was kind of rooting for her Spock's brain from the original series but I can understand why I didn't make the cut I think you and I and the rest of us are pretty much close to the to the same age maybe Stevens a little younger but like for me like the original Star Trek I know was before my time and it you know I'm really a TNG guy i mean that's that's the gold standard for me are we all like coming from that same place or no yeah i mean when i was a kid um the Star Trek animated series was kind of like but go to because it was like scooby-doo in space in a way um and it was just you know it was like that choppy animation and it was it was pretty bad but the storylines were really interesting um kind of like with a super spider man was it 1967 that animated series which I'm pretty sure the whole writers room was on LSD at that point um but when i interviewed george takei a long time ago when I worked at Lucasfilm because he was a clone wars character and I asked him about what it was like to film a character for the Clone Wars versus the Star Trek animated series and with the clone wars he was able to come in and they shoot it like a radio show they do that with Star Wars rebels as well where the whole cast is there and they can play off of each other but the star wars animated series they all came in individually I think a lot of that had to do with some animosity it was some of the cast members at that point um but he said it was like a totally different experience so when you watch that animated series just know that each actor was brought in separately instead of having it be done as a kind of a radio play but I loved TNG I mean I probably i would say Star Trek The Next Generation got me through college because instead of partying I would watch that and smoke and so I probably graduated on time because of that because of a card um and also I think I wrote my first slash fiction with the card and Riker I also had a very interesting erotica short story I wrote with Wesley and a gang of female Klingons so for Wesley Crusher oh and I interviewed a wil wheaton for cnet um about his time on TNG for i think it goes up tomorrow for our star trek coverage and it was really interesting to hear him talk about how he became kind of he grew up on that set you know he started as a teenager on that set the 90s and then um just by working with such class act actors became a better actor and he told me in the interview which he can read tomorrow then a lot of the cast members have since come up to him when they are at conventions or whatever and said that they felt like they helped raise him which he thought was very cool when you think about you know all those father figures and mother figures for real and it's funny because the actress that played a Beverly Crusher that was his mom on the show actually is really really sweet in real life and sometimes they tweeted each other like mother and son on Twitter and hilarious gates mcfadden yeah that's gates mcfadden and it's interesting too because like a lot of those actors don't necessarily do comic cons like some of them will do the Star Trek stuff like Amanda went to but they don't really know think we lost her for a second she'll be back so there's no I just freeze yes you did I am of course they freeze right when it looks like I'm doing some sort of Shirley Temple move I'm sorry about that uh anyway it was really fun talking to will about his Wesley Crusher days which is kind of weird cuz some some fans don't really like him I've always liked Wesley Crusher I kind of liked the geordie Wesley Crusher storylines and the Wesley Crusher data Geordi it was like it was like stranger things grown up it's like I feel like those guys would've instead playing poker I always wanted an episode where they were all playing dungeons dragons I always thought that would be fun that would be awesome on the hall yeah anyway I'm very prayer was Lee crusher I just wanted to say that yeah he's basically the character that I would have seen the TNG universe through he's like the one no cuz I was his age probably watching it and he would be like the character you empathize with mojo I was like for an entire generation yeah i mean the cool thing too is that you know he had some really dorky moments as a teenager as that character but then you also saw him grow up and to be a responsible yet flawed character and i really wish they would have utilized him more towards later years but i've always been a big Wesley Crusher fan what about you Amanda what was that and I do want to say a show yeah totally cuz Whoopi Goldberg's character that was like that fulfilled my Star Wars Cantina moment like I loved it anytime they had a scene in that for is a forward right so they caught the bar I never knew what if we were ten forward why did it goes it's a bar I mean come on it's not like you know Central Perk I mean come on there was some dream out the Regal Beagle it's not the Regal oh man that would have been better oh that would have been even better anything continue so what was your you know initial memory your early star trek memories Amanda that you know led you to this 50th anniversary moment yeah well my story actually started with my mother who would often tell me and still does that she would watch Star Trek reruns while I was in the womb and then also when she would sit in a rocking chair with me as a baby and watch Star Trek reruns and then some around about fourth grade so how the timing worked out and I think it was an after-school slot but the reruns of the original show would come on and it just I mean it grabbed me right off the bat and I became a dedicated viewer so I actually started off with the original series at a pretty young age as super thrilled when a next gen came out of course just to see that continuation on television so which I love that series also pro Wesley Crusher absolutely but I followed it ever since across all the series across all the movies across the reboots but it was really it was Kirk Spock McCoy the original crew that really drew me in as a kid for sure what about you guys Jeff and Stephen well I started um a little before next gen uh like I wasn't like super into it and my dad to this day will always mock me because he was always trying to get me he's all you know I think you would really like this and I'm like no no because all I remembered from when I was a really little kid was in end credits when they would show that one frame of the Baylock puppet that creepy looking alien dude they used to scare the crap enemy when I was little it just you know I'm like and then uh but I would still I would go see the movies I went to see star trek 3 for my friend's birthday party and then I I got like really into Star Trek just before next generation came out so as I was finding out all the news and stuff and actually they're still I still have a sticker of wil wheaton on my old dresser it's actually still at my parents house they were giving away stickers in boxes of ziplock bags because you know when you think of tie-ins for Star Trek you think of bags and so yeah it's it's still on there right next to a sticker that came out for the motion picture that I got out of ball machine mr. Spock ah so that's still on there so yeah and actually um my very first convention experience was a Star Trek convention and that was went like only it was just after the first season had ended of the next generation because they were telling us all these things about what might be happening in the second season like oh my god Jonathan Frakes grew a beard we're not sure if they're gonna let her keep it on the show or anything and it was really interesting those were crazy times oh yeah I don't know I don't know if anyone can really ever exceed the I mean with all apologies to William Shatner because he is what he is and he's fantastic in his own right but like the gravitas of you know Shakespearean trained Patrick Stewart at the helm of a starship I don't know if it ever gets better than that am I crazy I you know Shatner did Shakespeare too yeah why didn't he was the Shakespearean actor right he's like he has that delivery you know yeah he uh let's see could be wrong no I know he has done it at some point and then I'm pretty sure he did it before he did Star Trek cuz I mean like you know you can find him doing pretty much anything like after Star Trek got canceled by doing Shakespeare on talk shows and stuff like that but he did that and he was in a pilot Alexander the Great I think with Adam West I think yeah yeah how did I miss that that sounds incredible yeah 1964 wow it's like the ultimate super group yeah for real right yeah I should also mention um I've neglected the chat room if you do want to join in and share your star trek memories comments/criticisms whatever with us the chat room is live on youtube or just go to youtube.com slash seen it and we're also on livestream.com / cnet sliced the grave cast chat rooms go in there and also actually a really easy way to get my attention is to tweet at krave right now if you got if you want to chime in on the discussion so we should probably eat fast for forward at warp speed to the present you know a lot of Star Trek stuff happening this year and beginning of next year Star Trek beyond is out now and Star Trek discovery is coming at the beginning of next year maybe to the end of this year amande are you excited about both of those have you seen i'm assuming seems beyond already right oh oh yeah i dressed up and went to beyond looking like this I really enjoyed it and I fan of the reboots I'm an old-school Star Trek fan but when I know not all of them like the reboot series but I have very much enjoyed it all the way along but I do think this was by far the strongest entry in the series kind of RiRi reinvigorated the sort of heart of Star Trek that that we like from the original series and a lot of fans like so I thought that was a very very good one and but the the TV series coming up is should be very interesting from my understanding it's going to take place after the original series so after the original five-year mission so we may be getting some more uniforms like this I don't know there's a lot of unknowns about it but just the fact that we're getting back to an episodic Star Trek series i think is a great opportunity for fan excitement coming up here it could be very good and I hope it is so it's not a prequel or a sequel it's like an in-between cool I guess that's my system so after original series prior to next generation but I mean that that gives you some space time you know that's what there's a fair amount of time within that that they could be setting it so we'll see I've also read that it'll take place 10 years before the original series so like more like like Enterprise is what now cuz I mean 10 years before the original series isn't really that would be more like cebu hearing it slide in between enterprise in original series that's interesting oh what it actually is you did some reporting from Las Vegas Amanda on some of the the takes that the older actors had on some of the newer poor trails right a little bit they did discuss that a little bit um actually uh that was not one of the big hot topics a lot of people kind of wanted to hear about the filming experiences of the actors but George Takei was said it was a you know pretty much a rip-roaring great space adventure so um he may have had some issues with how they portray Sulu but he liked the film overall I I guess that's what I was thinking of um well you know our own beloved Kelsey Adams who was not able to join us live today she actually pre-recorded so that we could teleport her through space and time her own take on we're a little bit Star Trek history and we're one of the characters from the original cast imprint in particular has has taken and the twists and turns of that character has taken over the decades do you have that Stephen yeah yeah okay here we go happy Star Trek 50th I just saw Star Trek beyond the third reboot movie and it was cute but they still have no idea what to do with lieutenant Uhura now originally who was supposed to be a really positive figure she was a professional woman a top-ranking officer African American actress in 1966 on TV that was a big deal but a lot of people then and now have looked at this crew and said well all the men have glamor jobs and you made the black woman answer the phone is hailing frequencies open captain really enough saw do update a character there are different approaches and there's for example long tradition of a licensed Star Trek fiction such as this books by known authors with often creepy covers from before Photoshop and it's kind of like fan fiction but with more limits and fewer teenage polyamorous wolves so what they tried to do is say what would she be like to a real person what is a communications officer she must know a million languages she's obviously a diplomat or she fixes the translator she must be an engineer and they really built her out now for the reboot that just kind of threw all that out and I think honestly the problem was originally hua is so ladylike gentle you know she's not a sci-fi tough chick so they redid it um modern hua is very brave and she fights and stuff but she spends the first two movies just nagging her boyfriend about his emotions while they're in the middle of a crisis it's not very professional and then in the third movie they cut out the nagging but she's that doesn't leave anything but girlfriend like in big group scenes she's just standing there like she doesn't know what she's supposed to do even in a crisis that literally revolves around the word frequencies she doesn't solve it other people do so i know that i'm sure that co-writer and fellow nerd simon pegg did not forget that she's a communications officer but maybe he thinks that means social media like perfectly valid job that gets no respect I don't know the point is reboot ahora is not original hoorah and that's fine but you do have to come up with someone for her to be and when you're thinking about who she is what do we know about her she's a Starfleet officer that's your life so riders when you're figuring out of here before you ask yourself who she's dating ask yourself what her job is here's a hint queen is already taken bravo Bravo I love that I love that I honestly like I think she also needs to do more rants yes that was amazing and I agree with her one hundred percent like there's a great scene and um started the cumberbatch Star Trek was it Star Trek darkness into darkness yeah there's a great scene wen hua uh says oh yeah I just learned Klingon like she's rusty on her Klingon and the first time she is to like interact with Klingons right when they're about to kill all of them and she's supposed to speak and perfect Klingon as to not offend these Klingons that are about to kill them on their away missions when they're trying to capture Benedict Cumberbatch character of Khan and I was like that's what Star Trek needs more of those reboots they need to show how detrimental would be if she screwed up her job and they also need to show that she never screws up her job like she is really good at what she does and like if you think about having to know Klingon perfectly so you don't get killed it's kind of like they're just as picky with their languages French are so that's like you don't like practice French for the first time in France at a French restaurant unless you want a waiter to spit in your food so this is a lot less deadly than spitting in food but this is I mean I mean if you're speaking in French to a French waiter that's that's what you get but if you're if you do into a Klingon I feel like you've become the food like I feel like you would you would not only gets like Klingons don't bother spitting on people they just kill them so if you offend a Klingon or they torture them or their torch them or I think they just jet jettison them out into space for fun like I'm sure it's a sport um you just don't screw up Klingon and that was one of the things that made me really respect ahura in the new reboots but then I totally agree with Kelsey they kind of just turned her into a nagging girlfriend and she deserves better than that cool any other hot cakes what do you think Amanda no I think Kelsey's ran is great and and this has kind of been a problem throughout star trek with especially when you're looking at the original series characters with anybody whose not named Kirk McKoy or Spock they often yeah they often kind of get short shrift in these things but it is unfortunate especially I think with a her that they have kind of I mean she's she's like all right she's our lady in there and I would really love to see a bigger role for her so hopefully they'll be doing another film maybe they'll actually be able to write a little more smartly I hope they will listen to kelsey's rant because I should give them some good ideas as far as what directions to go in i'm gonna email it to them too bad robot right I won't believe it in in next generation they did a really good job with female characters I mean you had a secure for Worf the head of security was female you had a lot of female engineers you had a lot of I mean yeah the counselor the camp counselor Deanna Troi is a female and that's predominantly always a female character but are that kind of character same with like a doctor type character though I always like Beverly Crusher I thought she should have been given more storylines cuz she seemed she had a lot more Moxie to offer than they really did that just the mother daughter of mother dr. role and also there were just so many great characters that came in and out of the show like Deanna Troi his mom was probably one of my favorite female character in sci-fi only because I particularly liked any character that annoyed picard so that would be ziana Troy's mom and of course q so and then there was a female q um later on in the series where there was a woman that was even more powerful than the Time Lord or time traveler q so I I think next generation and also Voyager um had really good strong female characters and it's it's if you haven't watched those shows if you're new to Star Trek or you don't really watch any of anything past you know the Shatner years you should give those a try because there's some really really great characters and I mean Jeri Ryan playing seven of nine again is one of my favorite female characters in sci-fi that really kind of taught the humans how to be human I am so glad you brought up Q because those were like easily my favorite TNG episodes did any of those make the top ten list I tamantha like I don't yeah it was weird because like I was looking for more TNG stuff and I I know that they made the bad list but there should be some more for positive yeah but by the way 1k atoms in the chatroom says a fine it's a good point about the Klingon see ya I mean honestly like I'm always afraid when I try to speak different languages in front of the people that speak them natively because I know some Russian obviously Spanish you have to know spanish in California or pretty much anywhere the United States Thank You mr. Trump hello um sorry didn't mean to trump eyes but you know when you're speaking a language that's not your first language not only are you worried about messing it up you're worried about offending people but you know the worst that can happen if you offend someone in their native language is they'll correct you or maybe roll their eyes at you Klingons will disembowel you so like I really do think who deserves some points for mastering the rosetta stone that is Klingon and that is not an easy language to learn they offered it at my college as elective yeah and I tried to take it cuz I was like oh this will be easy it's Klingon and so I tried to take it in college and I was like oh my god i'ma get graded on this and I'm really bad at Klingon so I switched I switched her Russian note the collagen older didn't you yeah um well what do we know about um discovery uh I mean is there any chance of a of a female lead in that one yeah isn't their attention Amanda did you write the story you know lead yeah yeah I'm they're being pretty vague about it but what I've heard is that there will be a female lead but it may not necessarily be the captain so that once again we don't even know what perspective it may maybe this is not gonna be focused on the bridge crew maybe it's the people down the Galia who knows I want to find out you know there was when i interviewed well wheaton about this cuz i asked him what he would be most excited about the new TV series and we'll brought up a really cool idea that probably is not gonna happen but now i want it to that he wants the new Star Trek series to be like American Horror Story or it's a different each seasons a different story but it's the same cast but they're playing different characters or have it be like true detective where each seasons a different location so it's not always on you know a ship or it's not always on the space station or it's not always on one planet but each time they change it up it's still the same show but the seasons it changes the locale so I I thought that would be interesting but I don't know how experimental they're gonna get because it is Star Trek so there's certain things you have to stick with in order to keep the majority of the fans from you know coming at you with torches I think that'd be great if there were more cereal element too because that's what made the first batch of movies in the 80s I think so popular is because no people were used to the episodic you know here's what happens in its wrapped up in 45 minutes every week but then with the movies you had this kind of ongoing saga that was like really brought it to another level so it would be great to see that like on the you know the the television scale where it's an ongoing serial season I would love that I mean I honestly would love to see Starfleet Academy be the spot where it takes place because we got a little bit of that in the prequel or in the movies the reboot of what that looked like and what it looked like to be in a class with a bunch of cadets that are from all different species and races and um abilities and so I kinda had hoped that they would do show like that but maybe they're afraid it'll be to CW like they're worried there were to be like the Star Trek Diaries like they're worried it's gonna like that'll be too young but I would love to see anything in the Starfleet Academy I'm good I got to go ad CW to the urban dictionary as an adjective right now uh so kelsey says there were three next-generation episodes in the top ten chain of command yesterday's enterprise and the inner light but we don't think any of them are q episodes no they're not but good to know good just good to see Picard well represented in that top 10 for sure so any other you know to wrap it up on any any reflections on a life lived in Star Trek fandom or where the franchise is headed from here cricket oh yeah I would say that I'm excited for the future of Star Trek I think I mean I I grew up more in the world of Star Wars and that's where most of my career has been spent and that's why I know more about than Star Trek though I am try sci-fi not try curious so I like dr. Hugh and Star Wars and Star Trek equally so I think you're allowed to like them equally that Star Wars versus Star Trek thing even though we have it all over cnet I don't necessarily think it's that big a deal depending on I guess when you talk to you but for me I like both so I just want to see more experimentation done with Star Trek I feel like we have so many great TV shows like Battlestar Galactica and other sci-fi like dark matter and you have all these different sci-fi realms of entertainment that I think Star Trek didn't have when even the next generation was out so I really want them to experiment like I would love to see a super like gritty Star Trek series on showtime or something where they're allowed to curse you know or they're allowed to have sex like actual sex and have it be more adult but at the same time keep the same Roddenberry mythos alive in the run Barry feel to it um but I'm excited for this new series i just hope fans give it a chance because i know with Star Wars fans they they've had to like reluctantly give up their prequel pain and like a move on and I don't think Star Trek has that same level of pain unless you really really hated the reboots but I think it's in a really exciting time to be a Star Trek fan so I want to see a lot more stuff and I would love to see um you know even a CW show that Star Trek based I mean I know I've made fun of CW but I watch a lot of CW and I could totally see something on on there um that's geared towards teens and I think that would be an interesting take but I'm excited I'm excited for the new show and I watch the new movies and I the most recent one i really liked but again i don't go into it with the glasses of I'm a huge Star Trek fan and I'm breaking everything apart piece by piece and dissecting it I go into everything Star Trek is just like this is fun and this is exciting and I love sci-fi and these characters are cold to me so I'm excited what do you guys think back there in the studio you've been quiet give us a talk Trek horse mm-hmm I'm looking forward to it um I saw the newest movie like a couple weeks ago and I really liked it it um felt more Star Trek II to me than the other two did and I mean I enjoyed the other two but this one was I know I just the stuff that I was worried about in the trailer didn't seem as out of place as it seemed in the trailer so that was nice um and there was a lot more like character stuff that I really liked and I'm looking really forward to the because it will just be kind of interesting to have some new Star Trek anything um cuz it's pizza been a while yeah I'll definitely give it a shot I'll definitely give it a shot you know I'm way in the game of thrones if they can make something that says coolest game of thrones I would be awesome oh yeah but yeah I saw the first two movies I haven't seen that the latest movie but I definitely want to go see it and that I have to blame that on my two young children that don't let me go out at night but um but yeah I'm very excited about it it's gonna be it's gonna be cool I mean I would have to echo what Bonnie said which I think with the entire Star Trek franchise at the risk of kind of being sacrilegious here they're the earnestness has always been almost done to death and I would really like to see something a little more gritty a little more edgy like you know you're saying Stephen worth it were in the era of of Game of Thrones and yeah 100 on the CW I mean it could be a little edgy or a little grittier little you know a little get a little dirtier you know I don't like the movies were kind of doing that you know like they're a little darker that the latest movies like they felt a little darker like you know seeing people getting tortured and it's you know it's like is interesting I thought it was cool it's true I think that and I think it's the right direction to take it in and it's probably not surprising that JJ Abrams took it in that direction but I think that you know I'd love to see it continue that way yeah so let's give the final word to to Amanda to the captain hey you're working with them what's in your captain's log well uh discovery I I'm super excited about this new show coming up I did double check and Jeb is absolutely right this will be set prior to the original series so that means that technology is not quite as advanced should be more advanced than we saw an enterprise at least but which kind of makes things a little more exciting you know more things can go wrong when you don't have as fancy a tools available to you the fact that it is looks like it's not going to be centered on the captain and having a female lead I think we could be looking forward to a sassier version Star Trek which as we're saying you know television has changed a lot we've got things like Game of Thrones Battlestar Galactica was an excellent example of what you can do with a grittier sci-fi television series concept if they can take some of that sort of feel and build it into the star trek universe and as body said not lose sight of that rod very heart I think we're going to be in for a real treat and I have very high hopes for the new series so that's really what I'm looking forward to in the Star Trek universe right now and right there with you and it will be on CBS and the months coming for a lot more on on everything in the Star Trek universe there's so much on CNN and on crave we actually set up a landing page it's at cnet com / Star Trek at 50 50 Star Trek at 50 and then there's a dash in between each word so check that out and also cnet.com / crave is a great way to find all of that awesome Star Trek information we thank you so much for watching today that's the crave cast for this month for a Bonnie Burton Stephen Beecham Jeff Sparkman and Captain Kooser America met nice i missed the ship flying by april i had profession Oh