A question from Star Trek TOS Episode 7 Mudd’s Women
This sort of post is more Jason’s thing, but in the last week or so I have been watching the old TOS episodes (getting ready for the big Star Trek convention next week) and a question occurred to me while watching Mudd’s Women.
So Harry Mudd has a drug that makes ugly women incredibly hot (and he claims makes men look amazing too) and his secret plan is to find ugly women and sell them off to rich dilithium crystal miners (not his original plan, but that’s the gist of it). The question is this: why is his secret plan to become the universe’s richest drug smuggler? The drug alone is probably worth more than a planet would cost. This is like spending you life forging perfect counterfeit plates and then selling off the metal shavings you have from the plates.
I guess this is why Harcourt Fenton Mudd is still small time, even when we get to him in I, Mudd. He just seems so savvy and immoral that it is odd that something like this would not occur to him.
I don’t have any Mudd t shirts, but I have this cool Balok image from the Star Trek T Shirt category. Any true fan will know why it’s appropriate for any discussion of a TOS episode (although technically not from season 1).
Dave
The 15 Best Star Trek TOS Villains
Se we are about a week away from heading off to the amazing Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas and I literally couldn’t be more excited. I have been watching old episodes on NetFlix and more than a few times have caught myself humming the fight theme song (if you don’t know what that is odds are you really shouldn’t even be reading this blog).
To say I have Star Trek on the mind lately is a bit of an understatement and last night while watching the Galileo Seven it struck me how many super cool villains and aliens they managed to create without the benefit of CGI or even a real budget. I did some research but found that every list out there for Star Trek villains is cluttered up with all the TNG and DS9 villains, which in my opinion is kind of prosaic. Saying that Q is super cool or the Borg is an evil race is like saying ice cream tastes good or chewing on broken glass is a bad idea. Also, it seems like every list can’t seem to get away from the idea that the villains from Nemesis or First Contact were something more the cliche filler. Therefore I have taken it upon myself to compose a list of the greatest villains from the the Original Series.
Actually, this isn’t so much a stretch. If you take into account the fact that the writers were coming up with these guys without the benefit of 50 years of science fiction to fall back on these aliens (plus a few humans) are amazingly cool. I also give them credit for writing a depth that, in spite of more movie resources, seems to be missing from a lot of modern Trek villains. All the images, by the way, are from the Star Trek T Shirt category.
15. Mugatu, from A Private Little War. A space yeti with a unicorn horn, spikes growing out of it’s spine, and poisonous fangs? The only way this guy could be any cooler is if he could play the banjo and his farts cured cancer. He’s only at number 15 because in the episode he really had a minor role, but OMG awesome.
14. Evil Kirk, from the Enemy Within. I know I listed this episodes as one of my worst for TOS and I stand by that belief. However, even I have to admit crazed, super sweaty cheesy lighting Kirk was pretty damned cool.
13. The Vians, from the Empath. I know these are pretty much the same guys from the Cage and the Menagerie, but here instead of creating fantasy worlds to get Captain Pike to mate with a super hot girl they are using torture and death to get a girl to pretty much kill herself. If you really think aliens are above cruelty and vivisection you need to go watch Fire in the Sky.
12. The Earps, from Spectre of the Gun. Plus Doc Holiday. These guys really had the whole menacing “impending doom” down to a science. I have a few humans on this list, although technically since these guys were projections of the Melkotians they really were aliens.
11. The Buffalo, from the Man Trap. I can honestly say as a kid this was the grossest thing I had ever seen to date (I have since seen things that would probably cause all your internal organs to explode, but will save that for another post). Also, the suckers on the fingers were an extremely nice touch.
10. Evil Spock, from Mirror Mirror. What in the universe could possible be cooler than Spock? How about an evil Spock, with no moral hesitation to kill people? Plus I think the beard was a really good look for Nimoy.
9. Charlie Evans, from Charlie X. This poor kid. All messed up with super powers. I just watched this episode the other night and his fate always makes me sad.
8. The Cheronians, from Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. Say what you want about Star Trek, but subtlety is not one of it’s defining characteristics. When Gene Roddenberry has a point he wants made he tends to do it with a sledgehammer. However, as a parallel for human racism these two were pretty much on the mark.
7. Anton Karidian/Kodos the Executioner, from the Conscience of the King. Maybe it’s because he was playing a Shakespearean actor and I always find those guys impressive, but this guy really gripped me. Human, I know and therefore boring, but still very cool in my book. Of course it could be said that the real villain was his daughter.
6. The Horta, from the Devil in the Dark. I can honestly say this was the one episode that scared the living crap out of me at age seven. The Horta was so freaking terrifying I had a hard time watching it. Of course, looking back on it as an adult I can see it looks like a reject from H.R. Puffinstuff, but I will say this is a perfect example of the show getting as much as possible out of no budget. This episode actually showed what could be accomplished with excellent use of lighting.
5. Harcourt Fenton Mudd, from Mudd’s Women and I, Mudd. I actually got into a debate with a guy on this character. I will admit he is a cheesy as it gets, but there is something in his rapscallion, amoral approach to life that really appeals to me. I wish I had his panache and savvy. I also think the crews treatment and interaction with him, especially Kirk, was really entertaining and well done. Also, he was the first man I ever saw wearing an earring.
4. The Romulan Commander, from Balance of Terror. I listed this as my all time favorite episode in my list of best TOS shows, but honestly while the Romulan commander was amazingly cool I don’t think he was the best villain. However, he definitely was one of the best and was probably the villain I most connected with.
3. Ruk, from What are Little Girls Made Of? It’s freaking Lurch in space! Lurch who is both willing and capable of killing guys! How can this be anything less than awesome??? Also, I was 6’4″ as a Freshman in high school and have always had a bad habit of looming over people. One of my nicknames back then was Lurch, so when I saw him on Star Trek I was extremely happy.
2. The Gorn Captain, from Arena. I’m actually kind of disappointed in myself for my choice for numbers 2 and 1 as they are so obvious. I hate being obvious. However, the Gorn captain is so cool he makes my bones ache. Big, bad, and tough as hell. He kicked seven kinds of hell out of Kirk every time they encountered each other, only to fall to Kirks underhanded and scheming trap using black powder weapons. “Guns don’t kill aliens. Starship captains armed with spikes do”.
1. Khan Noonien Singh, from Space Seed. And the next most obvious choice. I know. Boring boring boring. However, Khan was truly an amazing villain. It just goes to show what happens when you combine a great, well written character with an amazing character actor like Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino. What a great villain.
Well, that’s my list. Feel free to comment here if you feel I missed a good one, or if you think I might have given too much credence to one (I expect to hear about Harry Mudd shortly). I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading this. I had a lot of fun writing it. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu, and be sure to read any of my other Star Trek, movie review, or dating advice posts here. If you have an off topic question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. I might see a movie tonight (cheap night at the theater down the street) so look for a review tomorrow. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Who would win in a fist fight? Captain Kirk versus James Bond?
I have no idea why this one came to my mind. We are getting ready for the Star Trek convention and Dave has been gushing on about how Kirk is better than Picard, so I guess I was wondering how he would do against the great 007, James Bond.
It’s an interesting question. Kirk has of course mastered all the shoulder roll related martial arts the galaxy has to offer. He is the veteran of numerous fights not only against humans but aliens as well, and he must have learned something every time he got his ass handed to him by Spock.
On the other hand, James Bond is the consummate spy, trained in all the deadly arts. Not only that, but in a weird way he is way smoother that Kirk. Also, it is written into Kirk’s character that he upon occasion loses, whereas Bond pretty much only lets himself lose when he wants to hear the villains doomsday plan. I don’t think he can lose an honest fight, except maybe against Jaws.
I think I’m going to have to give this one to James Bond. He has mowed his way through any number military men, and I don’t think Kirk has the style to beat him.
The Kirk image I found in Dave’s massive Star Trek t shirt collection.
Jason
Savages Movie Review
Scarface meets Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
I am torn on this movie. I am an Oliver Stone fan (for the most part. We don’t need to talk about Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps or U-Turn) and can see some high quality elements in this film that could be interpreted as highly competent movie making. However, this film is a study in contrast in that for every element that seems good there is an equal and opposite element that has to suck. 
It’s like Stone is the engineer on a ship in Star Trek and has to keep the matter and anti matter engines in perfect balance (Scotty image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirts category).
The film is of course a brutal and violent drug drama, with lots of blood and torture. However, the contrast to that is that the drug in question is marijuana. I’m sure there are some bad M-F-ers in the pot dealership world, but when I think of pot growers and dealers all I can see is a bunch of guys sitting on a couch sucking on their bong, eating pizza, and playing Xbox (which is literally how I have found every pot dealer on the planet), especially given the fact that it is more or less legal here in California. I’m sorry but I just cannot take the pot trade seriously enough to think of it as worthy of multiple decapitations. In my mind it’s like if you did a high powered finance drama centered around competing rings of lemonade stands. Even the drug use seems tame. The main characters are sparking up every ten minutes but seem coherent and prone to violence as ever. You just can’t compare that to Scarface sticking his head in a mountain of coke and then saying “Say hello to my little friend”.
The characters are all cartoonish exaggerations of every character you have ever seen in every movie ever. This actually works extremely well in the form of a few of the supporting characters (Benicio del Toro and John Travolta in particular) but makes all the main characters all seem flat and uninteresting. Blake Lively is the flattest of the two dimensional plot devices, pretty much playing the super hot stoner chick every high school pot dealer one day dreams of meeting. She acts stoned and happy when times are good and stoned and uphappy when things are bad. That’s pretty much it. Of the two male leads Taylor Kitsch is the next least interesting. His character is a burned out homicidal war vet who learns nothing, develops nothing, and does nothing besides shoot, stab, or blow up things.
Of the three Aaron Johnson’s character is both the most believable and most interesting character. He is the brains and pretty much plays the intellectual pot head to a T. However, as the story progresses he is called upon to do more and more horrible things to people that he would never do given an choice and thus actually develops as a character (albeit in a pretty negative direction).
Anyway, the three way romance that is supposed to be the driving motivation behind their actions felt like I was watching a documentary on the mating habits of a creature from another planet who’s entire chemistry is based on chlorine. The supporting characters (mostly villains) were all in their own way brilliant yet at the same time laughably comical. I can honestly say all the best scenes were ones that did not have the main characters in them. The pacing alternated between light speed and trying to push your out-of-gas 1979 Ford Thunderbird when you have forgotten to take the parking brake off. ***SPOILER ALERT*** The story itself was both wonderfully and overly complicated (at one point John Travolta asks Benicio del Toro “Do you understand?” in reference to some new plot twist and I found myself honestly answering “No, not really”) yet after delivering what seemed like a really cool and convoluted ending pulled a completely different and infinity stupider ending out of the dankest regions of the writers ass.
By the way, the movie is based on a 2010 novel by Dan Winslow. I mention that only because 85% of the plot is delivered to us by Blake Lively in a dead to the world monotone monolog that sounds suspiciously like listening to books on tape. I have always found a monolog painfully intrusive (which is why the final cut for Blade Runner will always be the best version) and this one not only breaks the fourth wall but then backs up and defiles its corpse. It seemed every time I started to get into what was going on plot-wise there is Blake again (whom we had just seen on screen crying for pot) to jerk us out of the story. Sorry Oliver, but a running monolog is a lazy movie makers tool in my opinion.
Another review where I go 800 words without actually talking about the story. Ben (Aaron Johnson-Kick Ass, the Illusionist, Nowhere Boy) is a botanist and Chon (Taylor Kitsch-Battleship, John Carter, X-Men Origins) is his high school friend turned ex military sociopath. Apparently they grow the worlds greatest pot (33% THC? Is that even possible? I would think that any plant, even pot, would have to have stuff like chloroform). They share a sexual relationship with their personal narrator O (ever watch the Story of O? 70’s porn at its best. Anyway, Blake Lively-Gossip Girl, Green Lantern, the Town) that puts the fun into dysfunctional. They are approached by a Mexican drug cartel led by Elena (Salma Hayek-Frida, Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico) who want to partner up. When they plan to abandon everything they have spent years building the cartel sends bad ass hit man Lado (Benicio del Toro-Snatch, Traffic, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the Usual Suspects) to kidnap O.
At that point the boys agree to the cartel’s demands but secretly start to screw with Elena by hitting her operations. They are sort of assisted by corrupt DEA agent Dennis (John Travolta-Pulp Fiction, Face Off, Greece) who has his own agenda. Fairly predictable betrayals and plot twists surface like stunned fish after dropping a stick of dynamite into the water. Stuff gets blown up, guys get killed (often in horrific ways) and a really dumb ending forms out of the dregs of the script.
The stars. The story was pretty good until the last ten minutes. One star. Benicio Del Toro was pretty awesome. One star. So was John Travolta as the weasel DEA agent. One star. The violence and action was embedded deep in the R rating zone and benefited from it. (By the way, I’m not going to black hole them for this as there are plenty of other things to hit them with, but if you are going for rated R throw in more than the most minimal nudity. If you are going to this hoping to see Blake Lively nude prepare for bitter disappointment) One star. The character development evinced by Ben was relatively interesting and added a something to the story. One star. In spite of the laughable nature of the pot trade (sorry, but all I can see is Cheech and Chong tooling around in a truck made of pot) and the comical nature of some of the characters the story itself made a lot of sense and was compelling (again, up until the end). One star. Overall reasonably good. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. It is true that I groan a lot when I am seeing movies, but when the stupid part of the movie ending surfaced literally the entire audience groaned with me. One black hole. The main characters were flat and for the most part kind of uninteresting. One black hole. The continuous monolog alternated between driving me nuts and putting me to sleep. One black hole. Speaking of sleeping, parts of the movie could give Ambien real competition. One black hole. I found many parts of this film really hard to identify with (three way romance, for one) and also can’t figure out which character I was supposed to identify with. By the end I actually had more sympathy for Salma Hayek’s character. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of two stars. Pretty mediocre for an Oliver Stone film. I suppose this should be taken with a grain of salt if only because the entire film was based on the cultural toxic waste dump of my childhood: Southern California beach towns. These communities support culture only in the way a Petri dish does and in my opinion give every country that hates America a legitimate reason to do so. However, while that might have colored my perceptions somewhat I really tried to view the movie on it’s own merits and for the most part stand by my review. Worth seeing? Sure. The supporting characters alone make this movie watchable. Benicio Del Toro and John Travolta steal any scene they are in and make for a decent viewing experience. None of the camera work demands a large screen so feel free to NetFlix it. Date movie? Nope. Super violent, with some horrific scenes that had me cringing in my seat. Plus no real romance to latch on to and the female protagonist had all the plot bearing of a World of Warcraft quest item. Bathroom break? Pretty much any scene involving the main characters where they weren’t blowing stuff up. If I had to choose I would go for the second scene with the finance guy, where they are trying to interpret all the data Dennis gave them. Not a lot going on there.
Thanks for reading. I am home form Comic Con and am back into full on movie mode. I have tickets for the midnight showing of the new Dark Knight tomorrow night and am really excited. When I find the time I will write about my Comic Con experiences, although I didn’t see a lot that wasn’t right outside of my booth. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have a comment on this movie or my review feel free to post it here. If you have an off topic question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The great Star Wars versus Star Trek debate.
I recently came across a list of the 10 greatest geek debates and this one was number one (oddly enough, the whole Kirk/Picard debate didn’t make the list, although the Joel/Mike one (MST3K) did. I’m a Joel guy) and since I am a loss to do anything else today I thought I would chime in.
The fact is I am a fan of both and prior to 2002 would have said comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges. Star Wars was a swashbuckling space opera of a story with roots well grounding in classic mythology and heroes, whereas Star Trek was a epic exploration of both the universe and the positive aspects of character interaction and teamwork. When I was in the mood to see cool aliens, guns, and awesome costumes I would watch Star Wars and when I was in the mood for more intellectual pursuits, with complicated stories and character development I would watch Star Trek. Sure, the swimming pool of Star Wars had been tainted by the giant turd known as the Phantom Menace, but I think every franchise is allowed one or two big blunders. Star Trek is no exception. Just look at the Motion Picture, most of TOS Season 3, Wesley Crusher, and Enterprise.
Things changed badly in 2002. Attack of the Clones was released, and with that note I knew that one of my greatest childhood memories (seriously, I have more positive memories of Star Wars than all my birthdays put together) had been fatally betrayed in the interest of money and bad movie making. Lucas had pulled his franchise out of a comfortable retirement, euthanized it, and stuffed its corpse full of gears and mice on wheels to create an animatronic Frankenstein monster which he then milked dry. At that point my needle shifted heartily towards my other warm childhood refuge, Star Trek.
That safe zone was not to be long lived, however, Six months later Star Trek Nemesis came out and at that point I realized that Trek and Wars were doing some kind of weird role reversal. Instead of being a decent story and character study that had been the staple of the Star Trek story lines we had a badly done space opera action adventure very much like a mutant clone of one of the first Star Wars. Meanwhile Lucas was having long, boring political debates and overly complicated assassination plots in Star Wars.
Basically the two movies had switched roles, and in both cases done it badly. The needle shifted back towards Star Wars but stopped about halfway. Since then my focus shifts based on who had the most recent movie come out. The weird thing is it tends to shift away from the movie in question. Revenge of the Sith got me firmly back into the Star Trek zone, but then the Star Trek reboot (even seeing those three words together makes me want to punch someone) shifted things back to neutral.
Bottom line is, after 35 years of debate and debasement of two of the most brilliant franchises in entertainment history, thanks to incompetent bungling by guys who should have had a better grasp of the material I still can’t decide which is the better of the two. However, instead of comparing apples to oranges the two series have mixed together to form a murky, muddy composite whose sum is less than the value of the two separate parts. Yes I am bitter.
The Nemesis image comes to us from the Star Trek T Shirt category.
Thanks for reading. I actively request comments on this subject, so if you have an opinion by all means chime in here. If you have off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected] or follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. I am seeing a bad chick flick tomorrow night so look forward to a funny review Wednesday. Not sure what I will write tomorrow. Have a great day.
Dave
The reason why the Wrath of Khan is the best of the Star Trek movies.
J.J. Abrams I can only hope you one day read this.
I need to thank my friend Dave for suggesting this theory and helping me flesh it out. You will have to search long and hard to find a guy with more nerd credibility. Anyway, he and I have been discussing Star Trek for years and are both of the opinion that the most recent Star Trek, while definitely more polished, is still not as good as TWOK. Yes, I know. It has better special effects, casting, and arguably acting. It’s just not as good a story (also they made the bridge look like a giant Apple store, a move that I think will prove to be a lot less timeless than they might think, especially in a couple years when Apple opts to redecorate all their stores). All the other movies do not even bear considering in the same discussion. What is it, then, that makes Khan so much better than everything else?
It all boils down to scope. You see, almost all the other movies some how have the fate of the Earth or the universe in the balance. In Star Trek it’s vengeful Romulans from the future dropping black holes onto planets. In Nemesis it’s Picard’s clone bent on the destruction of the Federation. Out of the basics of human decency I won’t mention anything about Insurrection, but First Contact was about the Borg trying to go back in time and wrecking humanity. Generations was about Malcolm McDowell destroying an entire planet and civilization to live in the ultimate virtual reality. Undiscovered Country was about a conspiracy to cause a massive war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. The Final Frontier had something about discovering God(?). The Voyage Home was about whales destroying Earth. The Search for Spock was of less galactic import, but the religious overtones (Spock as Jesus, etc) kind of expanded the scope of the film. Even The Motion Picture had V’ger hell bent on wrecking the universe.
The Wrath of Khan, however, was the story of a personal vendetta against Kirk and his crew and their desperate struggle to survive against massive odds. This sounds decidedly unimpressive until you remember that something like 99% of the greatest episodes from any of the five TV shows were about the captain and crew in a desperate struggle to survive against massive odds. Very rarely did they have to save the entirety of the Federation or humanity and even when they did it was as part of a larger effort (Errand of Mercy, for example). Sure you could argue that the Doomsday Machine would have eventually reached Earth or the failure to stop the Romulan Bird of Prey in Balance of Terror would have plunged the galaxy into war, but it was never a matter of stopping a dumb rocket with seconds to spare from wrecking a planet.
The fact is, Star Trek has always been less about the story and more about the characters, which is why thousands of people go to conventions every year and dress as the one they most identify with. When the story is about a giant planet of people you never see and can’t really care that much about you don’t get invested in the outcome. All the Romulan black holes in the universe dropped on any number of populated planets can’t compare to watching Spock stick his face in a radioactive warp drive in order to save the lives of his friends and crew. It just has more impact. Furthermore, the animosity the villain displays gets spread too thin when directed at the universe in general, or even more than a few people. If you were to take all the hatred and bile from all the assorted villains from all the movies it wouldn’t compare to one minute of the intensity that Khan displayed whenever interacting with Kirk. His laser like focus just burned hotter.
It’s not just Star Trek. I can name any number of other good examples of movies that rule when it is personal and tend to suck when the hatred gets shared around. Die Hard is a perfect one. The first movie had John McClane fighting to save his life and the lives of a few hostages (most importantly his wife) but the second had him running around an airport trying to save hundreds of people flying in the sky above. The best of the Star Wars movies, The Empire Strikes Back, was a personal journey for each of the characters in a dangerous universe while the Return of the Jedi was the struggle of the Rebellion against the Empire. Speed 2, Matrix Revolutions, Predator 2, Mad Max Beyond Thuderdome; in almost all cases the films lost focus on the characters the audiences cared about and expanded them into something bigger and so ridiculous that we kind of lost interest to an extent.
The fact is more is not always more. What does this mean for the Star Trek franchise? Not much, unless Abrams or one of the writers happens to be reading this. If that is so, then please consider the fact that the Enterprise doesn’t always have to save the universe from yet another ridiculous form of impending doom. Sometimes it’s OK to show them struggling to save their own asses and see how they interact in the face of almost certain death. Maybe it’s space pirates who want to steal the Enterprise’s warp core. Perhaps Spock’s family is involved in some kind of personal feud against another family (Vulcan Hatfields and McCoys) and the Enterprise gets sucked in. Also, just because someone has s personal vendetta against someone in the crew does not mean he or she has to also want to destroy the universe. Back off, lighten up, and repeat the mantra “less is more”.
TWOK image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category, by the way.
Thanks for reading. I hope at least some of you agree with me, but if not feel free to comment here. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have a specific question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. I will try to see something tonight and write a review for it tomorrow morning. Have a great day.
Dave
Titanic 3D review
SPOILER ALERT: the boat sinks.
So I did see this last night and yes, the girl I saw it with teared up. Fortunately I had just recharged my robot batteries and managed to escape without being too affected by it. (If you want to see me cry like a baby show me the last 10 minutes of the Wrath of Khan. Spock’s death scene hits me like nothing else. TWOK image courtesy of the Star Trek T-Shirt category)
I have long avoided seeing Titanic for a laundry list of reasons. At the time I didn’t know James Cameron from Adam and had no idea what a talented film maker he was. Also I had issues with Hollywood pretty boys like Leonardo Di Caprio and did not want to support them. Finally, I had a problem with Hollywood using the tragic death of 1500 people to sell a love story.
Time makes fools of us all, however. Avatar made me a James Cameron fan. Granted he doesn’t make the greatest stories, but he makes incredibly effective films that tug at your heartstrings. Watching him in Inception has made me a fan of Leonardo, and I have since watched and enjoyed him in films like Shutter Island and J Edgar. And finally seeing Hollywood take the great tragedy of my time, 911, and turn it into a cheesy story in Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close had more or less hardened me to the exploitation of tragic events that happened decades before I was born.
I am not going to go into the story. If you are like me and haven’t seen it yet I’m sure the story of love found and lost (as told by Shakespeare) has filtered into your subconscious. Either that or you live in a cave somewhere. Nor am I going to do a formal review as it would be a pointless waste of time. The movie is nigh flawless, and except for a couple issues with some forced dialog I really couldn’t find any black holes that would not be total nit picking. The story was seamless, the acting superb, and all the characters believable and cool. I am especially a fan of Billy Zane (see him in Demonknight if you have not). The chemistry between Leonardo and Kate Winslet is very real and makes for a great love story, while the tragic ending is like a punch in the stomach that somehow feels good. Plus we get to see Kate Winslet topless.
I will say that unless the original film was a Hanna Barbara cartoon the 3D did absolutely, 100% nothing. If I hadn’t gotten up to use the restroom I would have totally forgotten about the bad fashion decision on my face. 3D sucks, and post production 3D (15 years post production) sucks even more.
I couldn’t even come up with some funny questions like I did with Harry Potter. I do have some but most of them make sense. Like, for example, in the unlikely event I were ever to set foot on another ship (watching this movie has cured me of that desire for life) and there were not enough light boats, I think I would have grabbed a fire axe and cut enough deck material to make some kind of floatation device. Kate ended up an a big piece of wood. Also, why were crew members given seats on the boats in order to row when there were any number of able bodied male passengers who might have done it?
Actually I do have one funny question. It is navel tradition that the captain of a ship be the last man off and should go down with the ship. If you were given captaincy of a ship you would know that. Why then would you be OK with being on a ship that did not have enough seats for everyone? If you have 2,800 passengers and enough lifeboat seats for 2,799 people guess who gets the short end? Of course, this movie is a study in the error of hubris. This is why no ship since has been called “unsinkable” and why I don’t use phrases like “safe”, “that should work”, or “a good idea”.
Anyway, I did enjoy this movie, and if you are a stick in the mud like I was for years I suggest you get over it. However, the 3D is more or less worthless so I think it OK to see it on a larger TV. On the other hand a lot of the shots were pretty impressive so maybe it’s worth the headache (literally).
Thanks for reading. Not a lot out right now that I want to go see, but I will find something to write about tomorrow morning. If you have a comment about this review feel free to post it here, or follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. You can email me with specific questions or suggestions at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Underworld Awakening 3D Movie Review
At least they don’t glitter in sunlight.
So last night I saw Underworld Awakening in 3D. In fact I saw it on IMAX, which I consider a true test of what I think my time is worth. You see, in order to watch a regular price show I would have had to sit around bored for over an hour. I have always believed that my time is worth more than $7 an hour, so I sprang for the ticket at full price. I also have a liking for the entire Underworld series and wanted to give it the best opportunity to present itself.
Good or bad? Sort of. Kate Beckinsale is back and looking as hot as ever. The action is honestly weaker than any of the previous movies in my opinion. Still decent and exciting, but kind of rote and formulaic. The problems really arise in the plot and pacing. 
The story progresses at warp speed (Enterprise image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category), leaving a messy chum of plot holes, unanswered questions, and highly questionable motivations in its wake. I really feel that a ton of expository footage ended up on the cutting room floor, which is a shame as the entire movie felt criminally short at a lousy 88 minutes. No one would have begrudged Swedish directors Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein an extra 15-20 minutes of screen time to flesh out the plot a little and give us a reason to care about anyone.
The two directors don’t have a lot of film experience and seem to be more well known for their TV work. This actually makes a lot of sense, as the pacing seems very 2 part TV show-ish. In fact, since most hour shows usually go 40-42 minutes than 88 minutes makes a lot of sense. When you have to fit into a specific time limit you learn to be economical with your development scenes. However, someone should tell them that the only limit cinema movies really has is how long an audience will sit in a seat. Some movies actually have been know to go well over two hours.
Anyway, the story is (once again) about the never ending war between Lycans and Vampires. Given what we learned about the start of the war in the last movie I have to say my sympathy more soundly resides with the Lycans, but they don’t have super hot Deathdealers in leather body suits so I guess I will let it pass. The twist in this film is humans have discovered both races and more or less hunted them into extinction using ammo specifically designed to kill them. Anyway, in a scene so blatantly ripped off from the first Resident Evil movie they might as well have called Selene Alice Selene wakes up from a frozen cryo tube in a laboratory. For some reason (the first example of “what the hell were they thinking?” plot holes) the scientists studying her felt the need to keep her leather outfit in the exact same lab for the last 12 years. She has been frozen and incommunicado for those 12 years while the humans destroyed all her old friends and enemies. She managed to gut a bunch of guards with a scalpel in about 1/4 of a second, which raises the question of if this is what vampires can do how did humans ever wipe them out even with magic bullets? Anyway, her love interest in the movie before last, the vampire/Lycan hybrid Michael, is missing and she wants to find him. She seems to have some kind of mental connection with someone she assumes to be him but actually turns out to be her 12 year old daughter (wait a minute. I might buy into the idea that she was impregnated before being captured (which actually raises a ton of other questions), but do they really expect me to believe that while in a freezer she managed to carry a child to term, give birth to it, regain her pre-pregnancy shape and athletic ability, and somehow has no memory of it?). Anyway, she meets up with another vampire (Theo James-the Inbetweeners Movie, Bedlam, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) who for no apparent reason knows who she is and wants to help her. He leads her to a hidden coven led by a guy who looks almost exactly like Phillip but isn’t (Charles Dance-Alien, Last Action Hero, Swimming Pool). Lycans attack and the girl gets recaptured by the scientist experimenting on her (Stephen Rae-V for Vendetta, Crying Game). At that point the whole humans hunting vampires story is more or less dropped for the remainder of the film. A human cop decides to help Selene for no discernible reason. Vampire on Lycan hijinks ensues. Stuff gets blown up. Cars get thrown around. The lead in for the next movie is crammed down our throats.
The stars. Vampires and Lycans who do what they are supposed to do, not sparkle in daylight. One star. Kate Beckinsale looking pretty hot. One star. Some of the action was palatable. Two stars. There was a nice merging of the Gothic vampire world with a dystopian slightly futuristic society. One star. Two bonus stars for the fact that I kind of enjoyed the film without being able to put my finger on why. Seven stars total.
The black holes. Plot holes bigger than the IMAX screen I was looking at. One black hole. A complete failure to give us anything in the way of an explanation of what was actually going on. One black hole. A complete lack of motivation from anyone to do anything. What was the villain trying to accomplish? Why did the other vampire help Selene? Why did the cop join up with her? The list goes on and on. One black hole. A lack of consistency in the powers that vampires or Lycans have. One minute Selene is running down a corridor and killing guys so fast they can’t even follow her, the next she is struggling to keep up with a moderately fast moving car. One black hole. The CGI was about as good as you will see on True Blood and the 3D was completely non existent for the majority of the film. Thanks for the headache and souvenir glasses. One black hole. A lot of the action kind of used cheesy camera angles and off camera shooting to create a fake feeling sequence. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
A grand total of one star. Kind of mediocre. The decision to see it or not really depends on the individual. If you are the type to enjoy mindless action and blood, like vampires, have a thing for Kate Beckinsale, or just want to kill an afternoon without involving the majority of your brain cells then by all means see it on a big screen. If you find lame plot holes aggravating and can’t stomach a film that fails to provide you with any insight into what any of the characters are actually thinking than bail. Date movie? Probably not. Too much blood.
By the way, I didn’t give them a black hole for this but if you think the movie got it’s R rating for any kind of nudity or language prepare to be disappointed. It’s all about the blood on this one. Honestly it felt more PG-13 to me except for a few graphic gut scenes.
Thanks for reading. I’m seeing Haywire tonight so look for that review tomorrow. Busy weekend for movies. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Happy New Year.
And a 2011 movie recap.
So I have been working on my movie awards (the Nerdies) and in preparation for this created a data base of all the movies I reviewed last year. It was a lot. 90 movies, to be precise. Kind of a staggering amount, and I saw a lot of crap and a lot of good stuff. If you are interested in any of these reviews (most are pretty good in my less than humble opinion) you can choose the month on the right and scroll until you find it, or just search it out on Google. Here is the list:
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War Horse Movie Review
Decent movie, but don’t see this if you actually love horses.
This movie was actually better than I expected. Sure, it’s Spielberg, but I had just been disappointed with Tintin and as masterful a storyteller as he is, he has a tendency to let his story dip into the sappy zone and hover there, like in E.T. However, while the sap was there (lots of young boys snuggling horses) the story, after a sluggish start, really drew you in.
Spielberg appears to be using this production as a tool to show the horror of WWI like he did with Saving Private Ryan. However, in spite of a much more terrible war (WWI was way more brutal than WWII. WWI is why they created war crimes) it does not come even close to how well Private Ryan did. The blame for this I put firmly on the PG-13 rating Spielberg bends bars to maintain. I am not one of those guys who feels the need for gore and blood in everything, but the impact of a battle scene loses something when nothing brutal is shown. Guys get shot and just fall to the ground. One of the main characters gets caught in a gas attack and in the next scene, instead of showing him lying in a cot coughing himself to death (mustard gas) he has a bandage over his eyes. There was none of the horrific desperate attempts to hold your own entrails in, or guys getting their limbs blown off. It was almost sanitized, like a video game, and that sensitization kind of washes away a lot of the impact.
However, as kind as Spielberg was to his human characters he makes it up in his treatment of the horses. Through a series of really good puppets and camera work with very little CGI he shows all kinds of horrible things happening to horses. To be honest it was more than a little stomach turning, and I had to look away during a couple scenes. A horse is a noble creature, and should not be shown in extreme pain and horrible situations. I can’t actually call anything that happened animal cruelty, as none if it was malicious or intentional, but just really hard to watch. This goes out to my horse loving friend Lauren in particular. Don’t see this if you have a love of horses.
Anyway, the movie, with a few spoilers. It follows the life of Joey, a thoroughbred horse born on a Scottish farm prior to WWI. His birth is witnessed by young Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine-no other film roles), who takes an instant bond with him. The horse goes up for auction and Alby’s drunken father Ted (Peter Mullan-Trainspotting, My Name is Joe, Boy A) makes the mistake of buying him for a very large amount. This is going to cause them to lose the farm, literally, unless Alby can train Joey to pull a plow and can then plow the most rock filled field in all of Scotland. He does so and all seems well until the crop is ruined from a storm. Ted is forced to sell Joey to a cavalry officer (Tom Hiddleston-Loki from Thor, Midnight in Paris, Conspiracy), who takes him to France where he learns what happens when sword wielding cavalry charges machine guns. Joey is captured by the Germans and put to use hauling ambulances. He then goes through a long series of owner changing, from two German deserters, a French jam maker and his granddaughter, and a German artillery officer who seems to relish putting down injured horses. He finally breaks free in a panic and runs out into No Man’s Land and gets caught up in the one scene I had the hardest time watching. He gets rescued by a Scottish corporal with the help of a German infantryman (a love of horses supersedes the need to kill each other) and is eventually reunited with Alby, who apparently joined the infantry while all this was going on. Some other drama goes on before the end.
The stars. Decent if sappy story. One star. Amazing camera work and visuals. Two stars. While not graphic enough to really impact, the fighting did illustrate a lot of the horror of WWI. One star. The uniforms and equipment seemed correct, including the German spiked Kaiser helmets, and the entire film was very well within period. One star. This is something only a treadhead would appreciated, but they actually did show a rhomboid tank (I think it was a MkV Heavy, but they didn’t really show it off entirely). I don’t know if they found a functional unit (there are a few in the world) or just built a replica, but really cool. One star. The horse handling, puppets and special effects were stunning. One star. I don’t want to get into it too much, but this movie did manage to draw out an emotional response from me. One star. Overall good movie. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. Stomach wrenching horse-in-pain scenes. One black hole. For the most part, all the characters seemed flat and uninteresting. I don’t know if this was the writing or the fact there doesn’t actually seem to be a real protagonist. The focal character changes every 15 minutes or so, never allowing you to connect with any of them, and Joey the horse does not show enough of a distinctive personality to really connect with. For the most part he acts like a horse and a horse is a horse (of course, of course). One black hole. Each sub-character seemed to have a whole new sub plot that disappeared with that character. One black hole. What could have been a great R rated war movie got a PG-13 rating tied to its feet. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
So a grand total of five stars. Decent movie in all regards, and well worth watching. I will also say that the visuals are amazing, and if you don’t see it in a huge theater you will not get the full effect. Go out and see it. I don’t know how this would work as a date movie. Sure, it has horses, but it also has a lot of other stuff that might turn a girl off. She might respond well to the ending, but I personally don’t like to leave stuff like that to chance.
That’s it for now. I have a freakishly busy weekend coming up (party, party, dinner with friends) and don’t know if I will get to see anything. It might be Monday before I blog again. (Party Like a Vulcan image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirts). Thanks again for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
