February | 2014 | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Blood and Fire by David Gerrold (Review)

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Darren

This January and February, we’ll be finishing up our look at the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and moving on to the third year of the show, both recently and lovingly remastered for high definition. Check back daily for the latest review.

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry. This is actually supplementary to the first season of the Next Generation, specifically the episode Symbiosis.

The lead up to the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation was full of potential. Gene Roddenberry was directly overseeing a Star Trek production for the first time since Star Trek: The Motion Picture. More than that, the producer had brought along quite a few of the talented production staff members who had helped to make the franchise so special in the first place. David Gerrold and D.C. Fontana, two of the best loved Star Trek writers of all time, would be working on the show.

Despite all that television had changed in the decades since the original Star Trek had been on the air, Roddenberry proudly boasted to fans that the franchise would continue to engage directly with the big issues of the day. After all, one of the most memorable aspects of the classic Star Trek was the show’s willingness to engage with big political issues. Even the most casual of pop culture fans remember the awkward metaphors for Vietnam or racism.

Unfortunately, The Next Generation really seemed to lack the nerve of its direct predecessor. This became quite clear early on, when veteran writer David Gerrold’s script for the proposed Blood and Fire was unceremoniously shelved, and quickly forgotten about.

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: AIDS, allegory, blood & fire, blood and fire, David Gerrold, gay, gerrold, homosexuality, metaphor, space aids, star trek, star trek: the next generation, Symbiosis, tribbles | 5 Comments »

Jameson Cult Film Club Screening of Jaws! With Richard Dreyfuss in Attendance! Tuesday 18th February!

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Darren

The James Cult Film Club have sent on the following press release about the upcoming screening of Jaws as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival that is kicking off next Thursday, the 13th February. The screening will take place on Tuesday the 18th, and will feature a question-and-answers session with actor Richard Dreyfuss, who collaborated with Spielberg on Jaws, but also on Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The Jameson Cult Film Club has a special historical attachment to the festival. The first Irish screening was The Usual Suspects with Kevin Spacey in attendance four years ago. The Cult Film Club do screenings all through the year, bringing classic movies to live in a whole new way for audiences. They really are a highlight of the schedule, and tickets are always given away free via their website. You can sign up now, although I’m not sure if the ticket application is open yet.

It’s an experience that I wholeheartedly recommend, as they are always well put together evenings celebrating classic cinema. If you are looking for recommendations for the film festival, check out our own picks of the festival here. Otherwise, I’ve included the press release below.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: cult cinema, cult film, dublin, jameson cult film club, jameson cult film festival, jaws, jdiff, Richard Dreyfuss, spielberg | 1 Comment »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Price (Review)

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Darren

Well, the streak had to end some time. After seven episodes ranging from “flawed but still interesting” to “pretty great”, the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation hits a bit of a snag. The Price is the weakest episode of the show’s third season to this point, and confirmation that the writers really have no idea how to write for Deanna Troi. It’s still the best episode to focus on the ship’s half-Betazoid counsellor, but being better than Haven or The Child is hardly an accomplishment for the ages.

All that glitters…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Captain Picard, christmas, Deanna, Deanna Troi, Denise Crosby, games, GOSS, jean-luc picard, Next Generation, patrick stewart, picard, Price, Romulan, science fiction, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, StarTrek, Tasha Yar, Troi, Video game, William Riker | 12 Comments »

Star Trek: The Lost Era – Serpents Among the Ruins by David R. George III (Review)

Posted on February 5, 2014 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. This is actually supplementary to the first season of the Next Generation, specifically the episode The Neutral Zone.

The first year of Star Trek: The Next Generation was a little rocky when it came to continuity. Skipping roughly a century on from the adventures of James T. Kirk, there were times when it seemed like the writers weren’t entirely sure what had happened during that gap. Early on, for example, it was suggested that the Klingons had joined the Federation, a decision reversed by the show’s third season. Even within the first year of the show, it seemed like the writers hadn’t quite cemented the wider Star Trek universe. In Angel One, we discover that the Romulans are threatening war, only to hear in The Neutral Zone that they’ve actually been absent from galactic affairs for quite some time.

Serpents Among the Ruins is an attempt to explain that absence established in 1988, and contextualise it against the eighteen years of Romulan stories that would follow from the early appearances in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country through to the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and beyond.

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Federation, Klingon, Klingon High Council, Neutral Zone, Peace, Romulan, star trek, star trek vi: the undiscovered country, star trek: deep space nine, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, star trek: the next generation, Starfleet, Sulu | 1 Comment »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Enemy (Review)

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Darren

The Enemy is just a fantastic piece of television. The third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation has maintained an impressive consistency up to this point, despite all the difficulties bubbling away behind the scenes. However, The Enemy is the point where everything seems to have finally settled down and the show is truly comfortable churning out episodes of this sort of quality.

It’s a very typical Star Trek plot, with one of our leads trapped on the planet surface and forced to team up with an enemy soldier in order to survive. It’s a very standard morality tale about how the enemy is not as different as we might like to think; it’s an exploration – in a very Star Trek style – of how two people can overcome their differences in order to survive a suitably desperate situation.

The Enemy is a demonstration of just how well-oiled The Next Generation had become at this point in time, and how even the most standard of plots could be executed with considerable skill.

The show’s quality is climbing…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Brannon Braga, David Carson, Defiant Ones, Enemy, Geordi La Forge, Next Generation, picard, Relativism, Rick Berman, Romulan, Star Trek Next Generation, StarTrek, William Riker, Worf, Yesterday's Enterprise | 6 Comments »

Star Trek – The Romulan Way by Diane Duane and Peter Morwood (Review)

Posted on February 4, 2014 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.

The Romulan Way is the second book in Diane Duane’s “Rihannsu” cycle – although the first book in the series, My Enemy, My Ally was only retroactively distinguished from standard Star Trek tie-ins. Much like My Enemy, My Ally had been roughly contemporaneous with John M. Ford’s The Final Reflection, Duane’s follow-up was published around the same time as Ford’s own sequel to his earlier work, How Much for Just the Planet? Expanding on My Enemy, My Ally, The Romulan Way sees Duane delving more thoroughly into Romulan history and culture.

The Romulan Way was published amid a sea of change at Paramount and Pocket Books in the late eighties, with shifting mandates and objectives for these tie-in books that represented a conscious effort to hem in some of the more creative tendencies of mid-eighties Star Trek novelist. To demonstrate how rapidly things were changing, both The Romulan Way and How Much for Just the Planet? were both published within three years of their predecessors. After this point, it would take Duane another thirteen years to write the third volume in her saga, and John M. Ford would never write another Star Trek tie-in again.

It’s very hard to condone any publishing philosophy that leads to results like that.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: canon, continuity, Diane Duane, gene roddenberry, peter moorcock, peter morwood, richard arnold, Rihannsu, romulans, star trek, star trek: the next generation, the romulan way | 10 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Booby Trap (Review)

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Darren

Booby Trap is a bit of a mess. The writing credits for the episode, featuring four different writers credited with getting the idea from basic story to finished script. This wasn’t at all unusual in the show’s third season – consider the writing credits for Yesterday’s Enterprise – but it gives an indication of the chaos unfolding behind the scenes on the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

It’s Michael Piller’s second credited script, and his first writing credit since he took over the writers’ room. (Although he did, along with Melinda Snodgrass, do a pass on Ronald D. Moore’s script for The Bonding.) As such, it is written with a very clear idea of where Piller wants to take the show, one that shines through a somewhat uneven and all-over-the-place plot, which often feels like several different scripts blended into one.

Building on what came before…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Arsenal of Freedom, Bonding, Booby Trap, games, gene roddenberry, Geordi, Geordi La Forge, List of minor recurring characters in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Michael Piller, picard, ronald d. moore, SFX, star trek, Star Trek Generations, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: enterprise, StarTrek, Television and Movies | 5 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation (DC Comics, 1989) #19 – The Lesson (Review)

Posted on February 3, 2014 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.

One of the biggest problems that the writing staff had on Star Trek: The Next Generation was the insistence that the show was episodic. Themes and characters were rarely carried from week to week. Occasionally, a plot point or character might recur, but the bulk of the show was intentionally designed to be readily accessible in just about any order imaginable. In the era of HBO and “televisual novels”, this approach seems quite quaint, but it was very much the reality of late eighties and early nineties television.

However, there were no such restrictions on comic book story telling. Far from downplaying continuity and long-term plotting, mainstream American comics pride themselves on their serialised nature. It’s quite common for characters to suddenly reappear after absences of considerable time, and for writers to make callbacks to events that occurred decades ago. Publishing twelve issues a year, typically from the same author, The Next Generation comic book did afford the opportunity for a slightly different type of storytelling.

All set…

And, to be fair, that was one of the strengths of Michael Jan Friedman’s approach to The Next Generation comic book. He was fond of focusing on supporting characters, or giving page space to characterisation, or even basking in the show’s continuity in a way that wasn’t possible on television. Sure, Friedman could occasionally get a little obsessive in his continuity references, and could occasionally have difficulty tying everything into a cohesive story, but this was one way the author capitalised on the shift in the medium.

The Lesson is a single-issue story that is all the more intriguing for essentially existing as a series of character moments, with little in the way of an over-arching plot. The writing is a little clumsy and on-the-nose, with the comic earnestly offering its readers a rather ham-fisted message of the week, but it’s notable for the way that Friedman seems to bask in the freedom afforded to him by virtue of the fact that he’s writing a comic book (rather than an episode) of The Next Generation.