Star Trek movie retrospective Part 2: Star Trek the Wrath of Khan
Now to the good stuff. As important and groundbreaking as the Motion Picture was, ultimately it was really a horrible movie, and not just for Shatnar in a body stocking. Overall it was as bad as the most mediocre Season 3 episode (cough cough Spock’s Brain cough cough), only with better special effects. However, it opened the door for TWOK, and for that I will always be grateful. (TWOK image courtesy of the sci fi t shirts category)
So, it’s now 1982. Gene Roddenberry, after the mediocre production of the Motion Picture, was more or less forced out of the movie. The great Nick Meyer was tapped to write and direct the film (this entire blog series, by the way, was inspired by an interview I heard with Nick Meyers on Geektime, Howard Stern’s nerd program on Sirius Satellite radio, where he talked about working on this and all the good Star Trek films (the even numbered ones. 2,4, and 6)). He wrote the script in 12 days. They worked on a shoe string budget, recycled miniatures and footage from the last film, and somehow produced brilliance. TWOK set a record for first day box office gross (which I contributed to) and was the first movie to use a sequence entirely done with computer graphics (suck it, Lucas).
What was happening in 1982? Well, I was in Jr High, the only two year period of my pre-collage education that didn’t resemble a year long water boarding experience. Reagan was president, and in spite of my father’s (a lifelong Democrat) objections seemed to doing good stuff for the country. All nine planets in our solar system aligned on the same side of the sun, and the longest lunar eclipse of the century occured yet in spite of mass doomsday predictions the planet did not blow up. Our good friends to the north were made completely independent from England. The Vietnam Memorial was dedicated. Thriller by Michael Jackson became the biggest selling record of all time (I admit it. I owned a copy). The Commodore 64 was released. And Argentina invades the Falklands Islands, sparking a minor war that was more or less treated like Monday Night Football by most Americans.
Overall, it could be called an ‘up” year, for lack of a better term. The only real downer was the big Tylenol scare, which was like the lottery only the prize was death. I think the cultural time was right for a movie that was, for lack of a better term, kind of a bummer. I am man enough to admit that I cried like a little girl when Spock died, and even to this day I get a little teary when I think about it. Sure, they stuck in that scene with his coffin on the Genesis planet (actually forced in by the studio over Nick Meyers and Leonard Nimoy’s strenuous objections). Nimoy only agreed to come back if they gave him an epic death scene that would end his character forever (I guess money cured that problem for him).
I won’t waste our time going in to the story too much. If you haven’t seen TWOK I don’t know what the hell you are even doing reading this blog. Odds are you should be watching Paris Hilton’s rereprehensible reality show. Khan Noonien Singh was dropped off on a planet by Kirk 15 years ago and then left to rot when the planet turned into a death world. He captures a ship and proceeds to use it to wreak havoc in the universe and track down Kirk. Stuff explodes. Ships fight. Spock dies heroically saving the ship, breaking my heart in the process.
I will say this about the story. I am not unsympathetic to Khan. No one really goes into it too much in the movie but Kirk royally screwed him and all his people. One thing you can say about this movie is that everyone’s motivations are “as clear as an unmuddied lake. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer.”
Here’s what TWOK had:
The full cast. A great story. Khan Noonien Singh (I just like saying his name), played by the amazing Ricardo Montalban. Decent low budget special effects. A creepy creature that controls your brain from inside your ear. A call back to a great TOS episode (Space Seed). A non-Hollywood lame happy ending. The great Kobayashi Maru test (which Kirk beat). A great death scene. Kirks long lost son. A cool constructive tool used as a weapon of mass destruction. A computer animated scene.
Here’s what it did not have:
A lame excuse for Kirk to fight Khan face to face (they never actually meet). Annoying new characters, like the now obligatory hot chick for sex appeal (there were a couple, but they didn’t annoy me). Any hesitation to beat the hell out of the Enterprise. Body stocking uniforms (I actually like the Star Fleet uniforms from this film a lot. The best, IMO). Unnecessary aliens (as any zombie movie will teach you, the worst enemies humans have will always be other humans).
The story is tight and clean, with no extra stuff crow-barred in except for the Spock body/Genesis planet at the end. At the time (age 11, crying my eyes out, feeling like my best friend had just died and nothing on the planet was worth doing ever) I grabbed onto that scene like a drowning man grabbing a life saver, but with an adult eye and considering what would come to follow I think Nick Meyers was right and they should have let the scene stand alone. They could have probably forced his resurrection without it, and it would have made for a better stand alone movie.
Honestly, for me Spock’s death was when the series more or less ended for the TOS crew. Sure, there were some decent movies coming up, but the difference was this is where Spock (and to a lesser extent the rest of the crew) transformed from vibrant action stars and turned kind of into old men. In the following movies Spock would have to be the intellectual backbone, and in my opinion never really recaptured the Spock I grew up with. I’m sure there are those who will disagree with me, but that’s just my opinion.
Anyway, that’s the Wrath of Khan. Next up, Star Trek caters to fan boys (like me) with the Search for Spock.
Movie review: Super 8
I actually saw this Friday night but have been distracted by a number of things this weekend, including moving two refrigerators and a couch. I am always glad to help my friends, but moving a refrigerator is a favor on an entirely different scale from say picking someone up at the airport. Anyway, that’s all done and I have been completely lazy today, so in order to feel like I didn’t just waste most of my weekend I am going to push this out.
Let me say I was hoping to hate this movie. I harbor some ill feelings toward J.J. Abrams for his treatment of my precious Star Trek, and was hoping to be able to deliver forth a bitter and evil review. Unfortunately for me but fortunately for the movie going population Super 8 is actually pretty fun and good to watch. But, like most movies, it has its issues.
Super 8 is the Frankenstein monster assembled from the dead body parts of E.T. the Extraterestrial, Stand By Me, Goonies, and (weirdest of all) Alien. And like Frankenstein, something was created that at times was really cool and exciting, but the value of the whole fails to exceed the sum of the component parts. It is obviously an homage to Speilberg, in the same way a fan boy dressing like a fat Spiderman is an homage to Stan Lee. The problem is, while it obviously took it’s inspiration most from E.T., it doesn’t really compare to that brilliant film. (E.T. image courtesy of the sci fi t shirts category).
I think I have figured out J.J. Abrams; he is the guy who in each movie gets something amazing right and a lot of other stuff stupendously wrong. The main thing he got wrong in this film is a real lack of tone. One minute you are watching a bunch of kids awkwardly bumble through early teen years (Stand by Me), the next they are riding around on dilapidated bicycles trying to solve the mystery that plagues their town (Goonies), then they are odds with the military while dealing with an alien (E.T.), and then they are being stalked by a terrifying creature of unimaginable horror (Alien). You spend the whole movie never really knowing how you are supposed to be feeling. It’s like taking a shower in a house with 20 toilets being flushed all the time, except that instead of water the shower alternates between liquid nitrogen and super heated plasma (or, as I like to think of it, my experience dating a typical woman).
Anyway, the film. Couple spoilers in this, so skip a few if you find them annoying. The year is 1979 (a fact hamhandedly delivered to us by a newscast referencing Three Mile Island) and a group of kids in a small town in Ohio are filming a zombie movie. The kids run the Goonies gambit of characters; there’s the fat nerd directing the film, the glasses wearing main star of the 8mm film who pukes at the first sign of anything, the weedy braces pyromaniac kid who handles all the explosions and special effects, the completely unremarkable camera kid, the makeup kid who is the movie main character and son of a local deputy, and the super cute white trash girl who gets pulled in to make the film. The events are a few months after Joe, the main kid, has his mother get killed in an industrial accident that Alice, the cute girls, father was somehow involved it. The two fathers hate each other and both have estranged relationships with their kids. Anyway, the gang all sneak out to film near a train track where they see the biggest, longest, most explosive filled train wreck ever (I don’t think I have ever seen a freight train travel at 80 mph. Most train wrecks I have seen end with all the cars lying on the side of the rail, not flying through the air into an explosion that would embarrass Micheal Bey). The train is an Air Force train (something Joe can tell by noticing what kind of hooks they have on the cars (???)) and some kind of creature manages to escape. Somehow several platoons of Air Force guys teleport to the accident before any kind of local police or firefighters arrive and chase the kids off.
The town becomes gripped in terror as the creature kidnaps and does something vague with the local citizens (the movie was really ill defined on this point. It seemed to imply that he was eating them, or perhaps keeping them around for telepathic company, or perhaps even using them to power his nefarious works. I really can’t tell you what was going on). It’s also stealing random metal stuff (again, very vague how he accomplishes this. At once point he manages to remove (teleport?) a number of car engines out of cars in a lot without scratching the paint one bit, and then later is more or less tearing the hell out of a bunch of other stuff). The deputy dad deals with the Air Force while the kids keep trying to film their movie and solve the Sooby Doo like mystery. Assorted movie genre havoc ensues. The Air Force is entirely staffed by complete a-holes (and somehow has tanks too). The alien is bad but somehow good. There is a really, really dumb battle involving tanks and machine guns somehow out of control (or perhaps controlled by the alien) and shooting randomly (did I mention the sprinkling of Maximum Overdrive that they threw into this?). By the way, I know this is petty and going to make me look like a total tread head geek, but the M60 tank (the tank used by the US military in 1979 and featured several times in this movie) required a manual loader to reload the main gun, so unless the loader was mind controlled along with the tank itself there is no way the gun could fire more than once. Furthermore, standard procedure was to leave the main gun unloaded until it was known they needed it. Lazy writers really bug me, but I guess we had to get that “battle” scene inserted somehow.
I don’t want to go on any more, as I have found any detailed description of a typical film tends to make it look even stupider than it actually is (at least when I do it). Let’s get into the stars and black holes, shall we?
First the stars. While extremely derivative of the movies I listed, at least it was a decent tribute to all of them. One star. One thing I can say about J.J. Abrams is he really knows how to cast well. One star. The other thing I can saw about him is he manages to get really good acting performances out of the people he casts (suck it, Lucas). Kids have to be the worst actors to work with but somehow he got stellar performances out of all of them. Kudos. Three stars. The story, while awkward and prone to a couple major holes, was reasonably good and made sense most of the time. One star. The pacing was really good. One star. As dumb as the train crash was, the pyrotechnics involved were spectacular. One star. They managed to avoid having a bunch of kids somehow beating the hell out of a bunch of grown military men, which I was kind of expecting. One star for not grinding my gears. What little we could see of the creature was pretty good, and the CGI was decent. One star. The aliens spaceship was apparently made of space Legos. One star. Overall the movie going experience was decent. One star. Total: twelve stars.
Now the black holes. The movie lacked a definitive tone. Two black holes. The stupidest and most unnecessary battle scene in cinema history (seriously, I think the pyrotechnics guy was holding the directors kids hostage at a couple points). One black hole. The movie was set in the 70’s and was almost the 80’s, two decades I hate with the burning passion of 10,000 suns. One black hole (this is a personal one, so if you are OK with bad hair, clothes, and music disregard it). The Air Force colonel’s complete disregard for any kind of consequences of his or his men’s actions (setting the countryside on fire, more or less destroying a small American town, holding civilians without regard for any of their rights, etc.). One black hole. A massive vagueness of the aliens motivations, actions, or powers (if he could take control of a ton of tanks and jeeps in the middle of a town, why didn’t he use that power to escape when he was held by the military or being transported on a train?) One black hole. J.J. Abrams or any of his supporting writers apparently don’t really understand how magnetism works. One black hole. Total: seven black holes.
I also have a few points in my new “irksome but not black hole worthy” category. First of all, this film was rated PG-13, but it seems like it was designed to appeal more to the 10 year old crowd. Unfortunately I think a younger kid would feel the lack of tone a lot more than an adult, as it shifts gear from “cute kids doing kid stuff” to “pee pee pants scary” rapidly and without warning. Bad planning on the directors part, I think. Also, I found the dead mother subplot with the girl’s father involved really unnecessary. It didn’t detract from the story but felt crowbarred in to add a few dramatic scenes. They also did the thing where you never really got a good look at the creature. It was annoying through the first 2/3rds of the film and then, when it is finally revealed (looking remarkable H.R.Giger-ish), still doesn’t show us most of what he really looks like. It’s like they were paying for the CGI by the pixel. Finally, the actual ending was pretty predictable and remarkably sappy. Again, not really hurting the movie, but if J.J. had wanted a movie to actually stand next to E.T. I think he could have put a little more effort into it.
So a total of five. It would have been funny if I could arrange this to end up with eight, but I have too much integrity for that (LOL). I guess I will call this Super 5. I think it definitely worth seeing in a theater, and it is entertaining enough to hold your interest. However, it is a lot like watching an Ramones tribute band. You will enjoy the performance, but at the end of the show more or less forget about it and move on with your life, content in the knowledge that the original Ramones will never be topped. See it once, but pass on the DVD is my advice. By the way, it will be well worth your time to stay for the credits.
Nerd Dating: the greatest date ever-movie night in Part 5 more what to watch
Just continuing with my thoughts on genres and specific movies with regards to how they will work for movie night.
Horror-it is something of an urban myth that all women react to horror movies with a need to be held and an increase in libido. This can be true of some women, but a lot of others might be so creeped out that they just want to lock all the doors and sleep with the lights on, especially if the movie in question featured a young couple making love while the monster sneaks up to impale them both on a sharpened lacrosse stick. If she suggests a horror film than odds are good that she is in the former camp, but if she doesn’t you should not be the one to do it. Also, be aware of the gore factor. I can’t imagine any woman wanting to do anything remotely physical or intimate after watching Dead Alive.
Artsy foreign films-regardless of who suggests these, your date and your future relationship have just been smeared with the pungent oil of pretentiousness. If she suggests it and you like foreign films than by all means go with it. Just plan on being the couple all your friends secretly hate. If she suggest them and you don’t like them, do a quick mental calculation of how horny you are for her versus how much inane artsy film school prattle you can stomach in an evening. If you suggest it and she doesn’t like them know that she is doing the same exact calculation, only odds are she is a lot less horny. Also, subtitled films tend to require more attention from the two of you, giving you less opportunity to pay attention to each other. Furthermore, be aware that you can never really predict what a foreign art film is about from the title. Man Bites Dog really isn’t about dogs, and has a grim violence level that will most likely put her off. City of Lost Children really isn’t about children, and the surrealness of it does not make for great date material. Do your research.
Artsy domestic films-a weird phenomenon is when trying to think of movies to suggest, your brain will tend to fall back onto the artsier films in some kind of attempt to impress her with your depth, rather than just pulling out something you will both enjoy. The fact is most artsy films do not make a lot of money for a reason. I won’t say that reason rhymes with “muck”, but you really have to be of the right mindset and mood to appreciate movies made for the art of it. Don’t get me wrong. I love artsy independent films. I just would not suggest one of them for a first time hanging out with a girl.
Firefly-believe it or not, Firefly episodes make for a great date, as well as an awesome coolness test for your date. Even if she has never seen it before, it is hard not to love it. If she sees it and loves it you will have a great date and will have helped to create a new fan. If she sees it and doesn’t like it then kick her ass out of your newly cleaned apartment for being a soulless, evil robot probably bent on extracting your life essence in a painful and protracted process. You are better off without her. If she is the one to suggest this then when you finally screw things up be sure to send her phone number to me (Jayne image courtesy of the Firefly t shirt category).
Actually, any decent Joss Whedan will work.
That’s it for tonight. More tomorrow.
Nerd Dating: the greatest date ever-movie night in-Part 3 more cleanup
Like the US Marine Corps likes to say, Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. You actually have a human female (to the best of your knowledge) coming over to watch a movie at your place. Don’t screw the whole deal up before she even arrives.
You have hidden away most of your nerd stuff and other things that could potentially embarrass you in your living room. However, there are plenty of things to screw you up in pretty much every other room in your place.
First, the kitchen. Make sure there is actual food in your refrigerator, not just beer and condiments. Salad makings, some meat and cheese, maybe even some kind of food that requires preparation. I won’t go as far as to suggest you actually cook something. I mean, we’re not trying to stop the world from spinning on it’s axis here. Just make it look like you subsist on something other than fast food and Cheetos.
Then the bathroom. Assume she will at some point glance into your medicine cabinet. Get rid of anything medical, especially if it is for an embarrassing affliction. Preparation H, rogaine, viagra, anything skin related, or for that matter anything that could be used for something weird (Vasoline) needs to go away. Your medicine cabinet should contain toothpaste, floss, deodorant, a comb, some hair gel, and maybe some Q-tips. Then, go out and by some good, super soft toilet paper and be absolutely sure you have a full roll on your holder AND a spare roll somewhere handy and visible. You have no idea how much toilet paper some women can go through in a given day, and running out of TP and having to ask you for more (or go without) will really piss her off. Hide the plunger, but make sure you have a toilet brush in a holder. Even if you are not in the habit of washing your hands after using the bathroom (and really, if you aren’t, why don’t you just go out every day and eat a bucket of sewage? Also don’t shake my hand) have some hand soap next to the sink in a dispenser. If you had to buy some for this date make sure the seal is open and dump about 1/3rd of it out.
Finally, the bedroom. This is where you hope to end up, if not tonight than some point in your lifetime. Don’t make the huge mistake of getting rid of all your contraband by dumping it into the bedroom and hoping she avoids it. Get rid of the weird stuff. Make sure you have clean, high thread count sheets, a duvet for all your cruddy blankets, a bed frame (no 
mattresses on the floor), a minimum of two pillows, and a nightstand with a lamp. Assorted other bedroomy stuff is cool, like a dresser or a mirror. Keep the decorations to a minimum. You don’t want her to think you like to go to sleep looking at your Empire Strikes Back poster every night (Empire image courtesy of the sci fi t shirts). If there is something in your bedroom that a 10 year old would think was cool, get rid of it.
Now, it’s time to clean. Yes, everything we have done up until now was just to get your place ready for a complete cleaning. Honestly, I hate this and when I have the money I like to pay a housekeeper to come do it for me. However, it has been a couple years since I have had that kind of scratch, so I am back to doing it all myself. If it has a flat surface, dust it. If it folds, fold it. Make your bed. Scrub out your bathtub, sinks, and toilet (actually pay particular attention to the bathroom, as most women are really sensitive to that sort of thing and will get really skeeved out by a dirty toilet). Scrub your linoleum. Vacuum your carpets. Open your windows and get some fresh air in. Throw down some air fresheners and spray Fabreeze likes it’s a fire extinguisher at a four alarm fire. Don’t miss window sills, the top of your TV, under the couch, or the inside of your refrigerator and microwave.
Odds are you will spend hours and still do a mediocre job of it, but this is the minimum you have to do. The vast majority of women can’t feel comfortable in a place they think of as dirty, and more than anything you need her to feel comfortable so she will want to get closer to you or at least come back some day.
OK, I’m seeing the new X-men movie tonight, so tomorrow will be a movie review. More on this subject Sunday, I think, although I am done with the cleaning stuff and will get into some other movie related specifics, like what kind of movie to recommend.
Movie Review: I am Number Four, which kind of smelled like number two.
Ok, it wasn’t quite that bad, but if you are going to hand me a straight line like that you have to expect me to jump on it with all my fourth grade humor powers. Before I get into the movie, 
I would like to apologize for missing a full week of blogging. The thing is, I was at that gaming show selling t-shirts and at night I was either passed out or watching Firefly episodes with the most amazing girl on the planet. I’m sure you understand the order of my priorities. (Fruity Oaty Bar image courtesy of the sci fi t shirt category)
Last week I also saw Black Swan and was going to review it, but honestly I thought about it and couldn’t come up with a single black hole. It was truly exceptional and amazing. Unfortunately a movie with no black holes usually turns into a pretty boring review, so unless I did the whole thing on my creepy obsession with Natalie Portman dating back to the Professional it would have been pretty dull. Therefore I will say I highly recommend you see it and move on to something lamer.
Let’s get into I am Number Four. Ultimately it is Twilight with aliens instead of vampires. Same pretty teenagers who are supposed to be in high school but who really look like they are serving drinks at a bar on Santa Monica Boulevard. Even the supposed nerd is shockingly fit and good looking. The main guy is John Smith, an exiled Lorien alien living on Earth while the evil Mogadorians hunt him and his eight fellow ex-patriots down. For some unexplained reason (the term unexplained could be applied to a lot of this movie) the Mogadorians can only kill them in order, so John is at the plate after number three gets killed in some jungle. The movie starts with John living a teenage dream in South Florida with hot bikini girls, beach fires, and a complete and utter disregard for PWC safety. He senses Three being killed by having a brand in the shape of a bad Tribal tattoo burn itself into his leg along with the brands from the One and Two. His protector Henri pulls him out and they relocate to Paradise, Ohio.
There he disregards all advice from his experienced protector and enrolls himself into the local high school (with shocking ease. Aren’t you supposed to have some kind of records or something? At least a note from your old school?) where he meets the love of his life. He gets into it with an extremely cliche bully and his crew, befriends the local nerd outcast (who by happy coincidence is a hard core believer in aliens), finds super cute beagle who turns out to have followed him from Lorien (also the name of a forest in Lord of the Rings) and can transform into a two ton killing machine, and has number Six, who is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-like combat chick, show up to save his ass (by the way, it is painfully obvious that the casting director has a serious liking of thin faced blond girls, as the only women with a speaking role look like sisters). Alien battle hijinx ensue. John develops super powers that seem to have something to do with flashlights embedded in his palms. The Loriens embody all that is good and wholesome, being stunningly attractive, Caucasian, fit, with great hair and no speech impediments while the Mogodorians are all that is evil, being bald with bad teeth, tribal tattoos all over their heads, extra breathing slits on their faces, slurring speech and/or accents, and a complete disdain for Earthling (i.e. American) culture.
The stars. The Mogodorians are actually pretty cool, with a good leather trench coat look very similar to the Strangers from Dark City. I also like their attitude. One star. They also have some pretty cool guns and some big alien pets they use to more or less destroy most of the scenery. One star. The killer dog and big alien CGI was decent. One star. Um, that’s it. Three stars.
Now the black holes. The story made little to no sense. I should give a black hole for every time I found myself saying “Duh” but those would add up pretty quick. I’ll restrict myself to two. John Smith jumps in at the beginning and end with a Fourth Wall (haw! Four) breaking monologue trying to make the writers lives easier by explaining what is going on and pretty much failing at it. One black hole. The main character obviously was cast to appeal to 13 year old girls and fails to appeal to any other demographic alive or dead. One black hole. His acting and those of pretty much everyone not a Mogodorian was flat and lifeless. One black hole. Anyone killed in the movie crumbles into dust (along with their clothes and accouterments) in an obvious bid to maintain that critical PG-13 rating. One black hole. While the Mogorians had cool guns and stuff the Loriens had blue glowing knives for the most part and some kind of lame prop box that had something to do with number Fours legacy but was never examined or opened. One black hole. The special effects were amateurish at best, mostly comprised of breaking open glow sticks and rubbing the glow juice on number Four’s palms (no joke). One black hole. The explosives special effects were over the top to the point of stupid (since when does a gas stove explosion cause wooden blinds to spontaneously explode?) One black hole. The fight scenes were a terrible jumble of cut sequences that looks like they were supposed to add excitement but really just illustrated the need for a movie to hire a decent fight choreographer. One black hole. Overall, the movie was pretty dull, with no reason to even favor the Lorien cause over the Mogodorian (note to the director; just because you have shown one side to be evil in all ways does not automatically make us like their opposition. Give me a reason to care, dammit). One black hole. 100% of the speaking characters are white. One black hole for racial insensitivity. Total: twelve black holes.
A net of nine black holes. I guess it was worse than I originally thought, although if I were really trying to make a point it would be funny to have it end up with Four black holes. I guess I have too much integrity. If you have a daughter or girlfriend who loves Twilight this movie will work for you as a date or family outing, but try to see it in 3D so you can fall comfortably asleep without her noticing.
Last post I failed to do my who-would-win question, so I will revert to the post before. The question was who would win in a fight between a single Red Shirt with a phaser against Tweekie with Dr. Theopolis. Honestly, this is a tough one. Tweekie is literally combat ineffective, but Red Shirts are infinitely resourceful in their ability to find ways to die. I suspect in this case the Red Shirt would destroy Tweekie and Dr. Theopolis both before having his phaser explode or falling off a cliff to a painful death. I think this is a case where neither side would actually win.
Today let’s try some video game cross over. Who would win, Mario versus Link (no power ups for either).
