Tag: Off Topic

Off Topic: My Love For Star Trek The Motion Picture

There are few things that I accept about myself: I’m ruggishly handsome, I have a superior intellect, and I’m the only person on the planet that thinks Star Trek the Motion Picture is the best Star Trek movie out there. And no I’m not talking about the 2009 movie, though I really enjoy that one, but the 1979 one. People usually just stare at me when I confess this after way too many drinks, but its true. Its my go to movie. If I don’t feel like watching anything else, I can always watch it. Actually I just had to adjust the TV as I am watching it right now.

Most people think it’s boring or something, but in my mind it’s by far the most true to the original series and by far the most intriguing. If nothing else, it keeps the original series’s flair for the unknown. You really aren’t given a lot of information off the bat except that what ever is out there just made the feared Klingons look like little bitches. I’m sorry, but any one who was brought up on the original knows there’s only one force in the universe that can go toe to toe with them and still survive… James T f—ing Kirk. This thing makes him look like a complete tool. Right off the bat you’re just thinking “Oh s—, what can stop this?” This thing makes the doomsday machine look like a ice cream vendor.

And I think that’s part of where my love comes in. The other movies, except maybe that disaster IV, you knew it was just the normal foe. Even Khan was assumed he would in some way get his a– handed to him James T Kirk style. But this thing (Why is every object we don’t understand called a thing?) is so far beyond powerful that you just can’t possibly accept that Kirk would kill or bang it. There is a feeling of complete and utter danger that none of the other movies really have. That feeling of powerlessness.

The next thing is the total seventies feeling too it. Yeah I know there are a lot of bad movies from that era, but the ones that we remember have something in common, a magically weaving of music and sight. There is something just… eh visceral about this movie that you can’t replicate in a movie. Something about the visual feel and the way the music just seems to draw out everything the eyes can’t see is something I think is the only part of the seventies worth noting. It was a time of experimenting with just about everything and as the saying goes sometimes the blind squirrel finds a nut. That is how I feel about this movie. The deliberate nature of it’s filming being paced by its music brings a certain overload of the senses at times. Some people call it slow or dull, but I call it purposeful and enveloping. It draws you in and tries to tell you a story that words could never do.

Beyond all of that, the twist at the end is so out there but makes so much sense that you can’t deny its possibility. I’m sorry but every times I hear the “V…g..e..r….voy…g…er…. Voyager” it just makes me think, “Now that’s an idea.” Well actually I end up repeating the line in only the way Shatner could deliver, but after that I think about the idea thing.

I understand that most people won’t watch this movie and get what I’m talking about. I get that I might be insane. I’m ok with that. Because as I sit here watching this movie for what is probably well beyond the 100th time, I know that I will enjoy every stupid second of it. You can go watch the stupid one with the whales if you want. This motion picture is mine.

Off Topic Sunday: Does Not Liking Quentin Tarantino Make Me A Mutant?

COMPLETELY NOT PROGRAMMING RELATED

Any time I declare this I always get the same look people had when that one dude in Total Recall took off his glove and had that weird chicken wing arm thing. I can’t think of many directors that get the same free pass as he does for making, in my crazy mutant opinion, two good movies: Pulp Fiction and that one part of Four Rooms with the Zippo lighter bet. Ok so one movie and a section of another. Maybe Kill Bill 2 could be in there. Maybe.

Now I have to admit that I’ve been accused of having less than main stream opinions on movies. I’m not one of those people that only like a movie if it’s made on a 10k dollar budget and ends up just as depressing as it started. (IE Every independent movie ever.) I enjoy movies that are thought provoking and relevant as questions like “What would green smell like?” or “Why do I have 10 ten toes?” However, I liked Star Trek: The Motion Picture the most out of the six because I felt it was very Star Trek like and the most intense of the bunch. I liked Alien 3 more than Aliens (Only after watching the Director’s cut version though) because it had more thought out undertones. I think that Kill Bill 2 is far more interesting than 1 because it had story minus a bunch of tools running around like they’re athletic (See The Matrix). I also still find Godzilla versus Mechagodzilla to be the best, even though Godzilla 2000 is far superior in ever aspect, because that one part where Gozilla and King Caesar are standing in front of and behind, respectively, Mechagodzilla and they think they have it flanked when it turns it’s head around to look at King (With it’s laser eyes) and swings out it’s missle hands at Godzilla almost as if it was sayin, “You thought you got me, but I got missles b–ch. You ain’t got s–t. ”

Three things you can take from that: I probably don’t line up with your tastes, I do have thought out excuses for my “condition”, and I am a massive geek. I honestly feel that at this point I need to boost a car, take some E, and bench press 800 pounds at the same time to offset the horrendous black hole of geek I just created that threatens to pull us all in to an alternate, more geeky version of the world. No one wants that. No one but Adam Savage wants that.

At this point, you might see where I’m coming from. I’m clinically insane. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to an opinion on Tarentino. The guy is like a 12 year old with a budget.

Remember when you were 12, watching Power Rangers, sitting in a rocking chair, while lathering yourself in a mixture of peanut butter and motor oil? Probably not (But if you do, call me) but you might remember watching a movie like Aliens and thinking “What if the aliens could talk?” or “What if the Aliens could use guns, that would be sweet cause they would be all like ‘What up!’ BLAM BLAM ‘Screw you Marines!'” And let’s be honest, there’s a reason why you weren’t making films at 12… or probably even now. (Honestly? Aliens using guns? What the hell were you on at 12?) Every time I see one of his movies now, that’s all I can see: Tarantino lathered up in pean… Wait… I see Tarantino sitting around writing some movie, probably a masterpiece about a child who is taken from his family, forced into slavery, and then finds a way to unite the slaves against the slavers and bring peace to the his people. Followed by weeks of “What if aliens some how helped him free his people?” and then “What if the aliens give him awesome laser weapons and then there’s a scene where he’s all like ‘I’m gonna make them pay’ while standing on a mound of dead slavers and then he points the gun at one that’s still sort of alive and shoots him and his head explodes and the aliens start dancing in joy! Oh man that’d be cool.” (You might also call this the “Lucas effect”) Somewhere, at some point, the good ideas he may have go from a smooth riding train to a train that just lost a wheel, jumped the track, and is plowing through some childrens’ hospital.

And guess maybe that’s the problem I have with him. It’s clear that the guy is good with conversations and characters. It’s clear that he could be a premier writer. It just seems like the 12 year old side of him takes over at some point. Oh well, that 12 year old has done him well financially so who am I to say what’s good?

In the end, it just comes down to preference. Maybe I don’t have the part of the mind that gets satisfaction from way over the top insanity in movie form (I think it’s seated somewhere in between the part that enjoys chili cheese fries and the part that makes people stop and stare at highway accidents.), and if you do well more power to you. Just don’t judge me based on my thinking he’s straight up overrated or that he isn’t a god of filming. Then again I’m not the kind of person who looks for religious overtones in the Star Wars series, so maybe I’m just too dumb to see the brilliance.

Oh and side note: HE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH HERO EXCEPT WITH HELPING WITH PUSHING UP THE TIME LINE OF THE US RELEASE. Don’t f–king even think he had any real hand in what’s probably the best epic movie in existence.

Other Note: Apparently resident “computer wiz” Andre refused to read more than the title of this post. He’s one of them…