tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22066633471865193192024-03-05T02:47:46.934-08:00trek-easeTom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.comBlogger68125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-38931510372336568372011-05-05T07:33:00.000-07:002011-05-05T07:45:15.474-07:00Jackie Cooper: 1922 - 2011<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwqh4n0ix8K8O7D2hPuygwl2gPbqL1vJfSRUOnJEa6GbinneeKCSJyysHxfuijM1CqA8DuiBqJSDlNWNwXMFY6dETY-vbn8nA_WAh4LEmHUufo2-0Emys5fEh1v5mWDPYSIEElwfzOM-Q/s1600/jcooper_super_alamy.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 273px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwqh4n0ix8K8O7D2hPuygwl2gPbqL1vJfSRUOnJEa6GbinneeKCSJyysHxfuijM1CqA8DuiBqJSDlNWNwXMFY6dETY-vbn8nA_WAh4LEmHUufo2-0Emys5fEh1v5mWDPYSIEElwfzOM-Q/s400/jcooper_super_alamy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603242859609212370" border="0" /></a>Another sad passing to report. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0178114/">Jackie Cooper</a>, a child actor in the "Our Gang" comedies back in the '30s, but who also transitioned successfully into an adult acting career, died Tuesday at the age of 88. He was probably best known to genre fans and moviegoers of the last 30 years as Daily Planet editor Perry White in the Christopher Reeve era <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman </span>movies.<br /><br />Cooper also had a varied behind-the-scenes career, serving as director on a multitude of TV series in the '70s and '80s, and even a five-year stint in an executive position for Columbia Pictures' TV division. But to me, he will forever be remembered (as will most of the cast members of the '80s <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman </span>movies) as the definitive silver-screen incarnation of his role, the cantankerous Perry White.Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-58680263592765747252011-05-01T19:56:00.000-07:002011-05-01T20:00:45.966-07:00May The Stores Be With YouI went out shopping last weekend, mostly for the usual kind of stuff ... and for no apparent reason, it ended up being a <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> kind of day. I unexpectedly found a few decent bargains, and they all happened to be of a <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> nature. Here's what I got:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Poster-Book/dp/0811848833/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> Poster Book</span></a> <span style="font-style: italic;">(by Stephen Sansweet and Peter Vilmur, published by Chronicle Books)</span> -- This isn't a collection of posters that you can hang on your wall, as the title might imply. Instead, it's a lush, illustrated history of <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> poster art, carrying the reader through all six movies, and the plethora of promotional tie-in art in between. Quite a few of the posters we've all seen before, but there are many rare, weird, and wonderful oddities to be found as well. This one, a big, hardcover, "coffee-table" book, was in the bargain bin for an unbelievable $5.99 (publisher's price: $50.00)! At first glance it didn't have any damage other than a slightly tattered dust jacket, but after I got it home and looked more closely, I could see the reason for its rock-bottom price: some asshole Sith apprentice had gone and torn three pages out of it in various locations. I'm not complaining -- for six bucks, how can you -- but at some point I'll definitely go seek out a higher-quality specimen, 'cause I can picture myself browsing this one again and again.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Omnibus-Long-Ago/dp/1595824863/"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> Omnibus: A Long Time Ago... Volume One</span></a> <span style="font-style: italic;">(published by Dark Horse Comics)</span> -- This is a trade paperback collecting the first 27 issues of the original Marvel Comic book series, which launched with a six-issue adaptation of the first movie back in 1977. I'd had my eye on this one for quite awhile, and when I found the one and only copy on the shelf, in excellent condition, for 20% off at the Waldenbooks store-closing sale in the local mall, I decided it was time to pick it up. I'd never bought or collected that comic series when it was being published, so I'm going to enjoy reading this.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/New-Hope-Star-Wars-Infinities/dp/156971648X/"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span>: Infinities - A New Hope</span></a> <span style="font-style: italic;">(published by Dark Horse Comics) </span>-- This is another one that had caught my eye when it was published several years ago. I've always liked "what if" stories, and this is one that suggests what might have happened if Luke's proton torpedo run at the first Death Star hadn't succeeded. This was probably the sweetest deal of the day ... its original price was $12.95, and I got it for just $3.99! It'll be quite fun to read this one too.<br /><br />So, as you can see, The Force was definitely with me during my shopping rounds last weekend ... and now I've got plenty of reading material to tide me over for quite awhile ... if I can ever remember to read during my idle time, that is.Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-21672165622133047782011-03-31T19:58:00.000-07:002011-03-31T20:06:50.610-07:00The Adventures of Captain Tight-Pants<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/Firefly-Complete-Nathan-Fillion/dp/B0000AQS0F/"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 259px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-cwPbDZIR16E-SMnptNM3TkguWzruroOie2WL-k0hvi8uvyRLiJdSaHwlEuVCsouGFANwmNLc_tLNvB_iB3dorBemZVq057rRhfmyk1KTtp3w4c9sCHPCuUXyG1Wlboc431U4rKMwIfA/s320/firefly_dvd.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5590445889049362530" border="0" /></a>"A priest, a hooker, and a mental patient are hiding out on a spaceship that's run by a cowboy." Let's face it, nobody other than Joss Whedon, the mastermind behind <span style="font-style: italic;">Buffy the Vampire Slayer</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Angel</span>, could make a thoroughly cool, enjoyable, and smart -- and, consequently, short-lived -- TV series whose premise sounds like a crappy, off-color joke. A friend of mine had convinced me to start watching <span style="font-style: italic;">Buffy </span>on DVD several years ago (awhile after the show had ended), and I made it through three seasons plus the first season of <span style="font-style: italic;">Angel </span>before I lost interest, and that had been the extent of my exposure to Whedon's work; I wasn't sufficiently intrigued by the premise of <span style="font-style: italic;">Dollhouse </span>to even try it out.<br /><br />What took me so long to give <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Firefly-Complete-Nathan-Fillion/dp/B0000AQS0F/">Firefly</a> </span>a spin, you ask? It certainly wasn't an aversion to Joss Whedon -- anyone who can keep a guy, who's not a fan of vampire stories, watching vampire stories for three-and-a-half seasons deserves major kudos. It has mostly to do with the fact that I like my sci-fi shows set in an idealistic future: the all-humankind-living-in-peace, I'd-like-to-teach-the-world-to-sing optimism of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span> Universe speaks to me in a way that the downbeat, war-torn dystopia of <span style="font-style: italic;">Battlestar Galactica</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Stargate </span>just don't. But the few bits of buzz on the web that I didn't ignore, the rave reviews from a pair of co-workers (who, aware of my geekdom, were visibly shocked at hearing I'd never seen it), and finally an unbeatable sale price of $20 for the DVD set, convinced me that I'd put it off long enough.<br /><br />When I'd first heard that <span style="font-style: italic;">Firefly </span>was in essence a sci-fi crossed with a western, I was understandably intrigued; the one thing that kept me from laughing at the concept was knowing that the only person who could pull it off was Joss Whedon ... and pull it off he did. An intricately steampunk-styled, warts-and-all cosmos, populated with a motley assemblage of all-too-human characters whose quick and acerbic wit, punctuated by "Mandarenglish" phrases borne of an imperialistic American-Chinese alliance, and their plucky attitude makes them difficult not to root for ... what's not to like? And leave it to Whedon to dare show the outer-space POV shots with no sound effects, as scientific accuracy would demand.<br /><br />The things that make this show awesome don't end there. How about the presence of Ron Glass (yeah, the guy from <span style="font-style: italic;">Barney Miller</span>!) in the cast, and the fact that it's got a country song, complete with a banjo, as its theme? For some reason, it's taken me until disc 3 to really get into the show, but now I can hardly wait to watch the rest of it (followed of course with the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Serenity-Widescreen-Nathan-Fillion/dp/B000BW7QWW/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Serenity</span></a> feature film) ... and probably re-watch the whole thing again. Mind you, I'm not nearly as in love with it as my beloved <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span>, and probably never will be, but at this rate it's got a real shot at becoming a favorite.Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-70358108734882556882011-01-18T16:51:00.000-08:002011-01-18T17:13:53.726-08:00Greetings, Programs!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjecWW97OJfnxZxUxgXetxu1filWYh2wtcEpjpf-W54yhTPHklrrtRxfoYsFP-vDUkoslmrTBx0ke4NmSPMbbIBAvK0ZexoF_H_TubXFVzymJKZUuSWr6HUr7_WlBtVTcc2u5mUIonsA2Y/s1600/tron_legacy.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjecWW97OJfnxZxUxgXetxu1filWYh2wtcEpjpf-W54yhTPHklrrtRxfoYsFP-vDUkoslmrTBx0ke4NmSPMbbIBAvK0ZexoF_H_TubXFVzymJKZUuSWr6HUr7_WlBtVTcc2u5mUIonsA2Y/s400/tron_legacy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563695896823231042" border="0" /></a><br />When the movie <span style="font-style: italic;">Tron </span>hit theaters back in 1982, my twelve-year-old self was totally obsessed with it. I glommed onto <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tron-Wendy-Carlos/dp/B00005V8J7/">the soundtrack album</a>, the storybook, the action figures and toys ... if it had the <span style="font-style: italic;">Tron </span>logo on it, I begged my parents to buy it for me. I even made myself a "computer world" outfit out of white (actually I think it was a light heather-grey) fleece, using a blue Marks-a-Lot marker to draw the circuits all over it ... even topped it with a makeshift helmet that I fashioned from something I now can't remember ... and of course, I had to have an "identity disk" (frisbee) to complete the ensemble. It was crap compared to the work of art that <a href="http://www.tronguy.net/">The Tron Guy</a> came up with, but for me it was just perfect.<br /><br />So, considering I was so in love with <span style="font-style: italic;">Tron </span>as a kid, you'd think that I'd have been first in line (camped out for days before, even) to see the long-awaited and recently-released sequel, <span style="font-style: italic;">Tron: Legacy</span> -- especially since I'd been wondering for years before it was announced what mind-blowing things they could do with <span style="font-style: italic;">Tron </span>if it were remade nowadays ... but no, I didn't see it until this past weekend, a month into its run. Hey, an adult does have more going on in his life than a 12-year-old does, making "getting around to" things take a little longer, but still, shouldn't I have been chomping at the bit more than I was? I usually only see one movie, maybe two, per year on the big screen, so by that measure I <span style="font-style: italic;">did </span>go out of my way to see <span style="font-style: italic;">Tron: Legacy</span> as soon as I could.<br /><br />I guess what it comes down to is that I was afraid I'd be disappointed. So many movies nowadays sacrifice the substance of a story for the style of eye-popping digital effects, assuming that the audience won't notice (and, as far as the roughly under-20 demographic is concerned, their assumption would be correct). But it turns out that the writers of <span style="font-style: italic;">Tron: Legacy</span> took the care to provide enough of a story to satisfy those of us who get bored with too much visual razzle-dazzle, and to give it enough continuity with the original film to satisfy those of us who have been waiting 28 years to see whatever became of Kevin Flynn and company.<br /><br />Now, I knew before I even set out for the movie theater that I wasn't going to be blown away by the visuals in <span style="font-style: italic;">Tron: Legacy</span> nearly as much as I was by those in the original film. After all, digital effects were in their infancy back then, and no movie audience had ever seen anything like <span style="font-style: italic;">Tron </span>before. By contrast, digital imagery has not only grown by leaps and bounds -- if it can be conceived, it can be put to film -- but is also so ubiquitous that it's got to be seriously impressive to make a lasting impression on the audience. But the makers of <span style="font-style: italic;">Tron: Legacy</span> were smart ... they knew that, as far as the visuals are concerned, less is more. Case in point: arguably the biggest light-show of the original film, the main character's transition from meatspace into cyberspace, was understated here -- shortened from over 60 seconds down to about 2, and consisting only of a comparatively colorless but still kind-of trippy 3-D pixelation sort of thing<span style="font-style: italic;"></span>.<br /><br />Whereas the live-action elements of the computer-world scenes in the original film were photographed on a "blank" stage àla green-screen, with all the digital scenery inserted photographically in post-production (<span style="font-style: italic;">remember: there was no digital film editing back then!</span>), the actor-centric scenes in the virtual world of <span style="font-style: italic;">Tron: Legacy</span> were filmed on actual sets, with only the finishing touches (the glowing trim of the costumes, the digital landscapes, etc.) added in later. That adds a certain "realness" to the scenes that no amount of digital trickery can replicate. The same is true of the digitally de-aged face of Jeff Bridges, used quite necessarily for the Kevin Flynn flashbacks and the central presence of his program, Clu -- impressive and splendidly done, but there's something about the human face that will never be convincingly faked by computers.<br /><br />All in all, I rather enjoyed <span style="font-style: italic;">Tron: Legacy</span>, and I considered it a perfectly fine payoff for the 28-year wait. It had a sufficiently substantial story, impressive visuals (up to and including the studly Garrett Hedlund himself), and enough nostalgia thrown in to make us '80s kids happy. There was a Journey song playing on the arcade's jukebox (Journey recorded a song especially for the first movie), lines of dialogue from the original film were uttered on a few occasions, and seeing good ol' Bruce Boxleitner reprising his role of Alan Bradley was like seeing a favorite uncle I hadn't seen in 20 years. Sure, it wasn't a perfect movie, but Kevin Flynn wouldn't have it any other way (you've gotta see the movie to get that reference).<br /><br />End of line.Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-74559517410743662442010-11-29T16:57:00.000-08:002010-11-29T17:02:16.552-08:00Irvin Kershner: 1923 - 2010Sad news: Irvin Kershner, most famous to us as the director of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Empire Strikes Back</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">RoboCop 2</span>, has passed away at the age of 87. He was also an instructor at the USC film school, and none other than George Lucas was amongst his students. May the Force be with you, Mr. Kershner.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLWkniF4beKEkR93kyjcTBYOnNsi6G_BeboQrbJxG3X6Si32QNLauRaQviOxF8nZSsEeTSxPPZ8HT_-thi3Z5uMwWgL4K7hXwx0MRrJ5Vw-FiSA0xDS8pPbFaZhXTGf3HN-VCd5IPokNU/s1600/kershkisshh0.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 316px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLWkniF4beKEkR93kyjcTBYOnNsi6G_BeboQrbJxG3X6Si32QNLauRaQviOxF8nZSsEeTSxPPZ8HT_-thi3Z5uMwWgL4K7hXwx0MRrJ5Vw-FiSA0xDS8pPbFaZhXTGf3HN-VCd5IPokNU/s400/kershkisshh0.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5545141545155125234" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />(Photo found by way of <a href="http://www.bricktuts.com/">BrickTuts</a>.)Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-7170212764926122552010-11-17T10:20:00.000-08:002010-11-17T10:20:00.346-08:00Welcome To The 24th CenturyHoly crap! Holy crap! Did you know about this? I didn't until yesterday! <span style="font-style: italic;">Holy crap!!</span> If I'd known about this earlier, I wouldn't have bought the last dozen or so CDs I did buy (well, not necessarily the last <span style="font-style: italic;">consecutive </span>dozen, but a dozen) and would have saved up for this instead! But I still bought it anyway, 'cause I just <span style="font-style: italic;">gotta </span>have it. Seriously, I honestly don't know how I would be able to go on living without having this in my possession as soon as humanly possible. Want to know what it is? Maybe you'd better sit down, 'cause I myself had a geek-out on a transphasic level when I found out about this.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm?ID=14294"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 350px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHTlXCX4M7ik-qY1obo0KV_H_fbiW05W36bPRR4_YEYeCh1VJ5xWC3HkSYie_QULKMzW6n4YLvyVqeKoRJjZOv4-DxnUTErF3Q6dIkNuEPKWdUCd8cMUtwX___H5KY-yUw6HGxVTJzBJg/s400/STTNGboxshot350.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540291697995240418" border="0" /></a>It's a limited-edition box set of not four, not six ... no, not even <span style="font-style: italic;">eight </span>... no, keep going ... would you believe a whopping 14 -- yes -- <span style="font-style: italic;">FOURTEEN </span>CDs jam-packed with never-before-released music from dozens of episodes of <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek: The Next Generation</span>! Devoted solely to the work of Ron Jones, who traded off scoring duties with Dennis McCarthy through the first four seasons of <span style="font-style: italic;">TNG</span>, <a href="http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm?ID=14294">"<span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek: The Next Generation</span> -- The Ron Jones Project"</a> includes nearly every note written and recorded for 42 of the series' first 94 episodes (the score for "The Best of Both Worlds" two-parter is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Generation-Television-Soundtrack/dp/B000001P0Y/">already available</a> on the GNP Crescendo label, so just some bonus tracks from it are included here) plus numerous outtakes, as well as a disc devoted to his work for a pair of <span style="font-style: italic;">Trek </span>video games released later.<br /><br />The panicked <a href="http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/store/MP3/Box5/2-27_Stealing_the_Enterprise.mp3">evacuation of the Enterprise</a> in "11001001" ... the tearful farewell of Tasha Yar in "Skin of Evil" ... the <a href="http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/store/MP3/Box5/4-31_We_Are_Back.mp3">appearance of the Romulans</a> in "The Neutral Zone" ... Riker's escape from the Mintakans in "Who Watches The Watchers" ... the <a href="http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/store/MP3/Box5/9-13_Terrorist_Attack.mp3">terrorist attack on the ship</a> in "The High Ground" ... Lal's tragic demise in "The Offspring" ... the perilous journey across the arid wasteland in "Final Mission" ... they're all cues that I've been waiting 20 years to hear unobscured by dialogue and sound effects, and now's my chance! With this doozy of a package being limited to a production run of just 5,000, I couldn't waste any time in seizing the opportunity to add it to my collection, since the price is certain to only start going up on the aftermarket.<br /><br />Widely regarded as the best composer that <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek: The Next Generation</span> ever had, Ron Jones was known for delivering sweeping, attention-grabbing, feature-film-worthy scores for countless episodes. The problem was that <span style="font-style: italic;">TNG</span>'s producers <span style="font-style: italic;">didn't want</span> attention-grabbing music; they wanted the episodes' scores to lay quietly in the background. So after almost four full years of flying in the face of the producers' demands, Jones was fired and replaced by Jay Chattaway (quite a dandy composer in his own right, to give credit where it's due). But I always thought the <span style="font-style: italic;">Trek </span>producers were not only making their episodes just a bit less memorable by taming down the music, but they were also forsaking a perfectly good merchandising outlet. Fans have been clamoring for Ron Jones' scores to be commercially available for years, and I have to wonder how many CD sales they missed out on by missing that opportunity and never licensing retail releases until all these years later.<br /><br />If you can't live without it, like I couldn't, this incomparably amazing <span style="font-style: italic;">Trek</span>-a-thon of music will set you back a healthy $150 (plus shipping), but at 14 CDs that ends up coming out to less than $11 per disc, which is a great price, especially for something that's a limited-edition collectible like this. It's available for purchase now at <a href="http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm?ID=14294">SAE</a> and at <a href="http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.6758/.f">Intrada</a>, and further information is available from the <a href="http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/cds/detail.cfm?cdID=451">Film Score Monthly</a> website (and thanks to them for the links to the audio clips!). A friend of mine has all but challenged me to bundle it up in giftwrap when it arrives and not open it until Christmas morning ... but that's gonna be a <span style="font-style: italic;">really tough</span> test of my will.Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-72454822579929417412010-11-14T16:58:00.000-08:002010-11-14T17:04:43.440-08:00Your Friend In Time...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/Back-Future-Anniversary-Trilogy-Digital/dp/B003U6SJUY/"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1eYNbPx1UkC_xBalfSE30bqFOHjPf3IYNO_YRXPDPcR3wwGR-uH35oJvUzi4Y8gvQN8EyTNWCW_rb4uaFXMC1yqgfbsfd2x77UH_bRSR9nf-3dpTl1GEp9YQDQLwsv8cX7t2200XyNIM/s320/bttf25dvd.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539575869192211090" border="0" /></a>It's hard to believe that it's been a quarter-century since Marty McFly hit 88 miles per hour and flux-capacitored his way into movie history with <span style="font-style: italic;">Back To The Future</span>. I can remember when I was a teenager -- much more of a geek than I am now, come to think of it -- and my family and I took a seven-week vacation to Europe. What was one of the few things I can remember taking along with me to keep me company? It was a Walkman cassette player and (along with other tapes, at least I hope) two cassettes onto which I had recorded the audio portion of the entire <span style="font-style: italic;">Back To The Future</span> movie. I must have listened to those a half-dozen times over the course of that vacation, I was so bored otherwise.<br /><br />Needless to say, I couldn't go without picking up the brand new <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Back-Future-Anniversary-Trilogy-Digital/dp/B003U6SJUY/">25th-Anniversary edition of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Back To The Future</span> trilogy on DVD</a>. I can't wait to see all the deleted scenes and new bonus features they've packed into this set, not the least of which is, finally, long-rumored actual footage of Eric Stoltz in the role of Marty. And of course there's the neatest extra of all -- here's my geekiness shining through again -- digital copies of all three movies, which I can load onto my iPod if I want to! It's full circle in a way ... I have to wonder what my younger self, armed with mere cassettes of only the movie's sound, would think if he could have in the palm of his hand full-color video and stereo sound of not just the first movie, but of many others, not to mention hundreds of albums of music!?!<br /><br />Anyway, back to the topic at hand. This was a groundbreaking movie series in a number of ways, one of which being that it was the first one for which more than one sequel was filmed back-to-back (<span style="font-style: italic;">The Matrix</span> is the most noteworthy other example), and it was also one of the first -- and certainly the first with such broad appeal -- to successfully integrate science-fiction with comedy to such an extent that the movie can fit neatly into either genre; <span style="font-style: italic;">Ghostbusters</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Innerspace</span>, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Men In Black</span> picked up on the idea and ran with it. <span style="font-style: italic;">Part II</span> definitely laid on the sci-fi a bit more strongly, what with its frequent and potentially confusing references to paradoxes and hopscotching between time periods, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Part III</span> was an almost completely different movie altogether, with a decidedly Western feel and an almost fully self-contained story (not to mention a supporting role by the always enjoyable Mary Steenburgen).<br /><br />But then, I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know about the best time-travel movie ever made. Suffice to say I love each and every chapter of the adventures of Marty and Doc, I'll probably sit down and watch the first of the three tonight ... and I'm very soon going to secure my digital copies, too!Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-39496105369525779532010-10-17T22:25:00.000-07:002010-10-17T22:42:48.343-07:00The Whole Planet Houston?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/Superman-II-Richard-Donner-Cut/dp/B000IJ79WU/"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 212px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEznsBAbnvIQf7-agadKU2i2zbNLMrv92QpH0w7RzHlyS81dVFFl8YsyjDcUbhZ6cEUcBocJQsiLGKM6hrEaMBN6nZvUnKc1e4HxNpcrBpZe5PI2nNG7yMrBQrXnsj5TlTxyFbYAXADMI/s320/sm2trdc.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5529254563312868226" border="0" /></a>If you're well-versed in the behind-the-scenes saga of the Christopher Reeve-era <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman</span> films, then you know that the producers, Alexander and Ilya Salkind, had hired Richard Donner to film the first and second <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman </span>movies simultaneously -- and that, when budget and schedule overruns got out of control, put the kibosh on the sequel in the middle of its principal photography and had Donner finish only the first film. And you probably also know that said time and money troubles got Donner fired before he could finish <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman II</span>, whereupon the Salkinds brought Richard Lester in as his replacement. Well, ever since then, some fans have been crying out to see Richard Donner's original vision of the movie, and in 2006 they got their chance when <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Superman-II-Richard-Donner-Cut/dp/B000IJ79WU/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut</span></a> was released on DVD.<br /><br />Well, <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman </span>movie fan that I am, I can't quite say I was one of the "crying out" sort, as evidenced by the fact that I just got around to picking up this DVD a few weeks ago ... used ... for six bucks. It was interesting to watch, and, well ... I don't know if it's just because I'm used to the original Richard Lester version, or maybe it's the fact that Donner, according to his introduction on the DVD, never got around to filming everything he wanted to film back in the day, and thus had to reassemble his vision of the picture as best he could from the available footage (and had to use some footage from <span style="font-style: italic;">that other guy</span>, much as he didn't want to). But, even though I'm quite certainly a big fan of the first film and would even go so far as to call it a masterpiece, I've gotta say that I think Lester's version of <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman II</span> is actually better.<br /><br />First of all, the editing was somewhat choppier in the Donner cut, particularly the way they kept going back and forth between Clark and Lois at the Fortress of Solitude, and the supervillains' conquest of Earth -- in the Lester version, the sequences were kept in bigger blocks and thus seemed to be more coherent. And then there was the subplot about Lois scheming to "out" Clark as Superman ... the fact that she was smart enough to do so notwithstanding. Lester is supposedly known to have more a sense of comedic directing than Donner, which is all too evident here in that Donner's efforts in this regard come off as a bit more clumsy and forced, while Lester's are more naturally flowing. We can forgive the redundant climax, just because Donner obviously wouldn't have used it for the first movie had he seen the second one through to the end, but it's quite odd that he kept the epilogue in since the climax canceled out the scene it relates to ... don't worry, I'm trying to avoid a spoiler, so if you go and watch it, what I'm saying will make sense, I promise.<br /><br />I'm still glad that Richard Donner went to what I'm sure was a lot of trouble to re-assemble his version of the film -- as closely as possible, of course -- and I'm glad I picked it up. It's a unique glimpse into a somewhat "lost chapter" of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman </span>saga, and has a wealth of what one could call "deleted scenes" from <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman II</span>. Imperfect though it may be (in my opinion, anyway), I'll always consider him a master for the wonderful story he told in the original <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman </span>movie. I do think the Salkinds were wrong to fire him from <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman II</span> prematurely, because I'm quite positive that <span style="font-style: italic;">Superman: The Movie</span> wouldn't have been the blockbuster it was if someone else had directed it.Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-41610726504096488782010-10-10T17:05:00.000-07:002010-10-17T22:38:45.794-07:00It's Been a Long Road, Getting From There To Here<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIXKjGwN44qpuVMMJ3hyPrCUI2xMNH7C2xwE9AShesDkOw8umnOi0KrG7NeX6IjA3r8cXhTMGYHvdaCgneAt9KPOVRmffUcCKr1tB5NWrRokQXt5eJWmyzDV5BiISxvSYX3DP2O3i8EgM/s1600/800px-Phlox_grinning.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 218px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIXKjGwN44qpuVMMJ3hyPrCUI2xMNH7C2xwE9AShesDkOw8umnOi0KrG7NeX6IjA3r8cXhTMGYHvdaCgneAt9KPOVRmffUcCKr1tB5NWrRokQXt5eJWmyzDV5BiISxvSYX3DP2O3i8EgM/s320/800px-Phlox_grinning.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5526574437089152946" border="0" /></a>As I mentioned in <a href="http://trek-ease.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-trekker-timeline-part-2-of-2.html">a previous entry</a>, by the time <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek: Voyager</span> went off the air in 2001 I'd had my fill of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Trek </span>Universe for awhile ... something that just a few years earlier was inconceivable. So when Paramount chose to crank out yet another series so closely on the heels of <span style="font-style: italic;">Voyager</span>, I was understandably unenthused ... kind-of like being asked to walk another mile after I'd already walked two (even if there <span style="font-style: italic;">were</span> a record store when I got there). Indeed, if <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Enterprise">Enterprise</a> </span>hadn't starred Scott Bakula (<span style="font-style: italic;">Quantum Leap</span> is one of my all-time favorite shows), I probably wouldn't have even given it a try. But try I did, and boy <span style="font-style: italic;">did I ever</span> try. The pilot episode was entertaining enough, but all too soon boredom set in, and I mustered all the interest I could until I gave up about two-thirds of the way through the first season.<br /><br />Fast-forward eight and a half years, and I'm on vacation in California. Several times over the previous few months, I'd started to feel tempted to give <span style="font-style: italic;">Enterprise </span>another chance (apparently unconvinced deep down that I could get bored with a <span style="font-style: italic;">Trek </span>show), and had been checking out the prices of the used DVD season box-sets. By the time I'd arrived at Amoeba Records in L.A., I'd decided to go ahead and pick up season 1 if I saw it at a decent price. I still kind-of balked at $35, but took the plunge anyway. (Good move, 'cause the disc trays inside were still shrink-wrapped and ended up being brand new!) I've now re-watched the first nine episodes so far, and must have been really bored back in the day 'cause I didn't remember jack about most of them.<br /><br />What a difference eight years makes! There I was, putting the blame on what I saw as imperfections in the show -- the way the crew seemed to fall too soon into treating the supposedly new experience of space exploration with an everyday nonchalance ... the writers sneaking in what were essentially phasers by jury-rigging the established continuity and calling them "phase pistols" ... the confusing concept of the "Temporal Cold War", which to this day even a time-travel geek like me doesn't quite get -- when it really was mostly my boredom after all. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite a ways from being "in love" with <span style="font-style: italic;">Enterprise </span>just yet, but it turns out not to have been the dog (sorry, Porthos) I'd written it off as back in '01.<br /><br />Prequel shows can be a very tricky endeavour, of course. How do you put a fresh spin on a "been-there done-that" concept that we've already seen? Not to mention that audiences today want faster-paced shows, which means you can't slow things down with all the exposition that, with the unfamiliar environment the characters are in, probably ought to be taking place. So in a way we really can't blame the creators and writers for all their sneaky <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retcon">retconning</a>. I mean, having plain old laser pistols, which we now know aren't very powerful, would be kind-of boring, right? And we all know about Captain Pike and the first Federation Starship Enterprise -- not to mention the furor that can boil up amongst fans with the mere mention of the notion that their cherished characters might be re-cast -- and besides, who says there wasn't a Starship Enterprise before the Federation actually came along? I'm hoping that they let up a bit on the use of the transporter, though, 'cause I don't want things to get too convenient for "ye olde tyme crewe" ... besides, shuttlepods are a kind of cool all their own.<br /><br />Well, anyway, suffice to say that I'm enjoying <span style="font-style: italic;">Enterprise </span>significantly more the second time around, and I might even think about picking up the subsequent seasons when the time comes. I always enjoy watching Scott Bakula, Porthos is just cute as all-get-out, Anthony Montgomery ain't all that bad-lookin' either, and I'm enjoying watching the budding friendships between T'Pol and Tucker, and between Phlox and Sato. And Heaven help me, I'm even pretty-much okay with the schmaltzy theme song. It makes me wonder how many other fans out there just needed a bit of a break from <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span>, and if it might have run longer than the abbreviated four years it did, had Paramount simply put off its launch for a few years.Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-68110783820619534182010-09-13T07:41:00.000-07:002010-09-13T07:56:51.723-07:00Kevin McCarthy: 1914 - 2010<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002994/"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 204px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWm-xvw1Qsg0ODSZYJrtftpUPtihfsAD_fpuiWxilG334FNCzyMZclvt-VVEBN3m0EdwrV6Emo9gPk2kxD1ZExGJfqS3tO-OMxltzm_gDZ190AEyjMbvw3qUoNyLqDTx2StZcFUfdUqjo/s320/kevinmccarthy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5516409627998450450" border="0" /></a>A sad day ... actor <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002994/">Kevin McCarthy</a>, who is perhaps best known to genre fans for his role in the 1978 movie <span style="font-style: italic;">Invasion of the Body Snatchers</span>, but is beloved to me for his delightfully over-the-top bad-guy roles in <span style="font-style: italic;">Innerspace </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">UHF</span>, passed away over the weekend of natural causes at the age of 96. His resumé according to IMDB stretches all the way back to the dawn of television, with over 200 credits between his film and TV roles. I admittedly haven't seen a whole lot of what he was in, but it's still kind-of like losing an extended relative.Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-82564102394116195222010-08-20T07:20:00.000-07:002010-08-20T08:22:21.255-07:00Starcruiser, WHOOSH!! Starcruiser, CRASH!!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Ewok-Adventures-Caravan/dp/B0002YCUR0/"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 211px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsXoC0QqDidsDKHIqk7ukQcJAb0B2m1rCP8-GySo1WGQvBAYjms1nLbi_IrbQ_btlzZQ1nazbFeNkvuuvPO3tTNCChauZA0_O0dzN_713WP17O995JpIFyGU0btkOFzQgDmHDR14kYQCQ/s320/ewoksdvd.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5507328969613475874" border="0" /></a>Does anyone else fondly remember that pair of <span style="font-style: italic;">Ewoks </span>TV-movies that aired on ABC back in the mid '80s? For some reason, silly as they were (but not nearly as painful to watch as the infamous <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars Holiday Special</span>), I videotaped them when they aired and watched them repeatedly over the ensuing years ... and yes, I even bought <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Ewok-Adventures-Caravan/dp/B0002YCUR0/">the double-feature DVD</a> -- containing the original 1984 movie <span style="font-style: italic;">Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure</span>, and its 1985 sequel <span style="font-style: italic;">Ewoks: The Battle For Endor</span> -- after it was finally released in 2004.<br /><br />For the unfamiliar, the first movie involves a family whose spaceship has crash-landed on Endor. The parents are abducted by a five-storey-tall baboon, and it's up to the kids -- teenage boy Mace (not Windu, rather a white one with hair) and his little sister Cindel -- to rescue them ... with the help of their new friends the Ewoks, natch. Fionnula Flanagan (<span style="font-style: italic;">How the West Was Won</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Lost</span>, and an occasional <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span> guest) and Guy Boyd (<span style="font-style: italic;">Black Scorpion</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Hyperion Bay</span> ... aw hell, just <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0101777/">look him up</a>) play the hapless parents, and Mr. "Holly Jolly Christmas" himself, Burl Ives, is there to narrate the story and drive home the obligatory moral lesson in courage, perseverence, and the power of a loving family ... <span style="font-style: italic;">eesh</span>. But at least Eric Walker was there for me to crush on ... not that I knew it was a crush at the time, mind you.<br /><br />But wait, the sequel is even better! Presumably in a move to counterbalance the revolting cuddliness of the first movie, this one turns <span style="font-style: italic;">way </span>darker. A gang of oafish, quasi-frat-guy lizard-dudes invades the Ewok village, taking all the Ewoks prisoner and flat-out killing off Mace and his parents -- so much for that "power of a loving family" crap. Anyway, Wicket and Cindel narrowly escape their vicious captors and soon happen upon an old curmudgeon (played by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000979/">Wilford Brimley</a> -- what a stretch for him) named Noa, a space pilot marooned on Endor many years ago. After Cindel is kidnapped by the lizard-dudes' inexplicably non-lizard-looking sorceress (played by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0680795/">Siân Phillips</a>) -- hey, they couldn't be allowed to whack a little moppet like her, it's a <span style="font-style: italic;">broadcast network</span> for cripe's sake -- Noa, Wicket, and Noa's pet <span style="font-style: italic;">whatever-it-is</span> <a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Teek">Teek</a>, set out to open up a can of Quaker Oats and whoop-ass -- <span style="font-style: italic;">and Noa's fresh out of Quaker Oats!</span> -- on the castle full of lizard-dudes. Hey, he's got a harpoon gun, so I sure wouldn't mess with him.<br /><br />Despite how nauseatingly cloying little Cindel was -- can you picture an '80s effort at reincarnating a young Shirley Temple? -- the movies had their moments. The music, by Peter Bernstein, was particularly memorable, and I even have the soundtrack album (I think it was only ever issued on vinyl). The stories were okay -- in the second movie, the power source for the family's spaceship kind-of ties the plot together, in case you might have been wondering (since I left it out of the last paragraph). As much as he has become a kind of caricature of himself, I've always liked Wilford Brimley, so the interest in the second movie I might have lost with the early offing of Eric Walker's character was made up for by the entertaining presence of "grandpa Witherspoon" (and no, I've most definitely <span style="font-style: italic;">never</span> crushed on him, so don't worry). But by far the most unintentionally funny moment was during the buildup to the jailbreak in the lizard-dudes' castle, when two of the guards were playing cards. I swear to you, if you listen closely, you can hear one of them say "chicken shit" ... <span style="font-style: italic;">in a family movie!!</span><br /><br />Sure those movies were silly, the general disdain for the Ewoks notwithstanding ... but then, they were made for the kids out there rather than the teens and twenty-somethings who dug the Classic Trilogy during its theatrical run. And there are the obvious questions that these movies bring up -- What happened to the lizard-dudes between that movie and <span style="font-style: italic;">Return of the Jedi</span>? Wouldn't the Empire or the Rebels have at least stumbled upon them or their remains? To say nothing of Teek's race, who could have joined the Ewoks in the Rebels' fight against the Empire... -- but of course we're not supposed to think about that ... although you'd have thought that with all the screwing around Lucas did with the Classic Trilogy, the whim would have struck him to insert a new scene or two to retcon all that junk. Oh well ... at least I'm not disturbingly preoccupied by the whole Endor thing like <a href="http://backpackingdad.com/2010/08/does-the-forest-moon-of-endor-mean-the-forest-moon-named-endor-or-the-forest-moon-orbiting-endor/">this guy</a>....<br /><br />So anyway, if you're a <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> completist, or even if you're not so much and just want some silly entertainment, you might want to pick it up -- oh, that is, if you can. (<span style="font-style: italic;">It's out-of-print? Oh, the humanity!!!</span>) And while you're scooting about on the web, I just found out that Eric Walker is all grown up and has <a href="http://www.ericwalker.net/">his own website</a>. Go, Mace!Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-81440625087244375922010-08-14T14:22:00.000-07:002010-08-14T14:22:00.501-07:00A Fan By Any Other NameYup, here it comes, like a Romulan interceptor on an attack trajectory ... the ages-old question: "Trekkie" or "Trekker"? The way the question is handled in the two <span style="font-style: italic;">Trekkies </span>documentary films is amusing and (as much as it can be) enlightening. The vastly differing opinions on the applicability and meaning of the two terms all seem logical (pun intended) ... that it's a generational thing, with the older ones labeling themselves as "Trekkies" and the younger as "Trekkers"; that "Trekkies" are the get-a-lifers while "Trekkers" know it's just a TV show; and, funny as it seems, the opposite -- that "Trekkies" are the casually fanatic viewers while "Trekkers" are the snobs who take it seriously.<br /><br />Which am I? Well, I'm something of an "agnostic" in that regard ... I've never felt the need to pigeonhole myself into either category, even though I've fit nearly every criteria described in the paragraph above at some point in my history of <span style="font-style: italic;">Trek </span>fandom. Nowadays I fancy myself somewhere in the middle: I'm enough of a Trekkie that it feels like I have a lump in my sock whenever there's a stardate out of whack, but I'm also level-headed enough that I can just roll my eyes and laugh about it. I take my <span style="font-style: italic;">Trek </span>fandom seriously ... but at the same time, I don't take <span style="font-style: italic;">myself </span>terribly seriously.<br /><br />So, rather than a "Trekkie" or a "Trekker" (or a "Trekken", whatever the hell that is ... don't even get me started on how nerdy that sounds), I like to think of myself as a "Trekk<span style="font-style: italic;">ah</span>" ... mostly 'cause the <span style="font-style: italic;">"ah"</span> comes close to the multi-lingual interjection of ambivalence, <span style="font-style: italic;">"ehh"</span>. I think that's a tag that fits my fandom quotient perfectly.Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-54467361365286956832010-08-10T16:31:00.000-07:002010-08-10T16:37:40.155-07:00Beaming Back from Southern California<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSdLb_V7DZx12R6peMZTtNC4UFViIDRjJl1d2F1PXviIoe1g2FmSRLvENG6AiNzZP75CguiA3CHME6Y4CsP4eYVNU_BCFLV5JYhoiwSDposGZFYdUWoN68nKSfIg3Lvkw2TWry6qH1q-8/s1600/trekexhibticket.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 261px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSdLb_V7DZx12R6peMZTtNC4UFViIDRjJl1d2F1PXviIoe1g2FmSRLvENG6AiNzZP75CguiA3CHME6Y4CsP4eYVNU_BCFLV5JYhoiwSDposGZFYdUWoN68nKSfIg3Lvkw2TWry6qH1q-8/s320/trekexhibticket.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5503928416308662354" border="0" /></a>Here's one of many reasons why I love my sister ... she totally sprang this on me by surprise! While I was on vacation down in Southern California, she informed me that a museum within driving distance was running <a href="http://www.riversideca.gov/museum/exhibit-startrek.asp">a <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span> exhibition</a>, with actual costumes and props and stuff from the TV series and movies! It might not have been the most impressive exhibit -- no interactive kinds of displays or presentations, no guided tours, and it was kind-of small in size -- but I had a whole lot of fun anyway. I got to see the <a href="http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Guinan_and_Data_%281893%29.jpg">gorgeously elaborate dress</a> that Whoopi Goldberg wore in "Time's Arrow", Ricardo Montalban's outfit from <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wrath of Khan</span>, the costume some lady wore in "Spock's Brain", as well as the uniforms of Janeway, Picard, and Data, and Kirk's uniform from the later films! There were also bunches of props -- some original and some recreations -- from the various shows and movies ... oh, would I have loved to take home the bat'leth they had on display!<br /><br />A bit disappointing was the souvenir shop they had in the back ... sure, they had an assortment of the long-ago-deleted Playmates figures on sale, but otherwise it was the stuff you'd find in most catalogs and toy/hobby stores -- model kits, keychains, etc. I couldn't leave without buying something, so I picked up a T-shirt styled after the gold command tunics from <span style="font-style: italic;">The Original Series</span> ... maybe I'll wear it for Halloween. They did have a room where customers could get their pictures taken in the captain's chair and whatnot, but that didn't seem to interest me. All in all, though, it was a fun way to spend the afternoon, and I'm glad I spent the $15 price for admission! It might have been nice to come away with a DVD of the program they had playing on the monitors, though....Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-28660044692478921322010-07-25T14:29:00.000-07:002010-07-25T14:35:48.085-07:00Thankyouverymuch, Little Paperboy...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/Eerie-Indiana-Complete-Omri-Katz/dp/B00062WUQY/"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 212px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT4XfUYUeMA43HWbeZJCzPwCUlDxbH09Cq57gWiGbtU8Pc_K6R_TyJyhXc-XDkuvzN3rR0coO40qCbnsEMDWQAbHWB2bVjIvRHGWGSj0VvaIHb1jBnyloHyT96xp5mu-KBMGA5yjp6xLE/s320/eerie_dvd.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497960604179260162" border="0" /></a>What sort of TV show would you get if you were to cross <span style="font-style: italic;">Leave It To Beaver</span> with <span style="font-style: italic;">The Twilight Zone</span>? Probably something like <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eerie-Indiana-Complete-Omri-Katz/dp/B00062WUQY/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Eerie, Indiana</span></a>. Omri Katz (best known as J.R.'s son on <span style="font-style: italic;">Dallas</span>) stars as Marshall Teller, who has recently moved with his family to the small town of Eerie, Indiana (not to be confused with Erie, Pennsylvania). While the rest of his family sees nothing strange about their outwardly idyllic surroundings, Marshall and his new best friend, Simon (played by <span style="font-style: italic;">Picket Fences</span>' Justin Shenkarow), know better as soon as Marshall spots a suspiciously Elvis-like gentleman on his morning paper route.<br /><br />Through nineteen thrilling, sort-of chilling, but endlessly entertaining episodes, Marshall and Simon experience the bizarre goings-on in Eerie, everything from parents who seal their children in Tupperware-type containers to keep them from aging, to a secret underground world where all the socks go that disappear from the dryer, to what really happens to that hour when we switch to (or is it from?) Daylight Saving Time. Even Marshall's first love doesn't go normally -- he's haunted by the heart (literally) of a romantic rival from beyond the grave. All the while Marshall and Simon accumulate, in the Teller family attic, a library of evidence of the strange goings-on in town.<br /><br />If you've never watched this show, you've really been missing out. The characters are endearing, the stories are whimsically weird and wondrous, and the scripts are clever, witty, and inventive. As soon as this criminally short-lived series came out on DVD I eagerly bought a set, and have watched it all the way through more than once. Check it out, and you too will become a loyal customer at World o' Stuff!Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-26467431389768755622010-07-13T22:00:00.000-07:002010-07-13T22:03:39.347-07:00A Long Time Ago, In a CD Box Set Far, Far Away...<span style="font-style: italic;">Well, here I go again ... nothing reeks of laziness more than writing one post that will update two blogs at the same time. Well, maybe waiting a freakin' month to make said post is just as lazy. But I warned you not too long ago that this blog was probably going to get quiet. I honestly haven't been in a blogging mood much lately. But with any luck that'll turn around after my vacation at the end of this month (during which, yes, it'll be really quiet ... but not like that's a big change, right?). Anyway, I hope you enjoy my latest topic, as it's close to my heart....</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Trilogy-Soundtrack-Anthology/dp/B000002VI7/"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 153px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1OBulf8sGV-yafi7Zr-MFkCdwGTek9pq_eDBMQ27DYjPdHlp3ALSVVdKRx3StdqnLTq5_QO78a8MpRrjQHeyNMev2-f3t6mN-un4r4niAl8cSl3oOoWrVuOnAUSE9ggELHLZdMTGzWJk/s320/starwars_tosabox.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493619644530698482" border="0" /></a>Before Greedo shot first ... before Han stepped on Jabba's tail ... before the digitally-botoxed "Special Editions" turned them into Episodes IV, V, and VI -- in other words, before George Lucas got all full of himself -- they were just <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Empire Strikes Back</span>, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Return of the Jedi</span>. As relatively recently as those days were, it's already getting hard for me to remember them. It's also hard to believe that, until the 1993 box-set release of "The <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> Trilogy: The Original Soundtrack Anthology", most of the music from this phenomenally successful movie saga had never been available on CD before.<br /><br />The original CD issue of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> soundtrack was a generous, two-disc, track-for-track replication of the vinyl release, but the <span style="font-style: italic;">Empire</span> double-LP's run time was chopped nearly in half when squeezed onto a single CD, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Jedi</span> only ever saw a skimpy one-disc release on any format. And those were the only compact disc releases that these awesome scores saw for nearly ten years, until this lush cornucopia of audio bliss came along. Sure, there had been a few other albums featuring music from all three films, but those were re-recordings by other orchestras ... and as any film music buff or <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> fan -- both categories in which I freely admit that I belong (albeit to different degrees now than I did back then) -- could tell you, they just don't hold a candle to the actual soundtrack recordings.<br /><br />Not only did this release give us the second Cantina Band song in its entirety for the first time, as well as the haunting male chorus during Luke's final furious duel with Vader under the catwalk in the Emperor's throne room, but it's noteworthy for other reasons too. It was the last release of the original soundtrack recordings before the "Special Edition" revamping of the movies in 1997, which means that the Jabba jam "Lapti Nek" and the original tribal-drum vocal version of the Ewok Celebration got their final album appearances here before being usurped by the silly "Jedi Rocks!" and the tepid instrumental "Victory Celebration" (sorry, John Williams, I love your stuff, but the original <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=p2Z&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&defl=en&q=define:source+music&sa=X&ei=30M9TMyeGIWmsQOgssXaCg&ved=0CBUQkAE">source music</a> was better).<br /><br />But there's a more subtle aspect to this release that makes it a bittersweet one. Since 1997, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> soundtrack releases seem to have been preoccupied with delivering the music in an "as heard in the film" fashion, which to my ear makes the compositions flow much less gracefully. I don't know if it's the obsessive film music snobs out there who are to blame or if it's Lucas, but I find so much more beauty in the thematic structure of the pieces on these earlier discs. Who cares if they're arranged more for a concert hall performance than for accompaniment of the visuals in the movies? That's kind-of what I buy soundtracks for in the first place: to hear the music in a way I didn't hear it in the film ... after all, it'll still remind me of the fun I had watching the movies, which is the real point in a soundtrack release.<br /><br />For a while, I did own the two-disc releases of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> Trilogy: "Special Edition" soundtracks, but I found them far inferior to the music on this collection and I ended up trading them in. For those of you who don't have the "<span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> Trilogy: The Original Soundtrack Anthology" box set, believe me that you'd be doing yourselves a favor picking it up ... it's out of print, but still reasonably available from third-party sellers on Amazon and eBay. After all, nobody doesn't like <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span>, and anybody who doesn't like the music of <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span> -- well, they just shouldn't be taken seriously about <span style="font-style: italic;">anything</span>, now should they?Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-51545849671577239162010-05-20T10:12:00.000-07:002010-05-20T10:26:46.256-07:00The Boy Who Would Be Swarley<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/Doogie-Howser-M-D-Season-One/dp/B00076YOZY/"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 216px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidxOT2QBk5mA6vC8FC1n3Xqvr7CvMj2pVSlyIFFwPSro0R72n7Bsx1nnhpS5h4-YT7oJ0L6C928F8n8R9xiTigvzXlny9OOo6kOPz7K_IoscB5OWEKQQytStIF5S5I-c7TuVXOcf4EwDc/s400/doogie_dvd.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473401852370717906" border="0" /></a>Considering his recent career resurgence thanks to <span style="font-style: italic;">How I Met Your Mother</span>, his talk show, <span style="font-style: italic;">American Idol</span>, and awards show appearances, and most recently his guest shot on <span style="font-style: italic;">Glee </span>-- not to mention the popularity of this show back in its original run -- discussing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Patrick_Harris">Neil Patrick Harris</a>' first TV series, the legen-- <span style="font-style: italic;">wait for it</span> --dary (sorry, couldn't help it) <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Doogie-Howser-M-D-Season-One/dp/B00076YOZY/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Doogie Howser, M.D.</span></a>, isn't exactly an esoteric subject ... although it does fit this blog, since Doogie was one of the first geeks, especially lead-character geeks, to be embraced by pop culture.<br /><br />Created by not one, but two powerhouse TV producers, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_E._Kelley">David E. Kelley</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Bochco">Steven Bochco</a> (that'd be kind-of like Joss Whedon and J.J. Abrams teaming up for a TV series -- awesome idea, eh?), <span style="font-style: italic;">Doogie Howser, M.D.</span>, showed us the implausible but all-too-human life of a 16-year-old boy who happened to be a child prodigy and a practicing physician at a Los Angeles hospital. It ran for four seasons, over the entire course of which Doogie would chronicle his life's lessons learned in a journal on his computer every night before he went to bed. I liked <span style="font-style: italic;">Doogie </span>so much that, for awhile, even I kept a journal just like that. (Unfortunately it's long since gone ... would have been fun to look back on it all these years later.)<br /><br />Not only was the rest of the regular cast enjoyable to watch -- particularly Max Casella (later of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Sopranos</span>) as Doogie's best friend, the perpetually girl-obsessed Vinnie Delpino, and James B. Sikking as Doogie's down-to-earth, family-doctor father -- but plenty of interesting guest stars also popped up on occasion, such as <a href="http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Nana_Visitor">Nana Visitor</a>, <a href="http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Rene_Auberjonois">René Auberjonois</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001477/">Robyn Lively</a>, Jeffrey Tambor, Jennifer Gatti, <a href="http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/David_Graf">David Graf</a>, David James Elliott, <a href="http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Tracy_Scoggins">Tracy Scoggins</a>, and a very young <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0032375/">Shiri Appleby</a>.<br /><br />I picked up the first season on DVD as soon as it was released, because I knew I'd have some fun watching <span style="font-style: italic;">Doogie </span>again after all those years ... but I never imagined I'd enjoy the show enough to buy all the other seasons and watch every single episode! The series may have begun to show its age a couple of years in -- always a danger with shows starring kids -- but it was watchable through its entire run. Curiously, though, the manufacturers have allowed the DVD releases to go out-of-print ... very strange, considering Neil Patrick Harris' return to fame.Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-63679893721592372532010-04-21T16:10:00.000-07:002010-04-21T17:12:02.815-07:00Green Light, Kid -- We Did It!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/Voyagers-Complete-Meeno-Peluce/dp/B000PFUAN2/"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPl8APBxCXNnnxWZeLL9tS1PnvGFDd4ZIsCkoKNr8-v3EWltBqXeGIniTvRgDdi-gH4DwKMHuNN7GmDiuP-YzbwfFu_bkuM5CxbxyudLmsm00HmXhbfN0uPc36ITJdmerQn44-NiWFiVo/s400/voyagersdvd.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5462732724534692866" border="0" /></a>Not too long ago <a href="http://trek-ease.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-am-i-jonesin-for-mcdonalds.html">I shared with you</a> one of my favorite sci-fi series from my youth (that's a bit redundant I suppose ... back when I was a kid, nearly all my favorite TV series were sci-fi), and today I'm going to share another one with you. I rather suspect that it's this series that triggered my (thusfar) lifelong fascination with the time-travel subgenre of science-fiction.<br /><br />This show was called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyagers%21"><span style="font-style: italic;">Voyagers!</span></a>, and it starred the late <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0382149/">Jon-Erik Hexum</a> as a former pirate named Phineas Bogg, who had been recruited as one of a band of time-hopping foot-soldiers charged with making sure that the history of the world stays on the right track. The tools of the trade: a hand-held, brass-clad time machine called an Omni, just a little larger than the average pocketwatch, as well as a handsomely leather-bound historical reference known as the Voyager Guidebook. Unfortunately, the less-than-competent Bogg lost his Guidebook when his Omni accidentally bounced out of his time-zone "jurisdiction" into the 1982 bedroom of 12-year-old Jeffrey Jones (played by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0671375/">Meeno Peluce</a>), who just happened to be a history prodigy.<br /><br />Neither were crazy about being stuck with each other at first, but with no way to get Jeffrey home, Bogg enlisted his help in lieu of the missing Guidebook. Together they would help the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers">Wright Brothers</a> invent the flying machine, set <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus">Spartacus</a> on his quest to lead his famous slave revolt, thwart a Confederate plot to kindap <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_lincoln">President Lincoln</a>, prevent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_roosevelt">Teddy Roosevelt</a> from being killed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_the_kid">Billy The Kid</a>, guide <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_polo">Marco Polo</a> and his party safely toward their first meeting with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kublai_khan">Kublai Khan</a>, and even pluck the stolen <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_lisa">Mona Lisa</a> off the doomed ocean liner <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic">Titanic</a>.<br /><br />There simply aren't enough good things to say about this series. Not only was it endlessly entertaining, but it was also worthwhile from an educational angle -- informative and historically accurate to a far greater degree than any other time-travel show before or since -- and it was masterfully designed. The best sci-fi shows seem to be the ones that make the future seem timeless. The most obvious example is the Omni ... rather than a wrist-worn device with digital controls (which, I read in one magazine, was one design that was considered), it was made to look on the outside like an heirloom from a century ago. And in the sole episode which actually visited the Voyagers' never-specified "home time", we saw elegantly crafted wood decor instead of sleek metal or plastic, and classy traditional fashion instead of form-fitting polyester jumpsuits.<br /><br />It completely amazed me when Universal actually put <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Voyagers-Complete-Meeno-Peluce/dp/B000PFUAN2/">the complete 20-episode series on DVD</a> shelves back in 2007. It was such an obscure and little-known show (or so I thought), having basically been consigned to an early death from day one, running against ratings juggernaut <span style="font-style: italic;">60 Minutes</span>. Plus, both of its stars have been long gone from TV -- Peluce all but retired from acting in 1985 (I hear he's now a teacher in the Los Angeles school district), and Hexum died from a tragic on-set accident at around the same time, shortly after beginning his next series, "Cover Up". But, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I put in a pre-order on Amazon as soon as it was listed, price be damned (and it turns out it was pretty reasonable after all)! Needless to say, I've enjoyed it thoroughly from start to finish once, and I'm about to do so again ... particularly all those scenes that I haven't seen since their original airings (which were, to make room for more advertisements, cut out of the Sci-Fi Channel rebroadcasts from what must have been the mid '90s).Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-19711478904376978702010-04-08T13:57:00.001-07:002010-04-08T13:57:33.289-07:00State of FluxNo, I'm not dead (yet). Sorry for the inactivity on this blog, but I'd been having an extremely aggravating internet access issue, and hadn't been in much of a blogging mood lately. I'm still not quite there yet, and might never be, in all honesty ... the internet has lost a bit of its allure. Plus, I've been getting the jones lately to start some "real" writing (fiction), and may see fit to free up some time by shutting down one or more of my blogs.<br /><br />So, what am I trying to say here? This blog might be going away ... and I stress the word "might". As long as it's still here, there's always the chance that you'll see updates; they just won't be as frequent as they used to be, unless I have a change of heart. But all the same, I really do appreciate anyone and everyone who stops by to read my ramblings. So ... watch this space!Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-54828174152499275582010-03-23T11:14:00.000-07:002010-03-23T11:24:35.217-07:00Talkin' 'Bout Trek GenerationsIn the midst of my "ongoing mission" to watch all of my <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span> DVDs in order of production, I had finished off <span style="font-style: italic;">The Next Generation</span>, was in the third season of <span style="font-style: italic;">Deep Space Nine</span>, and was apparently so focused on gearing up to start in on <span style="font-style: italic;">Voyager </span>(yes, I've been interspersing them just like the series had originally overlapped), that I almost completely forgot about the 1994 feature film, <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek Generations</span>. That surprised me, since I've always loved that movie, despite the fact that it served as a further reminder that my beloved crew's TV voyages were a thing of the past. I'll admit that my attachment to it may partly stem from the fact that there was nothing else to do in the podunk town I was living in at the time than to go see it at the theatre each weekend ... plus you might recall that I have something of a soft spot for movies that are not highly thought of by anyone else. Hey, <span style="font-style: italic;">Generations </span>may not be a perfect movie, but it's a sentimental favorite of mine.<br /><br />Why is <span style="font-style: italic;">Generations </span>looked down upon so harshly? Okay, maybe it doesn't have as strong or choesive a story as most other <span style="font-style: italic;">Trek </span>features, but it's not completely devoid of plot like some amateur critics (including the loudly opinionated woman at the <span style="font-style: italic;">Trek </span>convention I went to shortly afterward) claim it to be. And perhaps the destruction of the Enterprise-D was none-too-gracefully shoved into the story, but in a way it did go along with the overall "love, loss, and mortality" theme of the film. But by far the biggest gripe about the movie, at least from old-school <span style="font-style: italic;">Trek </span>fans, had to do with the way that Kirk died (or, depending on who you ask, the mere fact that he even died at all). They say he was treated shabbily and that his death wasn't heroic. <span style="font-style: italic;">"The man who beat the Kobayashi Maru and defeated the Gorn on Cestus III got killed by falling off a rickety old bridge!?!?!"</span><br /><br />Maybe it's just the fact that I'm more a fan of <span style="font-style: italic;">TNG </span>than <span style="font-style: italic;">TOS</span>, but to me that sounds like plain old whining. First of all, forget the circumstance of a busted bridge being his undoing; the simple fact is that not everyone can have a graceful death. Secondly, anyone who says his death wasn't heroic obviously wasn't paying attention. Besides, in a way, Kirk "died" <span style="font-style: italic;">twice </span>in the movie, each time heroic: at the beginning, he marched down into the bowels of the ship and put himself in harm's way to save the Enterprise-B and everyone on board; and at the end he gave his all to save not just the crew of the Enterprise-D, but all the <span style="font-style: italic;">230 million inhabitants</span> of a neighboring planet!! Not only that, but in between he opened up a can of whoop-ass on Soran in one of those good old-fashioned fistfights of his.<br /><br />I could keep going on and on in defense of <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek Generations</span> -- I also liked the humor in it, and the music was pretty good, too -- but I'll have mercy on you and stop here. But in "commemoration" of this movie, I thought I'd share with you one of the most curious pieces of <span style="font-style: italic;">Trek </span>memorabilia in my collection, which just so happens to have been released in conjunction with that very movie. It was a promotional CD-single of a cute little techno-esque tune entitled <a href="http://www.zshare.net/audio/74088799079cbcde/">"Make It So"</a>. A pen-pal from Central America sent me the music video on a VHS tape back in the day, and it was kind-of cool (how I wish it'd been included on this disc!), so I know it was popular down there, as well as in Europe, where the CD was produced. Its connection to <span style="font-style: italic;">Generations </span>is questionable -- the music is a remix of the <span style="font-style: italic;">TNG </span>theme rather than Dennis McCarthy's music from the movie, and the sample of Patrick Stewart saying "Make It So" isn't from the movie either -- but, nevertheless, it's a fun little ditty. Enjoy! (<a href="http://www.zshare.net/audio/74088799079cbcde/">Click here for the song</a>, and click the cover image below to enlarge it.)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1cHAChGroWRRAed5adHaJbV4TVeslRQKErfYYTFb6Q5PCPGSS4nGOIh-PEwp7Q2yei-HXKzLdO3Mq0IGvAaikRDDdZXMVpD-o0P22HDZnqXdGV909vgoSgygoSjXxG5XJXIZ8s8Q_PGc/s1600-h/stgen_makeitso_cd.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1cHAChGroWRRAed5adHaJbV4TVeslRQKErfYYTFb6Q5PCPGSS4nGOIh-PEwp7Q2yei-HXKzLdO3Mq0IGvAaikRDDdZXMVpD-o0P22HDZnqXdGV909vgoSgygoSjXxG5XJXIZ8s8Q_PGc/s320/stgen_makeitso_cd.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5451895261455883490" border="0" /></a>Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-70019213193961981952010-03-16T15:19:00.000-07:002010-03-16T15:29:43.215-07:00These Are the Voyages of the Starship Endocrine...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8QesryznzXbRFAVnOmqcYKuzExn9SsFzlfA4ly6NH2WhE9BZ87rFykqy-MSJK2yBW3iU24yvWa_4rmC1018IBk3wFzo8vUb6glo6mgk9sipnv7pY-Z_IwO2hXPdlkzBt6jLYHjoiGnD8/s1600-h/starwreck1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 195px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8QesryznzXbRFAVnOmqcYKuzExn9SsFzlfA4ly6NH2WhE9BZ87rFykqy-MSJK2yBW3iU24yvWa_4rmC1018IBk3wFzo8vUb6glo6mgk9sipnv7pY-Z_IwO2hXPdlkzBt6jLYHjoiGnD8/s320/starwreck1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449361210565259378" border="0" /></a>Does anyone else remember the <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wreck</span> books, written by Leah Rewolinski? It was a series of seven parody novels, published by St. Martin's Press in the early '90s, based on both The Original <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span> Series and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Next Generation</span>, and later incorporating the <span style="font-style: italic;">Deep Space Nine</span> characters. (The series ended shortly before <span style="font-style: italic;">Voyager </span>came into being.)<br /><br />Sure, the name <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wreck</span> has been used countless times as a <span style="font-style: italic;">Trek </span>parody title, but otherwise this series was quite funny and entertaining. The author had fun with the names of the characters (my favorites being "Jean-Lucy Ricardo", "Georgie LaForgery", "Julio Brassiere" [Julian Bashir], and "Guano" [Guinan]), as well as with the stories of course. Chief Engineer Snot, for instance, coached Georgie on the use of technobabble, leading Georgie to become an expert with lines like, "the fratzenjammer molecules in this quadrant are making the sprucer inducer run really hard!" In this twisted universe, the transporter was called the UltraFax, and the Klingons were known as the Kringles.<br /><br />If you've never picked up any of these books, and you take the <span style="font-style: italic;">Trek </span>universe lightly enough to enjoy a totally zany parody that ignores the obvious incongruities like Kirk's crew being alive and well during the time of Picard's crew, then I urge you to seek them out and give them a read. They're not very long, they're pretty easy reads, and they'll tickle your funny bone. I'm sure Doc McCaw, Dr. Cape Pragmatski, and Dr. Beverage Flusher, would all agree that laughter really is the best medicine.<br /><br />Here are Amazon links to each title in the series:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wreck-Generation-Leah-Rewolinski/dp/0312928025/"><i>Star Wreck: The Generation Gap</i></a></li><li style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wreck-II-Attack-Jargonites/dp/0312927371/">Star Wreck II: The Attack of the Jargonites</a></li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wreck-III-Parody-Then-Forever/dp/0312928912/"><i>Star Wreck III: Time Warped</i></a></li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wreck-IV-Profit-Collection/dp/0312929854/"><i>Star Wreck IV: Live Long and Profit</i></a></li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wreck-Undiscovered-Nursing-Home/dp/0312951221/"><i>Star Wreck V: The Undiscovered Nursing Home</i></a></li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wreck-Extraterrestrial-Example-Silliness/dp/0312952236/"><i>Star Wreck 6: Geek Space Nine</i></a></li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wreck-VII-Space-Frontier/dp/0312953623/"><i>Star Wreck 7: Space: The Fido Frontier</i></a></li></ul>Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-28952793024843951722010-03-09T16:14:00.000-08:002010-03-09T21:41:13.373-08:00Jesse Mach, You Speed DemonWow! They're just putting all kinds of crap on DVD now, aren't they? I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way, mind you. I was rather surprised, though, when <a href="http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Street-Hawk-The-Complete-Series/13444">TV Shows on DVD</a><a href="http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Street-Hawk-The-Complete-Series/13444"> said</a> that <span style="font-style: italic;">"Since the beginning of the TV-on-DVD era, fans have eagerly wanted this show to come out on disc!"</span> And I'd be flat-out lying if I said I wasn't quite curious to see <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088618/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Street Hawk</span></a> again, since it's been aeons since I have. I am rather concerned, though, that it might not live up to my fond childhood memories, as has happened with two other sci-fi shows from my youth that I've watched in recent years.<br /><br />I loved the TV adaptation of <span style="font-style: italic;">Blue Thunder</span> when I was a kid, so I picked up the DVD set shortly after it came out ... but I hadn't realized until adulthood how bad it was, so I ended up trading the thing in before I'd even watched half the set. And several years ago the Sci-Fi Channel aired the very-short-lived, <span style="font-style: italic;">Tron</span>-in-reverse show <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automan"><span style="font-style: italic;">Automan</span></a>, and that too ended up crushing the nostalgia bubble that had merrily floated around in my head for oh-so-long. The plots were clumsy and preposterous in the former, and the acting was amateurish and uncomfortable in the latter.<br /><br />What concerns me most is that Rex Smith was a singer-turned-actor ... and we all know how not well that bodes for a TV series, especially one from early-1980s science-fiction -- a subgenre known for its impaired realism and fleeting shelf-life (two characteristics that are not necessarily mutually exclusive). Nevertheless, its resilience could end up surprising me. Here's the cover art, courtesy of <a href="http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/">TVshowsonDVD.com</a> ... bitchin', huh?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPqIceysv8ijtV4q-pfq0_FyiaYjC9l364iPTTqDLMzG5I_fvr13wVx4E7peBFGtWS1pXwfSagJ9Lm1PFnkzSinKunK5NXbDvFkex-WNN5_rChpnxwHylcrSzYV33-eLLulgK366GFKIo/s1600-h/StreekHawk_Complete.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPqIceysv8ijtV4q-pfq0_FyiaYjC9l364iPTTqDLMzG5I_fvr13wVx4E7peBFGtWS1pXwfSagJ9Lm1PFnkzSinKunK5NXbDvFkex-WNN5_rChpnxwHylcrSzYV33-eLLulgK366GFKIo/s320/StreekHawk_Complete.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446792540163444418" border="0" /></a>Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-34954684390176403162010-03-04T15:33:00.000-08:002010-03-04T15:40:05.855-08:00Deep Submergence Vehicle<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/Seaquest-DSV-Season-Roy-Scheider/dp/B000BR9SA0/"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgbBYov3aNMiWxaiC8nstCyEPV7ETOERC1BOoTdXYURIb7F_oSnEto8xsCNm3yKWmVyrrLoZogGADQ_H4LhCFmeuQQOdN4A_KPQ3I7Ydv8alwb43Nu4uBubt22wTQHvx0R13X5Bz3oxgQ/s320/seaquest1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444926437641467874" border="0" /></a>Just the other day I finished watching the DVD set of the first -- and, in my opinion, the only real -- season of the 1993 NBC sci-fi drama series <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Seaquest-DSV-Season-Roy-Scheider/dp/B000BR9SA0/"><span style="font-style: italic;">SeaQuest DSV</span></a>. I remember fondly when it debuted on TV. <span style="font-style: italic;">Quantum Leap</span> was all too soon ending its run, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek: The Next Generation</span> was heading into its final season (though I don't recall now whether or not we all knew at the time that it was their final season), so my appetite for good science-fiction was at one of its all-time peaks for me. And <span style="font-style: italic;">SeaQuest</span> was a lot like an undersea version of <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek: TNG</span> ... up to and including a way-cool main title theme, voiced over with a neat-o introduction by its captain!<br /><br />I liked <span style="font-style: italic;">SeaQuest</span> for the same reasons I liked <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek: TNG</span> -- the smart way that they would integrate real-world science, and believably extrapolate on speculative science, in each episode. I also loved the first-season family of characters ... they were all real and likeable, and they all seemed to actually have a place in the crew. I loved the late Roy Scheider as the stoic captain ... Royce D. Applegate was endlessly likeable as the crusty old security chief with a heart of gold ... Stephanie Beacham lit up the screen as Dr. Kristin Westphalen ... I'm not sure if I had the bigger crush on Tim O'Neill (Ted Raimi) or Miguel Ortiz (Marco Sanchez) ... and who can forget the impish Ben Krieg, charmingly portrayed by John D'Aquino?<br /><br />I was positively overjoyed when I heard that it was being released on DVD since, during the year it aired, we lived in a podunk town in the middle of nowhere, where the cable reception was about as good as bad TV aerial antenna reception. As a result of all the ghosting and static, we could barely see anything in the typically dark underwater CG optical shots, some of the most thrilling of the show. And what was beautiful about how the first season played out was that, since the producers weren't sure the show would be renewed, its "saga" was closed out nicely with no loose ends left untied, and no sort of a cliffhanger ending. So people like me feel no need or compulsion to buy the second season if we don't want to.<br /><br />And boy, did I not want to. I don't know why the producers (or, more likely, the network) felt they needed to completely upend the show, throw out two-thirds of the cast, and replace them with some of the most bland and derivative characters ever to grace a sci-fi show -- and, most unnerving, they were all so uniformly young and attractive that it threw what credibility the show might have otherwise had left right out the window. I watched it on TV back then, but I don't even remember if I made it all the way through the season ... I don't think I did. The other thing that more-or-less ruined the show for me was how they veered into the more outlandish "fantasy" elements of sci-fi instead of staying grounded more in reality, which was half of the charm of the show (the original cast being the other half).<br /><br />Fortunately the DVDs retained one of the best elements of the show's first season: the closing-credits segments in which oceanographer Robert Ballard explained some of the real-world science that inspired each episode. But unfortunately, they missed the boat (no pun intended) on including some good extras: most notably remembrances for deceased cast members Jonathan Brandis and Royce Applegate (Roy Scheider hadn't yet passed away when the set was released). Might I buy the second season out of curiosity, to see if I may have too hastily passed judgment on it back when it aired? Maybe ... if I find a low-enough price tag on it.Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-23570722274871286872010-02-25T21:55:00.000-08:002010-02-25T22:04:18.219-08:00Andrew Koenig: 1968 - 2010Well, I just found out that my suspicion has come true: actor and activist Andrew Koenig, son of <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span>'s Walter ("Chekov") Koenig, has died of an apparent suicide. He had been missing for over a week while visiting friends in Vancouver, and had written a "despondent"-sounding letter home to his parents just days ago.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwLFzXo9By-kIIoujXHySKAgzq51cGkCVESHK8wYrFmANfLBT8dzxLcSUSPZOdENUrmXhwhTeCw4NHQJJK2smNyvbfZ3lG0RBI1hggTZjJ1jixU2uEGsGYXJ6YGqnwRb3pQxBh-_mX6Mk/s1600-h/akoenig01.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 257px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwLFzXo9By-kIIoujXHySKAgzq51cGkCVESHK8wYrFmANfLBT8dzxLcSUSPZOdENUrmXhwhTeCw4NHQJJK2smNyvbfZ3lG0RBI1hggTZjJ1jixU2uEGsGYXJ6YGqnwRb3pQxBh-_mX6Mk/s320/akoenig01.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5442428691480342802" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />He was most remembered as Richard "Boner" Stabone, Mike Seaver's best friend on the '80s sitcom <span style="font-style: italic;">Growing Pains</span>, but also had numerous guest-starring roles in shows ranging from <span style="font-style: italic;">My Two Dads</span> to <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek: Deep Space Nine</span>.<br /><br />Seeing a friend or loved one die from a sucide is never easy. I myself have lost a couple of people I know this way, and I would hate to see it happen to anyone else. Just please remember that, as lonely as you feel, there is someone -- probably more people than you think -- who love and care about you. Suicide is never, ever the only way out. Life isn't easy, but it's easier to get through when you have a friend to turn to. If you've been thinking about taking such drastic action, I urge you to consult the <a href="http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/">National Suicide Prevention Lifeline</a>.Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-19840281139176407802010-02-24T09:29:00.000-08:002010-02-24T09:43:22.234-08:00Hot Tub Time Machine!It's important to note that I don't usually fall for movies that look this stupid. But this is one of those movies that knows full well just how stupid it looks, and actually seems to be <span style="font-style: italic;">proud </span>of it. I mean, how ridiculous is the concept of a "<span style="font-style: italic;">Hot Tub Time Machine</span>" ... and furthermore, how downright goofy is it to make <span style="font-style: italic;">that </span>the actual title of the movie? In a way, I actually have to commend the makers of this movie on their boldness, even going so far as to name-check a lame-ass movie like <span style="font-style: italic;">Wild Hogs</span> in the dialogue. Not since <span style="font-style: italic;">Dumb & Dumber</span> has a screwball comedy so proudly worn the word "screwball" as a badge of honor. Obviously, I'm simply going to have to see this movie, and the fact that I'm a casual John Cusack fan is just a small part of why.<br /><br /><object width="580" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4DCFPS58KYY&hl=en_US&fs=1&border=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4DCFPS58KYY&hl=en_US&fs=1&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="360"></embed></object>Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206663347186519319.post-13162488312104530792010-02-22T09:36:00.000-08:002010-02-22T09:41:08.128-08:00Andrew Koenig Missing<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/02/22/growing.pains.actor.missing/index.html?hpt=Sbin"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 169px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNTyOC3RL3_uZdtpxm_1VkeCDG_OB9U0GvHHY_7DJD6i2JZfqhi8pHgOcWPj9NA3uReZrnoM5W-tNhslbTs8YZPPlpmIi6OQ6bxIZL6pLz1sdwCJrMwoiXEKvTPrTEAboWUKJUK8D_HLg/s400/andrew_koenig.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441123486055550626" border="0" /></a>Some worrisome news I've just run across ... it appears that actor <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0462809/">Andrew Koenig</a> has been missing for several days. He lives in Venice, California, but had been visiting friends in Vancouver, Canada. He was set to return home on February 16, but never boarded his flight. He was last seen at a bakery in the Stanley Park area of Vancouver on Valentine's Day, February 14.<br /><br />The 41-year-old son of Walter ("Chekov") Koenig, he is best known for playing Mike Seaver's friend "Boner" on the '80s sitcom <span style="font-style: italic;">Growing Pains</span>, but has made numerous guest appearances in other shows, notably the second-season <span style="font-style: italic;">DS9 </span>episode "Sanctuary" as one of the Skrreean refugees.<br /><br />Koenig had reportedly been despondent lately, so his family and friends are especially worried for his well-being. If you should happen to see Andrew Koenig, you are urged to call Detective Raymond Payette of the Vancouver PD at 604-717-2534. More information is available from <a href="http://www.walterkoenigsite.com/">Walter Koenig's website</a>.Tom Q Publichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05460078699345491083noreply@blogger.com0