Star Trek Archive

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Movie Review: Star Trek Into Darkness

By
Adam Shaftoe
– June 14, 2013Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews

Fair warning: this review will spoil the hell out of the movie’s “big” secret, though it’s not really that much of a secret. In fact, it’s exactly what you think it is. You have been warned.

Where to start on Star Trek Into Darkness…I didn’t hate it. Of course, a lack of hate on my part should not suggest any sort of tacit approval, either. STID is a pastiche of various Trek stories all thrown into a blender, set to frappe. Despite inconsistent writing, god-awful pacing, and dialogue which made me laugh when I was supposed to be sad, STID manages to stick the landing as a low-consequence piece of fluff befitting a (possibly drunk) Sunday afternoon matinee. Now if you’re the sort of person who goes into a Star Trek movie expecting a TOS-style Cold War parable or a morality play a la TNG, then you’re shit out of luck.

There’s no single problem which prevents STID from being a strong entry into the Trek franchise. All of the elements of a good Star Trek story are in play, but they never seem to coalesce into something meaningful. This problem begins with the writing alliance of Orci, Kurtzman, and Lindelof choosing terrorism as the thing to catalyze the story, specifically a bomb in underground London.

Hey guys, that already happened.

It’s not speculative writing to take a historical fact and project it into the future. Whatever cultural resonance John Harrison’s attack is meant to have fell flat with this critic. Perhaps North Americans have lived under the “shadow” of “real” terrorism for long enough that it’s lost its impact when projected on screen. Or maybe I was just underwhelmed by the brainlessness of starting the conflict with a dressed up bit of Enterprise meets Deep Space 9 fan service.

Fan service, there’s a lot of that in this movie. I don’t understand the point of fan service. Making an offhand reference to Harry Mudd, Section 31, Orion females, or Praxis’ explosion, is hardly inspired writing. This sort of story telling puts me in the mind of a dart board, ringed by Star Trek personalities and tropes. Therein, after writing five pages of script, the writers chuck a dart over their shoulder and whatever it lands closest to is the thing rammed into the story as a one-off nod to start the fans drooling. Incidentally, I suspect such a system is how Ron Moore decided who would be a Cylon on Battlestar Galactica.

Also on the subject of drooling fans, let’s talk about Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch. Yeah yeah, settle down, ladies and gay men. Do you know what works for me? The most English Englishman, ever, playing an English guy named John Harrison. Do you know what I object to? The self-same Englishman trying to pass himself off as a guy named Khan. I don’t know what made me laugh harder, Zachary Quntio trying to channel William Shatner with an obligatory “KHAAAAAAAAAN” shout in the third act, or Cumberbatch taking a break from scenery chewing to announce his true name as Khan. Hey, remember when the 60s were progressive in casting a Mexican gentleman named Ricardo Montalban as a character of East Indian descent? Those were the days.

Whitewashing aside, Harrison-Khan’s part of the story still manages to get a pass. Not a great pass, mind you, but at least a C-. This is mostly due to the fact that I don’t see STID as a remake of The Wrath of Khan. By default, this movie has to be a reboot of TOS’s Space Seed. STID may steal elements of the Wrath of Khan, such as Carol Marcus – for seemingly no reason at all other than to put her in some sexy underwear – and magic torpedoes. But consider that the Wrath of Khan is very much a protracted duel between the ostensibly superior Khan and an underdog Kirk on the cusp of retirement. Alternatively, Space Seed introduces Khan only to see Kirk blundering his way through the first contact and eventually settling Khan on Ceti Alpha V. Though alternate-Khan has a grudge with Star Fleet, there’s little in the way of wrath directed at Kirk or the Enterprise. Any other starship with any other captain would have had the exact same interchange with Khan as Kirk did. Therefore STID = Space Seed, not Wrath of Khan. QED.

What really hobbles the movie is its inability to find one theme and stick with it. The first act begins with Kirk stripped of his command after violating the prime directive and lying about the incident. “Finally,” I thought to myself. The alternate timeline is going to address Kirk’s endless capacity for flouting regulations. However, the education of Kirk quickly falls to the background. The second act, as if recognizing the first was neither brave enough to be a meaningful exploration of terror nor smart enough to sell Kirk as character with sufficient depth to justify an entire movie, changes course toward the Trek trope of an Admiral gone bad. All the while there are flashes of the original “Kirk has no business in command” thread, but it never lasts very long and it’s always delivered as obvious exposition. Meanwhile, some of the Enterprise’s bridge crew complain about the ethics of a military mission to hunt down and kill John Harrison/Khan, which for some reason includes picking a fight with the Klingons. These objections only ever manage to manifest as lip service to Federation doctrine rather than an attempt to tell a morally driven tale.

Time out for nerd rage: the Klingon homeworld is Qo’noS. Kronos is the titan who sired Zeus; get it right or go back to television, JJ.

Okay, game on.

By the time we get to the third act, any attempt at telling a story with substance has wholly fallen apart. The movie is little more than lens flare, fist fights on 23rd century garbage trucks, and starships in Lunar orbit falling toward the Earth instead of Luna. Crap, there I go thinking again. Best not think too much about this movie or you might find yourself wondering how a man put into cryogenic suspension in the 20th century manages to be a successful starship engineer in the 23rd. I mean for fuck’s sake, selling somebody on that idea is about as intuitive as framing a temporally transported Isaac Newton as a Manhattan Project engineer.

The only, and I mean only, thing which saves STID is the cast. There’s no better person to play a shifty Star Fleet Admiral than Peter Weller. He’s almost as glorious a green screen nosher as Cumberbatch. Simon Pegg’s role as Scotty manages to get fleshed out a bit more, despite his seemingly chronic absence from the Enterprise. Quinto and Urban play Spock and McCoy to the hilt, but much like Pegg, they’re acting talents are wasted on one-offs and bon mots.

And that’s really all there is to Star Trek Into Darkness. It’s a shallow, brainless, slightly misogynistic, romp into a universe filled with wasted potential. It’s pretty telling when my theories about the movie prove to be more interesting than the plot which actually unfolds. For the record, I thought Cumberbatch was a mirror universe version of Picard at the helm of some Terran Empire ship of badassdom. At least that might justify the “into darkness” part of the title.

You mad, bro?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Star Trek fans, anemic for a new series, will find the film a suitable short-term palliative. Newcomers to the franchise will probably walk away wondering if all Trek is so shallow. And where the original reboot might have been the thing to reinvigorate the franchise on the small screen, STID comes up well short of such a benchmark.


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The Odd Legacy of Star Trek TNG’s The High Ground

By
Adam Shaftoe
– May 6, 2013Posted in: Television, The Daily Shaft, TV Reviews

If Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages is to believed then The High Ground is one of TNG’s most internally lamented episodes. For those who don’t recall this third season story, it’s the one where Doctor Crusher gets kidnapped by space terrorists, who then hold her captive in exchange for aid from the Federation in securing their country’s sovereignty from planet Rutia’s world government.

Ron Moore called the episode “an abomination.” Moore goes on to say,

“We didn’t have anything interesting to say about terrorism except that it’s bad and Beverly gets kidnapped – ho hum. They take her down to the caves and we get to have nice, big preachy speeches about terrorism and freedom, fighting and security forces versus society. It’s a very unsatisfying episode and the staff wasn’t really happy with it.”

Michael Piller, credited as The High Ground’s co-executive producer, questioned the overall statement the story made about terrorism.

“Was it the point where the boy puts down the gun and says, ‘Maybe the end of terrorism is when the first child puts down his gun?’ It was effective in the context of that show, but is certainly not a statement that provides any great revelation.”

Given that the IRA crisis was far from resolved when the episode went to air in 1990, it is understandable why The High Ground was seen as a milquetoast affair in the face of a real social issue. The closest the episode comes to making an actual statement on terrorism is during a conversation between Data and Picard. Data cites Mexican independence from Spain as a precedent in support of violent insurgency as a last resort when attempting to bring about political change. Picard’s reaction to Data’s android innocence is to fall back on the series’ stock answer: “Well that’s just human nature and these are big questions for which there is no easy answer.” No wonder the writers were unhappy with the episode. At least when TNG married the prime directive with the war on drugs it came with the benefit of Lt. Yar admitting to the allure of chemical intoxication; albeit Wesley’s subsequent “I’ll never do drugs” comment was positively stomach churning.

 

Nearly a quarter of a century after The High Ground went to air, it’s interesting to note how closely the episode’s themes mirror our own contemporary dialogues on terror. Twenty-three years might have given us real world analogues to Star Trek’s PADDs, tricorders, phasers, and even a theoretical model for a warp drive, but clearly our sociology has lagged behind the science.

In the episode’s first act, Alexana Devos (Kerrie Keane), the head of Rutia’s security condemns the Ansata terrorist organization as a group of animals. She further paints the Ansata as “…fanatics who kill without remorse or conscience.” Please to note the othering of terrorists as sub-humans.

Devos’ attempts to ferret out the Ansata portray Rutia as a near police-state. Suspects with even the slightest ties to the Ansata are rounded up in mass arrests and questioned without formal charge or the benefit of legal counsel. Rutian methods extend so far as to arrest children and teenagers as potential Ansata sympathizers. Though nobody comes out and says it, the episode clearly implies that Rutia is a place where the average citizen is either with the government or the Ansata.

Meanwhile the Ansata view themselves as freedom fighters struggling against an oppressive regime. Kyril Finn (Richard Cox), leader of the Ansata, rationalizes himself to Dr. Crusher as a 24th century George Washington. When Crusher reminds Finn that Washington was a general and not a terrorist, Finn retorts that the difference between terrorists and generals is the difference between history’s winners and losers. This leads to an interesting point wherein Finn asks Doctor Crusher how much violence is buried in the Federation’s past? In terms of canon, quite a lot: The Eugenics Wars, World War 3, the Earth-Romulus war, and a century of cold war with the Klingon Empire. Finn throws the idealized world of the Federation in Doctor Crusher’s face to demonstrate the selective memory governments often utilize in the prosecution of terror while simultaneously ignoring their own “legitimate” uses of force.

When Finn takes Captain Picard hostage after a failed attempt to destroy the Enterprise, Doctor Crusher questions the difference between a mad man and a committed man willing to die for his principles. Picard, however, is utterly dismissive of the Doctor’s question. Having witnessed the Ansata murdering members of his crew, he is not inclined to entertain the broader issues of the Ansata conflict. Picard further marginalizes the Ansata position in his suggestion that Doctor Crusher’s entirely conceptual recognition of the Ansata cause is the product of Stockholm Syndrome.

Later in the episode a joint Starfleet-Rutian strike force assaults the Ansata compound. Picard and Crusher are liberated but Finn is assassinated in the process. Picard’s reaction to the kill is somewhere between indifference and tacit approval. Then, as if to wash the Federation’s hands of the entire situation, the Enterprise leaves Rutian security to deal with the aftermath of Finn’s martyrdom. At no point does anybody in a Starfleet uniform acknowledge the fact that the Federation has played an active part in making an unstable situation worse.

Given the way the word has changed over the last twelve years, it’s hard not to look at Rutia and see a blueprint for our world. Combatants turn each other into monsters to legitimize their respective actions. Disagreement is confused with dissent. Empathy is mistaken for sympathy. The High Ground may not have told the story that Melinda Snodgrass intended in 1990, a story which would have seen the Federation on the wrong side of history, but it does offer a clearly unexpected window into our own world.


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Web Comic Review: The Outer Light

By
Adam Shaftoe
– October 1, 2012Posted in: Lit Reviews, Web Media

Some weeks ago I was having a twitter discussion about the best all time episode of any Star Trek franchise; because why else was the internet created other than as a means of facilitating these sorts of talks among like minded nerds? Without the benefit of a bracket and a few hours to sort through the various candidates, my knee jerk reaction was to pick a certain DS9 episode that I will discuss in a future post. Many of the others who were in on the discussion were staunch in their support for the Hugo award winning TNG episode “The Inner Light.”

For those who don’t recall “The Inner Light” is the episode where an alien probe inceptions Captain Picard. In less than half an hour, the probe allows Picard to live out thirty years during the final days of the planet Kataan. Therein Picard had a wife, children, grand children, and was able to craft a life that was otherwise incompatible with his career as a Starfleet officer. But what happened to Picard after he woke up from that dream? The Outer Light, a web comic drawn by Don Ellis Aguillo and written by Andre Duza and Morgan Gendel, the very same Morgan Gendel who penned “The Inner Light”, answers that question.

Where TNG only gave us rare glimpses into the inner workings of Picard’s psyche, The Outer Light explores Picard as a broken man. He’s still functional as a captain, but left to his own thoughts he longs for a life that never was. Where the TV series used the flute from Picard’s time as Kamin as an object of thoughtful nostalgia, this story shows it as a sort of self-flagellation. The flute is not a connection to the past, but an embodiment of a dream Picard will never have again. To put it another way, if you ever wondered what would happen if you mixed a bit of Battlestar Galactica’s character depth into TNG’s cast then you should waste no time before reading this comic.

Despite this particular take on Picard, which feels totally on point when we consider his mental breakdown after the battle of Wolf 359, The Outer Light is still a strong Trek story. The plot forces Picard to reconcile his past life issues while presenting a conflict that easily fits into established TNG canon circa season five.

The Trek aesthetic as crafted by Don Ellis Aguillo takes some liberties with how a reader might remember the series in the early 90s. Yet these subtle nuances prove quite pleasing to the eyes. There are hints of the Enterprise-E in Aguillo’s design of the Enterprise-D. His depiction of Starfleet uniforms borrow more from the jacket and pants model of late series DS9 than the form fitting pyjamas of TNG. Even the characters look somewhat distinct from the actors who played them on television. While I suspect this creative distance has something to do with avoiding lawsuits from Sir Patrick et al, it also allows Aguillo’s art to capture the essence of the characters without anchoring them to real world people. Case in point, a certain frame does not depict Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard smashing his quarters in a most undignified fashion. Rather the art lends itself to a range of character development that is independent of the preconceptions which come with the actor/character dichotomy.

The only real problem in this web comic’s presentation is the distinct lack of ‘next page’ and ‘previous page’ buttons in the design interface. Even though each episode is only five or six pages in length, the ability to turn the page without having to be cognisant of what page I am on would not go amiss.

As the “unofficial sequel to The Inner Light” this comic is absolutely first rate. The story is compelling. The art is distinct yet still very Trek, which is a testament not only to the artist’s obvious talent but the longevity of TNG’s overall look and feel. I don’t know that non-Trek fans will get much out of the story. It is very much dependent on a knowledge of “The Inner Light,” and the utterly stoic nature of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. For fans of the series, however, this is absolutely essential reading.

The first nine parts of The Outer Light are available for your viewing pleasure at Morgan’s Blog.


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The Unfinished Web Series Project

By
Adam Shaftoe
– July 5, 2012Posted in: Web Series Reviews

A wide shot of LA as seen in It Ends Today

Much like in the world of conventional television, not every web series makes it to the end of its first season. Some projects are so ambitious that they blow through their entire budget in the first few episodes. Others, particularly those that are produced piece meal, call it a day due to the cast and crew moving on to other projects. Some web series seem to quietly vanish into the ether of the internet, leaving stale youtube videos as the only proof of their unrealized potential. For your viewing pleasure, I give you four web series, two original and two fan series, that never quite, or have yet to, come to fruition.

It Ends Today


Written and directed by Aleem Hossain

Date of Release: September 2009

Number of episodes: 1

Status: Unknown, presumed dead.

Out of the four series mentioned in this post, It Ends Today is probably the one that scores the highest for unrealized excellence. In less than five minutes the story manages to frame the characters, a recovering drug addict and her boyfriend, establish a conflict, Zoë’s memory lapse which Eric interprets as her falling off the wagon, and hint at a supernatural power akin to the good parts of Lost. There’s a feeling of genuine history between the two characters, but it’s handled in a way that shows rather than tells. Though there’s some inconsistency in the sound levels, the visual quality of the production is excellent. It’s really quite a shame that It Ends Today was left as an unfinished production. I know that I would pay if it meant I could see a full season of this story.

Update: I managed to get in touch with Aleem Hossain and he informed me of a few interesting details about this series. The pilot episode’s positive critical reception led to serious talks with major financial backers for a complete first season. Unfortunately talks fell through, partly due to their timing with the meltdown of the global economy, and subsequent deals offered too little money to maintain the pilot’s production values. To quote Mr. Hossain, “I think I could have found a distributor if I had the whole series shot – but finding the money to make more?”

The only silver lining is that Aleem has not been idle since It Ends Today hit the internet – head over to his website and check out some of his other work.

Star Trek: Phoenix


Directed by Sam Akina, Gale Benning, and Leo Roberts

Number of episodes: 3

Status: Currently fundraising to make more.

Date of Release: November 2010

Star Trek: Phoenix is a very ambitious project. Set after the destruction of the Romulus, as described in the recent Star Trek reboot, Phoenix attempts to tell a rather unique story within the Trek universe. Where the Federation has always been a model of efficiency, this series shows Star Fleet as a bureaucratic agency subject to the whims of politicians. Phoenix runs into trouble when it attempts to shape that framework to suit a visual effects heavy story more in line with traditional Trek. The cerebral elements of the story end up as little more than narrative info dumps meant to bring an average Trek fan up to speed on the events of this series.

While the acting and dialogue occasionally border on cheese, the costuming, location shots, and special effects are quite impressive. If the production team does manage to make more, I’ll certainly watch them. However, I fear that they will never manage huge crowd sourcing goals telling a Trek story that is so far removed from the established canon.

Dead Patrol


Director/Series Creator: Jason Tisch

Number of episodes: 3

Status: Either dead or shambling through a one episode per year production schedule

Date of release: Feb 2008

If this series teaches would-be producers anything, it’s that there is a difference between real darkness and television darkness. Television darkness is mood lighting paired with the strategic use of shadow. Actual darkness is what happens when a person turns off all the lights, and unfortunately too much of this series is shot in said condition.

The concept, however, is great: a zombie apocalypse story where the military isn’t out to rape and pillage at the expense of the survivors. It’s the execution that really does this series in. Well, that and the painful continuity mistakes. I suppose I was also a bit put off by the shameless attempt to convince the audience that the surviving soldiers are driving a Lamborghini, rather than a Ford Focus that has been (badly) CG’d to look like a Lamborghini.

Halo: Hell Jumper

Written and Directed by Dan Wang

Number of episodes: 2

Status: Recently failed to meet a $65,000 fundraising goal for future episodes. Future unknown.

Date of release: January 2012

The props are amazing. The special effects are impressive. The costumes appear to be made by professionals. The story is maudlin, bordering on silly.

Hell Jumper literally tells the tale of an Orbital Shock Drop Trooper from the Halo-verse. I say literally because Gage, the series’ protagonist, tells the events of the series as a sequence of flashbacks while he is bleeding out on the battlefield. I say maudlin bordering on silly because at one point during his narration, Gage says that he “…can’t remember what he’s fighting for.” Forgive me for being blunt, but it’s Halo. You’re fighting to save humanity from the aliens. The concepts that drive this franchise aren’t known for being subtle.

The series’ two episodes show why Gage joins the UNSC military, how he gets tapped for the elite ODST detail, and chronicle his first taste of action against the Covenant. Yet, there’s nothing that really made me care about this character or the story. Perhaps because Halo is ten years old and I’ve filled in game’s narrative gaps on my own.

Make no mistake, the mood is convincing enough to make me want to like the story. Similarly, I want to care about Gage and his cohorts. Instead I find myself paying more attention things like run-and-gun military tactics that even a video game warrior like myself would never use in combat. The lesson here: if you’re going to go to the trouble of making a FX heavy war story, get somebody who knows a little bit about infantry tactics to consult. Or at least watch a few classic war movies.


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Essential Genre Music Volume 2

By
Adam Shaftoe
– May 10, 2012Posted in: Movies, Music, Television, The Daily Shaft, Video Games

That’s right, it’s time for “Essential Genre Music Volume 2”.

I’ve pulled together fifteen (mostly instrumental) selections from television, movies, games, and anime for this ultra nerdy “what if” CD.

So without further ado, let’s get right into some tunes.

The title track – Icarus – Deus Ex Human Revolution Soundtrack – Michael McCann – 2011

McCann’s work on the Deus Ex: HR soundtrack earned him “best in music” nominations in the Canadian Video Game Awards and the BAFTA’s Video Game Awards. It’s a haunting and powerful piece of music that serves as the perfect complement to Eidos Montreal’s recent post-human masterpiece.

Track 2 – Terran Suite #2 – Starcraft soundtrack – Derek Duke and Glen Stafford – 1998

Why this particular piece? Because every time I set out to build something from Ikea, this is the tune that starts playing through my head. More than iconic, the Terran Suite is a touchstone to the very roots of Starcraft’s success as a piece of contemporary mythology.

Track 3 – Tank – The Seatbelts – 1998

If I had to guess, “Tank” is probably second to the Space Battleship Yamato anthem as the most remixed/covered song to emerge from an anime series. It’s also the benchmark for any saxophone players who want to prove their musical chops while simultaneously establishing their nerd cred.

Track 4 – Blade Runner’s End Theme – Vangelis – 1982

I don’t know why I didn’t think to put this on the first volume of essential genre music. In the thirty years since the song was first heard by human ears, it has become the godfather of music to all things cyberpunk.

Track 5 – Inner Universe – Origa – 2002

Perhaps not as iconic as “Making of a Cyborg”, the title track to 1995’s Ghost in the Shell, Inner Universe, from the 2002′s Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, has always stood out in my mind as a fascinating song. Setting aside the fact that the lyrics are in Russian, Latin, and English, I’m told the range required to hit all the notes is quite challenging.

Track 6 – Doomsday – Murray Gold – 2006

Yes yes, the actual Doctor Who theme song is awesome. But there’s more to the musical history of the recent series than various takes on a fifty year old tune. As performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, “Doomsday” is tied with “Vale Decem” as the musical high point of David Tennant’s time in the TARDIS.

Track 7 – Audi Famam Illius – Nobuo Uematsu – 2006

Famed Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu lent his talents to “Audi Famam Illius”, the theme song to Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Too bad the game is nowhere near as epic (it’s actually very pointless) as the music.

Track 8 – Prelude to War – Bear McCreary – 2005

The rebooted Battlestar Galactica reached its zenith with the second season cliff-hanger “Pegasus”. There, I said it, and I don’t care how much fan rage it gets me. After Admiral Cain died it was all downhill, albeit at a gentle gradient. This song, which built to an epic crescendo during Adama and Cain’s camera-pan face off, accompanies not only the best moment of the series, but arguably one the finest moments in television this side of the 20th century.

Track 9 – Enterprising Young Men – Michael Giacchino – 2009

Giacchino made a bold decision when he abandoned Alexander Courage’s influence in crafting a new Star Trek theme. Though Courage’s score would be remixed into the ending credits, “Enterprising Young Men” became the headline refrain for Trek’s alternate timeline. Like it or not, it’s here now.

Track 10 – S’il Vous Plait – Fantastic Plastic Machine – 1997

You may not recognize the name, but fans of the British series Spaced will know the song. It’s a song to be played in moments of pure, unrivaled joy. Such moments include getting around giving notice at a job by telling your boss that Babylon 5 is shit (not actually true) so that he fires you.

Track 11 – Bishop’s Countdown – Aliens Soundtrack – James Horner – 1986

I don’t know if it’s fair to say that one track on this album is superior to another. Consider that I haven’t watched Aliens in a couple of years, but I could tell you exactly what scene accompanies each piece of music on this CD. If that’s not the mark of a brilliant piece of musical accompaniment, I don’t know what is.

What’s that? You want me to name the scene where this track plays? Fah, child’s play.

This starts playing as Ripley emerges from the service elevator in LV 426’s fusion plant. With Newt in tow she yells out, “God damn you, Bishop,” suspecting that the synthetic has taken the Sulaco’s remaining dropship and fled. Ripley turns around to see the other service elevator, presumably containing the xenomorph queen, rising up. Low on ammo, she tells Newt to “Close your eyes, baby.” At the last second Bishop flies the dropship into the frame, allowing Ripley and Newt to escape. As the ship tries to break atmo, a computerized voice counts down to zero before the fusion plant explodes.

Track 12 – The Elder Scrolls Themes – Jeremy Soule – 2002, 2006, 2011

Since 2002, Jeremy Soule has been the composer on the hugely popular Elder Scrolls series of video games (Morrowwind, Oblivion, and Skyrim). I suppose I could have just used the Morrowwind theme since the other two are built upon its back, but listening to the evolution of ten years worth of work is just too fantastic to pass up. Also, the Skyrim bit makes me want to drink a lot of mead and pick a fight with somebody weaker than me, preferably in the East coast of England.

Track 13 – Still Alive – Jonathan Coulton – 2007

Unlike the cake, this song is not a lie.

Track 14 – Il dolce suono/The Diva Dance – Gaetano Donizetti, Salvadore Cammarano, and Eric Serra – 1997

Fun fact: The voice of Albanian opera-singer Inva Mula was dubbed over that of the actress playing the Diva in The Fifth Element. Luc Besson’s movies might not be the smartest thing out there, but it takes a certain kind of something to integrate opera into beating the piss out of aliens.

I know I promised a fifteenth track for this piece, but the chances are good that I’ve missed something that you think is absolutely essential. Therefore, track 15 is up to the readers. Leave a comment and telling the world what you think is absolutely essential genre listening.


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The Daily Shaft: Seven Laws from Science Fiction

By
Adam Shaftoe
– May 1, 2012Posted in: Books, Movies, Television, The Daily Shaft, Video Games

One of the most interesting parts of science fiction/speculative fiction is looking at how writers’ imagine we will govern ourselves in the future. Will innovations in technology create shining futures where government regulation is benign? Or will humanity drift into dystopia and the jack boots of totalitarian rule. Drawn from a variety of mediums, I offer seven examples of future law for your consideration.

1 – The Prime Directive – Star Trek


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A rule this big has to be either first or last in a post like this. I chose to get it out of the way early.

Meaning: In short, the prime directive forbids members of Star Fleet from mucking about in the development of pre-warp drive civilizations. Of course most Star Fleet captains tend to have a rather liberal approach to the PD.

Value of the law: In theory the Prime Directive protects Star Fleet officers from their own good intentions. It could also be seen as a lassie-faire means test for emergent civilizations. Rather using their resources to nudge a planet along a healthy development path, the Federation has codified inaction. This isn’t necessarily a good thing when the Prime Directive  oozes into real world politics – case in point, the world’s very slow reaction to Syria.

2 – Human Augmentation Regulation – Deus Ex / Deus Ex: Human Revolution


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meaning: The near future world of Deus Ex answers the question of biological evolution through technological enhancement. No longer limited to the realm of limb/organ replacement, cybernetic/nanotech augmentation is about cosmetic appeal, performance enhancement, and a marker of economic status.

Value of the law: Though the mythos explores ‘human purity’ movements, the main purpose of the laws are to create oversight in an unregulated market. Essentially, it’s a way of putting government in control of post-human evolution, rather than leaving it in the hands of corporate interests. Not simply an allegory for contemporary socio-economics, Deus Ex’s Augmentation Regulations evoke timeless questions on what it means to be human.

3 – Superhero Registration Act – Marvel Civil War 2006-2007


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meaning: After a group of amateur super heroes blew up a significant portion of Stamford, Connecticut, the federal government, upon the urging of Tony Stark and Reed Richards, passed a law that required any person with super powers residing within the United States to register as a living weapon of mass destruction. In doing so, their public identity would be a matter of record. Should they undertake any super heroics without the consent of SHIELD, they’d be treated as criminal vigilantes.

Value of the law: It wasn’t a particularly new concept within the Marvel universe. Anybody who follows X-Men knew that mutant registration was a regular theme, which drew inspiration from any number of 20th century atrocities. Yet the idea resonated with a post 9/11 audience that was particularly sensitive about issues concerning individual and civil liberties in the wake of Patriot Act abuses.

4 – Emotional Laws – Equilibrium


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meaning: In the post world war three nation-state of Libria, the powers that be decided that human emotion was the cause of all suffering. Their answer to this problem was to rid people of all emotion through a culture war and widespread use of super Prozac. To feel was to commit a capital crime against the state.

Value of the law: It’s hard to ascribe value to a law that forbids emotion while promoting a poorly designed fascist state. As a film, Equilbrium owes much to George Lucas’ THX 1138, and, like most totalitarian dystopias, to the writing of George Orwell. So perhaps the worth in the sense laws is in understanding their narrative origins.

5 – The Butlerian Commandment – Dune

I know its a terminator, but I couldn't find a good Dune style thinking machine picture


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meaning: “Thou shalt not make a machine in likeness of a man’s mind.” One of the cornerstones of Orange-Catholicism, the dominant religion within Frank Herbert’s Dune, is the prohibition into research that would create artificial intelligence.

Value of the law: The commandment works to thrust the Dune universe into a prolonged period of technological stagnation where even the most rudimentary computers are met with extreme suspicion and distrust. This lays much of the groundwork for the high fantasy motifs that permeate the novel.

6 – Psychic Registration and the Psi-Corps – Babylon 5


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meaning: In Babylon 5’s vision of the 23rd century, human psychics have three choices in life: prison, drugs to suppress psychic abilities, or joining the Psi-Corps.

Value of the law: As the show reveals, the Psi-Corps is anything but a benevolent organization. It enacts breeding programs, carries out human experimentation, and executes its own political agenda independent of any concern for how their goals will affect non-psychics or “Mundanes”. Much like the Superhero/Mutant Registration Acts and the Human Augmentation Regulations, the Psi-Corps is a perfect example of how issues of evolution can get ugly when a small group of people think they are superior to the multitude.

7 – State Mandated Death – Logan’s Run


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meaning: Within a near post-scarcity world, the state, as manifested by an aging and decaying computer, enforces a rule that people must die on their twenty-first birthday. (I’m going by the book not the movie on this one, so don’t talk to me about dying at thirty)

Value of the law: William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson asked two interesting questions within their novel: What happens when the state gets so powerful it can tell you when to die? Why should people respect their elders? The revolution that began the novel’s “death at twenty-one movement” was the result of a disproportionately young population in the wake of the baby boom. Rather than levelling off, the world reached a critical mass of young people by the year 2000. It’s easy then to see the law as the result of a majority seizing political agency from the entrenched authority. Yet it’s also a commentary maintaining a sustainable population through invasive social control.

Honourable mentions include: Futurama’s mutant laws, Blade Runner’s replicant laws, Ringworld’s reproduction lottery, the nanny state gone wrong in Demolition Man, and the no babies law from Zero Population Growth. My thanks to Rick Landon for his suggestion of Equilibrium’s Sense Laws.


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The Daily Shaft: “Boldly Gone” Takes You Where You Never Knew You Wanted To Go

By
Adam Shaftoe
– February 23, 2012Posted in: Books, Lit Reviews, The Daily Shaft

Captain Paul Meredith, the...well groomed commander of the USS Mandela

Fellow Star Trek fans, ever felt like everybody in Star Fleet is just a little bit too awesome? Sure you’ve got Reg Barkley as the voice of the socially awkward introvert, but even he’s an accomplished engineer who once housed the collective knowledge of an entire alien race in his head. Where’s the everyman? Where’s the beta male? The guy who might not be saving Earth from the Borg, but is still carrying out the vital, if unglamorous, tasks that go with holding together a benevolent interplanetary alliance? Until a short time ago, the only place you could turn for that sort of action was my Star Trek/The Office fan fic or the British TV series Hyperdrive. Now, you can open hailing frequencies to the hilarious web comic Boldly Gone.

Boldly Gone is a bi-weekly publication set in original series era of Star Trek’s prime timeline (Sometimes I think JJ made up the alternate universe just to give us nerds a chance to say ‘prime timeline’ a little more often). The story follows the perpetually insecure but instantly identifiable Captain Paul Meredith, commander of the USS Mandela.

As the captain of a ship charged with ferrying diplomats, hosting conferences, and maintaining good relations between the Federation and its neighbours, Meredith embodies every Star Fleet captain who isn’t James T. Kirk or Christopher Pike. His life would be pretty decent if only the Admiralty could remember his name. To add insult to injury, his Orion first officer, Arlynn D’Resh, is a rising star among the fleet, far out stripping Meredith’s humble reputation, and his chief surgeon, Ken Chau, is a smart ass in the finest tradition of Leonard McCoy. Boldly Gone creators Kevin Church and Ming Doyle couldn’t have done a better job in creating a more sympathetic character.

Even though Church and Doyle are working within the Star Trek property, they’re taking it in very unique direction. The nature of television and movies don’t lend themselves to telling stories about anybody who isn’t at the top of their game. As a web comic, Boldly Gone is free to explore the mundane, average, and tedious aspects of life in Star Fleet all the while making Captain Meredith suffer for the audience’s amusement.

At present, there are only about a half dozen entries into the series. However, the attention to detail in every frame, as well as the snappy writing, is first rate. The comic captures the visual aesthetic of original series Star Trek so well that you’d think it was actually canon and not a fan production. With any luck we’ll see a lot more of this in the days to come.

Head on over to Boldly Gone’s homepage and check it out.

Images via Agreeable Comics.


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Movie Review: The Captains

By
Adam Shaftoe
– October 24, 2011Posted in: Movie Reviews

Summary Judgement:  William Shatner’s feature length documentary offers an unexpected and heartfelt window into the lives of the actors who have portrayed Starfleet’s captains.

Starring:  William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Bakula, Chris Pine and Christopher Plummer.

Produced and Directed by: William Shatner

Every time I see a new movie about Star Trek, rather than a new Star Trek movie, I get really antsy.  The problem is that behind the scenes docs about Star Trek usually end up as self-congratulatory love-ins from the cast and crew in question.  That isn’t to suggest that those people don’t deserve their accolades.  Rather, I think that the professional Trek community can be a bit too quick to pat itself on the back in light of the recent setbacks that the franchise has faced.

On the other side of the coin, I tend to shy away from any sort of large scale production that explores Trek fandom.  With very few exceptions, most fan focused documentaries make us look like self-delusional freaks rather than people who have embraced a mythology.  This reticence almost precluded my watching The Captains. I didn’t want to hear the usual actor prattle about how much fun they had, how Star Fleet uniforms ride up one’s ass, and other such familiar stomping grounds.  Nor did I want to watch William Shatner reducing the people who made him famous into the familiar clichés of dorks who wear burgundy and black pyjamas to jury duty.  The Captains, however, is neither of these things.  Indeed, if there was one thing I didn’t expect from this documentary, it was that it would be genuinely touching.

The doc sees Shatner having candid and extremely personal conversations with some of Starfleet’s finest, as well as Christopher Plummer.  While Star Trek is the thread that ties all these people together, the discussions are anything but genre focused.  In fact if I had to sum it up in a few words, I’d say that this documentary is more about the personal toll that working in genre television has taken on Shatner, Stewart, Brooks, Mulgrew, and Bakula.  Pine and Plummer serve to bookend things and offer up a few narratives that don’t end in divorce or children refusing to speak to their parents.  Save for Brooks’ marginally incomprehensible diatribes, to quote Shatner “Avery is a bit out there”, the entire thing is not only tasteful, but at times heart wrenching and the polar opposite of what I have heard these actors say in past interviews with the media proper.

Out of a desire to avoid spoilers, I’ll spare the specific details of the chats and speak more generally on Shatner as an interviewer.  I’ve never watched William Shatner’s Raw Nerve, but I’ve often witnessed Joel McHale eviscerate it on The Soup. Having watched The Captains, I can see why Shatner ends up as fodder for McHale’s snark.  There’s no other way to say it than Shatner is Shatneresque in his approach to interviewing.  He injects his own, seemingly incongruous, narratives into the discussions but uses them to cut through the fluff so often associated with celebrity speak.  It’s a clever disarming tool that put Patrick Stewart so at ease with Shatner that the former seemed on the verge of an emotional break when asked about his two failed marriages.  Aside from Barbara Walters, I can’t imagine many other people who would have the ardroit cojones to put Patrick Stewart in a place where asking about his emotional dysfunctions is a natural transition in the conversation.

Although the Shatner approach to discourse has its strengths, it’s also important to remember that he’s an old man and as such is subject to asking old man questions.  One segment of his chat with Kate Mulgrew was particularly disappointing.  Although the discussion eventually transitioned into a poignant look at the challenges of being a single mother working in L.A. – challenges that include having your children grow-up to resent you and the work you did for seven years – the opening movements of Shatner’s talk with Trek’s first female captain had all the sophistication of this:

Old man weirdness aside, it’s the honesty that runs through this documentary that really sets it apart from other Trek doc ephemera.  Most of the captains are at a point in their careers where they can be honest about their Trek experiences without fear of reprisals.  Stewart’s a knight so he can say whatever he wants whenever he wants without worrying about a PR disaster.  Brooks is a tenured professor at Rutgers.  Mulgrew is almost absent in television due to her career as a fixture in New York’s theatre scene.  Plummer is Plummer and as such fears no flak.  Only Pine, as the youngest of the captains, seemed to speak in terms of acceptable interview jargon.  Though I’ve heard no end of stories about actor meltdowns and the “pressures” of the job, this documentary is the first thing to succeed in creating an emotional connection between myself, as a cynical audience member/critical evaluator, and the actors as people struggling to convey their art.  At the same time, the discussion never devolves to a pity party.  It’s simply an honest look into the places fans aren’t supposed to see.  That honesty can be a little uncomfortable, but it also serves to make the actors seem like actual people – except for Avery Brooks who I’m now convinced is a wormhole alien from DS9.

The documentary ends with a disquieting retrospective from Shatner.  There’s not a drop of irony or acting when he admits that making this documentary has put him at ease with the fact that he will largely be remembered as James Tiberius Kirk.  The levity and odd bit of physical comedy that Shatner employed during the documentary is utterly absent as he walks the grounds at Ontario’s Stratford Theatre, speaking in such a way as to almost eulogize himself.  “Go ahead and beam me up Scotty, but just not quite yet.”  The words are equal parts inspirational and haunting when coming from a man who is so often ridiculed in popular culture for being a stereotype of himself. 

The Captains appeal should extend beyond Star Trek fans to anybody interested hearing actors speak about their lives without a network or studio executive coaching them from off camera.  Though emotional, it is far from maudlin.  Furthermore, it offers a layer of depth into the lives of Star Trek actors, especially Stewart and Shatner, that even this die hard Trek fan found surprising.  If ever there was a Trek documentary to watch, this is the one.

Overall Score: +2.5


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Shaftoe’s Rants: On Evaluating Television

By
Adam Shaftoe
– October 8, 2011Posted in: Rants, TV Reviews

The Short Version: Based on my current methods of evaluating television, I think I would have written off Star Trek: TNG as a bad idea.

The Long Version: Of everything that I review, genre television can be the most problematic.  It’s not that it is particularly difficult.  Nor is it particularly time consuming.  In fact, as labour intensive projects go, book reviews and podcasts take up the most time and appeal to the smallest subset of my audience. The issue with television is gauging just how much of a show to watch before putting pen to paper.

There’s an obvious temptation to write in the aftermath of a series’ pilot episode.  For a small website like mine, writing in the immediacy of a premiere places my words right at the forefront of the blogosphere.  Granted it’s impossible for me to compete with the big boys, but even the trickledown represents a noticeable volume of traffic.

From a purely critical perspective, it’s best to wait for an entire season to conclude before writing something.  A restaurant reviewer doesn’t write a review based solely upon the starters so why should a television critic do anything different?  The downside is that by the time the season is done, so many things have already been said that it is challenging to come up with something new to offer.  Not to mention the fact that in delaying an evaluation I lose the “I need somebody to tell me if I should watch this” demographic.

To that end, I came up with the “three episode rule”.  A new series gets three episodes to prove its chops before I put pen to paper.  No system, however, is perfect.  Consider my review of Spartacus: Blood and Sand. It got the customary three episodes and I wrote it off as fetish realization in togas.  I’m not sure what primitive part of my psyche kept me watching Spartacus, perhaps the part that moves me to watch True Blood if only so I can rag on its abject stupidity.  Fortunately my desire for titillation carried me to the point where Spartacus got better.  Before I knew it, I was writing a mea culpa review.

After watching two out of three obligatory episodes of Terra Nova, I find myself examining the three episode rule.  In the case of TN, I don’t fear that writing this show off will prove to be a mistake.  It might not be frame for frame plagiarism of Outcasts, but it’s pretty damn close.  More on that next week though.

Still, the utter shite that is Terra Nova got me thinking about how a “successful” genre series would stand up to my critical approach.  That’s when I realized that I probably would have written off Star Trek: The Next Generation as a great idea gone horribly wrong.

Consider the summary judgments of the first four TNG stories.

Ep 1&2 “Encounter at Farpoint”:  Encounter at Farpoint introduced the eighties to a new Enterprise with a new crew and a very familiar villain.  Being the cynical prick that I am, I would have looked at Q (John de Lancie) and probably said something snarky like, “Hey is this Trelane’s older uncle?”  Granted, Q turned out to be a fantastic character, if only for introducing the Federation to the Borg, but that didn’t happen until season 2.  Otherwise all we get from this episode is that Geordi is blind, Data can’t whistle, Troi and Riker used to have a thing, Troi looks good in a miniskirt and Picard is both French, despite an English accent, and a bit of a grouch.  The only genuinely interesting thing to come of this episode is the courtroom of the post-atomic horror.  Too bad the late twenty-first century never really comes up again within televised Trek.

Ep 3 “The Naked Now”:  Hey look everybody, it’s that episode of Star Trek TOS where everybody acts like they are drunk; now featuring damaged blondes having sex with androids.  Also, those of you conscious of things race related will notice that a certain sword fighting Dumas quoting Asian character has been replaced by a drooling moron who likes to play “toss the isolinear chips”.  Great work with the race relations there writers John D. F. Black  and J. Michael Bingham.

Ep 4 “Code of Honour”:  A planet of black people use Thunderdome to settle disputes in their multi-partner marriages.  Christ and Hunter, do I have to draw a picture on why this episode blows goats?  So much for Star Trek as a morality play.

Of course TNG had the benefit of the Trek franchise backing it, and that isn’t something that is easily dismissed.  Though it would take a particularly die hard TNG fan to defend these episodes, indeed TNG’s first season, as a high watermark of genre writing.  More to the point, my current practice of evaluating television would have seen Star Trek TNG tossed in the same bin that I plan on putting Terra Nova. In retrospect, season two of TNG and subsequent episodes in future seasons more than made up for the questionable writing and recycled plots of the show’s first season.  Say it all together now, “There are four lights.”

Thus we return to the point at hand.  Genre television is an oddly biological medium.   Sometimes things that seem destined for extinction undergo a spontaneous mutation, becoming something new and exciting.  In other instances, things that ought to be titans among the genre, gifted with every conceivable tool for success, stumble.  By the time they recover their footing, they find themselves surrounded by an army of smaller predators.  They die not with a roar, but to the whimper and online outrage of the fans.


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Shaftoe’s Rants: Netflix Revisited

By
Adam Shaftoe
– September 20, 2011Posted in: Rants

The Short Version: Much as I try to like Netflix, they keep doing stupid things that make me doubt if I will give them my money once the free trial is up.

The Long Version:  Well the long version goes a little something like this.  Sunday morning I recorded a podcast with Jane Espenson and Cheeks to help promote their new web series, Husbands.  I won’t lie, that was a good day for me.  Then Monday came along and I had no idea what I would do for a follow up.  I mean, really, do I follow up such awesomeness with a Thundercats recap?

I knew I could spend hours, days even, trying to come up with a way to top that podcast.  Then it struck me, unless Nathan Fillion calls me up and invites me out for beer and nachos, I’m probably not going to beat that interview, at least not right away.  So I decided to side step the whole issue and go with something a little light hearted.

How does this connect to Netflix, you ask?  In light of the fact that a certain movie studio is trying to bring “fishing expedition” copyright lawsuits to Canada, I thought I would see what legitimate alternatives there are for people who want television and movies delivered online without having to resort to bit torrent.  The results of my investigation were not at all impressive.  Sufficed to say the crux of this copyright issue can be distilled down to one simple idea: the content providers need to get their heads out of the 20th century and make their services more appealing and more convenient than piracy.

At any rate, ever since my “Netflix vs The AFI top 25” post, there’s been no short supply of people trying to convince me that Netflix has improved its service to Canadian users and I should be less of a grumpy cynical bastard therein.  At the behest of all the Netflix boosters, I thought I would give the service an honest trial run.

After signing up and completing a survey that took longer than my last census report, I was immediately disappointed.  I told Netflix’s survey that I never watch “Family Friendly” or “Children’s” programming.  The very first thing in my “recommended” stream was Pingu.

Grumbling inaudibly, I typed “Star Trek” into the search bar expecting that Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan would be an easy hit.  It was not.

As my vision has only just recovered from a case of acute lens flare blindness, I passed on the 2009 Trek reboot.  Then, I came upon…it.  Something so strange that you’re probably going to think I made it up.  A search for Star Trek yielded Time Travel Through the Bible.

“”What the shit is this?  Rebecca, you have to come here and see this,” were my exact words.

The connection between “Star Trek” as a search operator and Time Travel Through the Bible is one Jonathan Frakes of ST:TNG.  Honestly though, how stupid is Netflix’s search engine that it would put those two things together?  I mean Star Trek is clearly science fiction and Time Travel Through the Bible ought to be in fantasy.

Of course it didn’t end there.  I tried another experiment.  Hypothesis: If I search for The Manchurian Candidate it will give me Murder She Wrote because they both feature Angela Lansbury.  Result: The Train, – another John Frankenheimer movie which does make some sense – the remake of The A-Team, and Jackass 3.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Come on, how in the name of Zeus’ asshole does cold war intrigue connect with douche bag idiots being idiots?”  I yelled at my computer screen.

It was the indefinite article “the” in the description of the latter two movies that joined them to Frank Sinatra and Lawrence Harvey.  (Click the above picture to see what I mean)  Netflix, I’m being totally honest with you when I say this, but my university library circa 2000 had a smarter search engine than yours does now.  Consider these three words: powered by google.

I know, it seems like I’m just piss taking at Netflix’s expense, but I’m really trying to give it a chance.  Yet time after time it disappoints me.  It categorized the seminal 80s series Robotech as children’s programming rather than Anime.  I asked for Cowboy Bebop and it offered me Cool as Ice, the much ignored 90s musical comedy featuring Vanilla Ice as a hip-hop motorcycle rebel.  And yes, it was as painful for me to type that as it was for you to read it.  The only saving grace I’ve seen so far is about fifty episodes of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and the complete series of Farscape.

In the final assessment, I don’t think Netflix has improved.  The search engine is as terrible as the selection is limited.  Despite my best efforts otherwise, I can’t get over the fact that if I had a Netflix.com account rather than Netflix.ca I’d have ten times the library to choose from.

Next month, I try zip.ca.  Shaftoe, out.

PS: Feel free to click here for my interview with Jane Espenson and Cheeks.  It’s awesome.


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