veteran | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On How “Secret Invasion” Finally Foregrounds Nick Fury…

Posted on June 22, 2023 by Darren

We’ll be running weekly reviews of Secret Invasion at The Escapist. To start with, the premiere.

Secret Invasion is notable as the first Marvel Studios project to truly foreground Nick Fury, a character who has been essential to the shared universe dating back to the closing credits of Iron Man. It’s interesting that it took the shared universe fifteen years to build a narrative around Samuel L. Jackson. Secret Invasion adopts an interesting approach to the character, treating him as an avatar for the increasingly beleagured media franchise, a veteran and hero that might be over the hill with his best years behind him.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: continuity, marvel, mcu, nick fury, secret invasion, superhero fatigue, veteran | Leave a comment »

Leonard Nimoy

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Darren

Leonard Nimoy passed away today.

Nimoy is an interesting figure. He is an actor and director with a long a prolific career, who seldom wanted for steady work. He did a lot of quality work in front of (and behind) the camera. Nimoy was a series regular on the sixties version of Mission: Impossible, taking over from Martin Landau. He played a major role in the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Donald Sutherland. He also directed both Three Men and a Baby. He worked quite regularly and quite frequently. His body stretches over half a century.

However, all of this work (and it is great work) is inevitably overshadowed by a single role. To an entire generation of people – not just fans, not even just casual television viewers – Leonard Nimoy was Spock. With his pointed ears, memorable catchphrases and iconic Vulcan salute, Nimoy was enigmatic half-human half-Vulcan who served as the first officer of the USS Enterprise. His work spans the franchise, from the unbroadcast original pilot (The Cage) to the most recent JJ Abrams feature (Star Trek Into Darkness).

This was the conflict at the heart of Nimoy, the extremely professional performer who worked pretty consistently throughout his life and the one role that he turned into a screen icon across television and film. Nimoy was a complex character. He famously published an autobiography declaring I Am Not Spock, only to follow it up with I Am Spock. It is a credit to the actor’s complexity and nuance that both could seem to be true in the same instant.