Thursday, September 17
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Stewart Moss deserved an Emmy for this scene from Star Trek – The Naked Time.
Thursday, September 170
Stewart Moss deserved an Emmy for this scene from Star Trek – The Naked Time.
As Captain Kirk will show you in this clip, it’s important to re-affirm your identity.
In 1988 there was a movie called Alien Nation that starred James Caan about Earth’s first contact with an alien civilization. In the film, and later the television series of the same name, the aliens, known as “Newcomers”, are first quarantined but are later integrated into human civilization, only become the victims of a new type of discrimination.
The fundamental premise of District 9 is very similar. In a not-so-distant past, an alien ship appeared hovering over South Africa. The ship’s inhabitants are lobster-like creatures who don’t seem to be all that bright, and their ship (along with much their technology) is disabled. We aren’t told why or how.
The aliens are brought out of the ship into Johannesburg, where they are segregated from humans and regarded as savages. These are not cute E.T.’s or furry A.L.Fs; they’re loathsome. Unlike the squeaky clean happy future of Star Trek, these aliens scavenge like roaches for cans of cat food and evoke so little sympathy the humans call them bottom-feeding “prawns”.
All of this is told in a mockumentary format through interviews and hand-held COPS-like shaky cam footage (which got a bit tedious at a few points). The main story begins 20 or so years after their arrival as a private company named MNU is tasked with relocating the aliens from District 9 to a new internment camp (District 10) which is hundreds of kilometers away from the city.
We follow a hapless MNU bureaucrat tasked with heading up the relocation as his team enters District 9 and they begin literally a door-to-door eviction process. Of course, the company has sinister motives, and the aliens have their secrets too (this is a summer blockbuster movie, right?)
Why are they here? Why can’t they leave? Why do they have weapons but they don’t seem to use them? All of these questions (and dozens more) started pouring through my mind and I found myself quickly immersed inside this dirty, grotesque District 9. It really sucks you in quickly and doesn’t let you go until it’s over.
I’m hesitant to give away much more than that, because part of the fun of the movie is not really knowing where all of this is headed. Will the aliens rise up against the humans? Do they come to form an understanding? What of this superior yet seemingly defunct technology?
As the questions mount, so does the excitement. It has elements of Enemy Mine, Independence Day, Alien Nation, and the Alien films. But if you felt duped by Signs or War of the Worlds, you can go into this film confident that it won’t leave you with the SciFi equavelent of blue balls. District 9 pays off.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I think the newest Star Trek movie is arguably the best Trek film ever made.
But I don’t really have the time or the patience I once had for writing lengthy reviews. But, here are the main points:
The casting was superb….really nice job there (I especially enjoyed the kid from “Huff” as Checkov). The audio editing was fantastic too (consider the silent parts of the space battles contrasted with any of the previous films). The story was plausible, and it gives a convenient way to adhere to current (and future) Trek lore. More depth was brought to Spock’s character (which is what people wanted). I could go on and on…
Anyway, rather than that…I was looking at the Trivia section for the new film on IMDB, and I thought I’d reprint (and contribute) some of (what I consider) the most interesting tidbits:
The Apple: In the scene where Kirk is taking the Kobayashi Maru test, he is eating an apple, which is also what he is eating in the Genesis Chamber while recounting his tale of taking the Kobayashi Maru test in “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan” 1982.
Kobayashi Maru: And speaking of the “no win scenario”, in “Wrath of Kahn”, Kirk tells of how he reprogrammed the simulation so it was possible to win (his son, David notes “he cheated”). In this film, we see Kirk actually beat the simulation, this time with Spock accusing him of cheating.
Gene’s Wife: Majel Barrett, the wife of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, has a role in this film as the voice of the Enterprise computer. She’s been the voice of the computer for most of the television series and video games, played Nurse Chapel in the Original Series and Deanna Troi’s mother in The Next Generation (among other roles). She completed her voice-over work for the new film just two weeks before her death on December 18, 2008.
Captain Jonathan Archer: Simon Pegg’s character Scotty explains the reason he’s stuck in that remote station was because he tried (unsuccessfully) to send Admiral Archer’s beagle through a transporter. Then-Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) was the captain of the title ship in “Enterprise” (which takes place before this movie), and kept a Beagle named Porthos.
Beer: The engine room of the Enterprise was filmed in a Budweiser factory in Van Nuys, California.
Passing the Torch: Every new incarnation of Star Trek had someone from a previous series appear in the premier: DeForest Kelley as Admiral Leonard McCoy in ST:TNG: Encounter at Farpoint; Patrick Stewart as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard on ST: Deep Space 9: Emissary; Armin Shimerman as Quark on ST: Voyager: Caretaker; James Cromwell as Zephram Cochran (ST: First Contact) in ST: Enterprise: Broken Bow; and this movie, where Leonard Nimoy plays Spock.
The Crew is joined by rookie Howl at the Moon Piano Man PJ Gartrell. Michelle Wargo Announces that she was voted Orlando’s Top 25 Most Beatuful People, Johnny Diggz geeks out over Star Trek, Christian Bale’s meltdown is revisited, and Ryan talks about his master plan to get fired.
Crew Show 59: The Beautiful 25
Glowing faces. Young faces.
Disengaged, young, glowing faces.
There was a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called “The Game” where the entire crew becomes addicted to a simple video game. Well…almost everyone except for young Wesley Crusher and his girlfriend (one of the few episodes with a tasty young Ashley Judd). As was common for NextGen episodes, in then end, Wesley Crusher saves the day.
Now he’s part of the problem.
Wil Wheaton, who starred as Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation, has over 300,000 followers on Twitter. One of his recent Tweets: “Kings have given up 7 shots on goal in the first 6 minutes of the 1st, and taken 1. Oh boy, it’s going to be a long night.”
Do we really need to be getting color play-by-play from the kid from Stand By Me? (the one who isn’t dead, isn’t one of the Coreys, and isn’t married to Mystik?)
Apparently so, because lately it seems like what’s going on in Wil’s world (and the rest of the Twitterverse) is more exciting than the world that surrounds us. This is what is causing the glowing faces: Twitter, Facebook and the like.
I see it all the time when I’m on stage at Howl at the Moon. At any given moment, it’s likely that at least 1 person at each table is somehow interacting with their phone rather than being engaged in their surroundings. I’ve seen it at nightclubs too…remember that song, “No Parking on the Dance Floor?” I think it really needs to be updated to “No Tweeting on the Dance Floor!”
The under-30 crowd seems to be the worst of the offenders, and in my experience it seems to be slightly skewed towards the women. Twitter has replaced the knitting circle as the preferred way of spreading gossip.
And what is so unique about Twitter that has everyone all aflutter? The concept of public message boards hearkens back to the days of dial-up BBS’s. In fact, BBS stands for Bulleten Board System. They’re digital notes on the fridge, on display for your roommates to see (as well as everyone else) .
And the vast majority of it is the most mundane of mundane of information. I can fully admit I’m narcissistic enough to maintain a blog and I’m fairly active with my Facebook account. Sure, I have a Twitter account…I just rarely use it. My updates are autofeeds from my blog..it’s simply a notification tool I use let people know I’ve created some new content. I guess I just don’t care enough about which flavor of yogurt Wil Wheaton ate for lunch today.
Moreover, it’s practically impossible to follow any threads or conversations on Twitter. Unlike Facebook where you can read whole threads, on Twitter you’re often reading replies to unseen messages…it’s like overhearing half of an annoying telephone conversation. Yes, I know there are tools that do this for you, but I’ve got better things to do than read through other people’s attempts at publicized witticisms.
When I was in my teens I worked at a summer camp in North Carolina. The owner had a rule banning headphones (whether plugged into a CD player, cassette player, radio…whatever). Why? Because they were anti-social. When you have headphones on, you’re isolated from the world around you.
I find it very disturbing that the “new social media” is, in many ways, creating the same anti-social behaviors that headphones created. Glowing faces. Disengaged, young, glowing faces.
Start looking around and you’ll see them too. They’re everywhere.
So a couple weeks ago I posted that CBS was now streaming Star Trek (The Original Series) episodes from their website. Apparently they’ve taken it a step further with a new free iPhone app called TV.Com which lets you watch CBS content on your iPhone for free. In addition, they’ve got new episodes of several CBS shows (including Eleventh Hour and CSI), plus a bunch of classic content ranging from episodes of MacGyver to Beverly Hills 90210. Download the TV.com via the App Store.
Now, where’s my Hulu.com app for the iPhone?
You can now watch every episode of Star Trek (the Original Series) for free at CBS.com. This includes several remastered episodes in HD (not all of them are available in HD). The episodes are currently presented with limited commercials (there are 3 or 4 each episode). Be sure to watch out for the EXTREME volume change during the commercials. At least on my system, it makes a huge jump in volume.
I am soooo glad I never completed building my VHS collection.
With cowbell cameo by Christopher Walken
