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Reviews
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Subspace Rhapsody (2023)
Flying Blind!
I've often wondered what aliens would think if the only human transmission they ever saw as a musical. Subspace Rhapsody gives a glimpse of what aliens might think of us. Would they be assumed as normal as in Galaxy Quest? In fact, signing can be considered an everyday activity; some biologists have suggested that human speech is, quite simply, us signing.
This episode is fun, insightful, and exceptionally well done. It's also an interesting take on character development.
La'an signing 'Flying Blind' was not just a great performance, it showed the character's heart; that song so good it deserves an Emmy.
'I'm the X" takes a step beyond character development, it's a theme song of every nerd and geek who ever lived.
Any who couldn't enjoy Klingon Opera!
If you don't like the episode then give up watching Star Trek because you don't understand Star Trek, or fun.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Lost in Translation (2023)
Strange New Worlds Delivers
'Lost in Translation' is classic Star Trek. The story frames what Star Trek has always been about, learning about things you didn't even know existed.
The episode also shines in character development:
La'an's part in the episode is short but poignant, filled with unsaid things that we understand all too well.
I'm beginning to like Sam Kirk (Dan Jeannotte) more and more. His interaction with Jim near the end of the episode is perfect.
The episode makes me want Hemmer back, but Pelia (Carol Kane) is obstinately perfect at the Enterprise's chief engineer.
I think Nichelle Nichols would be proud of Celia Rose Gooding portrayal of Uhura.
This is Star Trek worth watching!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (2023)
Yes, another time paradox!
Strange New Worlds delivers again. Ever since TOS 'Tomorrow Is Yesterday' I've loved Star Trek time travel episodes (they are at the heart of Star Trek); some of my favorites are: 'Assignment: Earth,' 'The City on the Edge of Forever,' 'Past Tense,' and 'Trials and Tribble-ations.' Now I have another favorite with 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.'
La'an (Christina Chong) faces not so much a paradox, but a painful moral decision in an alternate timeline: her happiness vs doing the right thing. Chong plays La'an as a stone hard security officer with a deep, driven soul and Paul Wesley breaks through her shell.
Great episode!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Ad Astra Per Aspera (2023)
Star Trek Is Best When It Touches A Nerve
'Ad Astra Per Aspera' is Star Trek holding a mirror to our society (social criticism), a direct reflection of who we are, and a prescription for who we can be (for the better). That mirror has been part of Star Trek from the beginning and this episode does a great job of giving us a close up look, showing every blemish. Court room episodes have been used many times in Star Trek to make a point, and I believe 'Ad Astra Per Aspera' will stand beside 'The Measure of a Man', and 'The Drumhead' as one of the best.
To those who don't want to look in that mirror, I remind them that Gene Roddenberry once said, "Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms."
I think Roddenberry would be very proud of this episode.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Ghosts of Illyria (2022)
Great character building and casting
The writing in these early episodes is articulate and preceptive; taking time and pealing back the layers of characters is exactly what any series needs.
1. Rebecca Romijn, as Una Chin-Riley: as her story unfolds Ms. Romijn plays the part with strength and subtlety.
2. Bruce Horak, as Hemmer: quickly becoming one of my favorite Star Trek characters, Horak convey's Hemmer's crankiness perfectly.
3. Christina Chong, as La'an Noonien-Singh, is a very capable security chief and her character build is growing with each episode.
4. Celia Rose Gooding, as Nyota Uhura, is showing us where Uhura came from, building on her personal kobayashi maru from the last episode.
5. Melissa Navia, Erica Ortegas, is a delivering an interesting new Star Trek character, one with both strength and humor.
6. Babs Olusanmokun, as Dr. M'Benga, is very interesting, his back story is a very human one.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Children of the Comet (2022)
Cadet Nyota Uhura's Trial by Fire
The element that makes stories enjoyable and interesting are always the characters, they breath life into what would otherwise be just a string of events.
Strange New Worlds goes peels back the characteristics of Pike and Uhura in this episode; makes them interesting and real. Uhura's away mission test seems more about character to me than skill - a Kobayashi Maru test that she passes.
Star Trek: Picard: Farewell (2022)
Oh the Wonder!
I have been watching Star Trek since the original series first aired in 1966. I always found it to be fun, optimistic, diverse, and forward looking. This episode is one of the best, full of wonderful surprises and twists. The writing was stellar, and it is true to Star Trek in every way.
If you love Star Trek, really love it, then don't bother to read the negative reviews here, they are by people who have soured on life and don't want to live by the Star Trek vision that Gene Roddenberry created. Just watch this season of Picard, it leads to this magnificent conclusion.
Star Trek: Picard: Watcher (2022)
Wonderful Star Trek Episode
I've been watching Star Trek since the original series aired. The second season of Star Trek Picard and The Watcher episode measure up to Star Trek's best. The unfolding story had me wondering intently what was come next (and that after watching Star Trek for 56 years), and then in true Star Trek fashion the writers threw in scenes to make me laugh. I'll be watching the series to the end - it's good stuff.
Politics???
To all of those saying "Keep politics out of Star Trek" and who were angry at ICE agents showing up in this episode I say, politics have been part of Star Trek since the very first season, just watch The Conscience of the King. The main themes Roddenberry employed for Star Trek were inclusion, fairness, optimism, critical thinking, science, and how we deal with adversity. If you don't understand that or think it's garbage, then go watch a show with lots of guns, explosions and no dialog. True Trekkies won't miss you.
1883 (2021)
The Oregon Trail Soap Opera
The story of a miserably failed wagon train to Oregon (really, worse than the Donner party).
Imagine, a 19th century where all the women have perfect hair and dazzling bright white teeth, where people use language like it was 2020, and kill just about everyone they meet on the trail with no consequences.
Imagine a 19th century Tennessee teenager who can play Beethovan's Moonlight Sonata, narrate her life like a poet, ride English style posting, fight like a warrior, never gets sunburned, and is not only allowed to have per-marital sex, but who's family is open minded enough to allow her to marry an native American.
That's 1883, it's a teenage Western soap opera.
The only good thing about this TV series is the cameo by Graham Greene.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
Quirky Sci-fi Comedy
There's a thing about cult movies, either you love them or hate them.
If you like quirky movies that don't fit the standard model, then Buckaroo is likely for you. It is, in almost every way, unorthodox.
Peter Weller gives a perfect performance of a "perfect guy."
John Lithgow was meant to play an idiosyncratic alien.
What I liked most about this movie were the silly play between the actors/characters, tiny moments like a nudge, or an unexpected line. In addition there's the outlandish nature of the props - aliens eating potato chips, odd license plates and signs, character costumes, comic book covers, and memory devices that require you to electrify your tongue.
This movie is part of geekdom as the reference in Ready Player One testifies.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
What a lousy story
To call it Sci Fi is a travesty, it's an adolescent boy story.
Nothing but a chase scene, no story at all, no dialog, no real conversations, the characters are barely two dimensional.
The War of the Worlds (2019)
A wonderful story distroyed
Why is it that people incapable to writing a great work of literature feel they are completely entitled to take a work that has stood a hundred, two hundred, 400 hundred years and change it to make it better?
The people who made this film probably didn't even really understand that Wells was writing about the horrors of British Imperialism.
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Not Funny ... worthless
I knew a lady who was at Auschwitz. She and her mother faced Dr. Mengele, she went to the right, her mother to the left. This film trivializes the deaths of the six million Jews who were killed by Hitler and the 70 plus million who died in World War II. It's not funny at all and has no redeeming values.
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Character Review
I was 10 when the first Star Trek series came on TV. I've watch all of the originals, all of Next Generation, all of the movies, a large percentage of the other series, and read several of the books. Regrettably, this movie did not at all feel like Star Trek to me.
I'll review the characters rather than the story:
***WARNING: SPOILERS***
Bones (Karl Urban): Urban's depiction of Bones was played perfectly. He provided the only banter usually seen among Kirk, Spock, and Bones.
Scotty (Simon Pegg): I'm sure James Doohan would have approved and enjoyed the humor.
Uhura (Zoe Saldana): Saldana's part wasn't up to her acting abilities.
The Klingons: Why would anyone cover up a Klingon's face with a full helmet?
The Enterprise (yes, she is a character): She's a Star Ship not a submarine! That was not Engineering I've ever seen on any star ship in the Star Trek universe – it was a stunt set for running.
Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch): unfortunately a great actor can't go beyond the script. Two major character mistakes in the script: (1) Khan Noonien Singh is too much a living tribute to Machiavelli's The Prince to cry - it's just not in his character. (2) Not a single quote from classical literature to flaunt his "superior" intellect, not one. No Melville, no Shakespeare, no Milton
nothing. Where was Khan's venom, "
from Hell's heart, I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!"
Kirk (Chris Pine): Pine is a good actor, but he (and the writers) need to remember that the character Kirk always knows more than everyone else (you can see it in his eyes), always holds something back, and always lets the audience know that he's several steps ahead of everyone else.
Spock (Zachary Quinto): A very good depiction of Spock, but I feel as if something is missing – something subtle about the internal struggle between his Human and Vulcan self. Spock is played too young (he's suppose to be about 40 years older than Kirk) in his attitude and his actions. I don't believe he could break down the barriers of decades of Vulcan training and express the emotions he has in the time-line of this movie – especially not any public displays of affection. And he hasn't had time to explore the concept of friendship with Kirk.
The one place that Star Trek has out-shined all other science fiction (especially Star Wars) is in the sheer body of its stories and characters. That's why the die-hard fans refer to a "Star Trek Universe." That volume of work gives the characters depth.
When Spock died in the original Wrath of Khan the impact was a tremendous and heart-wrenching because it felt true, because it's what Spock would have done, because Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner had created their friendship over time, because we knew the characters. And the words "I have been and always shall be your friend" were spoken to the audience as well as the character Kirk.
Unfortunately the new franchise does not have that depth yet – two stories do not make a deep friendship and this Kirk and Spock cannot transfer that emotional connection from the original stories, so try as they might, the actors just couldn't make Kirk's death work nearly as well. The new franchise has not given its Kirk enough time to even be acquainted to Spock and his crew, so the sacrifice does not have the same impact.
I hope the franchise last long enough, and turn away from "Action" enough, to give this new generation of fans that type of character depth.
Namu, the Killer Whale (1966)
A lesson in conservation and a healthy perspective on nature
I first watched Namu when I was about 12 - the lesson it teaches has stuck with me all my life ... don't destroy nature just because you don't understand it or because you can. Namu is the "first" killer whale move, but it's also one of the first movies to take a naturalist point of view, that all creatures behave by the laws of nature
except man. Namu is a great film for kids to help them go beyond assumptions and try to see life from multiple points of view. Robert Lansing played the character of the marine biologist just right – intelligent, slow, deliberate, and even when angry he held back, not lowering himself to the level of characters that were blinded by prejudices – the character is sometimes reminiscent of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.