NICK’S BLOG

Oh my God!!!

[No Spoilers In This Post—everything here pertains to what I saw in the trailer that everyone can see right now]

I can’t even describe how psyched I am to see this movie. This trailer must be the best trailer I’ve ever seen in my entire movie-going life. Now granted you can’t base a movie on how good the trailer looks, but this third trailer for J.J. Abram’s Star Trek is phenomenal! And it is not the trailer itself that blows my mind but what I see in it: redemption for Star Trek.

I’m probably going to open up a can of worms over that but I don’t care. Star Trek has been bastardized over the years by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga who took over the kingdom after Gene Roddenberry died during the Star Trek: The Next Generation days. These guys have cheapened Star Trek down to the lowest common denominator and took away its soul. Here are some examples of what I mean:

• Transporter gets the crew out of a jam
• Reset button gets pressed at the end of an episode and everything is as it was—no harm, no foul
• The big themes get lost to the petty issues of the characters—ironically enough the best thing about the season 3 of the tv show Enterprise was the season-long Xindi story arc ala Battlestar Galactica/Babylon 5 like. And it was the season of the show the so-called true fans despised. But that’s good story telling!
• Starfleet officers are way too “high and mighty” for their own good—no one gets down and dirty and compromises to get the job done as they do in Galactica
• Ships seems to not take a beating too well—as in the warp drive goes offline everytime there’s a bump in the road
• Bad guys are not “bad-asses,” as in they are just misunderstood
• Instead of a cast of thousands, you get a cast of tens—sure you can throw budget constraints at me, but with the new technologies you can circumvent that issue. There are supposed to be an unbelievable amount of people in the Federation and you only see a few, that also goes for the ships as well—one Borg ship to attack Earth? Come on.
• Weak characters with no angst to them. I’m referring to the later iterations of Trek, the Classic Series had lots of angst, but could have used more.
• Time travel stories get over done
• The Trek canon is too messed up and should be abandoned and rebooted as is what J.J. Abrams is doing

These are just some points, I know there are way more. But regardless, what J.J. Abrams is doing is what Harve Bennett (producer on Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) suggested over twenty years ago. Start over, go to Starfleet Academy, and move on! Back then that would have been sacrilegious, but Berman and Braga screwed Trek up so much that this was the only way to save this incredible story.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen the trailer yet go here to the Apple.com website (I’m a life-long Apple/Mac fan as well) to get the HD version—it is so worth the downloading wait.

If you want to watch it right now go ahead (see below):

Here’s what I see in this movie that will make it great:

• A real backstory for Kirk. Spock’s is well-known and that is certainly covered in this movie. I love the “Rebel Without A Cause” version of Kirk as it adds real dimension to his character.
• A real badass Romulan, Nero, played by a real badass actor, Eric Bana. That last wuss, Shinzon of Remus (part of the Romulan Empire) in Star Trek Nemesis, was so bad that I really wanted to shoot myself in the head after listening to his whining for two hours. Nero is going to rock, plain and simple. He’ll probably even outdo Khan!
• The scale of this movie looks as big as it should! Kudos to the special effects people behind all of this.
• The new Enterprise is what the old Enterprise (sitting in the gift shop of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum) should have been but money was a factor then. That has been fixed now.
• All the cool 1960′s era style for the costumes and sets have been preserved to a certain extent and updated to our modern-day standards. It is as if Roddenberry was given $3 trillion dollars to produce Star Trek back in 1966!
• All the technology looks truly functional including a real space elevator!
• I love it when Captain Christopher Pike tries to recruit Kirk to join Starfleet in this trailer by telling him about his father’s heroism.
• I love it when Kirk takes command of the Enterprise in this trailer at a desperate moment (probably after Pike and the first officer gets killed somehow), as well he should.
• I love how the Enterprise seems to take a real beating in this trailer like the Galactica and still keeps on fighting!
• I love the Batman Begins like music for this trailer that gives me freakin’ goose bumps!

I love this trailer!!!

I’m gonna love this movie!!!

May 8, 2009

Last night’s conclusion to the “mutiny” story-line on BSG was simply frakkin’ awesome!

If you haven’t seen it yet, then don’t read any further.

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

Kudos to Ron D. Moore!

The entire buildup was key. The webisodes that really explored certain aspects of Gaeta’s character were well done and lent itself greatly to his motivation for doing what he did. Zarek’s character arc was well established since season one so we knew that he was capable of attempting a coup, and with the recent developments to Gaeta’s character it made sense for him as well to be involved in this reckless action.

Simply launching the coup was brilliant. How Gaeta kept everybody off-guard until he was ready to move was well played. But of course there’s always gotta be a counter-offensive which was also well executed on the part of our “good guys.” When Kara shot those guys down who were about to plug Lee and later she kisses him saying, “how does it feel to be alive Lee!” That was priceless and totally within her character.

But the best thing was Adama, hardcore and unyielding to the last.

In last night’s episode, after refusing to leave HIS ship, he continues to fight and be defiant even though he most certainly will be shot—I love his character. And Rosalin as well, she won’t go down without a fight, no how, no way. And she loves Adama to the last and will never abandon him even when the rebel Cylons wanted to. No rest for the weary even if she is dying of cancer.

But when Zarek executed the entire Quorum of The Twelve Colonies of Kobol, that was perfect and shocking and totally realistic when coups happen. I was expecting the same thing under George Bush! Finding out just before the plug would be pulled on the free Internet that all of Congress were gunned down while in session.

Anyway, perfect ending to retaking the ship and doling out the appropriate justice to Gaeta and Zarek: firing squad. I love it when Gaeta said just before he was shot that his amputated leg finally stopped hurting at that moment. Wow!

And one other thing, when Tyrol noticed in the engine room that the Galactica is starting to crack (something also seen in at the SciFi Channel’s You Will Know The Truth website), that is just another foreboding sign that the worst is yet to come!

Brilliant Ron! Brilliant!

I tell you, these last two episodes of Galactica have really frakked up my head!

Basically, I’m a little confused about how he “glossed” over the whole Earth storyline. We have this massive build up for 5 years about Earth and then they finally get there and “poof” nothing. Not a damn thing. Earth is nuked, most likely Cylons colonized it and called it Earth, and that’s it. And maybe everyone is a Cylon and back into space.

What a let down. I was hoping for a more prophetic revelation about Earth like it was truly the cradle of humanity and Kobol and the Colonies and perhaps other worlds (including the Cylon homeworld) are all off-shoots from there. The time-line doesn’t synch up either. They discover Kobol and it’s ruins were about 2000 years old, they discover that probe (mostly likely from Earth) that carries the Cylon-killing disease that is about 3000 years old, and then they discover on the Algae planet the Temple of the Five that is 4000 years old—all presumably on the way to Earth. So, shouldn’t the nuked out ruins on Earth be something like 4000 to 5000 years old? That would make sense if Earth is the homeworld. Of course if Kobol is the homeworld then sure Earth’s demise is in line with Kobol’s, but that doesn’t make much sense either because Earth is certainly more built up than Kobol was.

All I want is an explanation. I don’t care which, just an explanation and then we can get back to the angst of the story.