Revisiting the Movies – Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
June 30, 2009 at 7:00 am | In Movie Reviews, Sam Christopher, Summer of Star Trek | 8 CommentsTags: Star Trek
(Continuing our Summer of Star Trek series)
By Sam Christopher
Rating: 5 out of Stars (Highest Rating)
A third film to the Trek franchise was a foregone conclusion by the end of the second picture. Originally, Leonard Nimoy hadn’t wanted to be in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan but had been talked into it based on two premises. First, he believed that this would be the last ST film, and second, he was given a dramatic death scene for the character that would undoubtedly be the most memorable thing about the film. But while filming the TWoK Nimoy apparently enjoyed himself and the character he had hated for so long (his first biography was titled I Am Not Spock!) that he came up with an idea to resurrect the character in the third film that was looking more and more likely, I would think, as the dailies were rolling in and the good buzz was ramping up and up. So when Harve Bennett approached Nimoy about making ST III legend has it the actor’s answer was, “Hell, yes! And I want to direct!” Nimoy, I’m sure, being the astute businessman he is, realized he had the three most important ingredients in getting your way in Hollywood: leverage, enthusiasm, and leverage. Unless they thought he would be an absolute disaster as a director there was just no way Paramount could realistically say no to him on it. Imagine the fan reaction if he got miffed and walked. But, of course, that never came close to happening; Nimoy was hired to direct, Bennett wrote the script, the cast was assembled—with Robin Curtis taking over a Saavik from Kirstie Alley—and the filming began.
This installment takes over directly from the end of ST II, with a battle-damaged Enterprise en route back to Earth, where they’re told that the ship is to be decommissioned and the personnel reassigned. On the voyage back, Dr. McCoy had acted strangely, breaking into Spock’s sealed quarters and even speaking in Spock’s voice. On Earth, McCoy is arrested in a bar trying to hire a ship to take him to the Genesis Planet, which has been quarantined while the Federation studies the full effects of the Genesis Device which Kirk’s son, David, created and Khan had detonated in a last ditch attempt to kill Kirk and crew. Spock’s father Sarek shows up at Kirk’s quarters and tells him of Spock’s katra, which is basically the Vulcan soul, and they figure out that McCoy has it and that Spock may have been reborn in some way on Genesis. So Kirk, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, and McCoy steal the Enterprise—with Uhura as a co-conspirator who doesn’t accompany the rest on the ship– and head for Genesis.
Two other subplots are also going on during all this. First, David Marcus and Saavik are on the USS Grissom, a science vessel, studying Genesis, and a Klingon ship commanded by Kruge (Christopher Lloyd) has somehow appropriated the file on the Genesis Device and decides that this is too powerful a weapon for the Federation to be allowed to keep. The Klingons and the Enterprise meet at Genesis and a battle ensues with David Marcus and Saavik on the planet, having found “a Vulcan scientist of your acquaintance” who is “not himself”, as Saavik describes him.
I love this film and I love talking about it, but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. I know you already know the Big Thing that happens but it’s all the wonderful little moments along the way that make it worth seeing. This picture is the best of the lot of ST films because this one is an action-adventure story with heart, a tale in which the humanity of the characters means more than any of the technical aspects of the futuristic backdrop. This is all about friendship and love and trust and loyalty, it’s about not letting a friend down no matter what it costs you in the long run, it’s about honor and respect and everything that represents the best in all of us.
Final notes: The novelization, by Vonda N. McIntyre, expanded on David Marcus’s and Saavik’s relationship; they had become lovers while investigating the Genesis phenomenon together. I wish they could have added some of that to the film version as it would have explained some of the comments and the looks they exchanged. I’ve never watched any of the deleted scenes so perhaps there is something there about it. There was also—and this is a vague recollection—something about Scotty returning home to Scotland for a memorial service for his nephew. There may have also been something about Sulu being passed over for a command or turning one down—or that may have been in the novelization for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
Buy Star Trek III: The Search for Spock on DVD at Amazon.com
Weekend Box Office Results – Transformers Breaks the Box Office
June 30, 2009 at 6:59 am | In Box Office Results, John J. Joex | 1 CommentTags: Star Trek
By John J. Joex
Call me wrong. Before the Summer movie season started, I figured that Star Trek would certainly be the biggest winner at the Box Office. But then Disney/Pixar’s geriatric animated comedy Up went and outperformed it, and now, after just a few short days, it looks like the new Transformers will blow away all competition this Summer. That movie did an amazing $109 million over the weekend with a total domestic gross of $200 million because it bowed early last Wednesday. That puts it just at number seven on the all time list for opening weekend totals and sets it up to demolish its competition this Summer. Up increased its take to $250 this weekend and Star Trek crept up to $246, but both will continue to fade in the coming weeks and I would say that only Harry Potter has any sort of chance of challenging Transformers for dominance at the box office for the rest of the season.
Still vying for flops of the season are Land of the Lost, which is currently at a draw of $47 million vs. a $100 million budget, and Imagine That, which has currently only brought in $14 million vs. a $55 million budget.
Following are the results for all of the Science Fiction and Fantasy oriented movies in the Top 20 for the weekend of June 26-28:
Title / Box Office Rank (Rank Prior Week) / Weekend (Total) Draw
1) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – Prior Wk: New, Draw (Total): $108.97 MM ($200.08 MM)
4) Up – Prior Wk: 3, Draw (Total): $13.06 MM ($250.23 MM)
8) Star Trek – Prior Wk: 7, Draw (Total): $3.71 MM ($246.33 MM)
9) Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian – Prior Wk: 6, Draw (Total): $3.64 MM ($163.39 MM)
11) Land of the Lost – Prior Wk: 8, Draw (Total): $1.2 MM ($46.82 MM)
12) Angels & Demons – Prior Wk: 11, Draw (Total): $1.09 MM ($130.28 MM)
13) Terminator Salvation – Prior Wk: 10, Draw (Total): $1.09 MM ($121.93 MM)
14) Imagine That – Prior Wk: 9, Draw (Total): $.94 MM ($14.07 MM)
15) Drag Me to Hell – Prior Wk: 12, Draw (Total): $.58 MM ($40.54 MM)
18) Monsters Vs. Aliens – Prior Wk: 26, Draw (Total): $.37 MM ($195.98 MM)
20) X-Men Origins: Wolverine – Prior Wk: 14, Draw (Total): $.31 MM ($177.84 MM)
Source: Box Office Mojo
Previous Results: Up Approaches Star Trek in Total Draw
Also, Check Out Our Summer 2009 Movie Science Fiction and Fantasy Movie Preview
Weekly Update – Fuller Leaves Heroes Again; The Eleven Doctors; Digital Comics
June 29, 2009 at 7:15 am | In News and Updates, Paul S. White | 1 CommentTags: Chuck, Comics, Doctor Who, Heroes, Merlin, The Listener
Bryan Fuller Departs for Other Projects: He’s off Heroes, he’s on Heroes, he’s off again. Once again, Bryan Fuller (creator of cult favorites like Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies) has departed the creative staff of NBC’s struggling series. Allegedly, he has left to work on other projects for the network and his short stay was planned all along. However, he did previously express some frustration over the mess that Heroes had become in its second and third season and may have decided that his time would be better spent working on his own projects. He has two pilots in the works right now, so we can look forward to that, but what about the fate of Heroes? That show has struggled creatively for two seasons and it experienced a significant ratings slump this past year. Without a notable turn-around in performance in its coming fourth season, we can expect NBC to most likely bail on the show.
NBC Debut Dates: Speaking of Heroes, NBC has announced its Fall premiere dates and that show is their lone Science Fiction and Fantasy entry on the schedule for the first half of the season. The fourth season of Heroes will debut with a two hour premiere on Monday, September 21st at 8 PM EST. It will then settle into its new 8 PM timeslot (one hour earlier than the last three seasons) for the remainder of the Fall. Employing their new “timeslot sharing” strategy, NBC will then roll out the third season of Chuck in that same hour starting in January 2010. Their other genre entry for the 2009-10 season, Day One, will also debut during the season half of the season.
The New Doctor Who will Debut with a Reunion: Matt Smith with be the eleventh actor to play the role of the Doctor (on television) and he will take up the mantel of the iconic character on the weekly series starting in 2010. However, he will first appear in that role in a fifteen minute special for charity that will unite all eleven incarnations of the character. All of the original actors will reprise their roles with the late William Hartnell, Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton appearing by way of footage from their original stints on the series. There is no word at this point on when or if the special will air stateside, though certainly BBC America will bring it over at some point.
Digital Comics from Longbox: We have already seen IDW and Dark Horse experiment with digital comics for the iPhone, now another company is looking to offer a new platform for this format. Longbox plans to offer a service later this year which they call “a digital comics platform similar to iTunes”. Initially they will work with publishers Boom! Studios and Top Cow and will offer downloadable comics for 99 cents. They also hope to expand the number of publishers that they work with going forward. They currently plan to have the service available for downloading digital comics sometime in Fall.
Ratings Update: NBC’s British import Fantasy series Merlin failed to stir up any ratings magic for the network as its two hour premiere averaged only a 1.4 rating in the 18-49 demo and around 5.3 million viewers. I’m sure NBC would have liked to see a better performance, but for a Summer series they will probably be happy enough if the show holds onto those numbers. Part one of ABC’s disaster series Impact did even worse averaging a 1.1 rating and about 4.7 million viewers. Performing even worse was FOX’s burn-off of the failed pilot Virtuality. It’s Friday night bow pulled in only a 0.5 rating and 1.8 million viewers which will do nothing to nothing to change the network’s mind about passing on it as a series (Johnny Jay liked it though, read his review here). The Listener was pre-empted this past week to run a a Farrah Fawcett special (and don’t expect a make-up run on that episode). And on Saturday, the Kings and Eli Stone burn-off episodes continued to languish.
Previous Update:
June 22nd – Primeval Cancelled, Wetpaint to Measure Fan Engagement, Fall Premiere Dates
Did we miss something? Have a tip or piece of news relating to Science Fiction and Fantasy that you would like to share? Send it to us at mail@axiomsedge-scifi.com. If you have a blog or website, we will gladly link back to your original post for any news pieces you pass along.
Looking Back: Old Time Radio Shows
June 29, 2009 at 7:00 am | In Articles, Reviews, Sam Christopher | 3 CommentsTags: Audio, Science Fiction Radio
By Sam Christopher
Before television supplanted radio as the primary broadcast medium for entertainment, spoken-word dramas and comedies were beamed to the homes of children of all ages across America and overseas for our servicemen and women. Family comedies like Fibber McGee and Molly, Father Knows Best, and The Life of Riley, along with skit comedies like Jack Benny and Abbott and Costello, brought smiles to millions, while westerns like Gunsmoke and The Six-Shooter (which starred Jimmy Stewart) set the stage for the great tv westerns to come. The detective drama was also a well-loved genre for the medium, too, with great shows like Dragnet, Yours Truly, and Johnny Dollar, along with many others bringing mystery and adventure into their listeners’ heads. And, of course, any discussion of the “theater of the mind” would be incomplete without mentioning the great works of speculative fiction presented within it. There are far too many of these shows to do them justice in one column, so here are just a few to start with…
The Shadow
“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows! (Evil laugh)”
So began this radio drama about a “superhero” whose main power was a psychic ability to cloud men’s minds so that he became invisible to them. That and an evil ominous laugh that instilled fear in his prey. Beginning as just the narrator of a mystery anthology program in 1930, The Shadow character proved so popular that the series was cancelled in 1935 in order to completely retool the character (along the lines of the pulp fiction magazine that was already in production) and in 1937 he returned as the star of his own show. Orson Welles played The Shadow, as well as The Shadow’s alter ego Lamont Cranston, a wealthy “man about town”. This show also introduced Margo Lane, Cranston’s girlfriend (for want of a better word; their relationship was never clearly defined) and the only person to know The Shadow’s true identity. My two favorites in the roles are Bill Johnstone, who took over from Welles (although Welles does a very good Cranston), and Agnes Moorhead (who was also Samantha’s mother on Bewitched, among many other roles in radio, tv, and film) as Lane. However, the most interesting behind the scenes story I can think of from the series is Welles’. It was his habit to arrive at the studio about five minutes before the broadcast and read the script cold, without ever having seen it before. He said he preferred being surprised by the events of the stories the same way the characters were.
The scripts could be very inventive, too. Criminals were forever trying to trap The Shadow despite his invisibility to them. One forced The Shadow to come at him from across a bay, reasoning that he could see the ripples in the water and find The Shadow that way, and another rigged a door with an electronic sensor to slam shut if anything crossed its threshold. There were dark museums and ghostly ships in the fog, with murderous smugglers and gangland wiseguys: a perfect brew for carrying us through the darkest night for the better part of two decades.
“The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay! The Shadow knows! (evil laugh)”
X Minus One
“Countdown for blastoff… X minus five… four… three… two… X minus one… fire! (Rocket blasts off as music builds to crescendo) From the far horizons of the unknown comes transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future; adventures in which you’ll live in a million could-be years on a thousand may-be worlds. The National Broadcasting Company, in association with Street and Smith, publishers of Astounding Science Fiction, present… (echo effect) X <x,x,x> Minus <minus, minus, minus> One <one, one, one>!”
One of my absolute favorite sf radio shows, this ran for nearly three years, from April ’55 to January ’58, taking over from the short-lived but also outstanding show Dimension X (see later column). Like its predecessor, this show featured great sf of the day as told by the great sf writers of the day. Among my favorites:
“And the Moon Be Still as Bright”, a piece of the great master Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, in which the second Earth expedition to Mars carries a man who comes to see himself as the last Martian.
“The Veldt”, also by Bradbury, which chronicled in grisly fashion the dangers of holodeck technology.
Frederick Pohl’s “Tunnel Under the World”, in which an advertising exec comes up with a unique method of creating the perfect focus group.
Robert Sheckley’s “Skulking Permit”, in which a colony that’s been cut off from Mother Earth for centuries is contacted by the new regime here and figures they better do whatever they have to to fit in. This is a very funny story.
There are many others I could name here, “A Logic Named Joe”, “A Pail of Air”, as well as many others I’ve heard but don’t have the name for off the top of my head. As with any anthology series, of course, some installments were better than others but overall this was an outstanding showcase for sf.
Suspense
“Radio’s outstanding theater of thrills presents… a story well-calculated to keep you in… SUSPENSE!”
Another anthology series, this one focusing not on sf but rather dramatic stories with an air of mystery to them, this show nonetheless boasted some great storytelling in the range of the fantastic. These included adaptation’s of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Curt Siodmak’s great novel Donovan’s Brain, as well as the Lovecraftian short “Black Door”, about an expedition into the hidden world behind a black door found at the bottom of a volcano in a South American jungle. Usually well-written and well-acted, this show nearly always pleased.
Rogue’s Gallery
And the last one for today is a detective show starring Dick Powell, who would go on to the more celebrated role of Richard Diamond, Private Investigator. This is a pretty straight-forward drama about a PI named Richard Rogue, except for the character Eugor, who acts as Rogue’s “alter-enemy” and introduces a fantasy element to the program. Whenever Rogue is knocked unconscious (as he invariably is in every show), he finds himself ascending to “Cloud 8” and is laughed at and hounded by the cackling sprite Eugor (“Rogue” spelled backwards) until being forced back into consciousness by said sprite. A very fun show, imbued with the easy-going, witty charm that Powell brought to everything he did.
That’s it for now, folks. To hear these and other of these great shows, either subscribe to XM/Sirius or go to the Radio Spirits website, where you can order or download to your heart’s delight. Also, many episodes from shows like X Minus One and Suspense are available for free download at OTR.Network Library.
Television Review – Virtuality
June 28, 2009 at 5:00 am | In John J. Joex, Television Reviews | 5 CommentsBy John J. Joex
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
Virtuality is a television series pilot written and produced by Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica) that follows the crew of a deep space mission. They are headed to the Epsilon Eridani star system on a journey that will take ten years. Their day to day activities on the ship are recorded and transmitted back to Earth where viewers watch them on television, reality series-style. In addition, each crew member has a virtual reality module that they can use as an escape from the rigors of deep space travel. However, a glitch in the programming has lead to several bad experiences in the virtual world, and they consider switching off the system for the duration of the mission. This glitch seems to extend beyond that, though, and ultimately leads to the death of one of the crew members which points toward a potentially subversive plot unfolding on the ship. So essentially, Virtuality gives us hard science fiction meets reality television meets the Star Trek holodecks meets murder mystery meets a conspiracy story arc.
If that description makes this two hour movie sound like an odd mish-mash of ideas and genres, then you are following right along with me. Ronald D. Moore did a good job of turning the iconic Battlestar Galactica franchise upside down and he apparently wants to keep heads spinning with his latest venture. I have to admit that half way through Virtuality I felt like his eclectic, genre-splicing movie was a bit more than I could stomach, though I stuck it out and by the end he had finally won me over.
It is filmed very much like a realty series, with the jerky, hand-held camera flitting about try to catch the quibbles among each of the crew members along with separate “confessional” pieces directed at the camera. And really, the characters seem like some of the standard types that Reality TV producers cobble together to generate the required amount of friction that draws viewers to watch their shows (and for that matter, parts of the interior of the ship resemble those super-sleek apartments where MTV’s The Real World often boards its participants). This aspect of the series can be a bit disconcerting to non-Reality TV fans, but at the same time you have to admit that there is a hint of authenticity to the way that the people interact with one another.
Adding the virtual reality system to the mix of course draws immediate comparisons to the holodecks of the Star Trek franchise (right down to its tendency toward malfunction). However, Virtuality takes a very different approach. Each person wears a virtual reality visor that lets them see and experience this cyber-world, though it is not physically “real” like Trek’s holodecks. And to what extent this virtual reality engages all five senses is not made completely clear. The participants seem to fully experience the situations in their mind, including sexual encounters, but we don’t know just how real it feels to them. Still, having such a system on a long voyage makes a lot of sense.
Which leads to the next part of this movie that I really appreciate. Moore takes a very realistic, scientifically accurate approach toward space travel (including no sound in space!). So often, space travel in television and movies follows whichever physical laws that the writers feel like acknowledging at any given point in time (or simply no laws at all). Virtuality on the other hand tries to portray life and travel in space as accurately as possible. So even if you dislike all of the other aspects of this movie, you have to at least appreciate this rare attempt to give viewers a more accurate portrayal of what it would be like to travel in deep space.
As far as the cast, they all seem to fit quite well in each of their respective roles. Nikolaj Coster Waldau (of 2008’s New Amsterdam), stands out as the captain of the ship and the one person who can keep this collection of oddballs from ending up at each other’s throats. The rest of the cast include an assortment of actors that you have seen in guest slots or supporting roles in various television shows and movies and will have you saying “where did I see that person before”? Among the standouts we have Clea Duvall from Carnivale and James D’Arcy from Master and Commander.
Ultimately, this movie seems somewhat unapproachable at first and a bit difficult to digest. But if you think about it, that could easily describe Battlestar Galactica at times. As I mentioned, at first I didn’t like it, then I did, then after sleeping on it I liked it even more. And I went from originally deciding to give the movie a 3.5 rating to boosting it to a 4. Check back with me in a week and maybe I will change that up or down.
Virtuality was intended to proceed into a series, but FOX chose to pass on it, and I while I might understand their thinking because of the density of the movie, I would definitely like to see more. Maybe one or two sequel movies? The death of the crew member leads to the suggestion of some sort of conspiracy or larger sequence events that could play out over two or three more movies, and I would definitely tune in for those. I highly doubt this one could survive the weekly grind of a network series, though.
To reinforce that thought, the movie barely registered in the Nielsens pulling only a 0.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 1.8 million viewers (and for those of you who missed it, you can still catch it online at FOX.com). I’m sure once the DVR returns come in the number of viewers will rise, but despite that and the fact this ran during a typically low viewership timeslot, those numbers will definitely scare FOX away from putting any more money into this concept. Still, I’m betting that Virtuality will start to pick up some cult notoriety and could return at some point and on some channel either as an ongoing or limited series or several made for TV/DVD movies. And when and if it does, I will definitely tune in.
Watch Virtuality Online at FOX.com
For More info on Virtuality, go to TV.com
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Quick Hits – Checking in on Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman
June 27, 2009 at 7:35 am | In Comic Book Reviews, Quick Hits, Sam Christopher | 1 CommentTags: Batman, Star Trek, Superman
By Sam Christopher
A dark week on the celeb front as Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson all died. McMahon was the greatest sidekick ever, a great straight man to Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. Farrah was the first woman I ever loved outside my family—but there are tens of thousands of us who could say that—and her heroic battle with cancer showed her to be a woman of strength as well as beauty. Jackson was a great singer/songwriter, and very astute businessman in the music industry, whose life fell apart toward the end. Of the three, only Jackson’s death could be called a surprise to the public at large. Our collective, and my personal, condolences to the families and loved ones of these three, as well as to the thousands of other people who died this past week that weren’t celebrities.
On to comics…
“World’s Finest” Way to Start
Since Batman titles have been taking a larger and larger role in these columns over the past few weeks, I thought some words about Superman (before some more about the new Bat-Family titles) would make a good beginning. And I still think that but there was very little Superman anywhere this week. Justice League of America #34 had Supes help two other folks save the entire space/time continuum in a two-page vignette hidden away within an otherwise unimpressive Starbreaker snoozefest; it was the end of this lame storyline so I guess we could feel a little better for that. In the Last Days of Animal Man #2, The Big Red “S” shows up with the rest of the JLA to stop Buddy from beating Prizmatik—whose origin had moments before been laid out for us—to death. They were summoned there, BTW, by the Green Lantern of this near-future, a GL who’s not Hal, John, Guy, or Kyle, not even human in fact. This GL decided that Blank’s fading, flickering powers and fragile, incendiary psyche required some friendly intervention by members of Buddy’s own species. Good stuff. And then there’s Superman #689, which has no Kryptonian involvement whatever, although Morgan Edge does go on tv to cast aspersions at Mon-El—going under the premise that “If it sounds like a Kryptonian, and it flies like a Kryptonian—and even Supes himself, helping to maintain the Kryptonian presence in the absence of any actual Kryptonian presence. Mon, meanwhile, is too busy flying all over the world and saving people to pay much attention, but The Guardian goes on with Edge and sets him straight. And, in an unrelated sidenote, gen. Lane sets in motion his next scheme to show the world how despicable, untrustworthy and vicious the Kryptonians really are: The wanton, cold-blooded murder of John Henry Irons.
And then we have the Bat-Universe. First, the easy, Bruce Wayne-centric title: Batman: The Brave and the Bold #6, in which Bats and Kid Eternity (who here has the power to summon dead heroes from the past) battle hordes from history under the “direction” of General Immortus. The J. Torres story—which started off with The Dark Knight paired with Hourman and moved through Immortus gaining the Spear of Destiny before the final act—was fine, but I wasn’t thrilled with the Andy Suriano artwork.
Now we move to the womenfolk of the Batman Family (remember that story where Batgirl fought the ghost of Benedict Arnold from that title?), as Batwoman takes over the title with Detective Comics #854, written by Greg Rucka and drawn by JH Williams III, with a The Question backup feature by Rucka and Cully Hamner. In the first story, Katherine finds her personal life in a shambles, her attempt at a relationship with Anna destroyed by Kathy’s single-minded pursuit of the new leader of the crime cult whose members once kidnapped her and tried to cut her heart out in sacrifice to Caine (or Vandal Savage, it’s kind of a long story). With the help of her military-minded father, wealth, access to all manner of cutting edge military hardware, and an assortment of very Batman-ish intimidation tactics—I think the baring of her teeth in that evil “smile” is her greatest weapon in this repertoire—she hunts through coven after coven trying to track this new leader down. And the new leader is a woman who looks an awful lot like Harley Quinn with a Drusilla makeover. The first installment of the new Question story follows Renee as she is hired by an illegal to find his sister. He had paid to have his sister smuggled across the border the same way he was but she has disappeared. Renee finds evidence that the sister did make it here and a gang is about to attack her… and that’s where they ran out of paper this month. A very satisfying first chap to both of these stories, all in all.
Then we have Gotham City Sirens #1, and, as usual… This was the piece of the “Batman: Reborn” puzzle I least looked forward to. I never cared much for Catwoman in her own book, and while I think Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn are very good characters to have show up from time to time as villains I just didn’t think much of them as title characters. So I almost didn’t even buy this and, of course, it turns out to be my favorite of the “B:R” titles. Catwoman, still weak from having her heart removed by Hush (which happened while she was still weak from Jason Todd’s beatdown of her) and replaced by superhero friends, is saved from a thrashing by wannabe villain Bone Blaster by Poison Ivy. Ivy says she’s living with Edward Nigma (The Riddler) now that Ivy and he have patched up their differences. And if you know anything about Ivy you know how they “made up”. Riddler also—he’s just such a nice guy—has allowed Harley Quinn to move in, too. Selina—irritated mostly by the way PI and HQ have squandered the $60 million Catwoman split between them for helping her get back at Hush—comes up with the idea of the three girls hanging together and a quick re-disposal of Bone Blaster seals the deal. First, though, Ivy and Harley need to know just one thing…A fantastic opening by Paul Dini and Guillem March.
And the Woman of Wonder Fills Out the Trinity
The “Rise of the Olympian” storyline concludes in Wonder Woman #33 as Diana returns to—skips like a stone across the ocean surface until coming to a stop with a crunch on the beach of, actually—Paradise Island after the princess’ defeat of Genocide. Hippolyta leads the Amazons in pitched battle against giant sea beasts of the past raised by Euphemis while Diana recuperates, only to watch in horror as WW returns to do the unthinkable—TWICE! Once to end the battle with the krakens and monsters, the second in disgust at Zeus’s plan to supplant the Amazons with, basically, Jason’s Argonauts—with Achilles as their leader. And, of course, the seeds are sewn for the return of that twisted being made from Diana’s own future corpse, Genocide.
Earth’s Mightiest Heroes… And All Their Rowdy Friends
Leaving the DCU (“Please step to the center of the car and away from the doors”), we come first to the Marvel U and the end of the Avengers/Invaders crossover with #12. This ish features another Alex Ross cover, which is passable. Passable except for his making Ms. Marvel look like a 50-ish, overweight housewife (who was his model—Madonna?!?). The story was okay. Jim Krueger and Ross did explain something that’s always bugged me: how does a villain hold the ultimate power in the Universe and still lose? Especially the Red Skull, who has held the Cube several times and always finds a way to lose anyway. Steve Sadowski and jack Herbert do all right on the art. I still say this book should have been no more than six issues, tops, but this wasn’t a bad way to wrap it up. Except that Bucky is still alive, and that, along with Jason Todd no longer being worm food (I’ve been disenfranchised!), is just wrong.
Circling the Bowl in Bluewater
As a huge fan of Edward D. Wood Jr. I had to get Plan 9 from Outer Space Strikes Again! #1 even though Bluewater has never impressed me and the cover didn’t look very good. Well, the inside didn’t look very impressive, either. The story was, if anything, even more rudimentary and less cohesive than the original piece (which you know is really saying something if you saw Plan 9), and the art never got better than the cover. Two things more: First, they have a disclaimer at the beginning explaining that they purposely made mistakes in the comic to pay homage to the source material—okay, but what explains the bad writing and artwork in most of their other titles? Second, and this is really a technical question, the copyright on the inside front cover is for Power of the Valkyrie—does that mean this title isn’t copyright protected? I would think it still would be since a printing error can happen to anyone. Just curious. I’m sure Ed would (like how I did that?) have enjoyed this comic, enjoyed the fact that it was made, anyway. I just wish they had done it better.
Other comics:
Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink #2- Good second issue. Mark talks with Kabuki Dan about the latter’s extracurricular activities, only to find the mystery of the runaway tattoos deepening, along with the mystery of the funny money.
Fringe #6- Meh. I liked the other issues much better.
Green Lantern #42- Final chap of Agent Orange was kinda confusing. I understand the big story and I get how evil what The Guardians did was. But some of the dialogue was confusing and I still don’t get what was so bad about the blue ring constantly charging the green one. Not a complaint, just wondering.
Incredible Hercules #130- Pluto puts Zeus on trial for—well, mostly for being Zeus. Herc stands up and speaks for Zeus but is hampered by the fact that—well, he is Hercules, and it is Zeus. And Amadeus goes to see his parents and meets—well, you’ll just have to read it for yourself.
Justice Society of America #28- The spirits make their move and The Spectre reveals Kung’s master plan.
Lillim #4- Odin and Loki finally meet after Odin seduces Bridget—or maybe he doesn’t; that was unclear. Still all right but not as good as last ish.
Predator #1- Love the cover, and the story’s pretty well written even though I couldn’t get into it. This story seems very much like the second film, only with terrorists instead of drug dealers. It does still have the renegade black guy with a big gun and authority issues, though.
Red Sonja #45- Lady Shiro and Lady Kuro have several problems. They both want the Blood Dynasty, they both think the other has it, they both lead armies to slaughter for it, neither has it. Oh, and they and their armies have been dead for over two hundred years. And now Sonja is trapped with these two women who can REALLY hold a grudge.
Skaar: Son of Hulk #12- The first half, the part with Skaar “battling” the Hulk, was kind of lame. The second part, the half with the Silver Surfer explaining to an alien race how Skaar has doomed their world to being devoured by Galactus, was better, Next, we see how a new creative team handles the title.
Squadron Supreme #12- In what appears to be a final issue, all the world’s super powers are taken away. Well, nearly all.
Star Trek: Mission’s End #4- Things heat up on Archenar IV as Kirk is injured, leaving Ambassador Cassady in charge. Also, the enslaved “low creatures” have stolen a piece of “The Heart of God”, meaning that the world-ship may explode. Oh, and Enterprise is surrounded by ships of the Orion Syndicate.
Teen Titans #72- Everybody goes out on the town except for Wonder Girl, who goes instead to check Alcatraz’s security. “Holy jailbreak, Batman!” (Not all my fault; they mentioned Robin) The Ravager second feature: Meh.
Thor #602- Still not thrilled with Loki being treated as an honorable god among gods but at least we finally get Sif. BUT… just as Thor felt his aiding of Immortus in The Mighty Thor #282 was a contrivance to wrest the power of time travel from Mjolnir, so I feel this issue’s event with Dr. Strange repairing Mjolnir was a contrivance to wrest the Odinpower from Thor and make him more dependent than ever on the hammer. Not Straczynski’s finest hour.
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Incongruities of Continuity: Looking at the New Star Trek Movie’s Time Travel Foibles
June 26, 2009 at 7:33 am | In Articles, John J. Joex, Summer of Star Trek | 6 CommentsTags: Star Trek
(Continuing our Summer of Star Trek series)
By John J. Joex
(WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD)
So now that we have had almost two months to let the new Star Trek movie settle in our psyches, I’d say it’s time to take a little bit closer look at what they did with time travel and see just how consistent it was with the temporal logic the franchise has previously established. First, as a quick recap of my original review, I really enjoyed the movie. However, the more I thought about what they did to change the established Star Trek timeline, the more its contrivances annoyed me.
Now those who have followed this site for a while will know that I’m not particularly fond of time travel stories, especially the way such recent shows as Heroes and Lost have used the device. What I hate most about time travel in Science Fiction is that it so often provides writers with a cheap way out of a predicament they have written themselves into and decided they do not like. Did they kill off a character they really want to bring back? Just go back in time and change the past. Did they decide they don’t like the direction that a story is going? Just go back and create an alternate timeline. Or worst yet, have a character from the future go back into the past and do something that causes future events even though those events never would have happened unless they traveled back in the past creating an irritating chicken-and-the-egg endless loop paradox (i.e., Richard mysteriously shows up to provide aid to Locke after he was shot, but he only showed up because time traveling Locke told him to do so because he knew he would do so because of what already happened).
Too often, writers rely on one or all of these tricks, along with others I haven’t even mentioned, in order to leapfrog over having to devote themselves to just telling a good story. And rarely is time travel used as a strong element to tell a good Science Fiction story that makes you think, instead of just making your head hurt if you think too much about it (the recent movie Primer is one of those rare exceptions).
This doesn’t mean that I hate time travel stories in general, I just generally get annoyed because I find them too contrived and they either do not follow the very rules that they ostensibly establish or they just follow no rules at all.
The original Star Trek series actually usually did a good job of adhering to these rules in its time travel stories. The writers incorporated it as a Science Fiction element as opposed to a story contrivance, and usually did not diverge too much from the rules they established.
From TOS, both the episodes “City on the Edge of Forever” and “Tomorrow is Yesterday” show that traveling back in time can change history, but that it was possible to reverse the changes made and set history straight. “Assignment: Earth” may have seemed to diverge from this a bit, but the Enterprise crew intervened because they believed they were stopping Gary Seven from changing the future. In “All Our Yesterdays”, the people of Sarpeidon didn’t seem to care if going in the past changed the future, but then their planet was doomed anyway. Even when you get to the later series episodes that dealt with alternate timelines, like the TNG episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise”, they still had the option to correct the timestream, though the TNG episode “Parallels” did throw us a bit of a curve with the suggestion of multiple parallel universes.
So that leads us to J.J. Abrams movie and what it did with changing the timeline. In this one, Romulan Captain Nero unintentionally changes history when he attacks the USS Kelvin, not realizing that his ship has traveled 150 years into the past. Nero’s actions create an all new timeline that ultimately includes the complete destruction of the planet Vulcan.
Now as a story element to reboot the franchise, I understand why they did what they did. But the established rules in the Star Trek universe dealing with time travel say that even though the past can be changed and create a new timeline, those changes are correctable. The movie, however, seems to imply that the new timeline is fixed and cannot be reversed. So are you telling me that Spock would not try to find a way to go back in time and stop Nero from destroying Vulcan? And if Kirk knew that correcting the timeline would mean that his father would live, are you telling me he wouldn’t give it a try? In previous stories dealing with alterations of the past, the primary characters have always considered it their duty to set things straight. What happened here?
I know, I know, the answer is obvious. The creative team needed a device that allowed them to move the franchise in a new direction while also respecting the existing canon. And on that level, I actually like what they have done. But I wish that they had presented some plausible explanation of why Kirk, Spock, and the others would not try to correct the timeline so that at least the writers could say they attempted to stay within the rules that the franchise had previously established (and perhaps they still will in a future movie). Otherwise the change in the timeline is nothing more than a contrivance that allows the writers to do what they want and somewhat weakens the use of time travel for the franchise going forward.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the left turn that the franchise has taken and I think it opens up endless story possibilities. Still, I have to admit to being annoyed that they did this at the expense of the canon that preceded this movie. Ultimately I am just quibbling over an annoyance, but I do hope that time travel in the Star Trek universe going forward will not become a watered down device that gives writers a cheap out at the expense of good story telling.
Buy Star Trek on DVD at the Axiom’s Edge Webstore:
Television Review – The Listener
June 25, 2009 at 6:45 am | In John J. Joex, Television Reviews | Leave a CommentTags: The Listener
By John J. Joex
Airs on NBC, Thursdays at 10 PM EST
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Stars (after 4 episodes)
NBC’s Summer paranormal series The Listener is a Canadian import that the network picked up to fill up a place on the schedule during the months where viewership is light. So basically that tells you right off that they did not believe the series had hit potential and that they really just see it as a “filler” show. Still, after four episodes, it has proved mildly interesting and shown some potential if it can find a way to diverge from its formulaic approach.
The show follows paramedic Toby Logan (played by Craig Olejnik) who is a telepath and has tried to suppress his ability most of his life but ultimately decides that he can use it to help others. This unfortunately leads to the more trite, formulaic side of the series. Toby gets mental “flashes” from people in some sort of trouble which leads him to playing junior detective to investigate their problems and try to help them. He of course has regular run-ins with a female detective from the local precinct who is quite annoyed with him always sticking his nose in her business. Ultimately, though, he leads her down the right path to arrest the bad guy or help the person in trouble (or a combination of the two).
So basically, The Listener pretty much just gives us another “cop show with a twist” Prime Time entry. And because of this, I actually almost gave up on it early on, but the third episode added a few elements that convinced me to stick around. First, Toby decides to reveal his abilities to his EMS partner, who had been previously asking a lot of questions and wondering how Toby knew some of the things that he did. Also, this episode established that Toby’s mentor, a university professor, is also a telepath and that there are others out there like them as well. This introduces a possible “mythology” for the show and provides the creative team with alternative to the procedural-themed stories, and hopefully they will venture in that direction.
I’m not saying that I expect this show to become a more serialized drama like Lost or Heroes, I just would like to see more interesting stories than simple crime-of-the-week yarns. The procedural has been done to death, and simply adding a person with telepathic ability into that format just provides no interest for me. Exploring more about these people with heightened abilities and how they’ve learned to get along in the world could lead to some interesting stories, though.
The performances by the cast members have all been good to adequate so far. Craig Olejnik, with his piercing eyes, gives Toby Logan almost an otherworldly feel, though what’s up with his 60’s British Invasion haircut? Enis Esmer plays a decent second-fiddle as Toby’s partner Oz, and Lisa Marcos is sufficiently cranky as their oft-put-upon foil from the police department.
Ratings-wise, the show has done nothing to light up the Nielsens as it premiered with a 1.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic and just over five million viewers. While those numbers might be acceptable for NBC for a Summer entry, the show’s most recent 0.9 ratings performance could jeopardize its future on the network. If it does not improve those numbers, it could go the way of last year’s Summer series on NBC, Fear Itself, which got yanked after eight episodes. Still, the series has already aired all thirteen of its episodes internationally starting in March of this year and could live on in another venue if performed did well there.
Overall, The Listener has its moments, but it needs to rise above the formulaic procedural stories to become anything more than a derivative television knock-off. And the fact that this one is not a network product could give it the opportunity to live on and explore its potential, whether on NBC or another channel.
Go to TV.com for more info on The Listener including Episode guides and Cast bios
Watch episodes of The Listener Online for Free at Hulu.com
Revisiting the Movies – Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn
June 24, 2009 at 7:02 am | In Movie Reviews, Sam Christopher, Summer of Star Trek | 4 CommentsTags: Star Trek
(Continuing our Summer of Star Trek series)
By Sam Christopher
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
This continuation of the Star Trek mythos was released to theaters in 1982, three years after the moribund Star Trek: The Motion Picture ended Paramount’s belief in series creator Gene Roddenberry as a hands-on producer for the films. They were angry with the cost overruns he was said to have caused (the first film went from a $15 million dollar budget to $46 million) as well as disappointed with the critical and commercial response the first film had garnered (although their investment was trebled, it didn’t meet their projections). Roddenberry’s own sequel, in which the Enterprise crew goes into the past to foil a Klingon plot to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy, was immediately shelved by the studio and new producer Harve Bennett was put in charge of the next film. Roddenberry, meanwhile, was “promoted” to Executive Producer, which effectively ended his direct involvement with the film.
Bennett was not only new to the Trek franchise, he was new to Paramount and to Trek period; he had never seen any of TOS until after his appointment. After watching every episode of TOS—and after having been bored by ST: TMP—he decided that the main thing the first film was missing was a solid villain. He would fix that problem by having Khan Noonien Singh, a genetic superman from the TOS ep “Space Seed” who had been played by the marvelous Ricardo Montalban, reappear from the planet where Captain Kirk had exiled him 15 years earlier to seek revenge. He came up with a script that called for Kirk and crew to be called to an alien world to halt a rebellion that turns out to be led by Kirk’s hitherto unknown son, with Khan found to be behind it all. Various other scripts were written before director Nicholas Meyer, uncredited and unpaid, wrote the final script in order to beat a deadline. Then, just as the film was about to be greenlit, someone realized they didn’t have Montalban signed for it. Luckily, that posed no problem, as Montalban evidently loved the character and really wanted to play him again.
The hurdles among the original cast were a little harder to overcome. George Takei was talked into reprising his role as helmsman Sulu evidently by Shatner; Nichelle Nichols, while having no problem playing Uhura again, was apparently very unhappy with Gene Roddenberry being removed from the project as well as various style decisions made by the new production team (nautical themes, militaristic uniforms, etc.). But the main problem was Leonard Nimoy, who had no intention of playing Spock again after having been talked into doing the first film. The new team finally got him to join the cast after promising him a great death scene. Nimoy fully believed this to be the last Star Trek film and wanted to go out in a big way. And now the shooting began…
The story: Admiral James T. Kirk takes the newly-refitted Enterprise out with a training crew of cadets only to receive an urgent plea from Dr. Carol Marcus, an old flame, about someone taking “Genesis”, which turns out to be a terraforming tool developed by Marcus and her son, David, who is also Kirk’s son. Unbeknownst to Kirk and co. at the time, this is being perpetrated by old adversary Khan, whose group of genetically-enhanced humans have taken over the Federation science vessel USS Reliant, which had been on a mission for the Marcus’s to find a world to test the Genesis Device on. Khan finds Kirk, this happens, that happens, Spock heroically saves the ship from sure destruction and dies a glorious death—but not before creating a mind-meld with Dr. McCoy.
Final notes: This film introduced Kirstie Alley as the Romulan/Vulcan Lt. Saavik, a protégé to Spock. Although there was nothing in the film that suggested her hybrid heritage, Saavik seemed maddeningly emotional for longtime ST fans—she was ambitious for command, she showed fear in the face of death after the Reliant’s attack on Enterprise, she cried during Spock’s funeral—so this was explained in the novelization. It also introduced the Kobayashi Maru test which gave cadets going for Command a taste of the big decisions commanders have to make and live—or die—with. Nimoy, meanwhile, had such a good time during the filming that he came up with an idea to give them an out if they ever did want to bring Spock back (see next week’s Star Trek III: The Search for Spock). Montalban also enjoyed making this film, his only regret being that there was no face-to-face confrontation between Kirk and Khan, a complaint that was echoed by many fans (although it was, admittedly, a muted reaction to an otherwise nearly universally loved film).
Buy Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn on DVD from Amazon.com
Previous – Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Next – Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Weekend Box Office Results – Up Approaches Star Trek in Total Draw
June 23, 2009 at 7:17 am | In Box Office Results, Paul S. White | 1 CommentTags: Science Fiction Movies, Star Trek
With no new genre entries opening this weekend (unless you count Year One which we are not), Up continued to do big business at the Box Office. It slipped one slot to number three (the lowest it has been in its four weeks of release), but still brought in over $23 million moving its grand total to over $226 million. Star Trek, now in its seventh week of release and facing waning interest, is currently at $240 million for total domestic revenue. Up could potentially overtake it this coming weekend, and if not will almost definitely move to the Summer’s top Box Office winner by the July the 4th weekend.
Land of the Lost and Imagine That are still both vying for the title of biggest flop this Summer. After three weeks, Lost has only pulled in $44 million against a $100 million budget and the Eddie Murphy comedy has only garnered a paltry $11.5 million against a $55 million budget. And this coming week’s release of expected blockbuster Transformers 2 should pretty much knock those two out of the theaters.
Following are the results for all of the Science Fiction and Fantasy oriented movies in the Top 20 for the weekend of June 19-21:
Title / Box Office Rank (Rank Prior Week) / Weekend (Total) Draw
3) Up – Prior Wk: 2, Draw (Total): $23.49 MM ($226.27 MM)
6) Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian – Prior Wk: 4, Draw (Total): $7.81 MM ($156.46 MM)
7) Star Trek – Prior Wk: 7, Draw (Total): $5.51 MM ($240.26 MM)
8) Land of the Lost – Prior Wk: 5, Draw (Total): $4.36 MM ($44.06 MM)
9) Imagine That – Prior Wk: 6, Draw (Total): $3.29 MM ($11.54 MM)
10) Terminator Salvation – Prior Wk: 8, Draw (Total): $3.28 MM ($119.73 MM)
11) Angels & Demons – Prior Wk: 9, Draw (Total): $2.82 MM ($128.16 MM)
12) Drag Me to Hell – Prior Wk: 10, Draw (Total): $1.97 MM ($39.23 MM)
14) X-Men Origins: Wolverine – Prior Wk: 12, Draw (Total): $.64 MM ($177.29 MM)
18) 17 Again – Prior Wk: 16, Draw (Total): $.28 MM ($62.73 MM)
Source: Box Office Mojo
Previous Results: Up Stays Aloft
Also, Check Out Our Summer 2009 Movie Science Fiction and Fantasy Movie Preview
Axiom’s Edge Blog- New on DVD: Chuck Season 2 Drops Today, Defying Gravity Launches in Two Weeks January 5, 2010
- Comic Book Reviews: Angels and Demons at War January 5, 2010
- Weekly Update: Avatar Holds Onto Number 1, Passes $1 Billion; Heroes Returns Tonight January 4, 2010
- Lindelof and Cuse Claim They are Not Playing It Safe in the Final Season of Lost January 1, 2010
- Mid-Season is Almost Upon Us: New and Returning Sci Fi and Fantasy Shows December 31, 2009
- Avatar vs. Battle for Terra: The Juggernaut and the Underdog December 30, 2009
- Weekly Box Office Results: Avatar Still Number 1, Sherlock Holmes Opens Strong December 29, 2009
- The Sci Fi Scroll: The 2009 Science Fiction Power List December 28, 2009
- What’s a Sci Fi Fan to do with all that Christmas Money? December 27, 2009
- TV Guide Talks to Josh Schwartz about Season 3 of Chuck December 26, 2009
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