Reviews No One Will to Read: Age of Ultron

I finally got the privilege of seeing Avengers: Age of Ultron, and the more I read on the Internet (which is always my first mistake,) the more I find myself in the minority. So I have decided to pile my opinion on the heap of already stinking pile of dead opinions, like some glorious corpse pyramid, and write a review. I also want to warn you, right now, that THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD. (So if ye be behind the times and have not seen tharr film than ye best be shoving off land-lover for shores that... I can't keep the pirate thing up.) Come back after you have seen the movie.

I am going to start out by saying that I really really enjoyed the movie. However, I think that had more to do with the fact that with such big blockbuster movies I am really anticipating, I do my best to avoid any sort of speculation or possible spoilers. (I learned my lesson after Phantom Menace.) I even go so far as to restrict the trailers I see on the Internet so as to not ruin too much. I want to go in with as clean of a slate as possible. (Granted this has hurt me in cases such as with your Green Lanterns, but has proved generally a positive experience.) With that said, avoiding all knowledge of the movie (and obviously I have very extensive comic knowledge and lore to draw from,) is almost impossible. However, I believe that Age of Ultron hit all the strokes I was looking for: it was darker, filled with heroes, did a little setup for future projects, but mostly it was a fun Avengers movie, and I think that last part is important to remember.

A lot of people seem disappointed that this movie did not do more to raise the stakes for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. First of all, I would argue that it did, but secondly I would also argue that was not its job. This may be the eleventh Marvel movie in the MCU, but it is also only the second Avengers movie, and I think that is the better way to look at it. We all know the wheels are going to be coming off in Captain America: Civil War. Tony and Steve are going to be at each others' throats, but that conflict is not going to have any impact if there is not emotion more behind it, which I think AOU help set up.

The first Avengers movie was an origin story, the forming of the Avengers. And it was fun and great and big and explodey, but we did not get any time to see the team as a "team." This movie gave us that opportunity to see them just be Avengers and interact as friends and teammates. At the beginning of this movie we are made aware of the fact that the Avengers have been operating together long enough that they have battle maneuvers and code signals worked out. Tony has even made Avengers Tower for them and provides them with financial and technical support. That is great but as a member of the audience, I want to be able to see that dynamic. I want to see the Avengers being the Avengers and I think that is what this movie aimed to deliver. We have to see the bonds between Stark and Rogers, the missed chance between Widow and Banner, the glistening pectorals of Thors... What I got distracted there... Anyway, we can't just take the movie's word for it that these things exist. We need to see Captain America and Iron Man respect each other and have a friendship. This movie gave us the quiet moments we needed to understand the dynamic between the team, but it also sowed enough distrust among them to plant the seed for the coming conflict.

I was a little disappointed to see Quicksilver die, not so much that I enjoyed the character or the actor, but that I think the team is missing that hothead dynamic, which was so often filled by Quicksilver and Hawkeye in the comics. Still it was no real big loss, (and I suspect it has as much to do with not wanting to compete with the X-Men's Quicksilver,) but I am also way more excited about the possibilities that the appearance of the Vision have opened up. With the Mind Gem in his forehead I think there is a good possibility he will be playing a role that is more akin to Adam Warlock when it comes to the Infinity War, which I think is going to be a good fit. I was also excited for the inclusion of the MCU's B-list heroes (which in this context looks like it, unfortunately, stands for Black,) War Machine and Falcon, and their promotion at the end of the movie to full fledged Avengers. Falcon in particular is one of my personal favorite heroes and I am very happy to to see him finally get a little due. The creation of the Avengers training facility also gives later movies a device for introducing new heroes as Avengers Trainees.

It's funny because it Biblical.

As a side note, the cast list for Captain America: Civil War was announced last week, and it very much looks like the movie is going to be Avengers 2.5. That will be the movie that is going to take all the team dynamics and setup of this movie and really blow everything apart. However, I am disappointed to see that Daredevil was not on the cast list. I would have liked to see a tie-in with the Man Without Fear and the Civil War storyline. (After all, in the comics Daredevil has one of the coolest four panels of the entire crossover event.) There still might be hope that he could be in the movie as a last minute addition, however I was also disappointed to see that Phil Coulson was no where to be seen in AOU. I thought at least a cameo appearance on the helicarrier could have been a possibility.

Maybe it was cut for time. Joss Whedon apparently wanted to make a three and a half hour movie, but had to cut out a lot of the Thor storyline and even some scenes at the Barton farmhouse. (Can I buy that uncut version anywhere? Seriously, I'll pay for it.) This also bring me to my last point. I am a feminist in case you never realized, and I have no problem with the way Black Widow was treated in this movie.

A lot of people are complaining that she was set up as nothing but a love interest for Hulk. I would argue that is not true at all. If anything Banner was setup as a love interest for her. I saw the two more as a juxtaposition of one another. Natasha was not wrong when she called herself a monster, but the only difference between the former soviet assassin and the raging anger monster is that Banner can't hide his green side as well as Black Widow can. Even when Widow was captured by Ultron, she was never a damsel in distress. In fact, she is the reason the rest of the team was able to find Ultron's base of operations and stop him from enacting his final plan. Widow once again seems to prove that she is among the most capable of the Avengers, not a secretary or a love interest, but a full-fledged member of the team.

In fact, as it was expressed to me by a very good female friend of mine, "The only thing I find offensive about Black Widow is that she can keep her hair looking so perfect." To which I would add, so can Thor. This controversy is a non-controversy, except for the fact that it drove Joss Whedon from social media. Good job, morons. Here is a man who is both a fan and a creator, one of the only people that actually listens to fans and tries to make quality entertainment for us, and you drove him out of the conversation... *slow clap*

Age of Ultron was good. It was a good Avengers movie, it was a good Marvel movie, and it even manages to erect some bridges for what is to come. It is also going to make all the money... like all the money in existence. I have already seen it, but I would not be surprised if I wind up back in a seat on some lazy Saturday morning to watch it again. I rate it 9,000 stars, which means nothings... much like this review. I'm just ranting... go home... go away... I'm done.

I'm going to give it Disney on this one. Without there help this trailer could not have been possible.

Tropes: Stuffed in the Fridge

Tropes are all around us, on TV, in books, film, and video games. They  allow us to compartmentalize concepts so that our brains don't have to waste too much processing power over-thinking certain ideas, which is both good and bad. After all, when two guys show up with bad Italian/Brooklyn accents in nice suits, our brain tells us that they are gangsters and we don't have to over think it. The authors, directors, and character actors of the world would tell us this is a good thing. After all, these two goons will probably be killed off in the next scene by our hero and the audience doesn't need twelve minutes of back story to understand that Goon #2 joined the crime family after his mother's store was tragically lost in a fire and he had nowhere to turn for money but the crime boss that ran his old neighborhood, thus embroiling him in a life of crime that has caused part of his humanity to wear away even as he still regrets the terrible things that he has had to do, and all the while all he wanted to be was a baker. (Consequently, I think I also just wrote the biography of the Cake Boss.) See, even writing all that down in a semi-sarcastic manner took up more time and attention than might really be deserving of a character that will get a total of thirty seconds screen time. Tropes allow us to enjoy a story without getting bogged down in the minutia of what we are missing. Because otherwise, you get The Song of Ice and Fire, and we all know how long it takes George R.R. Martin to write one of those books.

However, tropes aren't always great either. After all, the Italian American League might have a problem with Goon #1 and Goon #2 being typical Tony Soprano-like figures. Not all Italians are in the mafia, after all. Similarly, not all women exist just to be tragically killed and left in household appliances... What am I talking about? I'm talking about the trope called "Stuffed in the Fridge," which is when a hero's loved one, usually a wife/girlfriend is killed in a gruesome manner and then left around for the hero to find and tragically cry over. This cliche than gives the hero something fight for and becomes an easy way for the audience to compartmentalize what drives the hero to do the extreme things he is forced to do. Now, technically this trope can apply to any family member: mother, father, brother, sister, wife, pet dog Skippy, etc. However the dead character is more likely to be a woman and the hero character is more likely to be a man. If you don't believe me, check out Gail Simone's website Women in Refrigerators for a complete list of women in comics that have been killed off for no other reason than to motivate the men in their lives to do something.

This is going to take a lot of boxes of baking soda.

The trope itself comes from a now famous Green Lantern comic, where the villain, Major Force, kills Kyle Rayner's girlfriend, Alexandra DeWitt, and literally stuffs her into a refrigerator so that Kyle can find her mutilated body, like some two month old pastrami left in the back of the fridge. Like I said before, tropes have their places and they aren't all bad, but there is something particularly negative about this one. First off, it is lazy writing. If you want to motivate your characters than put a little more thought into the process that, "pissed-off over dead girlfriend." Secondly, it uses women characters as nothing more than cheap props who live and die at the whim of their male counterparts. Whenever a writer needs a quick motivating factor there always seems to be some vanilla girlfriend/wife character hanging around to kill off. I mean otherwise that character would just get in the hero's way, wanting him to settle down and be domesticated and all, because everyone knows that's all women want... right? (That was sarcasm folks) Basically the trope puts the female character at the beckon call of the male hero. She's not there to be a fully formed character, but a pretty face on a photograph that is clenched angrily in the righteous fist of our burly man-hero, as he wrestles with desire for vengeance and his guilt over not being able to save his bland, pretty, vaguely characterized love interest. This is a trope and a way of thinking that is all too, unfortunately, common, especially in comic books.

Maybe that's why I am enjoying the irony of Agent Carter. (Wait, did he just switch into doing a television review?) Peggy Carter, or Captain America's girlfriend, is proving very much that she will not be so quietly stuffed into some womanly appliance. The irony of the show is that it is the big strong hero, Captain America, who is in fact dead (well she thinks so anyway,) and it's his death that is one of the driving factors in Peggy's personal crusade. In this instance the hero is gone, (he may not be stuffed in a fridge but he is in a place that's plenty cold,) and it's the "unimportant," girlfriend character that is left to do the ass-kicking. It's a parallel that was made pretty stark in the last episode, "Bridge and Tunnel," where the entire show was interspersed with snippets of the fictionalized Captain America Adventure Hour radio serial, featuring a typical damsel in distress character that only exists so that the fictionalized fictionalized Captain America can save her from those 'damn Nazis.'

Carter even gets her own, "Refrigerator" moment, when she discovers her roommate dead in bed with a bullet straight through her temple. It was a pretty textbook example of the trope, as well. The gruesome yet pointless death of a person close to the hero, meant to serve as nothing more than a motivating factor to further that hero's guilt/anger and story, except that in this instance, the hero is a woman. Unfortunately the person who was "Stuffed in the Refrigerator" was also a woman.

Feminism

I will admit that, Agent Carter, isn't perfect. After all Peggy Carter is so busy being brilliant and infallible that she has almost no flaws to speak of as she outsmarts every sexist man in her office. She is not a hero like Tony Stark, who can be arrogant, or Peter Quill, who can be kind of an idiot at times. For better or worse, because she is Marvel's first leading lady, she has to be better than human, which is both commendable and a little sad. I mean, from a 2015 perspective it is pretty easy to be on Carter's side as she is faced with a brand of 1940's sexism that is so blatant it would make J. Jonah Jameson feel ashamed. After all, we may waggle our finger when Carter's boss makes her do filing work or get everyone a cup of coffee, but we still don't bat an eyelash when Black Widow is put in a skintight cat suit. Yet, it is hard for me to be too harsh on the morals of Agent Carter. After all, they may not be perfect but at least she isn't occupying space behind the milk carton in the back of Captain America's ice-box.

The Signs of Interstellar

"They should have sent a poet."

Today is my birthday. I'm turning the big 3-1, which is great and all, but it really starts to make a man think about what he will be leaving behind. When you are just about a quarter of the way through your life, it starts to make you wonder what the future will hold, and what your legacy will be. Along those lines I found myself in the movie theater preparing for the three-hour journey that was Christopher Nolan's newest odyssey into loud noises, Interstellar.

Now I want to start this article by saying that I actually "kinda" liked this movie and I would recommend it. I also want to put it out there that I am not going to censor my thoughts on it, so SPOILERS AHEAD. Go watch the movie and come back and read this article.

I think above all, I appreciate the sentiment the most. Nolan hits us pretty heavy with the metaphors. A dying world, a population literally regulated to toiling in the dirt, the understanding that we have lost our spirit of exploration, all very appropriate for today's world, where all we send into space anymore are robots and Richard Branson. It is certainly a movie that tries to capture the thrill of those early Apollo missions, (among other things) and it nearly succeeds. It is for this reason I want to really really like this movie. Instead I find myself only "just" liking it, because for me it all starts with the science.

Everyone from Michio Kaku to Neil DeGrasse Tyson seems to have nothing but praise for this movie, because of its realistic portrayals of time dilation, black holes, and even a visually accurate representation of a wormhole, and I can't argue with that, (because I have never seen a wormhole.) Theoretical physicist, Kip Throne, was one of the producers of the movie, and aside from a few of the more minor nit-picky details, (such as the fact that McConaughey's ship would have been flash fried and irradiated by the black hole's accretion disk before he ever got close enough to fall into it,) the movie holds close to ideas found in Einstein's theory of relativity. Even if those concepts are so basic (such as the relationship between time and gravity) they can literally be found in any Physics 101 textbook (well maybe not in Missouri.) Really, it's once we enter the black hole that thing start to break down... for me.

If only that answer could give us some Signs.

The movie goes to great lengths to tell us that we cannot observe what happens inside a black hole, and that is completely right. Once you enter a black hole all known laws of physics start to break down, and so does the movie's artistic license (in my opinion,) because that is really when we see the movie make the jump from the realm of science to the realm of convenient plot device. You see, it's not really the science I have the problem with. Instead, it is Nolan's inability to decide what kind of movie he wants to make. Is Interstellar meant to be a call for a re-invigoration of human exploration? Is it a homage to Kubric? Is it a story about the how love conquers all? Or is a Deus Ex M. Night Shyamalan-esque concoction of events that are trying to lead us up to some big "ah-ha" moment?

First of all, the "twist," of who Murphy's Ghost is, is pretty evident from about five-minutes into the movie, and the fact that Nolan hits us on the head with bread crumb after bread crumb feels a bit ham-fisted, especially for him. Even worse, for a movie that wants to claim to be true to science, the plot is ultimately resolved not by hard-facts and calculations, but by "the unknowable power of love," and it was at the point of Anne Hathaway's "love transcends time and space," speech that the movie took a real turn for me. If Nolan had dropped all the puzzle pieces and just made a movie actually based around exploration and science and not some contrived "twist" ending, the whole thing would have been tremendously improved, in my opinion.

I didn't make that past M. Night Shyamalan comparison lightly. The way the movie sets up the ending felt a lot like Signs, with seemingly unconnected incidents coming together for some kind of cathartic payoff, and ultimately, it is Shyamlan I feel bad for. After all, Nolan is pulling off the exact same thing that poor M. Night gets crap for, every single time. Now I am not comparing their directorial styles, because Nolan is the better director by far, but more and more it seems he is trying to rely on this convoluted plot-device where you shove everything into a convenient little box by the end so that the audience can go "Ohhhhh, I get it." (Except for the solar-powered UAV scene. That went nowhere.) Regardless it is beginning to feel forced. I mean at least in Signs we were told to accept it because of "God," but in Interstellar we accept it because of what? "God-like beings who are possibly future versions of humans?" I'm not even going to get into the Fry-like grandfather paradox that whole scenario creates, because it will make your head spin.

"I did do the nasty in the pasty, with wormholes."
-5th Dimensional Future Humans

Now, I am a person that is pretty good at suspending his disbelief. You want to have me accept all the technology in Guardians of the Galaxy? That's fine. It's a fun movie and I don't care if Starlords' ship conforms with all Newtonian and Einsteinian laws of physics, because the movie isn't billing itself as being a science conformist. What irks me about Interstellar is that the advanced alien/future-us-beings that placed the wormhole near Earth, and basically transported Matthew McConaughey across time and space at the end of the movie, could have just as used their 5th dimensional powers to send an email to Michael Caine with the secrets of the math formula he was working on. Why did they have to engage in a convoluted plan to get McConaughey sucked into a black hole so he could communicate complex mathematical ideas to his daughter via morse-code-watch? Yet, even that is not the worst sin in my opinion.

The message of the movie is not that humans are explorers, or the indomitability of the human spirit, or the necessity of space travel, or even that science is cool. The message of the movie is that "the power of love conquers all, (including physics,)" which I am pretty sure was the same message as those Twilight movies. Nolan setup a movie that was supposed to be one of the most realistic science fiction movies ever made and then solved everything because "love is a thing." You can't always make an apple pie from scratch and then eat it too. You have to make a decision between being a movie about hard science and being a movie that asks the audience to wish really hard so that they can save Tinkerbell. You can't try to adhere to science and then say that "love is a greater force than gravity," especially when the only justification given is: that we are capable of loving someone who has died. I also hate a lot of people who have died too. Could McConaughey have saved the world through hatred, because the same principles apply?

Still, even that might have been salved for me if the movie had tried to end more realistically. McConaughey should have been killed (or even trapped) by the black hole. Fine, you can give him his communication of love with his duaghter through that M.C. Escher black hole, but then he has to die. Nothing escapes a black hole. Then you can end it by seeing Anne Hathaway's character arrive at her planet, and because of the time dilation she experienced while using the black hole to slingshot her there, she finds a thriving human colony. Those colonist could then tell her the story of how humanity was saved. Hell, you could even name the settlement Cooperstown or something like that, with a statue and everything, (if you really wanted to go for the gusto.) but they didn't do any of that. When the movie chose to save McConaughey from the black hole by 5th dimensional space magic, that is when Nolan shows his true colors of what he thinks is more important, science or happy endings.

"Nothing, not even light itself, can escape the forces of
a black hole... except Matthew McConaughey." -Carl Sagan

Science, and in particular space exploration, are the keys to humanity's future. I have always believed that and will continue to believe that even after they shoot my cold dead corpse out into space inside a proton torpedo casing while Scotty plays the bagpipes. Yet, I feel as if lately we have begun to move away from our pioneering roots. In that regard I was moved by this movie and its illustration of that plight. I want us to start going out among the stars again: space stations, moon colonies, Mars colonies, the works. We are quickly approaching the point in our history where we will have the technology to accomplish these amazing feats. In fact, tomorrow, the European Space Agency will be making the first ever soft-landing on a comet. That is amazing, but most people nowadays are barely aware it is even happening. I worry that even if the technology becomes viable for extended man space travel, will humanity still choose to to turn a blind eye to the stars. We need more movies like Interstellar to show us the necessity of space exploration, and the potential of humanity's future.

I will wrap this up, as this article is going almost as long as a Nolan movie. The truth is I did actually like the movie. Unfortunately, much like Inception I found Interstellar to be an enjoyable movie experience but not something I feel the need to repeat or even purchase when the inevitable blu-ray arrives on store shelves. The one thing Nolan was able to do was put a lot of quotable sound-bites in this movie, and as cliche as some of them are, they are also very true. So on this day, my 31st birthday, I will end by quoting Nolan, "Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here." If I can have one legacy for myself and the people of my generation, it is the hope that humanity will take that idea to heart, and embrace all the possibilities that accompany it.

Hooked on a Feeling

(I know this review is a little late, but a lot has been happening the past week, and I felt obligated to bump it due to the lose that we all recently suffered.)

For anyone who has not seen Guardians of the Galaxy yet, I say, "What!?!" But I know what you're thinking Mrs. Rhetorical Device I Am Using To Make A Point, ("I Am Using" was her maiden name,) "Its just another Marvel movie. I'm not in the mood for superheroes."

First off, you used "Its" improperly. You used the possessive form, meaning "of it." You should have used the contraction "it's" meaning "it is." Secondly: No. Guardians is more than just some superhero movie. It's a space opera in the vein of the original (i.e. the good) Star Wars. Sure it takes place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but the Guardians of the Galaxy are as much like the Avengers as the Three Stooges are like the Three Tenors, and that is the genius of Marvel.

Marvel Studios has a winning formula. A) Take a recognizable comic book hero (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, etc) and translate them semi-faithfully to the big screen. B) Slap a Marvel logo on it. C) Put a stinger after the credits that (may or may not) star Samuel L. Jackson. D) Rake in billions of dollars. E) Repeat ad infinitum.

Except they didn't follow Step E. Instead of playing it safe and giving us another predictable superhero story, (and don't get me wrong I love predictable superhero stories. After all, I own Daredevil on DVD,) Marvel took a risk. When Guardians of the Galaxy was announced even hardcore comic fans went, "huh?" and then immediately went to Wikipedia to read up on the who the heck they were so that they could answer the inevitable questions of their normie friends. Marvel could have given us Thor 3, or Black Panther, (which I am still hoping for,) or even Robert Downey Jr. Eats a Sandwich, and they would have made billions of dollars (see formula above,) but they didn't. They took a risk and for that I love them even more.

When most movie studios would just try to ride the high of their success until it inevitably crashed them onto the rocks of repetition, Marvel has realized something that other, more well establish, movie studios can't seem to get, "Keep it Fresh." There is this trend in Hollywood, where if one movie makes a lot of money, everyone should hurry up to make the exact same kind of movie and get there piece of the pie. They did it with Asteroids and Asteroids, the White House and the White House, and now even Hercules and Hercules, and most of those aren't even good films. More broadly they overdo genres until audiences are sick of them, disaster films, horror films, and whatever the hell Michael Bay decides to slap his name on. Transformers made 709.7 billion dollars, so let's make a GI Joe movie, and then a Ninja Turtles movie. For instance, (I'm not making this one up,) since the Lego Movie, scored it big at the box office, a Hot Wheels movie has now been fast tracked by Warner Bros. as well as movies that will be based on Ouija, Candyland, Monoply, Tonka Trucks, and even Peeps (yes those yellow disgusting Easter candies.)

What Hollywood doesn't get is that the Lego Movie made money, not because it was based solely on a beloved and timeless childhood toy, but because it was actually a good movie. It was witty, charming, funny, and it didn't take itself too seriously. Movie executives only see dollar signs, and by slapping a familiar look or brand name on a movie they know that they can make a quick couple of bucks, quality be damned, which is what makes Guardians of the Galaxy all the more impressive. In this atmosphere of repetition and death, Marvel has the ultimate brand name recognition at their fingertips, and instead they choose to go with a little known comic title and take a risk on a director whose credits include Scooby Doo, and Scooby Doo 2: Monster Island.

I like my ladies how I like my coffee... TARDIS blue

They let director James Gunn work his vision and his script and what we got was movie gold. Sure there were some small plot holes, but then you see a bald and blue Karen Gillian and for some reason the world seems right. I applaud Marvel for taking this risk. When other studios would be running out of ideas, they seem to just be getting started. Even Captain America: Winter Soldier (which was a guaranteed money maker) took some unusual risks, as the story read more like an espionage movie than a straight-up "save the world," superhero movie. It also seemed that the upcoming Ant-Man movie was originally very much going to be in this new genre bending trend, with it being billed as a superhero/heist movie, but with the departure of Edgar Wright I am taking a "wait and see" attitude.

Hopefully, this all means that Marvel is just getting started with what's to come. They are the studio that practically legitimized the superhero movie genre (before them it was just a fad.) Everything they have done has been copied by other studios, stingers, shared universes, etc. They could have sat back and just made a few more mediocre movies and trusted their name to make the money, but instead they took a risk, went out on a comic limb, and showed us what the future of comic movies could be. For that and so much more I love them. (Maybe DC can learn a lesson from their playbook.) With any luck the wit-and-styled feel of Guardians will be one thing that other superhero movies copy. It's time to start playing with the genre in fun and interesting ways, but all of that is for the future. Right now, I want to live in the present and go see Guardians of the Galaxy again. (And so should you.)

Reviews No One Will Read: Hearthstone

I have been procrastinating on writing this blog, but for once, it's not my fault (at least not entirely.) You see a few months back I was accepted into the beta for Hearthstone, the newest game from Blizzard Entertainment, the company that brought us such titles as World of Where the Hell Did the Past Two Years of My Life Go, and Deckard Cain's Bogus Journey. Yet, Hearthstone is not your typical Blizzard title. It's not about finding loot, leveling up skills, or even sending your roided up Marines to their death against hordes of angry Zerglings. No, on its face Hearthstone is just a simple and easy card game, but much like the large pile of fast accumulating clothes in the corner of my room, there is something much more surprising hidden deep inside.

Hearthstone is Blizzard's attempt to break into the casual gaming market. It's the realm of gaming mostly reserved for birds with anger issues, social networking farmers, and some game where you pulverize pieces of candy and then pay money (for some reason.) However, unlike those other games it is done with a flair that is unique to the company who created such classics as Chess II: Chinese Chess. In five simple words, this game is addicting. It's so deceptively simple that you find yourself getting hooked in relatively no time. Built on the world of World of Warcraft, it is fun an colorful, and requires no special knowledge of WoW to play. There is a twist, because unlike card games like Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, or that other game that wants to be Pokemon, Hearthstone offers nine different types of decks with nine different types of characters. You can choose from being a Hunter, Priest, Warlock, Shaman, Druid, Mage, Warrior, Rogue, or Paladin. Each character has cards unique to his or her own deck as well a special power they can use once a turn. For instance the Paladin can summon a 1/1 soldiers, but the Mage can hurl a one point damage fireball to any enemy or player they wish. These special cards and abilities are further enhanced by the presence of a pool of general cards which a player can choose from. It's hard not compare a game such as this to Magic: The Gathering, as both games use a pool of mana to play cards, but unlike MTG a player's mana pool in Hearthstone naturally increases by one point every level until reaching a maximum of ten. Additionally, with the exclusions of interrupts, instants, or other "play at any time" cards, Blizzard has created an equally infuriating and enjoyable experience by streamlining the game down to its simplest form.

Now, that is not say that there is not a lot of strategy and complexity involved. Each character lends itself better to a different play style. A Warrior will tend to be more aggressive, with many cards that utilize charge and weaponry, while a Priest may emphasize a deck geared more toward controlling the board and his opponent. Yet, even with that said there are a myriad of possibilities, tactics, and combos that can be made just by rearranging a few cards in your deck. Do you want a rush Druid or a direct damage Warlock? It may not always work, but the game will not stop you from trying, and better yet if you pull it off you're going to surprise the seven hells out of your opponents, and really isn't that what's it all about? Creatively beating some poor sap into submission with a combo of cards he or she never saw coming?

An example of a game that can still go either way and leave one player
kicking in his computer tower with impotent rage.

Ultimately, there is no other point of the game except to beat whatever poor schmuck you get randomly paired against. It's not like Diablo III where there are side quests (there are daily quests, but that's not the point) or monsters to slay, with the occasional interaction with other players. No, Hearthstone is more akin to the PvP arena in WoW, (and we all know how calming of an experience that can be.) It's competition at its most basic level. You see, as fun as the game gets it won't be long before you find yourself wanting to put your fist through the drywall because some jerk on the verge of death pulled out an amazing epic card that saved his half-charred butt at the last second. Of course, sometimes you will be that jerk and then you may find yourself putting your fist through the dry wall in exhilaration, (On a side note, I just realized I'm probably not getting my security deposit back on my apartment,) and that is where Blizzard gets you. Hearthstone is a lot like gambling in that you quickly find yourself getting swept up in the highs and lows of this deceptively simple game. The analogy is only enhanced by the fact that you also win coins for completing quests or winning consecutive games. You can then use that gold to buy new cards or to pay entry into the arena, where you are literally competing for more gold.

I'm not saying this bad, but I am saying it is genius on the part of Blizzard. It is also the reason why I can no longer write on the same computer that Hearthstone is installed on, because I can't resist playing "just one more match." You see the games last less than fifteen minutes, so they don't feel like they are eating up your day, but after four or five games you look up and realize an hour has passed, your pizza is laying burnt in the oven, your loved ones aren't talking to you anymore, you haven't showered for days, and you haven't posted a blog in two weeks. Unlike WoW, where, when you log onto the game, you have the expectation of wasting several hours, Hearthstone's format and quick succession of games can eat away your day before you realize it. This is a testament to the power of Blizzard, and a trouble for the rest of us that are trying to get work done. Even worse, with Hearthstone coming to tablets and phones, I don't know if there will be any place that will be left for me to hide.

Overall, it's hard for me to find anything particularly bad to say about this game, other than its addicting properties, (but you expect that with any title released by Blizzard.) Perhaps, some of the epic cards are a bit overpowered to the point where they can destroy even the most creative and effective strategies of an opponent, but I would also have to say that is kind of the point of epic cards. If you are looking for a fun casual game to fill time in your life, download Angry Birds, but if you are looking for an epic card game that allows you to harness a world of endless card combinations, creative strategies, and lets you compete against other players then Hearthstone is for you. It is a game that has something for video and tabletop gamers alike, and best of all you don't even have to expend brain power to keep track of hit points and mana costs. 

I give it 8.5 Billion Stars out of 10 Billion Stars. Download it for free and say goodbye to the next few weeks of your life. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to... something else I was doing.

[I will taking the month of July off, as I will be visiting Asia. I promise I will have plenty of embarrassing stories and halfwit observations when I get back, so stay tuned, my friends. It only gets better form here.]

How Neil deGrasse Tyson Made Me Cry

For anyone not watching the new Cosmos on Fox, you are missing out, and I say that sentence with none of my usual ironic bite or snarky superiority. I literally mean to say, you are missing out. I have nothing but praise for this series. I can't think of one thing wrong with it. I should probably just end my review here and leave it at that, but when have I ever been brief in my writing? (That was a rhetorical question by the way.) Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey just premiered its fourth episode last Sunday on Fox, and it has yet to fail to disappoint. It is spectacular in all aspects: the visual effects, the mind-blowing facts, the animated historical portions, the magnificent musical score, and all brought into crystal clear focus by the sonorous baritone voice of Neil deGrasse Tyson. It is like forty-four minutes of heaven, (with numerous commercial breaks,) an ironic comparison since Creationists would call it anything but.

Cosmos has been in development for years. Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's widow, who helped bring the world the original Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, along with astrophysicist, Steven Soter, and Neil "Need's No Introduction" deGrasse Tyson, have been pushing the idea of rebooting and updating Sagan's dream for a while now. The goal was to inspire a new generation with the mysteries of the natural world in the way that so many people were inspired by Sagan's vision. Unfortunately the project floundered for some years until helped along by the only person that has more power at the Fox network than Rupert Murdoch, Seth MacFarlane. To some he may seem an unlikely hero in this story, after all Family Guy isn't exactly quality educational programing, but the truth is that MacFarlane has always had an affinity for the science and space exploration. Anyone who was ever fans of Star Trek: Enterprise knows that much. (So myself and Scott Bakula.) MacFarlane was one of those small boys inspired by the first Cosmos series and he is a life-long Trekkie. Maybe then it was no coincidence that Brannon Braga of Star Trek: Next Generation fame signed on to direct, and Sir Patrick Stewart became available to lend his voice. After all Star Trek and Sagan have always existed as two sides of the same coin.

You know what is amazing about this image of
the Pismis 24 star cluster? It's not CGI. It's real.
It actually friggin exists. Space is amazing.

Personally, I have been an enthusiast of quantum physics, astronomy, and astrophysics for years now. I even wrote a primer on the subject. So even though none of the evidence and revelations presented by Cosmos is nothing new to me, such fore knowledge has not served to dampen my reverence for the show and its science. For me it is almost a religious experience, seeing the wonder, the possibility, and the majesty of our world laid out in beautiful CGI HD brilliance, but there is a heart-break there as well. There is so much out there for the human race to know and explore. We belong among the stars, we deserve to be out there, and yet we are held back by the skeletons in our closets and the demons of our past. Reading the tweets of blind faith Creationists makes my head hurt. Creationism still gets taught in some science classrooms. We spend more money making rockets that kill people than rockets that put people on the moon. It makes me want to leave this planet behind and find a better one, out among the stars, and then I get sad all over again because I don't have a spaceship that operates outside the laws of Einstein's Laws, (or one that is little more than a soda bottle filled with Pepsi and Mentos.) In a lot of ways it feels like we have lost our old spirit, that boundless wonder that drove us farther and deeper into the path of the unknown. Now, when I look around at the human race all I see are people clinging to old dogmas and past glories, faded as gray as the hair of our elected officials.

Yet, I don't want to dwell on that. Cosmos is too good for me to cloud it with the pessimism of my fears. I anxiously anticipate the return of Game of Thrones and the opening of Captain America: Winter Soldier, but more than even, that I find myself looking forward to the next episode of the Cosmos, because as cool as everything else is in my nerdtastic life is, they will never compare to the awe I feel (every time) I look up up at the stars. Imagine what else must be out there, worlds full of possibilities. Many Christians take it as a slight that we humans developed from animals, or that we are nothing more than small specks floating on a slightly larger speck, but I think it is wondrous. It makes us no less special than anything else out there. In my opinion, it means we are even more special than we previously thought. We are not the center of the universe. We may only be animals, but we are also molecules and atoms, the exact same matter that once cooked in the heart of ancient stars. I don't know if God exists, but I do know that we are not separate from the cosmos around us, we are part of it.

We are the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out, and so maybe the answer you are looking for is: Yes, thinking about that makes me tear up, and I'm not even certain why. More importantly, why don't more people get excited by this? Amazed by this? Moved to be a part of this? Hopefully, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Cosmos will help change that.

Red Dumb

Ironically in most of Hemsworth's movies he seems to
have brother issues... also buns of steel.

I have been slowly coming to a realization over the past few years. Either Hollywood is becoming dumber or I am becoming smarter. (That's for my reader to decide.) Then again, maybe "smarter" is not the right word. It is just an awareness of the world around me, but unfortunately the same cannot be said about movies. Maybe, that is why I like fantasy and science fiction movies, because I feel more willing to suspend my sense of disbelief when stepping onto the fields of Middle Earth or  the deck of the Enterprise (though sufficed to say, I had more than a few problems with the last two movies in both those franchises as well.) Regardless my point seems to be: the more I watch "mainstream" movies, the more I find myself pointing out their flaws instead of enjoying any of the good parts.

Let me backtrack and explain where this is all coming from. The other night I was bored and flipping through Netflix (often the start of any disappointing adventure.) The Internet streaming service offered me, Red Dawn, (The remake, not the original), because it was just new to Netflix, and though I had no real desire to see the movie I decided to watch it. It's the same reasoning I use when someone leaves cake out at my work. I don't really want it, but damn you, it's cake. Maybe I was in the mood for action, or possibly just hoping that it might turn out to be a prequel to Thor, (or a follow-up to Drake and Josh.) I was let down on all accounts, and not because it was a terrible movie, (it was,) but because I couldn't get past the fact that the premise of the plot was ridiculous, (and mind you, I am the same person that will defend to the death a movie about a man in a bat suit fighting a man dressed up as a clown.) Character-wise and even plot-wise, I actually have no real major complaints (other than the fact that I cared very little for the characters or the course of the story in general.) Again it was like that office cake. As long as you get around the artificial sugar and texture it wasn't that bad, but it also wasn't that good. Now both have left me with a feeling of reget.

Pictured: North Korea's Special Weapons Laboratory

Red Dawn bases itself on the premise that North Korea is somehow able to develop a weapon that can knock out all American electronic equipment while still leaving their own operational. You know because a country that has spent years struggling to develop a nuclear weapon (a weapon we have been able to build since before "TV" was a thing,) and cannot feed its people could easily develop a highly technological and specialized EM pulse weapon that defies the laws of electromagnetism. What irks me the most, is that the opening and cliched "news footage montage," played up the idea of the danger of cyber terrorism and enemy hackers being a problem, and then immediately never mentioned it again as soon as we saw Chris Hemsworth. I could have much more readily believed that a talented enemy hacker(s) were capable of crashing America's outdated and vulnerable energy grid than the fact that North Korea developed some kind of sci-fi super weapon... and the result for the plot would have been the same. It didn't even go to the trouble of setting it even ten or fifteen years in the future. No, Hemsworth's character is a US marine home after fighting in Afghanistan, and along with shots of President Obama, that sets the plot solidly in the present.

And that is my real issue with the movie, because in the current geo-socio-economic-poltical climate, the movie is completely impossible, and utterly ridiculous. Therein, lies the root of the problem with Red Dawn and movies like it. They require me to completely forget everything that is going on in the world that would very easily invalidate the very cornerstone they are built upon. So instead of suspending my belief they just remind me how stupid the premise is, over and over and over again. I had a very similar problem with Olympus is Fallen with Gerard Butler, (a movie that friend and I saw on a boring rainy Saturday.) They want to be as realistic as possible, but then hit us with a scenario that defies all real-world logic.

Both movies start to suffer at the same point. They both try to turn North Korea into some kind of super-badass threat, when in truth, Kim Jong Crazy and ilk are barely blips on the "threat to America" scale. Yet for movies they are the closest thing we have to modern day cohesive villains. (Now more than ever, I think Hollywood is really missing the Soviets and the Nazis.) Granted they still remain a threat to places like South Korea and even Japan, but a country that has to photoshop in additional military vehicles into their own army propaganda posters are not really going to be threatening the mainland US anytime soon. Both movies also suffer by asking their audience to forget that there are things outside of America or even outside the movie plot. Red Dawn is especially guilty of this.

Unless North Korea plans to attack us with crappy
picture-editing skills, I think we're pretty safe.

The movie says that North Korea is able to not only attack but invade both coasts of the United States, (with some veiled and "never fully discussed" help from Russia, because "hey remember those guys,") completely by surprise. Then aside from some of the mid-western states, the Koreans are then able to hold and control a conquered America, (not even just the west coast, which would have made it at least a little more believable... a little more.) I spent the rest of the movie waiting for a more detailed explanation of how this happened, but the closest thing we get is some half-assed explanation about how North Korea has the fourth largest army in the world... and though that is an accurate fact, do you know who has the second largest army in the world? The United States... (I looked up the original movie on Wikipedia, and found that the old movie has a much more cohesive and comprehensive background that sets it in an alternate timeline, but at least makes the invasion credible and possible.) 

Also this movie's crackpot explanation about some kind of EM pulse weapon goes right out the window because for the rest of the movie we watch characters not only drive cars, but turn on lights, and use their cell phones to take pictures. The movie also conveniently forgets things like the fact that America has satellites and radar, things that can monitor troop or vehicle movement (and, no doubt right now, there are at least a dozen of those things pointed at North Korea) and would notice anything leaving the Korean peninsula, like a large invasion force. Also the movie forgets that other countries are a thing. What about Canada and Mexico? Did they get invaded? Don't you think our North American allies might have a problem with the occupation of the US? And what about Europe? I think the UK might try to step in. Germany, Spain, Belgium, hell even France would probably bat an eye lash or two. Also the United States military has (by some accounts) almost 1,000 permanent and temporary bases located in at least 38 countries around the world. I feel like they would definitely have something to say on the matter. Even China would probably get a little pissed off. I mean who is going to buy all the crap being pumped out of their factories? I just can't wrap my head around this premise. A Galactic Empire controlled by an evil space sorcerer and his asthmatic robot helper... sure... Josh Peck waging a guerrilla campaign against North Korean invaders... nope.

"Mr. Secretary we have one hour to evacuate our troops
from South Korea or they execute the President..."
"Sir, we have roughly 28,500 military personnel, hundreds
of land, air, and sea vehicles, multiple bases of operation,
and large detachments of our Pacific Fleet currently in and
around South Korea, and you want them evacuated in 24
hours? That's just physically impossible, and stupid."

The fact is, my awareness of things like "the world," completely shatters this type of movie for me. I can't even enjoy it as some kind of sugary American patriot porn. The movie very much wants the audience to be all, "Huzzah!" over the fact that a ragtag band of American rebels is fighting and dying against a large evil empire bent on taking away their freedoms and enslaving their land. That's almost the kind of idea I can get behind, then the movie goes and reminds us that Hemsworth's character was a marine in Afghanistan, and understands how the invading Koreans feel and think, and then the Wolverines get irrevocably associated with terrorist attacks... and then we all feel kind of crappy again. Because suddenly the movie starts to seem less like a rip off of an old Cold War action movie, and more like a sad and ironic allegory for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan... Huzzah? (Even that I would find at least a little interesting if it was intentionally done by the writers and directors of the movie... it wasn't.)

I would say that these types of movies are aimed at the less aware and more self-involved Americans out there, but I don't even believe that is true. I mean the movie tanked at the box office, as did a movie that recently asked us to believe that Jamie Fox was the President of the United States. So, I am not entirely sure of what audiences these types of movies are aimed at. The truth is that in today's globalized environment, the world is not the only thing that is shrinking. The number of people who are less aware of what is going on in the world shrink a little bit each day with the speed of a Google search. Whereas in the past these movies may have been nothing more than a bit of "pointless fun," now they just seem demeaning to the national intelligence of the country, if not the world. Hollywood is going to have to wake up and realize that (nor it's movies) can no longer exists in isolated bubbles of explosions and attractive Australian actors. On the other hand, these are the types of movies that come out during the dead and sad months between Summer and Christmas, after the Iron Mans of the world have gone away and the Hunger Games have yet to start. 

So maybe that is the answer. Maybe these movies really are just like that cake that got left out in the break room. Nobody really wants them, they're just there, and at first look seem halfway decent, coated in sugar, a hint of something sweet, maybe even with a colorful topping. Your first bite isn't even that bad. You think for a moment, "okay, this might have been worth it," but by the halfway point you begin to understand the true journey of disappointment you have embarked on. Yet, you power through because let no one ever say that you didn't see this crappy piece of trash through to the end. Once its over you set aside your plate and look at the crumbs of despair left behind by the misery you just endured, and all you feel is a little sick and yet still strangely empty on inside, almost as if there was nothing satisfying about what you just ingested. All you are left with is disgust and regret, and some vague hope to justify what you just did... At least Chris Hemsworth kept his shirt on.

Lessons Learned From a Wedding

I wonder where they registered?

I would warn of spoilers, but at this point, I think, the cat is out of the bag, has been beheaded, and is currently adorning the walls of the Red Keep, as the events of the ninth episode of Game of Thrones are being widely discussed on the intra-web. However, I will warn people anyway… SPOILERS TO FOLLOW…

I sat staring at the television screen. The credits rolled by, like a meaningless crawl of foreign symbols and marks too beyond comprehension to read. I did find the wherewithal to shut off the television before their end so as not to disrupt the black quietness I was feeling. I had just watched the events of the now infamous Red Wedding. (It was so infamous that the TV show never once mentioned the name, Red Wedding, yet everyone knows it.) I was alone and feeling scared and disturbed. So like a woman who had reached the bottom of her Ben & Jerry's I called my friend to talk. I have to admit, I didn’t see the episode's end coming, (a hard feat for me these days,) though in hindsight I should have. We all should have.

Remember when they chopped off Ned Stark’s head in Episode 9, Season 1. He was the fraking main character and they killed him without thought or remorse, (and by they, I mean George R. R. Martin.) When that happened it announced to the world that nothing was sacred. No one was safe, and in response the world rejoiced at the trill of it, (except for poor Sean Bean, who seems destined to play heroically tragic figures that die near the end of the first installment of any epic fantasy genre series.) The viewing public watched Ned die and went, “Anything can happen! This is awesome.”

The reaction to the events of the Red Wedding was similar if you don’t account for voice inflection, “Anything can happen! Hold me.” Yet, why is it we feel this way when we were so clearly warned? I think that at the crux of the answer to that question, we will find the greatness of Martin and the TV series. I do not want to discount the book series, which is quite amazing in its own right, but I would argue not as a unique of an experience in comparison to the TV show. In books, we find authors with more free reign to do as they please with characters and settings, but in the embittered and political realm of TV, the rules tend to be a bit more predictable. Viewing audiences like to be surprised, but don’t like to be uncomfortable. Shows should take risks, but only up to a certain point. If you go too far, you’ll lose the crowd. A series should be clever and complex, but not so complex that the audience gets confused or feels frustrated. However, time and time again, Game of Thrones has broken the rules and the we cannot get enough.

The death of Rob Stark, his mother, and the entire King of the North storyline, (told you there would be spoilers,) is epic because it took the greatest risk of all, it stayed true to the book. In a world where the audience is sometimes protected from harsher realities, we live in a TV world where the hero is saved at the last minute by some miraculous stroke of deus ex machina that arrives just in the nick of time to make everything okay. Martin doesn’t adhere to that. Be sure that he dangles such possibilities out there, but always brings us crashing back to cold hard (fictional) reality with sobering frequency. We are left (all the more) bitter for the trick, the last glimmer of hope we clung to, as its falseness is confirmed. In fact, in an interview he gave he said that The Song of Ice and Fire was about subverting expectations. The death of the Ned, and the failed revenge of his son, are all so hard to believe because it goes against our expectations, and that’s a good thing.

Even more so, the show did not shy away from using its visual aspect to fully drive the point home. Notice that with the death of Ned in the first season the violence was contained and censored. The audience was not yet ready to see the graphic death of everyone’s favorite protagonist, but by the third season, the series was ready to not only show you the death of people you cared about, but never flinch or turn away. That is important, as more than anything it drove the point home. It proved how invested people were in the story and how much it could affect them. It showed how well written it all was and maybe even how important the characters were to us (Even if they were no one's top three.)

Even now as I think back on the stunning moment I cannot get the visual of Rob’s wife being stabbed. It was that shocking moment that started the violence, and delivered an image that was burned into my mind despite how much I wish it wasn’t. It affected me on an emotional level. In fact the entire sequence brought me through a range of grief and emotion: sadness, anger, desperation, hopelessness, and fear. I did not want to see Rob or Caitlyn or any of the Starks die, anymore than I would have wanted to see my friends or family murdered in their steads. Yet, it happened, and it affected me on a level I was not prepared for. I wasn’t alone either.

Clever things make people feel  stupid,
and unexpected things make them feel scared

Judging by the raw shock and sadness that spilled over onto the social media, I cannot deny how deeply people were affected. I wonder how many people said, “I’m never watching this again,” but we all know that you can’t stop. You won’t, because those words were just spoken in the heat of a vulnerable moment. They aren’t any truer than the time you told your mother you hated her or when you called that guy on the parkway a racial slur that you didn’t actually mean. (Seriously though, you’re not supposed to drive on the damn shoulder… I don’t care how much traffic there is.) I suppose what I am trying to get at is, that this is good. This is real and extremely impressive, and this kind of mass emotion is something I would have never expected from a TV series.

I did not have a conversation for a full week that did not start with, “Did you see Game of Thrones on Sunday?” usually spoken with a haunted and desperate look. People wanted to talk about. They needed to talk about it. It was palpable grief that needed to be let out into the air and discussed, as if we were all looking for answers to a shared tragedy. Yet, there are no answers, and that is the point of it all. Sometimes life doesn't make sense and sometimes death and destruction steps in at the most inopportune times to remind us of that. People will come back to watch Game of Thrones not just despite this event, but because of it. 

Good writing affects people. It makes us care about characters and events, like how we cared about Cat and Rob and his quest. Their death doesn’t diminish our caring it just gives us more emotion, (different emotions,) about it. Yet those aren’t bad either, because if there is something out there that can affect us, (and not just one or two of us) this deeply, then you know it has to be good. Martin says the end to it all will be, “bittersweet,” but that is for the future. Life is bittersweet, but when you really think about it, you don’t live life to get to the end. You live it for the experiences and the ride. That is what Game of Thrones is, and that is why we will keep coming back. Because, much like life, what other choice to do we, but to keep on going.

 

Star Trek: Into The Darkside

One's a blowhard, leap-first/ask questions later, dictator, whose
brash decision making continuously puts the Enterprise in
danger... The other is Captain James T. Kirk... Baazing...

I've mentioned before how doomed the Star Wars franchise is. More and more Star Wars is looking like it has an exposed thermal exhaust port ripe for the exploding. I mean if the opening on the first Death Star had been as big as some of the plot holes in the prequel trilogy, then Luke wouldn't have had to use the Force. Hell, he could've even used Apple Maps to guide that torpedo shot. Now after having seen Star Trek: Into Darkness the imminent death of my all-time favorite franchise seems all but assured.

This is not going to be a review of the newest installment of the Star Trek franchise, after all there is plenty of angry nerds out there exhorting the numerous plot holes, convoluted story lines, nonsensical ranking/organization of this "Abramsverse" Starfleet, and the other dissatisfactions of the most recent movie, (and if you are looking that kind of review I suggest you check out The Nerd Blog for a fairly complete breakdown of the film.) I will say that I didn't hate the movie as much as I probably should have. Yes, Abrams butchered one of the best Trek plot lines and effectively neutered (and swapped nationalities of) one of Trek's best villains, but I can appreciate what they tried to do in the grand scheme of things. I mean at last the movie was still better than The Dark Knight Rises.

What really irks me is how Abrams tends to handle everything. Its like Nero's ship went back in time and created an alternate universe where all the people became young and sexy, all action became fast paced, decisions didn't always have to make sense, and Starfleet's new motto became Deus Ex Machina, (as opposed to Ex Astris, Scientia,) "but who cares, as long as it sells tickets, right?.." And that's the problem. Abrams likes to say he cares about making a good movie, but what he really means is that he cares about making a profitable movie. Star Wars fans should take this as a bad sign.

Professor: Good Lord! That's over 5000 atmospheres of pressure!
Fry: How many atmospheres can the ship withstand?
Professor: Well, it was built for space travel, so anywhere
between zero and one.
(Read about why this scene is stupid and implausible)

What people (George Lucas included) seem to forget is that Star Wars didn't start out with the sole purpose of making money. In 1977 Lucas was an unknown director who created some kind of new and far fetched space opera that no one had ever heard of before, and no one thought it would make any money (Lucas included,) but that didn't matter. That wasn't the point, because Star Wars had something deeper. Yes, it had ground-breaking special effects for the time, but at the core of A New Hope it was about the universal story of a farmboy taking the hero's journey and finding something buried within himself. It wasn't the lightspeed or the climatic X-Wing battle that made Star Wars beloved (though they were both very cool and impressive,) it was the heart of the story and how it spoke to something deeper about who we were as humans. The fact that it made money was an added surprise.

Episodes VII, VIII, IX, and the (sigh) one-shot movies about Han Solo and Boba Fett will not (no matter how many times they try to make you think it is) ever be about that deeper mythology or the universal themes of humanity. It will always be about making money, especially now that the films are under the control of Disney. Remember John Carter? (Most people don't.) The House of Mouse took a Victorian fantasy/sci-fi piece that had boundless potential for story-telling and made it into a CGI orgasm of little-to-no substance. They will do it again to Star Wars and there is no decision that optimizes that more than the hiring of J.J. Abrams as director. He is going to take the heart from Star Wars just as he did from Star Trek.

If Star Wars has always been about deeper and grander themes of myth, villainy, and heroism, than Star Trek has always been about philosophical and social commentary. The Original Series was the first TV show to depict minorities as officers and leaders, instead of just caricatures. The show and its predecessors tackled important and relevant social themes of the day including, the Vietnam War, racism, the Cold War, Big Brother, and issues of security versus liberty. It was a truism for Star Trek from the very first episode to the end of the last (Picard-era) movie. If Star Wars was meant to speak to the common myths we all hold within ourselves and our experiences, than Star Trek was meant to speak to the smaller (yet no less important) shared philosophical and ethical debates of our lives, (even if dropped the ball on LGBT issues,) but with this new movie all I find is a Star Trek universe that is all flash and no heart.



An Honest Star Trek Trailer

I am not saying the old Trek always got it right, they didn't. There were plenty of bad story lines and convoluted plot points, but at least they had the audacity to try. Abrams Star Trek is exactly what you would expect, a popcorn sci-fi action movie with enough moments of comedy and sexual innuendo to placate the masses of summer movie-goers. Its a characterization that might have been understandable for the 2009 movie, but for the 2013 movie I looking for something more. This movie missed an incredible opportunity to follow in its predecessor's footsteps and talk about deeper issues, such as terrorism, friendship, and the difference between doing what is expected and doing what is right. I am not saying the movie didn't try to touch on these themes, but it felt glossed over and lackluster at best. It was as if they shuffled them forward so that we could make it just in time to see the next high-flying action sequence.

How will this affect the new Star Wars? I suppose only time will tell, but I am not hopeful. After all when you take out the myth, (the heart) of Star Wars you are left with... Episode I, and that is why the prequel movies failed. They lacked the mythological heart of their predecessors (for a few reasons,) but ultimately because the George Lucas of 1997 was not the same George Lucas of 1977. One was looking to make a deeply satisfying movie (consequences be damned,) the other was looking to appeal to kids so he could sell more toys and McDonald's meals. When you think about it, that is part of the reason why we can accept Ewoks but not Jar Jar Binks. At least the stormtrooper slaughtering teddy bears appeared as part of the greater mythology. The later was just there to pedal the movies to kids like some kind of racially stereotyped drug dealer. I cannot imagine that these new movies will be any better, given the CGI heavy, and "movie by committee" approach that is so common in Hollywood in today.

 

(I am going to digress, please feel free to skip this paragraph.) In many ways the rise of CGI has been both a blessing and a curse to Hollywood. Cheap special effects means that directors have the means to make their movies look big budget, even when they're not. This also means that they can more easily discard storyline and character development for explosions and starfighter dogfights. In franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars the danger for this is even higher. For example, Star Trek: Into Darkness finds itself focusing way too much on action and relies on making Star Trek in-jokes to try and remind audiences of the character bonds that existed between the Shatner/Nimoy crew in order to keep from "wasting" screen time on character interaction between the new Pine/Quinto crew. This is exactly where Hollywood is failing. CGI is not meant to replace story but enhance it. In a lot of ways the limited special effects budget of the old TV show made Star Trek what it is today. Without the ability to depict grand battles between starships writers and producers had to rely on solid and meaningful storytelling that helped to build beloved characters and a deep mythology.

 

Abrams, cannibalized and piece-mealed part of that deeper complexity to make his movie, taking only the actions and aesthetics, and leaving behind much of their inner meaning. He will do the same to Star Wars. According to Wired.com: Despite the alternate “Abramsverse” timeline created for 2009′s Star Trek and Into Darkness, they were still prequels and [Abrams] had to play by some pre-established rules... Lucasfilm/Disney seem poised to create new Star Wars tales from whole cloth, not pick up threads from previous canon, which gives Abrams’ movie a lot more space (literally, figuratively) to play in. More than anything, I find that statement worrying. Let me explain why.

 

This is soon going to be the least racy/sexual thing you have
ever seen in the Star Wars Universe... just ask every female
cast member of the new Star Trek movies.

I don't consider myself a Trekkie (despite my deep love and affection for Star Trek,) but I have seen every episode of every TV show and every movie ever made about the Star Trek universe, so trust me when I say: Star Trek's canon is loose at best. Star Trek stories are notorious for retconning existing story lines, characters, and even existing races into something they were never meant to be, (sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.) Maybe that is why Abrams interpretation of Star Trek does not irk me as much as it does other Star Trek fans, because in the grand scheme of things their canon was always kind of shifting and loose. Star Wars on the other hand has always been held to a rigid canon of events, with very few exceptions. It is a canon that has been enforced on writers and artists for decades by Lucasfilm itself, and a canon that has very tightly established the events, the major players, and the intricate history of the Star Wars universe after the events of Return of the Jedi. That means there very much are pre-established rules for making a Star Wars movie set in that era, much stricter than any imposed on any Star Trek set in an alternate universe.

 

We have seen what Abrams does to such an alternate universe where he is allowed to play with ships and phasers and aliens. Now we are giving him the keys to a prime universe where he doesn't have to follow any of the already established norms or timelines that Lucasfilm itself so rigidly held for virtually anyone else who wanted to play in the Star Wars sandbox. I have no doubt the end result will be a string of summer blockbusters, but it will also be the death of my most beloved science fiction franchise. In many ways I owe my geekiness and (by extension) my very personality and being to Star Wars. It helped shape me and create the person I am today. Abrams and Disney and George Lucas are going to destroy that franchise, and with it a small part of me.

 

Maybe I will be surprised. Maybe these movies will be the greatest thing to ever happen to me and Star Wars, but I find it unlikely. With a playground of starfighters and Jedi Knights I doubt Abrams is going to be able to resist giving us action sequence after action sequence at the expense of the true spirit of Star Wars. I am now, more and more, convinced that the deeper myth of that far far away galaxy existed, only, a long time ago. After all, according to E-Online: Forget the Star Wars novels. Forget the graphic novels. Forget everything you think you know about what happens to Luke Skywalker... Episode 7 will literally be nothing you've ever seen or read before from the Star Wars universe.... I think on that much, at least, we all can agree.