Star Trek: Into Darkness

I finally got around to seeing Star Trek: Into Darkness this week. My overall impression is that I really enjoyed it! It was pretty action-y, which usually isn't my cup of tea, but I found that there was always enough going on that I didn't get bored.

I understand that the hardcore Star Trek folks have some gripes about it, but I think that being a little less knowledgeable in that department may have worked in my favour. I didn't have any rage out moments related to inconsistencies or anything like that, but I am well versed enough to understand the role reversals near the end, and a bunch of the throw backs to the original series. It is a different timeline; things don't have to be the same. I can accept that as an explanation for any differences from the original series. At the same time I appreciate the parallels that they draw while keeping it fresh.

One minor gripe that I did have is that, as much as I love Benedict Cumberbatch, is he REALLY the right person to play Khan Noonien Singh? (Admittedly, the original actor that played him was Mexican, so who am I to judge?) Although, I do suppose it is possible that in the distant future names that we currently associate with a particular area of the world would probably not have that same association.

One MAJOR gripe that I had was that I had to watch it in 3D. The theatre that we went to had stopped showing the regular one. I should clarify that I hate 3D movies. A lot. Particularly ones that are done the way Star Trek is. The viewer is pretty much constantly bombarded with lens flares and light effects in the extreme foreground (that I probably wouldn't have thought out of the ordinary in 2D), as well as extreme foreground objects at the edge of the screen that cause your eyes (or mine at least) to start trying to focus past the edge of the screen. Another pet peeve of mine was rampant in this movie: switching focus between the foreground and the background. I know that this is a common technique in film, but it really messes with me in 3D, and I find it really distracting. If you are going to force 3D on me, at least let ME choose which layer I want to look at. I feel like 3D is rarely done well enough to not detract from a movie, let alone improve it. I would personally have preferred to watch the 2D version.

To change the subject and music-nerd out for a moment, I REALLY enjoyed the score of this movie. It stayed in the background when it needed to, and was super moving when it was called for. I particularly enjoyed the ending where they worked it into a revamped, epic version of the theme from the original series. I didn't think that I had ever heard anything by Michael Giacchino before, but upon looking into it, he also did the soundtrack of Up, which was wonderfully done as well.

As a whole, I really enjoyed the movie, when I was not being distracted by awkward lens flares in the front of my vision. The score was excellent, the pacing was good, it was not entirely guns and explosions as I suspected it might have been, and it was generally a very fun movie. Although, I will be the first to admit that cerebral it was not, and I feel like that is probably a flaw in a Star Trek movie, but you've got to please the masses with these things, I suppose.

Review: New Moon

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



I read this book (and Twilight) out of sheer stubbornness. I wanted to understand the cultural phenomenon that it has become, though I didn't really have any interest in it. the frothing fan base really turned me off of the whole series. To be honest, I was disappointed that I didn't hate the first book. It was okay. Just okay; it wasn't good. I would probably have really liked it when I was 14, which is a good thing, since it is a young adult novel. I moved on to New Moon with tenacity, but I was absolutely bored to tears by it. While the first book was largely a long deliberation on how pretty Edward is, this one was a long lamentation on the fact that he wasn't there any more, and (to me, at least) there was absolutely nothing there that sparked any interest. I will probably read the rest of the series out of pure stubbornness, but I would tell anyone else who wants to understand the crazy cultural phenomenon that no, they don't.



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Book versus Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Let me get this right out in the open so that there are no illusions about my lack of bias here: I hate Michael Cera. I hate looking at him, I hate listening to him talk, and I hate the only role that he has ever played: the awkward kid that is somehow supposed to be cool or funny or something. HOWEVER. I also acknowledge the fact that the role of Scott Pilgrim was pretty much made for him.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the books. I resisted reading them for a very long time based entirely on the fact that Michael Cera plays the main character in the movie, and that must mean that I will hate everything about the main character. Who wants to read about a protagonist that they hate? (For example: Holden Caulfield.) I was eventually swayed entirely by overbearing peer pressure. Contrary to my expectations, I really liked the comics. I found them a bit disjunct, but I think that was probably intentional. I liked that the characters had some emotional depth to them, each with their own back story and the emotional baggage therewith. Each character makes some kind of personal development, and there is a greater, overarching story line that is not really ever made completely clear until the very end. All of these things I thought were really great, in the comic.

You’ll notice that each of the things I thought were great in the comic were the things that were unceremoniously ripped out of the movie.

I was encouraged at first when the opening scenes were taken word for word from the beginning of the comic. I thought that the style of the movie in general was really true to the comic, but the story seems to have got a disfiguring face-lift. Every relationship between characters became a little simpler so that they could justify cutting out interactions. (For the sake of brevity, I imagine.) As a result, the whole story got much less complicated, and much shallower. The entire side-plot about Envy was pretty much dissolved. The band-mate with the cyborg arm? She got less than one second of screen time.

Don’t get me wrong. The movie was still entertaining. People like it. If it weren’t for my irrational hatred of Michael Cera, I might even be willing to say that I enjoyed it. My problem is that they took a good story, with at least somewhat three dimensional characters who develop, and dumbed it down into a simple, whimsical action movie. I guess I am just disappointed because the movie is kind of dumber than I was led to believe.

[Edit: I sort of truncated this post because I felt it was getting kind of babble-y, and I wasn’t sure if the internet world really needed my detailed and specific opinions on the subject. Since I have been told by a couple of people that this seems like it was going somewhere and then didn’t, I guess I will go into the detail that I intended to go into originally at some point in the future. There will be a link later.]

Half-Way Review: The Valley of Horses

I am half way through reading the book The Valley of the Horses, by Jean M. Auel and I feel like my opinion of it is not going to change between now and the end of the book, so I am just going to talk about it now, while I have nothing better to do.

First of all, I really liked the first book in this series. (Clan of the Cave Bear.) The culture that Auel developed for the Clan people was interesting, and I found the characters to be generally likable and engaging. I read it straight through without getting bored, and the story certainly held my interest.

I am having a harder time with this one. It flips, every other chapter, between the story of Ayla (the main character from the first book) and a pair of brothers that seem to be completely unrelated to Ayla’s life. (I assume that she is going to meet these brothers at some point.) I find that, after the main plot point of each chapter has been revealed, I can usually figure out what is going to happen, and lose interest about half way through the chapter. By the time I get to the next chapter I am excited to start a new sub-plot, but the same thing tends to happen. I don’t find the story of Ayla befriending animals particularly engaging, and I have no emotional attachment to the two brothers, so at this point I am reading on waiting for the point when the two stories collide, hoping that it will get more interesting at that point.

I guess the short version is this: It hasn’t kept my attention. I’ll keep reading it because I hate not finishing books, and I’ll let you know if I change my mind.

It's Cold and Lonely in the Deep Dark Night

(Paradise By the Dashboard Light, Meat Loaf)

Saw 3... What a good movie. I have yet to decide whether I like it as much as the first two... As usual, it was dumbed down... Which I dislike. The first one took you a little while to figure out exactly what happened. I know I personally needed to take a minute, after the movie was finished, and go over it in my mind. (Maybe that's just me, because I'm dumb, though. :P) This one was made based on the assumption that the public are morons. (Is moronic?) I hate it when things are dumbed down. The end of the DaVinci code did that too... But, regardless of the dumbing-down of the ending, it was still pretty good.

**SPOILERS**
I liked the fact that Amanda turned out not to be quite as much of a souless bitch, because she had some emotion. On the other hand, she did turn out to be much more of a souless bitch, because she just killed people, and didn't "play the game." I don't know... Even the "bad guys" have to have some personality, right? There was a lot left unexplained, though. Who was Jigsaw's woman? What's the story there? What was in the envelope? What in the world was the significance of Amanda cutting herself? It seemed really to just be thrown in there for the sake of adding more gore and disturbing imagery. It could have been made clear that she was upset in much more effective ways... and that kind of bothers me. I guess I'm pretty critical about movies... They can't be dumbed down, and it can't have pointless things in it that just feed the public hunger for gore/sex/explosions. Most of the gore in Saw 3 was justified... Though it's hard to imagine where jigsaw comes up with the resources for all of these trials... The manner of the killings just keeps getting more and more elaborate and ridiculous. The rib-ripping thing was a bit much for me.
**END SPOILER**

Overall, definitely worth seeing, if you liked the first ones.

On to more personal, and less analytical things: I went to the movie with a guy I've met here. (Completely platonic, I might add.) Marcy made a snide remark about not getting too scared... Wouldn't want me to start clinging to this other guy. It was a joke, made in good humour, but I know him well enough to know when something is niggling at the back of his mind. (Or, at least I think that I do... I hope so.) Maybe I should stick to group activities. :P