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John Scalzi, having previously displayed some very odd notions about what “good design” is all about (and having been factually wrong in the process), turns his eye from Star Wars to Star Trek. Unfortunately, the results are about the same: he gets some things wrong (the Probe in STIV is not attempting to “destroy everything”), he makes some odd assertions (his bit about phasers is just weird), and instead of talking about “design” he ends up talking about scientific plausibility. I mean, sure, “Red Matter” is one of the worst Maguffins I myself have ever seen in a movie, butDown the rabbit hole….

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I wrote once before on the initial graphic novel set in the Firefly universe, Those Left Behind. Now there are two such graphic novels; Those Left Behind has been joined by Better Days. While I’ll pretty much jump at nearly any chance to revisit this universe, neither of these two graphic novels is completely satisfying, which is oddly disappointing considering my belief that comics is the ideal medium for the Firefly universe to live on, if live on it does. The problem with each one boils down simply to the fact that they are too short. It took me aboutDown the rabbit hole….

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UPDATE: Broken link fixed. Apparently Bryan Singer is on the cusp of directing a Battlestar Galactica movie. That doesn’t seem terribly noteworthy, since the show just ended — except that the movie, by all reports, won’t have anything to do with the recently completed show! Instead it will draw upon the original material for the 1978 Glen A. Larson show. So a show that was on thirty years ago, and was already rebooted into a very successful show that ran for several years, will now be rebooted again into a movie franchise. Huh?! Look, I like Bryan Singer, actually. IDown the rabbit hole….

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I’ve written on The Abyss before, but I just watched it again a little while ago, and if anything, I love it even more. This is one of those movies that gets better each time I watch it. I genuinely believe it’s an underrated classic, overshadowed by the films in James Cameron’s oeuvre that bracket it: Aliens (which I don’t like) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (which I consider classic). For those who haven’t seen The Abyss: it’s set in the late 80s, before the end of the Cold War. A US nuclear submarine is cruising near an extremely deepDown the rabbit hole….

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SamuraiFrog has a nice post wherein he runs down his thoughts upon a re-viewing of the first six Star Trek movies, otherwise known as the “Original Cast” films. I’m in partial agreement with him on certain points, partial disagreement on others (my views can be found in my STAR TREK Redux series of posts from the early days of this blog; links are in the sidebar). I do have a few random thoughts: :: TMP is a good movie, and I’ve never much disliked all the effects stuff in the film. Few of the Trek films take their time. DoesDown the rabbit hole….

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A friend of mine sent me a copy of a science fiction movie from a couple of years ago called Sunshine, which I’d never heard of before. And it’s really a very good film. The plot isn’t terribly complex: at some indeterminate point in the future, the Sun is “going out”, but some physicist figures out how to make a kind of “solar bomb” that can restart the Sun. A ship is sent to deliver this bomb into the Sun, but that expedition fails for unknown reasons, so a second expedition is sent. Shortly into the movie, the ship –Down the rabbit hole….

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UPDATED below. Seldom have I been more conflicted over a movie than I am over Star Trek. I mean, wow, am I of two minds on this movie. It’s as if the film has managed to split me right down the middle, which calls for something I haven’t done in a while on this blog: a full-on geek-out of epic proportions. Beware SPOILERS! I hold nothing back. I loved watching it. Absolutely loved watching it. I don’t remember a more enjoyable piece of pure entertainment than Star Trek. Maybe the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. As a piece ofDown the rabbit hole….

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Prompted by this post by Snell, which I quoted in Sentential Links yesterday, I’ve been thinking a bit about one of the bigger misfires in Star Trek history. I’m thinking of Lieutenant Saavik. Saavik first appeared in STII: The Wrath of Khan, played by Kirstie Alley. (OK, I’ll admit it, she was among my first celebrity crushes.) As TWoK opens, the Enterprise is no longer a flagship in the fleet, but is instead pretty much of a training vessel, being used to teach Starfleet cadets the ins-and-outs of being Starfleet officers. Saavik is the highest-profile of these youngsters whom weDown the rabbit hole….

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Well, now I officially want to see the damned new Star Trek movie. I still have my misgivings and I’ll probably bitch up a storm about it afterwards, but I genuinely want to see it in the theater now. Over at AICN, there’s all kinds of coverage of last night’s surprise premiere in Austin, TX. What happened was this: the audience there was supposed to see a preview chunk of footage from the new movie, which would then be followed by a screening of a restored, pristine print of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Well, instead, they showedDown the rabbit hole….

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I’ve just watched the new trailer for Star Trek, and I’m still troubled. On the one hand it looks like a trailer for a kick-ass space opera action movie, which would be right up my alley, except they’re calling it Star Trek and using the names of characters I’m already deeply familiar with. Yes, it bugs me that they’re changing everything. No, I don’t know why it doesn’t bother me that the producers of the James Bond movies are doing roughly the same thing — but then, the Bond series is a different animal, which never came to grips withDown the rabbit hole….