Monday, May 11, 2009
Back Yard Rat Snake
Syd said this was a Rat Snake and they can grow to be very large. This one might be two foot long or so. That bit of pipe he's coming out of is about the size of the palm of my hand.
And really
What the hell is up with Spock and Uhura having a thing? We know who Spock loves. Spock loves Kirk! Why all the homophobia Hollywood?
Trek?
So let’s talk about it. What’s the quickest review I can think of?
This would have been awesome if they weren’t trying to claim it was Star Trek.
That’s the quick version. It veered too far from the spirit of the original source material and opted instead to turn the last act into just another big Sci-Fi action sequence that left a really bad taste in my mouth. The shame of it is that despite a few gripes here or there, it would have been a good movie… it just was the most Not-Trek that Star Trek has ever been.
Let’s break this down into three categories, those being what they did wrong as a Trek Movie, what I would be saying they did wrong even if it wasn’t Trek and what they did right.
Trek Movie Wrongs
1. Too many points can’t be explained simply by time traveling/alternate timeline thing. The Enterprise wouldn’t have been on it’s maiden voyage in that movie as Pike was captain of it 13 years before Kirk took over and some other guy was captain of the ship before him. And Pike wouldn’t have been twice Kirk’s age at that point either, maybe 10 but years older, but no more than that. Kirk’s brother Sam was retconned out of existence. Everyone recognizes Nero as a Romulan despite the fact that no one had ever seen a Rommie up to that point. There’s more, but you get the point.
2. Whatever happened to the old Trek idea of “We don’t actually have to kill everyone we come in contact with” that made the show and movies of old so neat? Clever solutions to difficult problems. Why the hell did it have to turn into Captain Actionpants at the end? What always set Trek apart was the avoidance of the Dirk Daring: Space Adventurer mold.
3. Why oh why oh WHY did Sulu, who is trained in fencing, have a katana yet again? Asian guy gets the katana? Really guys? Really?
4. The Enterprise was built in orbit over San Francisco. According to some guy who was complaining about it on the internet, everyone knows this.
5. The bridge design was something out of Star Wars. There was a lot of Star Wars in this movie. I mean seriously. George Lucas called, he wants Hoth back. Also he claims that there is patent pending issues about only Jedi can dangle off ledges that many times in a single movie. He also said something about heroes fighting a bald, facially tattooed guy who was wearing appliances. And the music, particularly the action oriented music, sounded a lot like the song “Battle of The Heroes” from the end of Revenge of the Sith.
6. Most of the tech and design doesn’t match up to anything we’ve seen before from any Star Trek things I can remember. More thrusters working than I’ve ever seen in Trek, which I don’t think has ever had thrusters before.
7. When we first see Spock perform the mind meld in the series, he explains that it’s a very private thing that they don’t share with outsiders. It was done when there was no other choice. Here, Spock grabs one of the downed Rommies and flushes his mind without a second thought. Of course since by third season Spock was mind melding people because it was easier than asking them what they wanted on their pizza, we could maybe forgive it.
8. Transporting sudden takes an awfully long time. Long enough for the baddies to notice then beaming aboard and blast them full of wholes before they fully materialize.
9. Might be argument, but I don’t buy for a second Kirk and Spock just letting Nero die/killing him. They would have beamed him aboard, put him in the Brig and taken him home for trial.
10. Now for me to be pedantic. The arrow head emblem was just on the Enterprise uniforms until it was adopted as the federation symbol much later. Everyone didn’t have it until the movies.
11. Phasers are a beam weapon. They don’t fire single shots, act like machine guns, or anything like that.
12. And honestly, Kirk-Baby has hazel eyes and his shirt gets ripped off in fights. I mean REALLY! Why call it Star Trek if you’re going to throw away all the important things that make Trek the thing that it is? Why not just have this be its own entity? Why bother buying up a franchise if you can’t get the most basic things about the franchise right?
Okay, so let’s just say the movie wasn’t Star Trek, what would I have arguments with if it was just Dirk Daring: Space Adventurer?
Just Plain Wrongs
1. “OH GOODIE!” I almost shouted in the theater, “It’s another fucking Daddy Movie.” I fucking hate Daddy Movies. The whole Daddy Issue thing is seriously played out and I for one am sick and tired of seeing it. I’ve been sick of seeing it and I don’t ever want to see it again. It’s lame, I’ve never seen it used where it wasn’t ham-fisted, and I can’t identify with it in any way.
2. Wow, this thing is Mary Sued up the ASS! It’s always a problem with these WB style youth story things though. Always giving the kids a chance without any adults getting in their way and they do good and are rewarded above the level anyone else would ever get. A guy goes from “We’re thinking of kicking you out of the Academy” to captain of what we’re told is the flag ship of the fleet in a day or two. Some of my problems will go along with the main part of this but they need separate points.
3. Why does a battle destroying 50 ships not get picked up by anyone but a student? Seriously? Only one student, who will be able to confirm the situation for plot reasons is able to pick this up? No, just… no.
4. All the grown ups are off doing important things, so for this emergency situation we’re going to send the students with on teacher each like it’s some kind of class trip. Seriously, who staffs a ship entirely with striplings? Even in an extreme situation like this, I don’t buy it.
5. This isn’t Trek specific, so I’m putting it here, but the way they handled the Kobayashi Maru test was a disgrace. He might have at least tried to look like he wasn’t cheating. I wanted him bounced right there and then. Get rid of him, shoot him in the head and replace him with another main character. That was like turning in your test first, five minutes after it’s been handed out and then wave the cheat sheet at your teacher announcing, “It was really easy. I just copied from this and after that it was a breeze.” But of course this is a Mary Sue, so everything works out in the end and he gets to be Captain without ever having to deal with that pesky having a career stuff.
6. Enterprise, we need you to get some milk at the store. You’re the only ship in the sector! Always the one ship left, isn’t it?
7. How does anyone recognize the design of a ship from 200 years in the future? Seriously, they know it’s a Rommie Vessel, but ask yourself if a Polish Sailor in 1809 would recognize a British ship that came through a time warp from 2009. I don’t think so.
8. Does the ship not have a brig? They marooned one of their own on an ice planet? The whole Ice Planet part was shit anyway. It was a pointless diversion and left everyone in my row going “Oh for fuck’s sake!”
9. Some one remind me to buy J.J. Abrams a tripod for his birthday. He clearly needs one. Shakey cam worked in the Bourne films, but it don’t work here.
10. The whole plot was pants. Star Trek has always been a little too comfortable with time travel. Since they are so comfortable, they could have just bounced back a few days before Romulus was destroyed and… VOLIA! Planet saved.
11. Timing was a problem the whole movie. People are falling to their deaths and Chekov is running though the ship to try and save them? I’m pretty sure they would have splatted before he got there. Besides, unless the transporter negates inertia, they would have been splatted anyway. That’s one example, but passage of time is fuzzy throughout the movie.
12. The villain could have been anything, so why the needlessly complicated and sometimes contradictory story they picked? You could have slotted almost anyone in there without needing to tie it to the old Star Trek universe. In many ways, just a fresh reboot would have been preferable because then you wouldn’t have to worry about many of the problems that are going to spring up among even casual Trek watchers like myself.
13. The Deus Ex Machina Brigade was out in full force. I had a major problem with Kirk and Spock both happening to be stuck on Hoth in the same abandoned Wampa cave which was only a short walk from Scotty’s hang out. There are more bits than that, where the Brigade managed to parachute in at the last moment, but that’s the big red sore thumb that sticks out.
So what did they do right? Surprisingly, almost all the stuff in the second part could have been forgiven. I would have at least said, “Well, it had flaws but it was entertaining enough for the time I was there.” Here is the list of things they got right.
What They Did Right
1. Characters were written pretty strongly. There wasn’t time to give everyone a full character study, but they did well with Kirk, Spock and Uhura. With Bones and Scotty they did less because of time, but even if you’d never heard of Star Trek you’d at least know these guys. Sulu and Chekov were used, but mostly left to one side for now. If you know the characters you’ll do okay, of you don’t know them you might wonder why so much time was spent with them instead of having random crew doing each thing.
2. The effects weren’t really obtrusive. I never found shots of the ship taking me out of the movie. I mention this because a lot of CGI rips me right out of the film and tends to distract from the narrative. Here, that didn’t happen except in one place at the end. The Spock level of the video game when he’s flying the space ship was pretty much a loss, but it was only that one bit so I’ll forgive them that.
3. Besides the problem with Time Travel, which is always a problem for any movie, the movie is internally consistent as far as I could tell with one viewing. There are problems and issues, like why no one noticed a huge battle with 50 ships lost, but Star Fleet seems to have a really bad communication system anyway. So maybe it’s just that someone needs to introduce them to the idea of E-Mail or something. However, their communications are pretty much universally bad. The point is that the movie keeps its own story together and doesn’t loose it. It lost almost everything from every other Star Trek, but within its own movie framework, it kept to things nicely.
4. The pace and story telling is pretty good. There are enough times when wiz-bang effect is supposed to take over for just telling a story, but I felt that they managed to keep it together. There was a good balance of action and story telling, with characters that actually seemed to be affected by the events in the movie. I actually believed Spock loosing his shit when he did, his whole planet had been destroyed and his mother had just been killed before his eyes.
5. The enemy was played better than most. Nero wasn’t a military man, he was a miner, so much of his performance was refreshingly casual. His story was just strong enough to provide him with a motivation (albeit one that could have been solved with more time travel, but maybe he didn’t know that) that while good enough to pass the smell test, didn’t need a lot of concentration on him. He was allowed to sit back and be a menace while we got to know the Federation crew and concentrate on them. And how cool is it that instead of “Greetings Captain” we got “Hi Christopher” just this once?
This list is the shortest, but let’s face it, we go on about the things that are wrong because if we went into all the things done right we’d have to start with backhanded compliments like “It was in focus and the sound synced up” which isn’t helpful. I get the feeling that I really would have liked this if not for the Mary Sue rank hopping, the action sequence at the end which came off too Star Wars/John Woo/everybody else making action movies these days. I got a frown on my face during the shoot out and it never left after that.
Too many clichés, too many Mary Sue moments, and it just wasn’t Trek.
This would have been awesome if they weren’t trying to claim it was Star Trek.
That’s the quick version. It veered too far from the spirit of the original source material and opted instead to turn the last act into just another big Sci-Fi action sequence that left a really bad taste in my mouth. The shame of it is that despite a few gripes here or there, it would have been a good movie… it just was the most Not-Trek that Star Trek has ever been.
Let’s break this down into three categories, those being what they did wrong as a Trek Movie, what I would be saying they did wrong even if it wasn’t Trek and what they did right.
Trek Movie Wrongs
1. Too many points can’t be explained simply by time traveling/alternate timeline thing. The Enterprise wouldn’t have been on it’s maiden voyage in that movie as Pike was captain of it 13 years before Kirk took over and some other guy was captain of the ship before him. And Pike wouldn’t have been twice Kirk’s age at that point either, maybe 10 but years older, but no more than that. Kirk’s brother Sam was retconned out of existence. Everyone recognizes Nero as a Romulan despite the fact that no one had ever seen a Rommie up to that point. There’s more, but you get the point.
2. Whatever happened to the old Trek idea of “We don’t actually have to kill everyone we come in contact with” that made the show and movies of old so neat? Clever solutions to difficult problems. Why the hell did it have to turn into Captain Actionpants at the end? What always set Trek apart was the avoidance of the Dirk Daring: Space Adventurer mold.
3. Why oh why oh WHY did Sulu, who is trained in fencing, have a katana yet again? Asian guy gets the katana? Really guys? Really?
4. The Enterprise was built in orbit over San Francisco. According to some guy who was complaining about it on the internet, everyone knows this.
5. The bridge design was something out of Star Wars. There was a lot of Star Wars in this movie. I mean seriously. George Lucas called, he wants Hoth back. Also he claims that there is patent pending issues about only Jedi can dangle off ledges that many times in a single movie. He also said something about heroes fighting a bald, facially tattooed guy who was wearing appliances. And the music, particularly the action oriented music, sounded a lot like the song “Battle of The Heroes” from the end of Revenge of the Sith.
6. Most of the tech and design doesn’t match up to anything we’ve seen before from any Star Trek things I can remember. More thrusters working than I’ve ever seen in Trek, which I don’t think has ever had thrusters before.
7. When we first see Spock perform the mind meld in the series, he explains that it’s a very private thing that they don’t share with outsiders. It was done when there was no other choice. Here, Spock grabs one of the downed Rommies and flushes his mind without a second thought. Of course since by third season Spock was mind melding people because it was easier than asking them what they wanted on their pizza, we could maybe forgive it.
8. Transporting sudden takes an awfully long time. Long enough for the baddies to notice then beaming aboard and blast them full of wholes before they fully materialize.
9. Might be argument, but I don’t buy for a second Kirk and Spock just letting Nero die/killing him. They would have beamed him aboard, put him in the Brig and taken him home for trial.
10. Now for me to be pedantic. The arrow head emblem was just on the Enterprise uniforms until it was adopted as the federation symbol much later. Everyone didn’t have it until the movies.
11. Phasers are a beam weapon. They don’t fire single shots, act like machine guns, or anything like that.
12. And honestly, Kirk-Baby has hazel eyes and his shirt gets ripped off in fights. I mean REALLY! Why call it Star Trek if you’re going to throw away all the important things that make Trek the thing that it is? Why not just have this be its own entity? Why bother buying up a franchise if you can’t get the most basic things about the franchise right?
Okay, so let’s just say the movie wasn’t Star Trek, what would I have arguments with if it was just Dirk Daring: Space Adventurer?
Just Plain Wrongs
1. “OH GOODIE!” I almost shouted in the theater, “It’s another fucking Daddy Movie.” I fucking hate Daddy Movies. The whole Daddy Issue thing is seriously played out and I for one am sick and tired of seeing it. I’ve been sick of seeing it and I don’t ever want to see it again. It’s lame, I’ve never seen it used where it wasn’t ham-fisted, and I can’t identify with it in any way.
2. Wow, this thing is Mary Sued up the ASS! It’s always a problem with these WB style youth story things though. Always giving the kids a chance without any adults getting in their way and they do good and are rewarded above the level anyone else would ever get. A guy goes from “We’re thinking of kicking you out of the Academy” to captain of what we’re told is the flag ship of the fleet in a day or two. Some of my problems will go along with the main part of this but they need separate points.
3. Why does a battle destroying 50 ships not get picked up by anyone but a student? Seriously? Only one student, who will be able to confirm the situation for plot reasons is able to pick this up? No, just… no.
4. All the grown ups are off doing important things, so for this emergency situation we’re going to send the students with on teacher each like it’s some kind of class trip. Seriously, who staffs a ship entirely with striplings? Even in an extreme situation like this, I don’t buy it.
5. This isn’t Trek specific, so I’m putting it here, but the way they handled the Kobayashi Maru test was a disgrace. He might have at least tried to look like he wasn’t cheating. I wanted him bounced right there and then. Get rid of him, shoot him in the head and replace him with another main character. That was like turning in your test first, five minutes after it’s been handed out and then wave the cheat sheet at your teacher announcing, “It was really easy. I just copied from this and after that it was a breeze.” But of course this is a Mary Sue, so everything works out in the end and he gets to be Captain without ever having to deal with that pesky having a career stuff.
6. Enterprise, we need you to get some milk at the store. You’re the only ship in the sector! Always the one ship left, isn’t it?
7. How does anyone recognize the design of a ship from 200 years in the future? Seriously, they know it’s a Rommie Vessel, but ask yourself if a Polish Sailor in 1809 would recognize a British ship that came through a time warp from 2009. I don’t think so.
8. Does the ship not have a brig? They marooned one of their own on an ice planet? The whole Ice Planet part was shit anyway. It was a pointless diversion and left everyone in my row going “Oh for fuck’s sake!”
9. Some one remind me to buy J.J. Abrams a tripod for his birthday. He clearly needs one. Shakey cam worked in the Bourne films, but it don’t work here.
10. The whole plot was pants. Star Trek has always been a little too comfortable with time travel. Since they are so comfortable, they could have just bounced back a few days before Romulus was destroyed and… VOLIA! Planet saved.
11. Timing was a problem the whole movie. People are falling to their deaths and Chekov is running though the ship to try and save them? I’m pretty sure they would have splatted before he got there. Besides, unless the transporter negates inertia, they would have been splatted anyway. That’s one example, but passage of time is fuzzy throughout the movie.
12. The villain could have been anything, so why the needlessly complicated and sometimes contradictory story they picked? You could have slotted almost anyone in there without needing to tie it to the old Star Trek universe. In many ways, just a fresh reboot would have been preferable because then you wouldn’t have to worry about many of the problems that are going to spring up among even casual Trek watchers like myself.
13. The Deus Ex Machina Brigade was out in full force. I had a major problem with Kirk and Spock both happening to be stuck on Hoth in the same abandoned Wampa cave which was only a short walk from Scotty’s hang out. There are more bits than that, where the Brigade managed to parachute in at the last moment, but that’s the big red sore thumb that sticks out.
So what did they do right? Surprisingly, almost all the stuff in the second part could have been forgiven. I would have at least said, “Well, it had flaws but it was entertaining enough for the time I was there.” Here is the list of things they got right.
What They Did Right
1. Characters were written pretty strongly. There wasn’t time to give everyone a full character study, but they did well with Kirk, Spock and Uhura. With Bones and Scotty they did less because of time, but even if you’d never heard of Star Trek you’d at least know these guys. Sulu and Chekov were used, but mostly left to one side for now. If you know the characters you’ll do okay, of you don’t know them you might wonder why so much time was spent with them instead of having random crew doing each thing.
2. The effects weren’t really obtrusive. I never found shots of the ship taking me out of the movie. I mention this because a lot of CGI rips me right out of the film and tends to distract from the narrative. Here, that didn’t happen except in one place at the end. The Spock level of the video game when he’s flying the space ship was pretty much a loss, but it was only that one bit so I’ll forgive them that.
3. Besides the problem with Time Travel, which is always a problem for any movie, the movie is internally consistent as far as I could tell with one viewing. There are problems and issues, like why no one noticed a huge battle with 50 ships lost, but Star Fleet seems to have a really bad communication system anyway. So maybe it’s just that someone needs to introduce them to the idea of E-Mail or something. However, their communications are pretty much universally bad. The point is that the movie keeps its own story together and doesn’t loose it. It lost almost everything from every other Star Trek, but within its own movie framework, it kept to things nicely.
4. The pace and story telling is pretty good. There are enough times when wiz-bang effect is supposed to take over for just telling a story, but I felt that they managed to keep it together. There was a good balance of action and story telling, with characters that actually seemed to be affected by the events in the movie. I actually believed Spock loosing his shit when he did, his whole planet had been destroyed and his mother had just been killed before his eyes.
5. The enemy was played better than most. Nero wasn’t a military man, he was a miner, so much of his performance was refreshingly casual. His story was just strong enough to provide him with a motivation (albeit one that could have been solved with more time travel, but maybe he didn’t know that) that while good enough to pass the smell test, didn’t need a lot of concentration on him. He was allowed to sit back and be a menace while we got to know the Federation crew and concentrate on them. And how cool is it that instead of “Greetings Captain” we got “Hi Christopher” just this once?
This list is the shortest, but let’s face it, we go on about the things that are wrong because if we went into all the things done right we’d have to start with backhanded compliments like “It was in focus and the sound synced up” which isn’t helpful. I get the feeling that I really would have liked this if not for the Mary Sue rank hopping, the action sequence at the end which came off too Star Wars/John Woo/everybody else making action movies these days. I got a frown on my face during the shoot out and it never left after that.
Too many clichés, too many Mary Sue moments, and it just wasn’t Trek.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Going Out
By the time you read this I will be gone.
No, not like that, just gone to the movies. We’re going to go see Star Trek right now, which I’ve been really good about avoiding for the most part. I haven’t even seen the trailer yet if you want the truth. At least I don’t think I have, I’ve seen bits of it, but I’ve switched it off before it got very far. I’m pretty much ready to hate it and tell you all that you’re a pack of brainless fucksticks, because you’ve all sort of over blown it for me at this point. Seriously, you act like nothing has ever been this good before. If my life isn’t changed, if my arthritis isn’t cured, if the lame don’t walk upon hearing the opening score and if people don’t achieve orgasms in their chairs just from watching it, then I’m going to bitchslap each and every one of you who said it was so damn awesome.
Just a warning, but I feel a justifiable one. You must admit, as a group* you have rather acted like it’s the best thing since ever and I highly doubt that it is because Versus is the best thing since ever. Seriously, that movie could only be better if there were velociraptors in it. Well, okay, a plot and character development might have been helpful, but you’re looking at it the wrong way round if you start thinking in that direction.
*Important note: One or two of you have actually said that it's a clichéd ball of shit but you liked it anyway. I can respect that, I’ve got no problem with that. However, it's being held up by some as the best movie since Wrath of Khan and that makes it the fifth time I've been told a new Star Trek Movie is the best since Wrath of Khan now.
Actually… been meaning to talk to you about this.
I'm annoyed by the fans who haven't seen or remembered things properly. I always seem to be listening to people who either have very selective memories or are completely ignorant of the thing they’re talking about. Always people claiming Batman Begins didn’t have a big bombastic third act, or that Film Noir always has to have a detective and a femme fatal, or claiming they always hated the Ewoks or that Blade Runner conforms perfectly to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, other such bullshit. Since I know people saw Batman Begins it must only be selective memory at work there. I can only imagine ignorance when people claim that BR and DADoES have anything more than a passing connection to each other beyond a few scenes, most of which were reversed when they made the movie transition.
I forgive the movie makers for making the new crew all young and reckless and stuff. I’ve already got my head around that one so it won’t cause too much trouble beyond how mind alteringly stupid that idea sounds to me. I’ve made peace with it though because you can’t expect too much from these people. I mean, come on, cut them a break, it’s Hollywood. Of course they’re going to make young people reckless and all over sexed and stuff.
I fully understand Hollywood only has so many ideas and they picked to make them young, and young people only are allowed to act one way. If these guys weren't myopic and stupid, they’d never have been given the job. Single note characterization is a requirement. If Spock & Kirk were made black in this movie they would rap, wear their hats backwards, and talk sassy because that’s the only way Hollywood allows blacks to act in movies as the lead. If the black character isn’t the lead then they’re made to act as bullet magnets to prevent the white characters from getting hit. You might argue that those are two notes, but you’d be wrong because they’re only allowed one note in each movie. If they were portrayed as women, they wouldn’t be in search of new life and new civilizations so much as a shoe sale and a really cute purse. If they were gay they’d mince around being FABULOUS despite the fact that Kirk and Spock were gay for three seasons & six movies and never once even approached Hollywood’s idea of a gay couple. I could go on with this, but I think you’ve got my point.
Hollywood is still pretty disgusting when it comes to stereotypes, but I don’t blame them for it anymore. It’s what they do. You might as well get made at Joe Quesada for ruining up everything that used to be good in the Marvel Universe. That's just what he does, he fucks up and ruins perfectly good things. I’m beyond expecting that particular leopard to change its spots. It would be like expecting this whole movie to go by without Kirk and Spock fighting over Uhura’s affections since she’s the attractive girl and they are both good looking guys. The lead female has to bang the lead male and if there are two lead males she’ll have to nail both of them.
What? Why are you all looking at me like that? Oh fuck, it happens doesn’t it? Look, I haven’t actually even seen the trailer, I haven’t read a review beyond those on LJ, please tell me I made that up! At least tell me there isn’t a fucking polar bear or anything like that!
aw fuck.
All that aside, why do I keep hearing how appropriate it is that Kirk as young is all reckless? Kirk, who in the very first episode we heard was teased for being a stack of books with legs and was relentlessly harassed by a cadet called Finnegan. Kirk, who was something of an uptight kid until he got into space and learned to loosen up a bit. Even when given his command he was still a responsible and adroit leader. How is he being a reckless youth in this movie supposed to be appropriate? He doesn’t start acting recklessly until the movies when The Shat started feeling old and wanted to be Capt. Actionpants. Even then, the movies had a different set of circumstances and when The Shat says he wants to play Capt. Actionpants, you let The Shat play Capt. Actionpants. You don’t fuck with The Shat! Chuck Norris once fucked with The Shat, and ever since has had to wear that stupid mustache and to cover up the result.
Before all of that though, Kirk was a straight-laced captain who had an eye for the ladies and a penchant for getting his ship into situations where stomping on the Prime Directive was the only logical solution. He wasn’t ever reckless though, except with his shirts. I don’t want table banging, I don’t require demands of canon, but let’s at least admit that it’s a change shall we? You can even claim it’s a welcome change, but it is a change.
It gets very hard to talk to people when they’re clearly riding the Nostalgia Train and saying things that just ain’t so. It also pisses me off, which is nothing new. I’m angry about 83.7% of my day, since ignorance and stupidity makes me angry and I still live among humans. Humans are stupid and ignorant for the most part. While it makes me angry, I do understand it’s not always their fault. You can’t know everything, you can’t even make a stab at reading all there is to read or watching all there is to watch. Just not possible, there is just too much. Still though, they do like to talk without knowing what the fuck they’re talking about and that shit pisses me off.
It’s not that the comments about Trek have pissed me off that much, it’s just a hook to hang my annoyance on. All the people who talk about Film Noir, but have never actually watched one, all the people who harp on the Indiana Jones Series being like a Saturday Morning Serial, despite the fact that again, they’ve never actually sat down and watched any of them and wouldn’t know what they entailed or didn’t, and every person who argues how close or far something that was based on a book is from the source material when they’ve so obviously never even read the description on wikipedia much less the actual book, they all drive me nuts. I have a good memory for things I’ve seen which is why I can take on a room full of people in a movie trivia game and still win, so it doubly bothers me when I see people ignoring large parts of things to produce a memory that is completely false or try to bullshit their way past me when that’s all but impossible.
This is something you can control though, just go through a short refresher. You can see episodes of Star Trek for free! No excuse not to get an episode or two under your belt before you go out. Just look at one or two and then go out with a clear conscience.
Strange as it might sound, I’m actually trying to keep an open mind about this movie. I’ve never been invested in Star Trek, I hate City on the Edge of Forever, and I haven’t really liked anything but Kirk & Company and even then, it was just something interesting to watch. I’m fully prepared for a train wreck, but I’ll be as pleased as anyone if I don’t hate it. We’ve been down Prequel Avenue before though, and it’s usually brought me nothing but pain and misery. I’m trying to keep an open mind though, but this is a Hollywood production, and a prequel at that, so I’m pretty much ready to have my intelligence insulted by the village idiot.
I will keep the following questions in mind as I watch…
Where is Kirk's Bother? That would be Kirk's OLDER brother. Has the poor bastard been retconned out of existence?
Why the hell is Chekov in this when he’s like 10 years younger than Kirk and couldn’t be bothered to turn up until 2nd season anyway?
Was I right that there’s a polar bear in this?
Are these kids going to be as blisteringly stupid as the people on Lost?
Why is the endlessly hot Winona Ryder playing Spock's mom? I know some people of our generation are having kids and stuff, but DAMN! C'MON! We are NOT that old yet.
In the end, whether I like the movie or not won’t matter. You either like it or you don’t, and my liking or disliking it shouldn’t matter to you. Unless of course you’re one of those people who bases their self worth around liking what everyone else likes and my not liking something harms you somehow. These people do exist, mostly I usually guess they don’t like the thing as much as they say they do and worry themselves because my lack of faith mirrors their own to a level that makes them uncomfortable.
Besides, as it often remarked, I don’t like anything. This is always a surprise to me given my huge movie collection, my large audio book collection, and the other things I’ve collected and enjoyed. Never mind that though, I don’t like 5 shitty things in the stupid and vacuous current popular culture so I don’t like anything. So it shouldn’t matter to you or even surprise you if I don’t like it.
It certainly won’t matter to Paramount, because they’ll already have my money and can spend it on making whatever other garbage they have planned for this year. Probably the marketing for G.I. Joe, since that looks really like it could use a few extra dollars to try and sell it.
No, not like that, just gone to the movies. We’re going to go see Star Trek right now, which I’ve been really good about avoiding for the most part. I haven’t even seen the trailer yet if you want the truth. At least I don’t think I have, I’ve seen bits of it, but I’ve switched it off before it got very far. I’m pretty much ready to hate it and tell you all that you’re a pack of brainless fucksticks, because you’ve all sort of over blown it for me at this point. Seriously, you act like nothing has ever been this good before. If my life isn’t changed, if my arthritis isn’t cured, if the lame don’t walk upon hearing the opening score and if people don’t achieve orgasms in their chairs just from watching it, then I’m going to bitchslap each and every one of you who said it was so damn awesome.
Just a warning, but I feel a justifiable one. You must admit, as a group* you have rather acted like it’s the best thing since ever and I highly doubt that it is because Versus is the best thing since ever. Seriously, that movie could only be better if there were velociraptors in it. Well, okay, a plot and character development might have been helpful, but you’re looking at it the wrong way round if you start thinking in that direction.
*Important note: One or two of you have actually said that it's a clichéd ball of shit but you liked it anyway. I can respect that, I’ve got no problem with that. However, it's being held up by some as the best movie since Wrath of Khan and that makes it the fifth time I've been told a new Star Trek Movie is the best since Wrath of Khan now.
Actually… been meaning to talk to you about this.
I'm annoyed by the fans who haven't seen or remembered things properly. I always seem to be listening to people who either have very selective memories or are completely ignorant of the thing they’re talking about. Always people claiming Batman Begins didn’t have a big bombastic third act, or that Film Noir always has to have a detective and a femme fatal, or claiming they always hated the Ewoks or that Blade Runner conforms perfectly to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, other such bullshit. Since I know people saw Batman Begins it must only be selective memory at work there. I can only imagine ignorance when people claim that BR and DADoES have anything more than a passing connection to each other beyond a few scenes, most of which were reversed when they made the movie transition.
I forgive the movie makers for making the new crew all young and reckless and stuff. I’ve already got my head around that one so it won’t cause too much trouble beyond how mind alteringly stupid that idea sounds to me. I’ve made peace with it though because you can’t expect too much from these people. I mean, come on, cut them a break, it’s Hollywood. Of course they’re going to make young people reckless and all over sexed and stuff.
I fully understand Hollywood only has so many ideas and they picked to make them young, and young people only are allowed to act one way. If these guys weren't myopic and stupid, they’d never have been given the job. Single note characterization is a requirement. If Spock & Kirk were made black in this movie they would rap, wear their hats backwards, and talk sassy because that’s the only way Hollywood allows blacks to act in movies as the lead. If the black character isn’t the lead then they’re made to act as bullet magnets to prevent the white characters from getting hit. You might argue that those are two notes, but you’d be wrong because they’re only allowed one note in each movie. If they were portrayed as women, they wouldn’t be in search of new life and new civilizations so much as a shoe sale and a really cute purse. If they were gay they’d mince around being FABULOUS despite the fact that Kirk and Spock were gay for three seasons & six movies and never once even approached Hollywood’s idea of a gay couple. I could go on with this, but I think you’ve got my point.
Hollywood is still pretty disgusting when it comes to stereotypes, but I don’t blame them for it anymore. It’s what they do. You might as well get made at Joe Quesada for ruining up everything that used to be good in the Marvel Universe. That's just what he does, he fucks up and ruins perfectly good things. I’m beyond expecting that particular leopard to change its spots. It would be like expecting this whole movie to go by without Kirk and Spock fighting over Uhura’s affections since she’s the attractive girl and they are both good looking guys. The lead female has to bang the lead male and if there are two lead males she’ll have to nail both of them.
What? Why are you all looking at me like that? Oh fuck, it happens doesn’t it? Look, I haven’t actually even seen the trailer, I haven’t read a review beyond those on LJ, please tell me I made that up! At least tell me there isn’t a fucking polar bear or anything like that!
aw fuck.
All that aside, why do I keep hearing how appropriate it is that Kirk as young is all reckless? Kirk, who in the very first episode we heard was teased for being a stack of books with legs and was relentlessly harassed by a cadet called Finnegan. Kirk, who was something of an uptight kid until he got into space and learned to loosen up a bit. Even when given his command he was still a responsible and adroit leader. How is he being a reckless youth in this movie supposed to be appropriate? He doesn’t start acting recklessly until the movies when The Shat started feeling old and wanted to be Capt. Actionpants. Even then, the movies had a different set of circumstances and when The Shat says he wants to play Capt. Actionpants, you let The Shat play Capt. Actionpants. You don’t fuck with The Shat! Chuck Norris once fucked with The Shat, and ever since has had to wear that stupid mustache and to cover up the result.
Before all of that though, Kirk was a straight-laced captain who had an eye for the ladies and a penchant for getting his ship into situations where stomping on the Prime Directive was the only logical solution. He wasn’t ever reckless though, except with his shirts. I don’t want table banging, I don’t require demands of canon, but let’s at least admit that it’s a change shall we? You can even claim it’s a welcome change, but it is a change.
It gets very hard to talk to people when they’re clearly riding the Nostalgia Train and saying things that just ain’t so. It also pisses me off, which is nothing new. I’m angry about 83.7% of my day, since ignorance and stupidity makes me angry and I still live among humans. Humans are stupid and ignorant for the most part. While it makes me angry, I do understand it’s not always their fault. You can’t know everything, you can’t even make a stab at reading all there is to read or watching all there is to watch. Just not possible, there is just too much. Still though, they do like to talk without knowing what the fuck they’re talking about and that shit pisses me off.
It’s not that the comments about Trek have pissed me off that much, it’s just a hook to hang my annoyance on. All the people who talk about Film Noir, but have never actually watched one, all the people who harp on the Indiana Jones Series being like a Saturday Morning Serial, despite the fact that again, they’ve never actually sat down and watched any of them and wouldn’t know what they entailed or didn’t, and every person who argues how close or far something that was based on a book is from the source material when they’ve so obviously never even read the description on wikipedia much less the actual book, they all drive me nuts. I have a good memory for things I’ve seen which is why I can take on a room full of people in a movie trivia game and still win, so it doubly bothers me when I see people ignoring large parts of things to produce a memory that is completely false or try to bullshit their way past me when that’s all but impossible.
This is something you can control though, just go through a short refresher. You can see episodes of Star Trek for free! No excuse not to get an episode or two under your belt before you go out. Just look at one or two and then go out with a clear conscience.
Strange as it might sound, I’m actually trying to keep an open mind about this movie. I’ve never been invested in Star Trek, I hate City on the Edge of Forever, and I haven’t really liked anything but Kirk & Company and even then, it was just something interesting to watch. I’m fully prepared for a train wreck, but I’ll be as pleased as anyone if I don’t hate it. We’ve been down Prequel Avenue before though, and it’s usually brought me nothing but pain and misery. I’m trying to keep an open mind though, but this is a Hollywood production, and a prequel at that, so I’m pretty much ready to have my intelligence insulted by the village idiot.
I will keep the following questions in mind as I watch…
Where is Kirk's Bother? That would be Kirk's OLDER brother. Has the poor bastard been retconned out of existence?
Why the hell is Chekov in this when he’s like 10 years younger than Kirk and couldn’t be bothered to turn up until 2nd season anyway?
Was I right that there’s a polar bear in this?
Are these kids going to be as blisteringly stupid as the people on Lost?
Why is the endlessly hot Winona Ryder playing Spock's mom? I know some people of our generation are having kids and stuff, but DAMN! C'MON! We are NOT that old yet.
In the end, whether I like the movie or not won’t matter. You either like it or you don’t, and my liking or disliking it shouldn’t matter to you. Unless of course you’re one of those people who bases their self worth around liking what everyone else likes and my not liking something harms you somehow. These people do exist, mostly I usually guess they don’t like the thing as much as they say they do and worry themselves because my lack of faith mirrors their own to a level that makes them uncomfortable.
Besides, as it often remarked, I don’t like anything. This is always a surprise to me given my huge movie collection, my large audio book collection, and the other things I’ve collected and enjoyed. Never mind that though, I don’t like 5 shitty things in the stupid and vacuous current popular culture so I don’t like anything. So it shouldn’t matter to you or even surprise you if I don’t like it.
It certainly won’t matter to Paramount, because they’ll already have my money and can spend it on making whatever other garbage they have planned for this year. Probably the marketing for G.I. Joe, since that looks really like it could use a few extra dollars to try and sell it.
Friday, May 8, 2009
This headline is real and so is the story, not an Onion article or nothin'...
Hannity Attacks Obama For Putting Mustard On His Burger
Is it because mustard is yellow?
Was it because he asked for Dijon, which is a region in FRANCE of all places?
Should he be putting a vegetable on his burger, like ketchup?
And if ketchup, isn't ketchup red?
And who likes red?
THE COMMIES!
We knew Hannity was a bad columnist, but is it possible he's a FIFTH COLUMNIST?
Is it because mustard is yellow?
Was it because he asked for Dijon, which is a region in FRANCE of all places?
Should he be putting a vegetable on his burger, like ketchup?
And if ketchup, isn't ketchup red?
And who likes red?
THE COMMIES!
We knew Hannity was a bad columnist, but is it possible he's a FIFTH COLUMNIST?
FACT!
If I was asked to come up with the single most evil villain in all of Video Game History, given all the baddies that have come and gone over the years, I would still pick the bat from Adventure.
I hate that bat.
If you've never played the game and would like to, you can play a flash based version here.
I hate that bat.
If you've never played the game and would like to, you can play a flash based version here.
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