Comments on: Always Under Construction

By: Bob Rehak

Bob Rehak — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:59:52 +0000

Tim, thank you for your comment.

I have dispatched an albino monk assassin to kill you.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:57:30 +0000

The code of the code. Golds man. Man of Gold? Man of Code? Akiva. A kivu–a ruined structure indigenous to America. Inside the script a labryinth. Lose money? But make money! How?

By: Bob Rehak

Bob Rehak — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:40:11 +0000

Tim, I assume your DA VINCI CODE reference was an elaborate intertextual joke -- since Goldsman wrote the screenplay for the film -- thus replicating in miniature the whole clues-buried-in-plain-sight vibe of that story? Or am I reading too much into it? Regarding Trek blueprints, I somehow managed to hold onto the General Plans for the U.S.S. Enterprise and the Technical Manual, both of which came out in 74-75, when I must have been -- jeez -- nine years old. Got 'em in my office if you want to borrow them! Agree about the remastered episodes; alongside them I see the fan-produced New Voyages, with their very handsome digital recreations of the old-school miniatures, as key to understanding what Trek has become.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:37:20 +0000

Why does Akiva Goldsman get scripts? Seriously, one of the great mysteries of our times. In 500 years, that will be the basis of a fiction rather like the Da Vinci Code, an obscure mystery of which much can be made.

I keep hoping that the next moldering box in the garage that my mom goes through in the slimming down of her inventories will have my Star Trek blueprints set in them. Jebus, that was the greatest Christmas ever.

The new remastered Star Trek original series episodes are a very interesting piece of this puzzle.

There has certainly never been a more pornographic use of special effects than the extended Enterprise fly-around scene in ST: TMP. And I mean that seriously.

By: Bob Rehak

Bob Rehak — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 13:18:16 +0000

Michael, you’re right — Akiva Goldsman retains his crown as antichrist. And of course we must not forget A BEAUTIFUL MIND.

I’m glad you liked the analysis — actually, I meant to give you a shout-out in it for your excellent chapter on digital reinventions of the Enterprise. That ship has borne quite the burden of semiosis over the years!

By: Michael D.

Michael D. — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 07:09:30 +0000

“the ship hasn’t been reinvented to the egregious extent of the Jupiter II’s makeover in the 1998 film version of Lost in Space (a sin against science fiction for which Akiva Goldsman has partly compensated with the impressive I Am Legend).”

…Yet Akiva will never make up for the sins he committed by writing “Batman & Robin”…

Nice optimistic analysis of the teaser, Bob.