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Star Trek: Myriad Universes – Echoes and Refractions: The Chimes at Midnight by Geoff Trowbridge (Review)

Posted on August 9, 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.

The death of Spock at the climax of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is one of the definitive Star Trek moments. Pop culture has assimilated the moment, to the point where any half-decent nerd will identify “the needs of the many…” or “I have been and always shall be…” or maybe even “of all the souls I encountered…” It’s an absolutely massive moment for the franchise, where the film series dared to kill off the show’s most iconic and best-loved character.

It’s no wonder that the moment is such a strong focal point for those seeking to explore Star Trek. Star Trek: Into Darkness riffs mercilessly on that iconic scene, inverting it and counting on the iconography to generate enough emotional resonance for the film to get away with a fairly half-hearted homage. (The effects of The Wrath of Khan last until Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, while the consequences of the climax of Into Darkness don’t even last until the closing credits.)

So that famous sequence serves as an effective focal point of Geoff Trowbridge’s The Chimes at Midnight, which offers a parallel continuity of the Star Trek films in a universe where Spock died after the events of Yesteryear.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Chimes of Midnight, Cold War, Dominion War, kirk, Napoleonic Wars, Saavik, second world war, spock, star trek, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, Star Trek Into Darkness, star trek iv the voyage home, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, StarTrek, Vietnam War, World War I, world war ii, Wrath of Khan | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: World War Z

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Darren

World War Z is a lesson in compromise, a Frankenstein’s monster stitched together out of necessity with the lines very clearly showing. It goes this way and then that way, never really sure where it wants to be in the next act, save that it’s a safe bet there might be zombies. World War Z isn’t as bad as it might have been, but the problem is that it feels like it’s trying so hard to find an ending that it never bothers to excel. It’s not that World War Z is bad, it’s a competently made thriller that works as well as it can with a script that spent most of production in triage. The problem is that it’s never bold enough to do anything genuinely exciting.

Pitting our best man against the zombie horde…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: brad pitt, facebook, film, george romero, history, List of zombie films, Marc Forster, Max Brooks, Motion Picture Association of America film rating system, Movie, non-review review, review, Twentieth Century, United Nations, Wars and Conflicts, World War, World War I, world war z, zombie | 12 Comments »

Doctor Who: The War Games (Review)

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the longest-running science-fiction show in the world, I’ll be taking weekly looks at some of my own personal favourite stories and arcs, from the old and new series, with a view to encapsulating the sublime, the clever and the fiendishly odd of the BBC’s Doctor Who.

The War Games originally aired in 1969.

Well, what was happening? Why was it so difficult to move?

It was the Time Lords.

But they’re your own people, aren’t they, Doctor?

Yes, that’s right.

Why did you run away from them in the first place?

What? Well, I was bored.

What do you mean, you were bored?

Well, the Time Lords are an immensely civilised race. We can control our own environment, we can live forever, barring accidents, and we have the secret of space time travel.

Well what’s so wrong in all that?

Well we hardly ever use our great powers. We consent simply to observe and to gather knowledge.

And that wasn’t enough for you?

No, of course not. With a whole galaxy to explore? Millions of planets, eons of time, countless civilisations to meet?

Well, why do they object to you doing all that?

Well, it is a fact, Jamie, that I do tend to get involved with things.

– Jamie, the Doctor and Zoe

The War Games represents the end of the era. It is the last appearance of Jamie as a regular companion. It is the last show featuring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, although he would return for the occasional guest spot, celebration or charity episode. It was also the last of the series to be shot in black and white. The transition from Troughton to Pertwee would arguably be one of the most dramatic shifts in the history of the show. Not only would the show suddenly be broadcast in colour, and not only would it feature a new lead actor, but it would also have a new focus, grounded on Earth, and with that a new status quo and new rules. The show was only six years old at the time, but the change must have seemed radical to those watching.

The War Games isn’t the perfect episode – it’s too long and too plodding – but it is a lot more entertaining than some of the longer adventures, and it serves as a fond farewell to the “cosmic hobo” interpretation of the Doctor. Indeed, the episode probably seems a great deal harsher than it did in hindsight, with the specifics of regeneration not quite codified, the Doctor’s forced transformation seemed less like a formal execution than it does to modern audiences who watched the Tenth Doctor plead for more time.

The War Games is an effective and fond farewell to not only a particular iteration of the title character, but also a version of the show as a whole.

Run!

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, doctor, Earth, General Accounts, history, JAMIE, Malcolm Hulke, Michael Morpurgo, patrick troughton, tardis, Tenth Doctor, terrance dicks, Time Lord, timelord, Twentieth Century, United States, War Games, war horse, Wars and Conflicts, World War I | Leave a comment »

The Spirit Archives, Vol. 13 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Darren

With Eisner now back on the strip for over half-a-year, The Spirit is forging ahead into the middle part of its run. Many commentators and pundits would argue that the few years following Eisner’s return from military service were among the best in the strip’s history, and it’s hard to disagree. While Eisner took the time in his first six months to tidy up loose ends – killing the Squid, sending Satin home with a daughter – here we see the creator building up the world he has created. This collection includes the strips introducing (and a number of subsequent appearances from) both P’Gell and the Octopus, arguably two of the most important characters introduced into the strip following the Second World War. There’s also a sign that Eisner is branching out a bit, and pushing the strip out from the shadow of the Second World War. After all, a new era of prosperity and a Cold War were both just around the corner, very fertile ground for the creator to explore.

A banner year?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Cold War, Collecting, Cove, darwyn cooke, DeSoto, Earth, Eisner, frank miller, history, Michael Kors, Nazi, Octopus, Postage Stamp, Recreation, Shanghai, Smuggler, Smugglers Cove, Spirit, Stamps, Turkey, United States, Vortex, War crime, Will Eisner, World War I, world war ii | Leave a comment »

The Spirit Archives, Vol. 12 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Darren

The Spirit Archives, Vol. 12 marks Will Eisner’s return to the strip. To be fair, the writer and artist had returned for the last two entries in the previous volume, but this is the first book entirely composed of Eisner’s post-war Spirit stories. While I don’t think Eisner had quite found his groove yet – the best was still yet to come – it’s amazing how dynamic the comic feels after reading the non-Eisner material. It’s easy enough to point to the Eisner-esque tropes and tricks, the techniques and the plot devices and the philosophy that faded from the strip in has absence, but there’s also something much less tangible here. There’s certain energy, a je ne sais que, that had been absent for the previous couple of years, returning in force.

Eisner is back. And, in a way, so is The Spirit.

It’s like he was never gone…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: American Vampire, Eisner, history, holocaust, Mike Richardson, Post-war, Scott Snyder, Spirit, The Spirit: Femmes Fatale, Twentieth Century, United States, Wars and Conflicts, Will Eisner, World War I, world war ii | Leave a comment »

The Spirit Archives, Vol. 5 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Darren

With The Spirit Archives, Vol. 5, we get our first real taste of what The Spirit looks like without Will Eisner. I’ve always felt like The Spirit belonged to Eisner in a way that very few iconic American comic book characters belong to a particular creator. The Spirit belonged to Eisner in the same way that The Adventures of Tintin belonged to Hergé. I am fond of Darwyn Cooke’s revival of the character, and there’s something interesting about the Kitchen Sink anthology series, but those exist mainly as curiosities or companion pieces to Eisner’s work on the character.

In many ways, this stretch of strips, published by Eisner’s staff and colleagues during his army service, feels the same sort of way. It’s more of a historical curiosity than an end to itself.

Lighten up…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: arts, Car body style, Clairvius Narcisse, Comics, Ebony White, Eisner, Eisner Award, Ellen, games, Haiti, Huntress, marvel comics, New Orleans, Ron Goulart, Royal Flush Gang, South America, Tomb of Dracula, United States, World War I | Leave a comment »

Severed by Scott Snyder, Scott Tuft & Attila Futaki (Review)

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Darren

Severed is a distinctly American horror story, feeling like something of a companion piece to author Scott Snyder’s American Vampire or even the work of Stephen King. Set during the dark days of the first world war, it’s an exploration of the darker side of the American Dream, to the point where it’s quite telling that our narrator refers to the anonymous villain merely as “the Nightmare.” It’s rich, sophisticated and atmospheric storytelling, a modern American fable co-written by Scott Tuft and with bone-chilling illustrations from Attila Futaki that are sure to unsettle.

Not too far afield…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: american dream, arts, batman, Chicago, dc comics, detective comics, elvis presley, Incandescent light bulb, jack, Mark Twain, Scott Snyder, Snyder, stephen king, United States, World War I | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: War Horse

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Darren

War Horse is a fairly solid prestige picture. Spielberg is on fine form, reminding viewers of just how he became an audience favourite. He displays a warm confidence with the material, as if getting comfortable once again with this sort of crowd-pleasing fare. The film has some fairly significant flaws, stemming mostly from a disjointed and disorganised screenplay, but it’s the director’s charm that manages to carry the film through. Ironically, for a film focusing on an equine, it feels like one of the most warmly human films that Spielberg has produced in quite a while.