My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.
Top comment: Nemesis may fail as a Trek movie, but it is a complete success as a comedy. It is probably the best comedy I ever was surprised by.
Captain Picard vs. his clone, played by Billy Corrigan!
Good Data vs. Special Data!
The Prime Directive is tossed aside because of dune buggies!
Space vampires built a planet-destroying megaship that totally isn’t ripped off of The Shadows from B5! In secret! In space!
It’s probably the best prank I’ve ever seen, and people got paid to do it. — Lister
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Re: Thursday – have you seen the trailers for Fox’s appearances in this season’s Rescue Me? I might go back to that show to see how crazy things get there.
Are those actually jetpacks? It looked more like some kind of aerobraking/paratroop gear, which I guess is close enough to jetpacks as makes no ends, but they just seem to be falling straight down instead of zooming up in the air and shit.
First Contact is better than Voyage Home. And anything odd-numbered. And Nemesis.
The Final Frontier is better than Nemesis, so that’s not saying much. I mean, they’re both bad, but only the latter has that sense of terminal desperation, like a 40 year old at a kegger.
Although Nemesis did have dunebuggies…
They’re parachutes. I caught an advanced screening on Saturday morning, and by the time the credits rolled I had a smile on my face so thick it would’ve required a chisel for removal. The film is at once a reimagining and a continuation, and the fact that they managed to bring in so much different(the visual aesthetic, the casting, the relationships) while still remaining true to the spirit of the original series was nothing short of mindboggling. Thoroughly awesome.
Stac
Generations as WORSE than The Motion Picture? I can’t get behind that.
Aside from the TNG/TOS crossover appeal, I think you’ve got the pulse of the Trek movies figured out (I’d say First Contact’s just a bit better than III, if only because III’s third act drags badly). And I’m not sure I can get over my continuity-baggage enough to go see Abrams’ little endeavor, so feel free to drop a review or just a quick reaction. The early reviews have been trending toward hyperbolic and that worries me.
(Prepares to be slapped) Dollhouse started off craptacularly, but has become a pretty good show. And without getting into a huge discussion about it, I really don’t think it’s fair to call it a rape fantasy. Or maybe we should get into a huge discussion about it.
I watched STAR TREK V over the weekend; I honestly don’t think it’s any worse than the two Nimoy-directed films (which, admittedly, I’m not crazy about). Not crasy abot the NEXT GEN films either; I think only Nic Meyer knew how to get the right balance on these things…or maybe he was the only half-decent director the series had (excepting Robert Wise, who just didn’t get it).
Do check out the minor guest appearances of Michael J. Fox on Rescue Me.
He plays a very irascible love interest for the main character’s ex-wife – who is in a wheel-chair.
Rather than hiding his disability, Mr. Fox is absolutely feeding on it to make the role seriously powerful.
I watch the show anyway, so for me it’s just lagniappe. But I’ve been rewinding and re-playing his scenes. They are a real acting trip.
Dollhouse is AWESOME Rape Fantasy, dude!
I’d put The Final Frontier as either the third or second best of the original series movies, myself, with First Contact taking second place right behind Wrath of Khan. This is the reason I don’t often talk about Star Trek.
Hey, you leave Kunta Kinte alone.
Star Trek: the Motion Picture should be on a different list axis*, extending into the imaginary plane, in the sense that it is a bad Star Trek movie (no dunebuggies), and is also a bad movie movie with bizarre pacing, but still has its own dreamlike charm and striving for something that the other movies didn’t.
* along with The Black Hole and Solaris (2002)
First Contact was the only good TNG movie simply because it was the most interesting application of the Borg and it was the only one that didn’t come off as a two-hour episode.
The Final Frontier is the worst of the TOS movies, but at least its still watchable unlike Nemesis which is just embarrassing.
My favorite is still The Undiscovered Country.
I never did like Wrath of Khan. Although, if they ever did do another Star Trek series, I think it should revolve around Khan Noonien Singh the Eugenics Wars.
Endless Russian Solaris, where you can pretend it’s just a janky translation that makes it impossible to understand, or American Solaris where it’s long and boring and you can understand every single boring word?
Solaris (2002) was too cryptic?
Yeah, Undiscovered Country is oddly undervalued by the Trek crowd. It’s actually arguably the most epic of the Trek films–they spend more time “trekking” around the “stars” in that one than in pretty much any of the other movies, most of which focus on the crew hanging around a single location. And it’s second only to Khan for fun ‘n’ adventure.
I also thought Part 3 was pretty decent–it probably generates too much badwill for undoing most of what happens in Wrath of Khan, but taken on its own terms it’s decent.
I’ll probably watch Dollhouse; I have a deliberate policy of never seeing any movie on opening weekend, no matter what the movie is or how much I might want to see it.
My ranking of the Trek films:
1. First Contact
2. Undiscovered Country
3. Wrath of Khan
The others fall at various strata below; the first three are the real prizes.
I rate “Khan” lower than others, I suspect because I knew by the time I watched it that the big ending change (Spock’s death) doesn’t stick.
Both versions of SOLARIS are fine cinema, and I don’t really see by what standard the Soderbergh version is “boring”. It’s at just the right pace for what’s basically a character drama.
I honestly think THE MOTION PICTURE was sort of redeemed by its special edition, and Wise did a fine job directing, it’s just the script was so fundamentally flawed.
Hey – how’s that baseball league doing? Anybody cool in first place?
I hate Star Trek.
The Motion Picture is an oddity in film. you had this adaptation of a TV property that was hugely popular in syndication, but a lot of new ground had been broken in the intervening time.
Basically, any sci-fi franchise at the time was going to be compared to star wars, so they went the other way. They went the 2001 space epic route. It was different, and not the greatest fit for star trek, but it was different, and it let them stand out from the crowd of star wars cash-ins.
Nemesis may fail as a Trek movie, but it is a complete success as a comedy. It is probably the best comedy I ever was surprised by.
Captain Picard vs. his clone, played by Billy Corrigan!
Good Data vs. Special Data!
The Prime Directive is tossed aside because of dune buggies!
Space vampires built a planet-destroying megaship that totally isn’t ripped off of The Shadows from B5! In secret! In space!
It’s probably the best prank I’ve ever seen, and people got paid to do it.
I you had only replaced “Trek” with “Wars” I would have had some sympathy, Lister Sage.
Even though I saw the original (oh, sorry, Episode 4 *gag/heave*) something like 8 times when it was first out, in recent years I’ve decided “Fuck Star Wars” and to firmly throw my support on the side of the Trekkies.
At least Trek is something approaching actuall Science Fiction in mass culture (and yes I know its flaws and various failures to be the hardest of hard SF, no need to list them for me) and is often about things (however heavy-handed) where Wars is just a witless fairy tale that’s really about very little, Lucas’s propensity for invoking Joseph Campbell in response to every criticism of his lazy-ass underdone writing notwithstanding.
I don’t know how that extra “l” ended up at the end of “actual” there.
Twitchy finger, I guess.
Fucking Star Wars.
If the Final Frontier had been the FIRST Trek movie, I have a feeling it wouldn’t be half as reviled as it is today.
Ed (Jack Norris): See the only reason I said “I hate Star Trek” was because this is a post about Star Trek. Since you’ve started a “Fuck Star Wars” bandwagon, let me just say I’m glad to be aboard. Between the prequals and most of the expanded universe books I don’t want to see or hear another Star Wars related anything ever again. I will be keeping my original trilogy tapes, the X-Wing Squadron and I, Jedi books and the 34 though.
About Dollhouse… I admit I’m not a crazy-coat-wearing Whedon fan, but I did like his previous shows, and was looking forward for his TV retur. And I know it’s been said before (and I probably should watch more than a couple episodes) but I can’t stand it.
So. fucking. creepy.
I’m not a crazy pseudo-feminist like that crazy, crazy lady I remember reading in livejournal who was ‘criticizing’ Serenity, I’m just creeped out by brain-washed livestock-like human dolls (no matter how hot, mmmmmh Eliza Dushku) who are locked up until wealthy people need their service.
How was this creepy shit even greenlit? I mean, ‘spunky blonde fights vampires’, ‘brooding vampire detective in L.A.’ and ‘space western with crazies, whores and cantonese words’ are pitches I can see a man making to a tv studio and getting away with it. ‘Hot brunette gets personalities imprinted as per her patron’s wishes’? If tv executives were real human beings they should have said ‘dude, brazzers is next door, and theres a great psych ward in the closest hosital’.
And some people (bah, some geeks) eat this shit up, just ’cause it’s Whedon! Again, the guy has written good things, many I’ve really loved (man I miss Angel) but this? This is not even a dud, it’s pure, undiluted, CREEEEEEEEEEPY shit.
Gaaaaaaaah there you go, rant off my system.