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Penguin

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  1. Penguin
    Saw it Friday too, in IMAX 3D. Having read the original novels (a couple of them, at least), I thought they were a reasonable interpretation. As far as story goes, I found it simple but enjoyable. Definitely a pulp/action sort of air. There's one scene, inside the Thark temple, that's a little exposition heavy and, judging from some comments from fellow moviegoers, if you don't listen to it all then the next few scenes are a little fuzzy to follow. The performances were strong but nothing spectacular. I thought Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris provided the best performance, and I was pleasantly surprised by Taylor Kitsch in the title role (although, admittedly, my only previous exposure to him was as Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine). Mark Strong and Dominic West provided decent antagonists, and the supporting cast was solid. Art and sound design were sufficiently epic and well-done all around. All in all, I found it a satsifying Friday night popcorn film. And absolutely, Woola rocked.
  2. Penguin
    http://www.hlj.com/product/THA96856
  3. Penguin
    Outstanding work, WM!
  4. Penguin
    Ditto. The chome gold is just transparent yellow over plastic silver-plating, and it never looks all that even to me.
  5. Penguin
    I absolutely agree that, for the most part, the movie series haven't tackled anything of particular substance. Wrath of Khan, which I love, is nothing but a rip-snortin' action fest, and a direct response to the reception of TMP (which I'll go on the record as enjoying also). From that perspective, all the movies are basically action films exploting the brand built by the TV series to increase audience share, and the latest Star Trek is no more or less guilty. I suppose the real issue is that some (like me) aren't comparing the new Star Trek against all other movies in the franchise. Because it's a relaunch of the original series cast, the standard we're holding it to is the original TV series, and the expectation it set around some level of social commentary. Before they started to drown under the weight of their own technobabble, TNG, DS9, and even occasionally Voyager and Enterprise produced stories that aspired to the same level... not every story, and not always successfully, but they tried. Now, JJ's movie series is the sole bearer of the Star Trek banner, and in retelling the story of the original crew it has some big shoes to fill. Maybe that's not fair. I guess I'm worried that, as Paramount tries to widen the audience for the movies, they will eventually fall into the trap of seeking the blandest common denominator and we science fiction fans will have lost one of the few franchises that occasionally rose above its special effects.
  6. Penguin
    In addition, Avatar and Titanic have overwhelmingly positive reviews and are two of the highest grossing films of all time, despite entirely predictable plots and flocks of 1- and 2-dimensional characters. The North American public has done a terrific job of informing Hollywood that story and character are no where near as important as flashy trailers. Actually, if you look back through the thread, most people (myself included) have said we enjoyed it. That doesn't mean it's without fault, and it's more entertaining to discuss those than issue a litany of glowing praise. To Sketchley's question, the new Star Trek film had a fairly straightforward action plot. Fun, but not a lot of surprises there. Many have commented that while it was a fun film, it lacked the sort of story substance that Star Trek aspired to. To me, the real win was the characterizations. I thought the cast reflected the original characters while putting something of their own stamp on them as well. Chris Pine as Kirk was fun. Zachary Quinto was a terrific Spock, and Karl Urban's McCoy was darn near perfect. As for the secondary crew - Sulu, Chekov, Uhura, and Scotty - they were all taken in new directions by the cast, but entirely entertaining. On the technical side, the special effects were well done, although some have commented on excessive use of lens flare. Cinematography, sound design, art direction, all top notch.
  7. Penguin
    Hope springs eternal?
  8. Penguin
    Yeah, that's what I did too. Shoulda posted it. Duh.
  9. Penguin
    Ordered one too, fingers crossed. That's a sweet fighter mode. How did you tell out how many were left in stock? Nevermind... figured it out.
  10. Penguin
    Little argument there, but techno babble isn't the solution either. As Dynaman wrote, it's more about consistency and thinking about what you've written from more than just the perspective of "excuse for 2 hours of special effects", especially considering a core audience that will ask nagging nerdly questions. A valid point. It comes back again to writers who have created a situation that does not hold up to scrutiny unless you chase down expository information outside the movie itself. I suppose a response would be "why scrutinize it, it's just a movie", which would be ignoring the nature of science fiction fans (who do consider things like time travel seriously) and basically admitting that Star Trek is no longer science fiction. It's not even wagon train anymore, unless the sequel brings back the exploration aspects a little (which I hope it tries to). Without that, it's just another action movie.
  11. Penguin
    Interesting, and it would explain a lot. Guess I'll have to review those special features. Of course, now it bugs me that the movie itself doesn't mention anything like this. Pike could've had a quick line when talking about the new flagship, maybe to Kirk, to note that it was inspired by the ship that destroyed the Kelvin... how his father's sacrifice also led to Starfleet advancing its technology, yadda, yadda. Suppose that if they did, like Dynaman said, it would call out even more how a single event that changed the course of Starfleet only 20-odd years ago seems to have drifted out of conscious memory. I have to concur with ya... the writing definitely seems lazy in some places. Guess they only expect science fiction fans to think about these things, and of course it would be completely unrealistic to cater to science fiction fans even a little in a Star Trek movie. Do we need another sub-genre here? If some consider a film like Star Wars to be science fantasy instead of science fiction, is the new Star Trek... I dunno... science action? An action film that just happens to take place in the future, but with less and less attention to the science aspect?
  12. Penguin
    All that we know for certain in the original series era is that there were about 12 Constitution-class heavy cruisers. Beyond that, nothing's ever been canonically published about any other classes or the size of Star Fleet.
  13. Penguin
    That, or they have no problem leaving your pre-order hanging until a reissue happens.
  14. Penguin
    Yes and no. In the normal Marvel Universe (still regularly published), Nick Fury is the same guy who led the Howling Commandos, maintains extraodinary youth and vitality thanks to the Infinity Formula, etc., etc. When they created the "Marvel Ultimate" offshoot continuity, the artist specifically designed a new Nick Fury based on Sam Jackson (with his permission). The character was active in World War II, but rather than the Infinity Formula he was an unwilling Super Soldier enhancement subject, which slowed his aging (unlike Captain America, who had his aging literally frozen). There's even a moment where he and other characters are chatting about who would play movie versions of themselves, and Nick says "Samuel L. Jackson, of course" (or words to that effect). The movies take from the Ultimate continuity here and there. For one, they used the Ultimate Nick Fury in the movies (luckily an actor with uncanny resemblance was available), though they discarded the whole super soldier bit. Really, though, most of the Avengers movie-verse is more original Marvel than Ultimate.
  15. Penguin
    Yes, I know. I never said they time travelled anywhere. The line of reasoning is that if the events of Star Trek: First Contact created a divergent timeline, and the series Enterprise occurs in that divergence (which must be the case as that crew encounters the Borg remains from ST:FC), then the Troi and Riker that we see using that holodeck program are likely from the future of the Enterprise timeline, and not of the original timeline that we saw in TNG. Ergo, they are not the same people.
  16. Penguin
    You're mixing two different things. Changes in uniform over time are one thing. The years that separate the first series from the first movie, first movie from Wrath of Khan, and to the TNG time frame, allow for Starfleet's changing fashion sense. The conceit of the reboot, however, is that it's the same time frame (more or less) that the TV series took place, roughly 10 years before "The Menagerie" TV episode. So, either the costume designs should be similar to that time (no red shirts, for example), or the movie is saying that one ship being destroyed 20 years earlier caused Starfleet to redesign their uniforms. Which is kinda wacky. Or, I suppose, it could be saying they had red shirts at that time, then was going to get rid of them for a while ("Menagerie" through "Where No Man Has Gone Before"), then bring them back a bit later. And, they changed all their insignia (every ship had its own insignia style in the original series). According to the info gathered by fans much more involved (not going to say obsessed) in Star Trek than I ever will be, Kirk was born about 8 years before the first Constitution-class ship was built. So, the appearance of Nero, who destroyed one ship then disappeared, resulted in an entire class being scuttled and the Enterprise not being built until much later. If he'd been running around wreaking random havoc in the interim, I could see Starfleet saying "we're going to need a bigger boat" and designing the aforementioned crazy huge reboot-Prise. But that's not the case. Nero simply vanished. Basically, I perceive Star Trek going from an often over-wrought technobabble TV series to a movie where the "science" in "science fiction" seems tacked on as an afterthought without much thought. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. But, as a long-time reader of science fiction, it bugs me nonetheless. The events of the movie alone are not enough to explain the number of differences between one timeline and the other. String theory and M-theory and their implications on multiple dimensions is separate from divergent reality theories. Neither one prevents or excludes the other, but they are different things. Bringing Enterprise and First Contact into the discussion would mean the following: 1. The Enterprise-E travelling back in time in First Contact created a divergent reality, resulting in the series Enterprise. Where the Enterprise-E went when it left is another discussion entirely. 2. This divergent Enterprise-verse gave rise to a very different original series than we saw filmed. 3. The Troi and Riker that show up in the finale to Enterprise were not the same as we saw all though TNG, but divergent timeline versions (they certainly seemed strangely older ). 4. The Spock and Nero that travelled back in time to create the reboot-verse came from this timeline, and thus that Spock was already different from the TOS and TNG version. Which in the end amounts to the same idea I mentioned... the reboot-verse takes place in a universe that had already diverged from the original series, and Nero/Spock's arrival didn't amount to all that much.
  17. Penguin
    That occurred to me too, although less about the movie than the much-loved TV series that inspired it. There might be trademarks or somesuch in the UK involved as well. Hah... I can remember seeing "The Avengers" in TV listings as a kid, and on tuning in wondering what's with these two Brits and where were Cap and Iron Man?
  18. Penguin
    I enjoyed the reboot (I thought Karl Urban nailed the tone for McCoy), but little, unimportant things annoy the unrepentant Star Trek/sci-fi geek in me. Like kung flu, I found the pallet on the Enterprise too stark white. (Okay... that's aesthetics, not sci-fi geek.) I didn't like that the Enterprise was the flagship from the beginning, while originally it was just another workhorse like the rest of the class. It was the crew who made the Enterprise a notable ship, and later Enterprises become the flagship because of that famous crew. There isn't a single more qualified captain in all of Starfleet? Sure, the new kid saved Earth and all, but do we really let the lucky newbie with zero field experience drive the flagship? While the later Star Trek series drowned itself in techno-babble from time to time, the science and designs in the new version felt too ad hoc. "Won't this beer factory make a cool engine room?" "Needs more water pipes!" "Oops, shuttles look too big... make the Enterprise crazy huge!" And mostly, how does one Romulan ship going back in time change everything? If it struck one Federation ship then disappeared for 20 years, why do Klingon D7 cruisers look different? Why did the loss of one starship 20 years ago end up with Starfleet redesigning every starship, their insignia, and even their dress uniforms? The only explanation is that Quinto-Spock was wrong. Their universe was not caused by a "disruption in the time continuum", but is instead an independent parallel universe that Nimoy-Spock and Nero were catapulted into (or, if you prefer divergent reality theories, then it split off long before Spock and Nero arrived).
  19. Penguin
    Saw this last night. Characters are pretty thinly defined, but I wasn't expecting there to be any deep explorations considering the main characters weren't portrayed by actors. Funny, although it has plenty of action, I have a hard time calling it an action film since it lacks the over-the-top feeling that "movie" action typically carries. All in all, it was what I expected it to be, a reasonably gritty/realistic-looking depiction of real soldiers in action, so I enjoyed it. I only had one real criticism.
  20. Penguin
    I don't think it's a separate product. I couldn't find the shell as a separate item on the Sideshow site, and the gallery for the Batmobile shows the shell. I would assume that it is the "Batmobile's shield" GU-11 noted earlier in the product details. I mean, if it were a separate item, why would anyone really spend money on it? "Hey, I've got this really cool Batmobile with working lights, machineguns, incredible detail, and 1/6 scale figures to go in it, but I really want a sculpted plastic shell o hide all that under!" I know it would be the collector/completionist thing to have, but still... In any case, that's a chunk of change, and shipping won't be cheap either. BBTS quotes $150 for shipping to Canada. Wonder if Sideshow's FedEx rates would be any better? Gonna have to think about this one.
  21. Penguin
    Well, here it is. http://www.sideshowtoy.com/?page_id=4489&sku=901393&ref=home_new http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/product.aspx?product=HOT10386&mode=retail
  22. Penguin
    Yeah, it's pretty hard to find Domu in North America these days. It was never animated, and though Dark Horse licensed and printed the manga (proud owner I am), it's long out of print. Top notch Otomo manga. Really cinematic. There are some Akira nuclei in there.
  23. Penguin
    That is absolutely NOT the case. I mean, yes, the characters are all teenagers (the cast, however, only in that magical Hollywood suspension-of-disbelief way), and the film's central themes revolve around the quintessentially teenage conflicts of alienation and the search for identity, but it's not dripping with teen angst or anything remotely Twilight-ish. The themes are addressed in a serious manner in order to form a solid foundationn for the main characters. I would say the first season of Heroes, the comic Rising Stars, and the aforementioned Domu are its closer media-kin. Never Twilight.
  24. Penguin
    I saw it last weekend myself, and was thoroughly impressed. Reminded me more of Domu than Akira, given the smaller, more personal scale. Excellent film.
  25. Penguin
    Gah! Stop posting those pictures! I have enough unbuilt Gundam models as it is!
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