I’ve mentioned sfdebris a couple times now, most recently in my post discussing my favorite critics. I bring him up because he’s relevant to something going on in my day job currently. In his review of the Star Trek: Voyager episode Good Shepherd, he covers the opening in which Seven of Nine gives an efficiency report, and mentions that a crew member with 5 degrees in theoretical cosmology is at the bottom of the ship doing menial engineering tasks.
Why no, I didn’t use this photo just because Seven of Nine’s in it, why do you ask?
Chuck puts it another way: “On a ship meant to explore the wonders of the universe, you’ve put Carl Sagan in charge of shoveling coal.” While this is more inexplicable than normal in a semi-utopian future world set in space, it still happens in the normal, everyday world. Over-qualification is something that happens in the workplace, especially when the economy isn’t behaving as well as most would like.
When companies cut back in areas, it’s usually in places they’d like to expand but simply don’t have the capital to invest. This means that a lot of the people who get axed are people with ideas, creative folk with esoteric backgrounds who might not be focused on business or profitability. When losing their jobs, they do what they can to look for further employment, brushing up their resumes and beginning the arduous search for a job, a search that is every bit as tedious and uncertain as the search for an agent or publisher. Those who still have jobs, on the other hand, might find themselves in a position where, in addition to their regular tasks, they’re doing things like answering the phone for other departments or watering the boss’s plants or something.
Times are tough, even for a Nobel laureate physicist like this gentleman.
Either way, you have creative people doing menial tasks – like Carl Sagan shoveling coal. I don’t have any sort of real solution in mind for the issue, other than keeping one’s eyes peeled for better employment elsewhere. And one should continue to make time for creative pursuits, because as theman has said several times, if one isn’t fortunate enough to be pursuing their dreams on a full-time basis, it becomes a spare-time endeavor. But that doesn’t mean one should give up.
It just means one might have to get by with less sleep and, really, who needs sleep? I don’t. And now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s coal that needs a-shovelin’.
At least, if I’m lucky, it’ll be coal and not something else.
Internet criticism is certainly nothing new. In fact, just about anywhere you turn along the so-called “information superhighway” you will come across critics of one form or another, even if an argument made against a particular point only takes the form of a lolcat. However, some Internet critics have carved out niches for themselves either through focus, format or both. Three come to mind, for me, and act as something of an inspiration for my IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! reviews.
Chuck (again, not Magic Talking Beardman Chuck) has spent quite a lot of time assembling what he calls an ‘opinionated episode guide’ for Star Trek. Specifically, he started with Voyager. He later began to cover Enterprise as well as the British sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf. He also wrote a sweeping fiction series crossing Star Trek with Star Wars, for which he won an award. No, really. And this was before he started his YouTube channel.
In addition to being comprehensive and funny, Chuck often reminds us that his criticism of a given episode, series or movie is just his opinion. He welcomes discussion and even opposition to his ideas. He, like my next critical exemplar, encourages the audience to think, rather than sit back & switch off higher brain functions in order to take in some shallow, pandering, distracting colors & sounds that call themselves ‘entertainment.’
Rather than focus on a particular series or even genre, Confused Matthew went about his video reviews of films with thoughts like “Why did people like this?” or “How did this movie even get greenlit?” While these lines of thought have caused him to add to the many critics pointing out the things that went wrong with the Star Wars prequels, the Matrix sequels and Star Trek: Generations, he’s also gone on the record as saying that The Lion King is a pretty terrible film and that Minority Report is awful despite the ringing praise of critical luminary Roger Ebert.
More often than not, when Matthew begins a review, he establishes a basic premise as to why the work is fundamentally flawed. As the premise continues to be referenced, he becomes more and more annoyed. While this drives home his point, it also makes the reviews more hilarious. He takes turns chewing out Lucas, the Wachowski Brothers and Ira Steven Behr, executive producer of Deep Space 9. “Come on!” Matthew pleads. “You’re better than this!” His confusion is our comedy.
I just recently was introduced to this critic, and all I can say is it needs to be experienced to be fully appreciated. Comprehensive, researched and merciless criticism of science fiction films is paired with an old man’s ramblings about pizza rolls and other less family-friendly subjects.
I don’t want to give away any more than that so, if you’ve the mind, head over in that direction. His Phantom Menace review stands out. It’s 70 minutes long, but worth every one.
In recent years, for one reason or another, many stories in speculative fiction have been ‘rebooted’. In most cases the ‘new’ versions of the stories have suffered from either not being very well executed, getting called out for disregarding the established histories and characterizations of the source material or both. Transformers, Star Wars and Flash Gordon appear to be the biggest offenders. It’s rare for a reboot or re-imagining to get the aforementioned sticking points right, or for a science fiction TV series to have a strong start. 2004’s Battlestar Galactica does both, and it began with a mini-series that is the subject of today’s review. The series stars Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Katee Sackhoff, Tricia Helfer, Grace Park, Michael Hogan, Tahmoh Penikett and Alessandro Juliani.
As far as the characters go, to keep track of who’s frakin’ who, you might need a flowchart.
Battlestar Galactica originally aired back in 1978 and was ambitious for its time. Despite being accused of ripping off Star Wars, the series seemed more interested in borrowing the ‘Wagon Train to the stars’ notion from Star Trek. The million dollar budgets the show required per episode and the slowly declining quality of the stories – within the show’s only season – both contributed to its cancellation in 1979. The coffin seemed nailed pretty securely shut with Galactica 1980, a spin-off so bad some Galactica fans don’t even acknowledge its existence. Creator Glen A. Larson would recycle the look & feel of the show for Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century, but as far as Galactica was concerned, it seemed the journey had ended once and for all, until more than two decades after the last episode aired.
Ronald D. Moore, veteran writer & producer for Star Trek series The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, was approached by David Eick, who was having a little trouble getting a reboot of Battlestar Galactica off the ground. Ideas to restart or continue Galactica‘s story had been pitched by Tom DeSanto, Bryan Singer, and original series star Richard Hatch, but nothing had stuck. Ron & David not only constructed a mini-series that could stand on its own but could also serve as the launching point for a series on what was then called the Sci-Fi Channel, back before they re-branded themselves to gather more hits on Google since that’s what telling science fiction stories is all about. Anyway, the result of this reboot aired in 2004, and the response was overwhelming.
Arguably the most badass museum piece in the known galaxy.
Among the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, the Cylons were created by man as servants and laborers. Eventually, they got a little sick and tired of shoveling coal and giving massages, so they took up arms against their creators. The war was bloody, and ended in a draw. The Cylons left to make their own way on worlds far from the colonies, and a space station was established for communication purposes. 40 years have passed since the armistice, and the Galactica, one of the oldest battlestars remaining in the Colonial fleet, is due for retirement as a museum. Her commander, William Adama (Edward James Olmos), is also something of a relic, wary of computer networks and maintaining discipline aboard his ship despite its age and somewhat antiquated design.
His paranoia’s somewhat justified, though, as the Cylons have evolved and can masquerade as humans. One of the humanoid models, Number Six (Tricia Helfer), has managed to infect the Colonial defense network thanks to her relationship with resident genius Gaius Baltar (James Callis). Baltar, rather than being a cartoonish malevolent hand-wringing mustache-twirling villain as he was in the 70s is, here, an unwitting dupe in the Cylon plan to eradicate mankind in a surprise nuclear attack. When the attack happens, there’s no warning and absolutely nobody is prepared. The Cylons not only nuke the hell out of all 12 colonies, they hack the networked systems of the Colonial warships, from the mighty battlestars to the Viper fightercraft. Only one ship is immune to this form of attack, and Galactica becomes the shepherd of a fugitive fleet containing the remnants of the human race, on the run from their would-be exterminators and held together by the hope that the mythical 13th colony exists out in the darkness of unexplored space – a colony known as Earth.
Three hotter toasters you would be hard-pressed to find.
Overall, the mini-series was praised, and rightly so, for smart writing, good direction, multi-dimensional characters that gain our loyalty and sympathy relatively quickly, Bear McCreary’s haunting music and revitalizing an old premise in a new and interesting way. Any one of these aspects of the show is worthy of a full review in and of itself, so suffice it to say that all of them work together to create an experience that is, on the whole, absolutely astounding. It wasn’t without its detractors, however, most of whom said that this new vision of an old favorite had completely destroyed anything that had come before and was a travesty unworthy of the name of their beloved franchise. Wait. Does that seem familiar at all to anybody else? Gee, I wonder where I’ve heardthatbefore…
In any event, Battlestar Galactica is well worth the watching. The mini-series is the logical place to begin, and while it runs longer than most feature films, the time is not idly spent. Pick it up from Netflix, or Best Buy, or any place to you can pick it up – it’s definitely worth it. The series that follows is good on the whole, with some missteps here and there. I’ve been accused of universally loving this series and every single episode of it, but that really isn’t the case. Like all science fiction television series, it has episodes ranging from the very good to the very bad. I’ve played with the idea of doing episode reviews in the great tradition of sfdebris or Confused Matthew, but I wouldn’t want to waste everybody’s time.
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
The USS Farraday, en route to Earth for refit or decommission, encountered odd subspace message fragments and tiny black holes in and around the Regula planetoid. The fragments indicate the involvement of an Admiral Kirk, which is odd considering Kirk was only recently promoted to captain of the Enterprise following the Nero incident.
Behold, the target audience of most summer action flicks!
I’ve had this opinion brewing for a while. I touched on it in yesterday’s Netflix post. While the prevailing sentiment out there in the dark and wild expanse of the Internet is that the new Star Trek is, on the whole, good, the film has taken some criticism that the writing was sub-standard, some of the acting was wooden and a lot of the big ideas and brainy philosophy that marked the old series as innovative and locked it forever in the hearts of nerds like myself has been stripped away to be replaced by the kind of kitschy, generic action that appeals to beer-guzzling frat boys. I’m not about to completely poo-poo those arguments, but at the same time I think that while they have some merit, there is enough good in the new Star Trek to balance out the bad.
In case you’ve been hiding in a cave for the last few years, here’s what lead up to this film. Star Trek had, by and large, been languishing in the smell of its own failure for quite some time. The dangerously insidious one-two punch of Star Trek:Enterprise pissing on some of the established history and conventions and Nemesis pitting the Next Generation crew against an ailing Romulan clone of a Frenchman had all but slain the franchise. Enter J.J. Abrams, visionary director and apparently a man with gonads cast in the same metal used for the hull of a starship. Already known for his work in Lost and Cloverfield, Abrams set his sights on one of the most beloved and long-running universes in the history of science fiction. He also had previously done a movie called Mission: Impossible III, which was also a revisit of a franchise that had somewhat tanked and made it cool again, if not quite as good as the original. The best chance for repeat success was to team up with the writers who penned MI3 and also had helped Abrams launch his wildly successful show Fringe: Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.
WANTED for crimes against die-hard fan bases!
Yeah, the same two guys who wrote the two live-action Transformers films. And the unfortunate victims of a LOT of criticism. Some of it is warranted. Revenge of the Fallen was a let-down on a lot of levels. Unlike the renegade smash hit sequels Wrath of Khan and Dark Knight, the second live-action TF flick turned out to be somewhat hackneyed, confusing at times and pandering to the aforementioned frat demographic. Granted, I’m a paradoxical being, in that I’m a Transformers fan and am also willing to admit that the original cartoon series wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of science-fiction writing that will stand the test of time. However, the writing is not the biggest weakness in either film. Sure, it could have been better, and more could have been done with these concepts and characters, but at the helm of the films was Michael Bay. The writers, ultimately, had very little say in how the final product would be put together. When Michael Bay directs, it honestly doesn’t matter how good the writing is. He could pick up Hamlet, fill it with explosions in Denmark, cast Megan Fox as Ophelia, and have 30 Seconds to Mars do the soundtrack. Guess how bad & brainless it would be. Go on, guess.
“I gotta FEVER… and the only PRESCRIPTION… is MORE LENS FLARES.”
Let’s get back to Abrams. He started as a writer and producer and, while his résumé does include the unfortunate missteps of Gone Fishin’ and Armageddon, he’s also responsible for the television series Lost and Fringe. The latter series is, as I mentioned, the result of a collaboration between Abrams and the supposedly criminal writers – and it’s engaging, thoughtful, funny and well-paced. Blaming the failings of Transformers and its sequel on the same writers who brought us Fringe is, in my opinion, illogical. Here’s an example: the last major contribution Uhura made to Star Trek, back in The Undiscovered Country, was reading haltingly out of a Klingon dictionary. It’s one of the few problems with that otherwise solid film, since Uhura is supposed to be an expert in linguistics. In Abrams’ Trek, Uhura is not only a xenolinguist of the highest order, she has the chutzpah to tell Captain Pike that she can do the comm officer job better than the senior officer whom Pike promptly sends to scrub toilets on the engineering deck. On the other hand, back in Transformers, the character of Jazz, who had previously been characterized as Optimus Prime’s competent and improvisational second in command, has fewer than a dozen lines. Instead of focusing on the established characters, the reason we’re sitting in the cinema in the first place, Michael Bay focuses on the bumbling trigger-happy humans and gives us as many opportunities as possible to ogle Megan Fox. By contrast, Abrams’ Star Trek is all about the characters. Scrape the layer of the TF flicks and you’ll just find blasting caps and thongs. Under the lens flares and shiny objects of Star Trek is something a bit more substantial.
I know some critics wanted Star Trek to be ‘about’ more than just zipping around the cosmos blasting things, but consider this: both Kirk and Spock are living in the shadows of their pasts. Kirk is expected to measure up to the heroism of his father, and Spock has a massive chip on his shoulder when it comes to his mother. They need to overcome these challenges in order to seize their destinies. And yes, relying on the machinations of fate to have everything resolve in the space of a story is a mark of lazy storytelling, and might be the weakest part of the film, but the fact that the story is driven by the characters and most of them are portrayed so well balances this weakness. I also know the themes of the film are not as deep or powerful as, say, District 9, but there’s still something meaningful about it, especially for anyone who’s been held to an impossible standard by themselves or others.
And then there are some individuals, one with whom I’d worked personally on something exceptionally nerdy, that believe that this latest iteration has RUINED STAR TREK FOREVER. Between branching universe theory, the support of such luminaries as Leonard Nimoy, the nearly unanimous critical acclaim and the sheer amount of pure awesome packed into this film, I believe I am entitled to my God-given Internet-based opinion that these individuals have a problem in which their cranial spaces have gotten spatially dislocated into their ventral waste disposal cavities. I’d go so far as to continue this little tirade in Klingon, but I don’t want the Internet to explode from such a dense concentration of unapologetic nerd.
