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Runners Universe Forum » Forum: Pop Culture - Recent Posts http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/forum/pop-culture Runners Universe Forum » Forum: Pop Culture - Recent Posts en-US Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:31:32 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 <![CDATA[Search]]> q http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/search.php Dave Carles on "Star Trek: Review Retrospective" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/star-trek-review-retrospective#post-60 Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:39:46 +0000 Dave Carles 60@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ I must say, I'm agree with you DS9 is the show who got me deeper in the franchise, but only from the point where Worf joins the crew on season 4. It got so much more info about the klingon society and the other race from the Alpha Quadrant. I watch all Star Trek Enterprise, the show is ok, not the big deal but I think season 3 was a great ride as a full season story arc (But that's what kill the show <img src="http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/bb-plugins/bb-smilies/default/icon_wink.gif" title=";-)" class="bb_smilies" /> It also introduce the M.A.C.O (Military Assault Command Operations) A detachment of troops commanded by Major J. Hayes wich was cool character to see in this show. SonofThor on "Star Trek: Review Retrospective" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/star-trek-review-retrospective#post-57 Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:31:34 +0000 SonofThor 57@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ I consider myself a bit of a Trekkie. I'm not an expert on Trek but I enjoy the series. I used to hate the first movie, seeing it as a kid but it has definitely grown on me. Wrath of Khan and Undiscovered country are just awesome! As far as TNG goes, I really like First Contact! It's a pretty defining film. The others are allright, I thought Insurrection was just like a TNG episode, it was nothing special. The new movie is completely beautiful! Although I wasn't crazy about the Spock/Uhura relationship, it felt forced. Sean Wang on "Star Trek: Review Retrospective" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/star-trek-review-retrospective#post-44 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:06:34 +0000 Sean Wang 44@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ >Spidey wrote: >Yeah, that's me they are referring to. Funny! I was wondering about that. Anyway, if you ever do see the movie, I'd be curious to hear what you think. In the meantime, who knows...maybe the next Trek movie will suck and you'll be able to say "I told you so" to everyone. Spidey on "Star Trek: Review Retrospective" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/star-trek-review-retrospective#post-43 Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:47:05 +0000 Spidey 43@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ Yeah, that's me they are referring to. I am still firm on my not seeing it and don't plan on changing my mind. Sean Wang on "Star Trek: Review Retrospective" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/star-trek-review-retrospective#post-42 Fri, 29 May 2009 15:10:44 +0000 Sean Wang 42@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ BTW, as for not seeing the new movie, I posted the following comment on another forum (the Secret Identity podcast) in response to them mentioning someone they knew who was refusing the see the movie: "On the show, you mentioned a listener who's refusing to see the new movie, I assume because it's such a departure from the Original Series. One thing to keep in mind: Roddenberry's original vision for the show focused on the betterment of humanity, cerebral sci-fi concepts, and the theme of exploration and the unknown. That gave us some great TV episodes, but it also gave us Star Trek: The Motion Picture. After that snorefest, the powers that be decided to take Trek in a radically different direction: removing Roddenberry from the lead, giving Starfleet a more military feel, and focusing on action and adventure. At the time, that direction could have been considered blasphemy and a betrayal of everything great about the Original Series. But what we got was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and a re-invigoration of the entire franchise. "While the new Trek isn't Wrath of Khan, it's arguably the second-best movie of the entire series, and it's certainly doing it's job re-invigorating the franchise. Here's hoping they keep it up with future installments and avoid any Star Trek V's along the way." Just my two cents. I'd say the new movie is certainly NOT the original series, but it does a good job of standing on its own merits. And it's nice to see something Star Trek that people are really responding favorably to, given the last several endeavors in both TV and movies. Sean Wang on "Star Trek: Review Retrospective" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/star-trek-review-retrospective#post-41 Fri, 29 May 2009 15:05:28 +0000 Sean Wang 41@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ I just lost my entire post too. Annoying. Why is it that if I'm logged in, spend an hour writing a post, and hit Submit, I then get taken to a Login screen AGAIN, causing the entire post to be lost. What the hell? Anyway, people, do yourself a favor and hit Save every now and then or copy your entire post before you hit Submit, because something with phpBB blows. Anyway....typing the whole damn thing again..... Of the TV series, I only watched TNG and DS9 in their entirety. I'm currently watching TOS and have no intention to watch Voyager or Enterprise since what little I did see didn't do much for me. So my list of stand-out episodes includes: THE NEXT GENERATION "Yesterday's Enterprise": A cool alternate reality that brings back Tasha Yar in an interesting way. "Sins of the Father", "Reunion", "Redemption, Pt I and II": Loved the entire Worf/Klingon Civil War saga, and seeing Data in command of his own ship is sweet. "Best of Both Worlds, Pt I and II": Who doesn't love the Picard-abducted-by-the-Borg story? "Darmok": Classic Roddenberry-era story about man and his ability (and willingness) to communicate. "I, Borg": Great Picard/Guinan scenes and a compelling story about ethics in warfare as pertaining to genocide. "The Inner Light": Very cool story about Picard living an entire lifetime on a dying planet. "Chain of Command, Pt I and II": Strong scenes of Picard being held prisoner by a Cardassian interrogator, while the Enterprise crew clashes with Picard's replacement. "Tapestry": Time-bending Picard/Q story that reveals how Picard became the person he is today. "All Good Things": Series finale that spans the present, past, and future, all of it done really well. DEEP SPACE NINE "War of the Warrior, Pt I and II": Kicks off the politicking of the Alpha Quadrant and its role in the Dominion War with Worf joining the crew and hostilities building between the Federation and the Klingons. "The Visitor: Emotional story about Jake Sisko pining for his missing dad over the years. "Trials and Tribble-ations": Fun "Forrest Gump"-style CG episode that blends the DS9 crew with footage from the TOS series. "Rocks and Shoals": Really shows what it means to be a loyal Jem Hadar soldier when a band of them is stranded on a planet with a small Federation force. "In the Pale Moonlight": Shows how far Sisko is willing to go to get the Romulans to join the war effort. Seems like a short DS9 list, but that's only because I didn't list ALL the episodes directly tied to the Dominion War storyline. A huge number of episodes from Seasons 4-7 dealt with the war, and they are all on my list. Spidey on "Star Trek: Review Retrospective" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/star-trek-review-retrospective#post-40 Sat, 16 May 2009 17:09:55 +0000 Spidey 40@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ Hi Sean, big fan and proud owner of 2 con art pieces. I am going to try this again, as I had about 3/4 of a lengthy reply typed on my son's laptop last night and then lost my connection. <img src="http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/bb-plugins/bb-smilies/default/icon_mad.gif" title=":x" class="bb_smilies" /> I really enjoyed your retrospective review, although I would have liked a few more examples of your favorite episodes. As for the movies, I agree pretty much with what you wrote, but I think I liked Voyage Home and First Contact a little more than you did. I thought Insurrection played like an extended episode and it fell flat as a movie. And I get what you're saying abot the Picard/Data show, looking back those are the most focused on characters in the movies. The Data emotion thing started to feel somewhat played, but he is a popular character and I guess they were trying to capitalize on that appeal. Nemesis didn't do much for me and Data's death was hollow due to B4 waiting in the wings. Although I did like the way in which he sacrificed himself. I will not see the movie...they say it's good, but I don't want to like it. I like the Trek that I watched on tv and this is not that Trek. Also, that (spoiler) parrallel reality thing, is not my style. Onto the series. I have seen every episeode of all the real Treks (TOS,TNG,DS9,Voyager) many times, like many others. I like them all, and for different reasons. I don't have lots of favorite eps from TOS, but off the top of my head I would say the one where Kirk and Spock take refuge from the Klingons in the compound of peaceful people who turn out to be beings of pure energy. I love how they kept that little tidbit from them until the end. I have many favorites from TNG including Darmok, and Inner Light. I will add Ensigns of Command, The Neutral Zone, Measure of a Man, Sins of the Father, The Wounded, and Times Arrow. There really are so many good quality episodes. The Trek universe was expanded very well with some great villains (Borg), and some comical (Ferengi, Pakleds), and some in between (Q). DS9 was a great series and I recenlt rewatched them from beginning to end and it really holds up. The Dominion War got a little old to me near the end but it was a great ride. I enjoyed Voyager also but I didn't find myself as deeply invested in it. I also agree with you abou 7 of 9. Very gratuitous. I don't have a problem with the hottie thing, but with everyone else on the ship wearing a uniform/jumpsuit and sensible shoes, where did they come up with that outfit? I never watched Enterprise so I can't speak intelligently about it. My one big beef with the Trek writers is that they have gone to great lengths to create some kick-ass villains and as soon as they establish that these baddies can hands down kick the crap out of the Federation (Borg, Jem Hadar), some of the bad assness is taken away and it's more of a fair fight. Those Jem Hadar dudes were nasty when they first appeared and a season later Kira and Bashir are holding their own against them in a one on one fight. I know Kira is a freedom fighter but 2 whacks from her is not gonna KO a Jem Hadar. That's my take for now, I'm sure I missed alot but my main points are in there. Sean Wang on "Star Trek: Review Retrospective" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/star-trek-review-retrospective#post-39 Fri, 15 May 2009 09:05:01 +0000 Sean Wang 39@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ >jayadan wrote: >I can still remember watching the first episode of TNG (Encounter at Farpoint) with >my friends when it first aired. We had a large projection TV and I invited all of my >friends over to watch. I was actually at MIT during the height of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and it still amazes me to this day that during my entire four years there, I only saw one episode ("Silicon Avatar": the one with the Crystalline Entity and Data channeling the dead son of a scientist hunting the Entity). Being MIT, a lot of my friends were into TNG, but I had never been into the original series, so I had no real interest in the new one. It was only after I graduated that I happened to catch a couple really good episodes ("Best of Both Worlds" probably). Luckily for me, at the time, there was a station in Boston showing all the episodes in order every weeknight. So over the course of a year, I got caught up on the entire series. Also managed to catch the first three seasons of DS9 that way. Jayadan on "Star Trek: Review Retrospective" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/star-trek-review-retrospective#post-38 Sat, 09 May 2009 21:59:32 +0000 Jayadan 38@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ I agree with your movie assessments for the most part. I think that I liked the first couple of Next Generation movies more than you did, but otherwise our thoughts line up pretty well. The original series is something that I sort of grew up on. I watched it in re-runs as a kid and absolutely loved it. It hasn't aged well, but it's aged better than other things I liked as a kid (like the original Battlestar Galactica). I can still remember watching the first episode of TNG (Encounter at Farpoint) with my friends when it first aired. We had a large projection TV and I invited all of my friends over to watch. It was like we were finally getting our own Trek series. I was giddy when, years later, I actually ran across Farpoint Station getting dusty in a warehouse in LA (it was a pretty crappy model, but it was still cool to see). I didn't realize that Hulu had Trek. I'm totally putting the series in my que! Sean Wang on "Star Trek: Review Retrospective" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/star-trek-review-retrospective#post-37 Sat, 09 May 2009 20:31:51 +0000 Sean Wang 37@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ Finally, a look at the various Star Trek TV series, although I’ll be honest and say I didn’t watch half of them. The Original Series I know I watched it here and there with my parents growing up, but I don’t remember it much. For the longest time, I had no real desire to watch it as an adult. I thought the acting, sets, stories, and sound FX would all be too cheesy to bear. This past year though, I decided to make my way through the series on Hulu, and while some of my fears are true, I’m happy to discover that it actually holds up much better than I thought it would. In particular, I’m surprised how entertaining the relationships are between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. I also think the stories hold up pretty well as explorations of old-school sci-fi concepts. I’m near the end of season 1, and my only real complaint would be the overabundance of stories about all-powerful aliens toying with or manipulating the crew in some way, but other than that, I’m enjoying the series a great deal. The Next Generation Overall, TNG was a great series. The middle seasons are especially excellent, with some episodes like “Darmok” and “The Inner Light” being some of the best hours of television ever made. I also love the Worf “Sins of the Father”-related storyline as it lends a nice ongoing story to the otherwise adventure-of-the-week format of the show. I could have done with fewer Holodeck stories though! Deep Space Nine One of my favorite shows of all time and certainly my favorite of all the Trek TV series. I’m a big fan of epic storytelling, and I think DS9 really nailed it with the Dominion War storyline. I think the first couple seasons are forgettable. Things start to pick up with Season 3, but with Season 4 (when Worf joins the cast), the series really hits high gear and more or less keeps it up until the end of the series. There are a few missteps along the way though, the most egregious of which is not involving Gul Dukat in the epic war story towards the finale. His separate story is uneventful and insignificant by comparison, and his character deserved a better place in the bigger story. But overall, it was a series well worth watching. Voyager I never really got into this show. I tried early on but didn’t get into any of the characters and found it a bit unbelievable that the ship could consistently take such severe beatings (much worse than anything the Enterprise ever faced on TNG) and still survive week-to-week in a galaxy with no support. The addition of Seven of Nine turned me off even more (not that I was watching at the time). It just felt pandering to me that producers kept touting her as a “strong, female character” and then they sexed her up in a shiny form-fitting catsuit and stiletto heels. Don’t get me wrong; I like eye candy as much as the next guy, but don’t insult my intelligence while you’re doing it. If they just came out and said they wanted to sex up the show, that’s fine. But don’t introduce a Borg character (of all races, the LEAST likely to care about personal appearance) and then parade her body around under the pretense of adding a strong, female character. Enterprise I tried this show for a while too, but couldn’t make it through the first season. What a terribly missed opportunity. I think this show could have been something different (something they were obviously going for too by even dropping “Star Trek” from the title). As a show about the earliest days of the Federation, I really thought it would have been cool to focus on the space travel itself. Personally, I think the first several episodes had the potential to build plots around the perils of space travel, kinks in life support, people going stir crazy or suffering space madness, racial tension between humans and the few alien races that could have been onboard, issues with structural integrity of the ship, etc etc. I think they should have encountered new aliens only a couple times in the first season, and the first one probably not until halfway through the first season. That would have made each first contact feel hugely significant and momentous, as it should be. As it was, right out the gate, they were meeting new races every week, and that made it feel just like every other Trek show. Except they were more annoying every time they did meet a new race. And in the same vein as Seven of Nine, the attempts to inject sexiness just felt so blatant that they were really insulting. The decontamination gel scene from the first episode was so cheesy and overdone, it felt like they stole a scene from an episode of Zalman King’s “Red Shoe Diaries.” I stopped watching both Voyager and Enterprise very early on, so I can’t really judge them fairly. But at least I thoroughly enjoyed the entire runs of Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. Sean Wang on "Star Trek: Review Retrospective" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/star-trek-review-retrospective#post-36 Sat, 09 May 2009 19:46:24 +0000 Sean Wang 36@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ While the classic Trek movies were hit or miss, I think they were mostly hit. Sadly, the Next Generation movies all fall into the “miss” category. And yes, I include First Contact in that. What amazes me in general is that with the Original Series, the TV shows arguably focused on Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, at the expense of the secondary characters. But they tried to correct this with the movies, giving the supporting cast more to do. The exact opposite seems to have happened with The Next Generation. The show developed the supporting cast much more than they had ever been developed in the original TV series, but then when it came time to do TNG movies, every single story became “The Picard and Data Show.” That’s just sad. Star Trek: Generations Here begins the Star Trek movie crutch or over-reliance on time travel gimmicks. While used to great effect in Star Trek IV and the new movie, it’s much less interesting here and in First Contact. I did like their attempt to bridge the gap by having members of the original cast at the beginning of the movie and then having Kirk prominently feature in the rest, but his presence actually amounts to nothing of any consequence. And this is especially true of Kirk’s death, which is the absolute lamest death of a cool character since Boba Fett. He doesn’t even die in battle! He dies because a bolt on a rickety metal bridge gives way. What?! As I mentioned above, death in Star Trek VI saving Klingon ambassador: significant; but death from standing on collapsing rickety bridge: meaningless. As for the whole Picard/Kirk story, there is never any real drama to their situation inside the Nexus. I may be wrong here since it’s been a while, but from what I remember, the climax involves Picard and Kirk desperately trying to stop Soran from completing his mad scheme. But who cares? What’s the urgency? They’re in a Nexus. If they fail, they can just Groundhog Day themselves back in time and try again. There’s no urgency to them succeeding if failure results in them just being able to try again and again until they get it right. Finally, this movie tries to recapture the “wow” factor of the Enterprise destruction of Star Trek III, but here, it feels empty and forced. I find it hard to believe that after all it’s been through in seven seasons of the TV show, that the flagship of the Federation could really be felled by a single Klingon Bird of Prey. Yeah, maybe if it was being captained by the kid version of Picard from the episode “Rascals.” Star Trek: First Contact This one’s a hot button, because I know most people like this movie. I did too the first time I saw it, but upon further viewings, I liked it less and less. It’s definitely the best of the TNG movies, but I don’t think that makes it a good movie in and of itself. First and foremost, it totally destroyed everything cool about the Borg by giving them a leader, and a "sexy" leader at that. Why do the Borg need to seduce, coax, and scheme when they can just plow over any adversary? Their decentralized, nonnegotiable methodology is what made them so great as adversaries, and this movie took all that away and made them just like very other leader-driven organization. For all my issues with the Borg story, at least that half the movie (everything on the Enterprise) was exciting, but the plot for the other half of the crew: trying to sober up Cochrane so he could make his historic flight. Not terribly gripping. And again, time travel is used as a crutch. At this point, time travel had been featured in 3 of the 8 Trek movies and BOTH of the TNG movies. If that's not a crutch, I don't know what is. And the time travel aspect diminishes the coolness of the Borg even further. After all, why do they have to go back in time to cripple a race that they still have the power to just as easily crush in the present? The Borg don’t need to come up with convoluted time travel schemes to achieve their goals. They just need to call in a couple more cube ships. That’s it. BTW, when I first heard First Contact was going to be about the Borg, I was psyched for the possibility of a huge event movie: I was imagining the Federation having to form uneasy alliances with all the other races of the Alpha Quadrant, resulting in them facing a huge external threat (the Borg) while also dealing with internal conflicts (IE Romulans). So the actual First Contact movie was nowhere near as cool or epic as something they could have done along those lines. But that's why I ended up loving DS9 (one of my all-time favorite shows), since that's EXACTLY what they ended up doing with the Dominion War. Star Trek: Insurrection I saw this once in the theater and have since forgotten most of it. I remember something about a Fountain of Youth planet and numerous scenes that made me think the writers were out of touch with reality. I imagine them sitting in a room thinking to themselves that a scene of Picard and Data singing a Gilbert and Sullivan duet would be delightfully hilarious. It’s not. It’s really, really stupid. The kind of stupid that makes me embarrassed for everyone in the actual theater watching it. And then there are scenes with Worf getting Klingon pimples and Troi actually uttering lines about her boobs feeling firmer. Seriously, writers? In what parallel dimension do you exist in which you think an audience will actually embrace that kind of tripe? When the movie was coming out, I remember the hook being that Picard and the crew would be taking a stand against the Federation, and I thought that had a lot of strong dramatic potential. But then the writers took the easiest, laziest way out and made the Federation position completely in the wrong, thus robbing the situation of any real drama since there was no real choice to agonize over. An example: if someone says he’s going to kill 1000 innocent people and you have to choose whether to stop him or not, it’s a clear choice. No tension. If he says he has to kill 1000 people so that 1,000,000 may live, then you have a dilemma. One thing I love about the movie Crimson Tide is that both opposing sides (Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington) are right from a certain perspective. It’s not a clear-cut position of right and wrong, just different interpretations of options. That’s what I was hoping for with Insurrection: Picard having to choose between a Federation stance that has some merit and what he feels is the greater right. But they made it about as two-dimensional a choice as they could, just so the audience wouldn’t have to worry about thinking about anything too much. Star Trek: Nemesis I remember at the time, this movie getting a lot of press because it was being written by the same guy who wrote Gladiator. Personally, I’ve always considered Gladiator to be an extremely over-praised movie. It’s a summer action movie, with a typical Conan-the-Barbarian revenge plot, not a Best Picture Oscar-worthy film. But I was excited anyway, since I just wanted someone new writing for Trek given the last few movies. But it made no difference, as this movie was awful. Again I don’t remember much since I only saw it once, but I remember a Picard clone where the clone aspect had no impact on the actual storytelling. It could have just been a random villain as far as I could tell. And the crew found a second Data that served no purpose whatsoever other than to be there as a convenient solution to them killing off the real Data (in a move blatantly trying to recapture the emotional death of Spock in Star Trek II). The ship again gets destroyed (yawn) by getting rammed into another ship. And the dune buggy chase and sequence of Picard flying a shuttle-sized vessel through the corridors of an enemy ship both seemed out of place and inserted for no other reason than to have some action sequences thrown in. Ugh. Four Next Generation movies and not a solid good one in the bunch. A sorry legacy to leave for such a good show. Finally they got it right with the new Trek movie though… Star Trek I just saw the J.J. Abrams-directed new Star Trek movie and it is awesome! Since it’s still fairly new, I won’t give away any spoilers, but I will say it is a perfect combination of action, comedy, and character development. I think it’s very accessible for newbies (my wife really liked it despite not being into Star Trek at all) while also having some extra nods for the fans. It is the best Trek movie since Star Trek IV in terms of giving everyone something to do, and I think it highlights the supporting characters’ talents and abilities much more so than the TV series even did. It’s been a VERY long time coming, but I’m finally glad to have a great movie to get me jazzed about Star Trek again. Sean Wang on "Star Trek: Review Retrospective" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/star-trek-review-retrospective#post-35 Sat, 09 May 2009 18:17:04 +0000 Sean Wang 35@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ So in celebration of the new Star Trek movie, I thought I’d do a thread in which I review all the past Star Trek movies and TV series. I’ll preface it by saying that I’m a big Trek geek and I’m okay with the label of “Trekkie.” Personally, I don’t get the hubbub about fans being offended by the term “Trekkie” and preferring to be called “Trekkers.” Really? What’s the difference? It’s not like being called a “Trek Whore” or something actually demeaning, although to be honest, I’d probably accept that label as well. Anyway, these are my opinions, but then I’m known to be a bit harsh and demanding in my entertainment. Please feel free to chime in! Star Trek: The Motion Picture The first time I saw this movie was in the very early days of VCRs (I’m old). I was a kid and remember being pretty sick with a fever of over 100. I was in and out of consciousness and remember thinking the movie was really long and kinda boring and not much happened. And that was all I remembered about it. That and it had a bald chick and a lot of people wearing drab pajamas. I finally saw it again about 5 years ago. Can’t say my opinion has changed much. While I don’t hate the movie, it certainly doesn’t do much for me either. It’s just…there. It’s obviously of the “2001” school of cerebral sci-fi, and as such, it’s fine. But it is slow and not much happens. Overall, not something I’m going to go out of my way to watch again. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (AKA Star Trek II: 100% Awesome from Start to Finish) Not only do I love this movie, but it sits in my personal Top Ten movies of all time. For me it transcends being just a SCI-FI movie or just a STAR TREK story and is just a great HUMAN story. I love that it really fleshes Kirk out beyond just being a space cowboy into being an older, restless shell of himself, doubting his place and usefulness in life. It also has the great recurring concepts of the no-win scenario, the good of the many vs the good of the few, and life and death (both on a personal and planet-level scale). As a testament, I actually just realized the other week that my appreciation for this movie doesn’t even have anything to do with the original Star Trek TV series. I actually only started watching the original Trek series within the past year on Hulu (more on that later), so I didn’t love this movie because I had any pre-existing attachment to the series or the characters. It stands completely on its own. One other thing that I find fascinating: everyone seems to concur that Wrath of Khan is the most exhilarating of the Trek movies (and it is), but when you think about it, there is hardly any action in it at all. The two main “action scenes” consist of two big ships doing a couple slow strafing passes on each other and then those same two ships engaged in a very, very slow cat-and-mouse game in a nebula. And yet, those sequences are absolutely gripping in drama and intensity because the movie does an amazing job in getting the audience invested in the characters and situations. I’d argue that those two scenes are more thrilling than every action scene from all three Star Wars prequel movies put together. Because for all the CG wizardry, frenetic overblown action, and nausea-inducing camera moves of the Star Wars prequels, there is no heart whatsoever in them to actually make us care what happens next. At all. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Not a huge fan of this one but I appreciate it as part of the three-part story that is Star Trek II, III, and IV. I think the biggest bummer about the movie is that it lost Kirstie Alley, who was an awesome Saavik, and filled her spaceboots with Robin Curtis, who is completely unmemorable. I really think Kirstie Alley alone would have made me much more interested in everything that happens on Genesis. As it is, all those scenes are kinda blah to me. For me, the best parts of the movie are the scenes on Starbase, where the crew decides to disobey orders and steal the Enterprise. I think a lot of movies and TV shows try to show military characters faced with the choice of disobeying orders at the risk of jeopardizing their entire military careers, but this movie really captures the gravitas of that decision in a way that most don’t. And then there’s the destruction of the Enterprise. Holy crap. That is one of the most awe-inspiring events of all the Trek franchise and is heartbreaking to watch. Since then, the Next Generation movies have tried to re-capture that feeling by destroying the Enterprise literally every other movie, and those fail miserably. Unlike Star Trek III, which truly feels like a colossal loss, the TNG attempts feel like shallow, obvious grabs for “holy crap” moments. Finally, Star Trek III has both Christopher Lloyd AND John Larroquette as the two main Klingons. Weird. I guess Don Rickles and Shemp weren’t available. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home This one gets a lot of flak, but I’ll say right now that I love it. I find the time travel angle to be very fun and entertaining, and in the broader picture, I really like how it wraps up story elements from the previous two movies. I especially love the resolution where their success in saving Earth commutes the charges against the crew for stealing the Enterprise (from Star Trek III), and Kirk’s punishment is to be demoted from admiral to captain (which resolves his storyline from Star Trek II). That is tight writing that resolves things neatly without ever feeling contrived. The “save the whale” story itself is fun and I appreciate that this movie, more than any others, really gives every single cast member something to do and a moment to shine. That seems to be something no other Trek movie has accomplished until the new J.J. Abrams movie. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier I only saw this once in the theaters when it came out and promptly forgot it. I remember thinking it was generally pretty dull and didn’t feel like a plot worthy of a feature-length movie. And I remember a “Row, row, row your boat” sing-a-long that made me never want to see Trek characters singing ever again. More on this later with Star Trek: Insurrection. Ugh. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Definitely one of the better Trek movies. I love the setup and the first half of the movie a great deal, although I lose a bit of interest during the detective-y scenes on the Enterprise and Kirk and McCoy on the penal colony. The movie just seems to lose a bit of momentum with those scenes. Great villain in General Chang though, who doesn’t seem to get enough props in Trek lore as a cool baddie. This movie also has one of my favorite McCoy scenes ever, when, during his trial, he’s asked to describe his medical status. Classic. The awkward and tense dinner scene between the Enterprise and Klingon crews is also a highlight, as is seeing Sulu get his own ship. My biggest beef is that they didn’t kill Kirk. I think I remember there being rumors that he was going to die saving the Klingon ambassador at the end. Whether true or not, that would have been a very fitting resolution to the entire original cast Trek movie series. While a downer, it would have been a SIGNIFICANT death, allowing the Klingons to finally embrace peace with the Federation, having acknowledged the ultimate sacrifice made by their most legendary sworn enemy to protect one of their own. It also would have tied neatly to the line from Star Trek IV, in which a Klingon ambassador states that “there shall be no peace as long as Kirk lives.” Instead we get the inane and utterly pointless Kirk death in Star Trek: Generations. Next up: My reviews of the Next Generation movies. Brace yourselves. I am not kind. Sean Wang on "AFI Top 100 Films" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/afi-top-100-films#post-48 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:38:39 +0000 Sean Wang 48@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ 2 more movies down: The Jazz Singer (1927): One of those movies, like Birth of a Nation, that falls into the category of needing to see it not so much for the story itself but for its historical importance to the film industry. That being said, I don't think those movies are the most enjoyable to watch since usually the "wow" context isn't there today. For instance, it's hard to be amazed by a movie that first uses a certain film-making technique when I've actually grown up seeing that technique in every movie since. The Jazz Singer was apparently important because it was the first "talkie." While still mostly a silent movie, the Al Jolson song numbers (and some short bits of dialogue around those numbers) were the first to use synchronized sound and dialogue. The story itself was fine, with the main character (Jolson) being torn between his desire to be an entertainer and his Jewish cantor father, who wants him to follow in his footsteps. They totally stole that story from Krusty the Clown's origin on The Simpsons. Unfortunately, no smoking pet monkey on roller skates though. A Place in the Sun: I enjoyed this one quite a bit. The title conjured up images or a sweeping epic romance, so that's what I was bracing myself for. But it actually had a pretty tense and suspenseful story that even felt a bit Hitchcock-y at times. Basically, an up-and-coming guy has a relationship with a factory worker but then tries to leave her behind when he starts seeing a much more cultured (and rich) socialite. His dream life with the new woman is in danger of unraveling when the first woman refuses to let him go. I think this one holds up pretty well and was very entertaining on its own merits. Plus, it was one of Elizabeth Taylor's first roles as an adult (she was 17 at the time), so it was nice to see someone of her legendary status in an actual acting role, as opposed to the multiple-ex-husband punchline that I've only known her as for most of my life. Sean Wang on "AFI Top 100 Films" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/afi-top-100-films#post-47 Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:23:23 +0000 Sean Wang 47@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ A few recent additions, with the caveat that my comments will contain spoilers (as much as you can call something a "spoiler" for a movie that's been out for at least a couple decades): MASH: Didn't really like it for reasons I explained above (it portraying a "shapshot" series of events as opposed to a "plot" story). Basically, a couple new doctors show up at medical camp, enjoy some juvenile antics and sexcapades, talk a guy out of suicide, spy on a woman in the shower, go to Japan to perform an operation and squeeze in some golf, and play a football game. The end. What? I think this is one of those films that was groundbreaking at the time but loses a great deal of its potency later when viewed in a different political and social climate. Plus, am I really supposed to care about or like any of the main characters? I just found them to be cocky, delinquent, and juvenile. I wouldn't find those traits particularly endearing in main characters of a lowball college sex comedy or a Wayans Brothers movie, so I'm not sure why I should like it here, other than it's Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland. I'm guessing the TV series was better. I know I watched it as a kid, but I was too young to remember any of it. But it's got to be better than the movie though, although I'm pretty sure it was no Night Court. <img src="http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/bb-plugins/bb-smilies/default/icon_smile.gif" title=":-)" class="bb_smilies" /> Doctor Zhivago: I kinda liked it in the end but was so-so on it throughout. A 3.5-hour epic love story set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution of 1917. I know it's supposed to be an epic, but it didn't really feel like one. It just felt long. Unlike Lawrence of Arabia, which does feel epic because the character actually interacts with the parties around him and has a direct effect on certain events within the huge scope of things, that doesn't seem to be the case with Zhivago. It's a much more personal story of two people, but as such, you really don't feel much of the revolution itself. I guess for an epic, I prefer something like Lawrence of Arabia or Lord of the Rings, where ordinary people are caught up in extraordinary events and actually have a hand in shaping them. Or they at least interact with them and are affected by them in a direct way or are personally trying to achieve something of epic proportions. That justifies a 3.5-hour running time. It's much harder for me to think of a love story that needs 3.5 hours to tell (Titanic may be an exception but only because I enjoy that movie for the utter chaos and panic of the ship going down and not for the love story itself). With Zhivago, a couple meets, they lose each other, they find each other, they're separated, they find each other, they lose each other, etc, etc. Not much else really seems to happen. It does come together nicely in the end though, so at least it has that over MASH. Have I mentioned that I don't like MASH? West Side Story: I'll admit I'm a sucker for a good musical, especially when its songs have permeated pop culture and are instantly recognizable and catchy. The first half hour or so of West Side Story, I was skeptical, since I had a very hard time buying a street gang like the Jets, given how they dance and how they dress. At least with Grease, the guys did both in a more masculine way, which made them believable as "tough guys." Not so much with the Jets. But I eventually got over that as I got absorbed in the story, and it was a great story, which everyone knows is a modern take on Romeo and Juliet. It has some great songs like "America," "Maria," "I Feel Pretty," "Somewhere," and many others you'd probably recognize. Interestingly, a few days after watching the movie, I caught the Flight of the Conchords episode where they spoof the "Cool" song from West Side Story. I love when that happens. Sean Wang on "AFI Top 100 Films" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/afi-top-100-films#post-46 Sun, 12 Apr 2009 14:41:24 +0000 Sean Wang 46@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ As far as the classics go, I definitely find that some hold up really well and others, not so much. And I’m finding that I only really like movies with an actual “story” or “plot.” I really don’t care for “snapshot” movies that are just a series of seemingly random events that just show what life is like for a character without there being any actual structured plot to tell. For instance, I didn’t really like Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider, or MASH. These all just seemed like collections of random occurrences, none of which added or subtracted anything important from any overall story, and then the movie ended. Not my cup of tea. But then there are movies like High Noon, Stagecoach, To Kill a Mockingbird, African Queen, West Side Story, etc, and those I actually enjoyed quite a bit. Sean Wang on "AFI Top 100 Films" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/afi-top-100-films#post-45 Sun, 12 Apr 2009 14:36:13 +0000 Sean Wang 45@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ I made a mention of this in a blog post but decided to start a thread here since I'll probably be adding to it now and then as I whittle away at the list. Way back in 2000, I printed out a list of the AFI (American Film Institute) Top 100 Movies of all time (they updated the list in 2007, but I’m going off of the original version). Since then, I’ve slowly been working my way through the list and I’m currently about a dozen away from having watched all 100 movies . My wife calls these “homework movies” and isn’t terribly interested in many of them, so while she was out of town recently, I decided to plow through some of the remaining movies, including “Birth of a Nation,” a 3-hour silent movie from 1915 about two families during the Civil War and Reconstruction period. Wow. Talk about a time capsule, and not in a particularly good way. There’s something to be said about a movie where the Ku Klux Klan emerges as the heroic cavalry to save the white underdogs from oppression by the political and social powerhouse of the black populace. Weird. At times, I felt like I was watching some sci-fi movie about an alternate, mirror-universe Earth. I was almost expecting someone at the end to find a half-buried black Statue of Liberty sticking up out of the sand. Anyway, I’m glad I watched it, but as far as silent movies go, I’ll probably stick with the Chaplin stuff. B. Schatz on "Watchmen" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/watchmen#post-51 Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:15:15 +0000 B. Schatz 51@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ I enjoyed the movie - but like you, it's been a while since I read the source material. At the comic shop, there's a wide range of opinions, but for the most part, people seem to have enjoyed it. I think the best critique I heard of the movie was something along the lines of, "If they had to make the Watchmen movie, that was about as close as they were going to get." Peggy on "Watchmen" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/watchmen#post-50 Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:27:45 +0000 Peggy 50@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ I'm a little surprised at the graphic violence--a bit much for my tastes. I do find it telling, about Americans or our society, that people find the male nudity more objectionable than the violence. Sean Wang on "Watchmen" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/watchmen#post-49 Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:57:02 +0000 Sean Wang 49@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ So I saw WATCHMEN opening weekend with some friends, and I have to say I enjoyed it quite a bit. Bear in mind I read the graphic novel just once, back in college, so I don't remember too much about it. It is on my pile of books to re-read sometime soon though. Warning: there are some spoilers below... First off, I have to say it's great to see a superhero movie that isn't afraid to have the characters dressed up in old-school superhero outfits. Because if I have to see one more superhero movie that "updates" the characters into leather outfits (IE X-Men, Daredevil, Hancock, etc), I'm going to punch someone. Sure, the costumes looked a bit cheesy, but it's actually amazing to me how UN-cheesy they become when the characters themselves are treated seriously. It just becomes part of the world and not something campy. As for the story itself, I didn't have too many problems with it. There were certainly some flaws, but given how much went "right," I'm not going to quibble too much over what went "wrong." One big beef I had was with Night Owl and Silk Spectre killing and maiming so many thugs in the alley fight. That kind of indiscriminate use of violence seems like a Rorschach thing and seemed much more questionable for two supposed heroes to dole out so casually. And it was totally unnecessary. Zack Snyder could have done that entire slo-mo, kick-ass fight scene and just have the heroes neutralize the baddies, without having to actually kill. I can understand the ending change since the squid aliens would have been much more difficult for the masses to accept. And even in the book, I think I always felt like it was something completely random and new introduced right at the end, which always feels a bit out of place to me. So tying the plot back to something that has already been a big plot element throughout the story (Dr. Manhattan) makes a bit of sense, storytelling-wise. Anyway, those are my initial impressions. Maybe I'll have some different thoughts after I re-read the book. Sean Wang on "Welcome to the pop culture section!" http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/topic/welcome-to-the-pop-culture-section#post-34 Sat, 28 Feb 2009 17:40:02 +0000 Sean Wang 34@http://www.runnersuniverse.com/forum/ Devoted to all things pop culture--thanks and enjoy!