The Adventures of Captain Tight-Pants

"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 Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, 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 Buffy on DVD several years ago (awhile after the show had ended), and I made it through three seasons plus the first season of Angel 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 Dollhouse to even try it out.

What took me so long to give Firefly 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 Star Trek Universe speaks to me in a way that the downbeat, war-torn dystopia of Battlestar Galactica and Stargate 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.

When I'd first heard that Firefly 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.

The things that make this show awesome don't end there. How about the presence of Ron Glass (yeah, the guy from Barney Miller!) 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 Serenity feature film) ... and probably re-watch the whole thing again. Mind you, I'm not nearly as in love with it as my beloved Star Trek, and probably never will be, but at this rate it's got a real shot at becoming a favorite.

Your Friend In Time...

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 Back To The Future. 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 Back To The Future movie. I must have listened to those a half-dozen times over the course of that vacation, I was so bored otherwise.

Needless to say, I couldn't go without picking up the brand new 25th-Anniversary edition of the Back To The Future trilogy on DVD. 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!?!

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 (The Matrix 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; Ghostbusters, Innerspace, and Men In Black picked up on the idea and ran with it. Part II 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 Part III 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).

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!

The Whole Planet Houston?

If you're well-versed in the behind-the-scenes saga of the Christopher Reeve-era Superman films, then you know that the producers, Alexander and Ilya Salkind, had hired Richard Donner to film the first and second Superman 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 Superman II, 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 Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut was released on DVD.

Well, Superman 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 that other guy, 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 Superman II is actually better.

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.

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 Superman saga, and has a wealth of what one could call "deleted scenes" from Superman II. 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 Superman movie. I do think the Salkinds were wrong to fire him from Superman II prematurely, because I'm quite positive that Superman: The Movie wouldn't have been the blockbuster it was if someone else had directed it.

Thankyouverymuch, Little Paperboy...

What sort of TV show would you get if you were to cross Leave It To Beaver with The Twilight Zone? Probably something like Eerie, Indiana. Omri Katz (best known as J.R.'s son on Dallas) 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 Picket Fences' Justin Shenkarow), know better as soon as Marshall spots a suspiciously Elvis-like gentleman on his morning paper route.

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.

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!

The Boy Who Would Be Swarley

Considering his recent career resurgence thanks to How I Met Your Mother, his talk show, American Idol, and awards show appearances, and most recently his guest shot on Glee -- not to mention the popularity of this show back in its original run -- discussing Neil Patrick Harris' first TV series, the legen-- wait for it --dary (sorry, couldn't help it) Doogie Howser, M.D., 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.

Created by not one, but two powerhouse TV producers, David E. Kelley and Steven Bochco (that'd be kind-of like Joss Whedon and J.J. Abrams teaming up for a TV series -- awesome idea, eh?), Doogie Howser, M.D., 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 Doogie 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.)

Not only was the rest of the regular cast enjoyable to watch -- particularly Max Casella (later of The Sopranos) 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 Nana Visitor, René Auberjonois, Robyn Lively, Jeffrey Tambor, Jennifer Gatti, David Graf, David James Elliott, Tracy Scoggins, and a very young Shiri Appleby.

I picked up the first season on DVD as soon as it was released, because I knew I'd have some fun watching Doogie 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.

Green Light, Kid -- We Did It!

Not too long ago I shared with you 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.

This show was called Voyagers!, and it starred the late Jon-Erik Hexum 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 Meeno Peluce), who just happened to be a history prodigy.

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 Wright Brothers invent the flying machine, set Spartacus on his quest to lead his famous slave revolt, thwart a Confederate plot to kindap President Lincoln, prevent Teddy Roosevelt from being killed by Billy The Kid, guide Marco Polo and his party safely toward their first meeting with Kublai Khan, and even pluck the stolen Mona Lisa off the doomed ocean liner Titanic.

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.

It completely amazed me when Universal actually put the complete 20-episode series on DVD 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 60 Minutes. 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).

Talkin' 'Bout Trek Generations

In the midst of my "ongoing mission" to watch all of my Star Trek DVDs in order of production, I had finished off The Next Generation, was in the third season of Deep Space Nine, and was apparently so focused on gearing up to start in on Voyager (yes, I've been interspersing them just like the series had originally overlapped), that I almost completely forgot about the 1994 feature film, Star Trek Generations. 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, Generations may not be a perfect movie, but it's a sentimental favorite of mine.

Why is Generations looked down upon so harshly? Okay, maybe it doesn't have as strong or choesive a story as most other Trek features, but it's not completely devoid of plot like some amateur critics (including the loudly opinionated woman at the Trek 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 Trek 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. "The man who beat the Kobayashi Maru and defeated the Gorn on Cestus III got killed by falling off a rickety old bridge!?!?!"

Maybe it's just the fact that I'm more a fan of TNG than TOS, 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" twice 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 230 million inhabitants 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.

I could keep going on and on in defense of Star Trek Generations -- 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 Trek 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 "Make It So". 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 Generations is questionable -- the music is a remix of the TNG 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! (Click here for the song, and click the cover image below to enlarge it.)

Jesse Mach, You Speed Demon

Wow! 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 TV Shows on DVD said that "Since the beginning of the TV-on-DVD era, fans have eagerly wanted this show to come out on disc!" And I'd be flat-out lying if I said I wasn't quite curious to see Street Hawk 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.

I loved the TV adaptation of Blue Thunder 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, Tron-in-reverse show Automan, 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.

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 TVshowsonDVD.com ... bitchin', huh?

Deep Submergence Vehicle

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 SeaQuest DSV. I remember fondly when it debuted on TV. Quantum Leap was all too soon ending its run, and Star Trek: The Next Generation 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 SeaQuest was a lot like an undersea version of Star Trek: TNG ... up to and including a way-cool main title theme, voiced over with a neat-o introduction by its captain!

I liked SeaQuest for the same reasons I liked Star Trek: TNG -- 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?

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.

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).

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.

Why Am I Jonesin' For McDonald's...?

This time I'm sharing a very obscure, but nonetheless very fondly remembered, bit of science-fiction with you. There are two television series that were favorites of my childhood, that I never in a million years would dare have dreamed would ever see the light of day on DVD, they were so off the beaten path. But I must be doing something to make someone up there happy, because a few years back they were both given DVD releases! The other one I'll discuss sometime soon, but the one I'm talking about today is Benji, Zax and the Alien Prince.

This admittedly silly little show aired exactly where you might have expected it did if you've ever seen an episode: on Saturday mornings, for a fleeting thirteen weeks in the fall of 1983. It told the story of young Prince Yubi (Christopher Burton), who escaped his home planet of Antareus when the evil tyrant, Zanu, overthrew the king, Yubi's father. A droid named Zax (which kind-of looked like a giant hamburger with a neck and head resembling a cartoon version of E.T.'s) was sent along to protect Yubi, and upon their arrival on Earth they were both befriended by that loveable pooch, Benji. But Yubi wasn't out of the woods, because Zanu himself deployed two ruthless soldiers to capture Yubi and bring him back to Antareus for imprisonment.

The acting wasn't impressive, the premise was very simple, and so were the special effects, but the early '80s Saturday morning audience wasn't exactly a demanding one. You'd certainly never hear me complain, as I was glued to the TV every week waiting for Yubi's newest adventure. In fact, if I may get a little personal with you, one reason this show holds such a special significance with me is because it was responsible for the first true inkling of my adolescence: in an episode in which Yubi was robbed of his precious bracelet (which Antareans needed in order to survive in Earth's atmosphere), and began to get ill and weak, I found myself wanting to climb through the TV and do everything I could to care for him, for reasons I wouldn't yet understand for another few years. (And the jewelry connection might have had something to do with my fascination, too ... just kidding!)

The set is a bit of a shelf-hog, I have to say ... four regular-sized single-disc cases housed in a slipcover, taking up the width of two VHS tapes. So I decided to conserve a bit of shelf space by replacing them with one slim 4-disc case, even re-designing a new insert card with all the info tidily packed onto the back panel. When it comes to the DVDs themselves, don't expect a crystal-clear, high-definition transfer ... it looks like the folks assembling this package had nothing better than analog videotape masters to work with -- well preserved considering their age, though there are still the occasional crawling lines of distortion from "wrinkles" in the tape, and maybe a few other artifacts. (Hey, it was well before the digital age, after all ... and I have to wonder if they'd ever imagined they'd have reason to pull them out of the archives!) Again, I'm not complaining ... I'm happy to have these old relics on DVD in any way, to relive those fond childhood memories again.

Late Night Double Feature Picture Show

While taking advantage of the previously mentioned store-closing sale at our local Suncoast, I decided it was as good a time as any to pick up a pair of titles that I had been considering checking out lately. I don't often buy movies sight unseen, mind you (though I probably do so more often than the average person), but at rock-bottom prices (50% off regular price), I figured why not? Besides, if I really don't like them, I can always trade them in at the local CD store.

The first of them is Timeline, adapted from a Michael Crichton novel. It tells the story of a group of college students whose archaeology professor vanishes on a dig, apparently ending up in the 14th Century. After confirming with a technology firm that's experimenting with teleportation that the professor was indeed whisked back to the past by accident, the prof's son is compelled to jump back to rescue him. Of course, it may have something to do with the fact that he's got the hots for one of his dad's students. Anyway, the group has a scant six hours to find and rescue the professor -- on the eve of an historically pivotal battle, no less -- and complications of course ensue, on both sides of the timeline.

It's an interesting story, and fairly well executed, though it's not particularly remarkable. The fact that it stars the studly Paul Walker I'd consider a plus, though he ain't gonna win any best actor Oscars anytime soon. I'd forgotten that Neal McDonough (the ill-fated Lt. Hawk in Star Trek: First Contact) was in it, and I always enjoy seeing him ... and thankfully we didn't see a whole lot of Billy Connolly. It's not that I don't like him, mind you ... it's just that the last thing of consequence that I saw him in was the sitcom Head Of The Class, in which he less-than-adequately took the place of Howard Hesseman, so I'm just not used to seeing him in any kind of dramatic role just yet. But anyway, bottom line: it was a reasonably entertaining movie, but I'm glad I didn't spend any more for it than I did.

The second of these two films is the one I was far more eager to see: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I had bought the comic book miniseries back when it was published, but I still have yet to read it (sad as it sounds, that's the case with most of my comic collection), although the concept has always intrigued me: a group of 19th-Century literary characters cobbled together as an ad-hoc superhero team to go after a madman bent on world domination. Imagine: Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, a now adult Tom Sawyer, Dr. Jekyll, the Invisible Man, Dorian Gray, and Mina Harker (from Dracula fame), all together in one story, and going after a villain whose startling true identity is not revealed until the climax.

It was certainly an entertaining movie, though there was something keeping me from calling it "great" ... perhaps the plot meandered a bit and could have been a bit tighter. What wouldn't have kept me from calling it great was the always delightful Sean Connery as Quatermain, nor was the intriguing notion of a grown-up Tom Sawyer ... made all the more watchable by the extremely easy-on-the-eyes Shane West. I'm not sure why this movie was somewhat of a disappointment, because I enjoyed it quite a bit, and I don't regret buying it at all. In fact, I'm actually a bit disappointed that there in all likelihood will never be a sequel.

I also picked up one or two other sci-fi-related releases, which I'm sure I'll get around to discussing eventually. Too bad that Suncoast wasn't really worth shopping at until its going-out-of-business sale....

Tumblin' With Tony and Doug

Given how much I love the sci-fi subgenre of time travel, it's pretty incredible that I've barely (if even at all) mentioned it thusfar in this blog. For the same reason, it's also pretty unbelievable that, until now, I had only seen snippets from the classic Irwin Allen TV series The Time Tunnel. I had of course been aware that the series came out on DVD some time ago, but since it was doubly expensive (having been released in two 15-episode volumes) I kept putting it off. But a couple of weeks ago, I heard that our nearby Suncoast video store is one of the 125 nationwide that are closing up, and fortunately for me, they had both volumes in stock and, like every other DVD in the store, on sale for 25% off, and that made them well worth picking up. (Hey, how often am I likely to actually spend less for something at a mall chain store than at Amazon?!?)

Last night I finally popped in the pilot episode, "Rendezvous With Yesterday". Being a show from the '60s, I was expecting a program rife with hammy acting, historical inaccuracies, and scientific implausibility. But seeing as how this is an Irwin Allen series, I should have known to expect better. This show has aged far more gracefully than one might think, and its '60s vintage only adds to its appeal. Sure, the computers used by the lab personnel are dinosaurs, but the show's writers drew so little attention to them, using them matter-of-factly like any mundane scientific tool that their contemporaries used, that their obsolescence is almost unnoticed. The attention to historical detail may have been lacking (the name of the Titanic's first officer didn't jibe with history, and far as I know there were no shuffleboard courts on the liner's decks), but one can hardly expect a '60s TV show to do the kind of exhaustive homework that James Cameron did for a major motion picture.

The fast-and-loose explanation of how the headquarters scientists can see and hear Tony and Doug across time just like on a TV set comes off as a bit silly, but then you just have to chalk that up to the aforementioned scientific implausibility ... and besides, how else are they supposed to take part in the action, and pluck the two intrepid adventurers out of danger when they need to? And if there's one thing that is a little hard to get past, it's the vastness of the Project Tic Toc underground complex, both in its size (descending some 800 stories below ground) and its body of personnel (a staggering twelve thousand) ... obviously nowadays, knowing more about how the government and the scientific community operate -- and probably just the way the world is now in general -- those kinds of statistics would make us viewers roll our eyes and/or snicker out loud. But this is a TV show, after all, and we're just not supposed to dwell on such minutiae.

One can plainly see the influence that The Time Tunnel had on future time travel shows, particularly Quantum Leap, which carried on the semi-cliffhanger-style endings that TT pioneered: much the same way that Sam leaped into a new and often awkward situation whereupon he would utter his famous "Oh, boy!", viewers would catch a glimpse of the following week's adventure into which Doug and Tony found themselves arriving. I must say I'm looking forward more eagerly to watching this show than I have any other for quite awhile ... I imagine it'll be fun to see the dynamic take shape between the young, impulsive Tony and the more mature, thoughtful Doug, and I'm also curious to find out how much we'll see of the scientists back at Tic Toc headquarters.

And, of course, the Trek geek in me simply can't close this post without pointing out the more obvious Trek connection -- the lead role of DS9's "Vic Fontaine" himself, the dashing James Darren -- as well as the less obvious one -- the fact that The Time Tunnel premiered on September 9, 1966 ... just one day after Star Trek did. Now I have to think about my biggest dilemma: Can I wait until after I watch all 30 episodes before my curiosity overwhelms me and I have to watch the most drool-inducing extra of them all -- the never-aired 2002 pilot episode of a Time Tunnel reboot that never became a series...? Okay, now I know I'm a geek.

This Little Piggy Stayed Home

Well, folks, I'm sorry about the slowdown of posts here lately, but I was unexpectedly struck down by what I think is that dreaded H1N1 (a.k.a. "swine") flu several days ago. I'm feeling much better now, though I understandably haven't had a lot of energy to dream up a new topic lately, so here I go with my promise (or would that be threat?) that I was going to re-create an entry every now and then from the previous incarnation of this blog. I hope it entertains you....

This story is a study in contrasts, in just about every possible way, except when it comes to the nature of the subjects themselves: a pair of sci-fi movies and their television offspring. One of them I fell in love with as a kid, and the other I didn't happen upon until much later; I watched the movie version of one of them first, and the TV version of the other was the one I first found. And then there's the much more significant contrast, which I'll get to in due course. Just to make it fun, I'll address them in reverse chronological order.

A few years back, I had a pretty significant coupon (40 or 50 percent off, as I recall) for a nearby store, and I couldn't think of anything else I wanted that was in stock, so I decided to take the plunge on something I had been curious about for awhile: the DVD set of "Alien Nation: The Complete Series". I hadn't yet seen the movie, but I had seen bits and pieces of TV episodes, plus the show's premise -- half sci-fi, half cop show -- interested me. I ended up not regretting the purchase, as it took just a couple of months to work my way through all 22 episodes. It was a lot of fun to watch: a great cast, as well as entertaining and thought-provoking stories that have aged well. Although I wasn't quite eager enough to see the resolution to the freeze-frame cliffhanger final episode to convince me to buy the TV-movies box set, I did eventually pick up the original movie, starring James Caan and Mandy Patinkin, which inspired the series. I enjoyed it as well; I could definitely agree with whoever believed there was TV-series potential in the concept ... and the fact that I've always enjoyed Patinkin didn't hurt either. Despite the fact that the series lasted only one season, it was one of the better movie-to-TV adaptations I've come across.

Blue Thunder, however, is a different story. I saw the original movie, with Roy Scheider and Malcolm McDowell, as a kid and loved it. True, I was more into the gadgetry that made up Blue Thunder herself, but I later came to appreciate the story and the acting just as much. Well, when I found out that the very-short-lived TV series was being released on DVD, I was hit with a pang of nostalgia and eventually picked it up (on sale, 'cause I wasn't quite so nostalgic that I wanted to pay full-price for it), since I eagerly watched it week after week also. Well, how do I put this delicately? I hadn't realized how utterly crappy this show was until I started watching the DVDs. I wasn't even able to make it through all the episodes before I traded the thing in ... and to my surprise, I regret that far less than I thought I would. Maybe it's the casting -- a pre-"SNL" Dana Carvey as co-pilot to James Farentino (about the only watchable one here), and former NFL players Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith as Blue's ground support team and the show's comic relief ... and how can Sandy McPeak hold a candle to Warren Oates' portrayal of Captain Braddock? -- or maybe it's the slipshod scriptwriting, which may or may not seem far more so now than it did back then (the tightening of air safety, especially since 9/11, being just one thing that's changed quite a bit, and the extreme advances in computers being another). It can be funny how sci-fi shows can sometimes be the ones that age the least gracefully, can't it?

So, bottom line: If you haven't seen Blue Thunder, definitely check out the movie but skip the series (believe me, you'd be doing yourself a favor, even if you're a die-hard Butkus, Bubba, or Dana Carvey fan). If you haven't yet discovered Alien Nation, it doesn't matter whether you see the movie first or the TV show, but I recommend both. I am actually still toying with the idea of seeking out some of the comic-book miniseries that have come out over the years....

Carl's Jr.: "F**k You, I'm Eating."

The movie I'm talking about here might not be quite in line with this blog's usual subject matter, but it's my blog and I can talk about whatever I want in it, so there. Besides, it does have a bit of a sci-fi element to it, so as far as I'm concerned it's close enough. I'd heard about Idiocracy several months ago, but didn't bother picking it up until I found it at a price equivalent to what I'd expect it to be worth -- in this case, about seven bucks. It turns out my "blind appraisal" was just about right: not great by any means, but not quite a waste of an hour and a half, either.

Idiocracy tells the story of a slightly-less-than-intelligent government lackey (played by Luke Wilson) who's easily duped, along with an equally lower-middle-intellect prostitute, into being the guinea pig in what's supposed to be a one-year-long cryogenics experiment run by the government. However, when the project's funding is yanked, they're both somehow forgotten (in a not-quite-plausible sequence of events, which is better left as glossed-over here as it was in the movie) and remain in deep-freeze for a staggering 500 years. Unfortunately, instead of awakening to a marvelously enlightened utopia, they find a woefully neglected and dumbed-down world of the future in which, to the audience's horror, they're by default the most intelligent humans on the planet.

You might be thinking that this is a bit thin of a premise to base a 90-minute movie on, and for the most part you'd be right. But writer-director Mike Judge and co-writer Etan Cohen make the most of it, peppering the movie with plenty of subtle and not-so-subtle visual and verbal jokes to keep it reasonably entertaining. A primary theme: the consumerism and product-placement that's already begun a steady increase in our present day has so saturated the future world as seen in Idiocracy that no one can really go -- or even simply look -- anywhere where they won't be bombarded by an advertisement of some sort -- even to the point that literally every piece of clothing that the characters wear is emblazoned with some corporate logo, and the people reflexively spout corporate slogans (routinely containing four-letter words, as in the example in this post's title) without thinking. The future state of health care and of Costco will also be sure to amuse, as will the most subtle sight gag in the movie -- I'll keep that one a secret and see if you pick up on it.

The more astute viewer will of course see the subtext of social commentary that's veiled in the movie's humor. Having worked around young adults for years now, I've been witnessing first-hand how the dereliction of the U.S. educational system and the technologically-induced shortening of the youth's attention spans have begun stripping today's kids of the ability to think for themselves, and chipping away at the IQ of the average American at an almost noticeable speed. (Indeed, I frankly don't know how many more years my patience for these youngsters is going to hold out.) It might sound like I'm exaggerating, but considering that the movie takes place 500 years in the future, I can actually envision a world as haplessly screwed-up as the one we see come to pass in Idiocracy ... especially taking into account the positively hilarious -- and frighteningly plausible -- theory for the nation's intellectual deterioration that's laid out in the movie's opening scenes.

While the students I'm exposed to here at my place of employment still seem to put more importance on socio-political affairs than entertainment (and can still tell the two apart), and the English language hasn't yet descended into an expletive-laden mess of barely-coherent mumble (though I can't stand these kids who say the word "like" 27 times in the average sentence), I do still fear the day when that balance will shift -- a day when "Ow! My Balls" will be TV's highest-rated show, a foul-mouthed pro-wrestler/porn-star (and not retired, either) will somehow be elected President, and Fuddrucker's has had its name unintentionally morphed into Buttf**ker's with the humor of it being totally lost on the uniformly dim-witted populace. For the moment, though, this movie is still more entertaining than it is frustrating. Its audience may be limited -- since I haven't traveled outside my home country in over twenty years and thus have no gauge of the level of commercialism elsewhere, I'm not sure how well the movie's social commentary will translate to overseas audiences -- and even in America, there are only so many people who would be able to appreciate it as anything more than a screwball comedy.

Oh No They Di'int!! -- episode 2

Why are they remaking Clash of the Titans? They don't need to ... it's just as uncalled-for as all the other remakes that are littering the landscape already. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm becoming older than I feel, but there should be a law out there that says a movie can't be remade if it's less than 50 years old, and a movie adaptation of a TV series can't be made if the TV series ended less than 30 years ago. It's not as if every original idea that could possibly exist has already been done, right? And doesn't the track record of so-called "reboots" of movie and TV series kind-of speak for itself? There have been far more misses of that sort lately than there have been hits ... and don't even get me started on the A-Team movie (Oh, heaven help us, Liam Neeson is going to play Hannibal Smith? What are they thinking?!?) and the Karate Kid rehash that are on their way ... I can already see the dismal box-office receipts for them. People say nostalgia sells nowadays, but I say if you want nostalgia, go out and buy the original series on DVD and watch that; 98 percent of all TV series worth any pop-culture value are out on DVD, and trust me, they were all done far better the first time around.

But, back to the topic at hand: Clash of the Titans. Not everyone will agree with me, but far as I'm concerned it was a classic. Sir Laurence Olivier as Zeus, king of the gods (hey, who else would he play?) ... the always delightful Maggie Smith as the goddess Thetis ... the late, great Burgess Meredith as Ammon ... and, last but certainly not least, Bubo the mechanical owl as himself!! Not to mention the formidable Kraken, the icky Stygian Witches, the creepy Styx ferrymen, and the scare-you-shitless Medusa. The folks over at The Sci-Fi Movie Page complain that the original was "slow and dull", but I never ever get bored watching it; in fact, I'd rather have a movie that's comfortably paced rather than the lightning-fast, flashy and noisy video-game-stylized movies that are all the rage now. They also whine about the special effects being poor, but I consider them an artform -- think of all the man-hours it took to produce those shots ... not the most realistic-looking scenes in the world, but I tend to appreciate effects that actually took a lot of effort. Toiling in front of cameras for endless hours to put together a ten-second scene shows a kind of care and character that sitting in front of a computer and sliding various light/shading/color/contrast tools back and forth never can and never will.

I'm just not impressed with anything I've seen or heard yet about the Clash of the Titans remake. Liam Neeson as Zeus? Sure, I like the guy fine (he was in Krull, after all, and of course he was Qui-Gon Jinn!), so he'll probably do nicely in the role. Sam Worthington? Okay, I can't comment on him one way or another since I don't think I've seen anything he's been in ... but I bet he won't have the charisma that Harry Hamlin had in the role. And what's Hades doing in this thing? He wasn't in the original ... I bet we'll see a flashy, effects-laden battle, ala Anakin versus Obi-Wan, between them ... whatever. I am mildly interested that Nicholas Hoult is going to be in it, 'cause I liked him in the British series Skins. And is Medusa going to be a strictly CG character? Oh ... actually she was entirely animated in the original, now that I think about it. And dollars to doughnuts, they won't even have a Bubo in this one at all. Well, that just tears it right there. Unless the trailers seriously blow me away, I won't be seeing this thing until it hits DVD.

Short In Stature, Tall In Power

Of all the "sword-and-sorcery" movies that came out in the early to mid 1980s, Krull is the only one I like. As I recall, it didn't get very good reviews when it was released, and it wasn't a box office success, so I can't help but feel that it's just never gotten the respect that I feel it's deserved. But then, it got a pretty decent special-edition DVD release (with commentaries, and a behind-the-scenes featurette -- narrated by Tom Bosley, no less!) a few years back, whereas Dragonslayer never has, so I could just be biased by my undying love for this movie. Sure, it has the oft-used scenario of the princess taken captive by the evil beast (quite literally Beast with a capital "B", in this case), and her lovelorn prince wrangling a scrappy band of outlaws and braving a series of hardships to come charging to her rescue, plus it was being released in the middle of a near glut of semi-sci-fi/medieval-fantasy movies (so much so that it had started becoming difficult to tell them apart), but to me this movie is like nothing else out there.

First of all, there was the toally bitchin' weapon-of-choice in the movie (this movie's Excalibur, if you will), the Glaive -- not your ordinary run-of-the-mill sword, but rather a five-armed flying blade, kind-of a cross between a starfish and a ninja throwing star. True, in real life it'd probably be about as aerodynamic as a pop-tart, but how über-cool would it be to actually have one of those? And then there was the character of Rell, the cyclops (played by the late Bernard Bresslaw), an imposing figure who could throw his trident weapon with deadly precision from yards away, but who was just a big teddy-bear on the inside. Heck, all the characters in the movie are enjoyable for one reason or another ... but then, as I said before, that just might be me gushing on about this movie as I am wont to do.

One of the neatest things about Krull, though, is the cast ... the Brits will be able to spot two EastEnders players in their much-younger days, Todd Carty and Graham McGrath, but more significantly, we get three early peeks at actors who are at least semi-notable genre personalities now. Two of Torquil's band of escaped criminals, who end up showing their hearts of gold in aiding the prince in the rescue of his lady, are played by Liam Neeson (who would, of course, go on to play Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace) and Robbie Coltrane (who is now loved the world over as the hulking but huggable Rubeus Hagrid in the Harry Potter films). But take a close look at the lead character, Prince Colwyn himself -- if he looks familiar, that's because he's Ken Marshall, who went on to play the duplicitous Maquis operative Michael Eddington in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine).

But perhaps the most overlooked aspect of Krull, and also one of its most enthralling, is the magnificent score by James Horner. It has seen three different commercial releases over the years, in progressively more expansive forms leading up to a two-CD issue of the complete score, but none of them are in print or readily available any longer. And one of the most tragic things of all is that no pieces from this score ever seem to make an appearance on any compilation, whether it's a general film music recording, a genre-specific collection, or a James Horner anthology ... not even the wonderful and well-rounded releases by Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra have ever played a Krull selection on any of their releases. I simply don't see how that can be, as I honestly feel it's one of Horner's top three works ever (behind Titanic and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).

As if you couldn't tell by now, I love Krull immensely and strongly recommend it to anyone who's never seen it. Unless you simply don't like anything to do with medieval-themed sci-fi/fantasy or sword-and-sorcery movies, I just don't see how you wouldn't love it. And I didn't even mention Ergo or the firemares ... wait till you see them!

You Better You Best

While perusing TVshowsonDVD.com the other day, I ran across the press release for the upcoming second volume in the single-disc "The Best of Star Trek: The Next Generation" series-that-I-didn't-know-was-going-to-be-a-series. Now, I of course already own all seven of the full season DVD sets, so I don't have any vested interest in buying these budget releases, but having my feelers out for all things Star Trek (especially TNG) has become such a second nature to me that I just can't let this go by without spewing my thoughts out through my keyboard like so much hydrogen exhaust through the Enterprise's bussard collectors.

Specifically, my thoughts are on the selection of episodes (basically the only thing to gripe about with these releases, since they don't include any extras). The episodes chosen for the first volume more-or-less made sense: the two-part Borg blockbuster "The Best of Both Worlds", the masterpiece fan-favorite "Yesterday's Enterprise", and the most arguable of the bunch (but still excellent by any means), "The Measure of a Man".

As with any top-ten list, the further away from Number One you get, the more questionable the selections can become, so in that respect it's almost inevitable that the choices for volume two don't stand up quite as well to scrutiny. "The Inner Light", which probably should have usurped the spot taken by "The Measure of a Man" on volume one, is of course fully qualified to be there. Unfortunately, it goes downhill from there (although we are talking Star Trek: TNG, so it's all relative); they seem to have given more credence to the guest stars appearing in each given episode than to the actual quality of the stories. I don't have much problem with the choice of "Tapestry", because I like Q and it was one of the better Q outings, and I've always had a soft spot for good ol' Scotty, so you wouldn't get much complaint out of me for "Relics", but the fact of the matter is that there are plenty of episodes with more enthralling and well-written stories than these two.

The real capper, though, is that this disc's lineup of episodes is rounded out by "Cause and Effect". Are you kidding me? "Cause and Effect"?!? I mean, sure, it was an interesting premise with a decent story, but on my better days (today not being one of them, but that's off-topic) I can think of a good seven or eight episodes, off the top of my head, that would be more suited for a disc calling itself "The Best of Star Trek: The Next Generation" volume two ... or even volume three, for that matter. I have to wonder if the simple presence of Kelsey Grammer (who, by pure coincidence I'm sure, has a role in the moderately-anticipated remake of Fame that's about to hit theatres) is what bumped this episode into favor. We all loved Jimmy Doohan, so I'll let "Relics" off easy.

So, after looking at a list of episodes, here would be the lineup I'd have chosen for "The Best of Star Trek: The Next Generation" volume 2: "The Inner Light", "Darmok", and "Unification" parts 1 and 2. For volume 3, you ask? Let's see ... I think "Half a Life", "Loud as a Whisper", "Symbiosis", and "Hollow Pursuits". Of course, we could mix-and-match those, for anyone who might object to one whole volume being taken from a single season. And then there are some of my personal favorites, like "A Matter of Time", "Thine Own Self", "The Chase", and "Suddenly Human" ... that would be volume 4. I'd better stop here, 'cause I could go on for hours.

Geek Pastry

I must be in a River Phoenix mood lately ... after watching The Mosquito Coast last week, I found myself watching Explorers several days later. That has all but convinced me to start a series of posts about some of my favorite sci-fi/fantasy films from my childhood, and I thought this one was as good a place as any to start. Explorers was filmed in 1985, and starred a young River Phoenix and a young Ethan Hawke (both in their first feature film roles, according to IMDB) as two junior-high-school misfits -- one a science nerd and the other a comic-book/sci-fi geek -- who come up with a way to create a spherical force field which allows them to fly through the air, and ultimately into space. With their new friend (played by Jason Presson), just as much an outcast but for entirely different reasons, they set out on the journey of a lifetime, which goes even farther than they had ever imagined.

I think I've finally realized why I love this movie so much: it's full of childlike wonder, much like its protagonists, but it neither talks down to the teen and tween audience it was mostly made for, nor does it try to be more than it is with an overly dramatic storyline. And it's not just the kids who are the good guys of the story; there's also the character played by Dick Miller -- an air patrol officer who, upon finding out the kids' secret, doesn't expose or arrest them, but instead completely identifies with the boys and wishes he were in their shoes. I can't be sure, but I rather suspect that it was a person much like him that wrote the script for this movie. They just don't make 'em like this anymore, it seems -- when Disney or someone else makes a movie for kids nowadays, it ends up underestimating its audience's intelligence, almost to the point of being condescending.

Not only is it fun to see Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix at such young ages (though still, to this day, I can't look at River without a shadow of pain in my heart, thinking about his untimely and senseless death), but James Cromwell is a hoot as Wolfgang's father, and Robert Picardo plays no less than three roles (though in two of them you'd be hard-pressed to see his face through the heavy prosthetics). If you haven't seen Explorers yet, you owe it to your inner geek.

Live Long And Party

Here's a movie with which I can identify a little bit more closely than I'm comfortable with ... although I do really enjoy watching it. It's called Free Enterprise, and without giving too much of it away, it stars Rafer Weigel and a pre-Will & Grace Eric McCormack as two best friends who are dealing with stalled love lives and stalled careers as they approach their 30th birthdays. Both avid Star Trek fans, they see a glimmer of hope for their respective futures when Mark (McCormack) gets the chance at collaborating with their childhood idol, William Shatner (in a brilliantly warped but thankfully minimally-hammed-up performance as a caricature of himself), and at the same time Robert (Weigel) meets the girl of his dreams.

I don't want to risk spoiling any more of the plot. Those of you who have watched the Trekkies 2 DVD will probably recognize the dramatization of a tale that Robert Meyer Burnett, Free Enterprise's co-writer and director, told of showing up at school in a Star Trek uniform -- indeed, the movie is based loosely on the lives of Burnett and Mark Altman, the film's other co-writer. The script is packed with pop-culture references, mostly Star Trek and sci-fi but some otherwise, so we geeks will have plenty to laugh at (assuming we don't take our lives or our fandoms too seriously). If you haven't seen this film yet, you must ... and if you're like me, you'll probably end up picking up the two-disc special edition ... and at only ten dollars, what have you got to lose?

The Sound and The Furie

Wow ... I am simply in awe. Unfortunately, it's not in a good way. You see, several months ago I happened upon a boxed set of all four Christopher Reeve Superman films at Costco for a mere $18, which was a spectacular price, seeing as how all four were the special/deluxe editions (Superman: The Movie in this case being the 4-disc bonus-features-packed deluxe package). Until then I'd had just the bare-bones original DVD releaes of the films, except for Superman III whose deluxe edition I found on special one day, and Superman IV which I'd never felt the slightest compulsion to buy, even before I'd heard confirmation of how bad it was in the excellent documentary Look, Up In The Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman.

But I finally gave into the temptation this evening and put Superman IV: The Quest For Peace into my DVD player, expecting full well to have 90 minutes of my life completely wasted. I'm pleased to say that, in that capacity alone, the movie surpassed my expectations. Now, mind you, I have a personal history of liking -- even loving -- movies that were largely panned by critics (The Black Hole, Johnny Dangerously, Krull, and yes, even Superman III). But I'm afraid that even I couldn't find anything to love about this sorry-ass piece of ... filmmaking. What were they thinking? Did they not realize, even by the time they'd gotten to post-production, what a turkey they had on their hands?

Christopher Reeve, bless his soul, did what he could with the material ... but Margot Kidder, Jackie Cooper, and Gene Hackman all seemed to be going through the motions, almost as if they themselves couldn't wait for the movie to be over. Marc McClure was kind-of just there, because the script essentially gave Jimmy Olsen nothing at all to do but follow Superman around like a puppy. And poor Jon Cryer, trapped in the netherworld between his bygone John Hughes teen-comedy glory days and his current, very enjoyable stint in Two And a Half Men ... what do you wanna bet he wishes this movie had never happened at all, or at least had happened to someone else? Nah, I can't imagine there's anyone out there he'd hate that much.

I'll grant you that the Superman movies have never adhered rigidly to scientific credibility to begin with, but even this script's writing was nothing short of pathetic. I won't go into the details, except to say that Lex Luthor's sketchy "scientific" plan would have looked silly even in a 1940's sci-fi serial, and that Superman's eyes should never, at least in a live-action film, be given any powers beyond heat vision and X-ray vision (okay, to spare you the pain of watching the movie: he uses his eyes to magically re-assemble destroyed sections of the Great Wall of China out of thin air ... I shit you not).

Come to think of it, there was one shot that was quite priceless in the movie: possibly the best ever bit of physical shtick by Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent, in which he stumbles on a marble floor and narrowly avoids falling on his ass. But that sure doesn't make up for perhaps the most annoying part of the movie: Gene Hackman pronouncing the word "nuclear" like George W. Bush ("nucular") -- all the more painful because the script called for him to say the word at least a dozen times. I had respect for Mr. Hackman until this movie ... maybe Superman can use that memory-erasing trick on me for that hour-and-a-half like he did on Lois for discovering his secret identity...?

Update: If you're still jonesin' to get all four Superman movies for a good price, you can't get much better than this -- although this set is quite skimpy on the extras by comparison.