Darmok and Jalad

As a fan of xkcd, Star Trek, and metaphors, I was quite tickled by Monday's xkcd comic.

Dragon*Con 2009: Star Trek

Where no fan has gone before.

Captain Kirk is Climbing a Mountain

Alison and I saw this...um, music video at Dragon*Con 2009, and we thought you'd enjoy it.

Star Trek: Surprisingly Good

Alison, Lisa, Ken, Ashley, Joe, and I saw Star Trek last night.  I hope to post a thorough review soon, but I thought I should post this short review now:

I thought Star Trek was very good.  The film is not without its flaws---some logical, some technical---but it is exciting, funny, and emotionally engaging.  It certainly revitalizes the franchise.  Overall, I give is 8.5 out of 10.

The Final Frontier?

I guess I must be more optimistic than I usually give myself credit for, because I am planning to go see Star Trek sometime during its opening weekend, the weekend of May 8.  I'm holding out hope that this will be the first good Trek film since First Contact.*  Anyway, I don't think Alison is very excited about seeing this flick, so I'm wondering if there are any trekkies** in the readership who might be interested in going with me.

Update:  I just saw that right now, with 15 reviews counted, Star Trek's Tomatometer rating stands at 100% positive.  That's good news. (Meanwhile, Metacritic doesn't have enough reviews to produce a score.)

*  For those of you keeping score at home, this franchise's record stands at something like 4 good, 7 bad, depending on whom you ask. 

** Don't give me any of that trekkie/trekker nonsense.  "Trekkies" sounds less self-serious, so it's the one I use.

Welcome to the Bradbury

Fans of science fiction in the readership---that would be all of you---might be interested in this article about one Los Angeles building which has appeared in a surprising number of science-fiction movies and TV series, including Blade Runner, Quantum Leap, Pushing Daisies, Star Trek, and Mission:  Impossible.

Blake's 7 Amuses Unintentionally

I'm about 12 episodes into Blake's 7 now, and I thought I should point out a couple of the show's amusing shortcomings:

• The incidental music seems to have been lifted, without modification, from Doctor Who episodes of the same era.  This re-use of material isn't entirely surprising given the links between the series.  Both shows aired on the Beeb,  B7 was created by Terry Nation, who wrote for Doctor Who and created the Daleks,* and, most relevantly, B7's music was composed by Who veteran,  Dudley Simpson.
• The fight sequences are completely ridiculous, and not the fun kind of ridiculous like you'd find in a Hong Kong kung fu film.    Imagine a fight scene from the original Star Trek, but slowed down to about 3/4 speed and with the punches replaced by the kind of awkward shoving you might see between 8-year-old sisters.  Leave in the 2-handed "clubbing," though.

* I guess Nation is the nearest real-life equivalent to Davros, then. 

Trekkers Trek to Heroes

By now, we all know that George Takei, Sulu on Star Trek, had a recurring role on Heroes in the second half of its first season. Now more Trek alumni will be joining this series in Season 2:

• Nichelle Nichols, Uhura on TOS, will have a recurring role, appearing in 5 or 6 episodes.
• Dominic Keating,* Reed on Enterprise,** will appear in several eps.

* He also appeared in that ep of Buffy, where she looses her powers.
** An actor, character, and series that I feel pretty meh about.

Star Trek XI: The Life of Spock

(This post contains a major but well-known spoiler for Star Trek: Generations.)

I've mentioned that Heroes' Sylar, Zachary Quinto, has been cast to play a young Spock in the upcoming Star Trek film, which is creatively named Star Trek. What I haven't mentioned is that Leonard Nimoy is also in the film, playing an older Spock. Meanwhile, there's been a bit of hubbub surrounding James Kirk's nonappearance in the eleventh Trek film. This particular move makes sense to me:

• Kirk gets trapped in the nexus sometime after Trek VI and then dies in the seventh film, so he's effectively unavailable for any other stories.
• William Shatner has aged poorly and swollen considerably since his last appearance.
  

Anyway, two facts about this film's casting have got me thinking:

• Young Spock seems to have been the first character cast.
• Old Spock* has, according to Nimoy, "more than one scene in the film."

As a big fan o' Spock, I can't help but speculate that Spock, not Kirk, is the central character in the plot and that the story is told from Spock's perspective. I'd really enjoy seeing a story following one of Young Spock's first missions** after graduating from the Academy (perhaps struggling with being the only Vulcan in a Starfleet run by those illogical and prejudiced humans while going where no man has gone before) which somehow relates to and affects what Old Spock is doing in the TNG/DS9/VOY era (perhaps trying to reunify the Vulcans and the Romulans). Regular readers know I really enjoy nonlinear storytelling, so if the old-Spock and young-Spock threads could be interleaved in some interesting way, without resorting to time travel, so that the meaning and ramifications of each Spock's actions aren't clear until the end, I'd be quite pleased.

Do any trekkies/trekkers in the readership have thoughts or opinions on this topic?

* I'm sure Nimoy would prefer to be called "Classic Spock."
** Let's not forget the time he spent under the command of Christopher Pike.

Sylar --> Spock!

Tom just pointed out that the rumors of Zachary Quinto, Heroes' Sylar, being cast as Spock in the upcoming Star Trek film were, in his words, "more than rumors, apparently."

Sylar --> Spock?

Rumors are afoot that Zachary Quinto, who creepily portrayed Sylar in Heroes, has been cast as Spock in J. J. Abrams' upcoming re-imagined Star Trek. I must say that I fervently hope this rumor is true. Not only does Quinto have the right look to play the iconic character,* but he also has solid acting skills. So, if you are listening, Abrams, make it so.

* Also one of my Star Trek all-stars and possibly my favorite Trek character of all time.

Is Newton Doomed?

The instructor at the puppy school* where we go with Newton, Howard Weinstein, is, in his "other life," the author of numerous Star Trek novels. You might worry that, by exposing our pup to Howard's influence, we risk turning him into a doggie geek. However, given the affection Alison and I have for science fiction, fantasy, science, and technology,** I believe the little guy was doomed from the day we brought him home.

* I think the course should be called puppy-owner school. The class doesn't really teach the dogs anything; instead, it teaches the owners to teach their pups.

** Note all the subject tags to the right.

Doctor Hero Trek

Two pieces of Heroes casting have surfaced recently. Stop reading now if you'd like to avoid minor spoilers.

• First, Christopher Eccleston, who played the ninth Doctor in the re-imagined Doctor Who, will appear in the series as Claude, a man with the power of invisibility.
• Second, George Takei, who played Sulu in Star Trek, will appear in the series as Hiro Nakamura's father.

Neat, eh?

Andrew Seeking Redemption

While my perfectly cromulent metaphors are generally inspired by Star Trek, this one was inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

Andrew seeking redemption, metaphor. Any person working hard to achieve a laudable goal, but also whining about the difficulty of the task.

Extreme Makeover: Star Trek Edition

It seems that Star Trek will be taking a page out of the book of the other great Star Blank franchise; Paramount announced that the original series will receive an extensive makeover, in honor of its 40th anniversary, when it returns to broadcast syndication later this month. Among the changes are new, digital effects, new music, and a remastered opening voice-over. (Here are two images of the digital version of the Enterprise.) So, how do all the sci-fi geeks in the readership feel about Trek doing a Lucas?

Is Galactica as Big as the Enterprise E?

Hey there, cats and kittens!

Given the general geekiness level of my readership (high) I bet you've often wondered how big the SDF-1 is compared to an Imperial Star Destroyer. Has it ever occurred to you to ask whether a full-grown Leviathan is longer than Galactica? Is it important for you to know how the Sulaco compares, size-wise, to the Whitestar? Do you lie awake at night pondering how a Defiant-class escort matches up against a Firefly-class freighter like Serenity? Well, Nick has pointed me to the site for you, which he asserts "may very well be the geekiest thing [he's] ever seen." (When you click on a page corresponding to a given scale, be sure to give all the images time to load before moving on to the next scale.)

Melinda at the Closet Door

Remember the episode of TNG where the Enterprise D encounters a species whose language is incomprehensible, even with the universal translator? Picard discovers that their language is metaphorical, based on references to similar situations in their mythology and history. Over the last few years, I've invented a few of my own phrases for describing situations concisely. Here's one that was inspired by an incident involving Alison's former roommate:

Melinda at the closet door, metaphor. Any person who is unable to turn door knobs, open jars, et cetera, due to her hands being slippery, especially if this inability is brought on by the application too much lotion.

Gorram, That's a Frakkin' Good Script!

Jane Espenson, former screenwriter for Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Gilmore Girls, and DS9, among other shows, is writing an episode for the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. I think this is likely to be a true chocolate-meets-peanut-butter situation*.

* Two great tastes that taste great together. Duh.

My All-Star Star Trek Crew

Tim has recently acquired the first season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on DVD, so I've been watching the series as well. The last two Trek series (Voyager and Enterprise) and the last two films (Insurrection and Nemesis) were so underwhelming---don't get me started on why---that I had completely forgotten that The Next Generation and DS9 were actually quite good. I'm not sure how to feel about the upcoming eleventh movie.

Anyway, the DVDs got me thinking about whom I would select, from the cast of characters of all the series, as members of a sort of all-star crew for a Trek show. So, here is my list. Please note that I haven't chosen these characters because they are the best at their particular jobs, but because I find them the most entertaining.

• Captain: Jean-Luc Picard. He's clearly the smartest of the Captains. And he's much less likely to let his libido get the better of him than Kirk is.
• First Officer: Benjamin Sisko. Yes, he was a first officer, though that was only shown in the first few minutes of DS9. Sisko makes a commanding leader, but I don't think he'd rankle at playing second fiddle. I thought about putting James Kirk in this position, but I just don't think you'd want a Kirk working under you. And you certainly wouldn't want a Kirk wannabe like William Riker.
  
• Science Officer, Second Officer: Spock. He's still probably my favorite character from any of the series. Besides---warning: racial profiling follows---you really need a Vulcan at your science station. Just remember to keep your thumb out when performing the Vulcan salute.
  
• Tactical Officer, Security Officer: Worf. Despite his pomposity, he's an interesting character. Plus---warning: stereotyping imminent---it's a no-brainer to put a Klingon at Tactical. Just don't leave him unsupervised with all the ship's weapons at his disposal.
• Chief Operations Officer: Data. I had to include Data or any Trekkies reading this post would hunt me down and kill me.
  
• Navigator: Seven of Nine. Despite the naysayers out there, the former Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One was a very compelling character. If she hadn't been oversexualized and hadn't been the central character of so many episodes, I think she would have been better received. She was never a Navigator, but I'm assuming that her experience at Astrometrics prepared her for the position.
  
• Conn Officer: Pavel Chekov. I'm mostly including him so he can say things like "nuclear wessels" and explain how all innovations have been Russian, but the mop-top is also a plus. I know, he was actually the Navigator, but I'm sure he can handle the conn.
  
• Chief Engineer: Montgomery Scott. You could certainly argue that Geordi La Forge and Miles O'Brien are more skilled engineers, but, if you are putting together an all-star Star Trek crew, you need someone who can say things like "I'm givin' ya all she's got, Cap'n" and "She can't hold together much longer" with a Scottish accent.
• Chief Medical Officer: Emergency Medical Hologram, Mark I. Certainly The Doctor has some severe limitations as head of medicine, but he was the most interesting character during the first three seasons of Voyager, and he offers interesting storyline options. Plus, his relationship with Seven was very interesting. Just remember to turn him off when you leave Sickbay.
• Civilian: Quark. Quark is always neck deep in whatever is going on behind the scenes, so he is a great source of storylines.
  
• Recurring Character: Elim Garak. Garak is my favorite recurring character from any of the series. He's just so deliciously deceitful.

Please note that there is explicitly no position of Acting Ensign. I've also left out the Counselor position. Further, you'll notice a scarcity of characters from Voyager and a complete lack of ones from Enterprise; I don't think that's a coincidence. Lastly, I seem to have chosen very few women. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe I can work Jadzia Dax in there somehow; with eight lifetimes of experience, I'm sure she could lend a hand.

So, do you agree with this selection? Whom would you select for the All-Trek Team?

Can We Watch the Trek Marathon on G4?

I believe that I've discovered the two, reciprocal explanations for the success of my relationship with Alison:

• I've never forced her to watch any Star Trek.
• She's never forced me to go shoe shopping.