Posts Tagged ‘ Star Trek ’

Wearing a red shirt does when going somewhere new is not a good idea.

Everyone knows about redshirts. In the original Star Trek, your average landing party consisted of Captain Kirk, Mr Spock, Doctor McCoy and…a security guy in a red shirt.

Their names were unimportant. Their rank was unimportant. As soon as one of these poor schmucks stepped onto the transporter platform, or boarded a shuttlecraft, or laughed at the weird kid the Captain was engaging in a little Greco-Roman wrestling with, you were guaranteed one thing: they wouldn’t be coming back for the next episode. Or possibly even the next scene.

The obvious in-story reason for this is if you want to prove how deadly the alien of the week is then the best thing you can do is to have it kill someone but, of course, you can’t just kill a regular character so the guy in the red shirt gets it instead.

It’s tough being in security on the NCC-1701.

It’s even been suggested that there’s a correlation between Captain Kirk’s romantic entanglements and the number of redshirt deaths in any given mission:

There’s a life lesson to be had here; if you’re going out with a bunch of people you kind of know, but they’re all close friends, then watch your back – especially if the ringleader is eying up the local talent. You never know when disaster will strike and you’ll suddenly be on your own at the bar because you went to the restroom and nobody noticed and they all left and didn’t say where they were going and you’re left to deal with half a dozen angry bikers.

Or, er, something like that…

It also helps not to wear anything that stands out too much.

EW has the first official images of Martin Freeman (of the excellent Sherlock and the original best Office) and Sir Ian McKellan (of virtually everything) as Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey, respectively. Oh, and there’s a bunch of dwarves too:

Not bad, eh? I’m looking forward to this an enormous amount, and it makes me want to pick up the Lord of the Rings Blu Rays – but not till they’ve dropped in price a bit.

Anyway, EW has an additional picture of director Peter Jackson and Freeman over at their site.

What EW doesn’t have is this:

Oh yes.

I know. I’m as surprised as you are.

They’re really playing down Blake Lively’s role in this whilst playing up the sci-fi aspects, and that extra $9M for SFX looks to be money well spent.

A couple of glimpses here that we haven’t seen before; first up – hey, that’s not the Green Lantern Corps logo…

Secondly, we get what I think is the first look at the Guardians, complete with semi-transparent skull –

- and they look a little familiar to me.

But that may just be me. All in all, I think the trailer’s pretty good – certainly a huge step up from the first effort – and I’m now at ‘cautiously optimistic’ regarding this. I’m still not sold on Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan, but pretty much everything else looks good.

It occurs to me that there are plenty of things I should have written about here that I haven’t over the past few weeks. In no particular order…

The Death of the Human Torch

Liked it, didn’t love it. Some nice character work (which is where Hickman seems to do his best), but shoddy plotting and characters conveniently forgetting how their powers work in order to get to the point he wants. Just as Sue forgot she could throw up a forcefield quicker than Namor can throw a trident a few issues ago, so Johnny seemed to forget he could (a) fly, and (b) go supernova and at least take some of the bugs with him. Also, the art makes his death seem a little uncertain. What’s to stop the horde stop and take him prisoner as soon as the door closes and Ben can’t see him anymore?

On the plus side, Namor’s reaction to being decked by Sue was priceless (as was her subsequent reaction to him) –

- and Johnny and Ben got their very own Spock and Kirk moment before the Torch checked out.

Other than that, though, the issue – like all of Hickman’s run – was largely disappointing.

Spider-Man joins the Fantastic FourFuture Foundation

I really have three thoughts on this: (1) it won’t last, (2) itisn’t the first time, and (3) that’s one butt-ugly costume.

Moon Knight’s new book

I’d probably actually have an opinion if I gave a monkey’s about the character – but I don’t think throwing more multiple personalities into him is a good idea, to be honest.

The Hobbit to start filming in March

About fricking time! I’ll probably listen to the press conference at some point.

Batgirl #18

Continues to be the most fun book around, and more people should read it – I mean, if you can make me enjoy an issue with Klarion in it, you’re doing something right. Don’t ever leave, Bryan Q Miller!

The death in this week’s Amazing Spider-Man

I know a lot of people will say this is yet another case for Women in Refrigerators, and the victim could just as easily have been Jonah’s son instead of his wife Marla – and they’re right, really – but the bottom line is that I don’t really care about that. It’s always bugged me that back in the 60s Jonah was responsible for the creation of the Scorpion, and financed the Spider Slayers, but that he never really got any comeback for it.

Dramatically speaking, it’ll be interesting to see where Jonah goes from here especially as he accepts his culpability. I suspect he may resign as mayor, but we’ll see. I only wish that there had been some acknowledgment that Mattie Franklin (the former Spider-Woman) had been killed recently, since she lived with Jonah and Marla for some time.

Oh, and the reason that Marla died instead of John? He’s the fricking Man-Wolf, that’s why.

The other major thing that happened in Spidey this week was the loss of the hero’s spider-sense, but that’ll probably be back soon. You know, just like the Human Torch.

Okay, that was a longer round-up than I thought. Anything else I should have commented on recently that I didn’t?

Blastr lead me to this excellent site with little pictures of bridges from various Star Trek shows and movies which are really rather nice, if completely useless to me.

So, just because I can – Jim Kirk’s original USS Enterprise 1701 (unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be a plan of the Enterprise’s bridge from the 2009 reboot, although there is an article on it):

Picard’s Enterprise-D:

And the Enterpise-E:

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Ops:

And finally, a personal favorite (on account of it being a tough little ship), the USS Defiant:

Anyway, tons more over at Ex Astris Scientia – worth a browse if you’re a Trek fan.

Via

And just in case you need the reference (honestly, it’s like I don’t know you at all…):

Someone on Twitter had mentioned that every time they watched Star Trek, they heard ‘Cardassian’ as ‘Kardashian’ – and I’ve been giggling over it for weeks. I just can’t remember who it was!

EDIT: It was @theyanni!

…maybe.

Slash/Film (and lots of other places) are reporting that Neal McDonough is in negotiations to play Dum Dum Dugan in the Captain America movie.

Dugan was second in command to Sgt Fury in the Howling Commandos in WWII, and as I’m pretty sure I read an interview with Samuel L. Jackson saying he wasn’t in Cap, I wonder if he’ll be running the troop this time out. Then again, Jackson seems to get confused as to who’s playing who in the Marvel movies so maybe I shouldn’t put too much faith in that.

Off topic, I also wonder how Dugan manages to be running around in the current MU, too – Fury had the Infinity Formula administered to him by Berthold Stermberg, but I’m pretty sure Dugan didn’t.

Maybe I shouldn’t think about it too much.

I know a lot of people thought Ted Levine should get the part and I can see why (even if I do have a hard time shaking his Silence of the Lambs‘ Buffalo Bill tuck’n'dance maneuver out of my head every time I hear his voice) but I’m sure McDonough will do fine as Dugan provided he grows a Sam Elliot-esque ‘tache for the role.

After all, McDonough has something going for him that Levine doesn’t: not only has he been in a flick about wendigos of a sort (Ravenous, underrated but pretty damn good), but he also fought the Borg.

And the Borg won.

What I want is the complete Babylon 5 series 1-5…and it just so happens to be on sale today for $100.

Yes, I know. I suckered you in with a video of Londo then made a sales pitch. Sorry.

It’s funny, but I’ve always been torn on B5. There’s a lot of it that I love – the overarching Shadow war, the break from Earth, Delenn, G’kar and Londo (possibly the two best characters in science fiction; sorry, Star Trek and BSG) – but there’s also a lot I don’t.

Their standalone episodes are amongst the worse that science fiction has ever produced. You thought the BSG boxing episode was bad? Wait till Garibaldi gets in the ring.

Some plotlines drag on interminably and simply aren’t that interesting anyway – like the doctor’s walkabout.

Some of the cast are truly, truly awful (yes, I’m looking at you, Jason Carter) – but fortunately these are offset by some barnstorming performances from the likes of Peter Jurasik, the late Andreas Katsulas, Stephen Furst, Jerry Doyle, Bill Mumy and Mira Furlan.

Most damningly, the show – almost every episode of which, incredibly, was written by series creator J.M. Straczynski – suffers from two leads (Michael O’Hare in season one, Bruce Boxleitner after that) who are either painfully wooden or overly bombastic, depending on if they have an emotional scene to play or one of JMS’ speeches to deliver.

Ah yes, the speeches. You thought those season seven Buffy speeches got repetitive? You ain’t seen nothing till you’ve seen Bruce Boxleitner bluster his way through four or five ‘this is where we make a stand’ speeches.

And yet….and yet, Babylon 5 comes together really, really well in spite of the rough patches and as I said, G’Kar (the late Andreas Katsulas) and Londo (Peter Jurasik) against all odds become the shining points of the series. So much so that I’m actually going to paste some more clips in here…

I wish I had the time to sit and watch the show through again but, alas, it’s unlikely to happen any time soon.
Ah, well.

James McAvoy has been cast as Charles Xavier in the upcoming X-Men: First Class according to THR.

McAvoy’s a great actor but I’m not really sure about this piece of casting – as much as I like him, I think that he’s going to have a hard time stepping into Patrick Stewart’s shoes.

Still, could be worse…

Found this over at AICN – Gerard and Gray better known as Buck and Wilma –

- are playing Buck Rogers’ parents in a new web series (in a scene that’s a little reminiscent of Luke telling Owen and Beru he wants to join the Rebellion):

That’s some pretty cool casting, even if they do look a little like they’re wearing ‘old age makeup’ from Star Trek TNG…

…and produces a video which may be the most disturbing and yet awesome piece of slash/fic ever.

…or a bad one, apparently…


And, of course, the inevitable

(Okay, I didn’t know what to post today and asked Twitter. One of the first to reply was Dan Faust, who said:

Blog about Jeffrey Combs, because…well, why the hell not?

That’ll teach me…)

Perhaps rivaling only Bruce Campbell in the cult actor stakes, Jeffrey Combs is a personal favorite of mine.

The Re-Animator himself has notched up an impressive list of genre credentials, not least of which is Herbert West, an HP Lovecraft creation who happens to like, well, re-animating the dead.

And who doesn’t?

Beyond that defining role, Combs has appeared in virtually every television series ever, and has had three recurring roles in various incarnations of Star Trek.

In Deep Space Nine, Combs not only portrayed greedy Ferengi Brunt, the ‘IRS guy from hell’. Brunt appeared throughout the series, mainly as an emissary of the Nagus or opposing Quark – which led to one of Quark’s best line’s in the series when Brunt stripped him of his authority to conduct business as a Ferengi: “You walk into my bar again…and you won’t walk out.”

Also on Deep Space Nine, Combs played various clones of Dominion ambassador Weyoun, one of the better recurring villains of the show (well, he’s no Dukat, but he’s right up there). Brunt and Weyoun both appeared in one episode, meaning Combs pulled double duty.

In Star Trek Enterprise, Combs played recurring Andorian Shran, originally introduced as a villain. Later, however, he became an ally of the Enterprise and per Manny Coto would have joined the permanent cast had the show been renewed for a fifth season.

As synchronicity would have it, Comb’s Shran was also used as a Guardian in the fan-made Green Lantern trailer I posted earlier this week.

Combs also played a few other roles in various Treks, apparently making him one of only five actors to play seven or more characters in the franchise. (Thanks, Memory Alpha!)

Even with all of that, the character that I remember Combs most for is still the big-gun-wielding, germ-phobic, haemorrhoid-suffering Special Agent Milton Dammer in Peter Jackson’s deeply, deeply underrated The Frighteners. Dammer’s so relentlessly over the top that he feels like he belongs in a different movie altogether but he steals every scene he’s in.

(Thanks to The Combs Corner for the pic!)

So here’s to you, Jeffrey Combs, underrated but awesome!

You’ve probably heard that Chris Hemsworth – George Kirk Sr in the latest Star Trek movie – has apparently been cast as Thor in the upcoming Marvel flick directed by Kenneth Branagh.

I can see it, actually – Hemsworth made a good impression during his brief screentime in Star Trek, and he certainly seems pretty imposing physically.

Poor old William Shatner.

Not only did he not get to show up as old Jim Kirk in the quite excellent Star Trek movie, but also the only other Star Trek role he ever played slipped into non-existence as well…

Yep, George Kirk, Jim’s older brother by four years, seems to have been conveniently erased from the timeline.

In fact, that kid that young Jim speeds past in his stepdad’s Corvette (stepdad voiced by a certain Greg Grunberg)? Apparently that was at one point supposed to have been George – but it was not to be.

Original image via

…and it was good. Beyond good. It was great.

I had my doubts about it, true, but they were washed away pretty quick by a great opening sequence that sets much of the tone of the movie.

The script’s sharp and funny – very funny in parts – and the performances from the leads are all on the money. Chris Pine is Kirk. He just is. He has the charisma, the confidence and the poise. Quinto’s great as Spock, keeping his emotions just below the surface.

John Cho, Zoe Saldana and Anton Yelchin don’t get a huge amount to do, but they do well with what they have (and yes, Chekov’s accent is played for laughs a few times, and it’s bound to annoy some people but I found it pretty funny).

Simon Pegg’s Scotty is a very different take on the character, but he steals every scene he’s in – but Karl Urban…Karl Urban embodies not only McCoy but also pretty much everything he does is a nod to DeForest Kelley. He absolutely nails it.

Eric Bana doesn’t get too much to do as Nero except be menacing, but he does it well, and Bruce Greenwood’s Christopher Pike just proves that he’s a greatly underused actor – this Pike is a guy that can inspire and lead you into battle.

And then there’s Leonard Nimoy, who may actually be 190 years old at this point.

I was a little worried about Orci and Kurtzman writing the screenplay, if only because I thought Transformers was a mess, but they really brought their A-game to this – the script was tight, funny, and fast moving. There were maybe two unnecessary scenes in the whole thing, and neither one of them really felt too forced.

And the direction’s top notch – JJ Abrams completely reinvents Star Trek for the masses here. It’s less static, filled with creative angles, movements and shots – I haven’t seen space battles like this on the big screen, certainly not in Trek. And the Enterprise’s bridge may be clean and bright, but the engine room and lower decks are more like a submarine’s – this is a place people work.

There will still be purists who hate the reboot/alternate reality of the movie, but this is exactly what Star Trek needed to reach out to the masses, and that’s what it needed to survive. This is Star Trek – and I’m happily going to put down the money to see it again this weekend.

Thank you, Jay Garmon, for pointing me in this direction.

Thank you.

Good to see that alternate universe or not, you don’t want to be the gung ho guy in a red shirt. Or suit.