The 10 Worst Star Trek TOS Episodes
So a couple months ago I did a 10 Best list (Balance of Terror was my number one if you missed it). However, fairs fair and I really should do a 10 Worst as well. Don’t get me wrong on this. I love Star Trek more than pretty much any other show in the history of television, and would happily watch any of these. Let’s just say my internal groan factor is much higher when I watch these 10.
10. Episode 5 the Enemy Within. I know, most true Trek fans will say that all the worst episodes were season 3 and it is some kind of sacrilege to even mention one from season 1, but there are a couple reasons for this one. First of all, the story is kind of dumb. The transporter can violate all laws of thermodynamics and create a second Kirk based on two arbitrary facets of his personality? Good and evil? Why not the two sides that either like garlic and don’t? Honestly, a freak transporter accident does an in depth psychoanalysis of his brain and splits it that way. Dumb. Also, if Sulu and the two red shirts trapped on a planet are faced with a choice of being split into two or freezing to death, I think I would take my chances on being split in two. At least you would have a perfect alibi for your upcoming life of crime. Finally, when I was in school I took a class on video making and we had a guy come in and give us a lecture on how you could use lighting effects to create atmosphere, and this was the footage he used as an example of the cheesiest lighting ever. If you watch you will see whenever they show good Kirk it is always with very soft, out of focus lighting and whenever they show bad Kirk it is with a harsh light either shining up under his chin or down onto his future bald spot. That has kind of stuck with me.
9. Episode 24 This Side of Paradise. Yes, I know. Another season 1 episode. Don’t hate me. The thing is, I am a huge Spock fan and generally don’t like it when he acts out of what I perceive as his character. Amok Time was acceptable due to extenuating circumstance (and also because Spock was kicking ass) but seeing him as a happy country bumpkin living and loving a woman was seriously disconcerting. Also, if the spores kept the colonists alive and healthy in what was effectively a paradise, why would they want to leave even after Kirk managed to itchy-pants them into a murderous frenzy? I’d walk straight up to the nearest spore plant and take another blast. Are they that loyal to the Federation that left them to die a horrible death? However, this episode, like Amok Time, did show that Spock can kick the crap out of Kirk any time he likes, so you have to love that. Kirk was even armed at the start of the fight. (episode shirt images courtesy of the Star Trek t shirt category)
8. Episode 58 the Paradise Syndrome. Maybe it’s just episodes with the word paradise in them. At least this one is firmly in season 3. Sorry, but this on just reeks of pandering. Kirk catches a dose of amnesia and ends up living with the Native Americans. First of all amnesia as a plot device should be firmly relegated to the land of soap operas. This episode garnered a lot of criticism for racism, something that Gene Roddenberry was trying very hard to avoid. However, even a brain damaged white Kirk is shown as being highly intelligent and capable while the Native Americans are portrayed as kind of stupid and ignorant, if noble. I’m sure this was not at all the writers intention, but it just played out that way.
7. Episode 55 Assignment: Earth. Technically season 2, but the very last one and the episode I will list as the worst one of all time is immediately following. OK, Star Trek garnered a lot of praise for a time travel episode in the form of the City on the Edge of Forever, and Tomorrow is Yesterday was decent. So they decide to again go back in time FOR NO APPARENT REASON WHATSOEVER! The nominal excuse it to clear up some historical anomalies surrounding the rocket launch in question. Is historical accuracy such a priority in the Federation that they are willing to risk destroying their entire universe in order to verify what happened? Wasn’t that the whole point of the City episode? One little change can alter the future forever? Also, this episode was a blatant attempt to force a spin off featuring Gary Seven, the futuristic James Bond (played by Robert Lansing). The real problem with this episode was I keep asking “What is the point” whenever I see it. I think the cat, Isis, was the same cat used in Catspaw (which almost made this list).
6. Episode 65 Plato’s Stepchildren. OK, I bought ancient Greeks in space with the great episode Who Mourns for Adonis, and (sort of) bought Romans in Space in Bread and Circuses, but by this time I think we were all full up on the concept. It really felt like they were looking for an excuse to reuse all the costumes from those episodes. While I give this episode props for featuring the very first interracial kiss on television (Kirk and Uhura), the story concept is just kind of dumb. Something in the food gives normal height people god like powers, and McCoy manages to figure out what it is and refine it to inject into other humans. Wouldn’t that be like the greatest scientific discover in history? At the end of the episode Kirk and Spock have more power than anyone else. Why weren’t they still using them in episode 66, Wink of an Eye? Why doesn’t the Federation not have a cadre of mental super soldiers with which to conquer the Klingons and the Romulans? Even if the effect wears off over time, seems like it would warrant further study of some kind.
5. Episode 59 And the Children Shall Lead. If there is one thing Lucas taught us with the Phantom Menace it’s that kids suck in science fiction movies (OK, the kid in Aliens was pretty cool). Any time kids turn into the main protagonist or antagonists in a show about adults it tends to suck. Also, here is a tip for all you future space explorers. If you should come to a colony in space where all the adults are dead and all the kids still living, maybe you don’t want to just welcome them back with open arms. Do copies of the Children of the Corn no longer exist in the future? I’m not saying to simply execute them. Maybe just study them a little more carefully before bringing them on board your enclosed environment. This rule pretty much applies to any sole survivor or surviving sub group, but should be double true for cute kids. Also let us not forget that the Gorgan, in addition to being a creepy ghost with a pedophiliac voice, is also a SCARY CLOWN! DIE CLOWN DIE!
4. Episode 57 The Enterprise Incident. Ugh. I can’t help but feel this episode was in response to some kind of push from Shatner to add some more espionage to his acting repertoire. Here’s the thing about this episode. While I assume it is possible for a little surgical alteration to mimic the appearance of a Romulan (actually, it was more like a little makeup. Kirk did not really look that different) the thing is, the Enterprise had a crew of about 400 people. I have to assume the Romulan ship had about the same. Over the course of a few months duty I would say it is safe to assume that every crew member has seen every other crew member at some point. My high school had about 2000 people in it and I can say that if someone had shown up I had never seen before I would have at least noticed them. Also, how is it Kirk speaks flawless Romulan, or that the Romulans all speak English?
3. Episode 75 the Way to Eden. I can sum up what is wrong with this episode in one word: hippies. Specifically space hippies who seem to see Spock as some kind of guru. I really can’t decide what the message was from this episode. It was either that smelly hippies suck and should get a job or that peace and free love rule and we should all go to a Phish concert. Also, it is interesting to me that the one time Checkov gets a love interest she ends up a villain (sort of) and leaves to wander the universe. No one can ever do better than Kirk.
2. Episode 77 the Savage Curtain. Abraham Lincoln in space. Literally, floating in space. This episode was a blatant rip off of Arena. I guess the writers were getting tired by then. Also, this is the first time in sci fi history we get to see the recurring turd monster. The thing that sucked about this, aside from the question of how Kirk and Spock are appointed the universal representatives of Good, is that, while Arena was a long game of cat and mouse that ended, like all great Star Trek episodes, with Kirk using his brain to come up with a plan, this one finally resorts in old fashioned brute force.
1. Episode 56 Spock’s Brain. No surprise here. In every list of bad Star Trek episodes this one is listed near the top. Nimoy has said he spent most of the filming kind of embarrassed. Amazon women from the Bikini Planet sneak on the enterprise and steal Spock’s brain in order to regulate their city. Turns out they are stripper dumb until they get info downloaded into their brains. This episode raises so many “what the hell?” questions I don’t even want to get into it. If you are a fan of Star Trek you already know why this one sucks. I don’t need to hurt myself dredging it up.
There it is. Feel free as always to disagree and post a comment here. You can also follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. I really don’t tweet a lot, but when I do you know it’s important (or I am really bored). Thanks for reading. Talk to you all soon.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: First Contact
Back on this. Star Trek First Contact. Not as bad as Generations, but that’s like saying being infested with intestinal parasites is not as bad as catching a flesh eating virus. It’s probably the best of the Next Gen crew movies, but still chock full of idiocy. It is worth noting that two different qualified directors turned this movie down before Jonathon Frakes, known only for playing anti-roll model Commander Riker, took it on. Nothing like giving a completely unknown director a major production job. (First Contact image from the Star Trek T Shirts category).
The whole “what was happening when this movie was made” thing is starting to lose its punch, as we are now close enough to where those events are less retro and more “oh, yeah.” However, I am a creature of habit and so will continue. The year was 1996. I had discovered a number of reasons to get out of Southern California and moved to Santa Cruz, home of the Banana Slugs (they are huge and disgusting) and pot. I was living Three’s Company style with two hot women, one of the women’s daughter, and three huge dogs. Prince Charles and Princess Diana got divorced as Mad Cow Disease rampaged across England. The Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden moves there. Iraq demolishes its biological weapons laboratory. A cyclone in India kills over 2000. A car bomb blows up at a US military base in Saudi Arabia. DVDs are launched in Japan. Windows NT 4.0 and Internet Explorer 3 are released (I use Firefox, mostly). Duke Nukem 3d is released. The first mammal, a sheep named Dolly, is cloned. Butler based search engine Ask Jeeves is founded. Music has been overdosing on suck pills, with popular music including the Spice Girls, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Mariah Carey, Alanis Morisette, Foo Fighters, Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow, Smashing Pumpkins, Rage Against the Machine, and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers (those last two weren’t bad, actually). Movies were also really sucking, with Independence Day, Mission Impossible, Twister, the Nutty Professor, Jerry McGuire, 101 Dalmations, and The Rock (again, the last one was good, but most of those kind of sucked). Kind of a blah year, to be honest.
Anyway, First Contact. It should have been great. Next Gen crew, the Borg, and lots of stuff getting blown up. What was the problem? Well, as I have stated before, time travel as a plot device is a terrible tool to write your story around. It is the first resort of incompetent, lazy writers (J.J. Abrams this is going out to you too). The problem is that, while it looks like an easy thing to do, it is actually really hard to pull off. It should also be noted that the TV show producer, Rick Berman, who was kind of responsible for the horrible Generation plot, really wanted a time travel story. I’ll talk a bit more about the whole time travel thing in a little bit.
First, what did First Contact have? Borg. The entire Next Gen crew, including Marina Sirtis still young enough to look kind of hot (she was 40 at the time of filming). Some decent explosions. A tribute to Star Trek canon (again, J.J. Abrams). More Borg. Massive plot holes.
What it didn’t have: the same Picard we all know from the TV series. Instead of the intellectual man of peace for whom violence is a last resort we get a bloodthirsty maniac who’s only goal is to kill all the Borg, in spite of the many times he has spared them in the past. An understanding of the Butterfly Effect or the Temporal Prime Directive. A reason for Worf to have survived the battle and be aboard the Enterprise.
Let’s get into the plot holes and issues I have. The major one, and the reason this film fails miserably as a time travel plot, is the Butterfly Effect. Remember the TOS episode the City on the Edge of Forever where Bones goes back in time and saves the life of a woman, eventually causing the Nazis to win WWII and completely change the future? What effect to you think the Borg raining unholy hell down on the rocket base in the past, killing dozens of people, could possibly have on the future? I guess they managed to kill Zefram Cochrane’s entire flight crew, as they now have to stick Geordie and Riker in there. No way those people would have ever been interviewed, or maybe written a book. Then, to make matters worse, Picard and is crew take the Temporal Prime Directive and use it as toilet paper. Advanced technology is used extensively, including Geordie’s eyes and Data. Just stupid.
As long as we are on it, if the Borg have a time travel device why did they feel the need to fight through the Federation blockade with a single cube and THEN go back in time? Why not go back in time in some remote corner of the galaxy and then, I don’t know, use their warp drive to travel to Earth? Also, what is up with disrupting first contact? Why not go back to the 100 Years War, assimilate the planet, and not have to worry about first contact? Then send another cube to Vulcan and assimilate them. Also, sure Picard managed to stop this one time travel thing, but if there is one thing the Borg is good at it is information redundancy. Why would they not make 100 time travel ships and shoot all over the continuum? See what I mean about time travel as being a stupid plot device? They can travel back in time when it is convenient for the story but at any time it raises awkward questions they forget how to do it. Also, Riker and Troy, the two headed anchor of the Next Gen, give Cochrane multiple details about the future. I think they just wanted to have a big dramatic scene like that.
OK, what happened to Picards brain? How did he turn so bloodthirsty, even with regards to his own assimilated crewmen? Wasn’t he assimilated and repatriated? What about Seven of Nine? Or all the other ex Borg people they kept meeting? Nope. We need to mercy execute them all. I seem to recall Picard being really upset every time a single crew member died, but now he is ready to Kevorkian the lot of them. I don’t really question the moral choice in this situation, but what bugs me is it is so contrary to Picards nature as portrayed by years of Next Generation episodes. Remember when he had the chance to destroy the entire Borg race with a computer virus and didn’t do it? That was after he had been assimilated, by the way. It’s almost like the writers watched about five episodes of the series while stoned off their ass and then wrote the script. I am actually really puzzled by this. Rick Berman and Jonathon Frakes had both worked on the show from it’s inception. Could they not see the massive shift in tone going on here?
How did Councilor Troy, a character not well know for her technical qualifications with modern technology, become qualified to run Mission Control for a 21st century rocket launch? Somewhere during production I suspect there was a serious argument along the lines of “I’m not getting enough screen time, dammit!” Also, didn’t any of the 21st century ground crew never ask “Hey, who is this chick? Also where did Cochrane find two trained and qualified copilots at the last minute? I don’t remember them being at any of the meetings.”
Is Data really bulletproof? Seems like I can remember him taking damage from all kinds of blunt force trauma.
Speaking of flesh eating virus, why does engineering have the coolant that is anathema to all life inside a delicate plexiglass tube that is totally exposed? Seems like you are one forklift accident away from losing your entire engineering staff.
Anyway, there are a bunch of others, and if I had more time I would share them with you in excruciating detail. I’m not saying First Contact is bad, per se. It was certainly better than Generations, and arguably the Motion Picture. Just that it could have benefited from a non brain damaged writer or two.
That’s it. I’ve already blown off enough work to write this today. I will say after my list of best animated movies I went back last night and rewatched Batman Mask of the Phantasm. While watching it I noticed something really important. I was 100% correct when I put that as the best animated movie I have ever seen. You are a fool if you haven’t seen it.
You are also a fool if you don’t follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. I don’t tweet a lot, but everyone one of them is a gem. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Star Trek Movie Retrospective: Star Trek Generations
The warning stroke of the Star Trek franchise.
I can’t keep putting it off. I promised I would do the entire series and am at the dross of Star Trek. This is like dinner as a kid, when I would rush to eat all the delicious mac and cheese and be left staring at a bowl of steamed spinach and broccoli. The fun is over. Time to put the work in.
Ugh. Where to begin. I suppose I should just do what I have been doing so far and talk about what happened in 1994. Tonya Harding went nuts. Nelson Mandala became president of South Africa. The US invades Haiti. The Northridge earthquake hits LA (I slept through it). OJ is arrested for the murder of his wife and her lover. A Finnish ferry sinks, killing over 900. NAFTA is signed. Most of Montana burns up in a wildfire. No one else in the US notices. Java is released as a programming language. The Channel Tunnel is dug. Other movies included the Lion King, Forest Gump, Dumb and Dumber, the Mask, Clear and Present Danger, and Pulp Fiction. Popular music included Beastie Boys, Snoop Dogg, Rod Stewart, Sting, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Rolling Stones, Celine Dion, Sheryl Crow, and Boys II Men. Television was Law & Order, Ren & Stimpy, Beavis & Butthead, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Frasier, Star Trek DS9, and the great X-files (one day ask me about my Scully fantasies).
(Generations image courtesy of the Star Trek t shirt category)
While TV was doing OK, I think it pretty obvious that movies and music had both hit a slump. Paramount needs another hit Star Trek film. However, as the last one has more or less shown, the cast is well past their prime and not likely to appeal to the modern generation (haw!). The obvious solution would be to create a Next Generation movie. However, anti-movie producer Rick Berman failed to have enough faith in the TV show he produced for years to believe it could stand on it’s own, and like attaching water wings to a young (or severely disabled) child managed to convince the TOS stars with the least respect for their characters, Walter Koenig, James Doohan, and of course, Bill Shatner, to step in and make their TOS roles look even stupider.
So, the story. A giant space ribbon is tearing ass across the galaxy and sucks up Captain Kirk or something. Still not sure what happened there. Later, Picard comes across Malcom McDowell (remember that really cool movie he did a while ago about a violent sociopath? The movie with the great story that made sense and came from a book. I’m talking about Tank Girl, of course), who wants to get sucked back into the Nexus (the name of the ribbon) again because for some mysterious reason that is like Heaven, where you can do or be anything you want (my plan is to become an erotic dancer named Destiny). The only way he can do that is to attract the ribbon, and the only way to do that is to blow up a star with a populated planet around it. Picard and his crew do what they can to stop him, but fail.
So Picard gets sucked into the Nexus, where he gets bored of Heaven pretty quick. He runs into Guinan, still wearing the dumb hats, who explains that she is not really there but is a shadow and Picard can exit the Nexus anywhere he chooses, at any time he chooses. So he wants to go back to stop Malcom, but needs help. He recruits Captain Kirk, who was happy just chopping wood. Together they get into the lamest geriatric fight action sequence of all time (think a less coherent Bum Fight). Kirk dies, but Picard succeeds. Then, Picard leaves Kirk’s body to the rats as he goes rushing off to more adventure.
That’s pretty much it. I don’t want to get too deep into the what it had and didn’t have, although the value of what it didn’t have grossly outweighs what it did. What is specifially didn’t have was Mr. Spock or Dr. McCoy. Leonard Nimoy and DeForrest Kelley both either had too much integrity or they hired a third grader to read the script and let them know it was a steaming pile of crap. Uhura managed to miss it too. Sulu they only got by promoting him.
What the movie had was some massive, gaping plot holes you could fly the Enterprise through. Let me go into a couple.
OK. You are Captain Picard. You are in the Nexus, and need to stop Malcolm McDowell. You can come out at any point you wish. Why would you pull an old man out of retirement and then appear 2 minutes before Malcolm launches his doomsday rocket? Why would you not show up three days earlier on the bridge of the Enterprise and just throw his ass into the brig right then and there? Or paste his little base from orbit? Or transport to the surface with like 100,000 security guys? How dumb are you, man? He could have saved his brother’s life too
What the hell was Worf doing on the Enterprise? Wasn’t he supposed to be on DS9? And if he somehow transfered back, why was he still wearing his DS9 uniform, along with about half the crew? Was the costume budget so small they had to recycle old uniforms from other shows?
So Malcolm is about to launch his death rocket. According to Worf, it will impact the sun in something like 11 seconds. Assuming, since everyone can breath on the planet, it is a class M world similar to earth, that means it is 8 light minutes from the sun. This rocket would have to be able to do warp 46 to get there that fast. Lazy writers piss me off.
Why didn’t Picard recruit like 100 people to help him? For that matter, if time has no meaning in the Nexus why not enjoy a few million years of happiness and hair before dealing with the problems at home?
The planet’s ionosphere prevented the Enterprise’s sensor from detecting Picard? How lame are these sensors? This planet has an ionosphere. Also, given that we can now read a credit card from space couldn’t you just have the computer visually look at most of the surface, searching for the distinctive reflection off Picard’s shiny pate? How about getting off your lazy, bearded ass (yes, Riker, you) and send down a couple shuttles to look around a bit? I mean, it’s just the captain, right? He’s not really critical to the operation of the ship. No way he has broken a leg and is currently dying of thirst.
Why would Picard pick Kirk anyway? It’s not like he needed Kirk’s years of experience. He basically needed a red shirt to distract Malcolm and die while Picard saves the day, which is pretty much what Kirk did. While I do find irony in Kirk finally going down like a red shirt, it still bugs me that Picard didn’t recruit some kind of young combat guy or something.
What was the point of Data and his emotion chip, other than to completely annoy and distract the audience from the rest of the plot? Actually, now that I think about it, given the quality of the rest of the plot I don’t know if that was such a bad move. Still, it sucked.
If after Picard failed the first time and he and Malcolm were both in the Nexus, what was to prevent Malcolm from going back in time and killing Picard as a child, then jumping back into the Nexus at the first point he encountered it? For that matter, why didn’t he just fly up to it in a ship and shoot himself at it inside a photon torpedo?
Why did Picard leave Kirk, a galaxy wide hero known across Star Fleet, buried under a pile of rocks? His ship was about to pick him up. Are coffins so expensive in space? How about a nice memorial and tomb for him? I hope your final wish was to be eaten by alien worms on a forsaken planet, James.
What’s the deal with everyone in the universe being totally familiar with Tri-Lithium when it is an experimental compound the Romulans (not well known for sharing secrets) were experimenting with? Also, if it is such a rare, exoctic material, why did they have to come up with such a common sounding name? Lithium is pretty commonplace, and Tri-Lithium sounds like you just packed three of them together. Why not a Romulan name?
Did any of you ever watch the TV series? Apparently none of the movie producers did. Remember when Picard had to change his pants after being given a 12,000 year old “curlin nescar” (I don’t know how it’s spelled) and has a whole speech about how priceless it was? Well, why then would he drop it on the floor of his wrecked ready room and leave it for future archeologists after picking up his stupid photo album? For that matter, why the hell was his photo album and curlin nescar (Curling NASCAR? Maybe it had something to do with that weird Olympic sport where you sweep the ice combined with stock car racing) in the ready room and not his quarters? Isn’t that where he is supposed to keep important personal items?
Actually, the list goes on and on. The script was stupidly and lazily written, the TOS charactes were really out of place, Shatner’s overacting totally clashed with Picard’s Shakespearean training, Data acted completely out of character, and more or less the movie experience sucked. Of course, was it the worst of the Star Trek movies? Nope. It was more the harbinger of more pain to come.
Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The 10 Best Star Trek TOS Episodes
So no movie to review, and I have been promising to finish my Star Trek movie retrospective, but the problem is I am up to Generations and have been repressing that one like a childhood memory of molestation. I have had a tough couple weeks, especially in the dating world, and have decided to do something that I know will put me in a good mood and a smile on my face: my top 10 best TOS episodes of all time.
The hardest part was actually narrowing it down to 10. My short list had 22 on it (and to be honest, my long list has 79 if you know what I mean) and I have spent a lot of time thinking about the episodes and what they all mean to me. You will notice I am more inclined to go with the darker episodes, so don’t hate spam me with questions like “Why didn’t you have The Trouble with Tribbles or Shore Leave on here?” Those were fun, but the cute episodes I consider pretty light weight compared to these others.
10. The Conscience of the King. This one doesn’t appear on a lot of top 10 lists, but I loved it. Dark and sinister, with Kodos the Executioner trying to repress his past and redeem himself in raising a pure daughter in the arts, with characters from his past wanting to hunt him down. I think my favorite scene is when Kirk has Anton Karidian read the proclamation Kodos made at the execution of the colonists, although his death scene at the end of the episode was great too. “The revolution is successful, but survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore I have no alternatvie but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered. Signed, Kodos, governor of Tarsus Four.”
9. The Gamesters of Triskelion. I know. Kind of dopey and campy. But as a kid I used to love the Star Trek fight scenes, and this one is full of it. Also, if you want to see Kirk at his macho, over the top best, this is the episode to use. Plus, I had many a young teenage fantasy about the green haired girl in the silver lame’ bikini. (episode images all courtesy of the Star Trek t shirt category). Plus, this episode introduced us to Quatloos, a form of currency I plan to use to replace all other money when I conquer this pathetic planet.
8. Charlie X. Wow, even putting these in order is hard. I have a good idea what is going to be my number one and two, but this one was hard to place. Poor Charlie. Honestly, nothing wrong with him other than the normal hormones all teenage boys are subject too. That and unimaginable power with no behavior governor. Anyone else get bothered by the fact that the Thasians were able to return Yeoman Rand but Yeoman Tina Lawton seems to remain an iguana and the guy in the gym, Sam, remains lost in the nether? It goes to show you don’t have to be on an away mission to suffer the fate of all no name red shirts. Anyway, when I was first really into Star Trek I was feeling pretty alienated from all my peers (plus a bunch of other guys who really weren’t my peers at all), so the plight of Charlie at the end really spoke to me. When he fades out of sight at the end I feel really sad.
7. The Galileo Seven. This one was all Spock, all the time. He is in command and it is his call to deal with his dwindling crew and the giant creatures attacking them. You get to see into his logical mind deeper than most episodes. I especially loved his argument at the end of the episode where he makes the claim that he had logically concluded that the only recourse left was to act in an illogical manner. Awesome.
6. the City on the Edge of Forever. I told you at the beginning the I am drawn to the darker episodes, and there is absolutely nothing happy about this one. Dark and grim, with Kirk having to make horrible choices in order to protect the future as he knew it. Also, I would like to mention that everyone acknowledges Star Trek for inventing the cell phone, but the fact is they also came up with the iPad (or just tablet) in this one. Spock uses his tricorder to record the historic tracts the Guardian is showing him and then later replays them on the screen. Steve Jobs, Gene Roddenberry has beat you out once again.
5. Amok Time. Yes, I know. This is the penultimate episode and should be higher up, but my placement is for this is not about this one being bad as the next four being amazing. Greatest fight scene of all time, and proof that Kirk can lose to someone (Spock actually beats his ass on two separate occasions). Still not sure how they got that script past Shatner’s ego. Anyway, some really cool Spock moment. I love the cello music they play whenever he is doing all his Vulcan meditation.
4. Arena. Does it say something about my brain that three of these 10 are about personal combat? I really was born in the wrong millennium. Anyway, Arena is all good with no fluff. The Gorn captain is so cool, and Kirk gets to show all his best shoulder rolls and flying kicks, to no effect. What do you really think kicking a walking alligator is going to do? Kirk gets to explore his resourcefulness, and in the end proves what noble creatures humans are at heart.
3. Spectre of the Gun. Wow. Star Trek managed to find a way to get cowboys in space in a cool way (eat your heart out, Joss Whedan). Not only that, but they did it during the dreadful third season (we don’t need to talk about Abraham Lincoln in space). The whole virtual reality concept was literally decades ahead of its time, and really led to an amazing story. They added a little camp at the end when Kirk feels the need to beat the hell out of what is effectively a figment of his own imagination, but the scene where the crew is standing in front of the Earps as bullets pass harmlessly through them will always remain with me. (I am, by the way, a huge Firefly fan. I’m just saying Star Trek beat them to it)
2. Space Seed. Even putting aside the fact that this episode led us to the Wrath of Khan, this was such an awesome story that it makes my face hurt from smiling thinking about it. The great Khan Noonien Singh (great name, by the way. If any of you are having a child soon I recommend considering it) in all his super human glory. This show also featured excellent examples of the crew’s discipline and loyalty. Even Lt. McGivers comes around once the love glow faded and she remembered her duty.
1. Balance of Terror. When the TOS episodes started to become available in DvD but before you could buy entire seasons, this was one of the few I bought. I could watch this episode over and over again. Great space battles (in all their Das Boot glory) but more importantly, a steady buildup of tension that very few other shows or movies can possibly match. First time I watched this I was rooted to the screen, my whole body tingling. Not only that, but you really feel a connection with the Romulan commander unlike any other villain in the series. When he is forced to eject the body of the Centurion I was honestly moved.
Furthermore, this episode deals with stuff normally excluded from the shows, including Federation politics and inter species racism. As an aside, the Romulan commander was played by Mark Leonard. He later played two other different Star Trek rolls, being the only actor to portray three different characters in the series. Can you name the other two?
Anyway, I know there is any amount of argument that could go on here. This is the list for me, however. Feel free to respond here or sent me a message on Twitter @Nerdkungfu (follow me too, dammit. I need followers). I am willing to discuss episodes until the cows come home.
Dave
Star Trek movie retrospective Part 6: the Undiscovered Country.
I admit I have been putting this off a bit, as this is the last of the “good” Star Trek movies. After this the franchise stops circling the drain and finally goes down. By no small coincidence it was directed by Nicholas Meyer, the man responsible for all the best Star Trek films. They were pretty much done with the actors directing films by this point, although Nimoy did a decent job. (The Undiscovered Country image courtesy of the Star Trek t shirt category)
I have fond memories of this film, and enjoyed seeing it. However, this film really drove home the fact that instead of the young action figures I was used to seeing I was watching some older men kind of fumble around on the screen. When James Doohan was the one to save the day at the end I knew the action days of the Star Trek crew were pretty much over (we’ll talk about Kirk fighting it out with Malcolm McDowell in Generations later).
What was happening in 1991? Well, I was a sophomore in my second try at college. I was grinding my way through the mechanical engineering program and hating it (I would later switch to Studio Art). We attacked Iraqi forces in Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm (good thing we were done there and never had to go back. Oh, wait…). Iraq also agreed to eliminate all WMD’s and, as far as all evidence since has shown, complied. Russia has its first free elections and votes in Boris Yeltsin. A big fire in my home town of Oakland, CA burns thousands of houses. The Prime Minister of India, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandh, is assassinated. South Africa adopts a new constitution that was multicultural. The Balkan war started. Mike Tyson was arrested and charged with rape. The phrase “going postal” started up by a postal worker shooting up a bunch of people. Freddie Mercury died of AIDS. The Rodney King video tape is shown. The Internet is opened to the public and has over 1 million computers on it (ha ha ha ha aha ha). The first web browser is released.
Movies were kind of ok. Good ones included T2: Judgement Day, Silence of the Lambs, Backdraft, Father of the Bride, and Thelma and Louise. Less good ones include Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, Hook, the Addams Family, Beethoven, Beauty and the Beast, and the Naked Gun 2 1/2: the Smell of Fear. Popular music included Pearl Jam, Brian Addams, Phil Collins, Guns ‘n Roses, Metallica, Gloria Estephan, R.E.M., U2, Van Halen, the Clash, Garth Brooks, and Nirvana.
So, the Undiscovered Country. The Klingon moon Praxis (by the way, there is a series of books called Dread Empires Fall that talks about the Praxis as a philosophy. Great science fiction, especially if you like space battles that actually take most real physics into account) blows up and more or less wrecks the Klingon Empire. They sue for peace and send Kirk to transport the Klingon ambassador even though it is known that he hates the Klingons for killing his son David, who he knew for all of 2 weeks or so. Kirk is framed for killing the guy, and surrenders to the Klingons. He and McCoy are convicted and sentenced to a prison gulag. Some prison stuff happens, including an attempted escape with the help of a shapeshifter who really plans to kill them. Spock beams them out after he discovers what really happened. They find two assassins dead but trick their accomplice to reveal herself. Turns out it was Samantha from Sex and the City. Anyway, a bunch of Klingon, Romulan, and Federation officers are working together in a conspiracy to prevent the treaty that would allow them all to work together(?). The crew finds the cloaked Bird of Prey that did the original attack and blow it up. They all beam down to the conference and save the presidents life.
What it had:
The full crew. Captain Sulu. Captain Spock. Captain Scott(? I guess all the S names got promoted). Some cool space battles. A decently complicated plot that didn’t drive me berserk. Some decent humor. An illustration of the bonds of friendship between the crew that was organic and not shoved down our pie holes in the form of an awkward dumb speech made around a campfire. A dumb cameo by Christian Slater. Super hot Imam as the shape shifter. A shockingly large number of minor continuity failures. A generally good movie experience.
What it didn’t have:
Sulu on the bridge with the rest of the crew. That’s pretty much it. I can’t think of a lot from this one.
So a very positive experience, especially given the dross we were forced to watch in the last one. Unfortunately this would be the last positive Star Trek film experience, pretty much for ever (and don’t give me any crap about the J.J. Abrams movie. If you are really a Star Trek fan than you know it’s garbage). I warn you now that the following retrospectives, starting with (de)Generations, are going to take a much darker and bitter tone so if you feel you need positivity in your life you might want to skip them. It’ll be a couple more posts before I get to it, especially since I am about to go see Friends with Benifits and expect it to burn up my bile reserves pretty easily.
Movie review: Midnight in Paris
Just a little past my bedtime.
Life is so unfair. The fact is I think Woody Allen is a degenerate creep (and coming from me, that’s saying a lot) and would love nothing more than to trash his latest picture. However, even going into this flick with my hackles pre-raised, it was a funny and charming experience. Woody managed to not insert himself into the film in any way, which I think helped me forget what a perv he is.
I’m not saying the film is a cinema masterpiece. I’m also not a fan of French culture, so the whole “Paris is the most romantic city on the planet” thing is lost on me (if you really want romance check out Bakersfield, California). As far as I can see, the entire city is comprised of cobblestones and murky fountains. However, the film is entertaining and fun, if a little slow at times.
The story is of Gil (Owen Wilson), a Hollywood script writer who dreams of writing a novel and of living in Paris in the 1920’s. He is in Paris with his bitchy fiance Inez (the pretty damned hot Rachel McAddams) and her parents on some kind of ill defined business trip. He feels his contribution to the literary world is less than impressive (and as a movie reviewer who sees a lot of the crappy scripts being churned out of Hellywood I can’t disagree with him) and wants to do more than just be fabulously wealthy. Inez is the 100% stereotypical So Cal materialistic bitch who only wants to spent a ton of money on French stuff (18,000 Euros for a chair? Give me a break) in a desperate attempt to add culture to her bland, pathetic life. At night Gil wanders around the city and, at exactly midnight, is somehow transported to the 1920s.
There he parties with some of the greatest artist and writers of the age, most notably Ernest Hemmingway. Somehow they all speak English, which is convenient as for a guy who has dreamed of living in Paris for years he has done very little to learn French (ever heard of Rosetta Stone?). Some of them are expatriates, but a lot just seem to know enough English to get by. They all seem to spend every night drinking, driving, and smoking. He meets his dream woman (Marion Cotillard, the wife from Inception) and has a sort of romance with her. He also gets Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) to read and critique his manuscript. Meanwhile his fiance is partying with a really annoying know-it-all (doesn’t he realize that I am the final authority on all things cultural?) and his future father-in-law hires a PI to find out where he goes every night in a relatively innocuous sub plot. Paris hijinks ensues, both in the 1920s and present. Gil evolves as a human being. A lot of alcohol gets drunk. A lot of literary references, some subtle, some not so much, get dropped.
The stars. The movie was entertaining and intelligently written. One star. Woody Allen resisted the urge to insert himself into the movie (how many bumbling old timid stereotypical Jewish men can we watch in a lifetime?). One star. Most of the supporting characters were extremely entertaining, particularly Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. One star. The film work was excellent. Paris was shot brilliantly and the lighting really added to the contrast between 1920s Paris and modern Paris. One star. All of the women (except Kathy Bates, I guess) were pretty damned hot. Even the tour guide. One star. Woody never attempted to explain the time travel mechanic, which in another film would probably infuriate me but in this one was pretty much required. One star. Charming. One star. No forced attempt to add entirely unnecessary action or chase scenes to make it more appealing to the morons out there. One star. Overall a good experience. One star. Total: nine stars.
Now the black holes. While I appreciate having a specific style, if you had not told me this was a Woody Allen film at the beginning I would have known it within the first ten minutes. You can almost hear Woody reading out some of the dialog. One black hole. Of all the characters, Owen Wilson as the protagonist was the most annoying and worst performance. His laid back California dude-bro attitude did not really enhance the character, and in scenes where he was supposed to show some kind of excitement (obviously his most difficult performances) you could almost see him flick the activation switch to go from deadpan to excited deadpan. I find him to be the Ambien of actors. One black hole. The pacing needed work. There were scenes that seemed to drag on at times, and other scenes that ended abruptly just as I was getting into them. Also, the repetitive nature of the night after night party took on a Groundhog Day effect that slowed the film down. One black hole. With the exception of Gil, we never got to spend enough time with any of the characters to really appreciate them, even when it was painfully obvious that the character was really interesting and I for one wanted to learn more. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
Nothing else really hit the irksome category, although I did find the final romance came out of pretty much nowhere.
So a grand total of five stars. Is it fun and worth watching? Yes. Should you see it in the theater? No, unless you really love Paris and want to see it on a bigger screen. Good date movie? Absolutely, as long as your date doesn’t hate Woody Allen for marrying his adopted daughter. If she is cool with him then you could score some points for being sensitive and intellectual. The real question is how will it stand when compared to his other 200 films. Honestly, not particularly well. It’s no Bullets over Broadway or Match Point. I would rather see Sleeper to be honest. In a couple years it will be just another film he did; worth your time, but not worth gushing about.
By the way, I am still trying to get the whole video review thing going, but as usual have run into some technical issues. I think I am going to have to start over. Also I have a huge trip coming up Thursday and won’t have my iMac with me, so it might be a while. Meanwhile I am scrambling to get all the new Star Trek t shirts uploaded, and have gotten into the minor shows like DS9 and Voyager. I might see another film tomorrow and write something, but who knows? I still need to finish all those Star Trek movies.
Star Trek movie retrospective Part 5: the Final Frontier
Ah, the faint rotten egg smell of suck finally grows and permeates every pore of the hallowed Star Trek franchise. The movies prior to this one had their issues, but the faint whiffs of lame that wafted off them was nothing compared to the overpowering odor emanating from The Final Frontier. This thing reeked like a giant blender full of dead skunks (movie poster image courtesy, as always, of the Star Trek T shirts category).
To be honest, I couldn’t for the life of me remember anything from this dog. I had to Google Star Trek 5 to even figure out which title this was, and then watch the extended trailer to be reminded of what the damn thing was about. However, that two minutes was enough to unlock the repressed memories and like a recovered experience of childhood sexual molestation the horribleness flooded back into the crappy theater of my mind.
The biggest problem with this film was they let Shatner direct it, as well as having a hand in the so called writing. Honestly, would you take even the greatest NASCAR driver in the world and let him design a car from scratch? Sure, he might have some great ideas as to features you could use, but he just wouldn’t have the engineering skills to build a great car. Shatner’s influence is felt in every vomit inducing scene, with an attempt being made to make him look like he wasn’t a out of shape 58 year old.
Anyway, what was happening in 1989? I was personally in a weird place. You see, in 1987 I dropped out of UC Irvine to pursue a career as a lifetime ditchdigger. I got a job working graveyard shift in a medical lab that could be accurately described as hell. In 1989 I realized this sucked and reapplied to UCI. In June when this movie came out I was still working graveyard and looking for anything to help me escape the horrible life experience. This movie looked like a life preserver being tossed to a drowning man, but when it landed it turned out to me made of lead. That was also the year when I most completely misinterpreted a super hot girl’s interest in me, my family left the house I grew up in to live in a crappy mobile home in Fullerton, CA., and my sister went to live with her super hot friend (who had no interest in me, surprise surprise) in order to graduate high school.
In the world gas was $.97 a gallon, the USSR admitted defeat and left Afghanistan (good thing we were never in there. Oh, wait), apartheid starts to be dismantled in South Africa, free elections are happening in Poland and Czechoslovakia, the Berlin Wall falls, the Chinese government runs over students in Tiananmen Square with tanks, the Exxon Valdez dumps 11 million barrels of oil into Prince William Sound, Bush Sr. is elected president, flag burning is legalized by the Supreme Court, Leona Helmsley goes to jail, Toyota launches Lexus, Ted Bundy was executed, Salman Rushdie is sentenced to death for writing a really boring book (some kind of religious thing too, but book critics were harsh in those days), the very first GPS satellites are put in orbit, Game Boy comes out in Japan, the Intel 486 chip comes out, Microsoft releases it’s first version of Office (which I just spent $120 on. Bastards), and the US Goverenment gives $150 billion to failing banks and savings and loans (ha ha ha. $150 billion. Amateurs).
In entertainment, it was mixed. The Simpsons aired for the first time with some episode that at the time ruled but in retrospect are literally painful to watch. Movies were Batman, When Harry Met Sally, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, My Left Foot, Dead Poets Society, Ghostbusters II, Twins (oh, Arnold), Honey I Shrunk the Kids (was this movie not kind of a death toll for children’s movies to come?), License to Kill, and the Little Mermaid. New Kids on the Block were killing American culture. Other popular music included Duran Duran, Erasure, Prince, Depeche Mode, and Paula Abdul.
Anyway, kind of an up year, in my opinion, if only because I got back into college. I don’t think this film contributed or denigrated the current cultural clime.
The story. Shatner starts off by trying to convince the audience that Kirk can free climb El Capitan in Yosemite, a cliff that is considered extremely challenging even for expert rock climbers. The scene is easily the worst rock climbing scene in cinema history (and yes, I have seen Cliffhanger), and Spocks “rescue” of Kirk when the inevitable happens and Kirk falls Wile E Coyote style suspended my disbelief so high that it if it had fallen it also would have needed a rocket boot powered Spock to save it.
By the way, I’m not kidding about this. I studied physics in college and rate of decent is a pretty simple equation. d=1/2gT(squared). d=distance, g=gravity (in this case, on earth, 32 feet per second, squared), T=Time. El Capitan is 3,000 feet tall. Assuming Kirk was near the top (he wasn’t, but we’ll let that slide). If we plug that in to the equation you end up with a T of 13.69 seconds. It took Spock at least 4 seconds to completely invert himself, and, theoretically, the same at the bottom, leaving 5.69 seconds of time to accelerate and decelerate. The g force for the 2.345 seconds he had to catch Kirk should have bent his spine in half.
Anyway, Spock saves Kirk, leading to a campfire scene so awkward I wanted to stick my head in the flames in order to have the sound of my flesh frying drown it out. Kirk does a bromance monolog about how he can never fail as long as Spock and Bones were around (I guess Scotty was off polishing his widgets or something). They get called to rescue some hostages on the planet Nimbus III (the Nimbus was Zap Brannigan’s ship on Futurama, by the way. Subtle). On Nimbus III they run into Spocks half brother (small universe) who is some kind of full blooded yet super emotional Vulcan (what the hell?) who is on some kind of religious quest to find God (no joke) on a planet at the exact center of the universe. The center of the universe is behind some kind of barrier (no danger there) and he needs a ship to make it happen.
Meanwhile they are being pursued by some Klingons for no apparent reason. I guess they are still pissed about Kirk stealing a ship in the Search for Spock? I really can’t remember. They land on the planet and meet a creature who is supposed to be God, but who needs a ship to escape. Not exactly Omnipotent. The creature goes nuts and Spocks brother has to combat him while the others escape. It’s all kind of a blur at that point. Enterprise shoots the creature, the Klingon ship attacks the Enterprise, Kirk beams to the Klingon ship, some kind of hostage thing happens, and somehow peace reigns once more, with Kirk, Spock, McCoy collecting ticks and chiggers in Yosemite once again.
What it had:
The stupidest looking guns in sci fi history (I’m not kidding on this either. Star Trek has always had guns that look like TV remote controls (or dumber. This is one of my few issues with Star Trek) but these guns look like you made them out of supplies from a plumbing store and based the design on a Super Soaker). Rocket boots. Slapstick (Scotty knocks himself out by walking into a beam. No danger of brain damage there). A really stupid prison break (Scotty “blows a hole in the wall” of the brig, which looks like it was made out of drywall and somehow doesn’t kill or injure the guys inside the very small room. Do the terms “compression” or “spalling” mean nothing?). An emotional Vulcan. A religious Vulcan. A stupid Vulcan. A Vulcan with a forehead big enough to land a shuttle craft on. (these are all the same Vulcan, by the way). The first signs of senility from DeForrest Kelley (watch him at the campfire). A couple of good lines (“Excuse me? What does God need with a space ship?”). In spite of the ego trip, Kirk acting more like Kirk from the series.
What it didn’t have:
A reason to keep me from killing myself. A coherent plot. A clear villain. A prop maker who didn’t ride to work in the short bus. Hot chicks of any kind. An executive producer, apparently.
So, with a couple of decent moments, overall a bust. We will see a ray of hope in the next film but at this point in my opinion the franchise is circling the drain. I need to run but that’s it for now.
Movie Review: Transformers Dark of the Moon 3D
…Or, Transforming a Franchise that Sucks into Something Moderately Tolerable
Do any of you remember a couple weeks ago when I reviewed Super 8 and said the train explosion was so big it would have embarrassed Micheal Bey? I rescind that statement. There isn’t an explosion big enough for Micheal Bey. If he could figure out a way to have an explosion explode he would. I am totally convinced that if he weren’t a movie director he would be a serial arsonist.
Before I get into this review, let me reiterate this point. In Transformers Dark of the Moon EVERYTHING blows up. A snake like Decepticon punches through a corrugated steel warehouse wall. The wall blows up. An Autobot punches a concrete wall. The concrete blows up. A ship filled with giant robots who have no need whatsoever for any kind of atmosphere crashes on the airless moon and in spite of the fact that there is no oxygen present and never will be still manages to blow up in flames. In the world in Micheal Beys head everything is made of plastique, TNT, and nitroglycerin.
Anyway, the movie. Was it better than Revenge of the Fallen? Yes, but that is like asking if losing one testicle in a tragic lawn mower accident is better than two. Better does not equal good. Is it exciting and fun? Yeah, kinda. Are there any problems? Oh, yeah.
The major problem the movie suffers from is the same problem the other two suffer from: too much of the humans and not enough of the Transformers. In my mind the scenes with humans are like the “acting” scenes that clutters up otherwise perfectly good porn. You are there for one thing. I liken the scenes like Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) getting bitched out by his parents for not having a job to the scene expositions you get in video games while the next stage is loading. It can be good if you are into the story, but if not it’s a great chance to use the restroom, get a snack, and return some phone calls. This movie actually has a little more Autobot character development, but like another 30 minutes of goofy Sam-trying-to-make-his-way-in-the-world crap.
Speaking of annoying humans, Megan Fox completely flushed her own career by bitching out Michael Bey and has been replaced by the slightly less hot (I really do like brunettes) but less slutty Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who plays Sam’s love interest. It first I thought she was a slightly better actor, but then I realized I was being sucked in by her English accent. The sad fact that anyone with an English non-Cockney accent always sounds better in movies than an American. As the movie progressed I thought she might actually be another human form Transformer like in the last movie as she had a really robotic delivery. Also, her character and motivations to do anything (especially date a whiny loser like Sam Witwicky) are horribly two dimensional, and Micheal Bey might as well be shooting porn with the inventive ways he finds to linger on her body in every scene. I will be the first to admit a little eye candy can add a lot to a movie, but it seems pretty obvious to me that if Micheal Bey were not a movie director or serial arsonist he would be a stalker with a laundry list of restraining orders against him.
Anyway, the story, for lack of a better term. I won’t throw in too many spoilers, but this plot (ah ha ha ha) is so dumb you won’t miss much. Autobots have joined the CIA and are doing covert missions for the USA, or as covert as a 100 foot robot painted bright yellow or red can be. Sam has graduated college and is such a spazmo he can’t find a job (here’s a tip, kids. If you are going to a job interview with a major corporation wearing jeans and a sports coat is a bad idea, even when the job market was good). Somehow he has the hottest girl on the planet in love with him who not only gives him sex but pays all his bills. Over the last couple years of collage he did a transformation of his own, from a kind of cool kid with a cool car into a uptight, whiny bitch with a self important attitude and a tendency to occasionally turn into a loud mouth jerk who thinks yelling will do more than calling ahead. He discovers that the only job an Ivy League graduate can get is in the mail room of an accounting firm (I guess he should have done more internships) in the worst go nowhere sub plot in cinima history. In the second worst go nowhere sub plot in cinema history a fellow coworker (Ken Jeong, Mr. Chow from The Hangover) stalks him and passes on some crotch notes (no joke) about humans being killed all over the world in a homophobic scene that just drags on forever. Anyway, turns out an Autobot ship crashed on the moon and the government knew about it all along. 
They go to the moon and find Sentinel Prime (voiced by the great Leanard Nimoy. Spock image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirts category), Optimus’s predecessor. Robot battle hijinks ensues. Most of the world blows up. Sam’s super hot girlfriend manages to avoid the advances of her boss after he gives her a $200,000 car (isn’t love grand?). Between the Autobots, Decepticons, and human military about 14 of the all time worst battle plans are devised.
The stars. Transformers. One star. Leonard Nimoy as Sentinel Prime. One star. Lots of action (the final battle seems to go for like an hour). Two stars. The action is generally great. Two stars. Great special effects and CGI. Two stars. Super hot girl on screen. One star. Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly) as Dutch. One star. Megatron comes back from the dead a third time, looking cooler than ever. One star. Two of my favorite Transformers, Shockwave and Soundwave, show up, although only Shockwave gets what I consider a fair treatment. One star. As worthless as his sub plot was, I always enjoy seeing John Malcovich. One star. They didn’t pull back on the killing Transformers (or, for that matter, civilian humans) although as per usual none of the main good guys died. One star. One decent plot twist. One star. Buzz Aldrin makes a cameo. One star. Total: 16 stars.
Now the black holes. Agent Simmons is back, and twice as annoying as he ever was before. One black hole. A whole slew of unnecessary and ultimately worthless sub plots and minor characters. One black hole. I will award one black hole for every ten minutes I feel the audience was subjected to of worthless human interaction (cough cough filler cough cough). Three black holes. Alan Tudyks fake German accent and dialog made me want to stuff Junior Mints into my ears until I could either hear nothing or suffered a debilitating brain aneurysm. He really isn’t great as a straight man. One black hole. More small (even smaller) really annoying comic relief Autobots who may or may not be based on racist stereotypes. Two black holes (one each). As much as I love explosions, I have to award a hole for overuse of pyrotechnics (you know, there are some circumstances where a robot can punch something and not have it blow up). One black hole. Optimus Prime is less the wise sage and more the bloodthirsty jingoist, and at one point has a little hissy fit and sulks. One black hole. Plot holes you could transport Cybertron through (wouldn’t transporting another planet into orbit around our planet more or less destroy both planets? Why say the Autobots have no way of getting off the planet when just a few minutes ago they flew one of their own ships to the moon and found an even bigger ship? If the Decepticons have been working with humans secretly for decades why did they do nothing to help Megatron the last two times he tried to take over the planet and kill the Autobots? Could they really anticipate him coming back to life three times? If every Autobot is equipped with super advanced rockets and can assault with speed why do they need a human team to sneak in and shoot the big bad thing with a lame human rocket launcher? The list goes on). One black hole. They did that thing that annoyed me so much in Battle: LA where the aliens (or in this case, robots) are unstoppable killing machines at the start but by the end of the film are getting knocked over by human spitballs and bad breath (seriously, a few special forces guys were killing them off left and right. If their plan was to conquer the planet it would seem a well equipped army could really put a hurt in their plans. Also, why is it they can shoot down aircraft with practiced ease but are unable to do anything about a few Tomahawk missiles?). One black hole. If there is one the we all learned from 9/11 it’s that buildings with breaks in the middle have little to no structural stability whatsoever. Apparently Michael Bey and all of his writers have no idea how architecture works. One black hole. There is a decided lack of concern for Sam or his girlfriend, as it is painfully obvious that nothing bad is really going to ever happen to them. This sort of action-without-consequences writing really robs the action of any of it’s punch. I would be more excited by a less epic building collapse if I believed that there was a chance someone important or that I had identified with could die. One black hole. Total: 14 black holes.
In the irksome-but-not-black-hole-worth category I have quite a few. The main one has to do with the treatment of the Decepticon characters. One of the great things about the Transformers cartoon was it really was about the Transformers, not the Autobots with the Decepticons as only their enemies. I mean, each of the Decepticons had a distinct personality that was presented almost as much as the Autobots. Megatron as the ruthless general, Starscream as the cowardly and treacherous second-in-command, Soundwave as the loyal and worthwhile minion, etc. In the movie not only is there no attempt to present any of the Decepticons as more than just spear carriers, they all even look exactly the same (silver and spikes are in this season) and are portrayed as growling, animalistic primitives. Second, there was a pretty serious death that was never even mentioned by the good guys. In fact, there was a scene that could have really impacted the audience and eliminated a lot of the action-without-consequences issues had Michale Bey had the balls to shock the audience, but he wimped out. I’m trying to stay done bitching about 3D, but the 3D effects in this movie did not really add a lot IMO. The sound track was pretty amateurish, with all the subtlety of a frying pan to the face. Also, I should have given them a black hole for stupid title of the movie. Dark of the Moon? What the hell does that mean? It’s not even acceptable grammar. I guess they couldn’t call it Dark Side of the Moon without running into Pink Floyd, but if they had all it would have taken was a little money paid to the band. Might have even helped solved some of the soundtrack issues. Also, what is the deal with Transformers aging? Do they really grow crusty beards and wrinkles as they age or were some of them built looking twice as old as the rest of them? Finally, when did Sam’s chihuahua turn in to a St. Bernard? I guess since his character had turned into such a girly man they felt he needed a more manly pet. Either that or Michael Bey thinks we are all idiots.
So, a grand total of two stars. At least they stayed positive. Will you enjoy it when you see it? Yes, probably. The more you can turn off your thinking brain and just use the stem the more you will like it. See it in 3D on the biggest screen you can find. I just don’t see this thing doing much in repeat business. By the way, there is supposed to be something after the credits, but after 157 minutes of mass explosions I had reached my sensory saturation point and bailed. I’ll YouTube it in a month.
Star Trek movie retrospective Part 4: the Voyage Home
Another decent Star Trek film. Remember last post when I said that Klingon ships were second only to the Enterprise itself? Well, in this one Kirk and crew get to fly around in one. (Voyage Home image courtesy, as always, of the Star Trek T Shirts category).
Anyway, Nimoy was approached to direct the 4th film after his success on the last one. He came up with a pro environment story with no real villain. Paramount brought in the great Nick Meyer to help write parts of the screenplay. The film came out in November of 1986 and was generally a success.
What was happening in 1986? Well, I was a senior in high school and the first glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel made it slightly more bearable. However, the year before I had broken my kneecap, which pretty much took me off the wrestling team, which I loved and was pretty much the only slice of cool I had in my high school experience. I also managed to develop type 1 diabetes (the kind you get from genetics, not from being a fat bastard), which was hugely complicated, dangerous, and squashed my original plans to join the Marine Corps after graduation, something I had wanted to do ever since I was a kid. I was past the suicide planning freshman and sophomore years and the homicidal “I’m going to kill everyone in my school and stand around laughing while the parents came to claim the bodies” junior year (one of many dark periods of my life). I was feeling as good as I ever was in high school, and the only thing I was doing was cutting a little. In an ironic blast from the past the US bombed Libya, Chernobyl blows up, the first bits of Glasnost happens, Halley’s Comet approaches and fails to blow up the planet in spite of many doomsday predictions, seven million Americans hold (hopefully recently washed) hands in the “Hands Across America” event, an earthquake in El Salvador kills 1500, Ollie North gets caught in the Iran-Contra Affair, Mad Cow Disease is identified in the UK, Mike Tyson becomes heavyweight champion of the world, the smoking ban is lowered on all planes, trains, and buses to much whining from nicotine hounds, space shuttle Challenger blows up (I cried) and leads to a number of really bad jokes (I laughed), Intel releases the 386 processing chip, the worlds first laptop comes out, and the nicotine patch was invented.
In movies it definitely wasn’t the great year 1984 was. Besides the Voyage Home, the only movies really worth noting were Alien (Sigourney Weaver in her underwear!), Platoon (not TOO depressing), Top Gun (adrenaline fueled recruitment movie), and Crocodile Dundee (suddenly Australia seemed cool). In TV the A Team, Cheers, and Magnum PI were on the good side, but on the bad side we had Growing Pains (groaning pains), Murder She Wrote (how many murders does a writer encounter in a life time? Also, why didn’t one of the hundreds of murderers she ran into just put a bullet in her?), Remington Steele (pretty boy solves crimes before becoming 007), and the Cosby Show (Bill Cosby shows us how be be good parents. Actually helped drive home how messed up my own family life was, so thanks Bill). Music more or less sucked. Pet Shop Boys, Culture Club, Madonna, and the Bangles (Walk Like an Egyptian) to name a few.
I’d like to say culturally we were ready for another Star Trek film, but by then it was pretty much a franchise and the studio was going to crank out a sequel if the entire planet were about to fall into a black hole.
Anyway, Kirk and crew are headed back to Earth to pay for the crimes they committed resurrecting Spock. They are headed to Earth in their stolen Bird-of-Prey but it’s 2286 and time for the human race to pay for past sins, specifically in the extinction of the hump back whale. This is less like delivering a message as it is having the message and six of his friends come over to your house and beat you with sand filled rubber hoses. An alien probe comes to Earth looking for the whales and is going to more or less wreak the planet until they are found. Apparently the sound the whales makes travels through the airless void of space and is picked up by the aliens. Kirk and crew decide they can travel back in time and scoop up a couple. They land in San Francisco, where the more or less abuse the timeline and completely ignore the temporal prime directive. I’m no scientist, but I would think doing stuff like kidnapping whales (with tracking devices on them), giving some local yahoo the secret of transparent aluminum, and taking a whale biologist forward in time just might have an effect on the timeline. Talk about the Butterfly Effect. Anyway, awkward people-from-the-future-trying-to-fit-in hijinks ensues. Chekov asks around for nuclear wessels. Spock acts spacy and disjointed. McCoy has a fit about the primitiveness of 20th century surgical techniques. Kirk insults the Mormon church. Scotty turns into the temporal rogue planetoid (and is the size of a planetoid) and more or less hands out advanced technology left and right. Chekov, forever the show whipping boy, gets run down by military police and ends up in the hospital, just like on the show. Sulu manages to figure out how to fly a Huey helicopter. I guess all that time spent flying around space with no gravity teaches you a lot about dealing with the most complicated flying machine of our modern world. Whales get tracked down by the chip in their heads. They get dumped off in the San Francisco Bay (just a few miles from my house) and everything is hunky dory.
What the movie had:
Spock with more than two speaking lines. A lot of really good humor. All the rest of the original crew. Some headache inducing time paradox questions. Time travel as a plot device. The line “nuclear wessels”. A Klingon Bird-of-Prey. Whales. A court martial.
What it didn’t have:
Cool space battles. Aliens. An epic fight scene. A hot Vulcan girl (or any other hot girls, for that matter).
Like the last movie, this one raised some serious questions for me. For example:
If Kirk sold off his antique glasses in the past and then reacquired them again in the future, where did they come from originally? Were they the spontaneously manifesting plot device? Also, if they more or less gained 300 years every time they went through the cycle, wouldn’t they eventually just be a small pile of decayed metal dust and ground up glass?
How exactly did Sulu know how to fly a Huey? I’m not kidding, a helicopter is godawfully complicated, and hovering carrying huge loads is one of the hardest things to do with one. If you took a modern pilot and transported him 300 years into the past, putting him in a clipper ship he might be able to figure out how to pilot in a given direction, but the finer aspects of navigating reefs and so one would most likely be beyond him. Also, wouldn’t he need to show a pilots license of some kind when they rented it?
I get that they dropped the plexiglass plates into Bird-of-Prey with the helicopter, but how did they get it into the craft? Did the Klingons build a huge cargo bay or perhaps retractable sun roof into their ship, or did Scotty rip the roof off the ship and then later rivet it back on? Also, once they got the plates into the ship, how did they maneuver them into place? Each one of them should have weighed several tons. For that matter, what part of their plan required them to be able to see the whales during the 40 minute flight from Earth to future Earth? Couldn’t they have just used steel plates and not had to deal? If it were me, I would have welded the cargo bay shut and just parked the whales in there, not having do deal with any of these weird materials at all.
If they brought forth two whales, a male and a female, in order to propagate the species and keep the aliens from destroying the planet, aren’t they all worried about the third generation being all inbred weird finger mutant babies when the brothers and sisters mate? Also, what if the two whales have all male of female kids? As my PHD geneticist friend tells me, any species that is reduced to even a couple hundred specimens is effectively dead from a genetic point of view. I mean, a couple hundred years down the road wouldn’t the aliens be like “Wow, these whale calls we are getting sound kind of weird and disjointed. They all sound of inbred.” Sounds like a temporary fix to me.
If the cloaked Bird-of-Prey is approaching the whales and those whales are being hunted by whalers, why was it necessary to decloak the ship to scare the whalers and piss on the temporal prime directive even more before transporting the whales on board? Couldn’t they have just transported the whales on board and left the whalers going “Hey, where did those whales go?”?
If the whales were moving at speed when they transported up onto the ship into the small tank wouldn’t they have kept their momentum and bonked their heads into the front of the tank? Plexiglass isn’t that strong. Also, shouldn’t they have been totally freaked out and gone into a massive thrashing fit, possibly injuring each other?
Scotty puts the formula for transparent aluminum onto the computer screen and then (apparently) labels it “Transparent Aluminum”. The plexiglass sales guy takes one three second look at it and has a spontaneous orgasm. Is he a super genius in chemistry and strength of materials and can interpret that stuff instantly? Wouldn’t he want to test it before giving away tens of thousands of dollars worth of plexiglass? How does he know that Scotty isn’t some kind of industrial spy and just gave him a formula that the patent office is three days away from awarding to DuPont? Or for that matter just threw a bunch of random chemical crap on the screen?
Can anyone walk into an emergency room and take over the surgical theater for a critically injured person, asking for stuff that doesn’t really exist yet and bitching out the doctors present for their primitive techniques? Don’t any of the other doctors or nurses more or less know everyone who works there? Also, wasn’t Chekov a prisoner of the Marines who captured him? Wouldn’t they want to at least speak to McCoy first before granting access to their suspected Russian spy?
Anyway, the list goes on. Still, in spite of the weird holes in the plot and the never ending questions, the movie was fun and enjoyable. In retrospect I found the pro environment message pretty didactic and annoying, and the lack of anything action related can make for a slow movie. However, I loved it because was the movie that was most like the TV show. They had a goal. There were weird complications that required unusual stuff (like collecting radiation from nuclear wessels). Some humorous moments. Kirk being Kirk. Spock being Spock. All around a nice flashback episode.
That’s it for this one. Before I go I’d like to mention that I saw a great Tron tribute video by a guy named Anthony Scott Burns called Tron Destiny. Worth checking out IMO.
With luck next post will be a modern movie (couch cough Bad Teacher cough cough). I’m looking forward reviewing the new Transformers movie too, but have heard some negative reviews so my expectations for Michael Bey remain at my usual level. See you soon!
Star Trek movie retrospective Part 3: Star Trek the Search for Spock
OK, Spock is dead, and fan boys across the planet (like me) are crying about it and demanding something be done. Nimoy has said he want’s to put Spock behind him and move on with his life. How, then, do you get him back in the saddle? (Search for Spock image courtesy of the Star Trek T shirts category).
Simple. You offer him a chance to direct the movie. That’s pretty much what Paramount did. They gave Nimoy his first chance to direct, and to be honest, he did a pretty damned good job. I mean, this wasn’t the best Star Trek movie, but I see that as more of a limitation placed on him by the script than anything else (yes, I am that film critic. The one who craps all over every movie he sees until he is confronted by one done by someone he likes and has to find every excuse for them).
Actually, that’s not exactly true. Nimoy got kind of excited about Spock after seeing the TWOK and was gung ho to do the next movie. He himself suggested directing it. Kind of risky on Paramount’s part, in that now you have a director you literally cannot fire.
So what was going on in 1984? I was just out of my first horrible year of hell (I mean, high school). I remember one thing and that is we went to this movie in the back of a pickup truck (on the freeway. God I don’t miss the 80’s). With us on that trip were no less than three girls who were all kind of cute, at least one of which I think in retrospect kind of liked me. My natural awkwardness and inability to talk to women was able to prevent me from gaining some joy in my teenage life. Movie tickets cost at most $3. Ethiopia faced massed starvation and spawned any number of the least sensitive jokes of all time (“What’s the fastest animal in the world? An Ethiopian chicken.”). The Ethiopian tragedy also gifted us with Band Aid and the massive Do they Know it’s Christmas, a chance for every lame pop singer to stroke their egos and look good. AT&T is forcibly broken up (and yet, I am still paying them). We had the first ever (and very cool) untethered space walk. The first ever MTV Video Music Awards starts off, ringing like the death knell over music culture. It was kind of a banner year for movies. In addition to the Search for Spock, Ghostbusters (Sigorney Weaver!, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Gremlins, Beverly Hills Cop, The Karate Kid, Police Academy, The Terminator, and the highly underrated Romancing the Stone all came out. Magnum PI and the A Team were hot. With the exception of music (“Wake me up, before you go go!”) things seemed pretty cool and upbeat. The world wanted new beginnings, and the Search for Spock fit right in.
So Spock placed his soul (his katra) in McCoy just before dying in the last movie. McCoy is haunted by his spirit and they have to get to Vulcan after learning they made a major blunder dropping Spocks body off on the planet rather than returning him home. I guess checking on crewmembers religious beliefs wasn’t high up on Kirks priority list, although you would think he would have done a little more for his best friend. They go back to the Genesis planet where they discover the planet is more or less breaking apart. Spock’s body has mysteriously disappeared out of the coffin, although his Vulcan e coli or whatever have evolved into giant banana slugs. Other stuff happens. The Klingons kill Kirk’s son David. A teenage Spock Pon Fars the hell out of Saavik (played by a young, thin, and super hot Kirstie Allie. What is it about women who are willing to dress up as Vulcans that drives me crazy? I still think about this one girl I met at the Star Trek convention last year. It doesn’t help that, in addition to being super hot, she was also super cool). After years of blue balling himself and coming within a hairs breath of it Kirk finally gets to complete his self destruct sequence for the Enterprise. The crew escapes in a stolen Klingon ship (it’s hard to beat the Enterprise for coolness, but the Klingons have always given them a run for their money).
What the movie had:
The original crew. The return of Spock (although he doesn’t actually appear until the end and only has a couple speaking lines). Modern Klingons. Enterprise blowing up. Planet blowing up. The death of Kirks son, so he wouldn’t be around to clutter up the next few movies. Implied hot Vulcan sex. Effects on par with TWOK. Giant banana slugs with teeth. A clever ploy.
What it didn’t have:
Nicholas Meyer, the writer of TWOK. He stormed off in a huff over the changes the studio forced upon him in TWOK, including the coffin on the planet scene. A rational explanation as to how Spock’s body reconstituted itself (more on that later). Spock playing Spock.
This is the first Star Trek movie that generated some serious questions in my mind with regards to continuity (and probably paved my path to becoming an amateur movie reviewer). First of all, Kirk is really broken up about the death of his son (and in later movies is even more upset about it) but as far as I can tell he only knew the guy for two weeks or so. In the TV show Kirk had crewmembers he had known for years die horrible, horrible deaths (remember the Devil in the Dark?) and didn’t even blink an eye. Secondly, if the cold germs or whatever in the pod with Spocks body were super evolved into giant banana slugs by the Genesis effect, why would it just regenerate Spock in his original form? Shouldn’t he have been a super evolved Vulcan? Or, for that matter, if they sent down his body shouldn’t each cell have evolved into something, possibly resulting in billions of super evolved Spocks? Also, what did young Spock eat? To grow that fast he must have eaten about 10x his weight every day. For that matter, if he speed grew up from a baby who kept him from running off a cliff or what have you? Even with my parents protection I managed to injure myself pretty much every day as a kid. Sure Spock is half Vulcan, but he’s also half human, which in broader terms is half stupid. Also, assuming the planet had evolved an abundance of fruit trees, how did he feed himself as a baby? Also, according the scientist involved in the project there would be only plant life on the planet. So what did young Spock do for protein? Seems the only sources of protein would be giant banana slugs and his own corpse. Shouldn’t he have been suffering from serious malnutrition? Also, if he had never seen another creature in his life when the crew showed up why did he hide from them? Wouldn’t he just see them as some kind of moving plant? Is there any chance Saavik got pregnant and there is a son of Spock running around?
The list can go on, but I will spare you. Overall I would say this was a decent film, and a nice bridge from the end of the series in the last film and the rest of them. The only problem is that this is the last film where you see Kirk as a moderately believable action hero. Last movie saw the end of Spock as we knew him, and this one we see the end of Kirk. From this movie forth he would still do stuff in an action way, but it would take on a Mork from Ork comedy element. If you don’t believe me go back and watch the fight scene from Star Trek Generations. Like I said, decent film. Just not the best.
