Happy Holidays!

Wherever you are, and whatever you celebrate, here's hoping this season finds you with ten pounds of joy in a five pound sack.

Seasons Greetings!

The One Where I Saw William Shatner

So if you follow William Shatner on Twitter (and why wouldn't you?  The man's a phenomenon!) you probably know that he recently released a new CD "Ponder the Mystery."

As part of the promotion for it, he did a handful of performances around Southern California.  You would think, Los Angeles being the Entertainment Capitol of the World, that one of those performances would be in Los Angeles, wouldn't you?  I would!  Unfortunately none of the people booking Shatner thought that way, so your choices were a) drive all the way north to Agoura Hills on a Thursday; or b) drive all the way south to San Juan Capistrano on a Friday.

Oh well. It was actually a pretty good performance, although my personal taste in music runs more towards showtunes and standards.

Plus he signed CDs afterwards!

Shatner's singing (or rhythmic talking) is perhaps not for everyone, but for those who are so inclined, or the overly-devout, the CD is available on Amazon.com. 

Ponder The Mystery

The One Where I Made A Lot of Trips Up To Hollywood.

More AllEars.Net posts this last week!

First, I attended the opening of the holiday season over at the Disneyland Resort, where I saw the premiere of the new World of Color - Winter Dreams show, along with all the new seasonal entertainment there.

Then I saw a screening of the new Disney Animated feature "Frozen" and watched some of the stars walk the White Carpet at the El Capitan Theatre premiere.

 

Finally, I was there at the Grand Opening of the new Ghirardelli Ice Cream Soda Fountain next door to the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood.

So come take a look over at the AllEars.Net blogs, where all good things come Frozen.

To Artfully Go: Star Trek: the Art of Juan Ortiz

This week sees the opening of a "fascinating" exhibit:  Star Trek:  the Art of Juan Ortiz, at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills.

This was a project I had been following for some time--the idea of creating original art posters for each of The Original Series episodes--eighty, including the pilot--was irresistible to anyone devoted to the series.

Showing a remarkable talent for not only art, but industry, Ortiz has been releasing four posters a month since August of last year, available as prints and t-shirts.

 

The retro-inspired posters largely call back to the more symbolic/abstract posters of the 60's, which has an organic feel to it, given Star Trek's air dates.  

The gallery has all the posters available for up-close viewing, but for those who would like to take them home for closer perusal, they have all recently been released in beautiful oversized hardcover format.  At the exhibit preview, Ortiz himself was present to sign books, along with art admirers Nichelle Nichols and Michael Okuda.

If you're a fan of Star Trek: TOS, a trip down to the Paley Center is well worth the effort of fighting the Beverly Hills traffic for a chance to see such bold and creative graphics, inspired by such a groundbreaking show.  Links to purchase the book or other printed items are available at http://www.juanortiz.org/

The Paley Center for Media is located at 465 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210.   Hours are Wednesdays to Sundays 12:00 to 5:00pm, closed Mondays and Tuesdays.  The exhibit will open to the public Wednesday, November 20, 2013 and close January 5, 2014.

Posts galore--just not here.

So I missed the last two weeks, but I have good excuses!

First, I attended media day for the upcoming Walt Disney Animation Studios movie "Frozen," and wrote about it on the AllEars.Net Disneyland Blog.

Next, I went to Disneyland and watched Tony Baxter get his window on Main Street.

Finally, I got a chance to check out the new action-extravaganza, Thor: The Dark World

Please take a look!  More excitement to come...

TV Recap 10/28/13 [SPOILERS]

Once Upon A Time:

Good Form:

In which we find out Hook's surprisingly uncheckered past, starting out as an upright, almost obsessively noble military man, only turning to piracy after his government's deceit and treachery results in his brother's death.  This was a surprisingly good episode, no doubt because of Hook's positioning as the only character capable of development among this motley crew.  While it seems likely he's taking a trip on the truth-y side as far as what he's been telling Emma and Pan and Co., it's hard to think that he'll stay this virtuous for long--Regina can tell him how transient good impulses tend to be.

Thoughts:

• Emma, Emma--haven't we learned by now, dealing with people's hearts outside of their bodies never ends well?
• Apparently Rumple stepped out to the Neverland Starbucks for coffee this week.
• Henry seems a little off at the end--a little perfunctory with all his Mom's, considering they ripped a kid's heart out to send him a message.
• What are the chances that Snow will leave Neverland if Charming can't?  There goes the neighborhood.

Next week:  We see that although Regina may be on the storyline's back burner right now, you can't keep Parilla down.

Agents of SHIELD:

Girl in the Flower Dress:

The mysterious Centipede organization shows its head again, as it steals a march on SHIELD and manages to not only figure out how to stabilize its super-soldier serum, but also succeeds in killing a SHIELD agent, a random dude, and blowing Skye's cover as a total mole for Rising Tide.  This was also an above-average show this week, as we once again get to see May fight (always a plus,) and not even get knocked unconscious.  It also was something of a relief to finally get what Skye's deal was, as the idea of having one more mystery dragged out over the course of the series was verging on overload.

Questions:  

• What did happen to Skye's family?  Do they have superpowers?  Does she?
• Who's the guy in jail?  Is he sharing a cell with the Clairvoyant?  Because otherwise, it seems like it'd be easier for Raina to do it herself.
• Why would you work for Centipede when they clearly have a pretty piss-poor retirement plan?
• Is Raina's superpower fashion?

Once Upon A Time in Wonderland:

 Forget-Me-Not:

So apparently the theme for this week was "rogue back-story," because this episode was a look into the origins of the Knave, or as he was known in Fairytale Land, Will Scarlett.  While the peek into Will's "tale of heartbreak" was reasonably arresting, this episode failed to stint on all the things that have made this series problematic at best:  awkward greenscreen work that doesn't even share the same filmed quality as the outdoor shots, and an annoyingly impractical heroine ("so...I know you're a little busy trying to untie the ropes so we don't get eaten, but what's the deal with Anastasia?")

Maybe my favorite failing that it shares with OUAT is the absolutely unfathomable tendency of all the characters to continue dealing with the villainous characters in good faith.  I'm sorry, but unless the Red Queen made that poor Grendel mentally deranged as well as physically deformed, there is no way he could possibly have thought anything good would come of talking with her.  And while we're at it, I get that he became all reclusive after his wife died, and I get that the Red Queen made him all twisted after he stole from her, but...where did the cannibalism come from?  Because that kind of seems like you wouldn't naturally come up with that on your own, when you clearly live within walking distance of retail establishments.

TV Recap [SPOILERS]: 10/21/13

Agents of SHIELD:

This week's installment showed us a glimpse of the sterner, harsher Coulson-that-was, when he tries to rescue/redeem an old protege that appears to have gone to the bad.  Character-wise, it was pretty much business as usual, where Skye hacks everything, Ward beats up/shoots everything, Fitz/Simmons provide slapstick and !MiracleTech, and May does some snazzy fighting but ultimately lets someone get the drop on her again. 

The best part was, of course, the robot eye enucleation, where the rogue agent administered her own retrobulbar block (not quite in the right place, but I guess if you're doing your own, you should get some leeway.)  When Fitz/Simmons are frantically dithering about as to how to disarm the eyeball (and wouldn't you think that would have come up BEFORE they were sitting there yanking something out of her skull?) they have the globe attached to wires stretching some four-five inches from the orbit.  Either the people who put that in left a lot of redundant wire coiled in the back of the orbit for emergencies, or they were yanking pretty hard on something that, in theory, was attached to her brain.  Which seems like a bad idea.

A fun episode, if you don't think too hard about the overall optical logistics of everything.

Questions:

• What did Akela see in Coulson that made her so mystified?  Since Skye still has the replica magical "backscatter" glasses, can she see it too?
• What was the equation that Ward transmitted to the secret agency?  Shouldn't we be a little concerned about that?
• They have enough money for a bar and a gym in their plane, but they don't have enough for a portable commode?
• How did Coulson know Akela's handler was that guy, versus the doughy white guy that walked right in front of him?

Next week:  Someone digs up a mole.

  Once Upon A Time in Wonderland:

Second week of OUATiW, and it continues to not impress.  Alice continues to browbeat Jack into accompanying her on her mission to find Cyrus, her twue wuv; the Red Queen and Jafar continue to practice brinksmanship on each other while they jockey for position; the White Rabbit continues to labor under what I like to call the "Mad Hatter Syndrome," in which he keeps trying to believe anyone known as an Evil Queen will keep their bargains; and Cyrus does origami.

The issue that is becoming most problematic for me with this show, is that all the women in it are awful, and the men are mostly saps.  No matter how many times the Knave saves her bacon, Alice is pretty relentlessly rude and ungrateful to him.  When they land on a turtle, her method of getting it to help them is to start stabbing and threatening it.  Silvermist, the jilted fairy, is willing to kill the Knave over what was apparently an affaire de coeur gone bad.  I feel like Cyrus is supposed to be the proof for us that Alice is terrific by the way he falls in love with her the first time he claps eyes on her, but what exactly is this based on?  She's not funny, she doesn't seem nice, she clearly has father issues...I guess she's agile?  And a quick learner?  That doesn't seem like enough.

We'll continue to hang in there for the time being, but frankly Alice, you're on probation.

Once Upon A Time:

Another pretty solid episode in which our heroes continue their search for Henry in Neverland.  The bulk of this one was Rumple and Neal who finally get together for a brief moment, before Pan succeeds at playing on Neal's distrust of his Dad to separate them again.  Everyone else was in a holding pattern, after Tinker Bell points out that they have, as yet, given no consideration to an escape route once they've gotten Henry back.

Probably the most interesting point was Pan's gibe at Neal after recapturing him--when Pan reminds him that no one escapes Neverland, Neal points out that he did, as a boy.  Pan then suggests that he let him escape, presumably so that he would grow up, find Emma, impregnate her, and thereby produce Henry, the True Believer who will bring magic back to Neverland.  That is one long-reaching plan--even Rumple would have to admire someone who could screw with that many people for that long to get what they wanted.  Maybe Rumple's been going after the wrong kid--he and Pan have way more in common than he and Bael ever did.

Thoughts:

• Charming is digging himself a pre-etty big hole with Snow by not telling her he's poisoned.  That's going to be a bad scene.
• Emma is way more forgiving than I am, if she instantly knew she still loved Neal the first time she saw him, after he left her penniless, pregnant, and in jail for his crimes.
• Bael was an impressively accomplished kid, for growing up and turning into Neal, who was nothing more than a dupe for Tamara and couldn't even lean out a window without dropping his cell phone.
• Did you think Mulan was going to tell Aurora she loved her last week?  Because I totally thought she was just going to ask permission to go poach on Philip.  Either way, I'm not sure why she thought she had a chance, because that ship looked like it sailed a long time ago.

TV Recap: 10/14/13

This week introduced a new show for us to ponder over, the Once Upon A Time spin-off, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland.

Spoilers a'hoy.

Wonderland:

The pilot introduces us to Alice, her various father issues, and her ill-fated and short-lived engagement to a genie, Cyrus.  Alternately rescued by the Knave of Hearts and the White Rabbit (who turns out to be an agent for the Red Queen,) she mostly seems to run around delivering vicious beat-downs and berating people who are trying to help her.  I had seen about twenty minutes of this more than once at different ABC screenings, so the only new bits revolved largely around the Red Queen and Jafar who snarled appropriately at each other before capitulating to the necessity of teamwork, and the Cyrus reveal at the end.

The problem I have with this first episode is that the protagonist just isn't that sympathetic to me.  When we first see her as an adult in Wonderland, she's kidnapping someone for her own reasons and threatening to destroy someone's home.  Is she a heroine or a terrorist?  I appreciate the attempt to make her a strong grrrl power character, but unlike the women of Once Upon A Time, Alice hasn't shown us the charming qualities that would make us overlook the aggressively self-absorbed ones currently on display.

The other complaint I have is the roughness of the CGI--some parts looked pretty good, some looked as though the people were lit slightly differently than the background, and the last shot, when they were walking away down the road, looked as cartoon-y as the lifesavers commercials Pixar used to do.

Conclusion:  Some interesting characters and premise, but we'll hope for a better relationship with the characters next week.

Once Upon A Time:

This week we met Tinker Bell, who interacts with Regina once, and immediately goes from a fresh-faced fairy, to something unmagical who vaguely resembles the crazy ladies pushing carts around supermarkets.  The interesting part of this episode, was the almost-unevil manner Regina adopted to try to get Tinker Bell to help them get Henry back.  Frankly, if I were Tinker Bell, I would have just kept Regina's heart and made her magic me back some wings, but since the only fairies we've really seen besides Blue (who was duped by Geppetto ,) and Amy Acker, I'm beginning to think fairies may not be all that bright.

The big downer was that we once again got to revisit the painfully pathetic ball of unrequited love that is Mulan, and see her hopes get shot down by the the newly expectant Aurora.  Dude, it's time to let him go.

Questions:

1.  Do we really think the shadow isn't going to come back for Robin Hood's kid?
2. Do we really think Robin Hood won't follow him to Neverland, where he'll conveniently bump into his True Love?
3. Do we really think this will turn out well for him, considering the last time Regina had a boyfriend, she ripped out his heart and made him into her love-slave?
4. Is Rumple still off playing with his little doll?

Agents of Shield:

After the disappointment that was last week, I felt this one was an upturn, although not meeting the level of the pilot episode.  This one gave us a little more insight into Skye and Wade, and May decided she didn't like staying back on the plane, even though it saved her from her usual trip to unconsciousness.

There were some strange elements (and not just Gravitonium)  however, like why Coulson would think a three-piece suit was a reasonable thing to wear for a violent rescue operation, and particularly his resolution to the exploding device crisis.  In the first place, he's told that he needs a catalyst to stop the reaction and the subsequent explosion.  Does this seem wrong?  My impression was that catalysts initiate or accelerate a reaction--shutting one down would be more something like a neutralizing agent...but maybe that's just semantics.  The more important aspect is that it could literally be anything, since no one but Hall knows what the whole deal with the machine and the made-up-oniium is about.  Given the complete uncertainty of the whole situation, Coulson shoots out the window and lets Hall fall in and get absorbed.  What would make him think that was going to happen?  Was he just hoping everything loose in the lab would fall in there and something would work?  The human body is a pretty closed system--it doesn't seem like a natural first choice as something that would interact with...something and stop it reacting to...something.  Kind of a Coulson ex machina.

Even stranger is his subsequent actions, in which he carefully takes the whole thing home and wraps it up like some odd snowglobe souvenir, storing it in the basement with no tags or records of it, saying "do not open."  Because I'm sure THAT's not going to come back and bite him in the butt eventually.

TV Recap: 10/7/2013

New Fall season!  Although my live TV watching hours dropped precipitously the last few years after I discovered how much more efficient it is to watch serial TV on DVD, this year is the first that has more than one show of sufficient interest to me to watch real-time.  This prompted me to two different discoveries:

1. Hey, I could actually discuss programming while it was still fresh, instead of a year later when it hits Netflix!
2. What's up with commercials?

With this in mind, here's my take on my TV hours of last week.  Warning:  Spoilers a'plenty.

Once Upon A Time:  

Lost Girl:  

 The second episode of the season finds our heroes still romping around Neverland, searching for Henry and his Truest Believer Heart.  This had the advantage of not having the check-list character trait introductions of the premiere episode, but still felt like we were catching people up to speed through the Snow/Charming flash backs.  The main thread of this story was finding out/accepting who you really are, and we witness Snow White, Emma, and Gold all struggling with this.  While I actually really like revisiting Fairy Tale Land, my issue is that it seems like we've seen Snow go back and forth so often on matters of strength and weakness, good and evil, effectiveness and mercy, that this dilemma of hers no longer feels new.  I also thought it was kind of bizarre that none of the villagers were going to support her against the Queen, when the last time we saw this type of showdown, the whole town was willing to get slaughtered to protect her.  On the other hand, I'm not sure which of these two incidences came first, so maybe this town learned by example.

Emma ends up coming to grips with the fact that she still considers herself an orphan which I initially thought she had already worked through in the space of the last two seasons. If you look at the passage of time that's supposed to have happened for the characters, however, we're probably still only looking at a matter of months since Henry first showed up on her doorstep, so I'm willing to give her a pass on it.  What seems less explicable is how no one takes Regina to task for clearly not doing much to fight off any of the Lost Boys except the ones that were directly attacking her.  Since her magical powers have been so built up over the years, it really seems like she should have been able to hold off a gaggle of boys on her own.

On the whole, I liked this episode better than the last one, although none of the scenes worked as well for me as the previous Rumple scenes. 

Questions:  

1. Is Hook honestly Mr. Reasonable now?  Because that would make him the most evolved character on the show.
2. Was Belle a vision?  A dream?  A psychotic hallucination?
3. Was Rumple's make up a little light this episode?
4. How is it that !ShepardCharming was good enough with a bow to help Snow aim?
5. Whatever happened to that poor mermaid they turned into wood?  Do we think she'll turn out to be Ariel's Mom?  Are they going to turn her back alive?  Or just mount her to the hull as a figurehead like they did with Ariel in New Fantasyland?

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D

 0-8-4:

 Have to admit, this episode was a little bit of a step down for me, after what I thought was an outstanding Pilot episode.  The object of the mission was such a Macguffin we never even gave it a name or figured out exactly what the deal was with it, before shooting it into space.  The whole shaky premise was really just an excuse for an elaborate team-building exercise--did anyone not call Reyes and her team as the bad guys?  Then, I must not have been paying sufficient attention, because I thought Fitz (or Simmons?) had said the device was old enough to pre-date the ruins, but then we were told that it was built with tech from the 1940's Captain America era, but then Reyes said something about her government commissioning this weapon decades ago?  It seems as though not all those things could be true.

What I thought was particularly weak this episode was the usually very strong Whedon Grrlpower motif.  In the first place, Reyes comes off as a pretty unconvincing seductress, switching immediately to mustache-twirling when Coulson is as unimpressed as we are.  Secondly, we're shown on security cam that one of Reyes' guys has a scalpel to Fitz's neck, with Simmons cringing behind him.  Behind him.  With him looking away from her for a long period of time.  In a lab where there must be any number of things she could use to hit him or inject him or shoot him or anything.

Finally there's the issue of Agent May, or as we now know her, "The Calvary."  I like her, I like the way her fight scenes are choreographed, and I like her general portrayal.  The problem however, is that despite the fact that we're told she's the best rescue-combat person ever, in two episodes, we've seen someone get the jump on her two times.  At some point, we need to see her being a little more proactive about not getting knocked unconscious if she's going to keep her standing.

One aspect of the show I thought was hilarious was when they tie the whole team up and stick them in the cargo bay together, totally unsupervised.  Coulson already told you they were the best team evah, and that was the best way you could imprison them?  Why not lock them in a toolshed with a makeshift cannon and a zamboni?  Have we learned nothing from "The A-Team?"

Thoughts:

• The mysterious backstories of May and Coulson are intriguing, but man, I hope they don't string them along for too long.  If this thing gets cancelled after the first year, I don't want to have to go to the movies to see them lying dead, doing a Shepard Book, and going "I guess we'll never know now."
• When they actually find out Skye's a mole, it will be a damn shame if Ward doesn't actually say "curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"

SDCC 2013: Twice the Fun, in Half the Time.

This year's San Diego Comic-Con was a whirlwind of shopping, waiting in line, and watching panels, necessarily compressed into half the time because of a work conference taking place in Chicago over the weekend (THANKS, WORK.) 

Preview night was an amazing crush of people, for supposedly being capacity controlled.  The line to get in extended upstairs, and across the convention center.  I was lucky enough to be in front of two guys who spent the duration of our time together complaining loudly about how much they hated "F---ING LINES!!!"  It was a special time for all of us.

 

Once inside, it was the usual hysterical masses of people yearning to take photos with zombies and collect swag.  The main drag between FOX and Marvel was chronically stuffed with people to the point where your options were to a) inhale air that just left some stranger's lungs, or b) stop breathing.

Later on in the weekend, over at the Bioware booth, Ben Gelinas and Nick Thornborrow were signing their recent book Dragon Age: The World of Thedas.

 Meanwhile, the Profiles in History Auctions went about their business selling off their usual precious artifacts.

Later that night (much later--like Midnight,) the show Psych screened their musical episode at a nearby theater, with special appearances by series stars James Roday and Corbin Bernsen.

The next day I managed to sprint to the Hilton next door to the Convention Center to catch William Shatner, Roseanne Barr, and Wayne Knight on a panel devoted to comedy in television.

A quick sprint back to the Convention Center, and I was lucky enough to wrangle a seat in the room where the 20th Anniversary of the X-Files panel was going to take place.  First, however, I sat through a discussion of the next season of the BBC show Sherlock which seems good enough to go on my Netflix queue.

The X-Files panel was huge, with most of the main writers, Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny, and series creator Chris Carter.

They seemed in good, nostalgic spirits, with the actors more positive about the series than they've been in the past.

Chris Carter was, as traditionally, vague on the suggestion that there would ever be another X-Files movie.  Nevertheless, the panel ended with him stating that the strong fan showing that day could only help inspire one.

The next panel up was Brave New Warriors, which was kind of like "Heroes of the Season."

Panelists included the leads from Grimm, Teen Wolf, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and Doctor Who.

There was a lot of screaming during this panel.  Like, a lot.  Pretty sure Monstropolis met its energy quota for the year in this one hour.

Next up:  Teen Wolf.  TEEN WOLF.

If you are not watching this show, I might suggest you start.  It's vaguely Buffy-esque, with the same mildly over-wrought teen drama mixed with supernatural homicide.  And werewolves.

After the day's programming ended, the activities continued outside the Convention Center with a fairly dull Enders Game walk-through...

And MTV's party at Petco Park.

It was as loud and raucous as you'd expect a party with free booze would be.  People seemed to be having a good time however, and there weren't any obvious fatalities, so I think it could be reasonably called a success.

The next day, the last big panel I got into was the preview of the Avengers spin-off, Agents of SHIELD.

As a surprise bonus, we were shown the entire pilot episode which was typical Joss Whedon, which is to say, very entertaining indeed.  If the rest of the season can maintain the interest and humor of the initial episode, it's hard to think that this won't be a hit.

After this, it was just the usual flailing around, trying to get to the airport in time to catch a redeye out to Chicago...but that's another story.

South Park: The Stick of Truth

Welcome New Kid:  Your coming has been foretold by a Caldwell Banker...

One of the demos displayed at E3 this year was the upcoming game by the makers of South Park, South Park:  The Stick of Truth.

It is as you would probably expect a South Park game to be:  Incredibly profane, disgustingly obscene, and utterly hilarious. 

By now you should probably be aware enough to know whether you are the sort of person who would enjoy such a thing--if you are, it can be pre-ordered at http://www.southparkstudios.com/games/stick-of-truth  If you're not, you should probably stay miles away from it, because anyone who plays it will undoubtedly go to Hell immediately, not passing Go and not collecting $200.

Think carefully...after all, What Would Brian Boitano Do? 

The Interesting Thing About Pixar.

So the new Pixar film Monsters University opened up this weekend to a resounding box office take, and largely favorable reviews.

[For those who haven't seen it yet:  SPOILERS.  A whole bunch.  Like all of them.  Proceed at your own risk.]

The storyline, in brief, retells the initial meeting of Mike and Sully from Monsters Inc., as they both begin the Scarer's Program at Monster's University (thus the name.)  First they dislike each other, then they hate each other, then they end up as the BFFs they are at the beginning of the first film.

None of this is particularly surprising, which is probably why it will get a certain amount of lukewarm reviews from people looking for something more avaunt-guard.  What I find very interesting is the method Pixar takes to get them to what we all know is a pre-determined ending.

[Real SPOILERS. Last chance.]

The crux of the tale revolves around two things:  Mike's lifelong dream to become a Scarer, and the two frenemies' attempts to get reinstated after getting kicked out of the program.  They go through a number of trials and tribulations and finally succeed!...

FAKE.  They actually end up failing on both counts--they wind up booted from the University for good, and end up having to work their way up from menial jobs in the mailroom to the lofty Scarer team position they have at the beginning of Monsters Inc.

Worst still, however, is the realization Mike has to come to, that he is not, nor never will be, a Scarer.  That all his hard work he has done throughout his life, all his hoping, isn't going to amount to a hill of beans in making him scary.

While he is initially devastated, he eventually recovers and learns to embrace a new role as Sully's Scarer Coach (which of course is also eventually rendered useless after the events of Monsters Inc.)  We are sad for him, but not that sad, because we've already seen him all happy with his second-banana role in the future, and we know he'll eventually get his day in the sun when Monstropolis ultimately switches to less-traumatic laugh power.

What this doesn't change, is the fascinating way the whole story flies in the face of one of Disney's most cherished and misquoted aphorisms, "if you can dream it, you can do it."  Clearly, Pixar seems to say, you can dream all you want, but sometimes it just isn't going to pan out...and what happens next?  The lesson that Pixar would no doubt like us to carry away is that how you deal with failure is part of what defines you as a person, and that resiliency and hard work can lead you to a certain type of happiness, even if it isn't the happiness you thought you were seeking.

This kind of bluntly pragmatic philosophy, that not everyone has the potential to achieve their dreams, has actually been present in a number of Pixar's films in the past:  Mr. Incredible and Dash both bitterly observe the fallacy that everyone in the world is "special," while Anton Ego marks that although everyone can cook, not everyone should.  In Monsters University, however, we actually go from the premise that some people are superior to others in given fields, to the sad corollary that some people must then necessarily be inferior as well.

From a field like animation, which is largely considered (however wrong-headedly) to be geared towards children, I find this viewpoint singularly remarkable.  Haven't we all been told that we can accomplish anything, as long as we work hard enough and want it bad enough?  Wasn't that The Secret?  Have we learned nothing from Barney?

For a long time I've thought that the essential conflicts in Pixar films mirror some of the issues the Brain Trust must be facing as they go through life and go from being the new, hotshot animation upstarts, to being ostracized for new ideas, to becoming part of an legacy institution, to dealing with problems of fatherhood and mortality.  Now that they have become one of the preeminent animation studios of the world, it isn't hard to imagine the vast numbers of applications they must get from people desperate to work there, to become a part of the Pixar all-stars, and work each day on the Pixar Campus.  It also isn't hard to imagine what a large proportion of those applicants are simply not skilled or talented enough to ever achieve a career in animation at all, let alone at Pixar.  Perhaps this is, on some level, Pixar's response?  You're not good enough.  Not here, not now.  That doesn't mean you can't achieve something in a different way, on a different path.  

Maybe not everyone has to be special--maybe it's enough for everyone to work to fulfill their specific potential.  Perhaps it's not so important that all Dreams Come True, as it is that we learn to enjoy the ones that do.

10 Things I Hate About You, Star Trek: Into Darkness

So I saw Star Trek:  Into Darkness at a screening right when it came out, and my initial impression was not particularly favorable, to say the least. I decided, however, to try to put it behind me.  It's just my opinion of one movie.  It's of no consequence I told myself. 

Then, the other night, I had a free ticket I felt obligated to use for it and saw it again.  Maybe it'll be better this time.  I was probably overreacting I told myself. 

NOPE.  I was instead enraged all over again.

There have already been a multitude of great articles on how the movie is dramatically bad (http://badassdigest.com/2013/06/12/film-crit-hulk-smash-the-age-of-the-convoluted-blockbuster/) and scientifically bad (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/62867,) and just plain bad (http://io9.com/star-trek-into-darkness-the-spoiler-faq-508927844?utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer2b569.)  All I can do is offer up the Top Ten Reasons why I personally found it bad.

10.  What's with the volcano?  

Never mind the dubious science of the cold fusion bomb and the underwater Enterprise.  Never mind the fact that Kirk and McCoy didn't seem to have any good preconceived plan for getting away from the tribe in the first place (why wouldn't Kirk know what their transportation was going to look like?)  Think about what we know about Kirk and Spock and McCoy.  Now think about the briefing that went on before this whole fiasco started, and realize that the presentation must have gone something like this:

"Here's the plan:  We'll fly the Enterprise under water to hide.  

"Why won't the tribespeople see us fly down into the water?"

"Maybe we'll go at night or something."

"Why don't we do the whole mission at night then?"

"Shut up.  Then, Sulu and Uhura will fly a shuttlecraft into a volcano and dangle Spock from a wire where maybe he'll find a rock or something that isn't totally submerged in lava to set up his bomb."

"The shuttlecraft won't tolerate those temperatures."

"Whatever.  In the meantime, Kirk and McCoy will create a diversion so the tribespeople will run away from the volcano, so they won't see all the shuttlecraft/Spock dangling activity."

"Why am I going?  What do you need a doctor for this?  Why don't you take a security guy?"

"And why am I going in the volcano instead of with the tribespeople team?  Does the lava talk?  Do the rocks need a translator?"

"Is it logical to have your whole plan hinge on the premise that NOT ONE TRIBAL GUY happens to turn around and look back at the volcano for any reason?"

"Shut up.  Then, safe in the knowledge that we've saved the planet, we'll leave and no one will be any the wiser."

"How are we going to leave without them seeing us?"

"Maybe we'll leave at night or something."

"Why don't we..."

"Shut up."

Do you honestly think that the guys we know would listen to that and then say "well alrighty then!  Saddle up!?"  I don't think so.  I think they'd be looking for another plan, right after they demoted the guy who thought it up down to tribble wrangler.

9.  Formal Affairs

I just think it's strange that the same organization that made its everyday uniforms look like this:

Then made its dress uniforms look like this:

I grant you that there may be some militaristic reason for making them look this way, but to go from primary colors to a Mao jacket seems like a back-step.

8.  Fight Club

So we have one guy who is supposed to be a master warrior, who we already saw (when his face and form were totally obscured) take down a jillion Klingons almost single-handedly with grace and artistry, and another guy who presumably has had extensive training in both Vulcan and human hand-to-hand combat.  So why is it, when they have their big fight on top of a runaway vehicle, that all they can manage is to repeatedly slug each other like drunks out in the alley in back of a bar?  Did martial arts not make it to the 23rd Century?

I also find Khan's invulnerability a little erratic.  Scotty can put him down with a phaser at least temporarily pretty easily, but Uhura can stun him half a dozen times at point blank range and nothing happens?  What, did they give her the Easy Bake phaser? 

7.  Kick the Can

Now we get to the three-quarter mark of the film, when the ship is falling haplessly towards Earth after its 30 second warp from the Klingon homeworld, and they can't start the ship's power back up because the warp core has gotten out of alignment.  Kirk bravely dashes into the radiation-filled chamber to go fix it.  This takes some time, because for some reason, the most important part of the ship's engineering section has been designed like a jungle gym, with the really crucial part set up like the electronic eyes that keep your garage door opener from working right when the cat nudges one of the sensors.  Kirk manages to clamber over to it, and hanging from a pipe, he repeatedly kicks the tilted base to get it into position...

Except he's clearly kicking it the wrong way.  He has no leverage, hanging by his hands, so he's reduced to stomping downward, on the side that's already tilted down.  In one shot, it clearly moves even further out of alignment, before he finally ends up kicking it from the side and it shoots upright.  I don't care how out of it he is, with radiation sickness by then, there's no reason he would just start kicking it randomly, except to draw the scene out to create artificial suspense.  But while we're talking about radiation sickness...

6.  I'm Not Dead Yet

...Why isn't Kirk dead by this time?  In Wrath of Khan, one of the main reasons Spock had to be the one that ran over to the Engine Room to fix the warp drive is that the radiation levels were so high, anybody else would have died before finishing the repairs.  Only Spock, with his higher Vulcan tolerance and his science training, had a chance of accomplishing it, making his sacrifice both specific and necessary.

Kirk, on the other hand, barrels in there without any protective gear whatsoever, and stays there for what seems like a pretty long time, during which he's still able to do all the gymnastics needed to fix it.  And what kind of technical knowledge is needed here?  I'm going with geometry.

5. The Versatile Mr. Chekov

Granted, at this point in the film, Kirk is openly admitting that he doesn't know what he's doing.  Still and all, is it really likely that he'd pick someone to be Chief Engineer, who doesn't even work in Engineering?  I mean, sure, Chekov showed some good transporting chops in the last film, but I'm thinking a couple days shadowing Scotty doesn't really qualify you to take over.  It would be like making the Transitional Intern suddenly Chief of Surgery.

4.  KHAAAAAAAAAAAN.

 LOL.

3.  The Trouble With Tribbles

So we get to the dramatic point where Kirk is begging Khan to help him save his ship.  Khan, whose supply of altruism was tapped out some 300 years ago, asks what's in it for him.  Kirk then makes the worst bluff in history by saying that he will personally guarantee the safety of all Khan's genocidal family.  Khan very reasonably points out that Kirk can't even guarantee the safety of his own crew, much less Khan's.

At this time, it's evident why Khan is going to help Kirk:  Kirk may not be able to grant Khan's crew safety, but it's a pretty safe bet that the Admiral is going to grant Khan's crew the exact opposite.  If he doesn't pitch in, everyone, including Khan and his 72 pals is going to die, and Kirk should probably point this out.

Given all this, Kirk thinks, and then responds with "Bones?  What are you doing?"
"Oh, just injecting this dead tribble with Khan's blood."
"Huh.  Well are you going to help or not?"

WAT.

Leave behind the part where McCoy keeps dead stuff handy in case he wants to inject blood into it, why would Kirk suddenly, at this urgent moment, start talking about tribbles?  Has he forgotten that he's trying to convince Khan into not letting everyone die?  Does he have ADHD?

2.  What do you go for/go see a show for?  Tell the truth/you go to see those Beautiful Dames.

Here's a pet peeve I have with the vast majority of movies nowadays.  They feel as though they should have a female character in there somewhere--fine.  They don't want to get bashed for making the female characters weaker than the male ones, so they make a point of telling us that the women are smarter, stronger, better trained and generally more competent than most of their male counterparts--fine.  Having done so, they immediately relax and go back to writing them the way they best know how--as decorative accessories for men.

Take Uhura--although we already know (because she told us in the first movie,) that she's the best of her class and knows more linguistics than her ranking officers, what exactly does she manage to accomplish here?  Most of her scenes revolve around her 1) being worried about Spock; 2) being angry with Spock; 3) pouting about Spock; 4) sucking face with Spock.  She does get one big moment where she demands a chance to go resolve things with the Klingons because she's the only one who can...except she can't, and would have got summarily killed if Khan hadn't conveniently shown up to rescue her. 

Nevertheless, she is a pretty girl, and as such she's also shoehorned into as many shots as possible, even if there is no apparent reason for her to be there.  Sickbay?  She's there.  Engineering?  She's there.  Any time anyone has a conversation on the Bridge?  She's in the background.  Is she ever at her console?  No wonder their hailing frequencies are always jammed.  She's less a Communications Officer and more a serial Photo Bomber.

Of course she does make out better than Carole Marcus, but frankly even the thought of that character OH GOD, THE PAIN, THE ANGER, BLOOD COMING OUT OF EARS, FLAMES AROUND THE FACE...

1.  You can't make anyone love someone by wishing.

In Aladdin, the Genie states that there are three rules to wishes:  You can't kill anyone, you can't bring anyone back from the dead, and you can't make anyone love someone.

Back when Wrath of Khan came out, life was very different from what it is today.  There was no internet--no twitter--to keep you constantly updated when anyone involved with any particular project around the world signed a contract or sneezed.  If you wanted to know what was going on with WoK while it was filming, it was pretty much Starlog or bust.

What you did know, is that it had been ten years between the last year of Star Trek, and Star Trek:  The Motion Picture...and that picture had not been considered a financial success.  Now, three years later, it seemed pretty likely that Star Trek II:  The Wrath of Khan was going to be it for Star Trek.  Word was that Nimoy no longer wanted to play Spock and had requested he be killed off as part of his agreement to come back (he later stated that this was completely untrue.)

[Aside:  This is probably why new viewers don't fully understand what a fake-out the beginning of WoK is.  Going in, everyone pretty much knew Spock was going to die...but we didn't know how.  During the Kobayashi Maru, when the explosions hit and Spock goes down, the audience in the theater GASPED...because we didn't know!  Maybe that was it!  Maybe he was dead!]

So when we saw Spock die in the end of WoK, we were looking at, as far as we all knew, the absolute end.  There might never be another movie, and if there was, Nimoy wasn't going to want to be in it.  It was the finish to a character some had been following for around fifteen years--longer than a lot of real life people you might know.  The event had both significance and permanence.

Which is why, when young, alternate-timeline Kirk breezes into the radiation chamber, instead of the heart-sinking foreboding we might have had when Spock did it, our reaction is more OH NO YOU DIDN'T.  He's clearly not going to die in any meaningful way--the films have been too successful not to spawn sequels, and they're not going to go on without Kirk. 

If it was just that they wanted to do a brief call-back and then go on with the subsequent fight and resurrection, it might not have been that bad.  Unfortunately, they chose to linger on the moment, replaying the scene as close as they can to the WoK one.  You know what it feels like?  It feels like someone trying to make you feel bad about their gerbil dying, by saying it's just like when your grandmother died.  No matter how you felt about your grandmother, it gives the unpleasant after-taste of emotional blackmail--using your reactions about something in your history to fuel an emotional response to a completely new event.

I think these actors do a perfectly reasonable job, and with time and good writing they could easily become as well-associated with their characters as the originals.  But they haven't yet--right now, they're still strangers, wearing the faces of people we used to know.  To try to exploit the reactions that WoK legitimately generated ultimately fails in ID, because it tries to graft that emotional resonance onto characters that simply haven't earned it.

Sorry Into Darkness.  Maybe you can kill someone, and maybe you can bring them back from the dead...but you can't make us love you.