Semi-Heroic Reviews: Man of Steel

It seems odd to think of and look at Superman as a figure of controversy. But in our exceedingly social age little does escape controversy. And when the subject has been around for over 75 years, everyone has an opinion about how to tell their story right.

So when Superman returned...again, and the decision was made to not emulate iconic 30 year films, conflict follows.

Now, 5 years on, the "Internet consensus" would be happy to close the book on this film, and dismiss it. Man of Steel was bad. It's didn't work. It was made wrong. The movie got Superman completely wrong. End of story. Close the book.

And that seeming consensus has a strong hove to it. After Man of Steel's follow up, Batman vs Superman, came out, I found myself avoiding watching Man of Steel. I had enjoyed the film when I went to the theater. And when I rewatched it. And when I bought the DVD. The negative push that came after the release and over the intervening time had weeded it's way into my memory.

So let's keep that book open, and reexamine this film.

It wasn't until mid-2016, when I was rewatching Man of Steel that I was reminded how well this film worked for me. The re-imagining of Krypton. The lost and questing Clark Kent. Lois Lane sniffing out Superman before he even existed. Zod, and his unbending will, keeping Krypton's culture and ideology alive, no matter what it cost.

It was in many ways borrowing from the long history of Superman. And in other ways, it added new takes and ideas. A respect for lore, with a willingness to go beyond as needed. When it comes to beloved lore, it's exactly what is needed to help it live and grow.

Let's take flight then, and see the power of...

Man of Steel

Subspace Reviews: Star Trek: Discovery - Ep 6 - "Lethe"

Back into Discovery again, and this time we get to know a little more about a popular Vulcan among Trekkies. Sarek.

In fact, after seeing this episode I started to build an interesting timeline for the Sarek family between Spock's birth and his entrance to Starfleet Academy based on this episode. But that will have to wait until the midseason break next week. And the rest of these midseason reviews.

So let's see who lives and who prospers.

Subspace Reviews: Star Trek: Discovery - Ep 5 - "Choose Your Pain"

We get a simpler title this time around, and am I the only one that feels this could be a song title for a heavy metal song? Come on, you can't imagine Saru and Burnham fronting a band, with Lorca in back on the drums in a glam rock wig? I can't be the only one that could imagine that.

As I'm a little behind on reviews, I decided to hold off on watching new episodes, so I am not too far ahead as I review. So I haven't seen episode 8 yet. So I have to hurry up, as I know I am missing some good stuff. Now, if only my Internet service will give me enough bandwidth to write, save, and have twitter open...

We return to Discovery having now successfully implemented the Spore Drive technology. This ship can jump anywhere instantly. And in a war, being where you're needed at a moments notice is quite the boon.

Subspace Reviews: Star Trek: Discovery - Ep 4 "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not For the Lamb's Cry"

Wow. That's a title, isn't it? Reminds you of some of the titles from Classic Trek, that funneled their way into later series on occasion. But for what the crew of the Discovery are working against in this episode, it is rather apt.

Welcome back to my Subspace Reviews. I do apologize for these starting up again so late. But it has been the glorious Halloween season, and for that time, if I'm not ahead of schedule, some things end up being delayed.

But it is time to return to the Trek Sector of space to find out if the Spore Drive can finally be successfully implemented to take the crew places never gone to before.

Subspace Reviews: Star Trek: Discovery - Ep 3 "Context is for Kings"

Coming out of Star Trek: Discovery's opening 2-parter we now get into the show's primary storyline. The adventures on the USS Discovery!

NCC-1031. Hey! 10/31? How apt for this month.

Let's see how this story opens.

The Horror Of...Halloween Night, Ghosted - Pilot

You can only hope that networks will try to bring in some new shows that will fit in nicely during the Halloween season. They are not often obliging. Then again, I am all for a more year round Halloween vision.

And like an extra fun size chocolate at the bottom of your bag, FOX has an interesting little show for us to try out this October. And the name is wickedly fitting.

Ghosted.

Subspace Reviews: Star Trek: Discovery Episodes 1 and 2

Once more we find ourselves on the precipice of the final frontier. Ready to join a new crew of Starfleet officers as they plunge into the unknown. But instead of a series at the edges of Star Trek history, we find ourselves at a midpoint of sorts. Between Enterprise and the original Star Trek.

What ever shall we do?

Subspace Review: The Orville Episode 1 - "Old Wounds"

The Orville is going into it's furth week on air and I finally have a chance to sit down and consider just what we are getting.

Also of note, this week continues the shows move from Sunday to Thursdays. And I can't hate the change as that last week my DVRing of the show left we with only the first 10 minutes of the show. (Luckily it is available via streaming with some cable services and it is on Hulu and iTunes. So check it out if you haven't yet.

This opening episode, as with all pilots, is given the duty to establish the premise of the series, introduce the characters, and then start events moving. It is a simple story, but there's a reason since The Next Generation all Trek pilots are 2 hours longs. This first episode chose to work with just one hour. So it gets us into space, meeting an alien threat, and using some tech tech and quick thinking to save the day. It's a quick run jaunt. I'm sorry so people felt jilted by the episode, apparently.

It's the age we live in. We all eagerly await the Chance. We all eagerly await to chance to be hyped and find that next Binge Series or Put Bacon In It Trend. The chance to be affronted, to be offended, to be insulted that it's remake or re-imagining or another of a genre or dares have a given style. We wait for enough Internet Avatars to get weirdly pissed about a show or movie.

Trek was lucky up to Enterprise in how nascent social media was. Even for that show it was limited, mostly BBS threads. But, going back to TNG, I can only imagine the experience online is Twitter had been around when that show started. It would have been savage, brutal, and cruel. Suffice to say, I'm just tired of riding these damn hate trains.

So let's get to know the show!


The premise.

The Orville is a series that borrows heavily from Star Trek, which isn't a bad idea seeing as that's a 50 years old ongoing interest. The show takes place 400 years in the future in an utopian period of a flourishing Earth that is part of a grand galactic union of worlds and peoples.

At the same time, with it's humor, crass moments, human foibles, and New York setting in the first episode, I also flash to Futurama. It's weird to me how I've seen so few reference the similarity. If you hear about a scifi series with a comedic bent, you should have Futurama come to mind, especially with how heavily it borrowed from Star Trek itself.

Trailers in Short - Trekking it with Star Trek: Discovery and Orville

It is always a treat when you get to look forward to more science fiction on TV. And recent years has felt like it's given us a little boom in the genre with shows like Dark Matter, Killjoys, The Expanse, DC and Marvel shows, Rick and Morty, Dirk Gently, West World, Star Wars: Rebels, Orphan Black, and so on.

It continues with year with more, and in the Trek exploration vein to boot. How can I not be happy with that? Star Trek: Discovery and Orville.

What else is there to say to this but...

Oh, wait. Am I supposed to pick one and hate the other? Or, just hate both of them and demand they be cancelled now? Or, just ask why isn't Firefly being brought back?

I think I'll just sit and see if I enjoy what's a tap. Okay?

The Horror Of....Grabbers (2012)

Here we are again, a St Patrick's Day...weekend. And you have to wonder what there is to watch that aligns quite well with the holiday and might give you a scare. And steering away from learning about the horrors in Irish history, I might say The Lair of the White Worm. It's about besting some snakes, and gives you some Hugh Grant and Peter Capaldi. But I've already looked at that lovely film.

So I could move on to the Leprechaun movies. But they are a bit on the nose, and I'd rather to start on them another day.

So why not dive into some Irish horror? And why not start with something relatively recent?

Grabbers!

Trailers in Short - Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Right now we've had a series of new trailers for major scifi and superhero films emerge. And we have Star Wars latest trilogy starting tonight. I haven't touched enough on this, or taken advantage of the online traffic. It is exciting to see these all coming out. But let's not rush, most of these films are months out.

"What do you say? 'The Schwartz Awakens'?"

So let's tonight focus on Star Wars tonight.

Trailers In Short - Heroes Coming Back Edition

Back to the trailers!

And cue the triumphant hero music. For it is time to get back into the hero groove. And it's a time for that. The Empire of old needs some Rebellion. The Machines need to be Terminated. It's time for Max to get Mad again. And...Daredevil, Ant-Man, Fantastic Four, and the Rest.

Plus we should get into DC's Live Action Universe.


Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Suppose it's time to admit something horrible. I found the first teaser that was released for this movie to be a little meh. It was a series of shots that went by quickly with no sense of what anything meant. There were sights I knew, like updated Stormtroopers and X-Wings. And the Millennium Falcon did a quick pass. It was nice, particularly as the Williams music kicked in. But it was blur of "What?" I still didn't know what to expect.

And now we get this one. Let's be honest it is a rush of more images of things we don't really understand. But it's longer shots and more reveals of how this universe looks, is being filmed, and how the characters may actual connect to one another. And that makes me happy. I feel like I'm starting to figure out the movie.

The all female Ghostbusters trailer we needed.

I think we all knew in our hearts we needed this. And here it is. A group of middle school kids have brought up a remake of the original Ghostbusters trailer. Only they've swapped the genders.

Prepare for joy.

Trailers In Short - Star Trek You Should Be Seeing

These days it seems we have one source for our new Star Trek needs. J.J. Abrams. (And now I guess we're relying on his conspiracy minded minion, who will be directing.)

But is that true?

Welcome to the world of fan films. And fan films are a vast world, with serious efforts to tell tales of beloved characters and worlds and films that are just for laughs, or love of the franchise.

In that gulf of fan films are many very amateur efforts. Labor of loves that end up put up on places like YouTube for everyone to enjoy. But there are also films that are a serious and skilled effort. These have a lot of blood, sweat, and tears invested in them. They also get cash (and need it) and professionals.

So let's delve into Trekdom and see a couple of the amazing, exciting, and very Trekkie works going on.

Riffing for Halloween

More Halloween riffs?

As it is, Rifftrax is already doing a live riffing of Anaconda just before Halloween. But that's not all we're getting. Working with Mashable, the Rifftrax team has another bit of fun. Some Peanuts yucks.

A short piece from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

This is not including a number of other good choices from Rifftrax, Cinematic Titanic, and classic MST3K. Here are a couple of examples.

From MST, a short. Out of This World. It has a devil at working corrupting a man's...work ethic. Okay, it's not scary. But there are some costumes. ..And a lot of bread.

Also, the opening of Cinematic Titanic's live riff of Alien Factor. Aliens come to a small town, and death follows.

Trailers In Short - Everything Old Is Reused Again Edition

Old ideas have long been drudged back up to use. Sometimes it's a creative choice. Sometimes it's a return to a classic. Sometimes it just boggles the mind. Let's see where Paddington the Bear, Mad Max, Moses, a woeful space station crew, the Equalizer, and...others fall on the scale.

Paddington

Oh, Paddington. There is a slight cuteness to this trailer. But then we actually get to Paddington. He feels like so many modern takes on older kiddie characters...Just off.

Now I did actually go back to the old Paddington Bear cartoons to try and remind myself what he was like decades back. I am not as enamored of those shows now as I was as a kid. But it is hard not to see the differences.

This may well click with little kids. Ear wax. Flooding a bathroom and surfing out. But it does feel sad that most all studios have given up on the idea that kids can enjoy with stories that aren't wildly wilder stories of popular characters. (Did you see what they did to Postman Pat?)

I think the thing that was really most off putting about the trailer was that all the added wackiness makes iconic Paddington so much more like every other character put out for kids. He's been made more generic.

But, this may just be a horrible ad. Maybe better will follow.

Thor meets MST3K, and it's Railing Kill-tastic

Came across this and it is too much of a joy not to share. Thor melded with the riffing from MST3K's viewing of Space Mutiny.



Thor truly is the Brick Hardmeat of his generation.

Trailers in Short - TV Heroes Make a Return Edition

Time for some heroes on the old TV. Will the Arrow hit the mark? Will the 1960's Batman drain my back account?


Arrow - Season 3

Some have laughed at the show. Others have grown to actually love the show. Arrow is one of those shows that is on an interesting path. They want to tell the tale of Oliver Queen in their own way. A man on a mission who grows into the role of a hero over many dangers, obstacles, and enemies.

It also has a love of making use of a rather unbelievable past. Queen spent quite some time of that island alone. But not. We've gotten the story of a far more bizarre truth of what has honed Queen, and what is coming from that past to haunt him again.

It's not for everyone. But for fans it can be fun. And this year they begin expanding the boundaries with the start of The Flash. Metahumans are now on the table for Arrow to face.

And, it looks like we'll be seeing Ra's al Ghul emerge. And Ray Palmer! (There's even a rumor that Ted Kord could be involved.)

It's interesting to see a second area where DC Comics is allowing the DC Universe's characters to start flourishing. Maybe if the Supergirl and Teen Titans shows make it to air they will be allowed to connect? It will be interesting if, when the Dawn of Justice is done, they plan on connecting the movies to the shows. We'll just have to see.

Classic Batman

It's taken far too long for this show to get onto ANY media format, besides TV repeats. But it' finally come.

What else can you say? Flippin' heck, Boy Wonder.

Now I need a fiendish plan to earn the money to afford 3 seasons of a show on Blu Ray. Hoo! Hoo! How delightful, my malodorous motley meandering readers.

Rifftrax Live did Godzilla.

Last week, the people from Rifftrax did a live riffing of the 90's horror for movies, Godzilla. In Godzilla, two hours are spent squandering a lot of money and a lot of potential.

Rifftrax felt it was it's turn to give the movie some kicks. I noted the run up to the event earlier (and if you want some MST3K nostalgia, check it out.) This week they've done an encore viewing for people.

The show was a fun time. It started much like ever live show does, with an introduction by the trio of Mike, Bill, and Kevin. We also got a short ad for October's next live event. Anaconda. It was an amusing ad that used some effects to show clips of that movie like it's a bad 70's grind house film.

Unfortunately they haven't made that ad available yet.

But their other reveal is available. A new introduction song and animation for all future Rifftrax releases. The animation comes from Harry Partridge. The music comes from Jonathan Coulton.

It makes for a silly way to introduce the concept of Rifftrax, the trio of riffers, and the catalog of riffed movies.

Trailers in Short - Heroes Really Do Come In Different Shapes And Sizes Edition

There want be a drought on heroics in the theaters anytime soon. And some of them won't even be sequels or remakes! Let's meet the sweet hero of Big Hero 6, the return of the Ghostbusters, the guardians of 80's movies, the little heroes of The Hobbit. and some heroes in a half shell.