Tag Archives: J.J. Abrams

Sep 10 2013

The Star Trek Movies Ranked, Part I

Star Trek movies have been with us since the late ’70s and have received very mixed reactions. Some are revered as the very best of sci-fi films, while others received vicious barbs from fans and critics alike. Now that there is an even dozen films, it’s time to rank them in order.

The way my rankings work are basically four tiers. The first tier includes genuine classics that still hold up today and are iconic; the second tier features films that are undeniably enjoyable and worth watching, though they have their faults; the third tier is filled with flawed but noteworthy movies that have some good qualities and are sometimes underrated; the fourth tier, naturally is littered with the bottom-dwelling movies that are just terrible with little to recommend about them.

Tier One

1. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986): I know this may shock most fans who expected Star Trek II to be the number pick. Choosing the trek 4 sfvery best Star Trek film was quite difficult and honestly, it’s more of a tie between the two films. To those that would argue that Star Trek II is the best one, you won’t get an argument from me, but time and time again I keep going to the fourth film in the franchise.

Why? To me this one showed the original cast and filmmakers at the top of their game. Everything was top notch with this film: production values, special effects, acting, and the story. The movie which was about the original Enterprise crew time traveling to San Francisco in the late 20th century to find whales was a great example of a fish-out-of-water yarn. We got to see the crew out of their element, yet persevering in the strange environment of the past. The movie presented a lighter, more comedic side but it was still exciting and engaging. It also showed that a Star Trek film didn’t need a scene-chewing villain to carry a film.

klingon ship

Finally, this film allowed all of the cast members to have their moment in the sun. They contributed to the story and had many outstanding scenes. Still, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley were the highlights, especially Shatner. His James T. Kirk wasn’t morose as in previous films, he was more confident, surprisingly funny and showed off his famous romantic, charming demeanor. By the film’s end, you feel completely satisfied. The crew had a new ship, Kirk was doing what he was meant to do and there was the promise of new beginnings as the Enterprise-A headed out to the unknown.

2. Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan (1982): On a different day I might’ve ranked this as so many do, as the best Star Trek film ever made. trek 2This is still the most important film in the franchise because it’s the one that saved it in its infancy. After the wooden and pedestrian debut film, there was doubt another expensive Star Trek film would ever be made. The filmmakers’ challenge was to put out an exciting, edge-of-your-seat thriller that would leave people talking about it for a long time to come. And they succeeded.

One of Kirk’s enemies from the original show, Khan (Ricardo Montalban), commandeers a Starfleet ship and goes on a warpath against Kirk. He blames our hero for marooning him on a desolate planet and wants Kirk to suffer as he did. And boy khandoes he give it to Kirk. The battle of wits between the two adversaries became famous thanks in part to the performances from both actors. This is Shatner’s best performance as a Kirk, who finally faces middle age, while Montalban clearly relishes his role as the battered but regal Khan. His character is undeniably one of the best movie villains of all time.

Even though the special effects and Nicholas Meyer’s direction are exemplary, what makes the film endure is its focus on the characters and its themes about dealing with your past, the destructiveness of vengeance and facing the future with dignity. So why isn’t this my favorite Star Trek film? Well, it nearly is and on some days I’ll admit it. But the film feels a bit ponderous and pompous at times. The script tends to go overboard with its constant quoting from classic literature. Then there’s Spock’s (Nimoy) death, while it’s eloquent and heartfelt, given that the character returns in later films, the death feels a bit empty. Those are just minor quibbles though and this movie is a must-see classic for everyone.

picard borg queen3. Star Trek: First Contact (1996): It’s not only the best Star Trek film that features The Next Generation cast but one of the franchise’s very best efforts. Director Jonathan Frakes (who also plays Riker) and the production team hit all the right marks in this great Star Trek film. Its success started with this well-written time travel/alien invasion saga.

Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and his Enterprise-E crew time travel to Earth’s mid-21st century to prevent the evil cybernetic Borg from conquering the planet. Successfully incorporating action and horror elements, Star Trek: First Contact was both exciting and suspenseful with a morality tale about obsession and dealing with destiny. This film is full of so many cool moments. One of the best was when the experimental warp ship the Phoenix launches from a missile silo as its pilot, Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) blasts Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride”. Another was Picard’s histrionic ranting about the Borg, which forced him to look within himself. The Borg themselves are presented as the fearful, unrelenting force they were meant to be. The movie’s main villain, the Borg Queen (Alice Krige), is one of the more interesting and unique foes. She isn’t some revenge-minded madwoman but is cold, calculating, and with a strange allure.

borg battle

As with the better films, this one showcased many of the supporting characters and featured smile-inducing nods and cameos from the other Star Trek shows. The best one had to be the cameo of Star Trek: Voyager’s EMH (Robert Picardo) who appears as the Enterprise-E’s own EMH. One of his lines is also a nice tribute to Dr. McCoy. After falling short with the previous entry Star Trek Generations, the filmmakers had to get the franchise back on track and succeeded with this one. Everyone involved is to be lauded, from the actors, to the composer, to the production team and, of course, the director, who like Nimoy understood Star Trek. Continue reading →

May 17 2013

Star Trek Movie Retrospective–Star Trek

“Punch it”

Captain Christopher Pike’s order to take the Enterprise into warp space

posterDon’t worry readers, the review for the new Star Trek Into Darkness is coming right up. But first, let’s look at its predecessor, the eleventh Star Trek film. After Star Trek: Nemesis became a box office failure in 2002 and the series Star Trek: Enterprise was canceled in 2005, the franchise seemed to have died. Paramount Studios realized they ran Star Trek into the ground and so it went on hiatus. The fortieth anniversary of the original TV show came and went without any fanfare and implied that no one cared about Star Trek anymore.

However, J.J. Abrams, the man behind the classic TV show Lost, was brought in to rejuvenate the franchise. It was decided to bring Star Trek back as a film series rather than a TV show and so Abrams and his team rebooted the franchise, resulting in the 2009 feature film Star Trek that went back to the beginning. The film was a rousing success but sparked controversy among stalwart fans.

Star Trek begins with a dizzying, close up shot of the starship Kelvin gliding past the camera as it investigates a lightning storm in space. This storm turns into a black hole and from it emerges a gigantic spaceship shaped somewhat like a squid with sharp mechanical kelvin2tendrils. This ship immediately opens fire on the Kelvin with advanced weaponry. The Kelvin isn’t a match but puts up a gallant fight. The attackers demand that the Kelvin’s captain, Robau (Farin Tahir), go to their ship to discuss a surrender. Right away these scenes signaled that Star Trek was reinvigorated with wild, kinetic battle scenes.

Robau leaves First Officer George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth) in command and is killed in the enemy ship by its crew, a group of bald, tattooed Romulans. Kirk orders a shipwide evacuation and covers it by setting the Kelvin on a collision course with the attacking ship. One of the evacuees is his pregnant wife Winona (Jennifer Morrison), who goes into labor in an escaping shuttlecraft. Kirk is unable to join her because he has to manually fly the Kelvin into the enemy ship. He is able, however, to hear the first cries of his newborn son James Tiberius Kirk moments before the Kelvin smashes into the Romulan ship.

George Kirk’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain, the enemy ship is crippled, giving several shuttlecraft an opportunity to escape…

shipyard

Years later, Kirk’s son grows up to be a rebellious, angry young man (Chris Pine) without any direction in life and living in Iowa by a shipyard that is constructing the Enterprise. After a bar fight, he meets Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), who sees some potential in James Kirk. Pike is able to convince the young man to join Starfleet.

During his training Kirk meets many people who will become important parts of his life, notably Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban) and Spock (Zachary Quinto). Ironically, Kirk and Spock do not get along at first. Spock is a by-the-book officer who cannot abide Kirk’s brash and reckless demeanor. Things come to a head after Kirk takes the Kobayashi Maru simulator test, which Spock developed to train cadets, and is caught cheating.

crew

Kirk is under inquiry for his actions when fate intervenes. Starfleet receives an emergency distress call from the planet Vulcan and all available ships on Earth are dispatched. Among them is the new U.S.S. Enterprise commanded by Pike with Spock as its first officer.

With McCoy’s help, Kirk is able to get onboard the Enterprise as it joins the armada. The ship is unable to jump into warp space with the other ships thanks to an error made by the helmsman Hikaru Sulu (John Cho ). It turns out that this delay and Kirk learning of a lightning storm reported by Vulcan helps saves the ship. Kirk guesses that the Enterprise will be facing the same fate as the Kelvin and tells Pike. When the time the Enterprise drops out of warp space near Vulcan,  the crew finds a floating junkyard of destroyed ship parts.

shipwrecksThe other Starfleet ships were easily destroyed by the same Romulan ship that destroyed the Kelvin. The ship had launched a long, tethered drilling platform to Vulcan’s surface. When the Enterprise is discovered, the Romulan ship’s commander, Nero (Eric Bana), orders an attack on the Starfleet vessel but stops when he realizes it’s the Enterprise. The Romulan demands that Pike go to his ship just as was done with Robau. Pike agrees, but before leaving, he promotes Kirk to first officer and leaves command of the Enterprise to Spock. He has Kirk, Sulu and a redshirt accompany him in Pike’s shuttlecraft. Before Pike turns himself in, the trio are clandestinely launched via parachutes to the drilling platform to disable it. After fighting off  Romulans on the platform, Kirk and Sulu are able to disable it. But they’re too late, the drill already reached the planet’s core. The Romulans release a substance called red matter that creates a black hole in Vulcan’s core, dooming the world.

kirk sulu

In a desperate move, Spock beams down to Vulcan just in time to save his father Sarek (Ben Cross) and a few others but not his mother (Winona Ryder). Shortly after, he and the handful of survivors are beamed back to the Enterprise as Vulcan is destroyed from within.

Spock struggles not displaying emotions over the death of his mother and world and Pike’s capture. He decides to regroup with the fleet but Kirk tries to convince him otherwise. The Romulans are heading to Earth and Kirk demands that they try to stop them. After they argue for several minutes, Spock has Kirk removed from the bridge and ejected from an escape capsule to a nearby planet, Delta Vega, and orders the Enterprise to resume its course to rendezvous with the fleet.

old spockAfter the capsule lands,  Kirk breaks out and finds himself in a frozen world filled with predatory animals out to snack on him. He is saved from one huge animal by a mysterious Vulcan who turns out to be a very old Spock (Leonard Nimoy). This Spock mind melds with Kirk and he learns that Spock is from the future as are the bald Romulans. In the late 24th century, the Romulans’ homeworld was destroyed by a supernova that threatened other worlds. From his own ship, Spock launched a sample of the red matter to destroy the supernova by creating a black hole. As he tried to escape the black hole, he encountered Nero and his ship. The Romulan was enraged at Spock because the Vulcan promised the Romulans he would save their world, now his wife and family are dead. Before anything could happen, Nero and Spock’s ships fell into the black hole, which was a doorway to the past. Nero had Spock abandoned on Delta Vega so that he could witness the destruction of Vulcan and experience the pain that Nero felt in the future.

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Mar 1 2013

Starloggers Asks Who Should Be In Star Wars Episode VII?

gang

The rumors about who will appear in the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII are swirling faster than an TIE fighter spinning to its doom on an asteroid field after chasing the Millennium Falcon. There are reports that Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford will reprise their roles of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo respectively in the new film to be directed by J.J. Abrams. Carrie Fisher can’t be far behind to complete the triad.

With that, here at Starloggers, our contributors were asked which characters they  would like to return in Star Wars Episode VII. These are their replies…

m. falcon cockpit

José Soto: Luke Skywalker and Han Solo are excellent choices, but you need Leia too so that the baton can be effectively handed off to the new generation of characters. While they’re at it, throw in Chewbacca, Admiral Ackbar and a force ghost appearance by Yoda. Oh, and don’t forget the droids!

fettC.S. Link: The droids, of course, you can’t have a Star Wars film without C-3P0 whining away and R2-D2 being the heroic droid/mobile Swiss army knife. Boba Fett would be nice, as well as Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca. They’re cool.

GEO: I would like J.J. Abrams to recast Luke, Han and Leia, just like he did with the Star Trek reboot. But at the end of the day, the must-have character to appear in Star Wars Episode VII should be Luke.

Jennifer Drucker: I’d love to see Princess Leia and Lando Calrissian again. Also, it would be great if the people making the upcoming film were to include Qui-Gon Jinn and Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi as blue Jedi ghosts.

qui gon 2

Annette DeForrester:  Yoda’s my favorite Star Wars character of all time. Even though he died in Return Of The Jedi, Yoda can appear as a ghost. For the villains, Boba can stay in the sarlaac pit, but they should bring back the sith villains as evil ghosts.

droids 3Jim McLernon: They should include the droids, R2-D2 and C-3P0 since they appeared in all six Star Wars films. The rest doesn’t matter to me, but J.J. Abrams should just make sure the characters are well developed no matter who appears in the film.

Lewis T. Grove: Like everyone else I think the droids R2-D2 and C-3P0 must be part of Star Wars Episode VII. Just have them appear more worn and beat up, it would be a realistic touch. Also they should consider Obi-Wan Kenobi. Like the droids, he appeared in all six films and can provide a sense of continuity.

Jan 24 2013

J.J. Abrams Picked As Director For Star Wars VII

abramsAccording to The Wrap and other sources, J.J. Abrams is set to direct Star Wars: Episode VII. Despite earlier proclamations about his loyalty to the Star Trek films and ruled out a directing gig for Star Wars, it’s seems to have been a smoke screen to throw off people, especially snoopy journalists. The Wrap also claimed that Ben Affleck was strongly considered for the job. Maybe he’ll have a chance with Episode VIII.

muralJ.J. Abrams has the credentials for this directing job. He created the acclaimed series Lost and even in that show his fan-worship of Star Wars came about, especially during season five when Hurley was stuck on the island in the 1970s and tried to write an improved screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back. He also co-created the just concluded sci-fi show Fringe and has a good track record as a director. While his first big-screen job was on Mission Impossible III, he came to prominence when he directed the reboot of Star Trek and then Super 8. In fact, one of the complaints about Star Trek was that it felt more like a Star Wars film with the big-action scenes and spectacular special effects. If anything, that film proved that he was one to seriously consider for a new Star Wars film. Regardless, he should be credited super 8for bringing the franchise back from the dead even if it came in a slick package. It still worked. Fans should also look at Super 8, which showed that the director could helm believable and sympathetic characters, something that the Star Wars films need at this point. In other words, Abrams can bring out fine performances from his actors.

Abrams has said in the past that Star Wars was his passion and it makes sense that someone like him should direct the start of the next trilogy. He can be seen by many as a solid choice to direct the next Star Wars film but he has his detractors. Already the forums are burning up with statements of lens flares polluting Star Wars: Episode VII. Some people have reacted with a shrug and a “whatever” to this news. Some feel that his films are largely superficial and fail to deliver satisfying conclusions. Those are the fans that J.J. Abrams has to win over. Still Disney could’ve done far worse. At least it won’t be Zack Snyder. 

trek movie

One more thing, this probably means that a new director will be needed for another Star Trek film. Most likely Star Trek Into Darkness could be J.J. Abrams’ last Trek film because he’ll be busy.

Lewis T. Grove and C.S. Link

 

 

Feb 4 2012

Alcatraz Plays It Too Safe

Alcatraz is the latest show that premiered on Fox from executive producer J.J. Abrams (for anyone who doesn’t know, he’s the guy behind Alias, LOST, Fringe, Super 8 and the Star Trek reboot). It’s co-created by Elizabeth Sarnoff, Steven Lillen and Bryan Wynbrandt and is about the manhunt for prisoners who escaped from the infamous Alcatraz prison.

The twist? Back in 1960, 256 prisoners and 46 guards disappeared from Alcatraz without a trace and now they are popping up all over modern-day San Francisco and haven’t aged a day. Was it time travel? Hibernation? Not even the prisoners know. After being captured and interrogated, they reveal that they’re just as mystified as the show’s main characters, though there are hints of time travel during nuggets of revelation.

The show stars Rebecca Madsen as Sarah Jones, a local police detective with unexpected ties to one of the escaped prisoners; she is recruited by a mysterious government agent Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill), who was once an Alcatraz guard and knows a lot more about what is going than he’s willing to reveal. Sarah is teamed up with comic book store owner and geek Dr. Diego Soto (Jorge Garcia, well known as the beloved Hurley from LOST), who is a walking encyclopedia of Alcatraz trivia that proves useful in the investigations.

The rundown of each episode aired to date goes like this: some escapee appears in the city unaged and continues the same criminal activity that had him jailed in the first place. Sarah and Diego run around the city, tracking him down with half-hearted help by Hauser, (who sometimes seems as if he’s impeding them) and his aide Lucy Banerjee (Parminder Nagra), who like the prisoners hasn’t aged since 1960. In between, the manhunts, we’re shown flashbacks to life in Alcatraz before the prisoner escaped so that he can be fleshed out and given some motive. Here and there, viewers are given clues and riddles without an answer such as how did the prisoners and guards disappear and why? Who is behind this? What is the deal with Hauser’s assistant? Why hasn’t she aged? Will Hauser stop beating around the bush and just explain it all to Sarah? After all, she is supposed to be working for him now and should be privy to what is happening in order to better perform her duties.

There lies the flaw with Alcatraz. It has some good moments and hooks to keep viewers watching, but it doesn’t have the drive and real mystery that LOST and Fringe had. The mythology isn’t as compelling and many of the characters aren’t as interesting. Maybe it’s a response to complaints about J.J. Abrams’ shows being too mythologized, so he plays it safer this time. Sarah comes off as a pale imitation of Fringe’s Olivia Dunham, just a younger, bustier version without Dunham’s inner toughness. Hauser, as portrayed by Neill, seems bored half the time. Garcia’s Diego is the most interesting character but only because he isn’t a law enforcement type and the show wisely shows how he is more like an ordinary person swept up in this mystery. And while the stories about the prisoners are so far interesting, the basic setup of each episode is starting to get repetitious. In many ways, Alcatraz seems more like a procedural cop show that belongs on CBS.

Then there are some nagging problems about the premise. Chiefly with the way the prisoners so easily get by in modern society without drawing attention to themselves. Sorry but if someone from the early ’60s were to suddenly appear today, that person would experience a future shock over how things have changed. They would speak differently, act a bit strange, not know how to use modern devices or how to blend in. Yet none of this is shown, unless the prisoners are lying about not knowing anything and had time to assimilate into modern society.

So is it worth watching? Short answer: yes. When compared to ninety percent of the garbage on TV now, it stands above them. But so far it isn’t as captivating as Abrams’ other shows.

José Soto