May | 2013 | the m0vie blog

Star Trek – Spock Must Die! by James Blish (Review)

Posted on May 27, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Star Trek: Into Darkness this month, we’ll be running through the first season of the classic Star Trek all this month. Check back daily to get ready to boldly go. It’s only logical.

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

Spock Must Die! is notable for being one of the first Star Trek novels published. Indeed, it is the first original novel published by Bantham Books. (For trivia hounds, the young adult original novel Mission to Horatius was actually published during the show’s run.) It’s written by James Blish, the British author responsible for those Star Trek episode novelisations I have been sporadically quoting over the past month or so. Blish was a published science-fiction author before he worked with Star Trek. Reading Spock Must Die!, you can definitely sense the writer’s fondness for high concepts and metaphysical quandaries.

Indeed, one of the defining attributes of Spock Must Die! is that Blish seems more preoccupied with the logic and implications of the show’s pseudo-science (and his own elements building on that) than he is with the characters themselves. It’s not necessarily a fatal flaw, but Spock Must Die! is more interesting and intriguing as a curiosity than as an expansion or examination of the Star Trek franchise.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: chris pine, Errand of Mercy, imax, J. J. Abrams, James Blish, James Doohan, james t. kirk, John Harrison, kirk, Leonard McCoy, Organian, spock, Spock Must Die, star trek, Star Trek Into Darkness | Leave a comment »

Star Trek – This Side of Paradise (Review)

Posted on May 26, 2013 by Darren

Star Trek always had a curious relationship with the hippie movement in the late sixties. On a surface level, you’d assume that the series would have a great deal of empathy for the idealistic and pacifist movement. After all, the show embraced counter-culture in a fairly significant way, offering none-too-subtle criticisms of American foreign policy in episodes like A Taste of Armageddon, and harbouring some very serious concerns about authority in adventures like Dagger of the Mind. What was The Naked Time but an embrace of fin de siècle anxiety mere months before “the summer of love”? After all, the nineteenth century European fin de siècle period had produced Der Wandervogel, considered one of the predecessors to the hippie movement.

And yet the show never seemed entirely comfortable with the youth movement. This would be much more obvious third season’s dire The Way to Eden, but the show’s sense of unease is quite palpable here, as Kirk finds himself trying to deal with a crew that have sampled some mind-altering vegetation and are now embracing free love.

Flower power…

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: A Taste of Armageddon, C. Wright Mills, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald, Great Gatsby, James Tiptree, kirk, Naked Time, Return of the Archons, spock, star trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, Sulu, This Side of Paradise, This Side of Paradise (Star Trek: The Original Series), United States, Way to Eden, world war ii | 2 Comments »

Star Trek – Space Seed (Review)

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Darren

Following the commercial success (and lack of critical success) of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Paramount made a conscious decision to side-line Gene Roddenberry. Given that his plans for the sequel involved Spock travelling through time to assassinate Kennedy, we can likely all agree that was probably a good thing. Harve Bennett was tasked with producing the sequel, and took to the task of researching what would become the second Star Trek film. Demonstrating considerable respect for the source material, Bennett locked himself away and screened all three seasons of the show, looking for inspiration.

Apparently he only needed to reach the tail end of the first season, because he had found the basis of his film by the closing credits of Space Seed.

You Khan do it…

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Benedict Cumberbatch, Earth, james t. kirk, khan, kirk, Lieutenant, Mister Spock, racism, science fiction, Sexuality in Star Trek, Space Seed, spock, star trek, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, StarTrek, Uhura, William Shatner, Zachary Quinto | 13 Comments »

Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars – The Rise & Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volumes I & II, by Greg Cox (Review)

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

In 1967, the 1990s must have seemed so very far away. At the height of the Cold War, the prospect that mankind would have made it into twenty-first century without one catastrophic global conflict must have seemed improbable at best. Indeed, the odds that anybody would still be talking about (let alone watching) a kitsch piece of sixties television science-fiction would have appeared remote. So Star Trek seemed perfectly justified sticking a reference to a major war towards the end of the twentieth century into an episode towards the end of the first season.

However, if there’s one thing that Star Trek fans cannot abide, it’s a possible continuity problem. So, when genetically engineered supermen didn’t almost conquer the world during the last decade of the twentieth century, it was only a matter of time before we got a two-volume set dedicated to resolving this particular problem.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Bhopal, Eugenics Wars, Final Reflection, Gary Seven, Greg Cox, khan, Khan Noonien Singh, Klingon, Neutral Zone, Our Man Bashir, spock, star trek, Star Trek Original Series, star trek: enterprise, Star Trek: The Motion Picture | 4 Comments »

Star Trek – A Taste of Armageddon (Review)

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Darren

It’s amazing to think that A Taste of Armageddon and The Return of the Archons were produced on consecutive weeks by the same television show. Both are politically-charged pieces of pop culture, heavily influenced by the realities of the Cold War, but they adopt two completely different philosophies towards the conflict. The Return of the Archons is a story about the need for freedom and individuality, and how the struggle for those inalienable rights is a battle that must be fought. While it’s debatable whether Landru is a representation of the forces of communism, the episode is unquestionably about the triumph of Western liberal values.

In contrast, A Taste of Armageddon can’t help but feel a little cynical about the whole damn thing.

A shooting war…

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis, David Opatoshu, Errand of Mercy, Federation, Geoffrey Cowan, George Takei, kirk, paramount pictures, Return of the Archons, star trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, StarTrek, Taste of Armageddon, Uhura, vietnam, Vietnam War, World of Star Trek, Zachary Quinto, zoe saldana | 13 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Hangover, Part III

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Darren

There was a time when The Hangover seemed like a breath of fresh air. It wasn’t so much an original story or set-up. Rather, it was a devil-may-care attitude and unrepentant immaturity. It was bold and it was willing to do absolutely anything it needed to in order to get a laugh. It worked because of that sheer commitment and energy, energy that is mostly absent from this final instalment. “Leslie Chow is madness,” a character boasts at the climax of the film, talking about one of the franchise’s popular recurring characters – but he may as well be talking about the film itself. “You don’t talk to madness,” he insists. “You lock it in your trunk…”

It’s a nice call back to the very first film and the first time we met Ken Jeong’s “Mr. Chow”, but it also speaks to the weaknesses of The Hangover, Part III. Somewhere along the way, the madness was lost. The high-octane “anything can happen” spirit of the original film leaked out of the two sequels. I’m fonder of The Hangover, Part II than most, but it is a cheap imitation, a repeat of a joke that was hilarious the first time and passable a second.

It’s to the credit of Todd Phillips that he doesn’t try to emulate the same formula a third time. I appreciate that a few efforts are made to push the trilogy into a shape resembling a circle, but it feels so much more contained and so much more rote than it did all those years ago.

I wouldn’t get too excited, Alan…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alan, bradley cooper, Chow, Ed Helms, film, Hangover, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, Ken Leung, Movie, non-review review, review, Silver Linings Playbook, Todd Phillips, Zach Galifianakis | 4 Comments »

Star Trek – The Return of the Archons (Review)

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Darren

It is really hard to believe that this is the first time we’ve really had one of these plots, with the Enterprise visiting an alien civilisation, meddling thoroughly and freeing the population from oppression. Of course, that’s probably because the universe seemed so vast an empty in the first few episodes. The only planets seemed to be either lifeless rocks or human colonies. From this point on, the galaxy is going to seem a whole lot busier.

Return of the Archons is a little bit like an expansion of the archetypal Star Trek plot established in What Are Little Girls Made Of? The Enterprise visits an alien world following up on the disappearance of Federation personnel. When they arrive, they discover sinister plans afoot involving evil artificial intelligences that plan on stomping out free will. Kirk promptly uses his humanity to talk the machines into destroying himself.

However, Return of the Archons deals with a whole civilisation trapped in the midst of this sinister robotic plot. Kirk and his crew aren’t strolling through an alien graveyard. This is a living, breathing society. And this is the first time that Kirk would save an entire civilisation.

Some men just want to watch the world burn…

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: action, Alaska, Archon, Book of Enoch, Chemtrail conspiracy theory, David Icke, Earth, games, gene roddenberry, james t. kirk, Kenai Alaska, kirk, Landru, Naked Time, Religion and Spirituality, Return of the Archons, sky, spock, star trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, star trek: enterprise, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, The Return of the Archons, Tic-tac-toe, Uhura, Way to Eden, Zachary Quinto | 6 Comments »

Star Trek – Tomorrow is Yesterday (Review)

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Darren

It’s interesting how easily you can trace a line back from the original Star Trek films to the television show which inspired them. Each of the first four films has a very clear predecessor, an episode broadcast during the show’s run which seems to serve as something of a thematic forerunner. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is so similar to The Changeling that Star Trek: The Original Series 365 dubs it “Where Nomad Has Gone Before.” The Wrath of Khan is obviously rooted in Space Seed. Kirk’s decision to hijack the Enterprise and go against regulations to save his first officer in The Search for Spock feels like a full circle from Spock’s efforts to help Pike in The Menagerie.

And Tomorrow is Yesterday feels like a bit of a dry run for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The crew might not have to save any whales, but it’s a comedic time-travel adventure that finds the Enterprise crew visiting the twentieth century and trying to avoid altering the time-line too much. Tomorrow is Yesterday feels a little simplistic when compared to some of the franchise’s later interactions with time-travel, but it is a fun and entertaining little episode. It’s easy to see why The Voyage Home might be tempted to revisit the set-up.

Flying the friendly skies…

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Charlie, Charlie X, D. C. Fontana, kirk, Naked Time, spock, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek Original Series, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, star trek: the next generation, Starbase, Starfleet, StarTrek, Where No Man Has Gone Before, William Shatner | Leave a comment »

Watch! New Man of Steel Trailer!

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Darren

Warners have released another trailer for the upcoming Man of Steel. Most of the marketing has focused on Henry Cavill’s Superman, which makes sense for a number of reasons. Most obviously, this is his movie. Secondly, the film has to lift the pop culture stigma surrounding Superman. Third, the film seems to hinge on Superman’s character arc – which shouldn’t really be worth noting, but it’s nice to see Superman as more than a two-dimensional archetype.

The latest trailer, however, focuses on a part of the film I am actually really excited about. Michael Shannon is a superb actor, and I’m interested to see his take on Zod. Zod is a character who has had difficulty catching on in the comics, despite the fact that they seem to introduce a new version ever five years or so. The character just lives in the shadow of Terence Stamp, arguably providing the first truly iconic supervillain performance, and one which I’d argue holds up today.

Shannon doesn’t seem to be going for imitation, which is a good thing. I want to see his own stamp on the character. This trailer teases that quite well. I like that Zod is emphasising the “Superman as outsider” thing, and also that the movie seems to presenting Zod as an alien invader to Kal-El’s alien altruist. It’s a nice way to cast Superman’s character into contrast. Anyway, check it out below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: GeneralZod, Henry Cavill, man of steel, Michael Shannon, Steel, superman, Terence Stamp, trailers | 9 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Byzantium

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Darren

Byzantium is visually stunning and thematically fascinating, a thoughtful and well-constructed vampire tale from the director of Interview with a Vampire. Neil Jordan’s latest bloodsucking epic might lack a narrative cohesion and take a while to get going, but it’s still an interesting exploration of the genre. Jordan has a wonderful skill for composition, and his flair ensures that the story of two ageless female vampires always looks breathtaking, even if the story does take a while to get going.