Thoughts on Star Trek Discovery

This article will contain spoilers for the first four episodes of Star Trek Discovery. If you don't want to have the first four episodes of Star Trek Discovery spoiled, please, y'know, read something else for a while. 

So. Star Trek Discovery. 

A summary

It's good. It's enjoyable. It's entertaining. It's not a bad television show. I'm not sure that it's Star Trek, but it's fun.

What terrified me about the idea of a new Star Trek series is that there hasn't been a true Star Trek story for 13 years. The last proper Star Trek stories were told in the last few episodes of Enterprise, which concluded in 2005. 

A "proper" Star Trek story is a story with a moral compass, a dilemma of conscience, a difficult human decision told through the peculiarities of an alien species or culture, and a resolution from which we all learn something and grow up a little bit more. 

Since the end of Enterprise, there have been no Star Trek stories. There have been blockbuster action movies with Star Trek characters in them, but there have been no Star Trek stories. 

(I lie -- there have been Star Trek stories, and they've been told by the talented and passionate fans and Trek alumni who have created fan series such as Star Trek: Continues and Star Trek: Phase II. Unfortunately, these stories are obviously not canon, but they filled a substantial and lengthy vacuum of quality Trek narratives.)

The story of Discovery, so far, is not a Trek story. Perhaps it may become one, who's to know at this stage. We've never experienced Star Trek in a long-form presentation, where episodes link constantly together and a growing story arc emerges. Perhaps the whole, rather than the parts, will be where the moral tale lies.

Starfleet is not an organisation of war

Starfleet is an organisation of peaceful exploration and scientific discoveries. It's not a military operation -- except when it is. There are two sides to war, and if the other guys want to fight you, you have little option whether to fight or back down. Starfleet is well equipped to fight a war, and given the need, will obviously do so in order to regain and maintain peace. That's how it works.

If anything, I find it interesting that in the Discovery timeline (for lack of a better description at this point), the war itself has resulted directly from the Federation's efforts at peaceful encounters.

The Klingons have changed (again)

Yep. They've changed. Again. They changed before, and we didn't care. Why do we care now?

I have no issue with the appearance of the "new" Klingons, nor the changes to Klingon culture. I just think the Klingons are a bit dull. This may be partly by design, perhaps it's partly the fault of the actors. I find they have little charisma.

The Klingon language, once rich in guttural grunts and coughs, seems now a repetitive barrage of equally spaced and monotonous syllabic sputters, with little to no emotion from the actors who seem focused entirely on remembering which phlegm noise comes next. T'Kuvma, the key Klingon in the pilot episode (or as I like to call him: "We couldn't afford Idris Elba"), speaks all of his lines in stanzas of three syllables, as if the actor could memorise the weird sounds only in triplets.

Also, the new Klingons have noses inside their noses. Just saying. Can't be unseen.

Breaking Gene's rules

Gene Roddenberry stipulated that in any of "his" Star Trek series, there would be no interpersonal conflict between Starfleet officers. By the 22nd century (or later), humans had achieved a kind of inner Zen, and no longer fought with each other -- only with aliens of differing cultures and moralities. 

This is why, when Deep Space Nine was developed not long after Roddenberry's passing, the decision was made to team Starfleet characters up alongside Bajoran militia officers. If we can't fight amongst ourselves, lets force ourselves to get along with a war-like super-religious group of individuals, and let the conflict write itself. And it worked.

Since then, however, interpersonal conflict has gone crazy. And it's okay. Just because Gene made the universe of Star Trek doesn't mean that others can't come along and break the rules. It's okay. I promise.

Shifting gears to a competing franchise, don't forget that George Lucas made the Star Wars universe, including the prequels. If Disney and JJ Abrams hadn't broken George's established rules and made something new and exciting, we'd be stuck with green screens, awful acting from amazing actors, a duck-like creature with floppy ears, and "the high ground".

So, in short

Discovery is good. Star Trek is back on TV. It's a good time to be alive.

Oblivious: Thoughts on Oblivion (2013)

Yeah, spoilers. And stuff.

Oblivion.

It's very pretty, but not very good. The story is poorly paced, awkwardly revealed and thoroughly confusing. It also has Tom Cruise in.

The story, such as it is, is set in a post-apocalyptic future where the Earth has been ravaged by the final blow of a war with an alien force. We "won", having scorched the planet with atomic hellfire, repelling the aliens but leaving our planet barely habitable. The surviving humans fled to a bizarre pyramid-shaped space station in orbit, leaving a few of the invaders scattered about, doing what they can to survive on the surface. Meanwhile, the future of humanity is assured by giant machines that float over the oceans, sucking up the water to use, ostensibly, as fuel for a trip to the nearest habitable rock -- Saturn's moon of Titan.

Tom Cruise is Jack Harper, a technician who lives in a peculiar house on top of a pencil-thin tower with a vacuous British redhead that operates a talking table all day long. His job is to fly his mechanical dragonfly down to the surface to repair security drones that patrol the ocean-sucking machinery, keeping it safe from the aliens.

From here, it all goes to shit. Big spoilers to follow, for more than one film. I don't care. I like to live dangerously.

Tom ultimately discovers that he's a clone, apparently designed after one of the only two surviving humans, and his purpose is to continue to maintain the technology of the "humans" aboard the pyramid in the sky, which is not manned by humans at all, but by the alien invaders. Alien invaders who aren't harvesting the oceans for fusion fuel for a trip to Saturn, but simply raping the planet of all its remaining natural resources.

So, Tom's a clone. That sounds familiar. How did he find out he's a clone? He discovered a duplicate of himself, doing the same job he should be doing. Still sounds familiar. Why does it sound familiar? Oh, yeah. Moon. Sam Rockwell did it so much better.

After this reveal, the rest of the film falls roughly into place, following two additional reveals that really didn't take me by surprise. I have to admit, I was a bit taken aback by how blatantly the key plot point from Moon was "borrowed", and I lost a bit of enthusiasm for Oblivion's remaining twists. The biggest plot hole still revolves around the clones-of-Cruise idea, though.

The original Jack, imaginatively labeled "Jack 49", meets up with a duplicate of himself in the middle of the desert, attempting to repair a drone. They proceed to beat the crap out of each other, ending with Jack 49's revived wife being shot, and Jack 52 (the other Jack) being crudely tied up and left in the desert while 49 rushes the shot wife to a nearby cave and steals 52's helicopter-dragonfly to go get her some magical fixer-upper drugs from 52's pole house. This is all fine and dandy, except:

Jack 49 apparently borrows Jack 52's clothing (they have numbers and colour coding on them) in order to convince Jack 52's own version of the cranky British redhead that he's her colleague and not some clone of him. He then somehow swaps back to his original 49 uniform before the story continues, which is fine. Well, sort of. It'd be fine if Jack 52 himself didn't up and disappear entirely until the unsatisfying end of the film. I don't know if the changing number on the jacket is a continuity error or an intended thing, or what. If it is a continuity error, it's a fatal error because the story relies on very subtle hints about what's going on, and the number and colour of Jack's uniform is pretty significant.

Jack 49 also steals Jack 52's helicopter-dragonfly for the remainder of the film, and proceeds to fly it -- while wearing his 49 regalia, again -- into the alien mothership masquerading as a human space station (did I mention spoilers?). Do they not notice that he's a 49, and it's a 52? Actually, I suppose they don't. Their scanning systems can't even tell the difference between a frozen Russian woman and a frozen black man.

Also, the alien mothership? Independence Day. Big triangular doorway. Massive internal corridor with foggy crap in it. All it needs is an army of marching insect creatures on the floor.

Final verdict: Very pretty, a bit boring, and very confusing. Taking a simple, mysterious story and trying to make it more mysterious by going all David Lynch on it is bad decision. Just tell the story. And maintain your continuity. Please.

Thoughts on The Wolverine (2013)

Why does a man with built-in blades need a sword?

This review will be brief. Regardless, it still contains at least one spoiler. So, if you don't like spoiled things, read elsewhere for a moment.

I figured after my articles on V: Graphite, the energy drink tie-in with The Wolverine, and  5 Gum Adamantium, that I should at least make an effort to see and assess the movie.

The Wolverine. It was alright.

Wolverine, as a character, does not work very well solo. He works well as part of an ensemble, with the rest of his mutant teammates to bounce his personality off. Without having established characters around, he's a bit flat. There's no one to offer a predictable response, or to provoke him in a predictable way. I'm in favour of trying new things, but sometimes a little bit of familiarity can go a long way.

Also, does every film these days need a giant robot?

Thoughts on The Lone Ranger (2013)

Lone, lone on the range(r).

This may contain spoilers. Your mileage may vary. You've been warned, I guess. Don't get me wrong, I like Johnny Depp. Unfortunately for The Lone Ranger, there are times when he can ruin a movie. Mr. Depp has a well-known history of playing weird and whacky characters, from Edward Scissorhands to Willy Wonka to Jack Sparrow to the Mad Hatter. They're all much of a muchness, it's Johnny with a painted face and a twitchy personality. You could interchange them, and no one would notice. He's not a bad actor. He's a scene stealer.

In The Lone Ranger, Depp's Tonto thoroughly overshadows Armie Hammer's titular ranger -- admittedly by intention, as the story is based more around Tonto's history than Lone's -- unfortunately leaving the rest of the cast gasping for recognition. Among those you might not have noticed: Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner and Helena Bonham Carter. A personal favourite underrated actor appears also, Leon Rippy as an ageing ranger.

I found the film enjoyable, but suffering from confusion as to what it intended to be. Parts of it are flat-out, blatant and hilarious slapstick. Some are built around fairly blunt insult humour. Certain scenes divulge into basic toilet humour. Others are thinly veiled commentary on racism and the treatment of the Native American people. Surrounding all of this is a simple story rooted in some pretty serious drama.

It's difficult to take a character like Tonto seriously when his dialogue switches from lighthearted conversations about the stupidity of a horse to lines like "Blood has been spilled, and the rivers will run red", all the while as he attempts to feed a dead bird some corn. This wouldn't be so bad, were it not for the scenes that set up his character's behaviour coming at least half way into the epic 149 minute running time.

There're also a few dischordant moments where an idea is set up to be quite sacred or respected, only to have the piss pulled out of it a few scenes later, usually by Depp's peculiar character. While it's hard to call any action "breaking character" for someone who's clearly not the full quid to begin with, it's a little awkward as a viewer to be fed what seems to be a subtle moral concept, then have it jerked away disrespectfully.

The Lone Ranger is enjoyable, chaotic, action-packed and a bit disjointed. It could certainly have been worse, and I don't feel like I wasted either my time or money by watching it.

Close the Gate: Enemy at the Gates review

I have three quibbles with this film. 1. One day Hollywood will realise that a war movie is interesting in its own right, and doesn't need to be combined with a sappy love story to appeal to audiences.

2. The music sounds like it's been stolen directly from the score from Schindler's List.

3. The lanuguage issue. This is often a problem with war movies, but Enemy At The Gates is the worst example I've seen. In the case of a war movie, you invariably have people speaking different languages. In order to combat (heh) this, there are a few techniques used in filmmaking. The first is to simply have each person speaking the language naturally. This is fine, so long as the viewer can understand Russian, German, French and English to a great degree. The next option is to add subtitles, which most people agree detracts from the film, because most of your time is spent reading and little time spent watching. The remaining obvious option, and the one usually preferred by most modern war films is to have all of the characters speaking English with heavily applied accents from their countries of origin. Enemy At The Gates, however, has taken a completely annoying and haphazard approach. To wit, we have -- just in the Russian characters alone -- Russians speaking with British, Russian and German accents. The German characters speak with a mix of German and British accents. The only way to tell which country the characters are fighting for is to recognise their uniforms, which is great if you're a war buff, but a bit difficult for your average Joe. Particularly considering all of the uniforms in the film are grey-green and all of the characters are coated in mud, blood and bits of their comrades.

Sigh.