Recently in Star Wars Category

"I was inspired a great deal by the work of Simon Page and his astrology series. If anyone enjoys this style of art I would highly recommend they check out his work. I also drew ideas from old Art Deco style prints and vintage science fiction posters from the 1960/70's." The LA Weekly talks with Justin Van Genderen, designer of the spiffy minimalist Star Wars posters above.

"Corridors make science-fiction believable, because they're so utilitarian by nature - really they're just a conduit to get from one (often overblown) set to another. So if any thought or love is put into one, if the production designer is smart enough to realise that corridors are the foundation on which larger sets are 'sold' to viewers, movie magic is close at hand." By way of Lotta, Den of Geek's Martin Anderson sings the praises of the sci-fi corridor. Lots of great eye-candy here.

Now I may not yet, or ever, possess the longevity of Old Spock. But in my thirty-four years on the third planet near Sol, I'm old enough to have witnessed some memorable happenings in the world of sci-fi. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. And for many years, before universes proliferated and comic-book-guyish, cosplay-level fandom went mainstream and upmarket, a long, simmering, and sometimes even strangely bitter rivalry between the Star Wars and Star Trek people. (I would count myself among the former -- I lived out there, so don't go there. But that don't mean a fanboy can't rest with the Trek, be a nice guest to the Trek.) In the darkest days of this needless galactic schism, Trekkies often considered SW fans to be middlebrow, sophomoric science-fantasy types (if not budding Fascists), while those of the Jedi ilk often looked down upon their Trek brethren as Aspergers-suffering mouth-breathers, even more unsocialized and hopelessly nerdy than they.

But on the nineteenth hour of the seventh day of the fifth month of 2009, (or, if you'd prefer, Stardate 62851.9), the war at long last ended. For, with the release of the eleventh film in the latter franchise, J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, these once-feuding universes converged. Blessed with a charismatic and appealing cast that smooths over much of the choppy writing turbulence therein, Abrams' Trek reboot isn't only a rousing, over-the-top, sometimes patently absurd space opera that borrows as much from Lucas' original trilogy as it does from its erstwhile source material -- It's also probably the best of the Star Wars prequels. The more I've thought about it over the past few days, the less sense the movie makes, and the more and more shamelessly derivative Trek seems. But darned if I didn't have a good time during the Big Show itself, which, of course, is what really matters in the end.

This iteration of Trek begins with an on-duty starship encountering the usual deeply weird phenomena on the fringes of Federation territory -- in this case, a lightning storm in space. And, just like that giveaway red shirt on an unknown Away Team member (see also: Sam Rockwell in Galaxy Quest), the fact that said ship is not emblazoned Enterprise but, rather, the U.S.S. Kelvin signifies that there's probably some serious trouble ahead. (Also, just as Lts. Chekov and Uhura on the original bridge signifed an optimistic faith in mankind's ability to move past the Cold War, racial inequality, and other seemingly intractable dilemmas of the Sixties, the fact that the Kelvin is captained by Pakistani-American actor Faran Tahir, most recognizable as the Mandarin-sponsored Afghan terrorist of Iron Man, indicates that the Trekverse laudably remains an hopeful and inclusive one.)

Well, the allegorical obstacles in Trek may come and go, but then as now, aliens with ridges and/or tattoos on their head are usually up to no good. And, sure enough, a disgruntled Romulan named Nero (Eric Bana) soon emerges from said lightning cloud and obliterates the Kelvin...but not before some daring, ultimately suicidal heroics by acting Captain George Kirk. Cut to several years later, when Kirk's only son, James Tiberius, is acting out his abandonment issues by transgressing authority whenever possible amid the cornfields of Iowa. (Hey, good news, Ad Rock -- the Beastie Boys still get some run in the 23rd century.) Meanwhile, over on the planet Vulcan, Spock, a young boy of mixed lineage -- Vulcan father, human mother -- fends off the taunts of his schoolmates and struggles more than most to keep his emotions in check. (Playing Spock's parents are Ben Cross, looking quite a bit like the Sarek of old, Mark Lenard, and Winona Ryder, inexplicably cast to wear bad age make-up, respectively.)

Another jump forward, and James T. Kirk (Chris Pine, a real find), still raisin' less corn and more hell than most around him, is shamed into joining Starfleet after a bar brawl by Capt. Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), who just-so happened to write his dissertation(?) on Kirk the elder's heroism. (Pike will conveniently forget much of this later on.) Meanwhile, Spock (Matthew Quinto, making the post-Sylar leap) has had it up to his eyebrows with Vulcan nativism and has subsequently enlisted in Starfleet himself, where his duties include, among other things, developing the diabolical Kobayshi Maru. These two men are clearly on a collision course: Kirk's bold, earthy blend of action and intution -- "leap before you look," basically -- is the exact opposite of Spock's cold embrace of logic and reason. And, when Nero returns to threaten Vulcan, and, subsequently, Earth, will these two potential heroes be able to get past their obvious differences and form a winning team? Unfortunately, Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Karl Urban, doing a pitch-perfect DeForrest Kelley) has been shuffled to the background, and isn't really around to square that circle like he once did.

There's more to the story, of course, including a mid-act time-travel twist that, especially by Trek standards, is more elegant than most. (I particularly liked how it preserved all of the classic continuity while allowing for anything to happen in this new, pocket universe.) But the basic gist here is: Let's get the Band Together! And, as per the "future-nostalgia" habit of so many prequels these days, Trek spends a good bit of its run just getting all of the Enterprise's ducks in a row -- Scotty in the engine room, Bones in the medbay, Uhura (wo)manning the comm, etc. This could all get pretty tiresome in terms of inside-baseball, I guess -- there are shout-outs to everything from Orion slave girls to Scott Bakula's beagle -- if the cast here wasn't so uniformly game for anything that comes along. Kirk, Bones, Chekov, and Scotty in particular are all written a bit broadly, but the actors really succeed in selling even the goofiest subroutines here. And having the imprimatur of you-know-who of the classic era -- playing Obi-Wan Kenobi basically -- really lends Abrams' Star Trek reboot a touch of class that I'm not even sure the Shat could've provided.

Now, speaking of Obi-Wan, I guess it'd be a bit churlish, after the depressing lowlights of Insurrection and Nemesis, to begrudge fans of this universe "A New Hope." Still, even with glimmers of Trek's previous highs -- the surveying-the-Enterprise sequence of The Motion Picture, the humor and ship-to-ship combat of Wrath of Khan -- every so often, there's just an extraordinary amount of ganking from the Original Trilogy going on here. Now, as I said above, I'm one who thinks there's a lot more in common between Wars and Trek than is often acknowledged. Whether it's Luke using the Force at the last possible moment, or simply Scotty/Geordi reversing the dual positronic overlays on the tachyon inhibitors surrounding the dilithium field, we're still in deus-ex-machina territory nine times out of ten. (And imho, Trek, despite its reputation, was never really close to being hard-sci-fi anyway.) That being said, the sweeping, larky space opera tone of Star Wars has been almost completely appropriated here by Abrams and his writing team, to the point where it almost seems actionable. (Although, now that I think about it, the SW prequels, with their flat, wooden scenes of actors discoursing interminably about the taxation of trade routes and/or New Agey questions of morality, was actually pretty close to bad Trek.)

And it's not just the tone. Despite having some very Skywalker-ish Daddy issues, and sharing his very own "Twin Suns" moment of destiny with a constitution-class starship in Iowa drydock, James T. Kirk here is, for all intent and purposes, a swaggering, swashbuckling "scoundrel" in the mode of Han Solo. There's a Mos Eisley-ish cantina sequence where, particularly by Trek standards, Star Wars-style aliens abound. The pre-sibling reveal, Luke-Han-Leia love triangle of ANH is grafted note-for-note onto Spock-Kirk-Uhura. There's an ice moon strongly reminiscent of Hoth, with a Wampa-like creature and (in one of the weakest moments of the film) a Naboo-like "always a bigger fish" food chain. (On this one i'll concede, it's also a lot like Rura Penthe, the "aliens' graveyard" of Star Trek VI.) They even go so far as to give Scotty an ugnaught (although, it does look a bit like Twiki, and given a later Augustus Gloop-like incident involving Montgomery Scott and a water-pipe, it could also be an Oompa-Loompa.) If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then it's clear: new Trek and old-school Star Wars are very much on the same page.

Unfortunately, that page as presented here still needs one more rewrite. Thanks to the sterling cast and some spiffy camerawork (the ubiquitous lens flares do get to be a bit much, tho), I happily went along for the ride for most of Trek. But even during the funhouse itself, some glaring errors in logic become harder and harder to ignore. Now, I'm not talking about continuity lapses with what's come before -- I think the reboot here makes sense on its own terms, and that's not my bag when it comes to Trek anyway. Nor am I really talking about science problems, even though they're considerably worse here than usual for Trek. (Much violence is done to our understanding of black holes in this film -- Schwarzchild does not exist in this dojo. Then again, it's probably too much to ask that Trek get gravity wells right when, judging by the completely absurd freefalling-onto-the-space-drill sequence, regular ole gravity is hard enough. But, hey, once you accept warp speed, I guess all bets are off anyway.)

No, the real problems arise with basic storytelling lapses that, if you're wired that way (and I suspect most sci-fi fans are), will nag at you even during this otherwise transporting film. [Some spoilers to follow.] Like, where was Nero over the past twenty-five years, and why didn't he use any of that time to rethink his somewhat dubious motives for vengeance? (Wiping out the Federation wouldn't prevent in any way his planet's demise, which, as explained, was caused by Romulus' star going supernova.) Even given the sudden emergency at hand, why are there absolutely no ranking officers of any consequence -- Pike excepted -- on board the Federation's newly-built flagship, the USS Enterprise? If it's a serious enough matter to send raw cadets from the Academy, wouldn't some of Starfleet's old hands in and around San Francisco also answer the call?

Also, if "Red Matter" -- don't ask -- is as unbelievably, mind-blowingly powerful as it's portrayed here, why did the Vulcan Science Academy even bother to create -- and then send off! -- a heaping Big Gulp-size quantity of it? Talk about your WMD. For that matter, particularly given what happens with this stuff late in the film, why was Nero even bothering with the big Space Drill part of his plan anyway? Seems a bit purposeless, doesn't it? And, even allowing for the mystical, Force-like workings of Fate (as well as his dubious dispatch from the Enterprise itself), Cadet Kirk running into you-know-who in a random cave in the middle of nowhere at exactly the best possible moment was show-stoppingly ludicrous. It's the type of thing you'd expect from poorly-thought-out fanfic, not a $100 million movie.

Now I don't mean to get too lost in the nitpicks. I really enjoyed myself during Star Trek, and, despite its storywriting faults, it's almost assuredly the best film in the franchise since Khan (or The Voyage Home, I guess, if you're more into the funny-Trek. I also quite enjoyed First Contact at the time, and I always thought Undiscovered Country was underappreciated.) Check your brain at the door, and Trek is about as good a reboot as we all could've hoped for, and a fun, sexy, summery throwback to the space operas of yore. Hey, it's almost definitely the best Tyler Perry film ever made, and, now that the 2.0 Trekverse is up and running, you can definitely count me in for another installment with this here crew. Particularly if -- from Hell's heart, he stabs at thee! -- they actually land Javier Bardem as the Big Bad for ST XII: Khan Strikes Back. Just don't give him a Star Destroyer, and please keep Kirk away from the carbonite.

"It all started with a band of rebels who wanted to help a farmboy follow his dream. Three decades later, the Star Wars empire has grown into one the most fertile incubators of talent in the worlds of movies (Lucasfilm), visual effects (Industrial Light & Magic), sound (Skywalker Sound), and videogames (Lucasarts)." By way of my sis-in-law Lotta, How Star Wars Changed the World. Some of the links are tenuous (Barry Levinson?), others aren't all that flattering (Chris Columbus)...still, worth a look-see.

In the trailer bin of late:

Hey, Anthony Daniels gotta eat...It's another new trailer for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, due out in August. (This time, it's meant to look cartoony.)

Milking a cash bantha, or beating a dead tauntaun? You be the judge: The new trailer for Star Wars: The Clone Wars is now online. On the bright side, it can be terrible and still be better than Attack of the Clones.

You've probably already seen this making the rounds today. But since it's definitely in GitM's wheelhouse, The Empire Strikes Barack. A few inspired moments therein: the cantina, Admirals Ozzel (Penn) and Motti (Dean), Emperor Bubba, the media barrage, etc.

"...as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced." Scientists at NASA catch a glimpse of cosmic devastation on a galactic scale, as a "death star galaxy," fueled by a black hole, destroys its neighbor with a beam of radiation. "The telescope images show the bully galaxy shooting a stream of deadly radiation particles into the lower section of the other galaxy, which is about one-tenth its size...Tens of millions of stars, including those with orbiting planets, are likely in the path of the deadly jet...If Earth were in the way -- and it's not -- the high-energy particles and radiation of the jet would in a matter of months strip away the planet's protective ozone layer and compress the protective magnetosphere." And what does that mean? "'You would basically render extinct all surface forms of life,' Tyson said. 'But it may be that subterranean life is...immune to this kind of violence in the universe.'" You heard the man...start digging.

"How could any pilot shoot a missile into a 2 meter-wide exhaust port, let alone a pilot with no formal training, whose only claim to fame was his ability to 'bullseye womprats' on Tatooine? This shot, according to one pilot, would be 'impossible, even for a computer.' Yet, according to additional evidence, the pilot who allegedly fired the missile turned off his targeting computer when he was supposedly firing the shot that destroyed the Death Star. Why have these discrepancies never been investigated, let alone explained?" By way of Triptych Cryptic, Uncomfortable Questions: Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job? True, it's not as devastatingly on point as The Onion's recent Bush Refuses to Set Timetable for Withdrawal of Head from White House Banister ("I am going to finish what I set out to accomplish here, no matter how unpopular my decision may be, or how much my head hurts while stuck between these immovable stairway posts.") Still, decently amusing nonetheless...I was sold on it by the pic of Palpatine reading My Pet Bantha.

AICN's Moriarty points the way to these worth-perusing Star Wars/Steampunk mash-up sketches. And, also via AICN, Hugo Weaving will voice Megatron in Michael Bay's The Transformers. Can't say I'm all that interested in Transformers (or any other Michael Bay project. for that matter), but Weaving invariably adds a touch of class to sci-fi/fantasy proceedings.

By way of other, more frequently updated blogs, some amusing links to wile away the hours: the Curb Your Enthusiasm soundboard [LMG], the Emperor takes an important call [DangerousMeta], and Your Own Personal Samuel [Webgoddess] Use 'em at your own risk.

...and don't y'all forget it. In response to widespread fanboy outrage (and, ok, the chance to make more money), Lucasfilm announces they'll release the unadulterated original trilogy on DVD this fall. As the AICN crew wryly put it, this will be a day long remembered...

"It costs about $1,200 for a print and about $200 for a digital print. So what you do is charge the distributor the same $1,200 they would ordinarily be charged, and $1,000 of it goes into a pot that eventually pays for all the projectors and everything. In about five years you would basically reconvert the entire industry." TIME's Richard Corliss discusses Indy 4, the Star Wars TV show, and the future of cinema with a "retired" George Lucas.

Now bidding for the 2014 Winter Olympics (past the deadline), Hoth. That'll never work. Even notwithstanding the wampa attacks, the tauntauns would freeze before they reached the first marker. (By way of Webgoddess.) Update: In very loosely related news, Landocalrissian Butler? (Via Cheesedip)

After the GOP co-opt the Star Wars universe for their own nefarious purposes, George Lucas makes an appearance with House Democrats (including his own congresswoman, Nancy Pelosi.) The Republican video (shown at CPAC) "depicted GOPers as the virtuous rebels, being pursued by 'Darth Nancy' and her imperial henchmen, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Democratic campaign chief Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.)." Um, yeah, you guys own every branch of government, your boy in office is ignoring the law and desperately trying to wrest power from the Senate, and you're the Alliance. C'mon now, at least the Yankees own up to it.

R.I.P. Phil Brown 1916-2006, who withstood the blacklist and is best remembered as Uncle Owen. (He joins Aunt Beru, who passed in 2000 (9/14).) And, also in unhappy news, farewell to the Bluths, who've gone the way of all good and tragically misunderstood television families...for now.

Stabilize your rear deflectors, watch for enemy fighters...Also in today's movie bin is the trailer for 5-22-77, a low-budget paean to seventies fanboys in which John Francis Daley (a.k.a. Sam Weir of Freaks & Geeks, all grown up) must overcome all manner of obstacles in order to catch a showing of the original Star Wars. Can Haverchuck come? (Official Site.)

R.I.P. William Hootkin 1948-2005, a.k.a. Jek Porkins, Red Six. Between he and Michael "Ozzel" Sheard, it's been a bad couple of months for Star Wars role players. Ken Colley, Richard Le Parmentier, John Hollis, Julian Glover, Denis Lawson, and John Ratzenberger: Take your vitamins!