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Fans Spin in the Breeze
Apr. 13th, 2005 11:11 pmYou know, I loved almost everything Star Trek, even as the show(s) declined through the Voyager years and it seemed like they could only get their act together to do one really good Next Gen movie (First Contact) due to the producers need to do "something really big" each time. (Still, I liked Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)
I pretty much left Enterprise for dead early on, although this year's shows have been a little better as you know the producers already knew it would be their last season, so they let the writers make every last retcon (change in storyline that "corrects" the story to put the new character into a past they previously weren't in - retroactive continuity) that they could before going off the air. At least it's fun to see how hard they are working trying to come up with excuses for Klingons with no big makeup jobs, even though fans never really cared, and always knew that it was just a deal with a 1960's TV show.
Then of course, there's the new Battlestar Galactica, which totally rocks my world. It's not because it's a Science Fiction show, it's that it's a science fiction show (little letters) that has a great deal of character development, much like the best Star Trek series, Deep Space 9. The fact is, the show is certainly built around a premise, a big one at that, the annihilation of a species, and now the little that's left of it is on the run. Some people have said it's too dark, but think about it, don't you think that the 70's show was actually too damned happy? Disco dancing? Entire planets were destroyed and an enemy (and the fact that the Cylons were created by man - something that wasn't the case on the old show, ratchets it up a smidge), and we have time enough to make a silly Dagget named Moppet?
I digress, It's the people, and their reactions to the situations they have been placed into that make the series work, and it's fascinating. It was also brilliant to make the villain more relatable by making the primary Cylons look like humans, and they, like terrorists, can infiltrate the fleet, further unnerving the human population. I can't wait for the next season of the show - it's definitely improved since the mini-series.
So that brings us to the big dog of all sci-fi fandom, Star Wars. There's plenty of fans out there, and many have said that the fact that there's only five, soon to be six movies helps the series avoid the problems with overexposure that the TV series suffered from (There's been somewhere around 700 episodes of Star Trek). still, the series has come under fire for the lackluster performance of Episodes I and II.
I happen to know a lot of people at work who are really looking forward to this movie. Just a couple of cubicles down from me is Jayme who has been sending trivia emails out since the beginning of the year as he's been counting down to the première. He went out last weekend and bought up every toy that went out onto the shelves, including pregnant Padme, who, he tells me, does not have "incredible birthing action".
Still, I'm left a little cold. I loved Star Wars as a kid. I spent my 10th birthday at the Alabama theater in Houston watching a showing of the original movie in 1977 (before the theater was turned into a bookstore), and within a couple of years I had every toy they could produced. I loved it. I couldn't wait for Empire and Jedi - of course in those days you actually had to wait for the movies to show up in your town.
A few years ago, before the première of Episode I, I saw the original move on TV - probably on TBS, and I was, well, underwhelmed. Suddenly the story wasn't as good as I remembered from my childhood, and the effects were just so-so. I saw it, and the other movies of the original trilogy when they were re-release to theaters, and it was somewhat better, but I knew that the love had diminished some.
The toys were sold a long time ago to play for a semester of college tuition. I still have a few of the action figures, somewhere, but they are far from being in mint condition.
Still, as Episode I approached, I was excited. Too bad it didn't last all the way through the movie. By the time it was over, i thought Lucas had killed it all. Episode II was better, but really, it ended up being a whole bunch of pretty set pieces with a few actors and a lot of digital effects moving in front of it.
Yep, I'm just asking for the hateful comments, aren't I? People live and die for Star Wars, but you know, the magical storyline was just missing in these - plot holes you could drive a truck through, characters flat as their cardboard cutout stand-ins. Why was there any reason to care for the boy/man who would be Darth Vader? What would make this story interesting enough to make it worth making three movies about?
I keep hearing the fun is in the Clone Wars animated series - I may have to go search that out.
So, Episode III is approaching next month and really, I'm not that interested. I'll probably see it in the theater, just because I saw all the others on the big screen, but I think I saw the whole thing the other day - in a movie trailer.
Of course, the problem is, you know who becomes Vader - there's no surprise there, so you would hope that there would be enough that Lucas could surprise us with to make us want to see the movie, right? Well, there in the trailer, is the climatic battle of the Jedi, lots of lava, pregnant Padme, the Chancellor tempting Anakin to the dark side, Anakin getting all pissed off, more lava, hunky Obi Wan, Yoda looking unhappy about something, Mace looking like he wants to be pissed off, but Jedis aren't supposed to be like that, more lava, C3PO being pissy, and then - Darth Vader.
I swear, if Darth freaking Vader is in the movie for more than three minutes, then Lucas just gave into all of the fanboys who wanted a Vader movie, and you might as well have just given them a new video game the could have drooled on.
The problem is, everything is in the trailer. What little surprise there could have been has been undone by the overzealous people at 20th Century Fox who decided to let everything go, and show it all. The only thing left to go see is the special effects, because you know that the story has already been laid out in front of you. What's left to really make you go to the theater besides seeing the special effects?
Oh, and I may go see it because Ewan McGregor has gotten really good looking as Obi-Won Kenobi.
Still, both Trek and Star Wars have a legacy that has not worn well with time. It's sad to see what's become of these series, and how the wrong cook can truly spoil the broth. Needless to say I won't be spending my time in line waiting for this movie, or the next Trek movie, should they make one. I can wait until the ewok hair has been cleaned out of the theater a few times before I go see the last Lucas film to make a few million.
Catch it in the theater, though, who knows what it might look like on DVD.
I pretty much left Enterprise for dead early on, although this year's shows have been a little better as you know the producers already knew it would be their last season, so they let the writers make every last retcon (change in storyline that "corrects" the story to put the new character into a past they previously weren't in - retroactive continuity) that they could before going off the air. At least it's fun to see how hard they are working trying to come up with excuses for Klingons with no big makeup jobs, even though fans never really cared, and always knew that it was just a deal with a 1960's TV show.
Then of course, there's the new Battlestar Galactica, which totally rocks my world. It's not because it's a Science Fiction show, it's that it's a science fiction show (little letters) that has a great deal of character development, much like the best Star Trek series, Deep Space 9. The fact is, the show is certainly built around a premise, a big one at that, the annihilation of a species, and now the little that's left of it is on the run. Some people have said it's too dark, but think about it, don't you think that the 70's show was actually too damned happy? Disco dancing? Entire planets were destroyed and an enemy (and the fact that the Cylons were created by man - something that wasn't the case on the old show, ratchets it up a smidge), and we have time enough to make a silly Dagget named Moppet?
I digress, It's the people, and their reactions to the situations they have been placed into that make the series work, and it's fascinating. It was also brilliant to make the villain more relatable by making the primary Cylons look like humans, and they, like terrorists, can infiltrate the fleet, further unnerving the human population. I can't wait for the next season of the show - it's definitely improved since the mini-series.
So that brings us to the big dog of all sci-fi fandom, Star Wars. There's plenty of fans out there, and many have said that the fact that there's only five, soon to be six movies helps the series avoid the problems with overexposure that the TV series suffered from (There's been somewhere around 700 episodes of Star Trek). still, the series has come under fire for the lackluster performance of Episodes I and II.
I happen to know a lot of people at work who are really looking forward to this movie. Just a couple of cubicles down from me is Jayme who has been sending trivia emails out since the beginning of the year as he's been counting down to the première. He went out last weekend and bought up every toy that went out onto the shelves, including pregnant Padme, who, he tells me, does not have "incredible birthing action".
Still, I'm left a little cold. I loved Star Wars as a kid. I spent my 10th birthday at the Alabama theater in Houston watching a showing of the original movie in 1977 (before the theater was turned into a bookstore), and within a couple of years I had every toy they could produced. I loved it. I couldn't wait for Empire and Jedi - of course in those days you actually had to wait for the movies to show up in your town.
A few years ago, before the première of Episode I, I saw the original move on TV - probably on TBS, and I was, well, underwhelmed. Suddenly the story wasn't as good as I remembered from my childhood, and the effects were just so-so. I saw it, and the other movies of the original trilogy when they were re-release to theaters, and it was somewhat better, but I knew that the love had diminished some.
The toys were sold a long time ago to play for a semester of college tuition. I still have a few of the action figures, somewhere, but they are far from being in mint condition.
Still, as Episode I approached, I was excited. Too bad it didn't last all the way through the movie. By the time it was over, i thought Lucas had killed it all. Episode II was better, but really, it ended up being a whole bunch of pretty set pieces with a few actors and a lot of digital effects moving in front of it.
Yep, I'm just asking for the hateful comments, aren't I? People live and die for Star Wars, but you know, the magical storyline was just missing in these - plot holes you could drive a truck through, characters flat as their cardboard cutout stand-ins. Why was there any reason to care for the boy/man who would be Darth Vader? What would make this story interesting enough to make it worth making three movies about?
I keep hearing the fun is in the Clone Wars animated series - I may have to go search that out.
So, Episode III is approaching next month and really, I'm not that interested. I'll probably see it in the theater, just because I saw all the others on the big screen, but I think I saw the whole thing the other day - in a movie trailer.
Of course, the problem is, you know who becomes Vader - there's no surprise there, so you would hope that there would be enough that Lucas could surprise us with to make us want to see the movie, right? Well, there in the trailer, is the climatic battle of the Jedi, lots of lava, pregnant Padme, the Chancellor tempting Anakin to the dark side, Anakin getting all pissed off, more lava, hunky Obi Wan, Yoda looking unhappy about something, Mace looking like he wants to be pissed off, but Jedis aren't supposed to be like that, more lava, C3PO being pissy, and then - Darth Vader.
I swear, if Darth freaking Vader is in the movie for more than three minutes, then Lucas just gave into all of the fanboys who wanted a Vader movie, and you might as well have just given them a new video game the could have drooled on.
The problem is, everything is in the trailer. What little surprise there could have been has been undone by the overzealous people at 20th Century Fox who decided to let everything go, and show it all. The only thing left to go see is the special effects, because you know that the story has already been laid out in front of you. What's left to really make you go to the theater besides seeing the special effects?
Oh, and I may go see it because Ewan McGregor has gotten really good looking as Obi-Won Kenobi.
Still, both Trek and Star Wars have a legacy that has not worn well with time. It's sad to see what's become of these series, and how the wrong cook can truly spoil the broth. Needless to say I won't be spending my time in line waiting for this movie, or the next Trek movie, should they make one. I can wait until the ewok hair has been cleaned out of the theater a few times before I go see the last Lucas film to make a few million.
Catch it in the theater, though, who knows what it might look like on DVD.
