Review

It’s Time to Give Star Trek: The Motion Picture Another Look 

Star Trek: The Motion Picture The Director's Edition Updated & Improved 4K Ultra HD

For more than a few Star Trek fans, the first cinematic outing featuring the crew of the Starship Enterprise is something they would rather forget. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is an outcast of the Trek family. Many prefer to pretend it doesn’t even exist and consider Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan as the true beginning of the film franchise. 

The recent release of the remastered “Director’s Edition” of the film in 4K UHD on Paramount+ provides an opportunity to revisit this venture. While it has not been magically transformed into an all-time masterpiece, it no longer deserves to be jettisoned into the wormhole of irrelevance. 

To fully appreciate the film, one must understand the context surrounding it – the rocky road to getting it made and how it paved the way for future installments on both the big and small screens. The drama behind the scenes more than matched what was shown on the screen when the movie premiered just ahead of Christmas 1979.  

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Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

When the manic Dr Robotnik returns to Earth with a new ally, Knuckles the Echidna, Sonic and his new friend Tails is all that stands in their way. – IMDB’s description

This movie is better than I expected. Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) has some pretty clever and funny lines throughout the movie. The nostalgia factor for a person who grew up in the 90s playing the Sonic games (a.k.a. me) is there. The introduction of two new characters Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) and Knuckles (Idris Elba) works well. I am a little surprised they didn’t only introduce Tails, and then Knuckles in a third movie (as was the case with the original games), but I suppose writers gonna write. Given the box office performance of ~$400M my assumption is a third Sonic movie will be coming in the next few years. And a quick search reveals that yes Paramount has already confirmed a third movie is slated and that a Knuckles tv series with Elba will be coming in 2023. So the Sonic franchise is finally getting the successful movies they wanted way back in the 90s (Console Wars). Probably better that is happening now or we might have ended up with another Super Mario Bros. (1993). 

Netflix’s Space Force: Season 2

Space Force

This season picks up some time (maybe 6 months?) after the end of Season 1. The astronauts on the moon were all able to safely return to Earth.  While season 1 had 10 episodes, season 2 only gets 7.

The season-wide theme is downsizing, err, I mean budget cuts. The current administration hates Space Force and just wants to slash their budget into nothing. The ridiculousness of the show has been amped up for this season. Did I say ridiculousness? I meant implausibility.  They have a single manned mission, already enroute, to Mars. But because of budget cuts, the actual landing on Mars is cut. How is this possible? It isn’t. I am guessing the greatest cost is building a spaceship and launching it. Since this has already happened, that is what is known as a sunk cost. So why scrap a mission that literally will cost nothing more? Because the writers are writers, and not people with brains.

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The Batman in 100 words or less – Spoiler Free

The Batman

What if Batman but played by a plank of wood?

What if Batman but no emotion?

JFC that was long. (That’s what she said)

No, really. Why was it that long?

This may have had more endings than Return of the King.

Paul Dano was underused.

I didn’t hate it.

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