RIP: David Warner

On July 24th, actor David Warner passed away at the grand old age of 80.

Warner was never a huge name as an actor but he had the sort of recurring presence that develops a following. For me, as a Star Trek fan, I first took notice of his name because he was one of those rare few who turned up in multiple significant roles. First he played the Federation ambassador in Star Trek V: the Final Frontier - a pretty unimportant part for an actor as recognizable as he; appropriately, as Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was intended as something of a redemption for the film franchise after the previous film's failings, Warner protrayed the Klingon chancellor Gorkon in that film and got to turn in a terrific performance. But perhaps most memorably for Trek fans, he appeared in the two-part story "Chain of Command" on Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which he portrayed Gul Madred, a Cardassian who tortured Jean-Luc Picard. Much of that two-parter's recognition is due to Patrick Stewart's performance in the torture scenes, but Warner really earned due praise in those episodes. His oily portrayal of Gul Madred helped reinforce how Cardassians would be characterized throughout the franchise. Warner nearly had another role when Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's producer Ira Steven Behr wanted Warner to portray in "Accession" an usurper to the role of Emissary that Benjamin Sisko performed. Unfortunately, Warner was out of the USA when the episode was being filmed and so was unavailable. Behr counted the lack of Warner as one of his regrets as he was certain Warner would have improved the quality of the episode.

Warner was something of a character actor and most often seemed to play villains, to the extent that his roles included playing Evil, itself (Time Bandits). He was also a terrific Jack the Ripper in the charming time travel romance Time After Time; he was the bad guy in Tron. I was so into Warner that when he would turn up in a minor role such as in In the Mouth of Madness I would get excited imagining what his character would get up to (then disappointed when the answer was, "not much").

But I also loved Warner's work in voice acting. His first big animated role was as Ra's al-Ghul in Batman: The Animated Series; he was also one of the top villains of Gargoyles, the Archmage; and in contrast he got to play the very silly villain the Lobe on the very silly program Freakazoid! Even in animation he seemed to be typecast as villains but certainly his smooth, refined voice sounded great on those shows.

Rest in peace, Mr. Warner.

Unearthed: Worlds Unknown #4

It's been a while, so how about another instance of Unearthed? This is my occasional blogging series devoted to reading through an issue of a comic book series (usually an aging back issue). And this time out, why not Worlds Unknown #4?

Worlds Unknown was an unusual Marvel Comics series which ran eight issues from 1973-1974. Most of the issues featured adaptations of science fiction stories but the last two issues were an adaptation of the fantasy film The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Issue #4 is an adaptation of Fredric Brown's 1944 short story "Arena".

I've read a bit of Fredric Brown but I've never read the original version of "Arena". I know of it thanks to its adaptation into a 1967 episode of Star Trek - it is one of the best-known episodes of the original series, thanks in part to the memorable lizard-man costume designed for the Gorn warrior who Captain Kirk fought.

This adaptation of "Arena" is by scripter Gerry Conway (best-known for his writing on Amazing Spider-Man) with art by John Buscema (the definitive Avengers and Conan the Barbarian artist) and Dick Giordano (the definitive inker of all those who ever inked). We open on a human named Carson who awakens on an alien world surrounded by blue sand. He's almost nude and has no tools or weapons.

Carson recalls how his fleet had recently encountered the "Outsiders", the first extraterrestrial life humanity had ever met; unfortunately, the Outsiders were malevolent and soon their fleets were battling Earth's vessels. Carson was about to engage an enemy craft in battle near Pluto when he saw a burst of light, then awoke in the blue desert. He notes a six-legged lizard in the sand.

A disembodied voice speaks to Carson and informs him that the war between the humans and Outsiders will inevitably lead to one exterminating the other. To prevent this destruction, this cosmic presence has brought Carson and an Outsider into the titular arena; the desert contains obstacles to keep the fight from finishing too quickly. The voice tells Carson "all you need to win is present on this world."

The Outsider (a big red alien with tentacles) comes charging up to Carson but strikes a force field which prevents it from reaching him. The field appears to extended below ground and can't be climbed over. Carson wonders if the force which abducted him intends for him to reason with the Outsider, so he tries to communicate through the force field to the Outsider. The response arrives through telepathy: "Kill Hate Death Kill Kill Kill".

The Outsider grabs one of the lizards and rips off its legs then throws it at Carson's feet. Carson is so disgusted by the Outsider's cruelty that it takes him a moment to realize the significance: non-living matter can pass through the force field. The two begin throwing rocks at each other until finally the Outsider retreats to plot strategy.

Carson begins to wonder if his isolation will drive him insane as he talks to one of the lizards. The lizard answers, "Hello," much to Carson's amazement. But he doesn't get to explore that revelation as the Outsider has built a catapult in order to hurl much larger rocks at Carson. Carson makes a fire and launches a fiery object at the catapult, burning it down.

Returning to the lizards, Carson sees the one which the Outsider mutilated is still alive and another lizard appears to be distressed by its condition. Carson puts the injured lizard out of its misery but now has to rethink his theory on how the force field functions. Theorizing that living creatures can pass through the field when they're unconscious, Carson hits himself in the head with a rock. This seems like a stupid plan, but I'm not the hero.

Anyway, it works: the Outsider closes in and Carson revives in time to grab a stone knife and stab the Outsider to death. Having won the cosmic being's contest, Carson is sent back to his spaceship, once again fully clothed. He still has a scar on his leg from where the Outsider hit him with a rock, but otherwise there's no evidence of his encounter. The human fleet commander informs Carson that the Outsider fleet has been completely wiped out; somehow, a chain reaction set off the destruction of the entire enemy fleet. Carson realizes the cosmic beings have made good on their promise.

(This issue also features "Lost... One World", a science fiction story by Bob Powell reprinted from 1957's Journey into Unknown Worlds #53.)

Thoughts: I'll have to read the original text, because I find this story a little unsatisfying. I rather like the Star Trek version of "Arena" where Kirk refuses to kill his enemy and instead proves his superiority by sparing the Gorn. In this tale, Carson tries to seek a peaceful solution but there is none to be found; perhaps that's because it was written against the backdrop of World War II, a struggle in which there was no hope of a peaceful outcome.

I guess what the story lacks, then, is a twist; in the Star Trek episode, Kirk winning by refusing to kill the Gorn is a satisfying twist ending. In this version, Carson does exactly what the cosmic beings tell him to. The "clever" solution is the part where Carson knocks himself out to give the Outsider an opportunity to close in. That's a really dumb solution, as it depended on Carson being able to predict how the Outsider would react and gambling on his waking up before the Outsider could kill him.

What makes the story philosophically troubling is the presence of the unidentified cosmic being who sets the contest in motion. It's essentially representing God and it takes the side of humanity against the Outsiders on the grounds that Carson kills one in a fair fight. It comes down to "might makes right" ideology which I find morally repugnant. The godlike deity performs genocide against the Outsiders as Carson's reward? I can see how this line of thinking would be wish fulfillment against the backdrop of World War II, but at the same time it feels disturbingly similar to the mindset of the people the USA were at war with at the time.

Anyway, with a mostly-naked man fighting tooth and nail against a monster this was clearly the kind of story John Buscema was meant to draw; it's Conan in space.

RIP: Rene Auberjonois

Today it was reported actor Rene Auberjonois has passed away, aged 79.

Auberjonois played the character of Odo for all seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; he portrayed my favourite character on that, my favourite Star Trek series. I don't think Odo was (or is) an easy character for most viewers to relate to, but I was drawn to how Odo wanted to be liked and accepted by the people who surrounded him, yet did not want to alter his behaviour to accomodate others; I suppose I related to his strong introversion. It's also somewhat ironic that he portrayed a shapeshifter who was extremely against change; a semi-liquid being who was the most rigid person on the station.

I also came to appreciate how amazing Auberjonois' performance was, considering he wore a mask over his face. He couldn't emote with any facial tics other than his eyelids, yet he conveyed so many different moods from Odo through that mask.

I haven't seen much of his non-Star Trek work (M*A*S*H, The Little Mermaid, Justice League, Panache) but it was always pleasant to stumble across him and his quite-distinctive voice. Rest in peace, Mr. Auberjonois.

RIP Harlan Ellison

"Through all the legends of ancient peoples — Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian, Semitic — runs the saga of the Eternal Man, the one who never dies, called by various names in various times, but historically known as Gilgamesh, the man who has never tasted death... the hero who strides through the centuries..." - Demon with a Glass Hand, written for the Outer Limits by Harlan Ellison

The phrase goes, "the golden age of science fiction is 12." When I was 12, I wasn't reading science fiction. The one science fiction author who I came to enjoy - Ray Bradbury - I wouldn't discover for another couple of years. It took even longer for me to try fiction by giants of the field such as Isaac Asimov & Robert A. Heinlein. But although I didn't sample his prose until later on in my life, I was familiar with the work of Harlan Ellison - who, of course, famously derided the term 'science fiction author' because of the unspoken assumptions behind those words.

I learned of Harlan Ellison primarily through the Incredible Hulk story "The Brute That Shouted Love at the Heart of the Atom," (by Roy Thomas & Sal Buscema) which was first published in 1971 but which I came to know through a paperback reprint I discovered in a used bookstore. The story concerns the Hulk being sent to a microscopic alien world where he falls in love with an alien princess named Jarella, but by story's end is sent back to Earth with no means of returning. Essentially, Ellison wrote the Hulk into a John Carter novel. Still, it's well-told and the pathos of the Hulk's plight was well-realized. The story stood out by the standards of 1971, though I suppose a contemporary reader would probably find it primitive.

I came to appreciate Ellison's work through his Star Trek episode "City on the Edge of Forever," which I enjoyed immensely and when IDW eventually published an adaptation of his original script, I found much in his version which I liked even more. Basically, there are two great versions of that story - the one which was filmed, and the one which became a comic book. I like 'em both.

Although I had seen some of Ellison in places like his appearances on the Sci Fi Channel's Anti-Gravity Room or the documentary The Masters of Comic Book Art, time on the internet made me aware of his very thorny reputation as people online either recounted scathing accounts of how Ellison had treated them terribly, or glowing accounts of how fiercely Ellison had stood up for them. From what I've seen of him, he had a unique kind of personal integrity and a definite limit to what he would endure from others. He was probably not someone I would have enjoyed being around, but many of the online stories involve him standing up to a bigger bully, which I certainly don't object to. And despite his reputation as a curmudgeon, his recollections of Ray Bradbury in Shadow Show are immensely warm and tender-hearted.

I didn't become someone who'd consider himself a Harlan Ellison fan until I finally saw the original Outer Limits and his two episodes "Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand," two absolutely phenomenal stories which tower above the typical standards of Outer Limits (which was a quality program for its time). Despite the rough special effects - and, in the latter episode, makeup choices - there is so much humanity in these tales and that I responded to. I finally read his short story collection I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, but aside from a handful of other short stories, that's about all I've read of his prose. I intend to read more eventually, but I'm for all that I enjoyed of his work, he wasn't a high priority to me.

As someone who first discovered him through comic books, I was fascinated to learn just how much work he had done in the comics medium, from the Marshall Rogers adaptation of Demon with a Glass Hand, to an odd Twilight Zone comic, to the Epic Illustrated adaptations by Ken Steacy which became Night and the Enemy to a couple issues of Daredevil with David Mazzucchelli, his footprint in comics may be shallow but it's also mighty wide. The comics of his which I have yet to read are probably where I'll continue discovering his work; after all, that's where it all began.

Rest in peace Mr. Ellison.

Less Than Requited

Minute by minute, hour by hour, there is love which goes unrequited. Our culture likes to elevate unrequited love, to raise up the sentiment as one which is noble. Soren Kierkegaard, for instance, considered unrequited love to be about as great an example of love that there is, because by its nature it exists in only one direction - from the one who loves to the one who is loved.

Unrequited love sounds great and ideal, right? The Kierkegaards of our world would note that it is unsullied by harsh reality. This love you hold for a person from afar but is never returned, how marvelous it must be to love without receiving love in return! And surely for many there is a wish to avoid acting on unrequited love (or more aptly put "a crush") for fear of reality - fear of rejection.

What I find interesting is how our popular culture believes in unrequited love as the most perfect form of love. In film, television, books and comics, invariably one character will pine for another character. How we in the audience must long for them to become a couple! And then they do, our faith in the pureness of unrequited love is fulfilled! Hoopla!

The rending that launched a thousand slash fics

Unfortunately, we are so preoccupied with this idea that it grants some examples of unrequited love a depth they were not meant to possess. Throughout Chris Claremont's X-Men he toyed with the idea that Wolverine held feelings for Jean Grey, even though she and Cyclops were a couple. Claremont certainly seemed to believe in the love between Jean and Cyclops, so Wolverine's pining for Jean served primarily to create some tension (as well as character development for Wolverine). Over the years Claremont would note Wolverine's feelings as a matter of continuity, but the Jean/Cyclops relationship was one which stood the test of time.

That is, until Claremont was no longer writing those characters. In 2001 writers began toying with a dangerous notion: What if Jean loved Wolverine? I call it 'dangerous' because it leans into many of the terrible false narratives we men like to tell each other - the so-called 'Nice Guy' narrative where women, in spite of all evidence, are supposed to be interested in us and will 'come around' given enough time. More to the point, it eliminates Jean Grey's agency in all of this; because Wolverine had feelings for Jean, it was simply assumed her character felt the same way for him. In the real world, the healthy thing is to move on from unrequited love (which Claremont had by giving Wolverine new love interests, starting with Mariko Yashida). Unfortunately, in the realm of fiction a potential couple who haven't 'hooked up' are treated as a loose thread, one which must be tied.

The television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine opened with series regular Dr. Julian Bashir carrying an embarrassingly-obvious torch for his crewmate Jadzia Dax, whose disinterest in him romantically was likewise evident. Although the two had their moments across the early seasons, by the show's 3rd year it was clear they were very good friends and unlikely to change; in the 4th season Jadzia became romantically interested in a new cast member, Worf, which lasted through the end of the 6th season when the character was killed off. Enter Ezri Dax in season 7 and suddenly the Bashir/Dax relationship is given another chance, ultimately leading to them becoming a couple.

As Darren Mooney puts it on his blog:

It feels like an awkward reversal of what had been a nuanced and compelling friendship. There was something reassuring in the idea that an unrequited (and slightly pervy) crush could develop into genuine (platonic) affection, and the arrival of Ezri Dax undercuts that aspect of their relationship.

But all that is past is mere prologue; who I really want to talk about is Jorah Mormont.

This son of a bear.

Jorah is a character from George R. R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice book series and has been adapted into the television version, Game of Thrones, where he's ably played by actor Iain Glen. If you know only the television show, you may be surprised at how differently Jorah is characterized in the prose. It should be noted that in the original books every chapter is written from the perspective of a single character and there are many characters whose point-of-view is never granted to the readers. Jorah is one such character, having appeared across the five novels thus far without ever seen from his own POV. His thoughts, turmoils and challenges are witnessed from a distance, usually from the perspective of Daenarys Targaryen (later, via Tyrion Lannister).

It is not so clear at the beginning but by the second novel (and 2nd season of the program) Jorah's affection for Daenarys - the queen-in-exile he's sworn to serve as bodyguard to - become evident. In the novels, this usually manifests itself as jealousy: as other men offer their services to Daenarys' cause, Jorah will bitterly whisper his misgivings to her. In time, Daenarys realizes Jorah is an unreliable counselor because his affections for her clouds his judgment. During the 3rd novel, Daenarys loses all faith in Jorah.

One of the most damning incidents against Jorah occurs in the first book when Daenarys' brother Viserys is murdered by the Dothraki after he threatens Daenarys' life. The reader is given little reason to care for Viserys, who is consistently petulant and ignoble, but when his death plays out Ser Jorah is shown to be extremely negligent in that he permits events to spiral out of control until Viserys' death is inevitable. "Good riddance," so saith the audience. But Jorah was supposed to be Viserys' loyal bodyguard. In time, it becomes clear Jorah betrayed his vows to Viserys because he wanted Daenarys for himself. Viserys would have been a terrible king, but in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, characters can frequently be defined by how dutifully they follow their oaths. Jorah tacitly betrays Viserys; how could he be trusted with Daenarys' safety when he takes his oaths so lightly?

The decisions made in adapting Jorah to television force some uncomfortable questions about the priorities of the series' creators, because their version of Jorah is quite different from Martin's. Some of this is simply down to casting choices; almost everyone on Game of Thrones is chronologically older than the book versions of the same characters, and it becomes particularly of note with Daenerys, who is 13 at the outset of the first novel, but played by a 25-year old Emilia Clarke in the first season of the show. At the time, Iain Glen was 50, placing him within earshot of Jorah's 43. But while these actors have a noticeable age gap (Glen being twice Clarke's age), in the books Jorah is more than 3 times Daenerys' age! It's also unavoidable that they cast a pretty good-looking actor to play Jorah - but one of the hallmarks of the literary version is that he's not good-looking and, as Daenerys is a teenager, that alone is almost enough to ensure he will never stand a chance of winning her heart.

In the show, Jorah is extremely devoted to Daenarys; although he serves as a spy during the 1st season (as he was in the books), he quickly leaves that behind and there is none of the pettiness which so marks his literary counterpart. In the books he forces a kiss on Daenerys; on television, he's more moon-eyed than he is rapey. The show also removes unpleasant moments such as a scene from A Dance with Dragons where he beats Tyrion bloody after one of Tyrion's many japes (the television show opts for a conventional fast-friendship between the two). It is clear in the books that while Jorah is fiercely devoted to Daenerys, he is not a particularly good man. I mean, the fact that in both formats his backstory is "former slave holder, still unrepentant about it," should raise all kinds of flags for you in the audience.

Without a doubt the largest point of divergence is when Jorah's treachery towards Daenerys is discovered. On the television show he pleads for mercy, but Daenerys, seeming somewhat cruel to the audience, icily dismisses him. And we, watching the program, are certain of Jorah's true devotion to her and bemoan Daenerys for being hard-hearted. But in the books, the scene is basically the opposite of that; Jorah refuses to admit he had done wrong and refuses to beg forgiveness until he gradually realizes he's digging himself deeper with each justification - by the time he does apologize, it's too late. Despite learning Jorah had been a traitor, we know Daenerys yearns to pardon him (because the chapter is written from her POV), but because he's so stubborn she is forced to make an example of him and banish him.

The showrunners of Game of Thrones have done a lot to render what's found in the books into something more format-friendly for television, but also more conventional in terms of relationships. Thus, Jorah's lust for Daenerys, which is a destructive force in the novels, becomes, well, this:

Will they ever get together?

But is that the only path available when you start toying with unrequited love? As it happens - no! You simply have to think outside the box and not blindly obey the tropes of your medium.

Take, for instance, Buffy the Vampire Slayer; during that program's first season, a running character beat is that of character Xander Harris having a crush on Buffy. In the first season finale he finally tells her how he feels, but she rejects him; she's simply not interested in him. Xander's wounded by this, but by the end of the episode helps save Buffy's life and, in doing so, mostly comes to terms with being her friend. Although he continued to feel pangs here and there over the show's second season, as the series progressed it became clear he had moved on and was now one of her best friends. And that was perfectly okay; we in the audience liked their dynamic as friends and found their subsequent romantic pairings (most notably the Buffy/Angel relationship which cast a huge shadow over the franchise) to be worthwhile television.

Mark Gruenwald once said, "The job of those in the arts is to help people connect with life experiences of people other than themselves, thereby expanding upon their concept of humanness." I do firmly believe that, which is why the kneejerk fiction writer's belief that 'unrequited love = true love' is not only a lazy equation but one which doesn't confront the audience in areas where they possibly should be challenged. There is nothing inherently noble, good, true or pure about unrequited love. Sorry, Kierkegaard.

"That dream is over." Star Trek: Discovery thoughts

Star Trek is back on television kind-of... CBS is releasing it via 'CBS All Access,' so that viewers have the convenience of streaming an online video which still has the network watermark defacing the bottom corner. Keep working on that prestige television!

I stumbled into the Star Trek franchise during the first season of Star Trek: Voyager. I had seen episodes and films here and there and thought it was all 'okay' but in 1995 I began making an effort to follow Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine regularly; over time I caught up on all I had missed. I lost interest during the 2nd season of Enterprise but eventually I did go back and see it all; heck, I've seen every episode of the animated program and the three J.J. Abrams films - I have seen everything Star Trek.

The new series is titled Star Trek: Discovery and is set about a decade before the original series. No real effort has been made to keep the visuals consistent with the original program, but that's acceptable. Maybe Kirk's Enterprise was last decade's model. CBS debuted the program with two episodes ("The Vulcan Hello" & "Battle at the Binary Stars") which together form a sort-of pilot. Actually, they don't do much to establish the series itself as the titular USS Discovery is not in either episode and most of the lead cast are not present either - the program's lead character, Michael Burnham, is featured and the episodes seem to exist in order to grant the character's backstory so as to inform her actions in the series itself. In a way, I guess this 'pilot' is really a prequel to the series?

Star Trek: Discovery has been a troubled production behind-the-scenes as its release has been repeatedly delayed. It has ultimately panned out well as the debut brought in the best ratings the franchise has seen in more than 20 years. However, the developer of the show and author of the debut, Bryan Fuller (himself a veteran writer of Deep Space Nine and Voyager) was ousted as showrunner early in production and Alex Kurtzman (writer of the first two J.J. Abrams films) assumed control. The program is certainly reminiscent of Abrams' Trek, what with having a lead character who has never been to Starfleet Academy yet is considered a natural leader and figure of destiny who is nurtured by their paternal superior officer; said lead character commandeers the starship; and the villains are vicious brutes.

I don't know how I feel about Discovery's take on Klingons. Perhaps there will be more nuance to come, but the first episode plays them as religious fanatics, which is not an interesting place to take them (thank you Trek, we've already got the Xindi). However, the second episode leans a little more into the idea of Klingons being xenophobic and authoritarian which would be in keeping with the tradition Enterprise began of using Klingons as a mirror to contemporary US culture (rather than as stand-ins for the Russians). I'd like it even more if the Klingons were using an appeal to Kahless as a means to stifle dissent among the ranks and so advance a populist agenda, but if you've read my recent political-themed posts on this blog that won't surprise you.

What did I actually like? Doug Jones is good as Saru, it's always neat to see Trek aliens who are physically unlike humans (note his hooves) and who bring a different cultural perspective in the grand tradition as Spock. I liked the ship designs, interior designs, costumes, props, special effects...

My problem with Discovery is Michael Burnham. I prefer Trek to be an ensemble program with episode-to-episode continuity but overall the ability to produce episodes which can stand on their own. I'm less-interested in a series where one character has central focus and the series tells a single story across the season (the 'prestige television' model). This is all complicated by the fact that I can't bring myself to care about Burnham. She's far too arrogant and removed in the debut episodes for me to appreciate her fall from grace; I was not absorbed in the tragedy of Michael Burnham because the show hadn't convinced me she was a person I wanted to see succeed. Her determination to launch a preemptive strike against the Klingons in the hopes of averting a larger conflict is such an odd note for her character to strike, because the mutiny fails within 45 seconds; we never learn whether her decision to mutiny was defensible and because that action is so controversial it further distanced me from her. If she had mutinied, attacked the Klingons, then learned it was the wrong decision that would be something meaty - she'd have definitely done something wrong which she needed to atone for. As it is, she violated the trust of her commanding officer but we barely knew her c.o. and the c.o. is dead an hour later anyway. (I'm also a bit unclear why the Klingons seem to hover around for an hour before engaging in combat; no matter the time or place, don't Klingons who are spoiling for a fight tend to simply launch into one? Why do they wait so long for Starfleet to get their heads together? What was preventing them from leaving, dropping a "catch you later" buoy as they depart?)

Too much of Discovery leans on informed statements. We're told about the deaths of Burnham's family; we're told she's emotionally compromised where Klingons are concerned; but we don't see her family's death and we don't get to know her well enough to form a basis for her typical emotional level. Compare to Deep Space Nine's pilot "Emissary" which opens with the death of Jennifer Sisko so that Benjamin Sisko's uncertainty about his future in Starfleet and his anger at Jean-Luc Picard are established for the audience.

But then again, I can't say much about what Discovery is like because these two episodes are just a preamble to the series proper. We'll see how it fares.

Thoughts on artificial gravity

Last week I was watching the prestige science fiction film Arrival and it made me think about Star Trek and Star Wars.

Wait - stop! No, come back! Hear me out!

In Arrival the mysterious alien ships visiting Earth can be accessed by their human visitors through a sort of airlock. Because the ship has artificial gravity on board this causes people entering the ship to suddenly float at a right-angle as they shift from Earth's gravity to that of the ship's.

It's a moment meant to emphasize the strangeness of encountering another species but it caused me to reflect on how this science is normally used in science fiction. Some science fiction avoids the question of gravity aboard ships at all, preferring zero-gravity environments. But in Star Trek and Star Wars, the world's two most popular science fiction franchises, artificial gravity is a given.

The issues surrounding artificial gravity rarely come up on Star Trek. From time to time there would be a gravity failure on one of the ships. Enterprise, being the series set at the chronologically earliest point of the franchise, played with gravity a little more than the others - there were certain gravity glitches the characters would experience.

Yet Enterprise ignored an idea which Arrival explored - what about the airlock? That series frequently had alien visitors board the ship through its airlock (as transporter technology wasn't fully reliable). What would have happened if a visiting ship had to dock at a 90 degree angle because of its physical shape? What would a boarding sequence look like in that instance?

But then I began to think about artificial gravity in Star Wars and realized, "oh yeah - they have that too." Many have argued Star Wars is more fantasy than science fiction and I'm afraid I'm about to repeat that argument. Space and technology in the Star Wars films is extremely familiar and lived-in. Everyone is accustomed to being around some 200 different species at any given time, traveling through space at faster-than-light speeds is a given and the franchise's most popular vehicle is deemed "a piece of junk" by its universe's standards.

Where I would say Arrival and Star Trek hold concepts in common is that the characters experience a sense of awe and wonder as they're exposed to the wider universe. In Star Wars, all of the awe and wonder is calculated as an effect upon the audience, not so much as to be experienced by the characters. That is, we in the audience are supposed to think the Millennium Falcon is cool; those in the film do not.

What would exploration even look like in the Star Wars universe? It seems as though everything in that franchise has to be somehow connected to the Force. If you're mastering the Force, what else could the universe offer you? Among their thousands of culturally-acclimated aliens, why would people in the Star Wars universe want to go seeking another race? What purpose do planets serve in the Star Wars universe beyond military and commercial ventures?

The aliens in Arrival possess certain abilities (no spoilers offered) and the knowledge they carry changes the course of humanity. In Star Trek, various aliens have been shown to possess different abilities or cultural values which provide interesting contrasts against humanity's (one notable Trek race has the same abilities as the Arrival aliens). But in Star Wars, the only people credited with particular powers or beliefs worth coveting are those who use the Force. It is, as David Brin has argued, a pro-elitist perspective. For all that multiculturalism seems to be a universal norm in Star Wars (outside of the very British Imperials) the Force divides the universe into haves and have-nots. To paraphrase George Orwell, in Star Wars all people are equal but some are more equal than others.

And that's what the artificial gravity made me think of. Even Gravity didn't inspire me to think this much about gravity.

Fiction that won me back

People who know me know that I'm extremely picky and stubborn like a mule. When I get a notion into my head I'm loathe to reverse my position. Growing up, I was a terrible problem for my family whenever they wanted to see a movie in the theater because I would veto most of what the cinemas were offering. And once I decided I didn't like something, I would remain steadfast in my resolve.

This being so, let's look at three times where I had set myself against a project - only to be won back.

I watched a fair bit of Mission: Impossible growing up, starting with the 1980s revival series, then seeing the original program when it ran in reruns on FX. It was often an uneven series (particularly in the later years) but there are many episodes which I can point to as great television. The series also had a great number of repeated tropes, moments which would appear in virtually every episode and so would be anticipated each time - and then surprised in those episodes which didn't follow the typical Mission: Impossible formula.

I did not like Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible. Oh, how much did I not like this film. As a Mission: Impossible fan, I simply couldn't stand seeing the program's hero - Jim Phelps - turned into a villain then thrown under the bus in order to promote Tom Cruise as the new hero. This film angered me, so much so that I couldn't appreciate any of the craft which went into its much-admired stunts.

Many years later I found myself on a flight from Canada to Sierra Leone and noticed Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol among the in-flight entertainment. After getting through the films I really wanted to see, I lowered my expectations in order to give Ghost Protocol a shot. I reasoned that while it wouldn't be the Mission: Impossible I enjoyed, as it was directed by a director I enjoyed (Brad Bird) maybe I'd get something out of it. I was won over by the time the opening credits rolled.

The bongo music - the fuse moving across the screen - the clips of upcoming moments - wow. Instantly, I gleaned that Brad Bird might have been a fan of the original series. I became immersed in that film and enjoyed that it was - like the original series - an ensemble piece (that is, less of a Tom Cruise vehicle). So many of the trademarks of the television program were present, from stealth gadgets to changing room numbers to trick people. I enjoyed this film so much I went to see Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation on its opening weekend! Ghost Protocol remains a film I would happily watch again.

I came somewhat late into Star Trek fandom, arriving just as Star Trek: Voyager launched. I went back to catch all that I had missed and soon found there were episodes I liked, other episodes not-so-much, characters I liked, characters I loathed. While Star Trek: Deep Space Nine became my favourite of the franchise I still watched Voyager to the end - gradually realizing it wasn't that great, often viewing it from a sense of inertia and seldom engaged with the stories, but it wasn't bad enough to switch channels.

Then came Enterprise. Although I had misgivings about the series' approach to continuity, I respected that the program wanted to break out of the usual tropes and find a new angle on the Trek formula in order to attract a wider audience. I gave the first season some rope and found it likeable enough. That changed with season 2, particularly with the notorious "A Night in Sickbay" episode, but also a series of other similarly lousy programs. I gave up partway into the season and decided I was done with Trek. I ignored what I heard about the show's changes in seasons 3 & 4.

One day, a friend eagerly insisted I watch the season 4 two-parter "A Mirror Darkly." I spent a great deal of time laughing at the over-the-top performances and the audacious number of references to classic Trek. This convinced me to go back and see the rest of season 4 to discover what the series' new showrunner (Manny Coto) had done to improve the series. I ultimately judged he had made the show a solid good program and felt better about how Trek's TV franchise wound up. Still, some fans insisted the show had actually become good in season 3. Eventually I would watch everything I had missed (including more of the lousy season 2 episodes) and concluded that it had actually become decent near the end of season 2 and even hit an all-time high during its 3rd season. Enterprise didn't deserve a better chance - simply being Star Trek gave it a better chance than most programs - but, like every Trek program, if you ignore the really bad episodes it's not such an awful series.

Finally, Star Wars. I've blogged before about how Star Wars was a very important franchise to me in my childhood but how I began to feel disinterested even before Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was released. That feeling continued throughout the era of prequel films. I recognized the product as a legitimate Star Wars offering, yet had a sense of disassociation, not feeling any emotion about seeing the product. This finally changed when I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which offered some compelling new characters alongside a hefty dose of nostalgia.

Nostalgia is the common bond between these franchises. To win me back to Mission: Impossible, it took an homage to the original series opening; for Enterprise, it was bringing in the Mirror Universe; for Star Wars, it was familiar characters and situations. But I would say in each instance nostalgia was a means to an end, not a means unto itself. Beyond the nostalgia I sensed in the opening of Ghost Protocol, I enjoyed the risky stunts and character interplay. Enterprise dug deep into franchise lore for its 4th season, but it also worked hard to rehabilitate its own characters, particularly by calling out its lead character (Jonathan Archer) for his sins. Finally, The Force Awakens trod upon familiar soil, but it was the new character Finn who gave me hope for the franchise's future.

How about you? Is there a series or franchise which you came to dislike, then found yourself being won back?

Beyond Space Dudes

"Can't we just get Beyond Star Trek?" - Old Klingon Proverb.

Star Trek has turned 50 and I find myself at this time very much at peace with the franchise. The time when I was a devoted Trek fan was considerably brief - 7 years - but those corners of the franchise which I once disparaged I'm now friendly towards and of late I've taken to revisiting a lot of old Trek episodes and films.

The breaking point for me was the series Enterprise and, coupled with the one-two-punch of Star Trek: Nemesis it seemed as though the franchise had turned sour and needed to be fixed. However, thanks to Netflix I've reappraised Enterprise and discovered it became genuinely good near the end of its 2nd season. There many things about the program which I find fault with, but overall I'm positive about it and will even recommended it to others (with the proviso they avoid the many episodes which frustrated me).

And this brings me to Star Trek: Beyond, the most recent film in the Trek film franchise begun by J. J. Abrams. In examining the previous two films I dubbed them "Space Dudes" based on my theory that "there is nothing wrong with the films that changing their names to 'Space Dudes' wouldn't fix." But to continue my reconciliation with the franchise, I'm now placated by the Abrams films and I won't be using that disparaging nickname any longer.

The previous two Abrams films directly clashed with Trek on purpose in the vein of "you've never seen these characters like this before," which was a little misconceived as these were new incarnations of the characters and didn't have the same backstories as the originals. Leonard Nimoy's Spock kept his emotions bottled up and when they came out, they were usually morose and melancholy; compare that to Zachary Quinto's Spock, whose emotions are barely below the surface and come to the fore as extreme rage. William Shatner's Kirk was a ladies' man who could improvise brilliant plans and defy authority for the greater good; Chris Pine's Kirk engages in meaningless sex with unimportant characters, is extremely brash, entitled and bad at taking orders. Nichelle Nichols' Uhura was defined solely by her job as communications officer; Zoe Saldana's Uhura is defined... well, primarily as Spock's girlfriend. Progress! These changes work as a contrast to the previous performers' roles but consequently, I can't buy Quinto's Spock as "the" Spock - he's drifted too far from Nimoy's.

Thus, Star Trek: Beyond pushes back a bit; Spock is again reserved and if at all emotional, is morose; Kirk is intelligent, can outfox his enemies and, shockingly, doesn't try to pick up any ladies; McCoy is back to being one of the leads and banters with Spock. And so forth. At the same time, what came before is still there but it feels justified; like, Kirk riding motorcycles and listening to Beastie Boys in the first film felt like pandering; Beyond makes those elements seem organic.

Beyond has trouble, and that's everything to do with the villain, yet another revenge-seeking madman with a doomsday weapon (5 films in a row now). What makes this villain particularly painful is that his backstory is withheld until the climax of the film is already underway; the sudden pause to explain who the villain truly is kills the momentum and invites all manner of "but if he's really this guy, then why..." questions. The villain plot is basically a waste.

Although the Abrams Trek still hasn't figured out how to write villains, the good news is that the characters are likeable and they carry the film regardless of whatever nonsense is unfolding. Trailers did not accurately reflect what the film was like, making it look like one of director Justin Lin's Fast and Furious flicks. There are a lot of great action scenes, but the characters are the best part of the movie. Perhaps the best scenes are the McCoy-Spock scenes as they start by bickering with each other, then eventually have a heartfelt conversation.

And now that I'm finally on board with the new Trek... obviously, now audiences disagree with me. I did hear that Into Darkness may have lost money because of its high advertising budget, but Beyond seems to be doing considerably worse, having all but vanished at the box office due to the intense glut of big budget action movies this year. I'm sure the Trek films will be back, but perhaps they should take a cue from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and trim the budget back; who knows... when you've got less money to throw on the screen, it might force you to write a compelling story instead...

RIP: James Horner

Some time ago a friend asked me if I had a copy of the score to the film Aliens. I answered in the affirmative: "Yes, I have a copy of the score to Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan." The joke (which he understood) was to note the similarities between the two scores, both written by James Horner. Evidently Horner had been in such a rush to complete Aliens on time that he recycled great swathes of Star Trek II in order to meet his deadline.

A month ago I happened to watch the film Wolfen, an unusual horror film which, for most of the run time, leads you into thinking you're watching a werewolf film (the antagonists turn out to be - 34 year old spoilers! - godlike wolf spirits). When the film would shift to show events from the viewpoint of the antagonists, I immediately recognized pieces of Khan's theme from Star Trek II; sure enough, Wolfen was a James Horner score, one which preceded Trek. I let my friend know about this.

Two days ago, my friend fired back by inviting me to listen to the score to Battle Beyond the Stars, which was Horner's second credited film score. Once again, you can hear arrangements which he later reused in Star Trek II! How neat!

James Horner died yesterday.

I cannot praise Horner's score to Star Trek II enough. Amusing as it is to hear pieces of that score in films he composed for either before or after that picture, it's such a perfect blend of music, from the bombastic opening titles to the menacing Khan/Reliant theme to the frantic combat music to the subdued closing. I consider Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan to be the finest Star Trek movie and Horner's music is an important, vital element in the makeup of that film.

I am also a tremendous fan of Avatar, which is not a fashionable thing to admit. Again, Horner delivered a terrific score there, without which I might not have enjoyed the film nearly as much. The soundtrack album to Avatar is the one of the most-frequently played scores in my house.

In addition to scoring some of my favourite movies, I was also very pleased to learn he and I were born on the same day of the year. No doubt that heightened my sense of affection for his art.

With Horner gone, who survives amongst Hollywood's great composers? Brian Tyler, Hans Zimmer, Ennio Morricone, Lalo Schifrin and John Carpenter, I suppose (and a tip of the hat to Daft Punk).

Horner has joined the greats - other favourites of mine who have passed on such as Jerry Goldsmith, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, Bernard Herrmann and Shirley Walker.

Rest in peace, Mr. Horner; your music remains vital to me.

Star Trek: Into Snarkness

While watching Star Trek: Into Darkness last night, a number of thoughts pranced through my head; some are laudatory, most are snarky. As the #1 film at the box office for two weeks so far, I'm sure they're big enough to take it.

My friend Craig prepared me for the film by describing it as "better than Star Trek: Nemesis... like Star Trek: New Voyages with a budget." That helped.

As Kirk & McCoy leap off a cliff:

"Looks like we'll have to... JUMP!"

"STAR TREK 2: THIS TIME, IT'S DEFINITELY NOT STAR TREK 1!"

Enterprise is unable to beam staff because of the volcano:

I realize later on they declare they can't use Scotty's transwarp from the previous movie any more, but it's quite something to go from the previous film's ridiculously powerful galaxy-spanning transporters to this film's transporters, which are useless every time the good guys need them.

Spock declares the volcano will wipe out the "species":

Is this volcano going to cause a global upheaval which will annihilate all life on the planet? 'Cause from here, it looks like a village is in jeopardy, not a "species." Mount Vesuvius has tried it's best, but the human species has survived it so far.

Khan offers to help a Starfleet officer save his daughter; the officer asks, "Who are you?" The camera focuses on Khan's face for several seconds, but he doesn't speak:

"Oh crap! Who am I? Want to say... Susan? No, no, no, not right! Play it cool, he's starting to stare back, don't give away... damn, he's on to me! I've got nothing!"

Kirk is in bed with two cat-women:

Why must Star Trek insist on courting the furry community?

Pike relieves Kirk of his command:

It's almost as though a guy who never graduated the Academy and cheated on his tests is a poor choice for commanding a starship!

Kirk realizes - an instant too late - that Khan knows Starfleet's protocols in case of a disaster and is preparing an attack on their location:

It's nice that Starfleet has protocols in place for when someone bombs their facilities... pity they have no protocols in place for when staff possessing classified information turn on them.

Kirk wields a fire hose against an aircraft strafing a skyscraper:

"What are you doin', Jim? What the f*** are you doin', Jim?"

Admiral Pike dies:

WHAT?! They killed the best character and the best actor?!

Kirk wants revenge on Khan:

This is quite a change from last movie, where he wanted revenge on Nero.

"STAR TREK 2: THIS TIME, IT'S DEFINITELY NOT STAR TREK 1!"

The facility Khan destroyed turns out to be Section 31:

As a big DS9 and Section 31 fan, it does amuse me that in spite of fandom's intense reaction against Section 31, it's only become more significant in Star Trek since DS9 ended!

Carol "Wallace" introduces herself:

Very nice Easter egg, considering Carol Marcus was first intended to be the original series character Janet Wallace. That's some mighty obscure trivia!

While on a dangerous away mission, Uhura brings up her relationship problems with Spock; Spock explains he feels emotions, even if he doesn't display them:

Not only is this poor timing on Uhura's part but surely she hasn't been dating him this many years without figuring out how Vulcan emotions work before now?

The Klingons wear headgear obscuring their faces:

This way they save money on makeup! Finally, something we all can agree is true to the spirit of Gene Roddenberry!

Kirk's away team winds up in a firefight between Khan and the Klingons:

In advance, I heard the Klingons came off looking poorly in this film; it's not so much that they're pathetic against Khan, as it is... they're just generic bad guys. The movie's not about them, I don't think it's a problem.

Khan surrenders to Kirk; Kirk reacts by beating him for several seconds:

Joe Don Baker is captain of the Enterprise!

Kirk angrily and tearfully confronts Khan in the brig:

Oh, honey. Please, just keep being yourself - don't try to act.

Kirk offers himself to Admiral Marcus (no, not like that) to save his crew; Marcus refuses:

Not that it isn't a grand gesture on Kirk's part, but what hope did this plan have? Since Kirk broadcast Marcus' entire villainous tirade to the crew, surely he understands Marcus now has to kill them to keep his secrets?

Kirk releases Khan for his help in capturing Vengeance away from Marcus:

Laying aside questions of whether Kirk could've captured the ship any other way, since they know they can't trust Khan, why not place a transponder on him so they can at least track him? It would've come in handy later. Of course, Star Trek technology is such that querying "why didn't they use...?" will tear apart even the best stories (ie, "why not time travel? why not psychic powers?").

Spock sends Khan the torpedoes he wants, but detonates them within Vengeance's deck:

In Wrath of Khan, Spock outwitted Khan after realizing he didn't understand starship combat tactics; in this film, Spock outwits Khan by winning a semantics argument ("the torpedoes are yours"). If Khan is this much of a dope, why not try the "got your nose" trick? You could ransom Khan's nose back to him in exchange for his prisoners.

Khan teleports Kirk, Scotty & Carol into the Enterprise brig:

I realize this only briefly slows down the characters, but even though Enterprise's shields are down, shouldn't the brig be shielded against transporters?

Scotty guides Kirk & Chekov in assisting him in repairing Enterprise's engines:

Is the engineering staff really so useless that without Scotty around, no one bothers to remain at their posts to try and fix this stuff? Start paying the extras more money!

Kirk knocks out Scotty so he can sacrifice himself by realigning the warp core:

Not that I think Kirk should've sent Scotty to his doom (though it is one of those things captains are supposed to be capable of), but how did Kirk know how to fix the core? Isn't it fortunate for him it required nothing more than caveman-like bludgeoning to get the power back online?

Just think of all the trouble Starfleet could save themselves if they bought a few robot arms for use in radiation-heavy zones. I think Tony Stark has a couple he's not using...

Scotty tells Spock he'd "better get down here; better hurry.":

I don't think a guffaw was the intended reaction.

Kirk has taken a lethal dose of radiation:

See, it's nothing like Wrath of Khan because Pine refused to wear radiation burn-makeup. That would've been a crime against beauty.

Spock converses with Kirk through a glass door:

I'm not buying this - in Wrath of Khan, Spock's death was the culmination of a 15-year friendship. In this continuity, Kirk seems to barely tolerate Spock. I'm sure he'd rather have Scotty or Uhura on the other side of the glass - he's actually friends with them!

It is interesting though, that in this case Kirk's "death" is what seems to begin he and Spock's friendship.

Spock screams KHAAAN!:

Okay, the makers had to know we'd laugh at this, so I feel no shame.

Enterprise & Vengeance crash toward Earth:

Wait, Earth? That brief scene in warp which ended abruptly brought them all the way home? Then why haven't they radioed Starfleet for help before this? Where's the rest of the fleet? How would Marcus have kept his mission secret when any satellite in orbit could be filming him destroying the Enterprise?

Vengeance crashes into a city:

In addition to all the civilian deaths here, whatever became of Vengeance's crew? I mean, all the guys Kirk & Scotty stunned?

Khan leaps "30 meters" to the ground:

"Looks like I'll have to... JUMP!"

"STAR TREK 2: THIS TIME, IT'S DEFINITELY NOT STAR TREK 1!"

The transporters can't find Khan, so they send Spock to him:

In the midst of sighing about the continually useless transporters, I almost missed Chris Doohan's cameo as the transporter chief; nice tip of the hat there.

Spock pursues Khan on foot through the streets of San Francisco:

In case I forgot I was watching a J.J. Abrams program, I suppose. STAR TREK! WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE!

Spock leaps from a flying object to another flying object:

"Looks like I'll have to... JUMP!"

"STAR TREK 2: THIS TIME, IT'S DEFINITELY NOT STAR TREK 1!"

Khan, having already shrugged off the Vulcan Nerve Pinch, takes 8 stun blasts from Uhura's phaser and still remains conscious:

Sfdebris has repeatedly noted how useless guns are in Star Trek, but this is a new low; why not just go back to bullets? He's already been condemned to death.

Kirk's medical chart indicates Dr. Boyce:

That's a very unexpected Easter egg; I hope the intern who thought of it got an extra doughnut.

Khan is returned to suspended animation:

Uh... I thought we were told he'd been condemned to death? Is this just to set up the sequel where the Borg revive him? Then they'll have to call up old Spock and old Spock's all, "I can't alter your destinies, but I can tell you this: the Borg are very dangerous. I hope that helps. Where's my money?"

Carol joins the crew of Enterprise for a 5-year mission:

This could actually be very good for Kirk's character development, if he winds up in a serious relationship with her.

The cast are listed in alphabetical order:

Great touch, very appropriate for an ensemble film.

Review: Star Trek - Romulans Treasury Edition

I don't often wander through my comic shop's licensed property section, but questing for the most recent issue of Godzilla: the Half-Century War led me past their Star Trek display. I just happened to spy the new Star Trek: Romulans Treasury Edition; actually, it's size made it rather difficult to overlook.

It's not the largest comic book I own, but the "treasury edition" format always makes me giddy. In this instance, it led me into buying a Star Trek comic book I would have overlooked if the same material had been sold as a trade paperback (as is, the $9.99 price was cheaper than the cover price of the original material).

This book collects three comic books about Romulans which writer-penciler-inker John Byrne created in 2008. Set in the continuity of the 1960s TV show, it opens immediately prior to "Balance of Terror," the episode which introduced the Romulans. The honorable Romulan commander from that episode is (re)introduced, along with his wife, son and the fanatical leader of the Romulans, the Praetor. At the same time the Romulans have begun using their new cloaking devices to cross the Neutral Zone, they've made new allies: the Klingons. On the surface, the Klingons have come to Romulus to obtain their own cloaking devices, but they actually have a secret plan of their own. Considering the Romulans have a reputation in Star Trek for being the galaxy's most cunning spies, there is schadenfreude to be had in seeing them outwitted by Klingons!

It definitely pays to know your 1960s Star Trek before delving into this book. In addition to "Balance of Terror," I recognized references to "the Trouble With Tribbles," "Errand of Mercy" and "the Deadly Years." Because all of this is told from the perspective of the Romulans (and Klingon allies), the Starfleet characters are only ever glimpsed from a distance (although despite being absent from the cast of characters, one James T. Kirk sets into motion much of the action). If you don't recall how "Balance of Terror" played out, you may be confused by how the Romulan commander is given a great introduction, then dies off-panel in battle with the Enterprise. And while you might recognize the Klingons Koloth & Kor from (respectively) "the Trouble With Tribbles" and "Errand of Mercy," Kor's motivation depends on you being familiar with "Errand of Mercy"'s plot. Essentially, having been forcibly prevented by the all-powerful Organians from attacking the Federation, Kor's great scheme is to manipulate the Romulans into waging war on their behalf. He does refer to the "Organian interference," but it's up to the reader to understand its context.

Being printed at such a large size means when Byrne delves into great detail at rendering the people or starships, you can marvel at his skill. However, it also means when Byrne takes shortcuts with his art, the increased size makes it all the more glaring. Let's call it a draw.

The book would definitely profit from a few endnotes to explain the continuity. For that matter, the story could use captions to help with scene transitions. There are moments where knowing how many days/weeks have passed between scenes would help explain the seemingly drastic changes in situation. Further, one sequence presents the Klingons & Romulans engaged in war games, but because the Romulans have a team of Klingon observers aboard their ship, I had difficulty understanding when the perspective switched between vessels.

This isn't the complete story - Byrne wrote three more comics about the Romulans which will reprinted in a 2nd treasury edition to accompany this. I didn't realize it when I bought this book, but I'll happily add the concluding volume to my collection; Byrne and Star Trek are both fond old friends of mine and it's a pleasure to revisit them.

Star Trek: the Star Trek - but is it Star Trek? A Star Trek review about Star Trek.

I don't believe my friends have ever called me to account for myself for not having seen Marty, Brokeback Mountain or the Hurt Locker. But when certain friends learned I hadn't seen 2009's Star Trek*? Oh mercy, I was called on the carpet. From the aghast faces my friends made, you would think I had confessed to consuming human flesh, not that I hadn't watched some high-grossing sci-fi action epic.

Truth be told, I did turn down an offer to watch the film in theatres with a friend. Later, when a friend suggested it as an option during a group movie night, I vetoed it, receiving some comment. Later still, I had the film only a few paces away from the checkout counter at a video store when I was planning to watch the film accompanied by Rifftrax with a group of friends, until one member of the group suggested we watch the Rifftrax of Twilight: New Moon instead (she had cause to regret this and wound up angrily complaining that we were stuck watching Twilight: New Moon). It's only because Star Trek turned up on Netflix that I finally gave in and watched it.

I avoided the film for a couple of reasons. First, because I used to be a Star Trek fan, but my love for the franchise had been ground down from years of Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise until I just wanted to put it all behind me. Second, I suspected that Star Trek was best enjoyed by new (or casual) audiences, not an old warhorse like me (similar to how my parents could never adopt Star Trek: the Next Generation as their own).

Having seen the film, my original impressions were justified. It's not for me. I wouldn't call Star Trek a bad movie (no matter how much it overdoes lens flare), it's a pretty good movie on its own terms. The film's real problem is that it isn't willing to stand on its own terms.

Had the film made a clean break from Star Trek lore I could have respected that, but so much screen time is spent inserting references to the previous iteration of Star Trek. It's a problem I've seen before in comic books when super hero universes are supposedly rebooted, yet the creators can't help remarking on what's come before and revisiting familiar plots & characters.

The references to earlier Star Trek continuity are also puzzling, used without a sense of the original context. For instance, in Star Trek VI: the Undiscovered Country, there's a scene where Spock quotes Sherlock Holmes; this is repeated in Star Trek. However, while in the former the Holmes quote was inserted as a piece of warm comedy which humanized Spock, in the latter the quote comes during a scene designed to make the audience dislike Spock and side against him. Star Trek also revisits the Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario story from Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan, but while in the earlier film it was an example of how Kirk had always cheated death, in the newer film we learn Kirk took the Kobayashi Maru test three times before passing it, which undermines the point of the story in its original form.

There's also a running theme of the cast being bad at their jobs, which I think is meant to indicate their youth and inexperience, but should probably have been stopped after the second instance. Instead, we wind up with a Spock who's bad at being a Vulcan, a Kirk who's bad at being a leader, a Sulu who's bad at piloting, a Chekov who's bad at the transporter and a Scotty who needs Spock to be the Miracle Worker; only Uhura & McCoy remain unscathed and consistently portrayed as competent professionals (Uhura taking her clothes off and McCoy being a drunk notwithstanding).

I'd forgive all these creative decisions if the plot were up to snuff. It isn't. It's a bog standard illogical-villain-seeks-revenge plot with nothing original to make it stand out. There's no sense of scope, wonder or anything at all unearthly, which the Star Trek franchise - even at its worst - usually attempts to achieve. Heck, I'll make a token defense of Star Trek: Generations for trying to tell a story about something cosmic and awe-inspiring.

The film is well cast; Bruce Greenwood dominates every scene he's in and should've had a larger part. The sets look great. The special effects are what you'd expect. Shame about the story... If only the film had been called "Space Guys" I wouldn't have had to spend so much time thinking about it...and no one would have demanded I go see it.

For my favourite review of this film, please read Priest's.

*= aka "Star Trek: the Star Trek," so as not to be confused with Star Trek: the Motion Picture or Star Trek: the Original Series.

The Last Time Michael Talked About Star Wars

I recently read how comics blogger Tim O'Neil felt slighted at how over the last decade comic books have gained wider reception. Because he had stayed with comics through the lean, dismal years, he found it hard to reconcile the current marketplace where comics are prosperous, hip and respected. I lived through those lean years too. His feelings reminded me of my own thoughts on the Star Wars franchise. It's something I've had on my heart for a while and his post has spurred me to finally get it out.

Before I delve into this, I have to say up front that while I might sound like an entitled fanboy at times, this is my therapy and blogging is cheaper than psychiatry. I'm not interested in accusations or persuasions, just to tell my story and the emotions I felt at the time.

To begin with, Star Wars was the single most important thing to me as a child (and for many of my teenage years). I was born a year after the first film debuted and saw Return of the Jedi in the theatre on at least two occasions. My family didn't purchase many films for our home library (videos were a luxury) but we taped a lot of movies off TV and the Star Wars films were my favorites (I didn't see Empire Strikes Back until years after Jedi, not until it turned up on TV).

Now, there's a lengthy period there between the release of Return of the Jedi (1983) and the next theatrical Star Wars event (the Special Edition re-releases, 1997). It was during that in-between period that I was growing up...growing up on Star Wars. Even though the franchise was largely dormant, it never died for me. There were still the Star Wars comics that Marvel published (until 1986) and I began collecting a complete set of them. You had the occasional foray into television like the Ewoks and Droids cartoons, marketed to my demographic (little kids who liked Star Wars). And what about those great Kenner action figures that I collected for years after the line had ended. Playing with those toys regularly kept the series ever-new to me.

In junior high I had decent disposable income for the first time and comic books became my number one interest. Still, Star Wars was very important to me; it was something that I shared with my siblings and other relatives but I was really unaware of what a large following it had enjoyed in the past and how much of that following remained. Remember, this is before the internet allowed you 24/7 access to people who shared your interests.

A watershed moment for me came when the Sci-Fi Channel ran a Star Wars film marathon, hosted by Carrie Fisher. I saw to it that all of the films and bumper segments were recorded for the family collection, meaning that the films were finally together on one tape and in better quality than our earlier attempts. Seeing the marathon fired me up about Star Wars again, so much so that I brought up the subject to my friends at high school.

I suppose I must have been naive. I approached the subject with an innocent, "So...have you ever seen Star Wars?" I really didn't take the films' popularity for granted. Since Jedi had exited theatres it had been "underground" and it was something from my childhood...I didn't expect my friends to have more fondness for Star Wars than any other "fad" of the 80s, be it Transformers, He-Man or Thundercats.

So I was surprised and pleased to learn that yes, my friends did know what Star Wars was and yes, they liked it. How about that? Maybe if I had seen the films' box office numbers I would have been a little less naive.

But it wasn't long after that film marathon that the Star Wars phenomena started to rise again. The first sign I observed were the novels by Timothy Zhan. Now, I've never read them; I was devoted to the Marvel Comics interpretation of what happened post-Jedi and, much as I would reject alternate continuities in comics, I wouldn't stand for a different Star Wars continuity.

The thing was...other people at school were reading those novels. I'd see them in classrooms, in hallways...and I'd think, "Who are these people? Why do they suddenly like Star Wars?" It never occurred to me that maybe Star Wars was something they enjoyed in their childhood, just as I had. To my mind these were a bunch of fair-weather friends who had turned out just because the novels were new and shiny. I had never stopped keeping the faith.

Near the end of high school I had begun to drift out of comics, but something new appeared on my fan-obsession menu: Star Trek. If I was perhaps a little naive when it came to Star Wars' popularity, I was flat-out ludicrous when it came to Star Trek. Here, I had the reverse problem - I was wholly unaware that admitting to liking Star Trek was something that subjected you to ridicule from all corners, even among friends who enjoyed Magic: the Gathering or...well, Star Wars. The image of the Star Trek geek is burned into my mind pretty well now (I've certainly met enough of them), but at the time, Star Trek was just another cool science fiction program. That was my blind spot.

And then...I had my first brush with real Star Wars fandom. Not simply friends from school, but the larger, organized sectors. The renewed interest in Star Wars by the mid-90s led to the publication of a few Star Wars fan magazines and from the letters page of more than one publication I began to notice a pattern: self-proclaimed Star Wars fans did not like Star Trek. I mean, they went out of their way to ridicule it on the letters page. Even the magazine editors would take cheap shots at Trek. And yet, in Trek publications it seemed as though every self-proclaimed Star Trek fan liked Star Wars too. Why were the Star Wars fans trying to split fandom into two separate camps that, to my mind, had more in common than anything?*

There was also some kind of multimedia event around then called Shadows of the Empire, which purported to reveal the gaps between Empire and Jedi. But wait, what about the Marvel Comics that filled those gaps? I sought out an interview with the architects of the story and was mortified when the creators bad-mouthed the Marvel Comics, dredging up only the most ridiculous elements of the stories (like the notorious Jaxxon) to paint the entire series as some sort of inferior Star Wars knock-off. "Star Wars: Made in Taiwan" perhaps. Well, their project had the benefit of hindsight, I guess. I never read Shadows, whatever it was.

So, I had these problems with Star Wars. It had nothing to do with the films, but I was troubled to see the thing I liked and considered my personal, secret pleasure adopted by one and all, and to see that some of the most outspoken fans didn't like the same things I did.

Then the Special Edition films came out and I was there, eager to see them on the big screen (in the case of Empire, for the first time). I had convinced myself then that the newly-added scenes made the films better, although even then I had reservations about some of the changes. Whatever, it was nice just to see new Star Wars footage. There was talk in the fan magazines about new movies coming but I took it about as seriously as talk of a new Indiana Jones film (shyeah, like that'll ever happen). At the time, I though the Special Edition was the last grand hurrah of the franchise, the gold watch, the last day before retirement.

Of course, I was wrong. But my life went through a lot of upheaval by the time the Phantom Menace arrived. I don't recall even viewing the trailer for the film, despite being on the internet by then (did the internet have trailers in 1999? it seemed like an awesome new technology when I discovered it around 2001). By the time the Phantom Menace arrived I was in college and working full-time to support myself. I was back into comics but had rationed myself down to four books a month to make ends meet (even that was a luxury). And there was the internet, my new place to waste time and obtain validation from others. I was alone in a new city with no real friends and hardly any spare time so seeing the film felt like a low priority.

I don't know how my 12-year old self would have reconciled the ambivalence my 21-year old self felt toward the Phantom Menace. I wasn't expecting it to be terrible, I wasn't against watching it, it just didn't seem important to me. Realization hit me: I wasn't a Star Wars fan any more. And that was okay.

Before I went to college I had made a conscious decision to avoid watching the Star Wars films. I have an annoying tendency to memorize the things I enjoy the most and I felt that having watched the films so often I had begun to cheapen the viewing experience for myself. I knew all of the beats before they happened so what was the point in going through the motions of watching the films again? I thought that Star Wars - and all of my most favorite films - should be packed away for at least a year so that I could begin to forget them, then dig them up and enjoy them with slightly refreshed eyes.

But that didn't happen...well, I did dig up the other movies. I still unearth my Hitchcock collection a few times per year. But it's 12 years now and I haven't pulled the Star Wars trilogy out. In 12 years I found more opportunities to watch the Chronicles of Riddick** than I did Star Wars.

So, the Phantom Menace came and went from theatres and I didn't pay it much heed. Reaction on the internet was divided, but from the sheer volume of horrified viewers I surmised that I had dodged a bullet.*** I moved on. I'm not saying any of this to gain sympathy or understanding because I don't think falling out of love with a movie is worthy of consolation. If I woke up tomorrow and realized I wasn't in love with the Third Man anymore, well, heck, I've still got Our Man in Havana.

There is enough of my childhood love of Star Wars left in me that I have occasion to wince when I see something glaringly bad associated with the franchise. My feelings are also sore enough that I can chuckle good-naturedly with Tag & Bink and ill-naturedly with Red Letter Media. When I was in high school I thought that I had to force myself to outgrow comics because it was a juvenile medium. I was in denial then, and my adoration of the medium has only prospered since. The real mark of outgrowing something you love is that you simply leave it in the past. It doesn't have to be tragic, turgid or filled with shame and regret. It's simply left behind.

(*It, uh, didn't occur to me then that my own "Marvel first, last and always" perspective against DC, Image or any other publisher in the 1990s was not dissimilar)

(**Which, to its credit, is a hilariously awful movie that demands repeat viewings)

(***But only for so long. The story of how I finally saw the Phantom Menace is a blog post unto itself and this is too long as is; suffice to say, my pride was my own undoing)