Star Trek Retrospective: the Menagerie Part I and II
I think this episode gets the award for best reuse of old pilot footage ever. Thank heaven Leonard Nimoy was in both the pilot and the series. Otherwise they would have had to let this one go completely. Also this episode is a great chance for Star Trek fans in wheelchairs cosplay.
However I want to take issue with Pike as it relates to the JJ Abrams abominations. Was it absolutely necessary for the new time line to put Pike in a wheelchair again? In TOS he was horribly burned by delta rays in a training accident. So does it mean that regardless of time line he is inevitably fated to end up in a wheelchair? How about a timeline where he just stubs his toe or something? 
Also couldn’t they give Pike some kind of Darth Vader-esque power suit or something? I mean if JJ wants to be making Star Trek anyway. Image courtesy of the Star Wars t-shirts collection.
Anyway, this was an intriguing episode although it did result in the Talosians gaining their slave population assuming Vina can still have about 20 children and they aren’t too particular with regards to inbreeding. I did like seeing the formal uniforms and court marshal procedures. Although if the Talosians could create a fake Mendez with Kirk from thousands of light years away why didn’t they just create fake orders from Star Fleet telling him to drop Pike off toot sweet?
the Infamous Dave Inman
Big Hero 6 Review Part 1
Brave but not heroic.
I must admit I have fallen into the trap of letting trailers fool me into expecting great. It is something I should be hardened against by now but I guess the fact that I am doing fewer movies per week has lulled me a level of complacency that is dangerous for my fragile mind state. I took a hit when I really didn’t like Intersteller and now this film fails to live up to my (inflated) expectations.
Not to say Big Hero 6 was bad. It was decent. However the producers of this film made it abundantly clear that it was by the same crew that created Wreck-It Ralph, one of my favorite animated films. What they did not make clear is the fact that the director and writers of Wreck-It Ralph had nothing to do with it and that is like saying that the painting you did of your cat sleeping is by the same producers as the Mona Lisa just because you buy your canvas the guy who sells it to Da Vinci. That plus a massive trailer blitz had me hoping to add another masterpiece to my roster of go to animated films.
Is it fair to compare this film to WIR? In one sense no but in the sense that they blasted WIR’s name all over it yes. If you invite comparison you cannot complain when you fail to live up to that comparison. I see this as some idiot in the Old West strapping on a six gun and challenging the fastest gun. When you jump in the ring with a grizzly you cannot complain when you get your guts ripped out.
So is this film good when not compared to WIR? I’d say it’s adequately good. The story kind of blows and if you or your kid finds having a really appealing character die in a fire early on troubling (wait a good guy dies in a Disney film??? How is that even possible? I guess that’s where the PG rating comes from) you will be annoyed but the animation is truly excellent 
(in an improved Incredibles sort of way. The image is from a great Incredibles logo t shirt I wear once in a while) and the visuals stunning so if your kid understands death (or you ok telling him that Tadashi just “went to stay with Grandma for a while”) he or she will be reasonably entertained.
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Big Hero 6 Review Part 2
But to continue with my fair/unfair comparison to Wreck-It Ralph where does this film fail to live up to the comparison? Well to be honest when you look at WIR you can see that it has three key elements that work seemlessly together; story, character development, and action. Each part reinforces the other two and together they form one of those really cool Celtic patterns that looks gorgeous from a distance and when you get up close you can see the intricacy of the pattern. In Big Hero 6 the film tries to do the same thing but instead of having the elements work together they keep on tripping on each other. The character development blocks off the story while the story gets in the way of the action and the action lessons the value of the character development. It was like watching the Three Stooges all try to go through one door at the same time and bounce out or perhaps a new kind of roshambo.
I guess this is from a comic book of some kind and I will give the film mad props for the best Stan Lee cameo yet (image courtesy of the Marvel T-Shirts collection). It did have a comic book feel to it but most comic book movies invite a level of story complexity sadly lacking in this plot. The main bad guy’s plan was dumb and rather than let him develop organically he is forced into the film with all the subtlety of a multiple trepanning delivered with a ball peen hammer. Again, I know. Kids movie so we can’t expect One Hour Photo but WIR managed to give us a great story that still entertained the rugrats.
On the other hand Baymax is super cute and cool and if your kids are the type to fall in love with unique cartoon characters this movie has a ton of them each with a distinct personality and look. Like I said I don’t consider this film Nut Job bad or even bad at all. Just not great. Of course since everyone else is tongue bathing this film on a regular basis (88% on Rotten Tomatoes) looks like I get to be the kid in the Emperors New Clothes once more.
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Big Hero 6 Review Part 3
The story. Hiro (Scott Adsit) is a precocious 14 year old who makes money in illegal bot fighting. He is pulled out of a jam and into college by his older brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) who convinces him to try to get into the robotics program by impressing Prof. Callaghan (James Cromwell). Hiro does it by inventing microbots that merge to form a big robot amoeba. That night there is a fire and Tadashi and Callaghan are killed and the microbots destroyed.
While in the mass of depression Hiro activates Baymax, a giant rubber healer robot Tadashi invented. Baymax wants to heal Hiro and so helps him follow his last microbot only to discover a bad guy is building thousands of them for some reason. Hiro hooks up with a bunch of his other nerd friends and in order to stop the guy with the microbots they make superhero costumes for themselves. Baymax turns from a super sweet balloon guy into a killing machine and there is a “twist” that comes from no where and does nothing other than give the bad guy a reason to be bad.
3 of 5. OK.
So worth seeing or not? I’d say yes, but when Wreck-It Ralph came out I saw it four times in the theater and then bought it on DvD and have watched it probably a dozen times since. I could easily not see this film again for several years if ever. 
I would put in on the level of Frozen (another film that I thought was less good than apparently every other American alive or dead. Maybe I am just tilting at windmills here (or maybe my “alternative” childhood has given me a different outlook on life. Thanks dad) Image courtesy of the cartoon t shirt category) and I’m sure you will see a lot of toys, video games, shirts, and Halloween costumes for all the characters. Your kids will enjoy it as long as death doesn’t freak them out and you will not be totally bored so I’d say go for it. 3 of 5 phasers.
the Infamous Dave Inman
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Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 13 the Conscience of the King
Another one of my personal favorites. This story had some serious gravitas, as well as a cool twist and amazing acting. The scene where Kirk has Karidian read the Kodos proclamation is incredibly powerful.
However one thing I love about this show is it is a nice glimpse into Kirk’s past (oh wait! At age 13 Kirk spent part of his childhood on Tarsus IV, not stealing cars in Iowa? Gosh how did JJ Abrams miss that with all the extensive research he did prior to writing his first Trek-ish film?) as well as a look at the social dynamic of the TOS era Federation. 
Looks like there was a “good ole’ boy” network that experienced officers such as Kirk could tap into to get things done like when he called his friend Captain Daily and asked him to not pick up the Karidian troupe. In this the show was a little more like the frontier of the Empire from Star Wars (I see the similarity. Image courtesy of my own collection of Star Wars t-shirts. I swing both ways).
I also really enjoyed Lenore, who managed the difficult task of appearing a naive innocent while at the same time being totally evil and bat guano nuts. Not an easy thing to pull off and but she did it. Kudos to Barbara Anderson. She later won four Emmys for work on Ironside and was in the pilot film for the Six Million Dollar Man. As a nerd and fan of retro tv shows I have to applaud her.
the Infamous Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episose 14 Balance of Terror
This is my number one on my list of favorite Star Trek episodes and for good reason. Even now I can watch this episode and feel the tension as Kirk hunts for the Romulan commander. Pretty much Run Silent Run Deep or the Enemy Below in space (and later redone as Das Boot) something about the silent machines hunting for each other is amazing. When I first saw this episode I think I left permanent grip marks on the arm rest of our 70’s floral print sofa.
What I especially like about this one is it not only introduced us to the Romulans and the concept of the Nuetral Zone (Suck it JJ. The zone if for the Romulans, not the Klingons) but it also showed as a bit of what life in the Federation was like in those days. It wasn’t all hippy dippy love for all races that whitewashed all of TNG. There is actual racial distrust and bigotry 
(although who could be bigoted against the Vulcans? That’s like saying you don’t like bacon. Image courtesy of the funny t shirt category). Also you get to see a wedding in space (although it does end rather tragically and was the only cheesy part of episode).
Most importantly it humanized all the characters and therefore made them much more relatable. Kirk was plagued by doubts and error. Spock screwed up. The Romulan commander had to eject his best friend into space. The bridge crew has a racist. Finally Kirk shows a very human element of mercy only to have the Romulan commander turn it down in favor of one of the coolest death scenes in sci fi history (second only to Roy Batty in Bladerunner I think. Maybe Spock in TWOK).
the Infamous Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 15 the Galileo Seven
Season 1 is such a wealth of great episodes (well, except for the Alternative Factor and This Side of Paradise) and this one is is near the top of that list. I loved this episode. Of course the whole “crash landed shuttle craft” theme was then stolen by every series following even shows that really had no business exploring stuff (I’m looking at you, DS9) and even surfaced in Fallout 2.
It should be obvious to any of my four regular readers that I am a huge Spock fan and this show was all Spock. He is extra cool in this one and the fact that the human crew don’t understand his flawless logic even in doing something illogical shows how much he is at a higher level.
On the other hand this episode was kind of hard on red shirts. One thing I’ll give Next Gen and the later shows is they gave their shuttle craft more equipment than six phasers and some retro 70’s post modern furniture. 
Seems like had they had even one mounted phaser they could have used that to shoot the bigfoots or even drain the battery for more power (image courtesy of the horror movie t-shirts).
Anyway, great episode and one I enjoy a lot.
the Infamous Dave Inman
Intersteller Review part 1
A sci fi movie for people who aren’t sci fi fans.
This has been an ugly trend in Hollywood. Vampire films for people who know nothing about vampires, zombie films for future zombie chow, and comic book movies for idiots who spent their high school years having sex with girls instead of hanging out in the local comic book hole like a normal person. It’s Babies First Sci Fi Movie and like anything associated with babies is cute and fun for a while but eventually gets messy, smelly, noisy, and unnecessarily complicated.
This film is very visual and I have huge respect for physical effects over CGI. However the story is really kind of dumb and derivative of many other (better) sci fi movies and stories in the same way that a blue wall is derivative of a can of blue paint. Again, I’m sure it will seem very cool and original to anyone who can’t tell you whether or not Yoda ever said “Live long and prosper” but for anyone who has ever read Clarke, Vonnegut, L’Engle, Heinlein or any of several hundred authors (or TV shows and movies) it will all seem like a badly done parody of those ideas.
The there is the science. If science were a small child Christopher Nolan would have been arrested and listed on the Megan’s Law website toot sweet (Get out of my lab image from a real scientist, Dexter, is courtesy of the cartoon t shirt category). I see this as absolute contempt that he and Hollywood has for we the audience. This film will only work if you know absolutely nothing about physics, astrophysics, chemistry, relativity, or quantum theory. I am a nerd who loves science and enjoys it when a film at least makes passing eye contact with science at a cocktail party. However I am willing to forgive some bad science if it is in the interest of furthering a decent plot but a lot of this crap was completely unnecessary and only advanced this ponderous and convoluted morass of plot holes and threads.
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Intersteller Review part 2
Sometimes giving a director some kind of oversight is not a bad thing.
The stench of the opus pet project spills off this film like rancid roadkill. It’s clear that the operative word here was BIGGER. The numerous plot threads fly back and forth across the screen like a ball of yarn with an M-80 stuck in it. T
here are more ideas and concepts here than a shark has teeth and they all seem to be hell bent on taking a bite out of the audiences patience. (Image from the Jaws t shirts collection)
The net result of the legion of concepts is you are left with two questions; what the point of it all is and why did they feel the need to pack so much into one movie? Is Christopher Nolan retiring and this is his last film ever? Does he have so many ideas bursting from every seam that a film with only 20 seems impoverished to him? Most movie directors like to take an idea or thread and cultivate it into a well presented film but this one stuffed itself on every sci fi meme ever and then vomited it all over the canvas like a crappy performance artist, trying to see which ideas stick and form pleasing shapes. I left the theater with not a dook of an idea of what message was actually being presented.
The other net result of all the gyrations the story goes through is this film is insufferably long. There was a scene that wanted us to believe a planet could orbit a black hole close enough to have the time dilation be one hour on the planet equal seven years on Earth and honestly I was kind of feeling that dilation in the theater. Two hours and 49 minutes felt like 15 years. Also remember all that bad science I talked about? I how did that planet get heat and/or light? Or be close enough to a black hole to dilate its time that much without being ripped apart by the gravitational pull? A black hole is not like a big planet or sun. It will destroy every object in a solar system in short order.
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Intersteller Review part 3
Bad science is the least of this films problems.
I could go on about all the other bad science for the rest of this review but I don’t really need to when I have such campy mediocre dialog and gaping plot holes to party with. Even assuming Christopher Nolan didn’t hire a top scientist to consult with him (which he did incidentally) and learned all he ever need to know about science and astrophysics by watching old Space 1999 reruns I have to believe he knows how to make a decent film and not have the story stumble upon dopey plot holes and story pacing from hell. The dialog was very campy which would have worked brilliantly in a camp film but this film was supposed to be taken seriously (also I know this is my own personal bias but every time I heard Matthew McConaughey speak all I could see was him shirtless in Magic Mike saying “But I think I see a lotta lawbreakers up in this house tonight…”). Of course since this is a Nolan joint the soundtrack has to so overpower the dialog that you miss most of it. Good thing there weren’t about 3 billion different ideas he was trying to transmit with his dialog (oh wait there was…).
For all that if you dropped acid in a theater while watching the “My God! It’s full of stars!” scene from 2001 you will probably enjoy the hell out of the visuals (Image courtesy of the movie t shirt category). If you are not a fan of sci fi but want to be able to at least sound like you know a thing about it when talking to the tech geeks at work (you know, become a poser) this film will probably work very well for you. Like many of Christopher Nolan less than great films you can’t just hate this one completely. He is too talented to make absolute crap and I applaud a film that fails for trying to do too much rather than one that fails for trying to do too little. I can totally see why half the reviews are lauding this movie and the other half are lamenting it (including Jae, there girl who writes on our other blog. She thought it was great).
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