May | 2016 | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: Enterprise – Borderland (Review)

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Darren

This May, we’re taking a look at the fourth (and final) season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Check back daily for the latest review.

Borderland establishes the format that will come to define the fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise; the mini-arc, a single story told over two or three episodes before moving along to the next adventure.

Technically speaking, Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II established the format for the season. However, the franchise had done multi-part season premieres before. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was particularly fond of the format, seguing from a status quo altering season finale into a multi-part season opener; The Homecoming, The Circle, The Siege, The Search, Part I, The Search, Part II, The Way of the Warrior, Image in the Sand, Shadows and Symbols. This is to say nothing of the massive six episode arc that opened the sixth season.

Put your hands together for Mister Brent Spiner.

Borderland represents a departure because it signals that the fourth season of Enterprise will be comprised entirely of multi-episode stories. Historically, Star Trek shows had typically done one or two multi-part stories in a season, give or take a cliffhanger to bridge two years of the show. The fourth season of Enterprise would tell seven multi-part stories eating up seventeen episodes of the twenty-two episode season order. It was certainly a bold departure for the series and the franchise.

In fact, Borderland begins the franchise’s first three-part episode since the second season of Deep Space Nine. (Although determined fans could likely stretch logic a little to suggest that Tears of the Prophets or Zero Hour were season finales that formed a three-parter when tied into the two-part premieres that followed.) It is a curious departure, and one that immediately helps to establish the fourth season of Enterprise as something quite distinct.

A slave to continuity…

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: Benedict Cumberbatch, chris pine, Genetic engineering, J Abrams, james t. kirk, Phlox, pragmatism, star trek, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, star trek: enterprise, Teaser campaign | 10 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Angry Birds

Posted on May 7, 2016 by Darren

The Angry Birds Movie is an enjoyable animation experience.

Adapted from the famous touch-screen game, a favourite of phone users everywhere, The Angry Birds Movie has a fairly thin premise that can successfully distilled into its two-word title. Set on an island populated by flightless birds, the film follows the adventures of the series’ distinctive red character as he struggles to contain his rage and anger in a culture built around peace and harmony. The plot, such as it is, is driven by first contact between the feathered inhabitants and the mysterious green-skinned visitors from “the world of the pigs.”

All fired up.

Video game adaptations can be tricky, particularly when it comes to adapting a video game that lacks a strong internal narrative. After all, very few players could claim to be emotionally invested in the skilful (and joyful) application of physics that made the original game so popular. Trying to construct a world around the stylistic affectations of a plotless video game can lead to all manner of convoluted nonsense; one need only look at Street Fighter or Super Mario Brothers to see the dangers of adapting a plotless video game.

The strength of The Angry Birds Movie is in how the films luxuriates in its plotlessness, embracing the arbitrary nature of its internal logic. The Angry Birds Movie is more concerned with being witty and energetic than in being cohesive or making sense. Given that it is a movie about cartoon birds propelling themselves like missiles towards a group of egg-snatching pigs that manages be both charming and funny, it seems like the prudent choice.

Bite-sized fun.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: angry birds, film, non-review review, review, the angry birds movie | 5 Comments »

Scannain Podcast #72

Posted on May 6, 2016 by Darren

Casino’s place in the great Scorsese pantheon – the love of (Oliver Stone’s) Nixon – pending American remakes of Irish films – the top ten – new releases, inc. Bad Neighbours 2, Evolution, Robinson Crusoe, Knight of Cups – other witty banter

Check out the podcast or click the link below!

Podcast hosted by Scannain. Podcasting via Podbean. Archives available here. Podcast features: Niall Murphy, Philip Bagnell and Darren Mooney.

Filed under: Podcasts! | Tagged: podbean, podcast, scannain | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: Enterprise – Home (Review)

Posted on May 6, 2016 by Darren

This May, we’re taking a look at the fourth (and final) season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Check back daily for the latest review.

If Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II represented a transition between Brannon Braga and Manny Coto, then Home marks the point at which Manny Coto assumes full control of Star Trek: Enterprise.

As befits a season so steeped in Star Trek nostalgia, Home fits a familiar template. Each of three live action spin-offs took a brief timeout after an epic fourth season opener to tell a smaller character-driven story about the response to life-altering trauma. Jean-Luc Picard processed the trauma of The Best of Both Worlds, Part I and The Best of Both Worlds, Part II through the quieter moments of Family. Jake Sisko confronted the loss of his father in The Visitor. Even Seven of Nine faced her disconnection from the Borg Collective in The Gift.

Marriage of inconvenience.

Home is clearly intended to allow the characters (and the show) to work through the issues generated by the epic third season arc, while also dutifully setting up plot threads that will play out across the rest of the season. Home might be a stand-alone episode in many ways, but it does serve to dovetail the third and fourth seasons of the show, working through character points that are hanging over from the show’s third year while also helping to establish elements that will become more important in the season ahead.

Home works rather well as a connecting structure, even if it lacks the raw emotional power of something like Family or The Visitor. It is well worth taking the time to focus upon (and flesh out) this cast. The biggest problem with Home is that so many of these characters feel underdeveloped, particularly compared to the casts of Star Trek: The Next Generation or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It is hard for those characters to carry an entire episode when they haven’t been properly developed.

“Go climb a rock!”

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: Archer, Earth, Impulse, J. J. Abrams, jean-luc picard, Phlox, picard, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: enterprise, vulcan, Vulcans, Xindi | 21 Comments »

Star Trek: Enterprise – Storm Front, Part II (Review)

Posted on May 5, 2016 by Darren

This May, we’re taking a look at the fourth (and final) season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Check back daily for the latest review.

Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II arrive at a transitory time for Star Trek: Enterprise.

The fourth season was almost certain to be the end of the show, with Brannon Braga stepping back from the writers’ room to allow Manny Coto the chance to the take the reins. Coto would use the opportunity to more firmly connect the show to its franchise roots, constructing a final season that would serve as something of a bridge between this prequel series and the rest of the canon. However, there was just one problem. Coto inherited a cliffhanger from Zero Hour, the third season finale that stranded Archer in the past with some evil!alien!space!Nazis.

Into the sunset…

Although the fourth season of Enterprise is widely praised by the few fans who remained watching until the bitter end, Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II are often overlooked in discussions of the season. Much like These Are the Voyages… at the very end of the season, the opening two-parter is largely treated as a story foisted upon an incoming executive producer that does not reflect his own plans or desires for the season ahead. There is typically a sense of obligation to discussions of the two-parter as little more than a speed bump into the season.

This is a shame. Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II were both written by Manny Coto. Although the producer inherited the basic premise and the brief from his direct predecessors, how Coto chose to approach the material is quite insightful and informative. In that respect, Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II might be seen as an introduction to the Manny Coto era before it properly begins in Home.

“It’s been a long road, gettin’ from there to here…
It’s been a long time, but my time is finally near…”

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: alternate history, hitler, Manny Coto, nazis, pulp, racism, star trek, star trek: enterprise | 6 Comments »

Scannain Podcast #71

Posted on May 4, 2016 by Darren

The unlikeliness of Jay being the biggest Marvel fan in the podcast – Danny Boyle as a director – new Irish Film Board funding – latest Irish release date calendar – Irish film at international film festivals – the top ten – new releases, inc. Civil War, Son of Saul, Atlantic, Demolition – other witty banter

Check out the podcast or click the link below!

Podcast hosted by Scannain. Podcasting via Podbean. Archives available here. Podcast features: Niall Murphy, Philip Bagnell, Jason Coyle and Darren Mooney.

Filed under: Podcasts! | Tagged: podcast, scannain | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: Enterprise – Storm Front, Part I (Review)

Posted on May 4, 2016 by Darren

This May, we’re taking a look at the fourth (and final) season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Check back daily for the latest review.

Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II arrive at a transitory time for Star Trek: Enterprise.

The third season of the show had wrapped on a somewhat unexpected cliffhanger, finding Archer confronted by an evil!alien!space!Nazi in the midst of what looked to be the Second World War. Given that the third season had been written as a single extended dramatic arc about Archer and his crew saving Earth from an alien threat, the twist seemed to come out of nowhere. Instead of allowing Archer and his crew to return home, Zero Hour threw out one final hurdle for the characters; a bump in the road home.

Ship shape.

However, the episodes also marked a transition behind the scenes. This particular iteration of the Star Trek franchise was on borrowed time. There had been warning signs as early as the first season, but the massive reworking of the show in The Expanse suggested that the network had adopted a “do or die” approach to the future of this lucrative science-fiction franchise. The fact that the third season had its episode order cut and there were suggestions that a fourth season was unlikely suggested that the show had not “done.”

Even aside from all that, the start of the fourth season saw Rick Berman and Brannon Braga taking a step back from the franchise and handing the reins to executive producer Manny Coto. In that respect, Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II might be seen as the collective last gasp of the Berman and Braga era. Give or take These Are The Voyages…

Back to the future.

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: Brannon Braga, MACOs, Manny Coto, nazis, Rick Berman, star trek, star trek: enterprise, Temporal Cold War, upn, wb, world war 2 | 7 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Everybody Wants Some!!

Posted on May 3, 2016 by Darren

Richard Linklater is a director fascinated by the time in between.

This seems like a very obvious statement. After all, Linklater is still (relatively) fresh from a slew of nominations for Boyhood, a film that was famous for being shot with the same cast over the course of years and allowing the audience to literally watch its central character grow and develop. Many critics argued that the film was nothing more than a gimmick, a piece of performance art more than a narrative. Of course, the gimmick was largely the point of the film. Linklater is a director fascinated with the passage of time; Boyhood pushes that to the limit.

everybodywantssome

Of course, it is also interesting what Linklater does with his sense of time. Many of Linklater’s films unfold against the backdrop of a deadline. Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight build their deadlines into the title. Dazed and Confused follows a bunch of students on the last day of school. Everybody Wants Some!! operates with a literal countdown the ticks from the moment that Jake arrives at his college dorm to the start of his college classes. In theory, the film runs up against the clock.

However, Linklater’s deadlines tend to be arbitrary. His films are never race-to-the-finish thrillers as one might expect. Rarely are those precious few hours and minutes filled with important life-changing decisions and profound conversations. Instead, they are filled with a celebratory glimpse of the mundane, more extraordinary for their ordinariness. If anything, they feel like collective pauses; they are a deep breath before jumping back into life, a moment taken out of time, the last few hours before the clock really starts ticking.

everybodywantssome3

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: everybody wants some, film, Movie, non-review review, review | 4 Comments »

Star Trek: Voyager – Season 2 (Review)

Posted on May 3, 2016 by Darren

This February and March (and a little bit of April), we’re taking a look at the 1995 to 1996 season of Star Trek, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Check back daily for the latest review.

The second season of Star Trek: Voyager was a disaster.

There is no other way to describe it. The second season of Voyager is a messy run populated with malformed episodes and terrible creative decisions, compounded by the sense that the production team has turned upon itself and the network is feeling more and more uncomfortable with its flagship show. The first season of Voyager had debuted at the franchise’s cultural zenith, as the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation transitioned to the big screen with Star Trek: Generations and as Paramount chose the franchise to be the cornerstone of its new network.

However, there was very clearly trouble in paradise. It could be argued that Voyager was in a large part the victim of the franchise’s success. Frustration over how Paramount chose to assign the writing duties for Generations led Michael Piller to divorce himself from the franchise to develop other ideas.While UPN was very lucky to have a show like Voyager, the network consciously pushed the production team away from narrative experimentation in favour of cookie-cutter plotting.

The basic premise of “Starfleet and Maquis find themselves roughing it in the Delta Quadrant” was eroded surprisingly quickly over the course of that first year. All the Maquis crew members were in Starfleet uniforms by the start of Parallax. Any hint of conflict between the two was downplayed with a joint Starfleet and Maquis mutiny in Prime Factors. Luxury items like the holodeck were able to run in episodes like Heroes and Demons and Cathexis. A Romulan guest starred in Eye of the Needle. So the first season betrayed a lot of what made the initial idea interesting.

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: Michael Piller, star trek, star trek: voyager | 38 Comments »

Star Trek: Voyager – Sacred Ground (Review)

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Darren

Sacred Ground is a rather strange episode.

In a way, this is where the second season of Star Trek: Voyager dies. This is certainly true in a literal sense; it is the last of the four episodes held over from the end of the second season, buried between a quarter and a third of the way into the show’s third year. However, the episode also closes out some of themes that were bubbling through the first two years of the show. Michael Piller had imbued the first two seasons of the show with a new age spirituality, mostly through the character of Chakotay. Sacred Ground closes that out.

Holy plot.

There is a sense that the show is uncomfortable with Sacred Ground. Although it was the first of those four carryover episodes to be produced, Sacred Ground was the last of the four to be broadcast. While the decision to air Basics, Part II at the start of the season makes logical sense, it is strange that the production team would choose to bury the episode as far into the season as possible. Of those four episodes, the production team were ready to air False Profits before Sacred Ground. That is a frightening thought.

It is understandable. Voyager‘s previous attempts at new age mysticism had not gone well, reducing Chakotay to a Native American cliché in episodes like The Cloud and Tattoo. However, it is also quite frustrating, as Sacred Ground comes closer to working than any of Piller’s earlier attempts.