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Star Trek 43rd Birthday: Watching Season 1 on DVD Part I

Posted in movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Trek, TV shows with tags James T Kirk, movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Trek, TV shows on September 11, 2009 by Paxton

Okay, today we are continuing our Star Trek 43rd Anniversary celebration by revisiting the original TV series episodes. On Wednesday I did a movie retrospective of the first six Star Trek movies, but today I’m reviewing Season 1 of the TV series. Growing up in the ’80s, I was a big fan of the movie version of Star Trek. Treks II and VI were my favorite movies with the original cast. I had seen some of the episodes of the original TV show in syndication, but I didn’t remember them. I said before, that the only episode I’ve watched in its entirety more than once was Squire of Gothos because it contained the character of Trelane, the precursor to Star Trek: The Next Generations’ Q character.

Looking at the Season 1 set being offered from Netflix, I noticed something odd. The original unaired pilot, The Cage, is not offered on the first season set. I was disappointed because I really wanted to see this episode. However, after digging around on the internet I found out that The Cage was offered on the very last disc of Season 3 as a bonus. So I had to get the last disc of season 3 mailed to me from Netflix to see the unaired pilot. I just thought that was weird.

So, anyway, this is what I’m watching, the Blu-Ray set of Star Trek The Original Series, Season 1.

Going into this I was very worried that the original show was going to be a little dated and boring. That I wasn’t going to enjoy it as much as the movies. That’s one of the reasons I decided to re-watch the shows, to see the whole phenomenon how it originally aired.

Overview of Season 1 as a Whole

So, how does the series hold up? Very well, actually. Like I said, I was prepared to be a bit bored by the cheap special effects and low caliber story telling, but the series really surprised me. Yes, there are episodes that plod along and bore you, but for the most part it is fascinating to watch the crew at work. Predictably, Shatner is UNBELIEVABLE as James Kirk. All the reasons I love him in every Star Trek movie is presented in this first season. He is supremely bad ass, as macho as the offspring of a T-Rex and a Great White Shark and totally in charge at all times. He seeks out new life, then when the new life starts acting like bitches, he throws photon torpedoes at it until the problem goes away. Kirk doesn’t care. And Spock. OMFG, Nimoy is a treasure. He is the king of the subtle insults. Whenever some crew member is freaking out about the near death adventures Kirk keeps getting them into, Spock always comes at them completely deadpan with something similar to “emotions are illogical” or “emotions make you weak”. Then he gives them that penetrating Vulcan stare with the raised eyebrow that informs the crew member that they have just been OWNED. The crew of the Enterprise have got to think Spock is a douche. I love it.

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Star Trek 43rd Birthday: Re-Watching the movies

Posted in movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Trek with tags movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Trek on September 9, 2009 by Paxton

Star Trek turned 43 this week. The first episode of the original series aired on Sept 8, 1966. To celebrate, I re-watched all the original cast’s Star Trek movies. Starting with Star Trek The Motion Picture and going through Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, I quickly review the movie legacy of the cast from the original TV show.

Let’s see if these movies are still as good in the harsh light of today. Beware, though, as the movie pirate will tell you, “Proceed with caution, mates. Thar be spoilers ahead!”

Star Trek: The Motion Picture — I didn’t watch this until I was in high school. What I remember from that screening was one word: BORING. Watching this again, I have a new word: COMA-INDUCING. The problem lies in the fact that this movie was originally developed as a new Star Trek TV series called Phase II which would’ve included Kirk, Spock, Bones and others in small roles as well as a bunch of new officers (a bald chick and that guy from 7th Heaven). After the success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars, Paramount trashed the new series and had the show re-developed as a motion picture. Surprisingly, Phase II was written by sci-fi legend Alan Dean Foster who also wrote the Star Trek reboot novelization. Despite the high pedigree of writer, what the movie delivers is an incomprehensible mess. The storyline is hard to follow, some of the effects are terrible and the acting is less than stellar. If you are looking for your first Star Trek movie viewing, I beg you, with all that is holy, DO NOT start here. Your journey will end before it can begin. If you must, return to it later and wonder WTF just happened. After watching this again, I’m surprised Part II got made at all. 1.5/5

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan — It’s almost cliche to say that Star Trek II is the best Star Trek movie, but things become cliche for a reason. Next to Part VI, also written/directed by Nicholas Meyer, this is the best Trek movie. This movie’s story is a sequel to a 1967 episode of the original series called Space Seed. Ricardo Montalban’s Khan first appeared in that episode and the movie picks up years later when Kirk and his crew once again face the titular genetically enhanced Khan. The opening of the movie is iconic and depicts the infamous Kobayshi-Maru officer’s test. From there the action takes off and never lets up during the tight 116 minute runtime. The superior pacing and the tete-a-tete between Kirk and Khan make this a wonderful sci-fi action movie. This is what everyone thinks of when you say Star Trek and that’s why it’s a classic. I’ll tell you this, if you don’t shed a tear during Spock’s death scene when he tells Kirk that he will forever be his friend, then you have no soul, my friend. I’m misting up right now just thinking about it. 4/5

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Glorious Glass: A look back at some of my favorite collector’s glasses

Posted in advertising, comic books, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, reviews, Star Trek, Star Wars, Superman, The Flash with tags advertising, Burger King, comic books, glasses, McDonald's, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, reviews, Star Trek, Star Wars, Taco Bell on July 28, 2009 by Paxton

Fast food joints used to give out the best swag back in the day. At the top of this swag list was commemorative collector glasses. These were glasses made from ACTUAL glass (not f’n plastic) with kick ass graphics all over it usually given away as a premium with a purchase of food or drinks. Actually, collector glasses didn’t just come from fast food joints. The convenience store 7-11 as well as soda giants Coke and Pepsi both created collector’s glasses that were distributed in stores, gas stations, supermarkets and/or fast food joints. The heyday of collector glasses was in the ’70s and ’80s, but glasses were also released in the ’50s, ’60s and ’90s. Burger King recently revived the collector glass (real glass!!) tradition in May 2009 with their four glass set for the new Star Trek movie (Thanks, Michelle for finding those for me).

So without further ado, here are a bunch of my favorite collector glasses from the ’70s and ’80s. You can click any of the below images to see it bigger.

Burger King Star Wars/Empire/Jedi Glasses (1977, 1980, 1983) — The most famous of all commemorative glasses, the Star Wars Burger King collector glasses are what everyone thinks of when you mention “collector glasses”. A set of four were released for each movie. Surprisingly, it is not very hard to complete a set of all 12 as they made a crap-ton of them. Here’s a pic of the Star Wars set. Here’s a pic of the Empire Strikes Back set. Here’s a pic of the Return of the Jedi set.

Glasses for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom by 7-Up (1984) — This is probably one of the more obscure glass sets. Made by 7-Up to commemorate the second Indiana Jones movie, the glasses were only released to certain local fast food chains so getting a full set is extremely hard. I don’t care about a set, but I would love the Mola Ram glass (far right hand side) with him holding the still beating flaming heart. That is BAD ASS. A year earlier, in 1983, there was a set of three glasses created by Coca-Cola for Raiders of the Lost Ark but the set was never released. Check those glasses out here.

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Movie Man-athon: Transformers 2 and tons of other movie reviews

Posted in movies, reviews, Transformers with tags Movie Manathon, movies, reviews, Transformers on July 13, 2009 by Paxton

Steph was gone this past weekend so I made it my goal to watch as many movies as I can fit into like 3 days. And not just any movies, I watched typical “guy” stuff that no self-respecting “lady” would ever sit down and voluntarily watch. For you guys, I’ll do a quick review on 7 of the movies that I watched for the first time this weekend. This doesn’t include Star Trek II and Star Trek III which I rewatched on Saturday and Sunday. I also watched the first four episodes of 24: Season 7. So, with my butt cramping from sitting on my sectional for 3 days, here are the reveiws of what I watched in my 72 hour Man-athon.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) — Let’s start out with the biggest movie I saw this weekend, Giant F***ing Robots 2: Megan Fox is Super Hot. Wait, I mean, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. The title is irrelevant. To illustrate this, I created the poster above because I thought it more honestly reflected the flat-out AWESOME-ness that is contained in this movie. For weeks I’ve read how horrible this movie is. The internet is lambasting it as terrible, and I was prepared to HATE it when I walked out of the theater. The only reason I saw it was to make fun of it. However, despite the movie’s problems, it is fun to watch and delivers on the “giant robots battling” action. Don’t get me wrong, there are plot holes large enough to drive a transforming truck through, but the shiny, battling robots and Megan Fox’s partial nudity is well worth it. I hear you asking, “What type of plot holes, Pax?” Well, apparently, certain Transformers can teleport. “Wait, wha-?!” Yes, Jetfire, who can transform into one of the fastest planes ever created, the SR-71 “Blackbird”, can instantaneously teleport. Actually, so can The Fallen, who transforms into a spaceship. Why would they ever transform in order to travel? Why not just always teleport there? Why walk to work when you can drive, you know what I’m sayin’? Doesn’t make sense. There’s also something else that was surprising. The Twins; Mudflap and Skids. There’s been a lot of controversy over these guys because they are perceived as being “racially insensitive” caricatures. Are they racially offensive? I can see the argument of them being racially offensive. I know they were put in there for younger audience members to identify with, but damn. They were also considered comic relief, which this movie has a lot of. It seemed this whole movie was funnier than the first one. Lots of action, lots of funny. Don’t think too hard about the problems. Like teleporting robots or why they couldn’t use the metal shard to revive Optimus Prime like they did Megatron or why Bumblebee still can’t speak despite the fact he could at the end of the first movie. It’s all just too much to worry about when you have giant f***ing robots beating the crap out of each other in the desert. 3.5/5

Dune

Dune (1984) — Okay, as awesomely action filled as Transformers 2 was, this movie is that amount of awful. Like horrendous on multiple levels. If you’ve read the original Frank Herbert novel, then this movie will be offensive based on the MANY ridiculous changes David Lynch made to the novel’s story (Weirding Modules?! Hawat has to milk a hairless cat for the antidote to the residual poison in his body?! The Mentats’ hilariously long eyebrows?! Paul magically makes it rain on Arrakis?!). If you haven’t read the novel, then this is just an insanely boring movie with a half naked Sting staring at you for 30 minutes. WTF happened between Herbert’s novel and this movie? I read the book a few months ago and while it was a dense read, it was worth it. The characters and events are richly textured and the world Herbert creates is fantastic. Lynch should be f’n ashamed of himself and never been allowed to make another movie after this was released. True, this book would be hard for anyone to make, but DAMN, Lynch, WTF?! My eyes have actively declared war on me for making them watch this abomination. If you are having trouble sleeping and haven’t read the book, watch this movie, you’ll be out like a light in 10 minutes, I promise. If you have read the book, pretend this movie doesn’t exist. For now until I die, this movie is dead to me. I would give it a 0 but it was so bad it almost became entertaining in the same way watching a horrendous car wreck is entertaining. 1/5

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Movie Flashback: Tim Burton’s Batman celebrates its 20 year anniversary today

Posted in Batman, movies, pop culture, reviews with tags Batman, Movie Flashback, Movie Novelizations, movie reviews, movies, pop culture on June 23, 2009 by Paxton

20 Years ago today, June 23, 1989, Tim Burton’s first Batman film with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson was released in theaters.

The release of this movie in 1989 was an event not seen probably since the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983. The merchandising and hype leading up to this movie was at near-Star Wars levels. There were daily news stories, TV specials, t-shirts, hats, posters, toys, product tie-ins etc. The bat signal was seen everywhere. People were talking about missing work to see it opening day.

I totally bought into the Batman hype that summer; hook, line and sinker. I was so excited I bought the movie novelization and read it before I saw the movie. I still have that novel as well as every other Batman movie novelization after it.

A Batman movie had been in development in some form or another since the late ’70s. Superman co-writer Tom Mankiewicz wrote a first draft of what would become the modern Batman movie in 1980. After the success of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure in 1985, Warner Bros asked Tim Burton to take over the Batman movie development. Burton threw out Mankiewicz’s draft, wrote his own 30 page treatment and hired Sam Hamm to write the script. However, due to a writer’s strike in the late ’80s, development dragged on and Sam Hamm had to leave the project. Warren Skaaren was hired to finish the script. The final script was green-lit in 1988 after the success of Beetlejuice at the box office.

The Batman movie development went through many iterations before finally landing on the final script and cast; Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson and Kim Bassinger. Here’s some behind the scene trivia for the movie:

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