Trek | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: The Newspaper Strips – Beware the Omnimind! (aka Restructuring is Futile) (Review)

Posted on January 17, 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.

As brilliant as the Borg were when they were introduced in Q Who?, they were hardly the most original of constructs. The cybernetic aliens went on to become one of the most iconic and recognisable pieces of Star Trek lore, featuring in the most popular Star Trek: The Next Generation feature film and all the subsequent spin-offs, but it’s tempting to give the Borg a bit more credit than they’re due.

After all, cybernetic organisms were hardly cutting edge in 1989. In fact, this wasn’t even the first time that Star Trek had told this kind of story. In late 1981, the Star Trek news paper strip that had begun as a companion piece to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, featured a similar adversary for Kirk’s Enterprise.

Resistance is futile!

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Filed under: Comics, Star Trek | Tagged: beware the omnimind, borg, comic books, Comics, idw, kirk, klingons, omnimind, Q Who, restructuring is futile, star, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, star trek: the newspaper strips, star trek: the next generation, Trek | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Measure of a Man: Extended Cut (Review)

Posted on January 7, 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 a rare treat.

The Measure of a Man is generally regarded as one of the best episodes that Star Trek: The Next Generation ever produced, and a crown jewel in the entire Star Trek franchise. As such, it’s a prime candidate for this sort of lavish restoration treatment, with the blu ray collection featuring not only the televised version of the episode, but a special extended edition.

This extended edition was the version originally filmed and edited together, until the production team realised that it ran almost a quarter-of-an-hour over the slot allocated to the show on syndicated airing.

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: borg, Data, DVD, gene roddenberry, Geordi La Forge, jean-luc picard, List of Star Trek characters (N–S), Measure of a Man, Next Generation, picard, Riker, Roddenberry, Romulan, spock, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the next generation, Starfleet, Trek, William Riker | 4 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Measure of a Man (Review)

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Darren

Ah, The Measure of a Man.

It’s the first point in the run of Star Trek: The Next Generation where we’ve reached an episode that could legitimately be ranked as one of the best that the show would ever produce. Even today, the episode remains a favourite of Star Trek fans around the world, and a superb demonstration of what the series is capable of. Almost half-way into the second season, we get a glimpse of what The Next Generation could be, and how it balance its own identity against the proud philosophical traditions of its parent series.

It’s also quite brilliant.

A Data with destiny…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Datas, deep space nine, games, gene roddenberry, Jonathan Frakes, Measure of a Man, Michael Okuda, Next Generation, picard, Poker, Roddenberry, spock, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: deep space nine, Starfleet, StarTrek, Trek, uhuru, Whoopi Goldberg | 3 Comments »

My 12 for ’13: Star Trek Into Darkness & Fighting for the Future…

Posted on December 26, 2013 by Darren

This is my annual countdown of the 12 movies that really stuck with me this year. It only counts the movies released in Ireland in 2013, so quite a few of this year’s Oscar contenders aren’t eligible, though some of last year’s are.

This is number 6…

Star Trek Into Darkness won’t win any awards for scripting or plotting. It’s very hard to succinctly explain the various overlapping evil plans directed by the movie’s two competing villains – who knows what at which point, and how that makes sense in the context of their objectives. Star Trek Into Darkness is a bit of a hot mess when it comes to storytelling – an overly convoluted plot that spends far too much time homaging what come before, when it should be boldly going somewhere new.

And yet, despite that, there is an ambition to Star Trek Into Darkness, a willingness to embrace big ideas and questions about cynicism and optimism, about hope and fear, about the attitude that people adopt towards the future. At the most basic level, that’s what Star Trek is. Into Darkness doesn’t have the same space as a television show to delve into those questions, nor to offer the same degree of nuance.

However, it’s a willingness to ask them that is quite endearing.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: A Private Little War, Devil in the Dark, Ireland, khan, kirk, Next Generation, Nichelle Nichols, star trek, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Starfleet, StarTrek, Trek, Trek Into Darkness, Uhura, Whoopi Goldberg | 2 Comments »

Star Trek – Music of the Spheres by Margaret Wander Bonanno (Review)

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Darren

This August, to celebrate the upcoming release of Star Trek: Into Darkness on DVD and blu ray, we’re taking a look at the Star Trek movies featuring the original cast. Movie reviews are every Tuesday and Thursday.

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the movies with tie-ins around (and related to) the films. We’ll be doing one of these every week day. This is one such article.

Music of the Spheres is something of a legend in Star Trek circles. It’s not quite a ghost story, spoken of in hushed whispers. Indeed, author Margaret Wander Bonanno has made the manuscript available to interested fans via her website, and has used it to raise money for a variety of worth causes. She’s documented the difficult story of how her original novel warped in Probe in a wonderfully wry and insightful essay, offering a glimpse at the inner workings of Pocket Book and Paramount towards the end of the eighties.

It’s a rare peek behind the curtain, with Music of the Spheres serving as a compelling vehicle to explore just what was going on inside Star Trek licensing in the late eighties and early nineties.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Brad Ferguson, Breaking Bad, Final Reflection, gene roddenberry, List of Breaking Bad characters, Margaret Wander Bonanno, Michael Jan Friedman, Michael Piller, Motion Picture - Star Trek, paramount pictures, star trek: deep space nine, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, Trek | 6 Comments »

Star Trek (DC Comics, 1984) #7-8 – Saavik’s Story (Review)

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the movies with tie-ins around (and related to) the films. We’ll be doing one of these every week day. This is one such article.

Star Trek comics are an interesting way of catching a glimpse at the franchise one-step away from the heart of production. While there are other forms of tie-in media, comics are produced on a monthly schedule. While scripts need to be written and art needs to be drawn, there’s less lead-in time required, meaning that contemporary Star Trek comics are often able to react dynamically to on-screen events. While novels might take up to a year from original pitch to the time they hit the stands, there’s something rather more urgent about tie-in comic books.

This is an issue for many tie-ins comics. For example, the syndicated Star Trek newspaper strip launched shortly before the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture made a point to feature Ilia as a bridge officer on a relaunched USS Enterprise. She rather suddenly disappeared after those involved actually saw the movie and realised that she didn’t quite survive the adventure. Similarly, when it came to detailing the adventures of Kirk and company in the wake of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, writer Mike W. Barr moved the crew over to the USS Excelsior, in accordance with writer Harve Bennett’s original plan.

That said, Mike W. Barr’s comic book origin story for Lt. Saavik holds up rather well, fitting quite comfortably with Carolyn Clowes’ origin for the character offered in the superb 1990 book The Pandora Principle. Of course, Barr’s origin sketches the broadest of outlines, and is clearly more preoccupied with crafting a pulpy space opera adventure.

Saving Saavik!

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Filed under: Comics, The Original Series | Tagged: DataTrak International Inc., Klingon, Lieutenant commander, Mike W. Barr, Motion Picture - Star Trek, Redemption (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Romulan, Saavik, Sarek, spock, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, Star Trek Online, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, Trek | 4 Comments »

Star Trek – Season 1 (Review)

Posted on May 31, 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.

That came together rather well, didn’t it? With the current success of Star Trek as a blockbuster movie franchise, it’s fun to speculate about the show possibly returning to television. Being honest, I would be nervous about that. In this cut-throat age where ratings need to solidify (or start rising) almost immediately, I wouldn’t trust the first season of a Star Trek spin-off to rope in viewers quick enough. None of the Star Trek spin-offs, from The Next Generation through to Enterprise, had what could be considered “strong” first years. Occasionally there were a few classic episodes buried in there, as with Deep Space Nine, but it always seems to take a Star Trek show some time to find its “space legs”, so to speak. Time that I am not sure it would be afforded in the current market place.

Which makes it all the more spectacular that Star Trek itself started out so phenomenally. The first year of the show (and the franchise) is not only the best first season of any Star Trek show ever, it’s also in the running for the best of the thirty seasons of television that the franchise has produced. Not bad at all, considering that it seems like nobody had any idea what exactly they were doing when they started out.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Dagger of the Mind, games, Janice Rand, Leonard McCoy, NBC, Next Generation, spock, Star Trek Games, Star Trek Into Darkness, star trek: enterprise, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, Television and Movies, Trek, Where No Man Has Gone Before | 3 Comments »

Star Trek – Errand of Mercy (Review)

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Darren

Ah, Klingons. It feels strange to think that we’re almost at the end of the show’s first year and that we’re only meeting the franchise’s most famous aliens now. More than that, in the original version of the show, their distinctive model space ships didn’t appear until the third season, in Elaan of Troyius, the same episode where their iconic imperial crest appeared. They wouldn’t get their bumpy foreheads for over a decade, until Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And a lot of what we’d take for granted about Klingon culture would only be established in the tie-in novel The Final Reflection and later in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Still, Errand of Mercy welcomes the Klingons to the franchise, and offers a demonstration of why the aliens had such staying power. It’s also a rather wonderful Cold War analogy, feeling like something of a companion piece to Gene L. Coon’s A Taste of Armageddon.

I bet a lot of people were surprised that they could Klingon to their reputation as Star Trek’s top alien for so long…

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: A Taste of Armageddon, Errand of Mercy, Federation, James Blish, John Colicos, john f kennedy, kirk, Klingon, Peace, Peace Corps, Romulan, Rudyard Kipling, star trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, StarTrek, Trek, United States | 6 Comments »

Star Trek – Shore Leave (Review)

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Darren

When I talk about the surreal sixties energy that really holds quite a bit of Star Trek together, it’s quite possible that it sounds like a back-handed compliment, a cheap and easy gig at a cult television show. However, I mean that sincerely. When I argue that the illogical and somewhat scattershot dynamism of the last act of Court Martial can barely hold the patchwork script together, it’s quite possible that I sound like I’m being sarcastic. However, my affection for the mad-cap mayhem particular to the first iteration of Star Trek is entirely genuine. Although it makes no sense, the climax to Court Martial isn’t the problem. Everything leading up to it is.

I think Shore Leave is pretty much the perfect iteration of this concept. It is, from start to finish, absolutely insane nonsense that threatens to fall apart if one concentrates too hard on any particular detail. However, it’s executed with enough energy and drive that it becomes a compelling and surreal piece of television, and one of the best illustrations of the kind of weirdness that the classic Star Trek could pull off almost effortlessly.

No bunny business…

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Benedict Cumberbatch, China Miéville, chris pine, Don Juan, gene roddenberry, Isaac Asimov, james t. kirk, kirk, Leonard McCoy, NASA, NBC, Patrick Parrinder, science fiction, Shore Leave, spock, star trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, star wars, Starfleet, StarTrek, Theodore Sturgeon, Trek, Where No Man Has Gone Before, William Shatner, Zachary Quinto | 6 Comments »

Star Trek – The Naked Time (Review)

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Darren

Star Trek is, by its nature, an inherently optimistic television show. I seem to keep mentioning that in these reviews, as the first season of the show subverts and plays with the notion of an idealised future. However, despite the suggestion that evil is necessary in The Enemy Within or the death of the last of a species in The Man Trap or the suggestion that man’s next evolutionary phase would be truly horrifying in Where No Man Has Gone Before, Star Trek is still a hopeful vision of a possible future. It’s a story about a world where mankind hasn’t wiped each other out and where we can go (relatively) peacefully among the stars. It’s a world without racism or classism. There is sexism in Star Trek, but I’ll give the producers the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s not intentional.

So The Naked Time feels a little weird, being – as it is – a story about the collapse of civilisation at the end of a world. Not our world, mind you, but there’s a very clear sense of social collapse mirrored in the literal collapse of planet Psi-2000.