Anaraphla's Movie Mayhem: Star Trek: Into Darkness

Anaraphla’s Movie Mayhem: Star Trek: Into Darkness

    It should be obvious that the primary difference between Star Wars and Star Trek is of course the expositional scrawl that moves through space  to the top of the screen as if were actually going some place*. One can imagine some unknown alien planet colliding with the text that starts Episode One: The Fandom Malice and think some horrible disaster is on the way, or at the very least become very angry over the way Mr. Lucas disposes of his trash. Yes, I actually think of weird stuff like this.

*As well as the number of characters, that ironically are fairly easy to parody. One rather obscure Wars character named Plot Coon was allegedly a nod to Coon Plot, which of course refers to the episodes of Original Trek written by Gene L. Coon

    It was rather obvious that a second “reboot trek” movie would have to be made. Its sort of like after we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima; we had to drop another one on Nagasaki to  show we could do it. Its not that it’s a bad movie. Its just as though we needed another franchise go dark and gritty, violating everything we loved about the original. Don’t be surprised if Hello Kitty: War on Terror comes to your local theater.

    Ok, we start out on an alien planet. (alien to us, that is) Kirk and Bones are being chased by the natives. Why they are being chased we don’t know, but the gist of it is they jump in a lake and there is the ENTERPRISE** Spock is at an erupting volcano using his cold volcano logic, trying to stop the eruption.

    Kirk orders the Enterprise to rescue Spock, even though the natives would see the ship take off, violating the Prime Directive*** Of course there were better places to hide the ship, like maybe SPACE. As the scene ends we see the natives have drawn a surprisingly good picture of the Enterprise in the sand. Obviously they were very good artists, and no doubt the picture will be a symbolic warning against stupid writing, A few natives no doubt were wondering if next year’s Trek convention could possibly be better than this.

** Using space ships as submarines is not new. Thirty Days was a passable Voyager episode where Paris takes the Delta Flyer into a planet that was nothing but a ball of water( just don‘t ask why anyone would prefer living in a ball of water). My favorite one is Grace Under Pressure, a Stargate Atlantis episode. Mc Kay is the only person I know whose hallucinations are smarter than he is, and better looking. His imagination is almost as good as Felger

    Next we have a scene of Kirk getting some tail, literally. I don’t have anything against women with tails, especially since I have chosen he catgirl race as avatars in both Final Fantasy XI and XIV. Yet  Kirk is about as mature as a typical college football player, almost. I don’t know. Its getting a little hard to believe in this scene that Starfleet would make anyone like this captain of a starship. (Wait a minute, didn’t they send the cadets to do the fleet’s job in the last movie?)

    Of course even after saving the planet and Spock, Kirk is slapped by the 286th Rule of Acquisition; “No good deed ever goes unpunished”, even though there are no Ferengi in this movie. Pike demotes Kirk for violation of the Prime Directive**

***It was once said that the PD was a great idea, but practically was a bloody nuisance .
Shatner of course had no reluctance to kill god computers people depended on,  or explain to some random ridgehead aliens (sometimes forcibly) that the way they run their society is frakin stupid. No one at HQ seem to care. I really think Chris Pine should cry foul here. This would never happen to Shatner. Of course, Chris Pine’s “singing” isn’t considered a Weapon of Mass Destruction in certain parts of the known galaxy.

    Anyone with the intelligence of a cockroach knows Kirk will get the Big E back. Due to an explosion at a Starfleet, all the Admirals and Captain Pike are in an emergency conference, in an unsecured building with a target painted on the outside. Starfleet Security is as much an oxymoron as Military Intelligence.

    Pike and everyone in the room is killed except Kirk and Adm. Robocop. Robo orders Kirk to go after a guy named Harriman, whose name is disguised for dramatic reasons, even though the spoiler has already been spoiled. Harriman gets away from the scene of the crime using the transwarp device Scotty invents in the last movie, only for some reason the good guys don’t have one this time.

    Kirk is sent to the Klingon homeworld to deal with Harriman. Using the famed Vulcan talent for stating the obvious, Spock suspects there is something wrong about the admiral’s orders. There have been evil admirals on Star Trek before, but it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Adm. Marcus has lunch with Satan every Tuesday so that Satan can get evil tips from the admiral.

    Now we have this crazy scene where Bones notes there is something a bit abnormal about Kirk’s vitals. Well, if you had “experienced” most of the humanoid races of the Federation the way Kirk apparently has, being just “a little” abnormal is incredible. You would at least expect some blue warts on his… Anyway, JJ wisely decided not to go there.

    Next we meet Carol Marcus, who of course is Robo’s daughter. She is the Big E’s number two science officer. Why is she here? It couldn’t be a later scene where takes off her clothes in front of McCoy, could it?.

    Now we have this whole deal Scotty and these photon torpedoes. There is these special torpedoes that they forced to take on board. Scotty gets mad and quits for some bogus  reason, which is in fact a clumsy device to set things up later. The actual scene where Bill and Ted arrive on the ship to warn them that “Only the winners get to go back and set things up” was deleted. Well , the torpedoes contain people and back in an earlier scene in the Admiral’s office there was a model of a super badass secret starship, IN PLAIN SIGHT. I would say Roddenbery is spinning in grave at about Warp 5 at this point.

    So the Enterprise takes off to get Harriman (spelled K-H-A-N, but you knew that). Something goes wrong and the E is disabled. Kirk, Spock, and Uhura land a shuttle on the Klingon planet. This would normally be a big problem but for 2 reasons. One is that Uhura is such a cunning (I won’t say it). The other is that Klingon phrase “It’s a good day to die” due to a typo got changed to “It’s a good day to dye”, resulting in major confusion.

    Now things get weird. Kirk has Kahn in the brig and tells Kirk that Admiral Marcus is about as intelligent as a politician and wants to start a war with the Klingons, which the Admiral confirms and brings out the badass ship to destroy Kirk and Kahn. Of course as I told you, we arranged to have Scotty on the Bad ship in the nick of time.

    What the admiral didn’t figure on was Kirk pulling a trick from the Nemesis movie and shooting him and Kahn. Over to the admiral’s ship in nothing but a spacesuit. Kahn shows he is no weiner and kills the Admiral. Now we only have worry about Kahn blowing up the E.

    Now Kahn offers to return Kirk to the Enterprise if he gets the torpedoes back. The Enterprise complies. What Kahn doesn’t know is that his people have been replaced with real torpedoes. “Who put torpedoes in my torpedoes!”, Kahn screams. There is a bigass explosion. Kahn and the Vagrant (Yes I know its Vengeance but really I dislike the whole Section 31 thing Berman came up with in DS9 more than Kahn” )

    Strangely the Va (there I go again) and Kahn survive and Kahn wants to crash his ship into Starfleet. The E’s engines are dead and the ship is falling to its doom. Kirk runs into the brewery and kicks a few things around just in time to save the ship. The disembodied voice of Ricardo Montalbahn now pleased he has his revenge on Kirk, but hates that other guy for stealing his character, swears vengeance on him.

    Spock listens to his friends parting words, vaguely remembers something about a Genesis Planet. Then realizing that was the other movie screams ABRAHAMS! Meanwhile, McCoy manages to revive a dead tribble, Thanks to bones the Klinons will sing songs of the Great Tribble Hunt, AGAIN. But yes., instead of a “Reset Button” to bring Kirk to life we have a Reset Tribble. The final battle between Kahn and Spock is somewhat unremarkable by comparison to the other stuff. However Uhura gives a rather stunning performance.

    Stay tuned when J.J. Abrahams does  for Star Wars what he did to..uh...for Trek.

Anaconda: Special live Riff Trax event

    There are good snakes and bad snakes. An example of a good snake is the one that unplugs your toilet, saving you a large bill. Or, it’s a particular brand of software that keeps your computer safe. An example of a bad snake is …. No, wait. There are good movies about snakes and bad movies about snakes. An example of a  good movie about snakes is.. This isn’t working either.

    Before we begin, I have to say that the most underrated performance in the film is Ms. Conda’s. Although its hardly Shakespeare*, Anna brings a certain credibility to the film that you won’t find in the human players. We think Anna has a future as a dramatic actress or as the star of her own situation comedy.

*Cedric Wasp’s reading of Hamlet has to be heard to be believed. “To Bee, or Not To Bee”

    We also regret to say that an extra in the movie committed suicide in the first scene of the movie. So intense was the horror of being in this movie that he climbed the mast of his boat and shot himself. Unknown extra will be missed.

    And now the perpetrators uh actors in tonight’s trag… entertainment.

Jlo -  Filmmaker Terry Flores. Her desire is to make film of an unknown remote tribe

Eric Stoltz Cale, Terry’s boyfriend and producer of the movie.
Ice Cube; Cameraman (the butt of several “Ice Floats” riffs)
Jonathan Hyde: Westridge. Brittish guy about like C3PO strung out on caffeine.
John Voight Sarone, resident psychotic and indiscriminate monkey killer.
Anna Conda: herself. Regrettably, Ms. Conda’s film credits to this point are mostly as an uncredited extra. Her current ambition is to someday meet Nagini from the Harry Potter series.


    I am assuming you know the drill by now. Idiot people go where they shouldn’t. Stuff attacks people along the way. (Yes, I admit a scuba diver somehow getting a big bug in his throat, thus keeping him safe from all the other bad stuff while he recovers is slightly interesting. There is some talk by the psycho about things that swim up your urethra, which fortunately is not shown). Then of course monster attacks people, Psycho attacks people, monster attacks psycho, monster regurgitates psycho. People kill monster, waterfall runs uphill. Same old routine.

Things we learned:

    Large snakes scream , eat monkeys , and do not understand what river water is good for when they are on fire.

    Never leave a psycho’s legs untied
   
    Snakes kiss you on the mouth before they kill you.

    Waterfalls run uphill after the first snake is killed


Fun Quotes from he movie:


Paul Serone:
 Please people. Don't make me out a monster. I didn't eat the captain Mateo.

Terri Flores:
 This film was supposed to be my big break. But it turned out to be a big disaster.

Gary:
You don't know shit about the shit we're in out here!





Riff Trax stars: Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy

Music by Jonathan Coulton

Anaraphla's Movie Mayhem: Star Trek (2009)

    Before this movie, I knew nothing about J.J. Abrams. Now I can definitely say his Star Trek movie is so much better than if it were created by Tim Burton, or David Lynch; unless you really wanted James T. Kirk and the Chocolate Factory with Shatner voicing the ooopa loompa songs.

    The good news is that the franchise wasn’t rebooted because Disney bought the franchise and Berman and Braga couldn’t get the rights to the old movies away from Paramount. Someone just thought it would be a good idea to exorcise the spirit of the late Gene Roddenbery from the franchise.

    The movie begins in the past (still our future) on the USS Kelvin.  A bunch of stuff is happening here. A female crew member is about the give birth. The Kelvinator is attacked by someone named Nero*. Not only is Nero not a nice guy, his timing sux. He wants revenge on Old Ambassador Spock, who won’t be around until the present (our future again). Doesn’t matter. Nero kills the Kelvin captain and George Kirk is about to ram Nero’s ship to provide cover for the escaping shuttles. In an interesting note, the shuttle carrying the preggers Ms. Kirk is exiting the Kelvin’s launch tube at exactly the  same moment our hero is exiting Ms. Kirk‘s launch tube.

(* Nero is a popular villain name, beating out Caligula and Garland by a clear 50 to 1 margin)   

    In the next scene we have 10-year-old James T Kirk racing vintage Mustang down a dirt road at Ludicrous Speed with a cop in chase on a futuristic hover cycle. The road ends in at a large pit. Kirk bails in time, but a Mr. Fusion and a hover conversion would have really come in handy. No CGI gravel pits were harmed in the filming of this movie.

    A Star Trek reviewer often commented that ever since Berman and Braga took over the Trek franchise that the portrayal of Vulcans on the various series has suddenly been less than favorable. First on Deep Space Nine some Vulcan kids allegedly steal Nog’s homework, because they have no ethics. On the series Enterprise there is Ambassador Pointy,  who is always a pain. Then of course there was the Mind Meld Disease episode, which in case you didn’t figure it out,  you were told it was about AIDS. Just one question, was taunting of Spock something that was part of training or are boys the same all over. My guess is that they were jealous that Spock’s dad married Wynona Ryder.**

(**To be fair, being a teenage boy on Vulcan isn’t that much fun. Even though there are plenty of hotties to go around, having to be unemotional about it all, except for once every 7 years, really is a bummer.)

    Chris Pine makes a reasonable James T Kirk, although it is rather obvious he comes from the Tom Cruise “Maverick” school of acting. (Which I suppose is better than the Larry Storch school of acting) Kirk is a hotshot and incidentally voted most likely to catch “Space Herpies” by his senior class at Iowa Cornbelt High School. (pronounced I- O- Way)  Apparently though, the qualifications for entrance to Starfleet Academy are as tight as the famed Starfleet Security. Kirk just parks his motorcycle, hands the guard his keys sand is set to go.

     It is here Kirk meets Leonard “Bones” McCoy. Needless to say, considering the the risk of space herpies mentioned above, it is a beneficial friendship, as we will see in a bit. To say McCoy is a bit anxious about leaving for the Academy is like saying a Ferrengi is greedy. Actor Karl Urban later explains that McCoy was just upset that Star Trek was in the hands of the same guy that did “Lost”.

   
    Next we see Kirk taking the infamous Kobyasha Maru Test. In the simulator, Kirk calmly eats an apple while the bad guys attack, beating the “no-win scenario”. Capt. Pike and Spock are upset, not realizing the cheat codes were available on the Internet soon after it was created.

    This could have ended Kirk’s career except that Nero conveniently chose this moment in time to attack Vulcan. Starfleet sent its best ships to the Laurentian System*** and mobilized the cadets to fight the Vulcan menace. I should not have to point out that this would been like sending the US Armed Forces to Australia and mobilizing the Boy Scouts to fight the War on Terror after 9/11.

(*** The Federation Interplanetary Encyclopedia lists the “Laurentian System” as;

1. A muffler bracket for a 1953 Edsel

2. The specific style used by producer Dino De Laurentis

3. Home of the “Pan Galactic Fizzbin Tournament on Rigel 6

4. An obscure recreational facility where Starfleet ships have been known to congregate when the plot of a Star Trek episode demanded that the Enterprise be the only ship available to handle the emergency.)

    Of course Kirk is not allowed to board the Enterprise so McCoy fakes a medical emergency to get Kirk on the Enterprise. In the process of giving Kirk the antidote to the doctor’s potion we find our Kirk is allergic to the antidote causing a real emergency. What no Medic Alert bracelet?

    We also find out that Spock and Uhura have a something going, despite the 7 year thing, I am thinking maybe Space Neytiri is too hot even for a Vulcan to resist. Spock tries to avoid showing favoritism but he cannot deny her aural (oral?) sensitivity. You may insert the obvious pun here if you wish, but even I need to practice some restraint.

    So the valiant reds…uh cadets head for Vulcan. Kirk, making a quite logical and reasonable conclusion (for Kirk), warns that it’s a trap, which it is. Nero is using a massive energy drill to bore a hole into the planet. The only way to stop the drill is to parachute down to drill. Transporters are out. As it turns out, wearing a red chute is just as bad an omen as wearing a red shirt.

    Meanwhile, Nero orders Capt Pike to come to his ship in a shuttle. Those of us who have seen the TNG episode “Ensign Ro” or the Space 1999 episode “The Last Enemy” understand this would be the perfect opportunity for using “The Koenig Maneuver” , namely taking an empty shuttle filling it with Photon Torpedos, Tricobalt explosives, and using a subspace relay to simulate life signs. Yes it would end the movie real quick but maybe I like shows where the good guys win by using brain over might.

    Anyway, Nero drops a bit of “Red Matter“ (notice again how the word “red“ rhymes with the “D word“ and a black hole starts to consume the planet. Failing to save his mom and Pike, Spock decides to find out what the ^%$% is going on in the Laurentian System. I have to say that in a certain DS9 episode that returning to a place of relative safety would have been the correct thing for those cadets to do. Not this time.

    Kirk does not agree however, and after an altercation with Spock he is sent to a moon in an escape pod where he meets Spock, the original Spock. Of course its time for the exposition scene, delivered by mind meld (not with us of course),

    It seems Future Spock was trying to save Romulus from its sun which was about to go nova. Spock failed and he accidentally sent him and Nero to the past. It’s a given that anyone named Nero (and definitely Caligula. Not so sure about Garland) is extremely psychotic, demented, and all that other bad stuff. Kirk of course would have had no reservations about using time travel to avert the catastrophe (17 separate temporal violations, so make it an even 18) Nero wanted Spock to see Vulcan die. We of course want to see Nero die.

    So Kirk’s mission is to return to the Enterprise and take command from Spock. For this we need a little deus ex machina courtesy of  Montgomery Scott, who just happens to be stationed on this ball of ice due to a mistake with a transporter and an admiral’s dog. To be sure it is a better fate than being one of the poor bastards in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King who has to sit on the hilltops, just in case they are needed to light the signal fire. I don‘t want to know what they did  to deserve such a “choice“ assignment..

    Anyway, Kirk, Mr. Scott, and a guy with a Gem Hadar mask beam into the Enterprise’s brewery. (BREWERY? WHAT THE… SHUT UP, This is a movie) Kirk rescues Mr Scott from the Sushi machine. They are of course arrested and brought before Spock. Kirk convinces Spock that he is emotionally compromised and takes command. You can just imagine how thrilled everyone is.

    So with Spock’s help, Kirk saves Earth, rescues Pike and serves Nero some just desserts. So once again, for violating regulations and gross cheating Kirk is made Captain and is given command of the Enteprise.

(Probability 12342 to one against, 9875 to one against, 100 to one against. 100%. Normality restored. Btw the armed photon torpedo in my living room became a talking raccoon, got a movie contract and vanished)

WINDOWS 10: Not a "10" so far, but...

It wasn't long after I had built my previous computer running Windows Vista that Window 7 Beta became available. I downloaded it and gave it a dual-boot test. A few days later, Windows 7 became the only OS on my system. It was that much better than XP or Vista.

Windows 10 Technical Preview is of course a work in progress, so I cannot comment what you will get next year when it goes live, but here is my snap impression.

Would I be willing to dump 8.1 to run 10 preview?

Yes, definitely. After installing Windows 10 from a flash drive I was very pleased to find that the interface I was familiar with in Win 7 was back, with a few enhancements. The start button is back. On desktop computers you get the desktop. Click the start button and a very Win 7ish start menu appears along with a customizable app window. Oh yes, apps have the standard X button to close. Thank you MS

But here is the biggie.

Is there any reason to dump Win 7 for Win 10?

Not at the moment. We just don't know where 10 is going or if the trip is necessary. There is no word on the gaming performance so we'll just have to wait and see.