So I saw Star Trek a week ago and I guess I’m ready to write about the experience.  On the Reviewer’s Scale of Re-Imaginings and Re-Boots, Star Trek falls somewhere between Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Peter Jackson’s King Kong.  It doesn’t ruin fond memories of my childhood, but it doesn’t quite make me wish I was a kid again so I could be terrified by a whole new breed of bugs.  I left the movie without feeling ripped off, but still slightly annoyed that some people will go so far in some aspects of film-making and skimp so badly on others of equal importance.

The movie looks fantastic.  The sets and ships and cgi looks pretty damn great.  Everything looks cool, but not always Star Trek-y.  The production felt very much like someone had been watching a lot of Enterprise and other Trek series, and then remembered some cool stuff from Battlestar Galactica (new series).  For example, the phasers look very similar to the original series, but behave like a lot of the weapons in Enterprise, retaining a sort of functional mechanization to the prop itself.  There are tons of aliens seamlessly, and heedlessly, thrown into the backgrounds and foregrounds of crowd scenes.

The plot is not bad, by Star Trek standards.  That caveat is important because a viewer needs to remember that Trek does certain things in its Trek way and these things can be totally dumb in any other setting but Trek always makes it seem ok.  Like time travel.  Or God-like beings living in the center of the galaxy.  Or reincarnation through proto-matter.  Or Nazis on other planets.  Or any of the other goofy things that would never fly in Babylon 5 or Firefly or etc, etc, etc.  So when I say the plot is not bad, I mean the sequence of events that together contribute to the telling of a story works and is entertaining.

The weak points were almost minor enough, but still silly.  Every time you saw an experienced Captain, the guy left his ship in the hands of the nearest person.  Every single one of them removed their own obstacle from Kirk’s path to the big chair.

The dialogue is a completely different story.  Most of it comes straight out of the Big Fukkin Book of Action Movie Dialogue Book For Big Fukkin Summer Movies: Lock and load while saddlin’ up Edition with a New Foreword by Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer.  The bright exceptions being Spock and McCoy.  Karl Urban channeled Deforest Kelley pretty effectively, though it felt a little forced at times.  Zachary Quinto did a damn fine Spock and seemed to be the best written character in the movie.  Kirk’s lines were rather limp and his fight scenes were a travesty for the flying-leg-kicker.  He used to win fights.  I feel like shouldn’t hold that against the movie, but for a guy who was supposed to have “advanced hand to hand training,” he got his ass beat a lot.

The major point that I can imagine everyone griping over, which I feel would be too spoilery to reveal, is explained with the epitome of all Star Trek explanations in all series, ever and for all time: alternate realities.  There is not a single series that didn’t deal with this aspect of time travel, so far as I know, and a movie using it, much less the director and writers using it, feels so utterly appropriate that I almost want to applaud Abrams and his people for this explanation/excuse.  Except that I think applause in a movie theater is beyond stupid, unless you are attending a special screening with the stars or something.  It gives them great license and freedom in sequels, but we all know the dangers of giving people too much freedom in sequels.  Sam Raimi.

In 2008, I think I might have read ten books and I am rather ashamed of this. I started the year pretty well, with three books by Jonathan Lethem (Gun, With Occasional Music; Motherless Brooklyn; As She Climbed Across the Table) and then wandered off into the land of a whole lot of crap. I read two books by John Ringo which barely qualified as beach reading (Vorpal Blade; Watch on the Rhine). I read Voyage of the Shadowmoon by Sean McMullen which I had high hopes for after reading a couple of the books from the Greatwinter series several years ago. The year improved vastly with Anathem by Neal Stephenson and ended with Pride and Prejudice.

Sidebar: I don’t know how I feel about admitting that I read that last book, but there it is.

The books by Lethem were great and have been discussed many times by other people smarter than I, so I’ll just recommend them and anything else he’s written to anyone who chooses to read this blog. If you’re reading this, then you’re extremely likely to enjoy his work.

Additional Sidebar: I think I could do with more reading.

John Ringo is pretty much the polar opposite of Lethem. His writing is pedestrian and his editor is lazy. Not only did I notice actual spelling errors and punctuation mistakes, but the author overuses cliches to deadly effect. I noticed this with his other books about the Posleen aliens, but I was kinda hoping that the co-author might have tempered this tendency. Alas. I can’t really recommend Ringo, without a heavy grain of salt and a large sunny beach to sit on while reading. His characters are pretty much all super heroes, both hard core military-types and also holding multiple doctorates. They’re rather like a Doctor Who with a gun, and get a little annoying in that regard. You can’t relate to them at all, but at least he tends to kill off quite a few of them in most of his books. His attempts to drift into hard-science fiction territory often go awry and detract from the action, a bit like Michael Bay trying to host a re-make of Cosmos.

Further Sidebar: I doubt my novel will be any better.

Sean McMullen’s Voyage of the Shadowmoon was a little disappointing as well. The book clearly had a lot of backstory which intrigued me, but, like the show Lost, kept you in the dark about a lot of stuff. At the time of reading, there were no other books yet in the series, nor did my copy mention that it was the start of a new series. Perhaps I will withhold further judgement until I have read more.

Yet Another Sidebar: Still not letting myself get involved in Lost.

Anathem was a lot of fun. I have not read the Baroque Cycle, but I didn’t really like Leibniz or Spinoza anyway. Anathem was far more interesting and maintain’s Stephenson’s cool but human hero trend while incorporating Socratic thought. A lot of Socratic stuff actually, probably more than I noticed, given how bad a student I was. If you liked his other books, you’ll like Anathem. If you want Stephenson to get back to his pre-Baroque form, you’ll like Anathem. If you like protractors and orbital mechanics, you’ll like Anathem. If you’re a dork who wants to save the world through applied mathmatics, you’ll like Anathem.

Superfluous Sidebar: I liked Anathem.

As for Pride and Prejudice, I will admit to reading it. I will even admit to enjoying it. I will admit to nothing else.

Since Micro-Brew Review Monday died a long time ago on another platform and since I have time to write today, consider this a new series that will continue for as long as my current employment holds and as long as my current enjoyment of both writing and beer hold.

Clipper City is a Baltimore-based brewery and they make a variety of fine libations, but so far my favorite has been the Marzhon. The Marzhon is an Oktoberfest style amber lager. The name is a play on the Baltimore slang “hon,” a term for just about anyone as far as I know, and the name of the style of brew, marzen(umlaut missing on the a). It’s not too hoppy or too malty, nor is it cloying or bitter. I think this is what better reviewers and more seasoned tongues would call “balance.” Marzhon is just a damn good and yummy. I would drink it year round and definitely with spicy food, but it would work well with nearly any food as the flavor is not particularly heavy. I would easily recommend this beer to someone who was not sure that they are a fan of beer yet.

This beer was drunk at the Brickskeller.

The Velvet Lounge schedule is chock full of shows I want to see.  Or maybe it’s chock a block full.  Regardless, I’ve got to find some way to go to these shows:

Thursday, Wise Light Born (mem. of Barkitecture/Meadows/Antlers/Baby Killer Estelle), Adventure (Carpark), EAR PWR (Asheville electro-pop), this show raises my eyebrows of doom and makes me scratch my chin.  And it’s only $7!

Friday, Girl Loves Distortion (CD release!), Relay (shoegaze/psych-pop from Philly, Bubblecore), Timberwolf Division (ex-Ropers/Sounds of Kaleidoscope/Fretblanket/Owls & Crows), Himalaya (ex-Three Four Tens, NYC shoegaze/ psych-rock), how can a guy miss this show?  The sheer number of explanations and genres mentioned would probably rouse even fulsome from his decades-long hibernation.  All this for $8!

Next week, Stella Schindler, Rose, and the Blueheels are playing on the 3rd.  Two women I have been hoping would play a show together have responded to my subconscious wishes.  I hadn’t heard of the Blueheels until tonight, but damn, I like their music.  If I lived in Madison, Wis, I would be going to their show on the Memorial Union Terrace on the 31st of August.  I guess you call the sound alternative country or indie american or some shitty description for music that always seems to fail at describing music I like.

Also up next week, First Monday of the Month at Iota Club and Cafe.

I’m pretty broke, so if people could put Chuckles on the list at the Velvet Lounge, I’ll blog about your show.

I hereby declare a moratorium on my non-posting.  I also hereby declare a moratorium on using the names Jericho, Stone, Mike, Caine, Cain, Kayne, Valerie, Valeria, Lynch, Slade, Slaine, Slane, Hammer, or Thor for books and videogames.  They are being removed from circulation for an unspecified period of time to be no less than 100 years.

I hope you all like music reviews because I am working on a lot of those.

In many areas of life, there is a pecking order.  This order is either vigorously enforced or self-enforced or perhaps even ignored.  In the armed forces, this is called the chain of command.  In a professional environment, this is called the blame chute.  Agricultural biologists will tell you that various farm animals are extremely dependent, behaviorally, on a pecking order and thus our supply of chicken fingers is subsequently dependent on it.

In college, there were many orders that I ignored and some that I enjoyed.  Nerd pedigree was one that I particularly enjoyed.  I did not flaunt it a lot, but when I did, I liked to think that I was somehow more nerdy and thus a better nerd than my wannabe peers.*  In this regard, I direct your attention to two old comic strips that previously graced the back pages of Dragon Magazine.

What’s New with Phil and Dixie

Buck Godot: zap gun for hire

*For example, I slipped a Car Wars reference into a rant about movies a couple posts ago.

From the horse’s mouth:

n that regard, Martin Heidigger was a German philosopher and a student of Husserl. I was introduced to Heidigger in college in a way that has colored my limited exposure to his philosophy. I will do some research and then present my findings to this forum in one week’s time. I will also present a followup in one month’s time.

I say this because if I don’t, you are all free to mock me mercilessly for being a lazy ass.

If you look at the post preceding this, I think it is easy for us to all agree that a post saying “Research is hard” does not really meet the minimum qualifications for a post relating to the thought of Heidegger. As a result, and combined with the fact that today is Friday and therefore I am less inclined towards real work, I was trying to come up with a contest along the lines of Pinko’s (in)famous examples.

So…allow me to unveil this gem. Chuckles is so half-assed he can’t sit straight. That’s right, another ripped from the 3Bulls! multiverse insult stream. I think there might be some people out there who are playing along at home and don’t even know it!

In addition to certain unnamed projects to which I will only refer cryptically, I am eagerly looking forward to any news about the film production of World War Z. The book was amazing and awesome and so many other words and now that I have heard that the script is being written by Mr. Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski, I am in full on pants-checking anticipatory mode.

The Zombie Survival Guide was really damn neat and thoroughly consistent in ways that I enjoy when reading books or watching movies. World War Z kept that consistency and tossed in a heaping helping of emotion and tension. It was sweeter than a pile of ponies ridden by baby pandas, but if sweet meant super rad and not like the kind of sweet that seems to have infected 3 Bulls of late.

Ok, I don’t know if anyone has Halloween plans this weekend (hopefully you do). But I’ve found a site that details some funny costumes that you probably should not wear.

Unfortunately, the list includes the picture of Chuckles dressed as Legolas shown on the right. So read at your own risk.

Excerpt below:

Zack: Robocop.

Dr. Thorpe: Yeah, fuck, I pictured the costume.

Zack: Shit. Try it on me.

Dr. Thorpe: Robocop.

Zack: Goddammit.

It’s actually a hilarious article so read it now!