Huston Huddleston Wants You To Help Save the Star Trek TNG Set 131
New submitter ShadoCat points out this interesting project to restore the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation, writing: "This isn't the original set unfortunately (which was destroyed making the ST:Generations movie). This is one that Paramount created for display in 1991. Huston Huddleston saved the pieces of the set late 2011 when they were about to be trashed by Paramount. Huddleston and crew will be refitting the set with working displays and controls. They plan to host parties and educational events in the set which, apparently, is big enough to hold a large number of students. For safety though, I hope they add circuit breakers (a technology along with seat belts that seems to have been lost in the 24th century)."
Re:Space the final frontier? (Score:4, Insightful)
They didn't say that the displays and controls would actually control real devices, just that the displays and controls would themselves work.
I'm pretty sure that back in the 80s when they filmed ST:TNG, none of the displays and controls actually did anything: they didn't make beeping noises, there were no actual displays, etc. All that stuff was added in post-production. The actors were just pushing on the LCARS panels at random, with nothing happening when they did. When Data read pages of text at ridiculous speed, I could be wrong but that might not have even been there, he might have been looking at a blank panel, with the cool graphics added in later.
It sounds like these guys want to refit the sets so there's actual monitors in the displays, displaying information that looks like it's from the show, and the control panels so that they're actual working touch panels where you can press the "buttons" and get beeps and maybe some realistic-looking information on the built-in displays when you do. If so, that's a pretty ambitious project, but it's quite doable with today's technology. The biggest challenge would be making the touch panels I think.
Re:Stupid waste of time and space (Score:4, Insightful)
TNG was a great show. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't hyper-gritty and dark like everything these days seems to try to be, and it sure as hell wasn't realistic in its depiction of humans (somehow in the 24th century, humans are all extremely competent and not very prone to Jerry Springer-esque drama and idiocy), but it was great fun to watch, and the acting was good for an 80s TV show, though admittedly the first season was a little rough with some of the actors. The stories were excellent for the most part, with a few exceptions as you'd expect on a show that ran for 7 seasons. I just went back and rewatched much of the series over the last few months and enjoyed it thoroughly. I do have to admit though that I tended to avoid episodes which were 1) in the first season, 2) included Wesley as a major character (again, mostly season 1), 3) involved Lwaxana Troi, or 4) involved Q. This isn't to say all these episodes were bad though; the S1 episode "Conspiracy" for instance was one of the best episodes in the whole series.
I do have to admit, however, that probably my favorite thing about TNG is its depiction of humans. It's completely unrealistic, because it shows humans as we (or at least some of us) wish they were: competent, intelligent, considerate, thoughtful, just, and not corrupt. It shows a society I wish I could live in, but which doesn't exist, and probably never will due to human nature. But that makes it good escapist entertainment. Many times, I don't really want to watch a show/movie that shows humans as they really are. If I wanted to do that, I could watch Jerry Springer or Maury Povitch; you can see stupid humans in their full glory there. I see enough of that crap in real life; why would I want to watch more of it on TV?