Spock's Two Fingered Monkey Freak

I went to see the new Star Trek movie, which is called, cleverly enough, "Star Trek". Review in a sentence: Kinda fun in a Saturday morning cartoon sort of way, but it has some of the dumbest writing in the history of the world.

If you're a fan, you've already seen it. It's the second time for one of the guys I went with. If you sorta like Star Trek then you can have fun between the winces. If you're not a Star Trek fan... Hard to say. A lot of people went to see the Transformers movie and it sucked.

I'm not going to pick the film apart piece by piece. It's not a terrible film. But on the other hand, it ain't a great film either. Besides, some people find my smartypants type reviews funny.

In To The Breach! A' Spoiling I Shall Go!

This is supposed to be a reboot of the franchise. OK. I can live with that. I'm not a big fan of movies like this. The ones that show that one scene that defined everyone's character. In real life there usually isn't one scene. People grow over time and relationships grow with them.

Oh well, this is mostly like real life actors running around like pissed off Muppet Babies, so we have to let that slide.

My first kibitz is that it didn't feel like a Start Trek movie. It has all the names and a few of the places, but the rest was generic shaky camera CGI. The original Star Wars had it's feel. The Star Trek movies, even the ones that sucked (and boy did some suck), still felt like Star Trek. This one really didn't.

It has the obligatory Kobayashi Maru (bite me, I looked up the spelling) simulator scene. In the original universe Captain Kirk is the only person to beat the simulator. W00t! The universe is in awe. He later confesses, in one of the most painfully stupid scenes in all of the Star Trek universe, the he cheated. That's right, Captain James T. Kirk is not a great star ship captain, he's a cheating weasel. Anyway, his defense? He doesn't like to loose. I hate blue balls but that doesn't give me the right to date rape.

I wonder if a more qualified recruit was screwed out of his own ship because Kirk blew a professor to get to the top. I'm sure that Diane Duane's written book about him. "Lieutenant Pango: Boned by Kirk!"

In this movie they change it up a bit. In this version, Kirk cheats, but does so in such a psychotically obvious way that everyone knows he cheats. There can be no other option. He played "Duke Nukem" in god mode. It's like he went to the final and yelling "I sure hope the second answer isn't 'Your mother and a horta!'. Oh golly gee whiz, it is! The guys in Animal House could cheat with more elan then he.

In fact, it's not even cheating. It's a psychopathic desire to fail. I wouldn't want this clown running a space fairing warship with guns in the front. I wouldn't want him driving a bus! The last words I want to hear as I wing into a yawning chasm with a bus load of other victims isn't the driver saying "I sure hope this isn't a yawning chasm below us!". It is Jimmy, but gravity is going to fix that in a couple of seconds. Splat!

Also, everything in this movie was dirty. I know that we can use CGI to make things look like crap, but that doesn't mean we have to. One of the things that I liked about the old Enterprise is they kept it clean. Even the bad guys understood hygiene. They may have had only had 3 sets, but they kept them swept and they brushed their teeth.

Here, everything was filthy, everyone needed a shave and everyone needed a spanking! Needing a shave isn't a special effect!

I know it's supposed to make it more "adult", but it doesn't. I've been (in the legal sense) an adult most of my life. I've never worked in a place as dark and dank as the Romulan super-CGI-future-miner-ship. I can see dark coal bins, but why wasn't there proper lighting on the bridge? I have florescent lights in my cubical, and it doesn't have warp drive.

And there were pipes everywhere! I mean everywhere! Remember, these ships are huge. They don't hang with gravity. The have all the room they need, but man they have a lot of pipes. It's like the all of galactic space is run by Thomas the Tank Engine. Enough with the steam punk. In the future they have wallboard!

And the people! Yeek! I've also worked with some pretty wretched people, but even in the worst of places, most people walk around with their asses blissfully board free.

How about that high tech computer talk? And when they start talking about computers, they made it sound like the Enterprise is written in AppleSoft BASIC. Instead of saying plebeian stuff like "Captain, the subroutines are interfering with our, um, SoundBlaster 16, um, thousand.", they should use hip psychological terms like "Captain, someones' boned the computer's universe of discourse and it's gestalt is full of paradoxes." It's bullshit, but it's future bullshit.

Did I mention the space chicks? Can we please have a movie with more than one female lead? And could we not make them poon targets?

In this film the nookie target was, of course, Uhura. Spock gets his freak on with her in this flick. And it isn't some Vulcan two finger smoochie. Spock does it monkey style! The thing is, it contributed nothing to the plot, it was gratuitous, and Spock looked too much like Kevin Nealon, Yea, I bet "The Kev" has to beat the chicks off with a stick.

Don't think I'm against hot SciFi bitches. Wally Wood is my spirit animal. Hell, lets do a full frontal nudity version of Star Trek where the Romulians perfect the lezbo ray and the Federation sets it's love guns on "lube". I'm there with extra popcorn.

But either do it or don't. Lets see 'um naked, or give them roles that don't involve them playing kissy face all the time.

How about weapons? I know it's kewl and all, but why would you carry a sword that folds up into a tiny sword? Wouldn't you use that space to carry a second gun? Knives have their place. I carry a geek army knife with me wherever I go. But not for battle. Any Marine worth their salt will tell you, if you carry a knife for combat, replace it with another clip of bullets.

Ze Plot!

I'm going to egress talking about the plot, such that it is.

Do you remember the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie? If the zombie pirates had just asked Will Turner to come with them and drop one drop of blood so they could be freed from the curse, and in exchange they would give him a bag of gold, he probably would have. No muss, no fuss, just ask nicely. The whole movie would have been about 10 minutes, including credits.

Star Trek has one of those plots.

An angry Romulan (who's really just a guy who needs a shave) comes back in time to oowie the Federation because Romulus's sun unexpectedly went nova (if you just heard a popping noise, it's the head of any physics major younger than Lord Kelvin). He blames the Federation.

Fair enough.

He's a miner, so he comes back in his mining ship (a ship for digging dirt). OK. Most mining ships are kind of like lunch boxes with engines, they just move dirt. Not Romulan mining ships. These bastards are bigger than most planets and are covered with super death weapons. Kind of like the Dodge Wrangler. Most Dodge Wranglers are encrusted in torpedoes right? That's why the get such rotten gas mileage.

Any way. Planet go boom. Ships go boom. Plot goes ARRRRRRG boom. Spock gets jungle fever. Roll credits.

Um, why couldn't the Romulan guy come back through time, take his super-CGI-future-miner-ship back to Romulus and just tell everyone "Hey, I'm from the future, look at the date on my drivers license and how much I need a shave! On stardate a hundred years from now, at around 3:15PM, the sun is going to go nova and melt our planet (pop pop pop!). Write that date down. No! Use the red felt tip marker and underline it! Now that that's settled, I happen to have this super-CGI-future-miner-ship that is chock full of 100 years in the future type technology. What am I bid?"

The whole movie would be about how this poor swine died from too many ticker tape parades while getting Romulan nookie while playing the stock market.

I'm just saying.

I Conclude!

Anyone who says this movie is more than a CGI pretty-bang is either a Trek fiend or they're going to grope you in the theater. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Last word? Meh. But a fun Meh.

What's your favorite color? Wrong!

Some stories you have to type quickly or they'll be forgotten before you get them out on the Internet tubes. This is one such story.

First lets talk about beauty contests.

Beauty contests are weird. It's kind of like sex through a fish bowl. You herd up some tall thin Aryans, shave everything below the eyebrows, tart them up to the nines and then pretend they've never had sex.

Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with hot babes parading around for the ogling. If they had the "Top 50 Hottest Babes of any Medium Size Mall Take Off Their Tops and Wave at Dale" show, I'd probably watch. Breasts are god's way of saying mammals are cool.

Beauty contest are different. The women don't look like women, really. They're kind of like sexualise marshmallow peeps. Ya know?

They walk funny, they talk funny, they wave funny and they're all kind of, what's the best word? Shiny! They're all kind of shiny.

It's like you just bought a new "Stepford Wife" and she's fresh out of the crate and still smells like a new car. That's what beauty queens remind me of.

Unfortunately, promoters of such shows can't stick to the crux of the show: pulchritude. Instead, they try to bluff us by having things like a talent show and an IQ test.

A leggy blond shooting skeet while playing a saxophone may be Americana, but the IQ tests make my brainstem hurt.

The is current tempest in a tea pot is brewing over something that a Miss USA contestant said. Carrie Prejean is Miss California. Well, sorta. She's only Miss California according to the Miss USA Pageant. Jackie Geist is the Miss America Miss California. Maybe someday we'll step through all of this and Miss Corleone will unite all the Miss Californias on the day of her son's christening, but until then, we have Carrie Prejean to kick around.

Carrie was picked by the handicappers as the most likely to win this year. How they did that I don't know. Maybe they checked her teeth and rode her around the room a bit. I'm sure it was something scientific.

Alas, a well turned fetlock isn't enough. Part of the absurdity that is the Miss USA contest is "Current Events". I'm sure that they have a better name for it, but it's really just current events. It's supposed to show us that Miss USA has brains as well as brawn. We'll ignore the fact that double her IQ and add 10 lbs to her butt and any contestant is out on their tucus. Brains don't fill a swimsuit.

Anyway, Ms. Prejean was asked about current conservative bugaboo, gay marriage. She blew it. I mean comedicly. I mean, not a pretty sight comedicly. Post '60s Jerry Lewis is what we're talking here.

In the end, she lost the contest.

She blames, not the bad answering of the questions, not the fact that Kristen Dalton is a fine side of beef in her own right, but the fact that she wasn't wildly pro gay marriage.

She might be right. She's a bigot, but she might be right.

Does anyone really think that if she had given a brilliantly argued defense of hetero only marriage, with the oratory skills of, say, Frederick Douglas, that she would have come out of that unscathed?

It's academic because she answered like a gooney bird on Teflon, but the question is still there.

Is it OK to ask a contestant a pure opinion question and then nail them because it's not your opinion?

Obviously I believe the answer is "no". If you ask me my favorite color, and don't like the one I choose, then piss off.

If you ask me whether humans and dinosaurs lived together, and I say "yes", then you can gig me. Not because you disagree with me, but because my evidence is crap.

But if I say I'm against gay marriage because I'm a closet case and waking up at 3am with a junior chubby is scaring the dog, then I've answered your question. I haven't lied. I haven't selected part of a religious text to bash you with. I've done my job and should get a cookie. If some Z-level blogger (a blogger for god's sake!) doesn't like it, then maybe a better question is, "Who the hell cares about the opinion of a blogger?" Just ask a blogger, we're meaningless. (Did ya dig the irony there?)

Please don't think that I care about Miss USA. I think the entire contest could be done in a news break: Ladies, line up please. Thank you. Pop your tops. Very nice. Great rack Miss Vermont, here's your crown.

It's the farce I don't like.

Battlestar Galactica Really Sucked

I don't think I've ever missed the mark on a show as much as I have on Battlestar Galactica (BG). I'm not trying to be the guy who doesn't like the popular show, I just really thought it sucked.

I've liked shows that have bombed (Brisco County Jr.) and hated hits (Seinfeld), but I could always figure out why. Sometimes it's me, sometimes it's them. This time it was different.

With Battlestar, a lot of people, from all walks of life, really liked this show. People who's opinions I value, truly liked this show.

Most went out of there way to point out that it wasn't Science Fiction, it was drama. And they really like drama.

One, Science Fiction can be drama. Quit making excuses.

Two, I love Science Fiction. Hell, I love SciFi. I think the coolest station in the world would be the "Naked SciFi Channel". You take popular SciFi shows, rename them enough to avoid lawsuits, and then add plenty of nudity. This week on "Space Trek" frisky space moths attack the "USS Stimulus Package." MOTHSSSSS!

Three, given that, I REALLY though BG sucked. I mean A LOT! The fact that 99% of you vehemently disagree with me leaves me baffled.

I remember when it premiered. I was going to watch it with an open mind. I needed something to fill the hole left by Babylon 5 and was looking forward to chatting about it on Slashdot.

I watched the show and was amazed at how stupid it was. I went on Slashdot and was amazed again at how positive the reviews were. I couldn't, and still can't believe that we all watched the same premier.

This is my memory of the show:

People are hanging around being middle class. A hot babe in red shows up wearing a "look I'm a hot babe in red" blinking neon sign. Thank god for that because I can never notice attractive women myself. This was PG porn for the mentally challenged.

She chats with Rachel Ray or someone for a couple of seconds, and then she strangles a baby. She strangles a baby. A baby leaps on her hands and crushes it's larynx on her thumb. Eshay anglestrays an abybay. Nope can say that without sounding stupid.

Anyway, she then has PG9 warm monkey sex with Steve Jobs and her ass lights up. Yup, you heard me. Her ass lights up. Make notes, if you noticed that then you can be a doctor on the Galactica.

We then hop aboard the Galactica where we find out that Uber-president Douglas Adams has placed all the middle managers, hairdressers and telephone sanitizers on one ship in an effort to get them the hell off the planet.

There is only one rule to be part of the Galactica crew. You must be a complete dick. No semi-nads apply.

Suddenly the Cylon robots attack and invade our suburbia lifestyle. They're robots, but they look just like us, but have a different religion. Then they knock things over. Um guys... They weren't robots, they were Muslims. Muslims in space.

Back to the story. The heroic space crackers try to defend our turf, only to find out that all the space fighters, from 12 different planets mind you, all run on IPod Nanos. Oh, and Steve Jobs has gone commie. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Come back here Mister Brain!

Why would all the ships use the same computers and what the hell would weapons systems have to do in space anyway? Ships turn at, oh, max 40Gs (much more would liquefy the pilot). Space bullets move at, oh, a zillion miles per second. And in space they go in perfectly straight lines! Put your gun on a gimbal and blast away with your l33t Atari 2600 skills. You can't miss! For this they need a computer?

Now we go to the Galactica. The Galactica is run by a big Zune. Actually they don't have networked computers at all on the Galactica, so they can fight Cylons. That's because having the ship's email on one network and the ships weapons of death on a second is too much like SciFi. Yeesh!

No one aboard knows who are Cylons and who are Christians (oop! humans). The fact that one of the two has an ass full of Christmas lights never tips anyone off. The fact that you really can't have 2 wildly distinct creatures that match down to the chromosomal level kind of slips by here too. Do they have Cylon midichlorians? That can't be good.

Oh, and, spoiler alert, it turns out that the second in command, the unlikable Saul Tigh is in fact a gruff but unlovable alcoholic Cylon. Picture Bender from Futurama, but, you know, not likable. If he's a Cylon, couldn't he have just whizzed on a disk drive or something and had the Cylons win on the first day? Bender would have whizzed. He would have whizzed like a hero.

Oh well, I'm done picking on the plot, and I'm only an hour or so into the show. I don't mean to imply that your dumb for liking the show. I love SciFi. I'm just saying you're dumb for thinking it ain't SciFi. It was Emo-SciFi.

I watched BG for most of the first season. For those who say that I bailed too early, let's review the plot of the whole series:

Space Muslims knocked down the 12 space trade towers. The only survivors are space Republicans, half of which are really space Muslims and everyone, down to the dust bunnies are dicks. Everyone. Space Bush goes decider and tortures the space Muslims and everyone is a dick and almost has emotions about it. Then Obama gets elected and they all decide to land and become hippies and angles and ignore technology so they can get small pox and invent racism and ignore plot holes.

How did I do?

One last jab, then I'll shut up.

I'm getting really tired of show writers coming up with scenes and characters that are deep and mysterious and then slapping on some BS ending that leaves the viewers hanging.

Apologists will mew about writing like this as being like "real life". They claim it's depth. It ain't. It's just sloppy writing.

Watch:

I usually work late Thursday nights, but tonight I came home early. As I pulled to the curb in my Teal 78 Ford Fairmont I noticed that something was amiss. There were no children on the streets, just their toys. A small 3 legged dog trotted past me. Across the street another 3 legged dog trotted past on 3 other legs. Both glanced at each other knowingly. Somewhere a midget laughed. I picked up my mail. All the letters were from Ed McMahon. Each letter had a different spelling of my name. Each had a different picture of Ed. I entered the house. My mother was gone! My dear sweet mother! Where could she be? Then I remembered, Thursday is her bowling night.

Pretty good huh? Really deep with lots of loose ends? It must show that I'm profound or something.

That or it's easy to add neat stuff to a story and hard to make it all work.

A friend and I used to write comic books together. In one story he wrote so much stuff that he couldn't tie it all together. It ended with "The Ender Of Comics" walking in holding a sign that said "The End". No matter what happened, when he showed up the comic ended. Deep huh? We were 16.