Friday, May 15, 2009

The Strain

Stardate 05-15-2009

I just read that Guillermo del Torro, the brilliant writer and film maker behind Pan's Labyrinth and the Hell Boy movies, is releasing book 1 in a new vampire trilogy. The book is called, The Strain. Here is a little tag line from the book...

They have always been here.
Vampires.
In secret and in darkness.
Waiting.
Now their time has come.
In one week, Manhattan will be gone.
In one month, the country.
In two months—the world.

After Stephanie Myers completely ruined the vampire myth with her garbage Twilight series, I'm excited for this to come out. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. Check out this excellent clip from the very very funny show, Free Radio. In the clip, Lance is interviewing one of the actors from the movie.



Now, I already know what all off you lame Twilight fans are thinking..."Yeah, the movie wasn't great, but the books are amazing." And if you are thinking that, then you are wrong. The books are also horrible.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

I Have Been, and Always Shall Be, Your Friend

Stardate 05-12-09

When I first heard that JJ Abrams was going to be behind a Star Trek reboot, I was ecstatic. Then when I heard that they were going to be doing a prequel and that the story would be about how Kirk and Spock met each other at Starfleet, I was deeply disappointed. I was not disappointed about hearing the story of how Kirk met Spock, but rather, I was disappointed in what would come after that. How would they move the series forward and keep it interesting when we already have a clear time line of most all the major events that take place in the characters lives.

***Major Spoilers Ahead***

Now that I have seen the movie, my disappointment and fears of how they will move the series forward have been washed away. Here is what I understood from the movie. When Nero was sucked into the black hole, he and his ship were transported through time and space. They arrived 153 years into the past and proceed to attack a nearby Federation ship, the USS Kelvin. This act changes the continuity of time, thereby creating an alternate reality/dimension. Now the series can move forward with a clean and unknown time line of future events. They have paved the way for original stories that don't necessarily have to be consistent with Star Trek cannon. It will be crazy to see what happens in this new Trek dimension. Lets just hope that Nero didn't bring a Sports Almanac from the year 2387 with him.

There were some things that I really liked about the new Trek movie, and some things that I didn't like. My biggest disappointment was Nero. He was a pretty lousy bad guy. Not much to him.

For sure my favorite part of the movie was when young Kirk met future Spock and asks him who he is. Spock responds by saying, "I have been, and always shall be, your friend." I totally got goose bumps at this point. These are of course the famous last words from Spock to Kirk before he dies at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Another thing that many of the original fans are torn about is non appearance of The Shat in the new movie. Here is a link to a very interesting interview with the writers of the new movie. They talk about an alternate ending that they were planning where The Shat would have made his way into the movie. The article goes into more detail, but in case you don't want to read it, here is a video of the writers talking about how they would have worked him in. I think they had an excellent idea and that their alternate ending would have really added to the film.