I'm considering another Insane Marathon.

[Spokavriel]

Back in the late 80's

[Vilkath]

Yeah breif text I read from the website said something about it helped keep Star Trek series alive between the TV series and the movies, even voiced by a lot of the orginal cast.

I can't say I really ever watcehd it though, the people look pretty wierd drawn in the 80's cartoon style that is for sure.

[Spokavriel]

Now in the Special Features of Season 2. And I figured I'd share this image.

I know there was an earlier character who was disguised as a cat but this one keeps her feline ears in her humanoid form. I don't know if other series had one before but at least for Star Trek I believe this is their first Catgirl/woman.

[Vilkath]

You know thinking about it Star Trek actualy had very few aliens based around mamals, no ape men, no dog or cat men really that I can remember. Seemed to favor reptiles, insects and 'other' which had no ties to any specific species.

[Spokavriel]

Well not many intelligent ones. But look up the Mugatu A white Ape with poisonous fangs and claws with a godzilla like spine ridge and horn on it's head. There were also supposedly giant cavemen who attacked in the Galileo 7 incident. There are also some harry aliens like the Salt Eater in the first episode that ever aired. It might have allot to do with the whole series being done for less than the average catering bills on current TV series.

[Vilkath]

Still it is an intersting fact I just noticed when thinking about the series. Especialy if you compare it to how mamals are one the top picks for most sci-fi shows when chosing to make an alien species. Second only to reptiles or insects I suppose, but there is a lot of history of aliens being based on earth animals and it was wierd for Star trek to avoid it so much.

Good in a way to, I could easily have seen races like the Klingon's being part dog or something. With the way they act wolves, dogs or something could of fit them rather well.

But low production cost is also a feature I suppose, early on most the make up crews barely gave the aliens a different skin tone, the exagerated ridges or such really didn't happen till later Star trek series.

[Spokavriel]

Well they did start right out with a good chunk of their budget in prosthetics If you ever saw The Cage and The Menagerie the footage from the first pilot (cage) you get to see allog of swelled head appliances not to mention Spock's ears or that weird animal the Keeper changed to when Captain Pike was choking it. They had to do the second pilot and if I read my trivia correctly another 5 episodes on the same budget given for just that original pilot.

[Spokavriel]

Now into the special features for Season 3. It turns out there was only one single episode which I had seen less than at least 5 times before and after I finish the special features it's time for watching the Animated series all season and a half of it. 16 eps in season 1, 6 in season 2 for a total of 22 cartoons most of which I will be watching 2 or 3 times because have seperate audio and text commentary.

[Vilkath]

Any of the extra commentary any good? I swear some dvd's have the directors, or worse some times it's only the art director talking about nothing important for over an hour.

You know it's a bad commentary when there is long periods of dead silence, kind reminds me of the Super Hero Movie dvd I watched recently, some worst commentary ever. Died out after like the first twenty minutes.

I would imagine Star Trek dvd's have a lot of potential for good dialog, especialy with how diferntly things were done in those days in TV.

[Spokavriel]

Michael and Denise Okuda were involved in allot of things in the Next Gen not so much in TOS and they did all the text commentaries. At least with an art director you get a better sense that they were there. It's more like Trivia popup commentary on the show at some points.

[Vilkath]

I always like the ones that either have the writer, or major actors doing the talking. Especialy when they talk about behind the scenes problems, pranks or other funny things.

One my favorite dvd commentary has to be the Firefly box set, I loved almost all of it's added tracks.

[Spokavriel]

I decided not to go into all the commentaries on the Animated Series so now I'm already into The Wrath of Kahn in the Movies. Watching all my VHS Copies. The Longer VHS Version of The Motion Picture was the best print made so far. Too bad it was never released in wide screen or on DVD.

[Spokavriel]

The Marathon is now officially over but I still have a couple other Trek Related things to watch like an Anniversary special titled Star Trek - A Captains Log. It was made shortly after we lost DeForest Kelly and before the passing of James Doohan. There has just been so much outside of episodes.

[CRBWildcat]

The fourth movie, The Voyage Home, is the only one of the films I can claim to have, and even then I don't actually own the movie---the tape belongs to my parents. Otherwise, my experience with Star Trek has been fairly minimal.

[Spokavriel]

The Voyage Home is the only Star Trek movie I clearly remember watching in theaters. My favorite scene is the Whaling ship's reaction after its harpoon gets deflected off of something they can't see. At first they are clearly bewildered and then this giant alien ship appears out of nowhere and they are scared spitless. In the theaters I don't think there was anyone in the audience that didn't hold their breath when that harpoon was fired. Even with the movie sound still going you might have just been able to hear someone dropping a pin.