The Bourne Legacy Review
By “Legacy” I guess they mean cow milking cash grab.
Sorry it’s been a while since I saw something or wrote a review, but I was in Las Vegas most of the last few days at the amazing Star Trek convention. I had a blast, met some great people, sold a ton of shirts, and was soundly rejected by three women (although to be fair I’m not sure if I was really asking one of them out). 
I also discovered that girls wearing a Starfleet uniform from either TOS or TNG are a real turn on for me. I don’t know if I really want to dig deep in that dark hole in my psyche, but if any ladies are looking to catch my eye there’s the way to do it (Uniform shirt courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category).
I made it back in one piece and am now able to indulge in another of my passions: excreting the bitter bile of my soul all over mediocre or lousy movies.
Not that the Bourne Legacy was necessarily bad or even mediocre. I will put it at slightly above mediocre. Like a C+. However, it has latched onto the Bourne teat and suckled that cow down to skin and bones. I kept count and either heard or saw the name Bourne no less than 15 times during the course of the movie. In 135 minutes that’s once every 9 minutes. I guess they felt a cold terror at the thought that the audience wasn’t remembering where this film came from often enough. Speaking of 135 minutes, I was feeling the weight of them by the end of the movie. A lot of scenes seemed to drag on for ever. It would have been nice if they had invested in an ending rather than have the whole movie kind of drift off into space with more or less nothing accomplished other than the finding of a magic MacGuffin.
Bottom line on this film is that it is a decent if fragmented action spy movie. However, it is not of the same caliber as the first three Bourne films. The story is comprised of about 15 spy sub plots and more or less exists as a framework to hang extended action scenes on. I can honestly say this film completely lacks an Act III. There is the intro, a huge development scene, and then all of a sudden it ends with almost nothing resolved beyond the intermediate issues arising from the development. Also, if it has been a while since you saw any of the first three be prepared to get pretty much totally confused as to what the hell is going on. This movie runs in parallel with the other films and if you don’t know what those films were about you will be like Hansel and Gretel without bread crumbs. Furthermore, while it has been a while since I saw those it seems they have taken the whole Treadstone program in a new and stupider direction by making the Treadstone spies the result of some kind of science fiction super drug program rather than just training and psychological conditioning. Again, while I think this would have made for a decent stand alone movie it really didn’t feel like a Bourne movie.
The story. I don’t want to get too deep into it as it will be hard to do without spoilers. Jason Bourne is wreaking havoc across the world. Back at CIA headquarters (or something like CIA) they are all trying to cover their asses by burying the Treadstone program, which involves pretty much killing all the agents and scientists involved. Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner-the Hurt Locker, The Avengers, Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol) survives his attempted killing, as does scientist Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz-the Mummy, the Fountain, Constantine). Aaron is hooked on some enhancing drugs and has to get more so he tracks down Marta. At that point they do the whole “man on the run” spy thing while looking for the thing that will keep Aaron from degenerating. Spy hijinks ensues. The US Intelligence community is painted to look like the most amoral bastards since Hitler. A villain is pullout out of the ether (Louis Ozawa Changchien-Predators, Fair Game, Robot Stories). The Wayback Machine is set for 2006 as parkour rears it’s head once more. The movie comes to an abrupt ending like a car running out of gas.
The stars. I really liked the character of Aaron Cross. Had the movie just been about him I would have like it a lot better. One star. The action was good and fun. One star. The story had a nice complexity and actually required you to pay attention. One star. I always like to see Ed Norton in any film. One star. In fact the entire cast was good and delivered generally good performances. Rachel Weisz was especially good. Two stars. Overall a fun movie. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. The movie ran long, and some of the scenes were repetitive and seemed to go on forever. Pacing should have been tightened a lot. One black hole. The constant reminder of Jason Bourne really bugged after a while, and the movie felt anchored down by the need to keep on reminding you of where it came from. One black hole. The story lacked cohesion and most of the characters didn’t really have a motivation I wanted to buy. One black hole. The ending sucked eggs. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
A grand total of three stars. Not bad, but not great. Worth seeing, but do yourself a favor and watch the first three beforehand. Nothing in this film really requires a large screen so feel free to NetFlix it. Date movie? Nothing about this film will entice your date to take off her clothes, so not really. On the other hand I don’t think it will hurt your chances. Bathroom break? There’s a scene after Aaron first rescues Marta where they are driving in the car that is totally miss worthy. Either that or the big airport/flight scene. Literally nothing interesting happens and it drags on like you are on the 10 hour flight.
Thanks for reading. Now that all the big shows I am doing are done I am going to see more movies and try to write more often. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. If you have comments on this movie or review feel free to post them here. If you have off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
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
A question about Star Trek 3 the Search for Spock
So I have been posting odd movie questions lately and wanted to ask this one because I know it will bug the hell out of Dave. He is a screaming Star Trek fan. Here it is:
If Genesis caused the germ cells on the Spocks coffin to hyper evolved into giant mutant worms in a few hours, why would it cause the highly radioactive cells of Spocks body to simply create a new Spock? Shouldn’t his body have either evolved into a billion other weird little creatures? Or hyper evolve into a super advanced Vulcan? Or since he was all radioactive and the DNA probably all messed up into Spock with like eight arms (Octospock)?
While we are on the subject, it is shown that Spock’s new body was growing up from a child, which really implies that at some point it was a baby. What, exactly, did that baby eat or drink? If it grew up so fast it must have been eating like 10 times it’s body weight every day. Grass? Since there were no animals on the planet that would imply no need for the plants to evolved into something edible. I didn’t see a lot of water around there too. Even if he did find edible grass and rocks to suck on wouldn’t he have suffered from massive malnourishment?
I love this question. The image I found in Dave’s Star Trek collection. He has like a million Star Trek t-shirts.
Jason
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
Star Trek Post Production 3D Blues
I don’t share the same amount of hatred of JJ Abrams’ Star Trek with Dave, and while I kind of wonder how they are going to remake the Wrath of Khan when the first movie pretty much made it so that Space Seed never happened, I kind of expect it to be pretty good. I do have one opinion in common with Dave and that’s post production 3D sucks.
JJ Abrams has announced he is going to shoot the whole thing in 2D and let Paramount 3D it up post production. I don’t think this has ever produced a good effect. All the best 3D movies are shot in 3D, and generally make for really good films. Whenever it is done in 2D and ramped up later the 3D is almost not even noticeable and the film makers never seem to look for the right opportunity to show the 3D effects. Basically it turns into a huge waste of film.
Dave is more the Trek fan and has a lot of strong opinions about JJ taking over the franchise and rebooting it. I just enjoyed the film and am not that worried about sticking to canon. I am looking forward to listening to Dave bitch about it when he is writing the review however.
This Khan shirt I found in Dave’s Star Trek t shirt collection. Good episode IMO.
Jason
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
