I’m not a Trekkie, nor a Trekker. I’m not even a Star Trek enthusiast. I’ve seen most of the movies and some of the original series. I inconsistently watched “Star Trek: The Next Generation” through my adolescence, but then theatre school proved more than enough distraction. That said, whether dystopian or utopian, I’m always willing to give a science-fiction movie a try (for example, I look forward to Moon–autoplaying trailer ahead).
I was optimistic, this weekend, when I went to the new Star Trek movie. It’s creatively called “Star Trek”. I was encouraged by the director J. J. Abrams’s pedigree, and the raucous energy of the trailer. I wasn’t disappointed.
It’s an entertaning, rompin’ space opera. The first ten minutes are–as they must be in any good action movie–superb, full of the riotous energy that was so often missing from previous, more staid Star Trek movie. Abrams has assembled an excellent yet, by big budget movie standards, unknown cast. They look just enough like the original Star Trek actors to be convincing, yet they’re different enough for us not to be constantly reminded of the elder actors’ portrayals. The movie generally does a great job of recognizing its place in the Star Trek canon without getting bogged down in silly cameos or stunts to win the sympathy of hardcore fans (much to their dismay).
With a swashbuckling style (there’s actually a bit of swordplay in one scene) and unfamiliar cast, this “Star Trek” reminded me a lot of the first (by which I mean the 1977 movie) “Star Wars”. As it happens, several of the creative leaders on the “Star Trek” movie cite “Star Wars” as a major influence, including writer Roberto Orci. I was listening to the always-enjoyable Slate Spoiler Special podcast about “Star Trek”, and reviewer Dan Kois compared the film to Joss Whedon’s “Serenity”. I agree, I guess, though I thought “Serenity” itself owed a lot to “Star Wars”.
After seeing the dismal, rote “Wolverine”, “Star Trek” was the blockbuster breath of fresh air I was hoping it would be. You’d have to be a serious Debbie Downer not to enjoy it.
Derek points out that, like the Daniel Craig Bond movies, this film has redeemed the prequel.
UPDATE: I happened upon this video, which highlights the similarities between Star Wars and the new Star Trek movie. I blame Joseph Conrad:
[BioWare co-founder] Muzyka explained that the designers of the game wanted to ensure that The Old Republic was a story-based MMO that followed in the tradition of the Knights of the Old Republic. He added that while people have often asked BioWare if the company would ever produce the third installment in the Knights of the Old Republic franchise, this new game amounts to installment Nos. three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and beyond.
The Little Things
There’s no release date as yet, so the game is probably more than a year away. I visited the game’s flashy-flash website in the hopes of subscribing to an RSS feed or something, so that I could periodically get news updates. There’s a newsletter, but I’d rather not give them my email address. I didn’t see a feed on the home page, but I did see this familiar row of social media icons:
Great, I thought, I’ll just subscribe to the Twitter feed. The link goes here. Unfortunately, there’s no account there. In fact, ’starwarstheoldrepublic’ is too long for a Twitter user name.
Ah well, maybe I’ll just subscribe to their YouTube channel instead. I click the little YouTube icon next to the Twitter one. Nope. That’s an invalid user name, too.
The other icons–Facebook, MySpace, Flickr–do work. But it’s a reminder to ensure that you get the little things right. I’m guessing their website has received, what, 50,000 visitors in the past day? At the very least.
No RSS feed on the home page and a 40% failure rate on their icons is a bit of a shame. I doubt they’ll lose many players at this stage, but those early adopters are too valuable to give away so easily.
After digging around a bit, I did find a developer blog for the game. I’m going to subscribe to that for the time being.
I should say that I’m looking forward to trying another Star Wars MMPORG. I quite enjoyedStar Wars Galaxies, at least until they screwed it up.
You know, nothing quite speaks to my 13-year-old teenage self like a woman dressed up like Princess Leia enslaved by Jabba the Hut in Return of the Jedi. Today Boing Boing pointed to just such a group.
I started surfing around the Slave Leia photos on Flickr, and discovered this hilarious one. Good for him. As the photo caption indicates, ‘you can’t unsee this’.
Speaking of Boing Boing, you might want a unicorn chaser on that.
Here’s a strange, strange story about Natalie Portman courtesy of those Silicon Valley gossip-mongers Valleywag:
The winsome movie star, who came to public notice as a 12-year-old in the charge of a grizzled assassin, is proposing a continuous video feed of her work and personal life…
Hollywood is freaked by the emergence of instant celebrities, in reality television, and on web sites such as Youtube. The agencies, and the stars, want in on the action, just as they did during the last internet boom. Thus CAA, the number one talent agency, put Will Ferrell, the comedic actor, together with Sequoia Capital. The result: Funny or Die, a version of Youtube for comedy clips.
I initially thought this was pretty groundless, but it sounds a lot more plausible when I remembered that I’d seen a couple of other pop stars co-opting the YouTube medium. From a marketing perspective, Portman seems like an obvious choice. She’s young, attractive and popular with the Web’s early adopters thanks to Star Wars and V for Vendetta.
I’m certainly no judge of this sort of thing, but Ms. Portman doesn’t seem like the type to be a publicity hound. I watched an interview with her on “Behind the Actor’s Studio” a while back, and she struck me as quite private.
My latest column in the Yaletown View (they’re having a party tonight) is about massively-multiplayer online role-playing games or MMORPGs. I’ve been playing Star Wars Galaxies for a few months, and have had mixed feelings about it. My column has more to say on this subject. In the meantime, here’s a few screenshots (kicking some ass, lazing around camp, Grace and her pet rancor and hanging with some fambaas). Yes, I play a girl. Yes, I’m aware of the subtext. Yes, I think her hairbun looks fetching. Yes, I’m a titanic nerd (click for much larger versions):
I’m not a Trekkie, nor a Trekker. I’m not even a Star Trek enthusiast. I’ve seen most of the movies and some of the original series. I inconsistently watched “Star Trek: The Next Generation” through my adolescence, but then theatre school proved more than enough distraction. That said, whether dystopian or utopian, I’m always willing to give a science-fiction movie a try (for example, I look forward to Moon–autoplaying trailer ahead).
