I admit it. I have no idea what to really call this movie. If I call it Star Trek, people will think of The Original Series (more familiar to me as TOS perhaps), if I call it Star Trek XI, people won’t associate it with the movie posters, or the idea of the movie, being a prequel, and the younger internet generation will likely think I just added some kind of skull and crossbones smiley after Star Trek because I want it to die . . . or have some sort of a necrophiliac fetish for J.J. Abrams. Some are calling it Star Trek Zero, but that won’t do, as my mouth still rings with the aspartame solution of Coke’s latest failure.
All of this is quite beside the point that I’m trying to reach here, though. What I want to talk about it set design. Some pictures have finally surfaced, and the trailer will be coming out soon (a real one, not just another teaser), although the movie has been pushed back to the summer, demonstrating the studio’s confidence that this one has the possibility to be blockbuster, and not just a Christmas sleeper. In these peeks, we have seen a drastically different view of the future tech of star trek. The starships are slightly more angular and have a greater amount of small details. They look vaguely more militaristic, and the bridge looks like the lounge in an Apple store. And the kids are not happy.
Okay, I suppose that there is some sort of twisted sanctity to the Original Series (TOS, of course), and that the set designers back then had some great ideas, but the fact is that the design of those sets was entirely dictated by the Salvation Army budget they had available. They were extremely limited with what they could do, but they did the best they could with what they had, and created a vision of the future as accurate as they could. But here we are now, with a multi-million dollar budget, and a much clearer vision of design in the future (that we can think of. 75 years from now they will likely have an entirely different concept of this once more). The fact is, if things don’t look like what the general audience sees as being futuristic, it will not be believable (yes, even being science fiction in the first place). And the whole point of star trek is to resonate with current culture. And to make out with aliens.
So what do I say? As long as the characters remain largely consistent, the intent remains the same, and the struggles of the characters and humanity as a whole remain timeless and relevant (sorry, M), it’s all good in my books. And I can’t wait.
After putting a new hard drive in my computer, reinstalling everything, losing all my bookmarks, getting them back, doing nothing with them while I write mid-terms, then pulling things back together again, I seem to be back into WordPress. And this time I’ma gonna write. Ooohhh boy am I ever gonna write.
I was going to embed a video in here, but since I’m at school, I have no access to youtube to get the code, so I’ll just have to post the link: http://www.picnicface.com/videos.php?videoID=56 thar ya go. Just slap that sucker right on in there and watch it up. You’ve probably seen it before anyway, since I’m so behind in my linking right now. I’ll catch up, though. I promise.
Now, what to post? I’ll dig up something from my past so that I won’t have to work so hard with this dreary old present. (i.e. lazy).
edit: I’ve since gone home and embedded the video.
Okay, this blog is currently receiving too many hits. Over 60 in one day? That’s preposterous. There’s no reason for anyone outside of my harmonious little bubble to be hitting this site. As such, I would as that it cease immediately. All this extra traffic may lead me to believe that my posts are actually interesting, and consequently begin posting more frequently, and more freely, on topics even more vague, esoteric, and specific than ever before.
Yes, I did just use both the adjectives vague and specific to describe the same thing. And believe you me, it’s entirely accurate.
Moving along, for the sake of objectivity, this renewed interest appears to be largely based around any comments, no matter how small and insignificant, I have made regarding Star Trek, or the late, great William Shatner. That’s right, in case you hadn’t heard, William Shatner died on May 19th, 2008. He choked to death on the number of hits I received for my post displaying a picture of him laughing (obviously either drunk, or having just made out with a chick entirely covered in body paint) in his captain’s chair.
Yeah, it’s been a long time since my last post. And it will likely continue to be a long time until my next post. Perhaps this is going the way of the LiveJournal, perhaps not. This remains to be seen.
But for now, here’s a video I made last night to be shown at our church service this morning. I was asked to make a comedic blog about fasting. And this is how it went.
It has come to my attention that I have of late spent too much time relishing over one particular captain of the Enterprise, and largely ignoring another, who is, purportedly actually my favourite captain. Yes, I know, I am sorry. Though he may not be as iconic, or as rogue, or possibly even as much of a ‘has-been’, he is the one, the only, Patrick Stewart.
This first video kinda caught me off guard. Somewhat surprised that they used precious reel time for this. Though am I ever glad that they did!
The previous video may possibly have been inspired by this video (though entirely unlikely, but useful for a segue (sp?) into this next video):
This next video is just simply brilliant. Patrick making a guest appearance on the British comedy show Extra. Please watch it to the end. The last few seconds are the best.
And if you watched the last few seconds of the previous video, this is great, too . . . I’m going to have to find a few more of these. This smells a bit of repeat gag to me. I’m sure there are more out there.
Just in case any gamer-type I know hasn’t been to both these websites, I just thought I’d post them. As I enjoy them oh, so much.
And just a little warning, these aren’t for the feint of heart. Sometimes games suck, and sometimes you’ve gotta make up entirely new profanities to express it. It’s just a fact of life, my friends.
It’s so close to being done I can almost taste it. I’ll work on it more later today (probably). For now all it’s lacking is some explanatory preamble, more info on how space combat works, and info on the Monstar subtypes. I’m saving the latter for last, as I don’t want my players to necessarily know too much about it (although there’s enough in here to be ‘too much’ anyway).
