2010 June » Treknicalities

Celebrity Birthdays: June Lockhart

Jun 252010

Among the readers of this blog, June Lockhart is probably remembered best as Maureen Robinson, the “June Cleaver-esque” mother on Lost in space. June turns eighty-five years old today.

June’s acting credits span over 70 years, going back to her appearance as Belinda Cratchet at the age of 13 in the 1938 movie A Christmas Carol. In that film, her parents were played by her real-life parents, Gene Lockhart and Kathleen Lockhart.

Her acting credits also include playing Ruth Martin in 204 episodes of Lassie between 1958 and 1964 as well as Dr. Janet Craig in 47 episodes of Petticoat Junction. Interestingly enough, she appeared on the big screen in 1998 in Lost In Space as Principal Cartwright.

She is the mother of Anne Lockhart, who was the voice of the computer aboard the U.S.S. Kelvin in J. J. Abrams’s 2009 assault upon the Star Trek universe .

Technorati Tags: science+fiction, lost+in+space, celebrity+birthdays, trivia, june+lockhart

Celebrity Birthdays: Lindsay Wagner

Celebrity News, Non Trek TV No Responses »

Jun 222010

Fans of the 1976 series, The Bionic Woman will be interested – and possibly a little surprised – to know that Lindsay Wagner turns 61 years old today.

Lindsay Wagner first played Jamie Sommers in ten episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man and was later given her own series in which her character had been involved in a parachuting accident and received bionic replacements for one ear, her right arm, and both legs. In exchange for these atomic-powered limbs, Jamie went to work as a secret agent under cover as a school teacher.

Lindsay Wagner reprised her role as the bionic woman in The Return of the Six-Million-Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1987), Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1989), and Bionic Ever After? (1994).

While Lindsay Wagner will always and forever be remembered as The Bionic Woman no matter who does how many remakes of the show, she has, according to the Internet Movie Database, worked steadily on many other projects until as recently as 2008.

Technorati Tags: celebrity+birthday,, lindsay+wagner,, bionic+woman,, classic_television

The Deadly Years, then and now

Star Trek TOS, Trivia No Responses »

Jun 172010

Ever wonder just how good (or bad) the make-up people were back in the sixties?

In 1968, the people who did make-up on the original Star Trek series were given the somewhat daunting task of making William Shatner (37 years old at the time) appear to be “between 60 and 72 years of age”.

Finally, enough time has passed and, now that William Shatner is actually in his 70′s, it’s possible to compare what make-up did in the mid-20th century to what time has done in the early 21st century.

In this particular case, it seems they got a pretty close approximation of what Shatner was going to look like in 40+ years, forgetting only the “middle age spread” that so many of us encounter.

Technorati Tags: science+fiction, star+trek, photos, pictures, william+shatner, shatner, Jim+kirk, James+T+Kirk, Kirk, The+Deadly+Years

The Worst Movie Ever Made

Sci-Fi Movies No Responses »

Jun 122010

No Science Fiction blog would be complete without mentioning Edward D. Wood Jr.’s Plan Nine From Outer Space.

Originally titled as Grave Robbers from Outer Space, the 1959 science fiction/horror film Plan 9 from Outer Space was written and directed by Edward D. Wood, Junior. Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Tor Johnson and Maila “Vampira” Nurmi were featured in this film which also bills Bela Lugosi posthumously as a star. Actually, Lugosi’s footage had been shot by Wood for a different film just before the actor’s death in 1956. Continue reading »

Dr. Soran’s weapon launch: Mistake or no?

Star Trek Movies No Responses »

Jun 082010

There is a very dramatic scene in Star Trek: Generations in which Dr. Soran fires a missile carrying a trilithium warhead into the Veridian sun. In less than 15 seconds, the missile has made it all the way to its target – the sun’s core – and we see the sun go dim as the reactions within the star are inhibited.

This is often cited as a mistake because traveling at sub-light speed the missile should take hours, if not days, to reach the sun and the results of the missile impacting the star shouldn’t be visible on the planet surface for at least several minutes.

Consider, however, that the missile must be traveling at warp speed, otherwise it would be vaporized once it got near the star and it would never actually penetrate the star – which it obviously did.

As for seeing the results of the missile’s impact with the star from the planet surface, It can be assumed that several minutes had passed, but given that there was nothing Piccard could do other than stand and gawk at the sky, the director felt that it wasn’t necessary to show seven or eight minutes of that.

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